Thanatopsis

Chapter Fourteen

McGee wasn't sure how he got to this place. It wasn't familiar. He was walking down a stark white hallway with too-bright overhead lights. The tile floor was unforgiving as his footsteps echoed around him. He looked at the numbers on the doors as he passed; a hospital. The lights were blinding, but as he glanced out the windows, he could see street lights against a dark backdrop. It was all so surreal; it was as if he were dreaming. He was beginning to think that the place was deserted when a small sniffle behind McGee caused him to jump and turn around. A little boy was walking behind him, rubbing at his eyes with small fists. His brown hair was sticking up at odd angles and his clothes were wrinkled, it appeared as if he had been sleeping.

"Hello," McGee said. The boy didn't look up. "Hey, can you hear me?" Still nothing. The young boy continued on past where Tim had stopped. He seemed to know where he was going, but what struck Tim the most was that the boy was alone. Why would somebody leave a child alone in somewhere as terrifying as a hospital?

Something seemed oddly familiar about the boy, but McGee could place exactly what it was, so he followed him. They walked to the end of the hall, turned left, and the boy turned into a room separated from the hallway only by glass. The nurses' station sat opposite. McGee looked up at the sign above the desk. 'Long Term Care' it read; they couldn't see him either. He turned back to the room. Based on personal experience, he knew the reason for the glass walls was so the care providers could easily keep an eye on the patients.

The boy sat in a chair at the bedside of a frail looking woman. Her hair was scraggly and thin, and she was so reedy looking, it appeared as if a light breeze would just blow her away. Stepped into the room and watched as the little kids still damp hands reached across the sheets and grabbed the woman's thin fingers in his own. The movement woke her up. She turned in the child's direction and said in a weak voice, "Tony, my dear."

McGee gasped. It couldn't be. He walked around to the other side of the bed. "Hi, Mom," he said. It was unbelievable. Now that he knew what he was looking for, the resemblance was unmistakable. The hair, the eyes, the cute little smile he gave as he sat at his… at his mother's deathbed. Suddenly McGee knew exactly what was happening; he was having a vision of Tony's past. Apparently, his experiment had worked, he had connected to Tony on a ridiculously high level.

Tim watched as a small tear escaped little Tony's eye. He furiously wiped it off his face. Typical Tony; it was just like him to try to be strong for everyone, but who was being strong for him. McGee now understood why he was alone, and realized a new hate for Senior.

McGee and little Tony sat for over ten minutes, until, suddenly, Tony's mom took one shuddering breath and closed her eyes. "Mom? Mom." Tony shook her gently, the look in his eyes afraid. His breath started to hitch as his face contorted and he laid his head down. McGee wanted nothing more than to hug Tony, but he knew that trying was futile. Tony couldn't feel him because he wasn't real. He saw movement from outside the room. The nurse sitting at the desk stood up, saw Tony, and came running in the room.

"Oh, Baby. What are you doing in here alone?" she picked him up and he wrapped his arms around her neck. McGee followed them out and watched as the nurse sat back at her desk and rocked little Tony back and forth as he sobbed.

He thought that the fuzziness in his vision was from his own tears, but even after he wiped them away it continued to get worse. A dull ache began to make itself known at the base of his head and continued to get worse as the vision faded slowly away.

He woke up to water in his eyes and a worried, "Tim?" Tony shook him roughly. "McGee, you have to wake up." The headache was still there, but waning quickly. He groaned, hearing a quiet, "Oh, thank God." Tony laid his head on McGee's chest for a moment and then sat back up and squeezed McGee's arms. "Hey, man. Are you with me?"

McGee grunted the affirmative. He opened his eyes and found Tony staring at him anxiously. "It's okay. I'm alive."

Tony gave a small smile as he helped him into a sitting position. "Do not scare me like that again. Son of a bitch." He ran his hand through his hair. "Are you okay?"

McGee took a shaky breath, and leaned his head back on the couch, lifting his quivering arm up to his damp face. Tony moved to sit next to him. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"You don't look fine."

McGee attempted to steady his pounding heart. "I'll be fine in a minute."

Tony sat patiently while McGee's body went back to normal. "Are you sure you're okay?" he asked.

McGee nodded. "Yeah."

"So…" Tony said, his knee shaking. "Did you see anything?" He had an excited look on his face, but when he saw the melancholy look McGee gave him, it changed to worry. "What? What's wrong?"

"I saw you and—" he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to gather his thoughts. "I saw your mom."

Tony's eyes widened. "You—when—where?"

"In the hospital. It was when she…"

Tony's mouth was hanging slightly open, disbelieving. McGee didn't know what to say, it was obvious that Tony already knew what he saw. "I'm so sorry, Tony."

Tony swallowed. "It—I can't believe you saw that. That was so long ago."

"If it helps any, you were completely adorable."

Tony gave a halfhearted laugh. "Thanks. I think."

"Tony," McGee said. Tony met his gaze. "I—I have something to tell you."

"What?"

