Archive of Our Own ^beta

“The road to En-Dor is easy to tread.” - Rudyard Kipling

McGee’s first memory was of his father shaking out the newspaper and announcing, with a slight tightening of his eyes, that Penelope had finally been arrested for being a hedgewitch.

McGee’d had no idea who that was, and it took even his mother a few moments to connect the dots. “Penelope? Your mother?”

“Mm. Let’s hope it doesn’t reflect on us too much. I told her she needed to get registered.”

“If it’s just for a few minor magics . . . “ his mother tried hopefully.

The admiral snorted. “She was over six hundred years old. There was nothing minor about her magics. No, that’s just what the paper wants people to think. It’d scare the masses too much if they knew an enchantress had been running around unchecked.”

At the time, Tim had been more interested in his breakfast than the conversation. It was only later that he realized the significance of the memory and tracked down the newspaper article.

Penelope Langston had made the front page of the local news. A photographer had snapped a picture of her being led away. Even with her hands cuffed behind her, she looked like a queen.

She was imprisoned only thirty minutes away from where they were living at the time.

If his father ever went to visit her, he didn’t mention it.

By the time Tim was old enough to go on his own, she was already dead.

Duty. Sacrifice. Willpower.

Those were the virtues he grew up having drummed into his head. They had a duty to protect humanity, particularly those of their nation. They had to be willing to sacrifice to do it. They had to have the willpower necessary to bend magic to do their will in order to successfully do so.

Not everyone had the potential to use magic. His father’s line did, and he insisted his children learn to use it. He steamrolled over their mother and had both Tim and Sarah registered as apprentices before they were ten years old.

Willpower, duty, and sacrifice, all rolled into one.

The first piece of magic Tim ever did was to sign a contract. Since he was still a minor, his father had to sign too.

The whole thing still felt surreal in his mind. They’d sat in a plush office as his father read out the contract and explained what it meant.

Tim agreed to use his powers to protect the nation. Tim agreed to use his powers to protect humanity. Tim agreed not to turn against his family. If the magic consumed him and he broke those terms, he agreed to pay the price.

He’d signed the document with a gold pen from the desk, and then he’d picked up the ancient covenant knife and dug the point into the index finger of his left hand. He’d whimpered a little as the blood welled up. There was something heavy and painful in the knife that went far beyond the pain of the cut.

“Go on, son,” his father had said impatiently.

Tim’d shot a quick, pleading look at the impassive lawyer witnessing the proceedings before biting his lip and continuing onto the next finger. All ten had to be pricked.

By the time he was ready for his right hand, Tim was crying freely, and his father was out of patience. He grabbed the knife and finished the process himself.

Then Tim pressed his bleeding fingers to the space at the bottom of the stack of papers, and his father, as McGee’s mentor, did the same process himself. He made the cuts quickly, never flinching, and he stared straight into his son’s eyes as he did so to remind him of his weakness.

His mother had taken one look at his still bleeding hands when he got home and started a screaming match with his father. They were both too busy to look at his hands, so Tim snuck away to the bathroom and used a chair to reach the bandages in the closet. Sarah had followed him to get away from the screaming, and she helped him press the bandages down with her tiny toddler hands.

Tim had never had many friends, and he lost most of the ones he did have once he started learning magic.

“Magic was not given to man like it was given to some of the other races,” his father told him once when he was in a talkative mood. “Man wanted it, so man reached out and took it. There’s always a price, though. And the price for doing what it takes to protect humanity is becoming something different from it.”

Tim watched his friends play with a faint sense of incomprehension, and his interactions with them got steadily more awkward, like there was a fog drenched gulf between them and McGee couldn’t quite see through it. He felt distant and separate even when wrapped in one of his mother’s hugs, especially after a particularly long practice session.

He supposed this was what his father meant by different.

When a day long practice session left him feeling completely numb, he crawled into bed with his sister in an attempt to just feel something.

His father frowned when he found McGee curled protectively around her the next morning. “You’ll build up a tolerance,” he said.

McGee felt the aching emptiness in his chest where it felt like something had been scraped out with a dull spoon and thought, I don’t want to get used to this.

High Wizard McGee was one of the Navy’s most powerful wizards. He was called away often, dealing with sea serpents and krakens, sirens and ghostly disappearances.

In his absence, he would leave books and stern instructions to practice, first for Tim, then for Tim and Sarah.

Sarah dumped the books under her bed and ran off to play. McGee read the books carefully then walked to the library for thick texts on science and magazine articles on the latest tech.

What are we doing with magic that could be done with science instead?

He read articles on fossil fuel and sustainable energy and compared it to the cost of magic.

If we made the switch fully to tech instead of magic, how much would it cost us? How much does it cost us not to?

When his father got home, he took one look at Tim’s alternate reading and muttered a single word that set it on fire.

“That was the library’s,” Tim said in a voice barely above a whisper.

“Then you’d better learn the spell to fix it,” his father said implacably.

Tim did. Tim also learned how to hide his books before his father got home.

McGee had every intention of leaving magic behind the minute he left the house. By that point, though, some of the spells - shielding his mind, summoning objects, warming himself on cold days - were too much of a habit to easily quit.

He felt better than he had in years, but he also felt a warning tug at the tips of his fingers.

He wasn’t an apprentice anymore. It was one thing to use bits of magic selfishly if he was also using it to serve, but it was another thing entirely to use it solely for himself and not to fulfill his contract.

The day he graduated, blood welled up at his fingertips and slowly began to drip onto his robes. It wouldn’t stop no matter how much pressure he applied. Muttered spells only made it worse.

He rushed back to his apartment. Stacks of his resume waited on the folding table that was shoved into a corner. He pulled on gloves with shaking hands and started shoving them into envelopes so that he could send them out to every organization that might fit the qualification of service to his country that he could think of.

