JF 30
Gibbs took a moment and offered more drinks. He made Tim some of Kelly's citrus tea that he knew Tim liked and added some sweetener. He didn't want Tim to go into shock. Sarah asked Tim if she could use the bathroom and the two of them headed off down the hall. When Tim motioned it was through the door there, she smiled widely at him and she patted him softly on the arm and thanked him.
Back at the table, Balboa was looking over what he had learnt on the case prior to his arrival, grateful he had decided to record their statement. He had a feeling when they were finished their story, they would be demanding answers of their own from him. He had been watching the scene before him with interest as both of them seemed to interact with his friend Tim, more and more. He had seen the SecNav's gesture to Tim in the hallway and Fornell's comforting hand on his friend's arm.
"Are you doing OK, Tim?" Gibbs whispered. Throughout their entire story so far Gibbs had kept a comforting hand on Tim's back and Tim was grateful for it. Tim nodded his OK and went into his bedroom for some Tylenol. "You're getting a bit of a tension headache, aren't you?" Gibbs asked him when he returned. Sarah and Tobias knew that Gibbs cared for Tim, but wondered how he knew that their son had a headache. "See that crinkle right there, beside his eyes? That is how I can tell. I've seen it many times before. Take the Tylenol, Tim." Gibbs instructed him, gently.
"Ready to continue?" Balboa asked as he watched Tim down the pills and half a bottle of water.
"Obviously they let me stay in school, but I lost a lot of friends when it came out that I was married and had a child in the way. By graduation, I was glad to see the back of that school." Sarah confessed to them. "Dad kept his word, he got us a small, two-bedroom apartment in Alexandria. Tobias got a job with his uncle fixing cars, nearby. It provided us a modest income. I took some community college classes over the summer; I was determined not to fall behind. My mom and I had made arrangements for her to care for you while I went to school after winter break, Tim."
"Everything went well, we had a decent amount of savings, after all the medical bills were paid and by the end September Sarah had to slow down her schooling. Her blood pressure was a little bit too high and the doctor wanted her to get some more rest." Tobias said. "We had organised to deliver at Old Town Memorial, but when you threatened to come early, Nathan and his friend organised for Sarah's care to be transferred Iona Alexandria Hospital, in case you came early. They had 'better' facilities to help babies there."
"You came five days early, Tim." Sarah smiled at him. "You got stuck and had to be delivered by C-section. Tobias, Pina and my mum and dad waited in the waiting room. When I woke up, the doctor told me I had given birth to baby boy. Once I was settled in the room, they bought you to me and I feed you for the first time."
"The midwife let me see you very briefly in the nursery, Tim. The next time I saw you was when Sarah was trying to feed you. I was sent home, visiting hours were over and I was told I would be able to hold and visit you and Sarah, tomorrow." Tobias wiped his tears away that were now falling. "That was the last time I saw you 'alive'. A doctor phoned me, it was almost midnight and told me to come to the hospital, that you had died in the nursery. Sarah was bereft with tears and crying hysterically. When I got there, I managed to get Sarah to a certain level of calm, then they bought in the baby for us to say goodbye."
Tobias and Sarah were both crying now, Tim had tears in his eyes, as did Gibbs. Balboa had to admit it was surreal to hear about the baby's death and know that that the baby was Tim, and he was sitting three feet away from him, very much alive.
"They let us say goodbye to him. I held him and kissed his forehead. He was really cold already and his body was stiff." Sarah closed her eyes as she spoke, her body shaking and Tim reached out and took her hand as Tobias rubbed her arm and shoulder in comfort. "His lips were blue, almost purple, his skin was pale grey, almost translucent in colour. His body was stiff and he felt heavier than I expected."
"The nurse took a photo of the three of us." Tobias told them. "I still have it at home, actually. I'll get it to Ducky and see if he can work his magic. I held him briefly, I regretted not demanding to hold him the night before, but they had been insistent that we leave. Your grandparents never got to see you. The nurse came in and said time was up. They took the baby from us and put him in the shroud and body bag and left the room."
"Two eighteen-year old's crying for their dead baby." Sarah said, squeezing Tim's hand.
"Do you remember any names?" Balboa asked. "Any nurses or doctors?"
