Despite his worry for his family, Tim's head hurt and he was reeling. When they reached the roof, they saw that Apollo was waiting for them. He was altogether unscathed, save a small cut above his right eyebrow, which would be easily fixed.
McGee felt guilty, but he hadn't the strength to try and explain what had happened to Apollo. Victoria squeezed his arm gently and nodded at him, silently letting him know that she would be fine, that the party was taken care of, that she would explain everything to their patriarch.
He would have to make it up to her later.
As soon as she was safely with Apollo on the roof landing, McGee was off, flying without a destination in mind.
In fact, not much was on his mind except for the memories that bombarded him. His entire memory was quickly being recovered, thoughts and moments flashing through his head. Tim didn't even have time to think about his recent altercation with DiNozzo, as his mind could not focus on any one thing. The information came in waves, causing a dull throb in the back of his head. It hurt like hell.
Tim flew out over the water, covering a great distance. He didn't have a watch on him, but he was sure that he had been gone for at least an hour and a half by the time he turned back, and then it took that much time to return to shore.
Finally, the memories subsided, and he could think clearly. So Tony, Gibbs and Ziva all became hunters after he disappeared- they thought he was dead. But that wasn't right, Apollo said he knew Gibbs from years before. So Gibbs had been a hunter for a long time- go figure. It was Gibbs, after all. He had to be fighting bad guys at all times.
Including flightlings, he realized. They think all flightlings are the bad guys. That's why Tony called me a monster.
His chest began to ache. His second family thought he was some evil creature, and God knew their opinions weren't going to change easily. In fact, how did he know they were the good guys anymore...?
Tim shook his head. He couldn't afford to think like that, at least not without some sort of evidence that proved it to be true.
They think I'm evil.
Was he? No, definitely not. He hadn't hurt a single human. In fact, he probably did more damage as an NCIS agent than he ever did as a flightling.
NCIS...he suddenly missed his old job. How could he ever go back? The answer was simple: he couldn't.
He would miss everyone in the Navy Yard. Palmer, Ducky, Abby...Abby! Tim's heart fluttered a little bit thinking about the girl he used to be in love with, all those years ago. The poor forensic tech probably thought he was dead. In fact, she probably didn't know a thing about flightlings at all.
Did she?
McGee doubted it. If Abby knew about flightlings, there was no way she wouldn't become a hunter, or at least an expert on them. She would have been with the team tonight, if not to hunt, then to defend the integrity of the flightlings. The same way she defended Jethro the dog when Tim shot him in self defense. With her taste for the occult, it wasn't even a question of whether or not she would be interested in the beings. Tim chuckled wryly. Abby would love his new physique.
However, Gibbs probably wanted to keep her safe, and kept her ignorant about the winged creatures, the same way he kept the rest of the team ignorant. Looking down at his hands, McGee didn't blame his former Boss. Flightlings were in fact dangerous when they wanted to be. They were best left alone.
It made Tim curious as to whether or not his family- his biological family- knew about the flightling genetics. Probably not. In fact, he doubted that anyone besides Sarah or Penny would care that he was gone. And they both had lives to lead. For some reason, it didn't bother him too much. He was happy with his adopted family- they had given him just as much (if not more) in just a few months than his biological family had in his entire life. Penny may have been the exception to that, but what was the use in over thinking it now? They thought he was dead, they were moving on, most likely, and he didn't think it wise to disrupt their lives with this whole new world of darkness and power. For their sakes, it was better to stay dead.
He reached land and began flying towards nothing and everything- he swooped through alleys and past windows, enjoying the breeze on his wings. McGee tried to clear his mind of everyone else, and watched the people on the streets return to their homes for the night.
His home! Damn it all, he thought. They've probably sold my apartment and all my belongings are god-knows-where. It bothered him at first, but then he realized that anything he had, he clearly didn't need, since he'd lived without the stuff for several months now.
The young man was heading back toward the direction of the Clark residence, but he wasn't ready to talk about the situation with Victoria or Apollo.
To reach the roof, he had to pass over the cathedral. This was the first time he had flown directly above the church, and he saw a delightful little courtyard on the far side. It was the perfect place to rest for a minute, to gather his strength before he dealt with everything.
Diving down, Tim went to land in the yard, more unsure of his life than he'd ever been before.
...
On a night like this, it would be easy to believe that he was in the throes of a drug induced hallucination.
Gibbs and Ziva had to literally shake Tony to make him talk, and even then his voice came out a forced, harsh sound. He could only choke out a couple words at a time before the lump in his throat rose to cut him off.
He explained what had happened to his team, who at first seemed to not believe him.
"It was Tim" he insisted, to which Ziva gave a mildly alarmed look, though he could tell she was concerned for his mental well-being, not for McGee. "I'm fine, Z. I'm telling the truth. I saw him. He talked to me!"
