Epilogue??

Two months later...

"So what does that mean?" Tim asked.

"It means only that it will take longer than we thought," Nathan said.

"Come on, Nathan. Don't make this into some sort of pep talk. It won't help."

"I'm not," Nathan said sternly. "You had a fractured pelvis and then an acetabular fracture. Either one of those can lead to permanent disability. You're walking..."

"...like an old man..."

"...you've said most of the pain is gone..."

"...but not the weakness..."

"...and there's no sign of ossification..."

"...so far," Tim finished bitterly.

Nathan sat down beside Tim. "Don't take this as a sign that you're never going to heal, Tim. It can take over a year for a pelvic fracture to heal completely. Six to eight months for an acetabular fracture."

Tim shook his head in frustration. "I take a step and I'm afraid for just a second that my leg is going to collapse. I can't do my job like this. I can't go back to my normal life if I can't even walk with confidence, let alone run."

"When's your next checkup?"

Tim's mouth twisted in a smile. Nathan knew his schedule better than Tim did.

"You can ask Dr. Lane. He'll tell you the same thing. Remember that you were putting weight on that fracture for a couple of weeks before we discovered it. That aggravated the injury. Your last x ray showed good progress."

"Then, why can't I tell any difference?"

"Because it's a slow and steady progress, not all at once."

"I should get to work. Even if I can't do anything important..." He sighed and pushed himself up, hesitating for just a moment before taking a step. When he put his foot down, he felt that wobbling which signaled the difficulties he faced in his continuing quest for physical recovery. He wasn't ever going to be satisfied with anything less than full recovery. What if it doesn't happen?

"Tim, you have to keep up the faith. You can't look on this as a useless exercise."

"Yeah, I know." He couldn't say more than that, couldn't explain better than that what was wrong...because the seemingly ineffective rehab was only part of the problem...a large part, but only a part.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"McGee! Where have you been?" Tony demanded as Tim hobbled off the elevator.

"At rehab, Tony. Just like every other day."

"But you're late!"

"We need your help," Ziva said. "Tony cannot handle the data and I do not wish to do something wrong."

"It's not that hard," Tim said. "I showed you guys how to filter the information through my program before I left."

"Well, every time I filter it, I get nothing. ...and there's got to be something there, Probie. Otherwise, why would they have been trying to destroy it?"

"To drive you nuts?" Tim suggested with a half-hearted smile. It was obvious, though, that his mind wasn't really on the problem at hand.

"What is the matter, McGee?" Ziva asked.

"Nothing. Send the data over to me. I'll filter through it," he said and then added in an undertone, "Not like I can do anything else worthwhile."

Tony grabbed his arm, halting his progress and making Tim wobble dangerously on his unsturdy leg.

"McGee, what's up?"

"Let go, Tony."

"Not until you tell us what's going on."

"I said let me go!"

Tim wrenched his arm back, unbalanced himself and tottered very briefly before falling to the floor when his leg collapsed, unable to bear all his weight. Humiliated by the fact that he couldn't even remain upright, Tim felt his face start to burn. He pushed away Tony's apologies and his assistance and got up on his own, wincing slightly. He wanted nothing more than to run away and hide (not that he could really run at all) but instead, he limped to his desk, acting like nothing had happened.

"Send me the data," he repeated and then looked up at Tony, daring him to say anything.

He didn't. He retreated back to his own desk and within seconds, Tim had the data from the current case. There was a lot of it, pulled from the suspect's computer. He began to sift through it. A lot of computer forensics, and computer work in general, was, he knew, less about knowing the procedures than about feeling one's way through the morass by knowing what to ask. It was hard to teach. It just had to be learned through experience and he was actually quite good at it...even if it was failing him in the only case he really cared about. In reality, although he was glad to be back at NCIS in any capacity, he didn't care about the cases they were investigating because he felt as though he wasn't really a part of them. He was dead weight...like his leg, to be used as far as possible...but that wasn't very far.

It took less than half an hour for him to distill the myriad data down to a few cogent facts. During that time, he was thinking less about the work and much more about himself. He was slogging through his life, wanting more, unable to have it. He wondered if he would have felt this way had someone else survived with him.

