Officer David; the liaison position with NCIS is being terminated.
McGee... I'm moving you across to the cyber crimes unit.
DiNozzo... you've been reassigned. Agent afloat; USS Ronald Reagan. Pack your bags-
you fly out tomorrow.
Agent Gibbs... meet your new team.
Boss?
Boss.
It's good to see you, Boss.
You heard from Ziva?
Uh,yeah. An e-mail every week ,until about three weeks ago. I thought maybe she went on vacation.
No. Try undercover ,McGee.
Undercover would make sense, her being Mossad and all.
Know how to contact her?
Cell phone?
No longer connected. -Yeah. Gibbs.- Put her on. - Ziva? -You okay? ….We miss you, Ziva. Yeah, you take care, too.
Boss, I'm not sure I can exactly tell you what I know. Orders.-Yeah,him.
You like working down here, McGee?
Boss,I'm sorry. He made it very clear to me that I-I couldn't talk to anyone except for him.
Wouldn't have stopped you in the past.
Well,it's not the same. We were a team. I would give this up in a heartbeat to be back working with you and Ziva again.
And DiNozzo?
Yeah,him,too.
You can tell him, McGee.
Want to call Vance?
No, he can wait.
I really need to come home, Boss.
I'm working on it.
DiNozzo.
Pa?
You take care of yourself.
Miss you, too, Dad
It was a long four months. I've got to say it's great to be home. Not that I didn't think I wouldn't be coming back because...
Gibbs smiles at Tony and shakes his hand in welcome.
Tim snapped upright on the couch, his breathing erratic and harsh as he struggled to wake up fully calm himself. His eyes darted wildly around the room without truly seeing his surroundings as the last vestiges of the nightmare started leave him.
"Hey, Probie, You all right?" came Tony's soft question from the doorway to Tony's Kitchen.
Taking a deep breath and slowly exhaling, Tim answered his friend quietly, feeling slightly dazed. "Yeah, I'm okay, Tony. Sorry I woke you up, go on back to bed."
"No sweat, man. You sure you're okay?" Tim could see the lines of worry etching Tony's face as he stood in the doorway making Tim feel guilty for waking him up.
"Yeah. I'm good."
"K. You come get me if you need me." Tony pushed before he turned and headed back to his room. He paused briefly at his door with his hand on the doorknob, trying to decide whether he should close his door. He decided to leave it open so that he could listen for Tim's cries for help better. It was bad enough that Tony hadn't heard the young man's cries until they'd gotten loud enough to penetrate Tony's closed bedroom door and startled him out of his sleep. Granted, it had been a light sleep but Tony felt a twang of guilt at not being there to pull his Probie out earlier and couldn't help the thought that he wasn't doing a very good job of watching over his friend. With a mental headslap, Tony knew that Gibbs would have his hide if he didn't do a better job from here on in. He sank down on his bed and rested his head in his hands. Knowing what to do was hard, but he held onto his firm resolve, that he would do better.
Tim shuffled to his feet and took himself over to the window. Why the hell were all those memories from when Vance first took over the Director's chair, coming back in full force now? What the hell was going on? It was bad enough he needed to hide from all the memories that came crashing down on him from his forced encounter with that man who'd claimed to be his father all his life; but, now this? How much crap being added to the pile, could he take?
Time got lost as he stood staring out the window, his thoughts eventually fading into oblivion as his mind accepted the cloud that moved in to provide a blanket of numbness behind which to hide. Leaning his head against the wall where it met the window frame, Tim was soon comfortable and calm enough that he actually dozed right where he stood. He hadn't noticed himself drifting off until he was jolted awake when his body moved of its' own accord from where he'd braced it against the window frame. It wasn't until then, that he became fully aware of his surroundings and regained his sense of time and place enough to realize that he'd fallen asleep standing up, and his body was finally giving in to the bone weariness, that seemed to follow him everywhere he went. Tim took himself back to the couch and attempted once again to get some genuine sleep in a more normal position of lying down.
You ever hesitate because you've second-guessed yourself again, I'll take your badge! Are we clear?
Why didn't you come to me?
Doesn't look like a hoax to me, McGee.
We should've had him three hours ago.
That means we're all potential targets.
Why didn't you come to me?
