Cynthia opened the door to the office and quietly slipped inside to deposit a stack of files on the desk. Jenny groaned at the sight. "Is that all of them?"
"Yes, ma'am and you have a phone call on line two. It's Agent McGee's mother."
That surprised the director. "Did she say what she wanted?" Before Cynthia could answer, Jenny made a decision. "Never mind, I'll take it now. Hold all my other calls and visitors until I'm done please."
Cynthia smiled and slipped out the door. She wasn't sure exactly what had happened the day before between the director and the agent's mother, but she knew that the entire MCRT was angry about the situation. All except Agent McGee of course, who had no idea what a she-bear the director was in regards to what had happened to him.
Jenny waited until the door closed behind Cynthia before she picked up the phone and punched line two, mentally preparing herself as if she were about to deal with the most annoying of the Undersecretaries of the Navy.
"Mrs. McGee, this is Director Shepard. How can I help you?"
"I was hoping you could tell me how Tim is doing?"
"The doctors are pleased. They tell me he will be released in the morning."
"Would it help if we came to see him? We could convince Sarah to visit with some of her cousins in Seattle and…"
"No. Right now what Tim needs is to be able to finally mourn for his brother. If you and your husband aren't ready to do the same, then your presence would not be helpful to him." Mentally, Jenny crossed her fingers and hoped she was right.
"We did what we thought was best at the time, Director Shepard."
"I'm afraid that we will have to agree to disagree on that point, Mrs. McGee. Your son feels so much guilt over what happened to Terry and he was a victim just as much as his brother, perhaps even more so because he is still suffering."
"We never told Tim that it was his fault."
Jenny made sure her words were quiet, to force the other woman to really listen. "But did you ever tell him that it wasn't his fault?" Without waiting for a reply, she hung up the phone.
___________
Ziva and Gibbs arrived back at NCIS at the same time. He noted that she was no longer using crutches at all. Ziva was quite pleased with what she had acquired during her visit with the assistant at JBM. Gibbs eagerly took the printouts and flipped through them as he walked to his desk.
"Did you get a translation while you were there?"
Standing in front of his desk, she looked at them again. Upside down, from this angle, they made no more sense than they had earlier, right side up. "No, but I'm sure Ducky and Abby can make sense of them." Gibbs glared at her before he stood back up and headed for the elevator, Ziva trailing behind.
Ducky and Abby were pouring over their lab results when Gibbs and Ziva walked in. "Got anything for me, Duck?"
"Nothing more than theories at this point, I'm afraid Jethro. Abby has identified most of the drugs and chemical compounds but we have no idea how they were suppose to react in the body or what they expected to accomplish." The usually unflappable Dr. Mallard was becoming increasingly upset. He hated nothing more than a puzzle he couldn't solve, especially when that puzzle was part of the human body. He'd never admit it, but he was also concerned that perhaps Palmer was right and this had nothing to do with why Wilson kidnapped the children.
Gibbs handed Ducky the papers Ziva had brought back with her. "Will this help?" Ducky studied the papers with Abby and Palmer looking over his shoulder.
"I don't know." He looked at the two people with him. Jimmy shook his head, totally out of his element, while Abby looked a little more thoughtful as she took the printout from the medical examiner.
"I'll do what I can, but like I told you yesterday, this is more of a McGee thing."
"Maybe we should…" Palmer stopped, unsure of speaking out, especially with Gibbs in the room but Ducky encouraged him to continue.
"By all means, Mr. Palmer. A fresh perspective may be exactly what we need."
Palmer flushed, uncomfortable to find himself under the watchful eye of both Dr. Mallard and Special Agent Gibbs. "I'm not real good at figuring out the people stuff, but I've been thinking, and maybe I'm totally wrong, but…"
Gibbs was starting to lose his patience, but luckily Jimmy started to make sense. "You can't tell him he needs to be more self-confident while you hold back evidence that only he has the expertise to interpret." If he had talked any faster no one would have been able to understand him, but his point was made loud and clear. Behind them, DiNozzo stepped through the doorway.
"I hate to admit it, Boss, but Palmer has a point. Even if it is a dead-end, eventually McGee is going to know about it."
As much as he also hated to admit it, but yes, Palmer was right. Gibbs thought about it and realized that there was really only one option if he wanted to get to the bottom of this mystery without undermining McGee's confidence. "DiNozzo, grab a laptop and take all this stuff to McGee. Since Wilson is dead and Maycap is still in prison, this isn't a rush, so don't let him tire himself out. Take Palmer with you unless Ducky needs him here."
"That will be fine, Mr. Palmer. Be sure and take him some lunch. I swear that hospital food is worse than some of the battle rations I had in my day. Why once there was…"
"Why can't I go, Gibbs?
Ducky answered Abby before Gibbs could. 'We still haven't finished running the liver tissue samples we collected from Wilson's body. Come along, my dear; let's find out what other strange brews they were concocting in that sick man's body.
___________
Since the departure of his breakfast companion McGee had survived a sponge bath from a nurse who made Ziva look helpless and had acquired a pair of pajama bottoms to supplement his hospital gown. He was bored and not at all interested in the eight channels of Spanish language soap operas that the television in his room was capable of receiving. He had no books, the crossword puzzle in the morning paper had been done by Gibbs and he discovered that his phone had been damaged in the cave-in. Thus, he was happy to see his visitors and ecstatic to see the treasures they had brought him.
____________
Gibbs had barely sat down before his desk phone began to ring. Glaring unhappily at the empty coffee cup in his hand he answered the phone hoping to get rid of them quickly.
"Gibbs."
"Agent Gibbs, it's Angela McGee."
He definitely didn't want to speak to the woman at the moment, but knew that the polite son she raised would be mortified if he were rude to her. "Mrs. McGee, how can I help you?"
"I wanted to apologize for my comments yesterday. I had no idea you had lost a child."
"You had no way of knowing, Mrs. McGee."
"How do you do it, Agent Gibbs? How do you look at someone and tell them 'my child is dead'?"
How indeed. Gibbs thought for a moment before even trying to answer the woman. "I was like you and your husband in a way at first, because I didn't tell people. I had no survivors left, though – my wife and my daughter were killed at the same time. Eventually circumstances brought the truth out. Friends that I had met after Shannon and Kelly died were hurt that I didn't trust them with the knowledge."
"And now? What is it like to talk about them?"
"Shannon and Kelly live on in my memories. When I denied that, I denied them. They deserved to be remembered. So does your son."
"You and Director Shepard have given me a great deal to think about, Agent Gibbs. Thank you."
Gibbs stared at the phone for a long time after he disconnected.