A/N - I've been transferring my files for this story into a more logical order, 'cause the details are starting to mount up on me and I really need to get it all sorted out in my head. So updates might be patchy until that's sorted out.

Thanks to everyone reading and reviewing, it's lovely to hear what people are thinking!

Disclaimer - I still don't own anything NCIS.

Timothy stood alone on the observation deck, looking down at the blue globe spinning imperceptibly beneath the Orbiter's massive engines. He hadn't meant to stop here. He had been on his way to his bunk for a few hours sleep but, once again, found himself caught up in the sight before him.

There was nothing quite as humbling as looking down on your planet, knowing that billions of people were living their lives on its surface, completely unaware of your presence or the danger they were in. Utterly dependant on you for survival but utterly, blissfully convinced they were safe.

He often got stuck there, gazing at the Earth and thinking about everyone he knew and loved, and everyone he would never meet. Ordinary, amazing people, whose lives he was now responsible for. He'd never felt that weight more heavily than he did now.

It had been almost four months since Timothy's conversation with the Void; since Harriet revealed that the enemy they faced was something they had all long considered a children's story. Since his world had been turned upside down for the second time in little over a week.

Everything had fallen quiet once again. There were no more attacks, no more missile strikes or abduction attempts or communications between the Peace Force and the Void. In fact, it was eerily peaceful.

The message had spread throughout the galaxy now; war was coming. Timothy and Kinoan had gathered the Generals in conference once again and told them what they were facing. They had been skeptical, at first, but ultimately the reputations of both Kinoan and Timothy, the respect they commanded, won out and the Generals came to a unanimous decision.

War was declared.

Word had spread beyond the Peace Force and onto the planets which were aware of intergalactic events. Every planet which had soldiers in the UIPF had heard the stories of the Void, had heard of the great war that had long been said to be coming.

The Generals' declaration had filled the galaxy with a sort of terrified suspense and, over the months following the Void's first attacks, a strange kind of peace fell. Warring civilisations declared ceasefires; even grudges that went back millennia were put aside as the whole galaxy held its breath.

The Peace Force was at something of a loose end. It made the soldiers nervous.

It wasn't as simple as fear, though. The hatred between certain peoples ran deep and could not be halted simply because of another approaching war. Something had changed.

The shift Timothy had felt his first day back onboard the Orbiter was stronger than ever now. He had only been able to sense it, before, because he had travelled in time. Now everybody could feel it - a distortion in the fabric of space-time, like some great force was pressing in on them.

It was a sickness in the stomach and a weight on the chest, sometimes fading almost completely and sometimes hitting so strongly and suddenly Timothy felt the urge to throw up. In those moments, he had seen more than a few soldiers make a dash for the toilets. It was sheer force of will that kept him still, the determination to never show weakness of any kind.

Kinoan believed - and Timothy agreed - that it was this sense of something impending that was keeping even the most volatile of civilisations quiet. It seemed to be sucking the fight right out of them.

He had spent most of the last three and a half months haunting the Control Room, breathing down the necks of the staff, who still had not managed to find anything more on their enemy. Not that he had expected much, now he knew what they were up against.

If the legends were to be believed - and Timothy was a lot more prepared to do so, now - the Void was not a being at all; not a corporeal one anyway. It was a mass consciousness, malevolent and insane, haunting the depths of space and picking off stray travellers.

It clearly had the power to control minds. Even if Harriet had not told her story, there was the army Timothy had faced on Isgul. There was no doubt in his mind that those soldiers, mixed and varied yet completely uniform as they were, were not in control of their own actions.

Timothy had spent hours in conference with Kinoan, two old Generals talking war and diplomacy, discussing how far they were prepared to go.

This was what had been keeping Timothy awake at night. The thought that he might have to make another call like Hotton. It had been ten years since he gave that order and still he had not forgiven himself.

He truly didn't know if he had the strength to do it again.

This guilt, this fear, nagging at him day and night, had also kept him as far away from Gibbs as he could manage.

Timothy knew his old boss had questions and that, this time, he would demand an answer.

Technically, Timothy was Gibbs' superior and did not have to explain himself. But there was something about Gibbs that made it very hard for Timothy to just shrug him off.

He'd met with Abby, Ducky and Jimmy many times; in fact, he'd had dinner with Abby almost every night, and had always managed to dodge their questions. The three were settling in well. Ducky had found a common soul in Doctor Gorcheva and the two spent many hours trading obscure facts - Ducky about Earth history and Gorcheva about everything else.

Jimmy had found friends in the other trainee White Hats - Peace Force slang for medical attendants - and was rapidly gaining experience and education with treating a wide variety of alien life forms.

The work was busy and never-relenting. Though there was a much bigger and better equipped hospital on the planet Nabultin, it was often much quicker and easier to bring injured soldiers to the Orbiter to be stabilised first. Though the number of injuries had massively decreased since the galaxy-wide ceasefire, there were still any number of accidents and ship crashes to deal with.

As for Abby, she was assimilating to the Radio room with an ease that surprised Timothy. Perhaps the technology had changed enough over the past decade to be understandable, perhaps she had particularly good tutors in Leah Chesel and Varigandi. Perhaps Timothy himself just didn't have the right sort of mind to handle such a radical change.

Whatever it was, he was glad she was happy. They were all happy.

Except Gibbs.

Every time Timothy had seen him lately - only brief, passing glances as Timothy tore from one room to another - Gibbs had a look of thunder on his face. It only made Timothy more determined to stay away.

He couldn't hide forever, though. Kinoan had taken a liking to Gibbs and a mutual respect had developed between agent and alien. They spent hours every day together, touring the ship. From what he dared ask in his conversations with Kinoan - not wanting to hear the lecture he knew his old friend had ready and waiting - the alien was teaching Gibbs everything he knew about the way the Orbiter ran.

Timothy had even heard snatches of conversation, in the Control and Radio rooms and in the cafeterias, that suggested Gibbs was beginning to take somewhat of a role in the command chain. He was a trusted friend of General McGee and that fact was enough for everybody onboard to trust him implicitly as well.

It was almost as if Kinoan was preparing Gibbs for something - something he wasn't sharing with Timothy.

It was this thought, bouncing around inside his brain, that had Timothy distracted enough not to hear Gibbs himself walking up behind him until the man spoke, just a few metres away.

"I think it's time we talked, McGee. Don't you?"