I swear I have rewritten every single sentence of this chapter about five times. It's taken so frickin' long because first Ziva and Tony wouldn't cooperate, and then Abby and McGee were being stubborn, and...well, it's done now. Really truly done, as in this is The End! Please see the end for disclaimer regarding the Gaelic and translation.

It was definitely a weird reception.

For one thing, they were in a bar. Also, the bride had, after the requisite five hundred pictures following the ceremony, horrified her mother by saying in her particularly carrying voice, "Will somebody please get me the hell out of this dress? McGee, you'd better be the first volunteer," and was now more familiarly clad in her black platform boots, short plaid skirt, and black top. (Fortunately, though her mother had unfortunately been facing the right direction to read Abby's lips when she spoke, she had no clue how many people had heard her daughter's request.)

And, Tony mused as he sipped his beer, most of his wedding reception experiences had not included the sight of five-foot-tall Sam from the Cyber Crimes unit blinking up at an extremely tall friend of Abby's who appeared to be a transvestite.

"Sam seems to be holding his own," came Ziva's amused voice at his shoulder. She snagged his beer and lifted it to her lips.

"I don't know…" Tony said. "I can't tell if he's fascinated or terrified."

Ziva laughed. "Probably both."

Tony reclaimed his beer and nodded to an out-of-the-way corner of the bar. "They look pretty pleased with themselves."

McGee and Abby had managed to momentarily extricate themselves from their well-wishing friends, and were standing so close it was hard to tell them apart in the shadows, talking.

"They look happy," Ziva corrected, and if it were anyone else he would have described the tone of her voice as wistful.

"Yeah," he agreed quietly, "you're ri- Damn, Probie!" Thinking no-one could see them, McGee had pulled the laughing Abby into a kiss that verged on indecent. Tony let out a low whistle. "I didn't think the kid had it in him."

Ziva raised her eyebrows, smiling at the happy couple. "I do not think Abby would have married him if he didn't."

She wasn't just talking about the kiss.

Suddenly she caught two quick flashes from the corner of her eye. "What...?" she began, but Tony held up his digital camera, answering her question.

Two quick pictures; with all the cameras flashing around them all day, they'd never even noticed. "I think these will look good on the plasma at work, don't you?" Tony asked. He'd caught one of them kissing, another just after they pulled apart, as they stood nearly nose to nose, with ridiculously big smiles.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You wouldn't," she said, her voice dangerous. It was a statement, not a question, and buried in that statement were a number of threats involving death-by-office-supplies.

Tony chuckled, studying the picture on his camera. "No, even I'm not that evil. I'll give them to Abby later. She'll like that." They watched the pair in silence for a moment. Someone called Abby's name, and she launched herself back into the party, dragging McGee along by the hand. "You asked me about soulmates once," he said, half to himself. "I think it's all a bunch of crap, mostly. Except…" Standing behind Abby, McGee slid an arm around her waist as they talked to a group of their friends. They never paused in their conversation and she never looked around, but just leaned back against him easily and laced her fingers with his. "Sometimes, when I see them together, I think there might be something to it. Because thereis no other explanation for them."

He felt the quick, unexpected press of Ziva's soft lips against his cheek. When he glanced at her a second later, she was paying no attention to him, watching their friends again as her lips curved slightly upwards.

Smiling, he hooked an arm over her shoulders and passed his beer back to her.

She didn't need to look; the bottle passed smoothly from his hand to hers, their fingers touching just for a moment.

"Are you sure Jethro's all right at the kennel?" Abby asked anxiously later that night as they made their way down the hall to the door of their new apartment.

McGee sighed – she'd asked the same question ten times over the past two days. "Abby, that place is nicer than some hotels I've stayed at. Plus, I've hardly been home, you haven't had time to go check on him, and he wouldn't stop barking at the movers. We'll pick him up tomorrow."

"Okay. First thing tomorrow." Soothed, Abby backed against the apartment door – their door, the first time they'd come home to it together – and pulled him with her. He followed, bracing one hand beside her head and leaning in to kiss her as he fumbled in his pocket for the keys. "So," she murmured just as his lips were about to touch hers. "Are you going to carry me across the threshold, or what?"

He smiled as he kissed her, and managed to hoist her up in his arms and then unlock the door. He set her down a few steps inside, but didn't let her go, and she walked backwards towards the bedroom, pulling him with her. They were both laughing as they tried to kiss and walk at the same time, and ran into the still-unfamiliar walls and corners of their new home.

Finally, they reached the bedroom, nearly tripping over the end of Abby's coffin in the dark. They'd picked a spot for it along the far wall, but they had to unpack the stack of boxes currently occupying the space before they could move it. McGee reached out a hand for the light switch, but Abby caught his wrist to stop him. "Wait," she said, kissing him one more time, quick and hard, before darting away. "Close your eyes," she tossed over her shoulder, and he did, obediently.

