Chapter 10

It took some doing to persuade Jethro to go with them when he could smell Tim's presence in the building. In the end, Gibbs took the dog up to Tim's office so that he could see that Tim wasn't there after all and then, with tail drooping, Jethro allowed himself to be led to the car.

They headed straight for the safehouse, with Fornell and Sacks leading the way. As soon as they let Jethro out of the car, his ears perked up and he pulled them into the apartment building, his nose to the floor...right up to the door of the safehouse. Fornell raised an eyebrow and opened the door. Jethro pulled Gibbs along and they got ahead. Whining loudly, Jethro moved to the first bloodstain. Unsatisfied, he sniffed his way to the computer. Then, he headed to the other bloodstain, the one by the window to the fire escape.

Then...he started tugging to go out the window to the fire escape.

"He went out the window," Tony said. "That's where one of them died?"

"Yeah," Fornell said. "He almost made it out."

"Perhaps he died trying to get Tim out," Ziva said.

"Yeah, after taking him here," Tony said. "I'm not sure I'm all that impressed."

"You don't know what happened yet, DiNozzo," Sacks said.

Before he could say more, Fornell interrupted.

"We're not going to start this," he said. "He's got the scent, let's follow it."

Jethro was still tugging on the leash, trying to get out.

"Okay, Jethro. Let's go."

Gibbs followed him out onto the fire escape. The others were coming along behind, but Gibbs was paying attention to where Jethro was going. It had been raining. Not hard, just enough to cool things down. If Tim was outside somewhere, though, that could be bad for him. Obviously, he hadn't been found yet...alive, anyway.

Jethro slipped a little on the metal steps, but he didn't let that stop him. He had Tim's scent and he wasn't going to be kept away from him any longer than necessary. Gibbs kept a strong grip on the leash, afraid that if he let go, Jethro would dash off, leaving them all behind.

They kept going, first along the sidewalks, for more than a mile. They were walking toward the Potomac. If Tim were free to go where he wanted, why would he walk further away from the people who could help him? Even if he were disoriented, as happened to him sometimes, why would he head for relatively empty locales instead of getting help? If he wasn't free...why would his captors take him this way...if he was alive.

Gibbs didn't want to think it, but he couldn't help but do so.

Were they about to discover a body? Had Tim survived a bullet to the head only to be killed because of someone from the FBI taking him?

Jethro suddenly yanked on the leash. Gibbs wasn't ready for it and he lost his grip on it. He spared only a second to look back at the others and then took off after the dog. Jethro started barking sharply and Gibbs increased his pace. The ground declined to the river level. Thankfully, at this time of year, the river was lower and wherever Jethro had gone, it wasn't necessarily into the river.

Gibbs broke through the trees and saw Jethro's tail wagging. That was all he could see of the dog, but he could hear Jethro whining. He hurried over and knelt down. When he pushed back the branches, his heart was in his throat for a moment.

Tim was lying motionless on the ground. Jethro was licking his face and whining.

"Tim," Gibbs said.

No response.

He reached out and touched Tim. He wasn't ready for the reaction he got. He hadn't actually expected a reaction at all.

What he got was a whimper and Tim pulling away from him, further into the bushes.

"Tim, it's Gibbs. You're all right."

No reply to that statement. Gibbs may as well not have spoken. Tim was still crawling away from him.

"Tim!" Gibbs said again.

This time, he grabbed Tim's arm to keep him from moving away. Tim let out a strangled scream and redoubled his efforts to escape. Gibbs pulled Tim out of the bushes and turned him over.

"Tim, snap out of it!" he said.

There was no sanity in Tim's eyes. He was out of his mind with terror. He was also shaking. Gibbs could feel how cold Tim was.

"Can't hear it. I can't hear it," he whispered. "I won't hear it. I won't. I can't. It's not... I can't..."

"Hear what?" Gibbs asked.

But whatever it was that Tim couldn't hear, he didn't seem able to hear anything else, either. The one relief was that Tim didn't seem to be injured. Whatever had done this to him, it wasn't injury.

