Chapter 34

Coming back to NCIS again filled Tim with dread. He hadn't yet managed to be in the building without having a meltdown. Still, he knew that he had no choice. Right now, the only thing he could do was acquiesce to whatever was asked of him.

Naomi and Gibbs were on either side of him, guiding him into the building. Tim didn't resist. Not this time. This time, he was going into this not expecting to help but expecting to be hurt by it. It was a kind of resigned dread that didn't feel any better than the panic did.

"Tim, are you all right?" Naomi asked.

"No," Tim said, flatly. "I'm not even close to all right."

He felt Naomi put a comforting arm around his shoulders. It was nice, but it wasn't enough.

"Is this really necessary, Agent Gibbs?" Naomi asked.

"Yes," but it was Tim who said it.

Naomi nodded, reluctantly. Tim appreciated her presence. There was something genuinely comforting about her, even if he didn't yet have all his memories back.

"Where to, first, Gibbs?" Tim asked.

"Conference room."

"Okay."

As they headed upstairs, Tim saw someone looking at him.

Probably someone else I'm supposed to know, Tim thought.

He tried to ignore it because he just didn't want to deal with another situation like that. He looked away from the man and kept walking.

...but something didn't feel right about that.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Kelly got off the plane, walked into the airport and looked around. There was her father. That was a little surprising, given how rarely he left the farm. She smiled at him, walked over and hugged him tightly.

"Welcome back, Kelly girl," he said softly.

"Haven't heard that in a long time," she said.

"Maybe you need to hear it more."

"Maybe."

"You don't need to talk about it, now. Let's just go home, all right?"

"All right."

They got her bag and walked out of the airport.

"I wasn't looking for more complications in my life, Dad...but I got them, anyway."

"Life tends to be like that. Complications don't have to be bad, though. You just have to figure out what kind of complications they are. This will always be home for you, no matter what you choose."

"Thanks."

As they headed back to the farm, Kelly thought about the man she left behind in DC. All she could do now was hope that things got better for him.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

He hurried to a secluded space and made a call.

"He's here."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah. I saw him."

"Two hours. We'll be in place. Understood?"

"Two hours. Counting down."

The call ended.

Two hours and all their years of planning would finally come to fruition. By the time they were done, no one could mistake their cause. The people would rise up in revolution to take back the country and no federal law enforcement would remain to oppress the people.

Two hours.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim sat, fidgeting, in his chair. No meltdown yet, but there were no questions yet, either. That made him nervous.

"What's the delay?" Naomi asked.

"I don't know."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

They came onto the Yard as tourists. A few already worked in the food court and could come and go without any trouble. They began to take up their assigned positions as unobtrusively as possible.

The guns had been brought overnight, across the Anacostia. They were ready.

Now, all they had to do was wait.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"There's something wrong," Tim said.

The feeling had only increased in the time he'd been here. It wasn't the same feeling as he'd had before. This was different. It was worse. He got up and walked to the door of the conference room, ignoring his mother's questions.

That man. Tim had seen him somewhere, but not at NCIS. This meant something.

Something bad.

He walked out onto the balcony. Gibbs and Ducky were there, talking quietly.

"Timothy, we were just about to..."

"There's something wrong!" he said, emphatically.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Three.

Two.

One.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

That was all Tim got to say. Suddenly, they heard the rumble of a number of small explosions around the building.

Fire alarms went off.

People were moving toward the exits as they were trained to do. Everyone was trained to do this, from elementary school on down the line. When you hear a fire alarm, you leave the building.

Tim stood where he was. Something was moving around in his head. Something he had heard. Something he knew. Something that he had to get out or people would die. He was sure of it.

Someone's hand was on his arm.

A voice speaking to him.

In that one interminable moment, Tim could only focus on what he had to remember. No matter the cost, he would have to pay. No matter what.

"STOP!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.

People in the bullpen did stop. He had screamed so loudly that it was heard throughout the space.

