Title: With You
Chapter 7: Courage Under Fire
Author: Devylish
Genre: Romance/Humor
Fandom: NCIS
Pairing: Abby/Tony
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Vignettes on Abby and Tony's life together.
Spoil/Warn: none
Disclaimer: I'm of the 'nothing ownage' world. Please don't sue!
AN: Betaless, per usual… sorry! Homophobia is bad. And stupid. Devylish knows this and hopes you do too.
Word count: 1987

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She gasped as he swung her around and pressed her into a corner in the hall.

"Missed you."

She smiled. "You saw me three hours ago."

He groaned. "Three whole hours." He pressed up against her. "Three, long, hard, hours."

Her grin deepened, "poor poor baby." She added teasingly, "We should just tell Gibbs, he might allow you to –"

"No! No Gibbs! I value my parts. My man parts."

She sighed, "I kind of value your man parts too."

"Oh yeah?"

"Oh yeah."

"Mmmmm," He glanced up at the camera above their heads. During the past few months, they'd become pretty talented at finding the perfect spots that would allow them a second or two of freedom from prying eyes. "How bad would it be for me to take you right here, right now?"

"Just the kind of bad that I like." She wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him even closer. As he lowered his head to her lips, touching them with a softness that belied his passion for her, he pulled her hair out of its bun/ponytail thing.

She snorted lightly; his thing with her hair was ridiculous. But as he curved his fingers through her locks, and bent her head back she had to admit that she liked it when he took control like this.

Letting his mouth trail along her jaw, and then down to her neck, he kept a tenuous grip on the time, the limited time, that they had before they would be noted as missing. "Okay," he breathed heavily along her neck, "We need to stop doing this."

"What? No more kissing?" Her voice was heated and husky; his favorite music.

He kissed her lips again. "No more kissing in corners."

"You want to tell Gibbs?" She was shocked.

"Want is a strong word; need might be more descriptive." His lips brushed hers again. "I'm tired of sneaking around like some sort of … sneak."

Her laughter was soft against his ear.

"Let's just tell everyone." His lips were now against her temple. "Gibbs won't hurt me if there are witnesses around."

"You think?"

Groan. "You're not helping me build my resolve here."

"I do seem to be having success helping you build… other things." One of her hands had dropped from his shoulders to the front of his grey slacks. "Definite 'building' happening here."

"You have that effect on me." Whispered just loudly enough for her to hear. He took a deep breath and pulled her hands away from his body; holding her wrists between one of his hands. He let his other hand touch her cheek; his eyes locked with hers. "Have I told you recently that you're my kind of crazy?"

Her face lit up. "It's been three hours and ten minutes since you last told me."

He shook his head in mock disappointment, "Well here you go: 'you're my kind of crazy'."

She stood on tiptoe and pecked him on the lips. "You're my kind of crazy too."

He blew out a puff of air and cracked his neck. "Okay. I'm going up there, and I'm going to tell them all." He pulled away from her and half seriously he added, "If you hear gunshots, get Ducky."

"Honey, you have–"

"Don't stop me. Let me do this while I have the courage. Or the stupidity, depending on how you want to look at it."

Abby leaned against the wall, a grin plastering her face as she watched Tony stride off to tell Gibbs and the Director and the whole office that she and he were a 'they'. The grin on her face was especially bright because Tony had just marched off with traces of her lipstick all over his face.

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"So, Rex huh?"

"It's not even a family name," Rex smiled. "I have NO idea what my parents were thinking when they chose Rex. Sven I could have understood. Nordic stock and all. Or Erik." Rex poured their drinks into their respective martini glasses. "Actually, I contend to this day that I ended up liking men as much as I do because my parent's named me Rex. I mean, it was either men…, or dogs."

Tony splurted out a laugh.

"If they'd named me Tom, or Dick, or Harry, I'd…" Rex sipped from his glass and sighed contentedly, "actually," he laughed, "I'd probably still be gay."

"Baby, dinner will be ready in exactly 10 minutes." Jorge stuck his head out of the kitchen and pointed to his watch. "Do we know where the fabulous Abby is?"

Tony cleared his throat "Um, she said she was doing her last fitting and would be here," Tony glanced at HIS watch, "umm, about thirty minutes ago." He grinned weakly. "She'll be here. She was raving about your paella this whole week."

Jorge smiled. "She and Rex are like twins separated at birth; tall, good looking, ALWAYS late, and," Jorge winked at Rex, "huge fans of my paella. Okay, I'll put it on simmer and stretch the ten minutes to fifteen." He disappeared back into the kitchen.

Rubbing the palms of his hands along his thighs, Tony smiled sheepishly at Rex. "I'm sure she'll be here shortly."

Placing his drink on a coaster Rex scrutinized Tony. "She's testing you isn't she?"

"Testing --?"

"Wants to make certain that you learn to love Jorge and me as much as she does. Kind of force feeding us to you."

A disturbing picture shot through Tony's head. And apparently across his face.

"Oh good lord! That is an unsettling thought, isn't it?" Rex visibly shuddered.

"Yeah, well…, wait! What do you mean it's an unsettling thought?!"

