After the therapy session Tim had wanted nothing more than to go home and lose himself in the universe of an online game, but instead he was stuck in the back seat of Gibbs's car with Tony beside him. Ziva had called "shotgun", and Tim was unreasonably irritated at her for winning the privilege, even though he'd never have the nerve to call it himself.
Tony reached across the seat and grabbed the top of Tim's head with his open hand, fingers spread wide.
"Tony!" Tim yelled and tried to swat DiNozzo's arm away, but Tony pinned him down and scrunched his fingers back and forth on Tim's scalp.
"It doesn't seem any smaller to me!" Tony then planted one hand flat across Tim's face and the other on the back of his head and squeezed.
"What the hell, Tony!" Tim waved his hands blindly in Tony's direction, trying to push his annoying partner away.
"I was just thinking that after having your head shrunk, maybe your giant noggin would be a little smaller. But I can't tell the difference. I guess you're going to need more intensive work than we all thought, Probie."
Tim finally wrenched himself free from Tony's grasp.
"Bite me, DiNozzo."
"Only if you ask politely!" Tony quipped.
"Do I need to pull over the car?" Gibbs growled from the front seat.
Tim glared at his partner and Tony grinned in return, but they kept their mouths shut. They both had experienced Gibbs "pulling over the car" before, and the only thing worse than the spanking they'd get would be having to face Ziva waiting for them afterwards.
With everyone finally riding in silence, Tim was able to sink back inside himself. His mind went straight to Tony's comment about his head still being the same size. It had just been a joke, but Tim thought that Tony had unknowingly been right. Not because it was scientifically impossible for his head to have gotten smaller, but because Tim hadn't let Dr. Avery do any shrinking on him. He thought it might have been nice to have let her in, just the tiniest little bit. Maybe she'd have been able to fix him, to make him right again. Maybe there'd be some kind of psychological magic she could work and it would be like the night of the shooting had never happened.
Tim shook himself back to reality. He had no right to want Dr. Avery to fix him. John Benedict would never be fixed. He was dead. He'd been a good cop, and now he was dead, and Tim had killed him. The least Tim could do was live with the constant pain of knowing that he was the reason a decorated and honorable policeman was dead. There were a million ways he could have done things differently that night. If he hadn't startled everyone by calling out, maybe the men in the car wouldn't have shot at Benedict, and Tim would never have returned fire. If he'd paid more attention to where the flash had come from, he might have aimed his shots at the car instead of Benedict. If he'd taken just a second to realize that Benedict was raising his hands in surrender, and not to fire his gun, Tim wouldn't have shot at all, and he might have been able to save Benedict from Archer's gunshot.
Tim could pretend all he wanted that the reason he hadn't opened up to the psychologist was that he didn't want to lose his job. But he knew that if it would bring John Benedict back, he'd hand over his badge himself. No, if he was being honest, Tim knew that the reason he didn't confide in Dr. Avery was that he didn't deserve to feel better. Being in pain was the only way he could try to make amends.