A/N: Hey guys. Nothing much, besides the fact that school is cruel, and I'm a slow writer :P So slow, that only one of the last winners is in this chapter. Who is it? ;) The last question about PP and CP is still on; I should have said to Youtube it as well...hmm. Endless, endless thanks for y'all reading :_)
The door swung wide open. Ziva remained completely still through the tempest that surged into the observation room.
"Lost...scared...." she uttered. "...and overwhelmed."
A harsh, warm breeze blew through her hair.
"Ya think?" Gibbs snarled, inches from her profile.
Ziva refused eye contact with him. "I was not talking about Abby."
The storm died down. Gibbs took a step back and turned toward the one-way glass.
Filling their ears was the continuing mantra that Abby whimpered to herself. Holding herself tightly, she began to pace between the ends of the table.
"He hates me...he hates me..." She paused and stared at the door longingly. "...He still hates me..."
Gibbs touched the glass, a tangible barrier from Abby. A barrier, he suddenly realized, he too hastily put between them.
"I still think she is innocent," Ziva spoke. "Has she not said before that she's the only one who can murder without a trace of evidence?"
Gibbs didn't answer. His fingers slipped down the pane.
Abby's eyes became fixed on the glass. She was still drained by her tears, but nothing could ever take away her own gut feeling—something she quickly acquired after being with Gibbs. Wiping the stray drops from her eyes, Abby walked up to the one-way window and pressed her hands on them. She peered into it, as if trying to see Gibbs on the other side. Her cheeks tingled when a few more salty drops escaped from her. Abby then pressed one of her warm cheeks against the glass. She found herself breathing heavily, trying to reach stability in her excited lungs. The struggle was over—Abby could feel it. She had taken someone's life; and as a price, she would lose a part of hers.
Gibbs gazed at Abby pressed on the glass before him. A few more inches, and her arms could have been wrapped around his neck....like she did with the seaman. And he could place his hands on her waist and close in—
"Sorry Ziva," Abby suddenly said. The Goth girl stepped away from the window. A thin trail of water ran down from where her cheek was pressed. Abby sniffled. "I know he's in there, I can sense it..."
Both Ziva and Gibbs stared with anticipation.
And Abby began to sign.
I still love you, Gibbs.
Gibbs blinked. He frantically started to sign back to her, but he felt Ziva's reminding stare rest on him. Gibbs finally looked at Ziva in the eyes, to be surprised at the warmer, yet urgent tone in them.
"Go back," her voice sounded demanding, but her stare said otherwise.
And Gibbs left as if it was an order. The door clicked softly behind him.
Ziva turned back to the window; there was an unusual calm after the storm.
*** *** *** ***
"God, Probie, I thought you of all people would be able to program the stupid GPS." Tony slapped the aforementioned device.
McGee drummed his fingers like he hadn't heard a thing. "I chose not to."
Tony shot lasers at him from behind the wheel, then looked back at the road. "Since when do you McChoose not to McProgram the car's McGPS?" He paused before each McGee-ified noun to give it the right inflection.
McGee rolled his eyes. "Since the warehouse is not that far from the crime scene..." He trailed off. "...and, now that I think of it, not too far from Gibbs' neighborhood either."
"McGasp."
With a sharp turn of the sedan, the two agents arrived at their destination. McGee craned his neck. From where they drove in, it looked more like a large garage than a warehouse. Tony parked the car next to the entrance where, Tony thought aloud, the Wal-Mart trucks would shadily unload unmarked cardboard boxes – and that was why there was a mysterious box-cutter knife to begin with.
The wide garage door opened on the first try – it was unlocked. Tony had his fingers wrapped around the handle and eyed McGee before pushing up the door enough for them to duck under and enter. Tony got in first.
"Watch your head, McDulla."
"McDulla?" McGee couldn't believe all the names Tony was pulling out.
"McDulla Oblongata," he articulated from behind the door. Tony held the entrance for McGee. "It's the part of your elf brain that—" Tony couldn't finish, as if he was cut off.
"That's in charge of involuntary functions, I know," McGee rolled his eyes.
"—FREEZE PROBIE!" Tony yelled.
The door slid down with a metallic bang! without waiting for McGee.
McGee started to panic. Someone must be in the warehouse…with Tony...
"Tony!" he fisted the door. He instinctively grabbed his weapon from its holster. McGee crouched down with his SIG ready to go.
A minute later the door opened, and Tony completely passed over McGee.
"Uh, hey, what happened?" McGee asked, feeling lost and left out. He thought Tony was acting out, but his partner's face was dead and grave.
