Keryl Raist's Blog, page 26

Shards To A Whole: Chapter 156

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 156: At The Range


"I hate guns," Jimmy says, looking at the weapons in front of him. It's Saturday afternoon, and as per Gibbs' instructions they are spending an hour at the range.
"They're just tools," Tim answers. At least as far as he's concerned step one of proper gun usage is to not fetishize them.
"Tools for killing people."
"Yep."
"I don't want to kill people."
"Yeah, well, it's not exactly my idea of fun, either. Sometimes you have to, though."
Jimmy realizes what he just said to Tim. "Oh. Shit. I'm sorry. I didn't… How many?"
Tim looks at his gun. "One more than I should have."
It takes Jimmy a minute to remember what Tim's talking about. Then it clicks, that case with the undercover cop. "I… I thought you didn't know for sure."
Link"I don't, no one does, but it doesn't matter. Look." Tim gestures for Jimmy to put on his ear protection as he puts on his and runs the target out its fullest extension. He quickly, steadily empties his magazine, and then pulls the target close, taking off his ear protection. All fifteen bullets tore through the head of the target. "I aimed at him. I pulled the trigger. I wasn't any worse of a shot then than I am now. Doesn't matter if it was my bullet or not. I meant to kill him. I shot at him. It's on me."
Tim touches one of the two guns in front of them, changing the subject. "So, this one is a Sig Sauer. It's the standard NCIS pistol. Tony, Gibbs, and I carry one and like them. Ziva prefers her Beretta." He touches the other one. "It's got slightly less recoil, which is nice for getting a whole lot of fast shots off accurately, but the trigger guard's a bit smaller, fine for her, she's got little hands, but I don't think it's as comfortable."
Jimmy nods, staring at them. "Really don't want to do this."
"You've got two girls who depend on you to come home every single night. So, you're going to do it. No more hoping the cavalry shows up in time. You're going to learn how to be your own cavalry."
Jimmy just kept staring at the guns in front of him.
"And for the record, I absolutely refuse to help Abby and Breena bury your ass because you don't like guns. If it ever comes down to you're going home or he is, the correct answer is you."
Jimmy looks away from the guns and up at Tim, looking mildly exasperated. "Tim, I think you're confused on which one of us is the cop."
"One minute later when you got kidnapped, and you and I would have never been more than friendly co-workers. Not gonna happen again. Next time you shoot someone, you'll kill them."
"Wonderful. I'm a doctor, you know. Killing people is the antithesis of my job."
"So's Ducky. You want him to come along next time?"
"This is going to be embarrassing enough without being out-shot by an eighty-year-old."
Tim shook his head. "Don't worry about embarrassing. It's physically impossible for you to be worse at this than I was when I started."
"I really doubt that."
"Uh huh. You know how you said when you asked Ed to marry Breena that he laughed so hard he cried?"
"Yeah."
"I'm seven-years-old. My dad and grandfather, who were both apparently born knowing how to shoot anything that shoots, took me to the range to learn how to shoot a gun. They both laughed so hard they cried."
"Ouch."
"Yeah. The only reason I ever got good at it was that Jim Nelson took pity on me at FLETC and decided I was too damn smart to fail out because I couldn't shoot. He spent hours working with me on it. I'd drill him on the book work while he got me through my gun proficiency. So, pick them up, find one that feels good in your hand, and let's learn how to shoot it."
Jimmy sort of poked the berretta. "So, your dad, what, just gave up?"
"Oh no… no… Don't think my dad ever just 'gave up' on anything." Tim's got a really forced grin on his face and is shaking his head as he says this. "He kept at it for years when he was on land. But when I was fifteen, he came to the conclusion that yelling at me while I had a loaded gun in my hands was a bad idea. Even though I flinched every time I pulled the trigger, I could still hit a guy six inches from my shoulder, leaning over me, calling me a worthless, cock-sucking cunt—"
"What?!" Jimmy looks beyond horrified.
"You ever heard the phrase 'curse like a sailor'?" Tim asks, voice very dry.
"Yeah…"
"You think it's a joke?"
"Apparently not," he says, eyes very wide.
Tim nodded. "Part of the reason I usually don't."
Jimmy thought about that. "Have I ever heard you curse?"
"I'd imagine you have, but no examples are immediately springing to mind. Gibbs and Ziva have, and Abby, of course."
Jimmy takes a step back. "Why are you cursing at her?"
"I don't only do it when I'm angry."
Jimmy looks a little confused by that answer.
"You think I've never talked dirty to Abby?"
"You know, honestly, I don't spend all that much time speculating about your sex life. Mine keeps me more than happy enough."
Tim smiled at him and said, "Anyway, he was cussing me out because I couldn't hit the target. I think the last time we did it, he saw the look on my face, and realized he was one step away from breaking the very thin thread of control that kept me from shooting him."
"Really?"
"Yeah. At least, I know I was thinking about it awfully hard. He'd been gone for six months, and second day home, after yelling at me for only having a 3.92 GPA and not being first string on the wrestling team, he decided we needed to go shooting, and he spent an hour yelling at me about it, and I was standing there, sweating, trying not to cry, hitting other people's targets, the back wall, the ceiling, the floor, but not my target, and I just stopped, stood there, gun in hand, at my side, and thought about the fact that I was fifteen, no record, model student, and everyone else in the damn place could hear what he was yelling at me, so they probably wouldn't put me in jail for more than six years, maybe just three, and that was starting to look awfully good.
"He stared at me, took the gun out of my hand, packed it up, saying nothing, and we went home and never went shooting again. So, you're not going to be any worse at this than I was, and I'm not going to yell at you. And I also know you're stalling. Pick one."
"Fine. I'm not just stalling." Jimmy picked the Sig up, held it in his hand awkwardly, and said, "I'm honestly curious about your dad, too. You never talk about him."
"And if you want, we'll talk about him, after we shoot. Like this." Tim showed Jimmy how to curl the gun into his right hand and use his left for support. "How's that feel?"
"Heavy. Solid. Like a gun?"
"Good. You sight down the barrel. Once you get it set, keep steady on the inhale, and gently curl your index finger in on the exhale. Slow and easy. Watch." Tim demonstrated his own technique. "Just relax into it. Find your center, block out the rest of the world, and then squeeze the trigger."
They put their ear protection back on, and Jimmy shot, and hit his target. Granted it's only twenty feet off, but still, he hit it. He looked at Tim, eyebrows high, looking really surprised. "It's actually kind of cathartic."
"Yeah. Fourteen more to go. Have at it."
He takes each one slow and easy, nice, relaxed pose, and just curls his finger into it. "You know, it's like yoga with explosions."
Tim thinks about that for a moment and shrugs.
"Really. You find your center, clear your mind, and then make your body do something while you hold the quiet."
"Don't say that to Gibbs; he'll turn you into a sniper."
"Not with my eyesight, he won't. Still, you think they'd let Breena come with us next week?"
They're at the NCIS training range. It's supposed to be personnel only, but… "We can try."
"She already knows how to shoot. Ed taught her. Still, it feels good. And I think she'd like something that feels good."
"Then bring her next week. If we can't do it here; there's got to be another range nearby."
"Abby should come, too."
Tim thinks about that. "I'd want to do some googling on that first. Run it by our OB. I don't think the shockwaves would be a problem, but…"
Jimmy nods, and Tim realizes that Jimmy's never going to smack him upside the head for being too protective of Abby again.


