Chapter 12

Three weeks later...

"Thirty more seconds, Tim. You can do it."

Tim kept at it, even as he was feeling on the verge of collapse.

"Can't."

"Yes, you can. Fifteen more seconds. You're almost there! Ten seconds. Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one! Stop."

The timer went off and Tim gladly stopped, although part of him wanted to keep going, wanted to bully his body back to normal functioning, but he knew that was pretty much impossible.

"All right, take a rest and we'll get onto the next set in about five minutes."

"Okay," Tim said, breathing heavily. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling as his heart rate gradually slowed to normal levels.

He had never thought that it would be so easy to break his body down. But two weeks in a hospital bed had sure done that. His endurance was gone. His muscle was gone. His balance was way off kilter, and his collarbone was healing but still very weak. Which was why he was currently not getting the exercise he needed on that part of his body. His collarbone couldn't take it. The PT would help eventually, but so far, they'd had to be more conservative. Which meant his dominant hand was weak while he was exercising everything else. Everyone kept telling him it would come in time, but it wasn't enough that he had to wait. He needed to get better so that he could know what everyone else knew.

He knew everyone was keeping things from him about how the case was currently progressing, but at least, he knew that they still had no sign of Tony, living or dead. That was the most concerning thing to him, well that and the fact that there was apparently a lot of evidence saying that Tony had been to blame for what had happened. Tim still couldn't remember that night at all and Dr. Crittendon had said he likely never would because of his TBI. That meant he couldn't just clear Tony's name by explaining what had happened which really rankled. But he didn't even know what evidence there was that Tony was dirty. Just that they had it and they were trying to find some kind of hole in it and they weren't.

He thought back to the operation itself and what had begun it.

Ensign Miguel Reyes, a man he'd never even seen alive. He had contacted them, saying that he had evidence of a massive smuggling operation going on within the Navy, coming out of Norfolk. He'd been involved in it but his conscience had got the best of him. He said he had evidence but he wouldn't give it over the phone. He was afraid of being heard.

"Okay, this is where he said he'd be," Tony said. "I don't see anyone. Do you?"

Tim looked around the park and shook his head.

"No, I don't. This had better not be a joke," he said.

"Yeah, even if it's not right in Norfolk, we still had to drive all this way to meet with him."

"Maybe. What if it wasn't really him? They just used a name that was legitimate to get us here?"

"Yeah, that would suck, too. Okay, let's look around and see if there's anything."

Tim nodded.

"Stay in sight," he said.

"Yeah," Tony agreed.

They started to spread out across the park, but always keeping each other in view.

Then, Tim saw something in the bushes. He walked closer.

"Tony! Over here!"

He knelt down and lifted the branches. Tony leaned over to see.

A man in his Navy uniform.

Dead.

Initially, it had been ruled natural causes by the team at Norfolk, but the timing and location seemed far too suspicious. Supported by Reyes' family, Gibbs had insisted on a full autopsy to be conducted at headquarters and Ducky had found evidence that he had been killed by the so-called "gray death" drug. The dangerous combination of various opioids had been known to cause death by overdose just by handling it with bare hands. No natural death at all. So Gibbs had made the decision to send Tony and Tim undercover in Norfolk to see what they could find out about Reyes and about the smuggling he had claimed was happening.

"All right, Tim. Let's check your heart rate."

Startled out of his thoughts, Tim looked over at Ian, his physical therapist.

"It's not normal yet," he said.

"I wouldn't expect it to be," Ian said, with a smile. He checked Tim's pulse. "Yeah, you're still a little high. We'll wait for another minute or two before we start the next set. You want to sit up and get a drink?"

"Yeah."

Ian helped Tim sit up and then he took a drink. As he rested, his mind went back to the case and how irritated he'd been initially when they were setting up their undercover operation.

"Tony, I know you have more experience being undercover than I do, but come on. I'm not going to be able to leave our base at all?"

"Look, we can't have both of us out and about asking questions. That will be too suspicious. If we have one of us always at the base, we have a potential contact with backup. All the time."

"We already think we'll need to be getting into computer information. How are you going to manage that? You don't know how to do that stuff."

"That's why I'll take it and let you do the work. In the apartment."

Tim sighed. "Tony..."

"Hey, Gibbs put me in charge of this. It's my decision."

"Yeah, and you're in charge, but that doesn't mean autocratic ruler," Tim retorted. "We need to talk this out and if I don't understand why you're making the decisions you're making, I'm not going to be in the best position. And I don't. We're not going to be on base. We're going to be near the base and seeing how far this extends... if it goes anywhere at all. We could both be going about our lives and be listening at the same time. It doesn't need to be just you... unless there's something you're not telling me."

Tony sighed. Then, he looked around for a moment and gestured. Tim's brow furrowed but he stood and followed Tony out of the building and over by the Anacostia.

"What, Tony?"

"The more we're looking into this, the more I think it goes a lot higher than Ensign Reyes. He said it was big, but I think it's more than just big. It really stinks of someone high on the totem pole, and... I'm a little afraid of what we're going to find."

Tim raised an eyebrow. "You're thinking it's going to be political?"

"If that's all, we'll be lucky."

Tim looked out at the river and then back at the building.

"Tony... are you thinking that there are people in NCIS involved in it, too?"