"There was only one nurse at Iona hospital I remember. Amelia. I remembered her because that was the name we had chosen for Tim if he was a girl." Sarah replied. "We named you Timothy. It was my grandfather's name from my side of the family."
"Your middle name was Charles, after me and my grandfather." Tobias added. "Is that still your middle name?"
"It's Farragut and it's awful. I tell people I don't have one." Tim replied and Sarah looked at Tim like she wanted to hug him. Gibbs nudged Tim under the table with his foot and shared a grin with Tim behind his coffee mug. "Farragut was the name of the first McGee Admiral in the US Navy in 1778."
"Your middle name is Charles, Tim, if you decide to change it." Sarah reminded him. "I acknowledge that the McGee's raised you, but they didn't do much else for you."
"Hardly, my grandmother raised me. My mother Nikki died when I was six. John was pre-occupied with his career, well before then." Tim told them. "Sometimes I used to wonder how he had time to conceive his children if he was never home. He was always at sea."
"What has the investigation uncovered so far?" Gibbs asked Balboa, directly.
"I have uncovered that Ms Porter and Mrs McGee were pregnant at the same time. I have ruled out that Tim was kidnapped by the McGee's. Samson found forged adoption papers yesterday, they were filed in the county courthouse in Alameda, California. They have only one birth parent listed; it was only the mother. No first name only an initial of A." Balboa hoped he had told them enough information. "With your statements, I have a new line of questioning. Can I brief my team and have a couple of hours to question some more witnesses."
"We can meet at 1700 hours at the NCIS Navy Yard in Vance's office." Sarah Porter told them. "Vance won't be back until tomorrow morning at the earliest."
Balboa left for the yard and Gibbs urged Tim to get some rest, as did Sarah. Both of them were concerned about that headache and he reassured them it was simply a tension headache from the stress of the situation. With Tim resting, Sarah picked up a book off the book off the listed; book shelf, which happened to be Rock Hollow: The Continuing Adventures of LJ Tibbs. "Do you think Tim would mind?" she asked Gibbs. "I am such a huge fan of Thom E Gemcity."
"It's an advanced copy." Gibbs replied with a smile. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind."
"Is Timothy friends with Thom E Gemcity?" she asked. Tobias looked like he was struggling to keep a straight face at Sarah's questions.
"Oh, I'm not touching that one. Ask your ex-husband!" Gibbs exclaimed, amused at Tobias finding Sarah's questions funny.
"Tim is Thom E Gemcity, Sarah. It's his novel." Tobias laughed. "Our son is an award-winning novelist."
Gibbs could hear the pride in Tobias' voice and he felt a twinge of jealousy rise up from within him. Tim was his agent and he had done the parental duties since Tim became his agent. Maybe he hadn't always been as close to Tim as he was with the others, but right now. He was closer to Tim than to anyone else, besides Kelly.
Sarah had settled in the armchair, to read the novel and Tobias helped Gibbs take some measurements for the front door Tim wanted built. The two men talking, but keeping their voices low. "How's it feel, Tobias? To find out you have a son." Gibbs asked him.
"It's surreal. I haven't stopped grieving and mourning that baby, Jethro." Tobias confessed to his friend. "But he is still here. I... Ah, we missed a huge chunk if his life. His first steps, his first word, his first date, his first car. We can't get any of that back. It makes me angry. We were robbed of it."
"But you have his future." Gibbs reminded him. "You know he is going to get married one day, start a family of his own. Grandkids Tobias, Grandkids."
Gibbs' whimsical tone made Tobias stop what he was doing and look at his friend Jethro carefully. "You're hoping that it will be Kelly he marries, aren't you?" Tobias accused.
"I've been told by Ducky and Vance not to get a head of myself. That I am more invested in their relationship than they are, at the moment." Gibbs grinned at his friend. "Hey, as father of the groom, you pay half!"
Tobias groaned at that, all that teasing and rubbing he had given the other night to Gibbs, had just come back to bite him in the ass. "I guess after I tell Emily, I should probably tell Diane." he grumbled.
"Does Diane know about... What happened back then?" Gibbs asked tactfully. He didn't know if Sarah was reading or listening in and he didn't want to offend her. He also didn't know how sound travelled in this apartment and he did not want to wake Tim, if he was sleeping.
