Catalyst 3/?

[emerald_green37]

 

 

The dryer was running by the time Gibbs made it down the stairs. He found McGee tightly gripping the sides of the dryer, staring down at the top. Quietly, he stepped up behind the other man and wrapped his arms around his waist before pressing his lips against the back of his neck. "Some of those scars are recent."

 

Tim dropped his head and sighed. "You're not going to let this go, are you?"

 

"It's not in your medical records and it's too major to be missed in your pre-hire physical. Plus the age of the scars, it happened after you joined the Agency, didn't it?"

 

Still staring at the top of the dryer, Tim silently nodded.

 

"After you joined my team?"

 

Another nod and Gibbs tightened his grip on the younger man. "Why didn't you come to me? You should have come to me."

 

"I couldn't, you were a suspect."

 

"What?" Gibbs stiffened and moved back, dropping his arms to his side. "You thought I..."

 

"No." Tim turned around, the ache in his heart obvious on his face. "No, never, but I wasn't able to give a statement at first." He looked around, this wasn't the kind of conversation to have in a laundry room. "Do you have any bourbon up here?"

 

"Yeah, the good stuff is in the kitchen." Gibbs led him out of the laundry room and a few minutes later they were sitting across from each other at the kitchen table, a glass of Gibbs' best bourbon in front of each of them.

 

McGee raised his glass to his mouth, not enough to take a swallow, but enough to taste it on his lips. "Do you remember when Tony got the plague?"

 

"Kinda hard to forget that, McGee."

 

Continuing on as if Gibbs hadn't said anything, Tim explained further. "When the case was over and Morrow stood the entire team down for a week, you were on your way to the hospital to see Tony. I said I'd go later and you got kinda pissed at me."

 

"Yeah, it really wasn't you." Gibbs hadn't really thought about taking out his frustrations on McGee that day in the underground garage. He'd always assumed that McGee knew that.

 

"I know, Boss, and normally I'd have gone with you, but my sister was waiting for me to pick her up from the airport." Tim gave his first smile since Gibbs had asked him about the scars, then turned serious again. "If you'd looked in your rear view mirror, you'd have seen me getting jumped."

 

Gibbs closed his eyes for a moment trying to remember. He'd been frustrated and tired, their conversation interrupted by a group from the legal department walking past them, plus several other people.

 

Seeing the reaction on Gibbs' face, Tim nodded and continued. "He... he was one of the security guards. Ted Patterson, I'd been tutoring his son for a few months. Walked past us while we were talking, and then after you left he came up behind me and hit me across the back of my head with his nightstick. I don't even remember hitting the ground. The next thing I knew I'd been dragged around the corner, my gun was gone and he was tearing my pants off of me."

 

"That bastard sexually assaulted you?" Gibbs had such a tight grip on his glass that his knuckles were white.

 

"No, he..." This time Tim took a larger sip of the bourbon. "He kept saying that he didn't want any fags around his kids, that balls were a waste on a fag."

 

The scars suddenly made sick sense. "He tried to castrate you." Just the thought made him take a healthy swig of his drink, needing the burn.

 

"Yeah. He'd have been successful, too, but a couple of the people that heard us arguing came back. It was enough of a distraction that I was able to kick him before I passed out again. He ran, but they heard the commotion and found me."

 

Gibbs knew what had happened next. "Group of witnesses heard us arguing, came back a few minutes later to find you unconscious and bloodied, I instantly became suspect number one." He took another gulp of the bourbon. "Why wasn't I arrested?"

 

"Morrow was already being vetted for the position at Homeland Security. The scandal would have ended his chances before he got his first official interview. I was sent to a private hospital and all the evidence went to a private lab. You were under surveillance, but Director Morrow made the decision to not move until they had solid evidence or I was able to make a statement. Patterson hadn't exactly thought any of it through, so it didn't take too long to put the pieces together. My understanding is that he was arrested the next day."

 

"Instead of me."

 

"Yeah, instead of you."

 

Gibbs felt like his head was spinning as he tried to grasp what had happened behind his back. "Did Patterson ever give a reason? Why would he think you were gay, and why such a violent reaction?"