If only Johnson hadn't moved, if only she had stayed down... The image of Johnson's head whipping back from the force of the bullet was still so horribly vivid in his mind, even after all this time.

If only he could satisfy this unsettled feeling inside him that said it wasn't over. He was fumbling his way toward...something, but it was so far away, an infinite distance it seemed, that he didn't know what it was, and to be honest, it frightened him. He was in no condition to face anything, to do anything, and...

"McGee."

Tim looked up from his computer and realized that he hadn't sent on what he'd found.

"Sorry, Boss. I've got the–"

"Come with me." He walked away without looking behind him to see if Tim was following.

Tim pushed himself up and followed, wondering what Gibbs wanted that couldn't be discussed in the bullpen. He swallowed nervously as Gibbs led him into one of the conference rooms.

"Have a seat," he said, his voice mild.

Tim sat and felt his eyes widening in confusion (and a bit of nervousness) as Gibbs stared at him. He looked down.

"Anything you want to tell me?"

"About what?"

"About why it is that you hate working here now?"

Tim looked up. "I don't, Boss! Why would you–?"

"You don't care about NCIS anymore, Tim, and it shows."

"I do! I do care."

"What is the name of the suspect in our latest case?"

"What?"

"What's his name?"

Tim wracked his brains. He knew it. He'd been looking at the data just minutes ago.

"What about the woman he killed? What's her name?"

"I–"

"Where was the body found?"

"I don't..." Tim trailed off at the expression on Gibbs' face. Pity.

"That's because there was no body. This case is about drugs, not about murder. Our suspects are a man and a woman, working together and the data you were looking at came from Audrey Cranson's hard drive. You still going to pretend that the case means anything to you?"

Tim slumped down, feeling defeated. Gibbs sat down across from him.

"So...you want to tell me why it is that you don't care?"

Tim remained silent.

"You're going through the motions. You're not really working. This stuff you're doing...you can do it in your sleep. You don't draw conclusions, make hypotheses. You just wade through it and then move on. That's not the way a special agent needs to work."

"I'm not a special agent!" Tim flared up. "Not really. Not anymore. I'm only here because there's nowhere else to go. You need someone to do the computer work because Abby doesn't have time. She's as good as I am, probably. It would make sense if she was. She can do everything else. I don't think you really need me here at all, but you probably just feel pity for me, for how little I can actually do anymore and so you keep me around and have me do these things as make-work and..."

Thwack!

"You think having a bum leg makes you worthless, McGee?"

Tim said nothing.

"That wasn't a rhetorical question, McGee."

"No," Tim whispered, almost inaudibly.

"You're lying but you're right. It doesn't."

Tim again remained silent. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask if NCIS took special needs special agents, the ones who couldn't actually do the required work.

"What's going on?"

"Same old, same old, Boss."

"And what is that, McGee?"

"I'm going to rehab that doesn't seem to help. I'm coming here and doing work that a blindfolded idiot could do. I'm going home and–" He bit off the end of the sentence.

"And what?"

"And doing nothing. Just like always." Tim suppressed the tightness in his throat. He hadn't cried in weeks and he had no intention of doing so again.

"Always?"

"Yes. No matter how hard I try to get away from it, I'm just your resident computer geek who fills in for the more important people. Sometimes I get to play field agent, but now...now, I can't even do that. Couldn't even..." He stopped talking again. "That all, Boss?"

"No. What is it that you want?"

"Want? From what?"

"From your life, McGee. You don't seem to be happy with anything you're doing. You seem to have given up on everything. So...what do you want?"

"I want to go back in time and go camping with my family instead of ending up on that plane. If that's not possible, I want to go back to that plane and be able to kill him on the first shot instead of the last. If that's not possible, I want to go back and..."

"And what?" Gibbs asked. "Give up? Die instead of live?"

"I did die, you know, Boss."

"What?"

"On the helicopter. I died. My heart stopped. I stopped breathing. I died. I came back..."

"And you wish you hadn't?"

"I wish I had known that my life would end up like this. Stuck with nothing."

"You think that the only way your life is worthwhile is if you're a special agent?"

"I can't run. I can barely walk. I fell over just today. I could walk better when I was two years old!"

