Combine computer issues, migraines, and sudden insomnia, and you get a late chapter. I'm very sorry :(

Also, remember that I said earlier that Tim's kidnapping took place around the end of season five. I'll be using that to explain a few things in this chapter. Thanks for reviewing!

May 8th, 2008

Being unconscious was very easily at least ten times more preferable to being awake. And, no matter the fact that he was in completely hostile territory, Tim would sooner shut his eyes and just try to block everything out than try and hold strong through pulsing pain and gleam more information. Even if it was potentially life-saving information.

The still unnamed woman floated in and out of his cell, but whether as a waking dream or a real life disturbance through a nightmare, he couldn't tell. His few hazy recollections were mixtures of water and carefully measured bites of soft mush spooned into his mouth along with migraines and dry mouth, and caramel skin, hair like night, and hands. Hands that were always cold.

So when that hand returned to his shoulder, a sudden long-fingered chill, he tried just shrugging it off. It gripped tighter, and the young voice returned to his ear, quick and warm. "You've been lying down too long. Time for you to get up."

God. Get up? He'd sooner face the man with the gun again; at least then the end would be quick and not as long as it was agonizing.

"Hey, hey, come on. Come on, Timothy."

Timothy. No one called him that.

The name put him on edge, and he winced, shaking off the last reluctant bits of fog and prying his eyes open. All that was waiting for him was a blur and an arm slid under his shoulders, lifting him upright into a sitting position. He groaned, head rolling and disorientation rising, and the arm just gripped tighter, holding him up when he swayed and almost passed out. "Hold steady. It will pass quickly. Hold steady."

It took more than a few seconds, but, damn it, she was right; his head at last cleared, and Tim blinked rapidly until his eyes watered.

The hand around his shoulders squeezed quickly, and then the plastic of a water bottle was pushed against his lips, and she tilted it up. "Here. Take some."

He gratefully swallowed a few lukewarm mouthfuls, and then the woman moved back again, still holding him upright. "You're recovering quickly. You are one very lucky boy, actually. Bullet goes in one side, out the other, hits no organs- by your pain, I think it, how you say..." She paused for a moment, voice turning hesitant, "knocked? a rib or two? No, that is not right..."

"Nicked," he corrected mildly, voice a mere rasp, then winced. By the feel of it, she was definitely right. He'd also been right that this woman was a first generation immigrant. Immigrant communities could be isolated; her strong accent and trouble with English didn't mean she was necessarily very new to the US, but it was either that, or she hardly left her own tight knit family. Bad news for him. If she was undocumented, she wouldn't trust the police, period. On the unlikely event she was legal, she probably still wouldn't trust the police; most immigrants didn't.

The woman, oblivious to his thoughts, just nodded again, the motion only visible through the dark shift of her hair in the corner of his eye. "Ah. Nicked. I see." She tested out the new word again. "Nicked. Interesting."

Breathing heavily, Tim still leaned against her, eyes half shut now against the headache he could feel coming on. "You a doctor?"

The woman shook her head now, hair brushing against his left shoulder. "No. Nurse. ...Or, I was. My degree from Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla has no standing in Los Estados Unidos de América... I work as night janitor now. Much experience with stitching, though. Particularly bullet wounds. I used to see many every day, sometimes when the médico was out. I learned." She chuckled quietly and patted his shoulder again. "Luckily for you, Timothy."

The story was a sad one, but unfortunately typical, and he didn't comment on it. Instead, coughing, he went on when his breath was strong enough. "You've got me at a... a disadvantage..."

"Hmm?"

He laughed hoarsely. Worse than Ziva. "What's your name?"

"Oh. Estela." And at last the woman moved forward enough for him to really see her.

She had a warm, heart-shaped face framed on one side by a dark ponytail. The silver chain of her necklace was pulled up so the charm was hidden underneath her loose, bloodstained, black shirt, one latex-gloved hand still fiddling with the chain. The gloves were dotted red, too.

She gave him the slightest of smiles.

The bang of the door was so loud, it sent a chill down his spine- and a dark cloud over her face. The hand on his shoulder clenched, and she glared towards the door for an instant, muttering a curse, then looked back at him gave another rough smile. "I will fix this."

Estela was up on her feet instantly, one arm still on him and the other quickly pulling up a pillow at his back, giving him the thinnest version of the support he so desperately needed, but all her attention was towards the door. "Qué estás hacie-"

"I've got the computer! I've got the computer!"

"Carlos?!"

