Love has no desire but to fulfill itself. -- Kahlil Gibran

Chapter Two

Tim gleefully shared the news of his book contract with his coworkers. More than a little curious about what a geek would have to say in a novel, they pounced on the galleys when they came out. It was a sweet little book; full of homilies and pratfalls. Cop Father was despairing as son number one outran him in the house while son number two was primed for eating, crying and growing like a weed. Beatific Mom watched over the chaos with a serene smile. The publisher had already called to say that advance orders were through the roof! Women in particular adored cozy novels like this. Although the book would be published under a pen name—this editor historically suggested his writers reverse their initials, and so Tim McGee became Magnus Trotsky—the editor suggested that Tim get an unlisted phone number. Fans could be too adoring. Tony and Ziva, neither of them parents, read the galleys and laughed, but not cruelly; Gibbs was seen to read, without comment, but with a smile.

There were bits of Tim in the Cop Father character, to be sure, but only traces of Erin in Mom. The babies were just wild, overly-intelligent, fun-loving babies who could be anyone's kids. It was easy to like a book when you weren't connected to the characters.

Abby was one of the last to read a galley, and she started out with misgivings. While she knew that Tim was more than willing to have Cop Father be the brunt of the jokes, she wondered about Mom. The character was almost too good to be true. Yes, Tim had put Abby on a pedestal while they were dating, but she had chalked that up to Midwestern gallantry. Did he really still do that with Erin? Abby didn't know, for their paths rarely crossed.

- - - - -

Sarah, Tim's kid sister, was now enrolled at a prestigious university in England where she was thriving: head of her class, and a social animal to boot. She still intended to major in English lit, but so many side subjects were drawing her attention: drama, art, political science, history. She had a rich boyfriend, she said, and kept genuinely busy—too busy to come home even on Christmas break. Tim and his parents worried, and hoped this was just a teenage thing.

But she had had little contact with Tim since his wedding. He emailed frequently; she answered perhaps one email in ten, then one in twenty. Eventually Tim stopped emailing her so frequently, although he did sometimes send her photos of the boys. She didn't acknowledge the photos.

Near the end of her first year, Tim's mother called him to say that Sarah and her boyfriend, whose name was only given as Hiram, had quit university and had gone to Africa to help refugees. "Do you want me to go there and knock, er, talk some sense into her?" Tim asked, while figuring the bank account in his head. Do we have enough for a plane ticket for me?

He sensed Cleo hesitating before she answered. "Thanks, dear, but no. We're going to wait a week or two and then your father will go. She's always listened to him. Almost always."

Tim blushed, and was glad that his mother couldn't see that. Sarah had always listened to Tim…if she wanted to. She had a wild side; something no one would ever accuse him of having. "Did she say why she's given up her comfortable life?"

"It sounded all jumbled and coerced, Tim. Rambling about too many babies in the world; not enough birth control; not enough food; too great a spread between the rich and the poor. She and Hiram were going to alleviate that."

"He's rich. Why doesn't he just write a check?!"

Tim talked this over later with Erin. "Maybe she feels guilty, Tim," Erin said. "She came from a good, sheltered life. She's learning that the sun doesn't revolve around her. If she's helping babies…" She put Neil down in the crib. "…maybe she now regrets that she hasn't gotten to know Scott and Neil better."

"She hasn't gotten to know them at all," Tim said sourly. "She's never come to see them."

"Well, she doesn't know what she's missing. Or maybe she does, now, and doesn't know how to get back into her family's arms."

"Maybe," said Tim, but he sounded unconvinced.

Tim's father, Kale, went to Africa and came back, shaking his head. "I think she's safe, and her Hiram seems to be all right, if a bit of a dreamer. Apparently his family dotes on him and just wants to see him happy. They send him money periodically, no matter what cause he's involved in. We'll just have to give her space, and keep telling her we love her."

- - - - -

By the time The Cop Father hit the stands, its advance orders had already nudged it in the direction of the best-seller lists. Tim's editor had sent him a contract for a second book, with an even larger advance. Tim aged the book's "boys" slightly, and the little imaginary family was off and happily chaos-making again.

But despite his moderate writing success, and his happy family life, his home life wasn't enough. He embraced his job as a special agent: it was exciting and had a purpose. "Anyone can father a child. This is where I feel useful," Tim said one day at NCIS, in an unmindful moment.

Gibbs gave him a cold look. "Fathering a child is easy. Being a father—that takes work."

Tim grimaced and turned away. Yes, Gibbs was right. But still, in the years before he married, his job as a special agent had offered plenty of fulfillment. Erin understood, or said she understood, the occasional late hours he had to put in. And he did love his wife and sons. But it was at work where the great challenges of the day came; the variety, the black humor, the grit, the danger, the thrills. Sometimes weekends at home were hard to take. With Scott two now, he felt his old, bachelor days were swiftly fading into the past. He rarely took a sick day; NCIS was just too much a part of his life, too much an intoxicant, for him to stay away.

Nonetheless, rosy days don't last forever. Tim entered a period of faint dissatisfaction at work. The Director was becoming obsessed in her hunt for the criminal, Le Grenouille, and this showed in her temper. The number of new cases dipped for awhile, and the cold cases they worked on ranged from the merely dreary to the impossible.

Two cases nagged at Tim and wouldn't let him go: One, a case with a young female Marine found strangled four years ago, and the killer never identified; the second, a retired petty officer who was shot to death in the same year. Tim had a gut feeling that the two cases were connected, but there seemed to be nothing to link them. He followed leads into dead ends; new leads into more dead ends. Then the team got new cases, and the cold cases were put back in the vault for awhile, to be brought out again in the next slow period.

