Chapter 20

Tim watched everyone file in, knowing that he had asked to tell what had happened...but knowing that he didn't want to say the words. He also knew that if he didn't say it now, he might never say it...but he knew now why his ten-year-old mind had chosen to forget it all. He also knew why he had remained obsessed with that horrible vision of his parents on the floor. Even with all the will in the world, he couldn't remove the horror completely. Part of the problem was that, in his mind, the present and the past kept getting mushed together...and at this moment, he couldn't remember whether or not the two people he had seen in his old house had been shot or not. He couldn't remember whether or not they were still alive.

"Tim? You still there?"

Tim looked at Danny and then realized that everyone was seated and staring at him.

"Yeah, I am," he said. "I'm sorry..." He extended his apology to everyone there. "I'm sorry for how I'm acting. It's all...so long ago. It shouldn't..."

Gibbs interrupted. "No, McGee. It's all right. You said you had something to tell us?"

Tim nodded. "I'm sorry, Boss. This could have been avoided."

"How?"

"Shands called me, just before I headed home. I told myself that I'd tell everyone in the morning, that I wouldn't worry about it until tomorrow." Tim cleared his throat. "When is it? How long was I...doing whatever it was I was doing?"

"It's been about a day."

Tim laughed a little at the irony. "Oh...so it's tomorrow, huh? I guess I should worry about it now." He laughed again, but knew that it sounded as false as it felt.

Gibbs leaned forward and caught Tim's eye.

"What happened, McGee?"

The calm and collected way Gibbs asked grounded Tim...at least to begin. He took a breath, let it out in a rush and began.

"I told you that Shands called. Well...well, I...I really only thought of it in terms of him...being annoying. I..." Tim cleared his throat. "...I was wrong. When I got back to my apartment, there was man on the sidewalk. He came over to me and asked for directions. I started to get out, but he drew a gun. It was only then that I recognized his voice. I never knew what he looked like. Never...but he knew me. He took my gun and my phone and forced me into the passenger seat of my car." Tim paused. "Did you get my car? It's in the garage, I think."

Tony laughed. "We didn't check, but we'll get it for you, Probie. Don't worry."

"Thanks."

"Go on, McGee," Gibbs said, gently.

"He knocked me out. Hit me with his gun. I didn't really...really wake up until we were in the garage. It was...a nightmare, realizing where I was. Then..." Tim stopped. He stared at the blanket, trying to keep himself in the present and not touch what had happened before. "...when we got upstairs...in my parents' bedroom...he had...had tied up a man and woman on the floor. They were blindfolded, gagged. They were just...just moving a little. Just a little. Not talking."

They couldn't talk...just like...

"Tim?"

Tim looked at his arm. Dan's hand was holding it.

"Sorry," Tim said again.

"You can wait, McGee," Gibbs said. "It's okay to wait."

"No. No, let me...let me do it now."

Gibbs moved his chair closer to the bed. "Okay. You saw them tied up on the floor."

"Right. Yeah. He said that...that he was going to force me to tell him what had happened. ...even if it required...he said another life on my head. He...He shot at the floor, right in between them. ...and I...I..." Tim started cry again. He was a little embarrassed at crying in front of his team, but he couldn't help it. "I started remembering before I...before I even realized I was remembering. I picked up that gun...but not until after my parents were dead. It was...under the bed where they'd dropped it, I guess. ...and I...when I thought he'd shot them...it was like I..." Tim looked at them all. "He didn't, did he? Did he really shoot them? I...It all gets so...so fuzzy. They're not dead?" Tim begged to be told that they weren't.

"No, McGee. They aren't. They're fine," Gibbs said.

"They're a little freaked out, Probie," Tony added, "but they're fine."

"Good. Good...He shot at them a few times."

"He never hit them. Not once."

"Good. At least there's...there're two people who didn't die in that room. It was like I...I was almost remembering...every time he fired that gun. Every single time...until...until I fired it. Until it was me. And..." Tim shook his head and tried to laugh. "You see? It's hard to...to keep on topic." Another failed attempt at laughter. Tim looked at Danny. "How am I doing so far, Dr. McGee?"

"You're doing all right, Tim. You can stop, you know. Even as a psychologist, I can tell you that stopping is okay."

"No. I'm going to finish. I can do it. I can. If I'm stuck with all this...then, I can...can at least...get it out. Once."

"McGee."

Tim looked toward Ziva and saw only sympathy.

