Chapter Twenty Five

February ?, 2011 – o'dark thirty

It took a while for Jimmy to realize that he was awake. The room was silent, except for a soft beeping sound that he couldn't place. He blinked slowly in the darkness. There was something he had to do, something important, but he couldn't remember what. Wait. It was starting to come back to him, a piece at a time. First, check for Tony, make sure he was in bed. Okay, he could do that.

Jimmy started to sit up, but a sudden sharp pain in his right shoulder arrested the movement. He gasped aloud before he could stop himself. He wasn't supposed to wake Tony, he remembered that much. Slowly he stretched out his left hand, faintly surprised to realize that he'd been sleeping on his back. He never slept on his back, but apparently he had tonight. He knew that ought to tell him something, but he couldn't think of what it might be. He held onto one thought. Make sure Tony was sleeping; make sure Tony was safe. Cautiously he felt around with his left hand; that was Tony's side of the bed when he stayed with Jimmy.

But instead of encountering a sleeping DiNozzo, Jimmy's hand found only the edge of the mattress. Fear seized him then, causing him to tense, which triggered the pain in his shoulder again. He gasped for breath, hardly noticing when the beeping increased its tempo. The events of the last several nights were coming back to him now, albeit in bits and pieces. If Jimmy was waking up alone in bed, that could only mean one thing – he had failed. Tony was dead.

Jimmy shook his head. "No," he whispered. "No, he can't be. No, no, no, please, God…" The pain intensified – both the physical and the emotional – and Jimmy cried out into the darkness. "No! No, please no…!"

There was a loud thump nearby, and then a shadowy figure leaned over him, one hand pressing against Jimmy's left shoulder to hold him down while the other gently touched the side of his face in a familiar caress.

"Jimmy, it's okay! You're safe, it's okay!"

Jimmy's breath caught in his throat. He couldn't make out the features of the person hovering over him – it was dark and he didn't have his glasses – but he knew that voice. He reached out blindly with his left hand and touched a cheek rough with several days' worth of stubble.

"Tony?"

Tony let go of Jimmy's shoulder to take his young lover's hand in his and press it to his lips. "God, Jimmy, you scared me half to death!" he said, his voice hoarse.

Jimmy's thoughts were still hazy. He knew he had been wrong, Tony wasn't dead – the evidence was right here before him, dripping tears on his hand. He wasn't supposed to wake Tony up, but obviously he had, so what was he supposed to do next? Something… there was something he was supposed to do, something about the time…

"Tony, what time is it?"

Tony's laugh sounded suspiciously like a sob. "What?" He pulled his hand away from Jimmy's face long enough to glance at his watch. "It's four in the morning. Why?"

Jimmy closed his eyes. Four o'clock… he was supposed to be at the building, taking pictures, wasn't he? No, that was earlier; and besides, he'd already done that, and been blown up for his trouble. Four o'clock – he was supposed to be on his way to go defuse the bomb, wasn't he? If he didn't, Tony and everyone else would die. Adrenaline surged through him, and he tried to sit up, crying out in pain when his shoulder protested the movement.

"Whoa, easy there!" Tony carefully pushed him back down. "You'll tear your stitches!"

His words didn't register. "I've got to go," Jimmy insisted, trying again to get out of the bed. He didn't know why his shoulder hurt so badly or why he couldn't move his right arm. He needed that arm to defuse the bomb, he was right-handed. Panic set in, and he started to struggle, which made it hurt even worse. "Tony, help me!"

Instead of helping him up, though, Tony held him down. "Jimmy, stop, it's okay!" He reached for Jimmy's good hand and gripped it tightly. "It's okay, you're safe here. I won't let anyone hurt you, I swear."

Jimmy knew he was missing something, but fear was robbing him of his ability to think clearly. Desperately, he blurted out the truth. "Tony, there's a bomb –"

"I know, it's okay, Jimmy. It's been taken care of. We caught them. You're safe now, it's okay. It's over."