"STOP! Don't go out there! You have to stay inside!" He was breathing loudly as he tried to resist the hand that was trying to move him.

"What's wrong, Tim?"

That was Gibbs' voice, the one people would obey.

Tim turned to him in desperation.

"No one can go outside. They'll die!"

"Why? You have to tell us why."

Fighting through the mental block he'd constructed to save himself and everyone else, Tim grabbed Gibbs' arms, trying to force him to understand what he couldn't explain.

"Stop them!" he begged. "Don't let them die! Please!"

Tim couldn't look anywhere else. He saw Gibbs look away, but he couldn't follow his gaze.

"Stay inside. Stay inside."

Then, he heard a voice. Over the loudspeaker.

"All personnel, this is Director Vance. Do not evacuate. I repeat. Do not evacuate. Remain in the building. If you see a fire, move away from it and report its location, but remain indoors. This is a planned attack. Do not leave the building."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

He heard the announcement and cursed to himself.

Stay inside? How had they figured this out? Ever since he'd reported that it seemed the agent didn't know anything, they had worked on that assumption.

How could he know?

If everyone stayed indoors, then, the plan was ruined.

No. No, there would still be blood.

He ran from his hiding spot, weapon in hand, heading for the bullpen. He could still take out as many as possible. He could still get rid of the agent.

There would still be blood.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

The alarm was driving him crazy. He couldn't think through the throbbing pain it gave him. He couldn't think about why he was so sure this was necessary.

What was it he remembered?

"Tim?"

"That man. That man. I saw him. He's..."

A memory. He needed that memory. If he didn't get it, they wouldn't believe him and people would die. He closed his eyes tightly, but he couldn't let go of Gibbs' arms, couldn't let him leave without understanding why this was so important.

"Tim."

It was from the beginning. He could see that. His wrist had still hurt. He'd heard them talking.

What had happened?

"Tim, talk to me."

"Look, I don't like this. Taking one of them is asking for trouble. They'll start looking! We don't need that kind of attention!"

"Yes, we do. Besides, he knows things, things that we can't find out just by having a guy in the mail room or on maintenance."

"It's another memory."

And this time, Tim didn't want them to stop him from remembering. He tried to tune out the real world.

"Like what?"

"Like all the routes that would be the preferred routes out of the building in an emergency. Like how they'd react if under fire. Like where the important stuff is, where the important people are. We're going to kill them, pin them down so that there's no safe place to go, in or out. Rats. They're just vermin that need to be got rid of. He's one of them. Everything he suffers will be like them suffering. And everything he tells us will get more of them killed. They won't be thinking about why he's missing. They'll be thinking about getting him back."

"That's a bad thing!"

"No, it's a good thing because, then, when we finally get him in place, they'll be so swallowed up by trying to rescue this leech that they won't notice the charges being placed. They won't notice the trap being assembled all around them."

"Me, sir?"

"Yes, you."

Suddenly, there was someone shaking him.

Tim opened his eyes. He looked around wildly for the man he'd seen, the man who had been chosen to work here, to set all this up so that people would die. He'd seen him before. He'd seen him today.

"Where is he?" he asked. "Where?"

He let go of Gibbs and started for the stairs. There were people around, but Tim didn't see them. He'd moved half into that other state, the one that couldn't allow much in because his mind wouldn't take it. It couldn't handle more than it was dealing with at the moment.

Arms were trying to hold him back, but he couldn't accept that. He had to find the man who was here somewhere. He pulled away.

He started to run for the stairs.

He went down and ran headlong into someone else.

"Tim? What is it? What's wrong?"

Tim pushed the voice away.

Don't listen. You'll lose it.

He kept moving.

Then, he stopped.

There was the man. He was right there.

Only this time, he had a gun.

Tim found that he couldn't bring himself to move or to shout or anything. He just stood there, staring.

