Chapter 7

Tim stared at his phone. It was five o'clock. Gibbs would be home since it was three hours later. ...unless they had a case they were working on. Then, he might still be at work. He might be busy. He might...

"He might not want to hear this," he said aloud. "What am I going to say? I don't have to call him, Jethro. I don't really need to. I'll be back in DC in a few days anyway. I'll..."

Jethro sat staring at Tim, utterly unimpressed. Tim didn't much blame him for that. He ran a hand through his hair.

"I don't want to do this."

Jethro barked once, put his front paws on Tim's knees and licked his nose.

"Blech!" Tim rubbed at his face, but couldn't help smiling. "Why do you keep doing that?"

Jethro nudged Tim and then trotted out to the balcony.

"You're right...if that's what you meant," Tim said after him. "I should just do it...get it over with."

Easier said than done, however. He gulped and looked at his phone again.

"Gibbs said I could call him if I needed to talk. I don't really need to. I could wait."

Jethro barked from the balcony and Tim laughed at him.

"Jethro, either you are the smartest dog in the world or you have great timing."

Tim looked at the phone again and nodded. "I do need to." Tentatively, he began to dial.

"Gibbs."

"Hey...Boss."

"McGee."

"Are you busy?"

"Not particularly."

Tim swallowed. "I...I th-think I have a problem."

There was a sound of a chair scraping on the ground.

"What's the problem?"

"Well...I...I almost got myself killed yesterday. That's...kind of a problem."

"What." Gibbs' voice went flat. He wasn't really asking a question. It was more like demanding an answer.

"I...I was out on the beach with Jethro and...well, I...I almost did something really stupid. If Jethro hadn't been there to pull me back I could have drowned. ...and...and I have a problem."

"What is it?"

"Don't you know? Everyone seems to know already."

"Do you?"

"I...I don't...know...not exactly. I...it's..." Tim mentally cursed his stammering.

"Take your time." The words were strangely gentle.

"She was going to kill me...but I didn't...I didn't think that...I didn't want..."

"Who?"

"Louisa. Grady. She... I could see it in her eyes, but all I wanted was to...help her, to make things better for her."

"And?"

"And...And I guess that's...kind of a problem. Maybe. She...if you hadn't been there, like Jethro. I would be dead. I...It's my fault she's dead." Tim felt the tears come to his eyes. "I hate that...but I don't know..." The tears began to fall. "I don't know why. I don't know why I care so much about her, and I don't know why every time I think of her, I think of...of..."

"Of what?"

"Celia. Judy. Sharon." The tears fell faster. "I hate that I can't do anything to help them, that they're in there, that...that they have to be. ...and I don't know why!"

"Well, think about it, Tim. Why do you think that would concern you so much?"

"Because they're not all bad. None of them. ...but we still have to punish them for what they've done wrong...but we don't...don't think about what they've done right."

"We can think about it, but that doesn't stop us from doing our jobs."

"What is our job, then? To make people miserable for the rest of their lives?"

"Is that what you think we do, Tim? That might be what they think we do, but really, whose fault is it that they're in prison?"

"What about Michelle? What about Sharon? What about Louisa? Michelle... Agent Lee, was trying to save her sister; she was doing what she thought was the only way to keep her alive. Sharon was defending herself from her boyfriend. Louisa...was...had problems. It wasn't her fault."

"Agent Lee did what she thought was best, but that involved murder, Tim! She killed not one, but two innocent people! Sharon Bellows claims to have fought off an abusive boyfriend, but she still killed him. Louisa Grady killed a man and nearly killed you."

"If Sharon had just let the boyfriend kill her would that have been better? What about her kids? Boss, we took her away from her kids!"

"We didn't do anything to Sharon Bellows. Tim...listen to what you're saying. That's your problem."

"What?"

"Think about it."

"It's wrong to care about them?"

"What's wrong, Tim, is that the things you're saying are the things they would say about us, about any cop. Guilty or innocent, they'll say it. Do you think that what we do is wrong?"

Tim got up and started pacing back and forth, agitated by what Gibbs was saying, by his own chaotic thoughts. Part of him knew that what Gibbs said was right, that they had a job to do, that what they did was a good thing...but there was another, louder, more insistent part that said that all NCIS did was take people away from the ones they loved, take them, run roughshod over them and then leave them to rot in a prison. It was a part that had been growing steadily louder over the last few weeks.

"Tim?"

"I don't know anymore, Boss! You're right...but you're not. I...I don't...I don't know what to say, what to do, how to...I just...I don't know. What do I do?"

"I can't tell you that."

"Why not? Why can't you tell me what to do, Boss? It would be better, safer..."

"Easier?"

"Yes."

"It wouldn't be better, Tim. It wouldn't be safer. You know why."

"No."

"Yes. Tell me why it wouldn't be safer or better if I just told you what to do."

Tim began pacing faster. His mind was so full of conflicting information that he couldn't seem to settle on one idea.

"Please, Boss," Tim begged tearfully.

"No, Tim," Gibbs said, sounding more kind than he ever had before. "Tell me why."

"I can't. I can't...and...please."

