Fic: The Inter-Agency Saga: Recovery 1/?
The Inter-Agency Saga: Recovery
Tony let himself into the house and then listened closely for signs of life. Someone was moving around in the back of the house and so he called out. "Boss, brought you guys some food." Gibbs called out that he was in the kitchen and Tony followed his voice. Gibbs was standing in front of the stove, dressed in boxers and a t-shirt, a towel slung over his shoulder.
"You're cooking. I didn't know you cooked."
Gibbs gave him the eye. "Ya think I've been living on take out for the last twenty years?"
"Actually, yeah. You never cooked when I stayed over - well, except for steaks."
"Tim isn't exactly 'staying over', now is he?"
"Boss, are you sure about this? I mean, sure, whatever happened to you guys was pretty intense, but since when were you gay? I could always see Probie that way, but you're the straight of the straight."
Realizing this wasn't going to be quick, Gibbs turned off the stove and moved the pot over to the side before leaning against the counter, arms crossed. "And you based your theory on what, Tony? The fact that I never hit on you? You figure that every woman wants you, so any man that could possibly swing that way would want you, too?"
Tony froze, embarrassed, now that he thought about it. "Sorry, I just..."
"Don't like change. You never have, Tony, I don't expect you to start now. Assuming that Tim is ever able to be back out in the field, the team won't change."
"Wait, what? You're saying that he might be grounded permanently?" Tony looked up, as if he could see the man resting upstairs. "It's that bad?"
Gibbs kept the explanation as vague as possible. "His heart was damaged, Tony. It'll be a while before we know if any of it's permanent."
"And if it is?" Tony sat heavily at the kitchen table, stunned at the severity and the possibility. Gibbs grabbed his coffee and joined him.
"We came back because of the team, but we have lots of options, including a standing job offer from Colorado."
"You'd leave NCIS?"
Gibbs chose his words carefully. "In the big picture, what we did this weekend helped more, saved more, than anything we could ever do here. Have to admit that's pretty tempting."
"Wow." Tony chewed on the corner of his fingernail as he thought. "So, what's going to be the deciding factor between being here and being in Colorado?"
"Well, in Colorado, we know that our relationship will be accepted by everyone we'd work with. Plus, it'll be a lot easier to protect Tim if we're there." Gibbs saw the confusion on Tony's face. "He stopped some pretty bad guys this weekend, on several fronts. If he ever gets ID'd..."
"They'd come after him." Tony bristled at the idea that some other group would be better at protecting one of theirs. "You don't need to go half way across the country for protection. We may not understand what's going on, but you know there's nobody better than our team. Right?"
At the end, Tony suddenly sounded unsure and Gibbs gave a shrug. "That's the reason we came home. Colorado is our back-up plan, but we want to stay here, stay at NCIS." He went back to dishing up the food he'd been fixing, not wanting the oatmeal to get too thick and lumpy.
While Gibbs did that, Tony unloaded the groceries he'd brought and Gibbs spotted the bottle of fresh orange juice. Coffee was off the menu until Tim got the okay from Dr. Fraiser, so Gibbs pulled down a glass. "Hey, why don't you pour some of that and take it up to him?"
Tony did just that and followed Gibbs up the stairs. At the bedroom door, he took a deep breath and stepped inside. "Hey, Buddy, thought you might like some fresh squeezed OJ."
Stripped down and propped up on pillows in the bright morning light, Tim looked much worse than he had the night before. Tony had noticed the large red mark on his forehead, but at this angle he could tell it was some sort of burn. Not only that, a similar red pattern covered his chest and arms that appeared to follow his blood vessels and veins. Tony could only assume that they continued throughout his lower body that was covered with the blanket.
"My God, Probie, what did they do to you?"
Unsure of what to say, Tim looked to Gibbs. The older man thought for a moment, then went with the simplest form of the truth as he set the tray on the dresser. "He was tortured, Tony. The - man - we were after wanted to torture Tim to death to punish him for stopping what - he - was trying to do. Punish us both, really."
Tony had immediately noticed Gibbs' struggle to refer to their attacker as a man, which he thought was odd, but it was the last statement that really caught his attention. "Punish you both by torturing McGee? Wait a minute, you're saying that he made you watch?
Tim reached out and laced his fingers through Gibbs'. "You saved me, Jethro."
"Not fast enough."
Tim didn't remember a lot about what was happening around him when the Ashrak attacked him, but Daniel had filled in a lot of the blanks for him before they left. "If you'd tried to move faster, we both would be dead."
Gibbs seemed unable to speak and just cupped his hand on Tim's cheek as he nodded. Feeling like an interloper, Tony decided it would be a good time to leave. "Hey, you guys call if you need anything, all right? I'm gonna just let myself out. Get some rest, McGee, okay? You too, Boss."
For the first time ever, Tony locked the door behind him when he left.
---NCIS---
Tim waited until he heard the front door close and lock before tugging Gibbs closer. "I'm going to be okay, Jethro. You heard Janet, it's just going to take some time."
"I know." Gibbs brushed a fingertip across the burn on Tim's forehead where the Ashrak had attacked him with an energy beam. "I thought you were dead. I'd finally told you how I felt and before I could do more than squeeze your hand, I thought I saw you die."
