Chapter 5

"Tim..."

"Who was it?"

Gibbs sighed and, for the first time in the years Tim had known him, he looked old. "It was Ziva."

Tim nodded. He had as good as killed Ziva. Yes...that was it.

"Tony is alive. He was with Abby."

Tim nodded again. What was there to say? If they weren't seriously injured, Gibbs wouldn't look so grim. They could still die.

"They're still searching."

Tim nodded once more. As much as he had craved company before, now, he just wanted to be alone...with his guilt.

"Tim, you need to go home. You look like you're going to collapse."

Tim shook his head.

"What good can you do here?"

"Nothing," Tim whispered.

"What?"

"No good. I can't do any good."

In his own grief, Gibbs didn't notice the tone, the added meaning to the words. "Then, why stay?"

It was as if Gibbs had slapped him, not on the head, but Tim didn't express that added pain. He didn't express his grief. He just shook his head and began to walk back up the pier.

"Tim!"

"What about Ducky?"

"Ducky wasn't working yesterday," Gibbs said. "He was going to come in during the afternoon. He asked for a half day. He's at the hospital with Abby... and Tony."

"The MTAC staff?"

"All dead."

"Intel? Jardine? Lois?"

"They're working on that area now. Tim, there's nothing you can do here."

"That's not why I'm here." Tim knew he was useless. Gibbs didn't need to tell him that.

"Then, why?"

Tim shook his head again and continued to walk away from the pier. He walked along the dock, back to the park, back to his position by the cannon and he watched.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

When they pulled out Nikki Jardine's body, the face mask somehow still on her, Gibbs looked over to see how Tim took it...but he was gone. It had been hours since he'd last paid any attention to the silent watcher. He was glad. Tim didn't need to see all this. Gibbs himself was having a hard time. He had seen the chaos of the first few hours when the survivors seemed to outnumber the dead. He had seen the fading hopes as more bodies were discovered. He had seen each body recovered, and he had known each person. ...but that wasn't quite true. There had been three he hadn't known. As he helped carry another body out to the street, Gibbs decided he didn't have the strength to think about the who and the how and the why. There would be another team who would investigate. DHS would undoubtably get involved as well...possibly the FBI. This wasn't just an attack on NCIS. It was more.

They reached the street and set down the body. Gibbs looked at the young man laying so silently. He hadn't been burned at all, only crushed. He was a new hire, only been with Intel for a few months. Then, he looked over at another man lying a few feet away. Jonathan Latrell. He'd been transferred to Headquarters from CRFO only last week. Then, there was Lois Dearing. She'd been with NCIS for years, before it even was NCIS, a permanent fixture in Intel. She had been slated for retirement in another month. The collections had been going around for a retirement gift and party. This wasn't including the...body parts. Gibbs had looked but he hadn't lingered. He wasn't a masochist. He figured he owed it to his colleagues to help recover their bodies, not sift through the remains and try to identify them. That was why he was still helping, even though he was tired and sore and grieving.

It had been just another day...a day like any other. A little slow, but that wasn't a bad thing...if only they'd been busy. Gibbs pulled a small box out of his pocket. It had been found between Jimmy and Michelle. An engagement ring. Jimmy had been in the act of proposing when the bomb had gone off. From the positions of their bodies, it looked as though he'd tried to shelter Michelle from the blast. It had worked...for a while. Michelle had survived the blast only to die later on.

"Jethro?"

Gibbs looked up from the ring box and met the gaze of the approaching FBI agent.

"Tobias...what brings you here? You guys working the case?"

"The FBI, DHS, the CIA, NCIS...the whole alphabet soup's in on this one. You shouldn't be surprised."

"Nope."

"What surprises me is the fact that you aren't involved."

"I don't have a team anymore, Tobias."

Fornell sighed heavily and looked at the building. "I had heard that DiNozzo and McGee both came through."

"Tony is in critical condition, might not make it...and McGee..."

"I know about Agent McGee. I saw him. That's why I'm here."

"What do you mean?"

"Aren't you keeping track of your team, Jethro?"

Gibbs looked at the box again. "Ziva's dead, Tobias. She's under that sheet over there. They ran out of body bags. Agent Lee died at the hospital. Tony...McGee..." He shrugged. "Then, there's this." He tossed the ring box.

"Whose is it?" Fornell asked, opening the box and recognizing the significance of the ring inside.

"Jimmy Palmer's. He was going to propose to Lee."

"Yesterday?"

"Yeah. It looks like he was proposing when the bomb went off."

Fornell shook his head and swore feelingly. "It's not fair, is it."

"Nope." Gibbs stared steadfastly at the ruins. "Why are you here, Fornell?"

"I told you...because of McGee."

"Yeah, and I didn't understand you the first time."

"Some rubbernecker saw a guy standing around, looking 'too interested' in the rescue. She called for help, thinking she was single-handedly solving the case, and they sent me over to check it out."

"It was McGee?"

"Yeah."

Gibbs looked around and still didn't see any sign of Tim. "Where? I thought he left."

"Nope. He's sitting on the ground by his car. I couldn't get him to say much. Was he in the building?"

"Just outside. He was running late."

