Chapter 19

"Hi," Tim said. He tried to say the name but it stuck in his throat.

Gibbs stopped midstride and looked surprised to see him.

"How...are things going?" Tim asked lamely. "...with the case?"

"They're going," Gibbs said. "Didn't expect to see you here."

"Didn't expect to be here."

"Your attack dog coming in?"

"No. He's staying in the car. He just insisted on bringing me over."

Gibbs waved at Matt and Tim felt a sudden urge run back to the car and try another day...but he knew what would happen if he did that. He'd never have the courage to go back again. He knew it...but he was still tempted. What was so important about talking to Gibbs? Was it really so important?

You know it is. Show some backbone, wimp!

"You coming in?" Gibbs asked.

Tim stiffened. He took one step backward and stopped.

"Yes. I'm coming in."

"Come on, then." Gibbs walked to the front door and opened it. "You could have gone inside. It's never locked."

"Yeah, I know." Tim followed. He hadn't really been in Gibbs' house much. During the internal investigation, he'd come over...a couple of other times. That was it...and he'd never wanted to come in less than he did now. He looked back over his shoulder at Matt and shrugged before stepping inside.

Gibbs walked into the living room and then looked at him expectantly.

"Well?" he asked.

Tim really didn't know what to say. His brain seemed locked and he couldn't think of what was needed.

Strangely, Gibbs suddenly took pity on him.

"You want some coffee?"

"Sure."

"Okay. Have a seat." Gibbs walked into the kitchen, and Tim sat on the couch, feeling awkward.

He didn't say anything while Gibbs was in the kitchen.

Why are you here? What do you think you're going to accomplish, Tim? What's the point? Is this some sort of magic solution to your idiocy? How is this going to help?

He stood up, convinced now that he'd made a huge mistake. He could just sneak out of the house and...

Gibbs came back into the room with two coffee mugs.

"Going somewhere?" he asked.

Tim sat down again quickly. "No."

Gibbs smiled and sat down across from him, handing him one of the mugs.

"Thanks," Tim said and sipped to cover up his intentions. He got the feeling Gibbs had known exactly what he was trying to do.

"So...what are you doing here?"

Tim sipped and tried to answer at the same time...and began choking on the coffee. He coughed. Gibbs moved over beside him and thumped him on the back, simultaneously rescuing the coffee from Tim's grasp before it spilled. Tim edged away from him while trying to stop coughing.

"I'm not going to hurt you, McGee."

"I... cough... know...cough..."

"Then, stop flinching!" Gibbs said. "What are you here for?"

"You said you had something to show me. What is it?"

Gibbs looked at him for a long moment and then nodded. He stood up, grabbing his cup of coffee in the process.

"Come on."

"What is it?"

"Come and see. In the basement."

Tim stood up and followed Gibbs to the basement. Down the steps and then he stopped and stared. He could see what Gibbs must have brought him down for. It couldn't be anything else...but still...

"What are you showing me?" he asked, unable to believe it.

Gibbs nodded toward it.

"That."

Tim stared at it.

"Where did you get it?"

"I made it. Took me about a year to figure it all out."

"A year?"

"Never worked with metal before. The wood was different, a lot harder than what I use usually, and I didn't use any plans. It's a bit different from making boats."

"Why are you showing it to me?"

"I made it for you."

Tim stared again...and then walked over to it.

"The chair, too?"

"Yep."

It was a desk. It was, quite possibly, the most beautiful desk Tim had ever seen. The wood was dark, almost black, smooth and polished. It had three drawers on each side and one narrow drawer in the center. The accent for the desk was what looked like burnished copper. A strip ran around the edge of the desk and marked out the central space. Each drawer was accented with it. The chair was as well. It had a leather padded seat, but was constructed out of the same dark wood as the desk.

It was a desk...and it was amazing. There was no way it was just a desk. That adjective didn't fit with this. It was a work of art more than a piece of furniture. Tim stared for a long time, reached out once to see just how smooth it was...but then drew back, afraid of what that would mean...if he touched it, if he allowed himself to get anywhere near it.

