Episode Tags: Enemies Foreign / Enemies Domestic / Pyramid / Rule Fifty-One / Spider and the Fly
Sarah McGee walks quietly down the hallway, her destination as fixed in her mind as the solidness of her footsteps. She needs answers and while she may not get all of them that she wants; she can certainly do her damnedest to try. Penny isn't happy that she's here, searching for what they want to know this way, but Sarah's belief is that it is the only way; the quickest way to find out what they want to know.
Smiling at the nurse sitting at the nurse's station, she eases her way over to the right door and quietly goes inside. Stopping just inside the door, she takes a good long look at the two women resting there; the one closest to the door bringing a frown to her face. She's the last person she wants to talk to. That woman has done too much to hurt her brother and that's not a good conversation to have right now.
No, the one she's come to talk to, is the one Tim's always spoken of with warmth and concern. Oh, there have been tales of anger-driven car rides and other such unnecessary bad vibes between the two; but those have been very few and very far between and long ago. No, this woman is someone Tim values as a friend, even if they don't have the 'best friend' level he used to have with the 'other' woman in this room.
Sarah knows that the families of these two have gone out for a little while; a chance to get some rest themselves while the patients nap. She's chosen this time because she needs to peace/quiet and the chance to talk with no one else listening. The only question is, will Ziva talk to her; about Tim?
****NCIS******
***Flashback***
"That is all you're going to say to me?".
"What is the point? I know this face. You made the same one when I told my brother he could not buy you a pony. Ziva, if you want to talk, we will talk. I'm not going to beg." Eli exclaims impatiently.
"Why not?" Ziva blurts. "You know, confronted with the prospects of your own death, another man..." "A lesser man!"
Eli interrupts. "A human man!"
"..Would want to."
"Ziva, you are not dead. You are living your life, making your choices. If you choose to let me be part of your life, I would welcome that with open arms. I am saddled with responsibilities that you cannot possibly fathom. The safety of a nation when every one of our neighbors want us dead. I don't have the luxury of allowing my feelings to dictate my actions."
"You do not have -any- feelings."
"I have no feelings? There was a time, Ziva, when I was quite different. When my house was filled with the sound of children laughing. You, and Ari, and Tali. There was a time, Ziva, yes." He turns back, walks around the car, and climbs in.
His bodyguard, Hadar, looks at her. "His heart is hidden for a reason."
Ziva turns, wipes a tear from her eye, and climbs into the driver's seat.
**NCIS**
Eli, still wearing a sling, adds a small Israeli flag to Ziva's pencil-holder.
She looks up at him with pain showing in her eyes.
"There have been times," Eli says, "That I felt this job takes a piece of me" he says with regret. "I worry they may be gone forever."
Ziva blinks a tear away. "Sometimes life surprises you," she says with a swallow.
He looks at her, then moves around the desk to her side, and cups her face in his hands. "Those are the moments worth living for."
He leans forward. "My Ziva", he says and gently kisses her forehead. She smiles up at him and pats his hands, continues to smile as he steps back.
**NCIS**
"Confronted with the prospects of your own death….it is my turn to beg now." Ziva speaks from the depths of her heart as she verbally reaches out to her father as he sits next to her bed. It's the first time they've spoken since her kidnapping and subsequent rescue and the emotions are running high in the air between them.
Getting up from his chair, Eli sits down on the bed next to his daughter, his arms lovingly holding her by her arms as he looks into her eyes. "No, my child. It is mine. Your willingness to do so touches me greatly. Come, let us begin again, shall we, my Ziva?" He opens arms and welcomes her into them with soft words of endearment for his daughter.
****End Flashback****
Ziva's recollection of the few recent and rare tender moments between her father and herself; most memorable is the one they shared earlier today before Eli left to go back to Israel, is interrupted by the door of her hospital room opening. She's shocked to find the person stepping inside, is none other than Sarah McGee. Instantly, her thoughts return to the fate of the still missing man, all thoughts and memories of her father's words to her yesterday, shoved to the side for the moment. Silently, she watches as the young woman glances with something less than passive non-interest in Abby's direction before looking deliberately and lingeringly in her own.