He shoved the envelopes into the mailbox and stumbled out onto the streets. He muttered protection spells for everyone he met until he felt like he was looking at the world through a distant telescope, his hands were shaking, and the bleeding had stopped.

There was no breaking a contract made with a covenant knife.

NCIS was interested. McGee accepted.

He covered the walls of his new apartment with charts that compared tracking spells to GPS and protection charms to jackets laced with cold iron. Thick stacks of tech magazines covered his coffee table, and his computer, rather than his spellbooks, took pride of place.

But he used his magic to serve, like he’d sworn. He gave protection spells to other agents and to the sailors he came into contact with. He tracked sailors gone AWOL. He didn’t bother with a filing system and just called the papers he needed into his hands.

There was a news article about a wizard who’d gone rogue and had bled out through his hands rather than submit to the authorities. McGee took the day off and spent it being violently ill in his bathroom.

Sarah went off to college. At McGee’s suggestion, she volunteered on weekends.

The moment Sarah was out of the house, their mother filed for divorce.

High Wizard McGee was busy with more important matters. He gave her the settlement she wanted and moved on with his life.

Tim hadn’t talked to him in four years.

His work was important, and he was using little enough magic that he was more awkwardly distant than terrifyingly numb. That was pretty much all McGee dared to hope for.

His coworkers were as awkward around him as he was around them. News stories of wizards who had gone too deep into the magic, gotten irritated, and gone on a killing spree until the covenant magic brought them down didn’t help.

Tony was the first person to pull a prank on him in years. Tim wasn’t sure why - If Tony’s own power gave him a false sense of security, if he was genuinely that reckless, or if he just trusted Tim.

The prank was annoying, but . . . He liked it. It filled one of those empty spots that ached in his chest.

And Kate was nice, and Gibbs was a legend, and none of them were afraid of him at all.

And the work they were doing was so important, there was no chance that he’d wake up one day with blood covering his hands.

He wanted in.

And for once, McGee got what he wanted.

Not for long, of course.

He stared at Kate’s body down in the morgue

Duty. Sacrifice. Willpower.

Kate had embodied those more than he ever had.

He hadn’t used much magic lately, so the tears welled up as he stared at the body.

He caught the others talking to her like she was still there. Saying goodbye. Gibbs. Tony. Abby. Even Ducky.

He listened and he listened, but he never heard a thing.

Gibbs wanted him to stick to small charms, he knew. For the first several months, he did.

But Kate’s death seemed to open some kind of floodgate, and suddenly they were neck deep in the kinds of cases McGee had nightmares about.

Wendigoes. Werewolf maulings. Fey ideas of revenge. All those things that went bump in the night and that he was sworn to defend humanity from.

This was the war. This was the darkness that they could never fully sweep back but that he was supposed to guard against.

And more and more magic pumped out of him to do so.

It was dark when he saw the gun. Dark when he pulled the trigger. Dark with the kind of shadows that laughed when the light arrived and revealed that he’d shot a cop, a good cop, who’d been trying to bring down a cannibalistic shapeshifter.

“Death is frequent in our line of work,” Ziva advised him. “Every hunter accepts this when he or she goes out.”

Unsurprisingly, the man’s partner didn’t see it that way.

“He’s a wizard,” he snarled. “He’s snapped and started his rampage.”

“If that were true, he’d be bleeding out by now,” Gibbs said in a deceptively calm voice.

And that was true. He hadn’t snapped. But -

But he wasn’t sure he was feeling this like he should either. He should feel sick, shouldn’t he? Guilty?

Something more than this bone numbing cold.

Tony showed up at his apartment and proceeded to irritate him for the next thirty minutes.

“I don’t need this right now!” McGee finally burst out. “What, are you trying to be annoying?”

He’d meant it sarcastically, but Tony answered with deadly earnest. “Yes,” he said, moving with fey grace to sit on his couch. “And I’m still alive. Clearly, you haven’t snapped.”

Suddenly, McGee just felt tired. “Yeah, I know I haven’t.” He collapsed onto the chair by his prized computers.

“Okay. So what’s bothering you then? Your first kill?”

“Yes.” He scrubbed a hand across his face. “No. I don’t know. It bothers me, of course it bothers me, but I can’t help feeling it should bother me more.”

“Ah.” Tony leaned back. “I ever tell you about my first kill?”

Tim shook his head miserably.

“I ripped a man’s throat out with my teeth. I was in wolf form,” Tony hastily tacked on as he leaned forward, “and the man was the kind of monster that puts us actual monsters to shame. But I did it. And you know how it felt?”

“Bad?” Tim assumed.

Tony shook his head slowly. “The hot blood between my teeth? The thrill of a hunt completed? Defending my territory? I’ve rarely felt so alive.”

Tim swallowed.

“Later I saw his mom sobbing on the news,” Tony added in a quieter voice. “At which point I excused myself to the bathroom and threw up till the only thing left in my stomach was the lining. I think I broke down crying myself at some point. Both sides of my instincts were pretty disgusted with me for that, but the little bit that’s just Tony DiNozzo felt the need to do it.” He stared down at his hands for a moment before looking up to meet Tim’s eyes. “I’m the last person to tell you how to be human. But for what it’s worth, I think you’re doing alright.”

“Thanks,” Tim said softly. “It means a lot.”

Tony flashed him a grin with far too many teeth. For once, though, Tim managed a shaky smile back.

The partner turned out to be the shapeshifter. Or, rather, the shapeshifter had killed and replaced the partner.

“It is things like this that make so many hunters paranoid,” Ziva said with distaste.

