Chapter 60

For the next week, things seemed to settle down and a large part of that was Tim. He didn't tell anyone about his decision, mostly because that would lead to talking about how to actually implement it and he really didn't want to think about it at the moment. However, he was genuinely trying to give himself an escape from everything that had happened as Bob had told him to and, to a degree, he succeeded. It did require some degree of isolation. He didn't seek anyone out and he rarely left his house at all, but those who came to visit noticed some amount of calm that had been missing before. They didn't say anything about it simply because it was better. For his part, Tim knew that they were wondering about it and he knew he'd have to engage with the world again, but he wanted to put it off for a while.

Whatever Zahara thought of his newfound calm, she didn't say anything, nor did she push him to explain himself. She accepted it quietly, but near the end of the week, when Tim was again out in the backyard, lying in the grass with Marra lying on him, she came out.

"Tim?"

"Yeah?"

"I would like to talk to you."

"Okay."

Tim gently shoved Marra off his chest and sat up. Marra grumbled a little but when Zahara came and sat down beside Tim, meaning that he didn't stand, she just changed her position and tried to curl up on his lap even though she was getting way too big for that. Tim didn't fight it.

"What is it?" he asked.

Zahara pet Marra a few times and then looked at Tim earnestly.

"I have been thinking of how to say this to you so that you can understand it."

"What?" Tim asked, now feeling a little worried.

"You are so important to me, Tim. I love you so much, and I'm sorry that you have felt that as a weight instead of as support."

"What do you mean?" Tim asked, adding confusion to the mix of emotions. "I love you, and love isn't a weight."

"It is when you feel that the only way to be good for us is to do something that isn't possible." Zahara leaned forward and took Tim's head in her hands. Then, she leaned her forehead on his. "You cannot change the past, Tim. You cannot control what other people choose to do. That doesn't matter. I know you wish to keep all of this chaos from us. I know you wish to keep your children from fear, but it doesn't matter. I love you. I love all of you, and my love doesn't depend on whether or not we are safe."

Tim wasn't sure how to respond, so he said nothing.

"I know you struggle and I wish you didn't have to, but please, don't feel that you are a burden because of it. I only hate that you struggle because it's hard for you, not because it's hard for me."

"Zahara, I never thought that you would reject me for that," Tim said.

Zahara let him go and looked earnestly in his eyes. "No, but you have felt guilty every time you have had a problem and if you are adding guilt to everything else, it just means that your weight is more than it would have been. I love you, Tim. I do not love a pretend version of you. Salma loves you. Jonathan loves you."

Marra whined at them both for not petting her. Zahara laughed a little.

"In her own way, even Marra loves you. She does not care about your struggle. She cares..."

"...about whether or not I'll pet her and feed her," Tim finished, smiling himself.

"Yes. What I am saying, Tim, is that you should not focus on us when you are trying to get better. Focus on you."

"But it's not just me," Tim said. "Everything in my life affects you, too."

"But if you are better, we will be happy for you and if you focus on you, it will be better. Please, I know that you would never neglect your family. But you can think less about how your life affects us. Yes, it does, but that is a price we will pay. You told me what the price might be from the beginning. That is enough. I have already agreed to pay the price." Then, she smiled a little mischievously. "There are no refunds or exchanges."

Tim couldn't help but laugh at that. "I would allow it, you know."

"I do not allow it," Zahara said firmly.

Tim took a breath and then reached out and took Zahara's left hand and played with her ring a little bit, choosing to look at that rather than at Zahara.

"I made a choice," he said softly.

"About what?"

"About my life. How am I going to live it. Will I try to be like Suhayl who simply accepts that there are times when his life can't be how he wants it to be and he lives with it or am I going to keep doing what I've been doing and try to destroy the people who come after me... and probably destroy myself in the process."

Zahara grasped his hand tightly but she said nothing. Just waiting.

"I chose to try to accept the way my life is. I don't know how I'm going to do it or what it will take, but that's what I'm going to try to do because..." Now, Tim looked up. "...because if I don't, I'll have to give up my family. If I don't try to accept it, I'll lose you in one way or another... and I can't. I can't give up my family. But I don't know what I'll have to do in order to get there and this last week, I've been avoiding doing anything about anything. I wanted to just exist in a bubble for a while. But I know it can't last and I'm going to have to make a start."