"Yeah?"

"We will not think any less of you."

"Maybe not...but I will. I will."

"Then, go ahead," Gibbs said.

"I couldn't just sit there and watch as he came closer and closer to shooting them. ...but I couldn't think of anything. I tried. I really did try to remember, but I couldn't. ...and...and so I...I jumped him. I attacked him. ...and mostly because I took him by surprise, I managed to... I thought I'd knocked him out, not that I was thinking very clearly. He wasn't moving. Laying on the floor. So I called you, Boss. Maybe I should have dialed another number, but I couldn't think of anything else. ...but he wasn't knocked out and he went after me again. I had the gun in my hands. He was fighting me for it." Tim could feel the memories gathering once more, ready to pummel him into submission again. The closer he got to the crisis point, the closer the memories came. "I just couldn't keep him away from it. I was trying...but there was all this...stuff going on in my head... It was...then..." Tim felt himself start shaking and he closed his eyes. "Then...the gun went off...and it was like my worst nightmare. It was like...all the times I've been afraid that I killed my parents. All those times that...that I woke up in the night thinking that it was me. Not knowing if it was. ...but this time...this time, it was me." Tim started to cry, but he struggled to keep talking.

Dan's arms were around him again and Tim accepted the comfort, ignoring the faint embarrassment about relying on his father like this again.

"I shot him. Then...I...it was like everything stopped and I was...staring into his eyes. They were so surprised. So surprised...and then I...I felt the...the b-blood from him. I felt it seeping through my shirt...and he started to slide down...down to the floor and I just watched as he fell. It seemed to take forever...forever that I watched him fall...and his eyes closed." Tim felt his breathing take on a strange rhythm. Two quick, jerky inhalations and then one long exhale. "And I had to save him. I couldn't...couldn't be responsible for him dying...and...and I grabbed a shirt from the bed. I grabbed it and I tried to stop the bleeding."

"We heard you screaming," Gibbs said quietly.

Tim looked at him from Dan's sheltering arms.

"I was screaming? I...I don't remember screaming."

"Yes," Ziva said. "You were."

"Oh. Okay. I...was trying to stop him...and then...I heard voices." Tim stopped. He didn't want to go any further. He didn't want to tread those last few steps. ...but he couldn't control the memories yet and he tumbled into them. "I heard voices, Daddy. There's someone downstairs. I heard voices. More than one."

"Tim, stop."

Tim wanted to, but he couldn't. Not this time. He saw his father struggle for a breath he'd never take. He saw his mother with her last dying motion. He saw all that because he'd left the place his father had told him to stay.

"If I hadn't come out of the bathroom...they wouldn't have died. I tried to go back. I tried to take it back." Tim began to cry again. "...but they couldn't...they couldn't...and I was so scared. I tried to take it back. If I just stay in there, it will go away." His voice rose and cracked.

"Tim, open your eyes. It's Danny. Open your eyes. You're not back there. It's not twenty years ago. You're not a little kid. You're an NCIS agent. You're my brother. Come on, Tim. You know when it is. You don't have to relive the memory every time you remember it."

"They came back. They're coming back!"

"No, Tim. They're not. Tim, they're not. Open your eyes." It was an order this time. Tim could hear that much.

He tried to obey. His eyes opened...and he was half surprised to see the hospital room. To see Gibbs, Tony and Ziva all hovering around his bed, Abby, Ducky and Jimmy also on their feet, all looking uncertain of what to do.

The memory began to fade, although it didn't disappear. Tim looked at them. He looked at Danny who had been talking to him...and he managed a weak smile.

"That's what happened."

"What?"

"That's what happened next. I remembered. The gun and...and all the blood...and then the voices downstairs. I heard all that...and I remembered. Do you want to know what happened, Boss?"

"Not right now, McGee," Gibbs said firmly. "You've relived it enough for now."

Tim tried to laugh. "Yeah, I have...but I don't think this is even close to the end of it. I didn't kill them though."

"I never thought you did, Tim," Dan said.

"You know...wh-why it was s-s-so easy to believe?"

"Why?"

"Because...when I s-s-saw them there...o-o-on the floor. I...I thought it w-w-was my fault because they...because I disobeyed Dad. He t-t-told me t-to stay in the bathroom until he c-c-c-came back to g-g-get me...and...and I...it...I didn't stay." Tim was trying so hard to hold back the tears but he couldn't. They insisted on falling. "I didn't stay...and they died."