And - ok. McGee can kind of see her point. On the other hand -

“I think we’re pretty safe though,” he told her. “I mean, can you imagine a shapeshifter trying to imitate Tony? He’d have to study for years just to get the movie references.”

Tony grinned and gave a little half-bow. “What can I say, ladies and gents, I’m one of a kind. Literally. I check the half-blood register monthly. And if anyone tries to replace one of you, I’ll know in a heartbeat.” He tapped his nose. “I’d sniff ‘em out.”

“Yes, unless they stole McGee’s perfume.”

“It’s not perfume!” McGee protested.

Ziva ignored him. “Leaving behind your senses, what do you think the odds would be of someone noticing if, say, Gibbs was replaced?”

“No way they’d get away with it,” Tony said instantly. “Leaving aside my super senses, they’d be dead of the caffeine intake within a day.”

“That won’t be the only death if I don’t start seeing some work in here,” Gibbs said, stalking into the squad room with a foul mood and a cup of coffee.

“On it, Boss!”

McGee could have dealt. Would have dealt.

But then there was the explosion, and Gibbs lost his memory.

Tony paced outside the boss’s room like a wolf on a chain, growling at anyone not in a doctor’s coat that came too close.

McGee had seen Tony tense before. He’d seen him angry before. He’d even seen him worried before.

But he hadn’t seen that kind of feral desperation since Kate died, and maybe not even then.

Werewolves had special dispensation regarding visiting hours for pack reasons, but the rest of them had to dart in whenever they could. Abby came as often as the director would let her away from the lab. Tim came with offerings of food that were mostly ignored. Ducky came with a worried frown and glances at Gibbs’ chart that didn’t make anyone feel any better.

And as hours turned to days and Gibbs still didn’t wake up, Ziva showed up with concern in her eyes and one hand suspiciously close to where she kept a concealed knife.

Tim worried that Tony would jump to the wrong conclusion and turn on her, but he just gave them both a tense nod and kept pacing.

“What was that all about?” he asked her when they were safely in the parking lot.

Ziva considered the question carefully as if deciding what to tell him. “If Gibbs dies,” she said, voice cracking a little, “Tony could take it . . . badly.”

“If Gibbs dies, I think we’re all going to take it badly. Including the director.” Gibbs wouldn’t die, though, would he? Gibbs was invincible.

Ziva shook her head impatiently. “Not Tony the man. The wolf. The fey.”

Oh. Gibbs was the leader of their little pack. His death would hit Tony hard for more reasons than one. “But if . . . If that happened. Wouldn’t someone else just take over as leader?” Tony, presumably, since he was just under Gibbs. Maybe someone new if the director didn’t think he was ready for the responsibility.

“Normally, yes. But there is nothing normal about this situation.”

On that, at least, he agreed. “When you say take it badly . . . ”

She shrugged tightly. “He might lash out at the doctors. He might go after the people who did this. I do not know. I only wish to be prepared.”

“If it’s the second one, I think I’ll join him,” Tim muttered.

Ziva flashed him a fierce smile. “Yes. I as well. I never said the knife was for Tony. I only wish to be ready.”

Alright. McGee could get behind that.

He’d prefer if he didn’t have to, though, so he spent the night scouring the more reputable online forums for healing spells.

It turned out they didn’t need to use his spells to wake Gibbs up, which was good, because most wake up spells required ingredients he didn’t have.

Like Gibbs’ true love, and that was a subject he really, really didn’t want to think about, and the three ex-wives didn’t look promising on that front, so it was a good thing Gibbs woke up when he did.

The bad thing was, Gibbs didn’t remember them. Or anything else that had happened in the last, oh, fifteen years or so. Tim didn’t catch the exact number. He just knew that Gibbs didn’t remember Ducky being at NCIS.

He found DiNozzo sitting outside with his head in his hands. Tim threw a quick glance at Gibbs’ closed door and sat down hesitantly beside him. “You alright?”

Tony gave a humorless laugh. “He can’t remember us.”

“Yeah, I know. Ducky called.” He bit his lap. “How does that affect . . . you know . . . ” He waved his hands in a vague way.

Tony stared down at his hands. “The law runneth forward and back,” he muttered.

“What?”

Tony sighed. “Nothing. Just an old poem my mom used to use to try to make sense of my dad. Pack bond runs both ways, McGeek. If the Boss isn’t willing to be head of the pack, then he’s not head of the pack.”

“So does that mean you’re taking his place for now?”

Tony laughed again, and the sound was dark enough to send chills down McGee’s spine. “If I was a full blooded werewolf, sure.”

Right. Conflicting instincts. “The fey half’s getting in the way?”

“The fey half’s not designed to step up and take charge of anything.”

“I’ve got confidence in you, Tony,” he tried.

Tony pushed himself to his feet and started pacing again. His words were barely more than a snarl. “Faith? Oh, that’s all right then if you’ve got faith. Never mind the binding magic that’s starting to choke me again, never mind the madness just waiting down the way - “

McGee blinked. “Wait, what?”

Tony turned on him sharply, but he held himself back and some of the anger drained from his form. “It’s how the fey monarchs keep control. There’s magic wrapped up in every fey’s essence demanding that they follow someone. If they don’t . . . Well, did I ever tell you what happened to my mother?”

Tim shook his head. He had a bad feeling about where this story was going.

Tony slumped against the wall. “She fell in love with Dad while she was out on Seelie business. Wanted to get married to him but couldn’t get permission, so they ran away together. Very romantic, and all that.” Tony’s eyes darkened. “Except then Mom started losing control of her magic. It started to turn on her. She began to see things that weren’t really there. She’d have days she’d hear faerie music when there was none to hear or she’d claw at her skin like there ants crawling under it. She got worse as I got older. Dad tried everything he could think of to help her. Nothing worked.”

