Chapter 3

Things continued on the same track, more or less, for the next few days. Tim would wake up, babble gibberish, sometimes interspersed with an intelligible word here and there, and then go back to sleep. Tony cleaned and sometimes watched TV, but he rarely had the patience for that. It was too sedentary an activity with how little he was doing. Every night, Tony got Tim to sleep and then would wake up frequently during the night, worried about something happening or something not happening. He woke up feeling distinctly unrested and went about the day.

Cleaning.

It was early in the morning, and they were getting close to a month here. Tony was sitting by the main window and was enjoying the view. That was the only good thing about this place. It sure had a beautiful view in the morning from the one large window, and watching the sunrise was about the only time he could stay still. He tried to focus on how beautiful it was as a way of escaping from the uncertainty.

"Tony...where...am I?"

The question took him by surprise. No, it was more than surprise. It was absolute shock. Tim had spoken an entire sentence and it had been understandable. Even more amazing. It had made sense!

Sunrise forgotten, he ran over to the bed where Tim was lying, staring up at the ceiling, looking confused.

"Tim! You're awake and talking! That's great, stupendous, wonderful!"

"Where...am I?" he asked again, not even acknowledging Tony's joy.

"In a sketchy apartment in upstate New York."

Tim's eyes gradually left the ceiling and focused on him.

"Why?" he asked. "What...are..." He stopped for a second and looked around. "...we doing in New York? ...and why am I...like this?"

Tony's heart sank.

"You don't remember?"

"Remember...what?"

"What's the last thing you remember, Tim?" Tony asked.

He was afraid of the answer he might get to this question.

"Gibbs," Tim said, finally.

"What about him?" Tony asked, eager to get some information.

"He sssaid that... I..." Tim stopped again. "MTAC?"

Tony's heart sank even further.

"The last thing you remember is in MTAC?"

"Is that...wrong?" Tim asked. "Why...are we in...New York?"

Tony sighed and rubbed his face with his hands, striving for calm.

"What's...wrong, Tony?" Tim asked, speaking slowly and softly. "What...happened?"

"I don't know!" Tony burst out, his anxiety and frustration finally getting the best of him. "That's what's wrong! I don't know what happened! I don't know what's going! I don't know why we're here! And I don't know why I can't ask anyone else! I DON'T KNOW!"

Tim looked at him, almost in fear, his mouth moving wordlessly. Tony tried to calm back down again. He got up and started pacing, breathing in and out, trying to be calm and rational. It wasn't Tim's fault that this was happening. At least it had better not be Tim's fault that all this was happening. There was often some memory loss with head trauma and with violent attacks. It could be temporary or it could be permanent. This could easily be temporary given that Tim had remembered other things earlier, even if it was garbled and confusing.

Finally, after a few minutes, he took one more breath and turned back to Tim who was staring at him, almost in horror.

"I'm sorry, Tim. It's just... It hasn't been a picnic for me, either. We've been here for nearly a month and it's really... It really sucks that you don't why we're here, either."

"Month?" Tim repeated.

"Yeah. A month. I tried to call Gibbs once, but he didn't answer. You were apparently saying that we couldn't go back, and someone tried to kill you in the hospital. So we've been hiding out here for a month, and it's driving me nuts."

"I'm...sorry," Tim whispered.

"Don't get me wrong. I'm glad you're awake and actually communicating with me. That's a huge step further than we've been, but you've got to remember what happened, Tim! You've got to! Either that, or you've got to tell me that it's okay to call someone."

Instantly, Tony realized that he'd made a mistake in mentioning that as a possibility. Tim started to panic and babble about not going back and his speech degraded into little more than incoherent mumbling. Tony tried to calm him down, but Tim didn't even seem to hear him. He was lost in whatever it was that scared him so much, and that continued until he fell asleep...or unconscious.

Annoyed at himself, Tony got to his feet and walked away from the bed. He walked to the couch and kicked it. Then, he gave himself a head slap.

"Real smart, DiNozzo," he said to himself. "That was real smart. Tim finally wakes up and what do you do? You freak him out. He's been coherent for five seconds and you start grilling him on what he knows and doesn't know. What were you thinking?"

He flopped onto the couch and lay there, legs dangling over the edge, staring angrily at the ceiling. He started punching the cushions on the couch. He was mad that he had let himself overreact. Well, it wasn't overreacting so much as it was pushing too much of his anxiety onto Tim when Tim had only barely started thinking.

Still, even with all that, he couldn't stay lying on the couch for long. He had to get up and do something. Somehow, being stuck here was now even worse than it had been simply because Tim didn't know if it was safe to leave, either.

