Title: Now or Never
Pairing: Gibbs/Abby
Rating: K
Spoilers: Rule 51
Words: 258
Prompt: Now or Never (Gabby forum Hiatus Creative Drive Week 4)
Author's Note: Thanks to Amy (chirugal) for the quick beta when I wasn't sure I liked what I wrote.
He stood at the doorway looking into the room. Boxes were stacked here and there, a couple tilted precariously, but not yet giving into gravity's demands. Dust motes swirled silently in the shafts of sunlight coming in through the old, faded drapes.
Three ex-wives and he'd never cleaned out this room. Never used it, never allowed them to use it, even when they legally had as much right to the space as he did. There were too many memories in this room. Ghosts of a past life.
Looking back, perhaps it said something about those relationships; about himself. He wasn't one for long bouts of introspection, and hind-sight –as they say – is 20/20.
He wasn't sure what made this time different. There were surface differences, sure. She wasn't a redhead. She didn't care about the long hours or the phone calls into work at 3am. She was fiercely independent. She wanted to share her life with him, yet she refused to marry him.
He didn't want to start their time together in the same room where three marriages failed. There were ghosts of a different sort in that room. No, as with Shannon, there were no secrets now. He wanted their time together to be as fulfilling as that of his first marriage.
With a sigh, he pushed off the door frame and into the room. It was now or never, they were moving her things in two days and the room needed to be ready.
Besides, there wasn't room for her new coffin in the other room.