As Sarah quietly moves the chair closest to the bed, even closer and sits down, Ziva's heart climbs up into her throat. Has she come to tell her bad news regarding her brother?
*******NCIS********
**Beep**…**Beep**…**Beep**…**Beep**… As the tiresome noise infiltrates his rather disturbing dreams, Ducky finds himself almost startled to realize he's actually awake because that means….he's alive; with a damned tube shoved down his throat and another where, well, never mind that, because he's alive! Oh, thank the heavens, I'm alive.
But what about the others? Surely this means…? Before he can even move his head, there's a comforting hand on his shoulder and an equally comforting voice near his ear. "Easy, Duck. Slow and easy."
Jethro! Oh, thank Goodness! Looking at the younger man now, the elderly patient pours his heart into his expression, knowing his long-time friend will clearly understand.
"Me, too, Duck. Me. Too." Gibbs replies to that look of gratitude for the life they do indeed have. "I'm gonna go get your doctor, alright? And don't worry. The others are okay, too. Matter of fact, they're fine except for worryin' about you and….and I'll be right back."
And what? What aren't you telling me, dear boy?
*******NCIS********
Left alone to think, Tony can only frown – at himself. He's all over the place with this mess and he's not sure why. He remembers thinking unkindly about Tim earlier this morning when first told the guy was missing, but thinking about it again now, raises the question of why? When the bastard who'd taken them began filling their heads with crap about Tim taking a vacation while they were being held prisoners and treated inhumanely, sure it had been easy to fall into that; to get pissed; to stay pissed and to completely and utterly hate the missing guy who'd at one time was like his little brother. Tony remembers this now. He also remembers that moment when he'd reached down inside himself and remembered the Tim McGee he actually knew – and realized the guy would NOT do such a thing. He remembers doubting what the bastard was trying so hard to drill into their heads.
So why is he struggling with this now? Where's his faith in who Tim McGee has always been now? It's missing right along with the man himself, that's where. We don't believe in coincidence, remember?
You mean like the coincidence that the whole subject has my father more upset than I've seen him since my mother died and the fact that Jackson Gibbs and the boss were obviously equally upset when the subject of McGee came up? Like that coincidence?
More like the coincidence of McAbsent's absence while the guy who had everyone else said he knew where the guy was. Why would the bastard trying to punish them all have missed out on the opportunity to torture another one of us by not taking Tim too?
"Junior? You all right?" Senior DiNozzo inquires without raising his voice. For most of the morning on this the second day Tony's been awake, he's been keeping him company with little going on between them. His boy's been way too quiet for some time now. It's unnerving and leaving him with the urgent need to verbally check on him.
Wearily opening his eyes enough to glance at his father, Tony offers him the answer he deserves. "Yeah, Dad. I'm ok. Just thinkin'."
"Anything you wanna talk about, Son?"
"No." The younger man's answer is more abrupt than polite and it leaves a sense of discord in the air between them. – for a minute. "Sorry, Dad. It's just…you know."
"It's all right, Son. I understand. Just know if you do decide you wanna talk, I'll be here for you."
"Actually, Dad. About that…" Tony hedges nervously.
"Have I outstayed my welcome, Junior?" Senior asks with real sympathy in his tone.
"No, Dad. You haven't done anything wrong. It's me. I'm just….not fit to be around right now."
Leaning forward, bracing his arms on his knees, Senior speaks from his heart. "Listen to me, Tony. If you want me here, no matter what happens – no matter how you need to handle it – then I'm here. If you genuinely need me to go – if you really need the space – then I'm heading out. This is about you, son – what you need – what you want - so long as it helps you. All you have to do is say it."
"Who are you and what have you done with my father?" Tony quips with a straight face.
"This is me, Junior, remembering a little conversation your boss and I had a while back – but it's still me. Doing some learning and changing – but most of all being eternally grateful to have this second chance with you."