"And? I'm waiting for you to answer my question, McGee."

"I feel..." Tim hated that Gibbs was trying to make him answer. It brought the tears closer and it made him feel it more. He breathed noisily for a few seconds. "...I'm afraid, Boss. Okay? I'm scared. Go ahead and laugh, deride, give me that stupid glare you give when your agents aren't performing up to specifications. Because I'm not! ...and I don't think I ever will again...but I don't know what else to do with my life and I'm afraid that it's all going to go down the drain, lost forever...or even worse, I'll have to live the rest of my life knowing that if it happens I'll be completely unable to deal with it because of this stupid leg! I can't run away. I can't pursue. I can't do anything but sit at a desk and wait to be mowed down by the next guy with a gun."

Gibbs stared at him...but not with a glare. Dare Tim presume that he might have surprised his boss a little bit?

"Is that what you expect?"

"Yes," Tim said, knowing the single word was nowhere near enough to explain the turmoil in his head, but feeling that it was the best he could do.

"Why?"

"I just do."

"Why?"

Tim started to stand but was forced back down by Gibbs' unexpectedly strong hand on his shoulder.

"It doesn't matter, Boss."

"Doesn't matter? Why not? You're a member of my team and if you feel threatened, you should let me know."

"I'm not really, you know."

"Not what?"

"I'm not a real member of your team. Not anymore."

"How did you come to that conclusion?"

"Because your team has to be made up of special agents who can fulfill their obligations. I can't," Tim said, trying to sound rational and logical. "I'm unable to do it. Really, you should just get rid of me and put someone else in my place."

"Is that what you want?"

Tim shrugged in lieu of answering. "I know you have to have a full team...a fully-functioning team."

"Are you trying to get me to fire you, McGee?"

Tim shook his head.

"Then, why are you trying to tell me that you know better than me who should be on my team?"

"I'm not. You..."

"I am fully aware of your current status, Agent McGee," Gibbs said, more formally than Tim had probably ever heard him speak. "...physically, at least. I know you're still a long way from being able to do what you did. I also know that you have a good chance of regaining your position, having been updated by your physical therapist. What I am now no longer sure of is your mental status. You seem to have decided that you are worthless, that you shouldn't even have a job and you sound like you've given up on pretty much everything...on top of which, you now are telling me, for the first time, that you feel threatened and didn't think that was important enough to mention before. What are you even talking about with that shrink of yours?"

"I'm...not seeing the shrink."

Gibbs stared at Tim again with that expression that appeared, impossibly, to denote surprise.

"Since when?" he asked with deceptive calm.

"I stopped going...a...a few months ago."

"Why?"

"Didn't see the point."

"Of what? Getting your head screwed on straight?"

"It wasn't my head that was screwed up, Boss. It was my body...and seeing a shrink isn't going to make my leg work any better."

"You're telling me that you're not having any problems beyond your leg?"

"That's right."

Gibbs' laugh was suffused with derision, making Tim flush in spite of himself.

"Why do you feel threatened?" Gibbs asked, changing subjects abruptly.

"I just do."

"Why?"

"Because it's not over, Boss."

"Do you have any evidence of that?"

"Beyond the fact that the case isn't closed? No."

"Then, why are you so sure?"

"I'm not."

Gibbs stood up and walked around the table, sitting down beside Tim. "McGee, you need to stop talking and start telling me what you mean."

"There's nothing to tell. I feel like there's something going on, but I have no evidence. I feel completely worthless and there's boundless evidence for that. Now, I can see that even you realize that I'm dead weight on your team and–"

Thwack!

"McGee! Knock it off! You stop telling me what I think about things. I know what I think and what I think is that your problem has a lot less to do with your leg than it does with this!" He poked Tim in the middle of his forehead. "I don't know how in the world you got away with stopping your visits to the shrink but if you don't start them again on your own, I will physically pick you up and drag you there myself if I have to!"

"Boss, I don't need them!"

Thwack!

"Yes, you do, and you're going to go!"

It was on Tim's lips to say something so childish as you're not the boss of me! ...but reason prevailed in the realization that Gibbs most definitely was the boss of him.

"Why? You think I'm paranoid?"