"Hell no!" Tobias declared to his friend. "She's going to skin me alive. Say nice things at my funeral."
The two men worked together in silence after Tobias' funeral quip, as they got everything measured up and Gibbs sketched out a rough set of blueprints. "Why is Tim adding a front door? This is such a luxurious apartment and the elevator opening up into the foyer adds to that ambiance."
Gibbs looked over at his friend. "I think that he's afraid of someone walking in on him and Kelly doing... whatever it is they do when they're alone."
"You're afraid to think that Tim and Kelly might be having sex." Tobias teased his friend, playfully.
"They're not." Gibbs denied. "Kelly told me they weren't." Gibbs knew that his information was at least two days old and probably had changed, but he refused to accept that. He chose to remain blissfully ignorant.
"That's probably changed since you were told that. How long did it take for them to climb into bed after they started dating?" Tobias reminded Gibbs. "Because they were sleeping together before they started dating."
"It's my daughter, Tobias." Gibbs grumbled. "I'd like to remain ignorant, please. Imagine how you would feel if it was Emily and a boy that we were discussing."
"Oh, that's not happening." Tobias told him vehemently, as the two men saw Sarah had dozed off in the armchair and Tobias covered her with the afghan throw blanket from the other armchair.
Slowly their mundane conversation about everyday things dwindled down and Fornell slipped off first, then Gibbs gave in to his own sleep.
Kelly trudged into Tim's apartment soaking wet. She was greeted with three snoring figures in the living room. She tiptoed through the apartment and managed not to wake anyone as she moved. She found her dog in the bed beside Tim and curled up next to him for comfort.
Kelly had had an awful morning. She had a headache shortly after she had arrived and she'd slipped herself some Tylenol before the budget meeting at ten. By the end of her meeting, Kelly was rooting around in the back of her desk drawer for some ibuprofen she had stashed in there. Twenty minutes later, she had gone to the bathroom with cramps, only to dart back into her office for supplies. An hour later, the cramps had intensified, her head was still throbbing and she couldn't concentrate any longer. Her intern had gotten her a snack, concerned for how unwell she was feeling and it hadn't helped a bit. At midday, Kelly had admitted defeat and packed her stuff to come home. She was feeling so miserable she had her PA call her a cab and opted to leave her car in the parking lot at work. Waiting for the cab, the heavens had opened up and she had gotten drenched. It was a brief but intense rain shower and it was enough to sour what was left of her good mood for the day.
Feeling a little more human after her quick shower, she moved Sharni carefully and snuggled into bed beside Tim. Sharni never even woke, just nuzzled in beside her on Tim's Californian king size bed. She wondered what had happened after she left, especially since everyone seemed to be exhausted and having a nap.
Tim woke up an hour after Kelly climbed into bed with him. He was startled to see her, beside him. Especially since it was still early in the afternoon. He managed to manoeuvre himself out of her grip and pad lightly out into the kitchen. His head had felt much better and it didn't feel like it was ready to explode. He started the coffee pot and was surprised to see the three sleeping bodies in the living room as he headed for the kitchen. The smell of coffee woke Sarah up from her doze in the armchair. "I do apologise for dozing off, Tim. I don't normally nap during the day."
"It's OK, really." Tim quipped at her and smiled at her, reassuringly as he offered her a cup. "Nothing about today has been normal, that's for sure. Did you see Kelly slip in?"
"She came back?" Sarah asked, surprised. "Sorry, I didn't see her. Must have been after I dozed off."
"That sofa is almost as soft as your spare bed, Tim." Gibbs grinned at him, having woken from the aroma of coffee wafting through the apartment. He had heard Tim and Sarah speaking in low tones and decided to give them a moment.
"Ah thanks. Did you see Kell come in?" Tim asked her father. "She's in the bedroom."
"Tim, Kelly's at work. She left this morning." Gibbs gently corrected him. Gibbs had taken the coffee mug Tim had carefully poured and immediately taken a big sip.
"No, Kelly's asleep in my bed in her pyjama's." Tim reiterated to him. "She didn't feel warm, but she looks a little pale."
"Maybe she's coming down with something." Gibbs mused. "If she needs a doctor... -"
"I'll call Ducky." Tim finished for him.
