Chapter 18

Gibbs watched Tony and Ziva working. His eyes tracked in on the ring on Ziva's left hand. It was small and subtle. So much so that it had taken Tony two days to realize it was there. Once he had, he had spent the next hour trying to figure out if Ziva was just trying to pull a practical joke and when Ziva had lost her temper at him and asked if he didn't think she could get married, he had finally congratulated her. Gibbs could admit that it had more than surprised him. It had shocked him. He had known Ziva and Oliver were dating exclusively, but that they were serious enough to get engaged was a complete surprise to him.

He knew it was none of his business, but maybe he could go down to the lab and do some adroit questioning.

Before he could figure out how to get down without Ziva realizing what he was doing, her phone rang. He could tell by the expression on her face that it was Oliver. She was smiling a lot more.

"Hello," she said. Then, her expression changed. "What? How? Very well."

She hung up and looked at both Tony and Gibbs.

"Oliver says he may know where Tim is."

"What? How?" Tony asked, repeating Ziva's own questions.

"I do not know. He wants us to go down to speak with him."

Gibbs stood up without hesitation. They all trooped down to the lab. When they got there, Oliver looked almost giddy. It was weird because it was nowhere near as giddy as Abby would get when she was excited but because Oliver didn't typically get excited, for him, it seemed incredibly over the top.

"Okay. I think Tim is in Maine."

"Maine? Why?" Tony asked.

"Because he bought a house!"

"How do you know?" Ziva asked. "Would we not have found something like that months ago?"

"I've been trying to find something that would clue us in on where he went after leaving New York. Well, he didn't do anything in his own name, of course. We would have found him months ago if he had. But he didn't do it in the name of Thom E. Gemcity, either."

"So what did he do?" Tony asked.

"I thought back to what you said before, that he didn't want to be a new person, that he was giving up his identity. So I thought maybe he would be willing to use different names. And there was a house in Maine that was purchased by a man named Thomas McGregor in the time frame close to when Tim disappeared. All cash. And I did a thorough check. By everything I could find, this man did not exist before this transaction, and he hasn't existed since. No credit cards, no job, no ID, nothing. Just this one transaction."

There was a moment of shocked silence. Oliver looked at them and his brow furrowed.

"Okay, I'll admit that I thought you'd be happier about this," he said.

Ziva smiled. "I think it is more that we are shocked."

"Yeah," Tony said. "After so many months of nothing... to have a location...just like that. What do we do, now?"

"We need to call his parents," Ziva said. "They must know."

"Wait," Gibbs said.

"Why, Gibbs?" Ziva asked, sounding impatient. "He is their son. It is vital that they know."

"We need to verify it, first," Gibbs said. "I don't want them to think they've found him and then it turns out to be someone else."

"Oh, that would be awful. Can you imagine how they'd feel," Tony said. "Should we call the police up there to check it out?"

A thought was starting to circulate in Gibbs' mind. He had spent far too much time ignoring anything having to do with Tim simply because he wanted to be focused on his own loss. It was time to change that behavior, and that meant taking some initiative for once.

"No. I'll go."

"What?" Ziva asked incredulously. "Why?"

"Because I let him leave," Gibbs said. "I need to see if it's him and let him know he can come back."

"You think that will be more important than his parents?"

"As, not more," Gibbs said.

Oliver wasn't weighing in on this, and Gibbs knew why. He had zero experience with Tim himself. How could he say what was the right thing? But at the same time, maybe that was what they needed. Gibbs was sure he was right. He knew that Ziva still hadn't fully forgiven him for the months he'd spent not doing anything, but he felt that this was a way of making up for that, even if Tim didn't know about it.

"What do you think?" he asked, looking at Oliver.

"Does it matter what I think?" Oliver asked. "I don't have any connection to Tim except through you guys. I've never even met him, not even at a book signing."

"That's why it matters," Gibbs said.

"I don't know the answer here," he said. "I don't know if there is a right answer, but if Tim depends on your approval, Agent Gibbs, then, it might be that your approval will matter even more than his parents at the beginning. So, at the risk of making my fiancé angry at me, I'd say it might be worth a shot...but only if you're going to be willing to do more than you have done up to this point, Agent Gibbs."

Gibbs raised an eyebrow, and was actually glad to see that Oliver was not intimidated. His expression was stern, not at all uncertain or worried.

"If you're all correct about why Tim left and if you're right about his possible state of mind, he's going to need something that will break through it, and that won't happen if you force him to read your mind, like you usually do. Tim's already decided what everyone thinks of him. So you have to break through what he already thinks you think. If you can't do that, then, you'd better call his parents because, based on what I know of them, they'll be more than willing to do what you haven't been doing."

