Chapter 41

There was another storm. This one was a real doozy. Tim watched as the rain pounded against the windows. The ocean was stirred up in a frenzy of wind and water.

Before he knew it, Tim found himself heading outside into the gale. The rain pelted his face. The temperature had dropped like a stone when the storm had hit...and this wasn't going to be a quick one. It was going to last for quite some time. He was glad that the house was built up off the ground. Very little chance of flooding, even as water poured down from the higher areas, running down into the sea. There were small streams forming that would only last as long as the rain did. It was likely that a lot of the sand would get eroded in this one. He'd seen it happen before.

Tim fought his way down to the beach to watch the waves as they crashed onto the shore. It was amazing to watch them and he felt something inside him...almost as if he were stir crazy. He wanted to run right into those waves, just to feel the power of them, just to feel them crash over him and knock him to the ground.

He knew why he felt so wound up. Ducky's call had put him into a bit of a swivet. He hadn't refused Gibbs' visit, but he didn't know what he'd say when Gibbs got there. Why was it necessary? Would he really come? Tim couldn't imagine him making the trek up here just to talk to him. Besides, with the weather the way it was, it was unlikely that Gibbs could get a plane in here anyway. He was sure that the flights would be grounded.

...but that didn't matter. As he stood on the beach, almost blinded by the wind and rain, he let himself get carried away into the power of the storm. He walked forward. If there was one thing that he would never be able to control, it was the weather. Why was it that he could accept that, could cede that power to something that really could kill him? ...but when it came to the people who he had once counted as friends, he couldn't even think about them without feeling afraid...nervous...anxious?

The waves were lapping his feet. Why not? As long as he didn't do something stupid and go out too far, he could be in the waves. He could feel that...he could cede control of his life to the unfeeling waves. He ran out just as one of them crested and broke on the shore.

Tim felt the water knock him backward and he coughed as the saltwater got in his mouth...but he didn't back away. He fought to remain standing and blinked until he could watch as the waves pulled back and then lifted higher still. They crested and broke over him. This time, they knocked him down.

Tim fell to the ground, saltwater pouring over him, stinging his eyes, making him cough. He panicked...as he had known he would, and he struggled to stand up, but he was turned around and couldn't tell which was the way back to shore. His heart started to beat more rapidly and he cursed himself for being a total fool. He staggered in the direction he thought was toward land, not sea, but there was water everywhere around him. He couldn't see.

Suddenly, there was a viselike hand on his arm, dragging him backward, away from the direction he had thought was the shore. He fought against that hand. In his panic, he tried to shout for help. It was Jewel! She was trying to...

"McGee! What are you doing?"

The voice was familiar. Still, Tim struggled to get away.

"Cut it out!"

The voice broke through Tim's blind panic. Gibbs!

He stopped fighting and in moments was gasping for breath, still in the pouring rain, now utterly and completely soaked. ...and embarrassed. He found the courage to raise his head and stare at Gibbs, but he couldn't think of a single thing to say.

"What were you doing out there, McGee?"

Still, no words would come and, to his surprise, Gibbs didn't press the issue. He took hold of Tim's arm again (more gently this time) and led him toward the house. Tim let him. He was still trying to wrap his head around Gibbs being there...and Gibbs having pulled him from the water.

When they got inside, Tim shivered, cold now, where he hadn't even noticed the temperature before.

"I'm assuming there's a shower in this place?" Gibbs asked.

"Y-Yeah," Tim said, still gasping a little. "More than one...a-actually."

"Good. Where?"

"T-Two upstairs and...and one...d-d-down here."

"Okay. Show me where the one down here is."

Tim pointed with a shaking hand.

"D-D-Down the hall...on the left."

Gibbs walked over to where he'd apparently deposited a bag on the floor just inside the door. He hefted it and headed in the direction Tim indicated.

"You going to make it upstairs?"

Tim nodded, still shivering. "Y-Yeah."

"Okay. Just come on back down when you're ready."

Tim started toward the stairs but he stopped. "H-How did you g-g-get here?"

"On a plane," Gibbs said.

"But...the...the s-s-s-storm!"

"We were the last flight to land before they closed the airport."

"Oh."

"Go on. We can talk later."

Tim nodded again and went up to the bathroom he'd claimed as his own. Quickly, he got some dry clothes and then went in and turned on the water. As soon as it was warm, he got under the spray and sighed with relief as his body began to regain some of its internal temperature.

