(no subject)
Well, it took me a little while, but I've finally managed to finish part four. Work is going to gobble me up. Little question - do people think I should develop this story into a relationship piece, or keep it as a friendship piece? Also, I want to say a big thankyou to all the people who've read and/or reviewed this story. You guys are amazing and oh so friendly.
- As things settle down, Gibbs helps Abby come to terms with her injuries. DiNozzo has some surprising and disturbing news about the shooter.
Even if you don't read it, there is an unbelievably LOVELY picture of Gibbs/Mark under the cut, because I felt it was my civic duty to spread the wealth. Makes me all girly.
“Well, I looked.” She nodded down at her chest. “I kind of resemble a patchwork quilt.”
Sniffling, but calmer than she’d been five minutes before, Abby pulled away and with Gibbs’ help, nestled back into her pillows. He trailed a thumb along her jaw, wiping away the last of her tears.
“Alright?”
She sniffled again and nodded her head meekly. Gibbs didn’t think he’d ever seen Abby do anything meekly. With the cuff of his jacket, he brushed her cheeks dry before leaning back to inspect her.
“What’s wrong, Abby?”
She shrugged, the movement tiny so as not to stretch anything. “Just don’t feel well. Funny medicine. Sore. Plus, I…” She trailed off, looking down hesitantly.
Gibbs leant over to catch her gaze, one hand by her hip, the other under her chin. “You what?”
Blinking rapidly to chase off the new tears that were threatening to fall - she would not allow them - she smiled sadly. “Well, I looked.” She nodded down at her chest. “I kind of resemble a patchwork quilt.”
Dropping his hand to the mattress, Gibbs quirked an eyebrow, not quite catching on.
“Bandages and stitches left, right and centre. Not to mention that I have a round hole in my chest. Well, two if you count the tube. Not a pretty sight…it’s kind of making me rethink the artwork in my lab.”
Gibbs' mind flashed to the fluorescent destroyed spine picture that sat on her wall and made a mental note to take it down. “It’ll heal, Abs. Trust me.”
She nodded and her gaze darted to his shoulder. “Yeah, I know. It’s just…well, I studied ballistics at college, but I never thought I’d get this particular perspective, you know?” She closed her eyes and sighed, but the sound wasn’t altogether unhappy.
Reaching forward, he brushed her bangs out of her eyes. “Tired?”
She nodded, but blinked her eyes open. “A bit. Where are mum and dad?”
Gibbs turned to look at the door. “They should be here soon . They’ve come to see you a couple of times, but you’ve been sleeping.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Thanks for taking care of them. You’d think it would be easy to find people who sign in a hospital.”
“Your parents are just like I remember them. Your dad is either going to hug me or shoot me, and I’m not sure which”
She laughed lightly. “My mum thinks you’re practically James Bond. NCIS Investigators and Marine Snipers are not people that she meets everyday.”
“I would never go to the trouble of getting a vodka martini shaken not stirred, when I could just have it neat.”
She was about to reply when two people rather noiselessly walked through the door. Gibbs watched as Abby’s face lit up in the presence of her parents. Without communication, she was kissed on the cheek by her mother and patted gently on the head by her father.
He made to stand, but Abby grabbed his wrist. Gloria just rolled her eyes and started signing.
And they say chivalry is dead. Goodness Leroy, you don’t have to stand every time you see me.
Nodding in concession as Abby laughed, mostly because she knew Gibbs would never tell her mother not to call him Leroy, Gibbs settled back down on the bed. By the way George was looking at him though, he wanted to get up not out of a sense of politeness but rather self-preservation.
Abby squeezed his wrist. “You should stay. Sign for me. I may as well be a snake, for all the good my arms are.”
. . . .
Twenty minutes later, Gibbs left Abby’s room. Silence had fallen, as the Sciuto family sat happy just to be in each other’s company.
After braving the coffee machine, and this time remembering to take his drink, he made his way to his car. Setting his phone into the hand’s free, he turned the ignition, pressed two on his speed-dial and waited for Tony to answer.
“DiNozzo,” sounded through the speaker.
He started to back the car out. “It’s Gibbs. What have you got on the shooter?”
There was a hesitant pause, before his 2IC continued. “You’re not going to like it.”
Gibbs waited for him to elaborate.
“Palmer and Ducky ran the prints. There was a homeland security alert out. Shooter’s name is Javier Ramirez, who from what we can tell...”
