Details of the Case Tim is doing his final defend on for his doctorate is taken straight from the FBI website. Some of the words have been changed, or added or removed and no plagiarism or copyright was intended. They aren't my words.
the case can be found here: www . fbi. gov / history / famous-cases / morris-worm (remove spaces)
November 2002, Navy Yard, Washington DC
"What are you doing here, Agent McGee?" Gibbs asked, seeing his son in law standing before his desk. Just as he was hoping, Tim arrived right on schedule as the three of the MCRT sat down to do their reports for the case they'd just closed in Norfolk. Gibbs bit back his grin, time for him to get one up on DiNozzo for a change.
"Ah ... I've got my final report for you, Sir." Tim answered, pushing Gibbs' buttons for fun. Tim handed Gibbs the Manila folder with the familiar NCIS logo printed on it. Tim knew how much Gibbs hated being Sir'd, so he made sure to do it as much as possible now their paths had crossed in a professional capacity.
"Haha," Tony jested from his spot at desk in the bullpen. "Didn't they teach you to use email at MIT?" Tim let that zinger roll off his back, he knew what was coming from Gibbs.
"You went to MIT?" Kate asked, really impressed by his schooling background. Kate knew you had to be next level smart to get accepted into MIT, let alone graduate from that school.
"And John's Hopkins." Gibbs added with a smirk, not missing a beat. The sound of pride in his voice wasn't picked up on by Tony and Kate, but Tim definitely heard it. Gibbs didn't look up, but he knew that Tony and Kate were shocked and stunned that he already knew that.
"Hey, I didn't tell him!" Tony mock surrendered, holding his hands up in the air to claim his innocence. Tony wasn't surprised Gibbs knew that. He figured their boss read the rookie's file. Even he had seen the potential that Agent McGee had shown during this case. But Tony was surprised that he basically told them all that he had read the agent's 201 file.
"I actually have dinner plans with Doctor Mallard." Tim confessed to Tony. Kate was baffled, but didn't say much.
"This I gotta see." Tony jibed, the two of them had barely spoken at the crime scene and now they had dinner plans. No, Tony was suspicious. "Come on, I'll take you to him." Tony and Tim headed off down the back passage to the back elevators.
Suddenly, Tony stopped in his tracks, stunned. "Wonder what McGee said to make Tony speechless like that?" Kate pondered out loud, not really expecting an answer from her boss who was also known as the functional mute.
"Probably that Ducky is his wife's Godfather." Gibbs surmised and watched Kate become just as surprised as DiNozzo currently was.
November 2002, Gibbs Family Home, Alexandria, Virginia
"Hey you two, I'm home!" Gibbs called out. He locked his service weapon away and noticed Tim's was lockbox from his car was on the shelf beside where his own lived. "Anyone?" Gibbs was met with the home's usual silence. He wandered into the kitchen towards his ancient icebox and found a note under a fridge magnet. 'Meet us at the diner for a late dinner with Ducky.' The note made him smile. He knew that Tim and Ducky barely got to say two words to one another at the scene. Kelly of course, would be anxious to catch up with her beloved Uncle and Godfather.
'Hmm, late dinner.' Gibbs mused. 'It's 1650 and Ducky had headed out to a scene with Balboa's team and still had an autopsy to do before dinner. That didn't explain where the kids were now.'
Gibbs took himself down to the basement, he had lost three days work on his Christmas toys and needed to get back into the swing of it. No matter what. He was hoping that Tim and Kelly would give him some help for a few hours this weekend. Although, he did want Tim's help with the new fans in the attic too.
'Damn it,' Gibbs cursed to himself again. 'They're not kids. They are both adults. Physically, emotionally and legally too.' He knew he needed to stop thinking of them as kids. But it was a hard habit to break after 17 years and one he knew he wouldn't break easy.
November 2002, Capitol Medical Suites, Doctor Prue Berkeley's Office, Washington DC
Tim and Kelly had been keeping a secret from Gibbs. One they weren't too sure that he'd be crazy about. Kelly and Tim had been trying to conceive a baby for a while now. For over a year, now. They were doing everything right and the true reason for their weekend trip home to Gibbs' house was so they could sneak into DC, without raising any suspicions and see a fertility specialist.
