Chapter 4 – The Visitor

The face filled his view, magnified a hundred times. He saw fine lines radiating from the corners of the eyes. The eyebrow hairs, thick and bushy near the center yet sparse at the extremities… He caught himself and refocused on the temple: his target. Was it time? Now? Too early? Too late? No, still time.

Wind! He could see Gibbs' coat flapping. He needed to estimate his adjustment carefully or Gibbs might be his first ever sniper kill. Suddenly it was Gibbs' head in his sights. He panicked momentarily then calmed himself and carefully shifted back to his original target, estimating the distance between the two men. They were close. Very, very close.

The look on his target's face told him it was now or never. He exhaled, pressed gently with the ball of his finger and took the shot in the still period between the beats of his own heart. The rifle bucked in his hands and the target's face disappeared from view.

Then he was in autopsy standing by a covered body. The sheet peeled back to reveal Gibbs; his eyes lifeless

McGee sat bolt upright in his bed: sweating and panting, adrenaline pulsing through his body. Beside him, his faithful McMutt stared balefully as if to say 'you woke me again' and went off to sleep on the floor next to the computer.

"That's what it would be like if you were sharing a bed with that ghost whisperer woman," McGee called after him.

McGee threw himself back on the pillows and waited for his raging heart to calm. He told himself that it was late – or early – and he had to get up soon. He sighed. There was no use pretending he was going to get any sleep tonight. Kicking off the covers, he padded out to his nice, friendly computer to resume a game of Dawn of War marveling at how mindless mass killing did not bother him at all but first person shooters - that was another story. It might have been the fact that the people in this particular game were obviously computer generated and only an inch high or it may have been the fact that he could not see their faces. Whatever it was, he found Dawn of War relaxing.

McMutt, disturbed by all the noise, dragged himself off the floor and went back to reclaim the bed.

McGee cringed as a sharp knock on the door echoed through his apartment. He checked the computer clock – 3am. He should have remembered to turn down the volume for his neighbors.

"Sorry," he called out, stabbing at the volume button. "I'm turning it down."

The knocking repeated and McGee frowned. It was unusual for his neighbors to hang around. Usually they just went back to bed and then grumbled at him in the morning – about 6 am in the morning. Then it hit him: Tony.

McGee took a deep breath to steel himself and pushed off the chair.

"Go home, Tony," he called out as he approached the door. "I'm fine."

A quick check though the spy hole did not reveal the expected hazel green eye, however, but a bright blue one.

"Boss?" he said in amazement, hastily unlatching the chain.

"Thought you'd be up about now," said Gibbs laconically, walking through the door.

"Boss, what are you doing…"

"You look like crap, McGee," Gibbs surmised.

"Well, it's 3am, Boss."

"Come with me," Gibbs invited.

Gibbs led McGee in to the bedroom and indicated he should sit on the edge of the bed. McMutt eyed proceedings wearily and shifted a little to make room.

Once McGee and Gibbs' furry name sake were settled, Gibbs lowered himself into the bedside chair and leaned forward with his forearms resting loosely on the top of his legs. "Talk to me McGee."

McGee's gaze fell to the floor. "I don't think I'm cut out to be a sniper, Boss."

Gibbs almost smiled at the familiar catch phrase. "That's exactly why you are, McGee."

"I keep seeing his face."

"You always will."

"How can that make me a good sniper?"

"A good sniper understands what it is to take a life. Once you start enjoying it, it's time to go."

McGee looked up earnestly. "I didn't think I was going to be able to do it."

"But you did."

"Yeah but I nearly didn't. I nearly let him kill you. I couldn't get the timing right: if I shot too soon then I might have killed him for nothing but if I shot too late, you'd be – well dead."

"It's practice. You didn't second guess yourself, you got the timing right." Gibbs took a deep breath. "There's only so much you can learn at a shooting range, Tim. Looking at a silhouette is one thing, staring down your sight at another human is another thing entirely. Nothing can prepare you."

McGee lowered his head again. "How do you sleep at night, Boss? I don't think I'll ever sleep again."

"I'll get Ducky to give you something to help you sleep."

"I was planning on waking up again."

Gibbs raised an eyebrow at the joke. "How do you sleep?" he mused, almost to himself. "You think about all the people you saved with that one gun shot. You're not shooting good guys or even innocent bystanders. It's no worse than shooting someone in the field when they are pointing a gun at you, it's just that this way the odds are slightly more in your favor. You'll never enjoy it but it's a job that needs to be done and it takes a special kind of person to do it. I think you are that kind of person, McGee."

Gibbs paused but McGee did not respond. It was then he noticed McGee's head slowly lowering and the sound of deep breathing starting to fill the room. A smile twitched on Gibbs' lips as he rose to tip the slumbering agent to the bed and raise his legs. When he reached for McGee's discarded covers, however, he found they were underneath McGee's faithful companion.

"Hey: Junior," Gibbs rasped, the tilt of his head suggesting the hound should shift further.

McMutt heaved a resigned, stuttering sigh and moved further across the bed allowing Gibbs to grasp the abandoned quilt and cover McGee.

"You did good out there, today Tim," Gibbs said quietly as he tucked the top edge under McGee's chin. "I'm proud of you."

--------------------------THE END-------------------------