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“Abby, I need help.”
Abby wasn’t expecting a call from Delilah, let alone at nine thirty on a Wednesday morning, or one where she was sounding so frustrated she was on the verge of tears.
“What do you need? Want me to get Tim?” They’re in the field today, but, given how Delilah’s sounding right now, if Tim needs to get his ass to her, he’ll get his ass to her, and Abby will hand deliver him if necessary.
“NO!”
Delilah sounds frantic at that. “Okay, not getting Tim.”
“I just… I need help.”
“Okay, where are you?”
“The Walgreens at the corner of 10th and Birch.”
For the first time in a very long time, Abby puts work aside and gets moving. “I can be there in ten minutes. Just hold on.”
Abby’s eyes went way wide when she found Delilah in the “family planning” aisle. Then a smile spread over her face, and rapidly died when she saw Delilah scowling at the Plan Bs. The Plan Bs that are located on the top shelf, but, for Delilah might as well be on Mars.
“So, we’re not shopping for anything fun, then?”
Delilah looks so frustrated she wants to spit. “I’ve been to all four drug stores that I can get too off of the Metro,” she’s glaring at her chair, and Abby can imagine the googling that went into making sure she could actually make this trip on her own, “and none of them have a Plan B I can reach. They’re all up there on the top shelf.”
About ten million thoughts and feels all hit Abby at once, but before anything else happens she decides to be useful. She grabs the first Plan B she sees, and the heads off, fast, to the other side of the Walgreens for a bottled water, and then back to Delilah.
She knows that if you’re in the market for Plan B, you want it in your system as soon as possible. It’s in one of those stupid plastic locked cases, but, per Nine, she’s got a knife and makes short work of it, handing the pill and the bottle to Delilah, who chugs it, fast.
Pads and tampons are behind them, so she turns and gestures, “What do you want?”
“I’ve got that covered.”
“Literally?”
Which is when it hits Delilah that she likely won’t feel any cramping or sensation of wetness or… anything, until she’s getting herself off the chair and finds she’s soaked through.
“You hit the restroom, I’ll pay before they think we’re stealing it.”
“Thanks, Abby.”
“No problem.”
As Delilah rolls off, Abby grabs a few pregnancy tests, too. She’s got no idea how long it’s been, or what’s going on (well, besides the obvious) but if McFeilding is already in the works, Plan B won’t change that, so, in a few weeks, Delilah’s going to need to check and see if she got to it in time.
“So, I take it you and McGee had a good time recently.” Abby offered to take her out for coffee post-shopping trip, so they’re at Starbucks, sitting there, talking, not really drinking their drinks, but not completely ignoring them, either.
Delilah groans. “I feel so stupid.”
“Hey, none of that. It happens. More than half of all pregnancies are unplanned. This happens a LOT.”
“It’s never happened to me before. Not like I’m some starry-eyed teenager. I’ve been doing this for twenty years and I’ve never forgotten before.”
Abby shrugs. “It happens. I know that doesn’t make it better, but… Beating yourself up over it and feeling like you’re supposed to be smarter doesn’t help, either.”
Delilah rolls her eyes and takes a gulp of her coffee. She shakes her head. “I’m supposed to be on the shot. That was working just fine, taking care of everything, but…” Abby waits, letting her keep going, “after a spinal cord injury it can take half a year to start ovulating again, and they want me to actually start ovulating again so they can make sure all systems are normal.”
Abby supposes that makes a certain amount of sense, but… “So, you’re stuck in not particularly-easy-or-effective birth control limbo.” As soon as she could convince a doctor to do it, Abby got her tubes tied. She loves kids, but she loves work more, and knew she didn’t ever want to be more than the cool Aunt. She is a very cool Aunt, and she’s a very relieved woman, because accidentally getting pregnant is no longer a possibility for her.
“Yeah. I don’t think my doctors thought that would be an issue.” Delilah’s glaring at the world in general now.
Abby pats her hand. “On the bright side, you probably aren’t pregnant.”
She nods. “I know. I just… Okay, I know I’m not, but… But I don’t, you know? That little ache I used to feel that let me know it was ovulation time, I’m probably never going to feel it again.”
“Probably?” That surprises Abby; she would have thought that wouldn’t be an option now.
“I’d feel it right on the line of where I have sensation and I don’t. So, I don’t know. Don’t know if I’ll ever have cramps again, either.”
