Keryl Raist's Blog, page 10
May 14, 2014
Shards To A Whole: Chapter 323
McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
Chapter 323: The Metaphorical Something Black and Lacy
"So, successful trip?" Abby asks, looking up from her laptop as he and Kelly head in. He had told her what he was off to do. And before he can answer, she inhales deeply and says, "Oh, yes!"
She's up, draped around him, purring in a very content sort of way, sniffing along his jaw and throat. "What is that?"
"Apparently, exactly what I asked for." He hands over Kelly, who's fussing a bit, wanting some lunch right that second, as he smiles at her and takes his jacket and hers off.
"Hello to you, too." Abby says to her daughter once she's out of her cold weather gear, taking her into the kitchen, putting her in the highchair. Lunchtime is a cereal and formula meal. "Lunch'll be ready soon, little girl."
Kelly smiles.
"You think she understood that, or does she just know that highchair time means food soon?" Abby notices she's drifting closer to Tim as she asks, wanting to strip him down and rub all over him.
"No idea." He takes two steps closer to her, kissing her gently, and put his collection of tiny vials and the list on the table, next to Abby's seat. She presses against him, and his hands are in the process of wandering away from putting the scents on the table, looking to find some soft, warm, curvy Abby bits to cup, when Kelly interjects with some definitive, 'Feed Me Now' sounds.
They break apart with another quick kiss, and Tim starts to get some lunch for them, as well.
Being a parent is a balancing act. For example, right now, if this was a year ago, and Kelly was still on the inside, Abby knows that the absolute last thing they'd be doing right now is making lunch.
But Kelly is hungry, and she's fussing. When it was clear that being set in the highchair would not make food immediately appear, her smile fell and the little wa wa wa cry of 'Hey, food, now! C'mon, hurry up! I'm starving here!' came back out again.
But, as Abby's moving around the kitchen, mixing up formula and getting the cereal, Tim's also in there, moving around, grabbing sandwich stuff for them, and he's close and smells amazing, and looking like walking sex and just...
God...
Not pinning him to the counter and just getting to it is killing her.
And if she's got to be this turned on and distracted while baby wrangling, she thinks he should be, too.
Saturday morning, laying around the house. She's in jammy pants, t-shirt, and a bra. She gets the formula into the bottle, adds the water, and caps it, shaking the mix up, while slipping off the pants.
She knows Tim loves her ass, and the t-shirt is just long enough to almost, but not quite, cover it. And yes, she's smiling as she heads to Kelly, mixed-bottle in hand, well aware of the fact that he's staring at her, eyes glued to the little glimpses of her rear as she walks toward their daughter, lunch utterly forgotten.
And it's also true, that usually, if they're feeding Kelly in the highchair, that whoever's doing the feeding sits in one of the chairs next to her, so, the fact that she's standing next to the chair, leaning a little, bent just a bit, so that the shirt rides up just another inch higher, is not in any way shape or form an accident.
She looks over her shoulder to him, once Kelly's got the bottle in her mouth, and smiles, happy, wicked, come and get me on her face.
His eyes are hot, devouring her, and sending back a very clear, oh yes, I am definitely coming to get you! message as he bites his lips and adjusts himself in his jeans.
He picks up the cereal, mixes it with water, and then brings that over to her at the table. Tim presses right up behind her, rubbing against her back, nuzzling her neck, as he sets the bowl on the table.
Abby wants to melt into him, strong arms around her, that delicious scent wrapping into her skin. He's still wearing his shoes, and she's barefoot, so he's enough taller than she is that she's feeling small and very femme. She turns her face to kiss him, and he kisses back, teasing, flicking her lip with his tongue, and then steps away, quickly. "Gotta get a spoon for her."
She sighs, that's right. "And a bib." One thing they have both noticed in the week since they started feeding it to her, is that cereal meals are a hell of a lot messier than formula or nursing.
He comes back a second later, putting the spoon on the high chair, and wrapping the bib around Kelly's neck. Then leaves again, gently stroking Abby's rear as he heads back over to the counter to make them some lunch.
She sits in the chair, facing Kelly. That makes holding the bottle she's eagerly sucking down a bit easier. (Not that it's difficult, but it's easy to kind of miss Kelly's mouth if she's not paying enough attention.)
"So, which one of these are you wearing?" Abby asks, pulling the vials towards her. "Whip?"
He shakes his head. "That's a present for you. Janice, the perfume lady, told me it's yours, for when I'm wearing my collar."
"You told her you've got one?" Abby's pretty surprised by that. It's not the sort of thing that tends to come up in general conversation.
"We were talking about leather scents and if I liked real leather or the idea of it, and she wanted to know what color the leather I owned was, so I told her what I had and what color it was."
"Uh huh." She can't open the little vials one handed, and Kelly does not look like she wants to take a break. "This'll be easier when you can hold up your own bottle," she says to her daughter, who keeps contentedly sucking away. She does pick it up, and sniff, hoping to get an idea through the cap, and she does get a hint of roses and leather. That makes her smile.
She does keep picking up the vials, sniffing the caps, getting a hint as to what is what. "Vicomte De Valmont?"
"I think that's what I've got on. Kind of fluffy name."
"You don't know who is he, do you?"
He looks up from laying pieces of bread on the counter. "Not a clue. Real guy? Character?" He's making up corned beef on rye for both of them.
"Character. Dangerous Liaisons."
Tim shakes his head. "Never saw it or read it."
She nods, expecting that.
"He one of the good guys?"
"I think it's fair to say that story doesn't have good guys. He's a protagonist, but not, by any stretch, a good guy."
"Okay, what sort of bad guy is he? Am I wearing eau de murdering-psycho?"
"Would you stop wearing it if it was?"
He thinks about that for a moment, eyes skimming over her legs, thinking about how much she seems to approve of this. "How much do you like it?"
She licks her lips, staring him straight in the eye, and then lets her eyes travel slowly down his body, settling on his erection, and dragging back up again after a long, deep breath. "I really like it."
"Then I don't care what it's called," he says, shaking his head. "So, what'd he do?"
"He's a sadist. Seduces women and breaks their hearts for amusement."
"Lovely. This is a movie millions of women thought was achingly romantic?"
"He eventually falls in love with one of them, and then screws it up, ends up fighting a duel with this other guy, and dies, but not before the woman he falls for dies, too, and... actually, everyone dies."
She didn't sound very certain about that. "You weren't really paying attention when you saw it, were you?"
"More like I was supposed to read it for a French class, but I never got good enough at French to get the nuances."
"Ah." He finishes up their sandwiches and places them in front of her, and then takes her free hand, lifting gently, letting her know he wants her to stand. He sits on the chair, and tugs her into his lap. She settles in, wriggling in a very pleasant sort of way, leans in closer to his neck, and inhales deeply. "I really like this."
"Thanks. I do, too." He nips gently at her shoulder, before lifting his sandwich and taking a bite. He's thinking that getting done lunch as soon as possible, and Kelly in bed as soon as possible after that is an exceptionally good plan.
She continues sniffing at the vials, and then looks at the bigger one. "You bought a bottle of something called Jolly Roger?"
He put his sandwich down, and opened it for her. "For Gibbs. One Christmas present down, all the rest to go."
Her eyes went wide as she inhaled. "That's... God, that's a boat, a handmade wood boat, at sea, and the guy on it is drinking rum."
"And now you know why I thought of him when I smelled it."
"Rum?"
"It's close enough to bourbon."
She sniffs it again. "Might want to smell this on you, too."
"Not really a boat guy."
"Exactly. Unless it's in dry dock, this is the closest I'm getting to you on a boat voluntarily."
He laughs at that. "Wanna play pirate?"
She grins and rocks against him. "I might."
He gently strokes the tip of his index finger from her ear to the collar of the shirt, and then much less gently squeezes her breast. "Arrgh." He bites her ear lightly, and she laughs. "I've got a wishlist set up on her site. You can add it for me, or anything you want for you."
"Good." She picks up another vial, sniffs at the lid, and winces. "Ulgh! What on earth made you buy this?"
"Oh. That one." He took it in hand and twisted it around so he could see the name. Satyr. Fitting.
He explains why he brought that one home, and Abby does look intrigued, but exceptionally doubtful as well. "So, you're telling me this woman could sell ice to Eskimos?"
"I'm telling you she could sell ice perfume to Eskimos."
She sniffs him again. "Sexy ice perfume."
He kisses her shoulder, his fingers sliding up her inner thigh, just barely brushing her pubic hair, making her shiver. "Very sexy ice perfume. Wicked ice. Cold and sparkling, glittering on your skin, slowly melting with your heat into soft, full drops of water, quivering with each gasped breath and I lick them off your skin."
"Mmmm..." Abby squirms against him again, eyeballing Kelly's bottle. She's almost done. Then cereal. Then naptime. Then sex.
She pulls the highchair a bit closer, and then stands, handing the bottle to Tim. Kelly looks confused at this. "You hold on." And Tim does, quickly getting the bottle back in his daughter's mouth. Abby straddles his lap, facing him, unbuttoning his button down, pulling the collar of his t-shirt aside, and nibbling on his collar bone, rocking gently on his lap.
"Oh, god, baby, you're killing me!"
"You think you weren't fucking with me?"
He bites his lip, resisting rocking back against her. Then he nips hers, wanting to suck it between his lips, lick it, taste her slow and deep, but he's also feeding their child right now, so he pulls back and says, "Not that bad."
She shifts from rocking to an exceedingly slow roll of her hips, circling against him with exquisite pressure. "Better?"
His head falls to her shoulder. "God, yes." He puts the bottle down and grabs her hips, stilling them. "And no. Got a baby to feed here, don't need to be cumming in my pants to go with it."
"You're not that close," she says, knowing his sexual response cycle in and out.
And she's right, he's not. "Yet. I will be if you keep doing that!"
Kelly starts fussing again. Yes, the bottle is just about done, but she's not full, and she can see the bowl with the cereal in it in front of her, but though she's grabbing for it, she's not able to succeed in getting the food into her mouth.
Tim lets go of Abby's hips. Then he kisses her, hard, fast, deep. Too fast. That should have been a long, thorough, full-out making love kiss. Instead it was a promise of love to come.
"I want you upstairs, in our bed, naked, spread out and waiting for me. I'll feed her and get up there as soon as I can."
Abby grins at that. "Can I be looking at pictures, too?"
"As long as they're of us, yes."
She brushes his lips with one more kiss, and bounces (God, that's killing him, too, that soft, pert bounce of her ass as she heads out) out of the kitchen toward their room.
Tim closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, counts to five, and then opens them, grabs the bowl of cereal that Kelly's just about to flip over, gets the spoon into it, and starts to feed her.
Being a parent is about patience. There's the patience of allowing your child to learn to do whatever it is. Not jumping in and taking over because it's faster and easier if you do it.
But that's patience for parents of older children.
For parents of babies, the key to patience is accepting that babies move at their own speed, and that speed is slow.
So, even though Tim had time to eat his own sandwich, and get a drink, and mess around with the wishlist he set up, Kelly is still, slowly, munching her way through her cereal. In that she's only been eating "solid" (though how you could possibly consider something that is only marginally thicker than formula a solid boggles Tim's mind) food for a week, she's still in the this is really new part of eating, and hasn't quite gotten down the whole food goes in mouth, swallow thing.
She keeps trying to use her tongue to nurse it, which results in spitting a good deal of each spoonful out.
This morning, the fact that at least two thirds of all food gets pushed out of her mouth, then spooned back in, and then spit out again, and over and over until enough calories have been absorbed by her skin to do the job, did not bug him. That was just feeding a baby.
Right now, when there is something he'd much, much rather be doing, it's driving him buggy.
And this is the patience of a small baby. It's the balancing act of your needs and wants versus hers. It's knowing that if you rush and do a half-assed job she's going to fuss and cry and not properly nap.
So, as lunch is stretching out, and out, and the little pile of cereal in the bowl gets smaller in microscopic increments, Tim is being patient.
Eventually, after three quarters of forever (real elapsed time: twenty-nine minutes) Kelly was fed, cleaned up, sung to, and sleeping.
And Tim is standing, at the door to his room, watching, feeling the blood cascade back into his dick.
She's naked, and spread out, sort of.
She's on her elbows and knees. Ass high, legs spread, glistening wet pussy on display. She's gently, slowly fingering herself. Just the tip of her middle finger circling lightly over her clit. He knows that move, that's the just staying on the edge of getting off stroke.
If there's a more deliberate fuck me now pose, he's got no idea what it would be.
He sees she's got her earbuds in, and just knows she's watching one of the videos of them. He doesn't know which, obviously, but they usually do still pictures, so there's only a few videos to pick from, and he knows all of them by heart.
Between what he's seeing, and the memories in his head that go with the different videos, his pants are frightfully tight.
And then they're on the floor, along with his boxers.
He doesn't know if she's got the volume up high enough she can't hear him, or if she's playing with him, pretending she doesn't know he's in their room. Either way, with that pose, he figures this is welcome.
He gets onto their bed fast, and she has to feel that, but she doesn't respond, other than to wiggle her ass at him. He gets that she's pretending to be so engrossed in the video she's lost to everything else. That's fine. She wants to pretend they're fucking and get "surprised," he's happy to play along and add the real thing. In a second, he's kneeling behind her, grabs his dick, squeezing and stroking himself just bit, (That feels too damn good right now, too.) lines up, and slips in, groaning at how good she feels.
She makes a surprised squeaking sound. He pulls her up, so she's kneeling too, back against his chest, then yanks the cord on the earbuds, so they jerk out of her ears.
"Good?"
"Fuck yes!" she moans, turning to kiss him. He feasts on her lips as one hand finds a breast, and the other one slips to her clit, replacing her barely touching caress with a firm, fast stroke.
She's close, a lot closer than he is. He can feel it in the tightness in her body, the panting of her breath, the way she's frantically sucking his tongue. And, God, by all that is or ever was good and holy, that feels good. Feels amazing.
He breaks the kiss, licking her jaw and throat. "Wanna feel you come, baby."
She's rocking against him, pressing herself into his fingers, grinding on his cock, and he rubs a little faster, little harder, and she goes just a hair tighter before her whole body ripples against him.
She's moaning, and he gentles his stroke. "That's it! So beautiful, Abby."
For a few seconds, she rests against him, cradled in his arms, his head resting on her shoulder as her body twitches and her breathing slows. Then she kisses him, long and slow and deep. The kiss they should have had downstairs.
She breaks the kiss, squeezing around him deliberately. "You're not done, are you?"
He shakes his head, grinning. "Not yet."
"Good." She drops onto her elbows and wiggles her hips in a very encouraging, very, very, insanely good sort of way, and he growls quietly. "Want you to go as hard and fast as you like."
He grunts, the pleasure of those words and the feel of doing it short-circuiting the part of his brain that comes up with words, stroking into her fast and hard.
"Ohhh... Just like that, Tim. Want your finger marks on my hips."
He grabs her hips, pulling her back as he thrusts. She meets him, arching back against him, hard and deep. She's rocking fast, and so is he, encouraging him with a steady stream of "Fuck/God, yes/So good/Fuck!/Please!" as he groans with each stroke.
He can see his fingers leaving little pink marks on her hips, and watch his body slipping into hers, high as a kite on the feel and sight of this. He doesn't go quite as fast as he can, he wants another minute here, hovering between the intense erotic pleasure of almost-there-but-still-in-control and the free fall of climax.
A minute's enough. He moves faster, savoring her half-moaned words, plunging over and over into her, reveling in the wet slide of her body on his and the bursting, pulsing ecstasy of climax.
Three days later, he's in the car with Gibbs, who's been looking at him all day, trying to figure out why he smells the way he does. At one of the stop lights, Gibbs looks over at him and says, "Did you start woodworking?"
Tim just grins.
Next
Chapter 323: The Metaphorical Something Black and Lacy
"So, successful trip?" Abby asks, looking up from her laptop as he and Kelly head in. He had told her what he was off to do. And before he can answer, she inhales deeply and says, "Oh, yes!"
She's up, draped around him, purring in a very content sort of way, sniffing along his jaw and throat. "What is that?"
"Apparently, exactly what I asked for." He hands over Kelly, who's fussing a bit, wanting some lunch right that second, as he smiles at her and takes his jacket and hers off.
"Hello to you, too." Abby says to her daughter once she's out of her cold weather gear, taking her into the kitchen, putting her in the highchair. Lunchtime is a cereal and formula meal. "Lunch'll be ready soon, little girl."
Kelly smiles.
"You think she understood that, or does she just know that highchair time means food soon?" Abby notices she's drifting closer to Tim as she asks, wanting to strip him down and rub all over him.
"No idea." He takes two steps closer to her, kissing her gently, and put his collection of tiny vials and the list on the table, next to Abby's seat. She presses against him, and his hands are in the process of wandering away from putting the scents on the table, looking to find some soft, warm, curvy Abby bits to cup, when Kelly interjects with some definitive, 'Feed Me Now' sounds.
They break apart with another quick kiss, and Tim starts to get some lunch for them, as well.
Being a parent is a balancing act. For example, right now, if this was a year ago, and Kelly was still on the inside, Abby knows that the absolute last thing they'd be doing right now is making lunch.
But Kelly is hungry, and she's fussing. When it was clear that being set in the highchair would not make food immediately appear, her smile fell and the little wa wa wa cry of 'Hey, food, now! C'mon, hurry up! I'm starving here!' came back out again.
But, as Abby's moving around the kitchen, mixing up formula and getting the cereal, Tim's also in there, moving around, grabbing sandwich stuff for them, and he's close and smells amazing, and looking like walking sex and just...
God...
Not pinning him to the counter and just getting to it is killing her.
And if she's got to be this turned on and distracted while baby wrangling, she thinks he should be, too.
Saturday morning, laying around the house. She's in jammy pants, t-shirt, and a bra. She gets the formula into the bottle, adds the water, and caps it, shaking the mix up, while slipping off the pants.
She knows Tim loves her ass, and the t-shirt is just long enough to almost, but not quite, cover it. And yes, she's smiling as she heads to Kelly, mixed-bottle in hand, well aware of the fact that he's staring at her, eyes glued to the little glimpses of her rear as she walks toward their daughter, lunch utterly forgotten.
And it's also true, that usually, if they're feeding Kelly in the highchair, that whoever's doing the feeding sits in one of the chairs next to her, so, the fact that she's standing next to the chair, leaning a little, bent just a bit, so that the shirt rides up just another inch higher, is not in any way shape or form an accident.
She looks over her shoulder to him, once Kelly's got the bottle in her mouth, and smiles, happy, wicked, come and get me on her face.
His eyes are hot, devouring her, and sending back a very clear, oh yes, I am definitely coming to get you! message as he bites his lips and adjusts himself in his jeans.
He picks up the cereal, mixes it with water, and then brings that over to her at the table. Tim presses right up behind her, rubbing against her back, nuzzling her neck, as he sets the bowl on the table.
Abby wants to melt into him, strong arms around her, that delicious scent wrapping into her skin. He's still wearing his shoes, and she's barefoot, so he's enough taller than she is that she's feeling small and very femme. She turns her face to kiss him, and he kisses back, teasing, flicking her lip with his tongue, and then steps away, quickly. "Gotta get a spoon for her."
She sighs, that's right. "And a bib." One thing they have both noticed in the week since they started feeding it to her, is that cereal meals are a hell of a lot messier than formula or nursing.
He comes back a second later, putting the spoon on the high chair, and wrapping the bib around Kelly's neck. Then leaves again, gently stroking Abby's rear as he heads back over to the counter to make them some lunch.
She sits in the chair, facing Kelly. That makes holding the bottle she's eagerly sucking down a bit easier. (Not that it's difficult, but it's easy to kind of miss Kelly's mouth if she's not paying enough attention.)
"So, which one of these are you wearing?" Abby asks, pulling the vials towards her. "Whip?"
He shakes his head. "That's a present for you. Janice, the perfume lady, told me it's yours, for when I'm wearing my collar."
"You told her you've got one?" Abby's pretty surprised by that. It's not the sort of thing that tends to come up in general conversation.
"We were talking about leather scents and if I liked real leather or the idea of it, and she wanted to know what color the leather I owned was, so I told her what I had and what color it was."
"Uh huh." She can't open the little vials one handed, and Kelly does not look like she wants to take a break. "This'll be easier when you can hold up your own bottle," she says to her daughter, who keeps contentedly sucking away. She does pick it up, and sniff, hoping to get an idea through the cap, and she does get a hint of roses and leather. That makes her smile.
She does keep picking up the vials, sniffing the caps, getting a hint as to what is what. "Vicomte De Valmont?"
"I think that's what I've got on. Kind of fluffy name."
"You don't know who is he, do you?"
He looks up from laying pieces of bread on the counter. "Not a clue. Real guy? Character?" He's making up corned beef on rye for both of them.
"Character. Dangerous Liaisons."
Tim shakes his head. "Never saw it or read it."
She nods, expecting that.
"He one of the good guys?"
"I think it's fair to say that story doesn't have good guys. He's a protagonist, but not, by any stretch, a good guy."
"Okay, what sort of bad guy is he? Am I wearing eau de murdering-psycho?"
"Would you stop wearing it if it was?"
He thinks about that for a moment, eyes skimming over her legs, thinking about how much she seems to approve of this. "How much do you like it?"
She licks her lips, staring him straight in the eye, and then lets her eyes travel slowly down his body, settling on his erection, and dragging back up again after a long, deep breath. "I really like it."
"Then I don't care what it's called," he says, shaking his head. "So, what'd he do?"
"He's a sadist. Seduces women and breaks their hearts for amusement."
"Lovely. This is a movie millions of women thought was achingly romantic?"
"He eventually falls in love with one of them, and then screws it up, ends up fighting a duel with this other guy, and dies, but not before the woman he falls for dies, too, and... actually, everyone dies."
She didn't sound very certain about that. "You weren't really paying attention when you saw it, were you?"
"More like I was supposed to read it for a French class, but I never got good enough at French to get the nuances."
"Ah." He finishes up their sandwiches and places them in front of her, and then takes her free hand, lifting gently, letting her know he wants her to stand. He sits on the chair, and tugs her into his lap. She settles in, wriggling in a very pleasant sort of way, leans in closer to his neck, and inhales deeply. "I really like this."
"Thanks. I do, too." He nips gently at her shoulder, before lifting his sandwich and taking a bite. He's thinking that getting done lunch as soon as possible, and Kelly in bed as soon as possible after that is an exceptionally good plan.
She continues sniffing at the vials, and then looks at the bigger one. "You bought a bottle of something called Jolly Roger?"
He put his sandwich down, and opened it for her. "For Gibbs. One Christmas present down, all the rest to go."
Her eyes went wide as she inhaled. "That's... God, that's a boat, a handmade wood boat, at sea, and the guy on it is drinking rum."
"And now you know why I thought of him when I smelled it."
"Rum?"
"It's close enough to bourbon."
She sniffs it again. "Might want to smell this on you, too."
"Not really a boat guy."
"Exactly. Unless it's in dry dock, this is the closest I'm getting to you on a boat voluntarily."
He laughs at that. "Wanna play pirate?"
She grins and rocks against him. "I might."
He gently strokes the tip of his index finger from her ear to the collar of the shirt, and then much less gently squeezes her breast. "Arrgh." He bites her ear lightly, and she laughs. "I've got a wishlist set up on her site. You can add it for me, or anything you want for you."
"Good." She picks up another vial, sniffs at the lid, and winces. "Ulgh! What on earth made you buy this?"
"Oh. That one." He took it in hand and twisted it around so he could see the name. Satyr. Fitting.
He explains why he brought that one home, and Abby does look intrigued, but exceptionally doubtful as well. "So, you're telling me this woman could sell ice to Eskimos?"
"I'm telling you she could sell ice perfume to Eskimos."
She sniffs him again. "Sexy ice perfume."
He kisses her shoulder, his fingers sliding up her inner thigh, just barely brushing her pubic hair, making her shiver. "Very sexy ice perfume. Wicked ice. Cold and sparkling, glittering on your skin, slowly melting with your heat into soft, full drops of water, quivering with each gasped breath and I lick them off your skin."
"Mmmm..." Abby squirms against him again, eyeballing Kelly's bottle. She's almost done. Then cereal. Then naptime. Then sex.
She pulls the highchair a bit closer, and then stands, handing the bottle to Tim. Kelly looks confused at this. "You hold on." And Tim does, quickly getting the bottle back in his daughter's mouth. Abby straddles his lap, facing him, unbuttoning his button down, pulling the collar of his t-shirt aside, and nibbling on his collar bone, rocking gently on his lap.
"Oh, god, baby, you're killing me!"
"You think you weren't fucking with me?"
He bites his lip, resisting rocking back against her. Then he nips hers, wanting to suck it between his lips, lick it, taste her slow and deep, but he's also feeding their child right now, so he pulls back and says, "Not that bad."
She shifts from rocking to an exceedingly slow roll of her hips, circling against him with exquisite pressure. "Better?"
His head falls to her shoulder. "God, yes." He puts the bottle down and grabs her hips, stilling them. "And no. Got a baby to feed here, don't need to be cumming in my pants to go with it."
"You're not that close," she says, knowing his sexual response cycle in and out.
And she's right, he's not. "Yet. I will be if you keep doing that!"
Kelly starts fussing again. Yes, the bottle is just about done, but she's not full, and she can see the bowl with the cereal in it in front of her, but though she's grabbing for it, she's not able to succeed in getting the food into her mouth.
Tim lets go of Abby's hips. Then he kisses her, hard, fast, deep. Too fast. That should have been a long, thorough, full-out making love kiss. Instead it was a promise of love to come.
"I want you upstairs, in our bed, naked, spread out and waiting for me. I'll feed her and get up there as soon as I can."
Abby grins at that. "Can I be looking at pictures, too?"
"As long as they're of us, yes."
She brushes his lips with one more kiss, and bounces (God, that's killing him, too, that soft, pert bounce of her ass as she heads out) out of the kitchen toward their room.
Tim closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, counts to five, and then opens them, grabs the bowl of cereal that Kelly's just about to flip over, gets the spoon into it, and starts to feed her.
Being a parent is about patience. There's the patience of allowing your child to learn to do whatever it is. Not jumping in and taking over because it's faster and easier if you do it.
But that's patience for parents of older children.
For parents of babies, the key to patience is accepting that babies move at their own speed, and that speed is slow.
So, even though Tim had time to eat his own sandwich, and get a drink, and mess around with the wishlist he set up, Kelly is still, slowly, munching her way through her cereal. In that she's only been eating "solid" (though how you could possibly consider something that is only marginally thicker than formula a solid boggles Tim's mind) food for a week, she's still in the this is really new part of eating, and hasn't quite gotten down the whole food goes in mouth, swallow thing.
She keeps trying to use her tongue to nurse it, which results in spitting a good deal of each spoonful out.
This morning, the fact that at least two thirds of all food gets pushed out of her mouth, then spooned back in, and then spit out again, and over and over until enough calories have been absorbed by her skin to do the job, did not bug him. That was just feeding a baby.
Right now, when there is something he'd much, much rather be doing, it's driving him buggy.
And this is the patience of a small baby. It's the balancing act of your needs and wants versus hers. It's knowing that if you rush and do a half-assed job she's going to fuss and cry and not properly nap.
So, as lunch is stretching out, and out, and the little pile of cereal in the bowl gets smaller in microscopic increments, Tim is being patient.
Eventually, after three quarters of forever (real elapsed time: twenty-nine minutes) Kelly was fed, cleaned up, sung to, and sleeping.
And Tim is standing, at the door to his room, watching, feeling the blood cascade back into his dick.
She's naked, and spread out, sort of.
She's on her elbows and knees. Ass high, legs spread, glistening wet pussy on display. She's gently, slowly fingering herself. Just the tip of her middle finger circling lightly over her clit. He knows that move, that's the just staying on the edge of getting off stroke.
If there's a more deliberate fuck me now pose, he's got no idea what it would be.
He sees she's got her earbuds in, and just knows she's watching one of the videos of them. He doesn't know which, obviously, but they usually do still pictures, so there's only a few videos to pick from, and he knows all of them by heart.
Between what he's seeing, and the memories in his head that go with the different videos, his pants are frightfully tight.
And then they're on the floor, along with his boxers.
He doesn't know if she's got the volume up high enough she can't hear him, or if she's playing with him, pretending she doesn't know he's in their room. Either way, with that pose, he figures this is welcome.
He gets onto their bed fast, and she has to feel that, but she doesn't respond, other than to wiggle her ass at him. He gets that she's pretending to be so engrossed in the video she's lost to everything else. That's fine. She wants to pretend they're fucking and get "surprised," he's happy to play along and add the real thing. In a second, he's kneeling behind her, grabs his dick, squeezing and stroking himself just bit, (That feels too damn good right now, too.) lines up, and slips in, groaning at how good she feels.
She makes a surprised squeaking sound. He pulls her up, so she's kneeling too, back against his chest, then yanks the cord on the earbuds, so they jerk out of her ears.
"Good?"
"Fuck yes!" she moans, turning to kiss him. He feasts on her lips as one hand finds a breast, and the other one slips to her clit, replacing her barely touching caress with a firm, fast stroke.
She's close, a lot closer than he is. He can feel it in the tightness in her body, the panting of her breath, the way she's frantically sucking his tongue. And, God, by all that is or ever was good and holy, that feels good. Feels amazing.
He breaks the kiss, licking her jaw and throat. "Wanna feel you come, baby."
She's rocking against him, pressing herself into his fingers, grinding on his cock, and he rubs a little faster, little harder, and she goes just a hair tighter before her whole body ripples against him.
She's moaning, and he gentles his stroke. "That's it! So beautiful, Abby."
For a few seconds, she rests against him, cradled in his arms, his head resting on her shoulder as her body twitches and her breathing slows. Then she kisses him, long and slow and deep. The kiss they should have had downstairs.
She breaks the kiss, squeezing around him deliberately. "You're not done, are you?"
He shakes his head, grinning. "Not yet."
"Good." She drops onto her elbows and wiggles her hips in a very encouraging, very, very, insanely good sort of way, and he growls quietly. "Want you to go as hard and fast as you like."
He grunts, the pleasure of those words and the feel of doing it short-circuiting the part of his brain that comes up with words, stroking into her fast and hard.
"Ohhh... Just like that, Tim. Want your finger marks on my hips."
He grabs her hips, pulling her back as he thrusts. She meets him, arching back against him, hard and deep. She's rocking fast, and so is he, encouraging him with a steady stream of "Fuck/God, yes/So good/Fuck!/Please!" as he groans with each stroke.
He can see his fingers leaving little pink marks on her hips, and watch his body slipping into hers, high as a kite on the feel and sight of this. He doesn't go quite as fast as he can, he wants another minute here, hovering between the intense erotic pleasure of almost-there-but-still-in-control and the free fall of climax.
A minute's enough. He moves faster, savoring her half-moaned words, plunging over and over into her, reveling in the wet slide of her body on his and the bursting, pulsing ecstasy of climax.
Three days later, he's in the car with Gibbs, who's been looking at him all day, trying to figure out why he smells the way he does. At one of the stop lights, Gibbs looks over at him and says, "Did you start woodworking?"
Tim just grins.
Next
May 13, 2014
Shards To A Whole: Chapter 322
McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
Chapter 322: Scent
When Tim got home, he spent a few minutes writing up a quick sketch for Skye, then did some research on how perfuming works and very rapidly came to the conclusion that this is not something five minutes on Wikipedia was going to take care of. He figures he needs to know something about alchemy for this to work in the first place, since he's got a vague idea of Gabe and Skye eventually both leaving the sides they were fighting for, combining his magic with hers, and the whole McGee clan taking over their own land/island/whatever. He's fuzzy on what the eventual stakes of this war are, but he does like the idea of several different sides all fighting with each other and blending will-base magic with component-based magic.
Besides, that seems to be pretty standard fantasy fare these days. Team Good and Team Evil are about twenty years out of date, unless you're writing for kiddies. (As Sarah explained to him in extremely complex detail last week while they worked on cooking Thanksgiving dinner.)
It occurs to him as he's quickly jotting notes, that the scent he got Abby hits him really, really hard. It also occurs to him that while Abby likes the way his soap/shampoo/deodorant combo smells, and seems to like the cologne he wears on occasion, he has also noticed that this does not seem to produce the same result as the perfume he got her does for him.
It also occurs to him that, should he find himself in possession of some downtime later tonight, say, after Kelly goes to bed, that he could research this further and see if there were any scents that might produce said result.
Once upon a time, Tim wore cologne every day. Get up, shower, soap, deodorant, moisturizer, cologne. Having been the kind of guy who read Redbook and Marie Claire and similar publications he was well aware of the fact that women are significantly more sensitive to, and aware of, how men smell then men are for women. And that while it was true they didn't want guys to completely douse themselves in scent, that making an effort not to smell like sweat, ball funk, and unwashed clothing was a good plan.
So, he always aspired to smell good. Clean. Fresh. But not so covered in cologne that visible smell rays poured off his skin. And when it turned out the only moisturizer that kept his skin from feeling like sandpaper was FemmeGlow (He did, eventually, with Abby's help, locate a much better replacement.) which smelled like a combination of candy and pink flowers, he decided that it would be nice if he didn't smell like a sixteen-year-old girl.
So, cologne. And yes, it helped. He usually smelled good. (Though still like flowers. "Lilacs," Ziva said. Might be right, he doesn't know what a lilac smells like. Wasn't precisely the scent he was going for, though.) Or, at the very least, Gibbs has never said anything about him "reeking" or made any off-color comments about "a French cat house." (Though he does remember the 'trying too hard' comment in regards to him wearing Old Spice.)
Two things changed that daily habit, first up Jimmy's "If you don't want everyone on earth to know you're sleeping with her, not having her smell like your cologne is a good plan." That was the first step in maybe not needing cologne every day. (It was, by then, several years since Abby introduced him to the skin oil one of her buddies made that kept his skin happy and was, blessedly, unscented.)
The second part was a few months later, when he and Abby were just bumming around his apartment, enjoying a lazy weekend. Nothing to do, didn't go anywhere, he'd been writing, she'd been gaming or messing around on his computer. Spent the day in their pajamas. And when that day came to a close, he was heading to the shower (hadn't gotten one earlier) when Abby said to him, "You know, it's okay to smell like you. With as sensitive as your skin is, it'd probably be a lot happier if you didn't scrub it every day, and you don't need to do it to keep me happy. I wasn't kidding, I like how you smell."
That brought him up short, because as well as he could tell that was the first time in the history of womanhood that a girlfriend was asking her guy to shower less. "So, wait, you want me to get fewer showers?"
"Some bits of you probably need a daily wash, but not all of you. I mean, you're really conscientious about it, and if it's for you, that's fine, but if it's for me, I'm okay with you smelling like you."
It turned out that she was right. So, just like his hair gets a daily rinse but only gets washed twice a week, that's what happens with most of his skin (yes, certain smelly bits get washed every day) but (barring dealing with dead bodies) the rest of him gets washed every three days or so, and his skin is significantly happier for it.
And that's pretty much how it's been for the last two plus years, but now, as he's sitting in front of his computer, searching through the website of the company that made Abby's perfume, he's rapidly coming to the conclusion that there probably are scents out there that will make her jump him, and that he might enjoy locating them.
Plus, it's not like the whole sleeping with him thing is much of a secret anymore. Married, live together, kid that looks like both of them, that cat's well and truly out of the bag, so, if he did locate the male equivalent of the scent he got her, it wouldn't be an issue if, on occasion (a little wicked smile lit his face) say, at work possibly, Abby smelled like him.
Just like he's never felt self-conscious about walking around with her perfume on his skin.
On the site, he finds lot of different options, (Jimmy wasn't kidding, there are at least two hundred scents. And, no, there isn't a "men's" section.) and most of the tiny vials were in the ten to twenty dollar range, and there were even smaller tester sizes (one milliliter) in the five dollar range, so… He ends up spending a very pleasant twoish hours looking through everything. He's on the verge of going kind of bonkers and getting like twenty-five testers, when it occurs to him, that yes, the write ups on all of these scents sound great, and the names are fabulous, but he still has no idea what any of them smell like, and maybe, since there is an actual store that sells this stuff less than ten miles from his house, that going there and investigating would be a good plan.
Saturday morning, he and Kelly have a mission.
Okay, so there are probably some things that you shouldn't do with a baby. Scent shopping may be one of those things. It's hitting him as he's heading through the parking lot toward a tiny closet of a store that Kelly might not love this. It's also hitting him that if there's a space in this store large enough to turn the stroller around he'll be shocked.
But in he goes, and it is small, tight quarters. It's pretty much empty, just a lot of goth posters on the walls, and a glass counter with a laptop on it. He's not seeing bottles all over the place, or vials, or any of the rest of it. And, what's really surprising to him: it doesn't smell like anything.
He does see the blue-haired woman (though now it's green) who sold him Abby's perfume.
She looks up at him and smiles, seeming to remember him, as well. "I read your books."
Definitely remembers him.
"Thanks."
"Least I could do. Sold out of Thousand And One Nights after your tweet. Got a whole bunch of new customers all at once that day. That was a very good day."
"Good to hear it worked for you."
"Yeah, it did. So, what brings you back? No way you went through two ounces of Thousand and One Nights in less than a month."
"No."
"Christmas shopping?"
He hadn't thought of that, but probably should have. "Maybe. Wanted to find something for me. I went on your site, found a bunch of things that looked good, and then realized I liked the way they sounded but had no idea how they smelled."
She looks him over, head to toes, seeming very amused and surprised at the idea that he'd check out her site or like anything on it. "What sort of things caught your interest?"
He unfolds the list of scents he'd almost ordered online before the idea of trying them came to mind. "I was thinking of these."
She looks through it, hmmming, quietly, and then heads off. A minute later she's back with a collection of amber colored glass bottles and a box of coffee beans. "You picked a lot of wood scents, leather scents, or dragon's blood scents. Do you know what Dragon's Blood smells like?"
He shakes his head. Then he pulls up the leg of his pants enough for her to see the calf tattoo. "I like dragons."
She nods approvingly. "Cool. That your only ink?"
"No. Only one that's easy to see." It's cold out, he's wearing long sleeves, and a coat. "Got knot here." He taps his right arm. "Bit of code there." He taps his left. "Abby, my wife's, lips here," and touches his wrist.
"Mind showing me the knot?"
"No." Though he's a bit puzzled for why it'd matter. He shrugs out of his jacket and button down, and pushes up the sleeve of his t-shirt.
She eyes the knot appreciatively. "That's beautiful. Sam Onthan's?"
"Yes, actually. You know him?"
"Yeah. I thought the dragon might have been his, too. He did the piece on my back, and he's a customer of mine."
"Oh." He does remember that Sam, and his studio, have a fairly unique scent, though beyond 'kind of like incense and ink' he'd be hard pressed to explain what it smells like. "So... is seeing this useful?"
"Yes. Scent is very personal. Better I know you, the better I can figure out what'll blend with you," she says while opening one of the bottles, pushing it toward him. "This is Dragon's Blood."
Like any guy who's spent more than ten minutes in a lab he wafts a bit toward himself, instead of sticking it right under his nose and snorking it up.
Green haired-woman... Okay, he needs a name for her. "I'm Tim, in real life. Thom's my penname. Little girl here is Kelly."
"Hi, Tim." She leaned over the counter so Kelly could get a good view of her. "Hello Kelly. I'm Janice." He's a little surprised her name is so... normal, and she catches that. "What were you expecting? Raven?"
"Or Phoenix or Soibhan or something."
She half-smiles at that. "What can I say? Not too many Ravens in 1979. So, what do you think of it?"
He wafts more of it toward him, and Janice appears to approve of his technique. "Sweet. Incense-y. Fruity? Flowers? Little dark on the edges. Maybe something woody? The way dark red is supposed to smell? Puts me in mind of the store I used to get my roleplaying books at."
"Okay." She closes that up and hands him the box with the coffee.
"I know what that smells like."
"You and everyone else. Helps you get off one scent and onto the next."
"Okay."
She pushes the next bottle toward him, but doesn't take her hand off of it. "Just about everything you picked has a sandalwood note to it."
"Yeah, one of my partners wears sandalwood a lot; I like it."
"Then you probably know the scent, sort of." She opens the bottle. "That's real sandalwood. Remember the costs more than gold thing?" He nods. "This is one of them. Sandalwood trees have to be fifty-years-old before they're any good for perfumes, they're endangered, and finding responsibly sourced sandalwood is a bitch. But this is it, the real deal. I'm hooked up with a plantation that's doing it right, so they only harvest four trees a year, which means this stuff is more expensive than gold."
He leans closer and wafts it toward him. "Wow. That..."
"Doesn't smell like you expected it to, does it?"
"No," And that's not a bad thing, at all. This is... just... really. Yeah, he likes it a lot. She's looking at him expectantly, so he tries to explain how it smells to him, as she closes it and tucks it back nice and safe. "This is... buttery almost. Dry. Woody certainly. Not..." He doesn't have a word for the scent he thought sandalwood was, but isn't.
"Much at all like what you thought it'd smell like?" He nods. "It's so hard to get the real stuff, it's usually not actually in sandalwood blends. Usually it's a synthetic version. Don't get me wrong, there are some good synthetics out there, but you don't get the depth from the synthetics. If the real stuff is in a blend, it's at way less than one part per thousand."
"So, do you use the synthetics in your blends?"
"In some of them. Depends on if it's a base note. If Sandalwood is supposed to carry the scent, then I use the real stuff. If it's a nuance, then I'll use the synthetics. No need to use the real stuff if you won't be able to smell all of it."
Tim nods with that. It makes sense to him. "I like it."
"You and just about everyone else. There's a reason it's endangered, and unlike the Pandas it's not because it has a hard time making baby Sandalwoods."
She looks him over again, and right now he's in his classic bumming around with Kelly gear. Jeans, t-shirt, button down, jacket, sneakers. She's looking a little doubtful, but her eyes flick back to his wrist, where the wrist cuff is visible.
"A lot of the ones you like have leather notes. Do you actually like leather, or do you like the idea of it?"
He knows he looks like a mild-mannered suburban dad right now, so it's a fair question. "I like actual leather. Actual leather doesn't like an almost six-month-old drooling on it, and baby spit up isn't good for it."
She looks at Kelly, who is sitting in her stroller, gnawing on her pacifier, and watching the two of them intently. "Good point. What color?"
He thinks that's a pretty weird question, can't imagine how the color effects this, but what the hell, why not? "Both of my jackets are black. My boots and most of the shoes are black. I've got one brown belt, one brown pair of shoes. The wrist cuff is black." He pauses, debating adding the last bit of leather he owns. But, it's not like he's ashamed of it. It's just private. But, so's what he's hoping to find a scent for. "My collar is black."
Her eyebrows shoot up. "Interesting."
He smiles a little, appreciating the sudden added respect he's seeing in her face. Like between that and the tattoos he's identified himself as someone who belongs in this shop. "Wouldn't have pegged you for that."
"I switch."
"Lucky wife."
"She thinks so."
Janice smiles and makes a little note on the pad next to her. "How do you feel about patchouli?"
"Hippies? Pot?" He shrugs. It's nothing he's ever contemplated. "Don't feel anything about it. My day job is in law enforcement, so might be nice not to smell like a head shop."
"You're a cop? Those stories real?"
"No. They're more a love letter to my job and team. The people are real, the cases aren't. And I'm a cop for another month, and then I'm moving up the food chain."
She looks at him for another few seconds. "So, are you MacGregor?"
"Enough. Some of the time. I'm MacGregor, and I'm Thom, and I'm Tim, and a few other guys, too. Are you always Janice?"
She seems to understand that. "Not always. So, when you said code..."
"I meant I've got a few lines of python on my bicep. It's my master's thesis in forensic computing."
"Huh." She took out bottles, opening them carefully. "Left is real patchouli, right is oakmoss."
He wafts and sniffs. "I prefer the oakmoss. Earthy, kind of cool, forrest-y? The patchouli smells like dirt to me."
"Okay. That's a genetic thing. Some people smell patchouli as a deep, earthy, spicy scent. For some people it's a pile of dirt. How's it smell to your wife?"
"No idea. Never noticed her wearing it."
"Do you usually wear cologne?" She's marking off scents on his list.
"Not for a few years."
"What did you used to like?"
"Burberry Classic. Polo Black."
That also surprises her. "That's a lot lighter and crisper than anything you've got on this list." She doesn't say, kind of generic, but he's got the sense she's thinking that, too.
"Used to wear it every day. Also used to care a whole lot more about blending in with everyone else. I was thinking of some sort of special occasion-"
"Like night out, or night in?"
"Both. Thousand and One Nights is... really good on my wife."
Janice smiles smugly at him. "Makes you want to eat her alive?"
"Yeah. I was thinking about something along those lines for me, well, not for me... Thousand and One Nights is for me. On me?" Janice nods. "Little, black, lacy things look dumb as hell on men, so the scent equivalent of that."
She's giggling slightly at that. "I bet you'd be awfully cute in some sort of little, black, lacy thing."
He looks her over coolly, wondering if she's trying to see if he'll blush, and says, dryly, "My wife didn't agree. And I didn't, either."
She laughs at that answer, pleased by it. "So, you want something sexy?"
"Something for date night or work would be fine, too. But mostly I'm looking for good night at home, or very good night clubbing."
"What kind of club?"
He thinks through the different places they've been, and are likely to go again. Hell, if they ever all get babysitting again, it's their turn to pick the place. And he knows where they're going. He smiles. "For the night I'm thinking of, Enoch's Cove."
Now she's blinking in shock, apparently she knows the Goth club he's thinking of. "You're a member?"
"Since 2012. We don't get there very often, especially not since Kelly joined us, but, yes, we're members. Abby's been since '99."
"I feel like I should already know you, or her, at least."
He smiles at that. "Abby knows everyone. She's probably on your Facebook feed. Friend of a friend or something like that."
"Maybe. Okay, last thing." She opens three vials. "Which one do you like best."
They all smell the same to him, he's not sure if he can smell a difference, or if he thinks there's supposed to be a difference so he's imagining one. He tries burying his nose in the coffee beans between sniffing, but it doesn't help. "I honestly can't tell the difference."
"That's fine. I'm just checking how sensitive your sense of smell is. They pretty much are the same. One on the left leans sweeter, middle has more bitter notes, right is musky." She puts the stoppers back into the vials and packs everything up. "Okay, back in a bit."
She comes back with seven of the tiny tester vials, two of them already filled, five pipettes, and five amber bottles. One of the little testers she set aside. "Not for you. Present for your wife, for her, when you're wearing the collar."
"Oh."
"Every day wear." She pushes two of the amber bottles toward him. "One's a blending in with everyone else scent. Think storm over the ocean." He sniffs and yes, it does put him in mind of sitting on the beach, feeling a storm rolling in. Really, literal beach. Not that vaguely blue "beach" scent that so many home scents/perfumes have. It's freaky how much that smells like the ocean. He's not sure how it'd smell on him, or if he wants to smell like the literal ocean, but it's interesting.
"One not so much blending in scent, still light and appealing, but not sexy, good work scent. Woods: cedar, sandalwood, little pine, rosewood, all well-aged and clean."
"Might have Gibbs sniffing my neck." He mutters, inhaling, and this is definitely woody, in a good way. Actually does make him think of Gibbs's basement a bit. "Add some bourbon to that, and it'd be the perfect scent for my dad."
"I've got a version like that."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Wood, rum, little bit of sea spray. It's very popular."
"I need one of those, too. He build boats."
She smiles, heads back for a moment, and puts a small bottle of that next to the tester that's for Abby.
"Date night. Out somewhere nice." She pushes the next bottle toward him.
"Family wedding?"
"Something like that. Something you'd wear a suit, or better yet, tux to." She opens the bottle. "Little sexy, restrained. Nothing's happening until you get home, but you're probably cutting out early." He nods along, liking that description quite a bit. "Little sweet, little heavy: sweet myrrh, frankincense, black amber, jasmine, mandarin orange, three woods, drop of vanilla to smooth it together."
He really, really likes that. It's very male and sophisticated, expensive, lush. When she was listing myrrh and frankincense he was afraid it was going to be a bottle of Christmas, but this really isn't. This is the man DiNozzo Sr. thinks he is, but isn't. Hell, this is the man James Bond thinks he is, but isn't. "Just grab a big one of that."
"Try it on your skin first. Can't do returns on these. That's why you're going home with testers. These will smell different on you than they do in the glass."
He looks away from the tiny vial and up at her. "Let me guess, this is another one where the full-sized bottle is frighteningly expensive?"
There's that smile again, sharp and amused. "It's not cheap."
"Then I'll make sure it works on my skin."
"Good plan." She recaps the bottle and opens another. "Enoch's Cove night. Dead sexy, for you. Dragon's blood, leather, smoke. This one wears close to the skin. She's got to get in your lap before she'll smell it, but once she does, she won't want to leave." He sniffs and blinks. It's his jacket. The original leather jacket. The first piece of really good leather, really good clothing, he ever bought. The one he adored, that Abby had to cut to test for radiation. Soft, supple, black leather that felt like a warm, sexy hug draped over his body. His jacket, but better, whole, warmed by the sun, worn outside on a really splendid fall day, ripe with harvest scents, little hints of smoke in the air. He's just sort of gaping at it, stunned that there's that much... response in him from a smell. "I take it you like that one."
"Oh, God, yeah."
She caps it and hands him the coffee beans to clear his sense of smell, making a few more notes. Then opened the next bottle. "The metaphorical something black and lacy. Got any plans for this afternoon?"
He shakes his head.
"You do now. Give me your wrists." He does, taking off his cuff and watch. "This isn't the stuff you got at the men's department at JC Penny's. Little bit goes a long way." She takes the pipette, deposits a milliliter of the scent into one of the testers, dips the wand that's attached to the cap into the scent, and strokes it across his wrist. "Just what's on the wand, rub it over your wrist." She closes up the vial. "Rub wrist together, then wrists on throat. You can add a bit more to thighs or ankles if you feel like it's too light, but much more and you'll start to knock people over."