After the range they decided to grab a quick coffee. At least, Tim figures Jimmy'll hold him to talking about his dad, so something that tastes good to go with that'll make it easier.
Tim brings their drinks to the table, and Jimmy wraps up a text to Breena, then asks, "You still think about it?"
"About?"
"The undercover cop," he says, pocketing his phone.
"Oh." Tim exhales loudly. "Yeah. John Benedict. His name was John Benedict. Not as often as I used to. Not often enough to keep me from feeling guilty about moving on. But it'll be ten years in November, and I did move on, it's not there in the front of my mind anymore."
Jimmy fiddles with his cup. "He was going to kill us. No doubt about that at all. And I fired, hit him, dropped him, and all I wanted to do was throw up and cry."
"Yeah. Felt the same way. And then I found out he was a cop. So I did throw up, and cry. And Tony would tell you something pretty similar about the first time he shot someone." Tim figures that gets the idea across without breaking Tony's trust to never say anything about it.
"And now?"
"Now?"
"You've killed guys since then."
"Yeah. Got nine of them when we ran into the Sarin plot." The official report showed that all seven of the men he shot while defending the freezer had died, as well as the group leader, who bled to death after his hand was blown off, and one other guy who must have caught a bullet when they were running. "I was going home or they were, and it wasn't going to be them. I still had nightmares about it for weeks after."
"But you don't anymore?"
"Not about shooting them. Still wake up in a cold sweat thinking I'm back in that freezer again, feeling Tony pressed up against me not breathing. But that only happens after really bad days when I have a hard time getting out of whatever case we're working on."
"Your dad really called you a," Jimmy's voice dropped to almost inaudible, "cunt?"
Tim laughs dismissively, partly amused at the fact that Jimmy says the word like he's afraid it'll bite him, and partly because that's not the worst thing his dad has called him. Being called worthless, failure, and waste of talent bugged him a hell of a lot more than being called a girl or gay. "He learned his parenting technique from a string of really foul-mouthed petty officers. Apparently, if you scream at new sailors long enough, they get whipped into proper Navy shape. He was bound and determined to turn me into a sailor, so he used the same technique that worked for those guys."
"While completely missing the fact that you didn't enlist and were thus not particularly motivated to be a sailor."
"Yeah. I mean, I was, as a little kid. I'd do anything to make him smile at me. Who doesn't feel that way about his dad when he's six? But by the time I was ten perfect was the minimum requirement to not get yelled at, and I only got smiles for going way above and beyond."
"So you've been going way above and beyond ever since, pleasing everyone else around you, looking for the smiles he wouldn't give you."
"Yeah."
"And you hook up with Gibbs who has pretty much the same set of standards, but who does pet you when you live up to them."
"Yep. And who doesn't take my failings as a personal affront."
"Failings?" Jimmy looks confused. Sure, he knows Tim isn't perfect, but he seems pretty good at his job. At least, not bad enough at anything to qualify as 'failing.'
"I'm six. My dad is taking me out on a boat for the first time. And he's hyped it up as the best thing ever. Nothing better than boats. Every good thing on God's blue earth is involved with boating and we're going boating! Yippee." It's possible that he could have gotten more sarcasm into that yippee, but not likely. "And we're going together, alone. One of the few times I can remember doing anything with my dad on my own. Wonderful." Once again, there's withering sarcasm on that word. "I get on the damn thing and within ten minutes I'm puking my guts out. And the first time he rubs my back, pets me a little, tells me it'll get better when we get further out, and then he makes me spend the whole damn day on the boat, and I spent the whole day feeling so sick I wanted to die. We get home, he tells me it'll get better, that I'll get used to it, and soon boating will be great fun. Shockingly enough, I didn't believe that. And even if it was going to get better, I was absolutely terrified of boats by that point. So the next week when he tried to take me out again, and remember, I'm six years old, I burst into tears, cried the whole way there, and then spent the whole day, because once again we had to spend all eight hours of that day on that damn boat, throwing up and sobbing. That time he started yelling at me to toughen up."
"You were six?"
"I might have been seven, possibly five. But not eight because we were back east that year, and I know it happened before we spent that year out of Annapolis."
"Why on earth did you ever sign up for anything having to do with the Navy?"
"I really am insane? No. I thought he might… approve, I guess. My last attempt to get a smile. It didn't work. Anyway, first time I'm on a boat with Gibbs, and well, yeah, I'm still sea sick, he tells me to sip some ginger ale and nibble on saltines. As long as I got the job done, it was okay that I was sick."
"Tim, getting nauseous on boats isn't a failing."
"It was in my family."
"Your dad is insane."
"Abby's said that, too."
"He pull a lot of that crap?"
"Enough so we're not speaking. Enough so that I'm dreading Sarah's wedding because he'll be there."
"Sarah's getting married?" That took Jimmy by surprise, he was fairly sure that was the kind of thing Tim would tell him, though if it happened recently...
"She's not engaged, but I assume it'll happen eventually. She and that Glen guy are moving down here in March."
"'That Glen Guy?'"
"You met him at the wedding."
"I remember. Just, you calling him that."
"Oh."
"I sometimes forget you're a big brother."
Tim shrugs at that. "Not too involved these days. Short of making sure my agent actually read her first novel, I haven't had to do too much looking out for her. You talk to Clark recently?"
"No. He sent a card and some flowers. My mom says he's too scared to call."
"Scared?"
"Terrified of saying something stupid."
Tim doesn't know if Jimmy's talent for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time is a family trait or just him, so he says, "Maybe saying nothing at all is the better choice then."
"Maybe." He fiddles with his drink and sighs. "Twenty-six minutes."
"Jimmy?"
"That's the longest I can go without thinking about Jon or feeling scared that something might happen to Breena or Molly."
"It'll get better."
"I know. How long before you could go half an hour without thinking about Benedict or the freezer or your dad?"
"When he's around, my dad still freaks me out, pisses me off, makes me feel fifteen and out of control again. I hate having him around. When he's not, months can go by without thinking about him. I don't remember when that shift happened, but it was after I started working at NCIS. After I stopped talking to him. After I moved to DC, changed my number, and told Sarah and Penny not to give it to him.
"It was a good year before I could go a day without thinking about Benedict. I don't remember it well enough to know more specifically than that. But I remember that a whole day had gone by, and then the next, and I hadn't thought of him, and I felt sick about it. So that kept it in my mind for a few weeks, but it kept drifting further and further away.
"The freezer…Which part of it? Nightmares every night for a solid week. Sporadically for months after. And every now and again now. If I don't get the time to fully pull out of work before sleeping, they come back. I couldn't make myself believe Tony was really alive until I touched him. That was a full day. I still hate cold, and I'm fairly sure that if someone ever gets murdered in a walk in freezer our whole team will bow out of that case; I know I can't make myself walk into one of them. Don't like pitch black, either. I get really nervous if that moment where my eyes adjust to the dark takes too long.
"All in all, I'd say it was probably six weeks before I could go half an hour without thinking about something having to do with that case. And the only thing that stopped the nightmares from being a nightly occurrence was writing it all out. I took five hours, wrote everything, staring off as McGregor, because there's a buffer between me and him, and eventually shifted into my own voice, into my own memories, that helped, at least, let me get some sleep. You sleeping any?"
"Yeah, but with help."
"Alcohol?"
"No. Ducky wrote me a prescription. And I'm following the instructions."
"Okay."
"So, you just wrote?"
"I find it easier to deal with things if they're on paper. So, yeah, me, my typewriter, five hours and twenty-five pages later and I at least knew what the next step was."
"What was it?"
"I got all my affairs in order. Made sure that if something happened to me, Abby'd be taken care of." He smiles a little. "Stopped being a boyfriend and became a husband."
Jimmy nods at that. "Yeah."
"You can read them, if you want. Breena, too. They aren't good, but they're real. Give you a better idea of who I was right after than I'm doing by trying to talk about it."
"Has anyone else read them?"
"Abby. Wolf. Writing them got me cleared for active duty."
"I'd like to."
"I'll bring them to Bootcamp tomorrow."

Shards To A Whole: Chapter 155

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 155: Not What They Seem

Tony's voice trailed off as Palmer sat down next to them in the brake room.
"What?" Jimmy asked as Tony looked at him.
"Nothing."
"What's he talking about, Tim?"
"Nothing…" Tony said quickly. "It's just… It's a stupid problem. And you've got enough going on without my stupid problems."
"Tony, there's nothing I can do about my problems, so give me a stupid one I may be able to help with. Because nothing's worse than feeling useless. Though feeling like your friends are afraid to say things to you for fear you'll break is a pretty close second."
Tim gives Tony a good long look when Jimmy says that, hoping he'll get back to what he was talking about, but he doesn't. Instead Tony says, "Okay. So, I've got exactly one job when it comes to this whole wedding thing: plan the honeymoon."
Tim and Jimmy are nodding. Though Jimmy adds, "Pick up the rings, and keep a hold of them until wedding time."
"Tuxes." Tim says.
"Okay, I've got three jobs. But one of them is done until the next fitting, one doesn't need to be dealt with now, and this one does. For our honeymoon, I want to find a place Ziva and I have never been. Somewhere cool, lots of good stuff to do, but it's got to be somewhere both of us have never been, somewhere we can explore, together."
"Oh." Jimmy does seem to think that this is A: A stupid problem, and B: He can't really help with it.
"Yeah. I've already stolen her passport, both of them, but all that does is rule out three quarters of the interesting places on earth and doesn't tell me about where she's been on her unofficial trips."
"Does where you are matter too much?" Jimmy asks. "When I was planning mine, the main thing I was looking for was how good the hotel room was." Tim's nodding along with that. Sure they wanted to see some interesting places, too, but mostly he was checking out the hotel amenities.
Tony sighs at that. "There's a really big difference between getting married at… what were you, thirty-four?" Jimmy nods. "And thirty-six, and the forty-eight I'll be by the time we tie the knot. So, yes, the room and whatever is in it is certainly going to be a big deal, but in that I can't do it six times a day anymore, we're going to be spending some time outside of it as well, so the room has to be located somewhere cool."
"We liked New Orleans." Tim said, willing to play along with this, but wishing Tony hadn't immediately changed the subject as soon as Jimmy showed up.
"Been there."
"Chicago?" Jimmy asks.
"Been there."
"Seattle?" Tim tries.
"We're not geeks."
"Cape May, New Jersey?" Jimmy offers. Tim just looks at him, shocked at that suggestion, and not in a good way, so he says, "What? It's cool. Beach, Victorian architecture, one of the few places you can see the sun set over the ocean on the east coast."
"New Jersey in April?" Tony just shakes his head at that idea.
"Good point. Hollywood?" Jimmy asks.
"It's supposed to be fun for her, and we've both been there."
"Mexico?" Tim suggests.
"Been there."
"Not the whole country." Tim says as he pulls his phone out of his pocket. "There's got to be a really nice beach nestled somewhere that neither of you have ever been."
"That's probably true for the Caribbean, as well." Jimmy's getting his phone out, too. "Just because you've been to one island doesn't mean you have to cross all of them off the list."
Tim starts googling away. "You want some sort of beach thing, right?"
"That'd be nice. But it's not a requirement."
"What's 'cool stuff'?" Jimmy asks, also googling.
"Good food, good dancing, beaches are a plus, movies are another plus, and Ziva likes architecture."
Tim's punching things into his phone and it comes up with Lebanon. "Well, that's not gonna work."
"What?"
"I googled beaches, night life, architecture, movies, skiing—"
"Skiing?"
"I meant water skiing, but forgot water, anyway, it came up with Lebanon."
"Yeah, that's not going to do it. Last thing I want to do is get arrested as a spy on our honeymoon."
"I've got something," Jimmy says, putting his cell on the table in front of the other two, and standing behind them. "Private island resort in Mexico…" He's showing them pictures of the place. Apparently it was a collection of ultra-deluxe cabins (if you can call something that luxurious a cabin) on several islands off of Cozumel. Close enough you could go to the mainland and party. Far enough away that if you wanted quiet time on a beach by yourself that was an option, too. "It's got all the goodies, spa, restaurants, your very own chunk of beach… You know… This looks really nice…"
"You want us to take Molly for a few days and grab a long weekend? Valentine's is next week. You could do a late present for Breena."
"We might." Jimmy's staring at the pictures in front of them.
"Are you helping me plan a honeymoon or taking one yourself?"
"Both. Maybe. Not sure I want to be away from Molly that long."
"Take her with you?" Tim offers.
"Romantic weekend with a one-year-old… Eh… I'm not getting the sense that this place is set up for kids."
"Talk to Breena about it. You want to go; we'll watch Molly, no problems."
"I'll give her a call and get back to you."
"Good."
Jimmy checks the time. "And those beakers should be done with the autoclave. Time to head back." He picks up his coffee and walks back toward Autopsy.
Once he was gone, Tim says to Tony, "You've got to stop doing that. He's your friend, and you can't keep shutting him out of your life."
Tony's calm, happy, in-charge expression vanishes and the slightly panicked one he's had all day returns. "Look, I cannot complain to him about how Ziva's talking kids, and I'm freaked out. I just… I can't do it. Not now, not to him. Last month, sure, but I can't do it now."
"If anyone's going to have sympathy for you being scared, it's Jimmy."
"Yeah, but I'm not terrified of having my heart ripped out. I mean, I may be, eventually, but right now it's this huge lump of can-I-do-this-and-not-fuck-it-up, and right now all he wants is the chance to do it. I don't want to rub his face in that."
Tim nods; that might be a good point.
"How am I going to do this? I can barely take care of a goldfish—"
"You've kept Kate for six years. That's world record goldfish maintenance. Those things die if you look at them funny. "
"It's still a goldfish, not a person, and all of this stuff with Jimmy and Breena and Jon and you and Abby and McSciuto has Ziva thinking kids, and I don't want to disappoint her, but this scares me shitless, and if I can't do this…" Tony looks down and rubs his eyes, then looks back at Tim, really scared. "Tim, you don't marry a woman who wants kids if you don't."
That shocks the hell out of Tim. "Okay, stop right there. Yes, you're right, if she wants kids and you don't, you don't marry her. But you love her—"
"More than anything. I really do, and that was terrifying in and of itself. But this last month is making her think I want kids and it's making me think I want a vasectomy."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Maybe it is fear of having my heart ripped out. I was watching Jimmy when he got the news, and… I don't think I could survive that. And look at him, he's calling home every hour, and you know they aren't going to Mexico because he can't stand to have Molly out of his sight for that long. I don't think I can take that."
Tim lets out a long sigh. He knows that part of the traditional best man job is talking the groom off the ledge he's about to jump off of because he's got cold feet. But this wasn't a flavor of cold feet he was expecting. "Tony, if you love her, then you step up and have the kids and you do a good job of being a dad because that's the cost of loving her. That's what your happiness is more important to me than mine means. And if she loves you, and if you can't do it, really can't do it, then she'll put it aside because your happiness will be more important than hers. Either way, you've got to figure out if you can't do it or if you're just too scared to think straight."
Tony sighs. "Scared. I know it's scared. I want to make her happy. I want to be a man she can depend on to do the right thing, but what if I'm bad at it? God, what if I end up on my own with this kid? Or what if we lose him?"
"First off, we're not going to let you be bad at it. There's a long line of men here who love you and Ziva, and we will not let you fail her. Secondly, no matter what, you won't be alone. If something happens to Ziva, we'll still be here. We didn't let Jimmy and Breena down, and we won't let you down. Think about it, Gibbs is actually talking to Jimmy to help keep him afloat. You think he'd do any less for you? And lastly, if something did happen to your baby, you'd survive it. Jimmy and Breena are going to make it. Gibbs made it. Worst comes to worst, you'll make it, too."
"I don't want to be my dad."
"When your mom died, did your dad have anything like us?"
"I don't know. Not that I remember. Hundreds of people came to the funeral, and then the next day we were alone. Just me and him and a big, empty house that still felt like her. The day after that, he went back to work, in the city, and it was just me and a nanny, all day, every day, until September and I was off to boarding school."
"That won't happen, not to you, not again. Look…" Tim feels a little weird about saying this out loud. Doing it wasn't weird, but talking about it… But Tony's more than grown up enough that he won't tease Jimmy about it, and Tim feels up to handling whatever Tony might toss at him. "The first night Jimmy was back, we slept with him, held onto him, made sure he wasn't on his own. We slept with him and Breena the first night she was home, too. Then stayed at their place for three days after that. After we left, Ducky stayed at their place every night for a week. You know Ziva brought food. And I know you and Gibbs and Ziva took that case and did my job so I could be there for Molly. No matter what else happens, you're never going to be alone again because you're stuck with us."
Tony looks really touched by that, but it fades quickly, his emotional armor slipping back into place, getting him back into a more comfortable mindset. "You slept with Palmer?"
Tim rolls his eyes. "Yeah, and if you're ever hurting that bad, I'll cuddle you, too."
Tony laughs at that, then says, seriously, "Thanks."
Tim thinks for a minute. "So, did you actually need honeymoon help?"
"Nah, booked it last week."
Tim looks at him curiously.
"Johannesburg."
"South Africa?"
"We've never been there. It's supposed to be like California. Great beaches, night life, and safari."
"Oh."
"Yeah. Should be cool."