He got up and walked to the kitchen to get breakfast ready. Tim would still need to eat, coherent or not, thinking or not, remembering or not. The basics didn't change, and with his need to heal, regular meals would be extremely helpful. Even beyond that, Tony knew he needed to eat as well. He tried to focus on that and nothing else. Well, almost nothing else. As always, he kept an ear open for any signs of distress from Tim.

He couldn't think of anything creative for either of them, so he just made smoothies. Yogurt, fruit and juice. Sometimes, Tony actually tried to do something interesting, but this was not that meal. He drank his own smoothie while he waited for some signs of life from Tim. Hopefully, when he woke up, he wouldn't still be frantic.

It was only a few minutes later that Tim began to stir. He wasn't quite awake, but he was starting to shift around and make some noises. Quickly, Tony went over and knelt down. Again, he took Tim's hand in his own.

"Hey, Tim. I'm really sorry that I came at you like that. I shouldn't have. You just take your time. I'm sure we have plenty of it. Just relax and wake up and talk to me. Besides, it's time for breakfast, and I'm sure that you'll be hungry."

There was a squeeze and Tim's eyes slowly opened. He still looked confused, but there was something in his expression that gave Tony just a little bit of hope. He couldn't explain what it was, but it was different from how Tim had looked before.

"I'm...sorry," he said, slurring a little.

"No. It's okay. You're fine. I'm sorry. I screwed up and I know it. Are you hungry?"

There was a long pause as Tim seemed to think about that. Then, he nodded.

"Okay. It's time to move you anyway."

"Move?" Tim asked.

"Yeah. Don't want you getting bed sores. The doc warned me about that. It'll hurt, but it's better for you."

Tony went back and grabbed the smoothie (which was a lot thinner than it had been) and then, he sat on the edge of Tim's cot and gently lifted him. Tim's head flopped a little and he whimpered at the pain of changing position. Tony hated hearing that sound, but he knew this was necessary.

"It's okay, Tim. Just breathe through it. You'll be getting breakfast in just a second."

Tim didn't answer, but he was very tense as Tony carefully balanced him and then brought the smoothie around. As uncomfortable as he was with playing nurse, this was much easier to deal with than giving Tim a bath.

"Here you go, Tim. Just take as long as you need to drink it. I'm in no rush."

Tim didn't take a sip at all for a couple of minutes as tears of pain leaked from his eyes and ran down his cheeks. Tony hated it, but he tried to ignore how he felt, making sure that the pain Tim felt was not making things worse. Eventually, Tim began to suck on the straw, taking in the nourishment he needed. He had definitely lost a lot of weight, but now that he was more awake, Tony hoped that Tim would start eating more.

It took a long time for Tim to finish the smoothie. Almost an hour. All that time, Tony held him as still as possible and made sure it was as easy for Tim to eat as he could. Then, he got Tim's pain pill and helped him take it.

Then, finally, he eased Tim back down onto the bed, with more whimpers of pain as he did so.

As Tony expected, as soon as he was lying down again, Tim fell asleep. He was trembling a little bit, but he was sleeping. Tony stayed beside him until the trembling stopped and Tim's breathing evened out.

Then, he took Tim's glass and his own glass, and the blender and everything else, and he washed them thoroughly. As he did, he thought again about what might come of Tim's new awareness.

Would he start to remember if Tony gave him the chance to recover a little bit more? Would this just be putting off the inevitable?

Well, even if it was, Tony felt that he couldn't, in good conscience, ignore Tim's obvious panic about letting people know where they were, especially if there was a chance that he'd recover his memory and be able to explain on his own. It was just a matter of figuring out how to help Tim access those memories. Some of it was likely lost because of the head trauma and if Tim's brain was starting to recover, maybe his memory would come back, too.

The one thing he'd learned was that Gibbs had been involved in this somehow. While it wasn't fair to judge everything on the basis of Tim's confused statements, the fact that he'd mentioned Gibbs couldn't be ignored. Gibbs was a part of it. How Gibbs was involved was unknown, but that could explain why Tony hadn't been able to get in contact with him. Maybe they had agreed to hide out and that was all Tim could remember.

Or maybe it was that Gibbs was dead and Tim had seen it happen.

Or maybe Tim was just screwed up in the head and they'd been hiding here for no reason at all.

...but someone had tried to kill Tim. Twice. Once in the woods and once in the hospital. There was no mistaking that part. Someone wanted Tim dead. Multiple someones, based on what he'd been told. So whether Tim's fear was just because of that or if it was because there was a genuine danger in contacting anyone, Tony didn't feel like he could go against it. Not right now.

He let his mind wander back to Tim's sudden increase in coherence. Maybe the swelling was going down like the doctor had said. Once that happened, he had said that Tim would seem to suddenly get better. Maybe that was happening now. Tony really hoped so.

But for now, all there he had was...

...more cleaning. Maybe the bathroom could use a once over.