Periphery
An NCIS Fanfic
By CaelumFelis
Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS or anything associated with it.

Author's Note: Hello again everyone, I'm back! This is my entry for the Obscure Ailments Challenge on the NCIS Fanfiction Addiction Community Forums. Once again, it is McGee-centric, but the rest of the team will be there! This one I've got plotted out from start to finish, which is really good, because I have less than sixty days to finish it! Wish me luck, and enjoy!

CHAPTER ONE: Onset

Day 1
Monday

Tim smacked his alarm clock into submission and yawned, rolling over in bed. Sunlight from the window struck him square in the face, dashing any hopes of sleeping in that he might've entertained. He sat up, stretched, and blinked.

And blinked again.

His vision was fuzzy. He rubbed his eyes, wondering if he'd simply gotten something in them. Blinking once more, he focused (or at least attempted to) on the plasma screen mounted on the wall facing him. The lines of the device that were sharp and clear last night when he went to sleep were now fuzzy and indistinct, and he could barely tell where the plasma screen ended and the plastic casing began.

A shrill bark sounded in his ear, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see Jethro grinning a "good morning" doggy grin at him, the German Shepherd's tail wagging wildly. But when Tim turned to look at him head on, his dog went blurry- he could barely see Jethro's milk chocolate eyes in his dark chocolate face.

"This is so weird," Tim murmured, rubbing his eyes again. He got up and started his usual morning routine, throwing on a pair of running shorts (recognized more by color and texture than by sight) and a t-shirt (he could just make out the large MIT on the front) and lacing up his sneakers more from muscle memory than from actually looking at them.

He went to the kitchen, where Jethro was waiting with his leash in his mouth. Tim squinted as he located the ring on Jethro's collar where he usually clipped the leash, finding it almost purely through touch. He rubbed his eyes again, growling in frustration. Jethro whined, and Tim sighed and scratched his dog's ears.

"I'm sorry, buddy, we'll get going now," Tim said quietly. He stood up, grabbed his keys, wallet, and cell phone (after squinting a bit to find them) and walked out the door, locking it as he left purely out of habit.

Tim kept their run short, unnerved by how disoriented he got by running with his vision so screwed up. He made it to the local dog park, which was blessedly empty due to how early it was. He got Jethro's leash off with a touch of difficulty, and found a bench to sit on while Jethro ran and romped and burned off his excess energy. Tim rubbed his eyes again.

Maybe I need a vacation or something, he mused. Something that doesn't require reading… or looking at anything… He glanced at his watch, recognizing the time more by the position of the hands than by reading the numbers. He whistled for Jethro, fumbled with the leash again, and set off for home.

Showering and getting dressed was easy enough, since he was familiar enough with his home and clothes to be able to do both with his eyes closed. Breakfast, however, was a bit tricky- he overfilled his coffee mug twice, and misaimed the milk for his cereal. He ate quickly, refilled Jethro's water and food bowls, and grabbed his backpack. Blinking fiercely, he decided against driving, and with a quick, "See you later, Jethro!", raced out the door.

He was ten minutes late to work, due to getting lost in the Metro and getting on the wrong train once. He ran out of the elevator and into the bullpen just as Gibbs' desk phone rang, barely making it to his desk before the team leader swooped in to answer it.

"Welcome to the party, McTardy," Tony snickered. "Late night with the typewriter and the McMutt?"

Tim was about to fire back a retort when Gibbs slammed the phone down. "Grab your gear, got a dead Navy lieutenant in Reston. McGee, gas the truck." He tossed the keys to Tim, who managed to catch them without embarrassing himself through sheer luck and muscle memory.

"Yes Boss," he murmured, grabbing his backpack and hoofing it to the stairs. He went through the procedure through habit, barely needing to look at anything. Tony arrived just as he was finishing, slipping into the front seat as Tim replaced the gas nozzle. Tim voiced no objection, he was perfectly content to let Tony drive, opting for leaning his head back on the headrest and keeping his eyes closed the entire journey.

Tony fulfilled his role as chatterbox, talking about anything and everything under the sun, although he asked surprisingly few questions about Tim's lateness. Tim wasn't holding his breath, he knew that it would come up eventually. In the meantime, he simply basked in the luxury of not being under Tony's microscope.

