FAMILY AND LOSS
DISCLAIMER: NCIS and characters do not belong to me.
SUMMARY: Ziva and Tony have been dating in secret for a few months. No seems to know. Something happens and secrets are exposed.
CHAPTER 25: GETTING TODD MCGEE TO TALK
ABBY'S LAB...
Abby and Tim walked into her lab. Abby noticed that everything looked the same, but at this point, she didn't care. It seemed her temporary replacement had gone to lunch.
Once Tim and Abby got inside, she locked the door.
"I'm going to call, Sarah and see if she will watch Todd." Tim said heading for Abby's office.
"Fine." Abby agreed.
She sat down on her stool and just stared, she couldn't think of anything except Sean.
A few minutes later Tim came out of Abby's office and saw her just sitting there.
"I called Sarah and she said she will watch, Todd. Then I called Tony to let him know that Sarah was coming." Tim told her.
"How is Todd doing? Does he know?" Abby asked.
"Todd figured it out. When I talked to Tony he said that Todd asked about where Sean was this morning." Tim told her.
"What did they tell him?" Abby questioned.
"Tony told him that Sean had gone on a trip, but would be home soon." Tim told her.
"Todd is smart and you know he's going to see right through that soon." Abby remarked as Tim set to work on the computer.
"That's why we have to find Sean as soon as possible." Tim told her.
"What if..." Abby started to say, Tim stopped typing and turned to her.
"Abby, quit thinking like that. We will find him in time." Tim told her.
THE SQUAD ROOM...
For the last couple of hours Gibbs had been the only one in the squad room, but looked up when he saw Tony and Ziva.
"We just had a hard time getting Todd to school." Tony told Gibbs sitting down.
"Sarah is picking him up and staying with him after he gets out of school." Ziva said.
"Where are Tim and Abby?" Gibbs asked.
"Probie called me this morning after he talked to Sarah and just said for us to drop Todd off at school. He didn't tell us where he and Abby are though." Tony said.
It was then that Abby's temporary replacement showed up, and then they started to put it together...
"I can't get into the lab. The door is locked." She told Gibbs, but he was already getting up and heading for the elevator.
With a glance at each other, Tony and Ziva followed.
JUST OUTSIDE ABBY'S LAB...
It didn't take long for the three to make their way to Abby's lab.
"Abby!" Gibbs called through the locked door.
"I'm not coming out until we find Sean!" Abby told him.
"Do you want to keep your job?" Gibbs asked and after a minute Abby unlocked the door.
INSIDE ABBY'S LAB...
Gibbs, Ziva and Tony walked in to find Tim working hard at the computer.
"You both know what rule..." Gibbs began.
"That's your rule, Gibbs. Fire me if you want, but it won't keep us from searching for, Sean." Abby yelled and went to stand beside Tim.
She stood there her back turned away from the team and watched the computers. Tim began to search everywhere he could think of going on a computer.
"I can't stop you from working on your own to find, Sean. I want both of you to promise me something..." Gibbs began and waited until both Abby and Tim turned to face him.
"What promise do you want us to make?" Abby asked.
"That you will start going to pick Todd up at school and then go home at night. Tim, I need you..." Gibbs began.
"We can promise that we will pick Todd up from school and go home every night, but I'm not going to promise that I will come to work every day." Tim told him.
"We still have other cases we need to work on, but you two are not the only ones looking for, Sean." Said Gibbs.
"I don't care about the other cases, because me and Abby are going to keep searching for as long as it takes." Tim said and went back to the computer.
"We do know one thing." Ziva said speaking up and everyone looked at her.
"What? Why didn't you say anything before?" Abby asked desperate for anything to help find her and Tim's missing son.
"We know that Sean is still here in DC." Ziva said.
"Ho..." Tony began.
"Because the alert went out and most places have been covered with his picture." Ziva replied.
"That doesn't mean anything. The person could have already taken Sean out of DC, before it was reported." Abby told her.
TWO WEEKS LATER...
Sean had been missing for over two weeks now. He was three and a half weeks old, the days went by and the chances of finding him alive were becoming thin.
As promised Abby and Tim picked Todd up every day and stayed home with him a night.
Everyday Todd would ask where Sean was and if they were telling the truth that Sean would be coming home and had not really taken the same trip as Tali.
Tim and Abby tried to tell him Sean was fine. That he would be home soon, but Todd was a smart boy and could tell something was wrong.
He knew his parents came home every night, but it had been so long since he had seen his brother.
So tonight, when his parents thought he was asleep in bed, he had snuck down the hall and heard them talking.
That was how he found out the truth...
Sean was not on a trip and would be back soon.
His baby brother was missing and no one knew when he was coming home.
Todd had begun to feel guilty, but couldn't help it.
After Sean had come home from the hospital, it seemed to Todd that his parents paid more attention to his new brother.
So Todd began to wish he didn't have a brother and was an only child again.
His wish had come true and that night Todd cried himself to sleep.
THE NEXT MORNING...
Abby woke Todd up and when she looked, she noticed that it looked like he had been crying.
"What's wrong, Todd?" Abby asked, but got no answer.
After a while, she began to wonder if she should let him go to school, but knew it would be best to keep a routine.
IN THE CAR AFTER DROPPING TODD AT SCHOOL...
"I think he's knows." Abby told Tim as she watched the child enter the school.
"I wouldn't be surprised. What makes you think he knows?" Tim asked as he pulled up away from the curb.
"Just a feeling and Todd didn't say a word to us this morning." Abby told him.
