Again, I would like to suggest a background music for this chapter. If possible, please look up Yiruma, River flows in you in Youtube and listen to it as a background.

Blue Musical Unicorns

A couple of hours later, Sarah enters the room, and she rushes to her brother's side and cries all over him. Maggie, Matthew, Ducky and Palmer enter the room in a more sedated pace. Ducky had talked to both Tim's and Sarah's doctors, and had arranged for Sarah to stay in observation in the same room as her brother.

As the two McGees slowly reacquainted themselves to each other, Maggie approaches her own son, Matthew, and studied his tired face, not liking the pure exhaustion she saw in his eyes. She sits down on one of the chairs and pats the one next to her.

Her baby boy sits beside her, and waits for her dressing down. However, she simply smiles at him, and lifts her hand to his face, and caresses it, bringing it to her shoulder.

"Sleep, you're tired, Matt." Only five minutes with her playing with his hair, he was already asleep.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

The soft light of the morning shining into the hospital room and on the bed illuminated both Timothy and Sarah, who had fallen asleep sitting on a chair by her brother's bedside. Her head was lying on his bed, one of her hands in a tight grip with his.

McGee slowly wakes up and he feels someone's hand over his other hand, and he twitches. The hand answers with a firm grip, callused masculine fingers holding onto his hand, transmitting security and a stronghold in time of trouble.

He blinks, slowly, and he's not really surprised to see, when his eyesight finally clears enough, deep blue eyes looking concerned at him, a concern that is usually reserved only to those near death situations that happened in their line of work.

"Boss," he says, but his mouth was dry and his voice comes out croaky.

"Shush," Gibbs says, and gives him some ice chips. "You don't want to wake up Sarah or Joy."

McGee takes the ice chips gladly and frowns. "Joy?" Gibbs points with his chin to the other side of the room. McGee turns his head to see Joy sleeping on the other hospital bed, an IV connected to her vein.

He studies her for a long while. He sees the paleness and the deep circles around her eyes, and he studies the IV connected to her.

"What happened?"

"She collapsed. Right after we arrested your father."

"Why?" he asks softly, still staring at her.

"Why we arrested your father? McGee, the man tried to kill us all."

"No, why did she collapse?" McGee looks back at Gibbs, frowning at the older man.

"Apparently, she was working these last few days with close to no sleep. As soon as the situation was solved, and your father arrested," he points to Joy, who sighs in her sleep and moves in the bed, "her body shut down and put her under. Ducky said she'll be good to go as soon as she sleeps for a day or two."

He thinks about the previous night. "Maggie was here."

Gibbs nods. "So was Joseph, they arrived last night. Maggie, as soon as she heard what happened, came to the hospital, while Joseph contacted General O'Neill and arranged your father's arrest."

Timothy looks confused. "I thought you said we arrested him." Gibbs nods. "But now you said the General arrested him, how come?"

Gibbs smiles, as his geek's computer sized mind is not working at full force yet. "We did, right after we revealed his sleazyness to SecNav and several high ranking officers of the Navy and Air Force." McGee stares at Gibbs, who smirks. "But apparently Commander McGee had decided to poke around Maggie's project buddies, and he ordered some thugs beat up one of the main honchos of it. He was charged with treason, conspiracy to murder and a litany of other crimes that are not really worth mentioning now. He will pay for his crimes and he will never be seen again."

McGee blinks, as the news is slowly absorbed by his brain. "He won't ever bother us again, Boss?"

Gibbs leans back on the seat, "If General is the one behind his punishment, he'll be lucky if he's not put into a rocket and launched into the outer atmosphere, without life support."

The door of the room opens, and in walks Maggie and Joseph, with a backpack on his arms. They smile at Gibbs, and look happy to see McGee already awake. Maggie approaches him, and studies his face, looking for any sign of discomfort, "Did you sleep well, Tim?"

"Yeah." He looks at Sarah, whose head is lying on his bed. Joseph approaches her and gently brushes the hair off her face. "Hey sleeping beauty, time to wake up."

Sarah blinks, and yawns as Joseph takes her by her shoulders and gently lifts her from her brother's side.

"Mr. Buchanan, what time is it?" Sarah asks in a sleepy voice.

"It's past ten am, honey, come on, we brought you fresh clothes," says Maggie. She takes Sarah by her shoulders and gently guides her to the small in suite bathroom, bringing the backpack with herself. "Let's get changed, shall we?" She closes the bathroom door after herself.

Joseph goes to his daughter's bedside, and studies her sleeping features. He smiles, opens his old aviator's jacket and takes a soft plush toy from inside it. He starts winding it.

"How did you sleep, Tim? Any nightmares?" He stops winding. Soft baby music starts to play, and he places the toy by Joy's face. She immediately grabs it and burrows her face in the soft toy. She sighs and seems to fall into a deeper sleep.

McGee and Gibbs smile at the scene before them, as Joy unconsciously rubs her face on the blue unicorn, and settles down to sleep again. Joseph caresses her soft curly hair, and turns to the other bed, where the young man looks fascinated by his daughter.