Gibbs' shoulders were tense as he looked over his agent. "Did he try to hurt you?"
"Not really."
"Not really?"
"He just pulled me off of Victoria," DiNozzo admitted. "They both got away... Where's the other one?"
"Apollo flew off," Ziva said.
"We're fine," Gibbs said. "What happened to your shoulder?"
"The girl knocked me into the wall," Tony said sheepishly. "I think its dislocated."
Inspecting the arm, Ziva nodded. "We should go," she said. "You need to go to the hospital."
In spite of his insistence that he was fine, his teammates dragged him to the nearest emergency room, where a few nurses popped his shoulder back in place and gave him some painkillers. In an absent minded haze, DiNozzo let Ziva guide him into a car and then up to their hotel room, where he laid down.
The medication they gave him was mild, but strong enough to make him doze in and out of consciousness. He heard Ziva and Gibbs speak every once in a while, but his eyes remained shut until he felt a light shaking on his leg.
"Tony."
It was Ziva, right? For all he knew, it was his mom telling him to get ready for school...
"Tony, wake up, we need you to tell Ducky what happened."
"Hm?" he groaned, opening his eyes to find his partner staring down at him.
"How are you feeling?"
"Sore."
"I'm sorry, but we need you to describe to Ducky what happened."
He sat up slowly, the effect of the drugs almost completely gone. Glancing at the clock revealed that they had only been back three hours; it felt like twelve to him.
Gibbs was at the desk on the other side of the hotel room, in the middle of a video conference with Doctor Mallard.
"Hey Ducky," DiNozzo said wearily, coming up behind his Boss.
"Anthony, how are you feeling?"
"About as bad as I look," he said in a feeble attempt at humor.
"I'm sorry to hear that. Now, what happened tonight? Jethro said something about Timothy..."
"He's alive, Ducky. He's here in the city. And he's a flightling."
Ducky looked as incredulous as Ziva and Gibbs had, and Tony had to recite the night's chain of events once more.
"What do you think, Duck?" Gibbs asked when his agent finished. Ducky became thoughtful and silent before saying "wait one moment" and moving off camera. They could hear him shuffling around his house, and finally the ME was back, bringing with him an ancient looking book.
"This was written by Darwin," he said, holding it up. "It describes the history and evolution of the flightling species. I recall reading about how one becomes a flightling..." he began to flip through the pages.
"I thought you had to be born a flightling," Ziva said, coming to stand next to Tony. "We never learned anything about being turned into one."
"That's because you can't be turned into one...it should be in this chapter...aha, here it is," Ducky said, holding the pages up to the camera for a moment. "According to this, all flightlings are born with the genes that make up the species, but actual characteristics don't appear unless one is touched by another flightling."
"So if you're born with the right genetics, then all it takes is contact with another flightling to give you wings and strength and everything else?"
"Exactly."
"So Tim was born with the genes of a flightling..." Tony mused. "The real question is, how did he manage to go his entire life without even bumping into a flightling before?"
"Timothy grew up on Naval Bases," Ducky reminded him. "It seems unlikely that there are many winged creatures on a heavily armed military complex, among adults well versed on fighting and defending themselves."
"Why didn't he come back to us?" Ziva asked in realization. "He recognized Tony, he knew who we were, yes? So why did he not return to America?"
"Maybe it was too dangerous? Or maybe he liked being around flightlings like him. It's only been a few months. He probably was going to come back to the States when he was ready," Tony said, though he felt somewhat hurt as well.
"That I don't know. But I'll make some calls, and perhaps I can find more on Apollo Clark. And you said that Timothy had a woman with him?"
"Her name's Victoria," Gibbs said.
"A mate?"
Tony gulped. He didn't think that Tim and Victoria were...well, he had held her pretty tenderly in the alleyway...
"She's Apollo's surrogate daughter, sort of like Tim's his son. But we don't know if..." DiNozzo trailed off.
"Ah. I see. I will research her as well."
"Thanks, Duck."
The video chat ended, and Gibbs turned back to his agents. "It's late, get some rest."
DiNozzo had no idea how he would sleep with these thoughts running through his head. He reached for the bottle of painkillers Ziva had purchased, and found that they were non-drowsy. He couldn't medicate himself to sleep, then.
His good arm itched, and looking down, he realized he was still covered in Victoria's blood. Fabulous.
"I'll be in the shower," he muttered, and closed the bathroom door behind him.
The room was little, and when Tony turned the hot water on, steam quickly filled the space. Keeping his injured arm close to his body, he undressed and stepped in, letting his thoughts roam back to the problem at hand.
He had believed that a person had to be born a flightling, complete with wings, and that they couldn't be changed. But obviously, their information had been incorrect. What else did they have wrong...? Clearly they had been wrong about Tim...
