Tim was sitting out on the back porch of their new house. Now that Nick had deemed the area safe for the moment, they could leave the house without having to worry constantly getting shot. Shannon had insisted that they still use caution though. She said to take a gun everywhere for at least a little while. Yes, the knife rule had temporarily been replaced by the gun rule.

Tim soon heard the door open. He turned around expecting to see Kelly or Shannon, but unfortunately, it was neither of them. He'd come face to face with Gibb. "Hey, Boss."

"McGee," Gibbs greeted before sitting down next to the young agent.

Tim shifted a bit uncomfortably. This was the first time he'd been alone with the man since the big blow out they'd had a couple of days earlier. They'd affectively avoided each other for the most part.

"Been a strange few days," Gibbs said after a minute. He'd said it to break the silence. He wasn't good at small talk, but he figured in this case it was the best option.

"Yeah. I never thought my wife would have people out there that hate her so much that they're never willing to kill me to get to her, or that I'd find out I was married to my Boss' daughter. It kinda throws rule thirty-nine out of the water, doesn't it?" Tim asked. If him ending up working for his wife's father wasn't a coincidence, he didn't know what was.

"Rule fifty-one," Gibbs said.

Tim looked at his boss in confusion. "Rule fifty-one? There's a rule fifty-one. I've never heard of a rule fifty-one." He thought he knew all the rules by now, but he'd never heard of fifty-one."

"That's because I just came up with it a few months ago and I wasn't all that keen on you all knowing it," Gibbs said. Knowing this particular rule might have his people questioning themselves, or worse, him.

Okay, now he needed to know what it was. "So what's rule fifty-one."

"Sometimes you're wrong," Gibbs told him.

Tim laughed. "No wonder you didn't want us to know it."

Gibbs nodded curtly.

There was silence between the two for a good two or three minute. Finally, Tim spoke. "If you're waiting for me to apologize, it's not gonna happen."

"When have I ever wanted an apology?" Gibbs asked.

"Right, sign of weakness. Well, it wouldn't matter if you did want one because you still wouldn't get it. I'm not sorry that I defended myself. You accused me of cheating on my wife, of treating her badly. I will never sit back and take that," Tim said firmly.

"You've never talked to me like that before," Gibb said.

"Yeah, well, you never questioned my integrity before either. Question me at work all you want, but don't question my loyalty or love for my wife.

"You know every time you call her that I wanna take out my gun and shoot you, right?" Gibbs asked. It was a principle thing. He didn't like his daughter being referred to as anyone's wife.

"Yeah, I know. I knew you would feel that way the moment I found out that my wife and your daughter were the same person. It had me a nervous wreck, that is until you accused me of cheating on her," Tim said. Something inside him had snapped at that moment. He was too angry and outraged by it to be afraid.

"Well, maybe I shouldn't have said that," Gibbs said. It was about as close to an apology as he offered to anyone. He'd given it some thought over the last few days and he realized that Shannon had been right. He'd been looking for a reason to see something wrong with McGee in regards to Kelly. He wanted a reason to be angry.

"You think? You know, you were on my side until you realized who Kelly really was. You didn't even want me to come to them," Tim reminded him.

"I didn't know the truth. All I knew was that we were following a stranger who put a gun to your head only to meet others that I thought were strangers to me. If I had known you had been talking to Shannon when you took that call…"

"You would've ripped the phone from my hands to talk to her yourself," Tim said with a knowing smirk. He knew that because he would do the same. If he thought Kelly was on the phone with someone else, he would've grabbed the phone too.

"Well, yeah. The point is I wouldn't have argued and I wouldn't have been so quick to judge them," Gibbs said.

Tim laughed humorlessly. He was getting a bit angry again. "Is that how you see it? That I'm judging them?"

"McGee…"

"No. You know, maybe I am judging them, but I think I have a right to! I'd like to see how you'd react to your wife leaving you in the middle of the night and waking up to nothing but a letter telling you that she was never coming back!" Tim yelled.