They arrived at the scene and immediately got to work, finding the lieutenant in question lying spread-eagled face down behind a strip mall in the middle of a rather bustling residential center, his back riddled with bullet holes.

"DiNozzo, sketch," Gibbs ordered. "David, photos. McGee, bag and tag."

"Yes Boss!"

"Got it, Boss."

"Yes, Gibbs."

Crap, Tim thought. Of all the days for my eyesight to go screwy, it has to be one on which we catch a fresh case.

Within five minutes, Tim felt like a probie again, messing up the simplest things. Thankfully, Ziva was the one who found most of the evidence, but Tim, as the one assigned to collect and label said evidence, had to pick it up, get it into an evidence bag, and write what it was, where it was found, and who found it. Half the time he could barely see what he was picking up, and the other half he could barely see what he was writing and where he was writing it.

Finally, they had finished at the scene, and Gibbs ordered Tim and Tony to take the evidence back to the Yard for Abby to start processing.

Tim could feel Tony's eyes on him as they packed up the truck, but he couldn't take his attention away from what he was doing, since he could barely see his own hands. Ten minutes later, they were ready to go, and Tim hopped into the passenger seat without argument, alternating between rubbing his eyes and his temples, nursing a massive headache that was equal parts eyestrain and pure stress.

Tony waited until they were stuck in rush hour traffic on the Beltway before speaking.

"What's with the squints, Probie? You look like a grumpy old man when you do that."

"Thanks, Tony," Tim grumbled.

"But really, man, what's up? Your contacts bothering you or something?" Tony pressed.

"Don't wear contacts, Tony," Tim growled.

"Maybe you need some, then," Tony replied cheerfully.

Tim didn't answer. He simply laid his head back and closed his eyes, praying that they'd caught a quick case and he'd be able to get home before midnight.

That, of course, was not the case.

It began with Abby and the evidence.

"I can't read a single word on these tags, Gibbs!" She yelled, causing not only Tim, but Tony and Ziva as well, to cower in awe and fear of the enraged lab bat. "Who the hell collected this evidence? They should be fired!"

Gibbs didn't cower, but the anger in his voice was palpable. "McGee," he growled. "Help Abby."

"Y-yes, B-Boss," Tim stammered, turning in the direction of the fuzzy Abby. He couldn't quite make out her expression, but he knew from experience that her acid green eyes would be narrowed, her brow furrowed, and her lips scrunched up in an angry pout. He hated that look, especially when it was directed at him.

"Have fun, McDoghouse!" Tony called as Gibbs led him and Ziva upstairs.

Yeah, Tim thought, gulping. Oodles.

The lab was silent for several minutes, until, with a loud angry huff, Abby grabbed one of the evidence bags and shoved it in Tim's face.

"Do you see this, McGee?" She yelled, a fuzzy pink finger practically stabbing a fuzzy black and cream square on the plastic bag. He could just make out the word "EVIDENCE" stamped across the top of the square in big black block letters, but that was it. Everything else was a blur.

But he knew better than to tell Abby something like that when she was in the middle of a rant like this.

"Yes," he said quietly.

"Yes," Abby mimicked sarcastically. "Were you drunk on the job this morning, McGee? I swear Tony's got better handwriting than you!"

Now that's not fair, Tim thought plaintively. His handwriting was almost perfect- his father had demanded nothing less. Abby knew this, so why was she just ignoring his history and zeroing in on this single, isolated event?

He stood and fumed as Abby continued to rant at him, yelling about procedure and preservation of evidence and the need for clarity and neatness when collecting it. Knowing that trying to defend himself was pointless, he instead focused on trying to decide if he should find an optometrist. He'd never needed visual correction before, and judging by how (rather nauseatingly) blurry everything was, he'd gone from nearly perfect vision to needing contacts practically overnight. And it seemed to be getting worse by the hour, if his inability to see whatever scribbles he'd jotted down on the evidence tags just a few hours before was any indication.

"McGee, are you even listening to me?" Abby demanded, and Tim was jerked out of his thoughts rather abruptly as she stomped a platform booted foot dangerously close to his own shoe.