Shards To A Whole: Chapter 154

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 154: The Good Day

It was a really good day.
Tim had been comfortably asleep, warm, snuggled up with Abby, feeling decently rested because they'd gotten to bed fairly early the night before. And as he was laying there, mostly asleep and very happy to be that way, he slowly started to wake up to the feeling of Abby rubbing against him.
Rubbing against him in a very determined sort of way. In a your-morning-erection-is-very-convienently-located -and-I-intend-to-take-advantage-of-it sort of way.
Best he could remember the last time that had happened, last time she'd been awake before him to even think about doing this was their honeymoon.
And Tim wholeheartedly agreed that doing this was a very good idea.
"Good morning, Mrs. McGee." He figures that'll get old eventually, but so far calling her that is still a kick.
"Good morning." She shifted a little, hitching her leg over his, giving him a little help on the angle with her hand, and he moaned as he slipped into hot and wet and glorious.
"God, baby, that's a great way to wake up."
"Thought you'd like it."
"You're welcome to wake me up like this whenever you want." He punctuated that with a slow, gentle thrust, as his hand found her breast. "You liking it, too?"
She arched back. "Oh yeah, we're good."


They caught a case, but it wasn't a murder.
Paperwork days are boring. Murder cases aren't boring, but they are depressing. (Especially right now.)
Today's case, a kidnapping, is usually the worst, but today's case is also special.
Staff Sargeant Elana Bonsom was being sent to Afghanistan next week. Her daughter, Mandy, was being sent to live with her grandparents, in Montana. Her father, Dan Rogrique, Elana's ex, had taken the girl. And left a note saying he'd taken her.
So, while the hunt was on, there was significantly less urgency than usual because the one thing they aren't afraid of is Mandy getting killed.
Sure, dealing with Elana begging to get her daughter back was unpleasant.
And then it got worse when they finally caught Dan with Mandy, (Idiot had his phone on and on him. Grabbing them took an hour and a half, one minute of which was spent pinging his phone, eighty-nine of which were spent driving to their location.) and got his side of it, namely he's got joint custody with Elana, but she won't let him have their daughter for the year-long deployment and was instead sending her to Montana, where her parents live, where he can't afford to go, rather than let her live with him.
It got even more complicated when the different lawyers showed up, Dan's yelling about how he was being denied access to his child, Elana's claiming he was an unfit parent because he kidnapped her, along with Child and Family Services who didn't want either of those two anywhere near Mandy.
So, yeah, by the end of it, Gibbs was ready to smack everyone involved in the case upside the head. But no one was dead. No one was going to be dead. And it hadn't been boring.


Tim and Tony cut out early. The sound of lawyers squabbling in the conference room a screechy soundtrack for heading for the elevator.
Tim had expected Tony to hit the button for the ground floor, but he stabbed the one that took them to Autopsy instead.
"We've got the afternoon free, let's grab Jimmy and get you two measured for wedding tuxes."
"Don't you need an appointment for that?"
"Made one at lunch when it looked like this was going to get wrapped fast."
"Okay."
They got down there a few seconds later, and found Jimmy and Ducky in the midst of sterilizing every piece of glassware.
"Anthony, Timothy, what brings you down here?" Ducky asks as they head into Autopsy.
"I was hoping to grab the Gremlin and see if I can make these two look great in a tux or die trying."
Jimmy looked up from his pipettes, raised an eyebrow at Tony and said, voice bone dry, "I look fine in a tux, Tony, Tim's the one who can't wear one to save his life."
"Fine isn't good enough. This is my wedding, and you are going to look better than fine. So, can the glassware wait until tomorrow?"
"I believe it can, Anthony. Go about your Herculean labors," Ducky says with a smile.
"I really don't look that bad in a tux," Tim adds.
"Uh huh." Tony flashes him a sideways look as Jimmy puts down his pipettes. "You always look like you're about to jump out of your skin when you're in a suit of any kind."
"I didn't say I liked wearing them, I said I don't look terrible in them."
"You look terrible in them because you hate wearing them." Jimmy says as he grabs his cell out of his pocket and flashes a text to Breena. "Just checking in and letting her know I should be home on time."
"Can't imaging this'll take more than three hours," Tony says. "So why do you hate suits? You used to wear them every day."
"Because it was the dress code, Tony, and I don't hate them, I just don't like them."
"Then why don't you like them?" Jimmy asks. "It's obviously not that they're too hot, you wear long sleeves and a jacket year-round."
"I don't know. I just don't like them."
Jimmy raises an eyebrow at him.
"Fine, I don't like them because my dad used to make me wear them all the time. And looking dumb in them just made it worse. So, where are we going?" Tim asks as they got into Tony's car.
"Dominic Lawson. My tailor."
"You have a tailor?" Jimmy looks utterly shocked by this idea.
"Part of the reason why I always look great in suits is that I have them made for me. Part of the reason he looks like a twit and you look 'fine' is because you buy off the rack."
"How much is this going to cost?" Jimmy asks.
"Less than what you won in the when are Tony and Ziva getting engaged pool."
"You won that?" Tim asks, curious. He's generally not too hooked into the NCIS betting pool, so he hadn't even noticed there was a Tony and Ziva one going.
"Well, yeah." Jimmy rolls his eyes a little, of course he won it. He's won a good two-thirds of the pools that have been up in the last three years, mostly because he's got nothing against asking whoever it is what they're going to do.
"How?" Tim looks amazed.
"Same way I won yours."
"You cheated?" Tim asks.
"Of course."
"He cheated on yours?" Tony's giving Palmer an exasperated look. He'd lost two hundred dollars on that thing.
"He kept asking when I was going to do it, so I flat out told him."
"And that worked with Tony, too." They both just look at him. "What? It was an easy way to finance your wedding presents. I always use the money for a present for whoever the pool is on." Which was probably why no one complains about his unusually high win percentage.
"Speaking of which, you guys going to set up a gift registry?" Tim asks Tony.
"Nah. There's twenty people coming to our wedding, and all of them know us well enough we don't need one. Plus filling out a 'here's what presents to get us' list feels weird."
"Better than getting fourteen blenders," Jimmy says. Even with a registry, Breena's extended family and friends got them duplicate and triplicates of several things, and returning them wasn't either of their idea of fun.
"Still feels weird."
"Speaking of weird," Jimmy says a minute later as they pull up in front of an elegant brownstone in a very upscale neighborhood. "Tony, this looks like a house."
"It is a house. He works out of his top floor," Tony answers as they got out of the car and followed him to the front steps.
"Your tailor works out of his attic?" Tim asks while Tony hit the doorbell.
Link"He used to have a place out on Jensen, but decided to scale back five years ago."
If Tim had an idea in mind of what a tailor would look like, it certainly wasn't the man who answered the door. He'd expected the exquisitely dressed part. That was a given. The looked to be at most thirty, ebony skin, and Italian accent all took him by surprise. (For whatever reason, in Tim's mental landscape, tailors are old, white, and British.)
"Tony!"
"Dom." They did that wide-armed hug thing that Tim thinks of as being a very Italian sort of gesture.Dom looked at both of them, smiled, and said to Tony, "You are right. Tall, pale, and skinny, and taller, paler, slightly less skinny. But we'll make them look great. Come in friends!" And thus they were ushered into a posh, that's the best word Tim can think of to describe the place, everything about it is expensive and oozes class, living room, offered tea or coffee, while Tony and Dom talked about the wedding plans and how the last suit Dom had made for Tony was working out.
Dom's measuring him, very thoroughly, extremely thoroughly, honestly, he's had sex that involved less touching than what's happening right now, (Really, why is this guy measuring around his upper thigh?) chatting away about single breasted, slim cut, silk wool blend, double vent, cutting the lapels to make his face look less long, (Tim has literally no idea at all what Dom means by that. He's just nodding and smiling at that point, way, way, way out of his depth.) telling Tony that yes, with those two (Tim assumes Dom means him and Jimmy) that vests and ties will look vastly superior to bow ties and cummerbunds, and that given this is a wedding a satin stripe on the leg and the pocket would probably look good, but without it, the suits will be much more wearable for other occasions.
And Tony's just chatting right back with him, completely comfortable, seeming to understand this bizarre onslaught of terms. Jimmy's got his phone out and for a moment Tim thought he might have been googling to figure out what's going on, but he sees Jimmy's thumbs flashing over the screen, so he's probably texting home again.
He holds up his phone and snaps a picture of Tim, trussed up in measuring tape.
"What was that?"
"Breena wants me to document the possibility of you looking good in a suit."
Tim looks at Dominic and says, "I really don't look that bad in one."
Dominic looks at Tony, who shakes his head and mouths the word, awful.
"You buy your suits pre-made?"
"Yeah."
"And that is why you look bad in them. You have a very long body."
"I'm six one."
Dom smiled at him, measuring the circumference of his wrist over his watch. (Seriously, what the hell does he need that for? Tim's half expecting the back wall to vanish, revealing wand boxes stacked to the ceiling.) "You are tall, also. But long and tall are not the same thing. Your body is a series of ovals. Oval face, oval torso, oval legs."
"Okay." He agrees about his face, but isn't seeing it for the rest of him.
"Tony is more square. Jimmy, more rectangular. Suits are made to play up the square shape of a man's body. If your body doesn't have that shape naturally, and the suit is not made properly, it will just sort of lay on the shoulders and hips, looking soft and floppy. Build the suit right, and it will hold the proper shape."
"Uh huh."
Then Dom got going about shoulder and hip width ratios and how to balance them with height as Tony and Jimmy were snickering about the soft and floppy bit. Tim didn't quite catch what Tony said to Jimmy, something less-than-complimentary about his masculinity in regards to soft and floppy, but Jimmy outright laughed at it, and best Tim can remember that's the first time in a month Jimmy's full-on laughed, so that made Tim happy.
All in all, it was a really good day.