"I'm sorry. Dad. I know you're trying. Why don't you tell me about this conversation you and Gibbs had? Sounds like it was an interesting one."
"Well…."
******NCIS*******
She's not making a sound and she's not rudely staring at Ziva either In fact, she's not even looking at the patient at all, when she's startled out of her thoughts by the older woman's voice.
"Sarah?"
"Hey. How are you?"
"I am fine Are you all right?"
"I will be….when we find Tim." She quietly admits.
"I understand what it is like to need to find someone. And I am sorry that your brother is missing."
"Where is he? What's happening to hi…?" Sarah can't finish the question but her deepest fears for her brother is clearly understood, evidenced by the tears coursing down her face.
Reaching out for the distraught woman's hand, Ziva does what she can to calm her. "Sarah. Come here." She pats the bed next to her, inviting the younger woman to sit next to her.
Once Sarah settles next to her, Ziva embraces her with one arm. "We will find him I promise you that."
"Alive?" The younger woman whimpers in fear.
"Oh, Sarah that is a promise I cannot make. But I do promise we will not stop until he is located and brought home to us"
As the sobs wrack her small frame Sarah curls into Ziva's side, crying out her fears, anger and pain. It's been a hideously long and painful week. Without an outlet for her overwhelming emotions that didn't involve making her grandmother feel bad, Sarah's been at near breaking point for days now Hearing that her brother wasn't even there with them to begin with, just adds so much fear and uncertainty for him that it's too much. What little hope she's held onto that he'll be found alive and okay has just been crushed by the uncertainty of it all.
Silently from the other bed, Abby cries into her pillow. Sarah's emotional storm on the heels of her pain filled questions without happy answers about Tim's fate has been hard to hear and even harder to remain silent through But what good will it do to let her know that her brother was there? Ziva either. He's still missing now and it doesn't answer the question why he was taken and not any of the others. Does she have the right to put Tim's family through that? Tony, Jimmy, Ducky or Ziva?
None of this would have happened if it hadn't been for her. How does she have the right to say anything to anyone now? She's the one who dragged those students out into the desert down in Mexico; Cartel territory. And she'd known it. Tim had warned her and she'd criticized him for it, horribly. She'd been so horrible to him during that entire trip. She'd known it, she'd reveled in her freedom from authority, lorded it over Tim and she'd never admitted it to anyone.
A good year and a half later and they all very nearly died because she was too much of a coward to fess up to her crimes when they got back home. She sure treated Gibbs like crap when he wouldn't give her a straight answer, but when the time was right for her to offer up straight answers of her own, she'd held her tongue; said absolutely nothing. Hell, she and Gibbs had even left Tim completely out of the loop after he'd nearly sacrificed himself in the situation to begin with! They'd both treated him like they didn't value him that day; but her more so than anyone. She'd been treating him like that for ages!
This hindsight does nothing for her right now, except to pour fuel onto the fire that is her overwhelming regret and guilt. Caught up in the wave of it, all she can do is cry it out as her heart prays for Tim's safe return. Please, God, bring him home, safe!
**************NCIS************
The quiet drone of voices pulls Jimmy from a less than pleasant state of sleep that hasn't been nearly restful enough. Disturbing, physically painful and even emotionally distressing images have dogged him in his sleep and even now as he looks across the room at Tony's quiet conversation with his father, the vivid memories are weighing him down.
****Flashback****
Handcuffs catching Palmer around the neck, threatening to strangle him.
Feeling like he's suffocating as he fights off the panic from being claustrophobic while suffering the fate of his kidnapper's ruthless game of cat and mouse with the higher ups at NCIS.
The sound of approaching footsteps coming closer to the large room in the cold place he's been brought to, bound and hooded.
Being relentlessly sprayed in the face with water, robbing him of the ability to breathe right.
The enlightening discussion that had held the potential to go so horribly bad.
"I'm 'training' them."
"For what?"
"As my teacher, Officer Kort, once said, we have to maintain composure in the most arduous situations."
"Tried to get him, sir" The voice of Trent Kort is a surprise.