"Tony," Gibbs said.

"What's wrong with him?"

"I don't know. Call for an ambulance." He looked at Jethro who was whining anxiously. "And let them know that Jethro will be going along with him."

Tony looked at Jethro and nodded without comment. Gibbs returned his attention to Tim. The others could take care of themselves. Tim couldn't.

"Tim, can you hear me?"

Tim lifted his hands and covered the scar on his head with his palms. Then, he closed his eyes tightly and started mumbling unintelligibly. That was a bad sign. Tim hadn't done that since he thought he was dead after he got shot.

"Come on, Tim. Don't do this again."

No response. Gibbs tried to pull Tim's hands down from his head, but Tim was too tense for it unless Gibbs wanted to force him.

"They're coming," Tony said. "What do we do, Boss? What's wrong with him?"

"We have to be here," Ziva said.

"Don't know what's wrong," Gibbs said. "He's...gone."

Tony knelt down, too, and Tim's mumbling increased in volume. Jethro started whining again.

"Tim, it's okay," he said awkwardly. "No one is going to hurt you. It's all right now."

No response.

"What's going on?" Sacks asked.

"Something happened," Ziva said. "Who knows...besides Tim."

"You sure it's not just an act?"

Tony turned around to confront Sacks, but Gibbs held him back.

"Yes, we're sure," Gibbs said. "Fornell, you'll have to wait."

"Understood."

The ambulance came, and in spite of some unexpected resistance, Tim was taken away with Jethro in tow.

Tony suddenly spun on Sacks and Fornell.

"What in the world did you people do to him?" he demanded. "Tim hasn't been this messed up since right after he got shot in the head! What did it take for you FBI idiots to tear him down until he can't even acknowledge reality? Huh? What did you do?"

"We didn't do anything," Fornell said mildly. "Whatever happened to your agent has nothing to do with us."

"Yeah, you're pretty quick to lay the blame on him," Tony spat back. "But when it comes to it being something you people did, you're quick to put limits down, aren't you."

"Tony!" Ziva said. "This is not helping. Whatever happened...unless we can find evidence, it will have to wait until Tim can tell us. ...and he will. I will not believe that he will be stuck like this. He was not before. He will recover this time, too."

"He almost killed himself last time," Tony said.

"He won't this time," Gibbs said. "We'll make sure of that. ...but if it does come down to your agents doing this to him, Fornell..."

The warning didn't need to be made explicit. Nor did Fornell need to acknowledge it, and he didn't. The warning was received and understood.

For now, there was something else that needed to be done. They had found Tim, and now they needed to tell his family what little they knew.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

The water was gone and Jethro was gone. Reality was swirling around in his head. He felt like he was falling off the edge of the world. There was so much noise, voices that he couldn't understand and didn't know. He didn't know how to find his way back after they took him from the calm of the water. He didn't know where he was once Jethro vanished into that swirling insanity.

He had started to fight to get back to something that made sense, something that would rescue him from continuing to fall into a void.

But it didn't work. He suddenly couldn't move at all, but even completely still, he felt as though he was falling off the edge of the world. Swirling, falling, lost in a miasma. He cried out for help, but he couldn't hear any response.

Eventually, darkness started to take over his mind. He fought against falling into that darkness, but it spread and thickened until he was lost in it.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim's eyes closed and the nurse on duty removed the restraints.

"He should sleep for hours now."

Tony nodded mutely.

"Until we can get through to him, this is best," she said.

"Yeah."

The nurse smiled sympathetically and let herself out of the room. Tim had been fully restrained on the bed. He had been fighting the staff when they arrived. Nothing anyone had said had got through the strange panic that gripped him. It wasn't like when he had suffered from Cotard's delusion. It was more like his reaction after Jimmy had kept him from jumping off the roof. Gibbs and Ziva were waiting for Tim's parents to get there. Abby and Ducky were, unfortunately, still working.