He was half-paying attention to her words, half-wondering what he'd just put on. It smells like... he's got no clue. It smells good. Not sweet, not sharp, not anything he can name, but it smells really good to him. It's a much more 'classic cologne' scent than the date night scent, but it's somehow deeper, richer, more 'him' than any one he's tried before. He'd make out with himself wearing this, if he could.
"White musk, white sandalwood, Spanish moss, few florals, little herbal so it's not too femme, slight hint of ocean. You've got a pretty strong ocean vibe to you."
He laughs at that.
"What?"
"I'm a Navy cop."
She laughs, too. "I think this one's going to get along well with you."
He's nodding along, no idea how it'll smell to Abby, but it's making him feel sexy and eager. "What's that last one?" he asks looking at the little, already filled tester, sitting next to them.
"For you to test on your own." She taps the tester, not opening it. "He's got no middle gears. Depending on your body chemistry he's just very, very animal male lust, full-on grab her by the hair and take her off to ravish her, or he's dirty goats and cat pee."
Tim was all in favor of that until she got to the downside. "Doesn't sound very appealing."
"He's not, if he doesn't agree with you. If he does... Well, let's put it this way, he's the only thing that's ever gotten my wife to look at a guy twice. Helps if you're already leaning in that direction to begin with. But he usually takes at least ten minutes to warm up, sometimes closer to half an hour, and in the bottle he reeks, so he doesn't get opened in here."
"And does he wash off easily if he doesn't agree with you?"
"Eh..." No is clear on her face. "Maybe don't rub him on your neck until you know if he agrees with your chemistry."
"Okay." He looks at the little collection of vials in front of him. "So any of the things I liked the sound of in front of me?"
She circled two of the names on his list, while affixing little stickers to each vial with their names, and pipetting the scents into them. "Some of the others," she put little stars next to three of them, "Will probably be good choices, too. But how about you go play with these, test them out, see how they work with your skin, before adding much new stuff. Only so much your nose can take before it shuts down."
And with that, she tidied everything up into a small bag and with a swipe of the credit card, sent him on his way.
A/N: So, I'm a fan of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. They make really nifty perfumes. All of the scents mentioned here are either stolen from them, or my own ideas based off of their work. Plus, unlike the fictional version I'm writing about here, BPAL's prices are significantly lower.
Chapter 322: Scent
When Tim got home, he spent a few minutes writing up a quick sketch for Skye, then did some research on how perfuming works and very rapidly came to the conclusion that this is not something five minutes on Wikipedia was going to take care of. He figures he needs to know something about alchemy for this to work in the first place, since he's got a vague idea of Gabe and Skye eventually both leaving the sides they were fighting for, combining his magic with hers, and the whole McGee clan taking over their own land/island/whatever. He's fuzzy on what the eventual stakes of this war are, but he does like the idea of several different sides all fighting with each other and blending will-base magic with component-based magic.
Besides, that seems to be pretty standard fantasy fare these days. Team Good and Team Evil are about twenty years out of date, unless you're writing for kiddies. (As Sarah explained to him in extremely complex detail last week while they worked on cooking Thanksgiving dinner.)
It occurs to him as he's quickly jotting notes, that the scent he got Abby hits him really, really hard. It also occurs to him that while Abby likes the way his soap/shampoo/deodorant combo smells, and seems to like the cologne he wears on occasion, he has also noticed that this does not seem to produce the same result as the perfume he got her does for him.
It also occurs to him that, should he find himself in possession of some downtime later tonight, say, after Kelly goes to bed, that he could research this further and see if there were any scents that might produce said result.
Once upon a time, Tim wore cologne every day. Get up, shower, soap, deodorant, moisturizer, cologne. Having been the kind of guy who read Redbook and Marie Claire and similar publications he was well aware of the fact that women are significantly more sensitive to, and aware of, how men smell then men are for women. And that while it was true they didn't want guys to completely douse themselves in scent, that making an effort not to smell like sweat, ball funk, and unwashed clothing was a good plan.
So, he always aspired to smell good. Clean. Fresh. But not so covered in cologne that visible smell rays poured off his skin. And when it turned out the only moisturizer that kept his skin from feeling like sandpaper was FemmeGlow (He did, eventually, with Abby's help, locate a much better replacement.) which smelled like a combination of candy and pink flowers, he decided that it would be nice if he didn't smell like a sixteen-year-old girl.
So, cologne. And yes, it helped. He usually smelled good. (Though still like flowers. "Lilacs," Ziva said. Might be right, he doesn't know what a lilac smells like. Wasn't precisely the scent he was going for, though.) Or, at the very least, Gibbs has never said anything about him "reeking" or made any off-color comments about "a French cat house." (Though he does remember the 'trying too hard' comment in regards to him wearing Old Spice.)
Two things changed that daily habit, first up Jimmy's "If you don't want everyone on earth to know you're sleeping with her, not having her smell like your cologne is a good plan." That was the first step in maybe not needing cologne every day. (It was, by then, several years since Abby introduced him to the skin oil one of her buddies made that kept his skin happy and was, blessedly, unscented.)
The second part was a few months later, when he and Abby were just bumming around his apartment, enjoying a lazy weekend. Nothing to do, didn't go anywhere, he'd been writing, she'd been gaming or messing around on his computer. Spent the day in their pajamas. And when that day came to a close, he was heading to the shower (hadn't gotten one earlier) when Abby said to him, "You know, it's okay to smell like you. With as sensitive as your skin is, it'd probably be a lot happier if you didn't scrub it every day, and you don't need to do it to keep me happy. I wasn't kidding, I like how you smell."
That brought him up short, because as well as he could tell that was the first time in the history of womanhood that a girlfriend was asking her guy to shower less. "So, wait, you want me to get fewer showers?"
"Some bits of you probably need a daily wash, but not all of you. I mean, you're really conscientious about it, and if it's for you, that's fine, but if it's for me, I'm okay with you smelling like you."
It turned out that she was right. So, just like his hair gets a daily rinse but only gets washed twice a week, that's what happens with most of his skin (yes, certain smelly bits get washed every day) but (barring dealing with dead bodies) the rest of him gets washed every three days or so, and his skin is significantly happier for it.
And that's pretty much how it's been for the last two plus years, but now, as he's sitting in front of his computer, searching through the website of the company that made Abby's perfume, he's rapidly coming to the conclusion that there probably are scents out there that will make her jump him, and that he might enjoy locating them.
Plus, it's not like the whole sleeping with him thing is much of a secret anymore. Married, live together, kid that looks like both of them, that cat's well and truly out of the bag, so, if he did locate the male equivalent of the scent he got her, it wouldn't be an issue if, on occasion (a little wicked smile lit his face) say, at work possibly, Abby smelled like him.
Just like he's never felt self-conscious about walking around with her perfume on his skin.
On the site, he finds lot of different options, (Jimmy wasn't kidding, there are at least two hundred scents. And, no, there isn't a "men's" section.) and most of the tiny vials were in the ten to twenty dollar range, and there were even smaller tester sizes (one milliliter) in the five dollar range, so… He ends up spending a very pleasant twoish hours looking through everything. He's on the verge of going kind of bonkers and getting like twenty-five testers, when it occurs to him, that yes, the write ups on all of these scents sound great, and the names are fabulous, but he still has no idea what any of them smell like, and maybe, since there is an actual store that sells this stuff less than ten miles from his house, that going there and investigating would be a good plan.
Saturday morning, he and Kelly have a mission.
Okay, so there are probably some things that you shouldn't do with a baby. Scent shopping may be one of those things. It's hitting him as he's heading through the parking lot toward a tiny closet of a store that Kelly might not love this. It's also hitting him that if there's a space in this store large enough to turn the stroller around he'll be shocked.
But in he goes, and it is small, tight quarters. It's pretty much empty, just a lot of goth posters on the walls, and a glass counter with a laptop on it. He's not seeing bottles all over the place, or vials, or any of the rest of it. And, what's really surprising to him: it doesn't smell like anything.
He does see the blue-haired woman (though now it's green) who sold him Abby's perfume.
She looks up at him and smiles, seeming to remember him, as well. "I read your books."
Definitely remembers him.
"Thanks."
"Least I could do. Sold out of Thousand And One Nights after your tweet. Got a whole bunch of new customers all at once that day. That was a very good day."
"Good to hear it worked for you."
"Yeah, it did. So, what brings you back? No way you went through two ounces of Thousand and One Nights in less than a month."
"No."
"Christmas shopping?"
He hadn't thought of that, but probably should have. "Maybe. Wanted to find something for me. I went on your site, found a bunch of things that looked good, and then realized I liked the way they sounded but had no idea how they smelled."
She looks him over, head to toes, seeming very amused and surprised at the idea that he'd check out her site or like anything on it. "What sort of things caught your interest?"
He unfolds the list of scents he'd almost ordered online before the idea of trying them came to mind. "I was thinking of these."
She looks through it, hmmming, quietly, and then heads off. A minute later she's back with a collection of amber colored glass bottles and a box of coffee beans. "You picked a lot of wood scents, leather scents, or dragon's blood scents. Do you know what Dragon's Blood smells like?"
He shakes his head. Then he pulls up the leg of his pants enough for her to see the calf tattoo. "I like dragons."
She nods approvingly. "Cool. That your only ink?"
"No. Only one that's easy to see." It's cold out, he's wearing long sleeves, and a coat. "Got knot here." He taps his right arm. "Bit of code there." He taps his left. "Abby, my wife's, lips here," and touches his wrist.
"Mind showing me the knot?"
"No." Though he's a bit puzzled for why it'd matter. He shrugs out of his jacket and button down, and pushes up the sleeve of his t-shirt.
She eyes the knot appreciatively. "That's beautiful. Sam Onthan's?"
"Yes, actually. You know him?"
"Yeah. I thought the dragon might have been his, too. He did the piece on my back, and he's a customer of mine."
"Oh." He does remember that Sam, and his studio, have a fairly unique scent, though beyond 'kind of like incense and ink' he'd be hard pressed to explain what it smells like. "So... is seeing this useful?"
"Yes. Scent is very personal. Better I know you, the better I can figure out what'll blend with you," she says while opening one of the bottles, pushing it toward him. "This is Dragon's Blood."
Like any guy who's spent more than ten minutes in a lab he wafts a bit toward himself, instead of sticking it right under his nose and snorking it up.
Green haired-woman... Okay, he needs a name for her. "I'm Tim, in real life. Thom's my penname. Little girl here is Kelly."
"Hi, Tim." She leaned over the counter so Kelly could get a good view of her. "Hello Kelly. I'm Janice." He's a little surprised her name is so... normal, and she catches that. "What were you expecting? Raven?"
"Or Phoenix or Soibhan or something."
She half-smiles at that. "What can I say? Not too many Ravens in 1979. So, what do you think of it?"
He wafts more of it toward him, and Janice appears to approve of his technique. "Sweet. Incense-y. Fruity? Flowers? Little dark on the edges. Maybe something woody? The way dark red is supposed to smell? Puts me in mind of the store I used to get my roleplaying books at."
"Okay." She closes that up and hands him the box with the coffee.
"I know what that smells like."
"You and everyone else. Helps you get off one scent and onto the next."
"Okay."
She pushes the next bottle toward him, but doesn't take her hand off of it. "Just about everything you picked has a sandalwood note to it."
"Yeah, one of my partners wears sandalwood a lot; I like it."
"Then you probably know the scent, sort of." She opens the bottle. "That's real sandalwood. Remember the costs more than gold thing?" He nods. "This is one of them. Sandalwood trees have to be fifty-years-old before they're any good for perfumes, they're endangered, and finding responsibly sourced sandalwood is a bitch. But this is it, the real deal. I'm hooked up with a plantation that's doing it right, so they only harvest four trees a year, which means this stuff is more expensive than gold."
He leans closer and wafts it toward him. "Wow. That..."
"Doesn't smell like you expected it to, does it?"
"No," And that's not a bad thing, at all. This is... just... really. Yeah, he likes it a lot. She's looking at him expectantly, so he tries to explain how it smells to him, as she closes it and tucks it back nice and safe. "This is... buttery almost. Dry. Woody certainly. Not..." He doesn't have a word for the scent he thought sandalwood was, but isn't.
"Much at all like what you thought it'd smell like?" He nods. "It's so hard to get the real stuff, it's usually not actually in sandalwood blends. Usually it's a synthetic version. Don't get me wrong, there are some good synthetics out there, but you don't get the depth from the synthetics. If the real stuff is in a blend, it's at way less than one part per thousand."
"So, do you use the synthetics in your blends?"
"In some of them. Depends on if it's a base note. If Sandalwood is supposed to carry the scent, then I use the real stuff. If it's a nuance, then I'll use the synthetics. No need to use the real stuff if you won't be able to smell all of it."
Tim nods with that. It makes sense to him. "I like it."
"You and just about everyone else. There's a reason it's endangered, and unlike the Pandas it's not because it has a hard time making baby Sandalwoods."
She looks him over again, and right now he's in his classic bumming around with Kelly gear. Jeans, t-shirt, button down, jacket, sneakers. She's looking a little doubtful, but her eyes flick back to his wrist, where the wrist cuff is visible.
"A lot of the ones you like have leather notes. Do you actually like leather, or do you like the idea of it?"
He knows he looks like a mild-mannered suburban dad right now, so it's a fair question. "I like actual leather. Actual leather doesn't like an almost six-month-old drooling on it, and baby spit up isn't good for it."
She looks at Kelly, who is sitting in her stroller, gnawing on her pacifier, and watching the two of them intently. "Good point. What color?"
He thinks that's a pretty weird question, can't imagine how the color effects this, but what the hell, why not? "Both of my jackets are black. My boots and most of the shoes are black. I've got one brown belt, one brown pair of shoes. The wrist cuff is black." He pauses, debating adding the last bit of leather he owns. But, it's not like he's ashamed of it. It's just private. But, so's what he's hoping to find a scent for. "My collar is black."
Her eyebrows shoot up. "Interesting."
He smiles a little, appreciating the sudden added respect he's seeing in her face. Like between that and the tattoos he's identified himself as someone who belongs in this shop. "Wouldn't have pegged you for that."
"I switch."
"Lucky wife."
"She thinks so."
Janice smiles and makes a little note on the pad next to her. "How do you feel about patchouli?"
"Hippies? Pot?" He shrugs. It's nothing he's ever contemplated. "Don't feel anything about it. My day job is in law enforcement, so might be nice not to smell like a head shop."
"You're a cop? Those stories real?"
"No. They're more a love letter to my job and team. The people are real, the cases aren't. And I'm a cop for another month, and then I'm moving up the food chain."
She looks at him for another few seconds. "So, are you MacGregor?"
"Enough. Some of the time. I'm MacGregor, and I'm Thom, and I'm Tim, and a few other guys, too. Are you always Janice?"
She seems to understand that. "Not always. So, when you said code..."
"I meant I've got a few lines of python on my bicep. It's my master's thesis in forensic computing."
"Huh." She took out bottles, opening them carefully. "Left is real patchouli, right is oakmoss."
He wafts and sniffs. "I prefer the oakmoss. Earthy, kind of cool, forrest-y? The patchouli smells like dirt to me."
"Okay. That's a genetic thing. Some people smell patchouli as a deep, earthy, spicy scent. For some people it's a pile of dirt. How's it smell to your wife?"
"No idea. Never noticed her wearing it."
"Do you usually wear cologne?" She's marking off scents on his list.
"Not for a few years."
"What did you used to like?"
"Burberry Classic. Polo Black."
That also surprises her. "That's a lot lighter and crisper than anything you've got on this list." She doesn't say, kind of generic, but he's got the sense she's thinking that, too.
"Used to wear it every day. Also used to care a whole lot more about blending in with everyone else. I was thinking of some sort of special occasion-"
"Like night out, or night in?"
"Both. Thousand and One Nights is... really good on my wife."
Janice smiles smugly at him. "Makes you want to eat her alive?"
"Yeah. I was thinking about something along those lines for me, well, not for me... Thousand and One Nights is for me. On me?" Janice nods. "Little, black, lacy things look dumb as hell on men, so the scent equivalent of that."
She's giggling slightly at that. "I bet you'd be awfully cute in some sort of little, black, lacy thing."
He looks her over coolly, wondering if she's trying to see if he'll blush, and says, dryly, "My wife didn't agree. And I didn't, either."
She laughs at that answer, pleased by it. "So, you want something sexy?"
"Something for date night or work would be fine, too. But mostly I'm looking for good night at home, or very good night clubbing."
"What kind of club?"
He thinks through the different places they've been, and are likely to go again. Hell, if they ever all get babysitting again, it's their turn to pick the place. And he knows where they're going. He smiles. "For the night I'm thinking of, Enoch's Cove."
Now she's blinking in shock, apparently she knows the Goth club he's thinking of. "You're a member?"
"Since 2012. We don't get there very often, especially not since Kelly joined us, but, yes, we're members. Abby's been since '99."
"I feel like I should already know you, or her, at least."
He smiles at that. "Abby knows everyone. She's probably on your Facebook feed. Friend of a friend or something like that."
"Maybe. Okay, last thing." She opens three vials. "Which one do you like best."
They all smell the same to him, he's not sure if he can smell a difference, or if he thinks there's supposed to be a difference so he's imagining one. He tries burying his nose in the coffee beans between sniffing, but it doesn't help. "I honestly can't tell the difference."
"That's fine. I'm just checking how sensitive your sense of smell is. They pretty much are the same. One on the left leans sweeter, middle has more bitter notes, right is musky." She puts the stoppers back into the vials and packs everything up. "Okay, back in a bit."
She comes back with seven of the tiny tester vials, two of them already filled, five pipettes, and five amber bottles. One of the little testers she set aside. "Not for you. Present for your wife, for her, when you're wearing the collar."
"Oh."
"Every day wear." She pushes two of the amber bottles toward him. "One's a blending in with everyone else scent. Think storm over the ocean." He sniffs and yes, it does put him in mind of sitting on the beach, feeling a storm rolling in. Really, literal beach. Not that vaguely blue "beach" scent that so many home scents/perfumes have. It's freaky how much that smells like the ocean. He's not sure how it'd smell on him, or if he wants to smell like the literal ocean, but it's interesting.
"One not so much blending in scent, still light and appealing, but not sexy, good work scent. Woods: cedar, sandalwood, little pine, rosewood, all well-aged and clean."
"Might have Gibbs sniffing my neck." He mutters, inhaling, and this is definitely woody, in a good way. Actually does make him think of Gibbs's basement a bit. "Add some bourbon to that, and it'd be the perfect scent for my dad."
"I've got a version like that."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Wood, rum, little bit of sea spray. It's very popular."
"I need one of those, too. He build boats."
She smiles, heads back for a moment, and puts a small bottle of that next to the tester that's for Abby.
"Date night. Out somewhere nice." She pushes the next bottle toward him.
"Family wedding?"
"Something like that. Something you'd wear a suit, or better yet, tux to." She opens the bottle. "Little sexy, restrained. Nothing's happening until you get home, but you're probably cutting out early." He nods along, liking that description quite a bit. "Little sweet, little heavy: sweet myrrh, frankincense, black amber, jasmine, mandarin orange, three woods, drop of vanilla to smooth it together."
He really, really likes that. It's very male and sophisticated, expensive, lush. When she was listing myrrh and frankincense he was afraid it was going to be a bottle of Christmas, but this really isn't. This is the man DiNozzo Sr. thinks he is, but isn't. Hell, this is the man James Bond thinks he is, but isn't. "Just grab a big one of that."
"Try it on your skin first. Can't do returns on these. That's why you're going home with testers. These will smell different on you than they do in the glass."
He looks away from the tiny vial and up at her. "Let me guess, this is another one where the full-sized bottle is frighteningly expensive?"
There's that smile again, sharp and amused. "It's not cheap."
"Then I'll make sure it works on my skin."
"Good plan." She recaps the bottle and opens another. "Enoch's Cove night. Dead sexy, for you. Dragon's blood, leather, smoke. This one wears close to the skin. She's got to get in your lap before she'll smell it, but once she does, she won't want to leave." He sniffs and blinks. It's his jacket. The original leather jacket. The first piece of really good leather, really good clothing, he ever bought. The one he adored, that Abby had to cut to test for radiation. Soft, supple, black leather that felt like a warm, sexy hug draped over his body. His jacket, but better, whole, warmed by the sun, worn outside on a really splendid fall day, ripe with harvest scents, little hints of smoke in the air. He's just sort of gaping at it, stunned that there's that much... response in him from a smell. "I take it you like that one."
"Oh, God, yeah."
She caps it and hands him the coffee beans to clear his sense of smell, making a few more notes. Then opened the next bottle. "The metaphorical something black and lacy. Got any plans for this afternoon?"
He shakes his head.
"You do now. Give me your wrists." He does, taking off his cuff and watch. "This isn't the stuff you got at the men's department at JC Penny's. Little bit goes a long way." She takes the pipette, deposits a milliliter of the scent into one of the testers, dips the wand that's attached to the cap into the scent, and strokes it across his wrist. "Just what's on the wand, rub it over your wrist." She closes up the vial. "Rub wrist together, then wrists on throat. You can add a bit more to thighs or ankles if you feel like it's too light, but much more and you'll start to knock people over."
He was half-paying attention to her words, half-wondering what he'd just put on. It smells like... he's got no clue. It smells good. Not sweet, not sharp, not anything he can name, but it smells really good to him. It's a much more 'classic cologne' scent than the date night scent, but it's somehow deeper, richer, more 'him' than any one he's tried before. He'd make out with himself wearing this, if he could.
"White musk, white sandalwood, Spanish moss, few florals, little herbal so it's not too femme, slight hint of ocean. You've got a pretty strong ocean vibe to you."
He laughs at that.
"What?"
"I'm a Navy cop."
She laughs, too. "I think this one's going to get along well with you."
He's nodding along, no idea how it'll smell to Abby, but it's making him feel sexy and eager. "What's that last one?" he asks looking at the little, already filled tester, sitting next to them.
"For you to test on your own." She taps the tester, not opening it. "He's got no middle gears. Depending on your body chemistry he's just very, very animal male lust, full-on grab her by the hair and take her off to ravish her, or he's dirty goats and cat pee."
Tim was all in favor of that until she got to the downside. "Doesn't sound very appealing."
"He's not, if he doesn't agree with you. If he does... Well, let's put it this way, he's the only thing that's ever gotten my wife to look at a guy twice. Helps if you're already leaning in that direction to begin with. But he usually takes at least ten minutes to warm up, sometimes closer to half an hour, and in the bottle he reeks, so he doesn't get opened in here."
"And does he wash off easily if he doesn't agree with you?"
"Eh..." No is clear on her face. "Maybe don't rub him on your neck until you know if he agrees with your chemistry."
"Okay." He looks at the little collection of vials in front of him. "So any of the things I liked the sound of in front of me?"
She circled two of the names on his list, while affixing little stickers to each vial with their names, and pipetting the scents into them. "Some of the others," she put little stars next to three of them, "Will probably be good choices, too. But how about you go play with these, test them out, see how they work with your skin, before adding much new stuff. Only so much your nose can take before it shuts down."
And with that, she tidied everything up into a small bag and with a swipe of the credit card, sent him on his way.
A/N: So, I'm a fan of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. They make really nifty perfumes. All of the scents mentioned here are either stolen from them, or my own ideas based off of their work. Plus, unlike the fictional version I'm writing about here, BPAL's prices are significantly lower.
May 12, 2014
Shards To A Whole: Chapter 321
McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
Chapter 321: McSuperfreak
"Okay, this guy's a psychopath!"
"Why are you saying that, Draga?" Tim asks as he's photographing the scene.
"Look at his browser history." So Tim goes over and does, reading over Drag's shoulder.
Then he laughs and shakes his head. "Not a freak, just a writer."
"They aren't one and the same?" Tony asks as he breezes in.
"Not this time."
"How do you know he's a writer?" Draga asks. "Because nothing about this says writer to me. Aspiring Hannibal Lecter, sure, but not writer."
"Because you haven't been in his bedroom, yet, so you missed the fact that he's got an MLA handbook; Eats, Shoot, and Leaves; and Strunk and White on his bedside table. This guy's a wanna be crime writer."
"You really sure?" Draga doesn't seem to believe that, at all. "I mean, I'm looking at an in-depth discussion of how boric acid reacts to human flesh."
Tim laughs at that, remembering some of the things he researched for his first book. "Yeah, you should have seen my browser history back when I was working on my first novel. Would have blown your mind."
"Would have blown his mind because you're McSuperfreak, not because you're a writer," Tony adds. Tim rolls his eyes. "Got this room done?"
"Just about," Tim answers. "Got a few more shots and I'm done."
"Good."
"McSuperfreak?" Draga asks.
Tony winces, shaking his head. "You don't want to know, on like fifty different levels."
Draga's looking really curious about that, looking from Tony to Tim and back again.
Tim shrugs; he doesn't want to share, but Tony still needs a smack for making a big deal out of this, so he calls out, "Hey Ziva, wanna know what Tony was on the last time his computer crashed?"
Tony's eyes went wide as Tim did that. "You wouldn't dare!" he says very, very quietly.
"McGee?" Ziva asks, interested and curious, coming into the computer room where the three men were. According to Tony, his computer just mysteriously crashed one night, and the next morning Tim did something magical to it, and it started working again. She has been, suspicious, to say the least, as to the veracity of Tony's story about that.
Tony stares at him in a blind panic.
"Did you know he was on a file sharing site?"
Tony's giving him the I'm going to kill you slowly and no one is ever going to find all the body parts look.
"No, McGee, I did not," she says, little smile on her face; she's enjoying watching Tony squirm.
"Yeah. You'd think an adult, with a real income wouldn't need to share movie downloads," Tony's suddenly looking a whole lot more relaxed, yeah, they were movie downloads, but not the sort of movie Tim's implying, "but for some reason his cheap side kicked in and he decided torpedoing your computer was worth saving twenty bucks."
Ziva's not looking like she believes that, but Tony jumps on it like a lifesaver tossed to a drowning man. "They were uncut footage of the original Shining. You can't get them legally. Not unless you're willing to take out a second mortgage."
She stares at him coolly, and shrugs, seeming to file this in the men are weird column, and let it go to continue working the case. But as she heads out, she raises an eyebrow at Tim. He flashes her a just wanted to make him sweat look. She nods at that.
Tim turns to Tony as soon as she's gone, very smug smile on his face. "Wanna call me a freak again?"
Draga just looks at both of them and then says, "McGee, that was just not cool. That's… I mean… There's a code and… That was not cool."
Tim shrugs again. "Don't mess with the guy who regularly saves your marriage because you're so damn dumb with a computer you can't figure out how not to get infected with every piece of malware on earth."
"Remind me not to call you for tech support!"
"Hey, I'm great tech support! I'm the best damn tech support you've ever met. I make house calls and work for coffee. Just don't rag on me after. Especially not two days after. Especially when your wife is twenty feet away."
Draga snorts at that, looks back at Tony, and then finishes packing up their vic's laptop.
"So… are you a freak?" Draga asks as they're working their way through William Wade (the vic's) electronics.
Tim rolls his eyes, both at the question and that Draga'd ask. He's not sure if this is part of Draga being the no privacy generation, or if he's just not got a very well-developed sense of appropriate. (Or maybe all that time on an aircraft carrier where you can't help but know everything about everyone else is coming into play.) Whatever it is, he's just staring at him, waiting for an answer, so Tim says, dryly, "I doubt I'm into anything that'd make you blush. Tony's vanilla."
"Uh huh. So, you're saying I need to ask Palmer to get an unbiased opinion."
Tim chuckles at that, imagining Jimmy's face if Draga wandered down to autopsy to ask that. "If you do, let me know what he said."
He and Ziva are heading off to talk to Wade's CO when she asks, "So, what was it?"
"Ziva?"
"Uncut footage of the Shining he would have not just told me about, for hours, but he would have dragged me over to watch it."
There are certain, tacit, unspoken agreements their little family has. One of those agreements is that, while it is true that Tim is tech support, and that he will fix up whatever issues Tony or Jimmy's computers 'mysteriously' develop, Breena and Ziva won't ask what caused the problem, but, if it's anything troublesome, he'll tell them about it.
He assumes that Tony and Jimmy have a similar deal with Abby, everything is confidential, unless keeping it confidential would cause real problems.
"Nothing bad."
"I know that. Lesbian cheerleaders or curious Catholic school girls?" Say whatever you like about Ziva, she knows Tony inside and out.
Tim nods, small smirk on his face, mostly expressing that he thinks the level of secret Tony thinks is necessary in regards to this is silly. "Curious lesbian Catholic school girls."
She shakes her head. "Why do men do that?"
"Look at porn?" He thinks that one's fairly obvious and is surprised she'd ask.
She's giving Tim her, do you think I'm an idiot? look. "I know why men look at porn. Why do they think it is such a big, dark secret?"
"I don't know why Tony thinks it's some sort of deep, dark secret. I know a lot of guys don't want to get yelled at because of what they like. And I know a lot of women aren't cool with their guys looking at it."
Ziva rolls her eyes. "I am not a lot of women."
"I know it. He does, too. But it's like being afraid of spiders, it's deeply ingrained behavior."
She's still looking frustrated and kicks at the carpet on the floor of the car.
He sighs, signals, switches lanes and then says, "I don't know if this is Tony's thing, but… most of us have had this experience. You're home, decide you want some…" he flails around for a second for a good euphemism, "quiet time, and in the midst of said quiet time, as you're enjoying yourself, your mom, sister, girlfriend, or wife suddenly decides that she needs you right that second, and for whatever reason you don't have the door locked, and she walks in, sees what you're doing, and has a fit."
Ziva thinks that's pretty funny. At least, the way she's gasping for breath between episodes of hysterical laughter indicates that.
"Who caught you?" she finally asks, wiping tears from her eyes.
"Not saying."
"Oh, come on, you have got to. You cannot tell a story like that and not say."
Tim rolls his eyes. Long experience with Ziva has taught him that he can answer the question, or have her investigate it. Might as well answer, because he's got no idea how Abby might answer it if Ziva asks her, but he's sure, like with the Diane rumors, that whatever version Abby comes up with will be significantly more salacious than what really happened. "Penny."
Ziva's quivering she's laughing so hard.
Tim nods, and says sarcastically, "Oh yeah, single best day of my life. The three hour long lecture about how pornography objectifies women was torture. Now, this was the same women who was fine with me dressing up in her shoes, and actually flat out told my dad, while I was listening, that if I was gay it was fine, who prefaced the lecture with the longest twenty minutes in the history of time on how self-pleasure was fine and normal and natural, but a teenage, heterosexual male looking at pictures of naked women, oh noooo! End of the world."
Apparently, Ziva thinks that is a riot, too. Much more laughing ensues. Finally Ziva gets calmed down enough to say, "I didn't think Penny was that… restrained?"
"Good word. And no, she's not. You can do pretty much whatever you want with a real person, but ogling pictures of them turns sex into a commodity and that wasn't cool with her."
"Huh?"
"Yeah. Anyway, most of us have had something similar happen, so we tend to be cagy about what we're looking at when we're on our own."
"But Abby knows what you like."
"Yeah, she… Wait, why do you know that?"
"We talk."
He glances away from traffic to give her his, really? look. "You guys talk about what kind of porn we watch?"
"Of course."
Tim winces and rubs his forehead. "Really?"
"Yes. We talk about everything."
He sighs.
"We don't tell you guys about it, though."
"Small favors." He supposes he's not allowed to get upset about this. He thought it was an absolute riot when the girls added stuff to Tony's honeymoon box, so the idea that they were talking about all of the intimate details of Tony's sex life was just fine with him. "Really, everything?"
"Yes, McGee, everything."
"And, everything doesn't freak you out?"
"Why would it freak me out? You like what you like, and that's it."
He squeezes her hand. "Everything has freaked a whole lot of women out."
Ziva nods at that. "As I said, I am not a lot of other women. But, you don't hide what you like from her."
"No. I don't."
"Why?"
"I did the first time we dated, because we didn't know each other that well then. But we know each other a lot better now, so I knew it wouldn't freak her out, and that she'd probably like it. She did…" He thinks about the other reason, which is… very personal, but… maybe useful… especially seeing what Tony and Ziva are doing with marriage counseling and all… "You like porn or smut?"
Ziva's surprised he's asking that, but answers anyway, "Yes."
"You watch it with him?"
"Read."
"You read it to him?" If the girls really do talk, then this idea won't shock her, because he knows Breena and Jimmy do that.
"No."
"Okay, here's the deal. I like porn. I don't care if it's objectifying, not anymore." Okay, that sounds really bad. "I mean, I don't think it is," he can see Ziva's not particularly interested in this debate, "but that's an argument I can have with my grandmother, later. Or not, because… Anyway… But I like sex with Abby a whole lot better. And I'm not a machine so there's only so much sex I can have. So, I think it's important that if I am going to be getting off, that I do it with her."
"You don't…" Ziva's hand gesture is unmistakable.
Tim rolls his eyes. "Not saying I don't, just, not very often. And not if there's any shot of real sex with her. Not saying there's anything wrong with jerking off, either, but… if I blow off some steam after dinner, I'm not in shape for anything at bedtime, and being in shape for bedtime matters.
"Anyway, the reason I mention this is because she isn't freaked out by what I like, it doesn't have to be an either/or thing. We can watch it together, or if it's smut, read it together, and that's a lot of fun and has led to a lot of good things."
Ziva nods at that. "And, if I wanted to get him to share…"
Tim's eyes go wide. "Ummm…" Obviously he and Abby somehow negotiated this, but he's not really remembering who brought it up or why. Probably Abby, because that's more an Abby thing, but he just doesn't remember the first time it happened. "Read him your favorite story?"
"It has two men in it."
He probably didn't need to know that about Ziva. "Okay, don't read him that! That'd freak him out. But, you get my point."
"Yes. I do."
Two days later, Tim's picking up some files from Jimmy, when Jimmy asks him, "Okay, so why is Draga asking me if you're a freak or Tony's just vanilla?"
"Oh, God, I didn't think he actually would. There's something seriously wrong with that kid."
"Tim…" So Tim explains how they got there. Jimmy seems to agree with Draga that what he pulled on Tony was a very low blow. "So, you're telling me I need to think twice about calling you when my computer dies."
"I didn't actually do it. And it's not like Ziva doesn't know what Tony's into. Hell, not like Breena doesn't
know what you like, either. And, because they talk about 'everything' apparently the girls all know what all of us are into, too."
That's not news to Jimmy. He knows what the girls talk about. "Yeah, but there's knowing and there's knowing."
"Fine." A few beats go by. "So… what'd you say?"
"What?" Jimmy looks up from collecting the files for Tim, surprise in his face.
"I'm curious."
"I told him to mind his own business."
Really? is loud and clear on Tim's face. Gossip is the bread and butter of NCIS, keeping all hands happy and running smoothly. The idea that Jimmy wasn't contributing to it didn't sound right to Tim.
Jimmy rolls his eyes a bit. "I told him that if he really wanted to know, he needed to talk to Abby and Ziva, because, you know, I've never had sex with either of you and wasn't planning on starting anytime soon, in that I'm both married and straight, and for that matter, could not physically care less how kinky you are or how not kinky he is."
Really?
"Fine. I may have also said, that if you were going to ask me to bet, I'd say you were pretty far off the standard path. I mean, you wear kilts and makeup, and have how many tattoos now? And, come on, you're married to Abby! Not that Ziva's boring or anything, but... different sort of thing. And that Tony on a really frisky day went looking for a redhead to go with his blonde and Asian lesbian cheerleaders."
Tim snerks at that. "Well, that at least explains why he's been looking at me weird all day."
"Yeah, well, I'm gonna be looking at you weird all day, too. Why on earth would you tell him to talk to me when he's standing twenty feet away from Tony's wife?"
"He suggested it."
"Now, I'm gonna be looking weird at him, too. Why would he think that I'd know?"
Tim just stares at Jimmy. "Because you do?"
Jimmy shakes his head. "God, talk about conversations I never expected to have." They stand there for a few more seconds before Jimmy says, "So... um... what would you say about me?"
"Uh…" Tim thinks about it for a second, working on some sort of shoe related comment, and then comes up with an even better one. "Out of deference to your wife, whom I both respect and adore, I have no comment on that subject." And then he smiles, pleased and cocky.
Jimmy whacks him on the shoulder with the back of his hand. "Yeah, you know it's coming and think about it and come up with a good answer. I got blindsided."
Tim shrugs with a smirk.
Jimmy stands there, thinking, fingers tapping on the files in front of him. "Actually, what would you say?"
"Jimmy?" That's a much more intimate question than Tim's expecting.
He half-shrugs. "You know more about me than any other guy. Draga asks you if I'm a freak, what's your take?"
"Uh… I don't know. I don't spend a lot of time pondering your sex life."
"Yeah, I know, but…"
"Like Ziva told me, you like what you like, not a big deal."
"Even the shoes?" He had given Jimmy a lot of ribbing about the shoes back when they hypnotized him.
"Doesn't freak me out, if that's what you mean. I mean, I don't get the thing with the shoes. They're shoes..." Which are awfully low on the list of things that turn Tim on. He likes the whole finished effect of an entire outfit, and yes, as of yet, there has never been a time when he wasn't in favor of just stockings and stilettos, but he figures most guys feel that way, and he knows that's not how Jimmy likes shoes. Of course, he doesn't actually know what it is about shoes that Jimmy likes. "So, do you wear them, or like looking at them, or is the feet in them, or…"
Jimmy brushes that aside. "I don't get tattoos."
"I don't like tattoos, not like that." He thinks about that for a moment. "Okay, I liked getting the first one like that, because it was... you know, kind of dangerous and wild and so not 'me.'"
"Your first tattoo is computer code. That was dangerous?"
"Says the guy who breaks out in hives at henna. It felt dangerous to me. But that wore off about the time it had healed up. I know some people get off on them. Some people really like getting them. But, that's not me. I like the kind of people who tend to have them. The actual tattoos I can take or leave. But they usually mark people who are into the same things I am. But everyone wears shoes. You're not narrowing down the pool by picking shoes."
Jimmy shrugs. "As long as I can remember, I liked them. I always knew what all the women around me were wearing. You like butts, right?"
Tim nods.
"Do you remember choosing to like butts?"
"Nope. Just, 'round about the age of eleven I started noticing them."
"Exactly."
"So, you like shoes on girls?"
"Yeah."
"What about on their own? Like just sitting in a box?"
"They're significantly less interesting to me then. Mostly, if I'm staring at them in a store, it's because I'm thinking about them on a woman."
"Do you do anything with them?"
Jimmy looks bothered by that idea. "Like what? Wear them?"
Tim nods. "Or anything?"
Jimmy's looking at him very curiously, what the hell would I do with them besides wear them?, and Tim's staring back with if you don't know, I don't need to enlighten you on his face.
"I don't wear them. They look dumb on me."
Tim thinks about that for a second, and then realizes exactly what Jimmy just said. "So, wait, you actually know that?"
Jimmy looks at him, long and cool. "I've seen you in eyeliner, nail polish, and a skirt, and you're going to act surprised by me in pumps?"
"Not judging or anything... Just didn't expect it from you."
"Just like with drugs, I've tried just about everything, at least once. On me... I look like Klinger from MASH. Not sexy at all. On her..." Jimmy nods happily, "much better! I like the way they look on her, and I like the way they feel against me if she wears them when we're fooling around. Especially, if we're doing it fast and public, she usually keeps them on, and those are some good memories"
"I get that." Granted not for shoes, but he figures liking Abby tied up is probably a kin to that. "I get liking almost getting caught."
Jimmy chuckles at that. "Yeah, but you suck at it. I've caught you twice already."
"You walk into my house without knocking when the girls smell like that, what do you expect?"
Jimmy shrugs.
"Like you weren't doing the same thing as soon as you could once you got home."
He grins at that. "Not the exact same thing."
"Uh huh." Tim's doubting that intensely. Then he notices that Jimmy said, 'exact same.' "You get all the way to bed?"
He smiles again, enjoying that memory. "I did tell Breena to wear that perfume with caution."
"Told Abby something similar."
"Found out Sunday night the other scent was just as good. Different, but…"
"Yeah. I can guess. Gonna start saving up for a big one?"
"I don't know. Variety is nice. Checked the website, that lady makes like two hundred scents; I made a list of ones that looked good. They sell the massage oil, too, suggested eight ounces of that to one of those little vials I got Breena. Might be a very good Valentine's Day present."
Tim thinks about that, nodding, enjoying the idea of rubbing some sort of silky, slippery oil all over Abby that smells like that perfume. Yeah, that's going on the list.
As he was thinking about that, and scents in general, he gets out his phone and makes a quick note for the McGee Dragons. Lady Skye is an alchemist, maybe perfumery is how she made her fortune and used it to move onto bigger and better things.
"Are you actually making a note of that?" Jimmy didn't go along on his little mental trip for how he got from massage oil to perfume? alchemy? kind of related, right? Beguiling magical scents that make spying easier, scents that pull the truth out of a man...
"Yes." He tucks his phone back into his pocket. "For the story. Been trying to think of how Skye made her fortune, and perfume would be a good way to do it. I'm not writing down what you're thinking of doing for Valentine's Day."
"Good, cause that'd be kind of creepy."
Tim nods, agreeing on the creepy factor for that. "Why you thinking that far ahead?" Jimmy flashes Tim his think about it for a second and it'll come to you look. And it did. "Oh."
"Yeah. Anna'll be out mid-December, so Valentine's Day, in addition to Molly's birthday, will probably be around when things start happening again, so…"
"I get you."
"Yeah. If there's ever a year where you don't want to muff Valentine's..."
"No kidding. Speaking of presents, Abby said something to me about you guys sticking Molly's Christmas presents at our place... Take it from someone who mastered it, she's too young to peek."
"Not like that. If Anna hangs around the way Molly did, she won't be coming out until Christmas, so, if the presents are at your place, that means someone who's actually had six hours of sleep in a row will be in charge of making sure Molly gets them."
"You're putting me on assembly duty, aren't you?"
"Of course. I can barely plug my phone in to charge with a new baby in the house. Let alone a new baby, a twenty-two month old, and Christmas all at once. So, this year, you're putting together the toys."
Tim salutes. "Yes, sir." He takes the files from Jimmy. "I should probably get these up before I get head slapped for messing around."
"Up you go."
Next
Chapter 321: McSuperfreak
"Okay, this guy's a psychopath!"
"Why are you saying that, Draga?" Tim asks as he's photographing the scene.
"Look at his browser history." So Tim goes over and does, reading over Drag's shoulder.
Then he laughs and shakes his head. "Not a freak, just a writer."
"They aren't one and the same?" Tony asks as he breezes in.
"Not this time."
"How do you know he's a writer?" Draga asks. "Because nothing about this says writer to me. Aspiring Hannibal Lecter, sure, but not writer."
"Because you haven't been in his bedroom, yet, so you missed the fact that he's got an MLA handbook; Eats, Shoot, and Leaves; and Strunk and White on his bedside table. This guy's a wanna be crime writer."
"You really sure?" Draga doesn't seem to believe that, at all. "I mean, I'm looking at an in-depth discussion of how boric acid reacts to human flesh."
Tim laughs at that, remembering some of the things he researched for his first book. "Yeah, you should have seen my browser history back when I was working on my first novel. Would have blown your mind."
"Would have blown his mind because you're McSuperfreak, not because you're a writer," Tony adds. Tim rolls his eyes. "Got this room done?"
"Just about," Tim answers. "Got a few more shots and I'm done."
"Good."
"McSuperfreak?" Draga asks.
Tony winces, shaking his head. "You don't want to know, on like fifty different levels."
Draga's looking really curious about that, looking from Tony to Tim and back again.
Tim shrugs; he doesn't want to share, but Tony still needs a smack for making a big deal out of this, so he calls out, "Hey Ziva, wanna know what Tony was on the last time his computer crashed?"
Tony's eyes went wide as Tim did that. "You wouldn't dare!" he says very, very quietly.
"McGee?" Ziva asks, interested and curious, coming into the computer room where the three men were. According to Tony, his computer just mysteriously crashed one night, and the next morning Tim did something magical to it, and it started working again. She has been, suspicious, to say the least, as to the veracity of Tony's story about that.
Tony stares at him in a blind panic.
"Did you know he was on a file sharing site?"
Tony's giving him the I'm going to kill you slowly and no one is ever going to find all the body parts look.
"No, McGee, I did not," she says, little smile on her face; she's enjoying watching Tony squirm.
"Yeah. You'd think an adult, with a real income wouldn't need to share movie downloads," Tony's suddenly looking a whole lot more relaxed, yeah, they were movie downloads, but not the sort of movie Tim's implying, "but for some reason his cheap side kicked in and he decided torpedoing your computer was worth saving twenty bucks."
Ziva's not looking like she believes that, but Tony jumps on it like a lifesaver tossed to a drowning man. "They were uncut footage of the original Shining. You can't get them legally. Not unless you're willing to take out a second mortgage."
She stares at him coolly, and shrugs, seeming to file this in the men are weird column, and let it go to continue working the case. But as she heads out, she raises an eyebrow at Tim. He flashes her a just wanted to make him sweat look. She nods at that.
Tim turns to Tony as soon as she's gone, very smug smile on his face. "Wanna call me a freak again?"
Draga just looks at both of them and then says, "McGee, that was just not cool. That's… I mean… There's a code and… That was not cool."
Tim shrugs again. "Don't mess with the guy who regularly saves your marriage because you're so damn dumb with a computer you can't figure out how not to get infected with every piece of malware on earth."
"Remind me not to call you for tech support!"
"Hey, I'm great tech support! I'm the best damn tech support you've ever met. I make house calls and work for coffee. Just don't rag on me after. Especially not two days after. Especially when your wife is twenty feet away."
Draga snorts at that, looks back at Tony, and then finishes packing up their vic's laptop.
"So… are you a freak?" Draga asks as they're working their way through William Wade (the vic's) electronics.
Tim rolls his eyes, both at the question and that Draga'd ask. He's not sure if this is part of Draga being the no privacy generation, or if he's just not got a very well-developed sense of appropriate. (Or maybe all that time on an aircraft carrier where you can't help but know everything about everyone else is coming into play.) Whatever it is, he's just staring at him, waiting for an answer, so Tim says, dryly, "I doubt I'm into anything that'd make you blush. Tony's vanilla."
"Uh huh. So, you're saying I need to ask Palmer to get an unbiased opinion."
Tim chuckles at that, imagining Jimmy's face if Draga wandered down to autopsy to ask that. "If you do, let me know what he said."
He and Ziva are heading off to talk to Wade's CO when she asks, "So, what was it?"
"Ziva?"
"Uncut footage of the Shining he would have not just told me about, for hours, but he would have dragged me over to watch it."
There are certain, tacit, unspoken agreements their little family has. One of those agreements is that, while it is true that Tim is tech support, and that he will fix up whatever issues Tony or Jimmy's computers 'mysteriously' develop, Breena and Ziva won't ask what caused the problem, but, if it's anything troublesome, he'll tell them about it.
He assumes that Tony and Jimmy have a similar deal with Abby, everything is confidential, unless keeping it confidential would cause real problems.
"Nothing bad."
"I know that. Lesbian cheerleaders or curious Catholic school girls?" Say whatever you like about Ziva, she knows Tony inside and out.
Tim nods, small smirk on his face, mostly expressing that he thinks the level of secret Tony thinks is necessary in regards to this is silly. "Curious lesbian Catholic school girls."
She shakes her head. "Why do men do that?"
"Look at porn?" He thinks that one's fairly obvious and is surprised she'd ask.
She's giving Tim her, do you think I'm an idiot? look. "I know why men look at porn. Why do they think it is such a big, dark secret?"
"I don't know why Tony thinks it's some sort of deep, dark secret. I know a lot of guys don't want to get yelled at because of what they like. And I know a lot of women aren't cool with their guys looking at it."
Ziva rolls her eyes. "I am not a lot of women."
"I know it. He does, too. But it's like being afraid of spiders, it's deeply ingrained behavior."
She's still looking frustrated and kicks at the carpet on the floor of the car.
He sighs, signals, switches lanes and then says, "I don't know if this is Tony's thing, but… most of us have had this experience. You're home, decide you want some…" he flails around for a second for a good euphemism, "quiet time, and in the midst of said quiet time, as you're enjoying yourself, your mom, sister, girlfriend, or wife suddenly decides that she needs you right that second, and for whatever reason you don't have the door locked, and she walks in, sees what you're doing, and has a fit."
Ziva thinks that's pretty funny. At least, the way she's gasping for breath between episodes of hysterical laughter indicates that.
"Who caught you?" she finally asks, wiping tears from her eyes.
"Not saying."
"Oh, come on, you have got to. You cannot tell a story like that and not say."
Tim rolls his eyes. Long experience with Ziva has taught him that he can answer the question, or have her investigate it. Might as well answer, because he's got no idea how Abby might answer it if Ziva asks her, but he's sure, like with the Diane rumors, that whatever version Abby comes up with will be significantly more salacious than what really happened. "Penny."
Ziva's quivering she's laughing so hard.
Tim nods, and says sarcastically, "Oh yeah, single best day of my life. The three hour long lecture about how pornography objectifies women was torture. Now, this was the same women who was fine with me dressing up in her shoes, and actually flat out told my dad, while I was listening, that if I was gay it was fine, who prefaced the lecture with the longest twenty minutes in the history of time on how self-pleasure was fine and normal and natural, but a teenage, heterosexual male looking at pictures of naked women, oh noooo! End of the world."
Apparently, Ziva thinks that is a riot, too. Much more laughing ensues. Finally Ziva gets calmed down enough to say, "I didn't think Penny was that… restrained?"
"Good word. And no, she's not. You can do pretty much whatever you want with a real person, but ogling pictures of them turns sex into a commodity and that wasn't cool with her."
"Huh?"
"Yeah. Anyway, most of us have had something similar happen, so we tend to be cagy about what we're looking at when we're on our own."
"But Abby knows what you like."
"Yeah, she… Wait, why do you know that?"
"We talk."
He glances away from traffic to give her his, really? look. "You guys talk about what kind of porn we watch?"
"Of course."
Tim winces and rubs his forehead. "Really?"
