Abby x Joy

"Are you sure that she will welcome my visit? We didn't even get along before this mess."

McGee looks sternly at Abby, who isin her gothic finest to visit Joy in the hospital. After staying in the ICU in Charlottesville a couple of days, Ducky and her family arranged Joy's transfer to Bethesda, so it would be easier for the family to check - or simply hover like a mother hen – about her.

She was slowly recovering from her captivity, but the doctors insisted on full rest until they deemed her able to start physiotherapy. She was adamant that the NCIS team should go back to work, and not worry about her, as her own family was more than enough to pester her into oblivion.

She had been admitted to Bethesda three days before, and even though the whole team had visited her at least once, this would be the first visit by Abby.

"Abby, contrary to what you might think, she doesn't dislike you. She just always tried to stay out of your way, as she noticed you treated her differently, so she simply did not wish to cause you any problems."

"But she still might not like me coming over," says Abby, fearful of the agent's reaction.

"Abby, whatever had happened, it's in the past," says McGee with conviction.

"How can you be so sure of that?" She looks at McGee, ashamed of her own behavior, "she might still resent my presence here."

"Abby," McGee stops and holds her by her shoulders, and looks her in the eye, "I know you had your differences, but she is hurting, and she is in pain, and she's bored, and the doctors forbid her to even move from bed, and she needs cheering up. And if there is one person who can take Joy out of this funk it is you. I've never met any person who didn't cheer up whenever you enter a room. So please," he makes a puppy begging face, "could you please be nice and try to cheer her up?"

Abby sighs, and nods defeated. "but if she sends me packing, I have the right to say I told you so."

"Ok, you will, now, just for your information, she might look …" McGee frowns, "bad, but actually she is 100 per cent better than when we found her, but still…" Abby frowns, as she had read the report and seen the pictures, but nothing could have prepared her to what she would see.

She entered the hospital room, and the sunset light slowly shone inside the bedroom illuminating the single medical bed. In it, she found the wounded agent still connected to a myriad of machines, beeping rhythmically. A nose canula gave her oxygen, as there was some concern about the state of her lungs after her impromptu dive in the lake. The other lines were connected somewhere under her gown, bringing her medicines straight into her bloodstream.

She cracks her eyes open, and the one of them opens just a little because of his punch to her face. The marks on her neck are hidden by a scarf that Hope brought from home. Her face is pale, and her right arm is still immobilized.

Abby approaches the bedridden agent slowly, unsure of what kind of reception she might receive. Brown eyes are studying the goth, following her movements.

"Hi," says Abby.

"Hi," Joy looks at Tim, and he smiles down at Joy, at the same time one of his arms go around Abby's shoulders, completely oblivious of the tension between the two women.

"I brought Abby to visit you, as you complained you were bored of watching reruns of Friends and American Idol episodes on TV." Her eyes go to the TV, which now is playing the Boom da yaah ad from Discovery.

"Uhm," says Joy, "welcome to my humble prison," she smiles faintly, her dry lips cracking, "but there are conditions for your stay."

"Joy," says McGee, frowning down at her, and Abby cringes at what she thinks will be a reprimand, and is surprised by the mischievous shine in Joy's eyes.

"You have to smuggle me some candy, Nurse Godzilla stole my stash of chocolate covered cookies that Hope brought me," Joy pouts, and Abby smiles at her.

"Are you even allowed to eat them?" McGee doesn't remember her planned menu exactly, but sweets definitely weren't on it. He gets the glass of water and brings the straw to Joy's lips, and she sucks the precious liquid eagerly.

"Ah, Tim, please! I'm craving it! And I have PMS, so I´m craving it even more!" she turns to Abby, and pleads with her eyes, "pretty please, Stephy told me they have a vending machinein the waiting area, can you please bring me at least one Mars bar?"

Abby laughs, as Joy reminds her of herself without Caff-Pow, "I will see what I can do." She smiles at McGee and leaves the room, heading to the vending machines down the corridor.

McGee looks down at Joy in the hospital bed, and she smiles softly at him, "will you promise me to behave?" she makes a face at him.

"Don't I always?"

He leans down and kisses her softly on the lips, "gotta go, be nice to Abby." He leaves the room, and Joy stays, sullenly watching reruns of Man vs Wild. When Abby comes back to the room, Joy is making disgusted faces at Bear Grills drinking his own pee on the TV.

