Chapter Four – Subjective

"Hey, Abby." Tony came rushing down the stairs to meet her. "How's the boss?"

"He's fine," said Abby. "Still our same old indestructible Gibbs, and he's got this really intriguing, sexy scar on his chest now, kinda looks like a crescent moon, in a lopsided-!"

"Yeah, don't need to or want to know about your fetishes. Don't ask, don't tell." Tony waved that quickly away with one hand. "Did he, uh…did he say anything about me? Me and Ziva, I mean? Marching orders?"
"Um, yeah," Abby nodded, "yeah, he says he needs you to stay in touch, like, all the time. I mean, not all the time, but you need to be keeping him posted if anything exciting happens. I wouldn't call if nothing's happening, cause he can get pretty testy if you get his attention and then don't give him anything in return."

As Abby fished around in her jacket pocket for the piece of paper on which she'd written the hospital switchboard number, Tony grimaced. "I know," he said. "Thanks for the relay. If you see him again, tell him that I say get well soon." After a moment's pause, he turned a sly, knowing look on her. "You are gonna see him again soon, right?"

Abby had seen this coming, and had spent some time trying to decide how to deal with it. Tony would probably already have had a few laughs at the expensive of her newly awkward relationship status, and she was well prepared to take whatever he could dish out. At least, she thought she was.

"After all," Tony continued, "From where I'm standing, or at least, where Ziva and I stood last night, it looks like you're getting ready to become the fifth Mrs. Gibbs."

She hadn't been ready for that. The operative word, the one that got to Abby the most was "fifth." Recent, slightly more urgent events had totally taken her mind of the unpleasant progression of ideas she'd been having about Gibbs' romantic history. She knew of course, that Gibbs had lost one wife, and divorced another three in rapid succession. Still, four was an impressive tally, when it came to people he'd said he'd spend the rest of his life with. Thinking back on the things Mike Franks had told her that night in Gibbs' basement, Abby wondered if he really was still carrying all of them with him, and if he really did intend to keep the "till death do us part" promise. After all, Shannon had already died, and yet Gibbs was no doubt going to keep a tight hold on her memory until his own dying day. How did it stand with the rest of his short-lived and alarmingly serious romances, or had they all discovered that he'd already picked a permanent life partner, and that Shannon's not being around didn't prevent Gibbs from rejecting each of his new ives in turn as the love of his life?

"Too soon?" asked Tony, noting Abby's suddenly awkward, introspective silence. "I'm just kidding. Maybe that's not…really how it is. The boss didn't just, uh…" He fumbled with his words, trying to figure out the best, most un-DiNozzo, tactful way to put it. "Was it just a spur of the moment thing? You know, one night only?"

N-no. No, that's...not quite it." Abby said not quite it, because, in point of fact, there really had only been one night so far. She expected there to be several others, but when she was honest with herself she had to recognize that the relationship she'd fantasized about for so long in her own mind was really still in the stages of budding, experimental romance. It definitely wasn't the time to be thinking about marriage…which would be a lot easier, of course, if Gibbs hadn't already had quite so many.

"Right. Cool. I think." Tony seemed to be getting more and more out of his depth. "Ziva'll be glad to hear it. She was kinda worried about you, you know, when all the yelling and angry Gibbs happened, and then it was followed by sex. I mean, I assume it was followed by…not that I was like, watching, or anything. That'd be intensely creepy, I would never…I'm gonna quit before I'm behind, and go. Okay?"

He did go, which was, in one sense, a relief to Abby, who obviously still did not know how to talk about Gibbs in front of her co-workers. On the other hand, Tony being there, expressing his total confusion as to how to address the situation, had been a bit comforting. At least she wasn't the only one who still didn't know just exactly what was going on between herself and her boss/lover. The first thing she'd have to do, Abby reflected, was to pick a single word, preferably not boss or lover, which accurately identified their relationship.

***

When Abby got back to Gibbs' house, Jackson was sitting on the couch, wearing his reading glasses, leafing through a book. He smelled, though Abby, like wood shavings.

"Been down in the basement?" she asked.

Jackson looked up at her. "Thought I'd clean it up a bit while Leroy was getting better," he confirmed. "Took a quick look around at the mess and all the half-finished craft projects, and gave it up. Wouldn't know where to put things so he could find 'em again, anyway. I can barely find anything around here myself."

"Good call," said Abby, nodding encouragingly. "He wouldn't like it if he came back and his stuff was missing. You should have seen how mad he got at Tony when he 'retired,'" she put some significantly sarcastic emphasis on the word, "and then came back to find out that McGee and Tony had gone ahead and rearranged all of his crime scene goodies. Words of wisdom; let it be."

"Aren't you gonna go home and get a shower, or something?" Jackson asked, raising an eyebrow at her. "You've paid your dues, time to take a break."

"Oh, sure, yeah, I am." Abby had hoped for an easier opening. She liked Jackson, even more so now that he'd gotten her off of her self-centered butt and insisted that she go with him to see Gibbs. She didn't want to offend him, and definitely didn't want to scare him off, since she was still hoping that his arrival would be another step towards the father-son reconciliation that she'd been hoping against hope for ever since the previous Christmas. Still, if she didn't ask the question that was eating away at the back of her mind, it'd get blurted out at some really awkward, inappropriate time, probably in front of Gibbs himself. That'd be pretty awful. "I…I wanted your help with something."

"Shoot," said Jackson, leaning forward to get a better look at her. "What's bugging you?"

"I want…" She stopped, swallowed, re-considered, and started again. "I need to find out more about Gibbs. You know, the things he likes, the people he likes…"

"The women he likes?" Jackson Gibbs nodded slowly. "Yeah, I'm not surprised, really. Ever since I found out that you and he were…intimate-!"

"Can we use 'involved?' I like the word 'involved.'" Abby felt the heat rising in her face, and tried not to think too hard about Gibbs' newly attractive scar, or the unexpectedly gentle way his hands could move when they wanted to. "It's a nice, ambiguous word, doesn't make assumptions."

"I'm not making assumptions, I know," insisted Jackson. "You should have seen the two of you in the hospital together. You couldn't take your eyes off of him, and he wasn't seeing anything but you, either. You've obviously made quite an impression on my boy, and that takes some doing."

"And…that impression," asked Abby, forcing the words out as quickly as she could, before she could swallow them again. "that only having eyes for me thing. How long does that last?"

Jackson didn't respond to that in words. Looking across at him, hoping for some sort of encouraging sign, Abby saw him bite his lip, and shake his head. He looked away from her for a second, letting out a little frustrated sigh, and the weight started to pile up on Abby's shoulders again.

"Yeah," she whispered. "That's what I was afraid of."

"I don't even really know him anymore," Jackson began, with a shrug. "I wouldn't be the one you'd want to ask. I wasn't there when most of the…when he got involved with those other women, and he's been keeping me carefully out of it. Everything I know, I know recently, from conversations and second hand information. I can't help you, Abby, he's almost a stranger to me, you could write a textbook with the stuff I don't know."

Abby frowned. "I'm starting to feel like that too," she said.