“Hell of a silver lining to go with that cloud.”
“Yeah.” She laughs dryly. “’Oh my God, I’d give anything to make these go away.’ You know what? Not so much.”
Abby squeezes her hand. Then she takes a sip of her smoothie and says, “You’ll know soon about the cramps. Plan B isn’t kidding about ‘some cramping’ as a side effect.”
“You’ve…?”
“Like I said, it happens. Back in the day, back when this was prescription only, I always had one in my purse. If I needed it, I never wanted to wait a second longer than necessary to use it.”
“Oh.”
“There are some pregnancy tests in the bag, too.”
Delilah nods, if she’d been thinking she would have grabbed them, but she wasn’t. Now that Abby’s mentioned it…
“Yeah. It’s been…” she thinks, “sixty-four hours, so…” Plan B’s window of opportunity is the first seventy-two hours after unprotected sex. She’s almost at the deadline, and if...
“If it happened, it happened, and you’re too late. And if it hasn’t, maybe you’ve swept in in the nick of time. Or maybe there’s no egg and the whole thing is moot.”
“Yeah.” Another sip of coffee. More staring at her cup, moping. “I hate not knowing.”
“Two days down, five to go. The ones in the bag are supposed to be super sensitive.”
“Great.” She takes another deep drink of her coffee. Then she looks up at Abby. “Shouldn’t you be flipping out?”
Abby shrugs. “Would this be easier if I do?”
Delilah shakes her head.
“After Gibbs ended up in the hospital the second time, I learned how to shut the hyper down. I can’t do it for too long, and I can’t do it too often, but when I need it, or when someone else needs it from me, I can be chill.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” Abby sips her not even remotely caffeinated drink. (Helps with being chill.) “So, if you are…”
That gets another groan. “I don’t want to think about that. ‘Mom, Dad, guess what, I’m paralyzed, and that guy you barely know is going to be your grandchild’s father.’ Cue massive lecture about how I can barely take care of myself and I need to get back home right this second followed by my dad showing up at Tim’s place with the shotgun.”
Abby giggles a little at that, and for a second Delilah’s buried in the murk of how awful that’ll be, but Abby’s laughs are contagious, pouring light and silliness into this moment, and eventually Delilah cracks a smile, too.
Once she does, Abby stops, and says, “At least your dad won’t find Tim there. He’ll have gotten the first two rings he sees and be dragging a justice of the peace to your place as quickly as he can.”
Delilah snorts at that. “He would, wouldn’t he?”
Abby nods a little. “Because if he doesn’t, Gibbs’ll be standing next to your dad, with his knife. And Tim knows which bit of his anatomy is going to get an up close and personal introduction to said knife.”
“Oh, Lord. I can just see that. Dad’s a retired Ranger. He’d get on with Gibbs like a house on fire.”
“So, harmony among the in-laws. It could be worse.” Delilah giggles. And a little more seriously, Abby says, “I take it we’re not telling Tim about this?”
Delilah shrugs. “I’m assuming, since he was there, he’s got to, on some level, know. But… it took me two days to remember, and I wasn’t nearly as far gone as he was, so…”
“Sounds like you guys had a really good time.”
Delilah blushes at that. “Uh… yeah, we did. I was… um… in charge, and that was good. I liked it. He really liked it, and…”
“And you got carried away, which is, you know, how it’s supposed to work when it’s going good.”
“Yeah.” Delilah sighs again. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“Besides Tim, you’re the only person I’ve talked about any of this stuff who hasn’t acted like the idea of me having sex is gross. Or staring at me like ‘You can still do that?’”
Abby rolls her eyes at that. “Idiots.”
“The first drugstore I went to, I asked for help, and the guy just stared at me as I was rolling toward the family planning aisle, and he was just… so nervous and disgusted, so I kept on rolling and asked for pads. Only time in the history of earth where a guy was relieved to grab a package of pads. Two places after that, no one would look me in the eye in that aisle. They’ll fall all over themselves to get me Oreos or shampoo, but Plan B, Oh God, NOOOO! Disabled sex, EEEEPP!”
Abby glares that imaginary versions of those people. “I’m boiling them in my mind.”
Delilah smiles at that. “One of my friends was talking about how I never had to deal with being pestered by my boyfriend again. When I told her I still liked getting pestered she was horrified.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Me, too.” She smiles sadly. “I didn’t stop being a person.”