The statement was pointed, but Gibbs could accept it. Then, just when things might have got too serious, Oliver smiled a little and looked at Ziva.

"Is the wedding still on?" he asked.

And Ziva relaxed and then smiled.

"Yes."

"Good. Well, I can give you the address of the house that this Thomas McGregor purchased. I just can't give any guarantee that it's Tim, but the timing is right."

"I'll take it," Gibbs said.

"You'd better tell us right away, Boss," Tony said. "No keeping us in the dark. We want to know."

Gibbs nodded.

"And you had better tell Tim's parents," Ziva said, sternly. "You will not keep them out of it, no matter what state Tim is in. If he is there, they need to know."

Gibbs nodded again and left the lab. He got to the elevator when he heard the lab doors open.

"Gibbs!"

He stopped and turned around. Ziva was there in the hall.

"Why you?" she asked. "Why not someone who never stopped caring about him?"

"Because he deserves it," Gibbs said. "I didn't stop him when I could have. I need to do something now."

"What if he does not want to see you?" she asked.

"Then, I'll call the people he does want to see." Gibbs paused. He didn't like talking a lot, but he needed to talk more. "I learned from this, Ziva. It took too long, but I learned."

"But did you learn enough?"

"We'll see."

They stood there, staring at each other for a few seconds, and Gibbs saw that Ziva felt a little bit of betrayal at his actions as well. She had asked him to save her and he had done it. He had left Mexico specifically because she had asked him for help. He had done a lot for her when she had needed it, but he hadn't been willing to extend that to others when they had needed it. It was an inconsistency and an injustice that Ziva did not easily accept.

"Do not leave him there, Gibbs," Ziva said, finally. "If it is him, do not leave him there alone, even if he asks for it."

"I won't. Not this time."

Gibbs nodded once more and then left to get ready to travel to northern Maine, where Tim had apparently hidden himself from everything and everyone in his life.

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

The waterfalls roared with the water pouring over from the melting snow. And they had been extremely easy to get to. Just off the road, and a few steps. It was muddy but easy to get to. Tim admitted that it was beautiful, but the antsy feeling he'd had occasionally was welling up again and he just wanted to get away from being forced to act normal. He looked at Mark.

"Mark, you know, I can go back to my place now. I get what you've been doing and sometimes I even appreciate it, but really, I'm not like I was before," Tim said. "I'm fine. Really."

Mark smiled. "Are you? Are you going to contact anyone from your family or from your job? Are you making plans to get back to your life?"

Tim's eyes shifted away and moved to the falls again. It was one thing to stop actively punishing himself. It was another to even consider going back.

"Tim, you're a lot better. I agree, but considering how bad off you were, that's really not saying much. You can't even keep eye contact with me from a simple question. That says something about where you are. I'm glad you're doing better, that you're not feeling as terrible as you were, but I don't think it's a good idea to be alone yet. Besides, it's mud season. You'll never get up that hill to your house right now."

"Mud season?"

"Yep. Maine has five seasons instead of four. Spring, summer, fall, winter and mud. All the snow is melting. We're getting rain and the ground is getting saturated. Everywhere you go, you run the risk of getting stuck in the mud. Just look at the mud here, and your driveway isn't paved. You might as well go out and roll in the mud out front because that's how effective getting up to your house would be."

"I could climb up the hill."

"Yeah, we saw how good you were at that."

"That was in snow."

"Yeah, and the mud is worse. Just wait. Things are getting better... in more ways than one."

"Maybe."

"No, really. Mud season only lasts a couple of weeks and maybe by then, you'll be feeling even better than you are now."

Tim raised an eyebrow.

"And then will you let me have some control over my life?" he asked with some irritation.

Mark just smiled. "If you're ready to control your life instead of letting things control you, absolutely."

Tim grimaced. "Sounds like you've been taking lessons from Harris."

"I have."

Tim shook his head and started to walk back to the truck. Mark caught him by the arm.

"Tim, what you need to accept is that someone cares about you, whether you want them to or not, and I'm not leaving you to fall apart again. ...and yes, I think you would if you were isolated in that cabin with only what you think there. I think you'd fall back on what you've been thinking about yourself again and maybe you wouldn't fall as far, but you've only barely acknowledged that getting out of the hole you've been in is an option. I'm not risking it, whether you want me to or not."

Tim sighed. He cast about for something else to use as a reason.

"My typewriter is there, and I'd like to be able to use it," he said.

"You planning on writing more than three words?" Mark asked, bluntly.

Tim cleared his throat and looked away.

"I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not."

