ARGHHH. Fricking Internet still isn't working and I'm considering taking a blowtorch to the modem and going 'Now, are you really sure about that whole authentication failure? Hmm? Do you want a minute just to rethink your stance on this one?'
So it turns out I have a very unhealthy relationship with my computer. But whatever, Word still works, which means I can still write, just won't be posted so regularly.
And, um, enjoy!
She sits so still in the artificial light of her temple, her shrine, her place of worship and she worries. Dark, unsmiling lips tremble, and wide young eyes look out helplessly. A woollen hat, cute and startlingly childlike, warms her head. She is curled up tight, cocooned in a blanket.
And this is how he finds her.
Kneel gently, in the dust of her despair. Run yawning fingers through messy black hair and smile. He understands.
"Abby, you should go home. Get some rest."
She snickers. "Rest? Like I'm gonna be able to sleep until she's back? Gibbs, we can't ... not again, not another one, I just can't, and I mean I know that this is totally different to Kate-" and a little silent wince, contraction of the heart and blocking of the throat as the name of a loved and lost one is uttered, "-her and Ziva are not the same at all, but I love them both – different ways, and I didn't take to Ziva quickly – but it's true, I do love her, and now she's, oh, she's so..."
"Changed. Yes, I know. And it's gonna be tough. But sleeping at work – staying here all night – it's not going to help, Abby. Trust me." And he stares at her with that penetrative and reserved gaze, and she melts into his arms, someone's frightened, helpless daughter.
She is not his. But every time he touches her, embraces her, kisses her forehead, her cheek, looks at her with tender hope in his eyes, he shuts off a little light in his heart and pretends, just for a second, that she is.
"I don't want to go home, Gibbs. Not tonight. I'll be OK here, honest."
"Abby, I'm not letting you stay here. Not on your own. Even McGee has gone home."
"Because you threatened to sedate him – by force – with stuff usually reserved for buffalo!" Her voice is plaintive and high, and makes him chuckle.
In another place, another world, it seems, a woman lies in a darkened room, in bed with a man who is alive and who sometimes loves her, and she speaks in a low voice, and he chuckles.
"Well, he needs to get some rest. Tony's only sleeping because Ziva's in the next room. And I really cannot have another member of my team suffering from acute exhaustion tomorrow."
"I'll get some sleep here."
"You're coming with me."
She remembers the last time she spent the night at his house. In a vague and blurry memory, she recalls having an epiphany, and falling a little bit in love with him. More clearly than that, she remembers getting very drunk and possibly even breaking his boat. Winces, and he snorts with derision.
"Don't worry, I've hidden the whiskey."
In another part of town, an old man drives a young man home. One is calm and sedate, the other jumpy and blinking. They say goodnight – a gentle and reflective goodnight – and the old man watches his young companion disappear into the drizzling mist of an disenchanted evening.
The words they mouth to themselves are different, but the thoughts are the same. They are of love, solely and completely of love.
A man with a boy's face clicks a door shut slowly behind him, and surveys his lonely home. Grey and silver machines bleat chirpily at him, but tonight they only seem clingy and insistent. He ignores them – ignores them all – and heads for his bedroom.
He does not eat, does not write, does not take a bubble bath. He does not read or compute or watch TV. He sits on the edge of his cold and empty bed and loves with such an anger, such a vehement and savage anger, that it terrifies him, a little. Just a little.
He sees the tender hurt in the green eyes of his colleague, sees the way he handles her tired bones so carefully, with such grace and utter comprehension, and dares to hope that one day he might love so freely, and be oh so loved in return.
Two people lie in a bed together, and they do not talk, and they do not make love, but do something curious in between. Clamp tightly together with a capable brown arm around a torn and falling waist. He kisses her temple, rubs his hollow cheek along velvety curls and lovingly smoothes away tears that fall across her eyes. They catch and dance, sticky and twinkling, in her lashes. He tells her that she is loved, and it is true.
She has been loved in so many different ways, and all of them hurt beyond measure.
Dawn falls across them all, heavy and languorous. Their limbs are sweet and sleepy and Gibbs kisses Abby softly on the lips and glares furiously into her puffy, tear-stained eyes until he is sure that love and heat are flowing through her bones. Then he slaps her lightly, playfully, on the back of the head and tells her to get her butt upstairs, he's made pancakes.
A young man fumbles for round glasses and chastises himself lightly as he gets dressed. Stares in the mirror, puffs out his chest, and imagines, again, that he is a superhero. He smiles indulgently, then sees his bathrobe hanging from the back of his door and starts. He is sure it is Gibbs, all arched eyebrows and barely concealed disdain. It is not, it is a blue flannel robe, and it makes him laugh out of all proportion. Puts a shy and jerky middle finger up to the garment and trips over a discarded shoe on his way out.
An old man wakes and sighs, long suffering, at his ceiling. Maybe one day he will fall in love, but he knows, in his heart, he is not made for romance. He is a guardian, always has been, and it makes him feel proud and protective, like a mother goose.
And the image is so ludicrous that he chuckles, sits up and smiles in pleasant surprise at the beaming blue square of light in the window.
A geek turns on the radio and dances till he leaves.
An a woman wakes up to the sound of a beating heart, and feels her own chest flicker in response, and, for the first time in a very long while, she does not regret it.
Hope you like :)