Chapter Three
James 2: 15-16
Abby keeps her music louder than usual, overwhelming all thought other than Science. When she must focus exclusively on Forensics she protects herself from extraneous thoughts and will not think about having been shot to death. She and Sammy had been walking, just walking home, completely innocent, just walking home after a fun night with, for her, some new friends when some bastard-
Hand on her right shoulder - screech so loud it drowns the music - turn and swing - hard - retreating body ducking - coming upright half a dozen feet away - Mother McGee, her red hair flying from the speed of her duck and return.
Grab the remote from the table, silence the music, let her rage fill the room instead. "Damn, Siobhan, you can't say anything?"
"I did. Four times."
Mild tones to her fury, fury reined back and stabled. "Oh. Sorry."
x
"I wanted to come see if there was anything I could do," the priest explains, stepping closer now that it's safe.
"Other than give me a heart attack?" Seeing the effect of the slap in the priest's emerald eyes, she raises her hands. "I'm sorry, that was really, really bitchy."
"It's okay. I understand."
Abby looks at the woman, particularly her abdomen. Under the scarlet blouse that clashes violently with her mint green skirt - random clothes she supposes Siobhan'd thrown on while running to where she and Sammy had been murdered - she thinks the priest's not showing a bit, not bad for nearly three months. According to Tony, Siobhan got pregnant when Tim had sheltered her in January after Charlie Morley had brutalized her.
'Must do some great exercises,' Abby thinks half-enviously, barely able to believe she'd swung at a priest and a mother-to-be, even if Siobhan did get pregnant two months before McGee married her - something the man's really going to answer for the next time she gets him alone.
For the moment Abby's not sure which of them she's madder at, Siobhan or that opportunistic bastard McGee - 'and she took his name?' - who took advantage of a devastated woman he was supposed to be helping.
Yep, definitely Tim.
Siobhan's the innocent one... and she did come down here to help. Both McGees had probably charged to the scene at Gibbs-speed until Tony had called the rush off. Looking at the priest's mismatched outfit, Abby concludes they'd probably dressed in the dark.
'What did Tim grab, or do I really want to know?'
x
"Abby?"
"Yes?"
"Why are you staring at me like you want to rip my throat out?"
"I'm not." She looks for something to do, someplace to put her hands, not wanting to meet the woman's eyes. Siobhan is a stunningly inept liar, but at the moment Abby's sure Jimmy Palmer could see through the best prevarication she could come up with. "Don't mind me, I'm freaked," she says instead, trying to switch off the internal monologue. 'That's what Def Leopard was supposed to do, save me from thinking things like this.'
"What can I do?"
"What Divinely inspired Words of Wisdom could you - or anyone else - say that could help?" She holds up her hands, ashamed. "Okay, a little leftover bitchy."
x
Unexpectedly Siobhan steps closer and hugs her. Abby holds on, hugging the woman, unable to let go; she doesn't want words, doesn't want anything but for this hug, this divine embrace, not to end. She feels the horror, the pain, the nightmare start to ease. She gradually relaxes from tension greater than she'd imagined suffusing her, but moment by moment the terrible tension eases, drains from her body, relaxation and even her wonted joy replacing it. Siobhan makes no move to end the hug, Abby knows she'll hold her for minutes, hours, a day if that's what's needed until, ultimately, the nightmare has faded and the real Abby Sciuto can come out.
Abby pulls her head back, not letting go yet but so she can see the woman. "Thank you."
Siobhan smiles. "Just employing a little scriptural lesson."
Abby frowns, trying to find a hug like this in what she remembers of the Bible. "Scriptural?"
"James, Chapter 2, verses 15 and 16: 'If a brother or sister is hurting and one of you says to them 'Be comforted' and you do not give them a hug, what does it profit?'"
Abby can't help but laugh. "I don't remember those exact words."
"They're in my version now."
They release one another and Abby feels infinitely better. Then she remembers what she'd learned from Tony and desperately wants to forget it. She can't deal with that now.
x
Siobhan had had her heart in her throat since she'd heard Jethro's announcement early this morning. She and Timmy had grabbed the first clothes they'd touched, she hadn't even looked at them while yanking them on and they'd run to his car. They were three-quarters of the way south from Silver Spring when Anthony's call had flipped the planet over - again. And by the time she had paid attention to her appearance it was far too late.
She wants to shuttle between the women, but Sammy's working in Autopsy and she won't go there while there's a procedure in progress. Not only can't she talk to Sammy there but the 'procedure' is still far beyond her endurance. It's one thing to go there to offer Last Rites to the departed, she never wants to see Ducky and James - and Sammy - at work.
Therefore she'll stay with Abby, force herself to stay confined in the far corner of the lab until her friend has something she wants to say. Officially not 'on duty' upstairs, not even here today and unwilling to show herself in the building in this hodgepodge of clothing she'd leapt into, she resigns herself to as much patient silence as she can manage.
She's already called George, dear over-patient George, to give him her 'expect me when you see me' message.
