Tim stared into the last remaining dregs of his fifth drink, in his second bar, and sighed. He couldn't understand why what had happened bothered him so much. He was more than used to people thinking he was weird, a nerd, a know it all. It had never bothered him like this in the past.

Knocking back the last of his whiskey, he realised with a stab that it was because the people from his past never pretended to like him. They never pretended to care about him. Never pretended to include him in their little cliques.

Ordering his sixth drink, and ignoring the searching look of the barmaid, he continued to stew.

He couldn't believe he'd been so stupid as to think people like Gibbs or Tony could ever have given a damn about him. They were the grown up versions of the star quarterback, and no matter what, Tim would always be the vice captain of the chess team.

Gripping the now delivered drink tightly, he felt the hurt transition into anger, as it had done intermittently for the last two or three hours.

He didn't need these people. He was a top MIT graduate for crying out loud, he didn't need them. He definitely didn't need his poorly paying public service job. It wasn't just Abby who fended off corporate sector offers every year, he had his fair share.

He grimaced as he realised he had turned down those positions, not because he wouldn't have found them fulfilling, but because he couldn't comprehend the idea of leaving his so called family for them. Taking a large gulp of liquor, he was pleased when he began to feel the edges of his mind blur, and the warmth of alcohol induced indifference begin to waft over him.

Tony who? Gibbs who?

Tim smirked as he drained the last drops and ordered his seventh drink.

Back at the office however, no one was smirking.

Gibbs and Tony had returned to the squad room to find Tim missing. Requiring his input, Gibbs had rounded on a nonplussed Ziva for his whereabouts. The explanation that he had left for the conference room some time ago merely added to the confusion.

When it became clear after the eleventh time to contact the junior agent, that his phone was resolutely shut off, Gibbs began to feel slightly nauseous.

This was so out of character for the young agent that he instinctively knew it could only mean the kid was in some kind of trouble.

Abby's digging had deduced that the cell had been shut off in NCIS headquarters, so there was no clue as to where Tim was now.

Eventually Abby had the idea of looking through the security footage to see if Tim actually did go to the conference room, or if he had…fallen, tripped, been attacked somehow along the way.

Stomach churning, Gibbs waited as patiently as possible for Abby to dig through the firewalls that were required to bring up internal footage without the directors prior approval, seeing as Gibbs was in no mood to deal with Vance's interrogations had he asked.

Eventually, the grainy figure of McGee leaving the squad room materialised on the bull pen plasma, and Ziva, Tony, Gibbs and Abby watched intently.

They followed the footage as Tim made his way to the conference room, just like Ziva said.

All appeared normal, until the younger man stumbled somehow, and knocked into the wall.

Gibbs' eyes narrowed as he quickly racked his gaze over the footage to see did this stumble result in some kind of injury. Finding none, he watched on in confusion as Tim merely stood outside the room that had housed both himself and his senior field agent.

Four sets of eyes watched as the pallor of their colleague's friend suddenly dropped with a dramatic haste, and his hands visibly began to shake. They continued to watch silently as Tim brought a clearly weak hand up to flick at some switch on the wall that wasn't immediately obvious on their first viewings, but which they then recognised as the voice relay switch.

Seconds later, Tim suddenly threw the file he was carrying down on the ground and stormed, with obvious rage, out of the range of footage.

Ziva and Abby gaped at each other in obvious perplexity, completely nonplussed as to what could have caused Tim so much angst.

Tony and Gibbs however, looked at each other with different expressions.

A healthy dose of understanding, interchanged with an appreciable dash of guilt.

They had done this.

Tim had inadvertently stumbled upon their conversation, and had assumed the worst.

Tony let out an audible groan, as Gibbs immediately strode to his desk and rooted for his car keys.

Abby and Ziva exchanged another look.

"What's going on, what do you two know?" the lab rat demanded angrily, her strong feelings for Tim at that moment completely depriving her of her usual charm.

"DiNozzo, say words" Gibbs instructed, as he continued to search for his damn keys.

Groaning slightly as he took in the dangerous expression on Abby's face, Tony opened his mouth hesitantly.