Hearing and seeing Gibbs banter with her son made her feel inadequate. She wondered if she would ever know her son like Gibbs knows her son. Tim excused himself to go check on Kelly and Sarah let out a sigh. "He still seems to be unreachable to me. I want to make sure Tim knows that I never stopped loving and mourning him, that I thought of him every day and would like a chance to get to know him better. Not as an agent, not in a professional capacity, but as my son. What do I do, Jethro?"
"Maybe tell him that. Use your words." Gibbs said tactfully. "Why does everyone ask me stupid questions?" he muttered, frustrated.
"There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers." Tobias quipped as he came into the kitchen. "Tim's not up yet?"
"He's in the bedroom, Kelly came home. Looks like she's unwell." Gibbs answered. "Can I give the two of some advice? Before Tim comes back out? Tell him the rest of the story. What happened after the nurse took him away. How the you two drifted apart? It might just help bring him some comfort. Tim was terrified of telling you both. The original plan was he would tell you and I was just here for moral support. But if the two of you want a familial relationship with him, then you need to be truthful with him."
"We probably need to have a sit-down dinner with Megan, Emily and Tim, too. Of course, Kelly would be welcome." Tobias mused, thinking out loud. "Megan's almost an adult, now. She's what, seventeen? Eighteen? Emily is fourteen. We need to tell them, before they hear it from somewhere else. Especially if the media catch wind that the secretary of the Navy has a secret child. After they know then you can tell your ex-husband and I can tell Diane and Victor. Oh God, Diane's going to blow a gasket."
Gibbs laughed at that. Diane had rubbed it in Jethro's face that she was Tobias' first wife. That she would never play second fiddle in her marriage to him. To Gibbs, the karma train was rolling into the station and stopping on Diane's platform.
"Megan already knows, as does Richard." Sarah Porter said softly to Tobias. "I had a C-section; it left a scar. When I met Richard, I told him about you and about Tim. When Megan was born, I had a similar trauma, I told her all about her big brother Timothy in heaven and she knows the story well. The only parts Richard doesn't know is that Tim is alive, obviously and that Tobias Fornell from the FBI is the same man as the eighteen-year-old I was once married to. When Megan was missing last year, I thought it best to keep that fact to myself."
"So, it's just me that has to face the music." Tobias grumbled. "Alright, then."
Kelly woke up to Tim gently rousing her and asking if she was OK. She said she wasn't and that she felt like she was going to be sick. Springing from the bed, she bolted into the bathroom.
In the bathroom, she could not stop her body from vomiting. She screamed out for help between heaves and Tim was by her side, instantly. "Oh Kell, whatever you've got has got you good." he murmured gently, holding her golden auburn hair back off her face and rubbing her back comfortingly. Dry heaving and unable to stop, Tim was rubbing her back in slow, smooth and deliberately calming circles to try to help her. He felt helpless.
When the heaves finally subsided, Tim reached over and flushed to toilet and helped Kelly off the floor and over to the basin to help her clean her face and let her rinse her mouth. "I don't feel so good." she whispered to him. She was holding her stomach a little more. At Tim's questioning gaze, she explained that she had wicked menstrual cramps, as well and that occasionally it made her nauseated.
He had to help her back to bed, she had almost keeled over in pain in bathroom. As soon as Kelly was settled in bed, Tim made a dash to the kitchen for some water and Tylenol. She had mentioned that she had already taken ibuprofen. Tim lowered his lips to her head, to see if she felt warm. She did. He had noticed that she had begun shivering whilst under the blankets.
Tim went out into the long hallway and into the closet, looking for the first aid kit. He had stashed the thermometer in there when they had been packing up his old apartment in Silver Spring. "Is Kelly ok, Tim?" Sarah asked softly, interrupting his searching for the thermometer. "Looks like Kelly has some kind of virus." Tim replied, taking the time to look at Sarah's questioning gaze. "Looking for the thermometer. She feels warmish, but she has the shivers, too."
"Poor Kelly." Sarah replied, taking the first aid kit out of its hiding spot and handing it to Tim. "Here, and be sure to disinfect it before you put it back in the kit. I'll make her a cup of tea. She has to keep her fluids up. Can I have Jethro call for Doctor Mallard for you?"
