Chapter Six – Suborned

"I've…been really busy," muttered Abby lamely, in response to McGee's question.

"Yeah," he said, "I heard all about that from Tony."

"So, then, you know everything already." Abby didn't like how at fault she felt. What was there to feel so guilty about? After all, it's not like she had cheated on him, or tricked him, or broken his heart. Okay, thought Abby, made she had broken his heart, but they hadn't even gone out on a date, not recently, anyway, and it's not like McGee hadn't known, from the moment she walked out of the office and into her car to head to Ducky's that something was going on, and that it was something that he wouldn't be a part of. He'd even said as much, and made it very clear to her that he was catching on to the fact that she was into somebody else. If all that was true, then how come McGee managed to make her feel so uncomfortable, standing there staring at her with that accusatory look on his face?

"How come I had to hear it from Tony?" he asked.

Abby shrugged. "Cause Tony was here early this morning." McGee continued to watch her expectantly, apparently waiting for some brilliant rebuttal or satisfying apology that she just didn't seem to have in her. After a moment, she sighed and said, "Look, McGee…I care about you. I mean, I care about you a lot, and tons of stuff has happened that I am just dying to tell you about, that I need to be able to have your solid good-guy advice about…but I'm not gonna be the bitchy ex-girlfriend and say something like 'aw, jeez, McGee, you'll always be my best friend' because you will always be my best friend, but I know how much that hurts to hear and how stupid it is for anyone to say that. So what am I supposed to say, huh? I got tied up, I was over my head, things got out of hand and there were all these crazy emotions everywhere…and then Gibbs got shot, and now we're back at work and I can't pretend that it feels like the right time to have this conversation about what happened days ago. Feels like weeks ago, anyway. But I'm sorry."

McGee's eyes widened slightly, and he opened his mouth to say something. Thinking better of it, he closed it again, reconsidered, and then muttered, "That was…a pretty good speech. Have you been sitting around, trying to figure out what to say to me?"

"Would it make you feel better if I said yes?" asked Abby.

Smiling a bit awkwardly, McGee replied, "Yes. I mean, uh, no. Actually, I'm not sure. Doesn't matter."

Abby looked hopefully at him. "So we're good now?"

"Not exactly," McGee admitted, adding with a small smile, "but it's a start."

They sat for a couple of minutes, trying to avoid looking at each other. Abby considered whether or not she hadn't actually stepped over the boundaries of their friendship when she'd used McGee's own advice against him to convince her to go after the man who was his boss and had essentially been his rival. She couldn't have said what McGee was thinking about, but whatever it was, at least he didn't look as self-righteous as he had when he'd come into the lab.

"That's not really why I came down here," he said finally. "To talk to you about that, I mean." McGee frowned. "Abby, I just got a hit on the bolo we put out on Friday, on the guy who's sending the hate mail to Gibbs' goddaughter. He's not in Mexico anymore."

"Where is he?" asked Abby, already knowing the answer and not really wanting to hear it.

"Just got on a USAir flight to Dulles," said McGee. "He's gonna land in DC in an hour."

***

"Leroy," asked Jackson Gibbs, sitting on a chair by the cot in Gibbs' hospital room, "how many times have you been married?"

Gibbs raised his head slightly to look over at his father. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I don't know," justified Jackson, with the air of being infinitely reasonable. "I know it's been more than once."

Gibbs sighed. "Married four times," he intoned quietly, "divorced three. Did Abby put you up to this?"

Ignoring the question, Jackson spent a few moments considering the tally of Gibbs' former wives. "That," he said, "is a lot of times. I was thinking two, maybe with some good-intentioned flings in between, but…four? I'm surprised at you."

Rolling his eyes, Gibbs let his head back down on to the flat, floppy thing the nurse called a pillow. He didn't have the patience to deal with his father's judgment at the moment, and he didn't have any interest in discussing the matter of his multiple failed marriages. If anybody knew about failed marriages, after all, he thought, it would be Jackson Gibbs.

"And you," muttered Jackson under his breath, "give me a hard time for having trouble with your mother. I always thought that was why we didn't talk for so many years, but I guess you know all about the sour side of romance."

Something inside Gibbs suddenly ran cold. "What did you say, dad?" he asked, his voice coming out far more harshly than he had intended it to.

Jackson shrugged. "I'm only telling you that-!"

"It's different," interrupted Gibbs. "It's different. When things went wrong between Diane and I, and Stephanie and I, there weren't any children. Nobody had to watch their father flirting with another, younger woman, like they'd been some kind of trial run."

"You know you weren't a trial run," said Jackson calmly. "You're a grown man, now, Leroy. I shouldn't have to tell you what it's like to try to sort out your happiness and to separate it cleanly from someone else's."

"I wouldn't know anything about that," Gibbs began.

"Why?" Jackson raised an eyebrow. "Cause you weren't ever happy?"

Gibbs blood began to boil, and all the reasons why he'd rejected seeing his father for so many years started to reveal themselves again to him clearly. Maybe, he thought, there really was no reason for Jack to be here, and there really was no point in trying to re-create a bond that had been broken for so long that he didn't remember what it had been like before.

He couldn't explain to his father what it was like to lose a wife that he deeply, dearly loved, or a little child that had meant more than just the world to him. That was something that he and Jackson Gibbs would never share, something which, no matter how hard they tried and talked, Jackson would never be able to comprehend. Something selfish in Gibbs resented the fact that he had suffered more pain than his father ever had, despite the difference in years and the life experiences that should have come first to the father before the son. No, he realized, there would always be things about which they simply couldn't, or shouldn't talk, and those tended to be the things that were the most important to share with the supposed ones he loved.

"It's different," he repeated coldly, closing his eyes.

"Leroy-!" began his father.

When Gibbs didn't respond, there was a hostile silence between them for a long time. He didn't hear Jackson stand up to leave the room, but when Gibbs opened his eyes again, his father was gone.

As he lay there, there was a knock at the door, and then the businesslike nurse shuffled into the room. "Mr. Gibbs?" she said. "If you're up to it, there's a call for you from…Abby Skee-oou-too?" The nurse was careful to pronounce every syllable of the name, and still succeeded in getting it wrong. "Apparently it's very important."

"Thank you," muttered Gibbs, preparing to sit up. "I'll take it."