NCIS and all of its wonderful characters – no they don't belong to me. Sigh, they never will. Some of them do belong to each other, though, don't you agree?
Wake Up and Smell the Coffee (sequel to Sawdust and Gunpowder) – Boundaries get crossed and bridges get burned. Will Abby and Gibbs ever get on the same page?
Rating – M. Not for kiddos. Really.
FWandFS (Fair Winds and Following Seas): Second Fanfic in this Fandom. Have written others as FeliciaMaplewood for Scarecrow and Mrs. King…Yes, I am dating myself by admitting that.
Chapter 6 Fish or Cut Bait
"Ha!" Tony lauded himself as he hustled down the stairs. Ziva's recent comments about middle-aged spread had pricked his ego – especially as he had been compared unfavorably to McGeek. He could still find the Boss in record time to tell him they had a hit on the BOLO.
As he rounded the corner towards autopsy, he paused in surprise seeing Gibbs bent head and death grip on the arms of a chair. He might be the image of cold indifference in the bullpen, but down here with Ducky, he was the picture of a tortured man. The doors hissed open at his arrival and he heard Ducky reciting poetry. Each man kills the thing he loves. Ouch. Ducky didn't pull any punches.
Tony recognized that tortured look all too well. He had seen in the mirror for months after his breakup with Jeanne. Gibbs hadn't been playing with Abby. He loved her.
And with his well-established track record with women, he had fucked it up. Tony felt a flash of empathy for his boss. Not that he would show it. Gibbs wasn't the kind who liked to receive sympathy. He watched the impassive mask fall over Gibbs' face as he straightened to acknowledge Tony's arrival.
"Got a hit on the BOLO, Boss. Silver Springs, Maryland."
Gibbs strode toward the elevators, forgetting to take leave of Ducky. Tony hustled to shadow him. Ducky shook his head ruefully. If he knew Gibbs, he would always make himself too busy to allow time to feel. His job only enabled that tendency.
Tony waited for the elevator doors to close before deciding to tempt fate by prodding a former marine in close quarters. Hell, he managed to probe and taunt McGoo every day full well knowing that man could bankrupt him and ruin his reputation online with only a few keystrokes. He must like living dangerously.
"I've been outta line, Boss." Tony ceded generously as they both faced the doors. "And having Abby play your girlfriend probably wasn't such a good idea."
"Ya think, Dinozzo?" Gibbs shot back reflexively. He didn't have the energy to play Tony's verbal games today.
"Yeah. I've come to appreciate your position," Tony blithely nattered on. "It's gotta be, well, just plain embarrassing for you, have a girl decades younger than you hitting on you like that. I mean…well, you know…you always seem to prefer more…mature women."
"Seventeen," Gibbs ground out.
"Huh?"
"Years, DiNozzo. Not decades." Gibbs corrected him shortly.
"Oh, well. Sure. I mean sometimes you see it in the movies. Not so much in real life. There was Charade with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. And Love in the Afternoon with her and Gary Cooper. Say…she must have really had a thing for older men. Maybe it goes with the black hair with chicks…you never know." Tony rocked back and forth from his toes to his heels as he soliloquized.
"DiNozzo…" Gibbs voice carried warning in it that the junior agent ignored.
"Then there's that Goth thing….that's gotta be embarrassing. I mean, seriously, a red white and blue guy like you out with a tattooed Goth chick. Never gonna happen." Tony shook his head.
Gibbs punched the emergency switch with more force than necessary as the elevator shuddered to a halt. It was a miracle that it passed the annual inspection with the abuse it took on a weekly basis.
"You got a point here?" Gibbs turned to face him and his voice had changed from warning to threatening. The chill in his eyes dropped the temperature in the small enclosure by a few degrees. If Tony thought he could get away with insulting Abby, he had another thing coming.
Tony opened his eyes wide in mock surprise. "Point? No Boss. I'm just saying I get it. You did what you had to do…you know. Fish or cut bait – you cut bait. What else could you do?"