"Thank you, Kelly would love a cup of tea." Tim replied to his birth mother. It felt really weird to look at the woman who, in his mind, was just the Secretary of the Navy when she walked into his apartment this morning and know that she is actually his birth mother. "Let's hold off on calling Ducky. We'll see how she goes."
Sarah prepared a cup of tea and got another bottle of water from the fridge out for him, while Tim checked Kelly's temperature. It was 101 and while up, it wasn't too concerning. He told Kelly she was a bit warm and he replaced their winter duvet with a lighter summer one, that he had stored in the walk-in closet, on the top shelf. A knock on the door interrupted them and Gibbs and Sarah came in. Gibbs with the water and Sarah with a large mug of Kelly's citrus tea she likes. "Hey Baby, how are you feeling?" Gibbs asked, as he sat down on her side of the bed. Sarah delivered the tea and she told her thank you. "Get some rest, baby." Gibbs added softly as he and Sarah left the room.
"Remind me when I am better to ask Dad to stop calling me 'Baby'." Kelly muttered to Tim with a wry smile. "You call me that sometimes and it's good. Makes my stomach do flip flops. But then I hear it from my dad and it sounds creepy."
"Sure." Tim murmured.
"Before Agent Balboa gets back Tim, I'd like you to know what happened between us, next." Sarah said softly, when Tim settled on the sofa. "Jethro called him and told him to meet us here and it makes sense. If we're all out 'sick', we shouldn't be seen at the Navy Yard."
Gibbs encouragingly nodded at Tim and Tim found himself nodding too. Gibbs sat down beside Tim and Tobias and Sarah took the opposite sofa. Tobias took a deep breath and let it out, calming himself. "Ok, so where did we leave off with Balboa?" Tobias asked softly. "Right. They had just taken you away. Your mother was very upset. The doctor sent her home a week later. She had to stay there for a week and listen and see all those moms with their babies. It was hard on her and it was hard on me, too."
"My parents had organised a funeral for you. We gathered at the cemetery over in Woodbridge." Sarah said softly. "My mother didn't want you buried near home. She didn't want me to be reminded of you every day. We had a small service, done by the Navy Chaplain that my father organised. We sat and everyone else stood around us as we said goodbye to you."
"After the funeral, Sarah's parents tried to pack Sarah up and move her back home, but she refused." Tobias said proudly. "As the days became weeks, Sarah and I were stuck on auto pilot. I'd go to work; Sarah would go to school. One of us would cook. The dishes would get done; the housework would get done. What family members of either the Fornell's or the Clarke's that had been supportive of us staying together dropped off, almost instantly. Eventually, it was just the two of us and Uncle Dennis, who I worked for. Then about three weeks after your funeral, Uncle Dennis pulled me aside and fired me. He didn't give me a reason why. Just I was fired."
"We lived off our savings and every time it looked like Tobias had found another job, it disappeared." Sarah told him. "We were still just kids, living a very grown-up life suddenly. Then, the landlord came by. He demanded the unpaid rent. My father had gone back on his agreement when you died. Suddenly, we were poor. No money, no food no family and if Tobias didn't find a job soon, we would be homeless."
"I eventually got work, four towns over in Chantilly. Packing groceries and it barely covered our rent. Sarah found a job, too, as a bookkeeper. She was good at it too. Both of us were working. We were always fighting because we never had money and we never saw one another."
"I still met up with my mom and she convinced me to come home for the weekend. It was my sister's birthday." Sarah explained, deliberately not looking at Tobias. "Tobias couldn't afford to take the time off work, or we wouldn't make our next rent payment."
"Nothing was the same after that weekend, Tim. Your grandparents got their way, eventually. Sarah moved back in with them and I paid Sarah a small alimony." Tobias said, the hurt was evident in her voice. "July the following year, Sarah came to see me. I was working in Richmond by then. Sarah and I had been exchanging secret letters the whole time. She had found out that it was her father who had set everything in motion. I was hurt and I felt betrayed. I thought I blamed Sarah, but it I didn't. It wasn't her fault."
"I told Tobias that I had got into a school in Boston on a full ride scholarship." Sarah told them. "While I was school, I studied hard and I focused on my studies. But the biggest hurdle was, I cut ties with my parents and my sister. When I got accepted to Harvard on a full ride scholarship, Tobias and I realised our marriage was over. We mutually agreed to a divorce and I went on to study business at Harvard and he went on to do his own great thing."
