Double Jeopardy
Tony Dinozzo and Abby Scuito nearly missed the elevator but managed to slide in just as the heavy doors closed.
Inside the metal space an older couple moved to the side to allow the newcomers to select their destination from the options on the control panel.
Abby punched the ground floor button and grinned at Tony. "That was worth it."
"Indeed," he agreed. "Nothing appeals to my cinematic thirst more than spending an evening binging upon Alfred Hitchcock classics."
The companion couple smiled and the husband interjected, "Can't be topped, can he?"
Before anyone could acknowledge the observation with a response the elevator unexpectedly lurched and stopped moving, the commotion ending with a stop abrupt enough to throw all four passengers off balance.
A screeching noise accompanied their attempts to right themselves, and when the ear splitting noise stopped all four riders were shaken.
Tony and Abby glanced at the older couple with concern and Abby immediately checked on them. "Did you get hurt?"
"Any bangs or scrapes?" Tony prodded.
After a group consultation all four agreed that though bruised, they were in pretty good shape.
Finally satisfied that nothing life threatening had occurred, Tony glanced around the area and spoke thoughtfully. "Let me pull the alarm. Since this is such a well used elevator I feel confident that the powers to be know that it has malfunctioned and we are stuck. Just in case, though, let me be the first to remind them."
Abby pulled out her cell phone and held it up towards the ceiling. She frowned, "No bars- we'll just have to hunker down and chill together 'til help arrives."
The older woman spoke, her voice soft, "In that case, dear, let me make our introductions. This is my husband Gordon Milledge and I am Darla Milledge. We weren't at the movies but came down to price televisions at this mall."
The couple appeared to be in their early seventies, and were well dressed and definitely animated.
Tony bowed. "We are so pleased to make your acquaintance. Allow me to introduce us, then. This is forensic scientist extraordinaire Abby Scuito and I am very special NCIS agent Tony Dinozzo. We showed up at the mall not to comparison shop, but specifically to gorge on Hitchcock. We were famished. Now we're finished."
The listeners laughed appreciatively, and made note of how attractive Tony and Abby were.
Then the Milledges confided that both had retired a few years earlier and lived in Arlington, not too far from the mall. Gordon had finished the day to day grind after thirty years in the classroom while Darla had devoted thirty to the U.S. Postal Service. Their three grown children all lived within a hundred mile radius of them and they sheepishly admitted they could spoil their five grandchildren as often as they liked.
Abby and Tony proved to be a good audience, both sets of green eyes studying the elderly couple as they took turns speaking. They exchanged glances and raised eyebrows to signal each other that they clearly found the couple entertaining.
Finally Abby checked her watch. "Ok, it's been like fifteen minutes now."
Tony pointed towards the floor. "It might not be unreasonable to go ahead and sit down. It may take an hour or two for the maintenance crew to reset the elevator."
The four helped each other, and they positioned themselves by staking a corner wall each.
"Tell us about you now," Darla ordered invitingly. "I find investigative work utterly fascinating."
Tony and Abby spent several minutes describing solved cases and detailing how NCIS chiseled away at the country's most wanted fugitives before segueing into a description of their work colleagues and infamous boss, Leroy Jethro Gibbs. One would begin a sentence and the other would finish it, eliciting laughs from Darla and Gordon.
Thoroughly entertained, the Milledges begged Tony and Abby for more detail on their eccentric and unique team leader.
Tony sprang up and gave a remarkable imitation of Gibbs which capped with his version of the piercing Gibbs stare. Not to be outdone, Abby provided her own impromptu version of Gibbs practicing his stare over the rim of his ever present coffee cup.
"Isn't that double jeopardy?" Darla grinned and patted Abby's arm. "I mean when both of you work together like you just did? Or did I mix that up?"
Abby responded. "Double jeopardy's the one where you don't get tried twice for the same crime."
Tony cast a sideways glance at Gordon whose demeanor made him nervous.
The man's face looked sallow.
Something seemed off about him.
With her legs crisscrossed, Abby leaned forward and teased the Milledges, "Now, would you like to know about living with the silver haired beast?"
That brought about a burst of excited laughter.
Abby giggled. "Ok, let me think of where I should start." The Goth wrinkled her nose. "In all honesty, I can't pinpoint who took up residence in the House of Gibbs first because Tony and I managed to stay there at the same times many occasions before we really just decided to stay permanently. All three of us had worked together already at NCIS and from our earliest days we had formed this very real- but unacknowledged and very unspoken- bond. Ducky really set the ball rolling by insisting Gibbs watch out for us."
