Chapter 5: Safety?

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Boyers!

"I knew I'd catch up with you, Abby," he leered. "I'm faster than you. You couldn't outrun me forever."

Abby tried to speak, but nothing came out.

Tim marveled that Boyers didn't seem to notice him. Then he remembered that his NCIS swoop cap was gone, and other than the badge, his jacket didn't say "NCIS" on the front. "Hold it, Boyers," Tim said. "Federal agent!" There were times when drawing a gun was not advised, if it could at all be avoided, and this—in a crowded station—was one of them. Tim kept his sig holstered.

Looking then a trifle uncertain, Boyers took a step back. "I just want to talk to you, Abby," he said. "Why have you been running? I just need to show you how wrong you were about my brother."

"The evidence is not wrong," Abby said firmly.

"But I think you misinterpreted it, Abby. If you take another look at it, and come back to court and amend your testimony, I'm sure everyone will see that my brother is innocent."

"Look, where do you get off calling me by my first name? We've never even met!" she snapped.

"I'm sorry, Abby," he said with a tentative smile. "I'm in retail, you know. I always call people by their first names. It's friendlier; it puts them at ease."

Abby hesitated, and Tim noticed that. Could they have been wrong about Boyers all this time? Maybe he was just who he said he was: a concerned brother who was making a clumsy attempt to secure justice as he saw it.

Boyers stepped closer. It was okay; they could all just talk. Tim started to reach for his cell phone to call Gibbs to tell him that they had met up with Boyers, and it was all a big mistake. Then he thought the action might alarm Boyers, who might think he was reaching for his gun. The call to Gibbs can wait…

"Yes, that's better," Boyers said, and cleared his throat.

It was a raggedy sound, one that had set Abby's nerves on edge in the courtroom. Now she was sympathetic. The poor man couldn't help such things. Feeling contrite, she almost reached out to him.

And quick as lightning, he seized her, and wrenched her away from Tim's side.

"Let her go, Boyers!" Tim yelled over Abby's screams. He grabbed the two of them, stopping Boyers' escape. With a chop to Boyers' wrist, Tim was able to make Boyers release Abby. Before Tim could get in a knockout punch, though, Boyers had scrambled out of reach, and was looking around for a getaway. There was nothing nearby. Not a crossroads, a staircase, an elevator, an escalator. Just the track that divided the platforms for passage in two different directions.

Tim was hot on his heels, angry at having been taken in by the man. Boyers scrambled…and dove onto the tracks dividing the platforms, over the shrieks of the crowd.

"No! Boyers, get out of there! There will be a train along any instant!" Tim called. As if summoned, the rumble of an approaching train was indeed heard.

If he keeps his head, even if he doesn't get off the track bed in time, he can still stay out of the way of the train, since this is double track for trains for both directions, Tim thought. Boyers, however, stood frozen in dead center of the track bed, eyes on the headlight of the oncoming train.

Tim scrambled. I can get him out. Just drop onto the tracks, push him against the far wall, and everyone's okay. "Boyers! Don't move!!" he cried.

"No, McGee!!" "Not this time!"

The voices echoed in Tim's mind as he was dropped to the platform hard rubber surface, unwillingly. In surprise and frustration he cried out, his cry muffled by the train's horn sounding an alarm, a horrible thud…and a similar horn sounding on a train coming in right then from the other direction.

They let Tim up, Tony and Ziva. "I do not like close calls," Ziva said, sighing, "and that one was very close."

"Nice try, Hero Boy," Tony said with a snarl that didn't match the worry in his eyes. "Didn't you stop to check to see if there was a train coming from the other direction?! You'd never have made it."

The trains were both stopped. Metro security and the District cops flooded in. They knew that this time, something bad had really happened.

Gibbs came up and comforted Abby, who was shaking. "McGee—where's your cap?" he asked suddenly.

"Well, uh, boss…" Tim hedged, but he saw the rebuke in Gibbs' eyes fade out as growing realization set in. The truth would come out now. "Boyers is dead. The train, uh…"

"I arrived just in time to see DiNozzo and David tackle you. Why? Were you trying to rescue him?"

Tim couldn't explain it. How to say that everything had to come out all right so Abby could put this horrible affair behind her? And yet, Tim had failed. Boyers was dead, and Abby had witnessed his horrifying end. He looked away.

"McGee—you were the jumper in the tunnel, weren't you?"

"Boss, I had to! Abby was terrified; she was walking along the tracks to hide from Boyers. I had to save her!"

Gibbs looked at Tony and Ziva, and untangled himself from Abby. "You two—take Abby back to NCIS. Take the truck. We'll meet you there later."

Tony spoke up quickly. "I saw the whole thing, boss. I came up in time to see it happen. McGee is a hero, boss. If he hadn't—"

"I didn't ask for your assessment, DiNozzo!" Gibbs snapped. "You have your orders. GO!" They left.

Gibbs turned back to Tim. "That must have been a one-in-a-hundred chance. McGee, you could have been killed! By all rights, you should have been!"

