Revelation

Author: Lawral

Pairing: McGee/Abby

Rating: FR13

Warning: Slight violence

Notes: Written for Barb for all her work on the 2008 NFA Secret Santa.

McGee continued to stare at the screen of jumbled information. The computer lingo seemed to sink into his brain without a drop of problems. But something was also wrong. Even she hadn't been able to figure out what it was that didn't make any sense. They'd been staring at the various screens from the Commander's computer for hours each and still couldn't quite put their finger on what didn't fit.

She was sitting in the chair behind him and lazily turning in circles for nothing better to do. She'd read over the information dozens of times and still couldn't figure out what was in it that had caused someone to kill the Commander. McGee and the team had found him dead in his home hours earlier after his wife had returned home from a spa weekend with three girlfriends. Solid alibi, they'd concluded.

The computer was a mess of family files and corporate junk. However, McGee had found a program that was labeled innocently to where no one would think to look at it. But it consisted of some code they'd been unable to crack. Random letters and numbers seemed to fill a quarter of the computer's memory.

"Give it up, McGee. We've been trying to figure that program out for four hours. There's nothing there that makes sense. No numerical equations or logic to deciphering it's meaning. We're out of ideas." She'd said, as she continued to turn circles.

"Gibbs wants this cracked an hour ago. We're lucky he hasn't come down to check on us yet. When he finds out that we have nothing; I don't think even you'd be safe." McGee said, still reading over the computer code.

Abby stopped spinning on her chair and looked at him, strangely at first trying to balance her equilibrium. She'd always been Gibbs' favorite even when the news she had to give him wasn't what he wanted or expected. Aside from the Director, she'd been the first to run to his side after he'd gotten blown up.

"That is not true. Gibbs would never strike a lady." She smiled up to him.

"Yeah," He said, turning away from the screen. "You've said that before. Doesn't keep him from treating you the same as he does us when we don't get information as soon as he'd want it."

"But," She said, standing and walking toward him with an innocent flirtatious demeanor. "I'm usually the first one to get off his bad list, by finding something."

"Thru forensics, Abby. There's nothing forensic about this computer program." McGee said.

"Bite your tongue, McGee." Abby gasped.

McGee looked to her for a moment and playfully growled and made a biting action in mid air. Abby laughed and started to turn circles where she stood. McGee returned his attention to the program and jumped slightly when he suddenly felt arms wrap around his neck and Abby's chin plopped down on his shoulder. He smiled briefly and shifted slightly to look toward her.

"We're not going to find anything." She told him in a sing-song voice.

"What happened to the Abby that never gave up on a case?"

Abby shrugged her shoulders, "She gave up."

Abby sighed and turned the chair around so that McGee was facing her. She put her hands on his shoulders again and lowered her tone of voice as she inched toward him.

"McGee, you aren't finding anything that I haven't already thought of. Therefore, we are not meant to crack this code. Now you can sit here and look over the stupid code for the twentieth time or we can go somewhere no one will find us and get all…hinky."

McGee swallowed hard as he watched her leaning toward him. She was playing with him again. It never seemed to get old for her. He loved her; she knew he loved her, yet she wasn't ready to be 'in love.' He moistened his lips as his eyes continued to watch her lips grow closer to his until she stopped mere inches from him. He looked up into her eyes and could see that she knew she had him.

"Uh, Abby…" He then saw the smile on her face and he schooled his own expression and pushed her hands off his shoulders. He turned back around to face the computer.

"McGee, I was joking." Abby tried to explain.

"I know, Abs." He typed into the keyboard to make the sequence start again. "That's the point." He muttered to himself.

Abby groaned to herself and picked up her empty Caf-Pow! She walked toward the door and flipped her pig tails around her finger.

"Where are you going?" McGee called out, not turning around.

"You want to waste your time on that code, be my guest. I'm not watching you toast your brain on something that's not there." She said, already hitting the button for the elevator.

McGee groaned to himself and continued to look at the computer screen. He heard the bell ding as the door closed on Abby, taking her to the cafeteria for more liquid caffeine. Suddenly the computers started beeping rapidly. Not just the computer McGee was sitting at, but all of the computers that were bundled together on that particular work station.

"What the hell?" McGee said to himself as he started typing away at the keys in front of him.

~*~

Abby hadn't even pressed the button to what floor she wanted when she felt a sudden jerk and a loud boom on the other side of the doors. She gasped, dropped her cup and grabbed for the elevator rails. She hadn't even had time to recover from the shock when smoke started billowing into the elevator and the main lights went out.

She lunged forward and punched at the buttons. None of them seemed to work. The doors wouldn't open, the lift wouldn't work and the alarm wouldn't sound. Reality finally hit her; this wasn't some plain fire, her lab had blown up- with Tim inside it.

