Chapter 5
Tony was waiting for Tim to wake up. He'd been sleeping for hours. They said that they'd been waking him up every so often to make sure that he could respond. They said there'd been no problems, but given Tim's repeated mentions of Kate, Tony wasn't about to leave until he saw Tim in his right mind.
Right on cue, Tim's eyes started lifting a little bit. He didn't look all that clear-headed, but it was good to see him trying.
"Probie? You in there?"
"Tony..."
"Good job. You got it right."
Tim's eyes opened a bit and looked at him. More confusion there than Tony would like to see, but better that Tim was actually looking at him.
"I hit a rock?"
"Well, I think it was more that Whittler hit you with a rock."
Tim appeared to consider that carefully.
"Landon?" he asked after a few seconds.
"He's fine. ...well, he's not hurt, but he's with his mom now...and that's got him pretty upset."
"I'm sure."
"Hey, Tim?"
"Yeah?"
"Landon said that he saw a woman in the forest while he was with you. Did you see anyone?"
Tim considered that, too.
"I...heard Shenandoah," Tim said "Had some...cypress..."
"What?"
Maybe Tim wasn't as clear as he'd seemed before.
"Don't know why that was the key."
"What?"
Tim blinked a few times and then seemed to realize that Tony was still there.
"Tony."
"Yeah. You feeling all right, Tim?"
"I got hit on the head?"
"Yeah. It's pretty obvious."
Tim nodded slowly.
"It is?"
"Yeah."
"I'm not in Shenandoah?" Tim asked.
"No."
Tim nodded again.
"I guess that's a good thing. I didn't want to be dead."
"I didn't know that Shenandoah equaled dead."
"I didn't, either...until I saw Kate."
"Tim...stop talking about Kate like you've been seeing her. She's dead and has been for a long time."
"I know."
Tim still wasn't completely connected, but at least, he was hearing what Tony was saying.
"I almost think that..."
Then, the door opened and Tim's doctor came into the room, cutting off whatever Tim was going to say.
"Good morning, Agent McGee. You're awake on your own! That's great! How are you feeling?"
"Loopy," Tim said after a few seconds consideration.
"To be expected. You had a nasty knock on the head and a severe concussion. We'll be keeping you here in the hospital for a few days to keep an eye on how your brain is working. For now, just let me do a few tests and then, you can go back to sleep if you'd like to."
"I am...kind of...tired," Tim said with a nod.
"I'm sure you are."
Tony watched as Tim's doctor shone a light in Tim's eyes, made Tim follow his finger with his eyes, asked him a few different questions. Tim did everything, but there was a disconnectedness to his responses that told Tony there were still some problems. Tim's doctor didn't seem concerned, but he was one of those people who always acted jovial, no matter the situation. Tony didn't know if he was pretending or not, but that aggressive niceness could get annoying. When the doctor finished and left the room, Tony followed him.
"Is he all right?" Tony asked. "He doesn't seem all there."
"He's not. Not yet, but the MRI didn't show any serious bleeding and that's a very good thing. His memory is intact and if he still seems a bit out of it, that's because it's been less than 24 hours since his injury and his brain is still rebooting. It'll come back. Just give him a chance."
Tony nodded reluctantly and went back into the room. When Gibbs called, he'd have to go back into work, of course, but for now, with Tim talking about Kate...
Tim was asleep again.
Tony rolled his eyes and sat down.
After another hour, a nurse came in. Tony looked up.
"Good morning, sir. I'm just checking Agent McGee's stats."
"You weren't here before," Tony said.
The nurse smiled. "No, I wasn't. I took over for Marla. My name is Jude."
"Jude? Really?"
"Yes."
"I didn't know anyone was named that."
"I have a book in the New Testament," Jude said with a grin.
Tony laughed. "Right. Is he okay? He's been acting weird. The doctor doesn't seem worried, but..."
"All his stats are normal. Concussions can leave people acting strangely for a little while. The next time he wakes up, he'll probably be much more what you're expecting."
Tony nodded and felt much more comforted by what Jude was saying, although it was the exact same thing the doctor had said. He watched as Jude checked over the machines and then let himself out of the room.
He got a call from Gibbs ordering him back to work another hour later. He reluctantly left Tim still asleep and he hoped that Jude was right.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
"That's not fair! You said that you had to obey all the rules," Kate said, knowing she sounded like a child.
Jude just smiled.
"I did obey the rules. Not your rules, but mine."
Kate sighed.
"How was he?"
"Fine. He'll be fine."
