Chapter 1: Flips

Tim sighed into his coffee cup. Another day of mediocrity, too much caffeine, too little sleep, and Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo. He'd once heard that FBI Agent, Sacks, ask Fornell if he was human – Sacks claimed no man could have the patience to deal with DiNozzo on a daily basis like Tim did.

Tim couldn't necessarily disagree; he certainly didn't feel human at times like these. He let his eyes drift over the tightly wound chaos that filled the bullpen. They'd caught a really nasty case this time and had no leads even three days in. Two more days and they'd have another body to pick up, if this guy stuck with his M.O. It wasn't a pleasant thought.

Rising slowly and feeling old, Tim kept his head down and his mouth shut to avoid attention while he made his way down to Ducky's domain – autopsy.

It was refreshingly silent and cool in the empty room, chrome glinting at the corner of his eye the only distraction. He'd hoped Ducky would still be busy duking it out with the local sheriffs for jurisdiction of victim six and it seemed he was in luck, for once. Letting his eyes fall closed, Tim hoisted himself onto an empty table and took some deep breaths – in through his nose, out through his mouth, just like the doctors always taught him for his asthma as a kid.

Those exercises had come in handy more often than he would have wished in recent years and rarely for asthma. He'd developed an unfortunate familiarity with panic attacks in the bad years after he graduated MIT. Letting his last inhale and exhale drain away his tension, Tim opened his eyes feeling much calmer—

–only to jump back, actually flipping over the edge of the autopsy table when he was faced with an openly curious Jimmy Palmer hardly an inch from of his face.

"Jimmy, what the hell!" Tim stood smoothly from the flip and Jimmy cocked his head with his best sheepish face on. Tim wondered if he knew how that look melted him – Sarah had always made the same face as a kid when he scolded her.

"Sorry, Agent McGee. I've just never seen you look that peaceful – I've never seen anyone on Gibbs' team look peaceful, actually." Tim had to laugh at that and, shaking his head, he patted Palmer's shoulder.

"Don't get used to it."

He waved absently to Palmer as he made his way back to the elevator, mind already back on the case now he'd had a moment to recharge. He never noticed Palmer eyeing him curiously as he went.

Donald "Ducky" Mallard grumbled under his breath as he wheeled the latest victim of Gibbs' serial killer into autopsy. Frowning at the sight of Mr Palmer staring into space, he coughed warningly.

Jimmy jumped a little, looking sheepish at the sight of Dr Mallard wheeling in their body alone. He moved quickly to take over and Dr Mallard went about gathering the needed paperwork as Jimmy prepared the tools and the table, quickly completing his mental checklist with photo documentation of the victim's injuries.

"Dr Mallard, he's ready for you."

Ducky hummed absentmindedly and waved a hand, "Yes, Mr Palmer, I'll be right there and we can start cutting."

Jimmy waited patiently, letting his thoughts drift once more to Agent McGee, who had backflipped over that very table not long before and shown no signs of either surprise or stress at the move. Jimmy was no investigator, he knew, but even he could tell something was off about the purported computer geek being that steady and flexible.

But no – Jimmy shook the suspicious thoughts off. There was probably a perfectly logical explanation and McGee had lost quite a bit of weight recently; he could have just started some very good aerobics. Satisfied with this explanation for events, Jimmy turned his attention back to the body just in time as Dr Mallard made his way over to start the autopsy.

Upstairs, Tim McGee settled at his desk again and checked the searches he had running on the latest victims' financials and phone records. Nothing shady had appeared in the first four sets, but Tim knew Gibbs' rule well: never take anything for granted. He couldn't assume there wouldn't be a clue in the records for the most recent victims, but he also wasn't going to get his hopes up.

Turning his attention to the rest of the bullpen, hoping for a new idea or anything he could be doing to help, he watched Ziva hissing furiously into her phone in what sounded like Russian. Tim tried to pick up the gist of the conversation, but he only knew three phrases in Russian – Where's the bathroom?, What is that? and How much is the donkey?

At least he could tell when she started swearing.

Switching his focus to Tony, he had just enough time to see some sort of pin-up calendar under a stack of old case reports when one of his searches beeped to let him know there was an anomaly. Glancing half-heartedly at the results, resigned to another not-so-secret mistress being paid off, his eyes shot wide. That was no mistress's pay-off.

"Found something, McGee?" Tim told himself he didn't just jump out of his chair, even if he was starting to believe Tony about Gibbs having superpowers.

"Boss, where did you—never mind," he coughed at Gibbs' eyebrow going up and focused, "Petty Officer Jenkins took out five hundred dollars every week like clockwork for the last five months—and yeah, I assumed it was another mistress, too, but the day of his last withdrawal our latest vic, Lieutenant Berning, deposited ten thousand dollars in a private account."

"And we don't like coincidences, do we, McGee?"

"No, Boss." Rising, McGee moved out around his desk and put everything up on the screen, feeling Ziva and Tony move to stand at his back and Gibbs to his left.

"These two shouldn't have even known each other, but there's no way it's a coincidence that Berning deposits the exact amount Jenkins had withdrawn just two days before Jenkins' body is found and then is murdered himself the day after. We thought this serial killer had picked up the pace, but what if that's not true? What if, somehow, Berning was blackmailing Jenkins and their murders are totally separate? It's not like we've been able to keep this investigation quiet – whoever killed them could have easily faked the killer's MO."

Tony spoke up then, looking both thoughtful and grim, "That makes sense, McGeek, but if you're right, we've got more bodies out there we haven't found because there's no way this killer would have taken a break while we chased our tails. And since these two were the first bodies to turn us onto this guy…who knows how long it will take us to find his latest victims."

