Chapter 2: Healing
Tim didn't just up and leave the hospital after his awakening. That would have been foolish and unsafe...and even he knew it. People started coming again, though...but he found he couldn't bear to see them all. They were happy. He wasn't happy. He was in agony...every minute. A day he could get through without crying was a miracle.
A day he could breathe without feeling like every breath was a dagger in his heart was a miracle.
Although he recognized the passage of time, to him, it wasn't really six months later. It was a day later. Kara had only just died. He was a widower the day after his wedding.
He hurt the others, those who cared about him, by rebuffing their attempts to help. He just couldn't bear it. The only one who was able to come and go was Gibbs. Tim wasn't even sure why at first. He just knew that Gibbs understood...and his pain was too great to think beyond that single fact.
Gibbs tried to make him see what he was doing, but Tim was only barely keeping his grip on his sanity and he couldn't stand to see others who didn't know and couldn't understand how he felt. He needed the assurance that he wasn't the only one who felt pain...who felt agony like this.
...so everyone else stopped coming, and Gibbs continued.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Three weeks later, Tim asked if he could go home. The doctors were thrilled at his decision, but Gibbs was uncertain. Tim still looked ready to crack at any moment, his eyes darkening every time he remembered Kara...and that happened far too often. Gibbs tried to suggest that they take it slowly, but Tim wouldn't listen. He said that he couldn't stay in the hospital forever. He needed to get out again.
Then, Gibbs tried to suggest that someone stay with him that first night, Abby, Ziva, Tony...even Gibbs himself. Again, no. His doctors agreed with Gibbs that having someone around might be a good idea, but Tim was adamant that he could handle staying by himself. He would keep his cell phone close by, but he would stay by himself.
So he did. Gibbs dropped him off the next day. Tim walked into his apartment...and saw Kara, pictures of her, pieces of her. She had given up her apartment and moved into his. They hadn't planned on staying that way for long, but her lease was up and it seemed silly for her to extend it when she was only going to move out again in a few weeks anyway. Her family had obviously gone through a lot of it, he could tell, but the essence of Kara was still in the room. The air was full of her. Someone had kindly gone grocery shopping for him, but food didn't matter compared to the feeling in the apartment. Tim managed to hold it together until the night came and he went into the bedroom.
The bed was neatly made. Kara was meticulous about things like that. Tim went to the closet and opened it. It was crammed full of clothing...Kara's clothing. She loved clothes. She loved to shop...but she didn't need any of it anymore.
Tim closed the closet and returned to the bed. He fell forward with a wordless cry onto the dusty comforter, curled into a tight ball and began to sob, loud racking sobs for all he had lost. His hands, seemingly of their accord, reached out like claws and dragged the comforter, still full of Kara's presence, to his chest. He muffled his cries with it, holding it to his face as he tried to pull something from it, something that could help him...save him...get rid of the awful agony.
He literally cried himself to sleep. ...and then, he dreamed of Kara. Kara, writing another sports article. Kara, out on the Mall on their first date. Kara. Kara. Kara. Tim woke...and he remembered that Kara was dead. He began to sob again...and again, he cried himself to sleep.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Gibbs found him like that, the next day. Tim hadn't answered his phone and Gibbs was worried. He drove over to Tim's apartment. The door was unlocked. He walked in and realized what the place was like. He had known that Kara's family had gone in and gathered up some personal things, things she had left them in her will, but he hadn't realized just how much had been left behind. He walked quickly into the bedroom and saw Tim.
He was still asleep, his body heaving with lingering sobs. He had pulled the comforter around him like a nest. There was enough dust from six months that his face was grimy and tear-streaked. Gibbs sighed and sat down beside him.
"Tim, wake up."
Tim's eyes opened obediently. He looked up at Gibbs. "It still hurts. When will it stop?"
Gibbs would have given anything to know that himself. There was something missing in Tim's eyes. It had been gone from the moment Gibbs had seen him in the hotel. Sometimes, Tim seemed like nothing more than a child...like now. It was a sadly unanswerable question. The kind that so many children asked. It was the kind that parents wished they could answer...and they never could. No one could.
"I don't know, Tim."
More tears, but Tim sat up and looked at Gibbs...then, he asked a question that Gibbs could answer.
"Can I come back to work, Boss?"
"Yeah."
The child was gone for the moment. "I know it can't be much...not yet. I just need something...something else...something besides...Kara." Then, Tim began to sob again. "...so I can pretend it doesn't hurt."
"Don't pretend, Tim."
"I have to. There's no other way right now." The tears came faster. "I can't breathe if I remember how much it hurts. I wish I could run out of tears...but I can't. There are always more. There's always more pain. It always hurts."
