Never Alone

chapter 4

Slowly Tim woke from the surgery, a nurse walked over and checked his stats and patted his arm telling him to rest, and that they would move him to a room soon.

Tim moved his mouth to talk but nothing came out.

He looked fearfully at the nurse. He couldn't hear or speak!

"It's alright, it sometimes happens following brain surgery, while the swelling lessens some people lose the use of something, it is probably temporary and will come back, I'll give you a pad and paper, do you have anyone waiting you'd like to see?" she asked.

Tim looked at her blankly. She grabbed a pen and paper and wrote some questions on. Tim wrote down the answers and then he shook his head and turned away.

He didn't want to see nor did he see the sad look she gave him as she left.

Penny, Sarah and Angela walked into the waiting room, Penny looked around for Gibbs and saw him and Ducky sitting in the corner staring at the doors Tim had gone through hours earlier.

"Agent Gibbs." Penny Langston said as she walked over to him.

"Ms Langston." Gibbs replied guardedly as he looked up at them.

"This is Angela Murray, Tim's mother and you know Sarah of course." She said making introductions.

Gibbs nodded; Ducky stood up and shook hands with the women.

"You here for Tim?" Gibbs asked.

"Of course!" Angela said looking down at him.

Gibbs got up and looked her straight in the eye. "Well you haven't been here for him for a while, so excuse me for asking." He snapped.

He walked over to the doors and looked through the window at the bustle on the other side.

"Gibbs?" Sarah said walking over to him, "We didn't know, we had no idea my father didn't really see him, and Tim didn't defend himself, he never said he hadn't been there…we just thought that…" she stopped as Gibbs turned on her.

"You ACTUALLY thought that Tim…Your Tim could be that callous as to attack a dying man in the hospital, I've only known him eight years and I know he's not that sort of man. I know that your father treated him like dirt when he was alive, and yet as hurt as he was and no matter how much the Admiral put him down when I first met him, he was kind and respectful the whole time to his father." Gibbs said.

Sarah looked down and her mother walked over to them. "We worked with the information we had Agent Gibbs, just like you do in an investigation."

"You knew Tim; you know he wouldn't do something like that without a damn good reason." Gibbs said his anger starting to boil.

"Granted we made mistakes but we are here now to fix them, what about you and your team Agent Gibbs, where are the rest of Tim's teammates, I thought you were all like family, although from what I heard Tim never felt like he was in your inner circle." Angela stood toe to toe with him.

"He didn't…" Gibbs stepped away and sighed, "And that was my fault, Tim is such a kind unassuming person, that I thought he had the most perfect upbringing. I knew both his parents were alive and Sarah, when I met her was so assertive and feisty that I assumed he had been brought up in a loving home, it wasn't until I met the Admiral that I found out that wasn't exactly true." He looked her in the eye, "I made mistakes too, but my door was always open, I just never realized that the reason he didn't step through it was not because his home life was as perfect as I imagined but that it was more neglected than I imagined."

"I did not neglect my son!" Angela hissed raising her voice slightly and causing a staff nurse to look up at them.

"Mrs. Murray, please calm yourself, we could sit here and argue all day about the wrongs we have all done to Timothy, what we really need to do is focus on the now, and on the right thing we can do for Timothy." Ducky said guiding her to a chair and sitting her down. "Now Jethro, I will go and see how young Timothy is doing and maybe you could rustle up some coffee or tea, maybe young Sarah you could help him?" Ducky suggested.