The back door suddenly flew open and Shannon was in the doorway. "What's going on here?"

Gibbs turned to his wife. "Shannon, it's okay. We're just talking."

Shannon put a hand on her hip and glared at her husband. "Really, Jethro? Then why is my son yelling?"

"He misunderstood," Gibbs said. He could understand why McGee misunderstood with the way he'd said it, but he really wasn't judging the younger man.

"Shannon raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"Really, we're fine. Would you just give us a few minutes? We'll be in in a few minutes and you can kill me personally if he's not in perfect condition," Gibbs said with a smirk.

"Don't think I won't," Shannon said with a small smirk of her own before walking back inside.

Tim's anger dropped a little and he had a hard time keeping the smile from his lips at what his boss just went through.

Gibbs saw the look. Usually this was where he'd stare his agent down and maybe give him a head slap, but instead, he decided to go in a different direction. He gave Tim a smile of his own. "Go ahead and laugh. I guarantee this will be you in twenty to thirty years."

Tim laughed a little and then turned serious once more. "So I misunderstood?"

Gibbs nodded. "Didn't mean to make it sound like I was judging you. Alright, well, I guess I did judge you when I first found out who Shannon and Kelly were and realized how angry you really were. I tried to say you didn't have the right to be angry because hearing you talk to my wife and daughter like they did something wrong and seeing you glare at them was a bit much for me."

"They did do something wrong," Tim said.

"I'm not exactly objective, McGee. That was what I meant when I said what I did earlier. I would've had a different opinion from the get go if I'd had all the facts because they are my family and I wouldn't be able to see the situation the same," Gibbs explained.

"Well, I guess that makes sense," Tim said. If he and Gibbs were to swap positions, he couldn't honestly say that he wouldn't feel the same. It was why he felt that Gibbs couldn't possibly understand his position.

"I shouldn't have attacked you the way I did. Look, Shannon said that the reason I was so pissed was that I still see Kelly as the little girl I lost and she's not exactly wrong. It's hard to see my daughter with anyone, even someone like you," Gibbs said. As much as he didn't want to admit it right now, Tim was a good man. He knew that and he knew that he would never set out to hurt Kelly. Right now, he wished Tim was a bad guy. It would make it much easier to hate him.

Tim looked at his boss in shock. He was pretty sure the man complimented him at the end there. It wasn't a very straightforward compliment, but it was there nonetheless. "I… Thank you, Boss."

"Don't take that to mean I'm suddenly okay with this. No one is ever going to be good enough for my daughter. You're no exception to that. But I suppose it could be worse."

Tim laughed. "I guess that's as good as I'm going to get."

"Yup."

Things were quiet for a few more moments until Tim once again broke it. "This is it, isn't it, Boss? We're not going back, are we?"

Gibbs sighed. "I don't intend to give up trying to find a way to end this, but from this point, I don't see it happening. I don't see how we can go back."

Tim shrugged after a moment. "I'm okay with that for the most part actually. It's not exactly the ideal life, but if it means I can be with my family, so be it. Hell, don't tell Shannon I said this, but if it led to this, I'm glad for that day in Mexico when Abby and I encountered Paloma Reynosa."

"You wanna get slapped?!" A gruff female voice said from inside.

Tim sighed. He really should've known Shannon would hear him. Like Gibbs, she always seemed to hear what people didn't want her to hear. "Boss, did you teach her to do that?"

Gibbs just smirked. He wouldn't admit it to McGee, but it was actually Shannon that taught him to sneak up on people and surprise them with what he could see and hear when they didn't want him too.

"Try the other way around!" Shannon's voice rang out again.

Well, Gibbs wouldn't admit it, but apparently Shannon had no problem doing it. "Come on, let's go inside," he said before standing up.

Tim got up as well and followed Gibbs inside.