As the man raised the gun.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tony saw Tim start to run, but he saw that glazed look in his eyes that said he wasn't really thinking. He was reacting, but not to anything that anyone else could see. He tried to stop him, but like at the cabin, Tim wasn't hearing him and he wasn't going to be stopped. So while everyone was trying not to panic and was being herded to safe spaces inside the building...while Vance was getting his agents together to try and make a plan that involved figuring out just what the danger was when Tim couldn't tell them, Tony followed Tim.

The fire alarm was still going off. It was really annoying.

It seemed to take forever, but then, Tim stopped and stared around the corner.

"Tim...what–?"

"You'll still die. After all this, you'll be the first to bleed."

Tony heard the words, ran around the corner and didn't stop to ask questions. He had told Tim that he wouldn't let him be hurt anymore. He had meant it.

He grabbed Tim, who seemed frozen in place, and pulled him to the floor. That wasn't enough. There wasn't enough cover in the hallway. He lunged at the man, whom he recognized vaguely as being one of the janitors in the building. The gun went off twice, and the man missed both times.

Must not be very skilled for a deranged killer, Tony thought grimly.

He tackled the man, and they began struggling for the gun. He may not have been skilled at firing the gun, but the man certainly wasn't letting go of it.

The gun went off three more times and Tony felt a flash of fire across his forehead and then, a dizzying feeling of dislocation.

The gun was wrenched away from him and he fell back, trying desperately to keep himself conscious and alert.

Blood was running down into his eyes.

Bad graze, he thought vaguely. At least, that's what he hoped it was.

There was a ringing in his ears. He seemed to have gone partially deaf.

Then, there was someone wiping the blood away.

"Did he get away?" Tony managed to ask. He was trying to get his eyes open, but they weren't listening to him.

Maybe they can't hear me over the fire alarm, he thought.

"No. He didn't get away."

That wasn't the voice he'd expected to hear.

"Tim? That you?"

"I guess it is. Everyone tells me that's who I am. Can you get up? I don't want to leave you alone here, but I have to get back to Agent Gibbs."

Tony recognized the voice, but Tim seemed strangely calm and confident, two words that could not have described him in the time he'd been back.

"What about the psycho?"

There was a long pause.

"Can you get up?"

Tony forced his eyes open. Tim was there. His face was pale, but there was a look in his eyes that said he wasn't going to do anything else but what he needed to do. That meant that Tony needed to make it so that he could.

"I can try," Tony said.

Tim helped him stand, but Tony felt really woozy. He leaned against Tim who said nothing as he helped him back through the halls to the bullpen. Tony's eyes kept closing which was really annoying, and he couldn't focus.

"Hey, take him."

"Agent McGee..."

"Just take him."

"Tim?" Tony asked.

"Later."

Tony felt himself handed over.

"You okay, Tony?"

"No."

"Okay. Let's get you to a chair."

"Where did Tim go?"

"Back upstairs. He looked kind of weird, but I guess he had something he needed to do."

"Yeah."

Just like Gibbs had done something before leaving and running away to Mexico.

Tony wanted to say something about that, but he couldn't focus enough to do it. He supposed he would just have to wait.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim was only barely keeping himself from falling apart, but he was determined to see this through. He had to be able to stop them. They were the ones responsible for all his pain. This was his only chance.

...one had died just like any other person did. It was time to get the rest of them.

"Tim!"

"They're outside," Tim said. "They're waiting for us to go out the exits that haven't been compromised and they'll start shooting. They want to kill as many as possible. Blood is the only language people understand and that's the language they want to use. There are probably a lot of them out there. If you're going to get them, you'll have to be ready for that. I can't tell you where they'll be waiting, but it'll be by the exits people were going to take. ...and one of them is dead in the hall by interrogation. I shot him. Agent DiNozzo got a bullet graze."

Gibbs, Vance and a number of other people Tim couldn't give any attention to were all staring at him. Vance started to speak. Tim knew what he was going to ask.