"Yes. We talk about everything."
He sighs.
"We don't tell you guys about it, though."
"Small favors." He supposes he's not allowed to get upset about this. He thought it was an absolute riot when the girls added stuff to Tony's honeymoon box, so the idea that they were talking about all of the intimate details of Tony's sex life was just fine with him. "Really, everything?"
"Yes, McGee, everything."
"And, everything doesn't freak you out?"
"Why would it freak me out? You like what you like, and that's it."
He squeezes her hand. "Everything has freaked a whole lot of women out."
Ziva nods at that. "As I said, I am not a lot of other women. But, you don't hide what you like from her."
"No. I don't."
"Why?"
"I did the first time we dated, because we didn't know each other that well then. But we know each other a lot better now, so I knew it wouldn't freak her out, and that she'd probably like it. She did…" He thinks about the other reason, which is… very personal, but… maybe useful… especially seeing what Tony and Ziva are doing with marriage counseling and all… "You like porn or smut?"
Ziva's surprised he's asking that, but answers anyway, "Yes."
"You watch it with him?"
"Read."
"You read it to him?" If the girls really do talk, then this idea won't shock her, because he knows Breena and Jimmy do that.
"No."
"Okay, here's the deal. I like porn. I don't care if it's objectifying, not anymore." Okay, that sounds really bad. "I mean, I don't think it is," he can see Ziva's not particularly interested in this debate, "but that's an argument I can have with my grandmother, later. Or not, because… Anyway… But I like sex with Abby a whole lot better. And I'm not a machine so there's only so much sex I can have. So, I think it's important that if I am going to be getting off, that I do it with her."
"You don't…" Ziva's hand gesture is unmistakable.
Tim rolls his eyes. "Not saying I don't, just, not very often. And not if there's any shot of real sex with her. Not saying there's anything wrong with jerking off, either, but… if I blow off some steam after dinner, I'm not in shape for anything at bedtime, and being in shape for bedtime matters.
"Anyway, the reason I mention this is because she isn't freaked out by what I like, it doesn't have to be an either/or thing. We can watch it together, or if it's smut, read it together, and that's a lot of fun and has led to a lot of good things."
Ziva nods at that. "And, if I wanted to get him to share…"
Tim's eyes go wide. "Ummm…" Obviously he and Abby somehow negotiated this, but he's not really remembering who brought it up or why. Probably Abby, because that's more an Abby thing, but he just doesn't remember the first time it happened. "Read him your favorite story?"
"It has two men in it."
He probably didn't need to know that about Ziva. "Okay, don't read him that! That'd freak him out. But, you get my point."
"Yes. I do."
Two days later, Tim's picking up some files from Jimmy, when Jimmy asks him, "Okay, so why is Draga asking me if you're a freak or Tony's just vanilla?"
"Oh, God, I didn't think he actually would. There's something seriously wrong with that kid."
"Tim…" So Tim explains how they got there. Jimmy seems to agree with Draga that what he pulled on Tony was a very low blow. "So, you're telling me I need to think twice about calling you when my computer dies."
"I didn't actually do it. And it's not like Ziva doesn't know what Tony's into. Hell, not like Breena doesn't
know what you like, either. And, because they talk about 'everything' apparently the girls all know what all of us are into, too."
That's not news to Jimmy. He knows what the girls talk about. "Yeah, but there's knowing and there's knowing."
"Fine." A few beats go by. "So… what'd you say?"
"What?" Jimmy looks up from collecting the files for Tim, surprise in his face.
"I'm curious."
"I told him to mind his own business."
Really? is loud and clear on Tim's face. Gossip is the bread and butter of NCIS, keeping all hands happy and running smoothly. The idea that Jimmy wasn't contributing to it didn't sound right to Tim.
Jimmy rolls his eyes a bit. "I told him that if he really wanted to know, he needed to talk to Abby and Ziva, because, you know, I've never had sex with either of you and wasn't planning on starting anytime soon, in that I'm both married and straight, and for that matter, could not physically care less how kinky you are or how not kinky he is."
Really?
"Fine. I may have also said, that if you were going to ask me to bet, I'd say you were pretty far off the standard path. I mean, you wear kilts and makeup, and have how many tattoos now? And, come on, you're married to Abby! Not that Ziva's boring or anything, but... different sort of thing. And that Tony on a really frisky day went looking for a redhead to go with his blonde and Asian lesbian cheerleaders."
Tim snerks at that. "Well, that at least explains why he's been looking at me weird all day."
"Yeah, well, I'm gonna be looking at you weird all day, too. Why on earth would you tell him to talk to me when he's standing twenty feet away from Tony's wife?"
"He suggested it."
"Now, I'm gonna be looking weird at him, too. Why would he think that I'd know?"
Tim just stares at Jimmy. "Because you do?"
Jimmy shakes his head. "God, talk about conversations I never expected to have." They stand there for a few more seconds before Jimmy says, "So... um... what would you say about me?"
"Uh…" Tim thinks about it for a second, working on some sort of shoe related comment, and then comes up with an even better one. "Out of deference to your wife, whom I both respect and adore, I have no comment on that subject." And then he smiles, pleased and cocky.
Jimmy whacks him on the shoulder with the back of his hand. "Yeah, you know it's coming and think about it and come up with a good answer. I got blindsided."
Tim shrugs with a smirk.
Jimmy stands there, thinking, fingers tapping on the files in front of him. "Actually, what would you say?"
"Jimmy?" That's a much more intimate question than Tim's expecting.
He half-shrugs. "You know more about me than any other guy. Draga asks you if I'm a freak, what's your take?"
"Uh… I don't know. I don't spend a lot of time pondering your sex life."
"Yeah, I know, but…"
"Like Ziva told me, you like what you like, not a big deal."
"Even the shoes?" He had given Jimmy a lot of ribbing about the shoes back when they hypnotized him.
"Doesn't freak me out, if that's what you mean. I mean, I don't get the thing with the shoes. They're shoes..." Which are awfully low on the list of things that turn Tim on. He likes the whole finished effect of an entire outfit, and yes, as of yet, there has never been a time when he wasn't in favor of just stockings and stilettos, but he figures most guys feel that way, and he knows that's not how Jimmy likes shoes. Of course, he doesn't actually know what it is about shoes that Jimmy likes. "So, do you wear them, or like looking at them, or is the feet in them, or…"
Jimmy brushes that aside. "I don't get tattoos."
"I don't like tattoos, not like that." He thinks about that for a moment. "Okay, I liked getting the first one like that, because it was... you know, kind of dangerous and wild and so not 'me.'"
"Your first tattoo is computer code. That was dangerous?"
"Says the guy who breaks out in hives at henna. It felt dangerous to me. But that wore off about the time it had healed up. I know some people get off on them. Some people really like getting them. But, that's not me. I like the kind of people who tend to have them. The actual tattoos I can take or leave. But they usually mark people who are into the same things I am. But everyone wears shoes. You're not narrowing down the pool by picking shoes."
Jimmy shrugs. "As long as I can remember, I liked them. I always knew what all the women around me were wearing. You like butts, right?"
Tim nods.
"Do you remember choosing to like butts?"
"Nope. Just, 'round about the age of eleven I started noticing them."
"Exactly."
"So, you like shoes on girls?"
"Yeah."
"What about on their own? Like just sitting in a box?"
"They're significantly less interesting to me then. Mostly, if I'm staring at them in a store, it's because I'm thinking about them on a woman."
"Do you do anything with them?"
Jimmy looks bothered by that idea. "Like what? Wear them?"
Tim nods. "Or anything?"
Jimmy's looking at him very curiously, what the hell would I do with them besides wear them?, and Tim's staring back with if you don't know, I don't need to enlighten you on his face.
"I don't wear them. They look dumb on me."
Tim thinks about that for a second, and then realizes exactly what Jimmy just said. "So, wait, you actually know that?"
Jimmy looks at him, long and cool. "I've seen you in eyeliner, nail polish, and a skirt, and you're going to act surprised by me in pumps?"
"Not judging or anything... Just didn't expect it from you."
"Just like with drugs, I've tried just about everything, at least once. On me... I look like Klinger from MASH. Not sexy at all. On her..." Jimmy nods happily, "much better! I like the way they look on her, and I like the way they feel against me if she wears them when we're fooling around. Especially, if we're doing it fast and public, she usually keeps them on, and those are some good memories"
"I get that." Granted not for shoes, but he figures liking Abby tied up is probably a kin to that. "I get liking almost getting caught."
Jimmy chuckles at that. "Yeah, but you suck at it. I've caught you twice already."
"You walk into my house without knocking when the girls smell like that, what do you expect?"
Jimmy shrugs.
"Like you weren't doing the same thing as soon as you could once you got home."
He grins at that. "Not the exact same thing."
"Uh huh." Tim's doubting that intensely. Then he notices that Jimmy said, 'exact same.' "You get all the way to bed?"
He smiles again, enjoying that memory. "I did tell Breena to wear that perfume with caution."
"Told Abby something similar."
"Found out Sunday night the other scent was just as good. Different, but…"
"Yeah. I can guess. Gonna start saving up for a big one?"
"I don't know. Variety is nice. Checked the website, that lady makes like two hundred scents; I made a list of ones that looked good. They sell the massage oil, too, suggested eight ounces of that to one of those little vials I got Breena. Might be a very good Valentine's Day present."
Tim thinks about that, nodding, enjoying the idea of rubbing some sort of silky, slippery oil all over Abby that smells like that perfume. Yeah, that's going on the list.
As he was thinking about that, and scents in general, he gets out his phone and makes a quick note for the McGee Dragons. Lady Skye is an alchemist, maybe perfumery is how she made her fortune and used it to move onto bigger and better things.
"Are you actually making a note of that?" Jimmy didn't go along on his little mental trip for how he got from massage oil to perfume? alchemy? kind of related, right? Beguiling magical scents that make spying easier, scents that pull the truth out of a man...
"Yes." He tucks his phone back into his pocket. "For the story. Been trying to think of how Skye made her fortune, and perfume would be a good way to do it. I'm not writing down what you're thinking of doing for Valentine's Day."
"Good, cause that'd be kind of creepy."
Tim nods, agreeing on the creepy factor for that. "Why you thinking that far ahead?" Jimmy flashes Tim his think about it for a second and it'll come to you look. And it did. "Oh."
"Yeah. Anna'll be out mid-December, so Valentine's Day, in addition to Molly's birthday, will probably be around when things start happening again, so…"
"I get you."
"Yeah. If there's ever a year where you don't want to muff Valentine's..."
"No kidding. Speaking of presents, Abby said something to me about you guys sticking Molly's Christmas presents at our place... Take it from someone who mastered it, she's too young to peek."
"Not like that. If Anna hangs around the way Molly did, she won't be coming out until Christmas, so, if the presents are at your place, that means someone who's actually had six hours of sleep in a row will be in charge of making sure Molly gets them."
"You're putting me on assembly duty, aren't you?"
"Of course. I can barely plug my phone in to charge with a new baby in the house. Let alone a new baby, a twenty-two month old, and Christmas all at once. So, this year, you're putting together the toys."
Tim salutes. "Yes, sir." He takes the files from Jimmy. "I should probably get these up before I get head slapped for messing around."
"Up you go."
Next
May 8, 2014
Shards To A Whole: Chapter 320
McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
Chapter 320: A Week
On Monday, before going to the Bullpen, Tim went down to the basement, unplugged the old coffee machine, poured out the scorched battery acid that was masquerading as coffee, set the drip pot under the counter, and then set up the Keurig, put the box of assorted flavor cups next to it along with a whiteboard and a dry erase marker.
He wrote on the board, What kind of coffee do you like? and left plenty of room for them to add their favorites.
He's not the Boss yet, but he can sure as hell get his Minions some decent coffee.
On Tuesday, during lunch, Tim headed down to see Jimmy. Monday night, after work, he and Abby began opening all of Kelly's christening presents, and while a few of them were cute little onesies and stuff, most of them were cards.
They were expecting greeting cards.
They were not expecting (in that most of these people are near strangers) money in those cards.
So, he pulls Jimmy out of the morgue and they head off in search of lunch, and for Tim, pointers on correct responses to this level of family generosity.
Once they were seated with food in front of them, he says, "Jimmy, everyone gave us money for Kelly."
And Jimmy nods.
"Like, a few thousand dollars all told."
And he keeps nodding.
"Is this usual?"
"Welcome to the Slater Funeral Home Family Mafia. You get in, but you never get out." Tim's just staring at him. "They take this family wealth thing really seriously. We're all supposed to add to it, help it grow, and then lavish it on the kids, making sure they've got everything they need to build the business further and keep all of us in the black. Christmas, birthdays, all the kids get little presents, and mom and dad get cash for them which is supposed to go toward making sure they get a good education or having seed money to go start a business for themselves/build onto the family business."
"That's what every baby needs a party means?"
Jimmy nods. "Something like that. All of the kids getting out of college with no debt is a big deal. I was talking about how I was able to refi and consolidate my student loans, and they all stared at me like I was talking about how proud I was of getting a good rate to finance my prostitution ring. By the end of that night Ed, Jeannie, and two of the Uncles had offered to pay them off."
"Is that a good thing?"
"It was nice... I guess. At the time I was kind of insulted, because, you know, it's mine, so paying it off is my job. Especially when Ed hit me with it first, I saw it more as a 'he didn't think I'd be able to do it' sort of thing. But the more time I'm with them, the more I get they really don't see it like that. The money, the debts, the businesses, the houses, it's all sort of ours. We hold onto the wealth for the kids, try to build it up, and pass more of it to them than we started with. So, they're offering to pay it off rather than let interest payments eat even further away at our capital." Jimmy eats a bite of his salad. "That's part of me not being son-in-law of the year material. I don't add to the wealth pool."
"You've got a job."
"Yeah, but I bring in cash. Cash on its own is useless. You've got to do something with it, make something of value that makes its own cash. Ed thinks you're a dork, too, but you write books and get royalties and whatnot, so you're higher on the value scale than I am. I get fired, I'm screwed. You get fired, your royalties keep coming and you go spend more time at the typewriter turning out more books and making yet more royalties. You're financially independent in a way I'm not."
"So, you leave NCIS and open a medical practice…" Tim leads as he cuts his chicken.
"Yeah, up to Son-In-Law-of-the-Year I go, along with suddenly having a hundred patients, a pile of seed money, and three or four accountants to make sure my books are in great shape, while a financial planner or two goes over everything and makes sure all of my assets are sheltered."
"And let me guess, if you got into hospice care..."
"I'd get the gold star to go with my shiny new Son-In-Law-of-the-Year Award," Jimmy says dryly. "Did you ever read The Godfather?"
"Million years ago."
"They don't kill people or steal stuff, but I married into the real world Corleone family."
"And now I'm part, too?"
Jimmy smiles. "Breena and I are godparents to your daughter. You're godparents to ours, so, yes."
"You couldn't have mentioned this before we got into it?"
"I figured if Ed didn't scare you off, this wasn't going to be a big deal."
"Okay, that's probably true."
"Just, don't forget thank you notes. They're a really big deal. Actual, real, on paper, in the mail, handwritten, thank you notes. Lack of thank you notes results in nagging."
"I think we can swing some thank you notes."
"Good."
On Wednesday: they worked a case. And worked some more. And then worked a bit after that. It was technically Thursday when they headed home.
On Thursday, Tony let them off early. Tuesday they worked late. Wednesday they worked early and late. So when 12:30 rolled around and they had the perp in booking, he sent them all home.
He and Ziva went home and crashed.
A nap felt good. Sex after the nap felt fantastic. Post-sex, shower-time snuggles were awesome. They made dinner together, lazy, relaxed, nibbling half of the ingredients before they got into the oven.
All in all, it was a really grand afternoon.
But, after dinner, as Ziva was curling up with a book, Tony was feeling a bit out of sorts and edgy. He also wasn't having an easy time putting his finger on why. Everything had gone just fine today. He should be warm, content, earbuds in, happily watching a movie while Ziva reads, curled up against him.
But she's not settling, either. Which is probably what's setting his senses on edge.
He can feel it. She looks settled. They're on the sofa. He's got his feet up on the coffee table. She's lying with her head in his lap, book in hand. She's still, very, very still. Which is usually a dead give-away that something is wrong. It's not that she's fidgety or anything. But when Ziva goes stock still, she's either on full alert or thinking hard, and neither of them are appropriate for a second read of her current book. (Among other things, book reading involves turning pages, which hasn't happened for at least five minutes.)
"You okay?" he asks after another tense moment.
"Yes. I'm just thinking."
"Good thinking?" That makes him nervous. He can't help it. Women "thinking" is a deeply ingrained warning sensor for him.
"Just thinking."
"Okay. Work thinking or us thinking?"
"A bit of both."
"Uh huh..." He'd really rather she just told him what was going on, but as they've talked about in counseling, making sure she's got time to get big things right in her head, before he drags them out of her, is important. So, he doesn't push. He wants to. All of his little curious sensors are tingling. But he's not pushing.
He puts his earbuds back in, unpauses the movie, and lets her think.
He didn't have to wait long. Twenty minutes, half an hour maybe. Long enough for him to begin to get sucked into the movie. But, sucked into the movie or not, he certainly notices when Ziva marks her page, rolls onto her stomach, chin resting on her hands, hands on his thigh, and looks up at him. He's not entirely sure, because it doesn't happen a lot (okay, ever) but he thinks this could be Ziva's version of puppy-dog eyes.
He pulls the earbuds out. "Done thinking?"
"For now."
"Okay. So, do I get to find out what you've been thinking about?"
"Yes." She doesn't say anything after that.
"Maybe you could say a bit more than that. You're starting to scare me."
"No. It's not bad, just..." And she pauses, taking a breath, making him more nervous, and then jumps in with what she's been thinking about. "We've been talking about a baby, and I was thinking, once we hire Gibbs' replacement, that might be a good time to start trying."
"Oh." And yeah, that's not bad or anything, it's just...
Yeah.
He's not got much of anything going through his head. The spasm of 'Holy shit, a kid!' terror didn't fire, so that was a good thing. A step in the right direction. But, when they hire Gibbs' replacement is a whole lot more concrete that the somewhat nebulous 'eventually' they'd been bouncing around before.
But, like he let her think, she's letting him think, too. Which is a good thing, because right now, he doesn't know what he's thinking.
Unfortunately, he doesn't feel like he's pulling things together. There's just this huge, vague, something, and he's not sure how to deal with it.
So, he's gently stroking her back, not saying anything, kind of wishing he was saying something, though right now rambling on like a twit probably wouldn't win him any points.
After a good ten silent minutes, he comes up with, "So, like, as soon as we hire the guy, or when he joins the team, or once we know he's sticking around?"
"I was thinking when we hired him. But if you want to wait a bit longer, make sure he's blending in well, we could do that. Say, March or April at the latest."
"Ah... Really celebrate our first anniversary?"
"I was hoping we'd know by then, but, yes."
"Okay." He doesn't exactly sound excited, but there's no dread in his voice.
"Okay?" She double checks. He has the sense she was more than half-expecting him to freak out and melt down at this.
"Yeah, okay." He nods, tries to smile reassuringly.
"Are you really sure?"
They'd been talking about honesty, and that it's all right to be vulnerable with each other, and that actually discussing fears is better than pretending they aren't there, so unlike what he would have done this time last year, he answers honestly. "I don't know."
She smiles a bit, and nods, expecting that.
"Half of me is excited. Half feels like I'm marching off to face the firing squad."
She's not sure what to say to that. She knows, because they've talked about this, that he's, at best, wary about children. And he knows that she wants them.
"I just... I like our life. And, it feels really... something... to have a solid end to that."
"I understand." And she does.
"But I meant it when I said I'd do this with you. When we got married, this... kid thing, was part of it. So, yeah, I'm nervous about it, but, sure, when we get Gibbs' replacement. I'd like to make sure he gets a bit of time to settle in, make sure we're keeping him, but then, sure. We'll do this. Baby DiNozzo, show Palmer and McGee what a beautiful baby really looks like."
She half-smiles at his joke, and then sits up to kiss him.
On Friday, after they got home from Shabbos, after Molly was put to bed, Breena is kneeling on the floor, leaning her upper body against an exercise ball while Jimmy rubs her hips.
"I forgot how much I hate this part."
"Mmm..." He makes an agreeing noise, gently pressing the balls of his thumbs into her sacrum.
"I really don't think I can do forty-two weeks of this again. Everything hurts all over."
He nods.
"Hear that Anna, any time after thirty-six weeks. No hanging around forever like your sister did. When they say your lungs are done, out you come. The sooner the better."
He kisses the small of her back, fingers gently trailing down her spine.
"November 27th. That's thirty-six weeks." She says, hands rubbing her stomach. "That's when we're aiming for. Two more weeks and then out you go. Okay?"
He ripples his knuckles against her back, stroking his palms down her spine, cradling her hips in his hands and squeezing gently. "You want to flip around, sit on the ball, and I'll get your hips and thighs?"
"Sure."
He helps her get up, and seated on the ball, sitting cross-legged between her legs, gently rubbing her thighs and hips. He's resting his forehead (lightly) against her belly, feeling Anna squirming around in there.
He kisses again, lips brushing lightly above the waistband of Breena's leggings, trailing along the line from her now flat belly button to just above her pubic bone.
"Wouldn't mind a little bit longer with her on the inside." He kisses again, hands cradling her butt, and pulls back, smiling up at her. "Don't get to do this," he mouths gently over her. "For far too long once she's out."
Breena chuckles, a visible combination of exasperation (sex, now, really?) on her face as well as approval (I'm very glad you still find me sexy and attractive). "It's a good thing you're awfully cute," she says, ruffling his hair.
He smiles up at her again. "Well, you know, endorphins are good for pain, and for keeping your mood happy, and semen is supposed to help ripen the cervix. And if you want to stay on schedule for the 27th..."
"Uh huh." She's smiling, and takes off his glasses, resting them on the sofa behind him. "I don't remember that working all that hot last time."
"Obviously, we didn't do it nearly enough." He's inching her leggings off, and she stands up to make it easier.
"Obviously."
On Saturday, Gibbs had cleared out his basement and set up the band saw.
It's one of the only power tools he's willing to use. Especially on his own, especially for long pieces of wood, ripping boards is just not a good plan with a hand saw.
All of his wood is stripped. The finish is off.
He's built the guides that will keep each board straight and true as the saw goes through them.
Gibbs takes a deep breath, picks up the first of the beams that will soon be repurposed into bed legs, flips on the saw, places the board into the guide and gently pushes, feeling the saw go tearing through the wood with the sweet hum of destruction that creates.
A moment later, holding two, even, clean-cut pieces, he exhales, realizing he wasn't breathing as he cut.
And holding them, he realizes that he is ready to start to rebuild. The pain he thought he'd experience as he took blade to wood never materialized.
He picks up another of the beams, settles it into the guide, and gets to work.
Next
Chapter 320: A Week
On Monday, before going to the Bullpen, Tim went down to the basement, unplugged the old coffee machine, poured out the scorched battery acid that was masquerading as coffee, set the drip pot under the counter, and then set up the Keurig, put the box of assorted flavor cups next to it along with a whiteboard and a dry erase marker.
He wrote on the board, What kind of coffee do you like? and left plenty of room for them to add their favorites.
He's not the Boss yet, but he can sure as hell get his Minions some decent coffee.
On Tuesday, during lunch, Tim headed down to see Jimmy. Monday night, after work, he and Abby began opening all of Kelly's christening presents, and while a few of them were cute little onesies and stuff, most of them were cards.
They were expecting greeting cards.
They were not expecting (in that most of these people are near strangers) money in those cards.
So, he pulls Jimmy out of the morgue and they head off in search of lunch, and for Tim, pointers on correct responses to this level of family generosity.
Once they were seated with food in front of them, he says, "Jimmy, everyone gave us money for Kelly."
And Jimmy nods.
"Like, a few thousand dollars all told."
And he keeps nodding.
"Is this usual?"
"Welcome to the Slater Funeral Home Family Mafia. You get in, but you never get out." Tim's just staring at him. "They take this family wealth thing really seriously. We're all supposed to add to it, help it grow, and then lavish it on the kids, making sure they've got everything they need to build the business further and keep all of us in the black. Christmas, birthdays, all the kids get little presents, and mom and dad get cash for them which is supposed to go toward making sure they get a good education or having seed money to go start a business for themselves/build onto the family business."
"That's what every baby needs a party means?"
Jimmy nods. "Something like that. All of the kids getting out of college with no debt is a big deal. I was talking about how I was able to refi and consolidate my student loans, and they all stared at me like I was talking about how proud I was of getting a good rate to finance my prostitution ring. By the end of that night Ed, Jeannie, and two of the Uncles had offered to pay them off."
"Is that a good thing?"
"It was nice... I guess. At the time I was kind of insulted, because, you know, it's mine, so paying it off is my job. Especially when Ed hit me with it first, I saw it more as a 'he didn't think I'd be able to do it' sort of thing. But the more time I'm with them, the more I get they really don't see it like that. The money, the debts, the businesses, the houses, it's all sort of ours. We hold onto the wealth for the kids, try to build it up, and pass more of it to them than we started with. So, they're offering to pay it off rather than let interest payments eat even further away at our capital." Jimmy eats a bite of his salad. "That's part of me not being son-in-law of the year material. I don't add to the wealth pool."
"You've got a job."
"Yeah, but I bring in cash. Cash on its own is useless. You've got to do something with it, make something of value that makes its own cash. Ed thinks you're a dork, too, but you write books and get royalties and whatnot, so you're higher on the value scale than I am. I get fired, I'm screwed. You get fired, your royalties keep coming and you go spend more time at the typewriter turning out more books and making yet more royalties. You're financially independent in a way I'm not."
"So, you leave NCIS and open a medical practice…" Tim leads as he cuts his chicken.
"Yeah, up to Son-In-Law-of-the-Year I go, along with suddenly having a hundred patients, a pile of seed money, and three or four accountants to make sure my books are in great shape, while a financial planner or two goes over everything and makes sure all of my assets are sheltered."
"And let me guess, if you got into hospice care..."
"I'd get the gold star to go with my shiny new Son-In-Law-of-the-Year Award," Jimmy says dryly. "Did you ever read The Godfather?"
"Million years ago."
"They don't kill people or steal stuff, but I married into the real world Corleone family."
"And now I'm part, too?"
Jimmy smiles. "Breena and I are godparents to your daughter. You're godparents to ours, so, yes."
"You couldn't have mentioned this before we got into it?"
"I figured if Ed didn't scare you off, this wasn't going to be a big deal."
"Okay, that's probably true."
"Just, don't forget thank you notes. They're a really big deal. Actual, real, on paper, in the mail, handwritten, thank you notes. Lack of thank you notes results in nagging."
"I think we can swing some thank you notes."
"Good."
On Wednesday: they worked a case. And worked some more. And then worked a bit after that. It was technically Thursday when they headed home.
On Thursday, Tony let them off early. Tuesday they worked late. Wednesday they worked early and late. So when 12:30 rolled around and they had the perp in booking, he sent them all home.
He and Ziva went home and crashed.
A nap felt good. Sex after the nap felt fantastic. Post-sex, shower-time snuggles were awesome. They made dinner together, lazy, relaxed, nibbling half of the ingredients before they got into the oven.
All in all, it was a really grand afternoon.
But, after dinner, as Ziva was curling up with a book, Tony was feeling a bit out of sorts and edgy. He also wasn't having an easy time putting his finger on why. Everything had gone just fine today. He should be warm, content, earbuds in, happily watching a movie while Ziva reads, curled up against him.
But she's not settling, either. Which is probably what's setting his senses on edge.
He can feel it. She looks settled. They're on the sofa. He's got his feet up on the coffee table. She's lying with her head in his lap, book in hand. She's still, very, very still. Which is usually a dead give-away that something is wrong. It's not that she's fidgety or anything. But when Ziva goes stock still, she's either on full alert or thinking hard, and neither of them are appropriate for a second read of her current book. (Among other things, book reading involves turning pages, which hasn't happened for at least five minutes.)
"You okay?" he asks after another tense moment.
"Yes. I'm just thinking."
"Good thinking?" That makes him nervous. He can't help it. Women "thinking" is a deeply ingrained warning sensor for him.
"Just thinking."
"Okay. Work thinking or us thinking?"
"A bit of both."
"Uh huh..." He'd really rather she just told him what was going on, but as they've talked about in counseling, making sure she's got time to get big things right in her head, before he drags them out of her, is important. So, he doesn't push. He wants to. All of his little curious sensors are tingling. But he's not pushing.
He puts his earbuds back in, unpauses the movie, and lets her think.
He didn't have to wait long. Twenty minutes, half an hour maybe. Long enough for him to begin to get sucked into the movie. But, sucked into the movie or not, he certainly notices when Ziva marks her page, rolls onto her stomach, chin resting on her hands, hands on his thigh, and looks up at him. He's not entirely sure, because it doesn't happen a lot (okay, ever) but he thinks this could be Ziva's version of puppy-dog eyes.
He pulls the earbuds out. "Done thinking?"
"For now."
"Okay. So, do I get to find out what you've been thinking about?"
"Yes." She doesn't say anything after that.
"Maybe you could say a bit more than that. You're starting to scare me."
"No. It's not bad, just..." And she pauses, taking a breath, making him more nervous, and then jumps in with what she's been thinking about. "We've been talking about a baby, and I was thinking, once we hire Gibbs' replacement, that might be a good time to start trying."
"Oh." And yeah, that's not bad or anything, it's just...
Yeah.
He's not got much of anything going through his head. The spasm of 'Holy shit, a kid!' terror didn't fire, so that was a good thing. A step in the right direction. But, when they hire Gibbs' replacement is a whole lot more concrete that the somewhat nebulous 'eventually' they'd been bouncing around before.
But, like he let her think, she's letting him think, too. Which is a good thing, because right now, he doesn't know what he's thinking.
Unfortunately, he doesn't feel like he's pulling things together. There's just this huge, vague, something, and he's not sure how to deal with it.
So, he's gently stroking her back, not saying anything, kind of wishing he was saying something, though right now rambling on like a twit probably wouldn't win him any points.
After a good ten silent minutes, he comes up with, "So, like, as soon as we hire the guy, or when he joins the team, or once we know he's sticking around?"
"I was thinking when we hired him. But if you want to wait a bit longer, make sure he's blending in well, we could do that. Say, March or April at the latest."
"Ah... Really celebrate our first anniversary?"
"I was hoping we'd know by then, but, yes."
"Okay." He doesn't exactly sound excited, but there's no dread in his voice.
"Okay?" She double checks. He has the sense she was more than half-expecting him to freak out and melt down at this.
"Yeah, okay." He nods, tries to smile reassuringly.
"Are you really sure?"
They'd been talking about honesty, and that it's all right to be vulnerable with each other, and that actually discussing fears is better than pretending they aren't there, so unlike what he would have done this time last year, he answers honestly. "I don't know."
She smiles a bit, and nods, expecting that.
"Half of me is excited. Half feels like I'm marching off to face the firing squad."
She's not sure what to say to that. She knows, because they've talked about this, that he's, at best, wary about children. And he knows that she wants them.
"I just... I like our life. And, it feels really... something... to have a solid end to that."
"I understand." And she does.
"But I meant it when I said I'd do this with you. When we got married, this... kid thing, was part of it. So, yeah, I'm nervous about it, but, sure, when we get Gibbs' replacement. I'd like to make sure he gets a bit of time to settle in, make sure we're keeping him, but then, sure. We'll do this. Baby DiNozzo, show Palmer and McGee what a beautiful baby really looks like."
She half-smiles at his joke, and then sits up to kiss him.
On Friday, after they got home from Shabbos, after Molly was put to bed, Breena is kneeling on the floor, leaning her upper body against an exercise ball while Jimmy rubs her hips.
"I forgot how much I hate this part."
"Mmm..." He makes an agreeing noise, gently pressing the balls of his thumbs into her sacrum.
"I really don't think I can do forty-two weeks of this again. Everything hurts all over."
He nods.
"Hear that Anna, any time after thirty-six weeks. No hanging around forever like your sister did. When they say your lungs are done, out you come. The sooner the better."
He kisses the small of her back, fingers gently trailing down her spine.
"November 27th. That's thirty-six weeks." She says, hands rubbing her stomach. "That's when we're aiming for. Two more weeks and then out you go. Okay?"
He ripples his knuckles against her back, stroking his palms down her spine, cradling her hips in his hands and squeezing gently. "You want to flip around, sit on the ball, and I'll get your hips and thighs?"
"Sure."
He helps her get up, and seated on the ball, sitting cross-legged between her legs, gently rubbing her thighs and hips. He's resting his forehead (lightly) against her belly, feeling Anna squirming around in there.
He kisses again, lips brushing lightly above the waistband of Breena's leggings, trailing along the line from her now flat belly button to just above her pubic bone.
"Wouldn't mind a little bit longer with her on the inside." He kisses again, hands cradling her butt, and pulls back, smiling up at her. "Don't get to do this," he mouths gently over her. "For far too long once she's out."
Breena chuckles, a visible combination of exasperation (sex, now, really?) on her face as well as approval (I'm very glad you still find me sexy and attractive). "It's a good thing you're awfully cute," she says, ruffling his hair.
He smiles up at her again. "Well, you know, endorphins are good for pain, and for keeping your mood happy, and semen is supposed to help ripen the cervix. And if you want to stay on schedule for the 27th..."
"Uh huh." She's smiling, and takes off his glasses, resting them on the sofa behind him. "I don't remember that working all that hot last time."
"Obviously, we didn't do it nearly enough." He's inching her leggings off, and she stands up to make it easier.
"Obviously."
On Saturday, Gibbs had cleared out his basement and set up the band saw.
It's one of the only power tools he's willing to use. Especially on his own, especially for long pieces of wood, ripping boards is just not a good plan with a hand saw.
All of his wood is stripped. The finish is off.
He's built the guides that will keep each board straight and true as the saw goes through them.
Gibbs takes a deep breath, picks up the first of the beams that will soon be repurposed into bed legs, flips on the saw, places the board into the guide and gently pushes, feeling the saw go tearing through the wood with the sweet hum of destruction that creates.
A moment later, holding two, even, clean-cut pieces, he exhales, realizing he wasn't breathing as he cut.
And holding them, he realizes that he is ready to start to rebuild. The pain he thought he'd experience as he took blade to wood never materialized.
He picks up another of the beams, settles it into the guide, and gets to work.
Next
May 7, 2014
Shards To A Whole: Chapter 319
McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
Chapter 319: Cuckoo
In the six months since they began living together Ducky has learned quite a bit about Penny Langston. (He assumes the converse is true for her, as well.) He's also learned quite a bit about himself, among them, how much he enjoys the quiet intimacy of getting ready for bed with someone, followed by settling in to sleep.
He has, of course, had many bedmates over the years. Many great loves. Yet this moment now, preparing for rest, him sitting on the edge of his bed, undressing, watching Penny, who is sitting at one of her additions to their home, a vanity, taking off her jewelry and brushing her hair, has been a rarity in his life. And the moment to come, when they will lie in bed, resting, finishing off the night with gentle conversation and gentle, or depending on mood, maybe not so gentle touch, is one he eagerly anticipates.
Of course, for Ducky there is an added layer of learning this woman he has chosen to share his life with, namely, he's known her grandson for well over ten years now, and there are times where he finds himself staggered by how sharply she reminds him of Timothy. (Though, technically, it's Timothy reminding him of her, but he didn't meet Penny until he'd known Timothy for almost a decade. As a result he often has to remind himself of the correct direction in which that association lies.)
Right now, the quiet of her motions, the look on her face, the lack of her usual pre-bed conversation, all of that is reminding him of Timothy quite intensely.
Which makes quite a bit of sense, given what happened tonight.
He's been thinking about it, too.
Many thoughts, many ideas, family secrets, questions, and beloved, fragile hearts all in play.
For example, a thought: one that's struck him over and over with this whole thing is that he cannot fathom how two people who put Timothy so thoroughly through the ringer would be good parents to Sarah.
It's obvious watching how the two of them understand their parents, that John and Terri were very much not the same people for Timothy as they were for Sarah.
There is something else, that is, to Ducky, looking in from the outside, obvious. Something he's fairly sure that Penny has to be aware of, but he's equally certain that Timothy and Sarah are not.
And it's something that... he's not sure of. And less sure of voicing his suspicion out loud. If his suspicions are correct... If they are, everything becomes yet more confusing... Or possibly... though that's a version of John he's never contemplated before, a level of self-loathing he does not expect or suspect, less.
"You're thinking loudly." Penny says, looking at him in the mirror, putting her brush down.
"I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was speaking." he says, unbuttoning his shirt.
"You weren't. That's the dead give-away. You stop chattering when you're thinking hard. What has your gears turning?"
Family secrets... Well, given what they got together to talk about today, and that he was welcomed as an insider, as family, by both Penny and Tim... "A rather indelicate question, I'm afraid."
"Really?" Penny looks intrigued, turning to face him as she smoothes moisturizer onto her arms and neck. "What's sparking that?"
"I've been pondering how John and Terri could have been so hard on Timothy, and yet so kind to Sarah."
"Both of them would have told you that Sarah didn't need it. John especially would tell you that she was just fine the way she was."
"Yes. I imagine he would say that." The perversity of that man's mind is staggering to Ducky.
"Was that your indelicate question?"
"No. Though I suppose that one was indelicate, as well. This one, I suppose, is outright rude." Penny's looking very interested in where he's going with this. "I've met Terri twice, and if memory serves, she has blonde hair and green eyes. I saw John once, and I don't remember clearly, but my sense was he had light hair and blue eyes." Penny's nodding at that, and seems to know where this is going. "My sense was neither of them have a cleft chin, either." She nods at that, too. "And yet, Sarah has brown hair, brown eyes, and a bit of a cleft chin."
"She does," Penny says, watching him intently.
He tosses his shirt into the hamper, and turns to face her. "I would not have thought that John would be particularly kind to the cuckoo in his nest."
Penny nods, acknowledging that, then adds, "I'd imagine that would have quite a bit to do with how she got there. And no, I don't know the answer to that. Likewise, I do not specifically know if he's noticed or wondered about the fact that Sarah looks nothing like the rest of us, though I have a hard time believing he could have somehow missed that fact.
"I know they both wanted several children. I know Terri miscarried once before Tim and three times after. It's entirely possible that most of the difference was that Sarah came well after either of them had given up any hope of another child."
"The longed for second chance?" Ducky goes back to getting undressed, and then fetches his pajamas, pulling on the light blue, cotton drawers.
"Maybe." Penny begins dabbing another potion of some sort on her face. "Things were already tense with John and Tim. But, at least as I remember it, they were only tense. But, I also wasn't there for a lot of it. I was there enough to know they got worse after Sarah was born."
"Pre-adolescent hormones making things worse?" Ducky asks, pulling on the matching, long-sleeved buttoned pajama top. Like much of what he owns there's a certain formality to his pajamas, but at the same time, they are old, worn, well-loved and exceptionally well-made cotton.
"Possibly." She shrugs, grabbing yet another bottle and starting to apply a new fluid to her feet and legs. "I think it was more that it was becoming clear that Tim wasn't going to grow out of being quiet or shy, and was still showing absolutely no interest at all in the Navy and John knew the window was closing, fast."
Ducky's still thinking. He just cannot imagine that John would have, on any level, been accepting to a child who wasn't his. And if Terri miscarried over and over... Timothy would have been young, but... not young enough to spring a baby out of nowhere with. A visible pregnancy would have had to happen.
"You didn't live near them when Terri was pregnant with Sarah, did you?"
"No, they were in California that year."
"Are you sure Sarah is Terri's?"
That got a very surprised look out of Penny, she opened her mouth and then closed it, and then opened it again and closed it again. That was an angle that she'd never considered. That was an angle no one (and yes, if she and Nelson were talking about it, other people must have, too) considered. Penny thought about it, remembering everything she could. "We only knew she was pregnant for three months. After four miscarriages we didn't expect them to say anything until Terri was sure the baby was healthy. So, when we found out she was supposed to be twenty weeks along. Sarah was a very large preemie. Almost seven pounds at thirty-two weeks gestation. If she was full term, John was on a float when Sarah would have been conceived. He was on a float when she was born, too. Shipped out the month before she was born. He was home for two of the months in the middle, though.
"If she isn't Terri's, her parents were in on it. They stayed with Tim while she was in the hospital, helped with her when she was brand new."
"Would she have been willing to raise another woman's child?" Ducky asks, heading to the foot of the bed, sitting on the chest in front of their bed, closer to Penny.
She's thinking hard, tapping her fingers against the handle of her brush. "I think by that point, she would have been willing to have done pretty much anything that involved another baby. She talked a bit about adopting when Tim was younger, but nothing ever happened." Penny thinks about it more. "She didn't nurse Sarah. She did for Tim. But with Sarah she was saying it hurt too much and took too long and bottle feeding meant Tim could get a meal or two and she could get a few more hours of sleep. Unlike with Tim, who was born two weeks before John got back for a two-year stint at home, she was basically a single parent for the first year Sarah was alive. He was gone her first four months, home for sixty days, gone for another six months."
"So, like sailors everywhere and through all time, he had ample opportunity to make friends."
"Of course. And he was captain of his own ship by then. If he wanted or needed to swing an unscheduled detour, he could have done it. He also, if memory serves, had female members on his crew then."
"I thought women weren't on combat ships in the US Navy until 1991."
She nods, always impressed by how much information about everything Ducky seems to have. "You're right, combat ships. They started serving in non-combat, non-hospital ships in '78. John wasn't on a combat ship then. Like Tim and I he was always good with technology, and he was running a test ship, all of the latest goodies were floating around under his command, so the closest he ever got to combat on that tour was war gaming. No one wanted the stuff he had getting anywhere near the USSR's navy."
"Ah."
Penny nods, and he can see on her face the idea that this is suddenly making a whole lot of sense. And it's making a whole lot of sense to Ducky, too. Too much sense.
"Their marriage was already more than strained at that point?"
"Their marriage was strained by the time they finished cutting the cake at the wedding."
"But they were also Catholic, and a divorce looks bad for an ambitious officer climbing fast and hard toward Admiral."
"Exactly. Especially on that last push. Everything needs to look perfect when you're trying to get that last jump between Captain and Admiral. Can't run your own house, how can you run a fleet? Can't have people saying that."
"And, would I be remiss in assuming everything he didn't like about Timothy came from Terri, at least according to John?"
"If he felt that way, he was smart enough to never say it in my presence. But I wouldn't be surprised if he eventually felt that way. And..." She shakes her head. "I hate saying this, but it was likely true, too. Terri was quieter, more timid. She thinks first, thinks again, and then does things. She's not a social butterfly; she has a few friends she's very loyal to, her family, and that's it. Given the option of fighting or finding a way to smooth things over, she'll smooth. Tim also looked a lot like her then. The shape of the face and the eyes especially, and the same longish blond hair. God, that hair drove John crazy. Tim liked it longer. John didn't want any of it more than two inches long. Getting it cut off right before his Dad got back was always a fight."
Ducky nods, feeling like the pieces are shifting into place. "So for John the first child, Timothy, is the symbol of a failed marriage and wasted potential. His seed ruined by inferior breeding stock. The second child, Sarah, doesn't have the taint of Terri's genes. Perhaps her mother was one of his shipmates. She's unlimited potential unmarred by a woman he's grown to resent. For Terri, Timothy is a long nightmare of nothing she does, because how he behaves is the yardstick her husband is using to measure her actions, ever being good enough. He's the symbol of her failure as a mother, because she can't force her round peg into the square hole. She wanted more babies, her husband wanted her to have more babies, but she cannot have any more children, yet another marker of failure. For her, Sarah is the fulfilled yearning for another child, and because Sarah delights John, she's a reprieve from the constant grinding of only being judged by how good a job she does of making Timothy into someone he was never suited to become."
That's probably not dead on, but it fits. Penny adds, "And when Sarah is born, John loses the restraint that kept him from fully opening up on Tim. Yes, he's the only boy, so he can't go as hard on Tim as he wants, someone's got to carry on the family name and traditions, but he's not the only child anymore so he can push harder, if it doesn't work out, there's always another shot."
"Add in Timothy's more traditionally feminine traits, and Sarah's more masculine devil-may-care tomboyishness..."
"And it's the perfect storm of everything that could go wrong, going wrong."
Ducky buttons the shirt of his pajamas, and steps over to Penny, leaning down to kiss her. Yes, this feels solid, like a puzzle well-solved, but the glow of putting the pieces together is rapidly cooling in the light of this is his love, and her son, and his children, all warped by this morass of pain.
These are not unknown pieces on a board being shifted around to come to a conclusion for the purpose of solving a crime.
This is her family, and for that matter, his. "But it is only speculation."
She smiles, grimly, a very Timothy gesture. She appreciates the fact that he's trying to soften the idea of it, but also knows the softening isn't real. "It fits. It wasn't the way I was thinking it worked, this works better with who John and Terri are, but... Two years ago Sarah was really excited about that DNA company that let you do your own testing. Learn all about your genome."
Ducky nods. He remembers Jimmy talking about it with Abby.
"She asked all of us if we wanted to do it. Tim seemed interested, but those fascists at FDA shut the company down before we got around to it. Which worked out just fine, because I was fairly certain the results would have been quite surprising to the kids."
"I was thinking that this did not appear to be something that's occurred to either of them."
"If it had ever crossed Tim's mind, he would have said something to me..." She pauses, considering that. "No. He would have had Abby test it, and he'd already know, and then he would have said something to me. If it had ever crossed Sarah's mind, she would have said something to me, her mom, her dad, and Tim."
Ducky nods, that strikes him as how Sarah would handle it. Penny stands, pressing into Ducky's embrace, stroking his face gently. "So, profiler, what do you think? Should he know? Would understanding why Sarah got to be the golden child while he was Cinderella help?"
Ducky shakes his head. "I can't imagine it would. Short of finding out he's not actually John's son, I don't think there's any information along those lines that Timothy would find comforting."
"No. Probably not."
Next
Chapter 319: Cuckoo
In the six months since they began living together Ducky has learned quite a bit about Penny Langston. (He assumes the converse is true for her, as well.) He's also learned quite a bit about himself, among them, how much he enjoys the quiet intimacy of getting ready for bed with someone, followed by settling in to sleep.
He has, of course, had many bedmates over the years. Many great loves. Yet this moment now, preparing for rest, him sitting on the edge of his bed, undressing, watching Penny, who is sitting at one of her additions to their home, a vanity, taking off her jewelry and brushing her hair, has been a rarity in his life. And the moment to come, when they will lie in bed, resting, finishing off the night with gentle conversation and gentle, or depending on mood, maybe not so gentle touch, is one he eagerly anticipates.
Of course, for Ducky there is an added layer of learning this woman he has chosen to share his life with, namely, he's known her grandson for well over ten years now, and there are times where he finds himself staggered by how sharply she reminds him of Timothy. (Though, technically, it's Timothy reminding him of her, but he didn't meet Penny until he'd known Timothy for almost a decade. As a result he often has to remind himself of the correct direction in which that association lies.)
Right now, the quiet of her motions, the look on her face, the lack of her usual pre-bed conversation, all of that is reminding him of Timothy quite intensely.
Which makes quite a bit of sense, given what happened tonight.
He's been thinking about it, too.
Many thoughts, many ideas, family secrets, questions, and beloved, fragile hearts all in play.
For example, a thought: one that's struck him over and over with this whole thing is that he cannot fathom how two people who put Timothy so thoroughly through the ringer would be good parents to Sarah.
It's obvious watching how the two of them understand their parents, that John and Terri were very much not the same people for Timothy as they were for Sarah.
There is something else, that is, to Ducky, looking in from the outside, obvious. Something he's fairly sure that Penny has to be aware of, but he's equally certain that Timothy and Sarah are not.
And it's something that... he's not sure of. And less sure of voicing his suspicion out loud. If his suspicions are correct... If they are, everything becomes yet more confusing... Or possibly... though that's a version of John he's never contemplated before, a level of self-loathing he does not expect or suspect, less.
"You're thinking loudly." Penny says, looking at him in the mirror, putting her brush down.
"I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was speaking." he says, unbuttoning his shirt.
"You weren't. That's the dead give-away. You stop chattering when you're thinking hard. What has your gears turning?"
Family secrets... Well, given what they got together to talk about today, and that he was welcomed as an insider, as family, by both Penny and Tim... "A rather indelicate question, I'm afraid."
"Really?" Penny looks intrigued, turning to face him as she smoothes moisturizer onto her arms and neck. "What's sparking that?"
"I've been pondering how John and Terri could have been so hard on Timothy, and yet so kind to Sarah."
"Both of them would have told you that Sarah didn't need it. John especially would tell you that she was just fine the way she was."
"Yes. I imagine he would say that." The perversity of that man's mind is staggering to Ducky.
"Was that your indelicate question?"
"No. Though I suppose that one was indelicate, as well. This one, I suppose, is outright rude." Penny's looking very interested in where he's going with this. "I've met Terri twice, and if memory serves, she has blonde hair and green eyes. I saw John once, and I don't remember clearly, but my sense was he had light hair and blue eyes." Penny's nodding at that, and seems to know where this is going. "My sense was neither of them have a cleft chin, either." She nods at that, too. "And yet, Sarah has brown hair, brown eyes, and a bit of a cleft chin.""She does," Penny says, watching him intently.
He tosses his shirt into the hamper, and turns to face her. "I would not have thought that John would be particularly kind to the cuckoo in his nest."
Penny nods, acknowledging that, then adds, "I'd imagine that would have quite a bit to do with how she got there. And no, I don't know the answer to that. Likewise, I do not specifically know if he's noticed or wondered about the fact that Sarah looks nothing like the rest of us, though I have a hard time believing he could have somehow missed that fact.
"I know they both wanted several children. I know Terri miscarried once before Tim and three times after. It's entirely possible that most of the difference was that Sarah came well after either of them had given up any hope of another child."
"The longed for second chance?" Ducky goes back to getting undressed, and then fetches his pajamas, pulling on the light blue, cotton drawers.