"Secure the area, Probie," Tony commanded and jogged to the other side of the building.
McGee's heart started racing. He glanced at the garage door. "What about—"
"It's clear!" Tony barked in Gibbs-fashion. He stalked around the corner with his gun.
McGee unwillingly mirrored Tony's path on the opposite side of the warehouse-garage. The building was slightly aged, maybe twenty years' worth of lime and water stains at the corners. There was a side door that had a padlock at the end of McGee's side. Foggy windows stared down at McGee high on the building's side, but he didn't see anything behind them. McGee reached the end and stayed glued to the corner of the flank.
"Clear!" he yelled.
He didn't know why, but a feeling of impending danger crept up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. The cyber agent held up his gun.
"If you point that thing any closer, Probie, I'll shoot your typewriter. With my whole round."
Tony appeared from the corner, holding his hands up. His SIG was back in holster under his jacket.
McGee lowered his weapon. "Tony, what just happened?"
"We're too late," Tony made a dissatisfied face. "Get the camera—get everything."
"Not until I see this." McGee didn't even know what this was.
"Probie—!" Tony roared. He stopped himself, still aiming a death glare at McGee, and motioned for the probie to follow him.
Around the corner, a distinct pair of tire tracks was burned into the cement ground. They curved and faded away toward the back street. But before he continued on, McGee saw another set of tire tracks on the street itself, which looked more like the tracks the black sedan would've made…
Tony led McGee down the rear of the building until there was a similar garage-like door. This one had window panels, which were also strangely fogged and scratched with age. He could recognize the light flooding through the other entrance he had almost came through. The late afternoon sun didn't make the inside any brighter.
Tony held the handle. "I don't think Abbs remembers this, McGruff." He jumped up to push open the door completely.
The dimness inside was blinding. If McGee was right in his assumptions, this hybrid warehouse-garage really hadn't been used much, if at all. The hydraulic lifts, good for two cars were raised high and were rotting there. Various equipment lay against the nearest wall, their metallic corpses either hanging from hooks or lying, useless, on a table similar to Gibb's basement desk. To the far right were a few doors distorted by little light of the space. McGee took a step forward—
He stumbled back.
Yards away, in front of one of the doors, man lay sprawled on the concrete floor.
*** *** *** ***
Abby sunk fell into her seat and collapsed onto the table. Her sadness was fading away, thankfully, but she felt completely drained. Her fingers still tingled with the words she'd tried to say…
I don't think he got it. Abby peeked from behind her arms. The door was still shut; the window was still a useless, stupid window. The sight triggered a new emotion to fill her empty shell. She balled her hands into fists. It was like an insurmountable wall of darkness stood before her. And behind it was Gibbs. Except, there was the one-way glass; there might as well have been a black curtain draped over it. Abby closed her eyes and continued to wander in her mind's abyss. She was so sure she'd slaughtered the man she held a budding affection for... She wasn't so sure about which man she had just destroyed now—whether it was with a box-cutter or her equally sharp words. Abby let herself descend deeper and deeper in her self-loathing. Her chest rose and fell in tumultuous waves.
And at that point, she realized she was already sitting in a prison. A little black box that Abby was trapped in while her guards kept watch. If another eternity passed by again, Abby was just about ready to shoot herself...
A thought slithered into her head. She dug in her night bag by her foot and found her extra set of keys—her car key, apartment key, a novelty skeleton key with Jack Skellington on it. She thumbed through those, a black Batman keychain, and a purple dragonfly charm, before she found what she wanted. It had always been with her keys for easy access; you never know when you'll need a mini-Swiss army knife in front of your own home.
It was small, but effective. Abby felt a strange, liberating smirk form on her face. She flipped out the secondary blade, her eyes flitting between the keen metal and her delicate skin. Everything else around her disappeared into the darkness.
So she didn't see the hand that swiftly grabbed her wrist. The red puny knife jumped from Abby's stunned hand and clattered on the floor. Abby choked on words.
Gibbs held a thick file in one hand, and her wrist in the other. Inches from her face, his eyes held her entire being—reaching inside her and tugging at emotions that wouldn't, couldn't come out. The blueness of Gibbs' gaze faded into a softer somber hue, yet they still pierced through her like a thousand bullets.
"Don't," he whispered.
Abby still couldn't break her stupefied silence, but Gibbs understood it loud and clear. He walked over, picked up the knife, and, sliding it into his pocket, sat down in front of Abby again.
"Gibbs," she wavered.