The fertility specialist was an expert and came highly recommended to the couple. She was a reproductive endocrinologist as well. So in addition to being a standard OB/GYN with a background in fertility, she was also qualified in Reproductive Endocrinology.
"Kelly and Tim McGee." The doctor called out into the waiting room. She was a tall woman, about Kelly's height and she had short blonde hair, cut in a pixie cut.
First off, she gave both of them a general physical examination and Kelly also a pelvic exam and a Pap smear test. Next up, she organised for her nurse Kylie to come in and take bloods and urine from both of them and gave Tim a pathology slip to submit a semen sample for a test and count. But first; he had to abstain from ejaculation for forty-eight hours. Luck was on their side, she didn't want the semen sample until next week because Kelly had fertile window opening on Saturday and closing on Wednesday.
Doctor Prue Berkeley gave Kelly a chart to plot her next cycle on, taking basal body temperature readings at precisely the same time every morning, in the same way, with the same thermometer too. She also had to list any pre or post menstrual symptoms and anything out of the ordinary that occurred, including an increase in stress levels. She also gave Kelly a slip to have a transvaginal ultrasound to have done on Day ten of her next cycle. That was a pretty easy task for Kelly, she was a doctor after all. Granted; Kelly was only a General Practitioner, but a doctor none the less.
"We will make another appointment for the two of you in a month's time." Prue told Kelly and Tim. "I will have the all the results by then and we will make a plan as to what we will do next. It was lovely to meet you both." Tim and Kelly both liked her; they found her to be comfortable and warm, direct and forthcoming. She didn't beat around the bush or give them any false hope.
November 2002, Elaine's Way Diner, Washington DC
Kelly and Tim sat in their little Ford Focus, both could see Gibbs had commandeered their regular booth by the window. they both looked up and could see Gibbs and Ducky talking intently. Neither man seemed to have noticed that they had arrived in the parking lot. Neither Tim, nor Kelly made a motion to get out of the car and make their way inside. Instead, they both sat still in their seats, as they quietly reflected on the appointment they had just had with the Reproductive Endocrinologist. Kelly had known for a long while now, that her mother had trouble conceiving her. That her mother and father had tried and tried for another child, but were never blessed.
Kelly had warned Tim, that the same thing may happen to her one day. She had given him an out before they got married. She had known that Tim wanted to be a father, to be a better father than what the Admiral had been to him. As much as Kelly had always wanted to be a mom, she had been realistic. A doctor told her when she was seventeen and her and Tim had finally taken that intimate step together, that because her mother had struggled, that she might too. That it would help if they had known the cause of Shannon's struggles, but she had been too afraid to ask her father and her mother hadn't shared her struggles with Kelly. After all, Shannon had died when Kelly was twelve.
Kelly remembered that Tim and herself hadn't taken the decision to become intimate with one another lightly. She had suspected that Tim had felt like he had no one he could talk with, she always had her friend Jenny. Her Dad's work partner, that she could discuss girl things with. Her father surprisingly had done a good job explaining everything to her, with no topic off limits, including sex. She wasn't sure, but she thought maybe Tim had been talking to her Dad, but he'd fallen back from their budding friendship when he left for JH and she suspected it was because of what had happened between the two of them at Christmas. Her father never confronted her about what had transpired between her and Tim, nor did she expect him to. But she saw that Tim had pulled back from his friendship with Gibbs, when they'd taken their relationship to the next level. She knew it had hurt her Dad, but she was pretty sure he understood why.
She knew that Tim had especially agonised over their decision, both of them going back and forth on the decision many times and it hadn't been until they were in that very moment that they had both decided to just go for it.
May 1995, Best Bedroom Next to JHU, Baltimore, Maryland
Kelly and Gibbs had made a surprise trip up to Baltimore for the weekend, Gibbs was going to catch up with his old marine buddy William Ryan, who was now retired too and Kelly was going to catch up with Tim at school.
Gibbs had left at a reasonable hour of the morning to make the trip to his buddy's place about an hour outside of Baltimore and Tim had agreed to come over the where they were staying as his roommate was still asleep from partying the night before. It was all good for the roommate, he still had two years of his degree left. But Tim was focused on his own life and he had two units left to complete and he was done with JH for the school year.