Gibbs almost accelerated without taking the car out of reverse. “What!?”
Tony coughed awkwardly over the phone. “Yeah, Ziva said that would be your reaction.”
Arguing furiously with the gear stick, Gibbs drove the car back into the park, jumped out and made his way back to the hospital.
“Boss? Boss? No Ziva, he hung up on me.”
. . . .
Gibbs made his way to Abby’s room swiftly, ignoring the confused looks of nurses who could have sworn he’d just left. Slowing down as he arrived at her door, he realized that Gloria and George were still in the room.
Leroy, I thought you were going back to the office?
Abby looked at him confusedly, but then a sort of realization crept across her face. She’d been trying not to think about the shooter too much, but she’d known that it was an issue that would have to be dealt with at some point.
“What’s wrong?”
Gibbs turned from her, her gaze too much to take, and started to sign to her parents. Would you mind if I talked to Abby for a moment?
It was obvious that Mr. and Mrs. Sciuto were concerned, but they were sensible people and knew the delicacy of the situation.
We’ll go to the cafeteria. She doesn’t like us drinking coffee in front of her when she can’t have any.
Abby poked out her tongue, hoping to get a laugh and she wasn’t disappointed, but it was clear that she was still acutely aware of the tension rolling off Gibbs in waves.
Stepping into the room to let her parents leave, Gibbs chose not to sit in the chair by her bed, but instead made his way to the window. His damn windbreaker was still there.
Gibbs wasn’t the sort of person to skirt around the edges or hover nervously, but his words came hesitantly all the same.
“We got an ID. Homeland security picked it up. The shooter’s name is Javier Ramirez.”
Abby blinked. “Well…that doesn’t really mean anything to me. Obviously, it means something to you.”
He nodded, looking at her body instead of her eyes, but gave that up when he landed upon the tube in her wrist. “Yeah, it does. Javier Ramirez is the son of Carlos Ramirez.”
Abby shook her head, still not knowing where this was all going. She patted the bed beside her, motioning him over. After a second, he made his way to her and sat by her hip. Twisting to face her, he tucked her hair behind her ears and smiled, somewhat sadly.
“Carlos Ramirez was a Mexican drug-dealer. He’s the man who murdered Shannon and Kelly. I tracked him down and killed him. Javier is his son, who apparently felt shooting you would be appropriate retribution. Copying his father.”
“But I’m not…I mean, Shannon and Kelly, they were…I’m just…” she trailed off, perplexed.
Gibbs could guess as to the nature of her questions, and he was fairly sure they were ones he didn’t particularly want to answer.
He looked for a way to get the spotlight off the situation and onto an old one. “Well, Ari tried it.” It; the notion of going after Abby to get to him. To weaken him. The conversational tactic turned out to be a mistake, because the memory of another time she’d nearly been killed only served to make her nervous and him angry. She buried herself into her pillows, grimacing slightly.
Gibbs slipped one hand to her shoulder and the other to her hip, helping her ease herself down.
“I know you’re not going to listen to me when I tell you not to blame yourself.”
He adjusted her pillow under her head. “We’re not doing this now.”
She raised an eyebrow in warning. “You bet we’re doing this now. I’m the one in the bed, and as such I get to say what we’re doing.”
Gibbs narrowed his eyes at her. “I could always leave.”
They both knew it was an empty threat. “I don’t care what it takes. Letter, e-mail, haiku, telegraph, semaphore flags, sky writing, I’m going to keep telling you it’s not your fault until you believe me. I’ll tattoo it on your forehead. Hey, I’ll tattoo it on my forehead, my artists has been bugging me to go facial for ages.”
Gibbs nodded, but she wasn’t convinced.
“Please, Gibbs. It’s really important you believe me. It was what’s his name’s…Javier’s stupid decision to come here and start this. Let’s not forget the homeland security alert either, he’s obviously no saint.”
“Neither am I, Abby. You always forget that.”
A flash of hurt crossed her face. “No, I don’t. I’m not as naïve as you like to think, Gibbs. Just because I work in the lab doesn’t mean I don’t know what goes on in the world. Do you really believe I have no concept of what it is you used to do in the Marines? That I somehow think that you used to hand out candy to the enemy instead of bullets? I’ve just been shot, Gibbs, I get the real world. Give me a break.”
