Chapter 44
Tim sat in the room and let time pass without his participation. He was back in DC. This was where he had lived for more than ten years of his life. This was where he had achieved the goal he'd set when he was still in high school. This was where he had friends, a job, a life he had enjoyed.
This was where a group of men had taken him, tortured him and made him wish that he was dead.
He took a deep breath, trying to let go of that memory and not let it take over.
What do I need right now?
Tony had been startingly adamant that Tim would feel better if he remembered everything, but he was still afraid that letting all those memories in would drown him. How could he possibly go so quickly from nothing to everything without being overwhelmed? Just six months of memories had almost consumed his reason. No matter how many times people told him that he would be okay, that it wouldn't be like that, he couldn't bring himself to believe them. He knew the memories were there in his head because he could think and wonder about something and he knew it with little or no effort. It was just that he was still afraid of not being able to tolerate all of them. So they came to him in dribs and drabs and he let them come only with reluctance.
Now, though, he knew that he would still have to remember them if he was really going to get his DC life back.
But can I get this back? Can I really deal with it all?
Finally, late in the night, Tim gave up on sleeping. It wasn't going to get better if he just kept worrying about whether or not it could get better. He had to try something. He got out of bed, got dressed, wrote a note for Ducky and then, he left the house.
He knew that Ducky would worry, regardless, but at least, this way, he would know where Tim was going.
Once safely out of the house without disturbing Ducky, Tim headed for NCIS. He walked until he saw a bus. Then, he took that bus to a Metro station. Then, he took the train to the Navy Yard and walked the rest of the way. He tried not to dwell on the fact that he didn't even have to think about the route. He knew how to get where he wanted to go. Once he was out of the station and walking, he became painfully aware that he was alone, walking on the street in the dark. As he walked, he was afraid. This was where they had taken him before.
Still, he struggled to keep walking without having a meltdown.
You can do this. You have to do this.
He stopped, took a deep breath, and then, he continued on his way.
He had to show his ID to the security guard on duty, but the man recognized him and so he let Tim in without any trouble.
Tim kept walking. There were still some signs of the attack on NCIS but not many. Places where the brick hadn't been repaired, a couple of dings on the cannons in Willard Park.
He wasn't ready to walk inside the building just yet.
Instead, he walked across the street to Willard Park and sat down on a bench, facing the building.
Over the past few weeks, ever since Stephen had spoken to him, Tim had been thinking about whether or not he wanted to come back here. He was trying to figure out what he really wanted out of his life, now. The past year had pretty much sucked. Six months of torture. Two months of total amnesia. Months of uncertainty.
And all because he was an agent. None of this would have happened if he hadn't been. That was the real reason he was so hesitant. What if he became an agent again? Would this happen again? He knew the possibility was extremely remote. He knew that, but it didn't matter when it came right down to it. His experience had been so bad that he would still do almost anything to avoid it happening again. If he had to go through that again, he would tell them whatever they wanted to know with the hope of not feeling the pain again.
That might make him a liability, too.
He stayed where he was, staring at the building.
Time passed. He sat in the darkness.
He knew that what he really wanted was impossible. There was no way to make what happened not exist. He couldn't go back in time. He couldn't stop all of this misery. He knew all that, but at the same time, he longed for a life in which that torture didn't exist. How could he ever expect to live normally with that hovering over his mind like a black cloud?
More time passed. He kept sitting there. Just staring.
Then, he saw someone walking toward the building. He didn't say anything. He just watched. He didn't know if he wanted the man to see him or not. He didn't move. His rear end was a little numb from how long he'd been sitting there, but that wasn't a big deal. He'd felt much worse.
The man turned just before he got to the doors and paused. He stopped. Tim couldn't tell who it was. He was far enough away and it was still dark.
He just sat there.
Then, the man started walking toward him. Tim thought about getting up and either leaving or meeting him halfway, but in the end, he decided just to sit where he was.
"Tim, what are you doing here so early?"
Gibbs.
"What time is it?"
"Just after five."
"Why are you here? It's Sunday."
"Had things to do."
Tim nodded and said nothing else.
Gibbs walked over and sat down beside him.
"How long have you been here?"
"A few hours."
"Why?"
"I was thinking."
"About what?"