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Tim woke up for the fourth or fifth time that day and felt much more like himself. ...and that meant that all those things he remembered seemed more and more like a dream and nothing more. As he thought about it, it seemed ridiculous. Why would a place set aside for the spirits of the dead be in Shenandoah? He'd just dreamed all that, he was sure. Kate was dead and he hadn't seen her. Why he'd dreamed about her now after seven years...
"'Tis seven years, since last I saw you..."
No. No, he hadn't seen Kate. It had been a dream brought on by his concussion. That was all.
He was sure that he was right, but for some reason, that made him unaccountably sad. He wanted it to be true, although he didn't know why. He wanted to know that Kate still existed out there somewhere.
But the whole thing was too unbelievable.
By the time Tony showed up that evening, Tim had convinced himself that it was all a dream and when he was asked about his random sentences before, he just said that he must have been dreaming.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Two weeks later...
Tim was going to be back at work next week. Today, however, he had to himself and he felt drawn to Shenandoah. He'd been denying it to himself ever since he'd been released from the hospital, but now, he just felt like he had to go back out there.
He drove to the same place he and Tony and gone on a search and walked out into the forest. He didn't go all the way, partly because he didn't remember where they'd ended up and partly because he just didn't think it would be a good idea to go traipsing around the forest all by himself.
No, he walked out into the forest and then, he sat down on a convenient log and looked around.
He felt like he should be seeing something else, something more than he was seeing.
"You can't get back there, Tim. It's not a place you can just walk to."
Tim jumped and looked around. At first, he didn't see anyone and he thought he might just be losing his mind. But then...
"Jude," he said.
"Very good. I wasn't sure how much you'd remember, given your head injury."
"So it was real?"
"Yes," Jude said. He walked over and sat down. "Real in the sense that it actually happened. Real in the sense of it being a physical location? That's a little more iffy."
"Why Shenandoah?"
"Do you think it's always Shenandoah?"
"It's not?" Tim asked.
"No. It is what it needs to be."
"How can it change like that?"
Jude laughed. "Because it doesn't exist except as it needs to. Tim, it's not a place on Earth, but it's not somewhere up there, either. It's an in-between location that allows people a chance to move on. You shouldn't have been there, and I understand why you're still thinking about it."
"I'd convinced myself that it didn't really happen, that it was all in my head."
"You really saw her, Tim."
Tim flushed. "Am I that obvious?"
"Yes. ...to someone who has seen a lot of humanity. Whether you want to believe it or not, Tim, I'm Jude. I've been around for a few years more than you have."
"But you look pretty solid. Not like a spirit or a ghost."
"That's because I'm not a spirit or a ghost."
Tim furrowed his brow.
"I'm confused."
"That's all right," Jude said and thumped Tim on the back. "You don't have to understand it all. Actually, what you need to do is let that obsession go before it leads you back to Shenandoah before your time is up."
"Is Kate still there?"
"Yes, but she won't be for long. Your visit did wonders for her. You told her things that she needed to hear."
"Is that why I was there? Was it not an accident?" Tim asked. "Did you arrange for that to happen?"
Jude just smiled.
"I've been given the title of the patron saint of lost causes. Just because someone is lost doesn't mean I have to leave them that way. Now, go home, Tim. Kate will move on. I promise...and I don't need to tell you that she'll move on to a good place."
"No, you don't."
"Exactly. So stop thinking about it...or at least, stop thinking about it so much. Let it go and relax."
"Will I know? When she's ready?"
"I can't tell you that. I'm not God. I'm just one of his servants. I serve Him by serving my fellow man. Whether you know the exact moment, you can rest easy knowing that she will go."
Jude got up and started walking into the forest. Tim stood quickly.
"Hey, Jude!"
"What?"
"How do you get to the real world from there?"
Jude looked back over his shoulder and smiled.
"That's a trade secret, Tim. Drive safely on your way back."
Tim watched him go, half-expecting Jude to simply disappear from sight, but he never did. His footsteps faded as he got farther away. If he disappeared later, Tim didn't see it.
He sat and thought about what Jude had said.
After a few more minutes, he walked back to his car. Under his windshield wiper was a single piece of paper. Curious, he pulled it off and unfolded it. It was a picture of...Shenandoah, but not the Shenandoah he was standing in right now. He looked at it, looked around and then looked down.
The image was gone. In its place was a short message: See you later.
"Ha, ha! Very funny!" Tim called out.
There was no response, but in spite of himself, Tim found himself smiling at the joke. Then, he got in his car and drove back to civilization.
