Sorry for the huge delays again. We've just been flooded out for the fourth time this year now (lucky it was minor this time) and as a result of the dampness and stagnant water smell my daughter ended up back in hospital unwell again. (Sixth admission since Christmas 2021)
Hopefully she's finally getting stronger and that was the last we've seen of hospitals for a while.
In turn; without hospital stays, I can update more frequently and finish up some more of my in progress works before I can continue posting some of wonderful new work.
As soon as Tim had the door unlocked to the McGee Family beach house, Tim and Kelly skipped a quick tour in favour of the beach and the two of them quickly changed into their swimsuits and headed out on to the patio, past the alfresco area, through the gate and onto the beach. Since it was the middle of the day and school was now back in session, the beach was mostly empty. Kelly and Tim set their towels down and opted to go for a walk along the waters edge before swimming.
Kelly loved the pristine white sand that seemed to go on for ages before it met the water and the occasional pebble or piece of driftwood that had washed ashore. The waves were rolling in with the afternoon tide and she was happily having a splash and a relax with Tim in the blue waters of Norfolk beach.
Tim called an early end to their splashing when the tide was almost to where they had left their towels. Tim took Kelly's hand and lead her back up the beach, into the gate of Penny's backyard and onto the alfresco area, where they sat with some cool drinks that Tim had retrieved from an outdoor fridge on the patio.
"This place is amazing, Tim." Kelly gushed as she watched the water roll in on the sand.
"I loved spending summers here with Penny." Tim told her with a whimsical smile. "Let me give you a tour." Tim said, taking Kelly's hand as he lead her through the house.
The house was a Hampton inspired house in décor with a mix of French provincial inspiration for a good balance. It was spread out over two levels, plus a dorm room in the finished attic. The ground floor consisted of a huge open plan living with a wide open galley kitchen, an informal dining room that could seat ten people, a large living room, with deep cream plush sofas, a coffee table and end tables with huge glass lamps and floorboards from wall to wall. The folding glass doors that spanned the whole width of the back of the house opened up to an alfresco area with an automated louvre roof, a decent sized outdoor dining area, grill, sub zero fridge and freezer combo and a huge outdoor lounge room with weatherproof timber furniture and a path and gate that lead you onto the sandy beachfront. The front entrance of the home was surrounded by twenty foot tall trees and a stoned u shaped driveway with a small double garage off to the side of the house and three carports together, separated from the house to the right.
On the opposite side of the garage and carport was a side gate that lead up to the pool house. The pool house was actually a type of outhouse, which had been converted into office space. Penny called it her she-shed after Tim's Grandpa Nelson died for many years, until both Tim and Sarah requested a piece of the office for themselves. In those days, it more resembled the bullpen with Sarah, Tim and Penny having partitions and dividers, however once Tim went to FLETC the pool house underwent a heavy remodel and now each had their own private, soundproofed, lockable office in there. Tim had endured that the pool house had heating and cooling, as well as a half-bath. It also had a drop down hatch in the foyer, with a narrow, steep staircase that lead into the basement and up into the main house.
Towards the rear of the yard was a climate controlled salt water pool and hot tub, that had a louvred roof and climate controlled walls that could automatically close in at the touch of a button. Which was beside the huge outdoor lounge room. Inside the front door of the home, there was a foyer and a hallway that lead to the open planned area. There was a single room off to the right, which was huge, it was a formal dining room, capable of seating thirty people. It had an additional door which lead to the back of the galley kitchen. On the opposite side of the hallway, just as the hallway met the huge open plan living area, was small guest half-bath and a small utility room with a staircase that lead down to the basement. Downstairs in the basement, Penny and Nelson, Tim's McGee grandparents had fully decked out the basement with oversized chairs, recliners a small tv/DVD in one, radio, with every board game imaginable and bedding. A small kitchenette, a fridge, loads of canned goods, a basic pantry with long-life staples and a full bathroom with a shower/tub combo.