"Maybe." Penny begins dabbing another potion of some sort on her face. "Things were already tense with John and Tim. But, at least as I remember it, they were only tense. But, I also wasn't there for a lot of it. I was there enough to know they got worse after Sarah was born."
"Pre-adolescent hormones making things worse?" Ducky asks, pulling on the matching, long-sleeved buttoned pajama top. Like much of what he owns there's a certain formality to his pajamas, but at the same time, they are old, worn, well-loved and exceptionally well-made cotton.
"Possibly." She shrugs, grabbing yet another bottle and starting to apply a new fluid to her feet and legs. "I think it was more that it was becoming clear that Tim wasn't going to grow out of being quiet or shy, and was still showing absolutely no interest at all in the Navy and John knew the window was closing, fast."
Ducky's still thinking. He just cannot imagine that John would have, on any level, been accepting to a child who wasn't his. And if Terri miscarried over and over... Timothy would have been young, but... not young enough to spring a baby out of nowhere with. A visible pregnancy would have had to happen.
"You didn't live near them when Terri was pregnant with Sarah, did you?"
"No, they were in California that year."
"Are you sure Sarah is Terri's?"
That got a very surprised look out of Penny, she opened her mouth and then closed it, and then opened it again and closed it again. That was an angle that she'd never considered. That was an angle no one (and yes, if she and Nelson were talking about it, other people must have, too) considered. Penny thought about it, remembering everything she could. "We only knew she was pregnant for three months. After four miscarriages we didn't expect them to say anything until Terri was sure the baby was healthy. So, when we found out she was supposed to be twenty weeks along. Sarah was a very large preemie. Almost seven pounds at thirty-two weeks gestation. If she was full term, John was on a float when Sarah would have been conceived. He was on a float when she was born, too. Shipped out the month before she was born. He was home for two of the months in the middle, though.
"If she isn't Terri's, her parents were in on it. They stayed with Tim while she was in the hospital, helped with her when she was brand new."
"Would she have been willing to raise another woman's child?" Ducky asks, heading to the foot of the bed, sitting on the chest in front of their bed, closer to Penny.
She's thinking hard, tapping her fingers against the handle of her brush. "I think by that point, she would have been willing to have done pretty much anything that involved another baby. She talked a bit about adopting when Tim was younger, but nothing ever happened." Penny thinks about it more. "She didn't nurse Sarah. She did for Tim. But with Sarah she was saying it hurt too much and took too long and bottle feeding meant Tim could get a meal or two and she could get a few more hours of sleep. Unlike with Tim, who was born two weeks before John got back for a two-year stint at home, she was basically a single parent for the first year Sarah was alive. He was gone her first four months, home for sixty days, gone for another six months."
"So, like sailors everywhere and through all time, he had ample opportunity to make friends."
"Of course. And he was captain of his own ship by then. If he wanted or needed to swing an unscheduled detour, he could have done it. He also, if memory serves, had female members on his crew then."
"I thought women weren't on combat ships in the US Navy until 1991."
She nods, always impressed by how much information about everything Ducky seems to have. "You're right, combat ships. They started serving in non-combat, non-hospital ships in '78. John wasn't on a combat ship then. Like Tim and I he was always good with technology, and he was running a test ship, all of the latest goodies were floating around under his command, so the closest he ever got to combat on that tour was war gaming. No one wanted the stuff he had getting anywhere near the USSR's navy."
"Ah."
Penny nods, and he can see on her face the idea that this is suddenly making a whole lot of sense. And it's making a whole lot of sense to Ducky, too. Too much sense.
"Their marriage was already more than strained at that point?"
"Their marriage was strained by the time they finished cutting the cake at the wedding."
"But they were also Catholic, and a divorce looks bad for an ambitious officer climbing fast and hard toward Admiral."
"Exactly. Especially on that last push. Everything needs to look perfect when you're trying to get that last jump between Captain and Admiral. Can't run your own house, how can you run a fleet? Can't have people saying that."
"And, would I be remiss in assuming everything he didn't like about Timothy came from Terri, at least according to John?"
"If he felt that way, he was smart enough to never say it in my presence. But I wouldn't be surprised if he eventually felt that way. And..." She shakes her head. "I hate saying this, but it was likely true, too. Terri was quieter, more timid. She thinks first, thinks again, and then does things. She's not a social butterfly; she has a few friends she's very loyal to, her family, and that's it. Given the option of fighting or finding a way to smooth things over, she'll smooth. Tim also looked a lot like her then. The shape of the face and the eyes especially, and the same longish blond hair. God, that hair drove John crazy. Tim liked it longer. John didn't want any of it more than two inches long. Getting it cut off right before his Dad got back was always a fight."
Ducky nods, feeling like the pieces are shifting into place. "So for John the first child, Timothy, is the symbol of a failed marriage and wasted potential. His seed ruined by inferior breeding stock. The second child, Sarah, doesn't have the taint of Terri's genes. Perhaps her mother was one of his shipmates. She's unlimited potential unmarred by a woman he's grown to resent. For Terri, Timothy is a long nightmare of nothing she does, because how he behaves is the yardstick her husband is using to measure her actions, ever being good enough. He's the symbol of her failure as a mother, because she can't force her round peg into the square hole. She wanted more babies, her husband wanted her to have more babies, but she cannot have any more children, yet another marker of failure. For her, Sarah is the fulfilled yearning for another child, and because Sarah delights John, she's a reprieve from the constant grinding of only being judged by how good a job she does of making Timothy into someone he was never suited to become."
That's probably not dead on, but it fits. Penny adds, "And when Sarah is born, John loses the restraint that kept him from fully opening up on Tim. Yes, he's the only boy, so he can't go as hard on Tim as he wants, someone's got to carry on the family name and traditions, but he's not the only child anymore so he can push harder, if it doesn't work out, there's always another shot."
"Add in Timothy's more traditionally feminine traits, and Sarah's more masculine devil-may-care tomboyishness..."
"And it's the perfect storm of everything that could go wrong, going wrong."
Ducky buttons the shirt of his pajamas, and steps over to Penny, leaning down to kiss her. Yes, this feels solid, like a puzzle well-solved, but the glow of putting the pieces together is rapidly cooling in the light of this is his love, and her son, and his children, all warped by this morass of pain.
These are not unknown pieces on a board being shifted around to come to a conclusion for the purpose of solving a crime.
This is her family, and for that matter, his. "But it is only speculation."
She smiles, grimly, a very Timothy gesture. She appreciates the fact that he's trying to soften the idea of it, but also knows the softening isn't real. "It fits. It wasn't the way I was thinking it worked, this works better with who John and Terri are, but... Two years ago Sarah was really excited about that DNA company that let you do your own testing. Learn all about your genome."
Ducky nods. He remembers Jimmy talking about it with Abby.
"She asked all of us if we wanted to do it. Tim seemed interested, but those fascists at FDA shut the company down before we got around to it. Which worked out just fine, because I was fairly certain the results would have been quite surprising to the kids."
"I was thinking that this did not appear to be something that's occurred to either of them."
"If it had ever crossed Tim's mind, he would have said something to me..." She pauses, considering that. "No. He would have had Abby test it, and he'd already know, and then he would have said something to me. If it had ever crossed Sarah's mind, she would have said something to me, her mom, her dad, and Tim."
Ducky nods, that strikes him as how Sarah would handle it. Penny stands, pressing into Ducky's embrace, stroking his face gently. "So, profiler, what do you think? Should he know? Would understanding why Sarah got to be the golden child while he was Cinderella help?"
Ducky shakes his head. "I can't imagine it would. Short of finding out he's not actually John's son, I don't think there's any information along those lines that Timothy would find comforting."
"No. Probably not."
Next
May 6, 2014
Shards To A Whole: Chapter 318
McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
Chapter 318: Goodnight, Kelly
When they got home from the Slaters', Abby put Kelly in her crib, Tim vanished, and Gibbs realized he either needed to head home now, and grab stuff for tomorrow, or he was going to be getting up really early tomorrow to run home then.
He went up to the guest room, grabbed his bag, and headed down.
"Gonna run home, swap out my clothes."
Abby nods at that, she's on her computer, reading something. "You know, you could just leave stuff in that room. I know you don't live on the other side of the earth, but, for nights you don't feel like running home... It's fine with both of us if you want to treat that like your room. We've both been thinking of it as your room."
That actually would be really convenient. He nods, feeling a little surprised at how he's not feeling any sense of reticence towards grabbing some stuff and leaving it here. It doesn't feel like intruding.
"If you let me know what sort of pillows you like..."
"Everything you've got in there is fine."
"Okay. Just, feel free to make it comfortable. Anything you want, add to the grocery list. We'll keep it stocked for you."
When he got back a bit more than an hour later, Abby was pumping, watching something on TV, Kelly was still snoozing, and he could hear music coming from Tim's office.
He put his stuff upstairs, unpacked, didn't take too long to find a home for a few changes of clothing and one suit, and headed back down.
"Making sure we're all set for dinner?" he asks Abby as she wraps up with the breast pump.
"Yep. Heather tells me she gets irate when supper isn't breast milk."
"And we wouldn't want that."
"Not at all."
About three minutes after Tim and Abby headed out, Gibbs hears Kelly start to cry. He pauses the game, and heads up the stairs.
"Just you and me tonight," he says as he heads in, scooping her out of her crib.
She gurgles at him, looking like she approves.
He tickles her tummy as he gets her out of her extra-warm footy-pajamas for her diaper change. Unlike tights, these are easy. Just a zipper from neck to foot, and he can handle that one-handed. Pink with little kittens on it. He thinks he's seen this on Molly. Wouldn't surprise him. He does know that a pile of baby clothing migrated from the Palmer house to the McGee house when it was clear that Kelly was a girl, and he knows that clothing (along with some skull-bedecked onesies that he deeply doubts will ever end up on Anna) heads right back as Kelly outgrows it. Breena's got everything ready for Anna now, they're just waiting for her to show up. Though, he thinks, it'd be nice if she decided to cook for at least a few more weeks.
He gets Kelly cleaned up, and then gets him cleaned up, and in a matter of minutes they both head down for some dinner.
Abby did order him some pizza, which he's enjoying. And Kelly's propped against his chest, slurping happily on her bottle.
He turns the game back on, and both of them have dinner while the Redskins wipe the floor with the Steelers.
"Those guys in red are your Uncle Tony and Uncle Ed's team. The ones in black and yellow are our team. When the ones in red have the ball, we say 'Booooo!'" He stretches the sound out, exaggerating it. She gives him the perplexed look that seems to be her standard response to adults goofing with her. "We'll work on that whole sense of humor thing," he says as she drains the bottle dry. She fusses a bit, looking like she's still hungry.
"You want more?" She continues to fuss at him.
"Don't have more of this. I can get you formula."
More fussing.
"Formula it is." He makes up another bottle, one-handed, Kelly pressed against his chest. "I think you're getting ready for a growth spurt. Might be getting onto time to add some cereal to your diet, too."
He lifts the formula bottle to her lips, and she does that little, uggh, this stuff face as she takes her first suck. "Yeah, I know, you don't love this. It's supposed to be really good for you."
She keeps sucking.
"Your mom tells me this is chemically identical to breast milk. Same fats and proteins and whatever. Doesn't have the micro-nutrients, but it's as close as she could get you."
Kelly doesn't appear to be impressed.
"Yeah. It's not the same, is it?"
More unimpressed suckling. He takes them back into the living room, and turns the game back on. "On the upside, you're not going hungry. And I'm not having to decide for myself if you're getting some cereal for the first time tonight."
They settle in for another quarter of the game. He's sitting there, enjoying the pleasant, warm weight of her against his tummy, as well as the little mwuf, mwuf, mwuf, sucking sound of a contently eating infant. He notices the sucking is slowing down and she's a good two-thirds of the way through her second bottle, so she's probably feeling full enough.
"Burp time?" He shifts the rag that had been tucked under her chin, catching the drips of milk and formula that hadn't been making it into Kelly, and drapes it over his shoulder. He props her against his chest, stands up, and starts his patting and slightly bouncy stroll of a walk.
It takes a minute or two, but he does coax a burp out of her, and she settles in more comfortably against him.
He shifts his hold, so she's in his arms, looking up at him. "Feeling better?" He nods for her. "Good. Tubby time. Someone's smelly, and it's not me."
When he did this last week, Kelly didn't get a bath. She didn't need one. But she is definitely a bit whiffy today, and bath time, when she needs one, is part of her bedtime routine. Plus it's not like he's never given a baby a bath before. He doesn't think Tim or Abby will mind.
So, up to the tubby they go. He gets the water going, gets her stripped off, and is in the process of putting her in the little bath caddy thing they've got in there for her when his knee sends him a loud and clear message that it will not be going along with any adventure that involves spending more than another thirty seconds kneeling, and that if he does not stand up or sit down right now, it is going to complain in a very loud and unfortunate manner, possibly involving him having to go back to wearing the brace all the damn time.
Which means he's sitting on the edge of the tub, naked baby in his arms, who is a human time bomb of sorts, just waiting to pee on him, having to figure out how to do this without kneeling. Sitting on the edge of the tub he's too high up to easily wash her off, and way too high up to keep a good grip on her.
So that leaves getting into the tub with her, either standing for a shower, or sitting in the tub. (Or putting the afore mentioned pretty whiffy baby back into her jammies and punting the problem to the next day. But in that he's a take-charge, Marine kind of guy, the idea of just ignoring it never occurs to him. The mission is washed baby, and he will not fail!)
He wonders, briefly, if it'll bug Tim or Abby that he's getting in the tub with Kelly. He's awfully sure it won't be a problem for Abby. Not as sure about Tim. He does know that Tim gets in with her, if he didn't know that, or if it wasn't true, he'd be eyeballing the baby wipes and just giving her a sponge bath. But, just because Tim gets in with her, doesn't mean Tim's cool with other naked guys around his baby daughter.
He carries Kelly over to her changing table, laying her down, and quickly strips out of his own clothing. (He leaves his boxers on as a compromise between naked and dressed. He knows Jimmy's been at the pool with Kelly, so it's not like she hasn't had some naked chest time with someone who wasn't Dad.) And picking her back up, snuggling her close, she made a very surprised sound, and immediately got both of her tiny hands gripped vice tight in his chest hair.
As he was gently prying her fingers open, hoping he doesn't have two bald patches on his chest from how tight she's grabbing him, he says, "I know; I'm a lot fuzzier than Dad and Uncle Jimmy. I'm also attached to that fuzz, so quit trying to yank it out."
Maybe she's listening, maybe not. But once he gets the second hand open, she stops trying to rip his chest hair out. She does keep pressing her cheek against his chest, making a sort of surprised squawking sound, pulling back, and doing it again.
He looks down at her the third time she does it, as he's testing the water to see if it's nicely warm. "Are you laughing?"
She does it one more time and makes that sound again. He rubs his chest a little and says, "Yeah, I guess it is kind of tickle-y."
She's eyeballing his nipple, trying to grab it. She doesn't have enough fine motor control to get it, but her hand keeps landing in the right general area. "Just like with Dad, that doesn't do anything you're interested in," he says as he notices that he's only got one towel in there, and it's hers. He takes her hand in his as when she gets his chest hair again, heading into the hall to find another towel. "Okay. Got it. We're all set for shower time."
He steps in, back to the spray, and then turns slowly. "We good?"
She doesn't fuss, so he thinks this is probably success and proceeds to get her washed off. She's a plump little thing, so washing off involves getting soap worked into knee folds and elbow folds and the like, which she seems to consider tickly, too, so there's a lot of pleased squirming as he's getting her lathered up, and then some not so pleased squirming, she's determined to not let him wash under her chin, but after about five minutes she's all cleaned up and rinsed off, and it's time to get out.
He gets her wrapped up in her towel. It has a little hood, which he thinks is a nice addition to baby gear, and also wings, a tail, and horns, (Of course it's a dragon, a little pink and pastel blue dragon. Molly's got a puppy one. There's a kitten one waiting for Anna for when she gets home.) which he's not seeing as much use for, but she does seem to enjoy chewing on one of the horns as he dries her off. He quickly dries himself off, slipping off the soaked boxers, wrapping his towel around his waist, and takes her to her bedroom.
Dried off, diaper on, fresh jammies on, pacifier in mouth, sleepy baby cuddled in his arms, slowly sucking her pacifier, eyes drooping: that feels good. He settles with her in the rocking chair, gently swaying back and forth. He doesn't pick up the book. She doesn't look at the pictures. These days, reading to Kelly is more about the sound than anything else.
Besides, he knows the words.
So, he gently strokes her back and starts with, "In the great green room, there was a telephone, a red balloon, and a picture of the cow jumping over the moon..."
Before Kelly, he hadn't thought about those words in decades. Didn't know he still knew them. But he does. And right now, words slipping off his lips, quietly, eyes closed, as he rocks back and forth, it could be, save for the dull ache in his knee, 1982, and he could be doing this in a small nursery in base housing at Lejeune.
He finishes up, adding 'Goodnight Kelly' the final line he always used, gently putting her down, and then heads to his room to get dressed.
Tim and Abby get home and find Gibbs on the sofa, reading, in his PJs. He's looking very comfy. (Game wrapped ten minutes earlier; Redskins (booo) won.)
Abby leads Tim into the living room, plunks him on the sofa next to Gibbs, tosses the Playstation controllers at them and says, "Fun. This has been a god-awful grim weekend and we are finishing it off with some fun!"
Tim's looking at her defeatedly, like he'll go along with this but all he really wants to do is sleep. Gibbs doesn't think dinner went badly, neither Tim nor Abby have that sort of feel about them, and he's sure that if it had been a disaster Ducky or Penny would have given him a heads up, but it's been a long two days, and Tim's fried. He doesn't look like he's thinking gaming will be fun, and Gibbs certainly isn't.
Gibbs is glaring at the controller; reading was fun. The game, even with the Redskins winning, was fun. Bedtime was fun. Anything that involves one of these confounded glowing electronic things is not fun.
She comes back a moment later with three ciders. One for each of them, all open. Tim drinks his pretty thankfully, right now some alcohol would be a good thing for him, blur the edges a bit, and Gibbs takes a deep drink, it'll make whatever it is she's got in mind easier.
She sits in Tim's lap, turns on the tv and the playstation, flips around for a few seconds and queues up a game. "This one's really easy."
Gibbs is staring at the tv. Then he blinks slowly and looks at her. "Plants Versus Zombies III? They needed three of these?"
"Yes." She smiles brightly, but there's a brittleness to that smile, she's not as happy as she seems because she's trying to make things lighter than they are. "Because it's fun!"
Gibbs gets that message loud and clear. He is being shanghaied into fun, and he will have fun or answer to a mope-y Abby. So, if enjoying whatever comes next will make them feel better, he can fake it for an hour or so. "Do you own all three?"
"Of course!" She flips it onto two players, taking another drink. "You're going to watch Tim and I play, then you get to."
Gibbs is staring at the screen, weak smile on his face. He's not loving the idea of playing this. But Tim's starting to grin.
"This one's pretty easy, Jethro. Just use three buttons," he says, taking a drink, starting to look a bit more alive.
"Yeah, simple controls, but it's a defensive strategy game. Your job is to use the plants to defend the house. If the Zombies get in, they eat your brains and you lose." A cartoon lawn with a hedge on one end and a house on the other pops up on the TV. Abby plants a smiling flower and starts moving the cursor around collecting smiling cartoon suns. "You just swoop around, collecting suns, and planting your plants, and then they kill the Zombies."
Tim starts to relax a bit. "It's a silly game. Simple controls, but not a simple game. Lots of different Zombies, lots of plants, everything does something different, and the terrain changes every level." He kisses his wife. This is exactly what he needs right now. Something completely unrelated to the rest of his life that will hold his attention, but is easy enough it doesn't involve adrenaline spikes. Win, lose, doesn't matter, this is cute and fun. "Thanks."
She kisses back. "Anytime, baby."
"Okay. So, these little flowers here," he starts explaining to Gibbs, "are like your banking system. You've got to plant them to make sure you can buy the stuff you need to defend with. These pea plants are like rifles. They shoot one pea at a time. The walnuts are a barrier defense..."
Gibbs listens to Tim explaining what's going on as he and Abby start building their fortress. They get a minute to put things in place before the Zombies start to shuffle their way through.
"So, you see how the pea keeps shooting and the Zombie dies?"
"Yeah, I can see that, Tim." Not blind yet, even if I do need glasses all the time now.
"Good, so that's the game. More plants that do more damage. Bigger, faster, badder Zombies. You've got to make sure you've got enough sun for the plants and you've got to wait between plantings."
"I think I've got it. You need a rifle pit in the top line." There's nothing shooting up there, and a new Zombie's wandering toward the house.
"On it," Abby says, planting the pea shooter.
"What's that corn cob thing you've got?" Jethro asks Tim. (When they play Abby handles making sure they've got enough sunshine, and small arms fire, Tim handles barriers, big guns, and last ditch efforts.)
"Multi-directional mortar fire."
"Hmmm..." He can see the value of that. Especially as crowds of Zombies are starting to head toward the house. "The hot pepper?"
"Single line napalm fire."
"Hmp." Jethro keeps watching as horde after horde of Zombies die before getting into the house. But he's thinking he's getting the hang of this. The plants and Zombies are silly, but it looks like the strategy aspect is solid.
And he's good at strategy. After all, if you want someone to defend a house against a horde of anything, let alone Zombies, Leroy Jethro Gibbs is your man.
More importantly, this is the first time he's seen Tim laugh since work on Friday, so anything that'll help with that, he's willing to try.
Tim and Abby play three levels, while Gibbs watches intently. As the last Zombie on that level died, Gibbs says to Abby, "Okay, hand that over. Let me try."
That gets a smile out of Tim, and a happy laugh out of Abby, who shifts next to him, starting to point out what buttons do what.
And all in all, it's not that bad, kind of addictive, really. He might, possibly, be interested in playing this again.
They'd been at it for an hour, he and Abby swapping the controller, Tim playing straight through, when Kelly begins chirping for second dinner.
"And that's my call," Abby says, handing the controller over to Jethro.
"How'd it go?" he asks Tim as he plants landmines. (Some sort of potato thing. He has an easier time just thinking of them by what sort of weapon they are.)
"Better than yesterday."
"Not a high hurdle to clear."
"Nope." Tim shakes his head at that. "You and Kelly?"
"Fine. Realized half-way through my knee wasn't up for kneeling to give her a bath."
"Tubby tomorrow then?"
Gibbs looks appalled at the idea that mere knee issues may have waylaid him from his goal of a clean baby. "Got in with her. Figured I should make sure that was okay, though."
Tim shrugs. "Doesn't bug me. Can't imagine it'd bug Abby."
"Good. Just figured I should check."
Tim thinks about it for a second. "If it's something you would have done with your Kelly, it's okay to do it with mine." He goes very quiet after that, not saying anything, not paying attention to the game.
After a minute, Gibbs asks, "You okay?"
"As much as I've been any time since yesterday." He shakes his head. "We were talking a little about forgiveness and what it would look like. And I just said that to you. Just slipped right off my tongue without a second thought. And I don't need to give it a second thought. I know you'll be okay with her. Sun rises in the east. Gravity pulls stuff toward earth. Kelly is safe with Gibbs. Absolute truth." He smiles limply at Gibbs. "Assuming I ever did get to forgiving her, let alone allowing her back into our lives, that's something I'd never be sure of with my mom."
Gibbs puts the controller down and rubs Tim's shoulder. "You thinkin' about it?"
"My sister would really like it."
"I'm sure she would. Doesn't mean it's a good plan."
"I know."
"Doesn't mean it's a bad one, either."
"Thanks," Tim says dryly. And then, more seriously. "What would you do?"
"I'm not you."
"Which is why I'm asking. Sarah kept pointing out, it's been twenty years, she's not the person she used to be..."
Gibbs does think about it. He takes a few minutes to put the words together properly. "I think trust is what builds families. I think part of what makes our family different, stronger, is that our trust in each other was earned. It's not a matter of accident or blood. It's that every day, for years, we put ourselves on the line for each other. When push came to shove, we all stood up and shoved back for each other. Even when we're rubbing each other wrong, we all know, in our bones and souls, that we've got each other's backs to the end." He stops at that, takes a breath, sees Tim watching him, listening very intently, and continues on, "The best, most charitable version of what happened with you and your mom is that when push came to shove, she rolled on over and let your Dad steamroll you and her. The real version is worse. She broke your trust. And different person or not, twenty years or not, reformed or not, you'd be insane to trust her with you, your wife, or your child. And since that's true, she can't be family. Coming to terms with that, making peace with it, getting to the point where you can tolerate spending an afternoon with your sister's mom for your sister's sake, all of that is probably a good idea. But I don't think she's your family, and I know she's not mine."
Tim nods at that and stands up, shutting off the game. "Thanks." That time it was genuine. "Abby'll be wrapping up with Kelly soon, and I'm beat. 'Night."
"Good night, Tim."
Next
Chapter 318: Goodnight, Kelly
When they got home from the Slaters', Abby put Kelly in her crib, Tim vanished, and Gibbs realized he either needed to head home now, and grab stuff for tomorrow, or he was going to be getting up really early tomorrow to run home then.
He went up to the guest room, grabbed his bag, and headed down.
"Gonna run home, swap out my clothes."
Abby nods at that, she's on her computer, reading something. "You know, you could just leave stuff in that room. I know you don't live on the other side of the earth, but, for nights you don't feel like running home... It's fine with both of us if you want to treat that like your room. We've both been thinking of it as your room."
That actually would be really convenient. He nods, feeling a little surprised at how he's not feeling any sense of reticence towards grabbing some stuff and leaving it here. It doesn't feel like intruding.
"If you let me know what sort of pillows you like..."
"Everything you've got in there is fine."
"Okay. Just, feel free to make it comfortable. Anything you want, add to the grocery list. We'll keep it stocked for you."
When he got back a bit more than an hour later, Abby was pumping, watching something on TV, Kelly was still snoozing, and he could hear music coming from Tim's office.
He put his stuff upstairs, unpacked, didn't take too long to find a home for a few changes of clothing and one suit, and headed back down.
"Making sure we're all set for dinner?" he asks Abby as she wraps up with the breast pump.
"Yep. Heather tells me she gets irate when supper isn't breast milk."
"And we wouldn't want that."
"Not at all."
About three minutes after Tim and Abby headed out, Gibbs hears Kelly start to cry. He pauses the game, and heads up the stairs.
"Just you and me tonight," he says as he heads in, scooping her out of her crib.
She gurgles at him, looking like she approves.
He tickles her tummy as he gets her out of her extra-warm footy-pajamas for her diaper change. Unlike tights, these are easy. Just a zipper from neck to foot, and he can handle that one-handed. Pink with little kittens on it. He thinks he's seen this on Molly. Wouldn't surprise him. He does know that a pile of baby clothing migrated from the Palmer house to the McGee house when it was clear that Kelly was a girl, and he knows that clothing (along with some skull-bedecked onesies that he deeply doubts will ever end up on Anna) heads right back as Kelly outgrows it. Breena's got everything ready for Anna now, they're just waiting for her to show up. Though, he thinks, it'd be nice if she decided to cook for at least a few more weeks.
He gets Kelly cleaned up, and then gets him cleaned up, and in a matter of minutes they both head down for some dinner.
Abby did order him some pizza, which he's enjoying. And Kelly's propped against his chest, slurping happily on her bottle.
He turns the game back on, and both of them have dinner while the Redskins wipe the floor with the Steelers.
"Those guys in red are your Uncle Tony and Uncle Ed's team. The ones in black and yellow are our team. When the ones in red have the ball, we say 'Booooo!'" He stretches the sound out, exaggerating it. She gives him the perplexed look that seems to be her standard response to adults goofing with her. "We'll work on that whole sense of humor thing," he says as she drains the bottle dry. She fusses a bit, looking like she's still hungry.
"You want more?" She continues to fuss at him.
"Don't have more of this. I can get you formula."
More fussing.
"Formula it is." He makes up another bottle, one-handed, Kelly pressed against his chest. "I think you're getting ready for a growth spurt. Might be getting onto time to add some cereal to your diet, too."
He lifts the formula bottle to her lips, and she does that little, uggh, this stuff face as she takes her first suck. "Yeah, I know, you don't love this. It's supposed to be really good for you."
She keeps sucking.
"Your mom tells me this is chemically identical to breast milk. Same fats and proteins and whatever. Doesn't have the micro-nutrients, but it's as close as she could get you."
Kelly doesn't appear to be impressed.
"Yeah. It's not the same, is it?"
More unimpressed suckling. He takes them back into the living room, and turns the game back on. "On the upside, you're not going hungry. And I'm not having to decide for myself if you're getting some cereal for the first time tonight."
They settle in for another quarter of the game. He's sitting there, enjoying the pleasant, warm weight of her against his tummy, as well as the little mwuf, mwuf, mwuf, sucking sound of a contently eating infant. He notices the sucking is slowing down and she's a good two-thirds of the way through her second bottle, so she's probably feeling full enough.
"Burp time?" He shifts the rag that had been tucked under her chin, catching the drips of milk and formula that hadn't been making it into Kelly, and drapes it over his shoulder. He props her against his chest, stands up, and starts his patting and slightly bouncy stroll of a walk.
It takes a minute or two, but he does coax a burp out of her, and she settles in more comfortably against him.
He shifts his hold, so she's in his arms, looking up at him. "Feeling better?" He nods for her. "Good. Tubby time. Someone's smelly, and it's not me."
When he did this last week, Kelly didn't get a bath. She didn't need one. But she is definitely a bit whiffy today, and bath time, when she needs one, is part of her bedtime routine. Plus it's not like he's never given a baby a bath before. He doesn't think Tim or Abby will mind.
So, up to the tubby they go. He gets the water going, gets her stripped off, and is in the process of putting her in the little bath caddy thing they've got in there for her when his knee sends him a loud and clear message that it will not be going along with any adventure that involves spending more than another thirty seconds kneeling, and that if he does not stand up or sit down right now, it is going to complain in a very loud and unfortunate manner, possibly involving him having to go back to wearing the brace all the damn time.
Which means he's sitting on the edge of the tub, naked baby in his arms, who is a human time bomb of sorts, just waiting to pee on him, having to figure out how to do this without kneeling. Sitting on the edge of the tub he's too high up to easily wash her off, and way too high up to keep a good grip on her.
So that leaves getting into the tub with her, either standing for a shower, or sitting in the tub. (Or putting the afore mentioned pretty whiffy baby back into her jammies and punting the problem to the next day. But in that he's a take-charge, Marine kind of guy, the idea of just ignoring it never occurs to him. The mission is washed baby, and he will not fail!)
He wonders, briefly, if it'll bug Tim or Abby that he's getting in the tub with Kelly. He's awfully sure it won't be a problem for Abby. Not as sure about Tim. He does know that Tim gets in with her, if he didn't know that, or if it wasn't true, he'd be eyeballing the baby wipes and just giving her a sponge bath. But, just because Tim gets in with her, doesn't mean Tim's cool with other naked guys around his baby daughter.
He carries Kelly over to her changing table, laying her down, and quickly strips out of his own clothing. (He leaves his boxers on as a compromise between naked and dressed. He knows Jimmy's been at the pool with Kelly, so it's not like she hasn't had some naked chest time with someone who wasn't Dad.) And picking her back up, snuggling her close, she made a very surprised sound, and immediately got both of her tiny hands gripped vice tight in his chest hair.
As he was gently prying her fingers open, hoping he doesn't have two bald patches on his chest from how tight she's grabbing him, he says, "I know; I'm a lot fuzzier than Dad and Uncle Jimmy. I'm also attached to that fuzz, so quit trying to yank it out."
Maybe she's listening, maybe not. But once he gets the second hand open, she stops trying to rip his chest hair out. She does keep pressing her cheek against his chest, making a sort of surprised squawking sound, pulling back, and doing it again.
He looks down at her the third time she does it, as he's testing the water to see if it's nicely warm. "Are you laughing?"
She does it one more time and makes that sound again. He rubs his chest a little and says, "Yeah, I guess it is kind of tickle-y."
She's eyeballing his nipple, trying to grab it. She doesn't have enough fine motor control to get it, but her hand keeps landing in the right general area. "Just like with Dad, that doesn't do anything you're interested in," he says as he notices that he's only got one towel in there, and it's hers. He takes her hand in his as when she gets his chest hair again, heading into the hall to find another towel. "Okay. Got it. We're all set for shower time."
He steps in, back to the spray, and then turns slowly. "We good?"
She doesn't fuss, so he thinks this is probably success and proceeds to get her washed off. She's a plump little thing, so washing off involves getting soap worked into knee folds and elbow folds and the like, which she seems to consider tickly, too, so there's a lot of pleased squirming as he's getting her lathered up, and then some not so pleased squirming, she's determined to not let him wash under her chin, but after about five minutes she's all cleaned up and rinsed off, and it's time to get out.
He gets her wrapped up in her towel. It has a little hood, which he thinks is a nice addition to baby gear, and also wings, a tail, and horns, (Of course it's a dragon, a little pink and pastel blue dragon. Molly's got a puppy one. There's a kitten one waiting for Anna for when she gets home.) which he's not seeing as much use for, but she does seem to enjoy chewing on one of the horns as he dries her off. He quickly dries himself off, slipping off the soaked boxers, wrapping his towel around his waist, and takes her to her bedroom.
Dried off, diaper on, fresh jammies on, pacifier in mouth, sleepy baby cuddled in his arms, slowly sucking her pacifier, eyes drooping: that feels good. He settles with her in the rocking chair, gently swaying back and forth. He doesn't pick up the book. She doesn't look at the pictures. These days, reading to Kelly is more about the sound than anything else.
Besides, he knows the words.
So, he gently strokes her back and starts with, "In the great green room, there was a telephone, a red balloon, and a picture of the cow jumping over the moon..."
Before Kelly, he hadn't thought about those words in decades. Didn't know he still knew them. But he does. And right now, words slipping off his lips, quietly, eyes closed, as he rocks back and forth, it could be, save for the dull ache in his knee, 1982, and he could be doing this in a small nursery in base housing at Lejeune.
He finishes up, adding 'Goodnight Kelly' the final line he always used, gently putting her down, and then heads to his room to get dressed.
Tim and Abby get home and find Gibbs on the sofa, reading, in his PJs. He's looking very comfy. (Game wrapped ten minutes earlier; Redskins (booo) won.)
Abby leads Tim into the living room, plunks him on the sofa next to Gibbs, tosses the Playstation controllers at them and says, "Fun. This has been a god-awful grim weekend and we are finishing it off with some fun!"
Tim's looking at her defeatedly, like he'll go along with this but all he really wants to do is sleep. Gibbs doesn't think dinner went badly, neither Tim nor Abby have that sort of feel about them, and he's sure that if it had been a disaster Ducky or Penny would have given him a heads up, but it's been a long two days, and Tim's fried. He doesn't look like he's thinking gaming will be fun, and Gibbs certainly isn't.
Gibbs is glaring at the controller; reading was fun. The game, even with the Redskins winning, was fun. Bedtime was fun. Anything that involves one of these confounded glowing electronic things is not fun.
She comes back a moment later with three ciders. One for each of them, all open. Tim drinks his pretty thankfully, right now some alcohol would be a good thing for him, blur the edges a bit, and Gibbs takes a deep drink, it'll make whatever it is she's got in mind easier.
She sits in Tim's lap, turns on the tv and the playstation, flips around for a few seconds and queues up a game. "This one's really easy."
Gibbs is staring at the tv. Then he blinks slowly and looks at her. "Plants Versus Zombies III? They needed three of these?"
"Yes." She smiles brightly, but there's a brittleness to that smile, she's not as happy as she seems because she's trying to make things lighter than they are. "Because it's fun!"
Gibbs gets that message loud and clear. He is being shanghaied into fun, and he will have fun or answer to a mope-y Abby. So, if enjoying whatever comes next will make them feel better, he can fake it for an hour or so. "Do you own all three?"
"Of course!" She flips it onto two players, taking another drink. "You're going to watch Tim and I play, then you get to."
Gibbs is staring at the screen, weak smile on his face. He's not loving the idea of playing this. But Tim's starting to grin.
"This one's pretty easy, Jethro. Just use three buttons," he says, taking a drink, starting to look a bit more alive.
"Yeah, simple controls, but it's a defensive strategy game. Your job is to use the plants to defend the house. If the Zombies get in, they eat your brains and you lose." A cartoon lawn with a hedge on one end and a house on the other pops up on the TV. Abby plants a smiling flower and starts moving the cursor around collecting smiling cartoon suns. "You just swoop around, collecting suns, and planting your plants, and then they kill the Zombies."
Tim starts to relax a bit. "It's a silly game. Simple controls, but not a simple game. Lots of different Zombies, lots of plants, everything does something different, and the terrain changes every level." He kisses his wife. This is exactly what he needs right now. Something completely unrelated to the rest of his life that will hold his attention, but is easy enough it doesn't involve adrenaline spikes. Win, lose, doesn't matter, this is cute and fun. "Thanks."She kisses back. "Anytime, baby."
"Okay. So, these little flowers here," he starts explaining to Gibbs, "are like your banking system. You've got to plant them to make sure you can buy the stuff you need to defend with. These pea plants are like rifles. They shoot one pea at a time. The walnuts are a barrier defense..."
Gibbs listens to Tim explaining what's going on as he and Abby start building their fortress. They get a minute to put things in place before the Zombies start to shuffle their way through.
"So, you see how the pea keeps shooting and the Zombie dies?"
"Yeah, I can see that, Tim." Not blind yet, even if I do need glasses all the time now.
"Good, so that's the game. More plants that do more damage. Bigger, faster, badder Zombies. You've got to make sure you've got enough sun for the plants and you've got to wait between plantings."
"I think I've got it. You need a rifle pit in the top line." There's nothing shooting up there, and a new Zombie's wandering toward the house.
"On it," Abby says, planting the pea shooter.
"What's that corn cob thing you've got?" Jethro asks Tim. (When they play Abby handles making sure they've got enough sunshine, and small arms fire, Tim handles barriers, big guns, and last ditch efforts.)
"Multi-directional mortar fire."
"Hmmm..." He can see the value of that. Especially as crowds of Zombies are starting to head toward the house. "The hot pepper?"
"Single line napalm fire."
"Hmp." Jethro keeps watching as horde after horde of Zombies die before getting into the house. But he's thinking he's getting the hang of this. The plants and Zombies are silly, but it looks like the strategy aspect is solid.
And he's good at strategy. After all, if you want someone to defend a house against a horde of anything, let alone Zombies, Leroy Jethro Gibbs is your man.
More importantly, this is the first time he's seen Tim laugh since work on Friday, so anything that'll help with that, he's willing to try.
Tim and Abby play three levels, while Gibbs watches intently. As the last Zombie on that level died, Gibbs says to Abby, "Okay, hand that over. Let me try."
That gets a smile out of Tim, and a happy laugh out of Abby, who shifts next to him, starting to point out what buttons do what.
And all in all, it's not that bad, kind of addictive, really. He might, possibly, be interested in playing this again.
They'd been at it for an hour, he and Abby swapping the controller, Tim playing straight through, when Kelly begins chirping for second dinner.
"And that's my call," Abby says, handing the controller over to Jethro.
"How'd it go?" he asks Tim as he plants landmines. (Some sort of potato thing. He has an easier time just thinking of them by what sort of weapon they are.)
"Better than yesterday."
"Not a high hurdle to clear."
"Nope." Tim shakes his head at that. "You and Kelly?"
"Fine. Realized half-way through my knee wasn't up for kneeling to give her a bath."
"Tubby tomorrow then?"
Gibbs looks appalled at the idea that mere knee issues may have waylaid him from his goal of a clean baby. "Got in with her. Figured I should make sure that was okay, though."
Tim shrugs. "Doesn't bug me. Can't imagine it'd bug Abby."
"Good. Just figured I should check."
Tim thinks about it for a second. "If it's something you would have done with your Kelly, it's okay to do it with mine." He goes very quiet after that, not saying anything, not paying attention to the game.
After a minute, Gibbs asks, "You okay?"
"As much as I've been any time since yesterday." He shakes his head. "We were talking a little about forgiveness and what it would look like. And I just said that to you. Just slipped right off my tongue without a second thought. And I don't need to give it a second thought. I know you'll be okay with her. Sun rises in the east. Gravity pulls stuff toward earth. Kelly is safe with Gibbs. Absolute truth." He smiles limply at Gibbs. "Assuming I ever did get to forgiving her, let alone allowing her back into our lives, that's something I'd never be sure of with my mom."
Gibbs puts the controller down and rubs Tim's shoulder. "You thinkin' about it?"
"My sister would really like it."
"I'm sure she would. Doesn't mean it's a good plan."
"I know."
"Doesn't mean it's a bad one, either."
"Thanks," Tim says dryly. And then, more seriously. "What would you do?"
"I'm not you."
"Which is why I'm asking. Sarah kept pointing out, it's been twenty years, she's not the person she used to be..."
Gibbs does think about it. He takes a few minutes to put the words together properly. "I think trust is what builds families. I think part of what makes our family different, stronger, is that our trust in each other was earned. It's not a matter of accident or blood. It's that every day, for years, we put ourselves on the line for each other. When push came to shove, we all stood up and shoved back for each other. Even when we're rubbing each other wrong, we all know, in our bones and souls, that we've got each other's backs to the end." He stops at that, takes a breath, sees Tim watching him, listening very intently, and continues on, "The best, most charitable version of what happened with you and your mom is that when push came to shove, she rolled on over and let your Dad steamroll you and her. The real version is worse. She broke your trust. And different person or not, twenty years or not, reformed or not, you'd be insane to trust her with you, your wife, or your child. And since that's true, she can't be family. Coming to terms with that, making peace with it, getting to the point where you can tolerate spending an afternoon with your sister's mom for your sister's sake, all of that is probably a good idea. But I don't think she's your family, and I know she's not mine."
Tim nods at that and stands up, shutting off the game. "Thanks." That time it was genuine. "Abby'll be wrapping up with Kelly soon, and I'm beat. 'Night."
"Good night, Tim."
Next
May 5, 2014
Shards To A Whole: Chapter 317
McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
Chapter 317: Brother and Sister
They're driving home from the Slaters'. Gibbs in the backseat with Kelly. Abby's driving. Tim's more or less jelling in the front seat, not thinking about much of anything.
"Better than you expected?" Abby asks as they get closer to home.
"Yeah. It was. I don't know how the hell Ed managed to catch someone as awesome as Jeannie, but yeah, today went a whole lot better than I thought it was going to."
"Good," Gibbs says.
A few more minutes pass, Abby filling the quiet, chatting about how Jeannie had told her she loves parties, loves getting everyone together, and how every baby deserves a special day where everyone gets together to celebrate her. Apparently, for the girls, sweet sixteens are a huge deal at the Slater house, as well.
He's half-aware of Abby asking Gibbs if he wants to grab a pizza for dinner, and that triggers a memory. "Dinner's at Penny's."
Abby glances over at him. "Oh. Um. I thought you might want to talk to Penny and Sarah on your own. I mean, if you want us to come..."
"Oh. Yeah." He thinks about that for a moment. He'd just assumed they'd be there, along with Ducky, and maybe Glenn.
"Will Ducky and Glenn be there?"
"I think Ducky and Glenn were thinking the three of you might just want to talk with each other," Abby says. "But, it doesn't have to just be you three."
"Glenn's working tonight. How about both of you go, and I'll babysit? Let you talk without interruption." Kelly's snoozing in her seat. "I don't think she'll mind some quiet time with her Pop."
"You sure you aren't babied out?" Tim asks. He knows after all the loud chaos of the party he's looking forward to some quiet, alone time.
"I'm good." Gibbs gently strokes Kelly's cheek, and she turns her face, nuzzling into his hand.
"So, we'll get home, get changed, crash a bit, and head off to Penny and Ducky's."
Tim's an introvert. This is not a shock to anyone who actually knows him. Abby is an extrovert. This is also not a shock to anyone who knows her.
One thing they have worked out over the twelve years they've known each other is that there really are times where Tim does need to be, literally, alone. Usually time doing something quiet with Abby around qualifies as alone time, but the more stressed he is the more he needs actual, literal alone time.
Now is definitely one of those times.
He strips out of his suit, tosses on jeans and a t-shirt, and vanishes into his office for jazz and alone time.
One of the things he loves about this family he's collected over the years is that for the next two hours, while he takes the time to recollect himself and recharge, no one knocks on the door or pokes a head in to check on him or see if he wants some company.
Here, he's allowed to just listen to music and veg.
He's not even gaming, just relaxing on the futon, head back, music flowing through him, resting.
It's possible he fell asleep. He doesn't remember falling asleep or waking, but the two hours went by awfully fast, and though he knows the first few pieces he listened to, and the last one, he doesn't know what the middle ones were.
Whatever happened, two hours later, when Abby did knock, with a, "We've got to get going," he felt like he could handle seeing people again.
When they get to Penny and Ducky's place, Tim does notice Ducky's Morgan parked in the lot next to his grandmother's Prius.
"So, Ducky's here, then?"
"Yeah, while you were napping I texted Penny to see who was going to be here. She wasn't sure if you'd want Ducky, and I told her you thought he was going to be around, so he is."
"Okay. Glenn?"
"Gibbs was right. He's on shift tonight, and it's the shift he already traded for to get off for the christening." Glenn's an arson investigator, and in his off time he volunteers as a firefighter. The shift he's on is at his station, waiting to see if he's got to go out and save people or put out fires. Tim doesn't see any reason to pull Glenn away from saving people just for their family drama. The drama will still be there tomorrow or the next day. The people Glenn might have otherwise saved may not.
Tim does like to see how Ducky's home has been shifting into Ducky and Penny's home.
When just Ducky lived there, it felt very much like a hybrid of library and an antiquities museum. Formal. Tidy. Hints of sternness. Very, very male in a stiff upper lip, leather armchairs, and brandy by the fire at the club sort of way.
Penny's home(s) have always felt more like an art gallery, flexible, wild, eclectic. And, honestly, temporary. With the exception of the fairly vague memories Tim has of the house she shared with his grandfather, Tim has never had any sense that any of the places she lived were "home."
But this is home.
It's grounded in Ducky's formal, old world, European style, but Penny's free spirit's been changing the place, freshening up. New colors on the walls, new art, more electronics to go with the books. The furniture is more comfortable now. (Though there is still a brass riveted leather arm chair near the fireplace. There's also an ergonomically correct, sleek, modern, armchair, with a built in desk for a laptop, on the other side.)
Sarah's already there, sitting curled into the modern armchair, laptop open, typing away. She's still in the same outfit she wore to the baptism, so Tim's thinking she went straight from there to here. She looks up at him, types a few more fast words, and then shuts down the computer.
He can hear some soft cookery sounds coming from the kitchen.
"They cooking?" he asks his sister.
"Unloading takeout."
He nods. Both Ducky and Penny can cook. But when they do they prefer to do it in the long, drawn out, huge meal with many components sort of way that takes three days to prepare for. They seem to think that if they are going to make an effort to cook the results should be lavish and grand. Quick meals are almost always take out.
Abby kisses Tim on the cheek while discretely bugging out to help in the kitchen, giving them some time alone with each other.
They stare at each other, neither really sure what to say. Tim sighs and looks around, he's got the idea that brass-riveted leather chairs belong to his dad or grandfather so firmly embedded into his subconscious that the idea that he might just sit down in the chair across from his sister never occurs to him.
Instead he ends up taking off his jacket and sitting on the low step in front of the fireplace. It's a bit warmer than he needs, but not horrendously so, the fire at his back is kind of nice, and it's close enough to his sister for easy conversation.
"So, she called you?" he finally says.
"Yeah. Bit after eight. She was sobbing. Most of what I got was she was trying so hard and somehow everything went wrong and you hate her and more sobbing and then some words I couldn't make out, by that point I told her to just come over, then there was more crying."
"She stay at your place?"
"I drove her back to Ben around midnight. They went home today."
"Great," he says, voice very flat.
"What happened?"
"You want the whole lifetime's worth or just last night?"
Penny came in, and sat next to Tim, wrapping an arm around him. "Hi."
He kissed her cheek and rested his head on her shoulder for a minute. "Hey. She call you, too?"
"Not yet. She probably will tomorrow or the next day. You want to talk and eat, or just talk?"
"Might as well eat, too." Tim says, though he's not feeling hungry, but it's about dinner time and making sure his nursing wife gets fed well, regularly is important to him.
"Okay, food's on the table."
Abby's setting the table as Ducky places serving bowls filled with, from the smell of it, take out curries. When naan and rice hits the table, Tim's sure about the curries.
He takes a little bit of everything, and pokes listlessly at it. Abby gently nudges his hand, and it occurs to him that the only things he can remember eating today is a cup of coffee, a few bites of eggs, one cupcake, and more coffee. He scoops up a bite of what he thinks is chicken korma with his naan, and she gently squeezes his knee.
He guesses it's his job to start, so he fills them in on his part of last night.
Then Sarah adds her part, mostly talking about Terri being heartbroken and sobbing and... and she stops talking mid-sentence.
Tim's just been listening, forcing himself to eat, but the pause, the way she seems to be thinking before letting more words comes out is very familiar. It's the sort of self-editing he does when he's talking too fast and only has a few seconds of lee-time before saying the wrong thing. She caught it before she said it, but it was noticeable, to him, at least.
Penny, Ducky, and Abby don't say anything about it. And Sarah's continued on, but he wonders what she left out.
"What'd you leave out?"
She shakes her head. "Not important."
"Really?"
He catches that look, too. He knows Penny does, too. It's the should I lie or just refuse to answer? look.
"I can't imagine it helping, and it'll just piss you off," Sarah says after a second's thought.
He snorts at that. "Hit me with it."
"Really?"
"Why not? If she's going to trap you in the middle of this, I might as well know what she's telling you."
He sees Sarah look at Abby, making sure with her that she should keep talking, which he found perplexing and a bit annoying, but she nods too, so Sarah says, "That she was trying so hard to make you happy again, but you're being just like Dad because nothing she does is good enough."
