The next time McGee woke up it was dark outside. His hand felt different and he saw the bandages were thinner enabling him to see the shape of his hand more clearly. He was sure somebody would have been prepping him if he was missing part of his hand, but to have a visual confirmation that all of his fingers were still intact took a weight off his chest he hadn't realized was there. He looked up to see Tony staring at his bandaged hand, a green tint to his skin. "You all right, Tony?"

The other man jumped slightly, not realizing that McGee was awake. "Yeah, sure, kid." He never looked up from the bandaged hand. "I'm not the one in a hospital bed."

"Tony?" The bed controls were finally within the grasp of his right hand and Tim raised the bed until he was sitting almost fully upright. The dizziness passed after a moment and he spoke louder to get the other man's attention "Tony!"

The senior field agent looked up at the second calling of his name and plastered a smile on his face. "Hey, you learned how to sit up." His eyes didn't reflect the fake smile, however.

"Is there something you guys aren't telling me?" Tim experimentally raised his hand, pleased to note that the pain he had felt earlier was absent, replaced by more of a deep ache. "My hand's going to be all right, isn't it?"

DiNozzo realized that he was upsetting his partner and under the circumstances he couldn't make a joke about it. "It's going to be fine. In fact, it looks a whole lot better than it did yesterday. It's just…" Tony looked over McGee's head as he continued. "It was close, man. It was really close"

Getting uncomfortably close to discussing feeling, he changed the subject, hoping to find out more details about McGee's complicated family life. "So, is Sarah done with school for the year?"

If McGee was surprised by the change, he didn't react. 'Yeah, she finished her last final about a week ago. She's out in Santa Barbara with Mom and Dad on vacation." Alarmed, he tried to sit up the rest of the way. "You guys haven't told her, have you?"

"No. No, we haven't spoken a word to her, honest." He frowned as he continued. "Wouldn't she want to know that you've been hurt?"

Tim dismissed the concern. "I'll be healed up before she gets back for the fall term. Besides, she doesn't know about Terry."

"Why not?"

"She was just a baby, she doesn't remember him at all." Tim sighed as he tried to explain. "It was just too hard on everybody."

Tony scooted his chair closer, speaking quietly to the younger man. "By everybody, you mean your parents?" When Tim gave a nod in the affirmative, he continued, "and your grandfather?"

Realizing that apparently he had said something to alert his friend, Tim stared at his hand, trying to decide how to explain. Neither man noticed the witness now standing in the doorway. "There's been a McGee in the Navy ever since there was a U.S. Navy. Grandpa was the first one in the family to be an officer, commissioned out in the field. His time at the Hanoi Hilton ended it for him, but then Dad made it into Annapolis and the family tradition continued. When Terry and I were born, it was pretty obvious that I wasn't going to make it in the Navy, but Terry was made for it. After Terry was… after he died, it was rough on Grandpa."

"Rough or not, it doesn't excuse what he said to you." When shocked green eyes looked up at him, Tony continued. "Did you ever tell your parents?"

Tim chewed his lip as he thought how to explain the circumstances after his twin's murder. "Mom had to go back to work to pay for my therapist that summer, so Grandpa would come over and watch me and Sarah. They didn't know he was drinking. I took care of Sarah so she would be safe and Grandpa… Grandpa drank." He blinked, looking very young. "I'm tired, Tony. I'm so tired."

"Then sleep, kiddo. You've earned it." He lowered the bed back down and spent a few minutes fussing with the blankets until the younger man succumbed to his exhaustion. Once he knew Tim was out, he turned to their shadow. "You heard?"

Gibbs gave a slow nod as he slid into the chair DiNozzo had vacated. "Go home, Tony and get some rest." He leaned forward, elbows on knees, his chin in his hands, staring at the figure in the bed. Tony watched him watching Tim before quietly slipping out the door.

__________

Ziva David waited outside the corporate offices of JBM Research, Inc. The financial trail from the closed lip researchers who were experimenting on Maycap and Wilson led her here. If she had been willing to wait a few more hours, her contacts could have given her an extensive background on the company, but she wasn't willing to wait. Instead, she was going to take a more personal approach, catching the underlings as they arrived at 07-hundred. Sometimes her job had its perks.