When Tim was fourteen, he'd wired the entire basement to run off a solar powered battery at the flick of a switch. After a huge electrical storm knocked out the power, Tim had thought it was best. Eventually, he planned to be able to have the whole house off grid in the summertime and by the time he was seventeen he had achieved that. The year he was living here, when he was stationed at Norfolk as a case agent, they'd had a massive storm, a hurricane and along with it a king tide and storm surge. Penny was here at the time too, luckily and although it didn't reach anywhere near the house and many properties nearby experienced flash flooding. The McGee home didn't flood, nor did the five neighbours on one side and the nine neighbours on the opposite side of street. Penny had commented afterwards with old Doc Jones next door that it was the worst storm surge she'd seen since her and Nelson were married in the mid fifties. Old Doc Jones was at least ten years older than Penny and had lived in his home since he was a small boy and he'd never seen the water come up as high as it did that day, yet their homes were still safe.
Upstairs was the utility room with a washer drier combo and huge linen and storage cupboards, as well as a built in chute from the dormer in the attic. There was six bedrooms, three bathrooms including a master suite. The master suite was bigger than the more than generous bedrooms. It had an extra large walk in robes, with his and her storage on either side and a door which lead to a beautiful, marbled full ensuite bathroom with a full sized shower, double vanity and a spa more bath large enough for two adults, with some room to spare. The other bedrooms weren't as luxurious, but each very generous in floor space and each had a queen or king bed, bedside tables and a bureau. Floor to ceiling windows with a view of the water and automatic roller shutters on the outside and roller block out blinds on the inside. With the whole house having reverse cycle ducting heating and ducted cooling, which could be zoned off into sections if the house wasn't full of people.
There was a smaller staircase that lead to the dorm room upstairs. Which had four sets of bunk beds, two twin beds and a queen bed, which lead to a smaller bathroom with three privacy stalls of toilets and on the opposite side was three privacy stalled showers. As well as a triple vanity that sat under a mirrored wall.
"So which room is ours?" Kelly asked, as they let themselves back inside the house. The sky had darkened and the clouds were a very dark grey, as they rolled in off the bay. They could see a storm out at sea, but it seemed to be heading further out to sea, rather than coming into the shore.
"The master, sweetheart." Tim answered her. "When I turned thirteen, I had to move into the Californian King Bed and Penny knew one wouldn't fit in my room, so she happily traded rooms with me."
"Dad would love this." Kelly added, "Not the house itself, bit what you've done to it."
"I actually thought about asking Ducky, Gibbs, Jack, Tony, Ziva, Jimmy, Breena and little Victoria here for a weekend together, maybe the Director too. Like a little graduation party, but I'd like Penny and Sarah to be here too." Tim commented, as they entered Tim's room and began unpacking their clothes and changing into sweats.
"Let's do it, this weekend." Kelly said excitedly, she was looking forward to it.
"Not this weekend, Kell." Tim replied, "Not while Abby is in hospital, that would be inappropriate. They all might be part of my support system, but they're all she has too. I won't be the bad guy, Kells. That's not me."
Ziva sprang upright in her bed, bolted was more like it. She was throwing on the nearest set of clothes as her apartment walls were still shaking. After finally beginning to start sleeping soundly through the night in the US, it was something she never thought she'd hear again. She grabbed her cell off the nightstand and headed to her living area to grab her joggers. As she grabbed a jacket, she thought to grab her federal agent badge and her sig.
For the first time in a long time, old fears started rising within her. The fears of whether or not her friends, her family here had been killed as they slept. Pulling out her cell, she started with Tony. Calling Tony at 0233 in the morning, as the call connected she breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank god, you're ok." She said, not allowing him his usual greeting of hello.
"Geez Ziva. It was only an earthquake, sometimes they happen." Tony explained away, assuming it was an earthquake that had provided the early morning wake up call.
"I have lived through many different things Tony, earthquakes included. That was not an earthquake, it may have felt like it to you. But not too me, that was an explosion." Ziva informed him down the phone line. "I am leaving my apartment on foot. I am armed, I shall update you when I know more."
Tony missed most of Ziva's plans due to the noise of the sirens roaring down her street. They were flooding in from all directions. Police departments , Fire departments , ambulances. "Stay there Zee, I'm coming." But she didn't hear him over the sirens.