"I will help you," Zahara said. "I will not lose you, Tim. I will help you in any way that I can. In fact, Salma is asking to play with her friends today. Since you are not working yet and she is wanting to go out, will you take her? She will feel more safe with you right now and the doctor said she should go if she feels she can."

Tim felt himself tense up at the suggestion and he knew that Zahara could see it as well.

"Please, Tim? It is only for a little while. This is not a long time playing. Just something that happens often during the summer. There are many children playing."

"I'll do it."

"Thank you. You should get ready to go."

"All right."

Tim urged Marra to get off him and then he stood up. Marra yawned widely and looked resentful.

"I've been your pillow long enough," Tim said.

Marra whined.

"None of that," Tim said, sternly. "Go on."

Another whine.

"No," Tim said again.

Marra looked about ready to start a full-blown tantrum, something they were working on training her out of.

"Don't start that with me," Tim said.

One more whine and then Marra grumbled and walked away from him. Tim smiled and shook his head. Then, he walked inside.

"Salma, are you ready to go to the park?" he called out.

Salma came running. "Will you take me, Baba?" she asked.

"Yes, I will. Are you ready to go?"

Salma clapped her hands excitedly and nodded. She ran off to get her shoes and was back in thirty seconds. She grabbed his hand and pulled him to the door. Tim took a breath and then smiled.

"Okay, okay, Salma. Calm down."

"I don't want to miss it!" Salma said.

"You won't. It'll be fine," Tim said.

But for the moment, Salma was irrepressible, and Tim was glad to see it. They got in the car and Tim drove them over to the park. He could see a number of little girls all playing together.

As they headed over to the playground equipment, Tim had a thought.

Dr. Hicks will be so proud of me for hanging out with other parents. ...if I say anything.

He looked around and was almost relieved to see Abe sitting on a bench, but he wasn't alone this time. An older woman was sitting with him and Tim guessed that she must be his wife.

"Baba?" Salma asked.

"Go on and play. I'll be here."

There was a flash of worry.

"All the time?" she asked.

Tim smiled and nodded. "Yes, all the time. Go and play with your friends."

Salma smiled back and ran off. Tim squared his shoulders and forced himself to walk over to Abe.

"Hi," he said.

Abe looked up and Tim could see that there was a moment when he was trying to remember who Tim was, but then, it obviously clicked and he smiled.

"Oh, you're Salma's dad."

"Yes. Tim."

"This is my wife, Alta," Abe said.

Alta reached up and shook Tim's hand.

"Nice to meet you," she said. "Salma is your daughter?"

"Yeah," Tim said.

"She's adorable. She'll definitely attract attention when she's older. Such an interesting look to her, if you don't mind my saying so."

Tim smiled. "I don't mind. Her mom is from Morocco with a Spanish mother and Berber father, and I'm a plain old American. It's an interesting combination."

Alta smiled back. "It's a global world we live in. True isolation is almost impossible. Most of the time, we talk about that in terms of countries and nations, but even at our level, it's true."

"Haven't seen Salma around for a while," Abe said.

"Yeah..." Tim wasn't sure how to say anything without saying too much. "Yeah... we only got back last week."

Abe raised an eyebrow but didn't comment on that lackluster response. Then, Alta stepped in and revived the conversation.

"We don't always stay while Celeste is playing, but we decided that we didn't have anything we needed to do today and I love to see her being able to be a normal little girl. She knows that her family is different, even at her age. Time will tell how much it affects her as she grows up, but we'll see."

"Salma is a little different, too," Tim said. "I just want her to be able to live a normal life."

"Well, if you're hanging out, why don't you join us here and we can chat," Alta suggested.

Tim wasn't sure he really wanted that, but he figured that this would be a good thing in the long run and so he nodded and sat down on the bench, subtly taking note of where his guards were. Then, he took a breath and focused on the older couple.

"So, you have grown children already?" he asked.

Alta smiled and nodded. ...and then pulled out her phone. "Yes. We have three boys. Let me show you."

It was apparent that Alta was definitely the talker between her and her husband and Tim didn't mind letting her take charge. So while Salma was playing with her friends, Tim was letting Alta tell him everything about her family, with Abe occasionally adding an observation.

And it was okay. Not great, but okay.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Gibbs was setting out the planed wood. The flame birch had looked nice in its rough form. Now that it was all planed, it was absolutely gorgeous. Good thing because it had been expensive. It didn't need to be stained, only sealed. Maybe they could do some accents with a dark stain, but overall, this was some of the prettiest wood he'd seen. He definitely didn't want to ruin it while figuring out the proper construction of the desk.

