4. Promises, Promises

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"Oh my giddy aunt, what is this radio station and where the hell are we?"

Well, look who was awake. Tony glanced over at his grouchy co-pilot and had to smile. Her fresh cut hair was a halo of frizz around her head and a pout of epic proportions distorted her entire face all the way up to her eyebrows. It was adorable. Not to mention she was still curled up in his hooded sweatshirt, which was about forty-five sizes too big and made it look like she wasn't wearing pants. That was his favourite look on a woman: one of his shirts and no pants. It was the step above black tie evening gowns in silky fabrics with plunging backs, after which Cheerleader outfits pulled a distant third (wouldn't Kate have been disappointed in him).

She even had her shoes off. He felt like he was driving the family to Grandma's house.

"We are in Decatur, Illinois, Abs. You missed Indiana."

She sing-songed, "Indiana wants me, but I can't go back there."

"Good tune."

He turned off the radio before she could remember to start complaining about it again. He'd only put it on to listen to the traffic reports, it wasn't his fault if the posted station played a lot of James Taylor. Actually, he didn't really mind. He was open to almost all kinds of music. The same could not be said for Abby, as surprising as that was considering what she was open to. Her taste was wide, but esoteric.

"They did an episode of the original Fugitive TV series here. Well, it was set here."

"I doubt they went on location much, Tony, it was the sixties. Is there somewhere we can eat?" Abby started finger-combing her hair and trying to straighten out from her pretzel-like sleeping pose.

"I'm sure there is, Miss One-Track Mind." he teased. This was not the first time on the trip the only words she had for him were about their next meal.

She had the grace to look embarrassed, "I get a little testy when I'm hungry."

"I've noticed." Personally, he ate constantly when he could because he was used to not being able to eat for long, ridiculous stretches of Gibbs-time and undercover it could be even worse. He'd needed to lie himself out of many a meal after a check in on assignment. Whatever it took, protect and serve, etc. etc. You got used to it. Though he had a feeling Abby wouldn't. If everything went according to plan, she wouldn't have to, either. They should only be moving for about a week and a half before they bedded down into their deep cover. He hoped.

In the meantime, Abby needed to be eased into the whole idea, because it just wasn't her area. In fact, hiding who you really were as much as possible could be described as the antithesis of Abbyness.

"That looks a bit fancy, let's go there." He pointed to a swanky, sit-down restaurant. Until now they'd been stopping at diners and dives and various other unsavoury places that specialised in over-salted, underdone, extra super greasy take away. Which he liked, but variety was the spice of life. The last time he took Abby to a swank restaurant, her conversation with the waiter had him wiping away actual tears of laughter. He seriously almost wished he could take her home to meet his father. She'd try her best to fit in for him, she liked being treated like a lady, and she certainly had good manners when she felt they were warranted, but she just didn't have any tolerance for bullshit. Some of the rituals of the rich and snobby definitely fell under that heading.

Abby glanced between him and the restaurant with a befuddled frown, "You want to go some place fancy?"

"It'll be good practise for your future undercover exploits. We'll put on some more appropriate clothes in the car and we'll be good to go, right Audrey?" He turned into the parking lot and scanned for a spot behind the building. No sense getting arrested for indecent exposure. Not while they were on the run.

"I uh, I- sure, Ton... Daniel. Ready when you are." She smiled bravely and saluted him.

Full points for enthusiasm, anyway. Things probably weren't going to go well, because he was having way too much fun with this whole Undercover Abby Thing and the universe just did not like him that much.

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"Daniel!" Abby hissed across the table, "the salad alone is forty-five dollars!"

Tony just smiled, "Order whatever you want, honeybuns, we're celebrating my big bonus, remember?" She might as well, he'd already ordered a wine he hadn't seen since he attended a cotillion with his father when he was twelve. Some cousin twice removed was being presented to society as a débutante. Talk about your bullshit, his father going to that. Him going to that. Anyway, he was pretty sure the wine was going to be more than forty-five dollars.

