Wow! I was not expecting such a positive response to the story being continued- thank you all so much! Warning: suggestions of depression in this chapter and later ones.

...

It would be nice if he could go three months without ending up in a hospital for some reason.

Tony would settle for limiting his hospital visits to once a day…he was sitting in the same chair he had occupied only a couple hours before and things hadn't gotten much better since then.

When McGee had passed out it was simultaneously a surprise and a logical outcome of what his body had been through. DiNozzo had hit his head too many times to count, and the resulting unconsciousness was familiar to him, so he knew Tim was in trouble even before the younger man's eyes slid shut and his legs gave out- what was scary was the blood all over the back of his head. Luckily the search party was with him or Tony would have wasted precious time trying to carry McGee to the car. Gibbs arrived at the same time they reached the edge of the woods and immediately turned around and escorted the transport van to the hospital.

It was funny how angry DiNozzo had been at McGee, and how he'd planned on yelling at his friend for risking his life…some gratitude that would be. And as imaginary Tim argued, he would do the same. In fact, they all did similar stupid things on the regular, always born from the agents' loyalty for each other. Hell, Tony and Ziva once refused to clear the blast zone from a bomb, choosing instead to stay with Gibbs. Years later, McGee did the same thing. The three men ran a suicide mission into Somalia to avenge Ziva's presumed death. Gibbs was always the last man out of a dangerous situation at the risk of his own life. The list went on and on.

But there was something bugging Tony about this new addition to that list. Maybe it was the way McGee was all too willing to throw himself into the line of fire…maybe it was the expression Tim had on his face when he was found in the woods: wild-eyed, ready to fight. DiNozzo's gut was unsettled by the whole thing, but he reasoned it all away rather quickly. McGee had a concussion and had been looking out for an attacker when they'd shined that glaring searchlight in his eyes. It probably worsened his headache and his panic; of course he reacted the way he did. And again, they all took turns throwing caution to the wind in stressful situations, right? It wasn't a good thing, but for Team Gibbs it was practically as common as Ducky telling one of his stories or Abby drinking a Caf-Pow! at work.

These were the sort of thoughts his tired mind turned over while they waited for news. Ducky and Jimmy were checking on Ziva, so it was just Gibbs and Tony in the waiting room when the nurse came to talk to them about their injured friend.

"Agent McGee's going to be fine. He had a couple of bad cuts that we stitched up, including one on the back of his head. His ankle is definitely broken, and they're putting it in a cast right now. As for his gunshot wound, we closed the nicked vein it hit and stopped the bleeding. The best we can do now is give him something for the pain."

"What about his head? He looked like he had a concussion."

The nurse looked grim. "It's a bad one, I'm afraid. There's no permanent damage to his brain and no internal bleeding…but his concussion is stage three. He had a seizure while we were treating him."

This inspired a slight panic in Gibbs and Tony's faces, but before they could react, she continued. "We've given him something to reduce the swelling and he's ok. We'd like to keep him here for the night…" looking at her watch, she noticed that it was almost morning. "Well, we'd like to keep him for at least 24 hours to make sure he doesn't have another seizure. You can see him as soon as they're done with his cast."

McGee was awake and far less dazed when the two agents entered his room. Now that the dust was settling on this experience Tim realized that he was going to be in big trouble for getting himself shot.

Tony knew that Gibbs would want a moment with his youngest, so he excused himself under the pretense of needing coffee. When they were alone, McGee was the first to speak.

"Boss, I'm sorry, I-"

Gibbs would have head smacked his agent if he weren't already concussed, so he chose the typical glare as his opener. But when Tim started to apologize, Jethro interrupted.

"Don't apologize, McGee."

"Right, sign of weakness. Sorry…I mean-"

"You're sure as hell not weak, Tim," Gibbs said. The younger agent blinked. That was the most meaningful thing his Boss had ever said to him. Gibbs didn't give his usual smirk but his eyes couldn't hide the pride he felt. "I'd have done the same thing."

Tim smiled, though it faltered when his boss continued. "But if you ever do anything that stupid again you'll be at your desk for the rest of your life."

Anything but that. McGee nodded, taking the threat seriously, though he couldn't find it in himself to look too abashed given how happy he was over receiving such a compliment from Gibbs.

When DiNozzo returned, trading out seats with their Boss, his emotions were a bit more transparent.

"If you ever do something like that again I'll shoot you myself, McGee."

Tim snorted. "I'm not going to apologize for it, Tony."

The senior agent ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah, I thought you'd say something like that. And, uh, well, I'm pretty sure that if you didn't do it then we'd all be dead right now. So…thanks."

"No problem."

"No problem? I wouldn't call it that."

"Actually I don't know if it's that big a deal, I mean, someone had to do something. It was stupid, yeah, but it's not like we all haven't done stuff like that before."

It was a fair point, but DiNozzo shook his head. "I don't think Ziva's going to agree when she wakes up."

As if summoned by the sound of her name, Ziva rolled herself into the room in a wheelchair. Ducky and Jimmy followed behind, looking exhausted and a little shell-shocked.

"I thought you were asleep," Tony said.

"We told her she shouldn't be out of bed," Palmer spoke up sheepishly. "But she threatened to crawl here if we didn't get her a wheelchair."

"And we wanted to see you," Doctor Mallard said, taking McGee's chart from the front of his bed and skimming the report. "How are you feeling, Timothy?"

"Fine. A little tired."

"Well that's certainly to be expected. You need rest. But I felt I should thank you beforehand. As your physician I'd advise you avoid such recklessness in the future," he chuckled. "But as your coworker and friend I'll admit that you were quite heroic."