"What's the real problem, Tim?" Mark asked. "If you're wanting to drink again, you'd better forget about it. I'm not letting it happen. You said that you never used to do that. Were you lying?"

"No," Tim said, feeling a little embarrassed that he'd turned into the person who was assumed to be wanting to get drunk... or maybe even that he'd generally been behaving that way recently.

"Are you sure about that?" Mark asked.

"Yes," Tim said. "Before... all this, I could count on one hand the number of times I got drunk. Maybe on one finger. I've never been a heavy drinker. Until... this. Until... I got Abby killed."

"You didn't, Tim," Mark said, sounding a little impatient. "Someone else killed her and it's not your fault. That's where you keep going wrong. You keep thinking that it's your fault."

"That's because, ultimately, it is, and I think that drunk or sober, Mark. You're not going to change my mind because I know that this wouldn't have happened if I hadn't written that book. None of it even could have happened without what I wrote and that doesn't change, no matter what you try to do or say, no matter how long you force me to stay with you. Just because I'm staying with you instead of at my house, just because I'm not making an effort to find the stuff I bought, just because I'm not in a stupor, none of that changes reality."

"All right, then," Mark said. "What comes after all this? When does it end? You're lucky you're not dead or brain damaged after some of the stuff you've done to yourself."

"It's a life sentence," Tim retorted, getting angry again. "No possibility of parole. So it lasts as long as I'm alive. If you and Harris would just accept the reality, I could get on with it."

"The reality, Tim, is that you're punishing yourself without cause. The reality is that all the blame you feel is created in your mind. The reality is that no one who really knows what's going on thinks what you're doing is right. The reality is that you're so far out of touch with reality that you actually think that isolating yourself for the rest of your life is somehow justified."

"It is!" Tim said, almost shouting again. However, he took a deep breath and controlled himself. He pulled his arm away from Mark and strode away from the falls, back toward the truck. As he walked across the grass, he slipped on the saturated ground and nearly fell. He righted himself and kept walking, feeling the mud squelching beneath his feet.

Then, he looked up and saw that Mark was standing by the truck. He'd walked to the road and avoided the mud completely while Tim really hadn't paid attention to his path. When he reached the truck, Mark looked at him with a pitying expression.

"How many times are we going to do this, Tim? How many times will you shout out what you think as if being louder means being more right? How many times are you going to try to insist on torturing yourself?"

"As many as it takes!" Tim said, barely not shouting.

"And how many is that?"

Once again, Tim felt his throat tighten ominously and he was not going to cry. He would not show it. Not again. No more tears. None.

"As many as it takes... for me not to feel... this way," Tim managed to say.

"What way?" Mark asked, less confrontational this time.

"Like... it would be better if Landon had shot me, like it would have been better if I had shot myself instead of him on that night, like the best choice I have right now is to run and jump into the gorge back there just to stop this feeling, like... like I'm just a terrible failure and a murderer. That way." Again, Tim couldn't look Mark in the eye. "If I'm back in my house, I can do whatever it takes to get rid of that feeling... even just for a moment. It doesn't matter if I'm screaming, drinking or dying. No one is there to stop me. I could engage in ritual self-flagellation and no one would know... and it would be better than this feeling."

There was a long silence, and Tim didn't know what Mark was doing, but he was just trying to tamp down his extreme emotions again. He hated that they kept rising up and trying to take over his brain.

"Tim... are you telling me that you're suicidal?"

Tim didn't answer, mostly because he didn't know the answer. All he was doing was trying not to break down for what felt like the millionth time.

"Tim, I need to know."

"Why?"

"Because if you tell me you are or you refuse to answer, I'm going to pick you up, force you into my truck and haul you off to the nearest hospital that I can. I'm not going to let you kill yourself... no matter how you might want to do it, whether it's through drinking or something else. I won't."

"I don't know," Tim whispered.

"What do you mean you don't know? Do you want to die or don't you? It's not a complicated question."

"Yes, it is."

"Why?"

"Because I wish I'd died, but I don't think I could actually do it to myself. It's just that you keep me from getting away from it. You're not helping."

Mark laughed and that was a weird enough response that it got Tim to look up. Mark wasn't looking like he found it funny.

"Actually, I am. The problem is that you keep trying to go back to what you were doing before, and you're refusing to learn anything. Tim, let out what you're feeling. That's what's making it so hard for you. You keep trying to repress everything you feel. You do it over and over as if you think you'll get a different result. It's getting tiresome. In fact... get in the truck. We're going to go and talk to Harris right now."

"I don't want to talk to Harris," Tim said, feeling very irritated at the suggestion.