She kicked at the doors, she kicked at the control panel, she kicked the door again. Nothing was out of reach of Abby's path. She could only think of the last thing she'd done before leaving the lab. She'd toyed with Tim's attraction to her. What was she thinking. He'd done nothing but worship her. He'd wrote her poems, given her flowers, told her that he really cared for her and all she'd done was throw it all back into his face.

For years she'd made him settle for a platonic relationship. She loved him as nothing more than a friend whereas he'd loved her with his whole heart and tried to move on in the face of rejection. She realized that his jealousy over Marty had been for this reason. She'd found someone new to play with and that left him with nobody. She wouldn't even flirt innocently with him during that time.

He'd done nothing but love her and she'd thrown it back at him time and time again. She was no better than Tony making fun of him when he knew it wasn't funny. She groaned and kicked the door again.

"Timmy!" She screamed at the door.

She started coughing when the smoke filled the elevator and she sat down on the floor, drawing her knees up to her chin and started banging herself against the side of the walls. Why had she been so horrible to him for all those years? He treated her like a queen. His queen. No one had ever done that before and she'd destroyed his heart by rejecting him. Here she had his heart, his whole heart, from day one and she couldn't even give him a piece of hers now.

She continued to bang against the door. How long had she been trapped in there? Five minutes? Ten minutes? It hadn't seemed that long but her mind was going in so many directions it didn't want to keep track of time. Not unless it was the amount of time she spent with McGee daily and continued to break his heart.

The doors opened above her and Tony's face emerged from the cloud of smoke behind him. She looked up and suddenly felt relief. She was no longer stuck in the elevator and from the man she loved. She got to her feet and jumped into Tony's arms. Her gratitude was drowned out by his telling her to calm down and that she needed some oxygen.

"Timmy." She called and pushed against Tony.

Gibbs and Palmer were busy putting out the flames from the small bank of computers on her central desk. She looked around the room but saw no sign of the man she'd left in the room. Where was he? Was he hurt? Was he ok? The questions collided against one another, each wanting to be the first asked as she stared at her lab with great big owl eyes.

Gibbs looked over to her and rushed to her side as Tony helped Palmer put the rest of the fire out with the extinguisher. He wrapped his arms around her neck and held her for a moment. He then held her at arms length and ran his eyes over her looking for any injuries. "Are you hurt?"

She looked at him and could only ask her own question. "Timmy."

"He's uh…"

Abby turned as she heard coughing in the hallway. She ran back out of her lab and found Ziva with McGee against the wall a few feet from the elevator door. Ziva was holding a oxygen mask against his face and Ducky was tending a nasty burn on the side of McGee's face.

"Timmy!" Abby squealed and ran for him.

Ziva had only a fraction of a second to move out of the way as Abby slid to a stop and bend down to circle her arms around McGee's neck. She had tears running down her face but she planted her lips firmly against his.

"Uh, Abs." Ziva started to protest.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Timmy. I'm sorry." She said over and over as she pecked kisses against his lips. "I'm sorry. I spent all these years torturing you and… I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Ducky looked up to see the other members of their team standing outside the lab door looking down to McGee and Abby. Even Ziva stood and waited for Abby to "get it out" as she'd once put it.

"Abby," McGee said hoarsely.

"I'm so sorry, Timmy. I promise, I'll never do it again. Ok? I'm sorry." She grabbed a hold of the sides of his face causing him to jump at the pain. "Ooh, sorry." She looked him in the ear, oblivious to the others around her now.

"I'm sorry, Timmy. I love you. I love you, I love you. I'm sorry. I was scared and-"

McGee put a finger up to her lips to stop her and his eyes searched hers. She wasn't playing with him this time. She was telling him the truth. A small smile formed on his face and he too forgot of the small group of bystanders watching their exchange.

"I love you too, Abs."

She smiled and kissed him. The years of pent-up emotions fell from him as they kissed and it seemed he was no longer in pain from the burns. He just wasn't able to get her as close to him as he wanted.

"Ok, well we need to get these two lovebirds over to hospital. Seems some smoke leaked into the elevator and they may need a good looking over to make sure they're all right." Ducky said, smiling down to the couple.

"What the hell happened?" Gibbs asked to no one in particular.

Tony shrugged his shoulders. "McGee was mumbling something about overloading the circuits each time the code was played. I don't know, geek speak."

"Well get them checked out and off of each other." Gibbs said, though a smile stretched his face. "They can make out after we find out who tried to kill them and why."

Abby and McGee however heard none of what was being said around them. They were lost in each other. He finally had her and she wasn't about to risk losing him again.