The silver-haired fox said not a word. He proceeded to open the manila folder, which was filled with nothing but glossy pictures. He neatly placed each one next to each other and spread all the pictures in an organized grid on the table. Abby stopped staring at Gibbs and looked down, only to be nauseated with both disgust and confusion. She cringed at Jason's torn body and the graze mark and all the cuts in his flesh and even the smashed back of his head; she squinted at the less graphic pictures—a cleaned box-cutter knife, a pair of wire snips, a tool box, and enough pictures of Jason's car to fill a whole memory card. The front seat. The wheel. Her purse on the floor. The backseat. The crashed car itself. The broken brakes. The open trunk. The license plate.
There were as many words on the tip of Abby's tongue as there were pictures on the table. She was so engrossed in them, she didn't see or hear Gibbs rise and stride over behind her. Abby laid her head on the heels of her hands again and let another breath drain her.
She felt Gibbs hands on her shoulders and her back. His touch moved in soothing circles, reminding Abby she was still alive. She closed her eyes and turned away, and let Gibbs' massage ease her senses.
"Don't look away, Abbs," Gibbs' warm breath brushed her hair.
Abby turned back but didn't open her eyes. She wanted to lie on the table and let Gibbs rub down the rest of her body... "What do you want me to do, Gibbs? I already confessed," she frowned.
"No." His hands stayed on her shoulders. His breath came to her ear. "I want you to think. And remember. Everything." Gibbs gently squeezed her shoulders. "Please..."
Abby opened her eyes.
*** *** *** ***
It was a white male, flaxy blonde, with gray eyes, a prominent nose, cleft chin; and now he was sprawled on his stomach in an old warehouse.
McGee took a whole body shot and a close up. He took a picture of the way his hands, arms, and legs were frozen in awkward positions. He took another photo of the tiny lines forever imprinted around his neck. And one more of his dead, cloudy eyes for good measure.
"No ID," Tony scowled. "He had a rubber in his pocket, not exactly the best—"
McGee suddenly glared at Tony. "Shouldn't we call Gibbs?"
"He's rocking Abby, I'll call in a sec," Tony indifferently answered. He knelt at the body's left side and started searching around the victim's neck.
"Must you always use that term?"
Tony almost answered, but he caught the exasperated look on McGee's face. "Hey. Like it or not, Abbs is being interrogated by Gibbs as a suspect, as we speak." The lack of better words rang lamely in Tony's ears. He continued scouring the area around the victim's neck. "For all I know, he could be using his hands to get the answers out of her."
A flash blinded Tony. "Ah—! PROBIE!" he flinched and dropped on his butt.
McGee stood up with the camera in hand and breathed heavily through his nose.
"Hey, McGee, cool it."
"We should call Gibbs."
"Rule number—"
"—I don't care, this could be connected to our case! Abby couldn't have possibly killed anyone while Gibbs rocked her—" His train of thought suddenly swerved off course and he left it at that. McGee shook his head, giving up.
Tony couldn't help smiling. He helped himself up, but his hand slipped on something on the floor. Before completely falling on his bottom again, Tony put a firm knee on the floor and groped around for the unknown substance. His fingers kept gathering dust. He reached closer to the victim's neck and found it exactly. It was thin, almost untraceable with poor lighting, but Tony got what he'd been looking for, and picked it up.
"Catgut…?" McGee asked.
Tony waited. "Your tongue?"
"No—catgut strings for instruments." McGee stepped over, his eyes becoming slit.
"You played an instrument when you were a kid, McGoo?"
McGee hesitated. "Violin—but it looks coarser than catgut. Will you please stop laughing?"
"Okay…" Tony sobered up. "This wouldn't happen to match those marks on his neck, would it?"
McGee glanced at the victim's neck. "Oh…he was wearing something." A chain was peeping from behind the victim's collar.
Tony was buggeyed. "What? I was looking at his neck for—"
"No, you were looking at his condom." McGee pulled at the chain. "Dogtags?"
"Gimme that," Tony pushed McGee aside and pinched the chain. "Yes, it is indeed a chain for the dogtags of Monsieur…"
Tony and McGee looked at each other.
"Arnold Meyer Knight," McGee uttered.
"Call Gibbs," ordered Tony.
A/N: Yeah, the long-chapter streak's been broken now lol. On a random note, do y'all like the "walk-on" roles - I mean, should I continue them? And, for some reason, I'm feeling analytical-ish thanks to my Creative Writing class in school, any constructive criticism would be awesome :) (~Annie)