Kelly began primping herself as soon as her father left their room. She was excited and hadn't seen Tim since he was home in March, she had missed him. She was going to be going JH herself in the fall, then she knew Tim would be here with her, but not for long. He had began preparing his application to MIT for the Christmas intake, after all, he was flying through his double degree at JH.
They didn't really have plans set in concrete, so she dressed as casually as she could and still put an effort into her appearance. She left her hair out, leaving her natural locks in place. Not straightened her hair, nor adding extra curls. She went light on the make up and perfume too, knowing that Tim had seen her at her best and at her worst.
When she heard the knock, her heart sped up. Opening the door, as soon as she saw Tim she flew into his arms. He braced himself for an incoming Kelly and held on tightly to the door jamb. "Hey Sweetheart." Tim smiled at her, he could see the tears forming in her eyes. Even though they rarely spoke on the phone, they exchanged love letters constantly. Occasionally, Tim and Gibbs had written to one another, but mostly he and Kelly wrote one another. He had promised her when he left for school that he would write her. He kept that promise too, never faltering. He wrote her at least three times a week, even if two of those letters were short and sweet and one was longer and much more intimate.
"Hey." She smiled and kissed him hello. She wordlessly invited him in and closed and locked the suite door behind him. She took him over to the sofa and he took off his light weight over coat and settled in on the sofa.
She joined him and they spent several minutes catching one another up on the latest that was happening in each of their lives. Tim slowly leaned in closer to her and kissed her slowly, enticing her mouth to open up to his and allow his tongue entry into hers. At Christmas time last year, Kelly and Tim had been making out on the sofa in her living room, when Tim and Kelly had gone beyond their usual light petting and kissing for the first time. Gibbs had caught a case earlier that day, trusting the two of them to behave themselves and abide by the house rules, as he left them home alone together. Kelly had unbuttoned Tim's jeans and slipped her hand inside his shorts, taking his manhood in her hand for the first time instead of their usual over the clothes routine.
Christmas last year had been like a floodgate opening for the two of them, they had been talking through their exchange of letters about finally going all the way. Kelly had been ready for a while, it was surprisingly Tim that was holding back. Mostly afraid of what would happen if Gibbs found out. But when Christmas had come and gone and Gibbs hadn't confronted him about what they'd done. He figured they would be safe to proceed.
Kelly had stopped their mutual making out and lead Tim into the room she was sleeping in and closed the door behind them. She encouraged him onto the bed and joined him. As they resumed their ministrations, she unbuttoned his jeans and slipped her hand inside his shorts, taking his semi hard penis in her hand. Tim's hand skimmed the back of Kelly's leg where the hem of her skirt stopped, midway between her knee and her butt. He toyed with the hem of her skirt, before slipping his hand up her skirt and resting it on her bare cheek. His hand moved from one cheek to the other, feeling a small patch of lace and strap. Kelly began pumping him harder and he could feel himself harden under her touch.
She opened her legs wider, encouraging Tim's hand to explore her womanhood as they continued to make love to each other's mouth. Tim's hand journeyed all on it's own, the one hand that had been massaging her breast, had slowly migrated south, as did his lips, they were now nipping and nibbling at the juncture of her neck. Tim's hand found her opening, he run his forefinger up and back along the slit and noticed she was getting wet. He let his fingers dance along the slit, teasing her clit and her entrance. He noticed her body was keening. Pulling back from her, he panted to her. "Are you sure?" He was pretty sure all of his blood was now in his rock hard, throbbing manhood that Kelly had been exploring with her hand. "We don't have to do anything you're not ready for." He reminded her.
"I want to." She panted, she felt like she was going to explode. Tim hadn't even slipped his finger inside her yet. He'd only ever fingered her once before and that was at Christmas time and she couldn't wait to experience that sensation again. As he slipped his finger inside her part of the way, she felt her body turn to jelly, by the time his finger was fully inside of her, he stilled, allowing her body to adjust to the intrusion of his finger. "Come on, let's go." Kelly encourages him.
Tim began his fingering motions, slipping a second finger inside her carefully and soon enough, she had become aroused and lubricated. He eased his fingers out of her wet core gently and they found the hem of her shirt quickly, pulling it over her head in one fluid motion, before his lips found hers again. He rolled over onto her, trapping her body under his own, capturing his hard penis between their bodies and extricating Kelly's hand from his penis. His hand's reached up and unlatched her bra, tossing it onto the floor beside them, freeing her breasts.