The circumstances of McGee's physical humanity (or lack thereof) didn't really matter to Tony at that moment. He had different questions, ones that concerned Tim's mental humanity...Did McGee kill people? Was Tim really himself- or was he something else?
Had he been changed and warped so far...in living with the Clarks...that he had changed as a person?
Most human beings, no matter how kind or strong of will, can be fundamentally changed for the worse under the right circumstances. With cases at NCIS they had seen soldiers whose time in battle had turned them into angry, violent killing machines, even without the presence of PTSD. Fear, pain and desperation can all destroy a man, though his heart continues beating. And in that moment, DiNozzo realized that this is what he feared most of all: that his best friend, the man who once wrote condolence letters to the families of victims, had become a monster.
...An irretrievable, evil, dangerous bastard. Fundamentally twisted. A broken shell of the lion-hearted man he used to be...
DiNozzo grimaced, blinking against the water as it splashed in his face. He shouldn't have called McGee a monster- whether or not it was true, (which he hadn't decided yet.) If he wasn't, then Tony had just royally insulted his friend. If Tim was a killer, then provoking him would have been a bad idea.
Me and my big mouth...
Suddenly the doorknob turned with a creak. The NCIS agent could feel some of the steam leaving the little room, but was more focused on the quiet voice of Ziva.
"Are you alright, Tony?"
He decided to ignore the question and instead chuckled dully. "You're expanding your horizons. Usually you only follow me into the bathroom at NCIS-"
"Tony, you cannot avoid this problem."
Though she couldn't see him, Ziva knew that his eyes were downcast, probably closed, and that he wasn't prepared to answer her. She put the lid over the toilet seat and perched on it, staring at the wall to wait for a response.
"Is he still Tim?"
"I cannot tell you that," she said sadly. The whole situation upset her as much as it did DiNozzo, she was just better at holding it all inside.
"I called him a monster. In the alley."
"Were you asking to be killed?" she said incredulously. "If he was in the mood to take a life, you would not have lasted a minute."
"I know that, Ziva."
She was silent again, but finally said, "Remember that Gibbs told us that not every flightling takes souls."
"But most do. We already know his friend Apollo has killed a person before."
"...His wings were white, yes?"
"It takes years of stealing souls for the wings to go black, and you know it."
Ziva stood up, resisting the urge to rip open the shower curtain and smack Tony upside the head, Gibbs-style.
"You are clinging to the conviction that he is definitely a flightling that takes souls. Maybe statistics suggest that he is, but when have any of our lives ever followed the average outline?"
Tony sighed, knowing she had a point. "What are you suggesting, Z?"
"We find out what Tim has become. If he is the old McGee, just with wings, then you apologize until your gums bleed, and maybe he will come back to us."
"Where did you pick up that idiom?"
"-and if our friend is gone, if he has become a murderer, then we take care of the creature that took his place."
The senior agent sighed, hoping for the former. She was holding firmly onto the idea that McGee was still... McGee. DiNozzo didn't have that sort of optimism. "Thanks, Ziva," he said. He heard the door close as she exited, giving him privacy to dry off and get dressed.
Tony decided not to overthink the situation too much. Ziva had a way of clearing his head like that. The only thing to worry about for the time being was Tim's criminal record of sorts. And DiNozzo wanted to apologize to his old friend.
But he wasn't ready to see the Probie face to face.
Throwing on a tshirt and some jeans, he stalked out the door, telling Ziva he was going for a walk. Tony took a small gun, just for his own protection.
"Tell Gibbs I'll be back soon," he said as the door closed behind him.
"Wait," she called after him. When he turned to her, she had a sling in her hand. "You are supposed to wear this."
"Is there any chance you'll let me leave without putting it on?"
"No."
Sighing, he let her put his arm in the bandage and left the hotel.
He kept to the open streets, which were still fairly occupied in the late hour. The adrenaline from the earlier fight was all gone, letting him think clearly. He wasn't exactly sorry that he had injured Victoria, but he was filled to the brim with remorse for his words to McGee.
It struck him for the first time that night that Tim was alive. No matter what his disposition might have been, he wasn't dead, his heart still beat. He hadn't suffered a gruesome, gory death. Thank God for that, at least.
A wave of doubt hit him again. He didn't like this conflict: should he feel sorry for insulting McGee? Or should he be preparing to hunt down a murderer?
The worst part of this was that DiNozzo had no way of knowing the answer. Finding the flightling in order to see if he was friendly or not was a bad idea. It would be just as effective (and dangerous) as entering a tiger cage to see whether or not the tigers were hungry.
Tony walked around with no direction or destination in mind, though he made a point to avoid any and all alleyways. Eventually, he came to an old church that was beautiful and imposing. Light emanated from the stained glass windows? For no reason in particular, DiNozzo decided to look inside. He opened the door and entered, not noticing that he was right next door to the Clark residence.