There's no mid-ground, McGee. You either put on the cuffs, or you find who's responsible!
You figure it out, McGee! You write the ending to this, or the killer will!
You like working down here, McGee?
Boss ,I'm sorry. He made it very clear to me that I-I couldn't talk to anyone except for him.
Wouldn't have stopped you in the past.
Why didn't you come to me?
Why didn't you come to me?
Tim's eyes snapped open as his breath caught in his throat. He gave himself a minute to acclimatize once again and glanced at the clock. 3:00 AM? Damn it! Would he ever get any sleep tonight? Why the hell was his brain dredging up all these old painful memories of times he'd screwed up on the job over the years? What the hell was up with that? What, he didn't have enough on his mind already; the vault had to keep being ripped open even more every time he tried to sleep?
With a huge sigh of frustration, Tim padded on bare feet, down the hall to check on Tony. Hopefully, the older man was getting some much needed shut-eye despite Tim's nightmarish memories waking him up. As he stopped in the open doorway of Tony's bedroom, he had to smile when he saw Tony sitting up in his bed with his back against the headboard, sleeping peacefully. Not knowing whether Tony's bedroom door was a silent one or not, Tim left it where Tony had it and settled for quietly retracing his steps back out to the living room and changing into a pair of sweats and a MIT T-shirt. Packing up what little he'd taken out of his backpack, he wrote Tony another note and put it in the same place as the one he'd left him 24 hours ago, before quietly leaving out, once again, too wired to sleep even though he could feel the exhaustion that loomed just beyond his grasp.
This time, his destination was the gym at NCIS and he soon got to work so that he could pound out his frustration, and inability to work through the mountain of crap in his head that just seemed to be getting bigger and bigger as the days went on. He had started off donning a pair of boxing gloves, but he had a moment of doubt as to whether or not he should wear them; Maybe the pain would help me forget. But then, the boss would be angry at the fact that he'd willingly caused himself pain. With a sigh, he pulled them on and moved to the punching bag so that he could start pounding at it slowly, his actions getting more and more harsh as he lashed out and let his anger bleed out through his fists. The punches soon became more emotion driven and before too long, Tim looked as though he was attempting to kill the bag, and with every punch, a crackle of angry energy ran through him.
Tony woke with a jolt and just knew that something was wrong with Tim. It was the same feeling he'd gotten the previous night and he jumped out of bed with a nervous feeling-settling deep in his gut. He stood up and ran to the living room only to find it empty and lifeless and so he moved into the kitchen and spotted the letter tacked to the refrigerator.
"Damn it, Probie!" Tony reached over and pulled the note off so that he could read and let the fleeting question of how he was going to tell his boss flit through his mind.
Tony
Sorry, can't sleep
Going' to work.
T.
P.S. Thanks for everything,
This time though, Tony got ready to go after Tim and called Gibbs from his car. He hated to do it, but knew that Gibbs was keeping tabs on Tim's emotional war and couldn't afford to be left out of any of it, if he was gonna be able to keep the young man from losing his grip on the normality that he was so desperately searching for. So, as much as he didn't want to do it; Tony knew the call had to be made.
"Yeah, Gibbs." Gibbs' gruff voice made him cringe slightly.
"Boss, Probie couldn't sleep again. Left me another note sayin' he was goin' to work. I'm headed in after him."
"Tony. When you find him, don't push him to talk. I'll be there soon as I can. Good job, DiNozzo." Tony let the words sink in and shook his head. Why was Gibbs thanking him?
"Huh?" Tony couldn't seem to find the words that he wanted and so decided on the only thing that seemed able to pass his lips. "Oh…Um, Boss, I'm sorry."
"What the hell for?"
"I didn't hear him leave. I don't know when he left. He woke up couple hours ago from what I'm guessing was a pretty bad dream. I heard him all the way in my room. I went out and checked on him; asked him if he was okay and he said he was so I took his word for it and went back to bed. I'm sorry. You told me to watch him and I didn't. I…"
"DiNozzo. What did I just say?"
"Huh? Oh! Right, Boss. Thanks, Boss."
"Go on, go find him and make sure he's all right."
"On it, Boss."