Shards To A Whole: Chapter 153

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 153: Fathers and Sons

Gibbs is, in the immortal words of whoever Tony was quoting on Friday, "Too old for this shit."
And old was the one thing Gibbs never really thought he'd be.
Though maybe 'old' isn't precisely the problem. He doesn't mind the wrinkles or the gray hair. (Though needing glasses, now for both up close and long distance, bugs the hell out of him.)
Out of shape may be more precise.
Gibbs doesn't pay all that much attention to his body. He feeds it when it gets hungry. Lays it down to sleep when it gets too tired (gives it coffee the rest of the time.) Puts his glasses on when he can't see. Washes it every day and "clears out the pipes" as needed. And that covers most of his bases.
In fact, unless he's got a girlfriend (which is the only time he does pay any attention to his body, well, what she's doing to it), his body is just this thing that moves him around from place to place, a lot like his car, and honestly, he pays more attention to the car.
Another thing that's true is that, unless, once again, we're talking about a girlfriend, he also doesn't pay all that much attention to other people's bodies, either. Sure, faces he watches with a whole lot of intensity, but, below the neck he just glances at to see if anything interesting is going on, and if nothing is, he ignores it.
This is triply true when it comes to male bodies.
Still there are certain things he expects his body to do, or well, be, and one of those things is be in better shape than Tim. But, as he noticed when sparring with the boys, somewhere along the line Tim lost a ton of weight and gained some muscles. (He had sort of vaguely noticed Tim was smaller, just because he doesn't pay attention to men's bodies doesn't mean he's blind. But he hadn't realized Tim had lost that much weight, let alone toned up.) Sure, he's not going to pass for a Marine anytime soon, but he's actually looking pretty good.
LinkWhich is causing Gibbs to look at himself in the bathroom mirror and notice posture, haircut, and attitude aside, he's also not going to pass for a Marine anytime soon.
In fact, he's looking a whole lot like what he is, a fifty-six year old cop who doesn't eat all that well, has twenty-five more pounds around his middle than he needs, and has let the younger members of his team handle running the perps down for the last five years.
And that's not acceptable, at all.
He's going to have grandkids to chase after soon, so he can't be puffing away, out of shape. And Tim and Palmer need someone to show them how this is done.
Okay, they don't, not really. Palmer's already good at this, and from everything he's seen of Tim with Molly, Tim's good at it, too.
But that still doesn't mean he can lay down on the job. As Abby said to him, he's the patriarch of their clan, and sure, one day he'll pass that over to Tony and move into Ducky's role of wiseman, but it's not nearly time for that, yet. And if leading the clan is his job, then he's got to be able to lead, no matter what that might mean, and with his particular clan, charging into battle is a definite possibility. So, first thing in the morning he's hitting the gym, and he's going to keep hitting it until he can find his abs again.
It's not that Gibbs is a particularly introspective man, which also isn't precisely true. He doesn't want to be a particularly introspective man, and a lot of the work he does is about not having to be introspective. If he's building, working a case, or drinking, he doesn't have to spend nearly as much time with his thoughts.
But right now, as he's slipping into his pajamas (sweat pants, Marines t-shirt) he's willing to let himself think, especially about this odd little family he's collected over the years.
It's funny, even with years in the Corp, even with decades as a cop, he never really expected to have sons. From the day Shannon told him she was pregnant, he knew he was going to be a dad to girls. And so, his girls were easy. He fell into the role of Abby and Ziva's dad without even really having to think about it. One day they were strangers, the next he had daughters again. Of course, he knows how (wants, needs) to be a dad to girls. Be there. Be useful. Try and be an example of the sort of man you want them to marry (respectful, honest, decent, not fooling around on them). Keep the bad guys away. Encourage the good ones. But mostly, be there.
With as different as Abby and Ziva are, that kept him pretty busy. Being there for Ziva is an entirely different set of skills than being there for Abby. But even with as different as they are, he felt like he had a good handle on what he was doing.
Sons on the other hand…
LinkSons started with Tony. Sure, he'd been a mentor and big brother before, but Tony needed a Dad, and Tony was the first guy he was willing to step up and do it for. And he's honest enough with himself to see that it's also ending with Tony. Tony's finished growing up. The clown prince of the frat boys is long dead. And while it's true that Tony will always love him, and that he'll love Tony, they're shifting from father and son to friends and equals. How'd Abby put it? He's Tony's Ducky?
Yeah, it's heading there. Though when he thinks about it, there's always been a certain reserve between him and Ducky. Partly because they've always been equals. Partly because so many years went by where he didn't let Ducky in. For almost a decade Ducky knew all about Gibbs' present, but nothing about his past.Really, he's becoming Tony's Mike. There was never that space between him and Mike. And he likes that idea. Tony needs a Mike, and older, wiser friend who will slap him upside the head when he needs it, but mostly a man who will be there with him to enjoy the good times and make the bad ones more bearable.Besides, Tony's got a dad. Senior's been stepping up his dad game over the last few years, becoming the man Tony needs in his life, which Gibbs entirely approves of. Both from the fact that the hole Senior cut into Tony's soul when he ran away from him after his mother died is slowly healing up, and from the fact that being there for his son is something Senior needs to do to be a good man, as well.
Especially with a marriage, and likely, kids, in the not wildly distant future, Tony probably needs all the good men he can get surrounding him, and right now, Gibbs is pretty satisfied on that front.
Thinking of the good men in Tony's life brought him to the son he wasn't expecting.
That Tim would be Abby's husband he's known for… about a decade. When they broke up, he figured it was done. When year after year went by with neither of them falling for anyone else, he realized what they didn't: there wasn't going to be anyone else for either of them. So, he was on board with the idea that Tim would be Abby's husband. Eventually he'd pass the role of her number one man to Tim. But Tim was always so self-contained the idea that ever be closer to Tim than he was to Shannon's dad: warm, friendly, respectful, was something he didn't expect.
Honestly, he never expected to have this close of a relationship with any guy. Mike, Ducky, Tony, they all play by the rules. Close, soft, warm, huggy-type things happen with girls. That's why there are girls in the world, because a man needs someone to do that sort of thing with. The occasional affectionate hair ruffling and good job, usually steeped in humor, with very rare hugs, is how guys who love each other behave in the world as Gibbs understands it.
Talking about feelings is something else for girls. Guys don't do that, not with each other. He's had hundreds of chats with Tony over the years, and they've mastered the art of not actually saying what they're feeling, but still getting the basic idea across.
LinkBut Tim didn't play by those rules. Tim finally, after ten years, showed up in his basement to talk and the first thing he did was say, "I love Abby," followed by, "Now tell me what love means to you."
So, Gibbs tried to answer him, because he understood that what Tim meant by that was I-intend-to-marry-Abby-and-I'm-in-research-mode, but trying to put words to those ideas, let alone for another guy, felt really weird.
Having Tim tell him that he considered him to be his dad shortly thereafter was even more confusing. Because Gibbs hadn't been doing much in the way of being a dad for Tim, and if Tim's standards for dad-like behavior were that low, something was seriously wrong.
Until he started dating Abby again, Gibbs had never done anything dad-like for Tim. He'd been a great boss and a good mentor, set high standards, taught him everything he knew about being a good cop, slapped him when he needed it, petted Tim when he went above and beyond the call, but they'd never watched a game together, (Hell, he didn't even know until Tony told him about the Beaver thing that Tim even liked any sport, let alone that he was a college football fan.) or hung out over dinner, or for that matter had a real conversation that wasn't work related.
It left Gibbs feeling flatfooted, and suddenly very curious about Tim's dad. He'd been vaguely aware of John McGee. He knew he was still alive. He knew Tim didn't spend Christmas with his family, but he also knew they weren't in DC or the surrounding area. Knew from overhearing Tony talk about him that the man was apparently full of physical courage. Knew from overhearing Tim that he was the kind of man who had no problem telling a seven-year-old the birthday card he made wasn't good enough. He knew they went seven years without speaking. And knew that he had to be a damn good Naval officer, both at politics and at running a ship, to make Admiral.
He didn't know Tim's parents were divorced. He didn't know John had been on a ship for probably seventy percent of Tim's childhood. He found that out by reading through John's file.
And he didn't know until seeing John look at Tim that whatever it was John wanted in a son, Tim wasn't it.
And, while there had been plenty of times where he wanted to slap Senior upside the back of the head for being an idiot, he was really surprised by how intensely he wanted to drag John out of that ship and beat the ever-living shit out of him for not respecting Tim.
Gibbs saw the look on John's face, saw the distain, and felt his hand clench. If ever a man deserved respect, it was Tim.
In the forty years Gibbs has been a Marine or cop, he's never seen anyone less naturally adept at any skill set go on to master one as thoroughly as Tim did with being a cop. When he got Tim transferred to his team, he never expected him to be anything other than handy with a computer. He knew he needed a geek to do the job, constantly bugging Abby to do the computer work wasn't a long-term solution, and he knew McGee would be good at it. He never, ever thought Tim would make a good field agent. And the fact that Tim proved him wrong won Gibbs' respect.
He was even more surprised by how intensely possessive he felt of Tim after seeing how John treated him. How that one day made Gibbs realize that Tim wasn't just his future son-in-law, but his son.
And thus, the accidental son, the man who earned his respect, who earned the right to say to him, "I am going to marry your daughter." (And it's true that Gibbs appreciates that Tim didn't ask permission. He told him he was going to marry Abby, proving he had gained the strength to be her husband. Just like he appreciates that Tony asked, proving he had gained the wisdom to be hers.) The man who earned the right to say to him, "Talk to me, tell me how you feel," and get an answer.
And while Tim may not play by the rules, at least he appears to know what they are. Gibbs has never had any sense that Jimmy's ever been aware of them.
He watches the two of them, and they put him in mind of Kelly and Maddie, and like with them, he realizes that you end up adopting your kid's best friends. That the people they love become your loves. (It hits him that this is how he got Tim in the first place. He was Abby's pet, and so, when he needed a geek to put on his team, he picked Tim instead of calling down to the new Cybercrime department for one of their guys.)
LinkAnd, while it's painfully obvious that Tim wants a dad, it's also very obvious that right now, Jimmy needs one. 
Like Tony, Jimmy needs all the good men around him he can get. And Gibbs, who's walked this road, intends to be one of them.
So, the third son, son of sorrows, the one who doesn't know he's been adopted, yet.
But he will.
And like with Tim, he'll probably end up talking about feelings, and probably handing out hugs, and it's going to be weird, but… he's kind of looking forward to it.
One last thought occurred to Gibbs before he fell asleep, if he had been there from the day they were born, it probably wouldn't feel weird to talk with them about how they're feeling or hug them when they're hurting. Because a dad does that for his kids, even if they are boys.