Several second of blinding... hell... everything, rage, sorrow, snark, everything, jumps up and down and short circuits every single synapse in his head. Eventually he did calm back down enough to notice that Abby's holding his hand, and apparently he's gripping his fork so tightly his knuckles have gone white.
Finally, he does get himself under control and comes back with, "Sucks when the shoe's on the other fucking foot. Nothing I did was good enough, either, so maybe we're equal. Oh, wait, we're not, she's had to deal with it for one damn day!" Sarah winces at that. Seeing that makes him pull back a bit further. "I'm sorry. This isn't fair for you. If you don't want to be in the middle of this... I mean... I can't control her, but..."
"No, you can't." Sarah says, archly. "And if she's going to be calling me and crying on me, I might as well get your side, too."
Penny adds in, "If you don't want her calling about this, I'll see if I can get her to stop it. You shouldn't have to be in the middle. And it's entirely likely that she might listen to a 'you aren't doing Sarah any favors by dropping this on her' from me."
Sarah shakes her head. "Right now this is the biggest thing going on in her life, and it's in the top five in Tim's life. Assuming you're both actually my family, and you both love me, you'd be talking to me about it, right?"
Tim shrugs. "Maybe you don't need to see her the way I do. It's probably better if you don't."
"Maybe," Sarah allows. "But it's part of who she is, right?"
"But it's not part of who she is to you," he says, stabbing a lump of chicken with his fork.
"She's my mom, too. And if there's any shot of fixing this, I've got to know-"
"Sarah, it's not getting fixed," Tim says quietly, looking back up at her. "This is what it is."
There are tears in her eyes, and he can see she's finally letting her own armor, which has always been very thick, crack a bit, letting him see how distressing this whole mess has been to her, as well. "Tim, it's been twenty years-"
That hits his defensive button and he cuts in with, "You saying I don't have a right to be mad?"
"No! Just..." She looks frustrated, trying to find a way to say this that won't set him off. She wipes her eyes and straightens up, something that reminds him of himself a whole lot. "I don't want seventeen years of bad to outweigh twenty years of good. Don't want you burning this bridge and regretting it later." Sarah's looking at him earnestly. He sort of gets the idea of regretting not having people in your life. Like on an intellectual level, and on a practical level, how Jethro feels about the years he missed with Jackson. But right now, he can't feel that about her, and like with the decision to cut his dad out, he's not feeling like he will regret this.
"You really think I'm going to regret cutting ties with someone who thought it was appropriate to torment me my entire childhood?"
"Was that her or Dad?"
Tim shakes his head slightly. That was the lie. The comforting blanket of lies he told himself for all those years. "Doesn't matter. She knew he was doing it, and let him." He bites his lip. The light sting of tooth on flesh helping him stay calm for this. "Twenty years of good was based on a lie: she didn't know. Or that she was as much a victim as I was." He licks his lips, and smiles sadly, shaking his head again. "But she wasn't, and she did know, and worse, she approved. She thought I needed it."
"I'm not saying don't be mad. You deserve mad, and she deserves to take it, but don't rule her out."
"Why not?"
"Because she loves you. Because you love her. Because you told her you were going to have a baby and a week later you had little hand-knitted pink and blue booties in your mailbox. Because she stopped. Dad's still treating you like crap, but she's not. Because it has been twenty years."
On a rational level, those may be good points. But he's not a machine, and he can't be rational about this, not yet, at least. "I was thinking about that today and yesterday. About what I had to do to get to the point where she was willing to let us get to good. How far I had to go before she backed off and I earned her respect. Twenty years of good came from hitting the point where I was so scared, so broken that I didn't care if he killed me or not. That's how bad it had to get. That's what 'I had to stand up for myself' meant.
"That was their goal, to so totally destroy my sense of self-preservation that I'd be willing to let him kill me as long as it got me out of this situation. That's what I had to pay to get to good. And that wasn't fair or kind or right!"
"I know," she says, touching his hand.
"No, you don't!" He jerks away. "She didn't do it to you! You were allowed to be a child, to make messes, to get answers wrong. You didn't have to be perfect for her, and still not have it be enough!"
"I mean, I know it wasn't right. She does, too. Everyone but Dad's figured that out. But it's also not now."
"Oh." He squeezes her hand. "I don't think it matters. You remember the summer I was fourteen?"
She thinks for a moment. "Not really. I was five then."
"Dad was home. That was the summer he decided I was going to stop being seasick or die trying, and I really don't think he cared one way or another which way it came out."
Sarah nods, that helps anchor it amid a lot of vague memories. "Tense. Sad. You spending every minute you could in your room." She leaves out sitting on the porch eating watermelon with their father, which, along with the memory of the smell of fresh cut grass and the sound of the lawn mower, is actually her most vivid memory of that summer. Not only would Tim not remember it because he was in his room, but she doesn't think highlighting, even further, the difference between them would be a good thing.
"Yeah. That's the summer. That's the summer he threatened to have me gang raped and mutilated by his crew. Okay, that's him fucking with me, fine, that's on him. She wasn't there. I didn't tell her. She didn't know. That's how I understood that for two decades. And I finally tell her about it, and oh, no she knew. She didn't approve." Acid sarcasm showed vibrant contempt for that. "It was 'too far.' But she knew he'd 'never actually hurt me.' No. That's the breaking point. He told her. She sat there and listened to him say that he threatened to have me sodomized and my dick cut off and she sent me back out with him again. Maybe I could forgive a lot of the rest of it... but... No."
He pokes his curry with his fork. Then looks her right in the eye and says, "If Glen ever does that to one of your kids, the right answer is you grab your kids, you come to my house, and you don't leave until you've got your own place, a divorce, and full custody with no visitation rights. You tell me about it, and I will beat him so hard he never walks again. That's how you handle it. You don't just shrug that off as guys being guys.
"We should have been out of that house by nightfall. All three of us should have been at Gran and Pop's, and we should have never seen him again. But no, next day I was back on the boat with him again, but by then I was too scared to even think about fighting back, so he doubled down, grinding me down further, taking us out into rougher water, spending even longer days out there, making me sicker and sicker.
"I spent twenty years lying to myself about how she didn't know. I lost thirty pounds in two months that summer. I threw up so many times that at my next dental check-up I had three cavities. But in my head, she didn't know. She said she put a stop to it when it was clear that I wouldn't do it myself. Fuck that, I was fourteen. I shouldn't have had to put a stop to it. She put a stop to it when it was clear that if I went back to school looking like I did in the beginning of August they were going to call Child Protective Services. She was covering for him. She was making sure I had enough time to look vaguely healthy again by start of school. She knew it was wrong, and she covered for him."
They're all quiet after that, thinking. Tim's got the feeling that Sarah doesn't fully believe that's what happened. Not that he's lying, but that he doesn't understand what their Mom thought she was doing. Wisely, though, she's not saying anything.
After another minute Sarah asks, "Has she done anything even vaguely like that since you've been out of the house?"
"No." And that's true. And that's what cemented the lie. Once he got out of the house, she's been perfectly supportive.
"She changed when she left. She left him, Pop died, and that was a rough year, but then it was a lot better. That's the part you weren't there for." Sarah looks over to Penny. "She was depressed, right?"
Penny shrugs. "Probably. But I wasn't there for a lot of it. Most of the time I was just talking on the phone with your mom, or reading letters. She sounded a whole lot better after they got divorced. Once she was on her own and working again, she sounded happier than she did at any time after the first year they were married." Both Tim and Sarah are listening with interest. "I know she was sad. I know she was angry. I don't know if she was actually depressed. But it wouldn't be a shock if she was.
"It's not a secret that none of us thought your parents were good marriage material. Her parents flat out told her not to marry him and wouldn't give him their blessing. By the time they'd been married five years both Nelson and I were encouraging your mom to leave. We loved her. We loved your dad. It was a bad match."
"That's not an excuse," Tim says.
"No, it's not. It's background. It's part of her not being the person she was."
"Feels like she's the same person to me."
"I know, honey. I know."
"I can't look at her now and not see her looking at me then, knowing that I've been crying, knowing that he's torturing me, and doing nothing. I don't want anything to do with someone who could do that. Even if it was twenty years ago. And..." He's making excuses for not forgiving her, and he doesn't want to. "Fuck that! I don't need to make excuses for this." Abby squeezes his knee again, and he finds that touch comforting, but it doesn't slow his speech down. "It happened to me! This isn't some stranger who I met as an adult with a bad past. She did it to me. She let him do it to me. And I don't owe her reasonable or logical or kind or adult or..." he's staring at his plate, stabbing his dinner again.
Abby's stroking his back and Penny and Sarah both pull back, looking at each other.
"You're right, Tim, you don't," Penny says gently. "You don't have to forgive or forget or any of it. You can be as angry as you want or need. It's okay. Just, none of us want to see angry bite you in the long run."
He takes a moment to calm himself back down again, putting down his fork, pushing his plate away. "Until I was talking to you two, I wasn't feeling angry. Just hurt. So damn hurt."
"Sorry," Sarah says quickly, knowing she brought up most of angry. "It's just... she's my mom."
He closes his eyes, feeling the tears seeping out. "Yeah, I know. And you feel defensive for her. And it's your family, too, ripped to bits. And, and... I know." He sniffs. "And like with Dad, I don't expect you to cut her out or burn any bridges. I get she... they didn't... not to you..." He swallows hard. "It just really hurts, okay? I thought if I got it, if she told me what and why it'd be better, but it wasn't. I wasn't worth patience, respect, or kindness until I was so fried I didn't care about my life anymore."
"But you are now. She loves you so much, and she's so proud of you." Sarah says.
He blinks, wipes away the tears. "It's not enough."
"She thinks you're punishing her."
He snorts at that. "Karma's punishing her. I'm doing what I need to to not melt down."
"You want me to tell her that?"
"I... I don't know. I don't care. Not really. I want you to do what you need to do to keep whatever sort of relationship you need with her. Like with Dad... I don't want you giving her hope that this is going to somehow get better. I don't want you giving her pictures or news or... whatever. I don't want her thinking there's some magical formula of right things that's somehow going to make it all right."
"Okay."
"What are you going to do?"
Sarah shrugs. "I'm not in a doing position here. I want you two to be better. Okay, so we never had happy Brady Bunch family time, but... I miss us."
"I know." And he does. He misses "us" too. He misses the lies that let "us" work.
"A year ago last week, we were all together, celebrating your wedding, all dressed up, and it was fun and happy and-" she sounds so eager to get that back, and so sad at the loss of it.
"And based on a lie."
"I liked the lie!" she says, sharply.
"You think I didn't?" he snaps. Not mad so much as irritated. And God, yes, he liked the lie. Right now he'd happily go running back to it if he could. "News flash, Sis, this isn't fun. I'm not doing this for kicks."
"I know, but..." He can see the ache in her eyes. The loss of something that she cherished is writ large on her face.
"Yeah." He nods, understanding, and sighs. "I just... I mean, what would forgiving her even look like? Saying that what she did was okay? Saying I'm okay with it? Hey, you and Dad abused the shit out of me as a kid, but it's a lot nicer if we all get along, so I'll just pretend that was okay and quietly have a nervous breakdown anytime you get close to my kid because I'm terrified you'll pull the same crap on her that you did on me?"
"No!" Penny says fast, but after that none of the rest of them have anything to add. People talk about forgiveness but in actual fact it's an awful nebulous concept.
Ducky says, calmly, after another very long, quiet moment, "Forgiveness is not approving of her behavior, nor is it giving it sanction. It's acknowledging it, and knowing that it's over. It's understanding the past, and firmly locating it there. It is recognizing that everyone who was involved in what happened is now gone. Neither you, nor your mother, are the same people. The woman she was and the child you were are gone. They're just memories, and hold only as much power over you as you chose to give them.
"For the sake of your own mental health, that part of your life has to die. It needs to be properly acknowledged, learned from, mourned, and let go. Beyond that, I do not know what forgiveness is for you and your mother. It might be trying to rebuild from the ground up, recognizing that she is someone who looks like someone you have a history with, but is not that person. It may be saying goodbye to that part of your life, and your relationship with her may be a casualty of that farewell.
"Right now, Timothy, I'd say you're still in the acknowledging phase of this. You're not ready to mourn or let go because you still don't have a full understanding of what happened. You say you're not angry, that you're hurt, and that may be true, right now, because you're still feeling your way through this.
"You're still naming, organizing, and understanding. You're building context. That's long work, and rushing it won't result in good things."
That made a whole lot of sense.
"I think it is safe to say, that the one thing we all want, is for you to be happy and whole. I'm sure Sarah would prefer happy and whole involved your family once again together. But if it doesn't, it doesn't."
"And no matter how it works out, this here," Penny gestures to the five of them, "And Kelly, and Gibbs, and Glenn, and any other babies that may join us, are family."
A/N: Yes, I know, these last few updates have been grim. Upside, tomorrow we've got Kelly and Pop, so light, fluffiness coming your way soon!
Chapter 317: Brother and Sister
They're driving home from the Slaters'. Gibbs in the backseat with Kelly. Abby's driving. Tim's more or less jelling in the front seat, not thinking about much of anything.
"Better than you expected?" Abby asks as they get closer to home.
"Yeah. It was. I don't know how the hell Ed managed to catch someone as awesome as Jeannie, but yeah, today went a whole lot better than I thought it was going to."
"Good," Gibbs says.
A few more minutes pass, Abby filling the quiet, chatting about how Jeannie had told her she loves parties, loves getting everyone together, and how every baby deserves a special day where everyone gets together to celebrate her. Apparently, for the girls, sweet sixteens are a huge deal at the Slater house, as well.
He's half-aware of Abby asking Gibbs if he wants to grab a pizza for dinner, and that triggers a memory. "Dinner's at Penny's."
Abby glances over at him. "Oh. Um. I thought you might want to talk to Penny and Sarah on your own. I mean, if you want us to come..."
"Oh. Yeah." He thinks about that for a moment. He'd just assumed they'd be there, along with Ducky, and maybe Glenn.
"Will Ducky and Glenn be there?"
"I think Ducky and Glenn were thinking the three of you might just want to talk with each other," Abby says. "But, it doesn't have to just be you three."
"Glenn's working tonight. How about both of you go, and I'll babysit? Let you talk without interruption." Kelly's snoozing in her seat. "I don't think she'll mind some quiet time with her Pop."
"You sure you aren't babied out?" Tim asks. He knows after all the loud chaos of the party he's looking forward to some quiet, alone time.
"I'm good." Gibbs gently strokes Kelly's cheek, and she turns her face, nuzzling into his hand.
"So, we'll get home, get changed, crash a bit, and head off to Penny and Ducky's."
Tim's an introvert. This is not a shock to anyone who actually knows him. Abby is an extrovert. This is also not a shock to anyone who knows her.
One thing they have worked out over the twelve years they've known each other is that there really are times where Tim does need to be, literally, alone. Usually time doing something quiet with Abby around qualifies as alone time, but the more stressed he is the more he needs actual, literal alone time.
Now is definitely one of those times.
He strips out of his suit, tosses on jeans and a t-shirt, and vanishes into his office for jazz and alone time.
One of the things he loves about this family he's collected over the years is that for the next two hours, while he takes the time to recollect himself and recharge, no one knocks on the door or pokes a head in to check on him or see if he wants some company.
Here, he's allowed to just listen to music and veg.
He's not even gaming, just relaxing on the futon, head back, music flowing through him, resting.
It's possible he fell asleep. He doesn't remember falling asleep or waking, but the two hours went by awfully fast, and though he knows the first few pieces he listened to, and the last one, he doesn't know what the middle ones were.
Whatever happened, two hours later, when Abby did knock, with a, "We've got to get going," he felt like he could handle seeing people again.
When they get to Penny and Ducky's place, Tim does notice Ducky's Morgan parked in the lot next to his grandmother's Prius.
"So, Ducky's here, then?"
"Yeah, while you were napping I texted Penny to see who was going to be here. She wasn't sure if you'd want Ducky, and I told her you thought he was going to be around, so he is."
"Okay. Glenn?"
"Gibbs was right. He's on shift tonight, and it's the shift he already traded for to get off for the christening." Glenn's an arson investigator, and in his off time he volunteers as a firefighter. The shift he's on is at his station, waiting to see if he's got to go out and save people or put out fires. Tim doesn't see any reason to pull Glenn away from saving people just for their family drama. The drama will still be there tomorrow or the next day. The people Glenn might have otherwise saved may not.
Tim does like to see how Ducky's home has been shifting into Ducky and Penny's home.
When just Ducky lived there, it felt very much like a hybrid of library and an antiquities museum. Formal. Tidy. Hints of sternness. Very, very male in a stiff upper lip, leather armchairs, and brandy by the fire at the club sort of way.
Penny's home(s) have always felt more like an art gallery, flexible, wild, eclectic. And, honestly, temporary. With the exception of the fairly vague memories Tim has of the house she shared with his grandfather, Tim has never had any sense that any of the places she lived were "home."
But this is home.
It's grounded in Ducky's formal, old world, European style, but Penny's free spirit's been changing the place, freshening up. New colors on the walls, new art, more electronics to go with the books. The furniture is more comfortable now. (Though there is still a brass riveted leather arm chair near the fireplace. There's also an ergonomically correct, sleek, modern, armchair, with a built in desk for a laptop, on the other side.)
Sarah's already there, sitting curled into the modern armchair, laptop open, typing away. She's still in the same outfit she wore to the baptism, so Tim's thinking she went straight from there to here. She looks up at him, types a few more fast words, and then shuts down the computer.
He can hear some soft cookery sounds coming from the kitchen.
"They cooking?" he asks his sister.
"Unloading takeout."
He nods. Both Ducky and Penny can cook. But when they do they prefer to do it in the long, drawn out, huge meal with many components sort of way that takes three days to prepare for. They seem to think that if they are going to make an effort to cook the results should be lavish and grand. Quick meals are almost always take out.
Abby kisses Tim on the cheek while discretely bugging out to help in the kitchen, giving them some time alone with each other.
They stare at each other, neither really sure what to say. Tim sighs and looks around, he's got the idea that brass-riveted leather chairs belong to his dad or grandfather so firmly embedded into his subconscious that the idea that he might just sit down in the chair across from his sister never occurs to him.
Instead he ends up taking off his jacket and sitting on the low step in front of the fireplace. It's a bit warmer than he needs, but not horrendously so, the fire at his back is kind of nice, and it's close enough to his sister for easy conversation.
"So, she called you?" he finally says.
"Yeah. Bit after eight. She was sobbing. Most of what I got was she was trying so hard and somehow everything went wrong and you hate her and more sobbing and then some words I couldn't make out, by that point I told her to just come over, then there was more crying."
"She stay at your place?"
"I drove her back to Ben around midnight. They went home today."
"Great," he says, voice very flat.
"What happened?"
"You want the whole lifetime's worth or just last night?"
Penny came in, and sat next to Tim, wrapping an arm around him. "Hi."
He kissed her cheek and rested his head on her shoulder for a minute. "Hey. She call you, too?"
"Not yet. She probably will tomorrow or the next day. You want to talk and eat, or just talk?"
"Might as well eat, too." Tim says, though he's not feeling hungry, but it's about dinner time and making sure his nursing wife gets fed well, regularly is important to him.
"Okay, food's on the table."
Abby's setting the table as Ducky places serving bowls filled with, from the smell of it, take out curries. When naan and rice hits the table, Tim's sure about the curries.
He takes a little bit of everything, and pokes listlessly at it. Abby gently nudges his hand, and it occurs to him that the only things he can remember eating today is a cup of coffee, a few bites of eggs, one cupcake, and more coffee. He scoops up a bite of what he thinks is chicken korma with his naan, and she gently squeezes his knee.
He guesses it's his job to start, so he fills them in on his part of last night.
Then Sarah adds her part, mostly talking about Terri being heartbroken and sobbing and... and she stops talking mid-sentence.
Tim's just been listening, forcing himself to eat, but the pause, the way she seems to be thinking before letting more words comes out is very familiar. It's the sort of self-editing he does when he's talking too fast and only has a few seconds of lee-time before saying the wrong thing. She caught it before she said it, but it was noticeable, to him, at least.
Penny, Ducky, and Abby don't say anything about it. And Sarah's continued on, but he wonders what she left out.
"What'd you leave out?"
She shakes her head. "Not important."
"Really?"
He catches that look, too. He knows Penny does, too. It's the should I lie or just refuse to answer? look.
"I can't imagine it helping, and it'll just piss you off," Sarah says after a second's thought.
He snorts at that. "Hit me with it."
"Really?"
"Why not? If she's going to trap you in the middle of this, I might as well know what she's telling you."
He sees Sarah look at Abby, making sure with her that she should keep talking, which he found perplexing and a bit annoying, but she nods too, so Sarah says, "That she was trying so hard to make you happy again, but you're being just like Dad because nothing she does is good enough."
Several second of blinding... hell... everything, rage, sorrow, snark, everything, jumps up and down and short circuits every single synapse in his head. Eventually he did calm back down enough to notice that Abby's holding his hand, and apparently he's gripping his fork so tightly his knuckles have gone white.
Finally, he does get himself under control and comes back with, "Sucks when the shoe's on the other fucking foot. Nothing I did was good enough, either, so maybe we're equal. Oh, wait, we're not, she's had to deal with it for one damn day!" Sarah winces at that. Seeing that makes him pull back a bit further. "I'm sorry. This isn't fair for you. If you don't want to be in the middle of this... I mean... I can't control her, but..."
"No, you can't." Sarah says, archly. "And if she's going to be calling me and crying on me, I might as well get your side, too."
Penny adds in, "If you don't want her calling about this, I'll see if I can get her to stop it. You shouldn't have to be in the middle. And it's entirely likely that she might listen to a 'you aren't doing Sarah any favors by dropping this on her' from me."
Sarah shakes her head. "Right now this is the biggest thing going on in her life, and it's in the top five in Tim's life. Assuming you're both actually my family, and you both love me, you'd be talking to me about it, right?"
Tim shrugs. "Maybe you don't need to see her the way I do. It's probably better if you don't."
"Maybe," Sarah allows. "But it's part of who she is, right?"
"But it's not part of who she is to you," he says, stabbing a lump of chicken with his fork.
"She's my mom, too. And if there's any shot of fixing this, I've got to know-"
"Sarah, it's not getting fixed," Tim says quietly, looking back up at her. "This is what it is."
There are tears in her eyes, and he can see she's finally letting her own armor, which has always been very thick, crack a bit, letting him see how distressing this whole mess has been to her, as well. "Tim, it's been twenty years-"
That hits his defensive button and he cuts in with, "You saying I don't have a right to be mad?"
"No! Just..." She looks frustrated, trying to find a way to say this that won't set him off. She wipes her eyes and straightens up, something that reminds him of himself a whole lot. "I don't want seventeen years of bad to outweigh twenty years of good. Don't want you burning this bridge and regretting it later." Sarah's looking at him earnestly. He sort of gets the idea of regretting not having people in your life. Like on an intellectual level, and on a practical level, how Jethro feels about the years he missed with Jackson. But right now, he can't feel that about her, and like with the decision to cut his dad out, he's not feeling like he will regret this.
"You really think I'm going to regret cutting ties with someone who thought it was appropriate to torment me my entire childhood?"
"Was that her or Dad?"
Tim shakes his head slightly. That was the lie. The comforting blanket of lies he told himself for all those years. "Doesn't matter. She knew he was doing it, and let him." He bites his lip. The light sting of tooth on flesh helping him stay calm for this. "Twenty years of good was based on a lie: she didn't know. Or that she was as much a victim as I was." He licks his lips, and smiles sadly, shaking his head again. "But she wasn't, and she did know, and worse, she approved. She thought I needed it."
"I'm not saying don't be mad. You deserve mad, and she deserves to take it, but don't rule her out."
"Why not?"
"Because she loves you. Because you love her. Because you told her you were going to have a baby and a week later you had little hand-knitted pink and blue booties in your mailbox. Because she stopped. Dad's still treating you like crap, but she's not. Because it has been twenty years."
On a rational level, those may be good points. But he's not a machine, and he can't be rational about this, not yet, at least. "I was thinking about that today and yesterday. About what I had to do to get to the point where she was willing to let us get to good. How far I had to go before she backed off and I earned her respect. Twenty years of good came from hitting the point where I was so scared, so broken that I didn't care if he killed me or not. That's how bad it had to get. That's what 'I had to stand up for myself' meant.
"That was their goal, to so totally destroy my sense of self-preservation that I'd be willing to let him kill me as long as it got me out of this situation. That's what I had to pay to get to good. And that wasn't fair or kind or right!"
"I know," she says, touching his hand.
"No, you don't!" He jerks away. "She didn't do it to you! You were allowed to be a child, to make messes, to get answers wrong. You didn't have to be perfect for her, and still not have it be enough!"
"I mean, I know it wasn't right. She does, too. Everyone but Dad's figured that out. But it's also not now."
"Oh." He squeezes her hand. "I don't think it matters. You remember the summer I was fourteen?"
She thinks for a moment. "Not really. I was five then."
"Dad was home. That was the summer he decided I was going to stop being seasick or die trying, and I really don't think he cared one way or another which way it came out."
Sarah nods, that helps anchor it amid a lot of vague memories. "Tense. Sad. You spending every minute you could in your room." She leaves out sitting on the porch eating watermelon with their father, which, along with the memory of the smell of fresh cut grass and the sound of the lawn mower, is actually her most vivid memory of that summer. Not only would Tim not remember it because he was in his room, but she doesn't think highlighting, even further, the difference between them would be a good thing.
"Yeah. That's the summer. That's the summer he threatened to have me gang raped and mutilated by his crew. Okay, that's him fucking with me, fine, that's on him. She wasn't there. I didn't tell her. She didn't know. That's how I understood that for two decades. And I finally tell her about it, and oh, no she knew. She didn't approve." Acid sarcasm showed vibrant contempt for that. "It was 'too far.' But she knew he'd 'never actually hurt me.' No. That's the breaking point. He told her. She sat there and listened to him say that he threatened to have me sodomized and my dick cut off and she sent me back out with him again. Maybe I could forgive a lot of the rest of it... but... No."
He pokes his curry with his fork. Then looks her right in the eye and says, "If Glen ever does that to one of your kids, the right answer is you grab your kids, you come to my house, and you don't leave until you've got your own place, a divorce, and full custody with no visitation rights. You tell me about it, and I will beat him so hard he never walks again. That's how you handle it. You don't just shrug that off as guys being guys.
"We should have been out of that house by nightfall. All three of us should have been at Gran and Pop's, and we should have never seen him again. But no, next day I was back on the boat with him again, but by then I was too scared to even think about fighting back, so he doubled down, grinding me down further, taking us out into rougher water, spending even longer days out there, making me sicker and sicker.
"I spent twenty years lying to myself about how she didn't know. I lost thirty pounds in two months that summer. I threw up so many times that at my next dental check-up I had three cavities. But in my head, she didn't know. She said she put a stop to it when it was clear that I wouldn't do it myself. Fuck that, I was fourteen. I shouldn't have had to put a stop to it. She put a stop to it when it was clear that if I went back to school looking like I did in the beginning of August they were going to call Child Protective Services. She was covering for him. She was making sure I had enough time to look vaguely healthy again by start of school. She knew it was wrong, and she covered for him."
They're all quiet after that, thinking. Tim's got the feeling that Sarah doesn't fully believe that's what happened. Not that he's lying, but that he doesn't understand what their Mom thought she was doing. Wisely, though, she's not saying anything.
After another minute Sarah asks, "Has she done anything even vaguely like that since you've been out of the house?"
"No." And that's true. And that's what cemented the lie. Once he got out of the house, she's been perfectly supportive.
"She changed when she left. She left him, Pop died, and that was a rough year, but then it was a lot better. That's the part you weren't there for." Sarah looks over to Penny. "She was depressed, right?"
Penny shrugs. "Probably. But I wasn't there for a lot of it. Most of the time I was just talking on the phone with your mom, or reading letters. She sounded a whole lot better after they got divorced. Once she was on her own and working again, she sounded happier than she did at any time after the first year they were married." Both Tim and Sarah are listening with interest. "I know she was sad. I know she was angry. I don't know if she was actually depressed. But it wouldn't be a shock if she was.
"It's not a secret that none of us thought your parents were good marriage material. Her parents flat out told her not to marry him and wouldn't give him their blessing. By the time they'd been married five years both Nelson and I were encouraging your mom to leave. We loved her. We loved your dad. It was a bad match."
"That's not an excuse," Tim says.
"No, it's not. It's background. It's part of her not being the person she was."
"Feels like she's the same person to me."
"I know, honey. I know."
"I can't look at her now and not see her looking at me then, knowing that I've been crying, knowing that he's torturing me, and doing nothing. I don't want anything to do with someone who could do that. Even if it was twenty years ago. And..." He's making excuses for not forgiving her, and he doesn't want to. "Fuck that! I don't need to make excuses for this." Abby squeezes his knee again, and he finds that touch comforting, but it doesn't slow his speech down. "It happened to me! This isn't some stranger who I met as an adult with a bad past. She did it to me. She let him do it to me. And I don't owe her reasonable or logical or kind or adult or..." he's staring at his plate, stabbing his dinner again.
Abby's stroking his back and Penny and Sarah both pull back, looking at each other.
"You're right, Tim, you don't," Penny says gently. "You don't have to forgive or forget or any of it. You can be as angry as you want or need. It's okay. Just, none of us want to see angry bite you in the long run."
He takes a moment to calm himself back down again, putting down his fork, pushing his plate away. "Until I was talking to you two, I wasn't feeling angry. Just hurt. So damn hurt."
"Sorry," Sarah says quickly, knowing she brought up most of angry. "It's just... she's my mom."
He closes his eyes, feeling the tears seeping out. "Yeah, I know. And you feel defensive for her. And it's your family, too, ripped to bits. And, and... I know." He sniffs. "And like with Dad, I don't expect you to cut her out or burn any bridges. I get she... they didn't... not to you..." He swallows hard. "It just really hurts, okay? I thought if I got it, if she told me what and why it'd be better, but it wasn't. I wasn't worth patience, respect, or kindness until I was so fried I didn't care about my life anymore."
"But you are now. She loves you so much, and she's so proud of you." Sarah says.
He blinks, wipes away the tears. "It's not enough."
"She thinks you're punishing her."
He snorts at that. "Karma's punishing her. I'm doing what I need to to not melt down."
"You want me to tell her that?"
"I... I don't know. I don't care. Not really. I want you to do what you need to do to keep whatever sort of relationship you need with her. Like with Dad... I don't want you giving her hope that this is going to somehow get better. I don't want you giving her pictures or news or... whatever. I don't want her thinking there's some magical formula of right things that's somehow going to make it all right."
"Okay."
"What are you going to do?"
Sarah shrugs. "I'm not in a doing position here. I want you two to be better. Okay, so we never had happy Brady Bunch family time, but... I miss us."
"I know." And he does. He misses "us" too. He misses the lies that let "us" work.
"A year ago last week, we were all together, celebrating your wedding, all dressed up, and it was fun and happy and-" she sounds so eager to get that back, and so sad at the loss of it.
"And based on a lie."
"I liked the lie!" she says, sharply.
"You think I didn't?" he snaps. Not mad so much as irritated. And God, yes, he liked the lie. Right now he'd happily go running back to it if he could. "News flash, Sis, this isn't fun. I'm not doing this for kicks."
"I know, but..." He can see the ache in her eyes. The loss of something that she cherished is writ large on her face.
"Yeah." He nods, understanding, and sighs. "I just... I mean, what would forgiving her even look like? Saying that what she did was okay? Saying I'm okay with it? Hey, you and Dad abused the shit out of me as a kid, but it's a lot nicer if we all get along, so I'll just pretend that was okay and quietly have a nervous breakdown anytime you get close to my kid because I'm terrified you'll pull the same crap on her that you did on me?"
"No!" Penny says fast, but after that none of the rest of them have anything to add. People talk about forgiveness but in actual fact it's an awful nebulous concept.
Ducky says, calmly, after another very long, quiet moment, "Forgiveness is not approving of her behavior, nor is it giving it sanction. It's acknowledging it, and knowing that it's over. It's understanding the past, and firmly locating it there. It is recognizing that everyone who was involved in what happened is now gone. Neither you, nor your mother, are the same people. The woman she was and the child you were are gone. They're just memories, and hold only as much power over you as you chose to give them.
"For the sake of your own mental health, that part of your life has to die. It needs to be properly acknowledged, learned from, mourned, and let go. Beyond that, I do not know what forgiveness is for you and your mother. It might be trying to rebuild from the ground up, recognizing that she is someone who looks like someone you have a history with, but is not that person. It may be saying goodbye to that part of your life, and your relationship with her may be a casualty of that farewell.
"Right now, Timothy, I'd say you're still in the acknowledging phase of this. You're not ready to mourn or let go because you still don't have a full understanding of what happened. You say you're not angry, that you're hurt, and that may be true, right now, because you're still feeling your way through this.
"You're still naming, organizing, and understanding. You're building context. That's long work, and rushing it won't result in good things."
That made a whole lot of sense.
"I think it is safe to say, that the one thing we all want, is for you to be happy and whole. I'm sure Sarah would prefer happy and whole involved your family once again together. But if it doesn't, it doesn't."
"And no matter how it works out, this here," Penny gestures to the five of them, "And Kelly, and Gibbs, and Glenn, and any other babies that may join us, are family."
A/N: Yes, I know, these last few updates have been grim. Upside, tomorrow we've got Kelly and Pop, so light, fluffiness coming your way soon!
May 3, 2014
Shards To A Whole: Chapter 316
McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
Chapter 316: Baptism Party
Tim wakes up the next morning, sevenish, Abby spooned on the sofa in front of him. Gibbs nowhere to be seen (probably in the guest room, that more often than not these days, Tim thinks of as being Jethro's room).
He hurts. All over. Last time he hurt this bad he was waking up the morning after he and Jimmy fought it out. Right now, even his hair hurts. It feels vaguely like a hangover. Given how much crying he did, he probably is pretty damn dehydrated.
Abby wakes up, or senses he's awake and rolls over to face him, very gently stroking his forehead and cheek, kissing his lips lightly.
"Hi." She smiles at him.
"Hey." He doesn't smile back.
"How are you doing?"
He shakes his head slightly, resting his lips on her forehead, holding her close, feeling her warm and sleepy in his arms. "I don't know."
"That's okay."
"Hurt. I feel hurt. I feel like I should be sporting bruises from head to toe."
She scoots up a little, and kisses him softly again. "Yeah, I remember that from when my parents died. Crashed when I got home from the hospital, and just ached all over when I woke up."
"Next time I decide to engage in some form of emotionally difficult thing because it'll be good for me, smack me in the head and tell me to stop."
She kisses him again.
Kelly wakes up, letting them know it's start the morning time. Tim winces; he didn't get the 1:00 feed. "Did you get her at 1:00?"
"No," she says, getting up to grab Kelly. "Gibbs did. But if he hadn't, I would have. You needed to sleep."
He sits up slowly, expecting his head to feel like it's going to fall off, but this isn't actually a hangover, so that doesn't happen. "Thanks."
"Down in a minute."
There is a story Tim has not told Abby. Not that it's particularly bad or sinister or something, just, it involves teeth. He thinks of it as he steps into the shower, still aching all over, still thinking that maybe putting this off wasn't a great plan, but wishing he had none the less.
Namely, it's the story of how, when he was a junior in college, one of his molars got infected. It's not like he didn't brush or floss, but he was a junior in college, so he wasn't exactly religious about it. Especially not compared to Abby's version of religious about dental care.
However it happened, he did end up with an abscessed molar. (This is why he had no trouble following Jimmy's bad tooth metaphor.) And they did the traditional soak him in antibiotics treatment plan. This did basically nothing. His tooth kept festering, and finally, after the first course didn't seem to touch it, the Dentist said that they'd drain the tooth, and then do another course, and maybe that'd get him healthy enough for a root canal.
Draining the tooth hurt. Even with Novocain. It was a 'Holy shit, what the fuck is that!' sort of hurt. And draining it didn't magically stop his tooth hurting, either. Once the Novocain wore off, he was still in a world of hurt.
But it was different hurt. Clean hurt, if that made any sense. Between getting the pus out and the new course of antibiotics, the sick, throbbing, poisoned feeling was gone.
He hurt, but it was healing hurt.
And he's not exactly feeling hopeful right now, as he's standing in his room toweling off. Not feeling much of anything that's even remotely positive, but he's thinking this might be the first step toward healing hurt, and away from sick, poisoned hurt.
Putting on his suit that morning is another layer of armor. Covering himself in the image of respectability. Happy dad of the new baby.
Once his tie is secure, he picks up his phone and texts Penny and Sarah.
Things didn't go well with Mom. She and Ben won't be at the christening.
He heard back from Penny first. Sorry. We'll talk when you're ready?
Yeah.
Everything else on for today?
Yep. Just pretend my smile's real.
Oh, honey!
I'll be okay, eventually.
Sorry. Hug.
Thanks, Penny. See you in an hour?
We'll be there.
He's pulling his shoes out of the closet when his phone buzzes again. Sarah this time. I know. She called last night, sobbing.
Well, that's two of us.
You really done with her?
I... he shakes his head, staring at the phone. I think so. Too much pain. Too many memories. I can't be with someone who could do that. I sat there and listened to... We'll talk in person, okay? When I don't need to spend a day looking calm and happy.
Okay.
I know she's not the same person she was back then. And right now, less emotional, less revved up, he does know that. But I don't think it matters. Only so much forgiveness in me, and that's the bridge too far.
Okay. Everything still on for this morning?
Yeah.
Then we've got to go now, if we're going to get to the diner by nine.
Okay. See you in fifty minutes.
He smells coffee as he heads down the steps. Gibbs must have stayed the night. And, once he's down in the kitchen, Gibbs hands him a cup of coffee, not smiling at him, but the look on his face is gentle, comforting.
Tim takes the coffee, sipping it, trying to feel more grounded in right now, and a bit less adrift.
It's really not helping all that much.
A minute later, Abby heads in, Kelly in her arms. "Okay, she's fed. If you guys could get her dressed, I'll get dressed, too, and we'll head off."
Tim nods, taking Kelly, and Abby hands Gibbs the christening dress.
Getting Kelly dressed does a much better job of focusing him in right now. Trying to put twelve pounds of very squirmy, diaper-wearing small person into little, white tights, is taking all of the focus and energy of both of the guys.
"Okay, you just hold her up; I'll get the legs pulled up." Tim says.
Gibbs nods, holding Kelly by the torso, arms and legs flailing around, (She's not really enjoying this adventure in high fashion.) three inches of floppy white nylon dangling off of each foot, whipping around as she kicks, while Tim inches the tights up her legs.
"Remember doing this with my Kelly. Little white dress. Shannon got her dressed. It was my job to carry her in and hold her while the Chaplin did his thing."
"Shannon do most of the dressing?"
"Not at first, she was still healing up from the c-section. But after the first month, yeah, she did most of it. Kelly was six weeks old when we had the christening. Spring time. Back in Lejeune then. Her mom was still staying with us, but the Monday after she went home. Day after the baptism was the first day for just the three of us together. Shannon did a lot of dressing and feeding and diapers. I did the cooking, laundry, and walking Kelly around the house when she wouldn't sleep."
Tim finally got the tights yanked all the way up. He looks at Kelly, still held up by Gibbs, kisses her forehead and says, "Don't worry, I will never, ever do that to you again. Mama wants you in tights; she can do it herself."
"Do what myself? You've only got the tights on?" Abby asks, back in the living room, completely dressed and ready to go.
Both of the guys glare at her, and Abby gets the sense that just possibly this was not the job for her Marine and Dragon (her pet way of thinking about Tim recently). If she can't do it personally, this was a job for someone who's worn tights before, or barring that, someone who's put tights on a baby before, namely Breena.
"Never mind. Sometimes I forget you're guys. Hand her over." Tim does, and in a matter of seconds she's got Kelly in her white, lace dress, very cute little white shoes, and white bonnet. They may not be Catholic anymore, but Abby's got very New Orleans Catholic ideas of what a christening gown looks like, and Kelly's wearing it. Change the outfits on the adults, and they could very easily be going to a christening in 1885.
They're a bit late getting to breakfast. (Getting the tights on ate more time than expected.) So they're the last ones there. But getting into the diner, they find the crew much lighter than normal, but the members who are there have gotten Sarah and Glenn and Kyle all settled in, and are entertaining them.
Hugs, kisses, congratulations, and an extra-long hug from Penny and Sarah. Penny's holding both of her grandkids close and says, quietly, "Dinner tonight, my place?"
And they both nod. It's well past time for the three of them to sit down and talk this through.
"Call out?" Abby asks. She didn't get a call last night, but she also wasn't on last night. But Ziva, Tony, and Ducky are absent. Actually none of their team should have been on last night into today.
Penny nods. "It was two in the morning. Ducky left a note saying he hoped to be there for the party. He'll call in later to let us know what's going on."
That's something of a let-down, but, to some degree Tim's almost hoping Tony and Ziva don't make it. Not because he doesn't want to see them, but because they don't know the full story of what's going on with his Mom, and if they don't make it in time, he won't have to explain.
Elaine sweeps over, "Oh, now look at all of you all pretty! Can't wait to meet the rest of this group. Party starts at one, right?"
Tim nods as she hands him a plate piled high with eggs, turkey sausage, and fresh fruit.
"Wonderful." She tickles under Kelly's chin. "Does my heart good to see a proper christening!"
When Elaine retreats to grab the coffee pot for more refills, he looks at Abby. "Elaine's coming?"
"And her husband. First time this place has closed for lunch in fifteen years."
"Wow."
"Yeah."
"Ummmm..."
He's not sure how to even ask what he's thinking politely, but Abby sees it and replies, "First two guests lists I gave Jeannie she looked at and said, 'Oh, Abby, come on, you know more people than this. This is big. This is how we welcome babies into the world and get them started in life. EVERYONE needs to come to this. This isn't some sort of intimate little gathering, this is a PARTY! We're calling in everyone to celebrate your little girl. Give this back to me with a few more names, okay?"
He hadn't known that. "So, um... who is coming to this?"
"Everyone."
About a month ago, when Jeannie had asked them, "So, what sort of party are you intending to have for the christening?" both Tim and Abby had sort of looked at each other in confusion. Tim's take on getting his daughter baptized could be summed up as: This bizarre ritual matters to my wife, and as such I shall go along and smile because it makes her happy.
For Abby this is a sign of membership and fellowship in the church and being washed in the eternal love of Jesus, saved for all time by His mercy. And while that's very important to her, she's aware of the fact that her family is, at best, vaguely Christianish-secular or Jewish, so she wasn't expecting this to be any real big deal.
They'd probably, like every Sunday, have breakfast at the diner, and maybe Ducky and Penny and Tony and Ziva would come to church, too. Maybe Sarah and Glenn or Kyle if they were in town and felt like it. And that'd be pretty much that.
So, Jeannie standing there going, "Oh no. No. You've got to have a party! This is how we welcome babies into the family! We'll do it here, everyone already knows how to get here, anyway. You give me a guest list, and I'll take care of it. Not have a party! Hah! Got to have a christening party! Every child in this family gets her very own party." She took Abby by the arm, dragging her into the kitchen, calling out for Breena, and a few hours later, when he found Abby again, they did have what appeared to be a serious christening party in the works.
The next week Jeanie snagged Tim as he and Jimmy and Gibbs were heading out to Bootcamp. "Tim, dear, I don't have any contact information for your parents. I don't want them to feel left out by getting their invites late, so can you just email me their address?"
"Uh…" They haven't talked about his parents, at all. Beyond the fact that if asked, both he and Abby will identify Gibbs as their 'Dad or close enough' and that's all that's said about that. "My dad's out of the picture and… I'll… I'll email you when we get done with Bootcamp."
Ed Slater may have the sensitivity of a brick, but Jeannie Slater runs the front of house for a funeral home, so being keenly attuned to the needs and moods of her clients is second nature to her, and she can sense the distress on Tim, and knows she's put both feet in it. "Oh. I'm so sorry, Tim. I didn't want to dredge up bad memories. Just, if you want them, send me addresses, if not, we don't have to. Whatever you're comfortable with."
"Thanks, Jeannie. I'll send you a note."
And now, three weeks later, they're done with church, where he did a fine job of standing there next to Abby, Breena, and Jimmy while the Pastor droned on and dribbled water on Kelly. And sure, maybe he wasn't smiling as bright as the other four people, but he thinks he did an okay job of faking it.
Easy part done, now on to the hard part.
He'd been dreading the party. At church there's other things to focus on and no one expects you to make casual chit chat.
But the party after... He'll be spending a lot of time holding the guest of honor. And they all know his mom and Ben are supposed to be there, but they aren't.
So, he's driving more and more slowly as they get closer to Ed and Jeannie's. Abby's glancing over at the speedometer, hovering at 25 in a 40 zone, concerned. She squeezes his hand.
"It's going to be okay."
"Yeah. Great. How many times do you think I'll have to explain why I have no parents there?"
"None. You didn't have to say anything to anyone at the church, and you won't at their home, either. I sent Jeannie a text this morning, even Ed's behaving."
"Oh." That was true. Somehow it hadn't filtered through the hurt and faking a smile on top of it.
"You are grieving. It's really, really obvious to anyone who's ever seen it before. Trust me, they all know you're hurting, and none of them are going to step on your toes."
That made a whole lot of sense, too.
Jeannie wasn't kidding about doing Kelly proud. He's never been to a party this big that wasn't a wedding. Slater cousins he's never met before are here. He's thinking it's possible that every Slater east of Ohio decided to show up for this gig.
There's food on every horizontal surface. He approvingly notes that there are several Jimmy-friendly dishes, and (hours later, when they get there) Jeannie does pull Ziva and Tony aside to point out the lasagna and manicotti are Kosher. Tony's face lit up into a vast smile at that. Likewise, he notices Fornell telling Gibbs that this is what a party is supposed to look like before smothering Jeannie in praise for setting a table the way his Nona used to. (Apparently Abby wasn't kidding, everyone they've ever met has been invited to this.)
Flowers, balloons, a general pink baby girl theme blended with a white/silver baptism theme is linking all the rooms together. There's music, and little kids bouncing around, snarfing down the cupcakes and cannoli.
It's loud, hectic, happy, chaotic, and besides lots of congratulations, comments about how beautiful his little girl is, no one says anything to him. No one is asking awkward questions. At one point it did look like Kyle was going to ask where his parents were, but Jeannie neatly brushed him off, redirected his conversation, and took him off to the kitchen to get more to eat.
Besides taking presents, eating, making fairly standard small talk, and saying thank you for those presents, no one expects him to do anything.
He's in a home filled with people who specialize in handling the bereaved with kid gloves, and he's appreciating it greatly.
So, standing there, holding Kelly, amid a veritable sea of Slaters, most of whom are, for all practical purposes, strangers, milling about, eating, drinking, enjoying each other, in her honor, gets Tim contemplating bad families.
For as much care as they're showing him, he also knows that Jimmy had to threaten to beat the shit out of Ed to get even basic respect and courtesy.
That doesn't make any sense to him. But, as Breena's very good friend, none of the adult males feel like they're protecting one of their girls from a guy who won't stand up and do the job. Maybe that's part of it.
He's talked with Breena a little about her family. Enough to know that how her dad treats Jimmy kills her, because she loves both of them dearly. Enough to know that Ed may not be a deep font of tact, but that he did a good enough job of raising his girls that they are voluntarily continuing to work with or for him now that they're adults.
He knows that five-year-old Breena got to work with her Daddy when she indicated she wanted to spend more time with him. And that as a little girl, he took the time to explain to her that they made sure the last days a person's body spent among the living were handled with care and respect. Made sure she wasn't afraid of the people on the tables in the mortuary. Hell, he made sure she understood the things on the table were people and deserved to be treated as such. (Tim spends a moment contemplating what it says about Ed that he shows corpses more respect than Jimmy, before getting back to thinking about Ed as a dad.)
Her youngest sister, Jamie, never liked it. Didn't want anything to do with death or mourning. And somehow, Ed didn't press. He and Jeannie made sure she got a great education, studied what was interested her, and were very, very happy when she came back with a degree in finance and offered to start working with the family's money.
And when push came to shove, even Ed, who is an absolute flaming asshole of the first magnitude, still figured out how to treat his children, all of them, whether they liked what he did or not, with kindness and respect.
That hits him hard enough that he has to excuse himself.
He's been hiding in the bathroom for a good ten minutes when he hears a knock and sees the door open.
"You decent?" It's Jimmy.
"Enough," he says, sitting on the floor, back against the side of the bathtub.
Jimmy sits next to him. "What happened? You looked like you were doing okay, and then ran off."
"Just hit me that Ed's a better parent than either of the people I come from. Even he inherently knew how to treat his kids."
Like everyone else, Jimmy got Abby's text saying that Tim had had a bad fight with his mom last night, so tread with caution, but he doesn't have the details, yet.
"I take it seeing your mom didn't go well."
Tim sniffs, mustering up humor to help protect himself. "Only in the same sense that the maiden voyage of the Titanic didn't go well." He smiles grimly. "First hour went well."
"I'm sorry."
"Yeah. Me, too."
"Did you get a lifeboat?"
"I think I might be the ship. And she's the iceberg. And I voluntarily sailed into her."
"Ugh." Jimmy winces.
"Yeah." Tim spends a few minutes filling Jimmy in on what happened, and wraps up with, "I'm going to tell you the same thing I told Abby, the next time I'm about to do something emotionally traumatic because it's 'for my own good' slap me upside the back of the head and stop me! Dealing with stuff is highly overrated."
Jimmy squeezes his shoulder. "You feeling any less angry at her?"
"Only in the sense that I'm too damn hurt to be angry. I'm not missing her anymore, either. Maybe that's a good thing. Not feeling like I'm going to regret cutting her out."
"I guess that's a step."
"Yeah. But is it a good one?"
"I don't know, Tim."
Jimmy sits with him for a few more minutes, until he stands up and washes off his face. Trying to fight down red and puffy with cold water. It helps, some.
"Presentable?"
He smiles and nods at him. "You'll do."