Abby hugs her. “I know.”
“And people are either terrified to talk to me, walking on eggshell, or ignoring me, or trying too hard, and…”
“And…”
“And I just want to scream that I’m still me! I have people I’ve worked with for five years suddenly going all weird on me. The first car place we went… I know women have a hard time with that. I had Tim stay in the car so that they’d have to deal with me, but I left the first place because I waited for fifteen minutes, had three people catch my eye, and all of them scuttle off to go do something else. I might not be able to stand up, but my money still spends.”
Abby’s smiling sadly at her. “I wish I had a magic wand for it, or some easy coping strategy. But I don’t. My oldest friend, Carol, is a dwarf, and she’s had a lot of similar issues. Being barely three feet tall doesn’t make you not a person either, but…”
“But like being in a chair, it does.”
“Yeah.”
“Carol found that she could either blend in, try to be invisible, or she could be herself and loud. She decided that if people were going to stare anyway, they might as well be looking at the version of her she likes. Tattoos, purple hair, leather cuffs and all. But, I get the sense that this is you.”
“Yeah. This,” Delilah gestures at herself and her very cute outfit of purple leggings, boots, silk scarf, oversized cable-knit gray sweater, and wool coat, “is me. I like pretty, preppy, girly stuff.”
“Good! If it makes you happy, love it. Though… maybe we could spruce up your chair? I mean… It’s kind of drab and ugly. Someone’s got to make custom ones, right?”
Delilah thinks about that. She hasn’t given the chair much thought, beyond being annoyed at how much of a pain in the neck it is to deal with. “Probably.”
“At least get you some colors you like, right?” It’s drab gray and blue, which aren’t bad, but nothing about them says “Delilah.”
“If this is going to be my permanent accessory, I might as well find one I can rock?”
“Exactly. I’ve got a buddy who builds custom bikes, it can’t be that much different.”
Delilah smiles at that. She sips her drink again and says, “Can I ask you something really personal and… just way over the line…”
“About me and McGee?”
Delilah nods.
“Sure.”
“We were talking about the… control thing… and subbing. He said, you two… but it didn’t work?”
Abby smiles. “Look, I love McGee. He’s sweet and gentle and cute and fun and so smart and… and we don’t work. Not like that. Not for more than the occasional one off.”
Delilah’s staring at her, very intently.
“I’m in charge all day long. I run the lab. I run everything for everyone all day long. I make all the decisions about where and when and how and why. I save the day and find the clues and make it so they can go out and get the bad guys, and at the end of the day, I’m done! I don’t want to make any more decisions. I want to kick back, relax, and have someone else take care of me. I want to be babied and pampered and taken care of.
“So, this is how any date where we didn’t have a set plan ahead of time went: ‘What do you want to do?’ ‘I don’t know. What do you want to do?’ ‘Whatever you want is good with me.’ ‘Are you hungry?’ ‘Yeah, I could do with some food.’ ‘What do you want to eat?’ ‘Whatever you want is good with me.’ ‘No, really, you pick, you’re the hungry one…’ And on and on.” Delilah winces, she and Tim have also ended up in the ‘I don’t want to make a decision’ spiral of doom, and usually they end up snapping at each other like sarcastic turtles when that happens. Abby sees the realization on her face and says, “Seriously, we’d barely get into the elevator and both of us are gritting our teeth because we both want someone to just make a decision. But neither of us wants to make the decision. If one of us sets a plan ahead of time, we’re good. I got tickets to whatever. He likes whatever. ‘Wanna go to a concert with me? It’s at eight on Monday night.’ ‘Sure.’ And it goes just fine and we have a blast. But without a plan in place we just spin our wheels and get on each other’s nerves.
“I want someone to take care of me, and he wants someone to pick so he can’t be wrong. That’s probably the biggest difference between us when it comes to this. I just want off time. He wants lines and rules. Like… if you tell him what to do, he can shine at it. He can do the best job you’ve ever seen of doing whatever it is you want him to do. But if he’s on his own, he’s terrified of getting it wrong, of doing the best job ever, but it not being enough or right.
“It’s part of why he writes mysteries. Mysteries all have a pretty set formula. Set scene. Dead body. Suspects. Clues. Twist. End. He can do that all day and night, just banging them out, and they’re great. They’re us… but they’re still good stories. He writes poetry, usually it’ll be a sonnet or a haiku or something along those lines because, once again, set rules.”