How many times this year has she told her Rector that when an emergency cropped up in this Agency of Emergencies?
xx
"Why can't that bastard have shot my skirt?" Abby grouses after several minutes of grim silence while she worked the blood tests, holding up the clear plastic Evidence bag containing her white blouse, the material marked with too much red. "I liked this blouse. I had to go all the way to the East Village - New York - for it. Okay, I did it on-line but that's not the point. You know how hard it is to get genuine Victorian vintage clothing in DC?"
"No."
She smiles ruefully, looking to Siobhan for the first time in minutes. "How would you? Your working fashions haven't changed since the Middle Ages. You'd probably consider Victorian too ultra-modern."
"There's something to be said for consistency," Siobhan quips. Abby's being curt because she's scared and worse, so she won't take offense at anything the scientist says or how she says it.
"The Church would consider my poodle skirt too much of a novelty."
"As I recall, the Roman church considered it indecently provocative." The garment reaches down to the ankles, is a product of the repressive 50's and is only provocative if one has a 'thing' for dogs. On the other hand, when she and Timmy had been dating this summer, Siobhan had worn miniskirts under her black cassocks, ready for quick changes before setting out after the 6:30 services.
"They wouldn't like my tats either." Abby looks speculatively at the priest. "You ever consider getting any tats? I've seen some that'd look great on you."
"God forbid."
"Tim would probably have a conniption."
"Absolutely," she declares with a shudder. There are some nice religious designs, but seeing 'Mom' tattooed on Timmy's right butt cheek, a fairly nice scroll with roses, had put her off the idea of ever marking her body. In fact, she intends to raise the subject of having the thing removed when she's sure of how he'll take to the idea.
x
"Oh, well," Abby says, banter doing little beyond postponing the inevitable. She opens the bag and tries to quell the regret she feels. "Time to see what Major Mass Spec and Captain Gas Chromatograph think of my clothes."
"I've wondered, have you named all your equipment?"
"Pretty much. Bertha's my computer and Ken's my scanning electron microscope." She gives the priest a salacious wink. "He likes to get really close looks."
"Ohhh - kay."
Abby lays the blouse upon her table and crosses the room, returns with a silver tray containing a variety of implements, each tool encased in plastic. Breaking the first seal, she uses the small pair of sterile scissors to cut a square centimeter out of the red-stained cloth and places it into a tube which she immediately seals. Then with no less regret and obvious reluctance, she cuts another, larger piece and places that into a Petri dish. Several other samples are prepared and the lot find their way into various machines that surround the room, others going into machines in her office and rear lab. The last sample is placed under the lighted lens of her microscope.
"Will it take long to get the answers?" Siobhan asks from the stool she's placed in the corner.
Abby glances up from the microscope's eyepiece. "You sure you're not married to Gibbs?"
"Pretty sure," she replies, though her smile masks a tiny shudder.
"The gas chromatascope will actually break down the sample into its component atoms and tell me what elements it's made of. The infrared mass spectroscope does essentially the same thing but without the damage." She goes on to describe the details of every other machine's function and the kind of results it could potentially yield until she catches sight of the priest's emerald eyes glazing over.
"The upshot of all these tests," she says with a smile, deciding to have mercy on her friend, "is that I can tell Gibbs what this red stuff is made of, and hopefully figure out where it came from."
"And then you can get it off your face?"
Abby uses the blackened monitor on the freestanding console shelf as an ad hoc mirror. The red stain on her forehead had been lightened but hadn't been removed by scrubbing in the shower. "Darn, I forgot. Well, as soon as I know what this is it'll be gone," she swears. "Sammy's gonna be pissed, though. If this got into her hair shafts with the melanin, she'll probably have to dye it. Wonder how she'd look as a redhead. Bet Gibbs'd like to know."
"No comment," Siobhan promises, touching her fiery locks.
x
Abby examines the rectangular metal pin on her blouse's lapel, 'STRAIGHT' large on the top line, 'but not narrow' small on the bottom. It's smeared with faux blood, though she feels some satisfaction from the fact that stains can't harm the metal. At least something survived the ambush. She removes the pin from the ruined cloth, bags it separately to get a pristine sample of the 'blood' rather than dealing with possible contamination by fibers. The pin is a gift from Sammy and she can't wait for the time when she can clean it off and put it back on.
xxx
In Autopsy Samantha Sky works on the other side of the silver table from Jimmy, her back to the entry doors while Ducky, at the head of the table and that of drowned Marine Private Lim Takabachi, supervises his Deputy and Apprentice. Takabachi's torso has been divided by three incisions, two extending from below mid-shoulders to meet above the sternum, the next halving the body from chest to groin. The ribs have been severed, they and the sternum have been removed 'en bloc' and set aside, allowing access to the internal organs.
"Now have particular care," Ducky directs Samantha, who holds a hypodermic to Takabachi's left lung, "that your point only goes in a sufficient depth to penetrate an avoli sac."
The doors to the elevator slide apart and DiNozzo enters. "Hey, guys, sorry to cut in."
"Very droll, Agent DiNozzo."
"Actually, Ducky, I'm just here to collect Sammy." She turns, apprehension lighting her pale blue eyes. "You have a date with Gibbs."
