Longest installment to date and hopefully a return to form. Please enjoy!
Symbiosis
26
If ceilings could detect the words aimed at them, they would denounce the whole of humanity as ridiculous beings unworthy of tongues.
"You have to help her. This isn't multiple choice."
"Exactly. So why did you decide to grade my no on a curve?"
"I'm not sleeping with a man who doesn't aid his friends."
"Convenient, since I don't appear to be sleeping regardless."
"Timothy McGee, put on your clothes and go."
Abby has a pale yellow sheet slung like a toga around her previously cooperative body but she may as well be enrobed by the unyielding Ark of the Covenant. Untouchable to recently welcomed fingers and now entirely unreasonable. And it's barely ten pm. Even disinterested juries would convict on less.
"Do I look like Steve Irwin?" He's muttering but still feet travel down the tunnels of pant legs. Still the zipper is yanked upward. Still the frowning woman lays in resolved repose.
The Push-Timmy-Around fan club formed this morning when he'd let the website's existence slip. It had made the top of everyone's bookmark list because repeated viewings would restock the ammo. It had seemed brag-worthy at first but in the hands of professional snark snipers, his early boasting tripped over his molars in a splendid splat, replaced by a defensiveness that Tim has yet to rinse out of his mouth.
Hence the holiday handout of resigned belligerence.
But Abby takes his reluctance and wraps it indelicately around a tyrannical finger, which is now wagging in that disappointed schoolmarm way that is only appealing when he's not being required to face the snow and the unsolvable.
"Now the shoes," she instructs. "Good. Don't forget the new scarf I bought you. It's cold out there."
"Yes, I noticed." An ear-flapped hat is jammed down upon his head while he asks, "And you're not going because?"
"Because you're way better at search and rescue. All that tracker training and stuff. Like, when I lose my favorite stockings or can't find my best hoodie, my bat signal is aimed toward you and you alone."
"That's because they're usually at my house."
"See? We should rent you out. Your talents could be on display like a magic trick at a birthday party." Next she trots out the funny voices to further his mockery. "Have you seen my keys? Why, let's ask Timmy the tracker. That bloodhound can find anything!"
"So that's a no to going with me?"
"Are you grading my no on a curve now?" Abby pushes her spine into the mound of pillows, a Poe-worthy executioner in the form of Michelangelo's angel. "Besides, you were specifically requested so go forth and perform good works or my New Year's resolution will be to drown you in the word no."
"It's like talking to the ceiling," Tim grouses as the door closes on the comfort of home.
In a one-sided debate to which McGee hadn't been invited, they've apparently decided that henpecked is a good look for him. It's a safety pin to the ego only recently re-inflated. He's read the warning label on this disease and sees no treatment plan on the horizon that isn't defeated by a well-placed 'now' chased by a skin-saving 'yes dear.'
He's pretty sure this isn't how the Tiva dynasty does domestic.
The temperature is sinking toward the teens with a wind chill merrily plunging into the negative while a clear night blinks giggling stars at the human cleaning off a snow-blanketed vehicle. Particles of congealed winter tumble into his jacket sleeve, biting his flesh. There will be no return to his warm bed until the deed is done, though how to proceed is quite beyond his understanding. Lacking a thesis to study on such occurrences, McGee is left to his imagination, a perilous prospect when freezing.
He arrives without fanfare or clue.
Because by the unshoveled front step waits the woman that he traveled dangerously slippery miles to assist. An andorra juniper is being audited for content, short branches bowed by the two inches of powder and her two-handed prodding. Kneeling before the bush, she lifts the damp arms of bronze foliage to gain a better view of what lay beneath. More snow, he dares to guess but cannot find a voice to inform her.
Santa doesn't usually leave presents under dwarf shrubbery.
The cold wind has had its way with her dark brown hair, giving Ziva the fairly mauled look. Long strands have plotted a messy escape from the hasty ponytail, dampened by moisture blowing off the roof. He's not convinced that even DiNozzo could find the hair-by-snow-blower vibe enticing. From the curb, it appears that every light in the house has been switched on in defiance of environmentalists everywhere. The glare washes from every window, making up for the lack of Christmas bulbs. The rest of the neighborhood remains blindingly colorful a week after Christmas but the quiet house on the end of the drive is paid for by people who generally reside at a Navy yard.
Patting down the bush with satisfaction brokered by annoyance, Ziva stands and notes her visitor.
"Start looking," she snaps in a voice crackled by wind exposure.
