Charade
Disclaimer:Not my characters, no infringement intended
Rating: T for mild language
Pairings: Oh, McAbby of course! But it's not a shipper story. They're portrayed but it's not a shipper story.
Summary: The team has had a hell of a day without Abby and Ducky there to lend their expertise.
Chapter 1 - Really Bad Day
"I'm never doing this again," Timothy McGee stated flatly. He stood in autopsy, slumped against the wall, his hands buried deep inside the pockets of his white lab coat. "The next time Abby wants me to go with her to help her take care of wedding stuff, I'll be leading the way to the door."
The dishevelled group stood around haphazardly, surveying the damaged morgue. Instruments were spilled on the floor, there was blood spatter on one of the tables, a small bullet-ding in one of the doors leading to a cooler, a hole in the wall where a blood-stained slug had been dug out for the purpose of ballistics testing, two chairs were overturned, and scuff marks here and there marred the floor. In short, the place looked like a bull had come through, chased by lions.
"Well, at least you didn't get… oh, yeah, that's right… you did get shot at. Actually, that guy hit us both with the same bullet," Tony DiNozzo said wryly, eyeing up the deep crimson patch, seeping through the white bandage on the right arm of their Junior Agent. Suddenly, he winced and whined a bit. "OW, Palmer, careful with that. It's a serious deep flesh wound."
Jimmy Palmer looked at him levelly, raising an eyebrow behind his round lenses. "Tony, it's a nick. You don't see Tim whimpering like a little boy, and he's got the same GSW that you do." Jimmy sounded almost uncharacteristically brave, somehow. Perhaps it was leftover adrenalin, from the day's happenings, still lingering in his system.
Gibbs snorted slightly. "Actually, I think McGee's is a bit deeper." McGee suppressed a snicker, deciding it wasn't worth the retaliation that he knew Tony would exact later on.
Tony was about to respond something about "little Autopsy Gremlin," but was cut off as Jimmy applied a compress, pressing down on it perhaps a little firmer than was strictly necessary, and proceeded to wrap it with gauze to hold it in place. "There. That ought to hold it until you get to the ER."
"Aw, do we have to? You seem to have done a pretty good job of stitching and bandaging us up…" Tony pleaded. McGee sighed heavily, giving a pleading glance towards their makeshift doctor. "I'm pretty sure we'll be fine, Jimmy. Really. They're just little scratches." He initiated his classic McGee Pout, Tony taking cue and doing the same.
"Awww, what's wrong, my Little Hairy Butt?" Ziva said, not sounding the least bit sarcastic, but rather, quite sympathetic. "Flesh wounds can be extremely painful," she pointed out, in their defence. Tony gave her a pouty look of gratitude, as Jimmy rolled his eyes and shook his head. "I don't know who, but somebody owes me big time," he muttered to himself. Ziva smiled towards him warmly.
"I hope I can get this place cleaned up before Dr. Mallard gets back from his conference." Jimmy sounded like a teenager who was terrified his parents would return home before he had a chance to clean up after that big kegger he'd just thrown. "When does his flight come in again?" Gibbs looked at his watch. "Should be around 2300. Someone should be there to pick him up, by the way."
"We're wounded," McGee pointed out. Tony nodded, initiating the Pout again. "I think there's some slight muscular damage here. Probably not a good idea to drive, and I don't recommend we send Ziva, either," the older agent said. When Gibbs wasn't looking, McGee and Tony exchanged a small, subtle thumbs-up.
Ziva ignored the dig at her questionable driving skills, and instead went over towards Palmer, surveying the damage in the morgue with a practiced eye. "I think it's do-able," she said, with a thoughtful tone and a nodding of her head. She gazed at Jimmy, slipping her hand under and around his arm reassuringly. "Don't worry Jimmy, we won't leave you to it by yourself. Will we?" she said, with pointed looks towards her fellow agents. "It isn't your fault that Tony and McGee decided that they needed to be heroes in the morgue."
"Ziva, it was a hostage taking," McGee pointed out, "What the hell were we supposed to do? Tony and Jimmy were being held at gunpoint in here." Tony nodded, "Yeah, Probie's right. We did the best we could to make sure Jimmy and I got out of here alive. I think we did a damned good job, too." He smiled warmly at McGee, who grinned back in agreement. The younger man's face then took on a more serious expression, as if reminded of another brush with disaster, narrowly avoided.
"All I can say is, thank God I didn't break Abby's mass spectrometer. I told you, I've only got a basic working knowledge of it." McGee sounded relieved, and terrified at the same time. He knew his ass wouldn't be worth a plug nickel if he broke so much as a microscope slide in Abby's lab, not to mention the fact that he knew he'd be spending the first six months of their marriage sleeping by himself, on the couch – provided she didn't call the wedding off entirely.
Gibbs snorted and shrugged. "You had enough of a working knowledge of it to get the results we needed, McGee. You're better than you think you are. Don't ever forget that. And you do make a pretty convincing lab rat, Elf Lord." McGee fired a quick sarcastic smile in their leader's direction.
"Well, I think Jimmy makes a pretty convincing Medical Examiner. Don't you, Doctor Palmer?" Tony grinned proudly and appreciatively in Jimmy's direction, eliciting a deep crimson blush and a bashful shrugging of his shoulders from Ducky's young assistant. "Close enough," Jimmy said. "I've learned a lot from Dr. Mallard. Fortunately I didn't need to do anything too complex. Of course, I could have faked it, too. That guy wouldn't have known the difference."
"True," Gibbs said, watching Ziva as she propped herself up to sit on one of the stainless steel tables. "Ooh, cold," she muttered to herself breathlessly, as she planted herself on the cold metal. "Fortunately, you didn't have to fake it," Gibbs sighed. "The best way to avoid being caught in a lie is to not lie."
"I thought the rule was, "Be specific when you lie," Ziva asked, perched on the table, and sounding slightly confused.
"That too," Gibbs said, with a small grin. Tony heaved a heavy sigh of relief, glad that Palmer's first-aid was finished. "Rule number 7."
"Good thing he didn't know rule number 6," McGee said, with his eyebrows raised, thoughtfully. Ziva gave him a questioning look, until Gibbs elaborated, "Never believe what you're told. Always double check." He smiled at her.
Ziva nodded, understanding. "Ah, I see now. But you didn't have to lie. So you wouldn't have been nailed if he did know rule 6."
"I think you mean "screwed," Ziva," Tony said. Ziva jumped down from the steel table and walked over to him, studying his newly bandaged arm. "Well, screwed, too. But you were definitely nailed." She smiled sweetly.
"She's got a point, Tony," McGee pointed out, shrugging. He turned his head suddenly, thinking that he'd just detected the alluring scent of something – or someone – very familiar. Oh no… not Abby? But then, he heard another voice – definitely not Abby.
"Jethro, what in God's name have you done to my morgue?"