"About my life...and what it's been...and what it will be...and how NCIS will or won't fit into it."
"And?"
Tim shrugged.
"You want to come inside?"
"No. ...and yes."
"No one will be in there except maybe a couple of people in MTAC."
"Is that supposed to help?"
"Does it?"
"I don't know."
Tim wasn't looking at Gibbs. He was just looking at the building. Taking in all it represented, both good and bad. He reached back into his memory, a rare moment when he tried to remember something.
"I was so excited to work here. You have no idea how much finagling it took to make sure that I was here and able to work. I got in such big trouble."
"When?"
"The day you asked me what I was still doing here, why I hadn't gone back to my real job. That same day, my supervisor had called and threatened to fire me if I didn't get back to Norfolk, ASAP. I told him I had to finish a project for you before I left. I was lying through my teeth. I should have been back in Norfolk days before that and had kept putting it off. I never told you, but I actually had thought you were going to tell me that I was fired, not that you were transferring me to your team. It was what I'd always wanted, and I suddenly had it when I was least expecting it."
Silence.
"Was that hard to remember?"
"No," Tim said, honestly. "Not if you just mean how hard was it to pull it out. The memories are all there. I feel the pressure of them all the time. That's not hard for me to do, but I have to actually do it, and I'm still afraid of that."
"You don't want it?"
"It's not that simple."
"What is it, then?"
"It's scary." Tim took a deep breath and let it out slowly, still staring only at the building. "It's not about whether I want to remember or not. It's about whether I can remember without falling apart."
"Did fine there."
"Yeah, but every time I go inside that building, something comes at me and threatens to make my brains ooze out my ears."
"You haven't been inside since the attack."
"No, I haven't."
"Why assume it'll be the same?"
"Why assume it'll be different?" Tim shot back.
"Because things aren't the same now. You aren't the same as you were a few months ago. Then, you were one step away from a meltdown. We all knew it. Now, you're still not ready to come back, but you're a lot more settled than you were."
"I know, but how I can I work at a place that fills me with dread?"
"Can you really give it up without seeing what reality is?"
Finally, Tim turned away from the building and looked at Gibbs. Gibbs was already staring at him.
"Can't you understand? Those months...they still haunt me every day. I can't escape them. They're always there. Every second with them was more intense than a whole year of my life before. That's six months of seconds. That's over 15 million seconds all crowding around every memory I touch. Sometimes, I can't hold those seconds back and I feel like I'm going to drown. Sometimes, I can, but they still don't go away. I know they can't. I don't need you to tell me that. I just don't know how to...have a real life with that always there. I would give up anything if I was told the memories would go away. If I could know, without any doubt, that I'd lose the memory of those six months if I gave up everything else in my life, I would do it. I know that we're supposed to try to find something good in the bad, but I can't see anything good that came out of that time. Nothing."
Another silent minute.
"Please, Boss. If there's something that will make this better, I need to know. I need someone to tell me what to do. I need someone to help me see that there's more to my life than this because, if that's true, and my various shrinks have all told me that it is, I just can't see it."
Gibbs was quiet for a few more seconds.
"Will you trust me enough to let me take you somewhere?"
"Yes."
"Okay. Come on."
Tim got up and followed Gibbs to his car. Gibbs drove him off the Yard and to a cemetery. He parked and then led Tim to a grave.
He looked at it.
"Your family," he said, softly.
"Yeah."
"Why here?" he asked. "I knew about them already. You told me."
"I couldn't come here for a long time. I couldn't stand knowing that they were here. It's not the same, I know."
"No, it's not."
"I lost my whole life," Gibbs said. "I would have killed myself. Instead, I almost destroyed myself. Had to rebuild from nothing."
"But you're here."
"Yeah, I am. Because I decided to keep living."
Tim actually smiled a little. "You and Stephen are a lot alike, but he talks more than you do."
Gibbs smiled. "Most people do."
"He's lived most of his life in one place because he's scared of going anywhere else, but he's happy. He has what he wants and doesn't feel confined. You almost killed yourself and then completely changed what you were doing with your life and you seem pretty content. And yet, I'm supposed to confront the place that terrifies me and go back to the life I had before because I won't be happy otherwise?"
"Yes."
Tim rubbed his hands over his face. Maybe he was more tired than he'd thought.