"Uhh…well, we think…we think that McGee accidentally overheard a conversation we were having and uhh…took it up the wrong way."

Ziva's eyes narrowed dangerously at this, having been irritated by Tony's teasing of McGee already that day.

"What does that mean?" she asked, with a definite edge in her voice.

Grimacing, Tony looked at Gibbs for help, his own feeling of guilt lapping up around him.

The elder of the team rubbed his face tiredly as he fished his keys out of his drawer.

"It means that Tony and I were talking about a different Tim, and our Tim doesn't realise that."

Realisation dawned on the two girls, as they shot the two men accusing looks.

"So you two did this to Tim?" Abby stated, more than asked.

"It was a misunderstanding Abb's" Gibbs answered wearily, not wanting to deal with his own feelings of guilt in the middle of the squad room.

"And you'll fix it?"

Dropping a quick kiss on her forehead, the elder agent nodded.

"We'll fix it" he assured her.

Slipping back into practical mode, he thought rapidly.

"Ok, DiNozzo, you're with me. We'll go and find McGee. Abby, Ziva, you two are to stay here and continue working the case. We can't have the whole team off track, clear?"

The glowering glances he received were not unexpected, but he didn't have the time to coddle them.

"I said is that clear?"

Recognising the warning tone in their boss' voice, the two girls nodded slowly.

"Good."

Sweeping from the bull pen, making it clear Tony was to follow, Gibbs softened somewhat.

Looking back over his shoulder at Abby and Ziva as he waited for the elevator, he shot them his sincerest of sincere looks.

"We'll fix it" he promised softly, and was relieved when the two smiled their understanding back at him.

When the doors pinged shut however, he was less relieved.

He knew that his team thought he could fix just about anything, but he himself, wasn't so sure.

There had already been something wrong with McGee before the whole conference room fiasco, and the elder man knew enough of the younger one to know, that he was probably spiralling out of control somewhere.

For all his talents, for all his intelligence and despite the fact that he was a fine young man, Gibbs knew McGee was plagued by insecurities. Insecurities that he and Tony had inadvertently brought crashing to the fore. Glancing to his right, he saw the unusually silent DiNozzo was also lost to his own thoughts. If he was a betting man, he would have wagered they bore a startling similarity to his own.

Walking briskly to Gibbs' car, Tony turned a pained face to the elder man.

"How are we going to find him boss?"

Slipping into the driver's seat, the team leader sighed.

"He's in a bar somewhere Tony, just got to try them all."

"All the bars in central DC boss?"

Shrugging his shoulders as he reversed the car out of his space, Gibbs pondered.

"We'll try cross town first. I know there's a few places there he goes when he's…confused."

Tony looked at his boss in bewilderment for a moment.

"How do you know that?"

Gibbs smiled slightly, despite the current situation.

"It's my job to know that, Tony. You think I don't know that you suddenly turn into Michael Tyson when you're upset?"

Tony's jaw dropped slightly as he registered this.

"You know I box?"

Swinging into the lane with the least traffic, Gibbs nodded.

"I know you're pretty good at it too."

The usual smile that would have shone through at a compliment from his boss was lost in translation as Tony considered the different way's he and McGee reacted to being stressed out. This led him to a consideration of his own actions that day. The guilt he already felt intensified, and he began to squirm in his seat.

Seeing this, Gibbs raised a questioning eyebrow at the younger man.

Not even bothering to come up with a mitigating defence, that would present his actions in a better light, Tony obediently opened his mouth.

"I was horrible to Tim today boss" he muttered quietly.

A brief silence ensued as Gibbs didn't answer, knowing the younger man wasn't finished.

"When you were in MTAC, I… gave him a hard time. I was…bored. He was trying to work, and I kept ragging on him. I could see he was getting annoyed, but I didn't stop. Ziva told me to stop, and still, I kept going. If I hadn't been such a jerk…maybe he wouldn't have assumed the worst when he heard us talking. This is…all my fault."

With that, Tony let his gaze drop to the car's floor and grimaced as the gently burning guilt he had felt, suddenly roared into a raging guilt. Why did he always have to torment Tim. Why couldn't he just leave the kid alone? Why did he have to be such an asshole?