"I'm here." Tim burrowed against him, nestling his face in the crook of Gibbs' neck and brushing his lips against the pulse point there. "I'm here and I'm alive and as soon as we get the all clear from the doctors, I'm going to show you just how alive I am. Okay?"
Gibbs returned the kiss, chastely brushing his lips across Tim's temple. "That's more than okay."
---NCIS---
Arriving back at the Yard, Tony went straight to Autopsy. "Ducky, what, exactly, happened to McGee?"
"Tony, I'm afraid I really can't..."
"Ducky," Tony's strangled cry silenced the ME. "You haven't seen him, have you? Not the hair. I mean, really seen him. It's like..." He stopped and took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down as he pointed out an anatomical poster on the wall. "That's what he looks like. Tim's got those marks all over his body, like burns, like his blood was somehow boiled in his body. He's so weak, Ducky, enough to scare Gibbs."
Tony dropped into the chair next to Ducky. "I've never seen Gibbs scared before."
Sighing, Ducky let Tony look at the papers he'd been reading when the other man had arrived. The pages had been heavily redacted, large sections of the medical file blacked out, even the patient's name. "I don't know what happened to him, Tony. Whatever it was, the closest I can describe it would be that it was similar to extensive, repeated electrical shocks. This kind of damage would take hours with conventional methods and I don't have a clue how he survived."
"Gibbs said he was tortured, and Ducky? They made Gibbs watch."
---NCIS---
Tim managed to eat about half of his breakfast before he was just too exhausted to continue. Gibbs nodded his understanding as he took the bowl and set it aside. Next he lifted Tim up against him so that he could rearrange the pillows before sliding one arm under Tim's knees and the other around his back to lift and scoot him down on the bed. Tim still wasn't laying flat, he needed the elevation to take the strain off his lungs and heart, but he was comfortable enough to quickly drop off to sleep.
Not wanting to move away from him, Gibbs laid down next to him, resting his hand on Tim's chest. He could feel the little stutter in Tim's heart. Dr. Fraiser had promised that it would go away in time, had already started to improve, in fact, but Gibbs needed to keep track of it himself.
---NCIS---
Once alone, Ducky dialed a number he'd been given along with the medical records. It was answered on the second ring, not surprisingly.
~Dr. Mallard, I was expecting your call. This is Janet Fraiser.~
Her voice was pleasant, lyrical almost, but Ducky was too focused on his concerns at the moment. "Dr. Fraiser, I've been reviewing the medical files you sent on Timothy, however..."
~Now you have more questions than answer?~
"Exactly. Now, I know that whatever he and Jethro experienced is highly classified, but I'm afraid I need more information if I'm to properly monitor his recovery." There was silence for a moment as she apparently considered his worries.
~Dr. Mallard, why don't you tell me what you've put together so far and I'll fill in as best I can without compromising the further security of their mission.~
That caught Ducky off-guard. "That suggests that their mission might not be quite over."
~Around here, it never really is.~
"I see." Ducky thought for a moment about what he'd read and what Tony had told him, then jumped right in. "I suspect that Timothy has been electrocuted repeatedly and extensively. In fact, I would call it torture."
~For his recovery, that would be an appropriate estimation. I would not expect his heart rhythm to return to completely normal for several weeks.~
"But you expect that it will?"
~I believe so. Dr. Walker at Bethesda is scheduled to perform another EKG next week, so we'll know more then.~
Ducky was taking notes. "Walker is a good man. Now, I won't be seeing Timothy until later today, but I have been told that he has what appears to be burns that follow his circulatory system. I'm afraid that Agent DiNozzo is convinced that Timothy's blood was boiling at one point. Now, of course, that is impossible, but I'm afraid that I don't have a more reasonable explanation to give him."
~Actually, he's closer than you might imagine.~
"What?" Ducky was glad he was already sitting down. "How is that even possible?"
~I'm afraid that that is getting into the realm of what I cannot discuss.~
"Would I be correct in assuming that it was some sort of chemical reaction rather than heat?"
~Yes. Luckily, that was treated within moments of the injury, otherwise, we would not be having this conversation. Agent McGee will be on blood thinners until all the danger of blood clots has passed, however, and he will probably be anemic for a while, even with massive iron supplements.~
"I see." Truthfully, he couldn't, and she seemed to pick up on that.
~It sounds like a lot, I know, but I would not have cleared him to return home if I thought he was in any danger. What he needs now more than anything is rest and pampering, and doing some pampering will do Jethro good, too.~
Jethro Gibbs and pampering were words that Ducky had never thought to ever use in the same sentence. "I understand that Jethro witnessed first hand what happened to Timothy."
~Yes, he did, Dr. Mallard. I'm not a trained psychologist, but I've seen enough in my work here to know how difficult it was for him - to admit his love to someone and then to watch that person come so close to death practically hours later and within inches of him. Combine that with Jethro having no way to stop any of it in time, and the next few weeks might be harder on him than what Tim is facing. Especially if you consider the fact that next week is the anniversary of Shannon and Kelly's deaths.~
Shocked, Ducky couldn't stop himself. "You know about them? How?"
~What we do here requires the highest security clearance in the military, Dr. Mallard.~
That told Ducky a great deal, including why Gibbs and McGee would never be fully free of whatever it was that happened to them. Projects of that level were not something you just walked away from.
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