Next day he wakes up to a headache, which he feels is totally undeserved considering the lack of alcohol consumed last night. He gulps down Advil and returns to the sofa to wait for it to take effect. Everything feels faint like he hasn't eaten for a week, which isn't true at all. He remembers Ducky saying once that grief takes a physical hold on the body too and maybe Ducky is right, maybe Tony is grieving for the way things used to be.
His fidgeting wakes Ziva and he forgets all about grieving.
"Morning," he says, and regrets the forced chipperness in his voice. His throat aches and he winces.
"Where's McGee?" Most people get grouchy when they first wake up. Ziva, true to form, gets suspicious.
Tony shrugs. He vaguely remembers McGee getting up in the middle of the night and complaining about how uncomfortable Tony's armchair was and Tony had bitten back a sarcastic retort in favor of not waking Ziva. The armchair is deserted now.
"Hey, I figured we could go into the office today?"
Ziva looks doubtful. "You having second thoughts?"
"No!" He isn't, mostly. "I just mean: stop by and see Abby, and maybe get some things from my desk. I left a lot of stuff." Like his Starbucks rewards card.
"Sure. Okay. They'll probably want us to clear our desks anyway. The sooner we clear them, the sooner they can assign them to new agents."
"New agents are welcome to them as far as I'm concerned," but even he isn't convinced at his words and he frowns.
Ziva slinks off toward the bathroom. He should shower too. He should get up, put on a shirt and possibly a tie, find his fancy shoes, and bust Gibbs outta there. Failing that, he could at least make some noise about how unfair the whole situation is under the pretence of clearing his desk. Failing that, he should visit Abby, at the very least.
He hears the water come on and pads off toward the kitchen, fiddling with the coffee machine. He pulls out his cup and finds one for Ziva, hesitates over finding a third for McGee but figures he more than likely hightailed it back to his own apartment and his comfy bed. Nice move, probie, thinks Tony, and then he feels guilty for being more-than-happy to spend the morning alone with Ziva.
A few moments later Ziva trails out of the bathroom with her wet hair sticking like kelp to her reddened face. Tony hands her the coffee and she sips it with a smile of thanks. "Could I borrow a comb?"
"A comb? Ziva, do I look like the kind of guy who owns a comb?" He runs a hand through his short hair to prove his point.
"Tony, you own fifteen types of moisturizer and something that smells suspiciously like floral cologne. If there is a type of guy who owns a comb, you are definitely that type."
She has a point. He points her toward the bedroom. "Table beside the bed."
He returns to his coffee and thinks nothing more of it until he hears a gasp and a yelp from the bedroom. He almost jumps for his gun but figures Ziva may have discovered his magazine collection so he steals himself, waiting, until the bedroom door reopens and Ziva comes out, tugging McGee behind her.
"Look who I found in your bed!"
McGee yawns and doesn't even look embarrassed.
"McGee, I thought you went home."
McGee sits at the table and stretches his leg lazily. "In the middle of the night? Yeah right. That armchair was so uncomfortable so I figured there's a perfectly good bed in there, why not use it?"
Tony claps him on the shoulder. "Man's got a point!"
Ziva looks unnerved and rolls her eyes, heading back for the comb. "You know, I bet there aren't many other NCIS teams who cohabitate…"
Upon entering the lab they are met with relative silence, which is completely unexpected because this is Abby and this is her lab and when is it not drowning in loud music? Tony frowns and is almost worried until he catches sight of the prodigal forensic scientist, her back to them as she leans over her computer screen, iPod earphones blaring out something loud and fast and annoying. Tony smiles. She looks fine, all things considered.
"Hey Abby!" McGee says, but she doesn't hear him. He frowns and moves up behind her, going to tug lightly on her pigtails but her Gibbs gut must be improving because she turns around at the last minute and fixes him with a menacing glare. The earphones dislodge as she opens her mouth in shock.
"Tim!" She grins and smothers him in a hug, her iPod getting all tangled as McGee lifts her off her feet, which Tony thinks is pretty impressive considering the height of her platform boots. "You're here! How are you here? They let you in?"