Tim swallowed hard.

“Then, on one of her good days, while we were at the beach, she looked up suddenly and said that she heard good ol’ Oberon calling her. Telling her to come home. And she just - started walking. Straight into the sea.” Tony stared straight ahead, jaw twitching, eyes too bright. “To this day I don't know if she really heard him or if she just thought she did. Or if she was trying to go to him or just desperate to get away.’

Tim stared at him with horrified eyes.

“I’ve got more options than her,” Tony finally said quietly. “I don’t have to follow one of the fey. But I can’t last as long as she did either.”

“Okay,” McGee said. “Okay. What about - the director, maybe? Could you transfer over to her?”

Tony shrugged tightly. “Not and mean it. Not while Gibbs is still alive. I owe him too much for that.”

“Okay,” McGee said again, rubbing his eyes. “Okay. I need - I need to do some research on this.”

Tony walked over and patted his arm. “You do that, probie. But don’t worry about it, okay? I’ll be fine. Always have been before.”

Fey might not be able to lie, but McGee was pretty sure that he’d just gotten proof that Tony could.

Franks showed up. According to DiNozzo, he smelled like a cowboy. McGee had no idea what that smelled like, but he was inclined to believe Tony. The man ought to know, after slamming Franks into the wall when the man had shown up without proper ID.

Tim had walked in on Tony, on the brink of transformation, pressing Franks against a wall with a gun against his head. Franks had managed to bring an iron knife up to his throat.

Tim nearly hadn’t noticed, his nose had been so deep in his spellbook, but he was glad he had. Franks might think they were at a standoff, but McGee was about ninety-five percent sure DiNozzo wouldn’t mind getting his throat slit if it meant taking someone he thought was after Gibbs down with him.

Especially under the present circumstances.

“Uh, Tony, that’s Franks. Gibbs used to work with him. The director sent me the information.” She’d probably sent it to DiNozzo too, but McGee could believe he hadn’t checked it.

“Oh.” DiNozzo lowered the gun and backed off as he flashed Franks one of his trademark smiles. “Sorry about that.”

Franks didn’t smile back, and he kept his knife out. “Who are you, and what’s a wolf doing outside my probie's hospital room?”

Tony’s eyes darkened. McGee coughed. “Er, I can explain that Mr. Franks. If you’ll just step this way . . . ?”

One crisis got averted, but another was looming. McGee overheard Gibbs and Franks talk about the possibility of Gibbs heading down to Mexico for a while.

He didn’t want Gibbs to go. He didn’t even want to think about how Abby would break down and cry if Gibbs went. Even Ziva was upset by the idea when he quietly shared it with her.

They didn’t tell Tony. McGee was afraid of what the news would do to Tony.

If Gibbs didn’t remember, Gibbs would leave.

So McGee would just have to make him remember.

They’d tried jogging his memory with pictures and stories. They’d had limited success with that, but not enough.

Gibbs had a rough idea who they were now, but he didn’t know why it was so important that he stay, and DiNozzo had firmly vetoed telling him.

“He needs to heal however he thinks is best,” he’d said. “We’re not going to get in the way of that.”

Sacrifice.

Which, as McGee saw it, made it his duty to do something about it. Something that only he could do.

Something with magic.

There were wizards who specialized in healings. Even wizards who specialized in memory.

But healings tended to be major workings, so wizards who did that burned out fast and were outrageously expensive to hire. They weren’t an option.

But magic could be surprisingly versatile, and McGee was sure he could do it.

Magic was, after all, just a matter of will, and and McGee had never been so determined in his life.

“There are risks,” he explained nervously from Gibbs’ bedside. “This isn’t my normal area, and I’d never try it if it wasn’t so urgent.”

Gibbs nodded as if he understood. “But there’s an attack coming, and you need my memories to stop it.”

That was true, actually, although in all the personal drama of the team, McGee had almost forgotten it. “Right. And while I’m trying to bring those back, I might as well try to get the rest back for you too. It won’t add to the risk any. Speaking of the risks, those are - ”

Gibbs held up a hand. “I don’t care. Do it.”

Duty. Willpower. Sacrifice.

McGee’s dad would like Gibbs, he realized, but he also had the surprisingly comforting realization that Gibbs would not like Admiral McGee.

Gibbs looked out for his people in a way Admiral McGee had never quite grasped with his family.

If Gibbs was in his right mind, he would have asked what the risks were for McGee.

But Gibbs wasn’t in his right mind, and no one else knew he was here, so McGee kept those to himself.

He leaned forward and gripped Gibbs’ head between his hands. “Okay. Look at me.”

Gibbs’ determined eyes hit held his, and McGee took a deep breath and said the words he’d been practicing all night. He wasn’t sure what language they were in. He just knew they weren’t the Latin that his father had always preferred.

And then McGee was falling into Gibbs’ mind, an invasion of privacy that he was pretty sure was going to haunt him for the rest of his life.

Minds weren’t neat libraries to wander through. They weren’t houses to put back in order. The books had warned him of that.

One practitioner had compared the experience to an Ancient Egyptian myth in which Ra journeyed through the nightmarish underworld every night in order to bring the sun to the sky. They’d wondered, in fact, if the myth had been inspired by an ancient practitioner describing their experiences and translating the horrors they saw into the monsters Ra supposedly fought.

If that was the case, then McGee was pretty sure that ancient practitioner had toned down the story to make it more appropriate for children because this - This made descriptions of the underworld look like a vacation.

But he marched forward grimly, creating new paths to old memories, until he was sure that he had done enough.

McGee fell back into himself. He felt awful. His head was pounding, and his mouth felt like something had died in it.