"It wasn't your fault."

This time, Tim did laugh because that statement had come from at least three different people at exactly the same time.

"I know. I know it wasn't...but it's...hard to keep that...perspective when I keep remembering how I felt back then...at that moment. It just...It just takes over."

"It's okay."

"Yeah. I know." Tim felt himself calm down a little bit more. "Did he survive?"

"Who?"

"Ellis Shands. Did he make it?"

There was a noticeable hesitation among the others.

"What?"

"He's currently in intensive care, McGee. They don't know if he's going to make it or not."

"Hey, he deserved it, McGee," Tony said. "Don't waste a bit of regret on that lowlife."

"No, Tony," Tim said. "No, he...he was nuts, but...but that doesn't mean I have the right to kill him! He didn't shoot them. Even when he had the chance! I'm the only person who shot anyone in there."

"No, McGee," Gibbs said, sighing heavily. "No, that's where you're wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"Boss," Tony said, shaking his head.

"What?" Tim asked again.

Ducky intervened for the first time. "Later, Timothy. It can all be discussed later, after you've rested."

"Not now, it can't," Tim said. "Not now. What? What is it?"

Still no one spoke.

"Come on, guys. You're really starting to scare me. What's going on?"

Ducky came forward and sat down on the bed, staring straight into Tim's eyes, as if forbidding him to do anything but listen.

"Ellis Shands is an alias."

"Okay? And?"

"An alias for Hank Peterson, McGee."

"Hank...Peters–" Tim took a deep breath when he realized where that name came from. "Hank Peterson, the man who left fingerprints at...who probably..." In spite of Ducky's strong gaze, Tim's eyes shifted to Gibbs. "The man who probably killed the Campbells?"

"Yes," Gibbs said, confirming it with a sigh. A single word encompassing so much.

Tim couldn't help spelling it out. It was pounding his brain and he had to say it. "He killed them...and made them look like my parents. He was doing it because of me! He killed them because..."

"Because he's a psycho, McGee," Tony said, interrupting Tim's impending breakdown. "It's not because of you. It's because of him."

"No...No, it's not!"

"Yes, it is. You can't excuse the guy just because he's in the ICU. You can't! You can't let him off the hook like that! He was plenty on the ball enough to get away with murder, to hold two people hostage, to abduct you! He knew what he was doing, McGee! He knew it...and if he feels any regret, it's because he didn't get away with it!"

Tim was suddenly seized with a desperate desire to hide in the bathroom. Had he been any less agitated, he would have resisted, maybe even mentioned it. As it was, he didn't bother with any of that. Instead, he sat up and tried to get out of the bed.

"Tim, where are you going?" Dan asked.

"Leave me alone," Tim said. The first time he'd ever used those words toward Dan. "Leave me alone."

"No way. Where are you going? Or do I need to ask?"

Tim looked at him. "Please," he said.

"No, Tim. No, because you know as well as I do that it never helps. It only makes things worse."

"I want it to go away."

"It can't and it won't," Dan said. "It never will...and hiding in the bathroom won't make that change!"

Tim felt all desire for movement vanish and he covered his head with his hands, sobbing now for the reality he could no longer avoid.

New arms came around him, lifted him up. A voice whispered in his ear.

"Knock it off, Tim."

As no other words could in this moment of upset, those four penetrated Tim's swelling feelings of guilt and he remembered a conversation from long in the past. He looked at Danny, who was holding him, and smiled.

"Being selfish again?" he managed to ask through his tears.

"Exactly."

"I'm sorry."

"Just knock it off and it's okay."

Tim laughed. "I'll try."

"You know what? That's good enough for me."

Tim sagged against Danny, suddenly feeling only exhaustion after the emotional rollercoaster he'd been on.

"Tired?"

"Yeah."

"I think we'd all agree that sleeping is okay right now."

Gibbs stood up. "You've said more than enough, McGee. You want to tell us more later, fine. Just let us know."

"Thanks...thank you." The words weren't enough, but Tim didn't have the energy for more.

His friends filed out, leaving only his family again. Tim looked at them.

"I don't want to be alone."

"You won't be," Dan said. "We'll be right here. All night."

"I'm going to have nightmares."

"We'll be here, Tim...just like we always have been."

Tim let himself lay back down and he closed his eyes, feeling Dan on one side, Maria on the other, knowing that Danny was not far away. For the moment, he felt safe.

Completely safe.