Kelly stripped him of his tee and ran her hands appreciatively up and down his chest, grazing his nipples with her slender fingers as they brushed them. Tim found the side zip on her skirt and unzipped it, pulling back so she could shimmy out of her skirt. Her hands found the waist band of his jeans and boxer shorts, taking them off his hips and down his legs too. Each of them removing their own socks and footwear. "C'mere." Tim urged her, as her almost naked body and her naked body once again met, resuming making love to each others mouth's.
This time Tim needed no encouragement, as his hands reached the hem of her panties, he divested her of them, taking them down her legs and tossed them onto the growing pile of their clothes. "I'm ready, Tim." she begged as her hand found Tim's penis again.
"Let me get a condom." Tim pulled away slightly, going into the wallet which resided in his jeans pocket, plucking one off the strip he'd stashed in there after Christmas, throwing the remaining strip on the bedside table. Between the two of them, they made light work of rolling the condom on him carefully, taking extra precaution as not to tear the latex.
Kelly opened her legs wider, allowing her hips to cradle his body as Tim lined his manhood up with the entrance to her body before slowly eased himself inside her. He waited a moment, letting her adjust to the intrusion before he began to move in and out of her at a slow, pace. Before long Kelly raised her knees and opened wider allowing Tim to pick up the pace.
Tim made sure she climaxed quickly, before taking her for a second one, before working up to his own. He had read about how important it was that Kelly remain wet. He didn't think it was good idea to arrive with a bottle of lube in his pocket as if he had been expecting to be having sex today. When he woke up that morning it wasn't planned, it wasn't until they were here and in the moment, that they decided to go for it.
Kelly was beginning to moan and writhe in pleasure and Tim knew that her third was final, he felt he had some a great job of getting her that far, without climaxing himself. But he was so close, he could feel it. His testes had began tightening up and he could feel it at the base of his penis. Her vagina was gripping him, like a vice, squeezing him as he thrust into and out of her womanhood. He continued to pick up speed, his hands grasped Kelly's hips, slightly elevating her as he continued, changing the angle of penetration. One, two, three more pumps and she was climaxing, taking him over the edge.
"Wow!' Kelly panted, as she caught her breath. Her whole body felt like it was tingling and her legs felt like jelly.
"You can say that again." Tim murmured into her ear, kissing her sweaty face and hairline. "I love you." Tim told her. They had been saying the words to one another since they were fifteen.
"I love you too." Kelly told him, kissing his lips. He slowly removed himself off her body, easing out of hers slowly. Being extremely careful not to fill any of his seed from the used condom, tying it in a knot before depositing the rubbish into the waste bin.
November 2002, Elaine's Way Diner, Washington DC
"Kell?" Tim asked, bringing her thoughts back to the present. The reason they were parked in the parking lot of Elaine's diner and the reason why they hadn't immediately gotten out of the car and gone straight inside to meet Gibbs and Ducky.
"Huh?" she asked, dazed a moment before realising that they were supposed to be getting out of the car and going inside for dinner. "Right. Tim?" She looked at her husband carefully, slowly taking a minute to scrutinize him. "In for a penny, in for a pound?" she asked him.
Tim knew exactly what she meant. "I am if you are." he answered her, as he leaned across the centre console of their car and captured his wife's lips with his.
"God, I love you." Kelly declared when they pulled apart from one another. "So much."
"Me too." Tim answered unbuckling her seatbelt, then his own. "Let's go in, we have an audience now. I wouldn't put it past him to come out here and forcibly take us inside." The quip did exactly what Tim had hoped it would do, it broke the tense atmosphere between them and the two of them shared a laugh together.
"Finally!" Gibbs jibed as they entered the booth where Ducky and he had been waiting for the two of them to exit the car and enter the diner. He had been scrutinizing the couple carefully. Whatever had been on their minds was serious and it had taken them a minute to shake the cloud away and return to their normalcy before they joined Ducky and himself.
"Timothy! Kelly" Ducky greeted them, kissing his goddaughter on the cheek affectionately. He too, could see that something was weighing heavily on the couple, but he followed their lead. The couple knew they could seek him out to talk to him about anything at all. they knew that he would be there for them, no matter what crisis they were facing.
