Chapter Seven
Tell Me the Truth
McGee, having sought relief from his pursuers in the men's room, as well as a chance to shove down anger and frustration enough to deal with his overly solicitous partners, goes immediately to a stall and hears the door reopen behind him. Hand on his zipper, he doesn't pull it down, but neither does he turn around. "Zee, you are getting really aggravating with this. Can't even Gibbs get through to you? What part of 'men's room' don't you get?"
"I'm not sure," the woman's voice says. It's not the voice he expected. "This is my first time." He turns, remembering in time to move his hands. Michelle Palmer is standing by the door. "I guess that makes me a virgin at men's room etiquette?"
"Michelle, what are you doing here? It's bad enough we can't block Zee out, we don't need you learning bad lessons."
"I'm sorry, Tim. I'm really concerned about you."
"Yes, you made that quite clear - outside."
"I'm sorry. It's just that... Well, your wedding is two days away and the closer you get, the more distracted you get."
"That's only natural," he reminds her, trying to evade, but she won't let him.
"And more pensive, like you don't want to go through with it."
"That's not true!"
x
Since he'd made the decision to propose, spur of the moment though it had been after the New Year's party, he'd considered the past fifteen years to have been far too long.
"Then what's wrong?" He supposes she can read him too well. The hardest thing to do is to evade a trained inquisitor. "I can help."
"There's nothing wrong."
"Come on, Tim, the truth." He doesn't answer, though he does abandon the stall. "Come on, Tim," she appeals, stepping close, "I'm standing in a men's room and if anyone walks in I'll never live it down. Talk to me."
"There's nothing to tell."
x
Michelle sighs and reaches for the thin gold chain he can see past her open collar. She draws out from under her blouse an inch long set of four horizontal gems laid in strata; blue, green, black and purple separated by settings of silver. "I didn't want to do this but remember, you made me."
He knows she occasionally wears significant charms, but has rarely known her to openly wear anything other than the encircled five pointed star surrounding a cross. Jimmy had had that unique jewel, which commemorates her dual faiths, made for her to celebrate their engagement.
Michelle and he actually have fewer secrets from one another than any two of the team, until now. The witch is obviously determined to maintain that record.
x
"What is that?"
"Sodalite, tourmaline, obsidian and amethyst," she explains, letting the gems dangle from her hand, sparkling in the florescent lights. "Tell me the truth. What's bothering you?"
He looks down into her penetrating, deep brown eyes and says determinedly: "Nothing." But he can't make himself keep her eyes, and against his best effort they slide from hers. She grips the gems firmly for a moment in her right hand.
"I'm not Abby," he tells her. "She may believe, though I've never understood why a scientist like her does but she believes." He refuses to remember Michelle's seemingly preternatural awareness at the winter cave when they'd searched for the missing child and again when they'd gone to interview Zang, and what she'd done to save Jimmy when he'd been shot in that lab still gives him chills but "I know that you believe in all this but I still won't – don't."
"Doesn't matter." She sighs, pulls the chain up over her head and reaches up for his head with the talisman. He tries to talk a step back. The stall would be behind him. "You'll tell me the truth whether you believe or not."
"I'm not Abby," he tries again, confidence faltering. Though she's discreet about separating the Wiccan and professional aspects of her life, he's seen her do things, things he can't always explain away. There are some perceptions - some things about her that he won't try to explain, won't even allow himself to think about.
She reaches up, presses the gems to his left temple and, her upraised eyes locked upon his, she says intently "Tell me the truth."
Does he feel ... something ... tingle through his body? He twists out of the confined space but turns to face her. "All right! I don't believe in this stuff but you want the truth - here it is: I'm scared. Happy?"
She returns the amulet about her neck, lets it hang before her breasts. "No, Tim, I'm not happy. Why are you scared?" He won't answer. "Of what?"
x
"Well, scared isn't the right word. I'm just, well, I'm..."
"Having second thoughts?"
"No. Not ... exactly. It's just, I'm, well, I'm ... There are... The closer we come..."
"Tim, you're talking to the woman who ran out on my own wedding and left Jimmy standing at the altar, then cried all through my second chance. I know what it's like." She gives him the time to find his words; they come at the end of an explosive sigh.
