A little thing for all you McAbby fans out there.
The receptionist was thin to the point of emaciation. Fragile bones swam beneath insipid skin and thin-rimmed glasses were perched on a high-bridged nose with the lucid skin stretched across it. Her eyes were sunken into her skull and her forehead protruded far over her cheek bones. Pale yellow teeth were visible through translucent lips.
Abby glared at the woman. 'Look, call them up, at least,' she said, exasperated.
The woman fixed her with a cold stare. 'I can't do that, ma'am, it's protocol.'
'Screw protocol,' Abby snapped. 'All I want is to call up my friends and invite them to dinner. Why is that an issue?'
A stocky man appeared through the door behind the receptionist. 'Is there an issue?' he asked thickly, staring through cloudy glasses.
Abby sighed. 'I can't remember which rooms my friends are in,' she explained slowly. 'All I want her to do is call them up. I'm not asking for a room number or an extension number, I just want her to call them and ask if I can speak to them.'
The man studied Abby, considering her request. Finally, he nodded at the gaunt receptionist. 'Call them,' he nodded shortly, disappearing into the back room again.
Abby smiled triumphantly as the receptionist sourly dialled the extension number for Ziva.
'Hello, Mrs Grey?' Abby hid a smile at Ziva's married name. 'Yes, there is an Abby Scuito wishing to speak with you...Yes, I understand. Thank you, Mrs Grey. Sorry to trouble you.' The skeletal receptionist smirked at Abby unkindly. 'She doesn't wish to speak with you. She said that she was busy.'
Abby's face fell before contorting into a scowl. 'Call Anthony DiNozzo next,' she ordered.
The receptionist pursed her thin lips and dialled another number. 'Mr DiNozzo?' She repeated her spiel before reporting the same story to Abby.
Abby did not lose hope, however. 'McGee will want to come with me,' she stated firmly. 'Try him. You'll see,' she added, slightly venomously.
The receptionist looked dubiously but, heeding her superior's words, she called McGee. The exchange began the same way but, instead of hanging up without speaking to Abby, McGee asked for his old friend to be put on.
Ten minutes later, they were walking out of the foyer and into the car park. Their shoulders bumped every few steps but they did not try to hold hands and there was still some tension between them; an awkwardness which refused to evaporate.
'My car or yours?' McGee asked as they approached Abby's hatchback.
Abby nodded towards McGee's saloon. 'Yours,' she decided.
She climbed into the passenger seat and stared forwards, not looking at McGee as he carefully manoeuvred the car out of the underground car park. The caution that he had adopted when driving a Porsche had not left him even though he had downgraded to a more basic car, she noted, not without interest.
He headed towards their old favoured coffee shop near Abby's old apartment. About halfway into the quiet drive, Abby noticed that a car was following them. A small blue hatchback had been tailing them from the hotel. She pointed this out to McGee.
McGee glanced unconcernedly in his rear-view mirror and sighed placidly. 'Yeah, that's Jane,' he said flatly.
Abby stared at McGee in credulity. 'Who's Jane?'
'My wife,' McGee replied.
Abby choked on a lungful of air. 'Your wife?' she spluttered. 'Why's she following us?'
McGee sighed and took a left, diverting from the route. 'Well, she's going to be my ex-wife soon, hopefully,' he explained meekly. 'She isn't taking the divorce very well.'
'So she's stalking you?'
McGee nodded. 'She thinks that I was going to prostitutes.' He laughed harshly. 'I guess that Gibbs was right after all.'
Abby frowned. 'What's that?'
'She was my co-worker.'
'Oh.' Abby twisted round in her seat. 'How are you going to get rid of her?'
McGee shrugged lamely. 'Keep going round in circles until she gets stuck behind a lorry or something,' he suggested.
Abby sighed. 'Not just now. You can't live your life being stalked by a crazy ex-wife!'
McGee did not reply. He seemed to have resigned himself to his fate. He had made his bed and it was only fair to lie in it.
'Jane,' he implored. 'Please, believe me.'
She shook her head furiously. 'You cheated on me, you bastard!' she yelled hysterically. 'How could you do that to me?' She flung herself onto the sofa, wailing.
McGee reached out a tentative hand to comfort her. 'We just aren't getting on very well anymore. I think that we would both benefit from a break from each other. It's only temporary.' What had started out as a demand for a divorce had turned into a soothing promise that he would get back together with her.
She stiffened and jerked his hand off her shoulder. 'I loved you, Tim. I still love you.' Her voice rose to a howl. 'Why don't you love me anymore?'
McGee pulled her head into his chest, cradling her. 'I do love you,' he insisted gently. 'Of course, I love you. I'll always love you.'
