Title: Next Year
Rating: T for some language, but otherwise nothing we don't hear on the show.
Pairings: Definite McAbby, Tony and Faith mentioned.
Disclaimer: McGee, Abby, Kate, Tony, Faith, Gibbs, Ducky, and Palmer are not my characters
Summary: McGee visits Kate's grave on the one-year anniversary of her funeral, and reflects on the past year.
Level of completion: Done like dinner.
Author's Note: Written before the start of Season 3, when it wasn't known that Kate would be buried out of state. Ziva is not mentioned, not because I don't like her (I do in fact, like Ziva), but because nothing was known yet about Kate's replacement when I wrote this, and speculation was still too vague.
Timothy McGee pulled up to the cemetery, and gazed over at the entrance. He sighed, and then reached over to the passenger seat, picking up a single long-stemmed rose. He brought it to his face, drinking in the subtle fragrance, then lowered it and carefully touched the delicate, pale multicoloured petals. He glanced at his watch, then opened the door and got out.
He looked up to the sky - a beautiful, perfect day. The azure sky was brilliant and flawless, the air was sweet. Fitting, he thought. He entered the cemetery and went straight to where he knew the grave was. It was seared into his memory, and the others' memories as well. Well, this was a chance to redeem this day, absolve it of its past sins.
He walked over to the grave, then kneeled down. He reached out and touched the headstone, delicately tracing the engraved writing with his fingers. He took a deep breath, then spoke.
"It's been a year now, since we buried you, Kate." He looked up at the sky again - still not a cloud in sight.
He shook his head. "I'm not sure what we were thinking, deciding to do this, on this day of all days. Maybe so that we could rewrite things, change this particular spring day into something that we could remember with fondness, instead of that solid gut-kick feeling we've all been experiencing. Actually, it's not quite accurate to say it's that kind of a kick. Remember that day in the gym when I was too much of a gentleman to wrestle a girl? Yeah, something like that."
He sighed, a curious combination of sadness, and contentment, thinking of something so incredibly wonderful that had taken something so incredibly tragic to kick it into gear. "So Abby and I drifted our way back to each other. Losing you like that pushed us in the right direction, and it took time but we found each other again. Thanks, Kate," he said, in an amused, "way to go" tone. "Not the way I would have wanted it to happen, obviously."
He reached out and absently brushed at the dust that had settled on the top of the headstone. He gathered his thoughts a moment, then spoke again. "So then, there was that day. Yes, THE day. Not your day, but my day, and Abby's. We pussyfooted around with it for awhile, and finally she just knocked me on my ass one day and asked me how I really felt about her. She threw me for a loop. Not that difficult, I know. I'm getting better at not being so damned nervous all the time. But I digress." He grinned. Maybe he'd been spending too much time with Ducky. Or more likely, it was Abby's influence rearing its head. She tended to get of track sometimes, too.
"She told me that she loved me, and why didn't I ever say those words to her? I reminded her that the last time I tried a stunt like that, she just about dumped me. She just glared at me. Yeah, you know - THAT glare. So I told her how I felt. I told her that I loved her, that she was the stars that made my nights magical, and the blue sky that made my mornings worth waking up for, and that we can live without stars and azure sky, but it isn't very fulfilling. Oh, and so there, are you happy now? "
He chuckled softly. "She was. She knocked me on my ass again and just about suffocated me. Hey, I would've died a happy man."
He paused a moment as another couple walked into the cemetery, and passed by, two rows over. When they were again out of earshot, he continued. "There wasn't much by way of a proposal. Not the way I imagined it, anyway. You know me, good old sensitive McGee. I would have preferred the whole 9 yards - dinner, moonlight and candles, down on one knee, like I always imagined I would be, with a ring in my one hand, and her hand in my other. But of course, it didn't work out that way.
"Actually, all the guys were there when it happened. Kinda blew the whole romantic proposal thing out of the water." He shook his head in irony. "Gibbs was giving us tips on how NOT to handle marriage, and Tony was saying how the best way to handle it was to avoid it altogether. Ducky started to quote Shakespeare, one of the Sonnets, in fact, three guesses which one… and Palmer stated quite flatly that he really didn't have an opinion because he was too young to get married, until I gave him the hairy eyeball and reminded him that he's not that much younger than me. Then Abby asked me how I felt about it. The whole thing just sorta snowballed from there."
He glanced off into the distance again, noting with wonder how perfect a day it was turning out to be. "By the way, Tony's been seeing Faith Coleman. Yeah, Kate. THAT Faith Coleman. The wedding is set for later this year. Go figger. And you thought me and Abs were the oddest couple. Nuh-uh. Not hardly."
He touched the rose, running his finger over one of the thorns. "So that brings me to why I'm here at your grave today, Kate. It's been exactly one year. And here I am in a rented monkey suit, and Tony is at the church, he's my best man, by the way… and Ducky is getting ready to give Abby away."
He shook his head, and chuckled again, this time with a bit more enthusiasm, yet still trying to remain respectfully quiet for the people who had entered the cemetery a few minutes prior. "Gibbs got drunk last night at the rehearsal party. I mean, WAY on the wrong side of plastered." He shook his head. "He kept muttering something about Rule Number 12 and why the hell doesn't anyone listen to him when he lays down the law. We just tucked him into the guest bedroom and let him sleep it off."
His green eyes sparkled, and his voice emitted a sort of pride in himself, as he said, "You'll be pleased to know that I managed to confiscate the memory card from Tony's camera. You got it, Kate." His eyebrow rose in amusement, as he said proudly, "I stole his blackmail pictures, the ones he took of Gibbs in the coffin, passed out and sucking his thumb. I plan to use that to blackmail Tony. Payback's a bitch, isn't it?" He grinned briefly, then the grin morphed into a sad smile, almost sensing Kate next to him, smiling that smile that lit up the room and made all their hearts just a little bit warmer. He knew that kind of payback for one of Tony's pranks would be right up Kate's alley, and her hazel eyes would have glittered like a clear night sky. God, how they all missed that smile and those sparkling eyes.
Then, he glanced at his watch again, noting the time. His smile slowly faded into a more solemn expression. "Anyway, I just wanted you to know, Kate. We're moving forward. You'll always be in our hearts, and as for me, I'll always love you like the big sister I never had." He paused a moment, losing his voice for a second. He glanced down at the rose in his hand as he said, "We can't choose our relatives or our colleagues, but we can choose our friends. I chose well with you, Kate. We miss you. You should have been here with us today." He delicately stroked the petals of the rose, its colour chosen carefully to symbolize the friendship that had been mutual between the two of them.
"But I know that on some level, you are. You wouldn't have missed this for anything." He brushed away an errant tear that had suddenly appeared. He cleared his throat, and stood up. He brushed the grass off of his pants, then he reached out one last time, to lay the rose on the headstone, and to touch the name engraved on the face of the granite. He turned, and walked out of the cemetery, and back to the car.