A/N: Oh, I know this one took a while again. Apologies, but I can be amazingly scatty at times, and somehow misplaced my USB stick with the file g
My dear readers, thanks for your patience and enjoy!!
Last Things
Walking into autopsy and switching on the lights (the dimmer lamps, not the neon ones; those are only on when he works; otherwise he finds them a lot too bright), Ducky spots the black and white form of Abby stretched out on one of his dissection tables, perfectly motionless, but quite alert.
She's lying on her stomach, and from a distance she seems quite relaxed, like someone waiting for a massage.
That might well be a wrong way to interpret the image, though. Ducky doubts that someone lying on a dissection table is usually very relaxed (that is, whilst they're still alive, of course). Then again, this is Abby. She probably looks quite relaxed in the coffin at her home too.
Ducky sets down his bag and studies his young fellow scientist for a while. Her clear green eyes are looking back at him the whole time, and if she wasn't reminding him so much of a little girl, the way she has her face half buried in the crook of her arm, he would actually have considered that creepy. But, once more, it's Abby, and for all her black clothes, tattoos, bracelets and collars, her odd music and her fascination with everything dark, she could never be creepy.
Ducky glances at the clock on the wall. It's shortly after six thirty a.m., and that probably is the true unusual aspect of Abby's presence. When did she come in today?
"Now, Abigail", the ME finally breaks the silence between them, "you're an early visitor, my dear. Did you sleep tonight?"
Abby shifts a little and smiles over at him through the muted light. "Nope", she replies innocently, "don't need sleep. I'm undead."
"I see", Ducky responds as if being undead were just as much an option open to everybody as were liking mushrooms or not liking them. Abby grins as she watches him change into his white coat.
Done, he walks over to her and stops at the end of the table where Abby's head is resting on her forearms. "What is wrong, my dear?"
She waits until he's pulled up a chair for himself and has settled into it.
"Went to a bar last night with Tony."
"Only you and Anthony?" He makes the question sound like the combination could never bode well.
"No, Kate was there at first, but she left 'round one."
"Oh, I see", Ducky says compassionately. Obviously he considers Kate to be the solid element amongst the three of them. "So is it a hangover, then?"
Abby giggles softly at that and shakes her head. "Nah, Ducky. I'd have to down a lot more than what we had yesterday to have a hangover now." She pauses and seems to remember what she actually wanted to tell him. Her momentary mirth dies away in no time and she looks to the floor.
"Talked about bossman."
To this, Ducky doesn't reply. He just gives her a slow nod that says I see.
"Ducky?", Abby continues quietly after a while, "What's gonna happen if Gibbs wakes up again?"
Most likely, he wasn't expecting this question. He certainly wasn't.
Most likely, he was also hoping none of them would ever ask. They know enough about coma to figure out themselves what might and might not happen, what is more probable and what less.
He's not angry at Abby for asking, of course not. He's just not all too sure what she really wants to know.
Maybe it's just avoidance when he smiles at her and answers: "Well, first of all I will be very glad." His voice sounds pained even in his own ears, so Abby will have no trouble whatsoever discerning the myriad of buts and even ifs that stand in line behind his words.
She doesn't mention that, though. Instead, she asks: "And Gibbs?"
Yes, well. That was the million-dollar-question, wasn't it? For him, for Gibbs' doctors, for the team. For the director, most likely.
He could list all the possible after-effects and all the permanent damage that could have been caused, but there would never be certainty in that and he's sure she doesn't want to hear it. Abby knows. Not everything, perhaps, but enough. This is about something else.
Ducky looks at her thoughtfully for a moment, then he says: "We can't look into his head, Abby. Not sufficiently, at least."
The young woman bites her bottom lip and makes a frustrated little sound in her throat. It sounds angry and desperate at the same time. "We don't even know we might be doing to him, do we?"
Ducky shakes his head. "No, we can't be sure, I'm afraid."
Abby props herself up on her elbows and scrubs at her eyes like a child, as if she's very tired.
"I wish I could say good-bye", she suddenly mumbles, much like she were talking to herself. "Why did that all have to happen so suddenly?"
"Because things like that always happen suddenly, Abigail. It's a way of theirs." He smiles at her sadly. "Would you have wanted to know it would happen beforehand?"
Abby stares ahead for a few seconds, then she snorts softly. "Hell, no", she answers. "That would've been horrible. I'd've gone crazy."
She rests her chin in one open palm and frowns, as though she's thinking very hard about something.
"But haven't you ever wished you'd known before, Ducky?" she asks after a while. "I mean, it's the same when you've lost touch with someone. You promised you'd stay in contact, but then you didn't manage to email or call that person for three months or a year and then you learn they've moved away to live in Moscow with the love of their life."
Ducky cocks a brow. "Moscow?"
"Yeah, well. Wherever." Abby begins to draw intricate patterns onto the matt steel of the dissection table with her fingertip.
"When I was a kid we went to my aunt's every Friday after lunch and my cousin and me always played the same stupid video game all afternoon, and in the evening we always spent half an hour getting on our parents' nerves until they let us watch some movie we were way too young for and order the same soggy, fat, double-cheese pizza." She falls silent and proceeds to tracing plain circles on the tabletop. Ducky watches her silently for a while, trying to figure out the point of the story she just told him. Just when he's about to finally ask, Abby starts talking again.
"I liked those Fridays, you know. I always complained when my mum told me to get ready to leave, because it was almost half an hour's drive one-way and I couldn't stand my uncle. He was a geek. But my cousin was really cool and loved that video game and that disgusting pizza. But one of those Fridays, we must have done all of that for the last time because we're not doing it anymore." She stops making circles and looks up at Ducky.
"You know what I mean? There's a load of things like that. Things you loved but that, at some point, you did for the last time. And it's a pity 'cause right then you didn't know you'd never do them again and maybe you were thinking of something else and you weren't really enjoying it. And I wonder – if I'd known before that, next Friday, I wouldn't be going to my aunt's anymore, or I wouldn't ever see all of those people from school ever again, would that maybe make me feel little less sorry now?" She shrugs. "Perhaps I'd at least have said good-bye?"
She looks at Ducky as though he could explain this situation that seems to really bother her right now, but he can't think of anything, really. It took him a bit by surprise to hear positive, young Abby talk about life like this, with something that sounded a lot like nostalgia in her voice. Not typical.
Eventually, Ducky just sighs and says: "I know what you mean, Abby."
The Goth crosses her arms and lays her head on top of them again, her lips almost forming a pout.
"I'd like to sit upstairs in the office again with everyone and eat takeout, Ducky. I'd like to have everyone down in my lab, and Gibbs telling Tony off for something silly he said. I'd like to sign with Gibbs, I'd like him to bring me my Caf-Pow. Just one more time. Just so I know it's been the last time."
Ducky smiles at her and leans forward, giving her a gentle pat on the head. "I'm afraid that is the way many things in life come to an end, Abigail. It may not seem just and it may be a real shame, but this is how it goes. It is something you cannot change and you can never get used to it. You can only accept it."
Abby growls and wrinkles her nose. "Accept. Duh, here we go again."
At Ducky's questioning look, she just shakes her head with a half-smile that tells him Never mind. She pushes herself up and flips over so she's sitting on the table now, legs dangling over the side. "Gang will be here in a couple of minutes. We need to talk to you."
TBC … still
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