Work Text:
Jess sees straight through Nick’s excuse of wanting to drive back to the Navy Yard with Parker because his music taste is better (she’s heard him complain much more loudly about their bosses music than her own) but they all see the same look in McGee’s eye so she doesn’t argue too much.
Not that she really understands why Nick thinks she’s the best person for the job of ‘make sure McGee is okay’. Tim doesn’t really open up to her – he’s never had much reason to.
Parenting things he goes to Jimmy or Vance for, job things he goes to Vance or Parker, family things he’s more likely to talk to Nick or call one of his old team – she’s heard plenty about Tony and Ziva over the last year, knows he still calls Gibbs regularly and she’s even heard the odd story about a Jack Sloane in Afghanistan – than talk to her.
And she gets it, he’s Senior Field Agent and likes to keep a sense of calm and control at work, she’s only been on the team a few months longer than Parker, he has people he’s closer too.
But, Torres seems to think she’s the best person for the job, so she doesn’t fight it.
Instead, she settles in the car and passes him her phone so he can choose the music. It’s not a surprise when he clicks on her carefully curated soundtrack playlist; it’s their go-to whenever they’re driving somewhere together.
Films are a safe topic, an easy way to bond without pressure of small talk which… neither of them are really a fan of. They stick mostly to sci-fi – superheroes, star trek, he’s even been trying to get her into Doctor Who – with a few animes thrown in too, some that he already knows, others that she’s gradually introducing him to.
Usually, he talks her through the pieces, explaining recurring motifs, the subtleties of character themes, pinpointing exactly what would be happening on the screen if it were in front of them.
It’s truly nerdy. And that’s what she loves about it. While her inner nerd is a little more hidden than McGee’s, it’s definitely there and she enjoys the opportunity to let it out for a run on occasion.
Today however, he’s silent.
At first occasional taps of his hand against his leg in time to the beats or a hummed note let her know that he’s still listening but eventually even those little reassurances come to a stop.
Pulling up at a red light, she turns properly to look at him and her concern deepens exponentially: his shoulders are hunched, his only movement is a subtle twisting of his fingers into the material of his pants and he’s staring vacantly out the front window, a blank look on his face.
“McGee?” she asks softly, not wanting to startle him.
There’s no reply, not a single sign that he may have heard her.
“McGee?” she tries again a little louder, “Tim?”
This time he lets out a slight hum in the back of his throat, a sign that he can at least hear her, even if he won’t or – as she suspects – can’t reply verbally.
Frowning, Jess pulls off the intersection and into a truck stop, weighing her options.
She does know, theoretically, how to get someone out of dissociation but there are so many different techniques and everyone reacts so differently; she doesn’t want to accidentally make him worse if she can possibly avoid it.
So, who does she know who would know what to do in this situation?
Delilah is the obvious answer but Jess is reluctant to poke at the strain in their relationship just now.
Jimmy might know, as might Nick. But she can also see McGee not allowing himself to be this vulnerable around even them, he’s always struck her as someone who feels the need to protect everyone from himself.
Which leaves Gibbs. And while she does technically have his number, there’s no guarantee he’ll have signal and honestly the idea of calling him for this feels more awkward than anything else.
So that brings her right back to Delilah.
Another glance over to McGee with no obvious change in him makes up her mind. She picks up her phone and clicks on the right contact, Delilah picks up after a few rings.
“Jess? Is everything okay?”
The concern is clear in her voice; understandable as the two of them don’t exactly have a precedent for calling each other for casual chats.
“Uh, hi Delilah. I’m… not sure.”
“Is Tim okay?”
“He’s not in any danger,” she reassures quickly at the hint of urgency in her voice, “he’s in the car with me now but, he’s not really responding to anything. I think… he’s dissociated.”
“Crap.”
The curse is muffled down the phone before Delilah’s voice becomes clearer again, completely sure and in control, putting practicality above anything else she might be feeling.
“You need to get him talking.”
Jess takes a breath, “About what?”
“Anything he responds to. He’s lost in his own mind so start him there.”
“Do you want me to put you on to him?”
“No.”
Jess pauses at how resolute her voice is.
“Speaking to a disembodied voice just makes it worse, it’s disorientating for him. When he’s like this he actually begins to talk about himself, what he’s thinking, start there and persuade him out. Are you going to be able to do that?”
She takes another breath. She’s had training for this – the golden rule of negotiation? Get them talking.
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
The relief is clear in Delilah’s voice.
