Part iV
He feels emotionally and physically drained by the time Ziva brings him back home, and he doesn't have the energy to do anything but fall into bed. He is asleep by the time he hits the pillow, and when he wakes the next day, he finds it is close to noon and too late to go to work.
There is a hollow feeling in his chest, and he realizes that for the first time in a long time, he has slept without dreaming of Sarah.
Somehow this makes him feel worse instead of better.
The rest of the day passes in a haze, and that night he finds himself slowly making his way down the stairs into Gibbs' basement, where he takes a seat on the last step.
Tim is silent as he watches the older man work the sander against the wood. There is a meticulous care in Gibbs' rhythmic action, and an atmosphere of peace permeates the dusty room. The expression on the older man's face is calm and reflective and warm, as though lost in a happy memory.
Tim blinks, surprised.
There is no sense of grief here.
Tim thinks back to what he knows about his boss and his boat building habits. The secret to getting the boat out of the basement is still a secret, and up until this point, he has always been under the impression that boat building was something Gibbs did to clear his head, nothing more.
"Did you build a boat for Shannon?" Tim doesn't even realize that he's asked the question aloud until he sees Gibbs pause in his sanding to look at him for a moment, before he turns back to continue what he was doing.
"Yeah."
Silence settles over the basement again, and Tim continues to watch his boss sand his boat before an observation pops out of his mouth.
"You don't grieve for them anymore."
"No, I don't."
"How did you stop?"
"By living for them instead." Tim can hear what isn't being said—through the work he does with NCIS, through the boats he builds, through the way he deals with all the children and mothers and wives they meet everyday.
"Did it hurt to build Shannon's boat?"
Tim watches as Gibbs continues to sand for a moment, before he puts the hand tool down on his work bench. "Some days were easy, and some days weren't. But by the time I finished, it had become easier for me to celebrate her instead of mourn her. She's become a little part of every boat I've built since then." Tim watches the older man empty a Mason jar and pour a couple fingers of bourbon for himself. "It still hurts to think of them every now and then, but in some ways it's easier now too."
Tim feels his eyes beginning to droop as he watches Gibbs go back to working on his boat. He doesn't realize he'd dozed off until he feels his shoulder being shaken. Tim blinks blearily up at Gibbs, who pats his shoulder and helps him to his feet and up the stairs to the living room couch, where Tim drops boneless into the cushions.
The last thing Tim hears as he feels a blanket being draped over him is Gibbs wishing him good night.
That night, Tim dreams of Sarah again, but not of her death. Instead it is of the two of them on Halloween ten years prior, with eleven-year-old Sarah dressed as a medieval princess with a sword strapped to a belt at her waist and a fake sorcerer's staff in her hand.
"I'm not just any princess! I'm a warrior too!"
When Tim wakes, his cheeks are wet with tears again, but there is a smile on his face, and an idea in his head. And for the first time in days, he actually takes notice of the dawn sunlight streaming through Gibbs' living room curtains.