Tony made a quick call to his boss, hoping Ziva was wrong. Only to find he and Ducky were on route too, having recognised the noise and felt the vibrations from the blast, all the way from Alexandria.
Gibbs called Jen, only to find her cell phone was engaged, he tried again to no avail. He called Carmichael, who was the lead agent of the Director's security team. He accounted for her whereabouts; she was on the phone with SecNav getting a briefing as she headed to into the Navy Yard.
Ziva found the scene and crashed to her knees in sorrow at the sadly familiar sight. Where once stood a ten floor apartment complex, half had been torn away. There was fires, sparks and water leaking, the building was burning thick arid smoke. There were some spot fires nearby, the firefighters were quickly taking care of them. There were bodies and parts of bodies burning. She recognised the building and her heart sank.
Tony finally located her, through the masse of emergency services. A young deputy from the Silver Spring PD tried ushering them back until Ziva shoved her badge in the young man's face. "Our colleague lives in that building!" She shouted at him.
"That's Tim's apartment block?" Tony asked in surprise. He hadn't recognised the building as half of it was torn away. Something he'd seen overseas, but never seen happen on US soil. The whole morning felt surreal to him.
Gibbs and Ducky followed the sirens, it seemed to them all too eerie, knowing that this must have been how Cartwright, Wazniackni, Strumpter and Collins must have felt following the emergency services in to New York from the Rhode Island office that fateful day in September 2001.
Ducky naively prayed that there was warning and that many people had escaped the blast, wherever it was. But he knew the likelihood of that was very little, given the time of night. They finally stopped on a familiar street and Ducky winced. "This is our Timothy's street." Ducky announced and it was Gibbs' turn to shudder.
Gibbs had only been to McGee's apartment a handful of times. He had never needed to visit; Tim always had his head screwed on right, always did all his work. Gibbs worried less about him than he did the others. Not because he didn't care, but because Tim was a self-sufficient and self-reliant man. He took care of things himself. Ducky grabbed Gibbs' arm and lead him over to where he found Ziva and Tony were standing, under a tree. "Ziva?" Gibbs asked, touching her arm and bringing her back to the present.
"Gibbs!" She said, relieved as she flung her arms around him gently.
"Shh, it's ok." Gibbs murmured to her. He knew why Ziva was feeling the way she felt. This explosion must have torn up some old traumatic memories, too many memories of her childhood and the Hamas rockets that were fired on civilians.
"It's Tim's place, boss." Tony confirmed to him, keeping his voice low. Now they were allowed beyond the barrier, thanks to an eagle eyed Sergeant who recognised Tony and Ziva as NCIS he'd worked with before.
"They're ok, Tony." Gibbs told him as he released Ziva. "Kelly sent me a text last night, they arrived safely and had swam and were grabbing a late dinner. That was about 2100."
"Jethro?" Ducky took hold of his attention. "Our services will be needed here. Jennifer has just called and is having Balboa and Callahan are bringing the truck and she has called Palmer to bring my van. The FBI have been called in to take control of the investigation. I confirmed to her that it was Timothy's building, the FBI are going to share the case. I assured her that Kelly and Timothy were safe."
"Duck, does she want Tim recalled?" Gibbs asked and Tony raised his eyebrows at the use of Tim's first name, he'd never get used of that.
"No, it was his home and he is supposed to be relaxing. If he is needed here, then she will personally recall him." Ducky sighed, already knowing it was a futile effort. That as soon as he heard about the explosion he would return.
"Ducky, that is not Tim." Tony argued. "He's going to demand to help."
Gibbs laughed a little chuckle, then grew to a full belied laugh. Tony, Ziva and Ducky looked at him like he was crazy. "Tim was going to announce the news when they returned. He's not on our team anymore. He's been promoted to SFA on Balboa's team. It's Matt's job to deal with the stubbornness of Timothy McGee." Soon enough, the trio were laughing with Gibbs. Tim's stubbornness was infamous within team Gibbs, only rivalling Gibbs' himself.
"Someone should warn Balboa." Tony retorted, to only set off another round of giggles before Gibbs reined them in.