"First, I applied to night school. I had kept a modest apartment in hopes that Sarah would come back." Tobias said. "Then I downsized that to save more money. I worked three, sometimes four jobs through the summer and eventually I got accepted into school. My father died and my mother had me move back home to help save more money. She helped with the tuition fees, but it wasn't the same. Sarah's family had moved away and my mom had lost her best friend in Sarah's Mom. I'm still close with my mom, she looks after Emily sometimes."
"I reconnected with my parents when I met Richard, at his request. The hurt was still there, but I was more calculated about what I said and did. I was careful about what we told them and eventually I limited my contact with them. They hadn't changed much, they just moved on to tormenting my sister, instead." Sarah recalled to them. "My mother and father separated a year after Megan was born. That made things easier, slightly. Mom died when Megan was five and Dad went into aged care last year."
"Tim? Is there anything you'd like to ask?" Tobias offered him gently.
"You said Megan knows about me?" Tim begun tentatively. "Did she like the idea of a big brother?"
"When she was younger, she loved that you were her angel. That you looked over her." Sarah told him with a big smile. "Of course, she's seventeen and all about boys and partying. Not so much about her angel brother."
"That's OK." Tim sighed. "Apparently, I'm a pretty crappy big brother ask my sister, Sarah."
"Sarah can be bratty and she's emotionally manipulative." Gibbs retorted to Tim. "Sarah is a daddy's little girl and believes that the world revolves around her."
"That's true." Tim agreed with him. "I just wish I knew what happened. How I ended up living with the McGee family. I mean my mom Nikki, she was great and penny and Grandpa, were great too. That's about it. I only have a handful of good memories from my childhood and they all involve one of them."
"My dear boy." Sarah sympathised with him. "Tell me about your best memory from your childhood."
"My best memory; and boss you'll get a kick out of this is getting to go to NASA. So, Grandpa Nelson was stationed in Florida and he knew I was obsessed with science, rocket propulsion. They're like jet packs only they go in to space." Tim's eyes lit up as he recalled the memory. Sarah and Tobias could see his love and passion of science shine through in his story. "So, Grandpa Nelson and Penny were looking after me. They took me out of school for the week and flew me down to Florida with them. Lori was pregnant with Sarah and didn't care too much. Grandpa, he had a buddy that got us seats for the launch of the Challenger. We arrived there three days beforehand, we got to tour some parts of NASA. We saw the research lab, the mission control room, I got to watch the astronauts train in the simulator from behind glass and on the day of the launch I got to sit in the second row. The blast off was the best thing I had ever seen. But it was all over in a minute. I remember the blast and that grandpa covered my eyes after the explosion as the debris hurdled back towards the ocean. I didn't know that the astronauts died until that night when we got back to the hotel. That was it for me though, I wanted to be an astronaut. Penny signed me up for space camp the following summer."
"So, you loved science from a young age?" Tobias asked. "That's cool, Emily loves science too."
"I loved science and maths from a young age, as I got older, I took more of an interest in engineering, too." Tim told his biological father. "From the age of three and a half years old, I would try to pull the toaster apart and put it back together. I needed to know how things worked. I remember when I was seven, Lori got so mad because the Admiral was on assignment and I pulled the TV apart and she couldn't watch her shows."
"Tim's pretty smart, he built and operated a signal jamming controller to bring down a drone packed with explosives that was set to be launched at soft targets. The families and friends of the whole Marine amphibious strike group that returned on May 25th, 2003 they were five ships worth, all of them on the pier at Norfolk Harbor." Gibbs crowed loudly, patting Tim's back before the two men shared a sad look.
"Hard day, there." Tobias commented in a low voice. "I know it's still raw after all this time."
"Well yeah!" Gibbs exclaimed. "He executed her because his first shot missed Tim, Tobias. Don't forget your agencies part in that mess."
"He shot at you?!" Tobias exclaimed incredulously. "That terrorist shot at you!"
"He was a double agent and he was playing you. Gibbs wasn't the only one who could see it." Tim reminded Tobias.
"Wait, a terrorist shot at my son?" Sarah screeched. "As in, fired his weapon at my son. Where is he, now?"