"I've got your computer, you can, can... see the... file. Come on, please, you gotta get it f-for m-m-me!"

Tim stared, aghast. Carlos had made his long anticipated- or, alternatively, terrifying- return. The gun was in his waistband this time, a slim silver computer held up like a trophy in both of his hands- Tim grimaced at the very sight. A Macbook? Yeah. Just hand him an OS he wasn't familiar with and hardware he hadn't used since college. Were they trying to make this even more impossible than it already was?

Then he blinked and actually looked at the man holding the computer, and realized something was wrong besides the tech. He'd sweated completely through his white shirt and was shaking like a leaf, trembling so badly Tim found himself fearing for the computer's welfare. His eyes were bloodshot, pupils dilated, and he stood there doubled over in pain, laptop hugged against his chest and features torn with agony...

God, he looked like he was going through withdrawal.

He'd be too shaky to aim, which was a plus- but Carlos alsowouldn't think twice about shooting him now.

Tim shut his eyes in sinking terror.

Estela and Carlos were arguing now, and by what snatches of English he could grab, he wasn't the only one to realize Carlos's beyond intoxicated state, and Estela was not happy at all. He found himself praying for her to win out; convincing Carlos, in his state, was going to be impossible, but he really didn't want him to stay in here and he really didn't want her to go. Estela argued in a whirl of jabbed fingers and fiery jabs, stalking over the thin, creaky floor, her eyes flashing all the while; Carlos was all panic and incoherence. Tim watched with bated breath, waiting for the shoe to drop.

"Aye Dios mios! Your brother is complete trash, Carlos! Trash! That hijo de puta gets you hooked on this poison, controls you with it- how can you not see?! What, he'll give you more if you get answers from this guy? You-"

"You d-don't understand... I'm hurting so bad, hermanita. I'm hurting and he'll... he'll give me more..."

With those broken words, Estela's fiery anger cooled. She ducked her head for a moment, shoulders trembling in rage, hair shielding everything but the outline of sheer regret through her entire form.

At least, Estela's dark eyes turned to him. The angry resignation in them told him everything he needed to know.

The door slammed even harder on her way out than on Carlos's way in, and then the man was on him, wrestling up even straighter with such force he was blinded by pain and knocked breathless.

"Here!" Carlos cried, shoving the laptop into his one free hand while Tim just struggled to stop wheezing. "Find that file!"

One-handed. So dizzy he could barely, and in so much pain he could barely breathe. Junkie on withdrawal with a gun by his side demanded results.

A drop of sweat rolled down the back of his neck and, tremulously, Tim opened the laptop.

When the elevator dinged, the rise of hope that came was undeniably childish. It was also so strong it was all Abby could do to stop herself from turning to run out into the hall to see who it was.

When she saw it wasn't Gibbs, back from LA and home where he belonged, with people who loved him, after what happened- or even better, Tim, to tell her this past week was all just a really bad dream- but Ducky, she made herself turn away, looking back towards her many screens through teary eyes. "I don't deserve a Caf-Pow right now, Ducky. Not until I find this car.

"Then I will wait here until you undoubtedly do so." The doctor moved to join her, staring for a few moments at the many programs she had running, but, as usual, he very quickly lost interest in what she knew he couldn't help but view as the mechanical and the drab. "Ah, is this the tire track found outside of the diner?"

She managed one strong nod before her defenses started to weaken and more tears slipped through. "Yes. Only survivor so it has to be the one who killed... who killed..." The hurt that flared up at the name choked her off and she stopped, shutting her eyes tight. "Who killed..."

"Director Shepard," Ducky finished gently.

There was a slight pause, and Abby tried harder to focus through it. None of this was right; none of this made sense. Tony and Ziva shouldn't have even been in LA at all. Gibbs had fought like hell to get other agents assigned; the team was supposed to be looking for Tim, not working as routine bodyguards for the director- but Jenny had demanded the agency's best, and in the end, it hadn't even made a difference. She was still just as dead. And Tim was still just as missing. And everything was still just as wrong.

The alarm was so unexpected it was enough to give her pause, and it would've been a welcome distraction into mournful reminiscence if she wasn't so committed to getting this work done now. She turned towards the culprit with a vengeance, fists clenching when she read flashing message.

"Unauthorized access attempt?" Ducky quoted in confusion and pointed. "What does that mean?"

"It means someone is trying to hack my lab." Abby stared, incredulous at first, and just watched the hacker's progress. It was embarrassingly slow; no one who worked at that speed should've been good enough to catch her attention. How had they gotten through the initial firewalls?