Stunned, Jimmy stopped struggling. He stared up at Tony, his eyes wide. Now that he'd been awake a while, his eyes were adjusting to the dimness of the room. He could see his lover's unkempt hair and unshaven face. Remembering that first touch, he reached up again and brushed his fingers over the stubble. "What day is it?" he whispered.

"It's Monday. You've been mostly out of it for two days." Tony reached for his hand again, and now Jimmy could feel the other man's trembling. "God, Jimmy, I was so scared for you…"

Jimmy glanced around. It was still dim, and everything was still out of focus, but he could now see that he wasn't in his own bedroom. "I'm in the hospital?" he asked weakly.

Tony shifted so that he could sit on the edge of the bed. "Yeah. You were shot from behind," he explained, nodding toward Jimmy's right shoulder. "You were lucky. Another couple of inches…" His voice trailed off, and he pressed his lips to the back of Jimmy's hand to hide how they trembled.

Looking at Tony, Jimmy suddenly flashed back to another time and place that only he remembered. The image of Tony kneeling in front of him, refusing to leave him no matter how much he begged the other man to save himself, had been seared into his heart and mind by a force greater even than the explosives that had literally torn them apart. Tony had seemed so calm and controlled; now, Jimmy was seeing some of what must have been taking place behind the mask. He wished he could have resolved the time loop in such a way as to spare Tony from having to feel that pain.

Jimmy had to look away before his expression betrayed those thoughts. "Gibbs let you stay here?" he asked to change the subject.

Tony smiled grimly. "Yeah. Protection detail." He lifted his leg up and pulled up the leg of his jeans to show Jimmy the gun holstered at his ankle. "That NSA bastard shows up here again, I'm gonna blow his kneecaps out."

Jimmy thought he'd put all the pieces back together, but now he was confused. "Huh?"

"Saturday night, Agent Beckett tried sneaking in," Tony explained, as if Jimmy was supposed to know who that was. "Hospital security caught him and threw him out. Vance promised Gibbs he'd have it out with the guy's director, but Gibbs didn't want to take any chances, and neither did I." He rubbed the back of Jimmy's hand gently with his thumb.

Jimmy closed his eyes, trying to ignore the rising pain in his shoulder. He had no idea what Tony was talking about. Wasn't that supposed to work the other way around? That's how it was in the movies. If this were a movie, Jimmy would make some comment referencing something that happened on a different version of the same night, and Tony would be confused. Instead, Tony was playing the wrong role, confusing the hell out of Jimmy. What did Tony know that Jimmy didn't?

"Jimmy?" He felt Tony's hand stroking his hair, much as the older man would do to comfort him after a nightmare. "Shh, just relax. There'll be a pretty nurse with some pain meds here any minute now."

But instead of a pretty nurse, it was a pretty doctor who showed up a few minutes later, and who insisted that Tony wait outside to give her patient some privacy. Jimmy nodded at him when Tony threw a questioning look his way. Tony's role as special agent on protective detail didn't necessarily justify his presence while the doctor examined Jimmy; his role as Jimmy's lover might, but then they'd have to trust the hospital staff to keep it to themselves.

So Tony stepped outside, keeping an eye on the passers-by in the hallway, while the doctor closed the door and turned to her patient.

"It's good to see you awake, Mr. Palmer," she commented as she picked up his chart. "Or may I call you Jimmy?"

"Jimmy's fine," he mumbled absently, squinting in her direction. Without his glasses, he could tell that she had short blonde hair and was wearing lavender scrubs, but he couldn't see more than that. Her voice sounded vaguely familiar, though. "Could I have my glasses, please?"

She shook her head. "Sorry, but I believe they were broken when you were injured." She stepped closer to take his wrist, looking at her watch as she counted his pulse. Then she pulled out a pocket light and leaned in closer to shine it in his eyes, to check the reaction of his pupils.