Friday January 1st 1999, Jackson Gibbs' home, Stillwater, Pennsylvania
Most of the preparations were done for tomorrow festivities. Tim's family would be arriving in town tonight, along with the few friends that they had invited. Ducky was reading in the guest room that Jackson Gibbs had allocated to him, when voices broke through his thoughts on the medical textbook that he had been reading. "I'm giving you an exit, Tim." Kelly's voice had come across the hall, loud and clear. He had recognised her no-nonsense tone. "We don't have to do this." he could hear the heartbreak in her voice.
"Don't you want to marry me, anymore? Is that it?" Tim had resigned. his voice sounded wounded and heartbroken. Ducky had known that they thought they were alone, choosing to remain quiet. To his knowledge, no one had ever known them to argue with each other. He was pretty sure he'd never even heard a bicker from the pair, even as children. "Just say it, Kelly. What's really bothering you about this?"
"Nothing, I want nothing more than to marry you. I'd marry you right this second if I could." Kelly swore and Ducky could hear her tears falling. Ducky put his medical text book down that he had been reading, removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose in pain at the timing of their argument. "Tim, listen to me. I know that one day, you want to be a father. We both know that my mom had trouble, that I might too. I don't want you to marry me, not when you could marry someone who could guarantee you a child. I can't make that promise to you and I can't be the one to stand in your way of that dream becoming a reality."
"No!" Tim's voice snapped vehemently, surprising Ducky. "I don't care if we have children or not. I want to marry you, end of discussion. There's never been anyone else but you and there never will be, Kell. You're the one I have known, that I was going to marry since I was ten years old."
"You mean when I begged you to marry me? I remember making you dress up as my groom for Halloween that year." She asked and Ducky recalled Gibbs showing him a photo of the two kids dressed as a bride and groom that Halloween, when they'd been making photo boards for their engagement party the year before.
"Actually it was before that, it was when you asked to marry me the first time. On the beach at the back of the base at Alameda." Tim explained and he heard the sounds of the low mumbling between them. Smiling, he resolved to himself to let them know he was there. Then he heard Tim's voice reverberate through the top floor of the house again. "Is the subject closed now?"
"No" Kelly began, ready to continue the fight, into next round. Ducky's heart was beginning to ache for the young lovers.
"Kell, for the last time. I want to marry you tomorrow whether its just you and me forever or if we're blessed with children. It doesn't matter, either way. If we're not blessed with a child of our own, there's more than one way to have a child. We could foster; or adopt. There's IVF and there's ART. There's even surrogacy, I don't care how we have children or not; as long as you're the one I get to wake up next to, every morning for the rest of my life. Now Kelly Anne Gibbs, will you marry me tomorrow?"
"Yes." she said and the next thing Ducky heard was the door of Kelly's bedroom slam closed.
November 2002, Gibbs Family Home, Alexandria, Virginia
"Are you two ok?" He asked Tim, Kelly was relaxing in the tub at the end of the day and Tim had his laptop precariously balanced on his lap and he was busy typing away. He was working on his final draft of his Defend for his doctorate.
"Huh?" Tim asked, hoping he pulled off the aloofness he was going for. "Yeah, Gibbs. We're good." He smiled at his father in law. He hated lying to the man, but Kelly had felt strongly about keeping the news between the two of them. He suspected she might even feel a little ashamed that despite the biology, she couldn't make her body work the way it was supposed to.
"What are you working on?" Gibbs asked, as he poured both of them a glass of his good bourbon and sat down on the opposite end of the sofa. He was always curious and eager to hear about Tim's work on his doctorate degree and how it was progressing.
"My final defend. It's due in three weeks and I'm ironing out the last minute kinks in it, before it's ready to be submitted." Tim explained to Gibbs. He knew Gibbs' interest in his work was genuine, after all; he was doing his doctorate in justice and criminology and they were both federal agents.
"What case did you choose?" Gibbs asked. Tim had consulted a few people that he knew in law enforcement and Gibbs had consulted a few people that he knew in law enforcement too.