Tim continued the thought, "And on top of that, we have an entirely separate crime to investigate." There was a pause as Ziva and Tony took in the situation, Tim sighed, and Gibbs took a long draught of his tar.

"Well, get to it," the Boss declared at last, with a sharp look to their stillness. "McGee, you and David—" Ziva cut in, "—focus on the serial victims." Gibbs nodded, "DiNozzo—"

"I'll take Berning and Jenkins." They all moved to get to work and Tim quickly printed out all the results for his searches on Berning and Jenkins, dropping them on DiNozzo's desk without a word. Ziva made her way to Tim's desk as he did and smiled when he turned to her.

"You are too kind, McGee. I will start going over the old case files again if you will rerun your searches." He grinned at her, grateful again for her quiet dedication to their team.

"Sure thing, Ziva. You know I'd pick a keyboard over a pen any day."

Everyone settled down to work as Gibbs retreated to MTAC to update the Director. Half an hour passed in relative peace, except for Ziva's increasingly frustrated responses to tip line calls and Tony's fidgeting.

Tim had just finished rerunning his last search and had once again come up empty when the elevator's loud ding drew everyone's attention.

Tony was on his feet before anyone else, with Ziva and McGee a close second as Gibbs' legendary timing reared its head and he stepped past the bullpen to greet their guests, looking distinctly unfriendly, "Kort. What are you doing here?"

Trent Kort, CIA Agent and all-around pain in their collective asses, simply waved the woman at his side forward, "I am here to speak with an old friend and thought I might drop off a murderer on the way. This is Janet Liss, the woman blackmailing both of your naval officers. Now," Kort ignored the glares from Gibbs and Tony and directed the next to Tim, "I need to speak with you rather urgently."

Ziva shifted subtly to be between the CIA Agent and her teammate as Gibbs and Tony were apparently too surprised to act immediately. Gibbs recovered first, glaring and defensive as ever, "What do you want with McGee, Kort?" Kort simply raised an eyebrow at them all and met Tim's gaze steadily, "As I said, I am here to speak with an old friend, about old business."

He watched as the young man matched him stare for stare and gave nothing away; he could guess what Tim wanted to say anyway – we're not friends. He knew Tim would be running a thousand and one searches in his own head, sorting out all of his possible motivations and taking into account peace offerings such as Miss Liss to balance old injuries.

When Tim's eyes were sharp with understanding and a strange sort of anticipation, he spoke one word without inflection—"No."

Kort remained serene and Tim clamped down on the urge to grit his teeth; any emotional reaction now would give too much away.

"You are being recalled, Agent McGee. You should know by now, refusal is not an option." Tim moved past Ziva with the sort of short, tightly-coiled stride he knew his team would not recognize on him; he couldn't care what they might suspect, though – not now.

"And I suppose they sent you because they thought it would soften me?" Tim snorted, quietly and genuinely derisive at the games he'd thought done. "What? Did they think shared blood meant anything after this long?" He callously ignored the sharp breaths behind him and Kort's slow blink that he knew from childhood meant he was hiding pain.

"I refuse." Tim enunciated very carefully, as though he were speaking to a slow child, "I – am – retired."

He could feel the eyes on his back and resisted the urge to hit something – maybe Kort, who was ruining everything and still hadn't moved a muscle.

"I am not asking you, Agent McGee. I am telling you: you have been recalled, by several higher powers you really don't want to upset." There was nothing familiar left in those eyes, Tim thought, as frustration and memory left him frozen. The words fell from his lips like chips of ice, "If they want my service so badly, go and tell them to send someone else. Anyone else. Because I will not stand here and accept orders from my own brother playing willing bait."

Tim stepped up and was abruptly reminded how much taller than Kort he had grown. He looked down and from the sudden lack of feeling in his chest, would have bet his eyes were as empty as Kort's. Quietly, he leaned in, "Get out."

Kort blinked slowly once more and then nodded politely over his shoulder before turning on his heel. The elevator dinged closed behind him and he never looked back. Tim refused to wonder how much that cost him.

Tim thought it really was too bad he couldn't believe in magic. If he did, he could have at least withheld some hope when he wished for the floor to open up and swallow him. He stared at the elevator for only a moment after Kort had gone before turning to face his team. The expressions ranged from confused to incredulous, but all of them were underlain with suspicion. He sighed mentally.

When Director Vance appeared, he wasn't sure whether to be relieved or more worried.

"McGee, my office now." Tim nodded gratefully and tried to get around his team without meeting anyone's eyes; he hated being made a spectacle and though he knew it was selfish, he blamed Kort – his half brother never could help his flair for dramatics and Tim rather doubted his orders had been for a public confrontation. Then again, his orders may well have included just such a provision if they wanted to make sure Tim had nowhere to run back to.

All of the potential reasoning was already giving him a headache, Tim realized, and was reminded again why he'd retired as soon as he got the offer from NCIS.

Before he knew it, Tim found himself seated before the Director's desk and under Vance's neutral stare. He shifted a little anxiously, then called on the firm control he hadn't needed in years to present a still, composed front. Vance eyed him a little more carefully and Tim realized belatedly how much he may have just given away. Seeing Kort again must have shaken him more than he'd realized.

Vance sat back and laced his fingers together on his desk, "So, what does the CIA want with you, Agent McGee? And why do their reasons have them playing their games in my house?"

Tim thought about walking out then, escaping all the insanity to come, but one look at Vance and the thought of his team waiting outside held him still. He decided he'd just have to work on the magic thing.

A/N: This fic is for Crazy4NCIS, who I really hope is in the US since otherwise I may have missed my New Year's deadline. Anyway, prompt was my three McGee sentences over in Twenty Five. More to come as I find time, and I hope you enjoy this, Crazy, even though I think it's moving a little fast.