Note: This is a super challenge for me because I tried to write a fic where no spoken dialogue was used. And it's not spell checked, and I don't think it's even close to my most mediocre writing, so please don't chase me with torches or pitchforks because I know and am working on it! Continue!
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She was angry at him, again. It was the third time that week, and who could tell if it would be the last? He could see why she was mad, he wasn't an idiot and she wasn't exactly good at hiding her emotions. She needed them to stop playing games, to stop messing around and make their relationship known to anyone who cared. She knew why he wouldn't do it; he was Gibbs. He had the rules. He had his own personal ghosts. He had his heart to consider.
But she was the forensics girl! She had nothing to do with his work in the field, she just analyzed what he brought for her, traded facts for Caf-Pow!s, and worried about the team constantly. She had her share of misfortunes, and she grew attatched to things quickly, but Mikel the stalker and Jethro the dog had nothing to do with how their professionally trained minds would or would not stray if they saw each other publicly. It might be different if they were in the field together, as a simple error or misstep because of distraction could get someone killed, but it wasn't as if she was going to be so lovestruck that she would forget to run a test that would deliver a breakthrough result. She was better than that, and besides, hadn't she proven that she could handle herself professionaly already with the added stress of The Secret weighing her down? Going public would, if anything, improve her work.
And she was a woman, with real needs, real thoughts, and real feelings. She knew that she dressed quite differently than anyone, including NCIS's dress code, would expect of her in her profession, but she knew he wasn't shying away from telling people because of embarassment. She knew he was proud of who she was, and she knew that shame was not even considered a factor in their relationship. And surely he knew that she needed to at the very least feel as though her opinions were being respected - four wives must have taught him that, at least. Then why the hell wouldn't he just tell the team? It wasn't like she was asking him to marry her or anything foolish like that. It had taken them almost a year to say the three little words that seem to come all too soon in modern relationships. They weren't the type of people to rush things, but Abby's patience for Gibbs had begun to wear with every day that they were forced to steal a kiss, as if it were wrong, as if it shouldn't happen.
She had screamed at him the night before, absolutely lost control in a way he hadn't thought possible with her. She had broken down crying, and he could see what his actions, or lack thereof, were doing to her. He knew that she was going through hell, and he knew that she would never - could never - leave him. She loved him, and she would love him for the rest of her life, and if that meant going crazy then she'd start shopping for a skull decorated straightjacket. Normally he let her cool down for a few days, and approached her when she had gone past the point of throwing things, but there was something in the way that she had cried for him, and in the way she stiffened to his touch the next day, that made him lose his temper. Did she want to know? Did she really want to know why they couldn't be together? Every single day he had told himself that he would inform Abby it was over, and every single day he hadn't been able to bring himself to do it. His stubborn heart had held him back, and would continue to do so until it stopped beating. It was torture, knowing that he couldn't be with her but not being able to leave, and she acted like he had a choice. As if he wanted to keep their one-in-a-lifetime love in the dark. Why couldn't she see that if it were up to him he'd be shouting it to the streets, telling Tony, McGee, Ziva, everyone? Why didn't she understand that if he had a choice she would be wearing a ring on her finger, showing people wedding pictures from what would surely be the most bizarrely decorated celebration in history, patting her stomach as a baby, their theoretical baby, kicked in excitement that it was growing?
He grabbed her suddenly, and took her to where the evidence room was, wordlessly. She protested, demanded answers, but followed obediently and without struggle as his firm hand on her arm half guided half dragged her to where all of the evidence from past cases were kept. He was a man on a mission, quickly retrieving a few specific boxes and taking them to a table. He opened their lids and pulled out what he was looking for. Photographs. Photographs of the victims from sick men who Gibbs had put behind bars. He slapped them down one after the other, after the other, after the other. Abby had stopped breathing, her breath stolen by the horror of the pictures. Her eyes were wide, and silent tears of pity slid down her face for the victims, people she did not even remotely know. He explained to her each of the cases, what was done to the victims, where the murderers were now. All of them had sworn revenge on Gibbs, and those were just the ones who had made their intent known. He knew as well as she now did, that if they were public with their relationship it would be impossible to keep in NCIS. Word would get out. Gibbs was not a liked man, and he couldn't list the dozens of people that would gladly get their hands on the one person he loved most in the world to hurt him.
When he put the evidence in its rightful places, the pair stared at each other for a long time. Silently, Abby fell forwards into Gibbs, who held her for as long as she needed to. He hated to be harsh, but she was starting to weaken his defences on the topic and that couldn't happen. He whispered apologies in her ear and tried his best to keep her from crying any more than the already had. For now, at least, they had reached an understanding - to everyone but them, their love would remain what it always had been. Unspoken.
.......
His fears had gone unconsidered by Fate, it would seem, who had her own plans for Abby and Gibbs. He had thought she was mad at him again -- perhaps their trip in the evidence room just two months prior had only kept her wishes for publicizing their relationship quiet, but had not restrained them any. He kept calling her, and calling her, and when he finally gave up he had assumed she was at a club somewhere and couldn't hear her phone. So why did his stomach feel so... unsettled? He got little sleep that night, tossing and turning, and finally he gave up and made his way to Abby's apartment. It was five in the morning, but he knew her so well that he was aware of the fact that even Abby was in by five. Panic flooded him when he saw her door ajar. He also knew her enough to tell that she would
never leave her door open, especially not this late, no matter what the circumstance or how drunk she was. He reached for his gun, and opened her door further, finding it empty but trashed. Things were strewn all about, and glasses were broken. Her bedroom door had been kicked down. Gibbs ran for it, and found that it, too, was empty, and messy. And there was blood on the wall. He swallowed hard, before getting his cell phone and calling the team together.
He would kill the bastard that had taken Abby. The team, oblivious to their relationship, knew that this was true regardless.
They had followed the evidence, which Abby had been smart enough to make plenty of, and had used logic and technology to find her tied to a chair in an escaped convicts basement, staring down a madman with a knife. Anyone else would have shot three rounds into the man threatening the team's beloved lab tech. Gibbs emptied his gun into him. He ran to Abby, and untied her, took her to the hospital when she claimed to be fine, just scared. Once there and deemed perfectly fine, the team took their turns hugging her tightly, and congratulating her on her intelligence with the evidence. Gibbs was the last person in line, on purpose. In sign language, they spoke, leaving the team confused and a little annoyed that they couldn't understand what was being said. He was explaining to her how the blood on her wall, which had thankfully been her captors, had provided them with an identity for the man who had kidnapped her. He had been one of the murderers he had told her about while they'd faced boxes of evidence just a few weeks ago. The team stared on, silent, each noting that they looked the pair was having an arguement. And they were.
He told her he didn't want to lose her. She told him that she couldn't be without him. Together, they reached the conclusion that if men want to hurt Gibbs, they'd go for her anyway -- she was just safer with him. With a heavy sigh, Gibbs leaned forward and kissed her lips while she had been in the midst of signing about how stupid he was being with his reluctance. Her hands froze in mid air, her mind racing a mile a minute, before they made their way around Gibbs' body, in his hair. McGee paled. Tony handed Ziva $20. Ducky just nodded and smiled. When the two came up for air, Gibbs remembered their audience, and glared at them. They each scurried away.
Gibbs carried Abby to his car, and drove her to his house, where he planned to make sure she stayed. She was, after all, his girl.
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gibbsabbylove's journal
exhausted
restless
accomplished
creative
hungry
ecstatic