While his tracking skills are well-documented, a successful search requires information. But there's nothing in her stance that opens the floor to questions. It's like asking a nun about masturbation. Fruitlessly, McGee begins a methodical perimeter scan, beginning with the left front corner of the property. Footprints mark the spots that Ziva's already tried, basement windows lending the ground a glittering light, sinking shadows into the depressions that her boots have made in the snow. It stands to reason that if the white dusting logs their progress, the prey would not be exempt. But there are no other prints around the outskirts of the house.
Her pretty face has gone rather brick-like.
Ziva has worn this expression before, though he'd only witnessed it when Salim removed the bag from her head. Much effort has gone into her hunt, visible by the repetitive tracks from the front door to the bush and back again. When he follows her inside, McGee's greeted by the same stomping tracks abandoned in melting clumps across the hardwood.
"Tony will return soon." Which is code for 'you're not moving fast enough.'
"Tell me where you've already checked."
Brown eyes are fighting not to roll. "Gibbs would instruct you to gather your own evidence, not rely on what was done before."
The retorts stick like thumbtacks to the walls of his brain. He will speak none of them. Death by glare is not only possible but scientifically documented.
"Permission to access every room?"
"Granted. We have," she checks the grandfather clock in the hall, "approximately forty minutes to produce the kitten."
By halftime, he's wondering if it's too early to hope for a Hail Mary pass and an unblocked run into an end zone. Any end zone. Preferably on another planet. Because after opening every closet and bumping his head on the awkward cellar doorway, McGee's still Scrabble-free. The only orange item he's spotted is hanging loose on the edge of a hamper. It's less a cat and more a thong.
Investigator McGee has been trained to tread respectfully but thoroughly through a victim's home, sensing personalities and motives through the environment. In the quiet two bedroom cottage he notes nothing abnormal about the location, except that it doesn't reflect his friends remotely.
The couple's version of home décor is depressing.
The team had collectively painted the walls in warm earth tones and there is, in fairness, a sparse yet adequate amount of furniture, Middle Eastern in influence. The technology throughout is expensive but relatively hidden. But the lack of hominess isn't just born of a work-driven pair. If devoid is a palatable flavor, McGee can sample the tang at the back of his throat. It's empty of life. Two had been preparing to make a home for three and when one failed to join the party, all interest in ornamentation ceased.
It's unfinished, lending the place its own tangible abandonment issues.
Creeping through their private lives feels like criminal trespass, even with the consent to snoop. While they've left the decorating incomplete, a few personal items manage to relieve a portion of the sterility; a photo of a bikini-clad Ziva on Tony's nightstand, a 'toy' owned by adventurous lovers peeking from beneath her pillow, tampons in the bathroom and an inhaler Tony will never admit to using.
And on the top shelf of a closet, a baby name book that will doubtlessly contain highlighted options left unused. The invited imposition generates no cat however and while giving up approaches cowardice, Tim heads out to the living room to concede the effort.
Venturing into the room with a mental white flag waving, McGee finds Ziva with a significantly attractive rear in the air. Her face is shoved under the couch, the Italian leather bearing the scars of kitty claws and when she emerges sans feline, McGee quickly looks to the mantle. The fireplace, unlike the majority of the house, is well-used.
Downtown a bed is calling in intricate sonnets but instead of heeding the siren song, Tim's hands are shoved so far into his pockets that his fingers are losing circulation.
"Maybe he'll come back," McGee tries. "If we quit hunting him. You know, like how you always find lost things when you stop looking?"
"History shows that an escaped convict does not resurface willingly when the search is suspended."
Comfort the tense assassin who can slaughter a grown man with a broken pen? With this promising venture of death before him, McGee's as close to disliking Abby as any sane man is capable of. She's warm under his blankets and he's pacifying a trained killer who has the patience of a swatted wasp.
And where the hell is Tony, anyway? Isn't the future groom the one who'd signed on for Ziva-sitting? Surely there's some serious matrimonial duties being missed right now and McGee's never been one to step into someone else's role. Not without protective gear at any rate. From her slumped shoulders, Ziva must register the fruitlessness of continuing the search. Cats aren't the sort of creatures that come when called. It doesn't fulfill their amusement quotient to be obedient.
"I bet when Tony shows up, Scrabble won't be far behind. And we'll all laugh about how we spent the night combing the shrubbery."
The pretty face splits into a tornado of flesh, horrified and murderous all at once. He's heard of people being emphatic but has never seen the adjective take form and consume someone's face.
"He must not know I lost this..." a different word is bitten off before she spits out, "cat."
Numb hands leave pockets, freeing them up for self-strangulation. "Look, I'm sure if you just explained..."
The sofa seems to rise, greets her tumbling body and the voice she exhales is as fragile as his mother's china.