Shards To A Whole: Chapter 152

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 152: Treats

"Am I imagining it, or is he talking a whole lot more?" Jimmy asks Tim as they get out of the showers.
"He's talking more. I mean, he does talk when he's trying to teach you something, but he's also talking more in general."
"I think that's the most I've ever heard him say."
Tim nods, beyond their one on one conversations that's definitely one of the longest stretches of Gibbs talking he can remember.
"Heading home after this?" he asks as he gets dressed.
"Yeah, want to get back to my girls." Jimmy's been spending more time closer to home, wanting to keep Breena and Molly near, and Tim doesn't blame him at all for that. "You?" he asks as he slips on his shoes.
"Groceries. It's Abby's bowling day, so she's out 'til dinner."
When they get out of the locker room, Gibbs is waiting for them, two cups in hand. He hands one to each of them and says to Jimmy, "You did good, Palmer. Next week you're gonna do better."
"Thanks." Jimmy smiles briefly at the praise.
Tim stands there, amazed that Gibbs is saying that to him. He and Ziva sorted through rotting vomit to find a bullet and got less than that. Then he sees the look Gibbs is giving Jimmy and realizes that Gibbs really meant it when he said he was going to be a good Dad for both of them, and right now, Jimmy needs kid gloves and petting, and Gibbs is willing to do it.
Gibbs nods. "Between now and then, get some contacts, and wear them next week. I want you to be able to see what you're aiming at."
"Okay." Jimmy heads off, sipping his drink.
Tim takes a sip of his, expecting coffee, and very surprised to find it's hot chocolate. His eyebrows shoot up. Hot chocolate is a treat; what he rewards himself with when he's done a good job and it's cold out.
"You did good, too." Though Tim understands Gibbs is talking about taking care of Jimmy rather than fighting, because honestly, that was pretty sad.
"Thanks."
Gibbs heads them to one of the tables in the café area. "And you'll do better next week, too. Tell me about Jimmy. What does he like?"
"You've got to narrow that down some, because it's a really long list."
"Got you hot chocolate. Got him coffee because I don't know what he considers a treat."
"When it's cold: one half coffee, one half hot milk, and a shot of sugar free hazelnut or almond syrup. Chai with no sugar is also always a good choice for him. When it's hot: seltzer, ice, sugar free vanilla syrup."
"Like a cream soda?"
"Pretty much. Breena makes it for him, uses vanilla beans and stevia. It's really good. But anywhere with a half decent coffee bar should be able to make one up."
"Where's his dad?" It's true that Gibbs hasn't paid all that much attention to Palmer over the years, but he did notice his dad wasn't at his wedding, Molly's christening, or Jon's funeral.
"Dead. Ten years now."
"Decent guy?"
"Enough. Jimmy loved him. Like Jimmy he had diabetes, but unlike Jimmy he didn't take care of himself and was dead at fifty-two. I know Jimmy holds that against him. Didn't love them enough to exercise or lay off the sugar."
Gibbs nods, getting a better idea of who Jimmy is and why he's in such good shape. "Brothers, sisters?" Gibbs had seen Jimmy's mom a few times, so she was obviously still part of his life.
"Younger brother, he lives in Tokyo. Gets back here once a blue moon."
"He and Breena gonna make it?" Yeah, it's early on, but in Gibbs' experience how you handle the first few weeks is a pretty good predictor of how the rest of mourning is going to go.
"I think so. They've been doing really well on pulling together."
"Married by blood."
That's more metaphorical than Tim ever expects Gibbs to be, but that wraps it up nicely. "Yeah."
"You're doing a good job with him, but if he gets in deeper than you can help, starts drinking or chasing pain, you let me know."
"I will."
"Good. We're not gonna let him fall."

Shards To A Whole: Chapter 151

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 151: Bootcamp

Bootcamp with Gibbs was never Tim's favorite thing. Granted, a huge part of not loving this is that he's  http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l79... been worse at it than anyone around him. He was fairly used to being less physically adept than the guys around him, but having Kate kick his ass right in front of the new boss he desperately wanted to impress hurt on a whole lot of different levels.

And honestly, it never got much better than that.
It's not even that he's terrible at this. He's a cop, was raised by a Navy Captain who was bound and determined that he'd be able to throw a decent punch, and was on the wrestling team in high school. It's not like he can't fight. He's competent.
But all the guys around him have always been way better than competent.
And, sure, it's not PC, but the fact that Kate and Ziva (And probably Abby, though he's never gone up against her, and is perfectly happy to keep it that way.) were/are better than him was a hit to his pride, too. He was eight inches taller and seventy pounds heavier than Kate, sheer mass alone meant he should have won that fight.
So for him, Bootcamp was mostly a pile of not fun with a heaping side of embarrassment. Which is why eight years ago when Gibbs stopped demanding it, he stopped doing it.
Jimmy doesn't look like he's relishing this, either. From everything he knows about Jimmy, having his hands wrapped in tape in preparation for learning how to be more effective at beating on someone isn't his idea of fun at all.
But it's Sunday afternoon, and they're both in the NCIS gym, standing in front of Gibbs, who is grinning and looks like he's intending to really enjoy this.
And well, at least one of them should, right?