He glanced down at the gasping man on the bed. Good grief, was that the man he’d expended so much of himself to help? He hardly looked worth the effort. He should have just let him go off to Mexico. Then McGee would have gotten a long overdue promotion to Senior Field Agent and been one step closer to where he belonged: the top.

For that matter, that half-breed probably would have died pretty soon after Gibbs left, so he might could have jumped to Senior Agent within a month or two. It really was a wasted opportunity.

Clearly, though, he had felt doing this was important. Just because he couldn’t remember why at the moment didn’t mean he had been wrong. In fact, the idea of him being wrong was almost laughable; he was almost never wrong. His reasoning would come back to him eventually, he was sure, and even if it didn’t . . . Well, he’d live far longer than this pathetic man anyway. His magic had seen to that. If he had to wait a few years longer, what was that to him?

“McGee,” Gibbs said in sudden recognition.

“Finally remembered me, have you?” He looked around for some water. There were paper cups, but the pitcher was empty. Ah, well. He summoned some out of humidity in the air and drained the cup.

There was a look in his employer’s eyes that he didn’t recognize. “McGee, are you alright?”

“Headache,” he said shortly. “I suppose I should call the director in to get your statement about the upcoming attack.”

“Alright,” Gibbs said quietly.

McGee was almost out of the room when Gibbs called out again.

“Tim!”

He stopped and glanced back impatiently. “What?”

“Thank you.”

He accepted his due with a dismissive wave and went to call the director.

Dealing with witnesses was more frustrating than he remembered. The crying ones were irritating, and the ones that weren't bawling their eyes out were difficult to read. Were they sad? Angry? Lying? He had no idea. It was like they were speaking a language that he had never learned, and he hated that feeling of ignorance.

His teammates were bewildering and infuriating in equal measure. The vampire had grabbed him into a tight hug the first time he saw her, and he shouted a spell to throw her across the room before he realized it wasn’t an attack.

Abby bounced off the wall and stared at him with a trembling lip. “Timmy?”

The flashcards he’d been studying helped him identify the look as “on the verge of tears,” which was ridiculous since vampires couldn’t cry. “McGee,” he corrected her, “and my . . . apologies. I overreacted.”

“Give him some time, Abbs,” Gibbs advised quietly from behind him, and he had to resist the urge not to jump. When had Gibbs gotten here?

That was far from the only incident. Tony was being far more courteous than memory had suggested he would be, but the looks Tony kept shooting him that Ziva had identified as “guilty” made no sense. He didn’t much care, though, until one such look meant that DiNozzo wasn’t looking where he was going when they were making their way down a muddy hill with the end result that they both ended up skidding down it until they were plastered with cold, slick mud.

Tony winced, putting a hand to his head. “Ouch.” He glanced at McGee. “You alright there?”

McGee pushed himself to his feet and stared down at him coldly. “You’d think that if Gibbs was going to keep a dog, he’d at least get a useful one.” He ignored Tony’s flinch and stalked off. A muttered word had his clothes clean again, but the foul mood that had penetrated his cold reason persisted for the rest of the day.

He left the wolf to deal with the filth, although he regretted that a little when the mud got all over the van’s seats and Tony developed an irritating cough.

Tony ended up missing two days of work. An odd emotion McGee couldn’t quite identify bothered him until Tony got back.

He overheard Ziva telling Tony, “He is like one of those hunters that has seen too much and now cares for nothing but the hunt.”

“He wouldn’t be if I had kept my mouth shut and hadn’t worried him,” Tony said back with more weariness than McGee had ever heard from him. “He’ll get better. Just give him some time.”

“And if he does not?”

“He will,” Gibbs said firmly.

McGee thought about announcing his presence, but he ended up just walking away.

There were many occasions for small workings that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t taken advantage of before, but no major workings were called for in the aftermath of Gibbs’ memory loss. McGee started to feel . . . different.

He found the time to look at a manuscript he’d been working on before he’d dove into Gibbs’ mind. It was almost funny to look at it now; the main character was a wizard who was afraid he’d lose himself in his magic. McGee wasn’t sure what the character was so afraid of. As long as he didn’t break the covenant, he’d be fine.

But he was so surprised by the reminder of how much emotion was described in each of the characters. He’d forgotten how much better at reading emotions he used to be.

Of course, maybe he hadn’t been. Maybe he’d just been making it up. He couldn’t quite remember.

He showed it to Abby, the most emotional person he knew, in an effort to check. “Is this right?” he asked.

Her lip had trembled again as she leafed through it. “Oh, Timmy.”

“The emotions, are they right?” He needed an answer.

She nodded shakily. “Some of your facts aren’t - caffeine interacts with vampires a little differently than with most species, and I’m not sure Tony would approve of you writing about his weaknesses like that - but you got the feelings right.” Her fangs worried at her lower lip, and she spread her arms out. “Hug?”

He didn’t entirely get the appeal, but he gave her one anyway.

It felt better than he was expecting.

By that point, he’d already discovered that his use of the word pathetic in relation to Gibbs was a big mistake. Within a month or two, some of his other thoughts from that first day were bothering him too.

He’d be a better Senior Field Agent than Tony, true, but wishing the man dead was another matter entirely. No, he had hundreds of years to live. He didn’t mind waiting a few more.

Six months in, he started piecing together some of the other things. The team smoothing down feathers that he’d ruffled. Ziva, Tony, and Abby going out of their way to try and keep him happy. Gibbs quietly trying to keep him from using more magic. Ducky’s not at all subtle lectures on the dangers of magic. Palmer’s wide eyed anxiety whenever McGee got too close, but the way he insisted on sticking around and trying to be friendly anyway.

They were trying to help.

He still didn’t feel right. He still couldn’t tell when Tony’s grins were real and when they were for show. Still couldn’t tell when Ziva really didn’t get a local idiom and when she was faking it for humor or to get someone to underestimate her. He still felt distant and irritable.