He shuffled closer, leaning over her, a hand on each side of her, elbows braced. “Hey, I’m sorry. It’s just, sometimes you have more faith in me than I think I can handle.”
“Sometimes you think I can pull non-existent magical answers out of my magical forensics hat, but it’s just something I have to live with. Carlos is dead. Javier is dead. I’m alive, you’re alive. That’s fact, not faith.”
He nodded slowly, but with more conviction. She knew it would take time; Gibbs was a person who shouldered responsibility and that wasn’t something she could just change in a day.
She raised an arm slowly and gently rested her hand against her chest, practically hovering over the skin. She eyed him contemplatively. “Lean forward, will you?”
Confused, but obliging, he shifted forward until she told him to stop. His chest only inches from hers, his mouth by her ear, he sincerely hoped Gloria and George didn’t choose this moment to come back. “What’re you doing, Abby?”
She didn’t answer, but he pieced it all together easily enough when gentle, long fingers slipped under the lapels of his jacket and over his left collarbone. It couldn’t be felt through the material of his shirt and undershirt, but the puckered scar of an old bullet wound was still there.
“It heals alright, doesn’t it?”
He made another mental note to take down the pictures in her lab. “Yeah, it heals alright.”
He couldn’t see it, but he knew she’d opened her mouth when he felt her breath on his ear. No doubt she had her tongue between her teeth as she thought something through.
“Will you show it to me?”
. . . .
Note: I haven't actually seen Hiatus One and Two, because I find the story sort of irritating, not to mention distressing. My prejudice, I know, and I nurse it poorly. So, I just sort of used the the premise of the episode, with the Mexican drug-dealer, for the story. I don't know if his name was given in the show. I've just extrapolated and morphed from there.
- Does anybody know which episode Gibbs smokes? I saw a moodtheme with it and don't remember. I hate smoking, but I want to see this.
Isn't he just the sexiest guy to ever walk the land? Look at that smile! That smile could power every globe in the world. I mean, come on! Give a girl a break!
Channel Ten "Seriously/There's No Better Place To Be/I Believe" Ads make living in Australia worth it. Democracy shemockracy.
Michael Weatherley: "I believe there are sheep in Australia. But not as many as in New Zealand." I love how, at least in television, Americans seem to say AUStralia, really emphasising the au, when we just say Ustralia.
- As things settle down, Gibbs helps Abby come to terms with her injuries. DiNozzo has some surprising and disturbing news about the shooter.
Even if you don't read it, there is an unbelievably LOVELY picture of Gibbs/Mark under the cut, because I felt it was my civic duty to spread the wealth. Makes me all girly.
“Well, I looked.” She nodded down at her chest. “I kind of resemble a patchwork quilt.”
Sniffling, but calmer than she’d been five minutes before, Abby pulled away and with Gibbs’ help, nestled back into her pillows. He trailed a thumb along her jaw, wiping away the last of her tears.
“Alright?”
She sniffled again and nodded her head meekly. Gibbs didn’t think he’d ever seen Abby do anything meekly. With the cuff of his jacket, he brushed her cheeks dry before leaning back to inspect her.
“What’s wrong, Abby?”
She shrugged, the movement tiny so as not to stretch anything. “Just don’t feel well. Funny medicine. Sore. Plus, I…” She trailed off, looking down hesitantly.
Gibbs leant over to catch her gaze, one hand by her hip, the other under her chin. “You what?”
Blinking rapidly to chase off the new tears that were threatening to fall - she would not allow them - she smiled sadly. “Well, I looked.” She nodded down at her chest. “I kind of resemble a patchwork quilt.”
Dropping his hand to the mattress, Gibbs quirked an eyebrow, not quite catching on.
“Bandages and stitches left, right and centre. Not to mention that I have a round hole in my chest. Well, two if you count the tube. Not a pretty sight…it’s kind of making me rethink the artwork in my lab.”
Gibbs' mind flashed to the fluorescent destroyed spine picture that sat on her wall and made a mental note to take it down. “It’ll heal, Abs. Trust me.”
She nodded and her gaze darted to his shoulder. “Yeah, I know. It’s just…well, I studied ballistics at college, but I never thought I’d get this particular perspective, you know?” She closed her eyes and sighed, but the sound wasn’t altogether unhappy.
Reaching forward, he brushed her bangs out of her eyes. “Tired?”