Tim, obviously, didn't get a copy of the text Abby sent out as a warning. "What did Abby send out?"
"Big fight with your mom."
"They whispering about it where I can't hear?"
"Yes, but not in a bad way. More in a they-hope-it-gets-better sort of way."
"Want to get their hands on juicy gossip?"
"Of course. Probably had twenty people ask me what was up with you and your mom, but they're not hitting you with it."
He shakes his head, and presses a cool damp towel to his face again. "Right now, that's all that matters."
"Ready?"
He takes a deep breath, straightens his tie, and turns to face Jimmy. "Enough."
When he gets out, he sees Tony, who is standing with Draga and Ziva, talking with them, letting Kevin Draga climb him like jungle gym.
He watches Kevin grab Tony's arms, scamper up his legs, then launch himself in a back flip. It's a fairly impressive feat of four-year-old gymnastics.
He takes congrats and hugs from the rest of his team, along with a quick explanation of what they got called out for. They aren't asking him anything, but he can feel Tony and Ziva and Draga all wondering what's up.
"Really bad fight with my mom last night. Don't really want to get into it."
They nod. He snags Kevin off of Tony, holding him upside down, over his shoulder, while tickling him. Once he's shrieking with laughter, Tim asks, "Hey, how about you show me your trick?" Playing with little kids sounds like a good plan right now.
"Okay." He lights up, very happy with all of this attention. "First, put your hands out."
"It's harder than it looks," Tony says, kind of smug.
Tim does, holding his arms out, bent, at waist high. "Like this?"
"Yeah." Kevin grabs on to both of Tim's hands, and begins to climb up his legs. Tony is right, this is harder than it looks. But, it's also fairly similar to sex standing up, holding Abby, without a wall or something to prop her against, and Kevin's a whole lot littler than she is. He's starting to feel a bit smug about this until Kevin gets all the way up his legs.
"Whoa," he says, wincing, almost dropping Kevin because his immediate reaction to what happened was to try and get a hand between Kevin's foot and his balls. See, when he and Abby do this, she knows not to step on his balls. "Foot doesn't go there, Kevin."
"Sorry." He quickly adjusts, feet on Tim's hips, and gets a better hold on Tim's hands.
Tony's nodding at him, looking smug. Apparently harder than it looks means, don't try this without a cup.
Fortunately it doesn't take Kevin more than another second to flip and then land feet first, on the ground.
"Very cool trick."
"Thanks." He's grinning up at Tim. "Again?"
"Sure. Just..." Tim cups the area he doesn't want stepped on. "No feet there, okay? That hurts."
"Okay," Kevin says with a huge, bright smile, grabbing his hands, and starting to climb again.
The party whirls on, and he watches. And yes, it's a party. Yes, people are happy and on their best behavior.
But there are still a lot of kids running around being loud and rambunctious, and... kids. It's true, there are parents yelling here, kids being taken aside, lessons on sharing, not hitting each other, don't climb the credenza, no eating the flowers, the presents are for Kelly, you don't get to open them, stuff like that. But while voices get loud and there are certainly (especially as the party gets later) some very annoyed parental voices, there's no insult in those words. He notices that none of the kids have been called idiots, or screw ups, or anything, really. 'Share that with your cousin' (or variations on that theme) does not involve the child being called a greedy little pig. He hears some very exasperated versions of 'What on earth could possibly make you think that was a good idea?' He doesn't hear, 'Stop that, you moron!'
And sure, not all of the language is PG rated. Some of the laughing coming from the far corner of the dining room has to go with a very dirty joke, but no one is cursing at the kids or the teens.
And yes, not all of the teens look like they want to be here. It's very obvious from the way they've all congregated on the stairs with their phones to text with buddies that a family party for a baby they don't know is not making their day. But none of them look cowed, and he doesn't notice any of them jerking, scared when an adult calls their names.
He checks the house, doing a quick count. There are twenty-seven kids/teens in this house, and none of them look scared. (Okay, one is crying, but he just got bit by his little brother. And little brother is looking awfully pissed.) He can't imagine that with this many kids none of them are naturally shy or timid. At least one has to feel that way, and he can't imagine there isn't at least one introvert in this group. They can't all be fearless little extroverts.
They're just kids, being kids, being comfortable.
Best he can recall, the only time he felt like that was when he was at Pop's house. Without his parents.
It was done with love. It was for your own good. You needed it.
NCIS doesn't work a whole lot of child abuse cases. Just doesn't. (Or maybe it's that his team doesn't. Smacking a small child around is likely to get you killed by Gibbs, and the rest of the team will all, simultaneously, go deaf, blind, dumb, and stupid about it.) So, maybe, at this point, he's been involved in two cases in twelve years.
And in both of them, the parents had the same line, it was for the kids own good.
John always said that. Making a man out of him. Because if there's one thing a seven-year-old needs to be; it's a man.
Tim imagines, if you were to ask him, that John would say he loved his kids. Maybe not now, not Tim, but back when they were kids and he was still living with them. John would have said he loved Tim.
He probably believed it, too.
Him mom believes it. That he could see, especially now, looking back at the memories of last night with a better emotional wall between him and what happened. She loves him. This whole thing hurts her. Bad. By the time he left, her palms were bleeding from digging her fingernails into them.
NCIS does work a decent number of spousal/partner abuse cases. Once again, his team not so much. (Or they tend to get called in when things have gone bad enough to leave a body.) But it's much more common than child abuse cases.
The abuser always has the same line, 'But I love him/her.'
Like most cops, his immediate response to that is bullshit. There are things you don't do to people you love. Hard and fast rule, you don't pull crap like that on people you love.
But maybe that's wrong. Maybe it is love. Twisted, warped, sad love. Destroying love, not uplifting love.
Or maybe it's that love isn't enough. On its own, love breeds obsession and pain. Maybe love has to be married to kindness and respect.
Maybe.
Doesn't much matter if she loves him or not. Not if her love could do that. Not if she could look at the child he was, see only weakness and decide that weakness wasn't worthy of either kindness or respect.
It's hitting him, as he's watching the party roll around him, that that's what 'Johns Hopkins, MIT, NCIS, writing, all of that was fine with me' meant. Until he could 'stand up for himself' he wasn't worth even basic kindness, let alone anything approaching respect.
That was the shift. He finally 'earned' the right to be treated as a real person.
It was like a frat or the military, survive enough hazing and eventually you qualify as a member.
Eventually, the party wound down, and on his way out, he very sincerely thanked Jeannie for doing it for them, and for keeping him in a safe space the whole four hours they were out.
She nods at him, grasping his hands warmly. "It's okay. I love planning happy days. Kind of a nice change from the usual."
He can see that. "I'm glad you enjoy it. Thank you, for... all of it."
She smiles at him, hugs him, says, "If you ever want to talk, I'm a good listener."
"Thanks." He's not thinking of taking her up on that, but it was warmly and sincerely offered, and like the rest of what she's done for him, them, today, he appreciates it.
Next
Chapter 316: Baptism Party
Tim wakes up the next morning, sevenish, Abby spooned on the sofa in front of him. Gibbs nowhere to be seen (probably in the guest room, that more often than not these days, Tim thinks of as being Jethro's room).
He hurts. All over. Last time he hurt this bad he was waking up the morning after he and Jimmy fought it out. Right now, even his hair hurts. It feels vaguely like a hangover. Given how much crying he did, he probably is pretty damn dehydrated.
Abby wakes up, or senses he's awake and rolls over to face him, very gently stroking his forehead and cheek, kissing his lips lightly.
"Hi." She smiles at him.
"Hey." He doesn't smile back.
"How are you doing?"
He shakes his head slightly, resting his lips on her forehead, holding her close, feeling her warm and sleepy in his arms. "I don't know."
"That's okay."
"Hurt. I feel hurt. I feel like I should be sporting bruises from head to toe."
She scoots up a little, and kisses him softly again. "Yeah, I remember that from when my parents died. Crashed when I got home from the hospital, and just ached all over when I woke up."
"Next time I decide to engage in some form of emotionally difficult thing because it'll be good for me, smack me in the head and tell me to stop."
She kisses him again.
Kelly wakes up, letting them know it's start the morning time. Tim winces; he didn't get the 1:00 feed. "Did you get her at 1:00?"
"No," she says, getting up to grab Kelly. "Gibbs did. But if he hadn't, I would have. You needed to sleep."
He sits up slowly, expecting his head to feel like it's going to fall off, but this isn't actually a hangover, so that doesn't happen. "Thanks."
"Down in a minute."
There is a story Tim has not told Abby. Not that it's particularly bad or sinister or something, just, it involves teeth. He thinks of it as he steps into the shower, still aching all over, still thinking that maybe putting this off wasn't a great plan, but wishing he had none the less.
Namely, it's the story of how, when he was a junior in college, one of his molars got infected. It's not like he didn't brush or floss, but he was a junior in college, so he wasn't exactly religious about it. Especially not compared to Abby's version of religious about dental care.
However it happened, he did end up with an abscessed molar. (This is why he had no trouble following Jimmy's bad tooth metaphor.) And they did the traditional soak him in antibiotics treatment plan. This did basically nothing. His tooth kept festering, and finally, after the first course didn't seem to touch it, the Dentist said that they'd drain the tooth, and then do another course, and maybe that'd get him healthy enough for a root canal.
Draining the tooth hurt. Even with Novocain. It was a 'Holy shit, what the fuck is that!' sort of hurt. And draining it didn't magically stop his tooth hurting, either. Once the Novocain wore off, he was still in a world of hurt.
But it was different hurt. Clean hurt, if that made any sense. Between getting the pus out and the new course of antibiotics, the sick, throbbing, poisoned feeling was gone.
He hurt, but it was healing hurt.
And he's not exactly feeling hopeful right now, as he's standing in his room toweling off. Not feeling much of anything that's even remotely positive, but he's thinking this might be the first step toward healing hurt, and away from sick, poisoned hurt.
Putting on his suit that morning is another layer of armor. Covering himself in the image of respectability. Happy dad of the new baby.
Once his tie is secure, he picks up his phone and texts Penny and Sarah.
Things didn't go well with Mom. She and Ben won't be at the christening.
He heard back from Penny first. Sorry. We'll talk when you're ready?
Yeah.
Everything else on for today?
Yep. Just pretend my smile's real.
Oh, honey!
I'll be okay, eventually.
Sorry. Hug.
Thanks, Penny. See you in an hour?
We'll be there.
He's pulling his shoes out of the closet when his phone buzzes again. Sarah this time. I know. She called last night, sobbing.
Well, that's two of us.
You really done with her?
I... he shakes his head, staring at the phone. I think so. Too much pain. Too many memories. I can't be with someone who could do that. I sat there and listened to... We'll talk in person, okay? When I don't need to spend a day looking calm and happy.
Okay.
I know she's not the same person she was back then. And right now, less emotional, less revved up, he does know that. But I don't think it matters. Only so much forgiveness in me, and that's the bridge too far.
Okay. Everything still on for this morning?
Yeah.
Then we've got to go now, if we're going to get to the diner by nine.
Okay. See you in fifty minutes.
He smells coffee as he heads down the steps. Gibbs must have stayed the night. And, once he's down in the kitchen, Gibbs hands him a cup of coffee, not smiling at him, but the look on his face is gentle, comforting.
Tim takes the coffee, sipping it, trying to feel more grounded in right now, and a bit less adrift.
It's really not helping all that much.
A minute later, Abby heads in, Kelly in her arms. "Okay, she's fed. If you guys could get her dressed, I'll get dressed, too, and we'll head off."
Tim nods, taking Kelly, and Abby hands Gibbs the christening dress.
Getting Kelly dressed does a much better job of focusing him in right now. Trying to put twelve pounds of very squirmy, diaper-wearing small person into little, white tights, is taking all of the focus and energy of both of the guys.
"Okay, you just hold her up; I'll get the legs pulled up." Tim says.
Gibbs nods, holding Kelly by the torso, arms and legs flailing around, (She's not really enjoying this adventure in high fashion.) three inches of floppy white nylon dangling off of each foot, whipping around as she kicks, while Tim inches the tights up her legs.
"Remember doing this with my Kelly. Little white dress. Shannon got her dressed. It was my job to carry her in and hold her while the Chaplin did his thing."
"Shannon do most of the dressing?"
"Not at first, she was still healing up from the c-section. But after the first month, yeah, she did most of it. Kelly was six weeks old when we had the christening. Spring time. Back in Lejeune then. Her mom was still staying with us, but the Monday after she went home. Day after the baptism was the first day for just the three of us together. Shannon did a lot of dressing and feeding and diapers. I did the cooking, laundry, and walking Kelly around the house when she wouldn't sleep."
Tim finally got the tights yanked all the way up. He looks at Kelly, still held up by Gibbs, kisses her forehead and says, "Don't worry, I will never, ever do that to you again. Mama wants you in tights; she can do it herself."
"Do what myself? You've only got the tights on?" Abby asks, back in the living room, completely dressed and ready to go.
Both of the guys glare at her, and Abby gets the sense that just possibly this was not the job for her Marine and Dragon (her pet way of thinking about Tim recently). If she can't do it personally, this was a job for someone who's worn tights before, or barring that, someone who's put tights on a baby before, namely Breena.
"Never mind. Sometimes I forget you're guys. Hand her over." Tim does, and in a matter of seconds she's got Kelly in her white, lace dress, very cute little white shoes, and white bonnet. They may not be Catholic anymore, but Abby's got very New Orleans Catholic ideas of what a christening gown looks like, and Kelly's wearing it. Change the outfits on the adults, and they could very easily be going to a christening in 1885.
They're a bit late getting to breakfast. (Getting the tights on ate more time than expected.) So they're the last ones there. But getting into the diner, they find the crew much lighter than normal, but the members who are there have gotten Sarah and Glenn and Kyle all settled in, and are entertaining them.
Hugs, kisses, congratulations, and an extra-long hug from Penny and Sarah. Penny's holding both of her grandkids close and says, quietly, "Dinner tonight, my place?"
And they both nod. It's well past time for the three of them to sit down and talk this through.
"Call out?" Abby asks. She didn't get a call last night, but she also wasn't on last night. But Ziva, Tony, and Ducky are absent. Actually none of their team should have been on last night into today.
Penny nods. "It was two in the morning. Ducky left a note saying he hoped to be there for the party. He'll call in later to let us know what's going on."
That's something of a let-down, but, to some degree Tim's almost hoping Tony and Ziva don't make it. Not because he doesn't want to see them, but because they don't know the full story of what's going on with his Mom, and if they don't make it in time, he won't have to explain.
Elaine sweeps over, "Oh, now look at all of you all pretty! Can't wait to meet the rest of this group. Party starts at one, right?"
Tim nods as she hands him a plate piled high with eggs, turkey sausage, and fresh fruit.
"Wonderful." She tickles under Kelly's chin. "Does my heart good to see a proper christening!"
When Elaine retreats to grab the coffee pot for more refills, he looks at Abby. "Elaine's coming?"
"And her husband. First time this place has closed for lunch in fifteen years."
"Wow."
"Yeah."
"Ummmm..."
He's not sure how to even ask what he's thinking politely, but Abby sees it and replies, "First two guests lists I gave Jeannie she looked at and said, 'Oh, Abby, come on, you know more people than this. This is big. This is how we welcome babies into the world and get them started in life. EVERYONE needs to come to this. This isn't some sort of intimate little gathering, this is a PARTY! We're calling in everyone to celebrate your little girl. Give this back to me with a few more names, okay?"
He hadn't known that. "So, um... who is coming to this?"
"Everyone."
About a month ago, when Jeannie had asked them, "So, what sort of party are you intending to have for the christening?" both Tim and Abby had sort of looked at each other in confusion. Tim's take on getting his daughter baptized could be summed up as: This bizarre ritual matters to my wife, and as such I shall go along and smile because it makes her happy.
For Abby this is a sign of membership and fellowship in the church and being washed in the eternal love of Jesus, saved for all time by His mercy. And while that's very important to her, she's aware of the fact that her family is, at best, vaguely Christianish-secular or Jewish, so she wasn't expecting this to be any real big deal.
They'd probably, like every Sunday, have breakfast at the diner, and maybe Ducky and Penny and Tony and Ziva would come to church, too. Maybe Sarah and Glenn or Kyle if they were in town and felt like it. And that'd be pretty much that.
So, Jeannie standing there going, "Oh no. No. You've got to have a party! This is how we welcome babies into the family! We'll do it here, everyone already knows how to get here, anyway. You give me a guest list, and I'll take care of it. Not have a party! Hah! Got to have a christening party! Every child in this family gets her very own party." She took Abby by the arm, dragging her into the kitchen, calling out for Breena, and a few hours later, when he found Abby again, they did have what appeared to be a serious christening party in the works.
The next week Jeanie snagged Tim as he and Jimmy and Gibbs were heading out to Bootcamp. "Tim, dear, I don't have any contact information for your parents. I don't want them to feel left out by getting their invites late, so can you just email me their address?"
"Uh…" They haven't talked about his parents, at all. Beyond the fact that if asked, both he and Abby will identify Gibbs as their 'Dad or close enough' and that's all that's said about that. "My dad's out of the picture and… I'll… I'll email you when we get done with Bootcamp."
Ed Slater may have the sensitivity of a brick, but Jeannie Slater runs the front of house for a funeral home, so being keenly attuned to the needs and moods of her clients is second nature to her, and she can sense the distress on Tim, and knows she's put both feet in it. "Oh. I'm so sorry, Tim. I didn't want to dredge up bad memories. Just, if you want them, send me addresses, if not, we don't have to. Whatever you're comfortable with."
"Thanks, Jeannie. I'll send you a note."
And now, three weeks later, they're done with church, where he did a fine job of standing there next to Abby, Breena, and Jimmy while the Pastor droned on and dribbled water on Kelly. And sure, maybe he wasn't smiling as bright as the other four people, but he thinks he did an okay job of faking it.
Easy part done, now on to the hard part.
He'd been dreading the party. At church there's other things to focus on and no one expects you to make casual chit chat.
But the party after... He'll be spending a lot of time holding the guest of honor. And they all know his mom and Ben are supposed to be there, but they aren't.
So, he's driving more and more slowly as they get closer to Ed and Jeannie's. Abby's glancing over at the speedometer, hovering at 25 in a 40 zone, concerned. She squeezes his hand.
"It's going to be okay."
"Yeah. Great. How many times do you think I'll have to explain why I have no parents there?"
"None. You didn't have to say anything to anyone at the church, and you won't at their home, either. I sent Jeannie a text this morning, even Ed's behaving."
"Oh." That was true. Somehow it hadn't filtered through the hurt and faking a smile on top of it.
"You are grieving. It's really, really obvious to anyone who's ever seen it before. Trust me, they all know you're hurting, and none of them are going to step on your toes."
That made a whole lot of sense, too.
Jeannie wasn't kidding about doing Kelly proud. He's never been to a party this big that wasn't a wedding. Slater cousins he's never met before are here. He's thinking it's possible that every Slater east of Ohio decided to show up for this gig.
There's food on every horizontal surface. He approvingly notes that there are several Jimmy-friendly dishes, and (hours later, when they get there) Jeannie does pull Ziva and Tony aside to point out the lasagna and manicotti are Kosher. Tony's face lit up into a vast smile at that. Likewise, he notices Fornell telling Gibbs that this is what a party is supposed to look like before smothering Jeannie in praise for setting a table the way his Nona used to. (Apparently Abby wasn't kidding, everyone they've ever met has been invited to this.)
Flowers, balloons, a general pink baby girl theme blended with a white/silver baptism theme is linking all the rooms together. There's music, and little kids bouncing around, snarfing down the cupcakes and cannoli.
It's loud, hectic, happy, chaotic, and besides lots of congratulations, comments about how beautiful his little girl is, no one says anything to him. No one is asking awkward questions. At one point it did look like Kyle was going to ask where his parents were, but Jeannie neatly brushed him off, redirected his conversation, and took him off to the kitchen to get more to eat.
Besides taking presents, eating, making fairly standard small talk, and saying thank you for those presents, no one expects him to do anything.
He's in a home filled with people who specialize in handling the bereaved with kid gloves, and he's appreciating it greatly.
So, standing there, holding Kelly, amid a veritable sea of Slaters, most of whom are, for all practical purposes, strangers, milling about, eating, drinking, enjoying each other, in her honor, gets Tim contemplating bad families.
For as much care as they're showing him, he also knows that Jimmy had to threaten to beat the shit out of Ed to get even basic respect and courtesy.
That doesn't make any sense to him. But, as Breena's very good friend, none of the adult males feel like they're protecting one of their girls from a guy who won't stand up and do the job. Maybe that's part of it.
He's talked with Breena a little about her family. Enough to know that how her dad treats Jimmy kills her, because she loves both of them dearly. Enough to know that Ed may not be a deep font of tact, but that he did a good enough job of raising his girls that they are voluntarily continuing to work with or for him now that they're adults.
He knows that five-year-old Breena got to work with her Daddy when she indicated she wanted to spend more time with him. And that as a little girl, he took the time to explain to her that they made sure the last days a person's body spent among the living were handled with care and respect. Made sure she wasn't afraid of the people on the tables in the mortuary. Hell, he made sure she understood the things on the table were people and deserved to be treated as such. (Tim spends a moment contemplating what it says about Ed that he shows corpses more respect than Jimmy, before getting back to thinking about Ed as a dad.)
Her youngest sister, Jamie, never liked it. Didn't want anything to do with death or mourning. And somehow, Ed didn't press. He and Jeannie made sure she got a great education, studied what was interested her, and were very, very happy when she came back with a degree in finance and offered to start working with the family's money.
And when push came to shove, even Ed, who is an absolute flaming asshole of the first magnitude, still figured out how to treat his children, all of them, whether they liked what he did or not, with kindness and respect.
That hits him hard enough that he has to excuse himself.
He's been hiding in the bathroom for a good ten minutes when he hears a knock and sees the door open.
"You decent?" It's Jimmy.
"Enough," he says, sitting on the floor, back against the side of the bathtub.
Jimmy sits next to him. "What happened? You looked like you were doing okay, and then ran off."
"Just hit me that Ed's a better parent than either of the people I come from. Even he inherently knew how to treat his kids."
Like everyone else, Jimmy got Abby's text saying that Tim had had a bad fight with his mom last night, so tread with caution, but he doesn't have the details, yet.
"I take it seeing your mom didn't go well."
Tim sniffs, mustering up humor to help protect himself. "Only in the same sense that the maiden voyage of the Titanic didn't go well." He smiles grimly. "First hour went well."
"I'm sorry."
"Yeah. Me, too."
"Did you get a lifeboat?"
"I think I might be the ship. And she's the iceberg. And I voluntarily sailed into her."
"Ugh." Jimmy winces.
"Yeah." Tim spends a few minutes filling Jimmy in on what happened, and wraps up with, "I'm going to tell you the same thing I told Abby, the next time I'm about to do something emotionally traumatic because it's 'for my own good' slap me upside the back of the head and stop me! Dealing with stuff is highly overrated."
Jimmy squeezes his shoulder. "You feeling any less angry at her?"
"Only in the sense that I'm too damn hurt to be angry. I'm not missing her anymore, either. Maybe that's a good thing. Not feeling like I'm going to regret cutting her out."
"I guess that's a step."
"Yeah. But is it a good one?"
"I don't know, Tim."
Jimmy sits with him for a few more minutes, until he stands up and washes off his face. Trying to fight down red and puffy with cold water. It helps, some.
"Presentable?"
He smiles and nods at him. "You'll do."
Tim, obviously, didn't get a copy of the text Abby sent out as a warning. "What did Abby send out?"
"Big fight with your mom."
"They whispering about it where I can't hear?"
"Yes, but not in a bad way. More in a they-hope-it-gets-better sort of way."
"Want to get their hands on juicy gossip?"
"Of course. Probably had twenty people ask me what was up with you and your mom, but they're not hitting you with it."
He shakes his head, and presses a cool damp towel to his face again. "Right now, that's all that matters."
"Ready?"
He takes a deep breath, straightens his tie, and turns to face Jimmy. "Enough."
When he gets out, he sees Tony, who is standing with Draga and Ziva, talking with them, letting Kevin Draga climb him like jungle gym.
He watches Kevin grab Tony's arms, scamper up his legs, then launch himself in a back flip. It's a fairly impressive feat of four-year-old gymnastics.
He takes congrats and hugs from the rest of his team, along with a quick explanation of what they got called out for. They aren't asking him anything, but he can feel Tony and Ziva and Draga all wondering what's up.
"Really bad fight with my mom last night. Don't really want to get into it."
They nod. He snags Kevin off of Tony, holding him upside down, over his shoulder, while tickling him. Once he's shrieking with laughter, Tim asks, "Hey, how about you show me your trick?" Playing with little kids sounds like a good plan right now.
"Okay." He lights up, very happy with all of this attention. "First, put your hands out."
"It's harder than it looks," Tony says, kind of smug.
Tim does, holding his arms out, bent, at waist high. "Like this?"
"Yeah." Kevin grabs on to both of Tim's hands, and begins to climb up his legs. Tony is right, this is harder than it looks. But, it's also fairly similar to sex standing up, holding Abby, without a wall or something to prop her against, and Kevin's a whole lot littler than she is. He's starting to feel a bit smug about this until Kevin gets all the way up his legs.
"Whoa," he says, wincing, almost dropping Kevin because his immediate reaction to what happened was to try and get a hand between Kevin's foot and his balls. See, when he and Abby do this, she knows not to step on his balls. "Foot doesn't go there, Kevin."
"Sorry." He quickly adjusts, feet on Tim's hips, and gets a better hold on Tim's hands.
Tony's nodding at him, looking smug. Apparently harder than it looks means, don't try this without a cup.
Fortunately it doesn't take Kevin more than another second to flip and then land feet first, on the ground.
"Very cool trick."
"Thanks." He's grinning up at Tim. "Again?"
"Sure. Just..." Tim cups the area he doesn't want stepped on. "No feet there, okay? That hurts."
"Okay," Kevin says with a huge, bright smile, grabbing his hands, and starting to climb again.
The party whirls on, and he watches. And yes, it's a party. Yes, people are happy and on their best behavior.
But there are still a lot of kids running around being loud and rambunctious, and... kids. It's true, there are parents yelling here, kids being taken aside, lessons on sharing, not hitting each other, don't climb the credenza, no eating the flowers, the presents are for Kelly, you don't get to open them, stuff like that. But while voices get loud and there are certainly (especially as the party gets later) some very annoyed parental voices, there's no insult in those words. He notices that none of the kids have been called idiots, or screw ups, or anything, really. 'Share that with your cousin' (or variations on that theme) does not involve the child being called a greedy little pig. He hears some very exasperated versions of 'What on earth could possibly make you think that was a good idea?' He doesn't hear, 'Stop that, you moron!'
And sure, not all of the language is PG rated. Some of the laughing coming from the far corner of the dining room has to go with a very dirty joke, but no one is cursing at the kids or the teens.
And yes, not all of the teens look like they want to be here. It's very obvious from the way they've all congregated on the stairs with their phones to text with buddies that a family party for a baby they don't know is not making their day. But none of them look cowed, and he doesn't notice any of them jerking, scared when an adult calls their names.
He checks the house, doing a quick count. There are twenty-seven kids/teens in this house, and none of them look scared. (Okay, one is crying, but he just got bit by his little brother. And little brother is looking awfully pissed.) He can't imagine that with this many kids none of them are naturally shy or timid. At least one has to feel that way, and he can't imagine there isn't at least one introvert in this group. They can't all be fearless little extroverts.
They're just kids, being kids, being comfortable.
Best he can recall, the only time he felt like that was when he was at Pop's house. Without his parents.
It was done with love. It was for your own good. You needed it.
NCIS doesn't work a whole lot of child abuse cases. Just doesn't. (Or maybe it's that his team doesn't. Smacking a small child around is likely to get you killed by Gibbs, and the rest of the team will all, simultaneously, go deaf, blind, dumb, and stupid about it.) So, maybe, at this point, he's been involved in two cases in twelve years.
And in both of them, the parents had the same line, it was for the kids own good.
John always said that. Making a man out of him. Because if there's one thing a seven-year-old needs to be; it's a man.
Tim imagines, if you were to ask him, that John would say he loved his kids. Maybe not now, not Tim, but back when they were kids and he was still living with them. John would have said he loved Tim.
He probably believed it, too.
Him mom believes it. That he could see, especially now, looking back at the memories of last night with a better emotional wall between him and what happened. She loves him. This whole thing hurts her. Bad. By the time he left, her palms were bleeding from digging her fingernails into them.
NCIS does work a decent number of spousal/partner abuse cases. Once again, his team not so much. (Or they tend to get called in when things have gone bad enough to leave a body.) But it's much more common than child abuse cases.
The abuser always has the same line, 'But I love him/her.'
Like most cops, his immediate response to that is bullshit. There are things you don't do to people you love. Hard and fast rule, you don't pull crap like that on people you love.
But maybe that's wrong. Maybe it is love. Twisted, warped, sad love. Destroying love, not uplifting love.
Or maybe it's that love isn't enough. On its own, love breeds obsession and pain. Maybe love has to be married to kindness and respect.
Maybe.
Doesn't much matter if she loves him or not. Not if her love could do that. Not if she could look at the child he was, see only weakness and decide that weakness wasn't worthy of either kindness or respect.
It's hitting him, as he's watching the party roll around him, that that's what 'Johns Hopkins, MIT, NCIS, writing, all of that was fine with me' meant. Until he could 'stand up for himself' he wasn't worth even basic kindness, let alone anything approaching respect.
That was the shift. He finally 'earned' the right to be treated as a real person.
It was like a frat or the military, survive enough hazing and eventually you qualify as a member.
Eventually, the party wound down, and on his way out, he very sincerely thanked Jeannie for doing it for them, and for keeping him in a safe space the whole four hours they were out.
She nods at him, grasping his hands warmly. "It's okay. I love planning happy days. Kind of a nice change from the usual."
He can see that. "I'm glad you enjoy it. Thank you, for... all of it."
She smiles at him, hugs him, says, "If you ever want to talk, I'm a good listener."
"Thanks." He's not thinking of taking her up on that, but it was warmly and sincerely offered, and like the rest of what she's done for him, them, today, he appreciates it.
Next
April 29, 2014
Shards To A Whole: Chapter 315
McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
Chapter 315: Endings
Tim's nervous. Really, really nervous. They're due over any minute now. The plan, dinner, get to know Kelly, spend a few hours at his house before they go back to the hotel, followed by the full on baptism festivities tomorrow sounded good when he was typing up the email.
Now it sounds insane. What the hell was he thinking doing this? His stomach is hurting, and he's picked up his glass at least twenty times, taken a sip, put it down, and fidgeted around.
Right now, it's just him, Abby, Kelly, and Gibbs.
He's not precisely sure how Gibbs got invited to this. Part of why he's nervous is Gibbs and his mom in the same room. Of course, Abby and his mom in the same room isn't going to be a picnic either.
Hell, him and his mom in the same room probably isn't a great plan, either.
"You really want to do this?" Abby asks.
He nods, taking yet another sip of water, wondering if they've got any good snacks in the house, because he really wants to eat, something to keep his hands and mouth busy.
"Hey." Gibbs rests his hands on Tim's shoulders. "We're gonna make this as easy for you as we can."
"I know." He doesn't, not really, but it's the right thing to say. And right now he's not even sure what easy would be.
His phone rings, and he more or less sprints to get it.
Gibbs looks at Abby as he leaves the living room for his office. "Is he ready for this?"
"He says he wants to try." No! very clear on her face.
"Is there anything we can do to make this easier? Last time he was that tense…" Gibbs shakes his head. He doesn't remember seeing Tim this tense. Maybe when they walked down that hallway and saw John?
Abby shakes her head back at him. "This isn't in our hands. We're making sure he knows he's loved and not alone."
A minute later he's back.
"Who called?"
"Breena."
Gibbs and Abby both look at him expectantly.
He manages something that's vaguely smile-ish. "Last minute pep talk."
They nod.
The knock on the door.
He doesn't know if it's worse for being expected or not. But he does jerk at the sound of it, and then hops up to open the door.
They look the same as they always do. His mom, tall, blondish hair even more gray now, but the same straight posture and conservative clothing. Ben's as round and smiley as always. He shakes Ben's hand first, that's easy. Nothing about that changed.
Ben steps in, hugging Abby, talking to Gibbs, and Tim stares at his mom.
She smiles and hugs him, and for a second he feels himself melt into it, into the comfort of old lies and memories, and then he pulls himself out of them, and steps back a bit. Her hands are still on his shoulders. "Let me look at you! Oh, Penny told me married life was agreeing with you, but I didn't think... You look fantastic, Tim."
"Thanks."
Abby allows herself to be hugged, but she's not doing her usual enthusiastic, all-encompassing Abby hug.
"You remember Jethro Gibbs?" Tim says.
His mom and Ben nod. He shakes hands with both of them, cool but not the level of frigid Gibbs can easily do, let alone his full on malice.
"Dinner'll be ready soon. We're eating kind of early because Kelly usually wakes up and wants her dinner a little before seven," Tim says, and the nervousness is audible in his voice, along with the way he's started rambling on about the fact they're having roasted chicken.
Ben breaks in, rich voice soothing over Tim's nervous ramble, relieving him of the need to fill the quiet, which he appreciates, complimenting Abby (good guess, she did cook) on how wonderful the chicken smells, asking what she'd used to spice it with, and wandering into the kitchen with her, dispersing some of the tension.
Tim and Gibbs follow along, and Terri ducks out.
She's back a minute later. "Almost forgot this." It's a bottle of chardonnay. Good one by the looks of it. And Tim smiles a little, fairly sure that "almost forgot this" means "I've got a bottle of red and a bottle of white in the car and was waiting to see what dinner was before picking one of them."
"Can't forget that, Darlin.'" Ben smiles at her. "Tim, you got a corkscrew?"
"Yeah." He grabs it and hands it over, along with some glasses, to Ben. Ben's opening the wine, Abby's messing around with the vegetables, which his mom rapidly joins in helping with, Gibbs settles in at the table, watching, comfortable, but Tim can see the edge there. He's ready to jump in if need be.
"Who wants wine?" Ben asks once he's got the bottle open. Terri and Gibbs say yes. Abby shakes her head, "Still nursing. If there's some left after Kelly's last dinner, I'll probably have some then."
"Any for you, Tim?"
"Nah."
"Part of how you're staying so trim?" Ben asks.
"Something like that. Remember how when we went to visit you, you guys picked up the best ice cream ever? Well, we've got the best cupcakes, and I want to have some." They do have great cupcakes. And he does keep track of his calories that closely because otherwise it is too easy for him to go overboard and start putting on weight again, but that's not it. A glass of wine to go with dinner won't tip him over that far. He just doesn't want to deal with alcohol in addition to everything else tonight. Doesn't need anything, even a glass or two of wine, mucking with his emotional control.
Ben laughs at that, happy to hear it. "Always save room for great cupcakes. So, your grandma's been telling us about this mixed martial arts thing you've been doing, is this," he gestures to indicate how much more in shape Tim is now compared to a year ago, "the result of that?"
"Some. Added yoga, too. That's my everyday exercise. Bootcamp's just on Sundays. Diet just gets you thin, working adds muscle."
"Well, whatever you're doing, it looks good," Terri adds.
"How'd you get into this?" Ben asks, sipping his wine. "Great pick, Terri."
She nods, appreciating the approval.
"You remember me telling you about how Jimmy and Breena lost the baby?"
They nod at him.
"Jimmy was talking about being so angry and not having anything to do with it. So we fought. Then this one," he nods to Gibbs, "took a look at us, decided we didn't know what the hell we were doing, and that it was more than time that we learned. Something about making sure we'd both be ready and able to put the fear of Dad into future boyfriends."
Gibbs smiles at that, looking satisfied, and took a sip of his wine. "They had the basics, just getting them polished up."
"Getting them ready to singlehandedly invade France," Abby adds, grating nutmeg onto the carrots she was sautéing.
Gibbs smiles. "Nah. Ziva's doing that."
"Ziva's the pretty little thing with the dark hair?" Ben asks.
Abby smiles at that. Of course, if you'd only seen Ziva at a rehearsal dinner and wedding, you might think that about her. "Yes. Though she used to work for Mossad. They call her the ninja."
"She's the team's hand to hand combat specialist."
"And you're computers?" Ben asks.
"And precision pistol shot." Gibbs adds. "Haven't made a target small enough Tim can't hit it with a hand-gun."
"What are you?" Ben asks Gibbs.
"Sniper."
"Interrogator," Tim adds.
The timer dings, and Abby takes a big step to the side, away from the oven, but still able to keep the carrots moving in the pan, as Tim gets the chicken and potatoes out. While he carves the chicken, Gibbs gets up, showing off his ease in their home, and sets the table.
Relaxing dinner at home with the parents. They all work toward that illusion.
Ben does a good job of keeping up pleasant, easy conversation. He's like Tony in that he can keep everyone, even Gibbs, chatting comfortably. They talk about Tim's soon-to-be new job, how the team is faring, a bit about Gibbs' retirement plans, some about the new development he and Terri are working on. Just a round hour of fairly gentle, pleasant interaction.
Tim can feel how easy it would be to slide back into this. This is what visits with his mom were like before.
There's warmth, and laughter, and even with the edge that everyone is working hard to pretend isn't there, this could be something lovely.
He can imagine Penny and Ducky, Sarah and Glenn here as well. Everyone together, first time in a year. All goes well, that'll be tomorrow after the party.
He's almost feeling hopeful when they hear Kelly's tiny cry.
Gibbs stands up; he's done eating. (Downside of the formula they're feeding her, baby poop right now is fiercely awful, and even two or three hand washes after, little whiffs of it seem to linger. Since he's done eating, and Tim and Abby aren't, he's offering to get her.) "I've got her. Back in five or so."
And in about five minutes, Gibbs does head down, Kelly cradled in his arms, leaning against his chest, bright-eyed and looking at everything.
Terri hops up fast to go to her, and stops, a step away, eyes warm and brimming with tenderness for the tiny child in Gibbs' arms. "Hello Kelly, I'm your grandmom," she says while moving to Gibbs' side so Kelly can see her face easily. "May I?" Gibbs looks to Abby and Tim, and they nod so he hands Kelly over.
"Oh, God, Tim, she's perfect," his mom says as she snuggles Kelly against her shoulder.
And those words shot the fragile peace of dinner to bits. They rip through Tim like hot knives, each stab ripping open infected psychic wounds, swollen with anger, putrid with regret. He bites his lip, and both Abby and Gibbs know that's a classic unhappy Tim sign, closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, stands up, and says, "Yeah, she is. Exactly the way she is."
"Yes." She holds Kelly a little further away, cradling her head in her hand, so wrapped up in studying her granddaughter that she's completely missing, for the moment, the heat in Tim's words or look. But eventually, she feels his look, glances up, sees the rage behind his eyes, and blanches.
He shakes his head, takes Kelly in hand, gently, and turns around, heading back up the stairs.
Terri looks stunned. She's been desperately trying to not say or do the wrong thing, and cannot begin to even fathom how she could have gone wrong by saying Kelly was perfect.
But Abby gets it, and after a few seconds Gibbs does, too. Timothy was the child who wasn't perfect to his mom, not the way he was.
Abby looks to both of them. "We'll be... I don't know. I've got to feed her," and heads up after Tim.
Vastly stronger women than Terri Allister have faltered before the death glare of Leroy Jethro Gibbs. And men, much, much harder than Ben Allister have fallen before that look.
So the fact that it took all of three seconds before neither of them could meet his gaze wasn't exactly a surprise.
He does feel a little bad for pulling it on Ben, who, from what he can see, is a genuinely nice guy who got dumped into a massive family mess that from his side of it, ended years before he even got on the scene.
But Tim is his boy, and he's hurting, and if there's one thing Gibbs is good at it's spreading hurt all over the place.
Gibbs doesn't say anything. He's never precisely rude. He just keeps looking until Terri starts to cry. Then he stops.
And then he didn't look at her again.
For a minute after she starts crying, it seems like Ben is going to try something, but he sees the look, sees the force, the anger behind it, and realizes that Gibbs might literally kill him if he tries to defend Terri on this, and he decides not to say anything.
That's probably a wise move.
Ten of the longest minutes of history go by, and Tim still doesn't come back. Gibbs can, just, almost hear him, and part of him is wondering if he's really hearing the tears, or if he's just imagining them. Probably imagining them, all of the times he's seen Tim cry, he didn't make any noise.
But he can feel it, hear it, if hearing it is what's happening, and it goads him into moving. He grabs Terri, who jerks at his touch, trying to get away from the vice-like grasp on her wrist, and pulls her to the back porch, waiting the barest second for the door to shut behind him before he starts in on her.
"You knew. You knew, and you didn't stop it." Those aren't questions. They're statements, statements edged with broken glass and laced with poison. "It was your job to stop it. You had a beautiful, brilliant boy, and instead of treating him like the love of your life, like the light that made you happy to get up in the morning, you broke him."
Terri nods. She knows right now would be a very bad time to disagree with Gibbs.
Gibbs' voice is very low. "He's not yours anymore. He's mine, and he's Penny's, but he is not yours. You and Ben leave here, and you don't come back."
"He invited us."
Gibbs shakes his head. "You leave, and you do not come back."
"He wants—"
"No." Gibbs' voice is cold and hard, almost calm sounding, but he's not calm. Or if he's calm, he's the calm of a beach where the water has pulled back, gathering into the wave of the on-coming tsunami. "You leave. You leave right now. He will go to you, on his terms, in his own time, if he wants you. But right now, you leave, and you do not ever set foot in my presence again. You hurt my son. You hurt him worse than you can imagine, and you and John are only breathing by his sufferance, so you leave, you turn around and you walk out of here, now. And you pray he never sheds another tear over you because otherwise you will answer to me."
Less than half a minute later, Terri and Ben are gone.
He heads upstairs, knowing they'll be in their room. The door is closed, and he's not sure if that's to keep the sound down, or to keep everyone out. But before he can knock Abby calls out, "Come on in."
He does, sees them on the bed. She's nursing Kelly with one arm, and has the other around Tim. His head is on her shoulder, and yes, he is crying, silently.
Gibbs' immediate instinct is to join them, but they're in their room, in bed, so he's hesitant of violating the intimacy of that space. Abby sees him pause and nods a bit to Tim's far side, kissing him on the forehead in the process.
And with permission granted, Gibbs heads over, sitting next to Tim, wrapping his arm around him.
He looks up, face red and wet, eyes bright green, looking a little embarrassed that this still hurts so bad, hits him so hard.
He sniffs, his defensive, sad smile in place. "She was supposed to feel that way about me."
Gibbs smiles back at him, also sad. He nods, ruffles Tim's hair and kisses his temple. "Yeah, she was. And she should have fought to the death to protect you, too."
Tim wipes his eyes. "They still down there?"
"Nah. Sent them away."
"Okay." He sniffs again, inhaling hard, his head resting on Abby's shoulder. He pets Kelly's cheek, hand skirting gently over her shoulder and arm.
"Why wasn't I enough for them?"
And that's the question that Abby and Gibbs can't answer.
We love you. You're more than enough for us. We adore and cherish you. All of that's great. All of that matters. That's his soul and bedrock.
But it doesn't help with the pulsing hot, sick ache of not being that for his mom.
And all of the snuggling, cosseting, and petting he's getting right now, all of which he needs, doesn't answer that question, can't answer it.
And the only way to get the answer is to go to the dragon's den and look it in the eye.
But he's not ready for it. Not yet. He needs a few more minutes to put himself together, and time after that to don his armor.
Half an hour later, when his face has calmed down, and his emotions are a bit more in check, he texts to his mom. Where are you?
Does it matter? Comes back a few seconds later.
He's honestly not sure. It'd be easy to just hide away, let them leave, not speak of it again. But he thinks of Jimmy saying this is pain he probably has to go through, and that he can't just leave this festering.
Yeah. Like to talk to you. Probably won't be fun or pleasant. Probably don't want Ben around. I know I don't.
Okay. DC Hilton.
Be there soon.
It's a fairly high end hotel. Not too far away. Not too close. Only takes Tim twenty minutes to get there.
He changed before he headed out. When his mom and Ben got to his house he was in his standard work clothing. Nice jeans, belt, button down, jacket, loafers. His blend in, don't attract attention look.
The kind of look, where, if you're paying close attention, you can catch occasional sight of the wrist cuff, and that's it in the way of hints that there might be something interesting going on below the surface.
It's November, night, and cold, so he doesn't go for his full on Goth-wear. Kilt, t-shirt, Abby's gray sweater, (It's a men's sweater, oversized on her, just right on him.) leather jacket, boots. He did his nails, left off the eye makeup. He's sure he'll be crying again.
He added just a little of Abby's perfume. On her skin it's walking sex, but he's spent many pleasant, drowsy, very happy moments where enough of it has rubbed off on him that he's got very warm, cherished, loved, sated and safe associations with that scent on his skin. On his skin it's adored afterglow, and he needs that right now.
Like the knight going into battle, he carries his lady's favor. Being able to smell her scent won't hurt, and will help keep some good things in his mind. And if it's a bit more sweet and femme than a 'guy' scent, he doesn't care, not like he's wearing gallons of it. Just enough so he can catch the occasional hint, just enough to help anchor him in now, not let him get lost in the past.
Because he knows it'll be too easy to get caught in the past. The child/teen he was is right below the surface right now, and he'll break through very easily.
He knocks, almost wishing he could just run away from this, knowing that never getting done with it will bite him eventually.
She opens it, and looks him up and down, bit of shock coming through the sorrow on her face. "Oh."
He steps in, nods.
"Penny and Sarah mentioned the kilt. It's..." He can see she's horrified by it; he might as well be wearing a pretty floral sundress, her eyes flick to the painted nails, and he feels her discomfort at it. Trying to be kind she limply finishes with, "nice."
"I like it."
"I like the dragon." She does look carefully at the tattoo. "That's the family mark, and each rope goes with a baby? That one's Kelly's, and you're leaving room for others?"
He's surprised she's good with the ink, but it looks genuine. Of course, she saw some of the arm cuff tattoo when they were in Texas (the bit that's an inch or so below where most of his t-shirt sleeves end). She didn't ask to see the whole thing, but it didn't seem to bug her, either. "Yeah."
"It's nice work. Always liked that about living on base. The guys usually had interesting body art."
"Oh." He hadn't known that about her. "Thanks."
They stare at each other.
"So, why all dressed up now?"
He shakes his head. "This isn't dressed up. This is me." He slips the boots and jacket off. She's sitting on the bed, so he sits on the chair by the dresser. "This is me, hanging out, at home, with my family, on the weekend. The other stuff, that's what I wear to blend in, be like everyone else, not attract attention."
"Okay."
"This is me, Mom." He's shaking his head. "And I shouldn't have had to wait thirty-seven years for you to see it. Shouldn't have had to spend thirty-four years only letting little hints of me come out, constantly terrified of getting chewed into dust for being me. This is..." His eyes are tearing up, and his voice is warbling, so he takes a few second to steady it. He doesn't just have to say it; she has to understand it, too. "I should have been enough. You should have looked at me like I was perfect. I am your son, and that should have been enough!" He takes a long, deep, shaking breath, feeling years of... he doesn't even know what all, too many emotions, he can't even begin to name them, let alone sort them out, all come bubbling up.
"It was, Tim!"
"Like fuck it was!" He's not looking at her, making sure he doesn't start sobbing because she needs to hear the words that he's not done saying. "You and Dad spent my whole life with you trying to change me. Nothing about me was ever good enough. Didn't matter if all the answers on the test were right, I still had to do better. Didn't matter how bad life sucked, I still wasn't allowed to cry about it. Didn't matter if I hated whatever it was you and Dad wanted, I had to do it. Nothing about me was ever enough for you.
"And you look at her, and you hold her in your arms, hands trembling, face lit up in a huge smile, love oozing out of every pore... You were supposed to be feel that way about me!" He's inhaling shaky and harsh between words, but still intelligible. "I was supposed to be perfect to you! Just the way I was. I was supposed to be enough…" And that did break him. He is sobbing, audibly. Not loud, especially not by grown-man standards, but it's probably the first time in twenty-five years that he's let go enough to make any noise.
She sits there, tears streaming down her own face, too. She wants to get up, hold him, comfort him, and starts to, but he glares at her, so she sits back down on the edge of the bed, fingers clenched, nails digging small crescent shaped tears into the palms of her hands.
Finally he gets himself together. "Why not me?"
She takes a few seconds to get her own voice under control. "When you were a baby I held you just like that, and cuddled you, and told you you were perfect and sang to you and petted you and snuggled you all the time."
"When I was a baby..." He snorts. "Love doesn't have an expiration date. What, I turned three, wasn't cute enough anymore, and that was that? When did I stop being your perfect little boy? Because if I ever was, it was way before I can remember."
She smiles, very sad. "No one's perfect. Not really. That's not how it works. Babies can be perfect because all they have to do is exist. And even babies aren't really perfect. But… No. Your kids aren't perfect the way they are. I wasn't. You weren't. Kelly won't be. They are going to want things that aren't good for them. And it's your job to stop that. You're the adult, you're the one who knows how to survive in this world, and you will do whatever it takes, even if she hates every single second of it, to make sure she has what she needs to make it through.
"It's not about perfect. And it's not about not being enough or not loving. It's about the fact that one day she won't be a baby. It was about the fact that one day you were going to be out there on your own, and you needed to be able to survive it.
"Kelly won't want her vaccinations, she won't want her medicine when she's sick, she might not want to learn how to swim, or do algebra, or whatever. She'll be rude and wild. But there are skills she is going to have to have if she's going to survive, and even if she hates you for it, you will make sure she has them, because giving her the best shot she can possibly have to survive out there, that's what being a parent is."
If Jimmy or Gibbs had said that to him, he'd agree wholeheartedly. But she's not Jimmy or Gibbs, and he survived her and his father's version of 'I don't care if you hate it, you will master this,' so he can't come up with a detached, 'Yes, that's a pertinent insight into the rearing of children' type response.