Somehow, he couldn't stop. Tim didn't know how long he'd been at it, but he couldn't find the off switch for his emotions, which by now had him so befuddled with it all so that he couldn't even recognize what he was feeling or what was driving him on. Even his physical body seemed to have lost sight of its on/off switch and it was nothing but pure adrenaline that kept his arms punching the bag as if it would erase everything and take away the pain, the memories, and the heartache.
Tony finally found Tim in the employee gym some 30 minutes later and from the looks of it, he'd been there for several hours already. Whipping out his cell phone, he called Gibbs to update him.
"Boss, I got him. He's in the gym takin' it out on the bag."
"He wearing gloves?" Gibbs asked quietly. Tony had to look again before answering.
"Um, yeah. He's got gloves on."
"Good, okay, DiNozzo, drop back and just shadow him. I'll be there in 5." Gibbs promised and Tony heard rustling on the other end of the phone, letting him know that the Boss was on the move.
"Boss. He's not lookin' so hot. Looks like he's been at this the whole time he's been gone."
"All right, Tony. I'll take care of it. Sit tight."
Sure enough, Gibbs arrived in the gym not five minutes later, stealthily arriving behind Tony and tapping him on the shoulder. As the younger man looked back at him, the boss gestured for him to go ahead and leave this to him. Nodding, Tony turned to leave.
"Tony." Gibbs whispered and stopped Tony in his tracks.
"Yeah, Boss?" Tony whispered in return.
"Go home. I don't wanna see you at your desk til 9." Gibbs rewarded him.
"Thanks, Boss. But, I'm good."
"DiNozzo. It wasn't a request. Go home and get some more shut-eye or I'll send you to Ducky."
"Right. On it, Boss." Tony gave in. Extra sleep he could deal with; Ducky's lecture on fighting Gibbs on the notion of that extra sleep, he couldn't. Turning on his heel, he headed out.
Gibbs advanced on his youngest agent, who, by now, had completely worn himself to a frazzle in his attempt to lash out with everything he was feeling. It was a wonder the bag was still hanging from the ceiling! Walking up to the young man, He put his hands out to stop the bag's motion as he looked his agent over before trying to get the young man to look him in the eye.
As the bag's movement stopped, Tim was roused from his trance and jolted back into the reality that he was desperately trying to escape from. It took him a moment to realize that he was no longer alone.
"Boss?" he asked in shock.
"How long you been here, Tim?" Gibbs asked him gruffly.
Tim shrugged with exhaustion and found that he'd lost the inability to process the question enough to offer a plausible answer.
"How long?" Gibbs pushed as he felt himself getting angry on the young man's behalf.
"I don't know, Boss. I woke up at 3 and couldn't sleep. I left Tony a note."
"Yeah, McGee, I know. Wanna take a guess as to what time it is now?" Gibbs asked as he took the gloves off his exhausted agent. The fact that Tim was so pliant, was true testament to the sheer tiredness that made his young face look gaunt and haunted.
"Uhm. I don't know, four, maybe?"
"Wrong, McGee. Try five-thirty. Go on – take a shower. We'll talk when you're done."
"Boss, I…"
"McGee. Go. Take A. Shower." Gibbs bit out angrily with measured tones.
Tim's exhausted body slumped at the boss' anger and he trudged off to the shower wondering how the hell things were gonna get better when he couldn't even do something like blow off steam right.
As he came out of the locker room, showered, and dressed, some twenty minutes later, Tim was shocked to find the boss waiting for him with a fresh cup of coffee in hand for both of them.
"Thought I told you to call me if you couldn't sleep." Gibbs reminded him much more calmly than he'd spoken just a bit ago.
"I know, Boss. It's just…"
"Just, what, Tim? Why are you trying so damn hard to do this without any help?"
Tim walked to the windows that lined the room. "Boss, there's so much crap in my head, I can't just dump it on…"
"McGee. Do you get that I'm here to listen? Do you get that I need you to understand that you can come to me day or night? I meant what I said, Tim. I'm here for you. Why won't you give yourself the peace of mind to be able to turn to people when you need it?"
"I'd like to." Tim admitted softly.
"Okay. Good. Then why won't you?"
"Because the last thing I wanna do is hurt anyone, especially you."
"Hurt us how, Tim?"