“But not always.”
“Not always. He creeps out from the rules every now and again, and unfortunately usually gets smacked when he does so, which is why he doesn’t do it much.”
“He said you thought I was the best thing that ever happened to him.”
“Honey, you are. Super-sweet, super-hot, super-smart, computer girl who adores him. Who’ll buy him the suit and tell him to show up. Yeah! You are. You’re exactly what he wants and needs. Question is, do you have the patience for a guy who will very rarely make the first move? He’ll back any play you come up with, but most of the time, you’re gonna have to come up with the play.”
Delilah looks irked. “Then why was the reception a problem? That was my play, and he didn’t want to have anything to do with it.”
“Only so many times you can get your heart stepped on before you get really nervous about letting someone else in again. Reception was just the wrong thing at the wrong time. He was already in flip out mode because he likes you, really likes you and was hitting that point where not having you around was going to be painful, so he was looking for distance, pushing you away because he didn’t want it to hurt so bad when you decided to head off.”
“Really? He said that?”
Abby shrugs, and sips her drink again. “Not exactly. But it’s not like I just met him. Not like the two of us haven’t split more than a few pints of Ben and Jerry’s while commiserating over sucky love lives. But it wasn’t like it took a Gibbs slap to get him pointed in the right direction, just a little poke.”
Now Delilah’s looking horrified. “Wait, did you tell him what to do?”
Abby holds up her hand in peace gesture. “No. Not like that. I told him to get over being afraid. Maybe not in so many words, but that if he’s afraid of you heading off, forcing you away is the way to make that happen, not the way to protect himself from getting hurt by it. I think I said something like, ‘Oh, boo hoo, my super-hot girlfriend likes me too much!’ Getting him focused on the fact that you weren’t running away so getting closer wasn’t a problem.”
“Oh.”
“Next thing I know he’s all pretty and saying thanks for the pep talk.”
“He was pretty.”
“You’ve got good taste in suits.”
“Thank you.”
Abby’s phone buzzes and she checks it. “Gibbs wants answers. We good?”
Delilah nods. “Yeah. Are you going to be able to keep this quiet?”
“Nope, but I won’t give it away either. You and I had a quick coffee date, just getting caught up. If Tim asks, I’ll tell him we talked about him and subbing and why the two of us didn’t work. He’ll be horribly embarrassed, but kind of relieved, and the idea that we talked about anything else won’t hit him.”
Delilah smiles at that. “I thought you’re supposed to be a bad liar.”
Abby nods, and then smiles “I’m a terrible liar, that’s why I always tell the truth if I can.” She stands up. “You need anything, give me a call. And, I know you guys aren’t close, but if I can’t come, Gibbs has your back, too. He won’t ask questions or pester you or anything, and any secret you tell him will go to the grave, so if you need something, he’ll make sure you get it.”
Delilah nods. “Thanks.”
It was Wednesday morning when Delilah remembered the missed condom. Wednesday went by, and other than a few quick texts back and forth with Tim about how the case was heating up and he was going to be working all day, nothing happened.
So, apparently he didn’t remember.
Thursday, more of the same case, more working hard. More of everything. He’d sent her a sweet little text about how the case was done a bit after nine, and how he was going to go home, lay down, and not move until Friday morning, and maybe they could spend the weekend together, which struck her as fine.
So, as she’s in bed, reading, getting ready to sleep, at 10:25 on Thursday night, she is in no way expecting frantic knocking at her door followed by, “It’s me, I’m coming in,” in Tim’s voice.
He’s got a key now, because it’s just easier for him to let himself in than it is for her to go to him, but given the rapid tone of the knocking and the way his voice is shaking through her door, she’s fairly sure what he just realized, and is scooting herself toward her chair as quickly as she can.
Unfortunately, it’s not all that quick. She’s made it about half a foot by the time Tim’s in her bedroom, completely panicked, pacing around fast and flustered, some sort of plastic bag (looks like it’s from a drug store or a supermarket) that he’s waving around as, “Delilah I’m so sorry… I just, God… I’m so so so sorry, I didn’t… God, I… I’m so sorry… I… shit… That’s never… God, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I…” And more and more half formed sentences of deep, deep regret go spewing out of him.
He’s not looking at her, but she can feel deep shame, deep regret, waves and waves of misery just cresting off of him as he practically spins around her room words pouring out of him, tears in his eyes.