"The thing you have to keep in mind is that it is your job to keep the boys in line." Gibbs says as he tapes Jimmy's right hand. "Your wives will say things like, 'He's so cute,' or 'He's only six,'" That got both Tim and Jimmy staring at him in horror. "I'm not telling you to beat up the six-year-old who has a crush on your little girl, but it is your job to intimidate any boy who gets near her to the point where he knows in his bones that you are the number one male in the family and you will personally kill him if he ever hurts your girl."
Yeah, Gibbs had mentioned putting the Fear of Dad into future boyfriends, but this, both from a this-is-what-we're-doing perspective, and also from a this-is-the-longest-speech-Jimmy's-ever-heard-out-of-him perspective, is completely unexpected.
"Your job is to make sure he treats your girl like a princess and feels like earning your respect is the equivalent of winning an Olympic gold medal."
Jimmy and Tim think about that. That's a plan they can get behind.
Jimmy adds, "That's where Ed screwed up. Sure, he could kill me and get rid of my body really easy, but I couldn't care less if I ever earn his respect."
Gibbs nods at that. "It's a lot harder to do if you're a jerk."
Tim did not actually say, 'takes one to know one,' but Gibbs catches his look and says, "I'm a bastard, not a jerk. There is a difference."
"And that would be?" Tim asks.
"I've got very high standards, but you met them and won the medal. Jimmy can try from now until the end of the earth, and Ed'll just keep raising his standards because he's determined not to approve of Jimmy."
"That sound about right," Jimmy said.
"One day a man will show up, and he will deserve your respect, and he will be worth your little girl, which means you stop being her number one man. Ed's not willing to let that go. So he'll keep being a jerk to you."
Gibbs looks at Jimmy's hands and nods, they're properly taped up. He tilts his head a little, and Tim steps up, holding out his left hand to get it taped.
Tim realized something as Gibbs started taping up his hands. "This isn't just about our families, is it?"
Gibbs shook his head. "This time next year, Autopsy'll be yours, Palmer. Can't imagine it'll be all that much later that you'll be in charge of Cybercrime, Tim. No later than the end of '16 you'll both have guys calling you Boss or Doctor. Making them want to win your respect is important, too."
"And we're going to learn how to do that by fighting with you?" Jimmy asks, not seeming to think this is the most effective technique for that.
"Nope. Both of you already know how you're going to be leaders. This is just… the stuff your dads should be passing on to you about how to be a dad. And some of those guys who'll be calling you Boss, they're going to look at you like a dad, at least, if you're doing the job right."
"That's a terrifying thought." Jimmy shook his head.
"Not right away, but you'll both be in those jobs for a long time." Gibbs flashed them his amused smile. "Get some gray in your hair, and they'll start looking up to you."
"So you mean any day now?" Jimmy asks, dryly, the first of his gray hairs showed up last week and brought a few buddies.
"You're gonna need a whole lot more than the ten gray hairs you've got, Palmer. But yeah. When Ducky leaves, you'll get an assistant, and he'll be, what? Twenty-four? Gonna look like a baby to you."
"We were both twenty-four when we started here," Tim adds.
And Gibbs just nods, babies clearly on his face. "You're hands are done, too. Okay, Palmer, you can punch hard. You left enough bruises on Tim to prove that. But he told me you weren't aiming for his eye when you hit it."
Jimmy nods.
"You're with me. Tim, see that punching bag?"
Tim nods.
"Beat the hell out of it." Tim headed off to do just that. The sound of fists, elbows, and knees slamming into canvas punctuated the rest of Jimmy's conversation with Gibbs.
"What are we going to do?"
Gibbs headed over to his bag and found his pads. Then he took out some duct tape and put an X on the top of the pad. "I'm gonna move. You're gonna hit the X. And we're gonna keep doing it until both of you can hit the X no matter how fast I'm moving."
"What if I hit you?"
Gibbs look would be best described as if you hit me, Palmer, it's time to bury me because I'm already dead, but he's polite enough to not say that out loud. Instead he says, "Not getting hit is my job." He got into position, started circling the pad a bit, and Palmer whaled on it, hitting both nowhere even remotely near the X and hard enough that he staggered Gibbs.
Gibbs stepped back and straightened up, shaking his head slightly, amazed at how much force Jimmy had just nailed him with. "Stop. Precision, Palmer. Hit the X. Do it as soft and slow as you need to to hit the X. When you swap with Tim and take your turn on the punching bag, then you can hit hard. Again."
He started moving again, and this time Jimmy spent a good thirty seconds just tracking the motion with his eyes, and then hit, not too hard, but did manage to get the X dead on.
"Good. Keep it up." After about fifteen minutes where Jimmy slowed down to the point where he could land seven out of ten shots, Gibbs had him switch to his left hand, and started, at an even slower speed, all over again.
Several thoughts went through Gibbs mind while he was doing this. First of all, Tim was right, Jimmy did, and still does, need to fight it out. There's a ton of anger in there, and it needs to go somewhere. Gibbs knows all about that and is very glad that Tim's offering Jimmy a way to do it that isn't too self-destructive. He hopes hitting the range will be good for Jimmy, too. Secondly, Jimmy's a whole lot stronger than Gibbs thought he was. He tends to think of Palmer as a goofy, skinny kid, but there's a real man in there with some very serious strength. You could fill an especially small thimble with what Gibbs knows about yoga (and still have plenty of room left over), but if that's all the exercise Palmer gets, it must be really good for upper body development. Thirdly, no one ever taught Jimmy how to fight. Yeah, he can make a fist and throw a punch, but the part of the fight where his brain gets involved was never addressed. He's appallingly bad a figuring out where Gibbs is going to move next, and has a tendency to close his eyes right before his fist hits.
When Jimmy and Tim swap, Gibbs feels like kicking himself for not doing this with Tim more often. Eight years ago when it became clear that Tim was better with a handgun than anyone but Ziva, and that Ziva was going to be sticking around, filling the role of their combat specialist, Gibbs stopped making Tim hit the gym.There just didn't seem to be much use to it. He always had a gun on him, Tony or Ziva always went out with him, and worst came to worst, eight years ago, he was good enough that he wouldn't get killed if he had to depend on his fists.
He's not anymore.
Tim's brain knows how to fight. Gibbs can see from the way he watches the X that he knows how to track it and how to anticipate where it'll go. He knows to hit for where it will be instead of where it is. (In fact, if he was doing this with a pistol, Tim wouldn't just be able to hit the X, he'd be able to shoot off each of Gibbs' fingers.) What he can't seem to do is make his fist land where he wants it to. He's reliably within four inches of the X, but rarely nails it. Which isn't a problem if he was trying to hit a guy in the chest or stomach, but does mean he can completely miss someone if he's aiming for his head.
Tim's also, and this confuses Gibbs, equally bad with his left or right hand.
He decides to wrap it up by having them spar with each other, wanting to see how they really fight. It occurs to him as they're sort of limply flailing around with each other that if he's going to have them do this, that starting off with it, instead of putting it at the end when they've been working hard for an hour, is a good plan.It also occurs to him that Palmer needs contacts, because part of the reason he's got no control when he spars is because he can't see.

When they wrap up, Gibbs is developing plans for next week, and looking forward to it.

Shards To A Whole: 150

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 150: Call Out

Sunday morning, Gibbs eased the door to the McGee house open. It's unlocked, and right now he was wishing those two hadn't decided to mimic him on that. Tim and Abby's cell phones are both on the little table near the door, and he can see Tim's showing the four calls they've given him.
Gun out, he scans the downstairs, looking right and left for signs of trouble, but he's not seeing anything. Gibbs holsters his gun. He's rapidly coming to the conclusion that phone on the front table, and Tim and Abby upstairs in bed probably means Tim didn't hear the call.
Now what? Part of him just wants to find a convenient chunk of wall and pound on it until Tim shows up. Part of him knows that if Tim's sleeping, Abby is too, and while she will have to show up at the lab, she doesn't need to get there for at least three hours, and he doesn't want to cut into her sleep. She's tired enough as is without him waking her up early.
They're all tired. He doesn't think anyone on his team has slept well for almost two weeks now. But the rest of the team is still holding themselves together pretty well because they don't have tsunami sized waves of hormones sloshing around their systems.
Tired, pregnant, mood-swingy Abby sobbing in her lab because something reminded her of Jonathon is something he'd really prefer to avoid.
Which means he needs to go upstairs.
To their bedroom. With them in it. I.E. the last place on earth he wants to be at this particular moment in time.
Great.
He heads up quietly. Last thing he wants to do is get shot by Tim because he thinks the footfalls on his steps are a burglar. Gibbs was up there right before the wedding, so he knows which room is theirs. Top of the steps all the way down the hall on the right.
The door is open. Makes sense, not much reason to close it when it's just the two of you.
He pokes his head in fast, if too much of Abby is visible, he's going back downstairs, getting Tim's phone, tossing it in the room, and then calling.
But they're under the blanket, spooned together, Tim on the outside, wrapped around her, their legs tangled together.
He eases in quietly and pokes what he's hoping is Tim's foot.
Tim jerks, looks around fast, sees Gibbs and relaxes, though Gibbs tenses up when his brain realizes what he's seeing on Tim.
"What are you doing in my bedroom?" he asks quietly, sounding confused.
"Call out. You didn't answer your phone."
Tim rubs his face and then winces when he does it. "Okay, I'm up."
Gibbs stands there, waiting, eyes wide, wondering what the hell happened to Tim. Tim doesn't move. This last for about thirty seconds before Tim says, still quietly, "Remember that peep show comment from Lejeune?" Gibbs turns and heads out of their room. He's halfway out the door when Tim adds, "Put some coffee on when you're down there."
Gibbs nods and heads downstairs, shaking his head. Why it is out of all his team members only Kate could be relied on to wear pajamas?
As he's rummaging around in their kitchen, he wonders why Tim's got a black eye and some really ugly fresh bruises on his shoulders, arms, and chest. He's really hoping Tim didn't flip out and beat the hell out of someone, because judging by how bad he's looking, that someone is really likely to press charges.
But that can't be it, because there's no way Abby wouldn't have called him if something like that had happened. And for that matter, he really doubts Tim wouldn't have called him if that had been up.
No way to know now, so he lets it go, and finds the coffee, scoffs at the decaf in his hands, there's no point to coffee if it's decaf, and then sets up Tim's machine to brew.
Seven minutes later, Tim is downstairs, dressed, shaved, and except for the black-eye, looking fairly professional. His hair's a bit messier than normal, but not unreasonable. He takes the coffee from Gibbs, sucking it down fast.
"Sorry, Jethro, looks like we can't hear the phone from the upstairs. It'll go on my dresser from now on."Gibbs nods.
"What are we called out for?"
"Dead Marine outside of Quantico."
Tim grabs a bagel, writes a quick note for Abby on the whiteboard on the fridge, and says, "Let's go."


They're in the car when Tim says, "Thanks for not waking her up."
Gibbs nods. "Do I want to know how bad the other guy looks?"
"Eh?"
Really, you're gonna play dumb with me? Gibbs' look said.
"Jimmy'll be fine."
That shocks Gibbs badly enough that he pulls the car over, stops it, and turns toward Tim. "You got into a fight with Palmer? What the hell happened?"
Tim holds up a placating hand. "Nothing like that. He was telling me about how angry he was, and how there was nothing to be angry at, nothing to hit."
"So you volunteered to let him hit you?" Gibbs is so shocked he's sounding almost flustered. "I know you don't spend a lot of time in the gym, but the large bags hanging from the ceiling are there so people can hit them!"
Tim rolls his eyes. "He'd get bored with a punching bag, or his mind would wander because it wouldn't hold his attention. He needed something to get himself out of his head. Actually fighting does that. Otherwise, I would have suggested using a punching bag, I mean, this isn't precisely comfortable, and getting like this was a hell of a lot less comfortable."
Gibbs stares at him, and Tim's not sure if that look is admiration for stepping up for his friend or scorn for being so stupid about it. He does know that once he got Abby calmed down, which took some doing, (having told her he was in bad shape, and her actually seeing him were two very different things) and explained (again) what had happened (and why) she had an awfully similar look on her face.
"What do you do when you're really angry, Jethro? One of three things, right? Drink, fuck, or fight. He can't drink, not enough. Diabetes means getting more than buzzed is a bad plan for him. Even if he felt like it, and I really doubt he does, fucking's out for at least the next two-three weeks, maybe longer. But I could fight with him. So we went six rounds, and by the time we were done a lot of his anger was burned off. Maybe not the best way to handle it, but we'll both heal up, and at least as of Friday night, he seemed to be doing a little better."
Gibbs takes Tim's left hand and turns it so he can see how bad he hurt himself, purple-green bruises decorated split knuckles. "No gloves?"
"This isn't something either of us ever does. We don't have gloves. And no, we didn't have tape, either. Or face gear."
"You can see okay out of that eye?"
"I'm fine. Just sore."
"Jimmy's okay?"
"The only things you can see are the split lip and his hands."
"You split his lip?"
Tim's really tempted to roll his eyes again. "I wasn't trying to. I'm not Ziva. This isn't something I'm very good at. I meant to get his shoulder, he dodged into my hand, and I couldn't pull it in time. I think that's how he got my eye, too. We weren't trying to hurt each other. He just needed someone to fight it out with, so I did it."
Gibbs nods at that. "You've been a good friend to Jimmy. And now I'm going to be a good dad, to both of you. Every Sunday from now until your daughter is on the outside, both of you are spending an hour training with me. It's been eight years since I've seen you in the gym for any combat training, and if you're accidently splitting Jimmy's lip, you're too rusty. If he's accidentally hitting you in the eye, same thing."
"Errr…" Ending up with even less free time was not how Tim had hoped this would work out.
"Both of you need to be in good enough shape to put the Fear of Dad into future boyfriends, so training starts on Sunday. And you're spending an hour with him at the range every week until he's as good as you are with a pistol."
"Ever since he got kidnapped, he hasn't wanted to have anything to do with a real gun."
"He might feel differently about it now. And even if he doesn't, he still needs to know how to use one."
Tim shrugs, and winces, his ribs are pretty sore and that motion hurts. "Could we maybe start this the Sunday after next, when Jimmy and I won't still be eating handfuls of Advil every four hours?"
Gibbs shakes his head. "I'll take it easy on you the first week."
"Great."