__________

Gibbs watched the nurse bring in the breakfast tray before checking the notes the night shift had left on Tim's chart. As she made her own notes, he poked at the oatmeal and watched it vibrate in response. It would take a great deal of fresh strawberries and heavy cream to make it edible in his mind and the tray in front of him held neither. His own breakfast would be arriving soon via Ducky, but he couldn't eat in front of the kid if this was what Tim would be facing. He reached out and touched her arm to get her attention without waking McGee.

"Is he on any diet restrictions?"

She bit back a laugh as he glared at the bowl on the tray. "There's no restriction on his food, just as long as it is healthy. Just make sure the rest of the patients on the floor aren't aware of what you're bringing in. I'd prefer not to have a riot on my hands before morning rounds are finished." Gibbs didn't bother to tell her that the hospital's idea of a healthy breakfast was much more likely to cause a riot than anything he could bring in. Instead, he called Ducky and had his morning order doubled.

___________

Being the personal assistant to the logistics director in charge of data transfer had few perks and gave many headaches. The dark haired Israeli woman sitting across from him was certainly one of the latter. He didn't think his boss was doing anything illegal, but she was sure making it sound like he was. Exactly why Mossad was concerned about the research using prison inmates was beyond him and he didn't understand how suddenly he was a potential terrorist threat because his name was on some of the paperwork. Whatever was going on, it wasn't worth the threats she was making; not for the nine dollars and thirty-two cents an hour he was making before taxes. Under the circumstances, he didn't feel the least bit guilty making copies of papers he was sure she wouldn't understand anyways. When she left he laid his head on the desk and thought hard about becoming a bartender like his Uncle Louis. The tips were good and the women a whole lot safer.

_____________

It was a little awkward to hold the fork, but McGee was determined to handle it himself. It was bad enough to have Tony feed him the night before, but he was certainly not going to expect the same from Gibbs. Luckily the boss seemed willing to let him exert his independence. He really had had enough to eat, but since Ducky had driven all the way over to replace whatever the hospital had planned on feeding him, he felt it only polite to eat as much as he possibly could. When there were only a few crumbs left he felt safe in dropping his fork back onto the tray. Gibbs didn't say anything, but Tim could feel his stare as the older man cleaned up the remains from their meal. Once everything was tidied, Gibbs sat again, but this time he was on the edge of the bed where he could better look his agent in the eye. Tim decided to take the bull by the horn.

"I could have handled it better out there." Gibbs just raised an eyebrow and let the younger man talk. "I should have told Tony my suspicions right away instead of waiting." Gibbs still didn't say anything, just reached out and lightly tapped the back of McGee's head, leaving his hand resting on his neck. When Tim finally looked, he realized that he couldn't identify the expression on his mentor's face.

"Are you ready to listen?"

Tim nodded, aware of the hand cradling the base of his skull. "You did everything right out there." A slight shake emphasized the point. "Everything. If I have to wait for this concussion to heal so I can beat it into your head, I will. You've got to stop second guessing yourself. Tell me this, how long after you found that tarot card did you tell Tony what it meant?"

"Almost right away, I called Ziva first."

Gibbs could see the thought process on McGee's face. "Why did you call her first?"

"To get the searches started. It would take time to pull the maps we needed and the file was in the archive and not on the computer system."

"Then you went after the kids and filled DiNozzo in along the way, right?"

"Yeah, but I didn't have time to tell him everything."

"If the two of you had stopped to discuss all the details that you knew about, would you have gotten the kids out any easier or sooner?"

"Well, no, but… Tony had to pretty much follow me in there blind."

"But he followed your lead?"

"Yeah, well he did ask me if I was sure."

"What did you tell him?"

"I asked him if he'd rather I'd suspected about the Maycap link but kept working the assigned search grid."

"Did he argue with you?"

"No, but…"

This time Gibbs didn't let him verbalize the doubts the always seemed to plague him. "He didn't argue because he trusted you. He didn't need to know every scrap of information because he trusted how you would interpret what you knew, the same way I trust you, Tim."

Stunned, McGee stared at Gibbs as the older man continued to explain what, to him, was obvious. "I'm not your father, Tim. I do see what is in front of me. If I didn't trust you, you wouldn't be on my team," Gibbs chuckled as he let go of McGee's neck to reach around and close his gaping mouth, "even if you are a little green still."