NCIS...
A few minutes later Tim parked the car and they headed into NCIS. Tim did as promised and came to work everyday. Abby had started coming to work and sitting by Tim's desk, at first Gibbs had objected.
'You made Tim promise to come to work everyday and we have kept the rest of the promise. We pick Todd up at school and stay home at night, but you didn't say that I couldn't come to work.'Abby had told him and refused to leave.
A few times, she had even gone down to her lab to make sure it wasn't being messed up. She had met her temporary replacement, Bryna Connolly.
At first Abby had not really liked her, since Bryna would be taking over the lab. Now that they had talked and got to know each other a little over the last few weeks since Sean's disappearance they had become almost friends.
Bryna had gotten used to Abby coming down to the lab almost everyday and while Bryna worked on the job she had been given in since Abby's leave, Abby continued her own search. She stayed out of the way.
Tim had been doing two things at once. Not only had he gone back to work with Gibbs, Ziva and Tony.
Going back in the field when needed, but he also worked on finding, Sean.
It had been two weeks without a word. It hurt Tim and Abby to see how Todd would sit between them as they tried to help him fall asleep.
Todd had gotten to the point of having nightmares, just like the nightmares he had just before Tali had died.
He would wake up, and then it would take both Tim and Abby to get him back to sleep.
Abby and Tim had talked, it was decided that Todd needed to talk to someone. Since it seemed he wouldn't talk to them about whatever was bothering him.
They were surprised one day to find out that Dr. Rachel Cranston was at NCIS doing the evaluation of another NCIS team. Gibbs had been the one to run into her.
After hearing that Abby and Tim needed help with their son, she had said though she usually worked with only adults, she would see what she could do.
So that night Abby and Tim told Todd he would be going to work with them the next day.
'Did you find, Sean?' Todd had asked and when they told him no, he was confused about why they wanted to take him to work with them. 'No, there is someone there that wants to talk to you.' Abby had told him.
THE NEXT DAY...
Tim and Abby were in the kitchen, when Todd came in with his backpack packed with things to do while he was at NCIS.
"Ready?" Abby asked him.
Todd then nodded and picked up his backpack. He had barley said a word in the last couple of weeks since Sean had disappeared.
Before Sean had disappeared, he would talk just as fast as Abby did when she was happy about something. However, Sean being kidnapped had changed him.
Abby remembered the last time he had been like this, was almost two years before when Tali had died.
Todd, Tim and Abby got into the car and headed for NCIS.
It didn't take them long to get there.
NCIS...
THE SQUAD ROOM...
Gibbs, Tony and Ziva looked up and greeted Todd, but he didn't say anything as he went over to sit in Tim's chair.
It was a little while later when Dr. Rachel Cranston arrived in the Squad room; she looked over and saw a sad little boy sitting in the chair. She walked over and knelt in front of him.
"Can we talk?" She asked him and he looked over to his parents, they had told him never to talk to strangers.
"This is Dr. Cranston. Remember, I told you last night there was someone here that wanted to talk to you?" Abby asked.
"I'm not sick." Todd informed them, his lower lip sticking out.
"I'm a doctor that people just talk to." Dr. Cranston told him.
CONFERENCE ROOM...
After a few minutes, they walked into the conference room and sat at the table.
For a minute, Todd just sat there in silence.
"Am I in trouble?" He finally asked.
"No, why do you say that?" Dr. Cranston replied.
"I had a wish and it came true." Todd told her.
"What wish was that?" She asked.
"That I didn't have a brother. I didn't mean it." Todd said and started to cry.
"Todd, let me tell you a secret, okay?" She said.
"What?" Todd asked curious and looked at her.
"I had a sister named, Caitlin and when she was born. I was mad, because I thought my parents forgot about me. Is that how you felt when your brother came home?" Dr. Cranston asked.
"Yes, what happened to your sister?" Todd asked.
"She got older and we became friends." Dr. Cranston said, not wanting to tell Todd that her sister was dead.
"What if Sean is never found?" Todd asked.
"There are a lot of people looking for him. So I'm sure he will come home, okay?" Dr. Cranston asked.
"I hope so." Todd said.
"Do you feel better now?" Dr. Cranston asked, Todd nodded and she took him by the hand.
Then together they walked back to the squad room.
"Todd, why don't you go pick on, Uncle Tony." Tim suggested and Tony looked up from his work as Todd approached him.
Tim and Abby followed Dr. Cranston far enough away so that Todd didn't hear them.
"Is he okay?" Abby asked.
"I told you before that I don't usually work with children, but I think he feels a little better now." She told them.
"Did he tell you what is going on?" Tim asked.
"He told me that he made a wish and thought his wish had come true. He was blaming himself for what happened." Dr. Cranston told them.
"He made a wish that he didn't have a brother, didn't he?" Tim asked and Abby gasped.
"Yes, he told me he made that wish. I told him I had felt the same when my sister was born and how we became friends. I'm sorry, but I have to go." She told them.
"Thank you for talking to him." Abby said and Dr. Cranston walked away.
"Things will get better when we bring Sean home." Tim said and she looked at him.
"Did he say something to you about wishing he didn't have a brother?" Abby asked.
"No, but even though I was older. I remember when Sarah was born." Tim said and they looked over when they heard a sound they had not heard in a long time.
Todd was laughing very hard and when they looked over Tony was tickling him. Together Tim and Abby walked over to Tim's desk.
"DiNozzo, get back to work." Gibbs told him, but they could all see he was trying not to smile.