"I can't answer any more questions. I've told you what I know. Whatever you do next, you'll have to figure it out from what I've said. There's nothing else I can say. I don't know how long they'll wait before they decide to cut their losses, but if you want to find them, you'll have to act fast. Now...I'm going to go back into the conference room."

Tim turned away from them and started walking. He could feel himself ready to fall apart. He could feel the breakdown coming, but he was determined to get into the room, first. He was determined to maintain this glassy calm for as long as possible.

He opened the door to the conference room. He staggered inside and collapsed at the table. For a long moment, he was just breathing. Then, there were gentle arms lifting him up and pulling him into a hug.

"Tim?"

"I killed him, Mom. I shot him and I felt nothing."

"It's going to be all right, Tim."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Gibbs looked at Vance and raised an eyebrow. Vance looked briefly conflicted. Politics warring with what he knew needed to be done. Then, he nodded.

"Okay," Gibbs said. He went to the balcony and shouted down.

"We can't leave the building until we're sure that it's safe outside!" he said loudly.

Everyone started looking up at him. Gibbs noticed Tony getting treated by Ducky and Jimmy. Abby had come up and was fretting but keeping herself cool for the moment. He could see that Tony was conscious and so he moved on.

"What we need is to find out which exits were damaged and which weren't. How many of you actually saw a damaged exit?"

A scattering of hands.

"How many saw a clear exit?"

A smaller number.

"Those who saw a damaged exit report to Agent Bishop! Those who saw a clear exit report to Agent Lovitz! Two minutes!"

One thing Gibbs had appreciated about the people working at headquarters was that, even if they weren't all used to conflict, when it came down to it, they knew what to do and didn't panic.

In less than two minutes, Ellie and Lovitz were reporting on the exits. Not all had been seen. They needed to know about all of them. So he sent Ellie and Lovitz to check on the remaining exits. While he was waiting for them to get back, Gibbs walked over to Vance.

"We can't do this on our own, Leon," he said in a low voice.

"The FBI is on its way over. So are two teams from the DC office," Vance said. "They won't move until we give them something to aim at."

"They'll have it."

"Gibbs, of the four exits that weren't reported, only one was clear," Ellie said.

"Will they still be out there?" Gibbs asked.

"Yes. They're committed now. It's about taking us out. They're not giving up unless they know that we're onto them."

"It's been more than five minutes. How could they not?"

"Point, but because they've shown their hand, I think they'll see it through. They think they've got us pinned down. No sign of anyone coming onto the Yard...and they may decide to invade if we don't move on them soon."

Gibbs nodded. It was time to end this. They were willing to sacrifice lives, and he was happy to let them do it.

He gestured to the agents. They went to four of the damaged exits and cleared out the space for a sortie. They needed to distract their attackers so that the FBI could come in from the outside and take them out.

Vance went into MTAC to give them the word. Gibbs and Ellie went to the front door. Henry, the security guard, was there with them. He wasn't really in the best condition for it, but he was another person who knew how to use a gun.

Quietly, they waited. Vance was going to give them the signal.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim couldn't stop shaking. It wasn't a flashback, for once, but it was terrible. It was one of those times when his mind and his body couldn't agree on what was appropriate and he was left feeling completely out of control. Right now, his mother was holding him and comforting him. He knew she was there. He couldn't speak. He couldn't move. He was just shaking with his eyes closed.

"It's all right, Tim. I'm right here. I'm not letting you go."

The voice penetrated the overwhelming fear and Tim was glad of it, even if he couldn't say so.

Suddenly, over the PA system, there was one word.

"GO!"

Tim sat up and looked around, wanting to obey, but not knowing where he should go to.

"Tim, stay. It's not you. Just wait."

"Wh-What's h-happening?"

"I don't know, but you can't help right now. You've done what you needed to do."

"Is it en-n-nough?"

"Yes."

That was all he could manage. He sagged back down and let his mother comfort him, hoping that he would never have to feel that pain again.