She was unconscious when the doctors talked to him and her parents, so she didn’t seem him get the news that she would very likely be paralyzed for the rest of her life and completely break down.
Her mom and dad did. And they told her about it when she asked where he was. How he started thinking very fast, asking too many questions, too quickly, pacing, agitated, not waiting for answers because there weren’t going to be any answers any of them wanted to hear. Finally the doctor grabbed his arm, and Tim shut up, started sobbing, and hit the floor when his knees went out from under him.
He wouldn’t let anyone touch him, and after a minute he got himself together, got up, walked out, and they didn’t see him until he came back thirty hours later.
So, she didn’t see the frantic, panicked bit first hand, but if she had to guess, she’d assume it looked a hell of a lot like this.
He’s still going, waving the bag around, “I checked online and they said it was only good for seventy-two hours but… I’m so sorry. I know better. I do. I just… God, please, oh God, I am so, so, so sorry…”
Another thought hits her, as she’s reaching out, trying to get him to stop pacing (because saying “Tim” periodically is not breaking him out of this) it that he is not this flipped out about the possibility of her being pregnant. Yeah, now would not be a great time. No, it wouldn’t be fun or easy. But this is existential-crisis level panic, not, things are likely to be a bit uncomfortable and we’ve got a lot of thinking to do.
On top of that, she knows he wants kids sooner or later. They talked about that when they were getting to know each other. Sure, not right away, but he likes the idea of kids, and he was excited about Jimmy and Breena adopting, so…
Okay, there is no possible way this utter panic attack is about maybe being pregnant.
Tim was not entirely honest with Delilah about what he was doing tonight. He did work late. And when he texted her, he did want to just go home and crash.
He left out the fact that late meant 8:00, and that he spent an hour with Rachel between “working late” and “wanted to crash.”
There are probably a lot of reasons for leaving that out, but the important one is this, Tim McGee knows himself very well. He knows that going and talking with Rachel is not going to be, by a very large margin, anything he’d consider fun, and he knew he was going to want processing time, on his own, in his own head, before he even tried getting this into any sort of shape that he’d want to share with someone else.
It was… Sigh… Counseling. Yay. Rachel agreed to meet him at the Navy Yard, so all he had to do was turn off his computer and head to the conference room. He walked more and more slowly as he got closer to the room, and when she opened the door, an Epic McGee eye roll and bitch face came out. Tony on a roll, whipping out his tenth McNickname of the day doesn’t get this level of bitch face aimed at him.
Rachel saw it, appeared to have expected it, smiled at him, nodded and then gestured to the seats. “You want anything to drink?”
He shook his head.
Rachel was being very kind about this, trying to make him comfortable, then asked how he felt.
“I’m here talking to you about it, how do you think I feel?”
“Doesn’t work that way Agent McGee. Besides, don’t you have a rule about assuming? So, why are you here? What are you hoping to get out of this?”
He rubbed his eyes and looked away. “Things that can’t happen.”
“Like what? Delilah walking again?”He looked away when she said that. ‘How about things you might be able to get?”
He tried to talk, twice, nothing came out. Finally he was able to say, “I don’t think I can.”
He had the sense she worked with a lot of unwilling clients, and prying information out of them is old hat to her. “You’re here, you’re trying. Give it a shot, wildest fantasy time, what do you want?”
His mouth opened and closed and opened again, and finally, “Less angry.”
Rachel nodded. “That’s a good starting point. Who are you angry at?”
He didn’t answer that one. Not really. He muttered some vague generalities that boil down to fate, and shifted the subject a bit, but she gently nudged him back to the things he didn’t want to touch. “It’s not just anger, is it?”
“What else would it be?” He knew it wasn’t just anger, but he didn’t want to touch that, think about it, let it out.
“You tell me, Agent McGee. You want to let it out, so, say it, if not to me, then to yourself, out loud.”
He opened and closed his mouth at that, too. The words didn’t form.
She, gently, asked about how Delilah is and how their relationship is going. She looked pleased to see that that he can talk about, fairly readily, and doesn’t appear to have a huge mound of crap he’s carrying around. And back into the crap again. “So, she’s coping well?” Rachel said after Tim told her about Delilah working from home and liking that.
“Yeah, she got a new car, with hand controls, should have it delivered soon. She’s seeing her physical therapist five days a week, trying to get as much function as she can. She’s getting herself ready to be out in the world again.”