"So this was my medicine? It was good for me? God, you sound like those assholes who hook their gay kids up to electrodes and try to shock the gay out of them," comes out instead.
She thinks about it for a second and then shocks the hell out of him by saying, "You know what, yes! If you honestly believe that your child is doing something that will result in a lifetime of pain, let alone eternal torment after that lifetime is over, you do whatever it is you can to change it. If you think literal Hell, flames and eternal torment, is looming for your child, you put a stop to whatever it is they're doing because otherwise you aren't doing your job. I mean... You wouldn't let Kelly walk into a bonfire. No matter how much she protests about how the fire is fine, how you're an old-fashioned moron for believing it'll burn her, how it won't hurt her, how she belongs in the fire, and all her buddies are there. No. And if you can't convince her, you will literally pick her up and take her away from it because you don't want her to get hurt. And you will listen to her scream at you, you will hear her cry about it, and you will do it anyway, because you're her father, and that's what a parent does.
She brings it back to raising him. "And we… we were so afraid that you'd get hurt. You were so timid and eager to please, and we didn't want you to be the kid who just went along with whatever the crowd wanted you to do. Didn't want you running into the bonfire because your buddies thought it'd be cool."
His eyes are hard as he asks, "Really? Is that what Dad was doing?"
She shrugs, looking very sad. "It's what he said he was doing. It was what I was doing. And I did it wrong. I know that now. But the goal, the only goal, was to make sure you were strong enough to handle anything that came your way. That's why Johns Hopkins and writing and MIT and working for NCIS and all of that was fine to me. That was you being strong enough to be you."
Tim snorts at that. "You ever think I was so 'timid' because there was someone yelling at me all the fucking time?"
"I do now."
"I used to peek at my Christmas presents."
She nods. "We knew."
"Why did you think I stopped?"
"Figured you didn't care as much anymore. You were eleven when you stopped. Christmas wasn't such a big deal."
He shakes his head. "It's because I had gotten to the point where I could think ahead well enough to understand what would happen to me if I got caught. You say I was too timid, you wanted me to be able to stand up for myself, then why never reward me when I did? Seventeen years, I don't ever remember being petted for being bold. Sarah was. She got compliments and happy smiles, and all sorts of good piled on her for being sassy. Why constantly keep doubling down on me?"
"You needed to be able to draw from your own strength and handle anything that would come your way. If you do whatever it is for someone else's praise, you'll fall down when you don't get that praise anymore. And there will be times when you don't get it. You had to be able to do what was right for you on your own because it was right, not because someone would praise you for it. And Sarah, even as a baby, she just kept rolling. Didn't matter if you liked what she was doing or not, she just kept it up. But you didn't, you were much more sensitive to the people around them, always checking in to make sure they were happy with what you were doing. You needed more help to rely on your own strength than she did, so you didn't get the same kind of treatment.
"Life'll beat the shit out of you, Tim. You know that. The punches just keep coming, and it doesn't end, and it may be decades before it gets better-" She sounds so sad as she says that, weary.
"That's the point of family, to make sure you've got a refuge…" And it hits Tim like a punch to the gut. "You didn't, did you? Stuck in a marriage you hated, little kids constantly needing attention, moving every eighteen months/two years, no close friends, can't complain to your parents about your husband, they told you not to marry him in the first place, your church is telling you to suck it up and pray…" He looks at his mother, trying to see the woman, not just the mom, sitting in front of him. "You were trying to make me hard enough to live your life."
She half-shrugs. "It's just life, Tim. Up, down, doesn't matter, you've got to handle it. Like I said, I wanted you to be strong enough to handle anything that came your way, and I know, now, that wasn't the way to do it… I'm sorry we were wrong about that. I'm sorry that kindness would have worked better, and we didn't try that. But… But I'm not sorry I did everything I could think of to make sure you had the skills, the brains, the grades, and the balls to do anything you ever wanted to do." She does look sorry, and he can feel deep regret and pain on her.
But he's angry, and he needs real answers, and honestly, he doesn't much care that this is painful to her. She didn't want this kind of pain, she didn't have to do this to him in the first place. "How could you have possibly thought that was the right way to do it?"
"Because doing things your kids hate because they need it is a ton of being a parent. Do you remember swim lessons?"
He shakes his head. Not that he doesn't remember them, because he does have vague memories of cold, fear, wet, and crying, but because he's got no context for them and he's not even entirely sure those memories were swim lessons.
"When you were three, the house we ended up in had a pool next door. No fence. Nothing to block it off or keep you out of it. I couldn't watch you twenty-four/seven. We could tell you not to go over there. We spanked you, one of the maybe three times that happened, when you did. But it wasn't stopping you, you kept wandering on over because you were fascinated by the water, so you had to learn how to swim.
"And you hated every single second of those lessons. You'd cling to my legs, crying, begging not to be put in the pool. You'd cry through the whole lesson, and cling to the edge of the pool or the girl teaching you. It was a disaster, but we kept doing it because there was no way we were going to live right next door to a pool with a child who was too young to stay out of the water and couldn't swim. You hating me for dragging you to those lessons was less important than you possibly drowning."
He thinks back. "And let me guess, by the time I could swim I was so terrified of the water it wasn't an issue anymore?"
She shakes her head. "We moved before you got it down."
He thinks about it, unsure of how long they stayed wherever it was when he was three. "So you're saying you tortured me for, God knows how long, months after I hit the point of being so terrified of water that there was absolutely no shot of me going anywhere near a bathtub, let alone a pool," he does remember fighting over the bath time. A lot. He was probably six or seven before he decided water was okay. "because of some insane notion that my three-year-old self absolutely had to be able to swim."
"Can't quit once you start. Have to see it through." That's his dad, at least, he always thought of that as his dad, talking.
"I was a baby!"
"You were a child, Tim. And you did need to learn how to swim. And you needed to learn to finish what you start."
"I didn't start it. You did."
"Tim…" Her face is heartbreakingly sad, and she's shaking her head gently. "It doesn't matter. It's over."
He feels the tears start again, and he's biting his lip, hard, before he gets out, "It's not over because I am still here, and I am still dealing with this crap, and God…" He rubs his eyes. "It's not over! I don't suppose you ever just got in the pool with me and played, splashed around a bit?"
"Your dad did."
"Until, what, I started crying on him, and he got disgusted and gave up? Handing me over to swim lessons until I grew gills or died? And if I wasn't going to grow gills, he really didn't much care if I died."
"It wasn't like that." Her eyes are soft and voice gentle as she says that.
"Of course it was! I had to be able to swim by four because we were a Navy family and I needed to be a little fish to make Dad happy. He stopped getting in the pool with me because he couldn't bear to be seen with a child who was afraid of water. And you couldn't watch me twenty-four/seven to keep me out of the neighbor's pool? Did this house have no doors or locks? Molly's really clever for almost two, but she's not unlocking doors and toddling her little self out into the backyard on her own."
She shakes her head and says dryly, "Your niece may be clever, but you were smarter. And there is a massive difference between almost two and not quite four. You knew how to get out of the house when you wanted to. I only had to grab you two feet from that pool twice, both of them in the first week after we moved there, before you were going to have swimming lessons. You had to be able to swim and that was that.
"You had to have the skills to do whatever it was you wanted to do and not get burned. You wanted to play in the pool. I wanted you to be able to play in the pool. You couldn't do that if you couldn't swim. So you were going to learn to swim."
"If I wanted to play in the pool so bad, why did I hate every single second of swimming lessons?"
A very brief twitch of a smile lights her face. "You didn't, at first. You were really eager on the ride over. Little swim trunks, flip flops, even had your own tiny goggles. You told everyone you ran into how you were going to learn to swim. You were happy, so happy until you got into the water and it was cold, and then the teacher was trying to show you how to do the breathing bit and you were already unhappy with cold and wet and then you sucked in a big mouthful of water, felt like you were going to drown, panicked, started flailing around, slipped out of her hands into the deeper water, and it took her maybe ten or twenty seconds to grab you, but by then you hated the pool, hated swimming, hated her, and didn't want anything to do with water ever again."
The tiny, rational voice in the back of Tim's mind is saying, very quietly, that making your child learn to swim is not insane. The much louder part, the part that is rapidly remembering more and more details (that may be imaginary) of swimming lessons is more or less screaming in rage at what they did and how. He does get calm enough after a few minutes to say, "And from there you decided, what? I needed another sixteen months of swimming lessons after that, never learning how to swim, terrified every day? Was I still running out to the neighbor's pool then?"
"No. But you still had to learn to swim, because the alternative was if you got in the water, you'd drown, and that wasn't going to happen."
"I'm sure."
"You're not thinking like a parent. You're thinking like a child."
"I am your child! And I was a child when you were doing that to me. And yeah, the part of me that's a Dad knows Kelly has to learn how to swim. All the kids do. Molly's already learning. But we don't have to terrorize them to do it. Water's too cold, go somewhere else. Hates the instructor, try someone else. Get in the damn pool and play. There are a million things you can do that don't involve constant pain and terror. Almost everyone else on earth manages to teach their kids how to swim without instilling a multi-year long water phobia."
"I told you, we did it wrong," She snaps out. "Okay? I know that now. I didn't then. I was alone. Just me and you and… And there were things you needed to do, needed to be, and I tried my best, but I didn't know."
"How could you not know?" His voice goes soft and hard for that. Anger beating sorrow into the background shutting it off. "Yeah, I didn't come with instructions, fine. But treat like a human being. Treat like you want to be treated, all that golden rule crap and loving each other they spouted at us every Sunday, how hard would that have been? I mean, just basic kindness. That's not the mystery of the ages."
She doesn't answer that, instead she says, "It was done with love. It happened because I love you. You're nine, the docs say that no, you don't just have bronchitis, more antibiotics aren't the answer, that's asthma. All you want to do is hide inside and read, play the Nintendo, and every damn day I was forcing you outside, making you run, making you play little league and kiddie soccer and whatever the hell else it was, and you're whining and moaning about you hate it and the other kids hate you and you suck at it, and you think that was fun? You think I did it because I got my kicks from seeing you trembling and crying and hating every afternoon? Is that why you think I did it?"
"I don't know why you did it! And all Dad had to say was to stop being such a goddamn fucking pussy and get out there and play."
"Of course he said that." Terri looks very tired. Tim's getting the sense that she may be feeling like she got fed a line by her husband and not only did defending it suck, but the 'line' was a cover for him to be cruel. Then he forces himself not to think that. It's just another way for him to give her wiggle room and absolve her of the responsibility of her actions. Tim tunes back in and hears "…the doctors said the more you ran around and played and did hard physical stuff, the stronger your lungs would get, the less you'd need the inhaler. The fewer inhalations the better because you were sucking steroids right into your lungs and they had nasty side effects for long term use."
"And you couldn't tell me that?"
"We told you it was good for you. We told you you needed the exercise. We told you it'd make it easier to breathe. We told you all of that, and you still wanted to sit around and play make-believe games and write and read. You were ten. You didn't care about being able to breathe much, you just wanted to do what you wanted to do, and it wasn't run around.
"Laying around wasn't going to happen. It didn't matter that you loathed it, you needed to be out there, so out you went. And fortunately we moved again and whatever you were allergic to there was less of at the next place, so we didn't have to force it so hard because you could breathe better on your own. But you needed to be out there, running around, and you wouldn't do it on your own, so we kept it up and made sure you were on at least one sport until you got out of high school."
Once again, the rational part of his mind can see that. He was also overweight then (though it occurs to him that if he was sucking steroids straight into his lungs, that may have had something to do with being overweight) and exercise was good for him, and if a Doctor was telling him that getting Kelly out and exercising was necessary for her to be healthy... Yeah, he'd make her do it. But... and once again the angry voice takes over, "And the fact that they were all team sports? Was that for my own good, too? It wasn't enough to make me run around and get exercise? I couldn't have done laps around the backyard, or hell, I could swim then, joined a pool or something like that. I had to have twenty other guys constantly ragging on me all the time because I wasn't very good at any of those sports? I had to have coaches and other little league parents screaming at me when I dropped the ball? What, was that helping me develop character?"
Her posture slumps further. "You needed friends. On your own, you'd spend all your time reading, living in your head with imaginary friends. You needed real, live people in your life."
"Why?" That stupefies him, always has. He has never understood when people say that someone needs to make friends, and then proceeds to dump that person into a crowd of other people who treat him like utter shit. "What good did I get out of being constantly mocked and bullied? Just. No!" The logical part shuts down and all emotion is coming out now. "I don't care what your justifications were. I thought I did. I thought I wanted to understand, but I don't. I don't care. I'm sorry torturing me for my own good was so painful for you." Skin lashing sarcasm on that line. "You know what Jimmy says, when we're off doing something stupid? That pain is your body's way of telling you to stop; that what you're doing is bad for it, and if dragging my ass all over hell and gone and forcing me to do stuff hurt, then you should have stopped."
There's a tiny spark of fire in her eyes as she says, "You don't stop when it's someone you love. You don't stop. You don't give up. You do whatever you need to do to get them where they need to go. You needed to stop second guessing yourself. You needed more confidence. You needed to learn to work, to study. You were so damn smart you were just going to coast along on your memory if we didn't keep raising the bar. You had to get all the answers right because we knew you could get 95% of them right without even trying, but eventually that wouldn't be true, and you had to have the skills to learn things you couldn't pick up from one read or listen. You needed to physically play, or you would have just curled into your brain. You needed to stop being afraid of everything, or you'd let that fear stop you from being who you wanted to be. You needed-"
"To be someone else. I needed to be Dad or Sarah or… Not me."
"No. The fear, the weakness, the shyness, none of that was you. That was standing in the way of being you. You've let it go, even this… mess between us… is part of having let that go. You're fearless now, or as close as any sane man gets. You've got the confidence to be whoever you want to be. This is all I ever wanted for you, and you've got it."
"Of course it was me. All of it's me! I'm not fearless now; I'm just loved. I've got a whole crop of new fears because I've got people I love all around me, and something happening to them scares the shit out of me. I'm not any less shy. I just handle it better because I've got a safe place to be me at the end of the day. I am less nervous, but that's because so much more of my life is under my control. I don't constantly worry about putting a toe out of line because I know it won't get chopped off now.
"But all of it was me. You didn't teach me to stand up for myself. You made me so miserable that I stopped caring about what was going to happen next. I was so unhappy by the time I was applying to John's Hopkins my self-preservation mechanism shut down and all I could care about was being able to finally give Dad back a taste of what he'd been doing to me.
"When I ripped up the Annapolis letter, I was sure he was going to literally kill me. He was going to do it with his own hands or drag me onto his ship and let his sailors fuck me to death the way he kept threatening. And by that point I didn't care anymore. No matter what happened, dead or alive, I'd end up out of his house, out of his reach.
"And for decades I pretended you didn't know. You and I, we were victims together. Hiding out from him. But you knew. You didn't just know what he was doing to me; you helped." He's crying again, quietly, tears streaming down his face. "I don't care what you thought you were doing. That's a lie. I do care. I care, and I hate caring, because there's still that kid in there, scared, crying, silently, not wanting anyone to hear, who loves his mom more than anything and wants her smiles and petting and...
"And he's not dead, not yet. But you are. That image of you is gone. There's just that screaming child who wants his mom to adore him, but you didn't."
"Tim-"
"No, Mom. Don't tell me you love me. Not if that's what love is to you. I've got people who love me now. Really love me. Even Tony, who is a grade A asshole sometimes, doesn't pull crap like that on me. When he's ragging on me, he doesn't try to make me think it's for my own good. He doesn't tell me or him lies about how he's trying to make me a better man by ripping me apart.
"Don't tell me it was for my own good. Don't tell me that I needed those skills. You're right; I did, but not like that. Don't tell that screaming child that all those hours of pain, all of that fear, all of the alone and alienation was love. None of that was what he needed."
"I'm sorry. I know we were wrong."
He feels the break inside, somewhat like the break when he started throwing the beakers, but this is more of a hyper-aware sensation as opposed to the numb-dead that went with that. This is perfect, aching clarity.
"It's not enough." And it's not. All the sorry on earth can't, won't make this better. "Don't come to the christening party." He stands up and slips on his boots. "We're not going to see each other again. We're not going to talk. Kelly, Abby, and I aren't going to be part of your life." He shakes his head. "I can't forgive what you did to me. And I can't pretend you didn't do it. And I can't just leave it there and go on. So, we're done." He puts his jacket back on, and without looking back at her, turns and leaves.
"Well?" Abby asks, but it's on Gibbs' face, too. They're both waiting up for him. Though it's actually not really late. Only 8:45, though it feels like day three of a four day long no sleep work-a-thon to Tim.
He sits down heavily between them on the sofa snuggling into Abby, Gibbs' hand on his shoulder. "No one's the villain in his own story."
They both stare at him, questions on their faces, waiting for more explanation.
"It was all for my own good, and yes, it was the wrong way to do it, but it had to happen and… She treats it like making me take my medicine. I didn't like it, but I needed it, so it had to happen. That's how she understands it."
Abby hugs him a little tighter. Gibbs squeezes his shoulder.
"I told her we were done. Walked out, didn't look back. It doesn't matter why she did it, she should have known it was wrong."
Abby says, "Yeah." Gibbs nods.
Tears are forming yet again, and he struggles against them for a moment, wishing this was just done, but struggling doesn't help, and again sobbing rocks through him.
They both hold him, and let him cry for as long as he needs. And neither of them are very surprised when he quiets down less than half an hour later, not because he's done, not really, but because he's fallen asleep.
Only so much you can deal with in one day, and sometimes after that, you just shut down.
Eventually, Kelly starts chirping again, the 'feed me' cry of the four-month-old. Abby looks over to Gibbs, who nods. She slips out of Tim's arms, shifting him gently over to Gibbs, who keeps holding him, very gently stroking his hair.
Tim doesn't sleep through it, waking with a start a few seconds after Abby got up. He starts to pull away, feeling a bit embarrassed, but Gibbs hold on. "I've got you, Tim. She'll be back down in a bit. You rest, okay? It's been a long damn day, and tomorrow's not going to be any shorter."
He nods, letting himself settle further against Gibbs, feeling pulled into deep, numbing sleep.
Next
Chapter 315: Endings
Tim's nervous. Really, really nervous. They're due over any minute now. The plan, dinner, get to know Kelly, spend a few hours at his house before they go back to the hotel, followed by the full on baptism festivities tomorrow sounded good when he was typing up the email.
Now it sounds insane. What the hell was he thinking doing this? His stomach is hurting, and he's picked up his glass at least twenty times, taken a sip, put it down, and fidgeted around.
Right now, it's just him, Abby, Kelly, and Gibbs.
He's not precisely sure how Gibbs got invited to this. Part of why he's nervous is Gibbs and his mom in the same room. Of course, Abby and his mom in the same room isn't going to be a picnic either.
Hell, him and his mom in the same room probably isn't a great plan, either.
"You really want to do this?" Abby asks.
He nods, taking yet another sip of water, wondering if they've got any good snacks in the house, because he really wants to eat, something to keep his hands and mouth busy.
"Hey." Gibbs rests his hands on Tim's shoulders. "We're gonna make this as easy for you as we can."
"I know." He doesn't, not really, but it's the right thing to say. And right now he's not even sure what easy would be.
His phone rings, and he more or less sprints to get it.
Gibbs looks at Abby as he leaves the living room for his office. "Is he ready for this?"
"He says he wants to try." No! very clear on her face.
"Is there anything we can do to make this easier? Last time he was that tense…" Gibbs shakes his head. He doesn't remember seeing Tim this tense. Maybe when they walked down that hallway and saw John?
Abby shakes her head back at him. "This isn't in our hands. We're making sure he knows he's loved and not alone."
A minute later he's back.
"Who called?"
"Breena."
Gibbs and Abby both look at him expectantly.
He manages something that's vaguely smile-ish. "Last minute pep talk."
They nod.
The knock on the door.
He doesn't know if it's worse for being expected or not. But he does jerk at the sound of it, and then hops up to open the door.
They look the same as they always do. His mom, tall, blondish hair even more gray now, but the same straight posture and conservative clothing. Ben's as round and smiley as always. He shakes Ben's hand first, that's easy. Nothing about that changed.
Ben steps in, hugging Abby, talking to Gibbs, and Tim stares at his mom.
She smiles and hugs him, and for a second he feels himself melt into it, into the comfort of old lies and memories, and then he pulls himself out of them, and steps back a bit. Her hands are still on his shoulders. "Let me look at you! Oh, Penny told me married life was agreeing with you, but I didn't think... You look fantastic, Tim."
"Thanks."
Abby allows herself to be hugged, but she's not doing her usual enthusiastic, all-encompassing Abby hug.
"You remember Jethro Gibbs?" Tim says.
His mom and Ben nod. He shakes hands with both of them, cool but not the level of frigid Gibbs can easily do, let alone his full on malice.
"Dinner'll be ready soon. We're eating kind of early because Kelly usually wakes up and wants her dinner a little before seven," Tim says, and the nervousness is audible in his voice, along with the way he's started rambling on about the fact they're having roasted chicken.
Ben breaks in, rich voice soothing over Tim's nervous ramble, relieving him of the need to fill the quiet, which he appreciates, complimenting Abby (good guess, she did cook) on how wonderful the chicken smells, asking what she'd used to spice it with, and wandering into the kitchen with her, dispersing some of the tension.
Tim and Gibbs follow along, and Terri ducks out.
She's back a minute later. "Almost forgot this." It's a bottle of chardonnay. Good one by the looks of it. And Tim smiles a little, fairly sure that "almost forgot this" means "I've got a bottle of red and a bottle of white in the car and was waiting to see what dinner was before picking one of them."
"Can't forget that, Darlin.'" Ben smiles at her. "Tim, you got a corkscrew?"
"Yeah." He grabs it and hands it over, along with some glasses, to Ben. Ben's opening the wine, Abby's messing around with the vegetables, which his mom rapidly joins in helping with, Gibbs settles in at the table, watching, comfortable, but Tim can see the edge there. He's ready to jump in if need be.
"Who wants wine?" Ben asks once he's got the bottle open. Terri and Gibbs say yes. Abby shakes her head, "Still nursing. If there's some left after Kelly's last dinner, I'll probably have some then."
"Any for you, Tim?"
"Nah."
"Part of how you're staying so trim?" Ben asks.
"Something like that. Remember how when we went to visit you, you guys picked up the best ice cream ever? Well, we've got the best cupcakes, and I want to have some." They do have great cupcakes. And he does keep track of his calories that closely because otherwise it is too easy for him to go overboard and start putting on weight again, but that's not it. A glass of wine to go with dinner won't tip him over that far. He just doesn't want to deal with alcohol in addition to everything else tonight. Doesn't need anything, even a glass or two of wine, mucking with his emotional control.
Ben laughs at that, happy to hear it. "Always save room for great cupcakes. So, your grandma's been telling us about this mixed martial arts thing you've been doing, is this," he gestures to indicate how much more in shape Tim is now compared to a year ago, "the result of that?"
"Some. Added yoga, too. That's my everyday exercise. Bootcamp's just on Sundays. Diet just gets you thin, working adds muscle."
"Well, whatever you're doing, it looks good," Terri adds.
"How'd you get into this?" Ben asks, sipping his wine. "Great pick, Terri."
She nods, appreciating the approval.
"You remember me telling you about how Jimmy and Breena lost the baby?"
They nod at him.
"Jimmy was talking about being so angry and not having anything to do with it. So we fought. Then this one," he nods to Gibbs, "took a look at us, decided we didn't know what the hell we were doing, and that it was more than time that we learned. Something about making sure we'd both be ready and able to put the fear of Dad into future boyfriends."
Gibbs smiles at that, looking satisfied, and took a sip of his wine. "They had the basics, just getting them polished up."
"Getting them ready to singlehandedly invade France," Abby adds, grating nutmeg onto the carrots she was sautéing.
Gibbs smiles. "Nah. Ziva's doing that."
"Ziva's the pretty little thing with the dark hair?" Ben asks.
Abby smiles at that. Of course, if you'd only seen Ziva at a rehearsal dinner and wedding, you might think that about her. "Yes. Though she used to work for Mossad. They call her the ninja."
"She's the team's hand to hand combat specialist."
"And you're computers?" Ben asks.
"And precision pistol shot." Gibbs adds. "Haven't made a target small enough Tim can't hit it with a hand-gun."
"What are you?" Ben asks Gibbs.
"Sniper."
"Interrogator," Tim adds.
The timer dings, and Abby takes a big step to the side, away from the oven, but still able to keep the carrots moving in the pan, as Tim gets the chicken and potatoes out. While he carves the chicken, Gibbs gets up, showing off his ease in their home, and sets the table.
Relaxing dinner at home with the parents. They all work toward that illusion.
Ben does a good job of keeping up pleasant, easy conversation. He's like Tony in that he can keep everyone, even Gibbs, chatting comfortably. They talk about Tim's soon-to-be new job, how the team is faring, a bit about Gibbs' retirement plans, some about the new development he and Terri are working on. Just a round hour of fairly gentle, pleasant interaction.
Tim can feel how easy it would be to slide back into this. This is what visits with his mom were like before.
There's warmth, and laughter, and even with the edge that everyone is working hard to pretend isn't there, this could be something lovely.
He can imagine Penny and Ducky, Sarah and Glenn here as well. Everyone together, first time in a year. All goes well, that'll be tomorrow after the party.
He's almost feeling hopeful when they hear Kelly's tiny cry.
Gibbs stands up; he's done eating. (Downside of the formula they're feeding her, baby poop right now is fiercely awful, and even two or three hand washes after, little whiffs of it seem to linger. Since he's done eating, and Tim and Abby aren't, he's offering to get her.) "I've got her. Back in five or so."
And in about five minutes, Gibbs does head down, Kelly cradled in his arms, leaning against his chest, bright-eyed and looking at everything.
Terri hops up fast to go to her, and stops, a step away, eyes warm and brimming with tenderness for the tiny child in Gibbs' arms. "Hello Kelly, I'm your grandmom," she says while moving to Gibbs' side so Kelly can see her face easily. "May I?" Gibbs looks to Abby and Tim, and they nod so he hands Kelly over.
"Oh, God, Tim, she's perfect," his mom says as she snuggles Kelly against her shoulder.
And those words shot the fragile peace of dinner to bits. They rip through Tim like hot knives, each stab ripping open infected psychic wounds, swollen with anger, putrid with regret. He bites his lip, and both Abby and Gibbs know that's a classic unhappy Tim sign, closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, stands up, and says, "Yeah, she is. Exactly the way she is."
"Yes." She holds Kelly a little further away, cradling her head in her hand, so wrapped up in studying her granddaughter that she's completely missing, for the moment, the heat in Tim's words or look. But eventually, she feels his look, glances up, sees the rage behind his eyes, and blanches.
He shakes his head, takes Kelly in hand, gently, and turns around, heading back up the stairs.
Terri looks stunned. She's been desperately trying to not say or do the wrong thing, and cannot begin to even fathom how she could have gone wrong by saying Kelly was perfect.
But Abby gets it, and after a few seconds Gibbs does, too. Timothy was the child who wasn't perfect to his mom, not the way he was.
Abby looks to both of them. "We'll be... I don't know. I've got to feed her," and heads up after Tim.
Vastly stronger women than Terri Allister have faltered before the death glare of Leroy Jethro Gibbs. And men, much, much harder than Ben Allister have fallen before that look.
So the fact that it took all of three seconds before neither of them could meet his gaze wasn't exactly a surprise.
He does feel a little bad for pulling it on Ben, who, from what he can see, is a genuinely nice guy who got dumped into a massive family mess that from his side of it, ended years before he even got on the scene.
But Tim is his boy, and he's hurting, and if there's one thing Gibbs is good at it's spreading hurt all over the place.
Gibbs doesn't say anything. He's never precisely rude. He just keeps looking until Terri starts to cry. Then he stops.
And then he didn't look at her again.
For a minute after she starts crying, it seems like Ben is going to try something, but he sees the look, sees the force, the anger behind it, and realizes that Gibbs might literally kill him if he tries to defend Terri on this, and he decides not to say anything.
That's probably a wise move.
Ten of the longest minutes of history go by, and Tim still doesn't come back. Gibbs can, just, almost hear him, and part of him is wondering if he's really hearing the tears, or if he's just imagining them. Probably imagining them, all of the times he's seen Tim cry, he didn't make any noise.
But he can feel it, hear it, if hearing it is what's happening, and it goads him into moving. He grabs Terri, who jerks at his touch, trying to get away from the vice-like grasp on her wrist, and pulls her to the back porch, waiting the barest second for the door to shut behind him before he starts in on her.
"You knew. You knew, and you didn't stop it." Those aren't questions. They're statements, statements edged with broken glass and laced with poison. "It was your job to stop it. You had a beautiful, brilliant boy, and instead of treating him like the love of your life, like the light that made you happy to get up in the morning, you broke him."
Terri nods. She knows right now would be a very bad time to disagree with Gibbs.
Gibbs' voice is very low. "He's not yours anymore. He's mine, and he's Penny's, but he is not yours. You and Ben leave here, and you don't come back."
"He invited us."
Gibbs shakes his head. "You leave, and you do not come back."
"He wants—"
"No." Gibbs' voice is cold and hard, almost calm sounding, but he's not calm. Or if he's calm, he's the calm of a beach where the water has pulled back, gathering into the wave of the on-coming tsunami. "You leave. You leave right now. He will go to you, on his terms, in his own time, if he wants you. But right now, you leave, and you do not ever set foot in my presence again. You hurt my son. You hurt him worse than you can imagine, and you and John are only breathing by his sufferance, so you leave, you turn around and you walk out of here, now. And you pray he never sheds another tear over you because otherwise you will answer to me."
Less than half a minute later, Terri and Ben are gone.
He heads upstairs, knowing they'll be in their room. The door is closed, and he's not sure if that's to keep the sound down, or to keep everyone out. But before he can knock Abby calls out, "Come on in."
He does, sees them on the bed. She's nursing Kelly with one arm, and has the other around Tim. His head is on her shoulder, and yes, he is crying, silently.
Gibbs' immediate instinct is to join them, but they're in their room, in bed, so he's hesitant of violating the intimacy of that space. Abby sees him pause and nods a bit to Tim's far side, kissing him on the forehead in the process.
And with permission granted, Gibbs heads over, sitting next to Tim, wrapping his arm around him.
He looks up, face red and wet, eyes bright green, looking a little embarrassed that this still hurts so bad, hits him so hard.
He sniffs, his defensive, sad smile in place. "She was supposed to feel that way about me."
Gibbs smiles back at him, also sad. He nods, ruffles Tim's hair and kisses his temple. "Yeah, she was. And she should have fought to the death to protect you, too."
Tim wipes his eyes. "They still down there?"
"Nah. Sent them away."
"Okay." He sniffs again, inhaling hard, his head resting on Abby's shoulder. He pets Kelly's cheek, hand skirting gently over her shoulder and arm.
"Why wasn't I enough for them?"
And that's the question that Abby and Gibbs can't answer.
We love you. You're more than enough for us. We adore and cherish you. All of that's great. All of that matters. That's his soul and bedrock.
But it doesn't help with the pulsing hot, sick ache of not being that for his mom.
And all of the snuggling, cosseting, and petting he's getting right now, all of which he needs, doesn't answer that question, can't answer it.
And the only way to get the answer is to go to the dragon's den and look it in the eye.
But he's not ready for it. Not yet. He needs a few more minutes to put himself together, and time after that to don his armor.
Half an hour later, when his face has calmed down, and his emotions are a bit more in check, he texts to his mom. Where are you?
Does it matter? Comes back a few seconds later.
He's honestly not sure. It'd be easy to just hide away, let them leave, not speak of it again. But he thinks of Jimmy saying this is pain he probably has to go through, and that he can't just leave this festering.
Yeah. Like to talk to you. Probably won't be fun or pleasant. Probably don't want Ben around. I know I don't.
Okay. DC Hilton.
Be there soon.
It's a fairly high end hotel. Not too far away. Not too close. Only takes Tim twenty minutes to get there.
He changed before he headed out. When his mom and Ben got to his house he was in his standard work clothing. Nice jeans, belt, button down, jacket, loafers. His blend in, don't attract attention look.
The kind of look, where, if you're paying close attention, you can catch occasional sight of the wrist cuff, and that's it in the way of hints that there might be something interesting going on below the surface.
It's November, night, and cold, so he doesn't go for his full on Goth-wear. Kilt, t-shirt, Abby's gray sweater, (It's a men's sweater, oversized on her, just right on him.) leather jacket, boots. He did his nails, left off the eye makeup. He's sure he'll be crying again.
He added just a little of Abby's perfume. On her skin it's walking sex, but he's spent many pleasant, drowsy, very happy moments where enough of it has rubbed off on him that he's got very warm, cherished, loved, sated and safe associations with that scent on his skin. On his skin it's adored afterglow, and he needs that right now.
Like the knight going into battle, he carries his lady's favor. Being able to smell her scent won't hurt, and will help keep some good things in his mind. And if it's a bit more sweet and femme than a 'guy' scent, he doesn't care, not like he's wearing gallons of it. Just enough so he can catch the occasional hint, just enough to help anchor him in now, not let him get lost in the past.
Because he knows it'll be too easy to get caught in the past. The child/teen he was is right below the surface right now, and he'll break through very easily.
He knocks, almost wishing he could just run away from this, knowing that never getting done with it will bite him eventually.
She opens it, and looks him up and down, bit of shock coming through the sorrow on her face. "Oh."
He steps in, nods.
"Penny and Sarah mentioned the kilt. It's..." He can see she's horrified by it; he might as well be wearing a pretty floral sundress, her eyes flick to the painted nails, and he feels her discomfort at it. Trying to be kind she limply finishes with, "nice."
"I like it."
"I like the dragon." She does look carefully at the tattoo. "That's the family mark, and each rope goes with a baby? That one's Kelly's, and you're leaving room for others?"
He's surprised she's good with the ink, but it looks genuine. Of course, she saw some of the arm cuff tattoo when they were in Texas (the bit that's an inch or so below where most of his t-shirt sleeves end). She didn't ask to see the whole thing, but it didn't seem to bug her, either. "Yeah."
"It's nice work. Always liked that about living on base. The guys usually had interesting body art."
"Oh." He hadn't known that about her. "Thanks."
They stare at each other.
"So, why all dressed up now?"
He shakes his head. "This isn't dressed up. This is me." He slips the boots and jacket off. She's sitting on the bed, so he sits on the chair by the dresser. "This is me, hanging out, at home, with my family, on the weekend. The other stuff, that's what I wear to blend in, be like everyone else, not attract attention."
"Okay."
"This is me, Mom." He's shaking his head. "And I shouldn't have had to wait thirty-seven years for you to see it. Shouldn't have had to spend thirty-four years only letting little hints of me come out, constantly terrified of getting chewed into dust for being me. This is..." His eyes are tearing up, and his voice is warbling, so he takes a few second to steady it. He doesn't just have to say it; she has to understand it, too. "I should have been enough. You should have looked at me like I was perfect. I am your son, and that should have been enough!" He takes a long, deep, shaking breath, feeling years of... he doesn't even know what all, too many emotions, he can't even begin to name them, let alone sort them out, all come bubbling up.
"It was, Tim!"
"Like fuck it was!" He's not looking at her, making sure he doesn't start sobbing because she needs to hear the words that he's not done saying. "You and Dad spent my whole life with you trying to change me. Nothing about me was ever good enough. Didn't matter if all the answers on the test were right, I still had to do better. Didn't matter how bad life sucked, I still wasn't allowed to cry about it. Didn't matter if I hated whatever it was you and Dad wanted, I had to do it. Nothing about me was ever enough for you.
"And you look at her, and you hold her in your arms, hands trembling, face lit up in a huge smile, love oozing out of every pore... You were supposed to be feel that way about me!" He's inhaling shaky and harsh between words, but still intelligible. "I was supposed to be perfect to you! Just the way I was. I was supposed to be enough…" And that did break him. He is sobbing, audibly. Not loud, especially not by grown-man standards, but it's probably the first time in twenty-five years that he's let go enough to make any noise.
She sits there, tears streaming down her own face, too. She wants to get up, hold him, comfort him, and starts to, but he glares at her, so she sits back down on the edge of the bed, fingers clenched, nails digging small crescent shaped tears into the palms of her hands.
Finally he gets himself together. "Why not me?"
She takes a few seconds to get her own voice under control. "When you were a baby I held you just like that, and cuddled you, and told you you were perfect and sang to you and petted you and snuggled you all the time."
"When I was a baby..." He snorts. "Love doesn't have an expiration date. What, I turned three, wasn't cute enough anymore, and that was that? When did I stop being your perfect little boy? Because if I ever was, it was way before I can remember."
She smiles, very sad. "No one's perfect. Not really. That's not how it works. Babies can be perfect because all they have to do is exist. And even babies aren't really perfect. But… No. Your kids aren't perfect the way they are. I wasn't. You weren't. Kelly won't be. They are going to want things that aren't good for them. And it's your job to stop that. You're the adult, you're the one who knows how to survive in this world, and you will do whatever it takes, even if she hates every single second of it, to make sure she has what she needs to make it through.
"It's not about perfect. And it's not about not being enough or not loving. It's about the fact that one day she won't be a baby. It was about the fact that one day you were going to be out there on your own, and you needed to be able to survive it.
"Kelly won't want her vaccinations, she won't want her medicine when she's sick, she might not want to learn how to swim, or do algebra, or whatever. She'll be rude and wild. But there are skills she is going to have to have if she's going to survive, and even if she hates you for it, you will make sure she has them, because giving her the best shot she can possibly have to survive out there, that's what being a parent is."
If Jimmy or Gibbs had said that to him, he'd agree wholeheartedly. But she's not Jimmy or Gibbs, and he survived her and his father's version of 'I don't care if you hate it, you will master this,' so he can't come up with a detached, 'Yes, that's a pertinent insight into the rearing of children' type response.
"So this was my medicine? It was good for me? God, you sound like those assholes who hook their gay kids up to electrodes and try to shock the gay out of them," comes out instead.
She thinks about it for a second and then shocks the hell out of him by saying, "You know what, yes! If you honestly believe that your child is doing something that will result in a lifetime of pain, let alone eternal torment after that lifetime is over, you do whatever it is you can to change it. If you think literal Hell, flames and eternal torment, is looming for your child, you put a stop to whatever it is they're doing because otherwise you aren't doing your job. I mean... You wouldn't let Kelly walk into a bonfire. No matter how much she protests about how the fire is fine, how you're an old-fashioned moron for believing it'll burn her, how it won't hurt her, how she belongs in the fire, and all her buddies are there. No. And if you can't convince her, you will literally pick her up and take her away from it because you don't want her to get hurt. And you will listen to her scream at you, you will hear her cry about it, and you will do it anyway, because you're her father, and that's what a parent does.
She brings it back to raising him. "And we… we were so afraid that you'd get hurt. You were so timid and eager to please, and we didn't want you to be the kid who just went along with whatever the crowd wanted you to do. Didn't want you running into the bonfire because your buddies thought it'd be cool."
His eyes are hard as he asks, "Really? Is that what Dad was doing?"
She shrugs, looking very sad. "It's what he said he was doing. It was what I was doing. And I did it wrong. I know that now. But the goal, the only goal, was to make sure you were strong enough to handle anything that came your way. That's why Johns Hopkins and writing and MIT and working for NCIS and all of that was fine to me. That was you being strong enough to be you."
Tim snorts at that. "You ever think I was so 'timid' because there was someone yelling at me all the fucking time?"
"I do now."
"I used to peek at my Christmas presents."
She nods. "We knew."
"Why did you think I stopped?"
"Figured you didn't care as much anymore. You were eleven when you stopped. Christmas wasn't such a big deal."
He shakes his head. "It's because I had gotten to the point where I could think ahead well enough to understand what would happen to me if I got caught. You say I was too timid, you wanted me to be able to stand up for myself, then why never reward me when I did? Seventeen years, I don't ever remember being petted for being bold. Sarah was. She got compliments and happy smiles, and all sorts of good piled on her for being sassy. Why constantly keep doubling down on me?"
"You needed to be able to draw from your own strength and handle anything that would come your way. If you do whatever it is for someone else's praise, you'll fall down when you don't get that praise anymore. And there will be times when you don't get it. You had to be able to do what was right for you on your own because it was right, not because someone would praise you for it. And Sarah, even as a baby, she just kept rolling. Didn't matter if you liked what she was doing or not, she just kept it up. But you didn't, you were much more sensitive to the people around them, always checking in to make sure they were happy with what you were doing. You needed more help to rely on your own strength than she did, so you didn't get the same kind of treatment.
"Life'll beat the shit out of you, Tim. You know that. The punches just keep coming, and it doesn't end, and it may be decades before it gets better-" She sounds so sad as she says that, weary.
"That's the point of family, to make sure you've got a refuge…" And it hits Tim like a punch to the gut. "You didn't, did you? Stuck in a marriage you hated, little kids constantly needing attention, moving every eighteen months/two years, no close friends, can't complain to your parents about your husband, they told you not to marry him in the first place, your church is telling you to suck it up and pray…" He looks at his mother, trying to see the woman, not just the mom, sitting in front of him. "You were trying to make me hard enough to live your life."
She half-shrugs. "It's just life, Tim. Up, down, doesn't matter, you've got to handle it. Like I said, I wanted you to be strong enough to handle anything that came your way, and I know, now, that wasn't the way to do it… I'm sorry we were wrong about that. I'm sorry that kindness would have worked better, and we didn't try that. But… But I'm not sorry I did everything I could think of to make sure you had the skills, the brains, the grades, and the balls to do anything you ever wanted to do." She does look sorry, and he can feel deep regret and pain on her.
But he's angry, and he needs real answers, and honestly, he doesn't much care that this is painful to her. She didn't want this kind of pain, she didn't have to do this to him in the first place. "How could you have possibly thought that was the right way to do it?"
"Because doing things your kids hate because they need it is a ton of being a parent. Do you remember swim lessons?"
He shakes his head. Not that he doesn't remember them, because he does have vague memories of cold, fear, wet, and crying, but because he's got no context for them and he's not even entirely sure those memories were swim lessons.
"When you were three, the house we ended up in had a pool next door. No fence. Nothing to block it off or keep you out of it. I couldn't watch you twenty-four/seven. We could tell you not to go over there. We spanked you, one of the maybe three times that happened, when you did. But it wasn't stopping you, you kept wandering on over because you were fascinated by the water, so you had to learn how to swim.
"And you hated every single second of those lessons. You'd cling to my legs, crying, begging not to be put in the pool. You'd cry through the whole lesson, and cling to the edge of the pool or the girl teaching you. It was a disaster, but we kept doing it because there was no way we were going to live right next door to a pool with a child who was too young to stay out of the water and couldn't swim. You hating me for dragging you to those lessons was less important than you possibly drowning."
He thinks back. "And let me guess, by the time I could swim I was so terrified of the water it wasn't an issue anymore?"
She shakes her head. "We moved before you got it down."
He thinks about it, unsure of how long they stayed wherever it was when he was three. "So you're saying you tortured me for, God knows how long, months after I hit the point of being so terrified of water that there was absolutely no shot of me going anywhere near a bathtub, let alone a pool," he does remember fighting over the bath time. A lot. He was probably six or seven before he decided water was okay. "because of some insane notion that my three-year-old self absolutely had to be able to swim."
"Can't quit once you start. Have to see it through." That's his dad, at least, he always thought of that as his dad, talking.
"I was a baby!"
"You were a child, Tim. And you did need to learn how to swim. And you needed to learn to finish what you start."
"I didn't start it. You did."
"Tim…" Her face is heartbreakingly sad, and she's shaking her head gently. "It doesn't matter. It's over."
He feels the tears start again, and he's biting his lip, hard, before he gets out, "It's not over because I am still here, and I am still dealing with this crap, and God…" He rubs his eyes. "It's not over! I don't suppose you ever just got in the pool with me and played, splashed around a bit?"
"Your dad did."
"Until, what, I started crying on him, and he got disgusted and gave up? Handing me over to swim lessons until I grew gills or died? And if I wasn't going to grow gills, he really didn't much care if I died."
"It wasn't like that." Her eyes are soft and voice gentle as she says that.
"Of course it was! I had to be able to swim by four because we were a Navy family and I needed to be a little fish to make Dad happy. He stopped getting in the pool with me because he couldn't bear to be seen with a child who was afraid of water. And you couldn't watch me twenty-four/seven to keep me out of the neighbor's pool? Did this house have no doors or locks? Molly's really clever for almost two, but she's not unlocking doors and toddling her little self out into the backyard on her own."
She shakes her head and says dryly, "Your niece may be clever, but you were smarter. And there is a massive difference between almost two and not quite four. You knew how to get out of the house when you wanted to. I only had to grab you two feet from that pool twice, both of them in the first week after we moved there, before you were going to have swimming lessons. You had to be able to swim and that was that.
"You had to have the skills to do whatever it was you wanted to do and not get burned. You wanted to play in the pool. I wanted you to be able to play in the pool. You couldn't do that if you couldn't swim. So you were going to learn to swim."
"If I wanted to play in the pool so bad, why did I hate every single second of swimming lessons?"
A very brief twitch of a smile lights her face. "You didn't, at first. You were really eager on the ride over. Little swim trunks, flip flops, even had your own tiny goggles. You told everyone you ran into how you were going to learn to swim. You were happy, so happy until you got into the water and it was cold, and then the teacher was trying to show you how to do the breathing bit and you were already unhappy with cold and wet and then you sucked in a big mouthful of water, felt like you were going to drown, panicked, started flailing around, slipped out of her hands into the deeper water, and it took her maybe ten or twenty seconds to grab you, but by then you hated the pool, hated swimming, hated her, and didn't want anything to do with water ever again."
The tiny, rational voice in the back of Tim's mind is saying, very quietly, that making your child learn to swim is not insane. The much louder part, the part that is rapidly remembering more and more details (that may be imaginary) of swimming lessons is more or less screaming in rage at what they did and how. He does get calm enough after a few minutes to say, "And from there you decided, what? I needed another sixteen months of swimming lessons after that, never learning how to swim, terrified every day? Was I still running out to the neighbor's pool then?"
"No. But you still had to learn to swim, because the alternative was if you got in the water, you'd drown, and that wasn't going to happen."
"I'm sure."
"You're not thinking like a parent. You're thinking like a child."
"I am your child! And I was a child when you were doing that to me. And yeah, the part of me that's a Dad knows Kelly has to learn how to swim. All the kids do. Molly's already learning. But we don't have to terrorize them to do it. Water's too cold, go somewhere else. Hates the instructor, try someone else. Get in the damn pool and play. There are a million things you can do that don't involve constant pain and terror. Almost everyone else on earth manages to teach their kids how to swim without instilling a multi-year long water phobia."
"I told you, we did it wrong," She snaps out. "Okay? I know that now. I didn't then. I was alone. Just me and you and… And there were things you needed to do, needed to be, and I tried my best, but I didn't know."
"How could you not know?" His voice goes soft and hard for that. Anger beating sorrow into the background shutting it off. "Yeah, I didn't come with instructions, fine. But treat like a human being. Treat like you want to be treated, all that golden rule crap and loving each other they spouted at us every Sunday, how hard would that have been? I mean, just basic kindness. That's not the mystery of the ages."
She doesn't answer that, instead she says, "It was done with love. It happened because I love you. You're nine, the docs say that no, you don't just have bronchitis, more antibiotics aren't the answer, that's asthma. All you want to do is hide inside and read, play the Nintendo, and every damn day I was forcing you outside, making you run, making you play little league and kiddie soccer and whatever the hell else it was, and you're whining and moaning about you hate it and the other kids hate you and you suck at it, and you think that was fun? You think I did it because I got my kicks from seeing you trembling and crying and hating every afternoon? Is that why you think I did it?"
"I don't know why you did it! And all Dad had to say was to stop being such a goddamn fucking pussy and get out there and play."
"Of course he said that." Terri looks very tired. Tim's getting the sense that she may be feeling like she got fed a line by her husband and not only did defending it suck, but the 'line' was a cover for him to be cruel. Then he forces himself not to think that. It's just another way for him to give her wiggle room and absolve her of the responsibility of her actions. Tim tunes back in and hears "…the doctors said the more you ran around and played and did hard physical stuff, the stronger your lungs would get, the less you'd need the inhaler. The fewer inhalations the better because you were sucking steroids right into your lungs and they had nasty side effects for long term use."
"And you couldn't tell me that?"
"We told you it was good for you. We told you you needed the exercise. We told you it'd make it easier to breathe. We told you all of that, and you still wanted to sit around and play make-believe games and write and read. You were ten. You didn't care about being able to breathe much, you just wanted to do what you wanted to do, and it wasn't run around.
"Laying around wasn't going to happen. It didn't matter that you loathed it, you needed to be out there, so out you went. And fortunately we moved again and whatever you were allergic to there was less of at the next place, so we didn't have to force it so hard because you could breathe better on your own. But you needed to be out there, running around, and you wouldn't do it on your own, so we kept it up and made sure you were on at least one sport until you got out of high school."
Once again, the rational part of his mind can see that. He was also overweight then (though it occurs to him that if he was sucking steroids straight into his lungs, that may have had something to do with being overweight) and exercise was good for him, and if a Doctor was telling him that getting Kelly out and exercising was necessary for her to be healthy... Yeah, he'd make her do it. But... and once again the angry voice takes over, "And the fact that they were all team sports? Was that for my own good, too? It wasn't enough to make me run around and get exercise? I couldn't have done laps around the backyard, or hell, I could swim then, joined a pool or something like that. I had to have twenty other guys constantly ragging on me all the time because I wasn't very good at any of those sports? I had to have coaches and other little league parents screaming at me when I dropped the ball? What, was that helping me develop character?"
Her posture slumps further. "You needed friends. On your own, you'd spend all your time reading, living in your head with imaginary friends. You needed real, live people in your life."