"Ah." Fornell sounded entirely too understanding. "He looks terrible, you know."

"I know."

"You need to talk to him, Gibbs."

"I've tried."

"You need to try harder. I've seen the expression on his face on other people before. At best, he's exhausted but won't leave. At worst...he feels guilty."

"Guilty?"

"Come on, Jethro, I know you're not stupid. You've seen survivor's guilt before. In the war, with your own people in NCIS...in yourself." He looked a bit hesitant at bringing up the past, but Gibbs didn't react. "From what I know of McGee, he's much more likely to feel that kind of guilt than anyone else. Sometimes, people get over it...but sometimes..."

"McGee's smarter than that."

"No, he's not, Jethro." Fornell walked around and started pointing to all the bodies. "Do you know all these people?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Does he?"

"Most of them."

"They're dead and he's alive...he's alive because he was late for work. The people who were on time died while the one deserving of one of your infamous headslaps survived. McGee's a boy scout. He does everything as close to perfect as he can...and the one time he didn't, it saved his life. You do the math, Jethro."

Gibbs stared at the bodies. He knew Fornell was right, but he just didn't feel like he had the energy, the ability to deal with Tim's guilt while shouldering his own grief.

Fornell walked over to him, stared him straight in the eye. "Jethro, the dead are going to stay that way. Nothing you can do will help them. The bodies will be found without you. The dead don't need you right now. The dead are dead, but there's a man sitting on the ground over there who might not stay in the land of the living if he doesn't get some help. You've lost one of your team. You might lose another. Don't let it be a clean sweep."

"You find anything yet?"

"Just barely started. I'll keep you apprised."

"Thanks, Tobias."

Fornell shook his head. "There's nothing to be grateful for right now."

"No, there's not."

Fornell walked away and Gibbs turned his head toward the parking lot. It was a deep and heartfelt sigh that escaped his lips, but he walked over to the site coordinator and told him he was taking a break. Then, he began the trek to try and talk to his agent.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim sat silently on the ground. He hadn't been able to continue standing. He was too much of a weakling. Instead, he had walked to his car with the vague idea of driving it away, but as soon as he had seen it, all the feeling had left his legs and he had sunk to the ground. Now, he was leaning against his Porsche, staring blindly at the car parked next to it. He didn't know what to do. Ziva was dead. Tony and Abby might soon follow. Ziva was dead. The only reason she had made it to work on time was because he had told her which roads to avoid. If he hadn't done that, she'd still be alive, late like he had been.

I killed Ziva. I killed Ziva. I killed Ziva. The sentence repeated in his head over and over. He remembered her hand, marred and broken. Ziva was dead. He had killed her. Someone had come over to talk to him once. Tim had almost recognized the voice, but he hadn't spent the effort figuring it out. It didn't matter. Ziva was still dead. Tony and Abby might be. Jimmy, Michelle, Jonathan, Cynthia, Director Shephard, Lara, Agent Lovitz, Geri...they were all dead with even more Tim didn't know about yet.

Another pair of shoes approached. Tim didn't bother looking to see who it was. It didn't matter. Nothing really mattered now.

The shoes stopped next to him and then, the person sat down beside him, not speaking. That was a relief. He didn't need more words. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a coffee cup move up. Gibbs. It was Gibbs. Why was Gibbs back here? Was he trying to show how much better Tim could have reacted? Was he going to tell him that more people had died?

But Gibbs didn't say anything at all. Instead, he sat and drank his coffee, not speaking for a full fifteen minutes. After he finished his cup, he set it on the ground and put his hand on Tim's shoulder, but still didn't speak. Tim felt the hand and wished that it meant that he wasn't to blame, but he knew that he was.

Still, neither of them spoke. Tim just stared, waiting for Gibbs to give up on him again...but Gibbs didn't. He just sat with his hand on Tim's shoulder. There was no feeling that he had to speak...and so he didn't... not for a long time, but he couldn't keep the question in.

"Intel?" It was barely a whisper. Tim just couldn't get out anything more than that.

"They were staffed light yesterday."

"I know. I was on tap to help them out if they got stuck." Tim still spoke in a soft whisper. "Lois, Nikki, Jonathan, and Don...plus the part timers."

"Yeah."

"How many?"

"No survivors."

Tim closed his eyes for a long moment but he couldn't do anything more than that. Gibbs' hand tightened its grip...but again, neither of them spoke, even though there were words, feelings, screaming themselves out into the air between them.

Ten more minutes passed in silence. Then...

"How many more?"

"Don't know. We've got to be getting close to the end."

"The end..." Tim couldn't fathom something so solid as an end, not to any of it. Loss upon loss. Death upon death. Destruction upon destruction. The pain, the fear, all of it would keep coming and coming and coming.

Suddenly, Gibbs' phone started ring, startling the two of them. Gibbs got up to answer it.

"Hey, Duck." Even Gibbs' voice sounded resigned. "Tell me."

Gibbs walked further away and Tim couldn't hear anymore...not that it mattered. Someone else must have died. It felt like there was a wild animal inside him, tearing him apart from the inside out. It was screaming for release but Tim couldn't let it go.

So he just stared.