Palmer nodded. "Yeah, thanks, Tim. We...owe you one?"

McGee smiled again, trying to avoid Ziva's stormy expression.

"Now Mister Palmer, let's see if Jethro won't get us a ride home. Where is he? No, never mind, I'd wager anything he's getting coffee. Let's go." As they headed for the door, Ducky replaced the chart and warned, "Make sure he gets some sleep. His injuries are too severe for him to go without it."

"Which means no attacking him, Zee-va," Tony teased after the medical examiners were gone.

"Fine," the ex-Mossad agent agreed. "But McGee, if you ever do that again…"

"I won't," Tim said defensively. He put his hands up in a gesture of surrender, but it hurt his arm and he winced, putting them back down. "I've had enough death threats for one night, Z."

There was a pause, which settled over the room until he noticed the small pile of personal effects that his nurses had gathered when they took him to get an x-ray. "The thing they wanted was the flash drive. It should be in there."

Tony picked it up and looked at the little device. "I'll take it to Abby tomorrow."

"Did anyone tell her what happened?" Ziva wondered.

"Well, I'd say the backup team is getting to NCIS right now," Tony said, looking at his watch. "And if the alternate tech isn't there then they'll probably wait and tell her when she gets to work…which is only a couple hours away. Which means you only have a couple hours left to live, McGee."

"Oh god," the bedridden agent groaned. "She's going to panic when she finds out."

"Panic? She will be furious when she hears what you did," Ziva smiled. "And she won't agree not to attack you."

"Can we just not tell her?"

"If we try and keep it from her she'll kill us all," Tony grinned. "Then all that stupid bravery of yours would be for nothing."

"You are toast."

Tim sighed, gently easing his head back into the pillow. Leave it to Ziva to get that idiom right.

"Yeah, sorry McGee, but you're toast."

Although the whole ordeal had been nightmarish and surreal, (even more so because it was Tim at the middle of it,) everyone was safe in assuming that things would go back to normal. The team was good at bouncing back from near-death experiences, seeing as they happened so frequently, and there was nothing to suggest they wouldn't bounce back again.

And for a while, they did. The case, despite the excessive violence it supplied, was open and shut. The shooters killed the petty officer, hoping to sell the information on his flash drive- top secret Naval intelligence; nothing out of the ordinary for the Major Case Response team of course. The third suspect, the missing gunman, was found and arrested by Tony and Ziva after Abby worked her ballistics magic. The man tried to resist arrest…as if Ziva needed another reason to knock him to the ground, which she happily did, even with her still-healing leg.

McGee was required to take a short leave of absence at Ducky's injunction, and then was relegated to desk duty until his ankle was fully healed six weeks later. Even though he hated staying behind while everyone else was in the field, Tim took it in his usual stride. It gave him a lot of free time, however, which was the last thing he wanted. There was once a time when he enjoyed his quiet thoughtful moments. Nowadays, too much time alone with his thoughts was more exhausting than trying to get around with the annoying, heavy cast on his foot.

When he was by himself in the bullpen or his apartment, Tim didn't have a reason or the strength to keep up the act and his mask would slip. He'd lie awake despite being so tired he ached to rest. The numbness would come close to suffocating him.

It had occurred gradually, this misery. Well, it wasn't so much a sense of misery but a draining self-doubt so intense it eclipsed all other emotion, absorbed every fiber of his being. These weren't feelings of inadequacy in his own physical self- that type of insecurity was just a natural, albeit juvenile emotion that he'd overcome easily by getting fit and becoming a seasoned agent. No, a playful jibe from DiNozzo or a belligerent suspect were not hardly enough to affect him like it used to; to make him tailspin like this. It took much more...but he didn't like to dwell on the reasons, even though he knew what they were, because it was painful. But their effects had burned him from the inside, consuming like any other fire, so that there was nothing left of his sense of self. This of course had left plenty of room for the unconscious attempts at compensation to wash in under the deceptive guise of relief: the need to be productive. Not just to take his mind off things, though that was a reason...Tim was the contemplative sort, and usually when he encountered an emotional problem the solution was taking some alone time to work through it, to think it over until he'd made sense of whatever he was facing. But he'd tried that, and it didn't work this time, so he instead turned to avoiding all alone time with his thoughts, unless they were case-related. Yes, that seemed to help. However, the other reason he wanted to be productive was because it meant he was doing something important. He was needed, he was contributing. It felt good to be doing something meaningful and important...he didn't stop to think that he wanted to do so for the wrong reasons. Because even though it felt like relief for the burning in his chest, it was more like a numbing agent. Or even worse, it was doing damage in its own right. It was like trying to fix dehydration with bleach.

He'd felt this way for weeks…it had crept into his psyche and taken up residence there. It made him sloppy at work. Not in day to day activities, mind you, but in the field. In combat situations. As NCIS agents they really didn't encounter life-or-death situations every single day, so this problem hadn't presented itself until now. And it wasn't that he wanted to get hurt, but it no longer occurred to him to worry about it. What was the point? Working, contributing something to NCIS was what he lived for nowadays. So he threw himself into it. Even if he was stuck to his desk he did all he could to help. On the outside he was the same, but inwardly he was as desperate to do the job as he'd been when he was a probie. He was fine when he was at work. Maybe he wasn't ok when he left the NCIS building every evening and reentered the real world, but that didn't matter in the slightest considering how little time he actually spent in the "real world." He was ok when he was at NCIS. Focusing on cases and on his team and on just working.

And just working, well..it was enough for now.