DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ANYTHING!

~NCIS~

The nurse left after handing Jimmy back Tim's chart but he took no notice, just stood there in shock. He slowly turned to the unconscious man on the bed, eyes wide in disbelief. "Tim." He said, softly. "Oh, Tim..."

"Is he awake, Jimmy?" Sarah asked as she came into the room, hurrying to her brother's side. She had heard Jimmy say Tim's name and hoped that her brother might be awake even though the doctor had said that he would drift in and out for the night. Jimmy looked at her and she couldn't identify the expression on his face. "Jimmy?"

"How could you and Tim do this, Sarah?" He asked finally, the chart still in his hands. "Did you really think this would never come out?" He looked at Tim, then at Sarah, as if he had never seen them before. It felt like he didn't even know them. The Tim McGee he thought he knew would never have been able to do something like this. And Jimmy would have said the same about the sister he had come to know the last year. Now they were strangers to him. "Did you and Tim think you could keep this a secret forever?" He couldn't keep the betrayal out of his voice. If he felt this betrayed by Tim and Sarah, how was Tony going to feel? How was Gibbs?

Sarah was afraid. Very afraid. "I don't know what you're talking about." She blurted out. Later she would chastise herself for not being able to come up with a better defense. But now she was just horrified that Tim's secret might be out.

Jimmy shook his head, not even bothering to pretend to believe her. "How could you do this to Gibbs?" He asked in disbelief. "For twenty years that man has mourned his daughter. Did Tim even consider that knowing he had another child might help him? Might ease his heartache?"

"I—I don't know what you're talking about." Sarah said in a quiet voice.

A look of horror came onto Jimmy's face. "Or does he have two children who could have helped him?" He asked, dark blue eyes narrowing behind his glasses. "Why does Gibbs get so unsettled when he sees you? Why are you so familiar to him?" Jimmy took a step toward Sarah. "Are you his daughter, Sarah?"

"Of course not!" She denied swiftly as she processed the fact that Tim's secret was out and she didn't know what to do. Tell him that it was a mistake? Would Jimmy believe that? Her eyes dropped to the chart in his hands. Something in Tim's medical chart gave his secret away. Could she get it away from Jimmy and change it? Would she even know what it was? Tim would know. All she had to do was get the chart, convince Jimmy that whatever it was that he knew wasn't true, wait for Tim to wake up so that he could change whatever it was that Jimmy saw and everything would be fine. Very easy. Sarah almost laughed out loud at the absurdity of that plan. "Jimmy..." She whispered, reaching out for Tim's chart. She wasn't sure what she was going to do. Sarah just knew that she had to do something.

Jimmy clasped the chart to his chest, stepping back to keep it out of reach. "What? Are you going to do to me what you did to Abby?" He asked, his voice shaking with his anger. "Are you going to twist this around and make me the bad guy so yours and Tim's secret stays safe?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." She was starting to feel like a parrot. But one of the things that her brother had taught her from a very young age was to never admit to anything. It didn't matter what people thought they knew or even what they actually knew. It only mattered what you admitted to. Sarah had learned her lessons well. She denied everything. The only person she ever told the truth to was her brother.

"Dammit, Sarah!" Jimmy exploded. "Stop saying that! You do know what I'm talking about!"

Sarah jumped, startled, and her doe eyes widened. She had never heard Jimmy cuss before and he had never talked to her in that tone of voice. She backed away from him, suddenly afraid for a different reason.

Jimmy saw the fear in her eyes and tried to clamp down on his anger. He wanted answers and he wouldn't get them if she was to afraid to talk. When he thought about this later he would find it laughable that anyone would be afraid of him. "Sarah..." He started, in a gentle voice.

"You're wrong." She said, shaking her head and taking a step back. "Whatever it is you're thinking, you're wrong. It's not true." She denied, backing up until she stood against the two drawer stand that was beside Tim's bed. "It's a mistake. That's all. It's just a mistake, Jimmy." She said, pleading with him to believe her. She wrapped her fingers around the side of her brother's bed, holding tightly.

Jimmy's anger left him, and for some reason sadness took it's place. "I know it's not a mistake, Sarah."

He said softly, feeling bad for her. She was very scared, even he could see that and he wasn't the most observant of people. What he didn't understand was why. Yes, this was a big secret that he had discovered and everyone would be mad and upset, especially about the way they had blamed Abby, but to him, it shouldn't cause that level of fear in anyone. Was there more going on here that he didn't know about?

"It is a mistake!" She insisted frantically, a slight hysterical note edging into her voice. "It is!"

"What's a mistake?"

Jimmy and Sarah swung their heads towards the voice to see that the others had come in without their hearing them, as caught as they had been in their argument.

Sarah whimpered without realizing it, turning until her back was pressed against Tim's bed, hiding him from sight.