"Pretentious," Abby muttered, reading the elaborate descriptions of some basic food items on the menu. "I like really good food in little towers as much as the next girl, but that's just..."

"Classy," Tony covered as the waiter dropped off an intricately decorated salad plate with a carefully constructed spinach garden on some kind of cracker lattice.

"This is..." Abby took a bite mid rant and her eyes rolled back in her head. "Orgasmic. But still overpriced!"

He just laughed. "Ain't that always the way, Dee."

"Is that proper dinner table conversation? I think I'm offended." She mimed poking at him with her fork. She was using the wrong one, but they'd decided Audrey wasn't necessarily old money.

"I'd remind you that you started it, but I'm too much of a gentleman."

The waiter appeared again at his elbow with a tray of fresh water glasses, the delicate stemware glittering in the rays of afternoon sun streaming in the full-length windows. He seemed a little too fascinated by the cut of Abby's scoop neckline (not, for once, her spider web tattoo, which was covered by a silk scarf) and Tony saw the whole thing playing out before it even happened. The tray tilted that millimetre too far and fine crystal started listing, then coming down. His instincts were faster than his brain and he found himself stupidly reaching out to catch glassware that wasn't even his to pay for when it inevitably broke. The bowl shattered as it hit his outstretched fingers and sliced neatly through the flesh, deeply enough to cause a pretty, red gash.

He stared at his hand, feeling foolish. "Oops."

"T- Daniel! Are you okay?" Abby was trying to stand up and getting her skirt caught in the leg of her chair.

"Sir, I am so-"

"Don't worry about it." It did sting like a son of a bitch and it was dripping on the carpet, but he would probably live. He wrapped it in one of the embroidered table napkins and excused himself to the washroom, Abby staring after him with a deer in headlights expression on her face. It likely wouldn't do to leave her alone for too long, she was on edge enough without him causing a scene and bleeding everywhere. Real inconspicuous of him, great example he was setting.

Having a terrible, terrible thought, he gave his index finger an experimental twitch. Oop. Yep. Not a go. Houston, we have a problem.

"Tony?" Abby was pushing the door to the men's room open with her back while facing the other way, waving something over her shoulder. "I've got band-aids."

Small mercies. "Come on in, nurse." It was the comfy, fancy, single-occupant style of washroom and he locked the door after her. Properly hidden from prying eyes, he stripped off his jacket and leather shoulder holster, handing her his pistol butt-first with the safety on. "Hold this."

"What are you doing?" she watched as he moved on from washing the blood out of his shredded fingers to pulling apart the holster's straps and then rethreading them to the cradle.

"Now that I've managed to cripple myself- minor setback, just trying to keep it interesting for myself, you know how it is- I'm officially left-handed."

She leaned over his work, "Like Indigo Montoya left-handed? What's that got to do with...?"

"It's reversible," he held up the holster to show her before slipping it back on, "Can't waste time switching hands if there's reason enough to draw a gun in the first place. Kinda like Indigo but with more 'I stupidly hurt myself' and less 'I'm too amazing to fight at my full capacity or it gets boring'. Not that I don't sometimes have that problem, too."

"You can shoot left-handed?"

She must find that really interesting, he never knew Abby to pass on starting a Princess Bride quoting match. "NCIS requirement. Actually, it's a federal agent requirement. You have to qualify with both hands, but your non-dominant is allowed to be slower. By like a fifth of a second."

She did indeed look rapt, "Never knew that."

"Now you do," he grinned and took his weapon back, stowing it. The situation wasn't ideal, his jackets were tailored to hide a gun on the left side, not the right, but it was safer than possibly screwing up his aim because he'd be wincing in pain when he pulled the trigger.

"So McGee can shoot right-handed?" Abby was still on this.

Tony started winding band-aids around his throbbing fingers, "Uh-huh."

