Gabby Shipper Forum, 2012 Hiatus
Prompt: Car
Sometimes, when the day has been just a little too long; when the crime was just a little too appalling and she has once again been forced to learn the depths to which the human race can sink, Gibbs will take her by the hand and lead her away. His hand will grasp hers and she will relish in the feel of his thumb worrying the smooth platinum of her wedding band.
They will make their way to the car: his Challenger or her hot rod or his pickup, depending on the needs of their day when they left the house that morning, and he will usher her into the passenger seat. He does that every day, but is especially chivalrous about it on those days when he fears she's been broken. He'll lean across her to buckle her in (because that is one way he can keep her safe), and then pause on the way out to softly inhale at the point where her neck meets her shoulder – drawing in the perfect mix of her body and her shampoo and the vague earthy leather of whichever collar she has chosen to put on that morning.
While he is hovering there, his body leaning into the car and his weight balanced on one hand on the seat next to her knee and his nose pressed to her skin, she will take advantage of the moment and crick her head down to the side, and use the time to study the way his eyelashes rest so beautifully against his cheek. She knows the day has been hard on him too, but that he's too Gibbs to admit with words that he's feeling a little bit vulnerable. So she will take his gesture for the words he can't say, and stroke her hand into his hair two or five or twelve times, depending on the case and the cause, and whether there were children listed among the casualties.
She will continue her caress until she hears his exhale, and he lifts his head and blue eyes meet green. Then he will back the rest of the way out of the car, and casually lope around the hood to the driver's door. They will leave the Yard, and sometimes they will go home: to light a fire and curl up with cartons of Chinese food and beer or wine and legs entwined under a blanket.
Sometimes home is the wrong place to be. They can't allow their sanctuary to be stained by the depravity they've got hanging over them, so instead they drive. Drive to someplace clean, and someplace pure, where they can breathe in fresh air and scour the images from their minds. They might go to the Chesapeake, and find some empty stretch of shoreline where they can let the sting of salt air blow in their faces and hear the gulls screeching overhead. Or they will head inland to some woods, where they know of a place along the Fall Line where a river crashes and tumbles over a rocky bed, and they can sit on a boulder and watch the splash and tumble and froth.
When they have sat there long enough to calm the anger and quell the sadness, they will get back in the car, repeating their ritual of buckle and breathe and stroke, and Gibbs will take her home. Home to their names on the mailbox, and her lotions in the bathroom and his book on the end table and their photographs on their walls and their pillows still dented on their bed. And they will undress and floss teeth and brush past each other with a cherished familiarity they never dare take for granted given all they've seen. Then they will climb into their bed and curl their limbs around one another and Abby will press a kiss to the hollow of Gibbs' throat and whisper goodnight. And Gibbs will tighten his hold on her just a little and brush a kiss against her hair and somehow, it is just enough to make it through to tomorrow.