"Yes, and you're right," Tim sighed, not even bothering to try to remember the lecture he'd just daydreamed through.

"You're damn right I am," Abby snarled. "Now go stand over there and don't touch anything. I need to fix this mess you made." She pointed to the corner of the room, a bare section of wall underneath the window, and Tim sighed again and trudged over, leaning his forehead against the brick and closing his eyes.

Of course, the day only got worse from there.

When Tim was finally allowed to return to the bullpen, he could barely see the numbers on the elevator buttons. The second he sat down at his desk, he began changing the settings on his monitors, zooming the screens in as far as they could possibly go. The text was still fuzzy, but at least he could read it.

And just in time, too, as Gibbs came striding into the bullpen, demanding an update.

Tony and Ziva rattled off their findings quick enough, but Tim, who was still catching up from his time in exile, had nothing. He was reading a single word at a time, and had only gotten part way through Tony's report on their victim's background. Lieutenant Dexter Savage, thirty eight years old, had graduated from the Naval Academy with high honors, and had completed eight cruises on the USS Truman when he was granted shore leave to visit his family, consisting of his ailing mother, four sisters (two older, two younger), and two younger brothers.

"McGee, background checks on the family," Gibbs ordered, his tone rather resigned. Tim resisted the urge to roll his eyes, knowing that not only would Gibbs wallop him on the back of the head because of his visual display of attitude, it would also make his headache worse.

You'd think that I was this stupid on a regular basis, he groused inwardly, while to Gibbs he simply said, "Will do, Boss."

"DiNozzo, David, with me," Gibbs barked.

Tim listened to them leave, trying not to feel too left out, trying to tell himself that everything would be fine, he'd be able to see straight again soon, and every minute he stayed out of the field was one less mislabeled evidence bag Abby had to rant about.

It didn't work, however, and Tim spent the next four hours compiling evidence and debating on whether or not he should tell Gibbs that something was wrong.

*NCIS*

Day 4
Thursday

"McGee, where the hell is he?" Gibbs' voice blasted over Tim's headset as he struggled to read the GPS signal he was tracking.

"Boss… he's heading west, towards Purceville," he reported. "I'm alerting local LEOs now." Taking a quick calming breath, he typed out an email to as many Loudoun County Sheriff's Offices as he could, telling them to be on the lookout for the dark green Ford Mustang their suspect was using to escape.

Over the last few days, their case had evolved from a random shoot-out behind a strip mall to a frighteningly well-planned gang hit ordered by the oldest of the victim's two younger brothers, who was afraid that the Petty Officer would find out that he was selling their mother's prescription drugs at the local community college. They'd found and arrested the gang member responsible for the physical murder, but hadn't been able to get to the brother, who'd taken off yesterday. Despite his rapidly worsening eyesight, Tim was able to get a lock on the GPS chip in the brother's cell phone, and Gibbs, Tony, and Ziva had taken off in pursuit.

The orange-ish-red dot on his monitor suddenly and inexplicably slowed down, and Tim blinked in surprise before reporting, "He's stopping, Boss… I think he got pulled over…"

Tim's computer dinged as he received an email, and he quickly opened it up and enlarged it as far as it would go. "Just got an email… our suspect was just pinched for speeding, the arresting officer recognized him from the BOLO and is calling for backup to take him to holding."

"Let him know that we're on our way," Gibbs ordered.

"On it, Boss," Tim replied, already typing. He finished, checked for errors (something he found he'd had to do increasingly more over the week, as his ability to see what he was writing deteriorated), and sent it off, getting a reply almost immediately, a hearty "ten-four". He snorted. The local yokels were always so eager to claim or keep jurisdiction unless there was actual investigative work involved, in which case they dropped the case faster than a hot potato.

Tim sighed and relaxed slightly. Despite his massive screw-up with the evidence on Monday, they actually had a pretty solid case against Ryan Savage, and while a confession would be nice, they had enough to put him away without one. However, knowing Gibbs, they'd get one anyway, just out of principle.

Another email, and Tim alerted Gibbs to the fact that Savage was in the custody of the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office, and was going to be held for them in Sterling. A quick gruff, "Good work, McGee", had Tim grinning and starting on his report, knowing that it would take much longer than normal if he had to go word-by-word.