He heard her moving around the room, and amused himself by trying to figure out what she was doing. At first she was moving so quietly he couldn't interpret the sounds, but then he heard a couple of familiar thunks that he recognized as her boots hitting the floor. "Keep your eyes closed," she ordered, and then there was a series of clinks he knew were her jewelry falling on the dresser. Finally, just a soft rustling before he felt her cross back to him and slide his jacket off his shoulders.

"So," she said, wrapping her arms around his neck in a fierce hug, "the stuff at the church was for our families. And the party at the bar was for our friends. And now…" she slid her hands down his arms and guided them around her waist, "is for us. Open your eyes."

When he did, he grinned. Abby had been beautiful in her wedding dress; she was familiar and sexy in her pigtails and short skirt. But now, in the warm flickering light of the candles she'd lit, she was how she knew he liked her best: barefoot, her collars and chains discarded, her hair loose but bending in odd directions from being tied up for hours, wearing his old MIT t-shirt and her sweetest smile. "Welcome home, Timothy," she said softly.

"Welcome home, Abs," he said, leaning his forehead against hers.

They stood like that for a long moment, enjoying the peace after a day full of people and noise and excitement. Eventually, Tim pulled back a bit and smiled down at her. "I have a present for you," he informed her.

Abby's eyes lit up like a child's. "Where?"

He turned her gently by the shoulders and pointed to the wall above the bed. "There."

She crossed to it eagerly, and he followed. There, hanging on wall, was a newly-framed piece of what looked like very old paper, covered in beautiful black calligraphy. Abby scanned it quickly. "Is that –"

He stood behind her, one hand on her waist, and reached around with his other hand to run his thumb lightly over the tattoo on her wrist. "It's an old Scottish blood vow that they used to use at weddings. That paper's been in my family a long time. My great-great…lots of greats, gave it to his wife when they got married, and then she gave it to her son for his wife, and so…" He kissed her neck. "Now it's yours."

"It's beautiful." Abby reached behind her and poked him in the ribs. "But I swear, McGee, if you don't tell me what it means in the next thirty seconds I'm leaving you for Tony." She could feel his smile as his lips brushed her ear.

"You are blood of my blood, and bone of my bone," he recited quietly. "I give you my body, that we two might be one. I give you my spirit, 'til our life shall be done."

She was silent for so long he started to worry. "Abs?" he said tentatively. "Is it okay? If you don't like –"

Suddenly she turned and flung herself at him, her kisses on his cheeks, his nose, his lips as, overbalancing, they both fell to the bed. McGee tasted salt and realized that Abby – who never cried, ever – was crying. She propped herself on her elbows above him and brushed her nose against his, her hair tickling his cheek. "I love it," she said, her voice unsteady. "It's perfect, and wonderful, and…just…" She groped for more words. "…perfect," she repeated, and laughed as he wiped the tears off her face.

They undressed one another slowly, with kisses and caresses, until they wore nothing but their new wedding rings. "I love you," Abby told him, trailing her lips down his neck. "I love you, I love you, we are so not getting out of this bed all weekend –"

"Except to get the dog," McGee reminded her.

"– except to get the dog," she amended, "I love you, I love you…"

Everything about her was warm and soft and perfect in his arms, and he never wanted to let her go. "I love you too, so much." He linked his fingers with hers, kissed the black writing on her wrist. "Sometimes it's hard to believe that you love me, that you're mine and I can make you happy, that all this is real."

Abby curled closer to him, her smile wickedly inviting. "Really?" she asked. "Because I promise you," she hooked one leg over his and tugged his arm closer around her waist, "this is very real." Her face turned serious. "I'm yours and you're mine, and you make me happier than anyone else in the world ever could, and I'm going to make you happier than anyone else in the world ever could," she said, tracing the tattoo on his shoulder for the hundredth time in the months since he'd gotten it. "How does it go? 'Blood of my blood and bone of my bone,'" she repeated, moving over him, loving the feel of his hands sliding up her back, the way the metal of his ring was smooth against her skin. "'I give you my body, that we two might be one. I give you my spirit, 'til our life shall be done.' Is that right?"

McGee didn't answer in words; his mouth was otherwise occupied, and in a moment hers was too, and they were engaged in an entirely different type of conversation. But she knew she was right. They were right.

They could never be anything but right.

FIN

The Scottish blood vow was lifted straight from Diana Gabaldon's Outlander, which I recommend as an excellent book to anyone who likes historical fiction/romance/time travel. She invented the vow, so it has no basis in actual Scottish history that I could find, but if such a thing did exist, it seems like the kind of thing McGee and Abby would like. The translation into Gaelic I used (which does not appear in the book) is available at the Ladies of Lallybroch website. I (obviously) do not own Outlander and have no association with the website.