Fallen Angels: Chapter 37
Because there hadn't been much in terms of forensics involved in the MCRT's current case, Abby Sciuto had been keeping herself occupied with her backlog of work on cases for other teams—the Pentagon team, the subordinate offices, expert testimony for civilian cases—and baby-sitting McGee. Ever since his all-nighter that he pulled with Dwayne the other night, he'd been a little bit off, and not even the best of her interrogation techniques had gotten anything out of him as far as why.
He had disappeared a few hours before, when Tony called to give an update. Abby wanted to go upstairs with him—she hadn't talked to Tony since Captain Rabb went missing, and she was definitely going through DiNozzo withdrawal—but McGee, with a complete lack of humor at all, said that wasn't a social call and that she should stay down in the lab, where she could get something accomplished without getting in anyone's way.
Get in anyone's way. She'd show him getting in someone's way.
She was halfway through a DNA analysis from the Annapolis office—sexual assault on a female midshipman, never a fun case—and absently singing along to the new song from Cozy Cordaites when she heard the tell-tale siren wail of a new email. Since she was at a forced stopping point in the analysis—a forced stopping point she was planning on spending on checking on the fingerprint analysis from the case in Norfolk, but a forced stopping point nonetheless—she clicked on the email.
She handled some of the most gruesome cases the Navy had ever seen. She once dated a guy who cleaned up crime scenes. She slept in a coffin. But what she saw on the screen shocked her more than anything else she could imagine.
She actually screamed.
"McGee!" she called out once she was able to articulate words again, before she remembered that he had gone upstairs and hadn't come back down. It took her a few fumbles with the phone before she was able to grasp it, and a few more fumbles before she hit the speed dial for the senior field agent's desk.
She really needed to change the label from 'The Big D' to something more reflective of McGee. Maybe McGoo. Or McGiggle.
That wasn't the point. Focus, Abby. Focus. Big news to be shared.
"NCIS, Special Agent McGee."
"Timmy!" She practically screamed into the phone and tried to get herself to calm down. "Tim, you need to come down here. Immediately. Or faster than immediately. Find a way to invent a time machine and be down here five minutes ago."
In her excitement, she hung up the phone before getting a response. Oh, he better be coming down, or she'd… Actually, she didn't know what she would do. She was too keyed up to think of something creative.
Fortunately for McGee—and for her lack of creative juices—the elevator door pinged open and McGee stepped out. "Timmy!" Abby called out, rushing forward as fast as she could in her platform boots to drag him forward. "You have to see this!"
"Abby, I'm trying to finish a case—"
"That's not nearly as important as this."
"Abby—"
"Just look, McGee," she said in exasperation, pointing at the screen. McGee gave an indulgent sigh and reluctantly turned his attention to the screen. Abby, already knowing what his reaction would be, was already bringing up a videoconference screen on the next monitor.
The video call connected at the exact same time as McGee's completely unedited words of surprise, which were met with laughter from the two people on the monitor. "And hello to you, too, McGee," Ziva's sing-song voice said from Abby's speakers.
"Wha—I mean, is—" the MCRT's senior field agent was completely at a loss for words and just gave up. Abby, on the other hand, never gave up.
"Is this for real?" she demanded of her former coworkers. "Or is this just your way of letting you know that you got Rabb? No, that doesn't make sense; you called us a few hours ago to let us know that you got Rabb and everyone was okay. So—"
"You guys are really married?" McGee interrupted, apparently having regained his ability to speak. He gestured at the other screen. "I mean, this is a real marriage certificate, right? Because if this is your idea of some sort of joke..." His voice trailed off, the threat remaining unspoken.
"Yes, McGiggle, we really are married," Tony informed them from Bahrain, where the sun was apparently just rising.
"But you don't just wake up one morning and decide to get married, which means you've been planning this and keeping it from us, and that is not nice, Anthony DiNozzo," Abby scolded. "I thought we were your friends, Tony. No—I thought we were family."
The newlyweds looked at each other. "Actually, Abby—" Tony began, before Ziva cut him off.
"We did not wake up in the morning and decide to get married," she informed the forensic scientist. "It was not until we returned from the mission that it was decided."
"And you got married right then?"
"Yeah, pretty much," Tony replied.
"Congratulations," McGee finally declared. "Seriously, guys. Congratulations. I'm really happy for you."
"Thank you, Tim," Ziva said.
"Yeah, thanks, McGoo. Glad you're happy." There was some sarcasm behind his words, but he was still smiling, so Abby figured she wasn't in too much trouble.
"I am happy," she said defensively. "Just... surprised. Like, really, really surprised. Like discovering that Santa is really your mom and she wraps all of the presents at midnight on Christmas Eve while watching the Home Shopping Network surprised." Now both Tony and Ziva had that ridiculous smile on. "So where are you guys registered? I would normally buy something more individualized than that, but individualized takes time, and, well, you kinda sprung this on us."