The sound of someone being hit hard; followed by the 'thud' of a body falling unconsciously to the ground
Having the pillow-case like hood whipped from his head and Barrett's.
Cobb holding a gun to Barrett's head. "I've always admired your tenacity and beauty. My connection to Davenport here is why I started in Rota, to make sure we ended together."
The Secretary of the Navy having nothing to say.
Cobb looking up and calling out as if knowing he had unseen watchers. "Surely you didn't come alone, Mr. Secretary"
Gibbs and Vance revealing themselves, guns aimed, from two different doorways, calling on Cobb to surrender.
Cobb still focused on SecNav. "I thought I was being trained to do what was right."
SecNav looking back at him. "Drop the gun, Lieutenant. We can talk about this. We want to help you."
Cobb pausing as if actually thinking over before reacting badly and switching his aim. "Liar!"
Gibbs and Vance firing at him at the same time, both of them hitting Cobb in the chest, knocking him backwards through the glass.
The sound of the man landing on top of a car, several stories down
***End Flashback***
Laying his head back, Jimmy silently watches Tony continue to talk with his father. He's buoyed by it because it's common knowledge that those two have had a strained relationship and have long needed a second chance with each other. He spares a small smile for the positive sign he sees in this.
Tired, Jimmy closes his eyes again, this time taking the chance that the dreams will come back as he gives in to the exhaustion lingering over him. He'll deal with it when and if it happens. Right now, it's all he has the energy for.
*******NCIS*******
It's been an hour since he awoke to the blessed presence of his long-time friend keeping vigil at his bedside. Ducky's been checked over by his Treating Physician and had some time to talk with the man at length. Using his stubbornness, psychological knowledge and medical training to his favor, he'd soon gotten some plans in motion just as soon as he'd lost the breathing tube. With some help getting to his feet, he's even journeyed out of bed to the bathroom, leaning on his friend and pulling his portable i.v. line attached to the bag of fluid on the pole with him.
But now he's settle back in the bed, resting, or at least trying to. He's got a ton of questions to ask and he can tell by looking at him that Jethro has plenty of the answers and some questions of his own. Something is weighing terribly on that younger man's heart and Ducky wants to know what it is. It's obvious that physically, Jethro is feeling fine. Then again, he hadn't been under that bastard's clutches long enough to have succumbed to anything physically life-threatening. At least, that's what Ducky remembers.
Speaking of physically…Ducky stops thinking about everything for a minute and pays attention to his own self and how exactly he's feeling. Just as he's reported too his doctor, he's tired, sure. achy, a little. badly in need of a hot relaxing shower, to be sure. Hungry, even. All in all; he's feeling pretty darn well, all things considering.
Considering what, exactly? The questions are beginning to flood his mind. Thankfully, Jethro has returned now that the doctors are finished with him. Pulling up a chair closer to the bed, the younger man gets settled and wisely opens up the conversation by giving the older man the floor. "Ask."
The next hour is spent quietly talking; the two of them, what they each know about what happened to the larger group and to each other, what they don't know and how the others are doing. Tones loaded with self-recriminations are heard on both fronts, both for what could have been prevented and what couldn't. But, above all else is the desperate hopelessness and helplessness felt over not knowing what's become of Tim.
Ducky realizes there's a piece of this that the younger man isn't ready to share; even with him. It doesn't escape his notice that through everything they've talked about, there's been no details of what Jethro was a witness to when he was not with the group, merely a mention of there being that time before he'd been brought in to the larger room for the final showdown, as it were.
That happenstance is painful enough to think about and even quietly go over together, helping each other reach that place where they could put it down in readiness to help the younger set cope, deal with and begin to process it all. The best he can do for his friend now is offer him solace and support.
"Jethro, you must not blame yourself for this. You cannot help the criminally insane. His vendetta against you and Timothy – and the fact that he was more than willing to drag the rest of us along for the sheer power of it - was the work of his own twisted thinking."
Closing his eyes for a moment, Gibbs is silent. With a final supportive hand to his shoulder, he nods softly as he gets to his feet. "Rest up Duck. You'll be hounded by visitors as soon as they'll let them out of bed."