"Why?" That stupefies him, always has. He has never understood when people say that someone needs to make friends, and then proceeds to dump that person into a crowd of other people who treat him like utter shit. "What good did I get out of being constantly mocked and bullied? Just. No!" The logical part shuts down and all emotion is coming out now. "I don't care what your justifications were. I thought I did. I thought I wanted to understand, but I don't. I don't care. I'm sorry torturing me for my own good was so painful for you." Skin lashing sarcasm on that line. "You know what Jimmy says, when we're off doing something stupid? That pain is your body's way of telling you to stop; that what you're doing is bad for it, and if dragging my ass all over hell and gone and forcing me to do stuff hurt, then you should have stopped."
There's a tiny spark of fire in her eyes as she says, "You don't stop when it's someone you love. You don't stop. You don't give up. You do whatever you need to do to get them where they need to go. You needed to stop second guessing yourself. You needed more confidence. You needed to learn to work, to study. You were so damn smart you were just going to coast along on your memory if we didn't keep raising the bar. You had to get all the answers right because we knew you could get 95% of them right without even trying, but eventually that wouldn't be true, and you had to have the skills to learn things you couldn't pick up from one read or listen. You needed to physically play, or you would have just curled into your brain. You needed to stop being afraid of everything, or you'd let that fear stop you from being who you wanted to be. You needed-"
"To be someone else. I needed to be Dad or Sarah or… Not me."
"No. The fear, the weakness, the shyness, none of that was you. That was standing in the way of being you. You've let it go, even this… mess between us… is part of having let that go. You're fearless now, or as close as any sane man gets. You've got the confidence to be whoever you want to be. This is all I ever wanted for you, and you've got it."
"Of course it was me. All of it's me! I'm not fearless now; I'm just loved. I've got a whole crop of new fears because I've got people I love all around me, and something happening to them scares the shit out of me. I'm not any less shy. I just handle it better because I've got a safe place to be me at the end of the day. I am less nervous, but that's because so much more of my life is under my control. I don't constantly worry about putting a toe out of line because I know it won't get chopped off now.
"But all of it was me. You didn't teach me to stand up for myself. You made me so miserable that I stopped caring about what was going to happen next. I was so unhappy by the time I was applying to John's Hopkins my self-preservation mechanism shut down and all I could care about was being able to finally give Dad back a taste of what he'd been doing to me.
"When I ripped up the Annapolis letter, I was sure he was going to literally kill me. He was going to do it with his own hands or drag me onto his ship and let his sailors fuck me to death the way he kept threatening. And by that point I didn't care anymore. No matter what happened, dead or alive, I'd end up out of his house, out of his reach.
"And for decades I pretended you didn't know. You and I, we were victims together. Hiding out from him. But you knew. You didn't just know what he was doing to me; you helped." He's crying again, quietly, tears streaming down his face. "I don't care what you thought you were doing. That's a lie. I do care. I care, and I hate caring, because there's still that kid in there, scared, crying, silently, not wanting anyone to hear, who loves his mom more than anything and wants her smiles and petting and...
"And he's not dead, not yet. But you are. That image of you is gone. There's just that screaming child who wants his mom to adore him, but you didn't."
"Tim-"
"No, Mom. Don't tell me you love me. Not if that's what love is to you. I've got people who love me now. Really love me. Even Tony, who is a grade A asshole sometimes, doesn't pull crap like that on me. When he's ragging on me, he doesn't try to make me think it's for my own good. He doesn't tell me or him lies about how he's trying to make me a better man by ripping me apart.
"Don't tell me it was for my own good. Don't tell me that I needed those skills. You're right; I did, but not like that. Don't tell that screaming child that all those hours of pain, all of that fear, all of the alone and alienation was love. None of that was what he needed."
"I'm sorry. I know we were wrong."
He feels the break inside, somewhat like the break when he started throwing the beakers, but this is more of a hyper-aware sensation as opposed to the numb-dead that went with that. This is perfect, aching clarity.
"It's not enough." And it's not. All the sorry on earth can't, won't make this better. "Don't come to the christening party." He stands up and slips on his boots. "We're not going to see each other again. We're not going to talk. Kelly, Abby, and I aren't going to be part of your life." He shakes his head. "I can't forgive what you did to me. And I can't pretend you didn't do it. And I can't just leave it there and go on. So, we're done." He puts his jacket back on, and without looking back at her, turns and leaves.
"Well?" Abby asks, but it's on Gibbs' face, too. They're both waiting up for him. Though it's actually not really late. Only 8:45, though it feels like day three of a four day long no sleep work-a-thon to Tim.
He sits down heavily between them on the sofa snuggling into Abby, Gibbs' hand on his shoulder. "No one's the villain in his own story."
They both stare at him, questions on their faces, waiting for more explanation.
"It was all for my own good, and yes, it was the wrong way to do it, but it had to happen and… She treats it like making me take my medicine. I didn't like it, but I needed it, so it had to happen. That's how she understands it."
Abby hugs him a little tighter. Gibbs squeezes his shoulder.
"I told her we were done. Walked out, didn't look back. It doesn't matter why she did it, she should have known it was wrong."
Abby says, "Yeah." Gibbs nods.
Tears are forming yet again, and he struggles against them for a moment, wishing this was just done, but struggling doesn't help, and again sobbing rocks through him.
They both hold him, and let him cry for as long as he needs. And neither of them are very surprised when he quiets down less than half an hour later, not because he's done, not really, but because he's fallen asleep.
Only so much you can deal with in one day, and sometimes after that, you just shut down.
Eventually, Kelly starts chirping again, the 'feed me' cry of the four-month-old. Abby looks over to Gibbs, who nods. She slips out of Tim's arms, shifting him gently over to Gibbs, who keeps holding him, very gently stroking his hair.
Tim doesn't sleep through it, waking with a start a few seconds after Abby got up. He starts to pull away, feeling a bit embarrassed, but Gibbs hold on. "I've got you, Tim. She'll be back down in a bit. You rest, okay? It's been a long damn day, and tomorrow's not going to be any shorter."
He nods, letting himself settle further against Gibbs, feeling pulled into deep, numbing sleep.
Next
April 28, 2014
Shards To A Whole: Chapter 314
McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
Chapter 314: Forward and Back
Inviting his mom to visit five minutes before becoming the next head of Cybercrime was awfully bad timing.
Tuesday morning an effusively happy email was waiting for him, confirming that Terri and Ben would be up for the christening. And that's when the full-bore: Holy shit what the hell was I thinking; do I really want to see these people? crashed into him along with a side of muscle twitching nervousness.
Add in two days of testifying on top of that, which is more free time than he needs right now. He's gotten to the point where testifying is old hat. Waiting to testify, though... They stick him in a room by himself, and he waits and waits and waits. Eventually some junior legal beagle shows up to go over one final prep, and on the stands he goes.
The testifying part is usually fine. He doesn't get called in as often as Tony, Ziva, or Gibbs, because his part of the job is usually very technical and tends to bore jurors.
Likewise, at this point, defense attorneys tend to not like him, either.
When he's answering prosecution questions, he gives somewhat lively versions of 'explaining how it works to Tony and Gibbs' style answers. He keeps it simple, short, and as amusing as possible. Jurors don't exactly listen to him, attention riveted to his words, but they don't fall asleep.
When he's on cross-examination, he whips out 'explaining it to Gibbs or Tony when someone else I want to impress with my brains is in the room' and pulls out all the tech speak. This buffs his expertise cred and puts the jury to sleep/makes them annoyed at the defense team for making them have to listen to all this nit-picky crap they don't understand.
So, that part's not too bad.
But right now, sitting in this room, doing not much of anything beyond worrying about his mom and Ben showing up, is not fun.
He's got the personnel files for everyone on his soon to be team. (Had to get special dispensation for that. The Defense side was wary he had some sort of extra case prep that hadn't been agreed on, but finally decided he could keep the folders with him once they'd glanced through.) He's trying to pay attention, write up notes and brief dossiers on everyone. But the enormity of Mom's coming on Saturday is making it difficult to focus.
He knows part of the reason this is jarring him so hard is that he just signed up for an undetermined number of hours of emotionally intense interactions. Even if everything goes perfectly (and he's not even sure what perfectly would be) this is going to be tense and draining and… and… and that's not really it. That's part of it. That's the easy part of it.
He's typed out the email, twice, the nope, I'm not ready for this, don't come email, but doesn't send it. (Can't send it. He's not allowed contact with the outside world until he's done testifying. Even if he could, he wouldn't.)
He doesn't send it because he knows what he's doing. If he sees her, he'll have to make a decision. Can't be in the same place, same room with her for hours and leave it in this half-functional limbo. Once she shows up, he has to act, has to make himself forgive or burn that bridge.
Sending that note would just be putting it off that much further.
Once identified as the problem, some of his nervousness starts to ease into the background. At least he has an easier time forcing himself to look at the folders in front of him and really see, focus on them.
He'd gotten a hold of Cybercrime's resumes earlier, in an effort to figure out if Manner had hired the B Team, or if working under Manner turned good people into the B Team. Nothing he's seeing in the personnel files is disabusing him of his original impression that Manner had hired decent people and then sucked all the life out of them. As he looks through, he sees things like Manner was giving them commendations for how well-done their paperwork was or how efficient their code was and stuff like that, which is all well and good, Tim's in favor of correct paperwork and efficient code, but he also noticed that Manner never gave anyone any petting for actually catching bad guys.
Sigh.
Worse, doesn't look like he's ever given anyone any grief about not catching bad guys. He's not allowed to have contact with the outside world while he's waiting to testify, so he makes a little note to himself: Check Cybercrime hours. He's got the sinking suspicion that this department never racks up any overtime.
On the upside, it's a pretty evenly balanced team. Twelve members, four basic skill sets: coders, hackers, web specialists, and database experts, everyone's got at least some skill in all four, and their specialties divided nicely.
Except… Edward Riely. Joy of working for the Federal Government, can't get rid of deadwood… He's a mainframe specialist who's most recent language is C++. It's not that Tim has anything against unique or weird specialties, it's that NCIS doesn't have a mainframe and hasn't had one since the mid-90s. And best he could recall, every other US Gov. agency had gotten rid of their mainframes, too. So, unless he's called in to go back in time and solve a crime in 1992, this guy is more or less useless.
He takes out his phone and writes another little note, reminding himself to find out if they've got a computer guy on the cold case team. That might be a way to fob this guy off and open up his desk for a new hire. Tim's thinking that if he can get that free desk, Catherine Howard, who he'd interviewed for the MCRT, would be a good fit.
"Agent McGee?"
He looks up and sees one of the bailiffs staring at him. "Yes."
"You're being called to the stand."
"Okay." He quickly packed everything up and headed off to explain what it is he does and how he does it.
Thursday he's back in the office, and for the moment, there's only paperwork.
He looks over to Tony, who's working his way through the mound of forms on his desk. "You mind if I head down? I told them I'd be poking around down there when I had some downtime."
Tony looks up at him, and though he seemed happy for Tim when the news broke, he's been… Tim doesn't know… hasn't seen enough of it to know, but there's something besides I'm happy for you going on back there.
"Your stuff done?"
Most of it is. He's got about a quarter inch of forms to go. Monday night he'd been part of the hard original push on the case, but he'd been sidelined for Tuesday and Wednesday, so he hadn't been as involved as he usually is in one of their cases. Tim stands up, grabs his short stack of paper, and puts it on Draga's desk. Draga glares up at him. "Hey!"
"Two months from now, it'll all be yours, anyway. Might as well get used to it." Then he turns to Tony. "Yep."
Tony appears to approve of what Tim just did. He smiles. "Have fun."
Tony watches McGee head toward the stairs. The idea that he's really leaving, that two more months and his partner will be gone...
He's happy for McGee. He really genuinely is.
And it's time. He knows that. They're butting heads like two bucks fighting for control of the herd. He talked with Gibbs about it, a little. Can't have more leaders than followers in a team. And Tim's not a follower, or at least, he's not willing to be Tony's follower, not anymore.
Either way, it's time. He knows it. He's pleased. Tim's getting his own department and the family life he wants to go with that. That fantasy life of the house in the 'burbs with the babies with pig tails and black diapers that he'd told Gibbs about back when they started dating: Tim's there.
But his partner's leaving. The geeky kid who turned into a man with balls of steel on his watch is leaving. His wing man, his back up, his straight man, no more. And that aches.
He's talked with Ziva about it, how weird it'll feel not to have McGee's quiet, stable energy there. He hasn't mentioned, though he's sure she knows, how lonely it'll be not to have a good listener for his stories.
He wonders, a bit, if this is how Ducky would feel if Palmer was moving on.
But it doesn't matter, McGee's leaving. Two more months, sort of, he'll probably be spending more and more time down there as they get closer to his go day, and then, one day he'll come up here and McGee'll be gone. All of his stuff will be off the walls, Draga'll be sitting at his desk, and everything will be different.
This time Tim heads down, and for a few minutes lingers just outside the elevator.
He supposes, if he tried, he could come up with a less welcoming work environment. But short of hanging up an "Abandon All Hope/Ye, Who Enter Here" sign with a few manacles to the blank, gray wall that's the first thing anyone sees when the elevator doors open, nothing is immediately springing to mind.
It's a big, dim, dank (But not really, it should be dank, it's gray and dim, and dank goes along with that, but it's not dank because computers don't like dank. It's psychosomatic dank.) rectangle of gray painted cinderblock walls, gray concrete floors, not nearly enough overhead light, no natural light, twelve (gray) cubicles in three straight lines, all of them softly glowing with individual lights and computer screens. It's simultaneously a little too cold, (ACs on high to keep the computers cool) and a little too warm (all of those computers are throwing off a lot of heat). It's loud in an indistinct buzzing sort of way, computers, exhaust fans, AC, dehumidifier, music on too loud through headphones.
Filing cabinets on one end (army drab instead of gray). Out of date coffee pot (God, it's a drip pot on a hot plate!) and snack and soda vending machines on the other.
There's absolutely nothing he can do about the lack of natural light. They're three floors underground here. (Which is intentional. Nothing short of a mag pulse or a bunker buster will take out their systems. After Deering's bomb, the level between Cybercrime and the rest of NCIS was strengthened; a "regular" bomb going off in the building won't take out Cybercrime.) But from what he can see only one out of three of the lights hanging from the ceiling are actually lit. He doesn't know if that's some sort of green use-less-energy thing, or if it's a matter of physical plant hasn't been down here in months. He does know, that unless there's an awfully good reason for it that he's not seeing, as of day one they will get some freaking light bulbs down here.
He circles around, and like every other time he's snooped electronically, everyone is in his or her own cube, working away. They're all looking very industrious. He doesn't see how they communicate with each other. (IM? Maybe? He's not looking closely enough at their screens to see if that's how they're doing it.) He also, from just walking around, can't tell who's working on what.
They do, however, have little nametags on their cubes. He ducks into the one labeled "Summers," remembering that he's a fellow Beaver (undergrad/machine learning), database specialist, has been with NCIS four years, and has received two commendations from Manner for (unspecified) excellence.
It's a very tidy, lighter gray on the inside, cubical.
Tim stands, waiting for Summers to take a break. And eventually (three minutes later) he does.
"Can I help you Mr. McGee?"
"It's just McGee, and yes, thanks. You mind telling me what you're working on?"
"Running down an IP for Hanson."
Tim nods, he knows Hanson, he runs the third of the five DC field teams. "Then I'll leave you to it. Don't want to slow you down."
"Won't matter." Tim's getting a sense that just possibly Summers is less than perfectly thrilled by how Cybercrime is currently run. At least, that 'won't matter' sounds awfully hopeless. And the way Summers is looking at him, wary but hopeful, is making him think there's more than just a conversation about a specific bit of hunting going on.
"Why not? Faster you get that address, the faster they can move."
"Cases are first come first serve down here. Get a case, work it to the end, pick up a new one. This one's been on the board for three days. And extra few minutes won't matter. All I can do now is tell them where the suspect was."
Tim stares at him, dumbfounded. It takes a literal thirty seconds before he can say, "Three days?"
"Yeah." Summers nods slowly. I really don't like this all over his face.
"Is there any chance this is a cold case?"
"Might be by now." Oh, that's really not the answer Tim wants to hear. Likewise the fact that his team is the fastest team in the building is very sharply coming into focus, all the other teams farm their computer work down to Cybercrime.
"Help me out, why has a lead on a hot case been sitting for three days?"
"Because it was sixth in line."
"Okay, where's the line?" Summers wrote down an address for their NCIS interweb. "New things get added to the bottom of the chart, old things are at the top, as soon as you finish one job you pick a new one."
"Who else is working this one with you?"
"No one."
Tim blinks slowly, stepped around, and read over Summer's shoulder. No it's not a big job. It'd take him maybe two hours on his own. So, soloing on this makes a certain amount of sense. He looks at the chart. "How about any of these. This one… Rundlebach…" he'd heard a few mentions of that case, big time fraud involving enlistment benefits, "that's big case, who's on that?"
"Ngyn. I think."
"Who else?"
"No one. You finish one job, you grab another."
"So, you're telling me you're all working solo?"
"Yeah." The look on Summers' face makes it perfectly clear he does not approve.
Tim's shoulders slump, he sighs, and then straightens up and smiles. "Okay. That's good to know. Thanks, Summers."
"No problem."
He walks the circuit one more time, watching, listening, getting ideas in mind for how this whole thing is going to change, and then heads over to the coffee pot, pours himself a cup, and practically spits it out. The stuff they have upstairs is revolting. (There's a reason why it doesn't matter how nasty it is outside, they always go to Seth's cart.) However, it's manna from the coffee heavens compared to this. He's not even sure if this is genuine artificial coffee flavored coffee. (Tony talking about his civil war reenacting days with his dad, being forced to drink the stuff they called "coffee" which was brewed from something like burnt dried corn and acorns, springs to mind.)
He flashes a text to Abby: You'd think, in that we're NAVAL criminal investigative services, that someone, somewhere would have heard of the idea of triage.
A minute later he got back: You'd think. Though none of my guys ever served. How about yours?
He thinks for a few seconds. Nope. They're, like your guys, doing the cases first come, first serve, doesn't matter how big or urgent. Get this, they're also doing all of them one tech to a case.
Oh Lord, even my guys knew that wasn't good.
Yeah. Coffee sucks, too.
That's easy to fix. Now you can get that Keurig you look at longingly every time we go to Target.
He smiles at that. He does look at it longingly, occasionally petting it, but at home, he's the only one who drinks coffee, and he's got a perfectly good machine, so no reason to get a new one until the old one dies.
I think I have a plan for Saturday. Kelly and I are going on a Target run, getting one of those, along with a ton of coffee pods. I may not be able to change anything else, yet, but I can get my guys better coffee!
There you go. You'll be McGee: The CoffeeBoss.
I can live with that. Are you in charge of what color the walls are in your lab?
Ish. Part of the maintenance routine is every five years they paint. They give me a list of options, and I pick one.
How about new equipment? How's that work?
Got a yearly budget. As long as I don't go over, I can requisition new stuff.
Carryover from year to year?
Yeah. No way I'd ever be able to afford the new scanners or the gas chromatograph, otherwise. Don't tell Major MassSpec, but we're saving up for a combo GC-MS. Should have enough cleared in two years.
My lips are sealed. Besides, he wouldn't believe me even if I did tell him. He'd assume I was rumormongering to just make him angry.
There's a long quiet minute. Tim assumes she's actually working, and he opens his laptop and logs into the task log, getting a feel for how it works, and becoming familiar with what's on tap for Cybercrime.
Then his phone buzzes again. It's just hitting me. This is how it's going to be from now on. You won't be coming by to chat and work. Might stop in to mess around or something, but it won't be every day. We'll text about work, maybe have lunch together, but you and I won't sit next to each other at the desk, working the same job, not anymore.
(sad smile) Yeah. I know. You won't be read in on all my stuff anymore, or I yours, too.
Sigh.
Yeah. No unmixed blessings.
Guess not.
He heads over to HR and asks for information about how the hours in Cybercrime work. Doesn't take too long of hunting through the forms before he's sure that part of what is going on down there is that no one is working overtime. They all get in at eight. They all leave at five. They each take every single day of vacation. (Okay, he's assuming on that, it'll take hours to go through everything that thoroughly.)
He takes his phone out and sends a text to Gibbs: I know why you hired me, now.
A few minutes later, as he's heading toward Accounting, curious to see what shape his budget is going to be in, he gets back. Couldn't resist those pretty green eyes.
Wink.
Not yours, Abby's. She kept pouting at me about it. But Gibbs, we neeeeeed McGee! I run the lab; I can't be your tech girl, too.
Love you, too. They get in at eight. They go home at five. God forbid you need computer work done at 5:15.
There was a reason why Abby was doing all our tech before you showed up.
Yeah, and now I know why you needed a tech guy. I'm also feeling significantly less cool about mocking the other teams for being so slow.
Mock away, the other team leaders could have done the same thing I did and hired a computer guy.
Guess so. Just hitting me that you and Kate and Tony worked pretty well as a trio. You didn't actually need another field agent.
Didn't think you'd ever really become one. Probably the best surprise of my life.
Thanks.
There's a few minutes' pause while Tim makes a note to himself about getting Cybercrime onto a twenty-four hour cycle. Crime happens all the time, so someone's got to be around to handle casework. He also makes a note to make sure that there's not some sort of messy labor rules against it.
His phone buzzes again while he's searching the regs.
Draga's getting sassy. Says if he's doing your paperwork, he should have your desk. He just scooted over there.
:) It'll be his soon enough. I'll boot him out when I get back up there, though.
Nothing against it he could see. Time to head off.
Tim gets to Accounting, asks for the budget information he wants, waits for the girl to call up to Vance to get the okay for this. She's staring at him warily, apparently requests to see departmental budgets are few and far between, let alone by guys who are not actually in charge of said department.
But, after a brief conversation with Vance, she stares at him, nods grudgingly, and sets him up at an empty desk, giving him the log in information he needs to view what will soon be his budget.
It's very nice. Painfully tidy. Like the rest of Cybercrime it's in perfect shape. The accounting team probably loves them. Nothing's over, everything appears to be accounted for, he's even got, and this pleases him quite a bit, close to twenty thousand dollars unused. Yeah, that's not big money, not in the grand scale of things, but that would certainly spruce up the basement, get the work flow better, upgrade some of the tools, and add a few toys to keep his techs happy.
Of course, no one in Cybercrime ever works overtime.
That 20k may vanish really fast if he gets them working the kind of hours they need to work.
He grabs his phone and flashes another text to Abby. Where does money for overtime come from?
From your budget.
Shit.
?
They're working perfect 8 to 5, no overtime. I know I've got stuff I want to change that'll cost money. And I know keeping butts in chairs'll run overtime.
Welcome to management! ;)
He snorts at that. Thanks.
Comp time may or may not be your friend. Or, you shake them up enough, and they only log 40 hours, but work more because they love the team. Same way you guys do.
Great.
Not feeling hopeful of that?
Not immensely. Talked to one of them, Summers, he was showing some signs of wanting things to change.
That's good.
I hope so.
And a pile of new trace just came in. Off to actually work.
Enjoy!
He's digging through his numbers, looking into what all it is Cybercrime spends money on (software licenses, wages, hardware, bonuses: It's not too complicated.) when his phone buzzes again.
Gibbs this time. Really weird to see him sitting at your desk.
Tim supposes it would be, but he's not having any sort of gut reaction to it. Probably would have this time last year, but... The desk isn't home so much, not anymore.
I haven't left yet.
Nope. Just different.
Yeah. I know. Would have felt the same way if I'd been the one who left later, and had to see someone else at your desk.
Don't remind me. Tony and Ziva are rummaging through resumes right now.
Gotta fill that space sooner or later.
Guess so.
At least it's less traumatic than the last time we filled an empty desk.
Amen to that.
Ziva is sitting next to Tony, both of them scanning through the list of resumes on file with HR for field agent positions.
Her eyes dart over names, qualifications, just little bits and pieces of information. They want more tech, sniper skills, a Marine would be good, and if they can get all of that with a psych background, someone who can really nail the interrogation angle, that'd be perfect.
But it won't be perfect, because her team is splitting up and heading off.
It's been almost five years since she told Cranston that she wanted something permanent, something that couldn't be taken away. When she said that, she was envisioning her team.
Silly answer. She knows that, feels it now, but she needed it then, the idea of a rock to chain herself to.
But nothing is permanent, everything changes, and anything can be taken away. Of all of the team, she knows that most intimately.
Which is probably why she wanted the opposite more than anything.
Now, though, having lived five years of changes, she knows that if you've got permanent, you're looking at something/someone dead.
Her team will never be the same. It'll never work as smooth. It will never be the haven from life outside.
But that's okay, because she doesn't need that anymore. And, privately, in the very deep thoughts, the ones she's still playing with herself, the ones she hasn't even voiced to Tony, yet, she's not sure how much longer she'll be part of the team. There are parts of her that have been hiding, afraid to see the light for decades, and she's thinking that maybe, wrapped in a family that loves her, it might be okay to see about exploring them again.
Back when this started, when she became Special Agent Ziva David, NCIS, she was replacing the smoldering ruins of a blasted, destroyed family with a team. It wasn't enough. But it was what she could get. And it was safely distant enough that she didn't have to risk, yet again, heartbreak.
Once again, she has a family. She doesn't need a team to fill the void left by ghosts of a brother and sister, mother and father.
She looks through resumes with Tony, and thinks about a conversation they need to have.
Tim spends another hour, through lunch, on the computer, checking around, coming up with some ideas. (Modified shareware/freeware. Cybercrime spends more on licensing than it does on anything else, and if he can free up some funds by switching software, he can get more hours out of his people, and get better tools for them to work with. Get more out of each of those hours. That's the plan, or one of them, at least.)
By the time that was done, he felt like he'd done as much as he could with what he had. Tomorrow, Monday, he'd start heading down to shadow individual techs... God, there's got to be a better name for them.
Abby's got LabRats, so what should his guys be?
Worms? They're underground, never see the light of day, and computer worms are a thing. But he doesn't like worms. Too... worms.
He's got a dungeon. Dark, gray, dank (but not really). Who works in a dungeon? Imps?
Computer Imps?
Diskworld references aside, he's not loving that. No, if he's going to be the grand overlord of Cybercrime he's got to have... A smile spreads across his face, yeah, it's kind of dumb, but it'll make Abby laugh and it amuses him.
McGee's Minions.
That works.
Tomorrow he'll start spending at least an hour or so a day observing his Minions. He feels a bizarre desire to rub his hands together and cackle at that.
When he got back up, Draga was sitting at his desk, working on his computer. He just stares at him, Really, you gonna pull this shit on me? on his face.
"In two months, it'll be my desk, might as well get used to it, right?" Draga says with a cocky smile.
Tim steps behind his desk, kicks (lightly) at the back of the chair while pointing to Draga's desk. "Out!"
Draga stands up, grabs the stack of papers, leaving about half of them on Tim's desk, and moseys over to his own.
Tim shrugs and starts filling them out. Not like he hasn't done it before.
"How was it McGee?" Ziva asks looking away from Tony's computer.
"It's going to depend a whole lot on how the people working there react to change. I can see a lot of easy ways to make things better, but..."
"But if they do not want to change..." she leads.
"Yeah." He smiles and nods. He tells them a little about what he's noticing. His teammates are all properly appalled. Tony makes a joke about how if he'd known he could have gotten regular hours by learning computers he would have bothered to learn. Gibbs watches them (because it is a paperwork day, and a certain amount of goofing around is allowed on paperwork days) fondly.
As he's talking, Tim's thinking about how much he's going to miss this. Easy, fun chatting while they all fill in the blanks.
And for as much as he's looking forward to the future, as much as he wants to see where Cybercrime will take him, there is a sort of anticipatory ache of losing this.
Tony's phone rings. He picks it up, listens, nods, asks a few questions, jotting down answers. They all know what this means.
Like Gibbs, Tony's kept the start of case mantra, "Gear up."
Cases, all cases, begin with "Gear up." The team will change. Tim'll go. Gibbs'll go. Eventually Ziva will probably take maternity leave. But those words will stay the same. "Gear up." And the cases'll keep coming. No matter what, sometime, somewhere, some poor son of a bitch'll buy the plot, and NCIS'll show up to figure out what happened.
Next
Chapter 314: Forward and Back
Inviting his mom to visit five minutes before becoming the next head of Cybercrime was awfully bad timing.
Tuesday morning an effusively happy email was waiting for him, confirming that Terri and Ben would be up for the christening. And that's when the full-bore: Holy shit what the hell was I thinking; do I really want to see these people? crashed into him along with a side of muscle twitching nervousness.
Add in two days of testifying on top of that, which is more free time than he needs right now. He's gotten to the point where testifying is old hat. Waiting to testify, though... They stick him in a room by himself, and he waits and waits and waits. Eventually some junior legal beagle shows up to go over one final prep, and on the stands he goes.
The testifying part is usually fine. He doesn't get called in as often as Tony, Ziva, or Gibbs, because his part of the job is usually very technical and tends to bore jurors.
Likewise, at this point, defense attorneys tend to not like him, either.
When he's answering prosecution questions, he gives somewhat lively versions of 'explaining how it works to Tony and Gibbs' style answers. He keeps it simple, short, and as amusing as possible. Jurors don't exactly listen to him, attention riveted to his words, but they don't fall asleep.
When he's on cross-examination, he whips out 'explaining it to Gibbs or Tony when someone else I want to impress with my brains is in the room' and pulls out all the tech speak. This buffs his expertise cred and puts the jury to sleep/makes them annoyed at the defense team for making them have to listen to all this nit-picky crap they don't understand.
So, that part's not too bad.
But right now, sitting in this room, doing not much of anything beyond worrying about his mom and Ben showing up, is not fun.
He's got the personnel files for everyone on his soon to be team. (Had to get special dispensation for that. The Defense side was wary he had some sort of extra case prep that hadn't been agreed on, but finally decided he could keep the folders with him once they'd glanced through.) He's trying to pay attention, write up notes and brief dossiers on everyone. But the enormity of Mom's coming on Saturday is making it difficult to focus.
He knows part of the reason this is jarring him so hard is that he just signed up for an undetermined number of hours of emotionally intense interactions. Even if everything goes perfectly (and he's not even sure what perfectly would be) this is going to be tense and draining and… and… and that's not really it. That's part of it. That's the easy part of it.
He's typed out the email, twice, the nope, I'm not ready for this, don't come email, but doesn't send it. (Can't send it. He's not allowed contact with the outside world until he's done testifying. Even if he could, he wouldn't.)
He doesn't send it because he knows what he's doing. If he sees her, he'll have to make a decision. Can't be in the same place, same room with her for hours and leave it in this half-functional limbo. Once she shows up, he has to act, has to make himself forgive or burn that bridge.
Sending that note would just be putting it off that much further.
Once identified as the problem, some of his nervousness starts to ease into the background. At least he has an easier time forcing himself to look at the folders in front of him and really see, focus on them.
He'd gotten a hold of Cybercrime's resumes earlier, in an effort to figure out if Manner had hired the B Team, or if working under Manner turned good people into the B Team. Nothing he's seeing in the personnel files is disabusing him of his original impression that Manner had hired decent people and then sucked all the life out of them. As he looks through, he sees things like Manner was giving them commendations for how well-done their paperwork was or how efficient their code was and stuff like that, which is all well and good, Tim's in favor of correct paperwork and efficient code, but he also noticed that Manner never gave anyone any petting for actually catching bad guys.
Sigh.
Worse, doesn't look like he's ever given anyone any grief about not catching bad guys. He's not allowed to have contact with the outside world while he's waiting to testify, so he makes a little note to himself: Check Cybercrime hours. He's got the sinking suspicion that this department never racks up any overtime.
On the upside, it's a pretty evenly balanced team. Twelve members, four basic skill sets: coders, hackers, web specialists, and database experts, everyone's got at least some skill in all four, and their specialties divided nicely.
Except… Edward Riely. Joy of working for the Federal Government, can't get rid of deadwood… He's a mainframe specialist who's most recent language is C++. It's not that Tim has anything against unique or weird specialties, it's that NCIS doesn't have a mainframe and hasn't had one since the mid-90s. And best he could recall, every other US Gov. agency had gotten rid of their mainframes, too. So, unless he's called in to go back in time and solve a crime in 1992, this guy is more or less useless.
He takes out his phone and writes another little note, reminding himself to find out if they've got a computer guy on the cold case team. That might be a way to fob this guy off and open up his desk for a new hire. Tim's thinking that if he can get that free desk, Catherine Howard, who he'd interviewed for the MCRT, would be a good fit.
"Agent McGee?"
He looks up and sees one of the bailiffs staring at him. "Yes."
"You're being called to the stand."
"Okay." He quickly packed everything up and headed off to explain what it is he does and how he does it.
Thursday he's back in the office, and for the moment, there's only paperwork.
He looks over to Tony, who's working his way through the mound of forms on his desk. "You mind if I head down? I told them I'd be poking around down there when I had some downtime."
Tony looks up at him, and though he seemed happy for Tim when the news broke, he's been… Tim doesn't know… hasn't seen enough of it to know, but there's something besides I'm happy for you going on back there.
"Your stuff done?"
Most of it is. He's got about a quarter inch of forms to go. Monday night he'd been part of the hard original push on the case, but he'd been sidelined for Tuesday and Wednesday, so he hadn't been as involved as he usually is in one of their cases. Tim stands up, grabs his short stack of paper, and puts it on Draga's desk. Draga glares up at him. "Hey!"
"Two months from now, it'll all be yours, anyway. Might as well get used to it." Then he turns to Tony. "Yep."
Tony appears to approve of what Tim just did. He smiles. "Have fun."
Tony watches McGee head toward the stairs. The idea that he's really leaving, that two more months and his partner will be gone...
He's happy for McGee. He really genuinely is.
And it's time. He knows that. They're butting heads like two bucks fighting for control of the herd. He talked with Gibbs about it, a little. Can't have more leaders than followers in a team. And Tim's not a follower, or at least, he's not willing to be Tony's follower, not anymore.
Either way, it's time. He knows it. He's pleased. Tim's getting his own department and the family life he wants to go with that. That fantasy life of the house in the 'burbs with the babies with pig tails and black diapers that he'd told Gibbs about back when they started dating: Tim's there.
But his partner's leaving. The geeky kid who turned into a man with balls of steel on his watch is leaving. His wing man, his back up, his straight man, no more. And that aches.
He's talked with Ziva about it, how weird it'll feel not to have McGee's quiet, stable energy there. He hasn't mentioned, though he's sure she knows, how lonely it'll be not to have a good listener for his stories.
He wonders, a bit, if this is how Ducky would feel if Palmer was moving on.
But it doesn't matter, McGee's leaving. Two more months, sort of, he'll probably be spending more and more time down there as they get closer to his go day, and then, one day he'll come up here and McGee'll be gone. All of his stuff will be off the walls, Draga'll be sitting at his desk, and everything will be different.
This time Tim heads down, and for a few minutes lingers just outside the elevator.
He supposes, if he tried, he could come up with a less welcoming work environment. But short of hanging up an "Abandon All Hope/Ye, Who Enter Here" sign with a few manacles to the blank, gray wall that's the first thing anyone sees when the elevator doors open, nothing is immediately springing to mind.
It's a big, dim, dank (But not really, it should be dank, it's gray and dim, and dank goes along with that, but it's not dank because computers don't like dank. It's psychosomatic dank.) rectangle of gray painted cinderblock walls, gray concrete floors, not nearly enough overhead light, no natural light, twelve (gray) cubicles in three straight lines, all of them softly glowing with individual lights and computer screens. It's simultaneously a little too cold, (ACs on high to keep the computers cool) and a little too warm (all of those computers are throwing off a lot of heat). It's loud in an indistinct buzzing sort of way, computers, exhaust fans, AC, dehumidifier, music on too loud through headphones.
Filing cabinets on one end (army drab instead of gray). Out of date coffee pot (God, it's a drip pot on a hot plate!) and snack and soda vending machines on the other.
There's absolutely nothing he can do about the lack of natural light. They're three floors underground here. (Which is intentional. Nothing short of a mag pulse or a bunker buster will take out their systems. After Deering's bomb, the level between Cybercrime and the rest of NCIS was strengthened; a "regular" bomb going off in the building won't take out Cybercrime.) But from what he can see only one out of three of the lights hanging from the ceiling are actually lit. He doesn't know if that's some sort of green use-less-energy thing, or if it's a matter of physical plant hasn't been down here in months. He does know, that unless there's an awfully good reason for it that he's not seeing, as of day one they will get some freaking light bulbs down here.
He circles around, and like every other time he's snooped electronically, everyone is in his or her own cube, working away. They're all looking very industrious. He doesn't see how they communicate with each other. (IM? Maybe? He's not looking closely enough at their screens to see if that's how they're doing it.) He also, from just walking around, can't tell who's working on what.
They do, however, have little nametags on their cubes. He ducks into the one labeled "Summers," remembering that he's a fellow Beaver (undergrad/machine learning), database specialist, has been with NCIS four years, and has received two commendations from Manner for (unspecified) excellence.
It's a very tidy, lighter gray on the inside, cubical.
Tim stands, waiting for Summers to take a break. And eventually (three minutes later) he does.
"Can I help you Mr. McGee?"
"It's just McGee, and yes, thanks. You mind telling me what you're working on?"
"Running down an IP for Hanson."
Tim nods, he knows Hanson, he runs the third of the five DC field teams. "Then I'll leave you to it. Don't want to slow you down."
"Won't matter." Tim's getting a sense that just possibly Summers is less than perfectly thrilled by how Cybercrime is currently run. At least, that 'won't matter' sounds awfully hopeless. And the way Summers is looking at him, wary but hopeful, is making him think there's more than just a conversation about a specific bit of hunting going on.
"Why not? Faster you get that address, the faster they can move."
"Cases are first come first serve down here. Get a case, work it to the end, pick up a new one. This one's been on the board for three days. And extra few minutes won't matter. All I can do now is tell them where the suspect was."
Tim stares at him, dumbfounded. It takes a literal thirty seconds before he can say, "Three days?"
"Yeah." Summers nods slowly. I really don't like this all over his face.
"Is there any chance this is a cold case?"
"Might be by now." Oh, that's really not the answer Tim wants to hear. Likewise the fact that his team is the fastest team in the building is very sharply coming into focus, all the other teams farm their computer work down to Cybercrime.
"Help me out, why has a lead on a hot case been sitting for three days?"
"Because it was sixth in line."
"Okay, where's the line?" Summers wrote down an address for their NCIS interweb. "New things get added to the bottom of the chart, old things are at the top, as soon as you finish one job you pick a new one."
"Who else is working this one with you?"
"No one."
Tim blinks slowly, stepped around, and read over Summer's shoulder. No it's not a big job. It'd take him maybe two hours on his own. So, soloing on this makes a certain amount of sense. He looks at the chart. "How about any of these. This one… Rundlebach…" he'd heard a few mentions of that case, big time fraud involving enlistment benefits, "that's big case, who's on that?"
"Ngyn. I think."
"Who else?"
"No one. You finish one job, you grab another."
"So, you're telling me you're all working solo?"
"Yeah." The look on Summers' face makes it perfectly clear he does not approve.
Tim's shoulders slump, he sighs, and then straightens up and smiles. "Okay. That's good to know. Thanks, Summers."
"No problem."
He walks the circuit one more time, watching, listening, getting ideas in mind for how this whole thing is going to change, and then heads over to the coffee pot, pours himself a cup, and practically spits it out. The stuff they have upstairs is revolting. (There's a reason why it doesn't matter how nasty it is outside, they always go to Seth's cart.) However, it's manna from the coffee heavens compared to this. He's not even sure if this is genuine artificial coffee flavored coffee. (Tony talking about his civil war reenacting days with his dad, being forced to drink the stuff they called "coffee" which was brewed from something like burnt dried corn and acorns, springs to mind.)
He flashes a text to Abby: You'd think, in that we're NAVAL criminal investigative services, that someone, somewhere would have heard of the idea of triage.
A minute later he got back: You'd think. Though none of my guys ever served. How about yours?
He thinks for a few seconds. Nope. They're, like your guys, doing the cases first come, first serve, doesn't matter how big or urgent. Get this, they're also doing all of them one tech to a case.
Oh Lord, even my guys knew that wasn't good.
Yeah. Coffee sucks, too.
That's easy to fix. Now you can get that Keurig you look at longingly every time we go to Target.
He smiles at that. He does look at it longingly, occasionally petting it, but at home, he's the only one who drinks coffee, and he's got a perfectly good machine, so no reason to get a new one until the old one dies.
I think I have a plan for Saturday. Kelly and I are going on a Target run, getting one of those, along with a ton of coffee pods. I may not be able to change anything else, yet, but I can get my guys better coffee!
There you go. You'll be McGee: The CoffeeBoss.
I can live with that. Are you in charge of what color the walls are in your lab?
Ish. Part of the maintenance routine is every five years they paint. They give me a list of options, and I pick one.
How about new equipment? How's that work?
Got a yearly budget. As long as I don't go over, I can requisition new stuff.
Carryover from year to year?
Yeah. No way I'd ever be able to afford the new scanners or the gas chromatograph, otherwise. Don't tell Major MassSpec, but we're saving up for a combo GC-MS. Should have enough cleared in two years.
My lips are sealed. Besides, he wouldn't believe me even if I did tell him. He'd assume I was rumormongering to just make him angry.
There's a long quiet minute. Tim assumes she's actually working, and he opens his laptop and logs into the task log, getting a feel for how it works, and becoming familiar with what's on tap for Cybercrime.
Then his phone buzzes again. It's just hitting me. This is how it's going to be from now on. You won't be coming by to chat and work. Might stop in to mess around or something, but it won't be every day. We'll text about work, maybe have lunch together, but you and I won't sit next to each other at the desk, working the same job, not anymore.
(sad smile) Yeah. I know. You won't be read in on all my stuff anymore, or I yours, too.
Sigh.
Yeah. No unmixed blessings.
Guess not.
He heads over to HR and asks for information about how the hours in Cybercrime work. Doesn't take too long of hunting through the forms before he's sure that part of what is going on down there is that no one is working overtime. They all get in at eight. They all leave at five. They each take every single day of vacation. (Okay, he's assuming on that, it'll take hours to go through everything that thoroughly.)
He takes his phone out and sends a text to Gibbs: I know why you hired me, now.
A few minutes later, as he's heading toward Accounting, curious to see what shape his budget is going to be in, he gets back. Couldn't resist those pretty green eyes.
Wink.
Not yours, Abby's. She kept pouting at me about it. But Gibbs, we neeeeeed McGee! I run the lab; I can't be your tech girl, too.
Love you, too. They get in at eight. They go home at five. God forbid you need computer work done at 5:15.
There was a reason why Abby was doing all our tech before you showed up.
Yeah, and now I know why you needed a tech guy. I'm also feeling significantly less cool about mocking the other teams for being so slow.
Mock away, the other team leaders could have done the same thing I did and hired a computer guy.
Guess so. Just hitting me that you and Kate and Tony worked pretty well as a trio. You didn't actually need another field agent.
Didn't think you'd ever really become one. Probably the best surprise of my life.
Thanks.
There's a few minutes' pause while Tim makes a note to himself about getting Cybercrime onto a twenty-four hour cycle. Crime happens all the time, so someone's got to be around to handle casework. He also makes a note to make sure that there's not some sort of messy labor rules against it.
His phone buzzes again while he's searching the regs.
Draga's getting sassy. Says if he's doing your paperwork, he should have your desk. He just scooted over there.
:) It'll be his soon enough. I'll boot him out when I get back up there, though.
Nothing against it he could see. Time to head off.
Tim gets to Accounting, asks for the budget information he wants, waits for the girl to call up to Vance to get the okay for this. She's staring at him warily, apparently requests to see departmental budgets are few and far between, let alone by guys who are not actually in charge of said department.
But, after a brief conversation with Vance, she stares at him, nods grudgingly, and sets him up at an empty desk, giving him the log in information he needs to view what will soon be his budget.
It's very nice. Painfully tidy. Like the rest of Cybercrime it's in perfect shape. The accounting team probably loves them. Nothing's over, everything appears to be accounted for, he's even got, and this pleases him quite a bit, close to twenty thousand dollars unused. Yeah, that's not big money, not in the grand scale of things, but that would certainly spruce up the basement, get the work flow better, upgrade some of the tools, and add a few toys to keep his techs happy.
Of course, no one in Cybercrime ever works overtime.
That 20k may vanish really fast if he gets them working the kind of hours they need to work.
He grabs his phone and flashes another text to Abby. Where does money for overtime come from?
From your budget.
Shit.
?
They're working perfect 8 to 5, no overtime. I know I've got stuff I want to change that'll cost money. And I know keeping butts in chairs'll run overtime.
Welcome to management! ;)
He snorts at that. Thanks.
Comp time may or may not be your friend. Or, you shake them up enough, and they only log 40 hours, but work more because they love the team. Same way you guys do.
Great.
Not feeling hopeful of that?
Not immensely. Talked to one of them, Summers, he was showing some signs of wanting things to change.
That's good.
I hope so.
And a pile of new trace just came in. Off to actually work.
Enjoy!
He's digging through his numbers, looking into what all it is Cybercrime spends money on (software licenses, wages, hardware, bonuses: It's not too complicated.) when his phone buzzes again.
Gibbs this time. Really weird to see him sitting at your desk.
Tim supposes it would be, but he's not having any sort of gut reaction to it. Probably would have this time last year, but... The desk isn't home so much, not anymore.
I haven't left yet.
Nope. Just different.
Yeah. I know. Would have felt the same way if I'd been the one who left later, and had to see someone else at your desk.
Don't remind me. Tony and Ziva are rummaging through resumes right now.
Gotta fill that space sooner or later.
Guess so.
At least it's less traumatic than the last time we filled an empty desk.
Amen to that.
Ziva is sitting next to Tony, both of them scanning through the list of resumes on file with HR for field agent positions.
Her eyes dart over names, qualifications, just little bits and pieces of information. They want more tech, sniper skills, a Marine would be good, and if they can get all of that with a psych background, someone who can really nail the interrogation angle, that'd be perfect.
But it won't be perfect, because her team is splitting up and heading off.
It's been almost five years since she told Cranston that she wanted something permanent, something that couldn't be taken away. When she said that, she was envisioning her team.
Silly answer. She knows that, feels it now, but she needed it then, the idea of a rock to chain herself to.
But nothing is permanent, everything changes, and anything can be taken away. Of all of the team, she knows that most intimately.
Which is probably why she wanted the opposite more than anything.
Now, though, having lived five years of changes, she knows that if you've got permanent, you're looking at something/someone dead.
Her team will never be the same. It'll never work as smooth. It will never be the haven from life outside.
But that's okay, because she doesn't need that anymore. And, privately, in the very deep thoughts, the ones she's still playing with herself, the ones she hasn't even voiced to Tony, yet, she's not sure how much longer she'll be part of the team. There are parts of her that have been hiding, afraid to see the light for decades, and she's thinking that maybe, wrapped in a family that loves her, it might be okay to see about exploring them again.
Back when this started, when she became Special Agent Ziva David, NCIS, she was replacing the smoldering ruins of a blasted, destroyed family with a team. It wasn't enough. But it was what she could get. And it was safely distant enough that she didn't have to risk, yet again, heartbreak.
Once again, she has a family. She doesn't need a team to fill the void left by ghosts of a brother and sister, mother and father.
She looks through resumes with Tony, and thinks about a conversation they need to have.
Tim spends another hour, through lunch, on the computer, checking around, coming up with some ideas. (Modified shareware/freeware. Cybercrime spends more on licensing than it does on anything else, and if he can free up some funds by switching software, he can get more hours out of his people, and get better tools for them to work with. Get more out of each of those hours. That's the plan, or one of them, at least.)
By the time that was done, he felt like he'd done as much as he could with what he had. Tomorrow, Monday, he'd start heading down to shadow individual techs... God, there's got to be a better name for them.
Abby's got LabRats, so what should his guys be?
Worms? They're underground, never see the light of day, and computer worms are a thing. But he doesn't like worms. Too... worms.
He's got a dungeon. Dark, gray, dank (but not really). Who works in a dungeon? Imps?
Computer Imps?
Diskworld references aside, he's not loving that. No, if he's going to be the grand overlord of Cybercrime he's got to have... A smile spreads across his face, yeah, it's kind of dumb, but it'll make Abby laugh and it amuses him.
McGee's Minions.
That works.
Tomorrow he'll start spending at least an hour or so a day observing his Minions. He feels a bizarre desire to rub his hands together and cackle at that.
When he got back up, Draga was sitting at his desk, working on his computer. He just stares at him, Really, you gonna pull this shit on me? on his face.
"In two months, it'll be my desk, might as well get used to it, right?" Draga says with a cocky smile.
Tim steps behind his desk, kicks (lightly) at the back of the chair while pointing to Draga's desk. "Out!"
Draga stands up, grabs the stack of papers, leaving about half of them on Tim's desk, and moseys over to his own.
Tim shrugs and starts filling them out. Not like he hasn't done it before.
"How was it McGee?" Ziva asks looking away from Tony's computer.
"It's going to depend a whole lot on how the people working there react to change. I can see a lot of easy ways to make things better, but..."
"But if they do not want to change..." she leads.
"Yeah." He smiles and nods. He tells them a little about what he's noticing. His teammates are all properly appalled. Tony makes a joke about how if he'd known he could have gotten regular hours by learning computers he would have bothered to learn. Gibbs watches them (because it is a paperwork day, and a certain amount of goofing around is allowed on paperwork days) fondly.
As he's talking, Tim's thinking about how much he's going to miss this. Easy, fun chatting while they all fill in the blanks.
And for as much as he's looking forward to the future, as much as he wants to see where Cybercrime will take him, there is a sort of anticipatory ache of losing this.
Tony's phone rings. He picks it up, listens, nods, asks a few questions, jotting down answers. They all know what this means.
Like Gibbs, Tony's kept the start of case mantra, "Gear up."
Cases, all cases, begin with "Gear up." The team will change. Tim'll go. Gibbs'll go. Eventually Ziva will probably take maternity leave. But those words will stay the same. "Gear up." And the cases'll keep coming. No matter what, sometime, somewhere, some poor son of a bitch'll buy the plot, and NCIS'll show up to figure out what happened.
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