She put her hands on her hips, "Man, I'm going to smack him when I get back. You should have heard him complaining when they had to requisition a new holster for him and it took a week to come in. He has serious left-hander's persecution complex."

He checked his hair in the mirror (it was perfect aahooOOOoo), wondering how exactly he was going to make it significantly different within the next week, "Poor McGoo, nothing's made for him. I feel his pain, really. What?"

She'd stopped him as he made to leave and was smiling hugely. "Just this," she lifted his injured right hand and kissed his bandaged fingers, "all better."

"Sure is." Only Abby. He put an affectionate arm around her as they walked back to their table.

"I apologise again, sir," the waiter grovelled as they sat down. "Your wine will be complementary."

"No worries." Tony would have suspected the guy as a nefarious element, but he knew the look of a man who had been genuinely caught out for staring inappropriately at a pretty girl and this was that look. If he weren't trying to lay low he might have used his silver tongue to finagle the whole incident into a free meal, but that was the kind of thing people remembered.

"Why do you feel his pain, righty?" Abby wondered aloud as they got back to their salads.

"Timmy's? I'm tall. Nothing is made for me, either. I live in a world without neck support."

She smiled at him with mock sympathy, "Poor baby, it must be so hard."

"Hey, the driving situation alone can be very annoying- and I hit my head a lot as a teenager."

"You hit your head a lot now."

He pointed at her seriously, "Now it's not my fault."

"So getting a smack on the back of the head is whose fault?"

"Gibbs'. He has poor impulse control."

That had her making a smothered noise very near a snort, "I will be sure to tell him that from you."

"Audrey. I'm hurt. I thought you'd warmed up to me."

She grinned, an evil spark in her eyes, "I love you, Danny boy, but a girl's gotta keep herself entertained and sometimes pay-per-view just doesn't cut it."

He put his tongue out at her and had her making a ridiculous face back at him just in time for the waiter to see it. Well played, Anthony, he congratulated himself.

They were ninety percent through their dessert (speaking of ridiculous, it shouldn't be legal for anything to have that many different kinds of sugar in it, not that he was complaining) when Abby froze with her after dinner grappa half way to her mouth. She was doing that big, huge laying-low no no of staring directly at something you didn't want to be seen staring at.

She leaned across the table, an edge of panic in her voice, "I know that guy. We dated."

He didn't look at all and he used a caress along her cheek and jawline to turn her gaze back to his, "Don't look at him. Don't talk to him. He won't recognise you if you don't talk to him, Audrey. You're tan and blonde. You might as well be wearing a mask." the low purr of his voice made him unintelligible to neighbours whilst simultaneously convincing them they knew what kind of things he was saying.

Abby's lovely jade green eyes were bright and wide, her feelings of helplessness all too easily read on her face. She did pretty well under pressure, but she'd never been someone not to let everyone know how she was feeling and right now she was broadcasting to the entire room. What to do about it, he didn't know. If he'd had anything in his pockets he could have used, he would have pretended to be proposing, but you could not propose empty handed- not even undercover. Besides, that was also the kind of thing people remembered.

In yet another example of Lady Luck's supreme love-hate relationship with him, the waiter chose that moment to urgently call him away from the table, apologising some more sotto voce. A quick mental trip through his options (and some curse words he didn't remember until that moment that he knew, probably learned from working with a. sailors and b. Gibbs if not c. other cops) delivered him the verdict that he was damned if he did and double damned if he didn't. A scene would ensue if he refused to go, Abby would be vulnerable before he'd had a chance to convince her she could totally get through this and didn't need to be afraid if he didn't.

He followed the waiter to a little cubicle around the corner from the dining room, where the cash register was. Some asshole at that piece of crap motel had paid for their room in counterfeit fucking bills and Tony had just so happened- luck of the rotten stinking draw- to get one of them back for change when he paid for his. And now there was "Sir, a problem, I'm certain you will be able to blah blah blah..." he so didn't need this conversation to go on for ten minutes with hedging and politeness, he just needed to give the guy another hundred and get the hell back to his job. Abby was out of reach and Gibbs was going to absolutely murder him to death if he didn't die of shame first.

