Chapter 150: Call Out
Sunday morning, Gibbs eased the door to the McGee house
open. It's unlocked, and right now he was wishing those two hadn't decided to
mimic him on that. Tim and Abby's cell phones are both on the little table near
the door, and he can see Tim's showing the four calls they've given him.
Gun out, he scans the downstairs, looking right and left for
signs of trouble, but he's not seeing anything. Gibbs holsters his gun. He's
rapidly coming to the conclusion that phone on the front table, and Tim and
Abby upstairs in bed probably means Tim didn't hear the call.
Now what? Part of him just wants to find a convenient chunk
of wall and pound on it until Tim shows up. Part of him knows that if Tim's
sleeping, Abby is too, and while she will have to show up at the lab, she
doesn't need to get there for at least three hours, and he doesn't want to cut
into her sleep. She's tired enough as is without him waking her up early.
They're all tired. He doesn't think anyone on his team has
slept well for almost two weeks now. But the rest of the team is still holding
themselves together pretty well because they don't have tsunami-sized waves of
hormones sloshing around their systems.
Tired, pregnant, mood-swingy Abby sobbing in her lab because
something reminded her of Jonathon is something he'd really prefer to avoid.
Which means he needs to go upstairs.
To their bedroom. With them in it. I.E. the last place on
earth he wants to be at this particular moment in time.
Great.
He heads up quietly. Last thing he wants to do is get shot
by Tim because he thinks the footfalls on his steps are a burglar. Gibbs was up
there right before the wedding, so he knows which room is theirs. Top of the
steps all the way down the hall on the right.
The door is open. Makes sense, not much reason to close it
when it's just the two of you.
He pokes his head in fast, if too much of Abby is visible,
he's going back downstairs, getting Tim's phone, tossing it in the room, and
then calling.
But they're under the blanket, spooned together, Tim on the
outside, wrapped around her, their legs tangled together.
He eases in quietly and pokes what he's hoping is Tim's
foot.
Tim jerks, looks around fast, sees Gibbs and relaxes, though
Gibbs tenses up when his brain realizes what he's seeing on Tim.
"What are you doing in my bedroom?" he asks
quietly, sounding confused.
"Call out. You didn't answer your phone."
Tim rubs his face and then winces when he does it.
"Okay, I'm up."
Gibbs stands there, waiting, eyes wide, wondering what the
hell happened to Tim. Tim doesn't move. This last for about thirty seconds
before Tim says, still quietly, "Remember that peep show comment from
Lejeune?" Gibbs turns and heads out of their room. He's halfway out the
door when Tim adds, "Put some coffee on when you're down there."
Gibbs nods and heads downstairs, shaking his head. Why it is
out of all his team members only Kate could be relied on to wear pajamas?
As he's rummaging around in their kitchen, he wonders why
Tim's got a black eye and some really ugly fresh bruises on his shoulders,
arms, and chest. He's really hoping Tim didn't flip out and beat the hell out
of someone, because judging by how bad he's looking, that someone is really
likely to press charges.
But that can't be it, because there's no way Abby wouldn't
have called him if something like that had happened. And for that matter, he
really doubts Tim wouldn't have called him if that had been up.
No way to know now, so he lets it go, and finds the coffee,
scoffs at the decaf in his hands, there's no point to coffee if it's decaf, and
then sets up Tim's machine to brew.
Seven minutes later, Tim is downstairs, dressed, shaved, and
except for the black-eye, looking fairly professional. His hair's a bit messier
than normal, but not unreasonable. He takes the coffee from Gibbs, sucking it
down fast.
"Sorry, Jethro, looks like we can't hear the phone from
the upstairs. It'll go on my dresser from now on."
Gibbs nods.
"What are we called out for?"
"Dead Marine outside of Quantico."
Tim grabs a bagel, writes a quick note for Abby on the
whiteboard on the fridge, and says, "Let's go."
They're in the car when Tim says, "Thanks for not
waking her up."
Gibbs nods. "Do I want to know how bad the other guy
looks?"
"Eh?"
Really, you're gonna play dumb with me? Gibbs' look
said.
"Jimmy'll be fine."
That shocks Gibbs badly enough that he pulls the car over,
stops it, and turns toward Tim. "You got into a fight with Palmer? What
the hell happened?"
Tim holds up a placating hand. "Nothing like that. He
was telling me about how angry he was, and how there was nothing to be angry
at, nothing to hit."
"So you volunteered to let him hit you?" Gibbs is
so shocked he's sounding almost flustered. "I know you don't spend a lot
of time in the gym, but the large bags hanging from the ceiling are there so
people can hit them!"
Tim rolls his eyes. "He'd get bored with a punching
bag, or his mind would wander because it wouldn't hold his attention. He needed
something to get himself out of his head. Actually fighting does that.