Rachel smiled at that, making a note of it, and seems genuinely pleased. “That’s great. How’s she coping mentally?”
He licked his lips and quietly said, “Better than I am.”
“You don’t think you’re coping well?”
“I…” He shook his head and let that drop. “I don’t think this is going to work.”How could it possibly work if he couldn’t even make himself say any of the damn words in his head?
Rachel nodded at that, and he looked very surprised. “Tim…” There was a question in her voice, and he nodded, allowing the use of his first name. “I’ve read and reread all of your files back to FLETC. You’re extremely intelligent and use that intelligence to figure out what the people around you expect from you. Horrible, traumatic things happen to you and every time you end up in front of an eval, you fly on through. Because you haven’t seen the same person more than twice in a row, no one’s noticed that if you’re really as ‘well-adjusted’ as you appear on paper, you’re a robot, which tells me, that what you pulled with me, whipping out the ‘right’ answers, isn’t new.
“You’ve been giving the ‘right’ answers for a long time. So, right now, the only thing stopping this from working is you. You want it to work. You’re here. You want to keep the walls up because if you don’t you’ll have to deal with everything in your head.”
He nodded at that, because she’s right. He licked his lips again, not looking at her. His voice shook a little as he finally said, “Feel like if I touch it, I’ll start screaming, and I don’t know when I’ll stop.”
Rachel nodded at that, too. “It’s normal, Tim. You have a car, right?” He nodded at that, wondering where she’s going with this. “Get in it, turn the music up, find a park or something, and scream if you need to.” He wasn’t exactly thrilled with that. She sees it. “Both of you are walking wounded right now. Just because you’re not bleeding doesn’t mean you didn’t get hurt.”
Tim snorted at that. “Only one of us is walking wounded.”
Rachel looked at him and nodded again, seeing one of pieces slide into place. “She got hurt worse, so you aren’t allowed to complain about you?”
He inclined his head a bit.
She thought about what she’d read about Tim, about all the right answers, about Probie McGee. “You aren’t allowed to complain about anything, are you?”
Another incline of his head.
“Not little quiet grousing, or just bitching about the job, that’s fine, but anything with some real substance, either fix it or shut up, right?”
He nodded again. “And I can’t fix this.”
“And complaining about something that can’t be fixed, that’s…” He was staring at her with wide eyes, willing her to fill in the sentence the same way she was hoping he’d say something. He didn’t answer her, so she tentatively said, “shameful.”
His eyes closed and he nodded again. “Useless.” And the way he said ‘useless’ told her that ‘useless’ was the worst thing a person or thing could possibly be.
Rachel thought about the fact that Tim’s father is an Admiral. “And let me guess, everything can be fixed if you work at it hard enough?”
He nodded at that, too.
“What can’t you fix, Tim?”
He was very resolutely NOT looking at Rachel. He was back outside the building, watching the little light in the sky turn into flying death and pain. “I failed her. I wasn’t good enough to get her out of there in one piece. She’s never going to walk again because I froze. It was my job, literally MY JOB to get her out, and I didn’t do it. I stood there, frozen for… God, I don’t know, and watched it come at us.” He wiped his eyes. “She was in there, because I didn’t move fast enough.”
“According to Agent DiNozzo’s report, he lost contact with you less than three seconds after calling.”
Tim shook his head. “I know. I’ve read the reports. I rationally know that running full out, I couldn’t have gotten in in time. But that doesn’t shut the voices up. Faster, better, noticed a fire alarm… What if I hadn’t gone? Would I have caught the problem sooner? If I’d been here at my computer could I have been the one to kill the targeting system? We’d been fighting earlier that day… What if I’d been paying more attention to work and less attention to us fussing about the ceremony? What if I’d just said, ‘Sure, I’ll be there at six, lead me to the tux,’ and focused on work. Would I have found his target?
“It can’t be fixed. It can’t be changed. And I know it.” He wiped his eyes again.
“He’s still out there, somewhere. I haven’t found him. I’m trying to not go completely psychotic on looking for him. She’s here and she’s alive, and she needs a man who’s not holed up in his office 24/7 scanning feeds looking for a ghost, but he’s still out there, and I’m,” he looks around the conference room, biting his lip, hard, “here with you, not finding him.”
“Talking about you is less important than finding him?”
“I didn’t protect her; I can at least avenge her.”