"I'd imagine that happens daily," Ducky chuckled, "why are you getting an alarm about someone going after NCIS?"

"No, not NCIS; specifically my lab- god, I do not have time for this. You son of a bitch, get out of my lab!" She set about stopping the would-be hacker in his tracks. Curiously slow or not, there was too much going on for her to look into this; she just had too much to deal with and way too much on her mind for a little hacker to waste her time. "I don't know who you are, I don't know what you want, but by god you are going to regret the day you set your sights on my lab, dirtbag! I'll give you herpes so fast you won't know what hit you."

"Herpes, my dear?!"

"My own creation," she said with a vicious smile. "It'll run his motor so fast he'll be shut down and then still be waiting for him in the hardware when he turns it back on."

"You... you mean a computer virus."

She glanced at Ducky and nodded once, then launched her program. "Of course-"

"Ms. Sciuto, any hit on the tire yet?"

They both jumped, and Abby turned furiously on the next invader into her lab before stopping short at the sight of assistant director Vance. She glared at the sight of him, ire rising. His presence here was yet another reminder of just how wrong everything was, him and his toothpick chewing and his insistence on procedure and his place in the director's chair-

"Ms. Sciuto?"

Rubbing her eyes, she made herself turn back to her computer, looking now at the stalled progress of the hacker. "Nothing yet."

Vance leaned over her shoulder, looking at her dismantling of the hacker's attack and leaving her standing still, arms folded now, head down stubbornly. "This a common occurrence, Ms. Sciuto?"

The formality, the stiffness, the Ms. Sciuto- none of it was right. Abby shook her head once, still silent and stubborn, and Vance sighed. "Director Shepard is your only case for now. If the hacker didn't gain any info, shut him down and move on."

"But I-"

"Now, Ms. Sciuto."

The assistant director left, and, with a miserable sigh, Abby watched as her virus did its work. The moment the hacker was forced out- even if the sight had given her a perverse sense of pleasure- she returned to the tire mark.

In the short minutes before the laptop shut off, Tim honestly enjoyed himself, just a little, watching everything go to hell. Abby's virus was a true masterpiece. Just based off what he could see now he could tell this computer was so infected it'd take him weeks to clear it out and he couldn't help but grin; she'd stolen a few tricks from him.

The knocked fist against his head when the screen went black was enough to wipe the smile away.

"What happened?! What the hell did you do?! Everything was right there- why'd it turn off?! Why it'd turn off?!"

"I don't know," Tim gasped, bracing himself with his chained hand when another punch sailed his way. His head was pounding already and now he could barely see; the second whack came from the butt of the gun and he slammed onto his back, wheezing. "I d-don't... know...'

"You've got to find it! If you don't- if you don't- oh, god, I need it... find the file now!"

"There's not even a singular file!" The breakthrough came in a hoarse scream, the knowledge that with any luck Abby was tracing the connection right now and someone would come busting through the door soon taking a backseat in the face of tension and terror. His fraying hold on his reaction shattered and he forgot caution and safety entirely in place of a complete breakdown that had been long in coming. "If there's even an investigation on you, they'll be multiple files, possible spread through multiple agencies! I can't possibly find anything with this piece of junk! I can't possibly find anything with you breathing down my neck! I probably won't find anything at all no matter what you-"

"Find it!" The butt of the gun smacked against his shoulder. "Find it!" His face. "Find it!" The back of his head. "Find it!" The back of his head again. "Find it!" Again. "FIND IT!"

Again... and again... and again...

Gibbs...

White hot pain burst out at the impact of the gun again and he fell forward, agony growing in the face of blinding light.

Please come...

August 20th, 2008

The team had been slogging away at the case all day with no progress. It was nearing the usual quitting time- not that any of them would leave- but Gibbs couldn't well justify ordering anyone to stay when they had no leads. They couldn't even interview McGee yet; he wouldn't be awake until the next morning.

It irritated him that they had no leads. And Gibbs did not like being irritated.

It reminded him of when Ari had blazoned a pathway through NCIS, taking out more than one good man and taking aim at his team then traipsing straight out the door with a smirk, and leaving him with nothing more to go off of than that same smirk in picture form for months. Having no leads, nothing at all to investigate or go off of, was bad under normal circumstances. When it was his own team that had been threatened, and was still being threatened, it was dammed infuriating.

One glance around the silent bullpen, Tony glaring at his monitor and Ziva staring off into space, arms folded, and Gibbs looked towards his own computer. It was nothing more than fatigued habit that had him checking his email at the popup reminding him of his many unread messages. He scrolled through them without comprehension- then stopped short at the top of the list.

