"Hey, you awake?" Tony pounced the moment he saw a flicker of green eyes opening. "Probie?"

"Yeah." His voice sounded rusty, DiNozzo had spent enough time in the hospital to remember what it was like to wake up from a drug induced sleep and had a water glass ready. A few sips from the straw made a world of difference in the way he sounded.

"You got stuck with babysitting duty?"

In answer, he got the famous DiNozzo grin. "Wanted to make sure you woke up to a beautiful sight."

The banter felt surprisingly good and he sounded stronger the more he spoke. "What beautiful sight would that be?"

"Why, this one of course." Tony framed his face with his hands as he spoke. Before he could wind up completely a nurse arrived to interrupt.

"Mr. McGee, you were supposed to tell us when your brother woke up." She bustled past him and began to check McGee. He ignored most of what was going on, still stuck on Tony being called Mr. McGee. Eventually satisfied, she left and the two men were alone again.

"You guys really made them believe we were related?"

DiNozzo raised the bed to make it easier for his partner to see him. "It didn't take that much work to convince them. A couple of the nurses saw right through it, but they played along."

"Can't be doing much for your social life." McGee took careful stock of how he was feeling. Other than his hand, he was comfortably numb. He tilted his hand up to take a better look at the bandages covering it.

Tony grasped his wrist and eased it back on the pillow used to support it. Even with the heavy gauze covering it, he was sure that Tim didn't want to see it quite yet. "What do you mean? I'll have you know I've gotten the phone numbers of four nurses so far."

"Four? How'd you manage that if they think you're my brother?" He was beginning to fade again, eyes closed as he talked.

"Easy, I'm the suave, sophisticated older brother, worrying over my baby brother. The ladies love that." He watched and waited for the right moment, for when Tim was almost asleep. "What was Terry like?"

Just as Tony had hoped, the pain killers and exhaustion had lowered the younger man's defenses and he answered his partner's question without hesitation. "Terry was great; he was everything I'm not. He was a lot like you."

"What do you mean?" He wasn't sure if that was a complement or not.

"Everybody loved Terry. He was smart and funny. We were only eight and he already had the girls fighting over him." Tim had a slight smile on his face as he remembered.

Tony didn't have quite as much of a smile. "A lady killer at eight, huh. Didn't you guys look alike?"

"Nah, I was the runt, everybody said so."

"The runt? How come?"

"Sick all the time, had a heart murmur. Terry was supposed to grow up and be an Admiral – the first one in the family." The rambling got quieter, but there was one thing Tony wasn't quite ready to let go of yet.

"You're the one that grew up and went to MIT, how come you think he was the smart one?"

The smile grew sad. "He was smart about the important stuff. Bobby's brother had to watch all of us kids one day." He started to fade out so DiNozzo nudged him slightly to keep him on track long enough to tell about Bobby. Somehow, he knew it was important.

"What happened with Bobby?"

"He was in high school, had his homework on the table and I saw it."

Another nudge kept him going. "You saw his homework? What was it?"

"Calculus, but he did it wrong, got the wrong answer. I told him the right answer." Tim's eyes drifted shut for a second but then opened again before Tony could prompt him. "His girlfriend laughed, thought it was funny."

Tony had a bad feeling where this was headed as Tim continued. "Bobby said I cheated, that I looked it up someplace – was going to beat me up. Terry stood up to him, threatened to tell on him."

"Good for Terry." This time the words went unheard and unanswered.

_________________

"Ducky, do any of these compounds mean anything to you?" Abby leaned against the door into autopsy, a large printout in her hands.

The medical examiner looked up from his contemplation of Wilson's autopsy findings, glad for the interruption. "Let's take a look, my dear." He reached out and took the papers, studying them closely. Mr. Palmer leaned over his shoulder, hoping to contribute. He saw one that he recognized.

" Dihydrocodeinone enol acetate - that's an opioid."

"Quite correct, Jimmy, and this one here looks to be a synthetic form of R-cytodine monophosphate."

Abby nodded in agreement. "Yes, but what are they doing in Wilson's blood and brain tissue? What were those researchers doing to him and Maycap?"

Ducky didn't have an answer to that, but Jimmy had a question. A question none of them had been willing to vocalize quite yet. "Does it have anything to do with what Wilson was going to do to those boys, or are we wasting our time? Should we be looking for something else?"

"It's connected, I know it is." The set of Abby's jaw told the two men not to bother arguing with her. "Besides, why else would the director of the research program give Ziva the run-around?"

Ducky just raised his eyebrows at her question while Palmer shuddered in silent agreement. The Israeli woman scared him enough that he couldn't imagine not telling her everything she wanted to know.

__________________

It seemed like he had just closed his eyes when a tap to his face brought McGee awake again. "You ready to eat?" Tim blinked to find DiNozzo cheerfully cutting up a slightly odd colored slice of meatloaf. "It's the middle of the afternoon, they really want you to eat something." He glanced down at his hands. His right arm was securely strapped down, giving him only inches of movement for that hand. His left hand was heavily bandaged still and Tim couldn't imagine holding a fork in it yet. That only left the option of… he looked at Tony to find him patiently holding a fork full of meat. He groaned, knowing he really would feel better once he had some food in him.

"Okay, just no airplane noises, Tony." He hoped his glare would make his point.

"Of course not, Probie," Tony gave a wide grin before continuing. "We're Naval Investigators, so it's a tug boat. Toot, toot." When his partner opened his mouth to protest, he shoveled in a forkful of food. Tim glared, then grimaced as the taste of the hospital food registered.