“Don’t touch him, that makes it worse.”
“No touching. Get him talking. Got it.”
“And Jess? Text me when he’s okay again.”
Hearing the worry pierce back through the shield of calm and collected, Jess quickly reassures, “Of course,” before hanging up and taking another breath.
She’s done this hundreds of times but it feels different than it had with REACT. Maybe it’s because she knows Tim, maybe it’s because she hadn’t been expecting to have to navigate a crisis on the short drive back to the Navy Yard, maybe it’s just because it’s been a while.
But, she can do this.
“You know, Tim,” she starts, light and conversational, “this is very strange for me, seeing you like this. I’m so used to Senior Field Agent Timothy McGee, second only to Gibbs or Parker or sometimes even Vance, shoo-in for the Director’s chair-“ she’s not used to seeing him this out of control- “but you’ve been at NCIS for so many years, you must have been only a young agent when you joined. What was that like?”
There’s a long pause with no signal of a reply from McGee.
Okay, maybe that question had been a bit large for an opener. She’s sure that once she gets him talking, it’ll be okay, it’s just the first words.
“How long have you been an NCIS Agent, Tim?” she tries instead.
This time the pause is accompanied by McGee working his jaw and swallowing several times then, “Nearly twenty years. I graduated FLETC in 2003.”
His voice is rough and distant but still very much there and Jess has to hold in her sigh of relief.
“Oh wow,” chuckling lightly, she comments, “not to make you feel old, but I was only nineteen then-“ it looks like the joke lands flat on its face but Jess chooses to believe that somewhere deep in his mind, McGee finds that amusing- “when did you join Gibbs’ team?”
“A year later. I was assigned to Norfolk Naval Base but I helped them out on a few cases then Gibbs got me transferred.”
“You were still a probie then?”
“Yes. And even when I became a full field agent, Tony still called me Probie, right up until Ziva became an NCIS agent. I spent months hoping she’d come back home to us…”
The words he’s saying don’t match the lack of emotion in his voice but Jess doesn’t let it unnerve her, instead asking, “Ziva David was a probie?”
All the stories she’s heard imply that David was nothing less than a highly skilled badass, not a green probie.
“At NCIS yes. She started off as Mossad liaison but she realised who her family was in the end. So, she became an American citizen and an NCIS Probationary Officer who was technically below me in rank even though she could have killed me easily with just her little finger,” the tiniest hint of a smile plays at the corners of his lips, “I looked up to her. And Tony and Kate too, they all gave me hell but I knew they cared. They were like older siblings to me, even guiding me at times.”
She watches as a flexing begins in his hands, a conscious curling and uncurling of his fingers over his knees as she lets him talk, listening carefully to the tales of nostalgia told as if he’s actually being transported back to that time.
“It was strange when Bishop came and suddenly there was someone looking up to me like that, especially someone who already has so many brothers,” he blinks a few times in quick succession, “then again, some people are just closer to their work families than their biological ones.”
“Which are you closest to?” she asks, this time being rewarded by him turning his head to face her, eyes still a little unseeing but voice stronger as he twists his fingers into his pant legs.
“My family’s morphed over the years. When I joined the team my mom had already passed and I was no-contact with my dad so it was just me and my sister and my grandmother, Penny, but she’s always travelled. The team became my family, Gibbs became like a father to me, more so that my own dad ever was really-” his voice is warming up, his eyes gaining a slight shine- “you know, I was the greenest probie the NCIS MCRT has ever seen? I had no idea what I was doing but Gibbs seemed to see something in me and it was him who made sure it came out. Even if it did take years.”
He gives a small chuckle and Jess finds herself smiling too.
“Then Delilah came along and we worked with her on enough cases that she sort of joined the team, my friends became her friends, Gibbs became like a father – he was even her man of honour when we got married,” glancing down, his gaze lands on his wedding band then shifts across to where his watch sits, “that was when he gave me this, the watch his mother gave his father when they got married, which his father gave him on his own wedding day-” he begins to work it off his wrist, flipping it over and rubbing his finger over the back- “said there was no one else he’d rather give it to and that meant more to me than anything else.”
As he moves his finger aside, Jess sees that she’s not the only one who has an engraved watch with a message just for herself.
Breathe, Tim.
But this isn’t a message from Tim to himself – at least, she doesn’t think so. No, this is a message from Gibbs to, for all intents and purposes, his son.
