Gabby Fanfic - In The Deep, Chapter Four
Chapter Four: Say What?
Pairing: Gibbs/Abby (a.k.a. Gabby)
Rating: T
Genre: Angst, Romance
Spoilers: None
Summary: A very unexpected birthday gift for one Abigail Sciuto
Disclaimer: Neither NCIS nor the characters belong to me. I wish it did, but it doesn’t.
A/N: Thanks a lot to Chirugal for being my Beta!
Link to other chapters: 1 2 3
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“Mrs. Greenberg, why don’t you sit here? Mr. Bellman, we’ll take you to the interview room,” Ziva said, and left. Tony stayed behind and when she questioned him with her eyes, he signalled her to go ahead, that he’d join her in a couple of minutes.
“Have you seen Gibbs, McGee? I’m sure he’d want to conduct the interview.”
“The director called him, he’s in his office. Neither of them seemed to be happy. See? I told you, they must be hiding something.”
“Do you think? I mean, they always look cranky, that’s nothing new…”
“That’s right. But Gibbs’ hands, they were trembling. Gibbs’ hands never tremble!”
“You have a point. But then again, you know how he gets when something happens to Abby. Surely he’s just being his usual overprotective self.”
“I don’t know, I’m not convinced. Do you really believe that?”
“I don’t see why not. When you think about it, this is the first time Abby has actually gotten hurt. I bet he’s feeling quite impotent right now.”
McGee simply raised an eyebrow to the point that it was about to reach his hairline.
“Impotent as in, he wasn’t there for her… when she needed him to be… you know, there…”
The raised eyebrow turned into a full-on frown.
“Come on, Probie, you know what I mean!”
“Ooookay… Anyway, you guys should conduct the interview. I honestly don’t see Gibbs leaving that office anytime soon, and he’s demanding as many results as possible, as soon as possible.”
“Good luck with the lady, then - hope she doesn’t turn out to be as impulsive as her husband,” Tony said as he left for the interview room.
--oo-
In the Director’s office, Vance made Gibbs take a seat and went right to business. It was an uncomfortable issue, so the sooner they could get it (relatively) over with, the better.
“I called you here to talk about Miss Sciuto.”
“I know that. I’ll make her take two weeks, maybe one month off after she’s discharged from the hospital.”
“I don’t think you understand me. She’ll be on medical leave until she takes the HIV test.”
“You can’t do that…”
“And once she does, depending on the results, we’ll decide what course of action to take.”
“Course of action? As in, there’s the possibility of firing her?”
“There’s the possibility or an early retirement.”
“That’s insane! She’s decades away from being old enough for retirement, and she’s the best lab tech we can get… ever! The lab is her life; we are her family!”
“I’m sure you are. Look, it’s no fun for me to consider letting go of someone like her, either.”
“But you’re doing it.”
“To protect her, not out of discrimination! If she turns out to have HIV and develops AIDS, she’ll be especially vulnerable to any kind of biological hazard, and that’s a risk none of us can afford to take. This is very hard for all of us, but those are the rules, and they’re there for a reason.”
“Is there a way we could work around this?” Gibbs asked, with impotence and defeat in his voice.
“Unless the tests turn out negative, we can’t. As much as we both wish to.”
-oo-
In the interrogation room, Tony took his turn interviewing Bellman while Ziva watched on the other side. As much as they all wanted everyone involved in Abby’s incident to suffer, they also knew they needed to get the information to solve the case and, to be fair, they couldn’t afford collateral damage: that may well be the reason Abby was attacked in the first place.
“Gregory Bellman, 51 years old, owner of Bellman Industries Inc., which makes -“
“I know who I am and what I do for a living. Can we stop the nonsense and cut to the chase?”
“OK, let’s cut to the chase. We know you are friends with a man called Job Zuiker, and you asked him to hire another man, James Turner, as a favour to you.”
“As far as I know, that’s not a crime.”
“Except that his real name is Jules Greenberg, he came here with the instruction of attacking and killing one of our people, and he got one out of the two right! That makes you his accomplice at best, even if we can’t prove you were the one who ordered the attack!”
“What? No, no, no! I have nothing to do with that! I have no idea of what you’re saying. Look, Zuiker owed me a favour, but I owed a favour to someone as well. That’s why I asked him to hire Turner. I mean, Greenberg.”
“And who, exactly, was the person you owed that favour to?”
“This woman, Hollis Mann.”
“Say what?” Tony said and looked to the one-way mirror. He couldn’t see her, but he knew Ziva was thinking the same as he was. On the other side, she understood him perfectly.
“Hollis Mann. She’s a retired Lieutenant Colonel from the Army. We’re long-time friends, and she knew I’m friends with Job and he owed me, so she collected by asking me to help this guy get hired by Job’s company. She told me this sob story about him being poor and having a family to support, so I made the contacts.”
“Just like that, no questions asked?”
“Of course! It was only a janitorial job. Besides, she’s my friend. I’ve always trusted her and I still do, and as I said before, I owed her a favour.”
“Just out of curiosity,” Tony inquired, “what was that great favour she did for you?”
“She... she introduced me to the woman who’s now my wife.” Tony just sighed and left the room. As he was about to close the door, he heard Bellman’s voice:
“Am I free to go now?”
“You wish,” the agent replied. “You’re still under arrest, until this gets cleared up.”
Ziva met him in the hallway.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she asked, knowing the answer beforehand.
“Yep, I am.”
“Gibbs is not going to like it.”