Otherwise, I would have suggested using a punching bag, I mean, this isn't precisely
comfortable, and getting like this was a hell of a lot less comfortable."
Gibbs stares at him, and Tim's not sure if that look is
admiration for stepping up for his friend or scorn for being so stupid about
it. He does know that once he got Abby calmed down, which took some doing,
(having told her he was in bad shape, and her actually seeing him were two very
different things) and explained (again) what had happened (and why) she had an
awfully similar look on her face.
"What do you do when you're really angry, Jethro? One
of three things, right? Drink, fuck, or fight. He can't drink, not enough.
Diabetes means getting more than buzzed is a bad plan for him. Even if he felt
like it, and I really doubt he does, fucking's out for at least the next two-three
weeks, maybe longer. But I could fight with him. So we went six rounds, and by
the time we were done a lot of his anger was burned off. Maybe not the best way
to handle it, but we'll both heal up, and at least as of Friday night, he
seemed to be doing a little better."
Gibbs takes Tim's left hand and turns it so he can see how
bad he hurt himself, purple-green bruises decorated split knuckles. "No
gloves?"
"This isn't something either of us ever does. We don't
have gloves. And no, we didn't have tape, either. Or face gear."
"You can see okay out of that eye?"
"I'm fine. Just sore."
"Jimmy's okay?"
"The only things you can see are the split lip and his
hands."
"You split his lip?"
Tim's really tempted to roll his eyes again. "I wasn't
trying to. I'm not Ziva. This isn't something I'm very good at. I meant to get
his shoulder, he dodged into my hand, and I couldn't pull it in time. I think
that's how he got my eye, too. We weren't trying to hurt each other. He just
needed someone to fight it out with, so I did it."
Gibbs nods at that. "You've been a good friend to
Jimmy. And now I'm going to be a good dad, to both of you. Every Sunday from
now until your daughter is on the outside, both of you are spending an hour
training with me. It's been eight years since I've seen you in the gym for any
combat training, and if you're accidently splitting Jimmy's lip, you're too
rusty. If he's accidentally hitting you in the eye, same thing."
"Errr…" Ending up with even less free time was not
how Tim had hoped this would work out.
"Both of you need to be in good enough shape to put the
Fear of Dad into future boyfriends, so training starts on Sunday. And you're
spending an hour with him at the range every week until he's as good as you are
with a pistol."
"Ever since he got kidnapped, he hasn't wanted to have
anything to do with a real gun."
"He might feel differently about it now. And even if he
doesn't, he still needs to know how to use one."
Tim shrugs, and winces, his ribs are pretty sore and that
motion hurts. "Could we maybe start this the Sunday after next, when Jimmy
and I won't still be eating handfuls of Advil every four hours?"
Gibbs shakes his head. "I'll take it easy on you the
first week."
"Great."
"McGee, are you all right?"
"What on earth happened to you!" Ziva sounded
really concerned, while Tony sounded shocked.
"I'm fine." Which was as far as he got before
Jimmy and Ducky showed up with the gurney.
"Palmer did you…" Tony was probably going to ask
something like, 'see what happened to McGee,' but he turned to look at Jimmy,
saw the split lip, his chin and jaw had bruised up to go with it, as well as
bruised hands and said, "Did both of you go out, get drunk, and beat the
hell out of someone at a bar?"
"No, Tony, they didn't." Ziva walked over to
Jimmy, stared at the bruises on his face, her finger just ghosting over it.
"That was done by someone's left hand." And then went to Tim and
stared at his eye, looking like she knew exactly how tall the person who hit
him was just from the bruise. "Do you want to explain this?"
Tim shrugged and looked to Jimmy, his expression letting
Jimmy know that he'll keep this as private as Jimmy wants. (Gibbs excepted.
Tim's personal rule number one means Gibbs is always excepted.)
Jimmy shrugged, too. "Tim let me fight out my anger. I
needed it. He was there. Do you need more than that?"
"Nope," Tony said very quickly. He knows that
expression, knows that tone of voice, and knows that's a man who doesn't want
to get into whatever it is.
Ziva nodded at him. "If you ever need it, I am here,
too."
Jimmy closed his eyes and manages a bit of a smile for her.
"Thanks, but Ziva, I can't hit you. I know you're tough. I know you're a
better fighter than I am. I know you can kill a man with a bar of soap. But
you're still a girl, and I can't hit you."
She smiled at him, hoping a little gentle kidding goes over
well. "Jimmy, the reason you cannot hit me is because I'm too fast for
you."
"That too."
"Seriously, though. I'm good enough at this neither of
us will get hurt, and you'll still get a good work out." She stepped
closer to him, and said quietly, "And if you do need to hit, to land the
punches, and to take them in return, I know how to do that and not visibly harm
you, and how to not let you hit anything important. Neither you nor McGee can
afford to damage your hands or eyes."
"Thanks." He hugged Ziva quickly before hurrying
after Ducky.
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