"A date," she cries, aghast, and her hands snap to her head to cover the red splotch that's discolored her long, pale blonde hair. "I can't go on a date - I'm a mess!" She tries to cover her extra-small scrubs, but her incipient grin hints at her effort to deny the reality of her fears and the chaotic day. "I have nothing to wear." She whirls on the tall, grinning man on the other side of the table. "Jimmy, you go. He'll never notice the difference."
"Sorry, he's not really my type."
She slumps, defeated. "First I get shot to death, then I get set up on a blind date."
"Look at it this way," Jimmy advises, enjoying her faux griping, "at least you know he likes redheads."
The grin falls from her face so hard they can virtually hear the crash.
"That's not funny." Her tone is as dead as the corpse between them.
x
"I'm sorry," Jimmy says contritely, taken aback by the sudden reversal.
"I mean I was shot," her voice breaks, misery long denied shattering her mask. "Somebody shot me to death," she cries, trembling violently, "and I have no idea who or why and I'll never get this out of my hair and I'm so scared and miserable and you stand there treating it like a joke you are so mean."
She's suddenly aware of Ducky standing beside her and throws her arms about him, sobbing into his chest.
"I - I didn't–" Jimmy stammers. If her spirited manner since returning to the Autopsy suite after months away was an example of her being 'miserable', he'd totally misinterpreted it. "I'm sorry, I–"
Ducky, looking at him over the woman's head, shakes his own, intending to say this is not his fault.
Actually, he's been waiting for this ever since Sammy had arrived. He holds her as she sobs, her body wracked by the violence of her terror and grief.
xx
Gibbs looks at the clock on the distant wall, then confirms the time with his watch. Eighteen, now nineteen minutes since he sent his Senior Field Agent down to collect Sky. 'How long does it take DiNozzo to pick up a woman?'
He shoves the thought away; it's never again going to intrude upon his mind.
Fortunately for the too-long-absent agent, the elevator's bell announces his return. DiNozzo follows the young woman into the bullpen and Gibbs notes she's tightly clutching several crushed tissues, though her reddened eyes are still damp. Her blue scrubs are smeared by blood but the front looks recently wrinkled.
"Hello, Chicky," he greets her, a welcome that instantly brightens her as he knew it would. 'Chicky' is a nickname only he uses for her and it harkens back to their one true and decisive confrontation, when she had crossed over in his mind from inconvenient and temporary pest to a serious medical professional. He likes a woman who demands respect and always gives it to them when it's earned, which is usually by their having the cojones to stand up to him.
Thus far, other than his team, only Rev. McGee, Palmer and Sky have done it.
When Sky and DiNozzo reach his desk: "Can you think of anyone who wants to kill you?"
She blinks down at him. "Wow, right between the eyes - again. Agent Gibbs, I've been trying. I don't make all that many enemies."
x
This he believes. Her native mirth tends to bring out the same in those she associates with, and even the pair who'd framed her hadn't done it with any enmity; she'd simply been a convenient scapegoat upon whom to hang a double murder.
"The truth is, we're leaning more to Abby being the target. She crosses paths with lowlifes far more frequently than you do, but you were targeted first."
"That's really unusual?"
"Yeah." She has to ask?
Sky looks around, as if the clue she seeks is in the faces of the surrounding agents. DiNozzo's returned to his desk, but all five agents stare at her. She gives up, tries to shut the others out. "Agent Gibbs, I swear I have no idea."
"Whoever shot you both waited two hours on that street to do it."
"Then you think it had something to do with Sodom and Gomorrah?"
"Probably not," DiNozzo interjects. Sammy looks back to him, relieved by this opinion. "If it were your club that was the issue, the perp would've opened up there. Most other people from the club we tracked by other traffic cams, they got into cars or used the Metro or went in a dozen different directions. He waited on L Street nine blocks away from the club because that's the path you and Abby would take to walk home."
"But like you said, why paint balls and not bullets?"
"Because they weren't paint balls," Abby's extra-loud voice erupts from the plasma screen, fills the bullpen and makes everyone jump.
x
"I wish she wouldn't do that," DiNozzo gripes, snatching the remote control from the screen top while swallowing his heart. This is the second time this week she's done it, and last time he'd nearly fallen from his chair.
He particularly dislikes when the scientist communicates through the supposedly 'off' system, because if she can do that, what else is she capable of? Considering her eclectic bend, he doesn't want to know what her fertile imagination has in store.
When the unit is officially turned on, it shows a downward angle into Abby's lab, from her freestanding computer and microscope workstation to her large white Evidence table. She wears her long white lab coat over the NCIS coveralls he'd seen her in last. It makes a jarring image which, considering the usual staggering fashions of the 'Mysterious of the Dark', is saying a lot.
"What do you mean it wasn't paint balls?" Gibbs demands.
"Come down and see, oh Sharpshooter Extraordinaire."
"DiNozzo, David... Sky, with me," he commands, already out of the Bullpen. McGee turns off the plasma as the three follow the fast moving Gibbs.
"Sure felt like paint balls," Sammy mutters sotto vocé as she hurries to keep up with the tall agents before they board the elevator, "and my boobs have the bruises to prove it."