- - - - -

Time passed. His team continued to delight in seeing Erin and the boys when she brought them by NCIS; Tim was always an appropriately-proud papa. Neil liked to demonstrate how well he could crawl around the desks; Scott, now 3 and adventurous, once made it into the elevator by himself when no one was looking. Abby had summoned the elevator, and was surprised when the doors opened to find a pint-sized McGeester grinning up at her. He bolted past her and took refuge in the lab, where, despite her initial misgivings, they had a good time playing hide-and-go-seek until she decided to call upstairs.

She was holding him and smiling when Tim and Erin raced out of the elevator for him. "Mommy, you should get a spiderweb on your neck like she gots," Scott said cheerfully.

Erin turned gray. "Oh, I really don't think so, dear," she said, while Tim stifled a laugh and Abby winked at him. At last, there might be a slight thaw in the Abby-Tim relationship.

Though the McGees often entertained Tim's coworkers at home, Abby had never come. She was always invited by Tim, but always had an excuse. Suddenly, one Friday night she came, brought over by Ducky. She was nervous around Erin and didn't meet her eyes often, and mostly sat by herself, quietly. But when Scott made a typical toddler's appearance requesting a glass of water, it was Abby who got up to get it, and to sit with him in the kitchen, talking, while he drank it, stalled some more, and asked for another glass of water.

Abby would have gotten him one, but Ziva came in then and shooed him back to bed. "Have him drink a lot and he may not make it to the bathroom in time," she scolded Abby lightly.

"Oh. I didn't think of that," said Abby, flushing.

"It is no, uh, big deal," said Ziva. "It is just one of the things you learn about small children. Come, I told Erin I would see Scott back to bed."

Wordlessly, Abby followed Ziva and Scott to his bedroom on the second floor. She knew that Ziva often babysat for the McGees, and that she loved children. Abby had always thought she herself had no maternal instincts; that she was incapable of caring for anything more complicated than a puppy. But Scott's sweetness and curiosity touched something in her. Tim, certainly, seemed to have the most fulfilling life of anyone she knew. He's earned it, she thought, watching while Ziva tucked Scott in and gave him a good-night kiss. Ew! Kiss a face that's probably all little-boy sticky?? Ziva, though, didn't seem to notice, and Scott clearly adored her.

- - - - -

The phone rang one evening at the McGees'. It was Tim's mother. Sarah had phoned them from New York; she was waiting for her connection to Chicago and then on to Fargo. It seemed she and Hiram had been thrown out of their country in Africa; accused of baby-smuggling. Sarah insisted the charges were false, but appeared to be scared to death, Cleo McGee reported. Apparently Sarah would be in a jail back there now, as would Hiram, if Hiram's father hadn't made a large bribe.

"Was she smuggling babies out?" asked Tim. It sounded like one of Sarah's dream world schemes, if she thought this was for a noble cause.

"I don't know," Cleo sighed. "Maybe. Probably. We'll have to wait to see what she says when she gets here."

"I'll come out there," said Tim, and then added, "if she's willing to see me."

"Of course she'll want to see you!" said Cleo. "You're her brother!"

But Tim waited a week, then two, and finally admitted to himself that Sarah wasn't going to call. He emailed his parents and asked them to tell Sarah that he wished her well. He wasn't going to email her himself. A month later, he heard that she'd cut her hair short, dyed it red, and was enrolling in a college at San Diego. She'd be studying world affairs with a minor in agriculture, and learning languages on the side. She was determined once again to save the world, but this time it would come once she'd finished her studies and grown up some. Tim smiled.

- - - - -

A lead actually blossomed on one of the cold cases one summer day. Unfortunately, it wasn't a pleasing blossom. An anonymous note arrived in the mail warning Tim to back off the case. Tests performed on the note were inconclusive, but at least the case was thawing. Or so Tim hoped.

He came home on a Friday night to the smell of a roast cooking. Delightful. As always, the first thing he did was empty the clip in his sig, and put both the gun and the ammunition in a drawer, which he locked. He had to take the gun home; this was a job requirement. But, having children at home, he didn't have to like it.

"You should go to Fargo," Erin said to him, without preamble.

Tim shook his head. "There's no point. Sarah hasn't said she wants to see me, and we can't afford it."

"I think we can," said Erin, who managed the household finances. "In fact, there's enough money for two. I think you should go and you should take Scott. Everyone who meets him falls in love with him. It might help you reconnect with her."

He kissed her. "I love you. Will you marry me?"

She laughed, and kissed him back. "Sorry. I'm already married."

"Mmmm. Lucky guy."

"Yes, he is."

"I'll talk to Gibbs tomorrow; see about getting some time off."

- - - - -

On the next day, Saturday, the team was scheduled to work starting at 1 p.m. in an odd experiment with the weekend schedule. Tim went in in the morning anyway to get some paperwork done. The plan was that Erin and the kids would join him for lunch, as would Ziva, Tony & Gibbs.

The new Italian restaurant on M Street at 7th was a hit. The kids gorged on spaghetti while the adults ate more refined foods, laughed, and swapped tall tales. Eventually, though, it was time to get back to work, and for Erin to take the boys home for naps.

As usual, Erin was parked in the large open lot next to the river in the Navy Yard. Because she still worked for the Department of Defense, the DOD sticker on her car allowed her in with the most minimal of inspections. She bundled the boys into their car seats, kissed Tim and waved goodbye to everyone. The others turned back for NCIS; they had only about two minutes to get to work on time.

Erin started her car, and the force of the blast threw Tim and the others to the ground. The car was a fireball.

"No! No! No! No! NO!!" Tim struggled, but Tony and Ziva held him back.

"McGee! You can't do anything!!" said Gibbs.

He could only do what the others were doing: cry.