emerald_green37 | Catalyst 4/?

"Good morning." Gibbs squeezed him one final time before pulling back. "I'll drive you home so you can change."

"Thanks." Tim quietly dressed in his clothes from the day before, slightly wrinkled from a night sitting in the dryer. Before they left, he reached out and touched Gibbs' arm. "Last night was a memory I'll cherish forever."

Gibbs brushed his hand down Tim's face. "Me, too."

The trip to Silver Spring and back was quiet, both men lost in their thoughts. Once back at the Yard, Gibbs disappeared for coffee and McGee went in to start on the cold cases he was reviewing. Gibbs arrived back a few minutes later with two cups, setting the second one down on McGee's desk before starting to review what he could of the younger man's agency medical records.

"Thanks, Boss." The two men exchanged a smile before returning to their work.

When the rest of the team arrived Gibbs found himself staring at Tony, wondering if he had any idea of how much his insecurities had hurt his teammate. When Tony started bragging about the women he'd flirted with while watching Tucker the night before and suggesting that McGee would have crashed and burned under the same circumstances, Gibbs put an immediate stop to it.

"DiNozzo, David, go re-interview the witnesses from the Harper case." He dropped the file on Tony's desk on his way up to Vance's office.

Tony immediately started to whine. "The Harper case, Boss? His neighbor is that weird cat lady; why can't McGee go out there?"

Gibbs turned around and moved into DiNozzo's personal space. "Oh, I don't know, DiNozzo. Maybe because he's allergic to cats and ended up in the emergency room the last time he was out there? Maybe because I'm your boss and I just told you to go? Now, get moving." After one last glare, he took the stairs two at a time, leaving a stunned senior agent in his wake.

Tony stared after him, stunned, before turning to McGee. "You never told me that it gets that bad."

"I'd never spent four hours in a basement with twenty-five cats either." McGee shrugged and went back to what he was working on, but Tony didn't move.

"How bad did it get?"

Tim sighed and saved what he was working on. "Spent a couple of hours in the ER, they had me on an IV to stop the reaction, made me a little nervous when they set up for a tracheotomy, but it never got to that point. Ducky and Jimmy drove out to pick me up since the doctors wouldn't let me drive myself back. Until about three minutes ago, I didn't even know that Gibbs knew anything about it, Tony."

"You tried to hide it? Are you crazy?"

Tim pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off the headache that was threatening to form. "No, I didn't try to hide it. It just never came up. I don't complain to Gibbs about that kind of stuff, not like..." He snapped his mouth closed before saying something he'd regret. Admitting to Gibbs about Patterson's attack had stirred up his emotions a lot more than he'd been willing to admit.

"Like who, McGee?"

Before it could get heated between the two men, Ziva stepped in. "We should go, yes? Gibbs is not in a good mood today."

"Yeah, sure, okay." Tony gave Tim a strange look as Ziva led him to the elevator.

---NCIS---

"Is there a particular reason you're stomping around my office?" Vance had waited for Gibbs to say something, but he was getting tired of waiting.

Gibbs finally stopped in front of the window. "McGee finally told me about Patterson last night. Damn it, Leon, I should have been told the night he was attacked."

Realizing this was not going to be either quick or easy, Vance tossed his pen down on the desk. "Yes, you should have, but it wasn't me sitting in this office back then. By the time I knew anything about it, making sure McGee had the tools to deal with it was my priority, not your hurt feelings at being left out of the loop. I am glad he finally told you, though. Patterson will be getting out of prison soon."

"After what he did?" Gibbs realized why the short sentence after such a brutal crime. "The plea bargain."

"Yep."

"Maybe the parole board will have more sense."

"No board, Patterson wasn't exactly a model prisoner. He's serving his full sentence."

Gibbs finally sat in the chair across from Vance. "Oh, this just keeps getting better and better. You think he'll go after McGee?"

Vance didn't have to really think about it. "Patterson's wife divorced him, took the kids, took everything. After twenty-two years in the Corps, he'll be getting a dishonorable discharge with complete loss of benefits. Yeah, he'll be coming after him."

"Shit." Gibbs rubbed the sides of his face as he thought through options. "When he does, are you going to cover it up like your predecessors?"

"It's a little more complicated than that, Gibbs. Has McGee suddenly decided to go public with what happened to him?"

"Shit." Gibbs knew he sounded like a broken record, but he didn't have the words to describe how he felt about the whole situation.

---NCIS---

"What happened to you guys?" McGee gave his partners a once over as they walked back into the squad room. Both were wearing different clothes and Ziva's hair was pulled back into a damp pony tail.

Ziva smiled as she dropped her notebook on the desk. "Tony did not want us to bring any cat dandruff back into the bullpen."

"Dander, Ziva, it's cat dander." Tony rolled his eyes as he set his backpack under his desk. "Figured you didn't need to be breathing it all afternoon."

Tim smiled at the gesture. "Thanks, guys, that means a lot."

Even Gibbs gave an approving nod from his desk before they started comparing notes on the case. A few more details from the neighbors gave them a new angle that kept them busy until the end of the day. When Gibbs told them to knock it off for the day, the team wasted no time wrapping it up, but Gibbs called McGee back before he could leave, neither man noticing that DiNozzo stayed behind.

"You got a back-up weapon that you carry?"

"A little Beretta when I can't carry my Sig."

Gibbs shook his head. "From now on, you carry both. We're going to go to the range this week. I want you as proficient with your back-up as you are with your main weapon and with either hand. Understood?"

"Yes, Boss."

"Good, we're starting advanced hand to hand tomorrow. Make sure you bring your gear and a good cup."

"Boss, that's not..."

"Tomorrow, McGee. Not open to discussion."

Tim sighed as he picked up his coat. "Yes, Boss."

Tony eased around the corner away from the elevator, waiting for McGee to leave, then returned to the bullpen. "Boss, is there something going on that I should know about?"

"No. Go home, DiNozzo." Tony continued to stand there until Gibbs finally looked up at him. "What?"

"Are you pissed at me? Because I'm really getting the feeling that you're pissed at me."

"Go home, DiNozzo." Gibbs stared at him until he started moving again, then called out, almost as an afterthought. "And leave McGee alone."

Up on the catwalk, Vance watched the exchange, not coming down until Tony had left on the elevator. "You know McGee dealt with all of this alone in part so DiNozzo wouldn't find out."

Gibbs leaned back, staring up at the skylight. "Right now I just want to throttle him."

"Oh, I know." Vance sat on the edge of Gibbs' desk. "I didn't know the details until after DiNozzo was aboard the Ronald Reagan, but I was more than ready to can his ass when I read the file."

"Why didn't you?"

"When his last surgery didn't give him the results he wanted, McGee really hit bottom for a while, but no matter how bad it got for him, he didn't want your team torn apart. Even when I had them scattered across the globe, it really mattered to him that when the mole was found, the team could be rebuilt." Vance gave him a pointed look. "Let it go, Jethro. It's what McGee wants."

Vance left for the evening and Gibbs leaned back in his chair, speaking to the empty room. "It's not that easy, Leon."