She nodded, but blinked her eyes open. “A bit. Where are mum and dad?”
Gibbs turned to look at the door. “They should be here soon . They’ve come to see you a couple of times, but you’ve been sleeping.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Thanks for taking care of them. You’d think it would be easy to find people who sign in a hospital.”
“Your parents are just like I remember them. Your dad is either going to hug me or shoot me, and I’m not sure which”
She laughed lightly. “My mum thinks you’re practically James Bond. NCIS Investigators and Marine Snipers are not people that she meets everyday.”
“I would never go to the trouble of getting a vodka martini shaken not stirred, when I could just have it neat.”
She was about to reply when two people rather noiselessly walked through the door. Gibbs watched as Abby’s face lit up in the presence of her parents. Without communication, she was kissed on the cheek by her mother and patted gently on the head by her father.
He made to stand, but Abby grabbed his wrist. Gloria just rolled her eyes and started signing.
And they say chivalry is dead. Goodness Leroy, you don’t have to stand every time you see me.
Nodding in concession as Abby laughed, mostly because she knew Gibbs would never tell her mother not to call him Leroy, Gibbs settled back down on the bed. By the way George was looking at him though, he wanted to get up not out of a sense of politeness but rather self-preservation.
Abby squeezed his wrist. “You should stay. Sign for me. I may as well be a snake, for all the good my arms are.”
. . . .
Twenty minutes later, Gibbs left Abby’s room. Silence had fallen, as the Sciuto family sat happy just to be in each other’s company.
After braving the coffee machine, and this time remembering to take his drink, he made his way to his car. Setting his phone into the hand’s free, he turned the ignition, pressed two on his speed-dial and waited for Tony to answer.
“DiNozzo,” sounded through the speaker.
He started to back the car out. “It’s Gibbs. What have you got on the shooter?”
There was a hesitant pause, before his 2IC continued. “You’re not going to like it.”
Gibbs waited for him to elaborate.
“Palmer and Ducky ran the prints. There was a homeland security alert out. Shooter’s name is Javier Ramirez, who from what we can tell...”
Gibbs almost accelerated without taking the car out of reverse. “What!?”
Tony coughed awkwardly over the phone. “Yeah, Ziva said that would be your reaction.”
Arguing furiously with the gear stick, Gibbs drove the car back into the park, jumped out and made his way back to the hospital.
“Boss? Boss? No Ziva, he hung up on me.”
. . . .
Gibbs made his way to Abby’s room swiftly, ignoring the confused looks of nurses who could have sworn he’d just left. Slowing down as he arrived at her door, he realized that Gloria and George were still in the room.
Leroy, I thought you were going back to the office?
Abby looked at him confusedly, but then a sort of realization crept across her face. She’d been trying not to think about the shooter too much, but she’d known that it was an issue that would have to be dealt with at some point.
“What’s wrong?”
Gibbs turned from her, her gaze too much to take, and started to sign to her parents. Would you mind if I talked to Abby for a moment?
It was obvious that Mr. and Mrs. Sciuto were concerned, but they were sensible people and knew the delicacy of the situation.
We’ll go to the cafeteria. She doesn’t like us drinking coffee in front of her when she can’t have any.
Abby poked out her tongue, hoping to get a laugh and she wasn’t disappointed, but it was clear that she was still acutely aware of the tension rolling off Gibbs in waves.
Stepping into the room to let her parents leave, Gibbs chose not to sit in the chair by her bed, but instead made his way to the window. His damn windbreaker was still there.
Gibbs wasn’t the sort of person to skirt around the edges or hover nervously, but his words came hesitantly all the same.
“We got an ID. Homeland security picked it up. The shooter’s name is Javier Ramirez.”
Abby blinked. “Well…that doesn’t really mean anything to me. Obviously, it means something to you.”
He nodded, looking at her body instead of her eyes, but gave that up when he landed upon the tube in her wrist. “Yeah, it does. Javier Ramirez is the son of Carlos Ramirez.”
Abby shook her head, still not knowing where this was all going. She patted the bed beside her, motioning him over. After a second, he made his way to her and sat by her hip. Twisting to face her, he tucked her hair behind her ears and smiled, somewhat sadly.
“Carlos Ramirez was a Mexican drug-dealer. He’s the man who murdered Shannon and Kelly. I tracked him down and killed him. Javier is his son, who apparently felt shooting you would be appropriate retribution. Copying his father.”