"Dead." Tim told her, emotionless and cold. His tone softened as he mentioned the poetic justice of how he died. "Killed by a bullet to the head, the same way that asshole killed Kate."
"Obviously, this was well before I was Secretary of the Navy." Sarah murmured.
"Tim was a baby agent, just a little Probie." Gibbs smiled at her. "Barely eighteen months out of FLETC."
"Actually, it was exactly two years to the day that I graduated from FLETC." Tim told his boss. "That morning, when we stopped for coffee, we detoured over to Georgetown U and I had submitted my dissertation for my PhD. When we got back to the car, Kate had kissed my cheek and told me I was going to do great things and go far. She was sure, I had nailed it. She let me drive and read my dissertation on the way over to the university. "
Gibbs actually knew that, already. Kate had told him in confidence when she had learnt that the younger man was doing his PhD in Justice and Criminology. She had been stunned and in awe of him and his brains. She had been planning to get Gibbs to organise a team dinner in congratulations when he graduated. But she had died and then Tim had lost his grandfather a week later. Gibbs didn't find that out until earlier this year, after Tim had lost Delilah.
"Sometimes, I wonder what our team would be like if Kate hadn't of been killed." Gibbs commented to Tim. "She was big fan of yours, she believed in you. But she sided with Tony too often, enjoying the flirting way too much. Her and Ziva both have a lot to answer for the long-standing distance between the two of you."
"We're better now." Tim reminded them.
Balboa finally arrived back at the apartment and Gibbs was surprised to see that Matt looked less stressed. Especially since he knew it was a long shot.
"Tell us what you found." Gibbs promoted Balboa and Tim gave him a desperate look that clearly meant please.
"The nurse you remembered Ms Porter, Amelia? Her name was Amelia Abrams. She lost her job in 1979 from Iona Alexandria hospital. She was caught stealing a baby from the nursery." Balboa began explaining and you could hear the collection of breaths being released around the room. "Tracked her down to a rathole apartment building in District Heights, Maryland. She died last year, massive coronary. Landlord let us have her stuff. Found some diaries. In the diaries, she talks about taking the babies of young couples, unmarried couples, military spouses or teen moms and adopting out the babies out to parents who were worthy of the baby. The entry regarding Tim says she stole him from a 'beautiful young couple' because her dear friend Nicole had given birth to a stillborn son and she feared for Nicole's life. She went on to explain that she had a master copy of adoption paperwork, that was phony and she always told them to move away with the baby file the adoption paperwork there."
Overnight, he had been swapped out. She had taken their dead stillborn baby and given him to the McGee's. She had returned the stillborn baby to Tobias and Sarah.
Her diaries accounting to a guilty plea and Balboa and his team had counted nineteen offences. Balboa had yet to speak with John McGee for his testimony, but Vance had been adamant that the only person would speak to McGee, would be the Director.
"I was stolen." Tim declared softly. Sarah was sobbing and Tobias had tears in his eyes. Tim sat, void of anything. He felt numb.
Balboa let Tim read the part pertaining to him in the nurse's diary and now he wished he hadn't. He had been smuggled out of the hospital in a backpack and into Bethesda Naval Hospital. Smuggled in like a lunch box full of sweets for a diabetic.
Gibbs didn't think Balboa made the right call in letting him read the diary. It wasn't the call he, as a team leader would have made. But he realised that on occasion he had been overprotective of him. He also realised since Tim and Kelly became attached at the hip, something about Tim woke the parental lion inside him. Actually, it goes back further than that. It was when Tim was injured and Delilah was killed.
"Help!" Kelly cried out, screaming in pain. "Tim!"
Tim raced from the sofa in the living room to the bedroom and found Kelly doubled over in pain on the bathroom floor. "Kell!" Tim exclaimed, as he rushed to help her. He heard Gibbs was right behind him. "Shit Gibbs, she's burning up. Call 911."
While Gibbs was calling 911, Sarah nudged her way through the door, past Gibbs to where Tim was supporting Kelly. She had collected the thermometer on her way and seeing Tim's hands were full, she took Kelly's temperature on her forehead. "105 Fahrenheit, Gibbs." she called out to him while he was on the line with 911.
The EMT's arrived in six minutes and to Tim. It felt like the longest six minutes of his life.