Just before the light blinded him, he got a better look. Her hair was styled in that wild, seemingly random way that nonetheless looked good on certain people – it certainly did on her – and she had bright green eyes. "Have I seen you before?" he asked.

The doctor stood again to make a note on the chart, her features blurring in his vision once more. "It's possible," she commented idly as she wrote.

Jimmy frowned. Something in all this seemed wrong to him, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was. "What's your name?" he asked, his left hand nervously playing with the blanket that covered him up to his chest.

The doctor glanced toward the door – Jimmy wouldn't have seen it if she hadn't moved her head slightly – then stepped close again, blocking the view of anyone looking in through the door's tiny window. "You can call me Dr. Beckett," she said quietly.

Jimmy looked up in alarm. That was the name… "Tony said you were a guy," he blurted as he started to sit up, frantic to get as far away from her as possible.

"Calm down!" the woman ordered in a sharp whisper, grabbing his shoulder – his good shoulder, thankfully – to keep him from moving. "You need to listen to me, and unlike some people, I only get one chance to get this right!" she hissed into his ear.

That stopped him. "What?" Then he got a better look at her, from inches away, where his vision was almost perfect. "You were the paramedic at the crime scene!"

"Probably," she agreed, nodding at him. "I was working undercover with the Rothstown EMS that night, but I never got the call. In this reality," she added. "I don't know how many times I might have been there in your version of it."

Jimmy lay back cautiously – he didn't seem to be in any immediate danger. "How do you know?" he asked.

"I can't give you a lot of details," 'Dr. Beckett' said, "especially about how it works, because I don't understand the technical aspects myself. Let's just say that I work as part of a government research project on… call it time manipulation."

"Tony said a guy calling himself Agent Beckett from the NSA tried getting in here Saturday night," Jimmy commented. "Is that who you work for?"

She smiled. "Not exactly, but it's a useful fiction," she told him. "The official story – which is what you need to know – is that the NSA knew about a terrorist threat on American soil and acted to prevent it, and utilized the skills of a civilian volunteer – that's you – to help stop it. The unofficial story – which you also need to know – is that the NSA needed a disposable asset – that's you – to go in and risk his life to defuse the bomb, and that we 'persuaded' you to help us by convincing you that the people closest to you were in grave danger. That's the story that you need to give to your superiors. You can bring in your affair with Agent DiNozzo or not, that's up to you."

Jimmy's eyebrows shot up. "How did you know about that?" he exclaimed.

"Shh!" 'Beckett' hushed him. She glanced toward the door, but they didn't seem to have attracted Tony's attention. "We needed to find someone unofficial who would still have access to the resources they'd need to stop the bombing, and who would have a strong enough motivation to take whatever risks were necessary. We knew Agent DiNozzo was seeing someone, possibly someone within NCIS given how secretive he was about the relationship. When we found out it was you, we knew we had our man." She winked at him at that last part.

"But…" Jimmy shook his head, as if he could shake his thoughts into place. "But how did you know – any of this?"

'Beckett' made another note on Jimmy's chart, then replaced it on its hook at the end of his bed. "I can't tell you that, Jimmy," she said, reaching into her pocket. Jimmy's eyes grew wide when she pulled out a capped syringe. "Oh, calm down, already," she chided him as she pulled the cap off. "If we wanted you dead, we'd have programmed that as part of the loop criteria. It would have been a lot less risky than killing you right under your boyfriend's nose."

"What – what do you mean?"

"The loop you were in couldn't end until all the criteria that we set were met," she explained, moving around to his right side. His eyes followed her movement, finally noticing the IV taped to his – currently useless – right arm. "Don't worry, I really am a doctor," she reassured him when she noticed him nervously watching her hands as she reached for the IV line.

"What were the criteria?"

'Beckett' expertly injected the contents of the syringe into the IV port. Whatever else she said, she probably was a doctor – the movement looked perfectly natural.