"McGee, are you all right?"
"What on earth happened to you!" Ziva sounded really concerned, while Tony sounded shocked.
"I'm fine." Which was as far as he got before Jimmy and Ducky showed up with the gurney.
"Palmer did you…" Tony was probably going to ask something like, 'see what happened to McGee,' but he turned to look at Jimmy, saw the split lip, his chin and jaw had bruised up to go with it, as well as bruised hands and said, "Did both of you go out, get drunk, and beat the hell out of someone at a bar?"
"No, Tony, they didn't." Ziva walked over to Jimmy, stared at the bruises on his face, her finger just ghosting over it. "That was done by someone's left hand." And then went to Tim and stared at his eye, looking like she knew exactly how tall the person who hit him was just from the bruise. "Do you want to explain this?"
Tim shrugged and looked to Jimmy, his expression letting Jimmy know that he'll keep this as private as Jimmy wants. (Gibbs excepted. Tim's personal rule number one means Gibbs is always excepted.)
Jimmy shrugged, too. "Tim let me fight out my anger. I needed it. He was there. Do you need more than that?"
"Nope," Tony said very quickly. He knows that expression, knows that tone of voice, and knows that's a man who doesn't want to get into whatever it is.
Ziva nodded at him. "If you ever need it, I am here, too."
Jimmy closed his eyes and manages a bit of a smile for her. "Thanks, but Ziva, I can't hit you. I know you're tough. I know you're a better fighter than I am. I know you can kill a man with a bar of soap. But you're still a girl, and I can't hit you."
She smiled at him, hoping a little gentle kidding goes over well. "Jimmy, the reason you cannot hit me is because I'm too fast for you."
"That too."
"Seriously, though. I'm good enough at this neither of us will get hurt, and you'll still get a good work out." She stepped closer to him, and said quietly, "And if you do need to hit, to land the punches, and to take them in return, I know how to do that and not visibly harm you, and how to not let you hit anything important. Neither you nor McGee can afford to damage your hands or eyes."
"Thanks." He hugged Ziva quickly before hurrying after Ducky.

Next

Shards To A Whole: 149

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 149: Too Damn Small

Gibbs has a problem.
What's new about that? He usually has several of them at any given time, and some of them come back over and over. But this is the first time he's run into this particular one.
His basement is too damn small.
He started on the Shannon back in '12, when he knew retirement was on the horizon and wanted to get her done in time to sail off shortly after they make him leave NCIS. He figures that'll be the best way to handle those first few months. Get out to sea, away from the job, and just let go, cold turkey, come back a few months later and hopefully find something to do with himself on land.
So, now, as January of '15 is coming to a close, with a year to go until retirement, Shannon is getting pretty close to done. He's got a year to work, and about ten more months' worth of work to do on her.
But he's got two more jobs ahead. He needs to have a Chuppah done by April 4, (3rd really, apparently in Jewish weddings there's some sort of ceremony the night before involving signing the contract, and then the next day there's the ceremony he thinks of as a wedding.) and while McSciuto might not be due until July, he wants the crib done by the beginning of May. On the off chance she...it... he shakes his head, hell she, ends up coming early, she'll need a place to sleep.
So, the question is: try and finish Shannon up fast, move his shop upstairs, or try to squeeze three projects into a space that was already tight for one...
The Chuppah is primarily lattice work. It's got to be light, beautiful, flexible, and, because it's got to get from his place to the park where they're having the ceremony, collapsible. But it's also got to be strong enough to hold all of the flowers, vines, and lacy fabric that'll get draped around it. Once he's got all of the pieces cut, he can get them screwed together upstairs. But it'll be a two-step finishing process. The real finishing will happen before he gets all the pieces assembled, but he'll need to do a good, solid post assembly clean up as well, and the basement is where he's got his ventilation system for dealing with the dust that goes with that.
Then there's the crib. That'll require real joinery, serious planing, every piece has to be straight and square, and he's sure as hell going to do some carving on it, though he's not entirely certain what.
Since Tim and Abby are talking about a forest theme for the nursery, he knows one thing, the legs of the crib are going to be unshaped trees. He'll take the bark off, mostly because he knows little kids are rough on furniture and it'll get knocked off if he leaves it on. He wants the look of natural wood growing up from the floor. And there'll have to be a space on the back for the picture Abby wants to paint, but beyond that, he doesn't have a set idea, yet.
He's been debating putting off any real design work on the crib for finding out if McSciuto is a girl or boy. Everyone thinks she's a girl. Gibbs does, too. And if he's designing for a little girl, that'll make some of this easier. But at the same time, they don't know yet, won't until the beginning of April, and he's fairly certain this crib is not only going to be used by one child.
'Course, they have more than one kid, he can make more than one crib. And if they are going to have more than one, those kids are going to have to be pretty close together. Abby might look the same age Tim is, but Gibbs knows she's not. So, anyway, McSciuto might still be in this crib when Baby B shows up.
Gibbs is feeling like he's just talked himself into doing a girl's crib, until he once again remembers that they don't actually know that McSciuto is a girl.
Damn it. Okay, he can pick out the wood. That's a start. And then he can move onto the Chuppah. By the time that's done, they'll know for sure if she's a girl or boy, and then he can go from there.
He's thinking walnut for the slats, dark, almost black stain, and then the cross pieces can be maple, almost white. He sketches that out, quickly, looks at it with the natural tree legs and crumples it up. That didn't look right at all. He spends a few hours fooling around with different ideas, not really liking anything he was coming up with, besides the idea that some sort of small dragon should be crawling up one of the legs, face perched on the top, looking into the crib. He likes that idea a whole lot.
So he puts those sketches aside, and goes to work on the Chuppah.
The Chuppah's easier. That should be oak, strong, solid, slow-growing, but long-lived. He can see the pieces in his mind, long, tall, strong. He glances over to his band saw, knowing he's going to be ripping a whole lot of wood soon.
Which once again brings him to the problem of not having enough room. The band saw is packed up in the corner, because the Shannon is taking up most of the space.
He stands up, places a hand on her hull. That part is done. Normally his next step would be building the interior, followed by the deck. But if he puts the deck on her first, or at least something to keep the rain out and the hull intact, he can move her out, do his current projects, and move her back in.
And, if he's willing to let go of the secret of how his boats get out of the basement, Tim and Tony will help him do it, which would speed things up even further and make getting her back into the basement once he's done with the Chuppah and the crib easier.
Gibbs checks his watch. It's seventeen thirty on Saturday. So, grab a little food, then come back down here and get four hours of work done. They're on call this weekend, and he's got a feeling something is going to happen, so he wants to get to bed earlier rather than later.
His plan set, and one more problem checked off the list, Gibbs headed up to the kitchen.

Shards To A Whole: 148

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 148: Too Stupid To Live

There is a term that Tim's come in contact with on several occasions. He's never seen it outside of discussions of writing or characters, so he's not sure how common it is outside the writer/reader community, but right now, as he's fighting with Jimmy, it's springing to mind.
That term is Too Stupid To Live. It's used when the character in a story does something so ridiculously stupid that you, the reader, start rooting for them to die.
There are times when Tim is pretty firmly convinced that he is indeed too stupid to live. Usually, he tries to avoid that, but, well, as the title implies, he's too damn stupid to figure out where the problem is ahead of time.
But, as Jimmy's fist goes crashing into his eye, he's rapidly coming to the conclusion that yes, today he is indeed too damn stupid to live.
The idea of helping Jimmy to fight out his aggression seemed like a really good one until the actual fighting started. And then it dawned on Tim that A: he carries a gun for a reason. B: that reason is to avoid having to get into fist fights. C: this really, really hurts.
Part of the issue is that, while Tim has been trying to avoid hurting Jimmy, and it's true that for the first two or three minutes Jimmy was also trying to avoid hurting him, as the fight got going and the adrenaline got pumping, Jimmy's control vanished.
What's also true is that Jimmy has no technique, can't really see because he's not wearing his glasses, is angry on an existential level, hurts worse than anyone has ever hurt, is high as a kite on endorphins right now, and is way stronger than anyone his size has any right to be.
So, to put it nicely, Tim's getting his ass handed to him on a silver platter.
He's also vaguely aware of the fact that there were probably preparations they could have taken besides just changing into sweats. Like, he's thinking that head gear might have been a good plan. (Very good plan, Jimmy just dodged into one of Tim's punches, and Tim's not entirely sure how much of the blood dripping off his hand is from Jimmy's now split lip or his now split knuckles. This is also when the idea of taping up their hands occurs to him.) But, as he manages to sweep Jimmy's legs out from under him, he's fairly pleased that they were at least smart enough to take their shoes off.
Jimmy gets up slowly, and Tim stands there, open, waiting, breathing hard.
"One more round?" Jimmy asks. They're calling a round fighting until one of them goes down. That was, he thinks, the end of number five.
"As many as you need." And yeah, that's probably stupid too, but fight aside, Jimmy actually seems a little calmer now, well, maybe calmer isn't the right word. Less angry? Yeah, that's probably better. Of course, he's also, like Tim, pretty close to exhausted, too, so he might just not have enough energy to be angry.
Jimmy nods and charges him. Tim managed a decent sidestep and got him in the back with his elbow, but Jimmy was already whipping around and punched him in the ribs.
Part of fighting is that it goes by way faster than you think it should. If he was doing this with a game controller, hitting buttons, he'd be able to do it fast enough to react to Jimmy and think a few moves ahead. But as it is, doing this live means he feels like he's constantly playing catch up.
But the good thing about this going faster than expected is that it's probably less than three minutes later that he's on his back, staring up at the ceiling of the gym, aching from his hair to the soles of his feet, gasping to get his breath back.
Jimmy gives him a hand up, pulling him back into standing up.
"You okay?"
Tim nods, finally able to inhale again.
"More?" he asks Jimmy.
"I'm done."
"Okay."
"Tim," Jimmy's looking at him, eyes wide open and earnest. "Thank you."
"Anytime." And as they head for the locker room, Tim knows he means it. As often as Jimmy needs to do this, he'll be there for.


