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The night before he was supposed to report to the International Marriage Council facility, Tony packed carefully. He knew what he was allowed to bring and what was forbidden. The last three times he had tried to dress nicely, and respect the process and the other forced participants. This time around he was going for comfort. Ratty t-shirts, his softest, most faded jeans, and sneakers that were one good rainstorm away from falling apart entirely. He just didn't care.
The next morning he was waiting for the IMC shuttle bus to arrive and escort him to the facility. Participants were not allowed to have personal vehicles at the facility. He sat on the stairs to his apartment with his mp3 players drowning out the world. He smiled thinking about the one good thing that would happen during the course of the first day, he would have a follow up session with his previous pairing, Catherine. Unlike his first two pairings he had actually liked Catherine. Smart and funny, with a trivia knowledge that almost beat out his, she had made the three weeks of isolation bearable. They had both talked plainly about the IMC process and how they both hated it. They were also honest about the fact that although their personalities meshed nicely that they just weren't physically attracted to each other. His eyes grew soft as he thought about how on their last night in isolation that they had fallen asleep together on the couch in their suite and woken up holding each other. They had parted as friends and he was honestly looking forward to seeing her again.
The shuttle picked him up and delivered him to the facility. He was able to bypass the first-timers line and went to the repeat participant line and smoothly checked in and had his bags searched for forbidden items. Finding none they gave him his information packet and sent him to the dormitory. He found his assigned bed and footlocker that he promptly dumped his bags into. He looked around the cavernous room filled with a hundred such beds and footlockers. This was one of four such dormitories. In each participant cycle there were two hundred men and two hundred women. Half of which were repeat participants, the other half being first-timers.
Grabbing the key from his locker and stuffing it in his pocket he headed out to the main lounge area. He found a comfortable chair where he could watch the comings and goings, waiting to see Abby. The area served as not only a lounge but as a the main thoroughfare to get to the administration offices, the infirmary, the recreation rooms, and the personality testing center.
He chuckled to himself as he saw a couple of obvious first-timers being shuffled off towards the personality testing room. He didn't envy them, they were going to spend the rest of the day filling in ovals with a number two pencil as they shuffled through the reams of testing until they were cross eyed.
He flipped through his packet as he waited. He was scheduled to visit with a placement counselor mid-morning to update his file. He snorted at that thought, it would be a quick meeting seeing as how nothing had changed since he was here six months ago. His follow up session with Catherine was scheduled after lunch. Then he was on his own for the next seven days, when the observers watching all of the interactions in the common rooms would pair him with someone that he had interacted with that met with the personality profile match requirements. Then he would be stuck in isolation with that person for three weeks.
He closed his packet with a sigh and flopped his head back against the chair. The last time wasn't so bad. He had "bonded" with Catherine in one of the smaller rec rooms where a James Bond marathon was playing on the television. The two of them quoted the movies word for word and shared a lot of laughs to the chagrin of the rest of the people in the rec room. She was pleasant and easy to be around. She was a pediatric nurse, and Tony could just envision her putting sick kids at ease. Short and full-figured with a sweet smile and a gentle laugh she could put anyone at ease. They shared a love of movies and football and bad jokes. And Tony was only a little surprised when he had opened the door to the isolation suite to her there waiting for him. They had a good laugh over it and muddled their way through the awkwardness of the situation.
The other two times he had been here were just nightmares. And he refused to even think about it.
He was sitting with his eyes half open when he saw Abby enter the room. His heart broke for her as he took in her deflated appearance, no pigtails, big baggy skater pants and sweatshirt instead of her normal mini skirt, and a pair of All Stars peeking out the bottom of the pants. There was normally such an effervescent air around her that it almost hurt to see it missing. She scanned the room briefly and then her eyes locked on Tony and grew huge. He and Gibbs had decided to surprise her and hadn't told her that Tony was going to be at the facility at the same time. He grinned at her and a slow smile spread over her face. He stood to go help her with her bag when she launched at him and he suddenly had Abby's body plastered to him and her arms squeezing the life out of him.
He hugged her back and they just stood there for the longest time as he held her tightly and whispered, "Everything's going to be okay, Abs. We'll get through this."
Her voice wavered on crying as she replied, "Tony, I don't want to be here. It's horrible. It's not fair."
He rubbed his cheek against her hair , "I know, Abs. I know."
It took a couple more minutes for Abby to calm down and when they parted he gave her a little kiss on the forehead. Both of them forgetting that there were camera's and observers everywhere. And that their actions had been duly noted.
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tbc...
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