Timothy had many questions. Everything in his life was about questions.
It was in those soft, peaceful post coital moments that he asked her one. Tucked away in her coffin, he whispered something that had been eating at him in her ear. "What will it be like when he leaves again?"
Abby put a hand on his chest and ran her thumb over the long, red welts her fingernails had made there minutes before, staining his pale skin like a tattoo. "What d'you mean?"
"Gibbs," he clarified, "What would happen if Gibbs left us again? What would it do to the team?" Abby sighed and curled her fingers over his heart.
"What makes you think he will?" She looked up at him, and he could have laughed at her mussed black hair and smudged make-up, had it been any other time. But in those peaceful moments, nothing was funny, and everything was beautiful.
"I don't mean now. I mean... later. When he actually retires, or finally gets caught in the crossfire and ends up on Ducky's table like Kate, or..." Abby put a finger over his lips to silence his rambling.
"When he leaves, it won't be 'the team' anymore, so nothing will change," she told him, and he pursed his lips and crinkled his brow in the way he did when he didn't understand. She loved that look, and didn't get to see it often. She sighed again and twirled her fingers in his fine, blonde chest hair.
"I don't get it." Abby rolled her eyes.
"That was obvious. Think of it like... a photo album." Tim closed his eyes and listened to her gravelly voice. "The first photo is of Ducky, and Gibbs, and Tony and me. I know it starts long before that, before Tony and even Ducky, but let's just start there. So, Tony and Gibbs and Ducky go to solve a murder on Airforce One. They meet Kate. We flip a page in our photo album, and add a new picture. This picture has Ducky and Gibbs and Tony and me and Kate. It's a new team."
"So when I joined the team, we flip to the next page, and it's a new team again?"
"Exactly. And then when Kate died, it was another page. When Ziva joined, it was another page. When Gibbs left and Tony become our boss..." She shuddered slightly. "We flip again. It's the first picture without Gibbs. The point is, each picture is a new team."
"When Gibbs came back, we flip it back a page, right?" Abby shook her head.
"No, McGee. We flip forward again, and add him to the photo. You can never flip backwards, because things changed since that one was taken! Gibbs changed, Tony changed, Ziva changed, you and I both changed. It can't be the same photo, because we are a new team. The whole dynamic of the team changes when one member changes."
"So if Gibbs leaves again..."
"Absolutely nothing about our team will change, because our team isn't our team without him. It's a new team. So, to answer your question, I repeat: nothing will change. Nothing will happen to our team because our team will always be frozen on Ilfochrome-coated fiber-based Polaroid paper!"
Tim just nodded and smiled, then kissed her on her pale forehead. "Well, that's good, because I don't want anything to change. Ever."
"Why not? Sometimes change is good," she argued, and he snuggled down deeper into the coffin.
"Sometimes, but right now, everything is perfect, and if anything changed... the next picture might not be as good." He put his arms around her. "I love you, Abs."
"I love you too, Tim."
The beautiful moment would forever be saved in Abby's mental photo album. Forever perfect, unchanging. Just the way it should be.