But he knew what was wrong now. He knew why he’d done what he had. He knew he didn’t regret it.

And he knew he wanted things back the way they were.

He approached the team members one by one with the same message. “I, um, think I owe you an apology.”

To which Ziva said, “Do not worry about it. I am glad to have you back.”

And Palmer said, “Oh, um, you’re fine!”

And Ducky said, “It’s good to see you feeling better, my boy.”

And Gibbs said, “Don’t apologize. It’s a sign of weakness.” He smiled when he said it, though.

Abby didn’t say anything. She just sprang at him with a hug.

Tony was different. Tony said, “Why’d you do it?”

“What, apologize?”

Tony just looked at him. “You know what I meant, McGoo.”

It was the first time Tony had used a nickname on him in months. He wanted to fidget uncomfortably, but he forced himself to stay still and confident. These past few months had been good for that at least.

There were a lot of answers to that question. He could say he had done it for the case, but they both knew that would be a lie. He could say he had done it for Gibbs, and that would be true, or at least partially true. Tony could live with that answer, he was sure, and he’d be smart enough not to tell it to Gibbs, who couldn’t.

He could say he had done it for Tony, but he didn’t want to see the look in Tony’s eyes if he did.

And that answer would only be partially true anyway.

“I did it for the pack,” he said. “For all of us. We need Gibbs, and Gibbs needs us.”

Tony nodded and clapped him on the back. “Welcome back, McGeek.”

That was an answer Tony could accept, after all. A sacrifice for the greater good of the pack. A duty to do what none of the rest of them could.

An answer they could all accept. Even better, it was the truth.

When Sarah showed up two months after that with blood streaming down her hands, McGee’s first thought was, She broke the covenant.

The blood washed off, though, and there were only scars on her hands, not fresh wounds.

McGee stared down at her hands and remembered the day he’d bandaged them. Her face had been covered with angry tears, and she’d kept saying, “I hate him, I hate him, why doesn’t Mom just leave him, I hate him.” He’d kept her calm and quiet, because instead of a screaming match, his parents had descended into icy silence.

He’d never hated their father. He wasn’t sure he had it in him to get that angry without magic poisoning his mind. Sarah had always burned hotter than him.

Maybe hot enough to kill.

Except - She hadn’t broken the covenant. That much was clear. Self-defense, then? Defense of someone else? Or did the blood belong to someone not entirely human?

“It could be animal blood,” Sarah protested when she saw the look on his face.

“That’s almost worse! What would you have been doing with animal blood except blood magic?”

Sarah winced. Blood magic didn’t break the covenant, but it was the kind of nasty that even their father hadn’t wanted to deal with except when it came time for contracts. “No! The only blood magic I know about is that stupid covenant knife.”

“Okay,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Okay, we need to track where the blood came from. That’ll give us a better idea what happened.”

“Okay,” she whispered. “Who’s doing it? You or me?”

That kind of tracking wasn’t a major working, but it wasn’t exactly minor either. He hesitated, torn between protecting his sister and keeping his head clear so that he could help her.

Practicality won out. “You’d better do it,” he finally said. “You’ve got a better head for magic and a stronger connection to the blood.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “And you’re still coming down off a big spell.”

“That too,” he admitted. “I’ll supervise in case we need this as evidence.”

She did the work quickly. She’d always had more of a talent for magic than him, despite how much she hated it.

When she was done, a blood red line traced a path from his apartment to her school’s grounds. A faint blue mark travelled with it.

“Cut the spell,” he said urgently. “Sarah, cut the spell now!”

She slashed her hand through the air and frowned at him. “What was that about?”

He slumped into his chair. “That blue mark means the blood belongs to someone in the Navy.”

She paled even further than she’d been all night but said, “So?”

“So, the Navy has spells that make sure they know whenever someone tries to track one of their people.”

“Oh.” She bit her lip. “Did I cut it in time?”

He didn’t know. There was no way to know. But he had a bad feeling that the answer wasn’t going to be in their favor. “We can’t risk it. We have to call Gibbs.”

“What? No!” She grabbed his arm. “We don’t know what happened yet! What if . . . ”

“Sarah, listen to me. You’re not in breach of the covenant yet or you’d be bleeding already, but if the Navy decides the tracking attempt was hostile, you will be. We have to report this before it gets to that point.”

Sarah looked fearfully at her hands and gave in. “Fine. But I’m grabbing my English book first. I can study while you drive.”

He stared at her in incomprehension but said, “Fine.”

He put his phone on speaker and called Gibbs while they drove.

“Boss, I’m sorry to disturb you at this time of night, but we’ve got a big problem.”

Judging by how quickly Gibbs had picked up the phone and the lack of roughness in his voice, he doubted Gibbs had been sleep despite the late hour. “Talk to me, McGee.”

“I think my sister might have accidentally broken the covenant.”

“Tim,” Sarah whimpered.

He glanced over and saw the liquid seeping out onto her textbook. He gulped. “Scratch that, Boss. I know my sister accidentally broke the covenant. She did a tracking spell without realizing it was on someone from the Navy.”

“I’ll make some calls,” Gibbs said immediately. “Get them to postpone invoking the magic. Why was she using a tracking spell?”

McGee was already breathing a little easier. Gibbs hadn’t even known he had a sister before tonight, but he was already working to make things better. “It’s complicated. Can I explain when I get there?”

“Do what you need to do.” The call cut out.

McGee looked over at Sarah. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and she was silently crying. He reached over with one hand and rubbed her back. “Hey. It’ll be alright. Gibbs will take care of it.”

If McGee was sure of anything, he was sure of that.