"Let's go. Fornell has arrived and our truck's are pulling in too." Gibbs announced and the three of them headed over to the NCIS crew to brief Balboa and Callahan before getting to work. Gibbs headed over to his good friend Tobias. "What have we got, Tobias?" He asked as he approached the FBI agent.
A creak, crunch and slamming noise was heard before the remaining section of the building plummeted to the ground into a piled heap. The ground shook on impact. The first responders, emergency services and federal agents ducked on instinct and braced themselves. A huge plume of dust covered the entire area, the surrounding complexes right down Hopkins street and into neighbouring streets.
Tony had Ziva and Ducky under him, face down on the ground. Gibbs had Fornell and Sacks under him, his weight holding them into the ground. Both Tony and Gibbs had their hands on the back of their head, protecting themselves from any debris, on instinct. "Everyone ok?" Gibbs called out. "Report in." He couldn't hear anything, his ears were ringing.
"We're fine, Gibbs." Ziva panted out as a Tony got off her and Ducky. Ducky immediately heading to Gibbs' side to assess him.
Balboa and Callahan had began to liaise with the fire and rescue department and the local LEO's to determine what was the cause of the explosion. "Tobias, time to call in the Marines." Gibbs told him. "There's a lot of rubble to sort through. We need to shift from what happened, to rescue mode. We can focus on what happened later."
"Make the call, Gibbs." Fornell directed. "As the USMC answers to NCIS, I'll have my Director inform yours that NCIS now have the lead."
"It'll be us, Tobias. Not only do the USMC answer to us. Agent McGee lives here." Gibbs told him.
"Shit!" Tobias Fornell swore. His gut sank, he thought a lot of Agent McGee. He was a good kid, sure he'd given the agent a hard time in the past and more recently about Kelly. But Agent McGee was a good agent, he was talented and resourceful. Smart as hell and dedicated to his job. "I'm so sorry Jethro. McGee was a good guy, I know you liked him and thought of him as family, I did too."
"Well be sure to tell him when he gets back." Gibbs grinned. "He and Kelly are away at Norfolk beach. I have no doubt as soon as he hears, they'll be coming straight back here. We're lucky all we lost is McGee's home."
Somewhere through the night, Tim awoke with a start and could work out why. He looked over at the alarm clock beside his bed. 0229 and he couldn't believe as exhausted as he was waking up, but something had woken him. He manoeuvred himself away from a naked, sleeping Kelly as he slipped on his shorts and a tee. Walking through the family beach house, he checked windows and doors as he went, checking closets and doors. Everything seemed fine, but he couldn't dismiss the awful feeling in his gut.
He knew it was too early to call anyone from NCIS. They'd all be sleeping soundly. He turned on the coffee maker, the pain in the pit of his stomach not subsiding enough to allow him to go back to sleep. He made his coffee and opened one of the bifold doors that lead to the back patio and looked out over the sea. Soft waves crashed into the shoreline and normally that would calm him, but it only intensified his worry.
The noise of movement in the house, startling his deep thoughts and had him moving back inside. He had lost track of time, his coffee had gone cold with only a few sips taken from the previously steaming hot mug. "Babe, is everything ok?" Kelly asked, taking a glass of water.
"Something is wrong." Tim resigned sadly. "My gut instinct is telling me that we need to return home."
"We could call someone to check things." Kelly offered. "Dad, maybe? Or Uncle Duck?"
"It's too early to call someone, Kell." Tim told her. "I won't wake someone up just to find out nothing's wrong, or worse, I'm being paranoid."
"You're like my Dad, it's hard to get his brain to switch off work too." Kelly compared the two, which Tim gave her a small smile. Tim had actually known that he and Gibbs shared that quality with one another. "Let me call Dad, it's almost five and he'll be up."
A shrill ringing of the cell phone didn't allow any decision to be made. Kelly knew that a ringing cell phone in the dark hours was never good news. "Agent McGee." Tim answered on autopilot.
"Agent McGee, please hold for Director Shepard." Cynthia, Jenny's PA's voice floated through the early morning's phone line.