Rachel inclined her head. “Which do you think she wants more, you functional or his head on a platter?”
He scoffed at that. “I’d be a hell of a lot more functional if he were dead.”
For the first time, Rachel wasn’t gentle or kind. She snorted at him, an almost inelegant sound. “Do you think I can’t tell the difference between you and Gibbs? Or that I’m bad at reading actions and motivation? You’re here because you know it’s more important for both of you than another hour scowling at your computer. And, if I had to guess, I’d say you’re here because revenge never did anything all that great for Gibbs or Ziva, and since you’re the smart one, you’ve decided that trying something different is a good plan.”
He was feeling a little shocked at what she’d just said, so he came back with, “If I’m the smart one, why don’t I know what to do?”
“You know. You couldn’t keep whipping out right answers for every eval if you didn’t. The question is, will you let yourself?”
He shrugged at that.
“Tim, you are allowed to complain about things you can’t fix. You are allowed to yell at God or fate or whatever you believe in that this is how it worked out. You are allowed to feel horrible even if someone got hurt worse than you. You are allowed to grieve for what you lost, even if you didn’t lose everything. You are allowed to grieve for what she lost. You are allowed to prioritize your own health over the job and over revenge. And I know, like you said about freezing, that you know this, but my guess is that this got beaten out of you at some point. That this sort of thing got listed as selfish and unworthy.” He nodded. Maybe not beaten but that lesson got learned hard and fast. “So, let’s start at one really basic one, there is literally nothing you could have possibly done differently.”
“I know. If it could have happened differently, it would have.”
“Good. So what do you have to do with that?”
He knew the right answer, it was just a matter of doing it. “Forgive it.”
“Okay. Do it.”
He stared at her. “How?”
“That’s going to be up to you. But that’s step one. There is nothing else you could have done. You’ve got to make yourself believe that.”
“Great.”
“I know, easier said than done.”
So, Tim didn’t precisely skip home with a song in his heart and a mind full of glee. He actually dragged into the parking lot, plopped himself into his car, debated finding something loud with a hard thumping beat to put on the stereo and just yell at, but that sounded like effort, and he was completely wiped out.
Making himself talk about it was more than enough emotional trauma for one night.
So, he drove home slow, got in, ate some form of microwave dinner (he had no clue what, just that it was food, vaguely hot, and seemed to take care of one of the myriad ways his body was complaining at him) and went to bed, where he spent half an hour with his eyes closed, not sleeping.
And, though he wasn’t feeling terribly sexy, he did know one way to put himself to sleep. (And he’s got to sleep, more work, hopefully paperwork, tomorrow.) So, he got up, grabbed two melatonin tablets, dry swallowed them, took off his boxers, and headed back to bed.
He wanted to just get off and get to sleep, so he pulled up the memory of Delilah running him that weekend. Pulled up the image of her sucking him down while her thumb pressed into the bruise on his hip. He still had them, though they’re faded to yellow green now.
He was stroking himself with his left hand, pressing the bruises with his right, remembering, pulling himself deep into the fantasy, where everything is good and right and perfect and she’s running his body, taking him so high.
He was getting close, remembering her telling him to fuck her, to get off so hard he blacked out. He was stroking fast, feeling his body grow tight, reveling in the memory of pulling her legs apart, kneeling between them, and thrust—
He stopped stroking, stopped moving, feeling his body go icy hot.
He didn’t put on a condom.
He failed her again.
And if talking to Rachel weakened the underpinnings of the dam he’s been keeping his emotions behind, feeling like he’s failed her again, that everything’s about to explode again, and that it’s entirely his fault, is the straw breaking the proverbial camel’s back.
Forty minutes later, he’s at Delilah’s place, having a complete meltdown, as everything he’s been pushing aside for the last four months is all spewing out at once.
Words and thoughts and feelings are all pouring out of him in a running collection of half-formed sentences and all of it boils down to “I’m so, so, sorry.”
She’s finally able to grab his wrist as one pass of his frantic pacing gets him within arm’s reach of her bed. “It’s okay.”
He doesn’t break free of her grasp, but he does finally really look at her, tears streaming down his face, “No, it’s not! It’s never, ever going to be okay. It can’t be okay, because you’re not okay. Make sure you’re okay, that’s my job, and I… I didn’t do it.” He’s kneeling on the floor in front of her, sobbing, forehead pressed to her knees. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so, sorry.”