Gibbs didn't say anything. He just sat on the steps, sipping at his coffee. Tim tried to think of something to say, something to break the silence...to break the spell the desk had somehow cast over him.

"You...made...this..."

"For you."

"Why?"

"Seemed like a good idea."

"Why?"

Gibbs got up, walked to the corner and grabbed an ax. He carried it over and set on top of the desk. Tim almost reached out to stop him from denting the top...but he didn't actually move.

"So you could break it if you wanted to."

"What?"

"It's yours. I made it for you. If you want to break it, destroy it, burn it, chop it up into tiny pieces, you can. There's the ax."

"Why would I do that?"

"I don't know."

Tim hadn't looked away from the desk once since he'd seen it...but he looked now.

"Are you trying to turn this into some sort of metaphor?"

Gibbs smiled. "Are you?"

"You're the one who said I could break it if I wanted to. Why do you think I'd want to?"

"You seemed angry enough at me the last time we talked at any length to do something like that."

"That was a year and a half ago."

"And yet you're still afraid of me, you can't even say our names, McGee...and don't think I haven't noticed."

Tim shrugged.

"No. You came here. You had a reason, just like I had reason for asking you. You can't get away with just shrugging. What do you think I'm going to do to you?"

"Nothing."

"Then, why are you afraid?"

Tim looked back at the desk. "Because of things like this," he said.

"Like what?"

"I would never have guessed this. Never in a million years. Not once would I think that your response to my quitting would be to build a desk...for me."

"I never thought your response to our mistakes would be to blame us for everything that went wrong."

Tim looked at the desk, at the ax laying on top of it. He wanted to put the ax on the floor, but he couldn't seem to make himself move.

"'The weed of crime bears bitter fruit.'"

"You think we committed a crime?"

"No."

"Then, why did you put that on my computer? It's still there, by the way."

"Why?"

"I don't know how to change it."

"You could ask."

"Yeah, I could."

"But you haven't."

"No."

"Then, you haven't got it. You don't understand. You really don't understand."

"What is there to understand? You were mad and you expressed it that way."

"Yeah. I was mad."

"You're not now?"

"I don't know. I don't know how I feel...but I know that, if you still have that wallpaper on your computer screen, you haven't learned anything. Making this desk hasn't taught you anything."

"What should it have taught me, McGee?"

Anger, stronger than anything he'd felt in months, stronger even than what he'd felt about Lance Corporal Smythe, surged through him. ...the emotion frightened him and he squashed it down without speaking although his hands clenched into fists. He didn't want to feel that again. It was that emotion that had almost destroyed him.

"Well, McGee?"

"Shut up," Tim whispered.

"You're mad."

"No."

"Yes, you are. Why deny it?"

"Stop it. I'm not."

"Of course you are. I'm apparently too obtuse to understand whatever lesson you were trying to teach me. So...what?"

"Nothing. Knock it off."

"No," Gibbs said. "You're mad. Be mad. Tell me what it was I was supposed to learn from this thing you decided to do. Tell me, McGee. Why hide it? You have no reason to."

"Yes, I do!" Tim said, his voice rising briefly before he tamped down on the anger again. "Yes, I do. Leave me alone."

"No. Not until you explain."

He tried to resist the anger. He tried to stay calm, but with Gibbs hounding him, he couldn't. Tim spun around and shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Why didn't you ever bother to ask?"

Gibbs stared at him and said nothing.

Tim breathed heavily and swallowed, continuing in a calmer vein. "It would have taken one minute of your time. It would have taken one of you, just one. One person. One question. I was so nervous in the beginning that I would have told you everything...if only you'd asked. You would have known the huge mistake I made. You would have been able to tell me that it was a mistake. You would have been able to stop me before it started. You would have been able to...to help me. I would have told you. I would have told any one of you. As much as I knew that you resented me, resented my assignment, hated that I was chosen...I wanted someone to care. I never thought that your first reactions would be to question everything about the assignment, to make me feel like I'd done something wrong...just by being selected, something I never asked for. I did not deserve how you treated me. I didn't deserve that! I deserved a team who cared enough to ask...and none of you did, not once in eight months. Not once!"