"I chose the Morris Worm." Tim replied. "I was going to chose something from NCIS but the red tape was horrific. My academic advisor thought the Morris Worm Case was a good substitute since it started at MIT, which was my alma mater and JH was affected too, and I went there also. That relating it to places i knew of, schools I've been to would give me a leg up."
"I don't know the case." Gibbs said, taking a swift sip of his bourbon. "Tell me about it."
"At around 8:30 p.m. on November 2, 1988, a maliciously clever program was unleashed on the Internet from a computer at MIT. This particular cyber worm was soon propagating at remarkable speed and grinding computers to a halt. "We are currently under attack," wrote a concerned student at the University of California, Berkeley in an email later that night. Within 24 hours, an estimated 6,000 of the approximately 60,000 computers that were then connected to the Internet had been hit. Computer worms, unlike viruses, do not need a software host but can exist and propagate on their own. UCLA Berkeley was far from the only victim. The rogue program had infected systems at a number of the prestigious colleges and public and private research centers across the USA; that made up the early national electronic network. This was a year before the invention of the World Wide Web. Among the many casualties were Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, NASA, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The worm only targeted computers running a specific version of the Unix operating system, but it spread widely because it featured multiple vectors of an attack. For example, it exploited a backdoor in the Internet's electronic mail system and a bug in the "finger" program that identified network users. It was also designed to stay hidden. The worm didn't damage or destroy files, but it still packed a punch. Vital military and university functions slowed to a crawl. Emails were delayed for days. The network community worked hard to figure out how the worm worked and how to remove it safely. Some institutions wiped their systems; others disconnected their computers from the network for as long as a week. The exact damages were difficult to quantify, but estimates started at 100,000 and soared into the millions of dollars. As computer experts worked feverishly on a fix, the question of who was responsible became more urgent. Shortly after the attack, a dismayed programmer contacted two friends, admitting he'd launched the worm and despairing that it had spiralled dangerously out of control. He asked one friend to relay an anonymous message across the Internet on his behalf, with a brief apology and guidance for removing the program. Ironically, few received the message in time because the network had been so damaged by the worm. Independently, the other friend made an anonymous call to The New York Times, which would soon splash news of the attack across its front pages. The friend told a reporter that he knew who built the program, saying it was meant as a harmless experiment and that its spread was the result of a programming error. In follow-up conversations with the reporter, the friend inadvertently referred to the worm's author by his initials, RTM. Using that information, The Times soon confirmed and publicly reported that the culprit was a 23-year-old Cornell University graduate student named Robert Tappan Morris. Morris was a talented computer scientist who had graduated from Harvard in June 1988. He had grown up immersed in computers thanks to his father, who was an early innovator at Bell Labs. At Harvard, Morris was known for his technological prowess, especially in Unix; he was also known as a prankster. After being accepted into Cornell that August, he began developing a program that could spread slowly and secretly across the Internet. To cover his tracks, he released it by hacking into an MIT computer from his Cornell terminal in Ithaca, New York. After the incident became public knowledge, the FBI launched a formal investigation. Agents quickly confirmed that Morris was behind the attack and began interviewing him and his associates, also decrypting his computer files, which yielded plenty of incriminating evidence. But had Morris broken federal law? Turns out, he had. In 1986, Congress had passed the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, outlawing unauthorized access to protected computers. Prosecutors indicted Morris in 1989. The following year, a jury found him guilty, making him the first person convicted under the 1986 law. Morris, however, was spared jail time, instead receiving a fine, probation, and an order to complete 400 hours of community service. The episode had a huge impact on a nation just coming to grips with how important—and vulnerable—computers had become. The idea of cybersecurity became something computer users began to take more seriously. Just days after the attack, for example, the country's first computer emergency response team was created in Pittsburgh at the direction of the Department of Defence. Developers also began creating much-needed computer intrusion detection software. At the same time, the Morris Worm inspired a new generation of hackers and a wave of Internet-driven assaults that continue to plague our digital systems to this day. Whether accidental or not, the first Internet attack was a wake-up call for the country and the cyber age to come." Tim read off the screen of his laptop to Gibbs and Gibbs' eyes were glazed over at the technobabble.
"Impressive, but you could have just said it was about computers and I would have backed off."
"Where's the fun in that?" Tim joked. "Besides I was just a kid when it happened, but I remember the case and I remember it inspired me to study computer science and forensics at MIT."