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
So Tim came back to NCIS. He didn't go out in the field...and he didn't even do much work in the building. Jenny had made one effort to point out that NCIS was not a psychiatrist's office, but Gibbs prevailed. Tim kept coming. He was there early every morning. He was always there...in body, at least. He rarely spoke to anyone beyond saying hello or good morning. He worked through old files that no one wanted to bother with...but he spent a lot more time crying. As much as they cared for him, Tony and Ziva found themselves feeling relieved whenever Tim was not in the bullpen. Tim's quiet grief was oppressive. They didn't want him to be gone...what they wanted was for Tim, the real Tim to be back.
Contrary to what they believed, Tim wasn't completely oblivious. He knew what he was doing was wrong, that it was hard on everyone else. He knew it, but he felt powerless to fight against the pain that just refused to go away. Every morning when he woke up, he had to remember anew that Kara was dead, that instead of having fifty years, they hadn't even had fifty hours. He didn't know how to let the feeling go. He couldn't get revenge. He couldn't even get justice. The man was dead. He couldn't get the comfort of an explanation. So far as anyone could tell it had been a random act of violence. All he had was the pain.
...then, one day, he just stopped coming. He wasn't at his desk when Gibbs got there. He didn't show up at all. As worried as Gibbs had been in the moment, a case had come up suddenly, requiring his attention. He contented himself with making a call and leaving a message.
At the end of the day, Gibbs realized that no one knew where Tim was. He began to really worry. Everyone began to search for Tim. They didn't know where to look...not for two days.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Tim stood in front of the abandoned building. The hotel hadn't been able to bounce back from the infamy of what had happened there. It had closed three months before. Tim walked to the doors. They were locked. He didn't care. He broke in. Then, he took out the news article he had found. It traced the path of the killer from the front door, up the stairs, to the eighth floor. Tim followed. He walked slowly, taking his time, stepping in the tracks of a killer. Step by painful step, from the beginning to the moment when Tim's life had ended.
Up, up the stairs. Floor after floor to the entrance to the eighth floor. He kicked open each door. He aimed as if with an automatic. He fired and walked on. Then, he reached his room. He kicked open the door and it was like he had stepped back in time. Kara was still looking toward the bathroom. She was smiling, laughing. At the sound of the door bursting open, she turned toward the door, her smile fading. Tim couldn't hear because of the water...but the water couldn't cover up the sound of the man firing his gun. Kara's face was frightened. She screamed. She tried to get away, but there was nowhere to go. She died almost instantly. One of the bullets pierced her heart. Her body was forced backward from the momentum of the bullets. She fell onto the bed...dead. Tim ran out two seconds later but the gunman had already moved on.
Tim walked into the room. It didn't matter where the man had gone after this moment. Everything had stopped. The pieces of his shattered life were there. He walked into the bathroom. He looked from the mirror to the bedroom and back again. He looked around the bathroom. There was nothing he could have had with him that would have stopped the man. He knew that. This wasn't about blame. It was about pain. He walked back out into the room. The bed was still there. The sheets were gone, but the box spring and the mattress were still there. He sat down on Kara's side. He began to cry...again. He lay down in a fetal position and cried again.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
"McGee?"
"Tim, wake up."
"Is he dead?"
"No. He's just asleep." Please, let him just be asleep.
Tim stirred. He hadn't moved from the bed for two days. He opened his eyes and wished he hadn't. He wished that he could stay in the dream that Kara was alive...but he knew that he couldn't. He sat up and saw the people who cared about him all arranged around the bed. He stared at them. They stared back without speaking.
He had hurt them. He had fallen and not tried to get up again. He had ignored their attempts to help. He had done so much to them...and they were still there, still concerned, still frightened for him. Kara would have given him such a stink eye for how he'd been acting. He could hear her voice, lecturing him. He would never hear her again in the flesh.
He looked at them again. "I'm so sorry," he said and his face crumpled and he was crying again. They were all there around him in an instant, holding him tightly, crying with him as he had never allowed them to before. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry," he said over and over.
"It's okay. It'll be okay," they said. He couldn't distinguish the voices. He just knew they were there.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Tim began to claw his way out of his grief. Moment by heart-wrenching moment, he clawed his way out. He slipped...often...sometimes lower than he'd been at the beginning, but still he fought his way out. Sometimes...often...someone gave him a hand and pulled him higher. There was one thing he still hadn't done...
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
The one-year anniversary of Kara's death was approaching. Tim felt the anguish building but he tried to focus on his work. It was the one thing that had kept him sane, this connection to life, to being alive. His job and his friends there. He was occasionally going out into the field, but there was still something missing from him...and that made it risky to take him out...worse, he didn't seem to care.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
"Tim, come on."
"Where are we going, Boss?"
"You'll see."
Tim followed.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
"No, Boss. I can't. No!" Tim realized fairly quickly where they were going.
