Title: One Per Day
Pairing: McGee/Abby
Rating: PG
Summary: Futurefic. McGee is offered a promotion and talks to Abby about it.
"Well, I guess that's it for us."
Of all the reactions to his announcement Tim had considered (and there were a lot, since it was Abby and even after this many years she'd never stopped surprising him, thank God), that was actually not on the list. He'd hoped she'd be happy for him, at the very least, since he was the youngest agent ever to be offered the post of NCIS director. He'd worked hard, and he felt like this was a reward for years of effort, both on Gibbs' team and DiNozzo's. The headslap count had to be in the thousands by now, for one thing.
"Wait, what, why?" he asked, not even bothering to disguise the hurt he felt at her blunt statement. "Why would you say that?"
Abby paced back and forth through her lab, the lab she refused to leave even after she'd gotten her PhD and been promoted to the head of the Forensics Division. She did more paperwork than labwork these days, but she wouldn't give up her lab. She had accepted assistants, though, after full background checks and with a long trial period in which all assistants were guarded by armed Special Agents.
"Look at me, Tim," she offered, gesturing to herself. Despite the passage of time and the accompanying grey hairs, she hadn't really changed her appearance, not that he'd expected her to do so. Her appearance now was maybe a little more professional, something she'd once called Corporate Goth, but it was still enough to startle almost everyone who met her for the first time.
"Do I look like someone who should be on the arm of the director of a federal agency? You're going to have to go to parties and functions and really boring things on Capitol Hill," she said anxiously. "I'd insult every Senator I met and then you'd lose your job and I'd lose my job because there's no way whoever they get to replace you would want me here given my history and it would all be bad, Tim. So, that's it. I'll start getting my stuff out of the house this weekend."
It truly amazed him how she could make these mental leaps, sometimes in good ways, and sometimes in bad ones. This was a bad one, although he'd concede her point about insulting Senators. She probably would. Then again, it would probably be good for them, and he stopped her from pacing and gently held her arms until she looked up into his eyes anxiously.
"Abby, I don't want you to move your stuff out of the house," he told her firmly. "You do look like someone who should be on the arm of a director of a federal agency, if that someone is me. Do you remember what I told you, right after we decided maybe we'd try this again?"
Her mouth quirked up in a fond smile and he knew she did remember.
"I said you needed a cute blonde elementary school music teacher for a wife, not a non-conforming forensic scientist. And you said that the only music you wanted to listen to was Major Mass Spec beeping, me laughing and Bert farting," she repeated back to him. That statement hadn't quite made it into their wedding vows, but it had been close. Only the prospect of Father Morgan having to mention Bert's bowel issues in front of God and their assembled guests had stopped it from being there.
"And that's still true," he soothed her. "I don't want anyone else on my arm, no matter how many parties I have to go to. I promise you that."
She looked into his eyes, threw her arms around him in an enthusiastic hug and then kissed him fervently enough that he considered closing the lab door. He wasn't quite the director yet, though, so he probably shouldn't. Once he was, though, he had plans for the couch in his office (off the clock, of course). He thought Gibbs would approve, and he knew Tony would.
"Just promise me you'll only insult one Senator a day," he teased, once he got his breath back.
"I promise," she replied, and kissed him again.