"I mean what I said, Boss. There's so much crap in my head, but what I didn't tell you, is that a lot of it has nothing to do with home." Tim told the boss honestly.
"Ah. Okay. This have anything to do with you being upset and worried about Vance yesterday?"
"Some."
"Wanna tell me about it?"
"Boss, it would take longer than we've got before the work day starts."
Gibbs pulled out his phone and dialed. With a small smile at Tim, he started putting in the request that he needed.
"Need you to pull us off the duty roster for the morning. Good. Okay. Yeah, I'll let you know. Thanks, Leon." Ending that call, he made another one.
"Take the morning off. Yeah. Be here at 1. Call Tony and let him know…Right." Ending that call, he put his phone away, and led Tim down the hallway and into the elevator. They silently rode the car down to the parking garage and Tim felt Gibbs hand in the small of his back, guiding him towards his car. Gibbs gestured to the passenger seat and got in behind the wheel. As the engine roared to life, Gibbs cast his glance over his agent. "You hungry?"
"A little."
"Good. Let's go get some breakfast."
Gibbs was torn. Tim needed to talk, but he also needed to sleep. They'd stopped off at a small café on the way home and eaten a decent breakfast in relative silence. Tim needed the nutrition and the boss hadn't wanted to risk the young man getting stressed out by trying to talk about what was bothering him. So, the talking had been shelved and the meal was enjoyed without the situation being mentioned. Both of which seemed to go a long way in calming Tim's nerves, if his posture was anything to go by. Once that was done, they walked back the car.
Now, here they were, settled comfortably in Gibbs' living room, with the silence seeming to turn less than pleasant, rather quickly. Something needed to be decided and fast. Looking Tim over, it appeared that the exhaustion had abandoned him, and so letting him talk if he wanted too, seemed like the best way to go. Besides, Ducky would be here at noon to check Tim over, and Gibbs was certain that the M.E. would be bringing something with him to help Tim sleep the afternoon away, while the older two returned to work. Gibbs had made the phone call to his older friend while Tim had escaped to the men's room before their meal had arrived at the restaurant and had filled him in on everything that had happened.
Now, Gibbs thought for a minute as to how to open this conversation back up. He'd hated to shut it down earlier, but work and setting things in motion had necessitated that interruption. Clearing his throat, he now turned to the young man sitting before him and waited for him to lift his eyes off the floor.
"You ready to let me in now?"
"I think so." Tim answered hesitantly.
"Okay. Why don't you start by telling me what's keeping you from sleeping? What runs through your mind when you're trying to get some rest?"
Looking back down at the floor, Tim answered quietly. "I keep expecting nightmares about what my… what that man did to me, but every time I try to sleep, it's something different, none of it about anything from home."
"Like what?"
"The first time I fell asleep, everything that bothered me from when Vance first got here, came back, like it happened just yesterday."
"Talk me through it, Tim. What exactly came back to you?"
Tim nearly popped up off the couch as the obvious emotions crashed through on that question. There was no doubt that this was where Tim's concern about hurting Gibbs was coming from, at least, that's the way the boss read the situation. Still he waited for his agent to find his own way to being able to answer the question. After a long silent minute, he was rewarded by Tim's quiet voice filling the air as he repeated what his mind had thrown at him in his sleep.
It took ten minutes for Tim to completely go through his nightmare and Gibbs could see exactly why the kid would be hurting Not only had he lost the dragon that came to him in the form of his father….Huh, if you can even call him that…but there was some deep rooted, convoluted trust issue that surrounded the team. At that moment, Gibbs understood that it was him that Tim looked up too. Not his father, not Vance, but him. Tim saw him as the father figure that he'd never had and wanted nothing more than to have that one shot of a normal family and to feel the father, son bond that he shared with Tony. Gibbs listened intently and frowned when Tim went silent and slumped where he stood, enough that it was obvious he now felt like he'd committed some terrible crime by revealing this to his boss.
"McGee, c'mere and sit. Tell me something. You said this has to do with Vance. Explain that to me."
"He broke up the team, Boss. He cost me your trust." Tim admitted in a broken voice.
"Where did you get that you lost my trust?" Gibbs asked in surprise.
