Chapter Six
NASA Deadline
Abby no longer feels the mind ripping fear she's fought since waking up in the Bizzaro World to the abuse she'd suffered at the hands of her 'ex-husband', itself a sense-blasting concept. Now all the fear is in Jimmy Palmer's eyes and she's glad to see it there.
"Wait," he implores, hands up in either surrender or appeal from the other side of the table and she actually sympathizes with him. She's felt the same way all day. "You're in Gail's body?"
"Don't sound so incredulous," she commands, overwhelming fear and frustration at being unable to escape coming out in anger, "you've been in it often enough."
"That's not fair - and doesn't help a thing."
"I guess it does explain now why I - why Gail's body - woke up on the floor. When you get evicted from your body by someone who just got blasted by the outer fringes of a humongous lightning bolt, you go down for the long count."
"I guess so," he agrees, sounding as though he's not sure what he's agreeing to.
"WAIT!" Her hands snap out to him and he freezes, and five seconds later probably wonders why he's frozen, but it takes her that long for the incipient thought to jell. "If I'm in Gail Sciuto's body, why aren't I blitzed?"
x
His expression proclaims that not only hasn't he kept up with her but he's steadily falling behind. "Blitzed?"
"It's an Earth-Prime word, never mind. I woke up this morning with three bottles laying on my coffee table - her coffee table; a Jack Daniels, a Johnny Walker and aaaaaa… Kentucky Bourbon. If I - I mean if she - if this body polished off three quarts why aren't I suffering the biggest hangover since Kirk scaled El Capitan?"
"Huh?"
"Never mind!"
"You don't drink."
"That's what I told Tim – I mean McGee, I can't call him Tim, he's not Tim, not my Tim."
"Wait, you were drunk?"
"No! That's it, I'm not. No hang over, no DTs, no morning after taste - and I wasn't even drinking Vodka. Why?"
"You don't drink. Gail, I mean, what, Abby? Gail doesn't drink; she's been clean and sober for months. You'll - she'll - be fired if she's not."
"Then what were those bottles doing on her table?"
"I don't know. I'm here in this lab."
"When you're not sexting her."
"Be fair, you love it and–."
"Okay, let's not bicker over that, we've got enough to bicker over."
x
"Okay, so 'clean and sober' Gail Sciuto hasn't touched a drink in months, good for her." Why she has those bottles, Abby doesn't care. "How do I get into my body?" His eyes on the junction of her pants give him away. "You say it and I'll-"
"Would you please? I'm as anxious to get Gail back as you are."
"I'm not anxious to get her back, I'm anxious to-" To what? When she gets home the other Sciuto will - might - hopefully will.… "Okay, maybe I am. So how do we do it?"
He turns quickly, goes to and unlocks the door, leads her back into her - into his - lab office and sits down behind her - his - desk. He types at an impressive pace at the keyboard. She's a speed demon but what is he?
An Internet page appears on the screen. The central features are the NASA logo and an image of the sun. The text is too far for her to read and she restrains herself from pushing closer. He looks up at her.
"If your theory is right, and I'd love to punch a dozen holes in it if I could, we had better do whatever we have to do quickly."
"Why?" She can't take any more surprises or bad news, but the universe isn't going to be kind.
"Your sunspots, the prominences.… They're particularly intense, thousands of them oriented toward Earth, but they're decreasing. Over the past," he glances at his watch, "eleven hours there's been a marked but steady decline in intensity and frequency."
"How much time do I have?"
"I don't kno-" This time she does shove him aside, nearly knocks him out of the chair. By the time he's steadied himself she's opened another page.
"FRACK!"
"What?" He pushes her arm aside and looks at the graph displayed, checks his watch again. This chart is a projection of the sunspot activity based upon recent figures. It's impossible to predict the activity of sunspots, too little is known about them, but if the trend continues unchanged "Looks like you have about two hours."
"I can't get ready in two hours. I don't even know how to get ready."
Palmer's telephone rings.
x
"Yes. Yes. She's right here." A look up into her eyes and he decides to give her the receiver without saying 'it's for you'.
"Hello?"
/You're done there,/ Lieutenant Shepherd informs her. /The General wants to see you./
Abby considers the chances of her stalling this conference. Not very good. "Yes, ma'am."