"Does she always do that?" McGee asks, still staring at his Joy sleeping.

"With Ducky? Yes." McGee and Gibbs stare at Joseph. He smiles. "Yes, the little unicorn is named Ducky, I have no idea why, it was one of the first toys we ever gave her as child." He brings a visitor's chair towards Tim's bedside, and looks at his daughter. "She despised it while awake, but whimpered if she didn't have it by her bed at night." He looks at Gibbs, his eyes twinkling. "Imagine my surprise when she said that she was working with a M.E. named Ducky, I immediately thought it was a joke."

The three men smile, but Joseph soon becomes serious again. "We've checked your place, it will be uninhabitable for a while, so Maggie suggested that you and Sarah move into the townhouse for a few weeks. There's plenty of space, and well, we're used to bullet holes in the walls, so we're very adept to redecorating every once in a while." He looks at Gibbs. "Your people went there this morning, photographed everything and now we have a cleaning crew working on it. They promised to have everything done by noon."

"Mr. Buchanan, I don't want to impose," starts McGee, just to be interrupted by Joseph.

"You won't impose, you practically already live there." McGee blushes, and glances at Gibbs who smirks at him. "And it will be no problem preparing a bedroom for Sarah. And," he says very seriously, which makes McGee look at his face, "my name is Joseph, I told you already, a thousand times."

Tim smiles at the Buchanan patriarch. He then glances at Sarah who is coming out of the bathroom with Maggie in fresh clothes.

"Ma'am, I appreciate the offer but…" Sarah starts, just to be interrupted by Maggie.

She frowns, "I told you already, call me Maggie, or mom, no need to be formal."

"Maggie." She glances at Timothy, who is watching the two women talk, and continues, "I broke up with Matt, so you don't have to treat me like that anymore."

Maggie freezes, and stares at Sarah for a full minute. She then takes Sarah's hand, and gently guides her to seat on McGee's bed.

Maggie stares at the two siblings, side by side, and she has to take a minute to prepare what she has to say. She glances first at Timothy, this young man who entered her daughter's life and gave her a new lease on life and in love, infecting her with a will to live that she had never dreamed to see again in her traumatized daughter.

Then she glances at Sarah, this young brave lady who swept her baby boy from his very feet, leaving him in a daze and forcing him to take a stand in the direst circumstances, in order to save his life and others.

His mettle had been tested in the burning fires of terror and violence, and he was not found wanting. But the price he had paid for survival had been steep, and her heart suffered for the pain she had heard in her baby boy's voice. In saving Sarah's life, he apparently lost her love and respect.

She sighs, and drops the hovering attitude and talks in a very serious tone, "Sarah, I will only say this once, so I want you to listen it very carefully.

"I care for you, not like a person would care for an acquaintance, or someone they met just a couple of times, I truly care for you. It doesn't matter if you are dating Matthew or not, I'm still going to keep on caring for you. If you ever need me, or if you ever need anything that is within my reach to give you or to assist you, you can count on me.

"When I first started my life journey with Joseph," she glances smiling at her husband, "I had never even dreamed about the places and people I would get to meet during my lifetime, but if there is one thing that I've learned in all my years, is that nothing, nothing is more important than family. Either it is the one you are born into, or the one you gather along the way, if you don't have a family, you are adrift and purposeless. You don't have a reason to fight, you just vegetate.

She touches Sarah's cheek, and wipes the tears running down her face with her thumb. "I care for you as if you were one of my own children, and I guarantee you, invading alien armies could not prevent me from coming to your aid, regardless of the fact that you are my boy's girlfriend or not. I considered you as one of my own, from the moment I saw you walking towards me scared about your brother's and my daughter's safety so many months ago. And nothing ever will change that.

Sarah is crying openly now, and Maggie simply takes a step forward and hugs her, whispering in her ear, "I will always be there for you, Sarah," she takes a step back, and looks at the young woman in her eyes, "because that's what families do," she glances at Timothy, "that's what a mother does.

"And you young man," She turns to Timothy, "you carried the burden of responsibility for a long time, on your own." She reaches out and grabs one of his hands. "But it is not a shame to ask for help sometimes. And I want you to know that, no matter what happens, I'll also be there for you, if you need a hug, or help with something, or if you just want me to terrorize some idiot who's bullying you." He barks a laugh, and Maggie smiles between her tears. "I'm just a call away."

He squeezes her hand. "Thanks Mrs. Buchanan." She frowns at him. He smiles. "Maggie."

She smiles. "I have no intention of taking your mom's place, but I just want to honor her memory by taking care of you two to the best of my ability." She touches their cheeks. "So, please stop being proud and independent when there's no reason to be, let us help you, let us protect you, because it makes us, old fools, feel better, knowing that you're safe and sound."

Sarah looks at Maggie with tears in her eyes, and she's overwhelmed by the care Maggie is showing her.

"So, are you going to move into the townhouse, no more of this bullshit of being a burden, ok?" Sarah laughs, and nods.

And the soft baby music still played on.