Chapter 26
Tim couldn't figure out what he was supposed to be doing now. He'd heard Ducky, but he would never be ready to confront this life that he supposedly had here. As it was, he was ready to do nothing. Ever again.
The door opened.
"I'm not ready," he whispered.
He didn't know what he wasn't ready for, but he knew he wasn't ready for it, no matter what it was.
There were gentle arms around him.
"Hi, Tim."
Tim sat up.
"Kelly," he said.
Then, he hugged her back, tightly.
"How did you get here?"
"Agent DiNozzo gave me a ride."
"Oh. Why?"
"Because Dr. Mallard thought you might need me."
Tim took a deep breath.
"I did."
Someone he knew, someone he didn't have to worry about whether or not he should know. He just knew her. No complications that way.
"Tim, why did you come back here today?"
"I had to. I didn't want to, but I just knew that I had to. ...to be me."
"Well, if that's what it means to be you, you're going to take a break from that, okay?"
Tim felt the tears again, and he held them back. It was one thing to cry when he was alone, but he hated that the tears were still coming. It was something he didn't want to do. He took a breath that was more shaky than he wanted it to be and let it out.
"Okay."
"Good. Dr. Mallard told me that they've figured out a place for you to stay tonight."
"Oh. Where?"
"With Agent Gibbs. Is that all right?"
Tim thought about it and then, he shrugged.
"Sure. Whatever."
Kelly pulled back and looked at him.
"Are you ready to go?"
"I guess."
"I never thought this is what your coming back here would be like."
"I didn't, either," Tim said. "I thought it would be...just...everything would come back."
"Yeah. I'm sorry it hasn't."
"Me, too."
Kelly cupped her hand over Tim's cheek.
"Let's go."
"Okay."
They got up together and walked to the door. Tim stopped. Every step out there had led to varying degrees of horrible memories.
"You can do it, Tim," Kelly said.
Tim took another breath and opened the door. Ducky and Gibbs were out there waiting for him.
"Kelly said that...I'd be staying with you, Agent Gibbs?" Tim asked. He stumbled over the name a little. Like Ducky, using the formal address didn't feel right, but neither did anything else.
"If that's all right, Timothy," Ducky said.
"It's fine. I don't care."
"Good. Are you ready?"
"Yes."
"Okay. Let's go."
Kelly put her arm around Tim's shoulders. He was grateful for her presence. It was so nice to have just one person that didn't cause tension.
Tim looked down and saw Tony and Ellie looking up at him. He looked away before he could fall into another painful memory.
"Can we go?"
"Yes."
Tim and Kelly followed Gibbs out of NCIS, and Tim breathed a sigh of relief as he made it out of the building without another flashback. When they got to the car, Gibbs paused.
"Do you want to go back to your hotel or to my place?" he asked Kelly.
Tim looked at Kelly. He didn't know what the right answer was in this case; so he didn't say a word. Kelly looked at him for a long moment. Then, she smiled.
"How about I bring breakfast tomorrow morning?" she asked.
"Okay," Tim said softly.
"Then, let me know your address, Agent Gibbs, and I'll come in the morning."
Gibbs just nodded. The ride over to the hotel was silent, but Tim sat beside Kelly in the back seat and wondered why staying with Gibbs left him feeling basically nothing. When they got to her hotel, Kelly squeezed Tim's hand.
"I'll see you tomorrow."
"Okay."
She smiled at him and got out. Tim decided that he should move to the front seat. It made no sense to sit in the back like Gibbs was his chauffeur. He got into the front, and the ride over to Gibbs' house was full of heavy silence.
When they pulled up in front of an unassuming home, Tim got out and looked at it.
"This is it?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"Should I know a lot about it?"
"No. You haven't been here very much."
"Okay."
Tim followed Gibbs to the front door. When he stepped inside, he looked around and thought he might remember something about this place...which was weird because there was almost nothing in the place. It seemed completely empty.
"You live here? Are you sure?"
Gibbs laughed a little.
"Yeah. Don't need to decorate to live in a place."
"I guess not."
Still, it was weird to see a space that was intentionally so...devoid of character.
"You can put your stuff in the spare room. Back here."
Tim followed Gibbs to a room. It was as empty as the rest of the house. A bed and a dresser...and pretty much nothing else. He set his bag down on the bed and then looked at Gibbs.
"Isn't there anything in this house?"
Gibbs smiled.
"Yeah, there is. Just not up here."
"In the basement," Tim said. He was certain of it, even though he couldn't quite say why.
"Yeah. You want to see?"
"Yes."
"Okay. Come on."
Tim followed Gibbs to an unassuming door and down the steps.
...to the basement.
"A boat."
"Yep."
"You build boats. Down here."
"Yeah."
"And no one knows how you get them out because you do. Somehow."
Gibbs smiled again.
"Yep."
Tim looked at the boat.
"It doesn't look like you've done very much on it."
"I haven't."
"Why not?"
"Hard to concentrate on it when other things were more important."
Tim looked away from the boat and at Gibbs. He raised a questioning eyebrow.
"Tony would come over here almost every night to talk about what else we could try to do to find you. He needed to talk about it here because he couldn't talk about it in the open while we didn't know how closely we were being watched. We all hoped that there would be something that would us tell where you were."
Tim looked back at the boat.
"You're saying that you cared."
"Yeah."
"Then, why didn't you find me?"
"I don't know. I wish we could have."
"Why don't I remember you?"