Grateful for the red light he just yielded to; Gibbs reached out and rapped Tony hard, upside the head.

Tony yelped, but didn't protest, and waited for the lecture he assumed was coming.

When the elder of the two remained silent, and his hands remained on the wheel, the senior field agent felt the pulls of confusion.

"What, that's it?"

Sighing slightly, Gibbs pondered for a moment.

"Tony, this isn't your fault. There's more to this than we know, and I will deal with it when we find Tim. That being said, I don't know how many times I have told you to stop teasing him when it's clear he's getting upset. Tim isn't as confident as you are, and what may seem funny to you, definitely mightn't be funny to him. We'll have a chat about your behaviour later, but right now, my main concern is finding him. Ok?"

"Yes boss" Tony murmured quietly.

Silence ensued again as the car trundled on; they were getting close to whatever haunts Gibbs knew Tim to frequent. A sudden thought struck Tony as they began to pass vibrant looking bars. A thought that caused him great concern.

"Boss?" he began tentatively, not knowing how well, or badly, his concerns would be received.

"Yeah Tony?" Gibbs answered distractedly, trying to remember if it was the right or left turn he was supposed to take next.

"Tim…he's not…I mean you're not…uhm..."

"Spit it out DiNozzo."

Nodding and collecting his thoughts, Tony tried again.

"Tim's not in…trouble, is he? I mean…you're not going to uhm…"

Having a feeling as to where this was going, and feeling a twinge of pride for Tony's looking out for the kid, Gibbs sighed slightly.

"Punish him?" he supplied knowingly.

"Yeah" Tony replied, an anxious note now clearly evident in his voice. "He's just a kid boss, he's upset…he didn't mean to break the rules, and it was my fault as well even though you think it's not. Can't you just let this one go?"

Shaking his head, whilst wishing with all his might he could nod instead, Gibbs knew the answer instinctively before he even had time to formulate it.

"Like I said Tony, my main concern right now is finding him. That being said, nothing gives him the right to run off like this, and yeah, you can bet your ass he's in serious trouble, but, I don't want to hear another word about it right now, ok? We just need to make sure he's ok and safe."

Sighing in reluctance, the younger man nodded, knowing no other response was acceptable.

The car came to a stop, and Gibbs was relieved to vaguely remember the bar he parked outside.

"Ok, let's get started."

With that, the two men exited the car and entered the first of what would be many bars in search for their wayward team member.

Several blocks away, in his fifth bar of the still young day, Tim clutched his ninth drink and snorted in laughter as he chatted happily to his newly acquired friends.

They weren't his usual type of friends, in fact, they were the type of people he'd never spoken to before in his life.

That was part, he deduced in his drunken state, of their charm.

They were out and out hippies, having blown into to town on a eccentric mix of motorcycle, motor home and even the odd horse.

An hour or so passed in a comfortable drunken stupor, and suddenly the eclectic bunch seemed like friends he'd known his entire life.

As another round of drinks landed on their table, Tim's eyes grew slightly wider at the package one of them, he vaguely remembered as calling himself Ashton, pulled out of his pocket. The others grouped around the table, hooted loudly at its appearance and held their hands out eagerly.

The inner, and sober, federal agent inside Tim instantly went into battle with the outer, and very drunk, Tim.

He definitely shouldn't be around such flagrant breaches of the law, and he definitely shouldn't be drunk around such fragrant breaches of the law. As he contemplated his options through a haze of drunken thoughts, the package was suddenly brandished in his face. Glancing around the bar, he was fervently glad it was completely empty save for them, and the bartender. These people weren't exactly discreet.

"Come on Timmy, this will loosen you up" the pretty girl across the table urged. He remembered she'd called herself Freya… or something like that.

Holding up his hands drunkenly, he shook his head, but quickly stopped when the movement made him feel sick. How much had he had to drink?

"Come on man, live a little" the handsome one beside Freya grinned. He thought that one had called himself Dave.

About to open his mouth to protest, a sudden image of the laughing Tony and Gibbs popped up in the young man's mind.