McGee took a deep breath, preparing himself for what he was about to say. "I lost my mom when I was eleven. A car accident, drunk driver." Tony put a hand on McGee's shoulder. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you before."

Tony shook his head. "Nothing to worry about. So what was it like growing up with just your father?"

McGee smiled. "Very, very strict. Navy, you know."

The next morning, Tony was about three seconds from having Ziva chop his ear off, when Gibbs walked into the squadroom. "Got an anonymous tip about a drug deal at a Marine unit at Norfolk. Get home, pack and meet me back here. We're gonna be there for a while."

The arrival at the base and being set up in a crappy little house on the edge of the base resulted in the mother of all scuffles, resulting in a bruised collar bone for McGee, a near stabbing and some fingerprint marks down the arm for Tony, and a lot of hair pulling for Ziva.

"I call the best room," Tony called.

"Chubby chance."

"Fat."

Ziva looked affronted. "What did you just call me?" she said sticking her finger in his face.

"You heard me."

McGee flinched as Ziva drew a knife from her belt and held it against Tony's jaw. Tony's eyes widened and he swallowed audibly. "I'm sorry. That was… inappropriate." He looked at McGee for help. "Probie. Save me."

McGee cautiously touched Ziva's shoulder. "Ziva he was just trying to correct your expression. Put the knife down."

She continued to glare at him. "He called me fat."

McGee took hold of the arm holding the knife. "He was kidding, Ziva. Let it go."

She finally released, grumbling, turning away and grabbing her bag and heading down the hall to the master bedroom. "Hey," Tony called, chasing after her. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Let go of me."

"Ow!"

McGee rolled his eyes and went to break them up again. He arrived in time to catch Tony, who Ziva had pushed, receiving an elbow to the collar bone. He and Tony quickly disentangled themselves to go after Ziva, who had sprinted down the hall and stopped in front of the door. They both stopped behind her and stared.

Tony said, quietly, "Did you see him come in?"

Ziva and McGee both shook their heads, as they watched Gibbs unpacking his overnight bag into the dresser. He turned to them. "What?"

"So," Tony, rubbing his right arm, asked Gibbs as they drove to the C.O.'s office on the base, "what's this tip about?"

Gibbs glanced away from the road for a minute. "Supposedly, a group of Marines from the base are involved with a drug deal with a local gang."

"What kind of involvement?" Ziva asked.

"Distribution."

McGee sighed. He couldn't understand what people got out of selling drugs to kids. Money, unfortunately, was the most common excuse. Planting little drug addict seeds that would keep coming back for more and introducing their friends to the life. He would expect that Marines, of all people, would chose to fight against things like that.

"Guess there's bad seeds everywhere," Tony said from McGee's left side in the back of the car, practically reading his mind. He turned to McGee and Ziva. "Man those druggies freak me out. Liable to do anything."

"Yeah," McGee said, uncomfortable. But he didn't know why.

However, he was drawn from his musings by their arrival at the head office on base. They were escorted into the office by a pair of M.P.s who didn't appear to be very happy about going out of house to solve their problem. "Here we are," the female M.P. said, curtly, opening the door to the outer office.

Tony waited until they left before letting his thoughts out into McGee's ear. "Man, what is it with people and cops. Don't they know we're just trying to help?"McGee shrugged as they walked into Colonel Peterson's office.

The man stood and shook Gibbs' hand. "Agent Gibbs. Thank you for being here. It's been a bad morning."

Gibbs nodded. "I bet. What can you tell me?"

Peterson rubbed his forehead. He lifted a large manila envelope from his desk. "Found this in my mail box early this morning. I've got names, names of some of the sellers from outside the base, and even the times of past deals that went down."

Ziva chimed in. "And you have no idea where this information came from?"

"No, ma'am. The package was sent by mail with a bogus return address. No way to tell who sent it."

Gibbs was looking through the evidence with gloves on. It was a thin spiral notebook, small enough to fit into a back pocket, with handwritten dates, times and names. McGee looked over his shoulder. "The author of this has to be on the inside. There's no other way to have that much information."

Tony looked in on the other side as Gibbs went further back in the ledger. "The book starts about six months ago. Who knows how long it's been going on."

Gibbs nodded and glanced back up at Peterson. "Did you get anything from the Marine's names? Records? Coinciding deployments?"

The C.O. shook his head. "Nothing so far. I did what I could before you got here, but there's a lot of information here. I sure hope you guys can find something, I'll be glad to have this problem off my base."

Gibbs turned to McGee. "Can you get into the bases digital records from our quarters?"

McGee nodded. "Shouldn't be a problem."

"Well, we'll get on it, Colonel." Gibbs shook his hand again and led the way out of the office. "McGee," he said, as they got back into the car, "I want you to find me a pattern in this book. Anything that would be helpful." He started the car. "Tony and Ziva will start investigating the names separately. And quietly."

"What are you gonna do Boss?"

"I'm gonna talk to the local LEOs off base and see what kind of gang we're dealing with."

AN: I've finally caught up with myself. I am currently working on chapter fifteen. I'll update as soon as I am done. Thanks for reading!