Even as he said it, he was kicking himself. But Jane had tied a tight noose around his neck: one that he didn't know how to break free of. He had been trapped with her for eighteen years. No longer, he had decided three weeks ago. It had taken him three weeks to break the news to her and now he was backing down within seconds of politely requesting a separation.
She wrapped her arms around him; clutching him to her as if she would never let go. 'Then why do you want to leave me?' she asked in a small, pathetic voice.
McGee sighed and hesitated, choosing his words carefully. 'We argue all the time, Janie,' he reminded her. 'We don't make each other happy anymore.'
Jane squeezed a tear from her eye and it dribbled down her cheek. 'I don't make you happy anymore?' she whimpered.
'You do,' he assured her. 'But...' He could not resist the temptation to finish with: 'and we haven't had sex in almost a year.'
'So you find sex somewhere else?' she interrupted angrily, sitting up. 'You go and sleep with whores and bring the STDs back to me, huh? You bastard! What do you take me for? Do you think I am so stupid that you can fool me? That I wouldn't find out?'
McGee shook his head, desperately refuting her accusations. 'I haven't slept with anyone else, Jane. I haven't slept you, I haven't slept with anyone since last Christmas when we forced ourselves to do it!'
She grabbed his shirt, pulling him towards her. 'What did I do to make you hate me so?'
He sighed. 'I don't hate you, Jane...' he began.
'Then why won't you keep those promises you made to me on our wedding day?' She ran her hands across his chest seductively. 'Do you remember our wedding? How we were so happy?' She drew herself up. 'Why can't you remember that?'
He straightened up too, matching her forceful posture. 'Because, Jane, we haven't gone a day without shouting at each other for months. I can't live like this.' He stood up and made his way towards the stairs, heading for the front door. He hated the configuration of the house at times like these. Having the kitchen down in the basement took the edge of a dramatic storming out.
She grabbed at his arm but he shrugged her off. 'I'm moving out,' he decided.
Two days later, when he was starting on the packing, she joined him in the bedroom, sitting tentatively on the edge of the bed. 'I'll move out,' she whispered. 'This is your house; you bought it.'
McGee stood up and kissed her forehead. Perhaps things really would be different from now on. If she could accept that something was wrong, they had a better chance of fixing things.
How wrong he was. As he realised a few days after she moved out, she had only offered to let him stay in the house so that she could be sure of knowing where he was, to make him easier to follow. They worked together as well, so she could easily follow him home from work. Her initial reaction that there had been other girls stuck with her and transformed her from a protective wife to a paranoid stalker. And it was all his fault.
Abby looked at McGee's saddened face. 'You don't have to live like this, McGee. You shouldn't let her ruin your life.'
McGee shook his head sadly. 'We were together for over twenty years, married for eighteen, nineteen this year. Another few months won't make a difference.' They stopped at a red light and he closed his eyes, blocking the world out for a blissful moment. 'I haven't got much to live for now, so letting this gamerun its course won't do me any harm.'
Abby stared at him in angry disbelief. 'Won't do you any harm? McGee! She is stalking you! Does that not set off alarm bells? She is stalking you!'
McGee sighed. 'Maybe you're right,' he conceded. 'But what do I do?'
There was a glint in his eye which he hadn't seen for twenty-five years. Jane had never had that glint. And Abby had never stalked him. Ah, what those feats had left for poor, old McGee.
'Leave that to me,' Abby said. She motioned for him to pull over to the kerb. Once the car had stopped, Abby hopped out and walked purposefully towards the car that had been following them. It had stopped when Jane saw McGee's hatchback pull over.
Jane climbed out as Abby approached and began yelling, practically foaming at the mouth; accusing Abby of being a 'dirty whore,' a 'husband-stealing bitch' and a 'fucking psychopath.' Abby laughed these labels off and shot back a couple at McGee's soon-to-be-ex-wife. Hopefully soon-to-be-ex-wife, Abby corrected herself.
Watching from the car, McGee saw Jane stop screaming and listen to what Abby was saying. The monologue Abby was giving went on for quite a long time. Then, finally, Jane nodded and got back into her car and drove in the opposite direction. McGee's mouth fell open. Abby sauntered back to McGee's car and the gobsmacked McGee inside it.
'How did you do that?'
Abby shrugged.
'No, I mean it. How did you do that?' McGee repeated.
There was melancholy in Abby's smile as she replied: 'I told her my love story.'
McGee frowned. 'Our love story?' he asked.
Abby snorted, not unkindly. 'No, McGee. My love story. From after NCIS.'
McGee looked at her curiously. 'And what is that love story?' he pressed.
Abby shook her head. 'Another time, McGee, another time.' She buckled her seatbelt. 'So, how about that dinner?'
McGee's being stalked. Dun dun dun! I don't know why I do these stupid little summaries at the end of chapter as if you hadn't been following. I will try to restrain myself in future. I think I will do an Abby chapter next.