"Who is Ducky?" Gordon queried.
"Donald Mal- lard," Tony supplied, stretching out the name in a fantastic replica of Ducky's accented voice. "Probably the wisest man I have ever met and a renowned medical examiner. Ducky is that voice in our boss's ear which serves as a voice of reason when it comes to personal interactions. As we mentioned, LJ practices very few social skills. Besides that, Dr. Mallard's library of anecdotes is endless and he pulls them out to apply towards whatever topic is at hand."
Tony shrugged his shoulders.
Abby picked up the thread of conversation. "So no matter how it transpired, Tony and I ended up residing at the House of Gibbs." She examined the spiked bracelet on her right arm and continued. "Honestly, we found out pretty quickly that his bite was much worse than his bark once we settled in under his roof."
"But it's all good," Tony amended.
"Yes," Abby agreed. "I didn't mean that he is vicious or anything like that. He's just strong willed and…"
"Marine set in his ways," Tony interrupted. "No matter how much he tries to mask it we always feel we belong there and that deep-down he cares about us."
"That's nice," Darla commented.
"So let me give you an example of what I mean," Abby suggested. "One time Tony and I decided to drive to Pennsylvania to see Jackson Gibbs, daddy to none other than our boss. We had visited the Senior Gibbs before but this time we planned to stay three days because we had a day trip planned to the mountains and a second day trip to Niagra. Anyway, before we pulled out of the driveway Gibbs ordered us to check in with him when we were halfway there."
Abby paused so long that Darla filled the void. "That sounds reasonable enough."
"Baby Girl got us into trouble." Tony rolled his eyes and pointed at Abby.
"Did not!" Abby contradicted. "You had the phone, remember? Mine was dead."
Gordon chuckled and addressed his wife, "Honey, do they take you back a few years or remind you of someone?"
"My goodness yes!" she replied. "You two sound just like our own kids did."
"Well," Tony responded sheepishly, "I guess the truth is that we both deserve blame for going incommunicado on that one."
"Don't leave us suspended," Gordon ordered. "Finish the story."
Tony accorded him an appraising glance. The man had begun to perspire and his face looked shiny. "Getting warm in here," Tony commiserated, yanking his tee shirt from the waistband of his jeans. "I'm getting hot."
Gordon reached up to wipe his face and appeared surprised. "Guess it is. I really don't feel all that hot, though."
"You're sweating," his wife pointed out helpfully. "Untuck your shirt like Tony and see if it helps."
Tony caught Abby's eye and surreptitiously inclined his head in Gordon's direction. Understanding, she narrowed her eyes and made a quick assessment of her own. She blinked and nodded, signaling that she found something amiss with the man's demeanor as well.
They exchanged concerned glances. Abby put her finger to her lips to signal they needed to wait before they verbalized what they were thinking.
Gordon followed his wife's directions and appeared to improve.
Abby smiled. "All right, where were we? Oh I remember, so we didn't call when we were told to call. We didn't check in at all and as the time ticked Gibbs went into action, certain that we had met with a breakdown, or hit a deer, were dead in a ditch, or something like that." She took a breath. "What we didn't know was that he had phoned Jack a couple of times and when they realized Jack hadn't heard from us either they decided to take action. Jackson got in his car in Stillwater and started driving south while Gibbs got in his car in D.C. and started driving north."
Gordon's eyes widened. "Who got to you first?"
"Jackson," Tony answered immediately. "We passed each other about a half hour from Stillwater. He was really worried and once we compared notes he said we had to call Gibbs to keep him from travelling any further."
"Problem was," Abby admitted, biting the edge of her lip and twirling a pigtail at the memory, "of course Tony and I didn't want to make the call 'cause we knew how ballistic Gibbs would get once he discovered we had forgotten to call. "
"We begged Jack," Tony's voice trailed miserably as he conjured up the scene. "Just begged him to dial the number…."
"…..but he said absolutely not, they we deserved whatever Gibbs hurled at us. Jack said we had already scared the life out of him," Abby finished with a frown.
"Who made the call?" Darla asked.
"Both," Tony replied, "both because we put him on speaker."
"It was awful," Abby explained. "He didn't say a single word while we babbled out the excuse and explanation."
"Well, then," Gordon clarified, "he didn't yell at you."
"No, it was worse," Abby confirmed. "He said he would address us when we got home from Pennsylvania."
Gordon shook his head sympathetically. "Rough."