The sender...

Oh my god.

Gibbs hadn't ever been so anxious at the sight of an email since that first one had come in, interrupting a two month long nightmare with McGee at last appearing to tell him it was not over yet.

He clicked on it, heart pounding.

Agent gibs Tim said not to email you for a week but then I had to move I got worried you wouldn't find me even though Tim said you would. The bad guy came, I reconized him from Dad's friends, Tim said if I saw any of them Ineeded to run. I ran from the apartment as far as I could but I don't know where I am anymore. I snuck into a shelter but its really scary here agent gibs and the phone's losing battery and I don't know how long I can do hide here. please come! Also is Tim ok? He tried to hide it but he was really sick before he left. He promised he'd be fine but I'm really worried about him. He'd say he was fine alot when he was really sick or hurt and I want him to be okay. please come as fast as you can

Gibbs sat, stunned.

This was bad.

Really, really bad.

That email's only dated an hour ago, he realized, and drew in a breath, mind racing. There could still be time.

At very long last, a plan formed.

This is Agent Gibbs. You need to get out of there now! The bad guy can track this and may be on his way there now. I am on my way to you. Turn the phone off right now, he can track you through it, then turn it back on in two hours and call me: 555-2964, and tell me where you are. Wait for me.

One read through later and he'd sent the email, jabbed the power button, and was on his feet. "Tony, something comes up, you handle it."

"Wait- what? You're leaving now?!"

Gibbs didn't respond, already a jog towards the elevator. He waited only two seconds for it to come before he took off at a run for the stairs, far too impatient to stand there still for another moment, and headed straight for Abby's lab. "Abby!" he called, stopping at the door and quickly scrawling down the email address and password down on a nearby notepad, then called for her again. "Hey! Abby!"

She didn't respond.

That was fine when they didn't have any leads.

It wasn't fine now.

"Abby!" he barked out, and grabbed the remote off her table and turned her music off with a snap. "You're mad at me; fine, but you are not going to let that interfere in this case. Tim wasn't just running from that fed, Abby. He was protecting someone. And I just got an email from that someone telling me he was in danger."

Her stubborn mask at last shifted, anger slipping as she turned to look at him, eyes wide, and he nodded once, pushing the notepad into her chest. "Again, you want to be angry with me, then do it. But don't sabotage everything Tim went through and worked for through it. Trace it. Now."

"...Gibbs-"

"Now, Abby."

Her lower lip trembling, the scientist took the notepad and set it down, green eyes wide. She did a double take at the email address but when he didn't let up on the stare, quickly went on to search it. "Just a second... okay. Here's the address."

Gibbs' sudden absence was generally a sign for concern. So was Fornell's sudden appearance.

Tony frowned, watching with narrowed eyes as the FBI agent stormed their squad room. He glanced towards Ziva uneasily and murmured, "On your six," even as he stood, already on edge. Ziva turned just slightly and stopped herself when she saw who was coming, her eyes narrowed as well.

"Where the hell is Gibbs?"

Gibbs had to have a sixth sense for these things. That was the only way he could manage to vanish every time something like this was about to happen. "Well, good afternoon to you, too, Agent Fornell," he said back, smirk of a smile in place to greet him. "And what can we, the very special agents of NCIS, do to help you this-"

"Stow it, DiNozzo; where is Gibbs?"

He glanced at Ziva over Fornell's shoulder again. She was frowning as well and of no help whatsoever, just watching on silently; with a sigh Tony reverted his attention to Fornell again and still tried to stall. "Well, I don't know, have you tried calling him? You know, that's generally the best way to contact someone, you know, besides storming into their place of business unannounced. Think he had a couple ex-wives who did that, probably contributed to the divorces, though those were inevitable anyway- did ex-wife number two do that to you, too? I wouldn't be surprised, you know, knowing her, she's a real-"

"Gibbs isn't here, is he."

"...Nope."

Fornell groaned and turned away, shaking his head at Gibbs' desk. "Now I know why he's not answering my calls. He's off the reservation." He stood still for a moment, staring at the empty desk, then turned back to the both of them in annoyance. "And I suppose neither of you can tell me why exactly there's a guard on my suspect at the hospital who won't let anybody but Agent Gibbs pass?"

"What?!"

"Your suspect?!"