Three hours later, the elevator dinged, and Tim looked up to see Gibbs-, Tony-, Ziva-, and Savage-shaped blurs striding out of the car and into the bullpen. Gibbs went straight to his desk, while Tony and Ziva began frog-marching Savage down to Interrogation. Tim could hear the man growling in fury, and frowned worriedly. Savage was a big guy, taller than both Tim and Tony, and nearly three times as wide as Ziva, and while he knew both were more than capable of defending themselves and each other, he had serious reservations about their chances against that giant of a man.

Suddenly, that enormous blur moved, faster than Tim would've thought for someone his size, jerking away from Tony and Ziva and barreling at Tim, arms suddenly and inexplicably free.

"WHAT THE F- ARE YOU LOOKING AT, COP?"

Tim didn't have time to blink before a fist nearly the size of his head crashed into his cheek, and his head snapped back on his neck. The force of the punch sent him head over heels as his desk chair toppled back and crashed to the ground.

He blinked slowly as the world seemed to physically spin around. He dimly heard Gibbs roar in rage, accompanied by Tony's furious yell and Ziva's irate shriek. A dull crack and a huge thud alerted him to the fact that Gibbs had probably punched Savage's lights out, and Tim was oddly comforted by the thought. A dark blur appeared above him, speaking quietly while gently probing his head and neck for injury.

"You will be all right, McGee, he is gone now," Ziva murmured, gently stroking his hair. "How do you feel?"

Tim opened his mouth, and pain shot through his cheek. He groaned, shaking his pounding head.

"I would imagine," Ziva chuckled. "You are lucky he did not remove your head from your shoulders. Did we not teach you to goose?"

"Duck, Ziva, and we did, but apparently he needs another lesson," Gibbs said, striding back into the bullpen and crouching down next to Tim. "McGee, Ducky's on his way up to check you out, but I think you're done for the day. Take the weekend, and come back ready to work 0700 on Monday."

"Got it, Boss," Tim hissed, trying not to move his face too much. A few minutes later, a third blur appeared, this one blue and white with a dot of red below a pink and light brown blur. Ducky.

"Well, Timothy, I suspect you have now learned the folly of looking askance at a man such as Ryan Savage, hmm?" Ducky chortled, a gentle hand once more probing his head and neck. "Well, I don't believe anything is broken, but you've got some whiplash, and your cheekbone is quite bruised. I must insist that you take a long weekend… and have someone stay with you in case of emergency, at least for tonight. Jethro?"

"He's going, Duck."

"I'll take him home, Boss, he shouldn't drive like that," Tony piped up. "I'll even take both our paperwork with me and do it while he's conked out."

"Concussion check every hour, Anthony, and soft foods for a bit, Timothy," Ducky ordered. He and Gibbs each grabbed one of Tim's arms and helped him up, the movement causing Tim's head to pound even worse. Ducky and Gibbs let go of his arms, and for a moment Tim felt like he was going to fall over until he felt Tony grab his left arm and loop it over his neck.

"C'mon, Probie, let's get you home," he said cheerfully.

*NCIS*

Day 8
Monday

Tim smacked his alarm clock into submission, and opened his eyes, staring up at the off-white blur that was the ceiling of his room. The ceiling alone wasn't really a good gauge of how much his sight had deteriorated in the past eight days, although he did remember Saturday mornings where he would lie in bed and count the cracks and pits in the plaster and create constellations out of them.

He sat up, and looked ahead. His TV was a big black fuzzy rectangle in an off-white expanse, and he could only identify the door to his bedroom due to the fact that it was two shades lighter than the rest of his room. His big overstuffed chair was just a mass of green, and the shelves above and below his TV were a mass of brown and multicolored blurs.

He looked down at his hands, now just flesh-colored blurs. He could barely make out his individual fingers, or the stripes on his comforter. He couldn't see the shuttering on the French doors of his closet, or the blinds on his window. His alarm clock was just a blur of white and black, with no red digital numbers at all.