But as he warmed up, as his mind fully engaged with the world around him, he wasn't sure that he really wanted Gibbs to be in this house. He wasn't sure he was ready to talk. ...but Gibbs had made the effort to come up here.

Why? Why spend the money? Why waste the time? Why would he want to be here at all?

There were no answers to the questions floating around in his head. Tim eventually turned off the water and got dressed as quick as he could.

Not quick enough, though. As he opened the bathroom door, the smell of coffee assailed him. He went downstairs and into the kitchen. He was dressed in sweats, a t-shirt and a larger button-up shirt that he was wearing as a jacket. If Gibbs was coming, he wasn't going to get Tim to dress up for him. ...but Gibbs was only dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt himself. Still, Tim felt awkward. He stood in the doorway for a few seconds and then cleared his throat.

Gibbs didn't turn around.

"Figured you wouldn't mind if I made some coffee. Thought we both might need it."

"Thanks," Tim said softly and forced himself to walk into the kitchen.

"Mugs?"

"Cabinet on your left. Middle shelf."

Gibbs poured a couple of mugs of coffee and then finally turned around. He slid one mug across to Tim who picked it up and sipped at it. This wasn't the coffee he had here. This was really good coffee. The kind of coffee he himself had used to buy...in the days before his life had fallen apart.

"Thanks, B–" he said...and for the first time in...who knew how long, he almost called Gibbs Boss...but he resisted. Gibbs mostly definitely was not his boss and hadn't been in nearly two years.

"You mind telling me what you were doing out there, McGee?"

Tim looked down at the counter. "Just...enjoying the storm."

"By drowning yourself?"

"I wasn't trying to...I just...wanted to..." Tim tripped over his words as he tried to explain something that really wasn't explainable.

"What?"

"I can't control the weather," he said quietly.

"Yeah? And?"

"And it helps to remind myself of that."

"Why?"

"Because I can't control people either. ...I can't control you...or anyone else." Tim laughed a little...still staring at the counter. "I can barely control myself anymore."

"You seem to be doing a pretty good job of it."

"Yeah. Real good job," Tim scoffed. He shook his head at the ridiculous lie.

"You seem better than you were."

"You mean better than when I threatened to kill you, or better than when I took ecstasy and nearly killed myself, or better than when I broke down in interrogation simply because you showed me my gun, or better than when I–?" Tim stopped as the memory of that night when he had totally lost his mind. Ducky still had no idea just how close Tim had come to simply killing himself that night, how near he had come. If he'd still had a gun, he probably would have done it just because it would have been fast.

"Better. I wasn't really comparing."

"Good for you," Tim mumbled.

"McGee..."

"Why are you here...G-Gibbs?"

"To talk to you."

"Why?"

"Why did you leave?"

"I needed to."

"Why?"

"Because...I couldn't stay in DC anymore unless I wanted to keep wearing myself down."

"In what way?"

Tim raised his eyes tentatively. Gibbs was standing across the counter, just looking at him with interest and a bit of concern. Nothing else.

"I used DC to punish myself. I could have stayed with Matt and Judith. They didn't mind. They kept telling me I should. I could have gone and stayed with my parents for a while. They suggested that I do it. I could have simply left and got a job somewhere else. I stayed...because I knew I'd be miserable."

"Why?"

Tim thought about prevaricating but rejected the idea. What did he have to lose really? He'd already lost everything.

"Because I was in a place where I'd been happy but lost everything that had made my life good. I was confronted every day with the knowledge that a girl who had started out as a happy-go-lucky teen died by my hand. I was forced to remember the things I had done to her, the things she had done to me...and I had to accept that I had fallen so far as to be a member of the human race only by genetics and nothing else. I dealt with that every single day. I beat myself up about it every single day. I lived like that on purpose, knowing that I deserved every single moment of misery because I'd done it all to myself...and the things I'd done to other people deserved retribution." He took a breath. "That's why I had to leave. I don't have that here...or at least not as much. Jewel's not so loud in my head. I don't dream about her every night."

"But you still do?"

"Yeah. Sometimes. She's...still there." Tim picked up the mug and took a drink. Then, he looked at Gibbs. "Why are you here?"

"To talk to you."

"About what?"

"How long are you going to stay here?"