"You admitted to Ziva that you missed her. You told Tony you were trying to get him home and when you did get him home, you shook his hand and welcomed him back. You didn't say a single word to me about it. The whole four months I was in the sub-basement, I never heard from you or saw you. What was I supposed to think?" Tim jumped back up from the couch and paced, angry at himself for letting his real anger and hurt out after all this time. He'd buried it before, why couldn't he have kept it buried?
"Why haven't you come to me with this before?"
"Boss, you and I? Talk? Not something that ever happens." Tim bit out with more sarcasm than he intended. "It's not like it's easy to come to you."
"Yeah. Okay, I'll give you that. Not gonna be like it was anymore, Tim. I'm here. I can see where you would have thought the way you did with the way things played out. Those four months, I should have handled it differently with you. Vance handed me that set of screw-ups and I had my hands full."
Tim nodded silently, still feeling the pain of that time stabbing violently at his heart. Now that it had risen to the surface once again, he struggled to get the pangs of hurt back under lock and key where they belonged. Gibbs' answer did nothing to alleviate the strong impression that Tim had been left with people that didn't care about him and that had led to his worthless feelings that he didn't matter as a person, only as a computer geek when the team was together.
"Tim. I get that working in the same building and never hearing from me left you feeling like you weren't important. Realizing now, that you'd had that ingrained into your head your entire life; I can't possibly make amends for not handling that better than I did. I am sorry."
Tim huffed out a wry chuckle. "Sign of weakness." He said quietly.
"Not this time."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. The rules are loose guidelines. If an apology is needed, then I give one." Gibbs locked eyes with Tim's so that the truth was driven home.
"Thanks, Boss."
"Feel better?"
"Yeah."
"Good. What else is on your mind?"
You ever hesitate because you've second-guessed yourself again, I'll take your badge! Are we clear?
Why didn't you come to me?
Doesn't look like a hoax to me, McGee.
We should've had him three hours ago.
That means we're all potential targets.
There's no mid-ground, McGee. You either put on the cuffs, or you find who's responsible!
You figure it out, McGee! You write the ending to this, or the killer will!
You like working down here, McGee?
Boss ,I'm sorry. He made it very clear to me that I-I couldn't talk to anyone except for him.
Wouldn't have stopped you in the past."
McGee, you did not lose my trust. I have never lost faith or my trust in you." Gibbs told him when the young man finished revealing what had plagued him in his sleep the second time he'd attempted to find rest during the night.
"Never?"
"Never."
"Benedict."
"Didn't happen."
"Mawher."
"Shaken, maybe. Not lost."
"Sure seemed like it"
"I know and I shouldn't have handled it the way I did."
"Sarah"
"Shaken. Not lost."
But, I lied to you!" Tim needed the confirmation that what Gibbs was saying was true despite things that had happened at that time.
"And then you apologized and I accepted it. Remember?"
"Yeah, you did."
"Not Lost."
"Okay." Tim breathed out on a sigh of relief.
"We good?" Gibbs asked as he watched Tim's body slouch down slightly with relief.
"Yeah,"
"Good. Anything else on your mind?"
"I'm really tired, Boss." Tim admitted as he sat back down.
"Good. You need the sleep. Go upstairs and crash on my bed."
"Boss?" Tim asked with confusion.
"Go on. You need to be comfortable and that couch won't do it. Go on. Sleep."
"Thanks!"
"We're gonna talk about this taking off in the middle of the night, McGee." Gibbs couldn't help but chastise Tim for his actions and hated the fact that the kid couldn't relax enough to get the well earned rest that he deserved.
"Okay, Boss, I…,"
"Later, McGee. Right now, you're gonna get some shut-eye." Gibbs stood up and guided Tim to the stairs. "First door on the right. Bedding's clean. Go! Now!"
He watched as Tim padded up the stairs to get some much needed sleep and relaxed once he heard the door open and close. He didn't move until he heard the bed creak slightly through the floorboards as Tim lowered himself down to it. Finally, he walked back to the living room so that he could sit and listen out for any signs of distress that might come. As he sat on the couch, Gibbs couldn't help but wonder how he hadn't seen this coming. How could he not have realized that Tim's computer, logic driven brain would need to weed out the old pain before it could let him deal with the new?
The bigger question now was, where to go from here.