That left Tony alone with Tim, wondering how the equilibrium they'd found in life post shooting had vanished so quickly. One week and it was all gone. Tim was back in the hospital, in the psychiatric ward. He'd had minor hypothermia and dehydration, but otherwise was uninjured. It wasn't fair. Tony hated to see Tim this way. It was hard to see beyond the scar that still graced Tim's forehead. It was hard to see the Tim who was so different from the Tim he'd been before. He saw things differently. He reacted differently. ...and how different he was now showed up all too clearly.

"Tim...I don't know what happened, but you don't have to hide. You aren't in danger. You're okay. Please, don't let this happen to you again. I don't know what to do to help you. I didn't before, and I really don't now."

Tim didn't respond, of course. He was unconscious. Sedated. Because he was essentially insane.

Why?

It wasn't fair.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

One day later...

Abby looked at Tim's sleeping form and wondered why he had become so disoriented. Tim's parents were taking a dinner break and Abby was trying to think of something brilliant to do to fix Tim, to make him better, to bring him back

Jethro had been so miserable and anxious that Abby had snuck him into her apartment and was letting him sleep on her bed. Even so, it hadn't removed the clear anxiety the dog was feeling. Tim had said that they took care of each other.

...and then, suddenly, there it was. Brilliance.

She got to her feet and walked out of the room, on the hunt for Dr. Khalid.

She found him fairly quickly since he was on his way to check on Tim.

"Dr. Khalid, we need to bring Tim's dog here," she said without any greeting.

"What?"

"Tim needs Jethro...his dog," Abby said again. "Tim told me before that they took care of each other. Once, when Tim was having one of his bad days, I saw him calm down almost immediately when he got home and Jethro was there. I don't know why Jethro does that for him, but he does...and Tim needs that! Please? I know it's against hospital rules to have pets inside, but please? Can't we just try it for a couple of days and see if it helps? Nothing else has and you can't just keep putting him to sleep to keep him calm!"

Dr. Khalid raised an eyebrow.

"I know you're trying, too," Abby said quickly, not wanting to antagonize him. "But here's something we haven't tried yet...and I've seen it work before."

"When Tim was having a bad day. That's not what this is. This is a mental breakdown."

"I know, but...but pets help people emotionally all the time. And Tim has used Jethro to be a kind of guide dog for him. Even when things were getting worse, having Jethro around helped him. Can't we try it?"

Dr. Khalid was silent for a few seconds, considering what she was asking for.

"Are all his shots current?"

"Absolutely. Tim never skimps on that."

"You're sure?"

"Positive."

"Can you keep control of him in the hallways so that he doesn't bother other patients?"

"Yes."

"If he goes into Tim's room, will he try to get out during the night?"

"I don't think he'd leave Tim's side if he were let in, but Jethro doesn't open doors on his own. So...as long as the door was kept closed."

Dr. Khalid sighed.

"Get him professionally groomed and cleaned. What kind of dog is he?"

"A German shepherd."

"Okay. Do that and I'll let you try it out for a day or two. If there's any improvement, we'll keep the dog with Tim as long as necessary, but if he misbehaves, bothers other patients..."

"He's a very well-behaved dog!" Abby said.

"He's also an animal, and even the best-behaved animal can have bad behaviors, especially in an unfamiliar setting."

"I can't guarantee it one hundred percent, Dr. Khalid," Abby said. "But the only time Jethro ever misbehaved was when he'd been given drugs. As long as no one does that, he should behave well. He's been trained very well and Tim has kept him trained."

"Very well. I'll clear it with the hospital, let them know you're coming. Check in at the desk when you arrive, go straight to Tim's room, no stops in between, and any sign of misbehavior means he's out. I want to help Tim, too, but I can't overlook all the other patients in this hospital just for one."

Abby wanted to protest, but logically, she knew that was how Dr. Khalid had to think. So she nodded.

"I'll take him to get him cleaned today."

Dr. Khalid smiled.

"I'm sure you will. And I hope it works. Because of Tim's previous delusion, he doesn't react the way I'd expect and there's no telling what will help."

"This will help. I know it will," Abby said and left the hospital. ...hoping that she was right.