Tim shrugged. "I don't know. Matt said it's mine for as long as I want it, but I know I'm going to have to leave eventually."

"And?"

"And what?"

"When you leave, what are you going to do?"

"I don't know. I'll have to think of something...but right now, I'm just focusing on living in the present instead of the past. That's hard enough."

"Yeah."

Tim looked up at that. He supposed Gibbs would know how that felt.

"Did you really come up here just to ask me how I'm doing? You could have done that any other way."

"No, I couldn't. I had to talk to you."

"But why?" Tim asked. "There's no reason. Not really."

"That's why."

"What?"

"To show you that there is a reason."

"What reason is that?"

"Because we care, McGee...and I know that you may not believe it, but it's true. We've all screwed up quite a bit, but we do care...in our own clumsy ways."

"And?"

"And what about NCIS?"

"What about it?"

"Why not go back?"

Tim laughed. He couldn't think of anything else to do. It was so ridiculous that the only reaction was laughter.

"What's so funny?" Gibbs asked.

Tim looked at Gibbs incredulously. "Go back? To NCIS? Are you crazy? Who would want me back there? No one in their right mind would want me back at NCIS. I had a complete mental breakdown. I acted like an idiot. I quit my job. I nearly killed myself and I've been living in squalor for over a year. ...oh, and I was in the looney bin. Twice. Once for five months and once for two weeks. Did you know that? Did you know that I had another breakdown, Gibbs? Who wants to have a person like me associated with them? I'm a nut and screw-up." Tim laughed again and put down his mug. He started to leave the kitchen.

"I knew that," Gibbs said quietly.

"Knew what?" Tim asked, pausing for the moment. "That I'm a nut?"

"No. I knew that you'd gone back to the psychiatric hospital. Ducky told me."

Tim spun around. "What? Why? Why would Ducky do that?"

"To help me see how serious your situation was. I needed to know that. McGee...what happened to you isn't some sort of shameful brand you have to wear for the rest of your life."

"Oh, really? Tell that to the fifteen companies who refused to hire me because of what I'd done," Tim said. The injustice of it rankled even as he knew he'd brought it on himself.

"It's still not," Gibbs said.

Tim found himself walking back to the counter. He picked up the mug of coffee and took a large swallow. It burned his throat, but it gave him something to do as he tried to ignore the suggestion Gibbs had made.

"You haven't answered my question, Gibbs. Who would want me back?"

"Vance. Abby. Ducky. Jimmy. ...me. Tony. Ziva."

"Don't...lie about this, Gibbs!" Tim said, desperately. "Don't pretend! There's no reason to pretend anymore! Protecting me from Collier was one thing. You had to do that. Don't lie and say that you want me back!"

"I'm not," Gibbs said seriously. "I mean it. Now, I don't blame you if you don't want to work with us again, but I'm not lying. Are you going to pretend that you don't care about NCIS anymore? Are you going to pretend that if the job was available you wouldn't want to take it?"

"I couldn't do that."

"I didn't say that. I said you'd want to. Are you going to deny that?"

Tim wanted to. He really did. He wanted to block out what Gibbs was trying to say to him...but he couldn't. The words were in his head now.

"No...I can't...pretend," he whispered. "But why even think about it? It's not possible."

"Why not?"

"Because...there's...too much that's happened."

Gibbs walked around the counter and grabbed Tim by the arms.

"If you don't want to go back to NCIS, McGee, that's fine. I won't push it...but if you do...I can't let you avoid it because you'll only be punishing yourself more. And didn't you just say that you were trying not to do that to yourself anymore?"

"I can't...think about that, Gibbs. I can't. Not now. I can't."

Gibbs unexpectedly let him go.

"All right."

"It's late, Gibbs. I'm tired," Tim said. He knew he was just avoiding the conversation, but he had to. It was too much to deal with right now. "You can stay here. There are spare rooms. No reason you should fight the storm to get to town."

"Okay."

Tim pointed down the hall. "There's a spare room down there...or there are two free bedrooms upstairs."

"Okay."

It was on Tim's lips to ask why Gibbs was being so agreeable, but he didn't. He just took his coffee mug to the sink.

"Thanks for the coffee," he said.

"You're welcome."

"Good night."

Gibbs walked down the hall and Tim went upstairs. He took off the big shirt and then got into bed. He was tired and fell asleep quickly.