"I love how he does all those crazy stunts," says Abby looking at the TV, and makes a disgusted face as he puts a toasted spider in his mouth and cringes, eating it, "but I would never do what he does, or eat the things he eats, even if my life depended on it."

She hands the Mars bar to Joy, who eagerly rips the wrapper off the candy and almost moans with delight, eating it, "Never say never Abby, it is amazing what a person can do if she is desperate enough."

The mood becomes sombre, as both women think of the events that lead to the forced hospital stay.

Joy smiles at Abby faintly, "Did my mom really have a little chat with Director Vance?"

Abby snickers a little, and grabs one of the visitor's chairs and brings it closer to the bedside.

"Tony told me that she blackmailed the director, ordering him around like a drill sergeant, and later on she still defended Tim when he wanted to dress him down because he had punched a suspect."

Joy smiled as she heard the antics of her mother, but she was deeply surprised by the gossip Abby is feeding her.

"Did Tim really punch a suspect?"

"Yep, right after Gibbs got him into custody." Both women laugh, but Joy grimace as she feels her side smarting a little. Abby sees her grimace of pain, and asks "Want me to call a nurse?" she starts to stand up, but Joy stops her.

"No please," Abby freezes, "I feel like a pincushion, with so many tubes stuck into me that I can barely think without help from a nurse, so, really, I'm fine." She shakes her head slowly, "I just want a little bit of peace without someone checking my temperature every five minutes."

Abby sits down again, and they stay in silence again. Abby studies the private hospital room that the Buchanans arranged for Joy. It had a nice window, and sunlight softly filtered through the curtains,illuminating the room. There were some vases of flowers on the table, and several get well cards around the vases. She turns her head to study Joy again, and sees the agent looking at her, patiently waiting for her to speak.

"He really loves you, you know," says Abby, "he tried to pretend it was ok, trying to give the impression that he wasn't panicking ah, but I know him," Abby studies Joy's face, who is looking at the Goth attentively, "he was terrified that he was going to lose you,especially after waiting for so long for someone like you to come along."

"Someone like me?" there is a question in Joy's voice.

"Someone dependable, someone he knows who will be there for him, no matter what."

Both women spend another moment in silence, both deep in thought. Joy decides to finally ask something that has bothered her for a long time, but she had never had the chance or opportunity to really talk with the forensic specialist.

"Why?" Abby sighs, and Joy insists with her line of questioning, "you had it all, he would have done everything for you, he would have died for you, he almost did once or twice, he would have given you the world, if it was in his grasp, but you … you let him go. Why?"

Abby leans closer to Joy's bed, and says in a low voice, almost ashamed of her behavior, "I liked his attention, and the way he treated me like a lady, someone really special, and he speaks Geek, he speaks my language so we could always communicate and he would follow my crazy ramblings about hacking, and computers and games but…"

She plays a little with her studded leather wristband, and keeps on talking, "but he wanted something very different from what I wanted, from what I could give him at that moment, and somehow, it was never enough. I wasn't ready for taking that step, what I could give him wasn't what he wanted, so we drifted apart. We stayed friends, but…" she looks at Joy's eyes, and sees her paying attention to her, analyzing her very words, "it wasn't meant to be."

After Abby opens up her heart, Joy nods and thinks about what she had been told for a moment.

"When we met, me and McGee, I was in a very, very dark place." She touches lightly her right breast, where the scar of Jarod's first bullet mars her skin, "the wounds had healed, but the pain never really let go. I truly believed that I would never…" she looks at Abby, and smiles despite the tears filling her eyes, "I would never let any man touch me again. Ever. But things were so effortless with Tim, that…" she closes her eyes, in a vain effort to stop the tears from running down her face, "I wanted so much to believe that there was still someone like him, someone so amazing, that I kept coming back for more, and more and suddenly he was this huge part of my life and…" she pauses for a moment, biting her lower lip, "now I can't even imagine my life without him anymore."

"I'm glad to hear that," says Abby, "because I don't think he can imagine his life without you either."

The women smile at each other, having silently signed their armistice without any battle being fought. Abby opens her big bag, in black cloth and white skulls all over it, and grabs a deck of cards.

"What do you wanna play?"

"How are you at poker?"

"I play a mean hand," says Abby.

Both smile, and Abby deals.

"What are we going to bet?"

"If you bring more chocolate we could bet candy bars."

"Deal."


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