Epilogue
Three weeks later...
"Tony?"
"Yeah?"
Tony didn't even look up. He was trying to get through a report. Tim had been doing a bit better the last little while, and he was staying at his own place again. He said that it would take time, but he was at least admitting that he'd been having trouble.
"Could you do me a favor?"
"Sure. What?" Tony asked, still working.
"Could you take me back to the cave?"
Now, he had Tony's full attention.
"What? Why?"
"So it can stop being this black abyss of terror," Tim said with a bit of a smile. "I'd like to be able to look at it as a place an accident happened instead of something that's going to swallow me whole and take over my life."
"Why me?"
"Because you were the one there before."
Tony noticed that, while Tim was acting very nonchalant, he seemed to be extremely uncomfortable about the whole thing...and it had a rehearsed sound to it, meaning that Tim wasn't exactly happy about it, either.
"Your shrink tell you to do this?"
"He might have," Tim said. "When I'm ready."
"And are you ready?"
"As ready as I'll ever be."
"We're off this weekend."
"Yeah, I know."
"That's why you asked now."
"Yeah."
Tony looked at Tim, holding tightly to his crutches. He was supposed to get his cast off in the next week, and he had an X ray scheduled as well.
"You want to prove something, Tim?" Tony asked suddenly.
Tim smiled a little. "To myself...yeah. Not to you. Just to me. ...but I can't drive yet and I'm not taking a taxi out there."
"Okay. I'll take you."
"Thanks."
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
The next morning...
They pulled up to the cave, and Tony wondered if Tim would be able to manage the small climb. He was still on his crutches after all.
"You going to make it up there, Tim?"
"Yes."
That was all.
Tim started to negotiate his way up the small hill to the cave entrance. It wasn't a long way, but it took about ten minutes and Tim looked tired by the exertion.
"You sure you want to do this now?" Tony asked.
Tim smiled and wiped the sweat off his face.
"You should have asked me before I was all the way up. Too late now."
He crutched into the cave. There was a warning sign about possible hazards and that it was closed to the public. However, they weren't going in very far. Just to the rock pile that was still there. Tim hobbled over to it.
"I stepped on a spot people have probably been stepping over for a hundred years."
"Yep."
"All because I wouldn't wait for you."
"No. It was just bad luck, Tim."
"Odds are that if I had waited for you, I wouldn't have walked in the same place. I would have avoided that little spot. It's common sense."
"Yeah, but just because you didn't wait for me doesn't mean you were fated to trigger the rocks. We weren't planning on going very far in. I was only a few steps behind you. I just was on the other side of the pile after it fell."
Tim sighed.
"I'm still afraid of being alone."
"Maybe you could get Delilah to come back," Tony said with a leer.
Tim raised an eyebrow at him.
"Okay, okay. I'll be serious. You said you've been feeling better, right?"
"Yeah. Sometimes."
"Okay. Do you feel better seeing where you were?"
Tim took a breath and looked around.
"It hurt so bad," he said. "And I felt stuck where I was. No way to get away from the pain. No way to get out. It was like my worst nightmare. Injun Joe's cave."
"Tom Sawyer again? Come on, Tim."
"I know it sounds stupid. It's a kid's story. It shouldn't be so important...so bad. It was one of the worst nightmares I had when I was young...and I should be over that by now. It's silly until...you're in that situation. Stuck in a cave, no way out. If you had been caught in the rocks, too, how long would it have taken for someone to find us? Days? What would I have been driven to do to get away? People have ripped off their own limbs just to get out of a trap. Would I have got that far? Would I get to the point that I'd be willing to tear off my own leg just to free myself from that rock pile? How long would it take to get that desperate? Gibbs knew where we were, but..." Tim took another shaky breath. "That's what scares me. My shrink is calling it a combination of monophobia and sedatophobia."
"They sound made up."
Tony was relieved when Tim smiled.
"Yeah, they do, don't they. Basically, my reaction to a traumatic event was to be afraid of the worst things that happened...and it wasn't the pain, although that helped. It was being alone...in the silence. That dark, empty silence." Tim closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
"You weren't," Tony said.
"Huh?" Tim looked at him.
"You weren't alone. Well, you were for a little while. I had to run to get help, but other than that, you weren't alone. I was there. Gibbs was there. Ellie was there. The police were there. We were just on the other side, just a few feet away. Just because you couldn't see us, doesn't mean we weren't there. You weren't alone."
Tim smiled a little ruefully.
"Maybe that will help...eventually."
"Doesn't help now?"
"Not really, but I'm working on it, Tony."
"Good. Now, do you want to stay here any longer?"
"Not really."
"Then, let's go. I'll help you down the hill."
"Thanks. For everything."
"My pleasure."
They headed down. It took longer than it had taken to go up...but they made it back to the car.
"It's going to be fine, Tim."
"Eventually."
"Yeah. Eventually."
Tim nodded.
"Thanks, Tony."
"And you need to get off those crutches and back to work full-time. I need more of a buffer than Ellie can give."
Tim laughed.
"Tell that to my doctor. He's the one being so conservative about it."
"I'll do that. In fact, I'll take you to your X ray."
"You don't have to."
"I'll do it anyway."
Tim didn't say thanks again, but he clearly meant it. He leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes, looking a little more relaxed than he had been.
"And one more thing, Tim."
Tim looked at him.
"Yeah?"
"If you need it, you never have to be alone. Just ask and someone will be there."
"I know."
"Then, do it."
Tim smiled.
"I will."
"Good. Let's go, then."
"Home, James."
Tim closed his eyes again and Tony drove them back to DC.
FINIS!