Would Tim come tonight? Gibbs wasn't sure. He'd deliberately stayed away from Tim's house over the last week, and he was trying to give Tim the time to figure himself out. He was afraid that Tim would come to the wrong decision, but he was genuinely trying to let Tim get it straight in his own mind first. However, if Tim would be coming over at all, it would likely be tonight, so Gibbs was making sure he was ready.

Tim had said he needed to decide what he was going to do with his life, how he was going to feel, and while Gibbs really wanted to force Tim to make the right decision, he knew that he couldn't.

Then, he heard his door open. Footsteps to the basement door and then the door opened. Gibbs focused on getting the boards laid out rather than looking up to see if it was actually Tim or not. There was a pause at the top of the stairs.

"You finished planing."

Gibbs smiled but still didn't look up.

"It needed to get done. Can't start building until it is."

"What if I didn't come back?"

"Did you think about that?"

"Not specifically."

"Well, you're here."

"Yeah."

"Ready to work?"

No reply but the footsteps resumed and Tim came down the stairs. Gibbs looked up and was heartened by what he saw. Tim still wasn't recovered, but he looked better than last time. There could only be one reason for that.

"You made a decision?"

Tim nodded.

"What?"

Now it was Tim's turn not to look at Gibbs. He walked over to the smooth planks of flame birch.

"It's beautiful. I thought it looked nice before, but this is really nice wood. Are you sure you want to use this for a desk?"

"No good for a boat."

Tim picked up one of the planks and ran his fingers over it.

"I told you that I had to decide how I was going to feel, how I was going to live my life. ...and it came down to whether I'm going to live like Suhayl or like Levi did."

Gibbs wasn't sure he understood that comparison. He knew something about Suhayl but not really enough to know what that implied. However, he did know what Tim meant about Levi.

"And?"

Tim put down the wood abruptly and turned around, facing Gibbs directly, unflinching. The steel wasn't there, but there was something else...possibly something better.

"And if I'm going to live a life at all, then, I have to choose to be like Suhayl. Living like Levi means that I give up everything that means anything. There's no way that I could hold onto my family if I chose to live like Levi did. I would have to choose to focus everything in my life on keeping those people who want to control me away. I might succeed, but the only way to do it is to lose everything and everyone else. I can't have control unless there's only one variable. So I have to let go of that, and I have to accept that there are times that my life is going to be awful and I have to try to live through those times and enjoy the times that are good."

Gibbs was surprised. This seemed almost too easy, even though he knew that Tim had likely been struggling with it even before this most recent event.

Then, there was an almost hapless smile.

"But I have no idea how I'm going to manage that," Tim said.

"What have you done so far?" Gibbs asked.

"Made the decision."

"Who have you told?"

"Zahara. And you."

"No one else?"

"No."

Maybe it was petty. In fact, it definitely was petty, but Gibbs was glad that Tim had told him before he had told Levi.

"Not Dr. Hicks?"

"No. I haven't done anything since I made the decision. I've just been hiding from the world for a while."

"Nothing wrong with that."

"Maybe."

"You ready to face the world now?"

"Maybe."

Gibbs smiled. "Then, we can start on the desk."

Tim actually smiled back. "I'm still not sure we can do it."

"We can."

"But I'll bet that wood is expensive."

"It is."

"So if we make a mistake..."

"Then, we make a mistake. I can afford it," Gibbs said. "Ready?"

Finally, Tim nodded. Gibbs pulled out his drawing and started pointing out the different parts, asking if Tim approved of the overall design. It took some time, but Tim genuinely started getting interested and making his own suggestions. For the next hour, they mostly just worked on the plans for the size and how they would get the thing built without destroying the beautiful planks. They sorted the different pieces, started marking them up for making cuts and laid out the pattern for the top and the legs before Tim decided it was time to get home.

"It's going to be good, Tim," Gibbs said.

Tim looked at his with a raised eyebrow, clearly hearing the double meaning.

"I can...almost believe that."

Then, he went up the stairs and left.

Gibbs looked at the birch. Yes, it would be expensive to replace if they messed up, but he didn't care. They could ruin the whole lot of it and he wouldn't care if it helped.

Tim was going to make it back. As horrible as this experience had been, it seemed that it had finally jarred Tim out of the rut he'd been in and he was ready to take those vital steps forward again.