Title: A Thousand Words
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: None
Summary: Abby doesn't talk much about her past, but a picture speaks a thousand words, and her photo album is filled with them…
Author's Note: I got the idea for this one while capping Hungry Hearts, a movie Pauley Perrette starred in. In it, she's blonde and looks completely different from Abby, but she moves in similar ways and most of the tattoos Pauley has today are still there. So a plot-bunny was born… XD And yes, there is more I could do with this idea than what I have so far, but I needed something for Week 3 of the Gabby Creative Drive on the forum, so this is what you get for the prompt 'nonchalant'.
"Hey, Abbs."
Abby jumps and spins as I speak into her ear, one of her pigtails whipping around to strike my cheek. "Geez, Gibbs, don't do that!"
Her smile is a little nervous, and I search her expression curiously, handing her a Caf-Pow!. "You're jumpy today. Sure you haven't had one too many?"
Abby's eyes widen, and she takes a long, emphatic sip of the drink before responding, her cheeks hollowing out. "No way! This is only my fourth."
"It's not even eleven," I point out, amused.
"Yeah? And how many coffees have you poured down that manly throat of yours today?" she teases.
I'm on my sixth, but she doesn't need to know that. In my defence, I've been up since five-thirty. Looking past her at the computer screen she was staring at when I walked in, I ask, "What's this?"
She shoots a glance at the photograph displayed on the monitor and shrugs, her voice a little too casual. "Oh, just some photos one of my friends back in college mailed me. Nothing too interesting."
I study the image, which depicts three college-aged girls seated around a table in a bar, unaware that they're being photographed. Two are brunette, and the third is blonde, her face turned from the camera. But there's something I recognise, somehow…
Unable to keep the surprise from my voice, I gesture toward the blonde. "That's you."
Though my eyes are on the picture, I see her bite her lip in my peripheral vision. "Huh? Gibbs… No, it's not."
"No?" I take a step closer, leaning in past her to get a better look. "Looks an awful lot like you…"
Abby hits a button on her keyboard, and the screen goes dark. "Nope. You're wrong. That's Vanessa."
She's a terrible liar, and she knows it. I feel my curiosity growing, and decide to pull rank a little. "Vanessa who?"
"Smith." Her answer is too quick, and she takes another sip of the Caf-Pow! to cover her awareness of that fact.
"Uh-huh. Where'd you meet?"
"Why the third degree?" She walks away from me, double-checking a machine that even I know will beep when it has something. "It's just a stupid picture."
"Why are you getting so defensive?" I shoot back, following her and standing in her blind spot. I've never used classic interrogation techniques on Abby before, but she's watched me from the observation room enough times to spin to face me, glaring.
"I'm not defensive!"
I can't help but grin – she really is too easy to read. "You were blonde back in college."
"Prove it," she challenges.
"Show me the picture again, and I will."
For a moment, I think she'll resist, but then she sighs, leaning over to return the image to the screen. I take a closer look at the blonde girl, tracing a finger across the screen lightly. "Can you enhance that?"
I can tell she wasn't expecting a full agent analysis, but after a second, she does as I ask. The lines of the girl's arm sharpen, and a dark shape on the wrist becomes the pattern of three triangles, set in a line.
"Hmm." I reach out and tap Abby's tattoo gently; it's identical to the one in the picture.
"We all got those."
Biting back a smile, I examine the photograph again, trying to ascertain exactly what it is about the girl in the photo that clued me in. I can't see her facial features – she's looking down and slightly away from the camera. But the line of her jaw is distinctive, and combined with her posture and the tattoo on her wrist, it's conclusive evidence enough.
"It's you, Abbs… I recognise this." I don't know what makes me do it. Maybe the sight of the girl in the picture sparked something in me that I normally force myself to dissociate from Abby. But I can't stop myself from reaching out and running a light finger over her jawline, lingering just beneath her ear.
Abby instinctively tilts her head into the touch, but then does her best to look nonchalant. "I'm not the only person in the world with a jaw like that. Well, maybe no one has the exact same jaw as me, but there are a million and one variations too small to tell from one photograph, and-"
My willpower completely dissolving, I kiss along the path that my finger took, and her words falter into silence, a light gasp replacing them.
"Spent a lot of time wondering what it'd be like to do that," I tell her, pulling back to gauge her reaction. "Got you memorised pretty well."
Stunned, she stares up at me, and I drop my hand back to my side, raising an eyebrow to remind her that I'm waiting for her to speak.
"Okay," she murmurs, with a slow nod. "If I admit that you're right, will you kiss me again?"
Not even bothering to dignify that with an answer, I lean forward to meet her kiss, pulling her close when she slips her arms around my neck. She tastes like the drink I'm forever bringing her, but it seems less sweet and cloying on her lips; infinitely more palatable.
"Gonna admit it?" I ask her, when she draws back.
Her mouth opens, then closes again as she realises the futility of continuing to protest. "I lost a bet, my freshman year," she says reluctantly. "I had to dye my hair blonde for an entire semester. And if you tell anyone, I'm gonna make sure this urine sample," she holds an evidence bag aloft, "ends up in your coffee."
"Secret's safe with me, Abbs." Amused, I pick up the coffee cup from the workbench and take a sip. "Now, what do you got?"
END.