"Maybe. There's a reason why Ensign Reyes called us and didn't report it to the NCIS people at Norfolk. He could have. It would have been confidential there. There's a reason why the preliminary cause of death was natural causes. It's not like the gray death is hard to detect. They could have found it themselves."

"Unless they're in on whatever this is."

"Yeah. Or it's so big that even confidential things aren't really confidential over there."

"Okay. So why not tell me that? Why beat around the bush?"

"I was going to once we were heading to Norfolk and I could be sure that there wasn't anyone listening in," Tony said. Then, he smiled a little although his expression was still serious. "I thought you might trust me enough to wait that long."

"I trust you, Tony," Tim said. "I just need you to trust me in turn. If we're doing this, if it's as serious as you say, then, we both need to trust each other. When we go under, we're not going to have any outside contact except for the messages we'll be sending once a month. And if I feel you're holding out on me, it's not going to make me feel that you're trusting me. It's more like you're stuck with me and making do with the dregs. Like you're going to do the important stuff so that I don't mess it up."

"That's not what it is."

"Good. Then, act like it. Trust me, and I'll do the same."

"Okay, Tim. Let's do the next set," Ian said, again pulling Tim out of his thoughts.

"The collarbone stuff?" he asked, trying to refocus on the present.

"Yep. I know you love it so much."

Tim smiled a little reluctantly and let Ian help him up and balance so that he could get working on his exercises. These things were necessary, but he hated them, and they were complicated by his other need for recovery. All in all, he hated all of this, and he hated even more that this was all he could do, that he couldn't be helping find Tony, helping to clear his name. Every time he tried to push a little beyond what Ian had told him to do, he was reined in very quickly. Tim resented it. He needed to get better and this pace seemed extremely slow. The more time that passed the harder it would be to fight against what was being said. He needed to get going on it.

"Tim, you're not even trying today and that's the polar opposite of what you usually do," Ian said. "What's up?"

"This is taking too long," Tim said. "I'm just sitting around doing this stuff and there's too much going on all around me. Too much that I can't do because I'm stuck here."

Ian helped him back to the bench and let him sit down.

"Tim, what you're doing is important. I know you're worried about all the stuff outside of your own health, but you can't do anything about it if you don't get yourself in hand first. How can you look for anyone if you're still getting those dizzy spells? How can you defend yourself if you can't use your dominant hand? How can you even do an effective computer search if you can't sit up for the lengthy periods required by that kind of work?"

Tim gave a long sigh and leaned back, resting his head against the wall.

"It was just the two of us out there. We were each other's only backup. For weeks, we could only rely on each other and no one else. We both knew it and we both knew that we had to deal with anything that happened on our own. There's no indication that I was pushed off that fire escape. So that means I fell, and now Tony's missing. The only way I can see it is that I dropped the ball and did something stupid. I didn't do my part. I wasn't able to be his backup and he's gone."

Ian put a hand on Tim's shoulder and gave him a gentle shake.

"No, Tim. What that means is that something went seriously wrong out there and the two of you needed more backup than you had. It doesn't mean you were to blame for it."

"But I'm here! I'm not missing. Tony is missing. Where's Tony?"

"Tim..." Ian's voice was very gentle. "Are you afraid he's dead?"

Instantly, Tim bristled. "No. He's not dead. We would have found him by now if he was dead. Tony's not dead. I don't know where he is or why he's not here, but he's not dead."

Tim felt a tightening in his throat. Over and over, he had tried to bring up memories of that day, but it was gone as if it had never happened. He had no memory of falling, no memory of an invasion, no memory of being attacked. Nothing. All he had was what came before it and what came after. Before that gap, Tony had been there. After that gap, Tony was gone.

"I can't remember what happened. I keep trying to remember it, but I can't remember. I'm failing Tony by not knowing what happened. If I knew..."

"Maybe nothing would be any different than it is now," Ian said, his voice soft and encouraging.

Tim leaned forward, resting his right elbow on his knee and then dropped his head onto his clenched fist. After a few seconds, he started hitting his forehead with his fist.

"Why can't I remember?" he asked through gritted teeth.

"Hey, stop." Ian grabbed Tim's wrist and stopped his motions. "Tim, you can't look at things like this. It's good to want to heal. It's good to want to recover your memory, but you're not a failure if you don't. It doesn't mean you did anything wrong back then."

Tim sat where he was and he felt the tightening increase until he was breathing irregularly, trying to control himself.

He felt Ian put his arm around his shoulders. He didn't squeeze tightly which Tim was glad of since that would hurt.

"Tim, it's okay if you're feeling overwhelmed. It's okay if you want to do better. ...and it's okay if you need to cry about it sometimes."

"There's no reason to cry," Tim said, although he could feel the tears starting to gather in his eyes. "None."

"Maybe there's not. Still doesn't mean you can't cry if you feel like you need to."

Tim tried to resist it. He didn't want to because that would be like saying he thought Tony was dead and he would not admit to that possibility, not until he saw Tony's body. He wouldn't accept the possibility even existed. He had been right that Tony was alive the last time they had thought he was dead. He was right this time, too. He wouldn't believe. So he didn't need to cry.

The silence extended and the tears wouldn't go away.

"Tim, it's okay. And I won't tell anyone if you don't want me to."

Tim laughed, but letting that much out led naturally to the tears he'd tried to stop.

He started to cry.