"No, I think you're making yourself feel worse than you should. It's not your fault, McGee! I told you that before."

"I know it's not."

"Really? Doesn't sound like it's sunk in at all."

"I couldn't have controlled that guy killing them...probably, but I should be able to give them what they deserve."

"And what's that?"

"An end."

"I don't see that they're going to care much one way or another now," Gibbs said drily.

Tim stood up, angry. "That doesn't mean they don't deserve it! They were all good people and they deserve to have a closed case! Not some waffling by the FBI because they want to save face and pretend that it was one guy who was crazy and did it all on his own! That's wrong! It's cowardly and wrong! I'm not going to let that be the final word...because I know it's not!"

Gibbs appeared unaffected by Tim's rant. "How do you know it's not?"

"Because it can't be."

"Why not?"

Tim just looked at Gibbs, trying to ignore the trembling in his leg. He'd put too much weight on it and now was regretting it.

"McGee, why not?"

"Because I know it's not." He took a step...and his right leg buckled beneath the weight. It would have sent him crashing to the floor for the second time that day but Gibbs proved that he hadn't lost his reflexes by catching him.

Tim extricated himself as quickly as he could but his leg still was tingling. It brought shamed tears to his eyes as he allowed Gibbs to help him back to a seat. He started massaging his leg, trying to control himself, trying to ease the trembling.

"I'm scared, Boss. I'm scared that I'll never find out what really happened, that I'll never know why this happened to me. I'm scared that I'll have to be useless as a special agent and that I won't be able to get my life back."

"Is that your reason for thinking it's not over?"

"Not exactly. I can't tell you why. I just know that it's not."

Gibbs scrutinized him with those eyes that seemed to strip away every protective layer, leaving his mind, his intentions, his thoughts, open to view.

"You're not going to let this go, are you," he said, almost sadly.

"No." Tim saw no reason to lie.

"What if I were to make it an order?"

Tim gulped but didn't look away. "I'd have to tell you what you had me tell the secretary back when Tony was undercover as a prisoner."

Gibbs smiled a little. "And then?"

"Then, you'd either have to fire me or let me keep working on it. I won't stop, Boss. I can't. I have to end it. I can't let it keep going. There has to be an end."

"For you or for them?"

"For all of us."

"What if there isn't?"

"Then, I still won't stop."

"Even if–"

"No matter what," Tim said. "Boss, I won't. I...I can't. ...and no shrink is going to convince me that I should."

"What if there is something more to it?"

"Then, I'll find them."

"And then?" Gibbs asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what will you do when you find these people who may or may not be actually involved?" With a cynical smile, he continued, "You have basically told me that your leg makes you worthless for special agent work. If you find these people, will your leg suddenly be healed, McGee?"

"Of course not."

"Then, how will you take them down?"

"You think I'm going to turn vigilante, Boss?"

"Are you?"

"Of course not!"

"Then, you'll tell me?"

"I–" In spite of himself, Tim hesitated. He wasn't sure why. Somehow, in his head, he had only ever pictured himself and Fornell taking down the mysterious participants...and a bum leg had never figured into the picture. He looked down at it. That annoying limb that was holding him back, keeping him from his life.

A hand on his shoulder brought his head back up. Gibbs was looking at him with something that, in any other person, would be read as sympathy.

"Tim, you are and always will be a valuable member of my team. Don't let your need to make sense out of a senseless act ruin your life...because it could."

He got up and walked out of the room, leaving Tim alone at the table, consumed with ambivalence about his words.

He said I was valuable to his team...but doesn't he understand that I have to get this done?

He never said I had to stop. He didn't even suggest it.

He was worried enough to warn me.

He implied I could tell him when I find something.

He also implied that I should give it up.

Tim sat, staring at the table, waffling back and forth about what was right to do.

I have to finish it. I will. Some day.

That was what mattered. It did. It had to. Nothing Gibbs or anyone else said could change how important it was for him to find who else had been involved. Nothing would stop him.

Nothing.

Decision made, he stood, rubbed at his leg, and walked out the door, knowing that some day he would find them and he would get an end. There wouldn't be any uncertainty this time.

There would be an end.

FINIS?