 

"He'd heard some rumors about my sexuality and then when his son came out to him..."

 

"He decided that you'd seduced his son?"

 

Tim nodded. "I hadn't, but he believed the rumors because they'd come from a reliable source."

 

Gibbs was pretty sure he knew the answer, but he asked anyways. "The source, was it ever confirmed?"

 

"Director Morrow put Kate in charge of tracking the rumor down. She confirmed it was Tony that started the rumor. It was a joke that snowballed, supposedly, but a lot of people took it seriously."

 

"Nothing was done?"

 

"Ari killed Kate before she could turn in her final report, Patterson took the deal Morrow offered him, Morrow got his job at Homeland Security and everything else got swept under the rug."

 

"And you were left to deal with it on your own. Did you ever get any help?"

 

Tim lifted his glass to wet his lips again and discovered that the glass was empty. Gibbs poured more into it while Tim struggled to explain how he'd felt at the time. "I didn't do anything wrong, but I felt so ashamed and embarrassed. Then Kate died and I didn't have anyone in my corner. I knew that if it came to me or Tony, I'd lose every time, so when Morrow and then Director Shepard wanted me to keep my mouth shut, I didn't feel like I had a choice."

 

Gibbs didn't know how to answer that, but McGee wasn't finished talking. "The last surgery to try and repair the damage was when Vance had me in Cybercrimes. When that failed, Vance required me to see a see an agency psychologist before he'd agree to let me go back on your team."

 

"One session with a shrink..."

 

"Saw her for almost a year." McGee was now on his third glass of bourbon. "Apparently, I had a lot of issues to work out."

 

He couldn't imagine the number of issues an assault like that would bring up, but Gibbs had another question first. "When you said the surgery failed..."

 

Emotions loosened by the alcohol, Tim's face twisted with grief. "I'll never be a father, Gibbs. That was my last chance, but they couldn't repair enough of the damage."

 

"Ah, hell, McGee. When you meet the right woman, there's other options."

 

"No, don't you get it?" After the sudden burst of anger, Tim sagged in his chair. "I'm not like Tony. I don't have the women chasing after me. The only thing about me that caught their attention was my brain, my ability to give them a smart kid. Now I don't even have that."

 

"If that's all a woman sees when she looks at you, then she's a damn fool, Tim." Gibbs stood and pulled Tim up with him. "Come on, you're exhausted."

 

Upstairs, he tugged the towel off of Tim before urging him into the bed. Drunk and overwhelmed, McGee was pliant as Gibbs arranged the bed for them and then pulled him close. Tim nuzzled his face against Gibbs throat and ran his fingers through the older man's chest hair before falling asleep while Gibbs remained awake, stroking his fingertips up and down Tim's back as he thought about everything he'd learned that night.

 

 

Comments

[merzibelle]

*whimper* You be torturing me again.

I'd always wondered why nothing was done about those rumors... nor why any of the potential fallout of them turned up on the show. Interesting take on how things might have gone.

What do I gotta do to get the story faster? *begging look*

[emerald_green37]

Yeah, it always bugged me that it was never dealt with, just sacrificed on the "Tony cannot face any blame" alter. I've always thought it would be an interesting take on his character's growth and development. That's probably the reason - they made him into a perpetual 12yo on the show.

Well, the first 10 chapters are in my dropbox... Just ignore the random words at the bottom. I'm doing get your words out this year on LJ and so anything I remove gets stuck at the end of the file so it doesn't screw up my word count. I've written over 48,000 words this year already.

[merzibelle]

Bugs me too. Still does. I keep hoping that they'll let him finally grow up but it never seems to last very long.

Ohhh... I gotta go see if I can still get to that folder. :D

[azurehart]

Poor Tim. I just want to smack Tony. He's not a bad person most of the time, but he seriously never considers the consequences of his actions.

[emerald_green37]

Exactly, a few of his "jokes" were beyond being in bad taste and this was probably the worst. The man has a brain, if he'd only use it more often.