The case was long and difficult. His sister’s scattered memory didn’t help things.

“I could go in and try to clear it up,” he offered in desperation.

“Tim, no,” she said instantly. “That’s a major working.”

“I’ve done it before.”

“Is that what you’re recovering from? Tim, if you did another one right now, you might never come back. No!”

Gibbs poked his head into the interrogation room. “I’m with her,” he said, jerking his head toward Sarah. “Especially since Abby has news.”

Abby bounced into the room. “So I tasted the blood sample you gave me.”

Sarah leaned back. “You what?”

“It’s a valid forensic technique if it’s performed by someone properly certified and if there’s enough for other experts to verify,” Tim assured her.

“Which I am, and there is. And the result is - Drumroll, please - ”

“Abby!”

“Right, sorry, Gibbs. Sarah, you were drugged.”

“I was? But those other tests you ran - ”

Abby waved a hand. “Not sensitive enough. I, on other hand, am, and I was inspired by what I tasted to track down another sample in a bit of vomit left in the taxi cab.” She wrinkled her nose. “Which was unpleasant, but it confirmed my results. Working off the assumption that you were dosed at the food court, Ziva and Tony used the security footage to trace the guilty party, and now we just gotta go pick ‘em up!”

They got the girl and cleared the case up. Sarah had been trying to stop the victim’s bleeding, not hurt him.

That didn’t stop Sarah from staring at her hands like they possessed the secret to life.

“I think I’m going to get my magic blocked,” she told Tim abruptly as he drove her back to her dorm.

He slammed on the brakes. “What? You know what the side effects to that are!”

“Just for a month or two so I can break the habit of using it.” She was still looking at her hands. “If I don’t use it at all, I won’t run the risk of the covenant being turned on me again.”

Tim slowly started the car again. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I don’t want this to ever happen again.”

“The odds of someone drugging your peanut butter again are so low as to be ridiculous.”

“You know what I meant.”

He did.

“Maybe you should try it, Tim.”

He shook his head. “I’m happy for you. I am. But you haven’t seen what it’s like with NCIS. They need people like me.”

“Just think about it, okay?”

He nodded. He didn’t think he could avoid thinking about it if he tried.

Years passed. He kept his balance on the high wire that was wizardry. He was happy.

Then his father showed up.

His father was exactly as he remembered him. Cold. Arrogant. What little compassion ha had left was poured into the staff around him instead of what family he had left.

Tim couldn’t think of anyone he would have wanted to embroiled in a case less.

His father took one look at Tim’s relatively easy manner with his teammate and his lip curled. “I see you haven’t kept up with your studies, Tim.” He turned to Gibbs, who’d been interrogating him. “Tim never had any real head for magic. He’s got the talent coming out of his ears, but he lacks the willpower to really use it. One big spell and he thinks he’s the next Mordred.”

“Yeah, well, it seems to be the curse of this family,” Tim said bitterly. “I can’t hold my magic, Sarah can’t hold her drink, and you can’t hold on to your family.”

His father sighed and shook his head. “This is all your mother’s fault, you know. She was always so unreasonable about you and Sarah becoming productive members of society. It gave you strange ideas.”

“Sarah’s a teacher now,” McGee told him tightly. “She’s helping inner city kids. She hasn’t used magic in years now.”

For the first time, his father looked disturbed. Gibbs leaped on the opportunity.

Later, Gibbs pulled him aside. “You alright?”

“I will be.”

Gibbs squeezed his shoulder. “Whatever your father thinks, you’re doing good work, Tim.”

The words filled an old empty space inside him.

They solved the case. McGee almost wished they hadn’t.

His father was cursed. Dark magic was eating him from the inside out.

“I can resist its urgings, but the covenant will realize the contagion within a year,” his father said calmly. “Sooner, probably, since it came out in the course of the case. Once the covenant recognizes the danger, it won’t take long for it to bleed me dry.”

“Do the others know?” Tim asked. His voice sounded strangely distant.

His father shook his head. “I suppose I should tell them. I wouldn’t like them to think I broke the covenant of my own will.”

“You could stay with me. If you wanted,” McGee said haltingly. “We could try to find something more to be done.”

“I would have to give up magic,” his father said. “I have given up too much to do that now.” His father patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. “Perhaps it is not such a waste that you and your sister chose not to fully embrace your gifts after all.”

High Wizard McGee was reported dead three months later. The announcement said only that it had been in the course of duty. Tim had to be the one to tell his mother and sister why.

Ziva left. Bishop came.

McGee updated his lists of magic and technology and wondered if maybe he was strong enough now to what he couldn’t then.

Delilah was wonderful. He fell head over heels in love with her and the way she made the world seem real and present instead of distant and full of holes.

Sitting with her in the bright lights of a restaurant, he could forget the shadows that lurked waiting in the world.

And then the shadows took her, and by the time he got her back, her back was broken and she would never walk again.

“I can fix it,” he told her. He’d stayed up till the early hours of the morning for weeks, and he was finally confident that he could do the spell. “I can help you walk again.”

She read through the papers he’d gathered for her perusal, and it didn’t take long for her forehead to crease with a frown. “Tim, this is a major working. What kind of effect would it have on you?”

“I can handle it,” he insisted.

“If I called Sarah and asked for a second opinion, would she say the same thing?” she challenged.

“Yes,” he said instantly.

“You’re lying.”

Delilah was pure human, but she could spot a lie faster than some truth seers he knew.

“It would have a cost,” he admitted. “But I’d get over it eventually, and it would be worth it.”

“If I could be sure you’d come down from the magic high, maybe it would be,” she admitted. “But what if you didn’t? There are never any guarantees, Tim. What if you broke the covenant while your mind was still messed up? What if someone on your team got hurt because you weren’t all there? I’d never forgive myself.”