"Siobhan has spent the past eight years living in a fishbowl, constantly in sight, constantly under observation. A priest has to be so careful how he lives his life, a woman priest has to be ten times as careful."
"I remember Abby saying that, while you were hunting Ed Samson."
"That's an extreme time, I'm talking about in general. And I'm starting to realize... I'm having... You know, I was always, well, I went to Mass - when we weren't working, but it wasn't... You know, I've always... I'm a practicing Episcopalian, but she's a professional one. She has to be. You know, before the Lasik treatments, though she's still wearing the glasses she doesn't need to, she sees fine and won't tell anyone, I don't know why... But she was scared her eyes would get worse, legally blind to really blind. She's memorized the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, a half dozen other books cover to cover for when she did go blind... I kind of know the Bible... Some. I can follow..." He turns, looking at the walls for answers, for inspiration, can't find any. He turns back to the silent woman.
"You know, I've been going... Saint Mary's isn't even my parish, but I've been... Well, two weeks ago I'm there and I notice people are looking at me; this is after Father Donaldson started talking about... started announcing the Banns, you know?"
"Yes Tim, I know."
"Well, the second week I'm noticing people are looking at me when they think I'm not noticing, you know? And I can read them; 'who is this guy who's waltzing in and marrying our priest?' Well, anyway, this one couple and I are talking, I know they're feeling me out, and one of them asks 'Mister McGee' - they don't know I'm an NCIS Agent, I don't ever talk about it – only the ones who know know, you know?" She grins. "Anyway, I'm asked 'Mister McGee, are you planning on running for the Vestry?', the parish council, you know? Well, while they're reading me I'm reading them, only probably better and its microcosmic, a microcosm of the whole group. I'm reading from one 'are you planning on running for the Vestry?' and from the other 'please don't be running for the Vestry'."
"Are you?"
"I can't, I'm not a member of the parish. People have asked me if I'm going to become a Lector - apparently they think I have a good voice. They ask if I'm going to join the Brotherhood of Saint Andrew…."
She grins. "I can see you becoming 'Brother Timothy'."
"Yeah." That'll be a cold day.
"What does Siobhan say to that?"
"She doesn't even want me to join the Parish, at least not officially. She and I have discussed it. I'm not joining the Parish, not running for anything, not becoming anything."
"Why?" This is the opposite of what she'd expected.
"Not for at least a year. She doesn't want people watching both of us, fishbowling both of us. She's had eight years of it, two here, six in several other Parishes when she was a Supply Priest – that's what they call a one or more time fill-in, Saint Mary was her first real posting. She's never liked it, the scrutiny, but you tolerate it because you know you just have no choice, but she doesn't want our marriage... I'll be there, but our private lives... She wants our private lives private, our married lives doubly so. We know it's next to impossible, we just don't want it to be completely impossible. That's why if anyone wants to even know why I'm not at the Church on a Sunday morning, I'm at my own, or at 'work', but she won't mention where if it's someone who doesn't already know. That also allows me to keep from having to talk about NCIS if not very many people know I'm an agent."
She remembers he doesn't like people knowing, doesn't talk about it, but it seems like too much trouble for her. Whatever he likes, though. "Sounds like a tightrope."
"You don't know the half."
That she believes. "But that's not what's bothering you."
x
It takes a long moment for him to say it. "No."
"What?"
"Well, you know, I'm a practicing..."
"And she's a professional."
"What if I don't measure up?" She makes her silence mask her surprise and gradually draw him out. "I've tried to be... I go. Every Sunday, when I'm not working. I don't miss the big ones, but if you held a gun to my head I couldn't tell Deuteronomy from Isaiah."
"Have you talked to Siobhan about this?"
"No."
"I think you should. I think if you did, you'll probably find she doesn't care. That that's not what she's looking for in you."
His mind flashes back to that afternoon on the garden bench, when she'd asked him to be her secular lifeline. He's tried. He's not sure how well he's ever succeeded.
x
"Tim, that's not all that's bothering you, is it?" All he's said so far justifies nervous, maybe anxious - he'd said 'scared'.
"Yes." She fingers the necklace before her, and for a long time the war wages in him. He can't say it, can't bring himself to admit it to anyone, but he can't help himself. Her and her damned amulet! "No."
"What else?"
He shakes his head, a last gesture of resistance that doesn't get past her. Finally; "Can you keep a secret? I mean a real secret?"
