A/N: Once again I owe much to my beta lj user"nyciby" . You're the best, sweetie.
II
Except for the Navy pilot, the other passengers on the helicopter were all Marines, headed down to Louisiana to lend their assistance. Abby worried at first that she had taken someone's seat, but they laughed and reassured her that all of them had fit in.
"Besides, ma'am," the corpsmen across from her had commented, "you're so little it wouldn't have made a difference.
"Abby," she insisted. "Please, call me Abby."
"No offense, Miss Abby, but your appearance isn't quite regulation. You're not in the service." The youngest member of the group was a Private with the name Singer stitched above his pocket.
"Not exactly." Abby smiled, glad that she wasn't alone on this flight. The last thing she needed was time to brood. "I work for NCIS."
"Are you going into New Orleans for work, Abby?" another Marine asked.
"No," Abby shook her head. She tried to imagine what Tony would say if he knew someone thought she was a field agent, or what Gibbs would do if she joked about wanting to be one. "I'm a lab tech, and almost never go out in the field. I grew up in the city, and my parents and brother are still there."
"I hope they made it through the storm alright."
"They did, but I don't know if I'll believe it until I see them for myself."
"We'll get you there as quick as we can," the pilot's voice came in over the headphones. Abby thanked him and settled into her seat, spending the rest of the flight being entertained by the Marines, who seemed intent on amusing her.
II
It was dark outside when they landed. Everyone insisted on helping Abby off the helicopter. She wished she'd had a camera to snap a picture of the young serviceman who asked for the honor of carrying Bert.
Abby worried about how she would get from the makeshift Navy base to the hotel where her family had been staying for the last few weeks. Gibbs, however, had taken care of that arrangement too. A petty officer was waiting for her in a jeep, and drove her into the city. Most of the street lights were down, and none of them had electricity. Very little could be seen outside the range of the headbeams, but every once in a while they would illuminate a building, and the force of the storm would hit her. Empty shells with broken windows and missing roofs seemed to be all that remained.
"Thank you," Abby said as she grabbed her duffle bag out of the back seat. She waved her driver off when he asked if she needed help carrying the bag into the hotel lobby. Jason, her brother, had a friend who owned the hotel, and had found room for the Sciuto family among the many displaced citizens of the north shore.
Abby leaned against the outside brick wall of the hotel. The street was eerily quiet, with few cars driving on the street. She had always thought of this city as being alive, with a rhythm that pulsed through it in the same way that blood flowed through humans. With music and lights and dancing she had considered New Orleans to be a mirror of her own personality. This was not her city. She tried to blink them back, but a film of tears covered her eyes. She was standing there shivering in the cool night air when her phone rang. She was going to ignore it until she noticed that she had twelve missed calls, all from the same number.
"It's about time Abby," Gibbs said in lieu of a greeting. "You had one more hour to call before I had the local LEO's looking for you."
Abby held the phone close to her ear, grateful for his familiar voice. She didn't realize that she hadn't responded until she heard the worried tone in his voice when he repeated her name.
"Sorry," she said as she fumbled through around in her purse in search of a tissue. "I was anxious to get to the city, and forgot to call."
"Have you talked to your brother again?" Gibbs asked, even though he already knew the answer. He had called Jason less then an hour ago.
"I figured I would just show up." In truth she hadn't even thought of pausing long enough to make the call. Weeks of pushing down the worry about her family had overwhelmed her, and all she had wanted to do was get in the car and go, so that she could get to them as soon as humanly possible.
"How are you?" he asked, his voice low.
"It's hard," she admitted. She wouldn't have had anyone else asked her the same question. "All these years doing what I do, and none of it compares to what I've seen here in the space of a few hours."
"Is there anything you need?" he asked.
"Are you busy? Can you talk to me for a few minutes?" Talking to Gibbs comforted her.
"I have time," he said as he looked around the bustling squad room. "How about if I tell you the ten different ways Tony's tried to screw up our case today?"
Abby laughed when she heard Tony's indignant reply muffled by the phone.
"How about you tell me all about the fun blood and fiber evidence I'm missing out on instead?" she asked.