"Visitors pass," McGee explains once he has deposited Abby back on the ground. She inspects his visitor pass with a sad smile. She hands it back and stares at him a while longer until she is satisfied that he is ok, and turns her attention to Tony and Ziva.
"You guys!" She shuffles towards them in her boots and attempts to hug them both at once. Tony finds himself pulled in pretty tight and the visitor badge around his neck gets tangled in the metal chains attached to Abby's shirt and Ziva's elbow ends up dislodging his kidney but he is happy nonetheless. He wants to apologize to Abby, to check she's ok, to make sure she's getting enough sleep and not too much caffeine but he isn't Gibbs and he has no idea how Abby would react to him pretending to be Gibbs. He settles for patting her head affectionately, and she beams up at him.
She looks at Ziva, still clinging to her hand tightly. "So is this for real? You guys are finito?"
"Finito?"
"Nothing is for definite Abby," says Tony, even though he isn't entirely sure of that himself. "We're just making a stand here."
"But you're coming back?"
Ziva will not look her in the eyes. Ziva is a trained liar and a professional sleuth but she cannot look at Abby's hopeful face and tell a barefaced lie. "I don't know."
"Well you're here now, right?"
"Paperwork and clean up, Abs," says McGee. "We're clearing out our desks."
"Oh." Abby looks as though someone has just shot a puppy in front of her, and Tony feels like utter crap to be the cause of that look.
The lab seems a lot colder and Abby finally lets go of Ziva's hand, takes a couple steps back and repositions herself at her computer. She taps aimlessly at the keyboard and fixes her eyes on the monitor with the precise concentration of someone who is fighting back tears. Tony feels painfully bad now.
"I'm busy, guys."
"Abby come on," McGee steps closer but she fixes him with a death stare. "Abs, we'll still visit you. We're still a team."
"No we're not McGee. You guys left. You left me."
Tony cannot argue with that. She's said it loud and clear and no matter how he might try to dress up their actions as some valiant act of defiance, the truth was they had unwittingly left Abby in the midst of this shitstorm. He mentally imagines Gibbs slapping him about the head, at least three times.
"Guys please, go and clean out your desks. I'm busy here."
Ziva looks torn between getting the hell out of there and rushing forward and clinging to Abby. Tony recognizes these signs in Ziva more and more recently, the conflict of emotions inside her, her fluctuation between distanced trained assassin and concerned friend.
"Abby…" But Tony isn't sure what to say without it sounding like a lie. Things are difficult, complicated, very screwed up right now and he knows Gibbs would be pissed to see them put Abby through this. "Abby we can't come back, yet, you know that. But one day…"
"One day?" She sniffles and does not look at him. "You mean you want to come back?"
"Of course!" Says McGee, and Abby smiles at him.
"Why wouldn't we Abs? I love this job." He does love his job, more than he thinks most NCIS agents do and he isn't afraid to admit that most of that is down to the three people in the lab with him right now. And the two in autopsy downstairs. And the one in custody.
"Good," says Abby, and manages to look a lot happier. She fixes them all with a smile. "But, I actually am busy guys. Things to do, people to incriminate, you know how it is."
"Gotcha," Tony winks.
"We'll come see you before we leave, alright?" McGee says this while poking her shoulder lightly and Tony wishes probie would just man up and hug the poor girl.
"You better!"
Sitting at his desk alone in the bullpen is something so sufficiently normal that Tony almost forgets the fact that it isn't even his desk right now. The surface is cleaned of debris and his paperwork has been carried off to be reassigned and his computer is unplugged and tidied away. Most of the drawers are empty, but mainly because he threw a lot of it in the trash. He hadn't realized how much crap he actually accumulated over the years.