"I've requested to be moved to a regular room this afternoon since I am feeling quite on the mend now."
Gibbs smiles as a pair of nurses walk in and being to disassemble everything in preparation for moving Ducky out of the ICU and into the room he's requested. "Looks like your drivers are here, Duck."
It's a moment of levity that the Team Leader relishes. Knowing the stubborn M.E. there's no doubt what room he's requested to be moved to and frankly, he's glad of it. It should be good for all three of them, not to mention make it a damned sight easier to keep tabs on all of them this way. Heading out of the room, the younger man speaks over his shoulder. "I'll wait for you down there Duck."
"Thank you, my friend."
*******NCIS*******
It's late Saturday afternoon when Gibbs finally strolls into Tony and Jimmy's hospital room for the second time in the day, with a smile on his face. He'd been in to check on them first thing this morning, but his point of focus all day has been Ducky. And that is where's he's been planted until now, at the elderly man's bedside, watching over him so that he didn't wake up alone.
Quietly, Tony greets the man. "Hey, Boss. What kept ya? Thought sure you'd have been back before now." Tony's face gets serious when with the effort of a team of nurses who've just entered the room, his bed is shifted over to the far side of the room, one bed over, making a hole in the middle of the room. "What's going on?"
"Got you boys a new roommate to fill that bed."
"Oh Boss, you shouldn't have." Tony jokes but with more seriousness than humor. It's clear he's not the same man he was before this ordeal began, but true to form he's keeping it all inside. He rarely speaks now and when he does, his tone is serious and quiet. There are no jokes and no movie references. It's unnerving but understandable.
But, right now, Gibbs isn't concentrating on that. His attention is on the surprise waiting for these two. "Trust me, Tony. You'll appreciate this one. You, too, Jimmy." He steps aside to make room for the patient being wheeled into the room by a team of nurses, wheeled straight into the place Tony's bed had just been.
"Dr. Mallard!"
"Ducky!"
"Hello, boys!" The jovial M.E. replies with a genuine smile on his face. "I'm so relieved to see you both!"
The jubilation is contagious and even the nurses and Gibbs are smiling at this reunion. Jimmy's up out of bed and slowly shuffling over to the older man's bedside before anyone even realizes he's moved. "Oh, boy, am I glad to see you!"
"My sentiments exactly, Jimmy." Ducky muses paternally as he looks tiredly in relief in Jimmy's direction. The smile on his face says he means it, but the exhaustion in his tone says he's done enough for one day. After the busy morning with the doctors and the long talk with Jethro, simply being moved and placed where he can be with the people he cares about and worries about will help, but first, he needs to sleep.
"Get some sleep, Doctor." Jimmy agrees to the unspoken obvious need for rest. Patting the elderly man on the arm, he turns to head back to his own bed, but takes a seat, instead, next to his mentor's bedside. Seeing the elderly man already drift back to sleep, Jimmy stays put, his eyes trained on him as if afraid he'll disappear.
A hand on his shoulder has Jimmy looking up. "He's not going anywhere. C'mon, back to bed. You need your rest, too." Gibbs orders quietly.
Silently nodding, Jimmy gets to his feet with a little help from Gibbs, who silently hands him over to Breena. "Hi, Sweetheart. When did you get here?"
"Hey. What are you doing up out of bed?" She gently admonishes him as she walks with him back to his own bed and helps him settle back into it.
"I had to make sure he was really…real." Jimmy says tiredly.
"I get it, Baby, I do. And he is. Real But, Agent Gibbs is right. He's not going anywhere. So, get some sleep okay? You want to be wide awake and rested when your mom and brother come back to visit later today, don't you?"
"Where are you going?"
"Across the hall to talk to Abby and Ziva. I'll be back in a little while okay?"
"Love you." Jimmy sleepily murmurs, his eyes already closing on their own.
"Love you more." Breena kisses his cheek and heads out, exchanging a small smile with Gibbs as she slips through the door and carefully closes it behind her without making any noise.