II
After ten minutes on the phone Abby was feeling better. Gibbs had filled her in on their current case, letting her lose herself for a few minutes in the details of work. He had passed the phone on to McGee, who didn't get in much more then 'hello' before Tony had snatched the receiver from him. It didn't take sixty seconds before he had her laughing at the oddities of the latest witness he had interviewed.
Abby closed her cell phone after saying goodbye to everyone. Entering the hotel lobby she found that the space was taken up by cots, with only narrow aisles leading to the elevators. On reaching the third floor she walked down the hallway, careful not to knock into any of the additional cots that were lined up against the wall. The people laying on the makeshift beds didn't even look up as she walked past.
She knocked on the door to room 308, and it had barely swung open before she found herself enveloped in a giant hug.
"Mom," she said, even though she knew she wouldn't be heard. "I'm so glad you are okay."
When her mother released her, Abby's father gave her a kiss, and ran his thumb over her cheek in the affectionate sign for i my girl. /i Abby pressed her face against his shoulder and breathed in the familiar scent of Old Spice and spearmint.
"Where's Jason?" she asked, falling into the familiar habit of speaking with both her voice and hands.
i 'He went to go get us something to eat' /i her mother replied.
i 'What are you doing here?' /i her father wanted to know. i 'You should be at work.' /i
"I needed to see with my own eyes that you were alright."
Her father frowned slightly, but her mother nodded understandingly. Ever since she was a little girl Abby had needed to see things with her own eyes to know that they were true. Even before she had known what experiments were she had tested her surroundings repeatedly.
II
An hour later Abby was seated on one of the beds, facing her parents. She had been able to get them to talk a little bit about the past few weeks, but not at all about the storm. Her mother had changed the subject everytime she had brought it up, and after a couple of rebuffs she had given in and turned to amusing them with stories of work Her father was shaking his head over a story she was telling them about evidence for an old case, and her mother was peppering their conversation with inquires about her coworkers.
i 'How is that young man McGee?' /i she wanted to know.
"He's fine. It's been a long summer, and hard on the guys since it's just the three of them now, but other then that everything's good." McGee had been one of the few men she had told her parents about, and she hadn't realized until too late that her mother's hopes had been raised. When she had come home for vacation last winter she had found her mother knitting a baby bootie, and in a flurry of signs Abby had disabused her of that idea. She and McGee were having fun. There was no wedding in their future, and certainly no babies. Gloria had held onto the dream until Abby had emailed that they had broken up. She had a new guy now, but she wasn't about to tell her mother about Mikel.
i 'That boss of yours isn't working you too hard, is he?' /i her dad questioned.
"Never," Abby shook her head. It was only a little lie. Gibbs expected a lot of her, but no more then she demanded from herself.
"Getting the third degree already?" Jason questioned as he walked into the room, carrying a oversized paper bag and a two liter bottle of Mountain Dew which he handed directly to Abby. "Sorry, no Caf-Pows! to be found."
"Jason!" Abby set the bottle on the floor and hugged her brother. When she stepped back she shook her finger at him. "You've talked to Gibbs, haven't you?"
"Guilty as charged," her brother agreed as he set down the bag on the dresser. He pulled four giant burritos out of the bag and passed them around. "You're lucky I did, otherwise you'd be going to bed without any supper little girl."
"No I wouldn't," Abby stuck out her tongue. "I would have stolen your food."
Jason laughed, and threw a wadded up napkin at her. He handed out the rest of the napkins in a more traditional matter. Dinner, as usual, was a silent meal. With both hands required to eat there was no way for the elder Sciutos to communicate. From a young age Abby and Jason had felt that it was rude to carry on conversation without their parents, so aside from a few necessary remarks they didn't speak either.
After dinner it was time for bed. The room contained two beds. Jason insisted that Abby take the second one. Abby pushed him onto the bed and flashed him Gibbs' favorite sign. She would be the one sleeping on the floor. He started to argue, but Abby ignored him and rolled out a sleeping bag, stealing the other pillow from the bed. Without even bothering to undress she signed goodnight to her parents and lay down, burying her head under the pillow.
i To be continued /i