Chapter 5

Understanding fear: Good.

Being a captive to fear: Bad. Very bad.

Now I was able to write line after line, paragraph after paragraph, about McGregor's hidden fear. Tommy, Lisa and Tibbs didn't suspect he had it. Nor did Amy, Pimmy Jalmer, and the rest. Having a fresh insight in the character made me want to write pages and pages about him, but I realized the others had to be in there somewhere, too. This new plot, I decided, would gradually have McGregor's phobia become known. He would struggle to do his job, despite it, and his teammates would (in the end, at least) respect him for it. Yeah; that would work.

As long as it didn't overwhelm me in the telling…

Just days later, Irony hit me in the face with a wet towel. The team was called out when a potential jumper, a guy wearing a Navy jacket, was spotted on the ledge of a building. Of course we were going to do everything we could to get him off the ledge safely. But when I suggested to Gibbs that we get a good picture of him so Abby could run in through facial recognition, he gave me a knowing look and told me to do it,

Getting on the roof of the building wasn't a problem for me. Climbing up on the ladder with only air between me and the street, ten stories below…that was something else.

"Uh, boss…I'm not very good with heights."

Without a word, Gibbs snatched my cell phone and climbed up to get a picture of the man.

Sadly, we couldn't save him. A sniper took him out just as it looked like Gibbs was going to coax him in.

Down on the street, Tony started razzing me about my freezing on the rooftop. Ziva was amused, too, though she got in a dig to Tony's rock wall climbing with his former girlfriend, Jeanne. I silently thanked her for that.

Tony wasn't done, though. Back at NCIS he cornered me and taunted, "A little of the old McGregor rubbing off on you, McFraidy? Have you developed his fear of heights…or was it there all along and you just didn't want to admit it? Which is it?"

"Leave me alone!" I snapped. "I have work to do. You should be more concerned about whether Abby's going to take that job offer she got."

"Oh, yeah. That." Tony's mind visibly switched gears. "There's got to be something I can do about that. She'll listen to me. I'll go talk to her." He started to leave and then turned back. "I'd invite you to come with me, but you're probably afraid of elevators. And stairs."

I threw a wad of paper at his retreating back.

We were given an addition to our team to work this case: one Nikki Jardine, who was an Intel Analyst. She was nice, knowledgeable, and quite cute…but also neurotic. (I should talk. I know my NCIS profile claims that I'm mildly neurotic.) She seemed to have a fear of germs; evidenced by her refusal to shake hands and her tendency to sanitize everything in sight. I wondered if that was what the fear was like for McGregor…leading him to compulsions that he eventually couldn't hide from his teammates.

I tried to keep my mind on the case of our dead Lieutenant, Michael Arnett, but now and then it would flit back to my newfound acrophobia. Maybe Tony was right…maybe I'd been burying it for years; some forgotten incident from my childhood, when they say these things tend to start. And maybe the Director was right…I might need professional help, and maybe medication. I'd heard that the fear might be overcome through de-sensitivity therapy.

When suspicion fell on the Lieutenant's estranged wife, Dana, we went after her. There was a chase as she tried to flee a parking garage in her car. Gibbs and Ziva would try to block her at the exit, and Tony and I were sent to stop her from higher up, if we could.

Disaster can come in an eye blink. Dana Arnett ran Tony off the road, so to speak, on the parking garage ramp. He tried to get out of the way of her car and suddenly, we heard him screaming as he hung over the balustrade, seven floors up. Gibbs yelled at me to go, but I was already running.

He was already starting to lose his grip on the stone when I got there. He was panicked, too…but who wouldn't be? I leaned over the balustrade, and even though I could see all the way down…it didn't register as a problem. My thoughts were only on Tony as I grabbed his forearms and hauled him up. (Note: This isn't as easy to do as it looks in the cartoons. People are still heavy!)

"I love you, McGee," Tony gasped, as we both sat on the ramp, panting." I promise never to give you a hard time again."

"Yeah, right," I half-laughed. Tony wouldn't be Tony if he changed. But it was good to hear a little humility from him now and then.

Night time back at NCIS, and the building was shifting to a quiet mode. Nikki Jardine was discharged from the assignment by Gibbs. I felt oddly calm; at peace with the world. Tony had already gone home to rest his sore arms, and there happened to be no one around to notice me slipping out of the squad room.

I trotted up the stairs to the third floor and looked down from the balcony. The vertigo and panic were gone. I enjoyed the sight of desks in little puddles of light; remote from my position, but cheery.

This time I was aware of Gibbs coming up the stairs. "Hey," he said. "Everything okay?"

"It is now," I smiled. Oh, I wouldn't be so much in McGregor's mind any more, but I'd written enough about his acrophobia. That would do.

"Good. You should have come to me when you realized you had the fear."

"It was just a temporary thing. I'm sure there's a clinical term for that."

"Fear of obeying your boss?" he said with a grin, and gave me a mild head slap. "Don't do it again. I'm tired of being asked by the Director if I'm keeping you safe from jumping."

"Boss, I never intended to—"

"I know that, but I know you better than she does. Be glad that I was able to stall her from ordering you to a shrink."

"But Tony—"

"Now he might have some height issues of his own," Gibbs chuckled. "You can put that in your next book, Agent McGregor."

That was an idea! It might be just what I needed for this book, or maybe the next. Agent Tommy develops a phobia…

I ran down the stairs, whistling.

-END-

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