"Yes, you can." There was a long pause and then Gibbs sighed as if he'd suddenly made a decision. "Four years ago...Tim, you ran your first case."

"Don't go there, Boss." Erin was still a sensitive subject to him...even after all this time.

"I have to. You were investigating the death of a sailor. You met Erin Kendall. She was killed. Murdered while you were on the phone, listening to her fight with her killer."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Should we have let her killer go, Tim? After all, he had a reason for what he did. He was trying to pay for school. He had to kill Erin to stop her from realizing who he was. She was the only witness and she was so insistent. And you believed her. Scrutiny. Too much scrutiny. Can you justify his actions? Can you say that he wasn't all bad and we only looked at the bad things? Should we have said that he had done so many other good things with his life and that those things outweighed the two murders he had committed? Was his strangling Erin to death while you listened justified?"

It was like a physical pain, listening to Gibbs bring up that period of his life. A knife jamming into his brain, into his chest, as he relived that horrible, horrible moment.

"You figured it out, Tim. You realized who murdered your friend. You realized it. You chased him down. What about it, Tim? Is that justified? Or should you have let him go? Tell me, Tim. Did you make a mistake in arresting him? Did you?"

With a low moan, Tim sank to his knees, his eyes closing tightly as he rocked back and forth. He barely noticed when Jethro came back into the room and rubbed against him, whining softly.

"I guess you think that arresting him was wrong, that we should go to the prison right now and let him out. Or...what about that cheerleader and her security guard friend who set up your sister to be raped and then killed her ex-boyfriend? I'm sure they have things they could say that would justify what they did, that they have enough good deeds in their lives to cancel out a little thing like attempted rape and murder."

"Stop. Stop it, Boss. Please, stop."

"If you excuse one, you have to excuse them all, Tim. What's it going to be? You have to make a decision. Are you going to let Erin's killer go? Are you going to let Sarah's would-be rapist go? Are you going to–?"

"No!" Tim shouted. "No! No, I can't!"

"Can't what?" Gibbs sounded completely unaffected.

"I...I...I just wanted to get his ball, Boss."

"What?"

Grasping onto that recent event as if it were a lifeline, Tim babbled. "It was washing away. The tide was pulling it out to sea. I had to get it back, but Jethro wouldn't go. He didn't want me to go either. It was just a stupid ball, but I couldn't just let it go. I was going to walk, but I didn't make it because Jethro pulled me back." He was talking at a speed that would have put Abby to shame. "Jethro pulled me away. I was so mad at him for getting me wet, for pulling me down. I was going to shout at him but...but then I saw the, the rocks as the tide went back. The rocks were so, so pitted with holes and there was this big old dip in the middle that probably went over my head and the holes were the size of my feet and I could have been stuck in them and I could have drowned and the tide was coming in and it was raining and there was a storm...and it was just a stupid ball, Boss. Just a ball, but I almost got myself killed for it. I almost did. I almost died. I just wanted to get the ball back." He was trembling, his breath shaky. "It was just a ball. Just a–"

"Tim, stop. It's...it's all right."

"What's wrong with me, Boss?" Tim whimpered. "I don't know why this is so hard."

"Because you faced down something hard. Recovering from that is going to be hard, too."

"I've been trying so hard to figure it out, but everything's so jumbled in my head."

"Can you answer my question?" No longer confrontational, rather gently supportive.

"No, Boss," Tim said. He was almost on all fours, but he pushed himself back onto his knees. "No, they shouldn't go free."

"Who?"

"The guy who killed Erin. Those...those...people who set up Sarah."

"What about Louisa Grady?"

"She...wouldn't..."

"Be honest, Tim."

"If you hadn't...been forced to...to k-kill her, she would have been found mentally incompetent to stand trial. She would have gone to some sort of rehab place."

"Celia Roberts?"

"What if–?"

"No. No what ifs, Tim. She was found guilty. She confessed."

"But she lied about killing Trimble!"

"Does that automatically mean she lied about the rest?"

"No, but–"

"Tim, you have to see the way it is. No middle of the road here. You can't do your job if you can't look at them and arrest them for what they've done wrong."

"Why can't I see it that way?"

"Because you dealt with them in the prison...and no one realized how you were dealing with it outside the walls."

"This can't just be about that."

"Why not?"

"Because...because that...that would mean..."

"What?"

"I don't...know." Tim sighed deeply and rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. "I don't feel like...like it's...when I'm doing every day things, it's fine. It's just when..."

"When you come face to face with the evidence of what you went through?"

"I guess."

"Maybe I shouldn't have forced this on you right now, Tim."

"I don't know."

"Do you need more help than a phone call can provide?"

"I...I'm not sure."

"Make a decision, Tim."

"I'll...be fine...Boss. I think I just..." Deep breath. "...I'll just take care of Jethro."

"Okay. You call me if you need to talk again. Hear me?"

"Yeah."

"McGee, I mean it."

"I know. I know, Boss. ...and Boss?"

"Yeah?"

Tim swallowed and sat back on his heels. "It's a big deal, isn't it."

"Yeah."

"Okay."