"You'd better believe it," Tony agreed. "We had his threat in the back of our minds the entire visit, and the drive home was miserable."
Abby emphasized, "We know Gibbs, and believe me, he doesn't mellow over seventy two hours."
"How was the homecoming?" Darla questioned.
"He left us a note ordering us to not leave the house once we got home," Tony recalled. "We didn't, of course. We just waited. We suffered. We waited and suffered."
"When he got home he didn't say a word about it until after supper. Then he fixed himself a cup of coffee and headed towards the basement, but he turned around at the steps." Abby pointed to Tony.
He concluded, "So Boss said in essence since we didn't consider keeping in touch a priority in our lives we wouldn't feel guilty about having no contact with the outside world after work for the next week. The next seven days we worked, came home, slept, worked, came home and slept. It was like living in a monastery."
Abby frowned at the reminder. "Yeah, and once the seven days were up and we thought we finally had made it he lowered the boom again. Gibbs announced then that since we didn't really want to bother ourselves or exhaust ourselves over having to operate a phone he would just hang onto our cellphones for us for another week. So when we thought it was over it wasn't."
"Double jeopardy," Tony snapped his fingers. "You just mentioned that not too long ago, Mrs. Milledge."
"Well, I think your boss did a great job of illustrating double jeopardy there since he got you twice for the same crime," Gordon summarized.
"I suppose if you look at it like that," Abby mumbled unhappily.
Darla smiled. "Did you learn anything?"
A choking sound from Gordon caused the others to focus upon him.
His physical distress galvanized the elevator's other occupants. Tony quickly crawled over and placed a hand behind the man's head. "I'm going to get you to lie down just a second." He gently positioned the man and Abby moved to the opposite side and began unbuttoning Gordon's shirt and loosening his tie.
"What's happening?" Darla cried, her voice laced with fear. "What's happening, Gordon?"
"Shhh," Tony soothed. "Let's stay calm now. I think that Mr. Milledge is in the beginning stages of a heart attack but we are not going to panic. Abby and I can handle the situation."
Abby inclined her head. "Come move beside your husband and just talk to him. Tony and I are going to try to keep him stable."
Darla evidently understood the seriousness of their situation. She crawled over so that Gordon could focus upon her. He started to speak and she wagged a finger, "No, no- let me do the talking now. You just rest."
Gordon closed his eyes and his wife managed to keep him calm while Tony and Abby continually checked his breathing, pulse, and discomfort.
Five minutes later an unexpected jolt threw them off balance, but then another lurch signaled the elevator was moving. With relief, Tony and Abby scrambled to their feet and helped Darla to hers, and they explained to the Milledges the emergency procedures they would put into place once the steel doors opened.
When the elevator came to a rest and the heavy doors finally parted Tony and Abby immediately summoned an ambulance and waited with the couple until the emergency technicians arrived. They moved to the side to allow the medical personnel to take charge.
Since Darla promised to call from the hospital with an update, Tony and Abby decided not to accompany the Milledges. They stood together and thoughtfully watched the ambulance back away from the mall before making their way to the parking lot.
Sliding wearily into the car both realized how fortunate it had been that the elevator hadn't stayed disabled longer than it had.
Tony backed out and wound through the warren of parking spaces to the exit as he and Abby rehashed the events of the past hours.
"We've done it again!" Abby suddenly moaned, slapping her hand against the glove compartment. "Do you realize that we are late getting home and we never once got a call through to Gibbs?"
"Uh oh," Tony grinned. "Whatever will we do?"
"Laugh now, but I guarantee you won't be laughing later," Abby predicted darkly.
"No, Baby Girl, I've got this. Look." Tony dug into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled deposit slip. "Trust a teacher to understand the importance of an excuse!"
Abby leaned over to read, "You got a bank deposit slip from Mr. Milledge?"
He nodded gleefully.
She read, "It says, 'Elevator crisis/ no communication/ no double jeopardy/ call if you need confirmation' and Mr. Milledge signed it! The contact information is right on the deposit slip so we're saved! Gibbs can check the facts!"
Abby leaned over and hugged him. "When did you do that?"
"Actually, I can't take the credit. The Milledges evidently put their heads together once the technicians finished the exam and got ready to transport him. He dictated and she wrote, and she handed it to me when I helped her into the ambulance."
Tony and Abby exchanged happy grins.
"Well," Tony concluded, "this just goes to show why a night with Hitchcock is indeed a learning opportunity. The movie master has led us to understand how to out maneuver double jeopardy!"