They looked at each other again, over in Bahrain. "Abby," Tony finally said. "We got married about four hours after deciding to get married. That doesn't exactly leave a lot of time for running over to Macy's and setting up a registry."
"You do not have to get us anything, Abby," Ziva protested.
"Don't say that," Tony scolded her.
"Of course I have to get you something," Abby said impatiently. "That's why people get married, so they can get all sorts of stuff that they should buy for themselves but don't really want to."
"In that case, you can get us whatever you want," Ziva replied.
"So the complete series of Magnum on Blu-Ray for Tony and a new knife for Ziva."
"Actually, Abs, I already have Magnum, and the last thing Ziva needs is another weapon."
The lab doors opened before Abby could suggest another set of gifts, admitted one Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs. For a long minute, none of the four previously in the conversation spoke.
It was Gibbs who broke the silence. "Been a while since you slept, DiNozzo?" he asked before taking a sip of his coffee.
"Well, yeah, Boss, but there was this all-night mission to get Rabb and—"
"Cause you have to be either stupid or sleep-deprived to go off and get married. I was betting on sleep-deprived, because I don't want to think that the last ten years spent training you were a complete waste."
Tony smiled at that and Ziva rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "Thank you, Gibbs," she said sarcastically. To Abby's surprise, the supervisory field agent chuckled.
"Congratulations, both of you. Now go home and get some sleep. You've earned it."
McGee decided to get all of his paperwork done in one fell swoop, instead of spacing it out over a few days, so by the time he was finished, the sun was rising over DC and he was surprised to find that he had pulled yet another all-nighter on this case.
But at least it was over. Completely over.
Although the end of a case usually called for celebratory drinks, he just wasn't feeling it. For one, it was breakfast time, and he didn't particularly care for mimosas. So instead of heading to the usual bar—without the usual people, really—he got in his car and drove north. He already told Gibbs he was taking a comp-time day, and to his mild surprise, Gibbs didn't protest, just sent him off with orders of getting some sleep, because he still expected his senior field agent at his desk at 0700 the next day.
Well, at least it was the same Gibbs.
He headed north into Maryland with every intention of going home and getting some sleep—or, more likely, getting in some time for writing—which was why he was mildly surprised to find that he had turned to head into Bethesda instead of Silver Spring.
The guard at the gate merely nodded McGee through toward Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and then he had the same struggle to find a parking place in the visitor's lot that plagued him every time he had come to the hospital.
Harley was sitting up in bed when he entered her room, dressed casually in jeans and the Johns Hopkins Swimming and Diving hoodie that McGee remembered so well from years ago, supervising Naomi Leeman as the blond packed Harley's things into a duffle bag. "Making your great escape?" he asked lightly. Harley smiled at him, a wide grin that lit up her entire face.
"They're discharging me," she said. "I have a room at the Navy Lodge and everything. It'll be nice to get away from the every four hour vital sign checks and 0400 blood draws, even though I'm not actually leaving base. So what brings you here?"
He realized that he hadn't visited her since the end of his last all-nighter, when they ended up kissing in the courtyard, and realized just how much she hadn't yet been informed of: the confirmation that the Iranians were behind everything and that they worked through Antonellis, the role Rabb played in the whole scenario, the fact that everything had been wrapped up and reports signed. And she especially didn't know the most important part; at least, the most important part to her. "I have some good news for you," he said. "For both of you, actually. Your squadron is going to be on their way home."
They both gave that girly scream of excitement McGee knew all too well from having a sister before Naomi excused herself to try to call her husband, leaving McGee and McNamee in the room alone. "So… on your way out," he said, somewhat uncomfortably.
"On my way out," she confirmed. "Kinda. I won't know how far out until after the inquest, in another four weeks."
"How far do you want to be out?" he asked, not sure he wanted to know the answer. She shrugged her good shoulder and looked away.
"I don't really know," she admitted. "If I had my choice, it would be back to Beaufort. That's my squadron, my boys. But I guess, well, staying around here wouldn't be too bad, like Quantico or Patuxent River something." She turned back to him. "What did you find out about the case? Is there something that makes you think the inquest might go one way or the other?"
Plenty, he wanted to tell her, wanting to explain everything that had happened and figure out together what that might mean for her life in the time after her inquest, after her shoulder had healed well enough for her to fly again. But there was too much to be said while standing in a hospital room waiting for her friend to come back. "How about if I take you out to breakfast, after you get checked into the Navy Lodge," he offered. "I'll explain everything."
"You don't have to do that," she protested.
"I know," he replied. "But I still want to."
She studied him for a minute before she slowly nodded, a smile beginning to play on her lips. "Okay," she agreed. "Breakfast it is. But you better tell me everything."
"Don't worry," he assured her. "I won't leave anything out."