"Yes, you can, Tim. You need to."
"No, Boss. Please."
"Yes, Tim."
Tim sat back and felt the agony increase until he wasn't sure he could keep breathing. It was hard enough on a normal day...
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
It was windy that day. Sunny, but windy, the trees rustling as their branches whipped around. Gibbs nearly dragged Tim through the cemetery to the headstone marking Kara's final resting place. Tim stood stiffly right there, staring at the granite slab. He didn't even notice when Gibbs walked away, to give him time alone. Tim had not once come to the cemetery. Not once in the year that Kara had been dead.
Finally, he walked closer and put his hand on the cold granite. Then, he knelt beside the grave and felt the tears that were always too close fall from his eyes again.
"Oh, Kara..." he whispered. "I love you so much."
The wind whispered in his ear, but nothing was said.
"How can I go on without you?" he asked. "I need you. I need you, Kara."
He put his hand on her name. It was just a rock, nothing more.
"I love you, Kara. I wanted to be able to tell you that every day for the rest of my life...but now you're gone...and it's killing me, Kara."
A sweet smell reached his nose: Lilacs. Tim looked upwind and saw a group standing around a grave. They all had bunches of lilacs.
"How can I go on?"
Then, he remembered something. A memory from their first date...as an actual couple.
"Where do we go from here, Kara?"
"Why are you asking?"
"I just...I need something...something to be certain."
Kara smiled. "We go one step at a time, and hopefully, we'll always be going in the same direction. That's as certain as we can be, Tim."
"What if we don't?"
"Then, that's life."
Tim smiled. "You always were the strong one, Kara," he said. "What if our roles had been reversed? What if I had died? Would you have gone on?"
Tim jumped as he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up.
"Tim, most people go on, eventually."
"Even you?" Tim asked.
"Even me."
"How did you, Boss? How did you manage it? How did you not...go crazy like I did? Why did I?"
"Why did you? I have no idea, but it wasn't weakness, if that's what you're wondering." Gibbs held out a hand to help him up and Tim took it. They walked a few steps in silence and then Gibbs sat down on a bench. "We all deal with grief in our own ways, Tim. I nearly ate a bullet."
"I might as well have," Tim said, sitting down beside him. He leaned forward. "I still can't remember a lot of the time. I know it passed, but I don't remember. I remember there was an old man...with brown eyes. He called you. I remember...hearing words, but they didn't mean anything." He clasped his hands together tightly and brought them to his forehead. "I can't seem to move on, Boss. I feel...I feel like every moment..."
"...like the pain is going to kill you...and the only thing worse than that is the possibility that it won't."
Tim nodded.
Gibbs put a comforting hand on Tim's shoulder. "It starts that way. It stays that way for awhile. You don't think you can get past it, but you just have to trust that the pain will ebb...because it does after a while."
"One step at a time."
"Exactly. You may or may not fall in love again." Tim tensed under his hand. "Don't say yes or no to it. If you do, you won't be dishonoring Kara. If you don't, you won't be a disappointment. Just remember that life has to go on. Don't close yourself off because that's worse than dying."
"What we had...it was perfect," Tim whispered. "How can I...get more than that?"
"Better than perfection?" Gibbs' voice was wistful. "You probably can't. Don't try to. It won't work. I know that better than most. Just focus on living for now, Tim. That will be enough. Then, one day, you'll wake up and you'll realize that it doesn't hurt to breathe anymore, that the sun is still shining, that there are beautiful things...and beautiful people in the world...and you can move on."
They sat in the cemetery until the sun went down. Then, Gibbs drove Tim back to NCIS to get his car and they left.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
It was two years after that, three years after Kara died...
"Oh, crap. I can't believe I just did that," Olivia said, trying to mop up the coffee she'd just spilled all over the man in front her. "I am so sorry. I'm such a klutz."
The man smiled, but she noticed something sad in his eyes. Still, the smile seemed friendly, and his words certainly were...as was his voice...it was almost...sexy. "No problem. I'm not too coordinated myself some days. Can I buy you a refill?"
"You want to buy me coffee to replace what I spilled on you?" Olivia raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
"Believe it. I can afford it, and it looks as though you still need your coffee. I finished mine already."
Olivia looked at him with an expression that switched back and forth between attraction and distrust.
He seemed to understand. "Don't worry. No strings attached. I buy you coffee and we never speak again...if that's what you want."
Olivia blushed. "Okay."
She let him buy her coffee and then, true to his word, he began to leave the shop. He was out on the street when she decided that she would be stupid to let him go. She ran.
"Hey! Wait!"
He turned and smiled. "Yes?"
"I'm Olivia." She stuck out her hand.
"My name is Tim." He shook her hand firmly.
"You want to...talk?"
Tim smiled. "I'd love to."
FINIS!