When Gibbs arrived back at his desk, there was a package, wrapped in white paper, about the size of a slice of bread sitting, propped against his keyboard. It looked innocent enough, but they had all learned the hard way that it was a bad idea to open packages from an unknown source. Gibbs picked up the package and turned to his team, “McGee, get this to Abby, I want to know if it’s safe to open. DiNozzo, you find out where it came from. Ziva, you talk to Finnegan and find out who knew he would be here, and why they would send him a package.”
With a unanimous “Yes, boss” they hurried out of the bullpen to get started on their respective tasks. Gibbs sat at his desk, leaned back in his chair, and let his mind wander. Nothing about this case made any sense. They had not been able to find anything that lead them to believe that someone would want Aidan Finnegan dead. There was no one that had a grudge against Lance Corporal Finnegan, at least not one that warranted killing his wife and kidnapping his daughter. They needed something more, but they had run out of leads, and a little girl was still missing. He stood up abruptly and took the stairs two at a time. He needed someone to talk things through with, and there was only one person who he could always count on. He barged through the first set of doors, and only paused for a moment to look over at Cynthia, “She in there?”
Without waiting for her to reply, he turned to the second set of doors, which he flung open in his usual manner, not paying attention to Cynthia shouting behind him, “She’s there, but she’s in the middle of a conference ca"” He didn’t hear the end of the sentence because the doors had already slammed shut behind him. The director spun her chair around to face the door, a frown forming on her face. She spoke into the phone for another minute, then with and apology and a promise to continue the conversation later she hung up and turned to Gibbs. “One of these days Jethro, you’re going to give poor Cynthia a coronary. What do you need this time? A federal warrant, or a good excuse to shoot someone? Not that you ever come to me for that, you just make your ow…” She trailed off, the look on his face stopping her. She hadn’t seen him look this worried in quite a while.
He just looked at her a minute before answering. She hadn’t changed much from their days in Paris, and, although he was not going to admit it to her, neither had his feelings towards her. Pulling his mind back from the road it so desperately wanted to travel down, he answered her question, “I need someone to talk to about our latest case. We aren’t getting anywhere, and I thought you might be willing to go get something to eat with me while we brainstorm.”
She took a moment to consider his offer. She had helped him talk things through over food before, but it had always been here in her office, and it had always been late at night, never at a restaurant in the middle of the day. It was not that she minded helping him out, she would take whatever excuse she could to be around him, her feelings for him hadn’t lessened over the years. If anything, they had intensified, even as she watched him go through three marriages, and three divorces, she had always held onto the hope that maybe there was still a chance for them. He however had moved on, there was nothing left but memories of Paris. She knew that for him to offer to take her to lunch , he must be really worried about the case, so her answer came almost automatically, “Of course, when and where?”
In his usual mysterious manner, Gibbs only answered part of her question, “Meet me in the parking garage in an hour.” With that he left her alone once more, and headed back down the stairs to see if his team had been able to gather anything new.
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Per Gibbs’ orders, McGee headed strait for Abby’s lab with the mysterious package in his gloved hands. They immediately donned the hazmat suits and sealed the lab doors, isolating it from the rest of the building. They ran every test conceivable on the package. Neither one of them spoke much as they worked; both worried about the implications if any of the tests came up positive. They were both battling a severe case of déjà vu. Memories of Tony’s battle with the plague, and the notorious SWAK envelope could not be forced back. Along with them came other memories from around the same time. Although they were both thinking about the same thing, their thoughts were very different.
Tim’s thoughts drifted to the day the letter had come to the office. He had been going through the mail that morning and run across the unusual envelope. There had been no name on it, it was simply addressed to NCIS Special Agent. The first thought that had run through his head was “must be for Gibbs” then he turned it over, and his confusion compounded. There was a perfect impression of lips on the back. It was then that Tony had come up and snatched the letter from his hands. It was a moment that had changed all of their lives forever, though they had no clue at the moment what it meant.
He found it funny how some details came back to him as clear as if he were re-living the moment, but others he couldn’t remember if his life depended on it. He remembered that Tony had made one of his usual chauvinistic comments, which was followed by a stinging retort from Kate, but he had no idea what they said. He did remember the next moment as clear as day though, the moment when Tony had slit the letter open. The next seconds would be forever etched into Tim’s memory, the sound of the letter opener slicing through the envelope, the powder drifting into the air, swirling in the slight breeze that always seemed to cross the bullpen from nowhere.
The next few minutes were a blur for the most part, the alarms blaring, everyone rushing to evacuate the building, Gibbs standing on his desk, announcing the biohazard alert. The showers, the discussion of honey dust, that one made him chuckle to himself.
The next 24 hours had been some of the hardest any of them had faced, but they had gotten through. He just hoped that they wouldn’t have to deal with that again. He glanced over at Abby. The few weeks surrounding the SWAK incident had been especially tough on the bubbly Goth. She may not have been anywhere near what others would consider to be normal, but she had a big heart, and she wore it on her sleeve, in plain view of the world. She had been devastated when Tony had fallen ill, and her worries hardly abated at all the entire week he was out on sick leave. She was finally satisfied that he would survive the day he returned.
