December 18th

Monday morning Gibbs arrived at work, hoping that his gut had driven him crazy for nothing. Although he stood by the feelings that usually came with 'his gut feeling', this time, it would seem, he'd been wrong; at least, he hoped so. Getting in early, didn't do anything but stir up the impatience and with nothing to do but get irritated, Gibbs bundled back up and headed out for some fresh coffee that was better than the break room stuff.

By seven-fifteen sharp, Gibbs' gut was seriously twisting up and he took note of the fact that his youngest agent had not arrived yet before checking his email and his phone for any messages.

"Hey, Boss. Seen Probie this morning? He's usually here before me." Tony greeted and expressed worry all at the same time.

"Haven't seen him yet, DiNozzo."

"Who? McGee?" Ziva asked as she came off the elevator and rounded the corner to her desk.

"Yeah. Have you seen him?" Tony asked with rising concern.

"No. His computer is not on and his work area is spotless. His backpack is not here either." Ziva pointed out observantly.

With no sign of Tim, Gibbs ordered Tony to call him and headed to Autopsy to seek out Ducky out so he could get to the bottom of this.

"Ah, good morning, Jethro!" The M.E. celebrated.

"Ducky. McGee's late."

"Oh? And Timothy has never been late without it being due to trouble. The M.E. immediately fell into his pattern of pointing out the crux of Gibbs' concern.

"Given how things have been with him lately and this trip he took on Saturday, it doesn't feel right. When's the last time you heard from him?" Gibbs pushed.

"Oh, I believe it was close to one in the afternoon yesterday. Let me check my phone, Jethro and I can tell you for certain. Ah, here it is, last text message was received by my phone at, yes, I was correct, 12:50 PM yesterday afternoon. It was the one he sent to tell me he was home safe, Jethro."

"Text ? When's the last time you talked to him?"

"I believe that would have been 11 Saturday morning, before he conducted his business; his reason for taking the trip he was on."

"Get DiNozzo to run that trace on his phone." Gibbs ordered as he bolted up to the Director's Office and barged on in.

"Did you need to see me, Agent Gibbs?" Jenny asked with a touch of venom. She was, after all, fed up with Gibbs barging in her office.

"I need to know what McGee's new address is."

"Why?"

"Because he's late and that means he's in trouble."

"Jethro, even the most dedicated agents are allowed to be late once in a while." Director Jenny Shepherd said with a grin.

"Jen, the only time McGee has ever been late was when his sister was in trouble over that trumped up murder charge! Something's been going on with him for a while now and his being late doesn't feel right. I need his address, now!"

Jenny fell back on her long ago learned habit of relying on Gibbs' knowing what he was talking about, especially when he was following his gut instincts and hit the speaker button on her phone. She directed her assistant to come into her office.

Once Cynthia had entered the office, The Director wasted no time in telling her what was needed and within the space of five minutes, Gibbs not only had Tim's address, but he was halfway out the building, hurriedly heading to an agency sedan with GPS capability. Tony had been given the address and was waiting to program it remotely as soon as the car was started. He was grateful that Tim had shown them all how to do that just a month ago.

While Gibbs headed toward Tim's new apartment, his heart was in his throat. It was bad enough that it was the middle of winter and the snow was starting to fall, but on top of that Gibbs was headed somewhere he'd never been before and was dreading this, hoping he wouldn't be too late to deal with whatever the problem was while he floundered through finding the place. The need for help from the GPS only frustrated him, as technology once again flaunted its' superiority at a time when it was less than advisable.

Thankfully, Tony was able to direct him in its' use and get him there without a problem. "Thanks, Tony." He offered as ended the call to him, he shut off the car, noted with satisfaction that Tim's car was sitting there, and headed up to the kid's apartment, his conversation with Ziva and Tony from the other day, ringing in his head:

"Boss, I know that look, you think there's something wrong here, too."

"Yeah. Yeah, I do. But, short of violating his privacy, there's not a hell of a lot we can do about it, except keep in touch with him and keep reminding him, he's not alone, in whatever this is, he's going through, DiNozzo."

"Boss!"

"No, DiNozzo! We're not gonna violate his privacy just so we can get the answers to our questions. It's up to McGee to let us in when we knock. Not gonna go breakin' down his door!"

"And if he is too afraid of causing you pain, to answer your knock?"

"Good thing we know how to pick locks."

Although Gibbs had meant it figuratively at the time, he was soon doing it literally, as a good three minutes of knocking had produced no results, except to drive his gut feeling that something was wrong, through the roof. Once inside, he locked the door behind him and softly stepped through the apartment as he silently searched for clues as to what was going on with his agent. Luckily, he didn't have to look far, although he did have to look twice.

The shock at what he had walked into was that great. What looked like a dumped out backpack and its' contents were strewn across the floor; bunched up pieces of notebook paper and newspaper alike; a file folder half open and its' contents half dumped out of it. All of it littered the floor and sitting smack dab in the middle of the mess was one apparently shell-shocked Tim McGee. Sitting with his back up against his bed as he sightlessly stared off into space, he made for a very disconcerting sight.

Gibbs stepped back out of the bedroom and walked back almost to the apartment door as he made a quick call. "Duck. He's at home. I got him."

"Thank Goodness! Is he all right?"

"No, Duck, he's not.