Ziva was on her feet now, too, but Tony barely even noticed, too shocked by what had been said. Fornell at least looked a little surprised at their intense reaction and nodded slightly, shrugging. "Got an anonymous tip that you guys had picked up my shooter. Long undercover case that ended with our plant being shot execution style a few weeks ago." The FBI agent paused and looked between the two of them suspiciously. "You mind telling me just what the hell is going on here?"

Tony stood still, hands clenched against his desk. Anonymous tip that McGee- never mind no one was supposed to know he'd been found- had shot one of Fornell's people, back when, according to Gibbs, McGee had been on the run?

Or, the still unknown fed after McGee had somehow found out he'd been found, and was trying to get to him to stop the truth from coming out.

It wasn't hard to guess which one it was.

May 9th, 2008

There was a team of sentient jackhammers going off it in his head, drilling straight into the source of his migraine with the sole purpose of finding the wickedly malfunctioning neurotransmitter responsible and replicating it until it killed him.

Wait- sentient jackhammers?

Get the hell out of my head, Tony.

Sentient jackhammers, god... he was sure there was a movie about it.

Tentative diagnosis of a concussion became confirmed when nausea, and he turned blindly, moaning, eyes still squeezed shut, until bile rose and he heaved over the side of the bed. The handcuff still pulled at his wrist and what little of his hopes there were dissolved- he still hadn't been found yet.

"G-Gibbs..." he groaned, twitching through the pain, "Tony... s-someone..."

"Agent Gibbs: one of the top agents at NCIS DC headquarters. Rumored as on the short list to be the next director, but it seems he does not play politics well. I did not come across this Tony, however... care to enlighten?"

Tim couldn't exactly freeze, still struggling through the rebellion of his insides, but this time he shuddered entirely from fear and not at all from pain.

"Oh. Apologies- manners, of course. The name's Jeffery, Agent McGee. I'd shake your hand- but, well, I just washed mine." Footsteps thudded away from him, each one another nail drilled through his skull, and he forced himself to open his eyes. He squinted through the migraine and looked around the room, trying in vain to focus on the figure against the wall.

"Now, when my brother told me he thought he could get information out of you, he didn't tell me that entailed handing you a computer. Sorry for waisting your time... he's now properly medicated and banned from speaking with you. You did manage to kill a thousand dollar computer, though." The man tossed the earlier laptop towards him carelessly; it thumped against his chest and bruised and broken ribs and Tim cried out, yet another hot flash of pain joining the continuous pounding in his head.

Jeffery paused for a moment, arms folded, then moved to stand by the door, leaning against the wall still. "I'm a kind man. I'll accept information over monetary payment. ...Assuming, of course, Carlos did not manage to beat anything helpful right out of your head." He flicked the lights off briefly, and god was that darkness welcome. Tim groaned in relief, shaking at the tiniest lessening of the hellish migraine.

So, this was the brother Estela had mentioned. He vaguely remembered her not liking him but he seemed like a rational human being, something that was sorely lacking around here, and he couldn't help but be relieved. With only Jeffery in the room, he didn't feel like he was in imminent danger of being shot by a complete lunatic- and trying to negotiate no longer seemed like a guarantee for another concussion.

"L-look," he wheezed, weakly working himself up on one arm before the nausea rose again. "I really don't know anything. Who you guys are, any investigation... if there e-even is one... it'd probably be FBI- I'm N... NCIS."

"Oh, I know. That's fine."

The lights flicked on, and Tim gasped, reeling backwards. The migraine burst forward in a blinding white curse again and Jeffery's footsteps shifted from faint thuds to resounding booms, each one an isolated torture that escalated until the threw up again, until his stomach ached and his throat was raw.

"Agent McGee," Jeffery went on casually, "I had briefly considered using your computer skills to find the agents behind the investigation into my group. Because, let me assure you that there is one. But, I decided that was too risky."

Blessed darkness again, and Jeffery crouched beside him, a hazy figure that wavered between blinks and left him shaking through another wave of nausea. "I am determined to get my worth out of you, though. Kidnapping a federal agent has its risks, and you are going to make those risks worth it."

A hot hand landed smoothly on top of his, and it just sat there for a second, silently threatening.

Then with an instant grace that reminded him far too much of Gibbs, it turned into a pinning grip and two fingers curled around his thumb and yanked it.

Hard.

A choked whimper rose and he twisted, trembling in agonized shock.

With a pat on the now broken thumb, just a light pat that had him trapped in another set of spasms, Jeffery rose to his feet. "Classified information can be sold to the highest bidder. And no matter what business one is in, money is money. ...I think I'll leave you to consider your options."

