Tim came to slowly, recognizing the sounds and smells of a hospital room. He kept his eyes shut as he tried to figure out exactly how he ended up in a hospital bed.
'What's the last thing I remember?", he thought to himself.
'Victor', his eyes shot open and he was met by the reassuring blue eyes of his boss.
"Hey kiddo, it's good to finally see those eyes of yours open."
"Boss?", he croaked out hoarsely.
Gibbs reached over and handed him a few ice chips out of a nearby cup.
Tim smiled has the cold, soothing sensation went down his throat, when he closed his eyes to relish the feeling, Victor's face once again appeared in his mind.
Gibbs watched as the young man in the bed closed his eyes as he sucked on the ice chips only to fly back open again in complete fear.
"Boss, did he...?", the question was a whisper.
"NO, Tim." , the reply was forceful but the twinge in the older eyes told the younger man how close it had been to happening.
"Are you sure?", Tim couldn't help but feel doubt, when he saw the fear in the older man's eyes.
"Tim, I would never lie to you, he did capture you but he didn't touch you like that, I promise." the truth of his words showed in his face even through the fear.
"How close?"
"Don't worry about that, concentrate on the fact that you are safe and he will never touch you again."
"He will keep trying to escape, I'll never truly be free of him.", the younger man spoke of his greatest fears openly for the first time.
"Look at me.", Gibbs raised his face to look him right in the eyes.
"He is dead, Tim. He will never hurt you again. That is all I want you to remember."
"How? Who?"
"He was shot. We're waiting on Ducky but we'll probably never know which of us fired the kill shot. Tony and Ziva each put a round through his heart and I put one between his eyes. It was a group effort."
Gibbs could see that Tim was starting to fade, "Get some rest, kiddo the rest of the team won't forgive me if I wear you out so bad you won't be up to visiting them later."
Tim closed his eyes to return to sleep, when Karson's face once again appeared behind the closed lids and he again opened them in fear.
"Hey, I'm not going anywhere.", Gibbs reached out and grabbed Tim's hand and held it firmly to keep him grounded so he could get the rest his body needed. "He's dead and I'm right here."
With those words Tim closed his eyes and did finally get the rest he needed, feeling safety flow through him through the hand of his surrogate father.
Tim visited with the rest of the team that night and was amazed that he saw no change in their behavior towards him. Tony even volunteered to be his wing man when he was up to going out again, this time to some of the gay hot spots in DC.
"Well Probie I finally figured out why you have been having such awful luck with the women you date. You were dating them because that's what you thought we wanted from you, so why don't we go out looking for someone you would truly be interested in, I'll make sure to watch 'Brokeback Mountain' first so I'll have plenty of good material."
Tim turned bright red at the offer but felt very pleased at the same time. When he thought about it after they left for the night it seemed liked part of him that he had forced into hiding was finally allowed to be free.
The next morning when the doctors released him to go home, he wasn't very surprised when he was driven to Gibbs' home instead of his own. Gibbs had insisted that he was going to take care of him until he felt ready to handle things on his own.
Tim strongly suspected that the older man was also haunted by how close Karson had come to violating him and needed the reassurance of the younger man nearby.
They weren't in the home a couple of minutes when Tim had his first flashback to being capture by Karson at Gibbs front door. After calming the younger man down and calling Ducky to give him a once over, Gibbs began to question the wisdom of bring him back to the place of his capture while he was recovering.
Gibbs called Tony and told him to come over with Ziva. The two agents made good time getting to their boss' house, the investigation in the murder of John Parker had finally appeared to break open today with their first solid lead and they were anxious to update their boss.
When Tony told him what they had found they were shocked by the apparent preoccupation on the face of the man who just the night before had told them that this was a main priority for them to resolve before Tim came back to the office.
"Boss, is Tim alright?", Tony asked concern fulling his voice.
"No I should have never have brought him here. He had a flashback of Karson capturing him almost as soon as we walked through the door." Gibbs said self loathing heavy in his tone.
"Gibbs you could not have known he would react like that.", Ziva said looking around for her team mate to check on his well-being for herself.
"It is my job to keep all of you safe and I let that monster get his hands on Tim in my own house, If we had been a few minutes later..."
"We weren't , we weren't" Tony said softly.
Ziva took a more direct approach and walked up behind the older man and gave him a very hard slap to the back of his head.
"You needed a wake up call. We got to him in time and he is safe."
Tony just stood still with his mouth wide open in shock by the braveness of his partner.
Gibbs looked shocked, then angry before allowing a slight smirk to cross his lips, "You're right, Ziva. Can you guys keep him company while a get a couple of things ready?"
With that he nodded his head to the door to the room that the younger man was being given a once over by the medical examiner and walk upstairs to his bedroom.
A short time later he walked into the room with the rest of his team.
"You should have seen it Probie, Ziva just walked up right behind him and slapped him in the back of the head. I was like wow he's going to kill her but he just smiled, I mean he really smiled. It was so unGibbslike."
Smack. "Thanks Boss."
Everyone turned to look at the older man who had just entered the room. He was carrying a sleeping bag and an overnight bag, "Hey kiddo, why don;t we go to your place instead."
"Uh, Boss... I don't have anywhere for you to sleep at my place."
With that Gibbs gave the younger man a soft slap to the head, "Why do you think I brought the sleeping bag McGee."
"But I be okay, you don't have to..."
Gibbs' raised eyebrow stopped him in mid-sentence, "I told you, I be there every step of the way and I meant it. Gear up we have an Elf Lord to get settled in at home."
AN:Well I thought this would be the last chapter but it didn't work out that way, one more chapter and then an epilogue and this one is done. Please review with all your thoughts and comments. Sorry about the OC Ziva and Gibbs but I wanted to show how much the attack on Tim in his home affected Gibbs. :) stray