"Before, when I had to tell him," she pauses, tracking down words that would rather stay smothered. "I do not see the world in fanciful terms, but I saw the literal death of his soul. I saw that every way I had ever hurt him was nothing compared to losing his child."
She shifts on the sofa, trying to maintain a rigidity that battles with the bad posture that sadness requires. Her breath is quick now, a sign that sobs are being held back by force.
"I tire of losing important things, McGee."
And like every incompetent sympathizer, Tim pulls futility from the lint trap of his mouth. "But that wasn't your fault."
Her head falls into helpless hands, muffling several attempts to speak. Waiting, McGee notes that time hasn't taken a break and the tonight dances onward toward tomorrow. Lips finally separate from palms and she looks up at her visitor as one might a dense youth.
"I offered him a family. And then I took it from him."
Her bottomless sinkhole of failure sucks the usable air from the room and he can only pray that oxygen deprivation keeps her from finding the energy to take a swing at him for what he says next.
"Maybe you were wrong to try and replace Nehama with a cat." Damn, he'd forgotten to write his will first. "But a feline Houdini running off isn't a reflection of your mothering skills, anymore than a miscarriage."
"Supporting evidence is considered a trend and these are rarely ignored."
Funny how determined people can be to beat themselves to a pulp. It's not as though the world at large doesn't do enough of that on its own.
"This isn't a case, Ziva. You didn't plan to miscarry," Tim offers in a hush of sincerity. "If Tony was here, he'd tell you that and mean it."
The prospect should have warmed her. It doesn't. "He would tell me that. Because he loves me and therefore lies of comfort are acceptable."
"You really believe that?" These two don't need house pets. They need therapy.
For a moment, she seems uncertain of her own assessment. But the calming breath that should have cemented her optimism only solidifies her doubt.
"My father once told me that no one possesses a grip tight enough to hold on to impossibility. Still, I held on so tightly to the hope of this child that perhaps I choked her into never being."
All those late-night debates with Abby might pay off, as Tim reaches into recent memory to pull out strings of logic that serve as solutions they offer to ceilings rather than their friends.
"By your definition, Tony's just as much to blame for her passing." When Ziva's eyes shift quickly to his, McGee swallows the urge to back away from the statement. "I mean, he was scared. He questioned his ability to be a good father because he was raised by housekeepers and headmasters. Those were his words. Does thinking it mean he'd be right?"
"Of course not."
"If you're guilty of losing her based on putting too much hope in her, then he's guilty too because he doubted he'd be good for her."
Falling silent, McGee stares at his bitten nails while she tosses his theory into the bowl and stirs a realization. He hopes. She is giving the floor's wood grain considerable eye contact, only the workings of her jaw indicating that more than a staring contest is taking place. After counting to sixty four in his head, he makes the attempt at Hallmark.
"Tight or otherwise," he says, "you held onto hope. I don't think hope ever killed anything."
Either she's grateful for that sentiment or is determining how fast she can load her gun. For a moment, dark brown eyes raise to meet the point just below his jugular.
"You recommend that I hope this cat into returning so that I do not have to tell Tony what happened?"
"No, I recommend that you stop being afraid to talk to him."
"I have never been afraid of Tony," she scoffs. "Besides, communication is not our problem, McGee. Certain people have written books about our excessive verbage."
The jab is ignored. Somehow, a Dr Phil voice seems appropriate here, that southern beat-down tone that insults while educating. But the night is long and he'll run out of Oprah stars before he runs out of useless platitudes.
"You talk, yes. But in tease and flirt and spite. How many heart-to-hearts can you remember?"
"We are not..." she searches for an adequate translation and fails, "mushy."
"I realize it's like applying mascara with a machete, but talking about feelings isn't just about mush. It's clearing the air before either of you suffocates."
Slapping her hands lightly on her thighs, Ziva prepares to resume command. "Perhaps, but feelings will not locate the cat. We should get back to..."
"If I was the jealous kind, they'd be serving your organs in Chinese food."
The voice achieves a timber marked by jolly menace and the body following the sound enters the room in time to witness Ziva swap white-faced panic for a crimson bloom. The couch is abandoned, the cohort forgotten. Tracking the Prozac rainbow of her expression, Tony's brow furrows but he reigns in the questions and accepts her enthusiastic embrace.
Which means he has to release the fidgeting orange puffball his arms.
The pointed face under pristine and blatantly dry fur spares a speck of notice for its seekers, savoring its victory against the feeble humans by way of licking inappropriately.
"What's wrong?" Tony asks quietly. From the uncomfortable vantage point of the sofa, Tim debates which is a better use of time; hoping she'll launch into confession or praying for invisibility.