"Oh, honey, no offense, but you're not really my type. I mean, you're cute and yummy in your own way, but," Rex shook his head, "no, you're definitely not my type."

"What do you mean I'm not your type!? I'm everyone's type!"

Rex tapped his hand lightly on Tony's knee, "Of course you are Tony. Of course you are."

Tony didn't miss how Rex rolled his eyes as he spoke. "I'll have you know that… that plenty of men have found me 'their type'."

Rex raised a brow and cocked his head to the side, "Really?"

"Well… I mean… there have been men who've expressed that IF I was the kind of guy who found THAT kind of guy interesting, they'd consider me their type... of guy." Tony reached for his drink as Rex burst into laughter.

"Oh honey, I'm just messing with you. You're gorgeous! You and that deeeelicious Gibbs. If either of you played on my team, AND if I didn't have such a gorgeous stud of my own, I'd be all over you." Rex purred in appreciation of the two men. He giggled as Tony turned from pink to fuchsia.

"Hellllloooo!" Abby burst into Rex and Jorge's apartment, bags and wine and cool winter air following her in.

"Abby, Darling!

"Abs!"

She glanced between two of her favorite men. "What's going on here?"

"Oh," Rex winked at Tony then turned back to Abby, "nothing."

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Tony threw back the remainder of his watered down scotch before spinning the melting ice around in his glass.

Raising his finger he caught the attention of the bartender and indicated he wanted a refill.

While he waited for the libation that was going to hopefully push him over the edge into forgetful-land, Tony reviewed the night. Abby and Tony had had their first date tonight. It had ended after two painful hours, and it would be recorded in the annals of history as being THE worst date known to man. Ever. Bar none.

He mentally ticked off everything that went wrong that night:

When he knocked at Abby's door, Ziva had answered and she gleefully added to his nervousness by protectively offering to maim him if he hurt Abby.

Abby had been breathtaking when he'd seen her – the kind of breathtaking that meant he literally had problems speaking… and only offered monosyllabic statements on the way out of the apartment and to the car.

He slammed the car door on her ankle – mind you, it was because he was distracted by her long legs, but none the less, car door/Abby's ankle, not a good combo.

The car ride was silent and intense and awkward.

The host at the restaurant couldn't find their reservation – they had to wait 30 minutes for seating.

The meal was bad. Really bad. Potatoes undercooked, vegetables overcooked, even the lettuce for the salads was wilted. How the hell a 4 star restaurant could get that much wrong in one fell swoop, was beyond Tony; he was thinking the cook might be female andthat he might have dated/dumped her in the past. It was possible.

By the time they'd finished picking their way through the food and stood up to head out, Abby's ankle had swollen and she was in pain.

Broken Abby of course meant no dancing, no dessert at the outdoor café down the street…. And, no making out.

Whereas the ride to the restaurant was silent, the ride home consisted of him apologizing profusely for everything.

Yeah.

Worst date ever.

He nodded his thanks to the bartender and picked up his drink, just as he tilted his head back, he looked in the mirror behind the bar, and nearly choked. Just a few feet behind him, was Abby, and she was making her way toward him.

"Abby? What are you doing here? What are you doing on your feet?"

"I want a do over."

"How the hell did you know where I was?" He pulled a stool out for her. And then he heard what she'd said, "A do over?"

"I haven't worked all these years at NCIS without learning a thing or two about tracking people down. Besides, I know this is your favorite bar, and, umm, after a night like we just had, I assumed you'd want a drink."

"And now I'm going to apologize again for the hellish date."

"Hence, the do over."

"The do over?"

Well see, everyone makes mistakes. And sometimes, when people realllllly want something to be perfect, they kind of self sabotage a situation or themselves and make it so that, instead of perfect, they get crap. I think we self sabotaged."

"Cuz that was definitely 'crap'."

Definitely. She grinned.

And Tony was enthralled again. Beautiful eyes. Killer smile. Hair that he just wanted to run his hands through, endlessly… and the whole rotten night was nothing but a memory.

Until she winced as she turned in the stool, her ankle still sore.

"Abs? What if tonight wasn't a fluke? What if it wasn't self sabotage. What if it was God, point a finger at us and laughing. REALLLLLLY hard."

She smooshed her lips together and tipped her head to the side. "Could be. I was a really bad girl in one of my former lives, so God could be doing the karma thing on me now." She tilted her head to the other side. "But," and her eyes sparkled. "Tony, what if it was a fluke? What if it was a flukey, testing, what-doesn't-kill-you,-only-makes-you-stronger, things-can-only-get-better-from-here kind of thing!?"

His head spun a little at her words. Not an uncommon occurrence.

"Tony, what if 'we' are only going to get soooo much better?"

His gut clenched and dropped. Better then Abby's smile? Was it even possible? And then, somewhere in the back of his mind, he imagined her looking up at him from a pillow; her dark hair spread out and her lips curved in a half smile, half kiss. He cleared his throat. "Um, Abs?"

"Hmmm?"

"Would 'better' maybe include naked time?"

Abby hit him on the arm with her purse. "Tony!" Wicked grin. "Of course 'better' includes naked time!!"