Tears stung Tim's eyes. "I couldn't stand by and do nothing, boss! Abby—"

"At the cost of your own life, Tim? Aren't you worth something, too??"

"I couldn't—"

"Don't tell me this comes from your training. I know damn well that agents are trained to assess situations and realize when the chances of success are too small. The Service doesn't need a bunch of one-shot, dead heroes. We want people who will be there, hopefully, for 20 years or so.

"And yet, on top of jumping in front of a train and miraculously saving Abby, you compound it by nearly jumping in front of another, to try to save Boyers. If Tony and Ziva hadn't been there…"

Gibbs covered his face with his hands for a moment.

Tim grew alarmed. "Boss, I'm sorry! Yes, I made a mistake about not looking for a train from the other direction. But if it hadn't been there, I could have—"

Gibbs felt a pang in his heart. Tim really didn't get it. "This is going on your record. McGee, when we get back, you're getting a full psych evaluation as quickly as I can arrange one. And you're confined to desk duty until the doctor clears you to return to the field."

"A psych—!"

"Your behavior today was exceedingly reckless. Exceedingly. You demonstrated no concern for your own well-being on not one, but two occasions. That's not normal."

"But—"

"You're a menace to the team in your current state. Get your head straight, McGee." Gibbs looked at Tim gruffly. Was the agent's behavior just driven by his devotion to Abby? Gibbs considered telling Tim flat out that Abby would probably never return his love, not to the extent Tim wanted her to. But he refrained. For all he knew, Abby might change her mind someday. And of his theory about Tim was right, Tim didn't need anything else at the moment to bring him down.

They made their statements to the detective on the scene, and left. It was a silent taxi ride back to the Yard.

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"Welcome back, dear Abigail! So nice to see you safe and sound!" said Ducky, as Tony and Ziva dropped Abby in Autopsy and then discretely departed.

She hopped up on a table and sat, kicking her uncomfortable shoes off. "I'm safe, Ducky, but not sound," she said, with a sobbing laugh. "They thought I should come see you. I saw a man—well, sort of saw him—get killed. Hit by a train. It was horrible!"

"Yes, yes; Tony called me to say you were on your way here."

"I'm just—frightened. Sad. But he was a horrible man. Scared. Depressed. A hundred different emotions. My heart is racing."

"I can give you something to calm your nerves. You have Acute Stress Reaction, my dear. It will go away shortly. But let's talk a little more…"

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Ziva took the call from the District police, since Gibbs wasn't back yet. "On Boyer's body," she told Tony, "they found a gun, a can of mace, handcuffs, and a map with directions to Abby's place."

"No innocent boy, he," Tony agreed, frowning.

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The Director of NCIS can move mountains when he wants to, and Vance was not unsympathetic to Tim's plight. A psychiatrist, a Dr. Ogilvie, was waiting when Tim and Gibbs returned to the building. She did a debriefing with him and an initial intake work-up. She then scheduled appointments for him for each morning for the next five work days.

Tim left the office in which he'd met with her, feeling numb. What was she saying? More to the point, what was she implying? That he somehow wasn't whole? That was ridiculous. Why couldn't they understand? Why was it so wrong to give yourself to save someone else?

Tony and Ziva saw him return to his desk, but didn't speak. Tim was obviously tormented. "Hey; it's been a long day, but the day's over, Probie," said Tony with some cheer. "You Metro'd in, right? I can drive you home."

"And me, as well?" asked Ziva. "I, too, took the Metro. Perhaps you two would like to have dinner at my place?"

"Hey! Yeah. Anything's better than my own cooking," Tony grinned, and Tim nodded with a small smile. Even if the shrink thought he was crazy, at least he still had friends. And right now, being with friends seemed like a really good thing.

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Vance spoke briefly to the psychiatrist after Tim's session. He was too principled to ask for details, but wanted an overall assessment.

"I need more time with him," Ogilvie said. "There are certainly underlying issues, whether or not he's aware of them."

"Is he suicidal?"

"That's…a possibility," she said, reluctantly. "At any rate, Agent Gibbs made the right call. Agent McGee is not fit for field work until this is further investigated."

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That night, Abby sat at her desk at home, unable to sleep. She was a bit calmer now, but still, the day's adventure was still troubling. Thank heavens she had friends who cared about her and had come to her rescue when she had called them. Good, solid, stable friends.

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Gibbs tossed in his sleep, and dreamed unpleasantly. In his dream, he saw, from a short distance, the two trains entering the station. He heard the thud, and he woke up, screaming, "NO! TIM!!" And then he'd realize, shaking and crying, that it hadn't been Tim who was killed there. Not his brave, foolish, idealistic hero. It was Boyers.

Abby had been the one who was pursued…but it was Tim who had come away, wounded. And so amazingly lucky to be alive.

So far he'd had this dream three times tonight. Tomorrow he would ask for a session with the psychiatrist himself.

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