"The explosion had to be prevented, and the head of the MCRT – Special Agent Gibbs – had to survive. That was the original plan. Once we decided to use you as our subject, we expanded it to include the rest of the MCRT. It wasn't necessary, but we felt it wouldn't be fair to you to put you through that without ensuring that the risks you would take would be worth it."

Jimmy glanced down at his heavily bandaged shoulder. It hurt like hell, and he knew he was facing a lot of physical therapy in his future, not to mention the possibility of permanent disability, but… "It was worth it," he whispered, more to himself than to her.

"Even if you'd died?"

"I did die, once," he answered. Then her meaning sunk in. "You mean…?"

She nodded. "Your survival wasn't part of the criteria," she stated matter-of-factly. "A mistake we won't make again, I assure you."

"Again?" His eyelids were starting to grow heavy, but Jimmy forced them to stay open.

"Don't worry about it right now," 'Beckett' told him, patting his hand lightly with her own. "The chances of our using you again are pretty slim. You just happened to be the right person at the right time."

Jimmy reached up, left-handed, and caught her hand. He wasn't sure he could trust her, but right now, she was the only person he could talk to about his experience without ending up in a psych ward. "Why is Agent Gibbs so important to you?"

"We'll need him later. I can't tell you more than that."

Figures. "Is your name really Beckett?" he asked, apropos of nothing.

"No, and neither was the other agent's," she told him. "It's just a convenient name."

"What do you call yourselves, the Quantum Loop Project?"

'Beckett' snorted in laughter. "Ha, that's a good one!" she said, gently disengaging her hand from his. "I may have to use that sometime." She laid his arm on his chest, then reached up to pull back his eyelids and check his pupils again. "I'll let your boyfriend back in now. It was nice knowing you, Jimmy."

Jimmy closed his eyes, intending to open them again to say goodbye… but somehow he never got around to it.

When he opened his eyes again, the room was somewhat lighter. Tony was sitting in a chair next to his bed, eyes closed and chin resting on his chest. Jimmy winced; he didn't want to wake his lover, but Tony was going to have an awful crick in his neck if he didn't.

He reached over and touched Tony's knee with his fingers. "Hey, Tony?"

Tony's eyes snapped open, and he lifted his head. "I wasn't sleeping," he lied.

"Uh huh, sure." Jimmy smiled; even out of focus, Tony's face was a beautiful sight. He glanced around the room. "Are we alone?"

Tony nodded. "Ziva will be here in a little while to take her turn watching you, but we've got a few minutes." He reached for the bedside table and picked something up. "I brought these from home," he explained, unfolding a pair of glasses and handing them to Jimmy.

It was slightly awkward putting them on with one hand, but Jimmy managed. They were his old pair, an older prescription, but good enough that he could now see his surroundings. "Thanks, Tony," he said. Then he smiled. "You know, I should get contacts. I've lost more glasses because of you…" He meant it in a teasing way, but Tony's expression sobered.

"Jimmy, I don't know what Beckett told you…" he started.

At first, Jimmy thought he meant the doctor; then he realized that Tony was referring to the 'NSA agent' who supposedly coerced Jimmy into working with him. "Tony…" he started, not really sure what he was going to follow up with.

"I almost lost my mind when I saw you out there," Tony admitted to him. "And when I saw you go down…" He didn't finish, but the expression on his face said it all. Then his jaw tightened. "And then that smug bastard shows up here and gives Gibbs some bull about 'recruiting' you for the job. We were all ready to kill him. I can't believe he actually tried to come back the other night."

Jimmy figured the guy had been trying to see him so he could fill him in on what he was already supposed to know, but it wouldn't have mattered even if he hadn't been caught, given Jimmy's still unconscious state at the time. The doctor-agent, however, had been successful. It really was a good thing that they didn't want him dead; that ruse had worked far too well.