"That makes no sense."
"Yes, it does."
"Why? Why can't I just leave?"
"Because you already know you can't. You've already figured that out. You just want someone to tell you that you're wrong."
"Why am I not wrong?"
"Because what Stephen Hoopes has is not what you would have."
"What do you mean?"
"He has exactly what he wants. What you always wanted was what you had at NCIS. If you give that up, you'll be giving up what you wanted and whatever you get won't be as good."
Tim sighed and looked at the grave again.
"How did you get over this?"
"I didn't."
"Even now?"
"Better now than before, but even now."
"Why do you think I can get over what happened to me?"
"I don't know if you can, but you're already further than I am."
"I don't feel like it."
"You're considering going back. That's further."
Tim sighed.
"Will you trust me once more?"
"What, this time?"
"Trust me."
Tim sighed again. "Okay."
He followed Gibbs back to his car. Then, he realized that they were headed back to NCIS.
"What are we doing back here?"
"Trust me."
"I don't want to go in there," Tim said.
"I know. Trust me."
"Why should I?"
"Because you know you should."
"I hate it when you do that," Tim said.
Gibbs just smiled and parked the car. He led Tim, not to the front doors as Tim had expected, but to the back.
"Why here?"
"You won't be as tense."
"Fat chance of that."
"Come on."
Tim followed Gibbs in through the back. They went up on the elevator and then into the bullpen.
"Sit at your desk."
Tim looked at the desks. He knew which one was his. He didn't have to think about it. He knew. He walked over and sat down.
"Now what?" he asked.
"Sit."
Tim did what he was told, but he couldn't help seeing. He looked around the bullpen. The large windows, the orange walls, the balcony, the desks. It was all so familiar. He had spent a lot of his life in this very spot.
"So help me, Tony, I will never bail you out on your reports again," Tim muttered to himself as the elevator doors closed. "I could have had a chance for an early night."
"You're still not finished, McGee?"
"Not yet, Boss. I'm close."
"I don't care how long it takes you, McGee. Finish it."
"Yes, Boss," Tim said, feeling resigned to a long night. It was bad enough that his car had a flat and the spare had been flat, too. He was already going to have to take transit home or else get a taxi. Now, it was going to be even later.
Tim sighed. "All I want is to go home and sleep."
There were hands on his arms, breaking through the flashback, stopping it before it could get really bad.
"Tim."
Tim took a deep breath.
"That's why I'm afraid to come back. How many times will that happen?" Tim whispered. "How many times do I have to go through it again? Once was enough."
"It'll get better, Tim. I'm not saying you should come back tomorrow."
"W-What are you saying, then?" Tim asked, swallowing hard.
"I'm saying that you give your old life a real chance."
"And what would be real?"
"You know what real would be."
"Tell me."
"You keep going to a shrink. You try to talk to us. Maybe, a ways down the road, you try to come back here. A real chance. You don't expect it to be right instantly. You don't think you've failed because of a flashback. You try to remember, remember the good things, remember your life, not the six months of Hell that you went through. That isn't your life."
"What if I can't? What if I can't do it?"
Gibbs let him go and smiled.
"You've never lost at anything you really wanted, Tim. Not in the years I've known you. Everything you really wanted, you got. You even escaped all on your own. No one helped you get away. You got away on your own."
"I would have died in the canal without the Hoopeses."
"Doesn't matter. What you did after six months of nothing but torture is still amazing. If you can't see that, then, I'll ask you to trust me one more time."
"About what?" Tim asked, feeling more than a little wary.
Gibbs skewered him with a look that Tim could remember extremely well. ...and there was a memory attached to it.
"There's only one time I want you to stop, McGee."
"When you tell me."
"When you're satisfied. When you're satisfied."
"About what?" he asked again, when Gibbs didn't continue.
"You can get through all this crap that you've had to deal with. If you really try to get through, you will. It'll take time, but you will."
Tim looked at him and then he looked around the bullpen once more.
"I'm tired."
"I'll take you back to Ducky's."
"Okay."
One more time, Tim let Gibbs lead him out of the building, into his car and then let Gibbs drive him to Ducky's house. Tim walked into the house. Ducky wasn't up yet. So he walked into the bedroom, lay down, and finally, his exhaustion led him into sleep.
