Title: Motivation
Author: bluefirebird
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: UnSEALed
Summary: Post-ep for UnSEALed. Abby checks on Gibbs after the case

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Abby didn't really know why cases involving kids always seemed to particularly affect Gibbs, but they were only surpassed by cases where the members of his own team were threatened or hurt. He intrigued her: with three marriages and divorces behind him there was no hint of children in his life, yet when they had to deal with kids he engaged with them so much better than DiNozzo whose juvenile antics should have been right at their level.

She had become a regular visitor to Gibbs and his basement, his recent shooting giving her a good excuse to show concern and check up on him, not to mention the single mindedness with which he was chasing the terrorist who had shot him, and he didn't seem to mind her company - which was just as well because while she told herself that they were just friends she knew deep down that it was her attraction to him that truly motivated her concern. She loved Tony, but she was in love with Gibbs. Not that it was ever going to go anywhere, she knew, but it certainly fuelled the industrial strength flirting that they indulged in at work and which helped them work so well together.

Tonight she was checking on him after the Curtin case, the man Gibbs had worked so hard to prove innocent so he could be with his son again. As she descended the stairs to his basement she expected to see him leaning over the boat hull, back muscles rippling as he put a surprising amount of effort into the sanding at his fingertips. Instead he was sat up on the workbench, his back leaning awkwardly against the tools that hung there, large fingers holding a jar - nothing as civilised as a glass - of bourbon and staring sightlessly across the room.

He didn't even acknowledge her until she was standing beside him, gently waving a hand back and forth across his line of sight. Only then did he shake himself from his reverie and put the jar away to the side. Cocking his head inquisitorially he met her eyes and stated: "McGee's got a pretty big crush on you."

Abby relaxed a little, maybe he wasn't retreating to a bad place in his mind after all.

"Yeah," there was a hint of amusement in her voice. "He follows me round the lab like a little puppy, it'd be kinda cute, but he can get in the way sometimes."

"You interested, Abs?"

His voice was mild, but suddenly Abby felt like she was being interrogated.

She gave a nervous laugh, "McGee? No way."

Her inner voice continued: "You, on the other hand..."

His eyes roamed over her face searching, asking unheard questions and she felt she needed to further deny any interest in McGee. "He's... I-I'm just not interested in him."

"But you are interested in someone at the Navy Yard." Again, a statement of fact, not a question from him.

In all the time she'd know him, Abby had never been able to outright lie to Gibbs, she'd managed to deflect him with other versions of the truth, but never lies. Tony and Kate joked about the all-seeing, all-knowing Gibbs who always appeared just when they didn't want him to hear their conversation, always apparently fully abreast of the conversation they didn't want him to hear - unless it suited him to make them repeat the particularly embarrassing bits.

She nodded in response to his comment and studied her boots. Not wishing to further confirm or deny anything lest she give away that it was him that she was interested in.

"Abs, look at me." His voice was gentle.

She looked back up as he shifted on the bench opening his knees wide to make room for her and then crooking his finger to indicate for her to move forward into the space between them.

She hesitated for a minute, unsure of his intentions but, trusting him absolutely moved forward as he asked.

Gibbs reached a hand up to her face, brushing her cheek gently with the back of his knuckles, and it was like an electric spark flowed between them. All the while he was studying her face, her reaction to him, his eyes darting everywhere while he first stroked a pigtail and then curled a large hand gently round the back of her neck to pull her closer.

As his eyes focussed on her lips - and stayed there as he pulled her closer - she finally dared to hope.