"Jimmy." Tony's voice refocused his attention. Jimmy looked at him and was surprised to see the guilt and anguish on his face. "I know they probably told you not to talk about it, but… what did they say that made you go along with it? You could have been killed!"

"I couldn't watch you die." The words escaped before Jimmy could stop them, but he managed to keep one to himself. Again. I couldn't watch you die again.

"Jimmy, we would have been okay –"

"No, you wouldn't. You would have set off the traps on the doors, and even if you didn't, you would have still been in there when the main bomb went off."

Tony looked down; he couldn't dispute the fact that they probably wouldn't have seen the traps on the doors if Jimmy hadn't sent them the warning.

Jimmy took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Breathing out, he opened them again and reached for Tony with his good arm. "Don't be mad, Tony, I –"

"How could I be –"

"I had a choice," Jimmy lied, knowing now that there truly had been no choice. And yet, even when he thought he had one… "I know you probably wish I hadn't gotten involved. But, Tony…" He stopped to swallow, remembering again how Tony had stayed with him despite the approaching disaster, how Tony had disobeyed Gibbs' direct order to leave. "Would you have left Shannon?" "Tony, in my position, you would have done the same thing."

Again, a statement that Tony couldn't deny. "I just don't like the idea of you risking your life like that," he said instead.

You think I like watching you walk into danger every day? But Jimmy didn't say it. What he'd told Ducky – which Ducky wouldn't remember; Jimmy would have to be careful about that – was true. He risked losing Tony every time the other man went to work. That was a risk he had to accept, if he wanted to have Tony at all. And I do. More than anything, I do.

He looked toward the window. "What time is it?" he asked.

Distracted by the question, Tony looked at his watch. "About 6:30. Ziva should be here at seven."

"In the morning?"

"Yeah. You slept for a couple hours after the doctor checked on you." Tony squeezed Jimmy's hand. "How are you feeling?"

Jimmy's shoulder ached; it was starting to throb, which told him that whatever 'Dr. Beckett' had given him was wearing off. He was tired, and had the beginnings of a headache. But he smiled at Tony. "I'm good," he told his lover. Then the smile turned into a mischievous grin. "Will you do something for me?"

Tony looked at him suspiciously. "What?"

Jimmy suspected that in his current condition, he could wrap Tony DiNozzo around his little finger, and he was right. Which was how he came to be sitting in an alcove on the east side of the building – Tony put his foot down and refused to take him outside – sitting in a wheelchair, holding Tony's hand, a few minutes later.

"What are we doing here?" Tony didn't sound put out, just curious. He pulled over a plastic chair and sat down next to Jimmy.

"Just wait."

The minutes went by; the sky grew lighter. Tony pulled out his phone and texted Ziva, asking her to pick up breakfast and coffee for himself and Jimmy. He knew she'd refuse if it was just for him, but, like Tony, Ziva wouldn't say no to something for their injured Autopsy Gremlin. It would delay her for a few minutes, giving him longer to sit with his strangely silent lover.

Tony glanced over at him. Jimmy was sitting in his 'borrowed' wheelchair, staring out at the early morning sky. He had a smile on his face and tears streaming down his cheeks.

"Jimmy?" Tony slowly put his arm around the younger man, careful not to jar his injured shoulder. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." Jimmy turned to look at the man he loved. "Look. The sun's coming up."

He leaned into Tony's embrace, holding tightly onto his hand, and watched the sun rise.

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. ~ Anne Lamott

THE END

And here we are! Thank you, everyone, for the positive reviews and for staying with this til the end. I know there are a couple of loose ends, but they're like that on purpose. (The ones I know about, anyway - here's hoping there aren't any that I don't know about!) It won't be right away - I'm not sure how long it will take - but there is a short follow-up in the works, tentatively titled "The Letter." And if things go really well, there will be more to come in this 'verse. I have to be honest, though - I haven't had a lot of time to write lately, so it could be quite a while before I get there.

Again, thank you all!

~ Leona