"Nothing," Ziva says with a certainty that would derail further inquiry if anyone else had been steering the train of thought.
"Then what's with the midnight powwow?"
Obstinacy was perfected on Israeli soil. "It is only eleven and I am unfamiliar with this... powwow."
Tony's eyes coast over her head. "So why is McIndian Chief trying to mind meld with the cushions?"
"You're mixing your metaphors." Tim stands, brushing off imaginary lint from his sleeve before grabbing his coat. "We were just talking and I was just leaving."
Untangling himself from the anxious woman playing at nonchalance, Tony gestures to the door. "I'll walk you out."
Somewhere between 'I can find my own way' and 'can you believe this weather,' McGee realizes that he can't shake his escort. From the yard, he looks back to find Ziva at the window. She's clutching the rebellious kitten in her grip while mentally pelting him with Shut Up messages.
With only a sigh as preamble, Tony tells the night, "She wanted a few hours. I gave her that." Newborn snowflakes float onto their shoulders and slide limply to the ground. "I can't ask. I don't push. Keep catching her rubbing her wrists and I'm biting my tongue hard enough to sever it."
There's nothing in the disclosure that encourages comment. Tony's not looking at him, at anything and McGee wonders if he's actually needed for any conversation today. But he can't return to Abby and say he didn't try everything. Including the Scuito Method of worm-can-opening.
"She's protecting you."
"From what?" It's not really a question. Tony knows, knows all too well. But as is Ducky's fervent belief, sometimes letting the words hit air helps.
"Has she told you everything about Somalia?"
The existence of personal black clouds is proven as one passes before Tony's face, stalls there and settles. If Ziva ever considered opening up about her experiences, Tony's current expression is enough reason not to.
"Not everything." By the industrial grit leaking into Tony's words, the admission is like chewing staples. "Sometimes nightmares wake her up and she'll talk a little. Off limits otherwise."
"Yeah, but you prefer challenges. Tested that boundary lately?"
Tony steps back as if the urge to punch his teammate will be pacified by distance. "You want to try interrogating her? I'll make sure your casket is stylish."
That frequent dream flashes to mind, the one that puts Tim's ghost on the outskirts of his own funeral. The mourners are rarely despondent enough and casket is, in fact, always gaudy
"It's just that, in the overall, from the outside, it seems like you two don't, you know." Which is about as succinct as McGee can manage beneath the glare. "I mean, it's none of my business but..."
Like an impatient valet, Tony opens the car door and waits for his charge to slump inside. "You're right," Tony says. "It's not."
The car door is closed with just enough unnecessary force to establish finality.
…...
From the mound of wadded blankets, which have multiplied in his absence, comes the sleepy murmur. "Did you help?"
Shucking off his coat, boots and pride, McGee forgoes clothing altogether and hovers naked beside the bed, resigned to another night spent sweating but not particularly sorry.
"Define help."
The pigtails precede the face. There is expectation of great feats that colors her tone in anticipatory triumph.
"I define it as finding an innocent, helpless creature, thus bringing harmony to an entire household and possibly mankind. All for the sake of your loving girlfriend."
Normally, hearing her address herself in a steady-relationship sort of way would set his heart to soaring. Presently the organ is plummeting. The prospect of lying, of claiming victory over lost items – dubiously labeled innocent – entices him for all of five optimistic seconds. The notion is allowed to circle his brain for a single lap before his sense tramples it. Because henpecked men speak truth. Mostly out of fear.
"Scrabble is not innocent, was never lost and will incite the best argument I'll ever miss." He slides under the covers. "I left before the cat litter hit the fan."
"You think going from 'aid our friend' to 'start a domestic dispute' counts as helping?"
"Maybe I inspired a trend? They don't talk about the important stuff, Abbs. Let's not be like them, with the brooding silences and heavy glances and no good old-fashioned heart to hearts. Noise is good."
That last bit is meant to be suggestive but leans toward an unsexy whine. The voice needs work. Beneath the bulky weight of piled blankets his hand quests for flesh but she's not forthcoming with his well-deserved reward.
"Go to sleep, Timmy."
But he's owed at least one bit of rightness tonight and his fingers inch across her hip, which jerks away. Another centimeter and she'll be on the carpet, which doesn't seem all that unappealing.
"No" says Abby. "And that's definitely not graded on a curve."
The open invitation to his own bed has thus been revoked. For all the trouble it caused, the orange pipsqueak had better practice meowing some rigorous apologies.
At least the ladies who host the GemcityWorship forum love him.
A special thanks to all for enduring my non-speedy postings. This author appreciates the patience and also the sustained enthusiasm with which you greet each chapter.