“It’s my choice,” he told her.

She set her jaw. “Offering was your choice. Accepting is mine. And I’m turning you down. We can save up for a healer if we think the money’s worth it, but you’re not doing it.”

“The money is definitely worth it,” he told her.

The quiet donations from the rest of the team said that they agreed.

Delilah turning his offer down just made the persistent question louder.

Was his magic worth it?

The sudden increases in Challenges he participated in after Gibbs had to start being more careful said yes.

The fact that Gibbs, perfectly human Gibbs, had fought so well for so long said no. Franks similarly successful career said no. Ziva’s career as a hunter said no. Ducky’s steely survival in the face of incredible odds and a very long life said no.

As he was now, he wasn’t prepared to just drop it. But if he prepared - If he got stronger -

Maybe.

Gibbs accepted his request for more hand to hand lessons with no questions. Tony also agreed to his request, although he had lots of questions. Tim dodged most of them, but the thoughtful look Tony got said that the former detective had pieced some of it together.

“Ziva’s going to be in town for a visit,” he said casually. “Why don’t you ask her for some pointers with knives?”

Tim took him up on that.

A lot of anti-magic websites described it as a drug. Tim wasn’t quite sure he agreed with that as most illegal drugs were supposed to make you feel good, but he thought it might be best to consult with a doctor about quitting it all the same.

And by doctor, of course, he meant Ducky.

Ducky listened to his explanation without judgement before nodding approvingly. “I see. Well, let’s take a look at you then, shall we, my boy? Magic has a tendency to leave its mark.”

A few blood tests, a brain scan done by a friend of Ducky’s at the hospital, and a curious instrument being held to his heart later, Ducky had some answers for him.

“Prolonged magic use can have permanent effects on the structure of the brain,” Ducky informed him. “Because you started during your formative years, it has indeed had some effects there, but nothing you’re not already aware of and living with. It will make quitting harder, but I can monitor you if you wish to get a block for a few months to make quitting ‘cold turkey’ as they say, easier. You know, the origins of the phrase are really quite interesting - ”

“Ducky.”

“Ah, yes. There are a few more questions to answer before we can get to that. The other major concern, of course, is that of your lifespan. Wizards, like most of magic’s playthings, are inclined to live forever. Combat or contract cut short their lives, not old age. Even after you desist your usage of magic, it will linger in your blood and prolong your lifespan. How much it will is difficult to say. I, for instance, have lingered for a few centuries now.”

McGee blinked. “Wait. You’re an ex-wizard?”

Ducky looked at him in surprise. “Oh, yes.”

“Does Gibbs know?”

Ducky snorted. “I should think so, after all the trouble we’ve gotten into together. Really, Timothy, I’m not sure why you’re so surprised.”

Thinking back on some of the books he’d seen Ducky with, he wasn’t sure why he was surprised either. Maybe it was because the man so clearly lacked the arrogant apathy that marked older wizards.

“In any case, I doubt you’ll last quite so long. I practiced magic for quite a considerable length of time and in far greater quantities than you have. Still, you, Anthony, and Eleanor could quite easily still be working together a century from now. Oh, and dear Abigail and Palmer, of course. I suspect I’ll have shuffled off this mortal coil by then, but you never know.”

McGee tried to wrap his mind around this and quickly decided he’d rather not.

“I suspect you’ll want to have a desk job by then, though,” Ducky mused.

That didn’t really make it any better.

“Was it worth it?” he asked. “Giving it up?”

“Oh, yes. Of course, at the time I thought using the magic was worth it too, but when my mother gave it up, I felt obligated to follow. I still had a bit loyalty left in me, you see. The Sidhe Wars had hammered in the importance of that.”

“You fought in the Sidhe Wars?” Tim yelped. “Those were thousands of years ago!”

“Well, perhaps I’ve lingered for more than a few centuries, at that,” Ducky conceded. “You must understand, time gets a little muddled after a while.” He patted McGee on the shoulder. “Does that tell you what you need to know, my boy?”

“I think so,” he said weakly. “Ah. Do you have any recommendations on where to get that block?”

The block made everything stand out with bright, painful sharpness, and it threw his emotions for a sickening loop.

The good news was, the pain drove him to finish his book so that he’d have a distraction in the late hours of the night. Sales from its publication pushed them over the edge of what they needed to get an appointment with a healer.

Delilah rolled herself into the hospital.

She walked back out.

"Huh," Tony said the day the block went off.

"What?" McGee asked defensively.

"I can smell you now. You know, Abby got it pretty close. Take out the magic, add Delilah's perfume . . . Speaking of which, guess you won't need your own perfume anymore."

"It wasn't perfume!"

Getting married to Delilah was like a dream. Finding out she was pregnant a year later was even more so.

He announced the news still in a daze. Abby’s squeals and Palmer’s congratulations weren’t unexpected, but he hadn’t quite anticipated the full warmth of Gibbs’ smile, or the quiet longing in Bishop’s eyes.

He definitely hadn’t anticipated Tony whooping, “New younglings for the pack!”

“One young- baby. One baby,” he stressed. “And he - or she - isn’t joining NCIS.”

Tony threw an arm around his shoulder. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

Palmer patted him consolingly on the back. “Just think of it as free babysitting.”

Looking around at the squad room, McGee figured out pretty quick that Tony wasn’t the only one happy to help.

Six months later, he looked down at a beautiful baby girl while the nurse bustled into the room with the results of the quick scan they’d run.

“Congratulations,” she told him and Delilah in a bubbling voice. “Your child has a high potential to learn magic!”

McGee looked at Delilah. They had discussed this possibility. She gave a firm nod.

McGee took the papers from the nurse and efficiently ripped them to shreds.