“But I’m not…I mean, Shannon and Kelly, they were…I’m just…” she trailed off, perplexed.
Gibbs could guess as to the nature of her questions, and he was fairly sure they were ones he didn’t particularly want to answer.
He looked for a way to get the spotlight off the situation and onto an old one. “Well, Ari tried it.” It; the notion of going after Abby to get to him. To weaken him. The conversational tactic turned out to be a mistake, because the memory of another time she’d nearly been killed only served to make her nervous and him angry. She buried herself into her pillows, grimacing slightly.
Gibbs slipped one hand to her shoulder and the other to her hip, helping her ease herself down.
“I know you’re not going to listen to me when I tell you not to blame yourself.”
He adjusted her pillow under her head. “We’re not doing this now.”
She raised an eyebrow in warning. “You bet we’re doing this now. I’m the one in the bed, and as such I get to say what we’re doing.”
Gibbs narrowed his eyes at her. “I could always leave.”
They both knew it was an empty threat. “I don’t care what it takes. Letter, e-mail, haiku, telegraph, semaphore flags, sky writing, I’m going to keep telling you it’s not your fault until you believe me. I’ll tattoo it on your forehead. Hey, I’ll tattoo it on my forehead, my artists has been bugging me to go facial for ages.”
Gibbs nodded, but she wasn’t convinced.
“Please, Gibbs. It’s really important you believe me. It was what’s his name’s…Javier’s stupid decision to come here and start this. Let’s not forget the homeland security alert either, he’s obviously no saint.”
“Neither am I, Abby. You always forget that.”
A flash of hurt crossed her face. “No, I don’t. I’m not as naïve as you like to think, Gibbs. Just because I work in the lab doesn’t mean I don’t know what goes on in the world. Do you really believe I have no concept of what it is you used to do in the Marines? That I somehow think that you used to hand out candy to the enemy instead of bullets? I’ve just been shot, Gibbs, I get the real world. Give me a break.”
He shuffled closer, leaning over her, a hand on each side of her, elbows braced. “Hey, I’m sorry. It’s just, sometimes you have more faith in me than I think I can handle.”
“Sometimes you think I can pull non-existent magical answers out of my magical forensics hat, but it’s just something I have to live with. Carlos is dead. Javier is dead. I’m alive, you’re alive. That’s fact, not faith.”
He nodded slowly, but with more conviction. She knew it would take time; Gibbs was a person who shouldered responsibility and that wasn’t something she could just change in a day.
She raised an arm slowly and gently rested her hand against her chest, practically hovering over the skin. She eyed him contemplatively. “Lean forward, will you?”
Confused, but obliging, he shifted forward until she told him to stop. His chest only inches from hers, his mouth by her ear, he sincerely hoped Gloria and George didn’t choose this moment to come back. “What’re you doing, Abby?”
She didn’t answer, but he pieced it all together easily enough when gentle, long fingers slipped under the lapels of his jacket and over his left collarbone. It couldn’t be felt through the material of his shirt and undershirt, but the puckered scar of an old bullet wound was still there.
“It heals alright, doesn’t it?”
He made another mental note to take down the pictures in her lab. “Yeah, it heals alright.”
He couldn’t see it, but he knew she’d opened her mouth when he felt her breath on his ear. No doubt she had her tongue between her teeth as she thought something through.
“Will you show it to me?”
. . . .
Note: I haven't actually seen Hiatus One and Two, because I find the story sort of irritating, not to mention distressing. My prejudice, I know, and I nurse it poorly. So, I just sort of used the the premise of the episode, with the Mexican drug-dealer, for the story. I don't know if his name was given in the show. I've just extrapolated and morphed from there.
- Does anybody know which episode Gibbs smokes? I saw a moodtheme with it and don't remember. I hate smoking, but I want to see this.
Isn't he just the sexiest guy to ever walk the land? Look at that smile! That smile could power every globe in the world. I mean, come on! Give a girl a break!
Channel Ten "Seriously/There's No Better Place To Be/I Believe" Ads make living in Australia worth it. Democracy shemockracy.
Michael Weatherley: "I believe there are sheep in Australia. But not as many as in New Zealand." I love how, at least in television, Americans seem to say AUStralia, really emphasising the au, when we just say Ustralia.