The door shut at the same time the lights shot back on, leaving Tim curled on his side, head ponding, hand burning, stomach roiling, and throat still aching- and despair rising.

Carlos may have been a gun waving lunatic, but he'd just found the next worst thing.

"Good god," he whispered hoarsely, staring towards the door in horror. The rancid scent of old, dried blood reached him, and the fact that it could've been from anywhere from his unhealed gunshot wound to the crusted clumps on the back of his head had him back on his side again, struggling not to throw up.

The fact that he was conscious after Carlos's beating on his head had to mean it'd been long enough that the team should've found him by now.

It was safe to say they weren't coming.

What the hell had he done wrong?! Tim lay back miserably, struggling to think through the layers of agony. He'd gotten through to Abby's lab, he was sure of it; that virus hadn't been standard NCIS protocol built into the firewall. The only thing that would've been easier to access would've been his own computer, but there was no guarantee anyone was checking that- her lab had been his safest bet. He'd helped her construct most of the firewalls; he knew backdoors in. And he was sure he'd gotten in.

Abby would never let any invasion into her lab get away with only a virus... and there was no way Carlos had managed to safeguard the signal from being traced.

There was something he wasn't seeing here.

And, he realized, looking down at his already purpling, swelling thumb, he didn't have time to lie here and try to figure it out.

I have to figure out another plan. There's not much time...

Except what kind of a better plan would there be then the one he'd already tried?! He'd gotten a hold of a computer- something that was sure to never happen again- and as good as drawn them a map to his location. How was he supposed to manage that again?

And no matter how hopeless it was, he couldn't stop himself from the hopeless pondering about why it hadn't worked the first time.

Abby always tried to trace every probe into her lab that got as far as his had. His probe should've been traceable. Therefore, she should've had his location.

Him having just gone missing, them having the location of an unknown hacker- and Abby knew his style, she should've made the connection it was him anyway- they should've realized what was going on, or at least sent someone to check it out...

Then he gasped.

That line of thinking was hinging off him only being trapped here for a few days.

If he'd been here for several days, his case would still be hot. A mysterious hacked probe into Abby's lab would make them draw the connection to him because they'd be working his case.

But, he really had no idea how long he'd been here for.

Tim struggled to look down at the reddened gauze still taped to the right side of his chest. He very tentatively probed it with a shaking finger; when the expected burst of pain didn't come, and in its stead, he just provoked a terrible, spreading ache, he knew he'd been here for far longer than just a few days.

Being in a hospital, such healing would take probably take at least a week.

With no access to any conventional medicine whatsoever, who knew how long it would take.

If it had been weeks...

They won't still be on my case, he realized, horrified. And if they weren't on his case...

It would be different for any of the others. Gibbs would move heaven and earth for Tony or Ducky; the idea that he would've reluctantly backed off from a case in a mere week was laughable. Abby was his favorite; even she didn't dispute that- he'd shoot first and ask questions later no matter who stood in his ways. And despite Ziva still being the, technically, newest member of the team, she and Gibbs had a deep bond none of them fully understood. Something had happened between those two, and whatever it was, she had earned his trust faster than any of them. If she went missing, Tim had no doubt Gibbs would get to her, no matter the cost.

But he'd been missing for only a week.

Nothing.

"Sh-shut up," he whispered weakly, shutting his eyes against the pounding light. "Stop overthinking it. Gibbs was looking for you, just as hard as he would've looked for any of the others... there just has to not be a trail. That's all."

He sound not convincing at all, even to his own ears, and saying it had only left himself feeling empty inside, like voicing the poison had left the festering wound to drain but done nothing for the original hurt.

The sound of the lock clicking in the door again made his heart jump, and he found himself curling away from it, good hand clenching in pure reflex. Jeffery, Carlos, Estela? What now?

But the shadow in the doorway wasn't tall enough to be any of them.

He stared, confusion rising above even pain, as the thin door creaked open an inch further. The figure moved a few steps inside- until he transformed from a shadow into a wide-eyed little boy standing just barely in the light, clinging to the door like it was a lifeline.

Definitely not a lunatic with a gun. Definitely not a finger-breaking, collected sociopath.

This was just a kid.

...What was going on here?

"...Um... Hello," Tim croaked.

"...Hi."

If anyone of you know Spanish and would be willing to help me, please review or PM and say you're interested. I only took latin and, well, we all know Google translate is trash. You'd only be helping me with short phrases from Estela, Carlos, and co., nothing extensive, and you will be credited. Thanks in advance!