"Would it have made a difference?"

Tim laughed. "We'll never know. It's been eighteen months since the end of the op. We can't go back. I can't go back and take back all those things I did while undercover. I can't take back the mistakes I made. I can't take back the lives I've ruined and ended. I can't take any of it back. Neither can you."

"Never said I could."

"I know. You never said anything much," Tim said bitterly. "Just like now. You're not saying anything. Not to me. ...but then, you never did. You can't be troubled to ask to get rid of the wallpaper. You can't be troubled to ask what's going on. If you don't know it, it's not worth knowing."

"What is it that you're wanting, then?"

Tim turned back to the desk and didn't answer.

After a few minutes, Gibbs walked to the stairs.

"I'll let you decide what you want to do with it."

He left the basement without another word.

Tim sighed as Gibbs left. The desk was beautiful...but completely inappropriate for his life as it now stood. He had no space for it. He had no use for it. It was like...like giving a Rolls Royce to a blind man. Sure, it was an amazing and expensive car, but how was the blind guy going to drive it? What good would it do him?

However, Tim could no more take the ax to it than he could take the ax to his own limbs. This desk was a beautiful work of art, something that should be admired.

He made this for me. Why?

Tim wanted to know the real reason for it. There was more to it than just the idea of letting Tim destroy it. There had to be. Gibbs was too pragmatic for that. He wouldn't make a desk just to let it get destroyed. It might end up getting destroyed, but that's not why he'd make a desk. Tim turned around, still breathing heavily, still angry, and ran up the steps. Gibbs was in the backyard. Tim stormed out to the patio.

"Why, G-G-Gibbs?" Tim said, stuttering over the name he'd not spoken in over a year. "Why did you do this? Why? There's a reason and you n-need to...to say it!"

Gibbs looked at him with little expression, perhaps a slight smile...which only served to make Tim more angry at him.

"This isn't a joke!" he said. "This isn't funny! You spent a year making that...that desk! It's not just because you wanted to let me break it. Why?"

"Why don't you want to get mad?"

"I asked you first," Tim said.

"Why are you afraid of saying my name?"

"I asked you first," Tim repeated. "I'm not going to just answer what questions you have. That's not why I came."

"Then, why did you?" Gibbs asked.

"Because you told me you had something to show me."

"That's not why you came. That's a convenient excuse."

"Why?" Tim asked. "Why did you make that desk? For me."

"Why did you come here?"

"Stop refusing to answer!" Tim shouted. "Stop turning this into some sort of contest! Just tell me!"

Impasse. The smile was gone from Gibbs' face, and Tim felt the overpowering desire to run away. He took a step back toward the house.

"Why are you afraid of me, McGee?" Gibbs asked slowly. "Why is my building a desk something that terrifies you?"

"It's not the desk," Tim said.

"Then, what is it?"

"You answer my question first."

"I wanted to understand how you felt."

That, more than any other answer Gibbs could have given, threw Tim for a loop. He backed up to the steps and sat down.

"What do you mean?"

Finally, the deliberate antagonism vanished. Gibbs walked over and sat down, not too close to him.

"You did something and felt as though no one cared about what you were doing, how well you were doing it or what you sacrificed to do it."

"And building a desk is the same?"

"No. No, it was about understanding the likely possibility that you would still resent me enough to despise the work I did. Knowing that your reaction to what I built could be something along the lines of wanting to take an ax to anything I did...simply because it was me doing it."

Tim couldn't say anything to that.

"Why are you afraid of me?"

"Lots of reasons."

"Lots?" Gibbs actually sounded surprised. "Such as?"

"You make me mad."

"What's wrong with that? You didn't seem to mind that before."