By the time he'd managed to stem the flow of apologies, pay the restaurant off and start back to the table, Abby was headed out the door with a shortish, stout guy with sandy brown hair and absolutely terrifying taste in clothes.

Why him, God? What did he do in his life to deserve this?

He followed them and interrupted some conversation about the molecular structure of automobile paint or something equally fascinating interspersed with both of them exclaiming it had been too long. He came to a stop way inside Abby's personal space and glowered down at the guy from his foot advantage in height. Mean, jock boyfriend was a part he could play with little effort.

Abby jumped only a tiny bit before she slid an arm around him, "Oh, Leonard, this is my... uh... my..."

"Boyfriend," Leonard finished for her, "you can say it, Abby. We were over a long time ago. Hello."

"Hey," Tony knew he was being a complete dick, but this little encounter needed to be over two minutes ago and this guy needed to shake his head, think Abby had changed, and never, ever think of her again. At least, not until after Gibbs had put holes in every one of the mercenary psychos who were after her.

There was another short burst of babble which he was too busy not being angry or frustrated or terrified to listen to except to scan for keywords. He could do that, it came along with way too much dodging the boss and napping at the same time. And almost two full years undercover over the course of his career, but that was less dangerous.

He made sure to hold Abby in place until Leonard actually pulled out of the parking lot and drove away so that he would have no idea what kind of car they drove. Then he practically dragged her into their ride, trying to get his thoughts into some kind of order. He would have to have to have to do this. He did not want to do this, but he absolutely had to.

Even if neither of them would forgive him for it.

He ran his bandaged index finger around the steering wheel and wished that becoming left-handed had been the worst thing that had happened to him today. His voice came out icy calm and his inner self winced, knowing Abby would know that meant he was pissed as all hell, "What part of 'be inconspicuous' and 'don't talk to him' did you not get?"

He felt her ruffled feathers, her hurt at his tone, but he couldn't look at her. She was getting mad, too, and a mad Abby was an Abby lashing out, "Who broke a glass and had everyone staring at us?"

"No one will think twice about that, they'll remember the glass breaking, not who broke it. Even if they did, there was no connection between that couple and Abby Sciuto. This guy can place you in a specific place on a specific date with me."

"So what!" Now she was just too mad to think, because she was obviously smarter than him and she obviously knew what.

"So now we know they can find out who you're with, what direction you travelled and how you changed your appearance! When they find out who I am, they'll find out what I do and everything I've ever screwed up- they'll use it against us. The next time I give you an order, you follow it!"

"Friends don't give orders!"

Just when he thought he couldn't hate himself any more, he had to say things like this. "We're not friends right now, we're protector and protected, you know what that means? It means your safety in my hands: I take that very seriously."

"McGee didn't treat me like this!"

"McGee screwed up! This isn't my first time. I will keep you safe, Abby, if I have to die doing it, if I have to make you hate me. That is a fair trade in my book."

She grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her, her skin splotchy red under the tanner and her eyes shining, "I could never hate you, Tony."

Now she was turning his own words back on him and he just might break, "Abs-"

"But I'm not an agent, I've never done this before and I'm not in your chain of command."

"No," he agreed, so grateful to her for her hushed, forgive-me tone, loving her so much for the easy understanding she was offering with so few conditions. Because she was right, she wasn't an agent and no one had prepared her for this, no one said no to Abby- you just couldn't- and it wasn't fair, but it was the way it was and they both knew it. Life isn't fair. "But you are in my custody."

She pressed her lips together, narrowing her eyes at him, "Protective custody."

"I'm still hearing the word custody in there."

"Drive the car, Mister Jailer."

He put it in gear and was about to hit the gas when he felt that all too familiar urge to push his luck.

"Never?"

"Never."