"McGee?" The Director's voice enquired. "Thank you for holding a moment. I was just finishing up a priority call in MTAC. How is your vacation going?"
"Madam Director, I highly doubt that you've called me before 5am to see how our vacation is going when I haven't even been gone twenty-four hours." Tim told her straight up. "Besides, my gut has been going crazy since just before half two this morning. Give it to me straight up."
"That's what I like about you, McGee." Jen chuckled at him. "There's been an explosion in Maryland. In Silver Spring, Maryland. The media have had a blanket ban put on them by the president but that's not going to hold for too long. The shockwaves were felt as far South as Fredericksburg, Virginia and as far North as Baltimore."
"W..where in Silver spring Ma'am?" Tim asked directly, his gut had sank when he heard explosion in Silver Spring.
"Tim, it's me." Gibbs voice came into the conversation. "Sorry Tim, it was your apartment complex."
"Is there any survivors?" Tim asked, sinking into the sofa behind him. "I mean, besides me. Since I'm in Norfolk, not at home."
"We are still going through the rubble. The Marines are helping." Gibbs explained softly. "Does that Petty Officer still live on the 9th floor?"
"Yeah, Eric. Why?" He asked.
"We need a USMC or US naval connection to retain control of the investigation. The fact you live there isn't enough in the eyes of the FBI." Gibbs explained, speaking over Jen.
"A Staff Sergeant moved in, on the third floor, apartment 3E. Last Saturday morning, we spoke in the hallway." Tim told Gibbs. "He was a stationed at the Navy Yard, due to report for duty this coming Monday morning. He had transferred in from Camp Lejuene, North Carolina. His wife and son were due to arrive tomorrow. I didn't catch a name, but he recognised my badge as NCIS. That's how we got talking. Told me he liked that an agent lived in the building. Knew its make his wife feel safe too when he went on his next deployment."
"That's good Tim," Jenny agreed. "Thank you. I want you to finish your vacation. You need to go dark and relax."
"How dark would you like Ma'am?" Tim automatically asked. He wasn't liking the idea of having to go dark without back up close by.
"Tim, pack your stuff and come home." Gibbs said, softly. "Don't call anyone or tell anyone. Recline your seat in the Boxster. Let Kelly drive, avoid the tollways and traffic cameras and meet me at my place. You can stay with us. I'd prefer you went dark where you have back up close by. Back up, I trust. This could be a deliberate attack against you, against us. We can't rule anything out yet. "
"I'm praying it was an accident." Tim said to Gibbs softly. "I've got a burn phone in my car, I'll text you from it when we leave."
"Me too, Tim. Text me updates as you come home." Gibbs said. "Use our codes. Check in every thirty minutes, if you miss a check in, we will assume you're the next target." Gibbs told him. "Semper Fi."
"Three hours, your basement." Tim told him, confirming their destination and the fact they planned to be on the road in a matter of minutes.
"Three hours Tim, I'll be there, waiting." Gibbs confirmed the plan, disconnecting the call.
Kelly took Tim's hand and Tim pulled Kelly close. "We need to make a move now, get back to DC avoiding any tolls and cameras. You have to drive, I know some back roads to avoid the main toll ways and traffic cameras."
"Are you going to be ok to make the drive. You're tired Tim." Kelly reminded him, worried that he hadn't really had much down time.
"Trust me, I'll be fine. I'm really wired." He told her as they readied the house to be locked up tight whilst no one was there. "We need to stick together as we make our way through the house, pack up everything as we go."
"What's going on Tim?" Kelly asked, point blank.
"I can't tell you yet." Tim sighed. "There's a black out, but it's bad. As soon as I can, I'll tell you. We've got orders to get back to yours, let's move."
Tim readied the kitchen immediately, switching off the coffee maker at the wall. He lowered all the window shutters and the bi-fold door shutters. They went upstairs together and into the bedroom, quickly throwing on a clean set of clothes, shutting everything up as they went. They hadn't been into the office or basement, but Tim and Kelly double checked everything, before hitting the alarm code and were pulling out of the driveway in under seven minutes, beginning their return journey to Alexandria.