They peel off sweat and blood soaked clothing, ready to hit the showers, which right now sounds really, really good to Tim. He looks at himself as he hangs his towel outside the shower stall and moans softly. He's covered in bruises, and since he knows a little something about how this works, he also knows that they're all going to get worse before they get better.
"Tim." Jimmy's in the next stall over, and likely doing a pretty similar inspection of his body.
"Yeah."
"Cold water. Hot'll feel better, but it'll make the bruising and swelling worse."
"Great." He hates cold showers. Hated them before he almost froze to death and absolutely abhors them now. And right this second the idea of putting his extremely tender, hurts to look at wrong body into icy cold water seems like getting to enjoy a sneak preview of Hell.
He still cranks the water all the way to the cold side because Jimmy is right. He remembers enough of his wrestling days to know that if you put hot on bruised, battered flesh you end up even more swollen, stiff, and sore.
"Did you tell Abby what we were doing?"
"Told her we were working out. What'd you tell Breena?"
"You were helping me deal with my anger."
"They're going to flip out when they see us." See, this is part of the too stupid to live thing. Coming home to a pregnant wife beaten to a pulp is a bad plan. She's going to take one look at him and freak out.
"Yeah." Jimmy sighs. "She's going to yell at me for being stupid."
Tim nods, steps into the water, shrieks when it hits his skin, because God, icy cold water beating down on bruised skin is every sort of horrible he can think of, and says, "Abby's going to do that, too."
He hears a low moan from Jimmy, so he assumes that means he's stepped into the water as well.
"Did it help?"
"Yeah. It did. I may just be too tired and sore to feel it, but I'm not angry right now."
"Good."


The human body is a wonderfully designed machine. For example, when it experiences pain, it produces chemicals that fight that pain. Those chemicals are called endorphins. They act as a pain reliever and mild euphoric.
The fact that Tim knows that was part of suggesting fighting to Jimmy. Endorphins make you feel better, they lift your mood, and that effect can last for hours, days even. That's why they suggest you exercise if you're depressed.
However, the pain fighting aspect of endorphins wears off pretty quickly after you stop doing whatever it was that caused the pain in the first place. And while Tim is well aware of how this works when it comes to certain amounts of discomfort he's experienced chasing an especially good orgasm, he wasn't aware of how fast it was going to wear off in relation to a fight.
Basically, he was only a few blocks away from the Navy Yard when his seatbelt started to really hurt his shoulder. Which was not to say everything else about him didn't hurt, too, but as per the Gate Theory of Pain, you really only feel what hurts worst, and the belt pressing into his very tender, very bruised left shoulder really hurt.
He was at a stop light, about ten minutes from home, debating sending Abby a text to warn her that he wasn't in quite the same shape as he had been when she last saw him two hours earlier. He could either send that text, and then have her worried about him from now until he got home, or not send it and shock the hell out of her when he got in the door.
He sent the text.
Two seconds later his phone was ringing. He set it on speaker and put it in the cup holder.
"You got into a fight with Jimmy!? What the hell were you thinking? Jimmy's so fragile right now; how could you possibly start a fight with him?" She continued on that vein for a bit, and he was thinking that texting: Got into fight with Jimmy, look pretty bad, home soon, explain then was yet another sign of being too stupid to live.
"What could he have possibly have said to piss you off so much, especially right now, that would make you fight him?"
She actually paused for breath after that one, so he replied, "'I'm so angry, and there's nothing to do with it, nothing to hit, and screaming at fate doesn't help.' So I volunteered to fight him to help get the angry out."
"Oh." Dead silence. "You couldn't have put that in your text?"
"I should have."
"How bad are you?"
"Lots of Advil and ice packs when I get home."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Did it help him?"
"I think so."
"I'll have the frozen peas ready to go."
"Thanks. Should be home in three minutes."
Next

Shards To A Whole: 147 Comforting Words

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 147: Comforting Words

"How are you doing?" Yesterday had been Jimmy's first day back, and also the last day of a hot case, so beyond a quick visit, Tim hadn't had time to get down to Autopsy.
Today they're filling out paperwork, and no one is going to say anything if he and Jimmy take an extra-long lunch. So they did.
Jimmy shrugged a little, his voice is pretty flat. "Not so bad. Everyone here has lost someone and knows what this feels like, sort of, at least. Tony's made some dumb jokes, but that's it, they're dumb jokes, designed to try and make me laugh. Ziva's brought food for us every day since you and Abby left. But 'well-meaning' assholes out there in the rest of the world keep saying horrible things to us.
"Why would you say, 'You'll have other children'? Yeah, it's true. We will, and if the genetic testing says we shouldn't try naturally, we'll adopt more kids, but why would you say that?" Flat is very rapidly being replaced by anger steeped in stupefaction. "If I told you my best friend died, you wouldn't say to me, 'You'll have other best friends.'" Jimmy stabbed the one of the pieces of chicken in his salad over and over with his fork. "One of the ladies at church said, 'Well, at least Molly's healthy.' You wouldn't tell someone who's mom just died, 'Well, at least your dad is healthy.'
"One of them said to us, 'You've got to trust that God knows what He's doing, and this is for the best.'" He shook his head, looking so tired. "No, I don't have to trust in that. I don't have to trust in anything. Trusting in a God who builds your hopes up and crushes them just for kicks is really damn low on my to-do list right now, thank you."
The stupefaction in his voice vanished, replaced by all anger. "I almost hit the woman who said it'd make us stronger. Would have done it if she had been a guy. I was perfectly fine being a cream puff, married to a cream puff, raising a little cream puff, dreaming about a new little cream puff, and I would have very happily lived my entire life never dealing with anything harder than being annoyed with Ed. The idea that it'll make me tougher isn't any comfort." He closed his eyes for a second, made himself calm down, and then looked at Tim again, who was pretty much just sitting there, across the booth from him, hoping to be useful by giving Jimmy a shot to say whatever he wanted or needed to.
"You know why they tell you not to tell anyone you're pregnant at first?"
Tim shook his head. Sure, he's familiar with the whole so-you-won't-have-to-tell-everyone-if-you-miscarry thing, but he's also sure that's not where Jimmy is going with this.
"It's so the rest of the world doesn't have to deal with your grief. If you don't tell anyone, then when you lose a baby you're just sad on your own, and if someone asks, you wave it away, force a grin on your face, and pretend to be all right. Every single one of those thoughtless 'comforting' words has been about only one thing only, shutting us down. 'You'll have other babies, so don't make me have to deal with you in mourning.' 'It's God's will, so stop making me uncomfortable by being sad.'"
"I'm so sorry."
"I know." Jimmy shook his head. "How hard was that? I'm sorry. I wish this didn't happen to you. I know it hurts, and it's not going to be better anytime soon, but I hope you heal quickly. And then shut the fuck up! How hard is that?" He wiped a tear away.
Tim shrugged. I'm sorry and then shut-the-fuck-up has always been his way of dealing with grieving people. "How's Breena doing with it?"
"Angry, frustrated, sad… We both are… At least I can go to work and deal with the fact that what I do puts killers away. She's just surrounded by dead people."
"She went back to work?"
"For about an hour. Then one of the suppliers asked how the pregnancy was going, so she told him, and he said something about us having other babies, and Ed blew up at him. Apparently ripped him a new asshole, twice." Ed had been at their place when he got home, and seemed to really enjoy giving Jimmy the full play by play on what exactly he had said to that idiot. And for the first time ever, Jimmy completely approved of something Ed had done. "How bad at tact are you when Ed's schooling you in how to behave? Then she went home and spent the rest of the day snuggling with Molly. The only good thing about working for Ed is that he'll let her take as long off as she likes, and if she never wants to see a dead body again, he'll support her in that, too." There are a lot of things that are true about Ed Slater, that he doesn't like Jimmy, has no filter between his mouth and his brain, and values money and the security it buys too highly are all on the list. Him being a bad dad isn't.
"Tim. I really appreciated what you did for us, and for me."
"Jimmy, you're living my worst fear. Whatever you and Breena need, I'm here for."
"Thanks." Jimmy sat there, ate the piece of chicken he'd been mauling with his fork, and thought for a minute. "You guys had the nuchal fold testing, right?"
"Yeah, Wednesday."
"And…"
Tim hadn't been sure how to handle this. My baby's healthy and yours just died is way out of his depth, so he figured this would be another good shut-the-fuck-up topic, so he hadn't mentioned it. But if Jimmy's going to out and out ask, he's not going to lie about it. "And it came up clear. Everything's good, as best we can tell."
"I'm really happy for you." Jimmy looks like he's on the verge of crying again. "Do you have new ultrasound pics?"
"Yeah, four of them. I wasn't sure…"
"I'd like to see them."
"Okay." Tim pulls them up on his phone. Kelly's still too little to tell if she's a boy or a girl, but she's looking a whole lot more like a baby and less like a shrimp.
Jimmy just stared at the first shot, his finger tracing along the curve of Kelly's spine.
"You sure you want to see this?"
"Yeah." Jimmy closes his eyes, and then opens them again, looking at Tim. "It hurts, but… I'm still really glad for you guys. And I still can't wait to meet your little girl. And I don't want you feeling like you can't be happy around me. I need all the happy I can get these days. Breena does, too."
"Okay." So he points out toe buds and finger buds, and how she's about the size of a golf ball, all stuff Jimmy knows, but it's still a big deal for Tim. He shows Jimmy the shot of the two tiny feet, and Jimmy smiled a little at them.
And then he started crying.
Tim put his phone back into his pocket and switched seats, sitting next to Jimmy and rubbing his back.
"It's just so fucking unfair!" Jimmy bites out, staring at the ceiling.
"I know."
"And I'm so angry," he won't look at Tim as he says this, because he's having an easier time keeping himself under some semblance of control by staring at the seat across from him. "And there's nothing, no one to be angry at. There's nothing to hit, and screaming at fate is useless."
Anything you need. There's nothing to hit. Tim thinks about that for a second before saying, "I'll fight you if you think it would help."
That got Jimmy to turn and look at Tim, surprised him enough it broke some of the sorrow. "Tim?"
Tim shrugs at Jimmy. He doesn't much like fighting, but if it might help, he's game. "There's a boxing ring in the gym. Having something solid to fight might help."
"I don't want to beat the shit out of you."
"I'm not volunteering to be a punching bag; you'd get bored with that too soon. A real fight would hold your attention and give you a shot to work out a lot of the fight or flight chemicals in your system. Won't help with sad, might help with angry. Ziva'd be game, too, if you wanted to go up against someone who's actually good at hand to hand."
Jimmy thought about that for a moment. "That's part of why she started training again when her father was killed."
"Maybe. Needing to be in good shape for what came after was a lot of it, too. We're made to run, physically run, away from the things that scare us, or turn around and try to kill them. You can't run from this, and you can't fight it, but you can fight me or Ziva or Tony, or hell, I'll run with you if you like. It certainly can't make things worse, and it might make you feel a little better."
Jimmy thought about it. "What are you doing after work?"
"Dinner with Abby, eventually. Tony and Ziva were going to do Shabbat, but they didn't think the case would get wrapped in time, so that's not on for tonight. You want to do something?"
"Yeah."
"Run or fight?"
"Fight."
"Okay."

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