"You do. You already said you did."
"But not everything. You're not completely familiar. You're both a stranger and someone I know."
Gibbs sat down on a stool.
"You don't want to remember," he said.
"Yes, I do! Why do you think I came back at all?"
"No, you don't want to remember. You need to, and you know you do, but you can't think of anything you want to know. You'd started to get something you want back in Montana. It was safe for you. No demands."
Tim sighed and looked toward the stairs. He was half-tempted to leave to get away from this conversation...but at the same time, he couldn't leave. There was something keeping him here.
"I know how that feels, Tim."
"How?"
"Because I ran away when I needed to get away from the demands of this life. I only barely remembered the people here. I forced myself to remember what I had to remember. Then...I decided I was done. I decided to run away to Mexico. I thought I'd stay there forever."
"Why didn't you?" Tim asked.
"Because it wasn't enough. It wasn't my life. ...and people needed me here. I wasn't needed down there. Being needed matters." Gibbs paused. "What did you have back there?"
Tim was silent for a long moment as he thought about the question.
"Refuge...from something I didn't even know. At first, that's all it was. A safe place. I didn't care about anything else. Then...they cared about me. No matter who I was. They knew that they could be harboring a criminal or someone who would put them in danger...but they still cared about me."
"And Kelly Hoopes?"
Tim flushed.
"I don't know. Not right now. She's not sure, either. I mean...we met in a bad situation. She's not had the best luck with relationships. ...and right now... I'm really not much better. We're not ready to say anything more."
"You don't have to say anything to me."
"Then, why do I feel like I do?"
"Because you always feel like you have to justify yourself...even when you don't."
Tim turned around. Gibbs was still sitting there on the stool. There were so many conflicting feelings that Tim had about Gibbs. Respect, coupled with intimidation, coupled with irritation and worry and determination...and how in the world did he resolve all these things into whatever would describe them all accurately?
"You ever hesitate because you second guess yourself again, I'll take your badge!"
"Why didn't you come to me?"
"Anticipate, McGee!"
"I let you down."
"Tim! You hear me?"
Tim jumped. Gibbs was standing, now. He backed away a couple of steps and ran into the boat. He turned around quickly to make sure he hadn't damaged the thing.
"Tim."
"I...remember things...like pieces of a puzzle and what I remember is so clear...but it's surrounded by nothing. I don't even know where the pieces fit."
"What pieces?"
Tim thought about trying to describe them, but he got frustrated.
"What's the point? The reason I'm here is because you need to know what's stuck in my head about the people who took me. That's what matters."
He started to walk to the stairs.
"No, Tim."
"No what?"
"That's not what matters."
Tim turned back for only a second before he felt the annoying tightening in his throat again. He turned to the stairs again.
"Then, what does?"
"That you can see that there's more to your life than the last eight months."
"I can't."
"I know. It's hard to see around the bad things."
"What do you know about that?" Tim asked, ignoring the fact that he knew something of why Gibbs could say that.
"Tim...when my wife and daughter died, I wanted to kill myself. That's not an exaggeration. I would have. When I came out of my coma, I had to feel all that again as if it had just happened...and I had to get around it to the rest of my life. I couldn't at first. That's why I left. It's hard...but it's worth trying."
Tim was suddenly irrationally angry. He knew it was irrational, but he didn't care. There was no reason to be angry at what Gibbs was saying. It didn't matter. He wanted to be mad at someone, and Gibbs was the only one there.
"What do you know about what's worth it for me?" Tim asked, angrily. "All I'm remembering is you yelling at me, you lecturing me, people resenting me for the book I wrote."
"Is that really all you're remembering?"
Tim was now angry that Gibbs was calling him out on the things he wasn't saying.
"It's not enough! It's not enough to be worth it! ...but I can't walk away! So I stay here and it hurts, but there's nowhere else to go! I don't have a Mexico to run to."
"What about Montana?"
"I don't belong there! I know that I don't. I don't have anywhere to go, but I don't feel like I fit here, either. I'm still just...cast away. I can't...land anywhere. Even my own home is meaningless." Tim swore and tried not to cry again. Not in front of Gibbs.
The anger leeched away, leaving the feeling of being no one behind. He walked toward the stairs again.
"I understand. I didn't belong in Mexico, either."
Tim stopped at the stairs. He wanted to keep going, but he didn't at the same time. He didn't turn around, but he couldn't leave.
"You keep searching for where you belong, but you can't find it, even when you have found it. You know that you should feel something other than you're feeling, but you're not. You have the weight of what you hate remembering and the weight of what you don't remember. You have a duty you know you have to fulfill, but you don't feel any reward for doing it. You have pain, and nothing else."
Tim swallowed his tears and said nothing.
"What I went through isn't the same as what you're going through, but you can have your life back, Tim. It won't be exactly the same. It can't, not after what happened, but it can get better. I know that this is hard for you. I'll even admit that I hate seeing you going through it, but there are limits to what we can do to help. We're doing what we can, and I know it's not enough. I know nothing is enough right now. I can't force you to stick with it, but I hope you do."
"What else do I have?" Tim asked in a whisper to mask the tears.
"I think you have more than you're seeing right now."
"I'm going to bed," Tim said.
"Go ahead."
Tim finally climbed the stairs and went into the spare room. The one good thing about this place was that there was nothing to trigger a memory. It was too bland. He changed his clothes and got into bed. There was no denying that he was genuinely tired after everything that had happened today.
He lay down and slept.