Delilah sighs, kisses the back of his head, and pets his hair. This is definitely not about a missed condom.
She lets him cry for… she’s not sure, she isn’t watching the clock. She knows it’s something he needs to do. Something she does, too. Something both of them should do, together, at some point, but haven’t, yet.
The DOD won’t let her come back without extensive therapy time. Physical and mental therapy. Technically she’s not supposed to be even remoting in until she’s cleared by half a dozen specialists, but the counselor she’s been seeing, since... probably the day after the diagnosis, told her Boss that she’d do better with some time to work. So, she’s been working, some.
But this whole time, she has been talking to someone. Since before they even knew if she’d ever have any sensation below her waist again, she’s had someone to rant and rage at. (And she has taken full advantage of that opportunity.) She hasn’t just been lugging this around, silent, for months.
But he has, and beyond a few gentle pokes, she hasn’t pressed him to get into it. She knows he runs things in his head until he’s done, and trying to get him to move before then is a bad plan.
She’s thinking maybe some less gentle poking earlier would have been a good idea.
As he’s slowing down, burning off the frantic, she’s able to focus in better on what he says. “Sorry,” over and over, somewhere between a litany and prayer, and she’s able to put it together, what all’s hitting him right now.
She’s stroking his hair, waiting for him to stop, and eventually he does. Eventually, he’s kneeling, quiet, at her feet, face pressed to her knees. She can see him gently stroking her ankle, but can’t feel it.
“Hey.”
He doesn’t look up, so she kisses the back of his head again, and lightly tugs on his hair.
He looks up, tired, skin bright pink, eyes puffy and vibrant green.
She strokes his face. “It wasn’t your fault, Tim.”
He licks his lips, and does that half-smile thing that he does when he’s horribly uncomfortable, doesn’t want to fight, but doesn’t want to agree either.
“No. Come on. Not your fault.”
“It’s my…”
“Not your fault. I do not hold you responsible for this.”
“You should.”
“No. Parsa. Beginning, middle, end, it’s his fault. No one else’s.”
“I’m not talking—“
She raises an eyebrow at him. “Really?”
“No.” He looks defeated. “I froze. I saw it coming, and I froze.”
“It’s not your fault!” She says it hard and fast to him. Not his fault, not hers, not Bishop or Gibbs or anyone else’s. Either it’s everyone she works with, including her own, fault, because they all missed bits and pieces of this, or it’s none of their faults, and on day one she and her counselor started on IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT. And right now, she will burn in hell for all eternity rather than blame anyone other than Parsa for what happened.
He nuzzles her knee. She can see the wet of his tears on her skin, see his face against her, and she can feel the heat of his skin under the fingers, she can remember the rasp of his face this late at night against her leg, and she can put it all together and figure out how that would feel, but she can’t feel it. And he knows that.
“If I’d been faster--”
“They let me read my medical files. You know that, right?”
He didn’t know that. He shakes his head.
“It took the first responders seventeen minutes to get there.” He didn’t know that either. Most of that time is blocked from his mind. He did what he had to do to get her out of there alive. The details are beyond fuzzy, though he has nightmares about them some nights. “You found me. You got the bleeding stopped. You got my heart beating again. You made sure I was one of the first people out of there. If you hadn’t been there, I would have died in that room. The other people who died; they were all around me. That’s what my medical files say. If I had been alone, I would have died in there. If you had been in there with me when that bomb hit, we’d have both died in there, because you would have been in no shape to do anything to save me, and no one would have been yelling for the EMTs to get in there.” She lifts his hand from her leg to her throat, placing his fingers against her pulse. “Feel that. Feel me, alive?”
He nods.
“That’s you. Me still here, us together, in this room, that’s on you.” She looks at her legs. “That’s on Parsa, and no one else.”
He lightly touches her lower abdomen. “And this?”
She kisses him soft and gently. “Tim, you’re ready to drop. I’m tired, too. Whatever’s going on with that will still be going on tomorrow. Call Gibbs, tell him you’re taking a personal day tomorrow, and come and sleep in with me.”
He nods slowly at that, utterly exhausted. He pats his jacket, finds his phone, sends off a very fast text, and kicks off his shoes, too tired to even undress, before crashing onto his side of her bed.
A minute later she scoots into her own sleeping position, head on his chest, arm over his stomach.
Tomorrow, and all the other stuff they’ve got to deal with, can wait.