Momma's boy? He'd show them a momma's boy.

Holding out his hand, he grinned when the hooting increased as a tablet was dropped into it.

Viciously thinking about the image of his laughing teammates, he raised his hand to his mouth to insert the tablet.

Then all of a sudden, the image of the two men who had caused him such turmoil, was swept from his mind.

It was swept from his mind by a sudden, and ferocious, grip on the scruff of his neck.

Looking up in surprise, he felt his jaw drop.

The reason the image of Tony and Gibbs had been swept from his mind, became horrifically clear.

It was because the real Tony and Gibbs were standing in front of him, each wearing a look of shock that closely mirrored his own.

Gibbs recovered first.

Using the hand that didn't have McGee's scruff in a stranglehold, he smartly knocked the tablet out of the young man's hand and heaved him none too gently, to his feet.

Glaring around the table of stunned blow ins, he fished around his pocket. Yanking his credentials out, he flashed them angrily at the odd gathering and fought the urge to smash the one holding the bag of tablets in the face.

"NCIS. You have two minutes to get the hell out of this bar, before I arrest each and every single one of you."

A stunned silence ensued, before chairs scraped loudly and the large group fled from the bar.

They didn't know who that guy was, but one look at the anger that had burned in his eyes had left them in no doubt that he wasn't a man to be messed with.

Tumbling out of the bar, they all spared a thought for their new friend Tim, but…rather him than them.

In the bar, Tim was suddenly feeling very sober. The merriness of alcohol that blanketed him, was quickly wasting away. Taking in the look of shock on Tony's face, he felt his stomach plummet.

He was so dead.

Squirming under the intense grip Gibbs still had on him, he turned to face the man.

"Boss…I-"

Giving the younger man a firm shake, Gibbs silenced him.

"Did you take anything other than drink, McGee? Tell me the truth, right now" he demanded, feeling sick to his own stomach.

Shaking his head immediately and truthfully, Tim silently pleaded with the elder man to believe him.

Which he did.

Transferring the kid into Tony's grasp, Gibbs ran a hand through his hair in frustration.

"Put him in the car DiNozzo, and don't let him out of your sight. I need to talk to the bartender."

Nodding silently, Tony exerted pressure on the horrified looking McGee's shoulders, in an attempt to make him move.

Tim, for his part, wisely obeyed and forced his legs to move in the direction Tony was guiding him.

Wrenching open the back door of Gibbs' car, Tony gently placed McGee in the seat, and reached around the still drunken man and fastened his seat belt, before slipping into the front seat and locking the car doors.

"You've really done it this time probie, damn it to hell, you've really done it this time…"

Feeling the sting of Tony's words, Tim suddenly went on the defensive.

"Don't pretend you care DiNozzo" he spat, "I heard you and the almighty Gibbs. I know what you two think, and don't worry, I won't be around to bother you much longer. I'm handing in my resignation to the Director tomorrow."

Swivelling around in his chair to face the younger man, Tony shook his head angrily.

"The hell you are probie. What you heard from the conference room, wasn't about you."

Tim merely stared at him in confusion for a moment, before erupting again.

"Don't lie" he snarled, "I heard you say my name."

Growling himself, Tony tried to remain calm.

"We were talking about Tim Connery, McGenius. The witness we were interviewing today, she's his sister. She had video footage of him that was relevant to the case, that's how he came up."

In the back seat, McGee's heart sank so fast and hard that he struggled to breathe, and he wondered briefly if he had somewhere along the line of his active field duty, suffered a brain injury he was unaware of.

He knew who Tim Connery was. He was a former NCIS now turned FBI agent, that Tony and Gibbs despised because he had tried to have Tony fired from NCIS many moons ago, in an insane attempt to take his place on Gibbs' MCRT team.

"Oh my god…" he whispered, to himself more than anything.

Seeing Gibbs storm from the bar, Tony winced in sympathy, despite his anger with the younger man.

"You might want to start praying to that god of yours McGee."

…..

TBC

….

A/N: I have no idea where this is going, just making it up as I go along, so if you've anything you particularly want to see, let me know!

Thanks for reading!