Tim slowly began to panic, fairly leaping out of bed and racing to his bedroom door, finding the doorknob through pure touch and yanking the door open, barely missing hitting himself with it. Running into his writing corner, the "McNovelist Nook" as Tony called it, he spun in a slow circle, straining his eyes as much as he could, but all he saw was a kaleidoscope of colors with no distinct shape. Reaching out blindly, he pulled down a book and opened it, finding the pages almost completely blank. He snapped the book shut, feeling the smooth paper binding, and his fingers found the title, stamped on the other side of the cover so that it was raised on the front.

The Country of the Blind

Oh G-d… Tim's hands went limp, and he heard the book fall to the floor with a small thump. Oh G-d… please, no… no no no no no!

"Jethro!" He called anxiously. "Jethro, here boy!"

A shrill bark, and he could hear his dog's paws pounding against the floor, coming closer and closer until he felt the large, furry, solid body crash into his legs. He found Jethro's collar and held it as he sank to his knees, keeping the German Shepherd close and facing him. He could hear Jethro panting, smell his doggy morning breath, but all he could see was a mass of brown with a spot of pink, most likely Jethro's tongue, in the middle. He couldn't see Jethro's eyes, his markings, his nose- he could barely make out his ears.

Jethro whined quietly, and gave Tim's cheek a small lick. With a small sob, Tim scrunched up his face and buried it in the Shepherd's fur, the fear and frustration of the past week finally overwhelming him.

Gotta… gotta get to the hospital… where's my phone? Tim shakily stood up and carefully navigated his way back into his bedroom, where he knew his cell phone, the only phone he had in his apartment, would be on his bedside table, charging. Sitting on his bed, he held the iPhone as close to his face as he could, found the emergency call button, and painstakingly dialed 911.

He waited with bated breath as he waited for someone to pick up, and finally a bored, female voice answered. "911, what's your emergency?"

"I… I c-can't s-see a-anything…" Tim stammered. "E-everything's r-really b-b-blurry… I-I c-c-can't s-see m-my d-d-dog's f-face w-when h-he's r-right in f-front of m-me… I-I c-can't r-r-read… I-I c-could b-b-barely s-see m-my c-c-cell p-phone w-while I-I w-w-was d-dialing it, a-and I-I w-was h-holding i-it as c-close t-to m-my f-f-face as I-I c-could. I-I t-think I-I n-n-need to g-go t-to the h-h-hospital, b-b-but I-I'm s-scared t-to d-d-drive l-like t-this… c-could y-you p-please s-send s-someone t-to p-pick m-me u-up?"

"Of course, sir," the dispatcher said kindly. "I'm gonna need your name and address, and then I'll send someone to you right away."

"T-thank y-you," Tim replied shakily. "M-my n-name's T-T-Timothy M-M-McGee." He rattled off his address, and stayed on the line as he carefully filled Jethro's food and water bowls and threw on a pair of sweat pants over his boxers, the lady asking him questions about symptoms and how he'd been feeling the last few days. He told her about getting his clock cleaned by Ryan Savage, and how he'd woken up last Monday to fuzzy vision. The dispatcher was very kind and calming, and before Tim knew it, a knock sounded on the front door, alerting him to the presence of the EMTs.

He thanked the dispatcher and hung up, taking his cell phone with him as he made his way to the door. He unlocked and opened the door to find two dark blue blurs standing in front of him.

"Timothy McGee?" The blur on the left asked, sounding distinctly feminine.

"Just Tim, please," Tim replied automatically. "Thanks for coming out, I'm sorry if I caused any problems."

"No problem, Tim," the blur on the right said, in a man's voice. "We'd rather you call us than try to drive with your vision as screwed up as it sounds like it is. You ready to go?"

Tim nodded, and followed the two blurs out of the apartment and down to the ambulance.

Author's Note: Sorry if Abby comes across as a bitch here, but you know how she is about her evidence, and Tim's not really in the mood to give her the benefit of the doubt like he usually does.

The "disease" I'm writing about does not develop as quickly as I'm portraying it here, but this fic would end up being too long (and too boring) if I stuck with the natural time frame. I have read in various places that there have been cases where deterioration has occurred in a matter of weeks (2 to 8 weeks, according to once source) or even days, but the average that has been determined is two to three months.

Next chapter: Diagnosis