He sits with the final desk drawer open. Inside is one of McGee's comic books he stole about six years ago that the probie has been looking for ever since. A bundle of keys, although he's not sure where they go to. A chocolate bar that looks suspiciously like it has melted in its wrapper. Lots of Ziva's stationary that he has borrowed and forgot to give back. And finally, beneath all of this he finds a small soft ball. He sits with it in his palm, tossing it up and down, up and down. It is squishy and relaxing and he wonders how it has managed to stay unnoticed in the drawer for almost ten years. It is bright pink and has "I'm a jerk" written across it in big black lettering.
A hand appears above him as he tosses the ball up, snatching the ball away.
"I'm a jerk?" She reads it with a scowl and on any other day Tony would totally bite the bait here, but he really isn't in the mood. He fixes Ziva with a look that he hopes says don't.
She ignores his look. "Where did you get this? I've never seen it before."
He doesn't know how to tell her it was a gift from Kate without revealing the great big Ari-shaped elephant in the room so he shrugs. "Just something an old friend gave me."
Ziva reads between the lines because she is Ziva, and nods awkwardly. Tony feels even more like crap than he already did and realizes, too late, that he should have just told her it was from McGee.
She changes the subject. "Are you all packed away?" She hands him the ball back.
"Yes. Ready to leave as soon as you are, preferably sooner rather than later 'cause it's driving me crazy sitting here with everyone staring at me."
"Since when do you care what people think?"
"Uh, since always. We quit, all together, and Gibbs was carted away, and you know how fast gossip travels here."
"Maybe they're concerned?"
"Maybe they're nosy little jerks who should focus on their work for a change." He raises his voice a little in the hope that someone might hear. The office grows awkwardly silent and Ziva raises an eyebrow at him before retreating to her own desk.
The elevator pings and McGee strolls toward them, his face furrowed. "What the hell happened in here?" He whispers.
Ziva doesn't bother to whisper. "Tony can't handle inter-office gossip."
"Can too."
"Oh please, you cannot."
Tony rolls his eyes at her but his heart isn't in it. He sweeps the remainder of his stuff into his backpack and tosses the comic back to McGee, who gawps at him.
"'The Cell?' Tony, why do you have a Punisher comic?"
Tony waits for the cogs to align.
"Wait, is this my copy of Punisher's 'The Cell'?"
Tony grins. Totally worth the six-year wait.
Abby hugs them each at least a minute longer than the requisite hug-time before they leave. McGee slips a Caf-Pow onto her desk but she ignores it in favor of hugging Ziva again.
"Call me if anything happens."
Tony frowns. "Anything like what?"
"Y'know," she lowers her voice conspiratorially, "Gibbs-related happenings."
Oh.
"Sure." He isn't expecting anything new to happen with Gibbs's case for at least a few days yet. He knows how long it takes to sort through evidence and Abby ought to know too, but he thinks maybe she's just being hopeful.
"Oh!" She brightens up and ushers them closer to her desk, brandishing a small red flyer emblazoned with black spikey lettering. "I almost forgot! My friend's band is playing their first show at this bar tomorrow night, and they want as many people as possible there."
Tony thinks this sounds suspiciously like an invite. He backs up. "Band? What band?" Knowing Abby it is something preposterous and deafening.
"Sacrificial Goat."
"That is their name?" Ziva looks like she doesn't know whether to laugh or not.
"Sure. And they're playing their first gig tomorrow. They're pretty nervous. I said I'd ask around, get people to come, y'know. It'll make them feel better knowing there's a big crowd there to see them."
"Right," Tony draws this word out as much as possible. He wonders how to let Abby down gently because there is no way he can imagine himself willingly walking into this death trap.
"Jimmy already said he'd come."
Wait. "Palmer? Palmer plus thrash metal?"
"He's pretty excited, apparently."
McGee looks dumbfounded. "Wow. I never would've guessed."
"That'll teach you to underestimate us scientists."
Tony is still trying to figure out a polite way to decline until Ziva throws a spanner in the works by touching Abby's elbow gently. "Of course we'll be there."
"We will?" Says Tony.
"We will!" Says McGee.
"Yay!" Abby bounces up and down a few times for emphasis.
Tony groans.