Chapter Nine – Submission
Anti-climactic was hardly the word for it. When Abby got to NCIS, Tony and Ziva had the situation solidly under control.
"It was crazy," Tony told Abby, while they watched Ziva quietly menacing the man who had once been a hotel concierge, and was now a prime murder suspect. "We'd been sitting in that room an hour, just long enough for my butt to start to ache for being in one position too long, when this hotel room card slips under the door, and we hear these footsteps running off in the opposite direction, so Ziva jumps up and runs off out the door, after them."
Abby nodded at the appropriate intervals, but she wasn't listening. It was unprofessional, sure, but she just didn't have the focus. Gibbs had said that he was counting on her, that he needed her to pay attention, to be his eyes and ears on this case when he couldn't be there himself. Still, Gibbs eyes and ears, as well as his face, his mouth, his hands, and the way he'd smiled at her were too close to the forefront of Abby's imagination to allow her to pay attention to anything else.
"Classic Ziva David," Tony finished, still excited and a little breathless from the re-living of his adventures. "That woman's got instincts that mere human beings could never even begin to understand. She's like a demon, or an android, or one of those super heroines with the amazing bodies but the cold, hard bitch kinda souls."
"Yeah, she's pretty great," muttered Abby. "I mean, really great. Like a…well oiled machine, our Ziva. Hey, listen, when do you think she'll be done in there? Gibbs wants me to call him when we have a confession." Tony looked at her oddly for a few minutes, like he was trying to read something in her face, but couldn't quite make it out. It made Abby uncomfortable, and she stood up suddenly. "Maybe I'll go call him now, and let him know-!"
"Abby." Tony cut her off. "Gibbs is going to be fine, right?"
"What?" Abby nodded. "Of course. He's doing fine, they're going to discharge him in a couple days, why?"
"Cause you're freaking me out, that's why." Shrugging, Tony added, "You haven't heard a single thing I've said this whole time. You just came from the hospital, right? So I assumed that-!"
"Oh, right…of course you did. No, Gibbs is okay. He's more than okay."
"And what about you, huh?" Tony was being sympathetic now, and sympathetic Tony was just a little bit sickening to see. He did that thing where he crinkled up his face, tried too hard to look like the caring man that Abby knew he was deep inside, but that he was far from used to exhibiting in public. Overdone compassion looked unnatural on him, when a simple glance between friends would have done just fine. "Are you okay?"
Abby opened her mouth to say that since Gibbs had started to recover, she had been doing better everyday. She wasn't just fine, she was great, and she was ready to take on whatever was coming. Distracted as she was by trying to imagine a future conversation with the man who'd promised to answer all of her questions, Abby bit her lip, and the words never got out.
***
"Gibbs." Abby strode into the hospital room, purposefully, like a woman who knew what she wanted and had made up her mind, which was far from how she felt.
Gibbs sat up straight on his bed as soon as he heard her footsteps. "Well?" he asked. "You never called."
"You know," murmured Abby, "I wish that we said things like that to each other."
Raising an eyebrow at her, Gibbs let himself settle back a little bit against the wall behind the cot, apparently recognizing that he was in for more than a few words. "Things like what?"
"Like, you giving me a hard time about never calling, or me telling you that I wish you wouldn't snore, or that you always fall asleep right after…you know." She blushed a little, but kept moving doggedly on towards her point before Gibbs could stop her. "The things that normal couples argue about. I want you to tell me that I never let you choose the movie when we're home alone, or that you don't like my favorite skirt…actually, not that last one, cause if you start telling me how to dress it's gonna get unhealthy, and I hate unhealthy, like those abusive relationships you always hear about in after-school specials…but you know what I mean!"
Gibbs blank face said clearly that he did not at all know what Abby meant.
"I mean," she insisted, "that I want us to have the fights that normal couples have, and to treat each other like real, ordinary people. We aren't ordinary people, but so far we've fought about me getting in the way of your job, and you getting in the way of a bullet, and father-figure angst, which is really creepy when you think too hard about it…and your dad, and your ex-wives-!"
"Those last two," murmured Gibbs, "are pretty normal."
"Okay," said Abby, "okay, but I want more of that. More things that you see on sitcoms, and soap operas, more things that feel real."
Gibbs chuckled. Abby stared at him, feeling the anger starting to rise in the back of her throat. "You're laughing at me," she accused him. "You're-!"
"I'm laughing," said Gibbs, in the quiet, placating way that she'd gotten used to around the lab, "at the idea that you think sitcoms and soap operas are more real than you and I."
Abby stared at him for a moment, watching how his eyes stayed fixed on hers as he waited to see what she'd spring on him next. His patient complacence made her both furious and relieved at the same time, both angry that he didn't seem to be taking her seriously, and delighted hat he was genuinely taking the time to listen. Throwing up her hands at last, she muttered, "Maybe I've got it wrong, then. Maybe you and I just feels too much like a soap opera after all."
"I want to take you to Mexico," said Gibbs.
"Yeah." Abby sighed. "That'd be nice, someday. You could show me all of those places that you were going to spend time in when you retired. Maybe I'd learn a little bit about what you're like when you're off duty. Don't think I've ever really seen you "off duty." I wonder if I'd like it."
"No," pressed Gibbs gently, "I want to take you to Mexico now. Or, soon. Wednesday. When I'm discharged."
Abby's eyes widened. "Oh," she said.
"You and I," continued Gibbs, "will get a few days leave, next week, and we'll go back with Mike and his family. I can't promise I'll be a different man when I'm off duty, and I can't promise that I'll fight with you about the movies, or that I'll be awake enough to argue about falling asleep after we make love, but I do like your skirts, and I probably do snore, and I promise," he said, carefully laying emphasis on the word, "that we're going to talk, and that you can ask me."
"Ask you what?" whispered Abby.
Gibbs shrugged. "Whatever you want to know."
As Abby tried to imagine going to Mexico with Gibbs, she did her best not to imagine a magical couple's vacation, complete with long walks on the beach and gazing and sunsets. Being with Gibbs was never going to be like that, and Abby had already decided that she didn't need the typical, expected romantic activities in order to make her happy. It would relieve her mind immensely to know the answers, even if they resulted in her finding out that he really never could love her as much as she hoped he eventually would. The waiting, the not knowing, the speculating was the awful part. She liked to think that she could live with answers.
She might even be able to get used to the mustache…assuming that the Mexican air prompted him to want to grow it back.
"I-!" Abby started to say.
"But, Abby," Gibbs interrupted her, serious-faced and stern, "may I please, now, have your report on what happened with Tony and Ziva?"
Author's Note: You aren't going to believe this, but my computer died. I swear.
So, while you're waiting for me to salvage the outline for the next installment in this fic arc from my kaput computer, why don't you go and check out Surfeit, the Ducky-centric story that I'm working on. You'll find it linked on my profile, and if you like my psychological writing and my angsty romances, you'll love this.
As for this Abby/Gibbs story arc, it will be back very soon (read: maybe in a week or so?) with a new fic involving Gibbs and Abby's trip to Mexico, legitimate romantic interaction and a much-needed break from the real world for our protagonists. If you're looking for reconciliation between the two of them, and some good sexy fun, it is only a few chapters around the corner, you are almost there.
I need a break from the real world myself…
I do hope you keep reading!
My regards,
Vivian