She smiles. "I'm a witch. I'm always keeping secrets."
He takes a deep breath, holds it, and finally lets the words out. "Shav and I ... Well, the last time we ... that is, the last time we ..."
"Did it?"
"Did it," he admits. "I was ... Well, we haven't – I mean she's a priest - it took me so very long to get over that. I couldn't dare to think of her romantically, I could barely allow myself to think of her as a woman. Then I proposed and I was all set to wait until we were - legal, you know? Then she was attacked - spent these two and a half months recovering. I haven't touched her. I mean I haven't touched her like that."
Michelle doesn't interrupt to answer.
"The last time we ... did it... the very last time we did it..." He turns away, steps away, then musters the determination to turn. "Well, I was 18 and she was 17 - though I thought she was 18," he finishes quickly.
Still she doesn't interrupt, lets silence draw him out.
"I'm ... I'm ..." he steps away, and then turns back. The room is too small. "I'm not 18 anymore."
x
Michelle had suspected this was the cause of his more secret discomfort. The rest of it she'd read, or anticipated. She's married, after all. These past few months had been enlightening, but he'd hidden this under too many layers. Now that it's uncovered, his plight is obvious to her. "You're afraid you won't be able to satisfy her." She hadn't even thought the word 'perform'.
"I know it's just been me, no other romance – she said that because of the fishbowl she hadn't ever looked, pushed back the desire for …. Until I came back but Ziva was..." When he'd dated Ziva, Shav had kept her distance, locked her feelings away in a box and buried her physical feelings under that box.
"She's been celibate since High School, but I'm not afraid of competing with other men..."
"You're scared of competing with your own ghost."
He smiles ruefully. He hadn't ever intended to speak of this, but now that it's out he really wants an answer, or at least a clue. "That's one way of putting it. What if I can't live up to her memories?"
x
Michelle remains silent for a long moment, trying to decide how best to express it. She steps closer until they're just inches apart. "Tim, it's not a secret, she never swore anyone to anything, so I can repeat this. At her bridal party– You know how those can get?"
If it's anything like his bachelor party, he has a pretty good idea.
"She tol– Well, something about you kind of slipped out."
He's not sure how he feels about that. "What?"
"Each and every time you kiss her …" she looks upward significantly, gives him a telling smile, "each and every time - she gasms."
His eyebrows leap up. "Really? Every time?"
"Ev-ver-ry time. Oh, not the shake-the-screws-out-of-the-bed-frame O-Gs, but those deep down, really private ones that make a woman feel ... so good."
"Really?"
Michelle steps closer, drops her voice, looks up into his eyes, her voice low and private. "Trust me, Tim; she's thinking that when you two get to Ireland and to that hotel, after fifteen years and now holding back these couple of months, the first time you touch her you're going to have a Supernova on your hands."
"Really?"
"After that, you're not going to have to compete against anything."
x
"Michelle ... thank you." She just smiles, turns to leave. "But one thing..."
She turns back, anticipating his point. "Yes?"
"Well, I don't know how to say this but ..." It might be so incredibly useful in interrogations - if they could survive a furious Gibbs, but this was between colleagues - friends - and: "a truth spell isn't exactly fair."
She giggles. "There's no such thing as a truth spell." She enjoys the way his face falls. "Free will and all."
"But..." he indicates the amulet hanging before her.
She picks it up, holds it in her hand. "This combination is for weight loss."
He looks her down and up. "You don't need to lose weight."
She steps to him and, hands pressed to his chest, she comes up on her toes and kisses his cheek. "You're gonna be a wonderful husband."
xxx
Zabeth considers her options. Starfleet Intelligence is tracking her, there are two Intelligence Agents on her trail and she is no closer to Commodore Rolonio.
Looking over the weapons in her Sanctuary, she chooses the smaller, more easily concealed and mobile weaponry.
The possibility exists that she will not be able to eliminate the target before the specified time and at the designated location. Assuming Starfleet Intelligence is aware of that, it is probable they may set a trap for her.
She must outmaneuver these humans, do something they will not expect.
And when she has eliminated Rolonio, she will have to kill the Intelligence Agents as well before she can return to her ship.
The weapon she chooses has spare charges, it's small enough to carry easily and eminently capable of destroying Rolonio and everyone who would prevent her escape.