Tim was glad for her sake that Tony had decided to only take the week off, he didn’t think Abby would have been able to make it another week. He was willing to bet that Tony would have woken up one morning to find Abby clattering around his kitchen making breakfast, and cleaning up, after she picked the lock in order to get in. That was the sort of person Abby was, when someone she cared about was sick, she was right there to give them all the TLC in the world until they were fully healthy again, whether they wanted her to or not. Tim knew the only reason she had not broken into Tony’s house the first day he was out was because Gibbs had ordered her to leave him be, and let him recover in peace.
She had been back to normal for less than two days when disaster had struck the team again. Abby had been heartbroken when they had brought her the news about Kate. He hadn’t thought the human vocal cords were capable of making that horrible sound.
It had taken her months to get back to a semblance of her normal self. Tim had spent a lot of time at her house, sometimes talking, sometimes just sitting in a comfortable silence. When they had talked, it had covered anything and everything. At the beginning, it had been mainly talk about the past, and about memories of Kate. Slowly they had segued into talking about the present and even a little bit about the future. They had talked through her immediate dislike for Ziva, which had confused him, until he realized it was mostly that she felt they were trying to replace Kate. When he had finally managed to convince her that they were in no way trying to replace Kate, but that Ziva was a valuable addition to the team, and that Kate would have liked her, she had warmed a bit towards the Israeli.
Tim shook his head, trying to get his mind back to the present. If they were going to figure out what was in the package, he needed to get his mind in the game. He went back to check on the tests, noting with dismay that none were finished yet. Gibbs would not be happy with how long everything was taking.
While McGee was contemplating the past, Abby too was letting her mind wander. Her mind too had made its way back to the time surrounding the SWAK incident, but for different reasons. It was the first time that she had realized that the members of Gibbs’ team, HER team, were not invincible, that they were just human, like her. The memory that stuck out in her mind was one that she shared with only one other person, and they didn’t know that she knew, and she was not going to say anything about it.
Abby had known for a long time that there was chemistry between Kate and Tony. It was obvious to her from early on that their snide comments and playful banter was more than it appeared to be. It hadn’t been until Tony was on death’s door that Abby had gotten anything but vehement denials from her best friend. When Kate had been forced to leave Tony’s side, she had come strait to the lab to find her best friend, the one person she knew she could talk to without having to worry that what she said would be the talk of the agency within a week.
Abby had found Kate sitting just inside the doorway, sitting with her back against the cabinets, her knees pulled up to her chest, and her head buried in her arms. It took a minute for Abby to comprehend what she was seeing. She had never imagined that she would see Kate break down, to Abby, Kate seemed like a frickin super hero. The moment passed quickly enough, and Abby did what came naturally, she knelt down next to the distraught woman and wrapped her arms around her shaking form. She let Kate cry until no more tears would come, and then she lifted her friend’s head with two fingers under her chin. She had kept her panic under control up to this point because her friend needed her to be calm, but she couldn’t keep it from permeating her voice when she finally asked the question that had been haunting her since she had seen the other woman, “Kate, talk to me, what’s going on? Is Tony O.K.?”
It took a bit before Kate was able to find her voice, “He’s still alive, but he was not doing very well when they made me leave. God, Abby, why did it take this to show me you were right? Damn it, I just found him, and now I’m gonna loose him” Her voice wobbled, and the tears began to fall again. Abby was not sure what to say, so she just sat there and held her friend until Gibbs had called and told her that Tony was going to pull through. Being able to relay that news to Kate was one of the best moments in Abby’s life. Kate had followed her to the phone, desperate to hear good news. As soon as Abby had relayed Gibbs’ words, the tears had started all over again, but this time for an entirely different reason, and Kate’s knees had given out. Luckily Abby’s reflexes were quick enough to allow her to roll her chair under Kate, who sank gratefully into it.
Abby knew that she was the only person besides Tony who knew about the events that transpired over the next week. He knew that she and Kate had talked, but hadn’t brought it up with her, and she was not going to be the one to open those wounds again. She knew that he had never truly gotten over her. She saw the way his eyes glazed over when something reminded him of Kate, and she was not going to cause him any more pain. As her mind began to drift towards the stories that Kate had told her, McGee put his hand on her shoulder, making her jump. She turned to face him, her hazmat suit crinkling as she moved.
He chuckled at her reaction to his touch, knowing that her mind was as far away as his had been before. “Abbs, we have the results, we should get them to Gibbs right away.”
She nodded in agreement, and took the print-outs from his hands, looking them over. Without another word, they both rushed to the elevators, heading for the bullpen, package in hands. As they clambered out, moving awkwardly in the suits, Gibbs turned to them, a questioning look on his face. He had been pacing the bullpen for the last two hours, waiting for them to return with the results. In answer to his unasked question, Abby unzipped her suit and pulled off the hood, happy to be breathing fresh air again, she smiled at Gibbs and said happily, “We’re in the clear, we ran it through every test we could think of, and it’s all good.”
Gibbs snatched the package from Tim’s hands, and ripped the paper off, revealing a DVD, a letter, and some Polaroid snapshots. Turning the pictures over in his hand, he took one look at them and headed strait for MTAC with a muttered curse.
Eyes by Willow_Eris