She can almost see him following the instructions, running his fingers over the leather of the strap as he takes a few deep, deliberate breaths.
“He saw you as his son just as much as you saw him as your father,” she reassures him gently, “I could tell that just from the little I saw.”
From his sharp intake of breath, she gets the sense that maybe he’s gone from feeling nothing to feeling everything in a relatively short time, his emotions taking him by surprise with their strength.
Shooting her a shaky smile, he continues, “So, I still have my sister, but she has her own life and people, I have extended family and Delilah’s family too. But my true family?” his smile takes on this genuine soft quality- “that’s my team, past and present.”
She feels a sense of soft warmth at the way he includes the current team so easily. In the same way that she was with her REACT team for so long and they were there for her right from when she came to them, fresh out of FLETC, in a way she can’t explain, Tim’s past team were that for him.
But, however much other people or teams have meant to them, the current MCRT is part of their family, both of them.
“People I was with for years who may only be legend to you, Tony, Ziva, Abby… Kate-” for just a moment, she sees the depth of sadness and loss in his eyes- “Vance and Gibbs who pushed me to be the person I am today. Hell, I even went to Vance’s for thanksgiving this year, if that doesn’t say family then I don’t know what does,” he chuckles, “Ducky, who was always just there. Bishop… I really cared about her you know.”
That’s something that Jess had seen the impact of, possibly not to the full extent that it happened (in fact, definitely not, with the way McGee keeps everything to himself and it had taken her too long to notice Torres drowning himself in a bottle) but enough to know how truly special Bishop had been.
Hell, she knows how special Ellie had been. Even though they hadn’t worked together long, she’d been there for Jess.
“And my current team,” he continues with a smile, “Nick never stopped looking for a moment when Gibbs and I were in Paraguay. Kasie, there’s no one else I’d rather have on my side. Parker, I think he’s just about getting the concept of team as family,” smiling, she hums in agreement, “and Jimmy, he first started at NCIS about the same time I did, he’s been the only true constant and what a constant he is, there’s no bigger heart on any human anywhere.”
She can’t disagree with that for a moment.
“Then there’s you. Jessica Knight,” he looks straight at her and she can see the sparkle back in his eye, “you came to us like anyone who ever joins NCIS MCRT, as someone who needed a place to be.”
The emotion wells up inside of her. It had felt like her life was in tatters when she’d joined the team but they’d helped her more than she thinks she’ll ever be able to tell them.
Their presence had created a sense of normalcy that she’d desperately needed.
“Even so, the team when you joined, we were a bit of a mess-” he gives a smile that looks like it was born in pain and loss- “Bishop leaving, Gibbs leaving. Sloane had only left a few months before. We didn’t really know where we stood as a team. Everything’s more settled now but still, you impressed me Jess,” his hand reaches out, resting gently on her shoulder, “you stepped in and you stepped up and you were tough even with all the hurt – you still are.”
Jess generally isn’t one for massive amounts of physical contact – not in the way that Nick is for example, always leaning against his friends, patting them on the back, ruffling their hair – but neither is Tim.
Which might be why this understated contact works for her in this moment, effectively communicating just how deeply he feels and believes his words.
“Like you said, families grow,” she replies simply, not quite sure how he’s still managed to find a way to bring this back around to him supporting her. Seriously, she looks at him, “you know you don’t need to protect me from yourself, right? I look out for you just as much as you look out for me.”
Dropping his gaze, Tim busies himself by putting his watch back on as he nods and clears his throat.
“It takes a lot for me to open up like this,” he comments, voice falsely casual, “there are precious few who have managed it.”
All she’d done is listened.
But then again, maybe Nick had sent McGee with her because that’s what she can do: listen.
“Then I’m privileged,” she replies sincerely, surreptitiously checking her watch, “look why don’t you take another minute,” Tim looks like he might protest so she quickly continues, “and you know, I’d love to hear more about these people – your family. I’ve been curious for a while but I know these things bring up memories and I don’t want to press on something accidentally.”
“There are some painful memories wrapped up in it all but there are plenty of good times too,” he answers honestly, shooting her a wry look, “and moments of quiet between all the torture, explosions, emotional turmoil and near-death experiences.”
And loss.
“Sometimes I do wonder why we do what we do,” she admits quietly.
Tim meets her gaze, calming smile back on his face with the usual juxtaposing serious twinkle dancing in his eye, “Because everything good and worth-while in our lives is linked just as closely to our jobs as all the bad stuff is.”