The phone goes as dead as she feels and she reaches across Palmer to hang it up. "Your General wants to see me."
"Better go."
"I can't waste time with him. He wants to see Gail Sciuto, I can't even imagine why and I can't bluff my way through it. I have to work here."
"Look, I don't know about your world - I'm not even sure I believe in your world - but when the General sends for you, you go. I have no idea what kind of day you've had, but messing this up can make it a bad one."
She considers the logic of this. "If this has been a good day, I think I'd better meet your General." She turns away before she can change her mind.
"That's my girl."
x
She'd taken a step away, turns back on him but changes her mind about blasting him to a cinder. This world's Michelle might be able to, but he'd given no sign of knowing her.
But poorly hidden below the surface... "You really like her. Gail, I mean."
"Yes." He meets her eyes, and its with seriousness she rarely sees from the 'real' Jimmy Palmer. "And I want her back, even if she is you and you've just gone off some deep end. I'll help you, Gail."
She squeezes his arm. "Sorry. We're two different people."
This is clearly hard for him to hear. "Then get out of here and let me figure this out."
xxx
Abby has no doubt as to where the General's office is. In her ... in the real world ... it'd been Morrow's, then Shepherd's and even if it's Morrow's again she can deal with it.
What she can't deal with is opening the outer door to the Receptionist's office.
"Gibbs!"
She is so ecstatic to see him - finally! - that even if it weren't undignified and she doesn't care, she'd fall to her knees beside his desk and kiss his shoes! Everything's all right now! She can deal with a million more insanities now that she's found
"Major Gibbs," he corrects harshly, evidently not pleased to be so familiarly greeted by a "Corporal."
x
When Tim McGee had slapped her she'd felt the pain for so long and realizes her cheeks still hurt from the psychic blast of his assault. When Sammy had shown her the justification for her hate she'd felt the pain of the scalpel cut deep into her own breast. When Jimmy Palmer turned off the lights and started to rape her her terror nearly shattered her mind.
But Gibbs' unfeeling reprimand is a fist through the middle of her chest. It smashes through her sternum and explodes her heart, splashing it through her spine and flooding her lungs with blood enough to drown her.
She feels her knees give way and clutches the doorknob, locks her knees to keep erect, for if she falls to the thick carpet she'll start to cry and is sure she'll never stop. They'll strap a straight jacket about her long before she stops sobbing and she'll gladly surrender sanity and they can lock her away forever.
x
Her eyes lock on his uniform, the silver metal leaves on the white lapels flanking the black tie. Yes, okay, he's a Major. In real life he's the Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge. In any other city he'd be SAIC but he doesn't want to be behind a desk but he should be the General, she should be meeting with him in his private office where she can lay everything out to him.
Gibbs loves her; their Father/Daughter relationship is legendary. He'll help her. He'll
"Did you forget how to salute?" The sharp rebuke is another fist, and she can only stammer with a broken jaw.
"I - I'm, err, sorry, s- sir, Major, sir." She tries and hopes she gets it right. The only time she'd ever saluted Gibbs, left handed, she'd been playing and later that day he'd given her a kiss on her cheek. She'll get no kiss from this man. "Just... you... caught me by surprise."
"And how is that, Corporal?"
x
She can't stand it, the lack of recognition in his eyes. Oh, he knows who she is, a disgraced and demoted - and now probationary - junior officer, but the affection that shines in her Gibbs' eyes when he looks at her is dark in these.
She points vaguely to the far door, beyond which may be her doom. Maybe so, but if she doesn't get away from this man she is going to cry. "I guess I should, um, see the General now?"
"I guess you should."
He doesn't have to say 'instead of standing there like an idiot'. His silent disapproval yells it.
x
She crosses the outer room, scared of whom she'll find on the other side of that door. Probably Morrow.
Her hand is shaking as it closes about the knob, and she doesn't dare look back to Gibbs. If he's looking at her she's going to faint, overloaded by the madness.
If he's turned back from her, returned to his work, not giving her even a first thought, she's going to cry.
She forces herself to turn the knob. When she pushes open the inner door Bizzaro World drops out from under her.