Tony was the first to break from the others, Sarah's fear calling to the big brother in him. "What's wrong, Little Bit?" He asked gently, stopping when she backed away from him, worried. Sarah hadn't been afraid of him like that in a long time. He turned to Jimmy angrily. "What did you do to her?" He hissed at the autopsy gremlin.

Jimmy blinked. "Me!" He asked incredulously. "I haven't done anything!" He said, making sure that everyone knew the blame didn't need to be placed on him.

Tony narrowed his moss green eyes, his investigative side tingling."What do you mean by that?" He asked Jimmy. "What's going on here?" He looked between Jimmy and Sarah. "What are you so afraid of, Sarah? Is something wrong with Tim? What do you think is a mistake?"

Sarah cast a scared glance at Jimmy, silently begging him to not say anything. Pleading with him to keep their secret. She turned big frightened eyes back to Tony and shook her head mutely.

"Jimmy?" Tony inquired when it became apparent that he wasn't going to get any answers out of Sarah.

"Yes, Mister Palmer." Ducky said, coming to stand beside Tony. "What is going on?"

Jimmy's blue eyes honed in on Gibbs and then suddenly found the floor of Tim's room interesting. He hadn't really had a chance to think about what he had found out. Not really. He had just got done talking to the nurse when Sarah walked in. But even if he had the chance to think about this for days, he knew that he wouldn't want to be the one to tell this secret. Jimmy truly believed that the secret needed to come out, he just didn't believe that he should be the one to tell it.

"Now would be the time to talk, Palmer." Gibbs said, his gut churning. He knew instinctively that he didn't want to hear whatever it was that Jimmy and Sarah obviously didn't want to tell them.

Jimmy shook his head. He shouldn't be the one to tell Gibbs that Tim was his son.

Abby stepped closer. "If something is wrong with Tim, we need to know."

Ziva moved to the other side of the bed so that she could see Tim for herself. "If there has been a mistake made then it needs to be corrected as soon as possible, yes?" Ziva relaxed slightly when she noticed the rise and fall of Tim's chest. He was breathing on his own. That was a good sign,yes?

Jimmy eyed the group surrounding him and swallowed nervously. He opened his mouth, to say what he didn't know.

"It's not a mistake." The same light brown haired nurse from before said, coming to where Jimmy stood. "I've already explained that we typed him as soon as he came in." She took Tim's chart from his unresisting hands and opened it. "This is the correct blood type." She pointed to the top of the first page. She handed the book back to Jimmy, checked her patient and walked out, unaware of what she had done or what she was leaving behind.

Everyone stood there in silence, looking at each other in confusion.

It was Ducky, for all his absent-mindedness, who got it first. And as soon as he understood, he wished he didn't. His eyes flew to the man laying asleep in the bed and then turned slightly horrified clear blue eyes to his friend. "Jethro..." He said in a voice barely above a whisper. "Oh, Jethro." He shook his head. "I'm so very sorry." And he was. He should have seen this. How could he have not seen this?

It was Abby that got it next, probably do to her science background. It was very easy to come to the only conclusion that could explain Ducky's sorrow, Sarah's fear, and Palmer's nervousness. She took a deep shuddering breath. "Gibbs...Oh, Gibbs..."

Gibbs looked from one to the other, his mind refusing to acknowledge what the the others had come to know. "What!" He asked harshly, needing the words but not sure he wanted to hear them. Before anyone could say anything, he turned abruptly to leave.

It was Sarah who came out of her stupor first. "Wait!" She exclaimed, rushing to Gibbs and grabbing his arm to stop him from leaving. "You can't leave!" She couldn't let him go. Tim would want to see him. Tim would want to know that Gibbs had been worried about him. Especially now that everyone knew. If Gibbs left, Tim would see it only as the rejection he had always feared. "Please!"

Gibbs shrugged her hands off. "Watch me!" He couldn't stay. Not now. He couldn't bare to hear words put to what he suddenly was sure he knew. He knew he wasn't acting rationally but he didn't care. He had to get away before...

"But—but Tim's your son!" She exclaimed before he could walk out the door, causing the others to gasp.

Gibbs froze, his hand on the door. He squeezed his eyes closed, his back to the others, shaking his head in denial.

"Yes." Sarah insisted, desperate to stop him. She couldn't let him leave. If he left without saying anything to Tim... "Your his father."

"No!" He denied, swinging around. "I am not his father!" He snarled through clenched teeth. "I don't care what you say!" He said, glaring at Sarah. "I don't care what a blood type says!" This time he glared at Ducky and Palmer. "And I don't care what DNA says!" It was Abby's turn to be glared at. "I am not his father!" He snarled again before walking out the door, leaving stunned silence in his wake.

~NCIS~