Gibbs eyes narrowed and the muscle in his cheek jumped. As much as he wanted to deck Tony, that is exactly what he had done. He reached out and flipped the emergency switch back on.
"Shut up, DiNozzo." His voice was more weary than commanding.
Being no fool, Tony waited until just before the doors began to open at their floor before bringing up the heel of his hand to cuff his boss on the back of the head for the first time.
Gibbs stiffened in shocked surprise, his outraged growl cut off by the steely look in Tony's surprisingly understanding eyes.
"Shoulda gone fishing, Boss." Tony rejoined before virtually sprinting out of the elevator. He would head to MTAC and leave McGruff and Ziva to deal with their pissed off superior.
Abby bit her lip uncertainly as her finger hovered over the mouse button. She steeled her spine and shut her eyes before pressing down the 'Send' button. There – she had done it. Let the chips fall where they may.
It was late and she looked up to see her wan face reflected in the dark windows of the lab. She rolled her shoulders. Might as well stay and bunk down here, she had already told Tony she would. She didn't really want to go home, anyway. At least she could distract herself by monitoring the remaining tests that were running overnight. She pulled out her futon and Bert the hippo and curled up under her desk. Bert's flatulence echoed in the empty office.
Abby willed herself to sleep, but as her eyes shut she was bombarded with the images and thoughts she had managed to banish while she worked. She couldn't escape them here or at home: Leroy Jethro Gibbs. She could feel his presence solid and strong behind her shoulder as she worked. She could smell the faint traces of Old Spice and sawdust as he left a room. She could see his signing to her through her office door – hear his surprised laugh, rusty from too little use. His solid warmth as he hugged her and the loving kisses against her hair. She felt the tears leak from her eyelids and slide down her temples.
She had lost all of that with those too few passionate kisses. How could something that meant so much to her have meant so little to him? A sob caught in her throat. Ten years. Ten years of deferred wanting and wishing – watching him with wives and lovers. She knew it was why she had sabotaged all of her own relationships – pushing away the decent ones or wasting time with losers. She couldn't have him and she really wanted no one else. And she had known, she had always known, he didn't see her that way anyway. Or she had until the past two weeks.
She tossed restlessly as the memories of the past few weeks crowded her mind. Could she have only imagined the flashes of interest she had seen in his eyes? She had felt so cherished when he came to rescue at the cotillion. His touches lately had become more lingering, and so had his eyes. She wasn't an idiot. She knew what those glances meant in a man, and they certainly weren't fatherly interest.
She felt her cheeks warm and her breath become more rapid as she always did when she remembered their embracing. The heat had been explosive. She had seen Gibbs give the brush off to plenty of women over the years, he wouldn't have kissed her like if he hadn't wanted to. He had all but eaten her alive. She still had the fingertip bruises on her hips to prove it. What the hell had happened, anyway?
Her busy mind reviewed every conversation they had had since then. He never said he hadn't wanted her. He said it was a job. He had skirted the question and she had been so hurt, she had let him. Abby banged her head on the bottom of her desk as she shot up in surprise. She scooted out from underneath the desk and rose, rubbing her scalp as she began to pace across the office. Even today when she accosted him, Gibbs never said he didn't want her.
Huh. If there was one thing she knew, Gibbs always remembered her cardinal rule. Her only rule really:
#1 Never lie to Abby.
And he hadn't if you were being literal. But the nuns had taught her that a lie by omission was a lie nonetheless. She whirled and grabbed her car keys and her bag, searching through its depths to find her cell phone. She didn't give a damn how late it was. Gibbs had cost her enough sleep in the past few weeks, he owed her. He would damn well talk when she wanted to talk this time.
Abby's lips curled in a willful smile and she hurried out of the lab and the building and into the parking lot. She had come the closest she ever had to having Gibbs right where she wanted him this past week – in her life, in her heart and in her bed. And she wasn't going down without a fight.
Her head bent down in the dim light of the lot to scroll through her list of contacts before hitting the dial button.
"Gibbs?"…..
TBC
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