Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS or its characters.
AN: Hey!! You there stop looking at this and read the damn story!!
The whole way home Abby was trying to guess where Gibbs would take her. Even once in the house she continued to shout ideas to him, but he rejected all of the possibilities. Gibbs was packed and making something to eat within half an hour, Abby however was going through all of her clothes deciding what to take.
When she finally appeared the rain had lulled a bit. Dinner was jacket potatoes with cheese.
The roads were full of rush hour traffic, making progress slow, but it didn't matter, the time alone gave them a chance to share some rarely found silence. Even at home there was very rarely complete silence, there always seemed to be something on; a radio, CD player, TV, filling the quiet with noise, but here there was only the noise of the cars and the occasional siren, unavoidable noises. Gibbs turned the car off at a store and told Abby to wait in the car.
A few minutes later he came back with a couple bags of groceries. After putting these in the back of the car, he started it up again and rejoined the lessening queues of traffic. Once they were out of town they headed northwest, and after about an hour Gibbs steered the car down a lesser-used track. It seemed to be well cared for, but still obviously little used.
A gate was set a little way along the track, and sitting on the gate was a stumpy man in a bright yellow coat. As they neared he jumped down with surprising agility for his height and plumpness. He swung the gate open wide, and approached the car. Gibbs wound the window down and the man smiled in at them.
"Hey, long time no see. Would you mind giving me a lift up to my hut? My feet are playing up something awful." He looked sincerely hopeful.
"Yeah, why don't you come up with us and we can catch up?"
"Urm, well I have to get up in the morning to go and fetch my daughter-in-law from town."
"I've got brandy. Not the cheap stuff either."
"I can always tell her I'll be later than I thought." He closed the gate and jumped into the car.
After about thirty seconds he carefully reached into the bag and quietly pulled the bottle out. He slid it neatly into a pocket and fastened it up. "Actually I might get out at mine, long day, lots of driving to do tomorrow. I'm sure you understand."
"Yeah, come up sometime." Gibbs pulled the car up under some trees and the man, now very protective of his pocket jumped out of the car, gave Gibbs a wave and ran off up a path between the trees.
As he pulled off Gibbs glanced at Abby, to find her almost dying from withheld laughter.
"Umm?" The simple questioning tone was enough to set her off laughing. She tried to calm herself down, but it took ten minutes for her to even contemplate talking.
"It's just… you know… he was just so funny! It was like a comedy show! And did he really think that we won't notice him going though the shopping bags?"
"There's only one fault with Marvin Smith. And it's that he is an absolutely drunkard. Well that and the fact he has no memory that his son and daughter-in-law live in Germany now."
"Oh. So the bottle of brandy was?"
"Payment for opening the gate."
"Oh. So why are we here?"
"You'll see."