"I don't care. You're talking to him. Right now. Get in the truck or I'll force you in."

By now, Tim knew that was no idle threat. He forced himself to sigh instead of cry and climbed into the truck. Then, he deliberately said nothing while Mark drove them back to town, and instead of going to his own house, Mark drove Tim to what must be Harris' house. He didn't want to be here. In fact, Tim toyed with the idea of refusing to get out of the truck. ...but in the end, he figured that Mark wouldn't accept it.

So he got out and followed Mark to the front door.

"You're going overboard, Mark," Tim said.

"No, I'm not," Mark said, seriously. "I'm not letting you do the one step forward, two steps back thing. You're not far enough forward to survive two steps back, Tim. I don't know if you're deliberately ignoring that or if you just don't care, but I care and I'm not letting it happen."

He knocked on the door and when it opened, Harris was there, looking surprised.

"Oh. What brings you over?" he asked.

"Can we come in?" Mark asked. "I know it's Sunday."

Harris smiled. "I'm glad you are aware of the days of the week. Yes, come on in." He looked at Mark and then at Tim.

Tim just sighed.

"Tim, why don't you have a seat just over there and I'll be right in."

"Yeah, whatever."

Tim knew what was going to happen. Mark was going to tell Harris about their conversation and then it would be back to trying to tell Tim that it would be good to listen to them. It seemed like they became selectively deaf whenever he tried to tell them that this was what he wanted, that it was the right thing to do.

And that antsy feeling really hadn't gone away. He stood up and started pacing. He just wanted to get somewhere that he could be alone. He'd try making a run for it if it weren't for the fact that he was sure Mark would be willing to chase him down and tackle him if necessary.

He just wanted to get away from all this, and he didn't understand why they wouldn't just let him.

Then, Harris came out.

"You seem upset, Tim."

"Can't you just leave me alone?" he burst out.

"No, I'm sorry, but we can't."

"Why not?"

"Because that isn't what's best for you. Besides, you agreed to let us help you. Have you changed your mind?"

Tim seized on that. "Yes. Yes, I have. Now, can I go?"

Harris laughed. "No, actually. You can't."

Tim sighed again.

"Tim, sit down."

Tim did so, very reluctantly.

"Now, let me see if I can figure out what's going through your mind right now. You seem to be feeling more than a little overwhelmed again."

Tim said nothing.

"Am I right?"

Tim shrugged.

"And your response to that is to try to do what you've been doing which is not a surprise, really. A little disappointing, perhaps, but not surprising."

"I'm sorry I disappointed you," Tim said with all the sarcasm he could muster.

Which wasn't much.

Harris walked over and sat down beside him. Then, he did the worst thing Tim could imagine at that moment.

He put a comforting hand on Tim's back.

"It's rare that we make only progress, even with the best will in the world. You're still trying to suppress what you feel, thinking that it will have a different outcome, and I promise, Tim, that will only make it worse. Just take a breath, relax and let out how you're feeling."

Tim shook his head. He didn't think he could speak coherently.

"Tim, it's okay. It really is. Even if your behavior is a little disappointing, don't make the mistake of thinking that you yourself are a disappointment. That's not the case. You still think that you're guilty and that's not true, but I understand why you feel that way. You're not a failure, and you don't deserve to suffer."

"Yes, I do!" Tim gasped out.

"No, you don't," Harris said, his voice calm and soothing.

Tim wanted to keep being angry and annoyed, but he couldn't in the face of Harris' calm.

"Y-Yes," Tim said.

"No. You don't deserve how you feel. You have to work through it, but you can't if you hold everything inside. That's why you keep feeling like everything is too much. You make it that way instead of letting yourself deal with it gradually. It's okay that you're slow learning this lesson. It's okay that you're struggling to believe it. We're happy to keep reminding you."

The comforting hand was still there and Tim really didn't want to give into it, but even just over the last couple of weeks, he'd started to heal a bit and he wasn't as far down as he used to be.

Tim still held back his tears, but it was getting harder.

"I can't believe it," Tim whispered.

"Not yet, but you will if you keep trying," Harris said. "And if you let us help."

There was a long silence, and then, Harris said the one thing that could break through Tim's resolve at that moment.

"Tim, you're a good person. You deserve to be happy again."

And that did it. Tim started to cry, even though he really didn't want to. He didn't want to be crying so often.

The hand on his back became a gentle arm around his shoulders.

"Tim, you're a good person. There's nothing wrong with crying. Just let it out."

"I want it to never have happened," Tim said through his tears.

"Of course you do. It was a terrible thing, something everyone wishes hadn't happened But you're still a good person. Let out how you feel."

Tim kept crying for a long time.