Chapter Eight – Substitute
Twenty minutes after they'd sat down to wait, Ziva began to feel uneasy. Thirty minutes in, she started to get fidgety and uncomfortable. By the time forty minutes had passed, she was really starting to worry.
Tony looked at his watch. "Uh, Ziva," he murmured, "it's been almost an hour since we came in here. Think maybe it's time to call McGee and see if we can get a trace on Paul's credit card?"
Ziva did not know what it was time to do. Her instincts were telling her one thing, and the evidence, or rather, the lack of evidence of their suspect's presence was telling her something entirely different. She needed a little more time to think, which she probably didn't have, and shouldn't waste. "Yes," she said, "call McGee."
As Tony began the dial the number, Ziva got up and tried to get out some of her frustration by pacing a few times around the room. As she began to come back towards the sofa, something that sounded like the rustle of shoes outside the door stopped her in her tracks. Silently still, holding her breath, Ziva watched as a small card slid its way under the door. It came in just far enough for her to be able to bend down and reach for it, but she waited several minutes before doing so. "Tony?" she asked, and the urgency of her tone got him out of his seat and off of the phone.
Together, the two of them crossed over to the door, and Tony trained his gun on it, as Ziva carefully picked up the card. For a couple of seconds, both agents waited, half expecting someone to walk into the room. Nothing happened. Glancing down at her treasure, Ziva saw that it was the key card to another hotel room, room number 612.
"What's this all about?" asked Tony, slowly lowering the gun. Ziva shrugged. Plucking the card out of her fingers, Tony reached to open the door. "Well," he said, "I guess you were right. If this is what we've been sitting here waiting for, let's not waste any time using it. Besides, I need some action; I'm getting a cramp in my lower back. You coming?"
***
Tony and Ziva weren't the only ones on the edge of their seats. As they prepared to bust into room 612, Abby prepared to bust out with a secret, one that she hoped would help to smooth over some of the problems that she'd inadvertently created in Gibbs' life.
For the last few minutes, which had dragged themselves out intolerably, Gibbs had been sitting on his hospital cot and glaring at the floor. It was though he'd entirely forgotten that Abby was even there, so lost in some unpleasant reflections of his own that her presence had escaped his fixated notice. His preoccupation had given Abby plenty of time to stress herself out about things that she had said, ways that Gibbs' had looked and acted, and, perhaps most importantly, her growing suspicion that Jackson's visit had been prompted by the questions which she'd plagued him with the night before.
Abby knew that if she asked him, Gibbs would deny being concerned about his father, or would maybe just refuse to talk about the episode at all. Left to his own devices, he'd brood over the matter until it got worse and worse, taking on proportions 'that would be far too intense for Abby to interfere with. If she did have something to do with Jackson's and Gibbs' fight, she had only one real chance to make amends before things got out of hand, and if she hadn't had anything to do with it, she'd at least have gotten the issue off her chest and out into the open. It was, after all, better to be safe than sorry, she reflected, even if being safe did mean informing her lover/boss that she'd engaged in an intrusively personal faux-pas.
"It's my fault, Gibbs," Abby began.
Gibbs shook his head impatiently at her. "No it's not," he insisted. "They would have been there, waiting for me outside whether or not you'd come over. It was only a matter of time and a question of who they'd pick off first."
"No, not the shooting." Abby was having a hard time getting the words out, but she was a woman who was careful to finish whatever she began, and was hoping that, any minute now, the confession would start to feel good. "I mean, Jack's…questions. He did ask you questions, didn't he?"
Gibbs gave Abby his attention for the first time in maybe a half an hour. She couldn't help wishing that she'd gotten it in a different, more flattering way. "About…about your wives?" she insisted doggedly. "He did ask you about being married, and stuff, didn't he?"
For some reason, Gibbs didn't get angry. He looked genuinely surprised for a moment, and then nodded slowly, frowning at her in a thoughtful, comprehending sort of way. "Yeah," he muttered. "Yeah, I should have figured that's why he'd want to know, all of a sudden."
Abby began trying to think of a way to explain to him why she'd asked. She could only come up with so many excuses, none of which seemed particularly innocent or appropriate under the circumstances. She could always say that it had been a joke, that she'd made some crack about his record with marriages, and that it had made Jackson curious. Still, telling him it had been a joke wouldn't make it entirely clear that Jackson Gibbs hadn't been in the wrong, and that was the key thing, the most important part. She had to make Gibbs understand that his father hadn't been trying to pry into his life, but that he'd been helping Abby out, worrying about making her feel better. Jack's motives had to be the good ones, even it made Abby look like a clingy stalker.
"It's like this," she began, opening her mouth to tell him that she'd been tired and frustrated, and had asked Jack some leading questions that she had taken the time to come to regret. Before she had a chance, however, Abby noticed that the anger had all drained out of Gibbs' face, and that he was looking at her with some combination of resignation and appreciation.
"Um," stammered Abby.
"It's okay," Gibbs said with a shrug, " You've got a right to know whatever you want to know. Should have all the information before you start something like this."
Abby stared at him. "But what," she asked, almost whispering, "are we starting, exactly?"
Suddenly, her phone began to ring.
She considered just not answering it, afraid that this opportunity for the conversation she'd been dying to have would never come again. Still, even in the throes of romantic possibility, Abby was, first and foremost, an excellent member of a crime fighting team. Hitting the send button, she held the phone to her ear. "What's up, Tony?"
"We've got him," shouted Tony excitedly, forcing Abby to hold the phone a little farther away from her ear. "It was the concierge! We caught him trying to send a message to our guy Paul. Ziva and I are on our way back to NCIS with him now, we'll see you there."
"Abby?" Gibbs put a hand on her shoulder. "What's he saying?"
"Oh!" Abby held the phone up to Gibbs' ear, saying as she did so, "Tony's got him! He and Ziva are bringing him in right now. Sounds like there were two of them in it, I didn't totally get what-!"
"DiNozzo?" barked Gibbs into the phone. Abby didn't hear Tony's reply. "Yeah," said Gibbs after a moment, "and then send Ziva and McGee over to report. Oh? Okay. But Ziva too."
Gibbs hung up the phone, and Abby accepted it back from him, asking "Well? What's up?"
Gibbs nodded, letting out a long, harsh breath. "They got him," he said shortly. "Ziva and Ducky are going to come over to the hospital to fill me in." He said the last three words almost distastefully, as if having to be filled in by his subordinates was particularly unappetizing. "Go back to the lab and sit in for instructions. Tony might have something for you, he'll need you. I'm counting on you, Abs."
Abby felt the moment of connection between her and Gibbs slipping away from her yet again, in the face of this new professional development. Seeing her frustration, Gibbs leaned down and placed a kiss behind her ear. "When this is done," he assured her, "you'll be able to ask me anything you like. We'll have that dinner you were planning."
"And…the candles?" murmured Abby mischievously. Gibbs' slow, small smile made her face suddenly start to feel hot.
"We'll see," he said.