"I know!" Tim said loudly and stood up. "That's the problem! Don't you see?" He looked at Gibbs who was sitting where he was. "I let myself get so angry that I almost died...and I didn't care! I didn't care who I hurt! Whether it was me or anyone else. I wouldn't have felt guilty if I had killed you! I nearly destroyed myself just because I let myself get angry and didn't let go! I never..." Tim turned away, ashamed of himself. "I never want to feel that again. Ever."

Again, there was silence. It lasted long enough that Tim chanced turning back around.

"And you can't even say our names? You still that angry?"

"No. I'm still that afraid. Anger doesn't last as long as fear does."

"You still seemed to be pretty angry."

Tim shook his head, even as his mind agreed.

Now, Gibbs chuckled. "Yeah, you are. You wouldn't be yelling at me if you weren't still mad."

"Do you regret it at all?" Tim asked...and then had to look away, not wanting to know...not really.

"Regret what?"

Tim couldn't ask again. His courage utterly failed him. "Never mind." Tim looked Gibbs in the eye. "It's a lovely desk. ...but it doesn't fit in my life anymore. It means nothing to who I am now."

He started to walk away.

"I regret that," Gibbs said softly.

"What?"

"I regret that, McGee."

Tim turned around. "What do you regret?"

"That you've given up so much of who you are...just because you're afraid."

"I haven't given up that much."

Gibbs stood up and walked over to him. Tim backed away...but Gibbs didn't let him this time.

"Either you're lying or you can't see it, McGee. You can't even have a conversation with people you know. You can't even say our names out of fear. You gave up a hobby that was important to you. You gave up a job you loved. You gave up any feeling of ambition. You gave up having everything that makes life worth living...because you're afraid. I remember the look on your face when you found out your gun was the murder weapon. You couldn't have been more afraid than if you had been guilty of the crime. Have you done one single thing without planning it first in the last year? Have you taken one chance?"

Tim kept silent this time.

"That's what I thought," Gibbs said, now derisive. "You've lost a lot more than a desk, McGee. You've lost yourself...only instead of losing it, you're trying to suppress it."

"You don't know what it's like!" Tim said, goaded into speech. "You don't understand."

"Then, tell me."

If Tim had been thinking a bit more, he would have realized that Gibbs was intentionally provoking him...but he didn't think.

"The first time I went to an interview for a new job, the man interviewing me look at me like I had a contagious disease when he found out what I'd done, what had happened...where I'd been. The second interview, the man outright asked me if the rumor he'd heard was true. After that, it seemed as though every interview I managed to get was scuttled by what I'd done. I go to sleep every night knowing that I'll likely have at least one nightmare about Jewel. I wake up every morning knowing that it's dangerous to leave my apartment until the sun is up. I live paycheck to paycheck. ...but somehow...somehow living like this is easier than what I was trying to do before. ...because living like this means that I don't have to worry about going crazy again. Living like this means that..."

"That what?"

"That I don't have to look at myself in the mirror and despise what I see."

"Why would you?"

Tim felt as though every bit of strength he had seeped out of him. What was the point in trying to hide it any longer? It wasn't as though he presented a very impressive figure. He stumbled back to the steps and sat down, hanging his head.

"...because everything you've said is true. ...but it's the only choice I have. I thought I could get my life back together. I thought I could move on. I can't. I can't move on. I can't."

Gibbs sat down beside him. "Why not?"

"Because I gave up everything I was long before all this. I gave it up during that undercover mission. I gave it up when I killed Jewel." Tim looked over at Gibbs, perversely wanting to see the revulsion Gibbs would no doubt feel when he knew. "In my dreams, she's always whispering that I'm just like her. Always in my ear, always telling me that we're no different. ...and she's right."

Gibbs said nothing. He just waited.

"I didn't kill Jewel because I had to. I killed her because I wanted to. I'm a murderer, Gibbs. I've already destroyed who I am. I just didn't realize it before."