The flight to DC was uneventful. McGee won the seat next to Abby, but had the good sense not to gloat. He still had to endure Eric’s furious glares for the duration of the plane ride.
Washington DC"Bullpen
The two teams were only in the building long enough to throw their bags onto the desks before Gibbs yelled, “Gear up!”
“Um…Gibbs?” Ziva didn’t know where to go.
He turned to face her and sighed. “Callen! Hanna! You’re staying here,” he barked. “Everyone else, with me.”
Ziva sighed and sank into her chair. She had been so excited to become an agent and here she was, back on deskwork. She smiled weakly at Tony’s sympathetic grin and wink.
Tony, McGee, Kensi, Dom, and Nate had gone with Gibbs. Ziva hadn’t missed McGee’s disappointed expression when he realized he wouldn’t be around to keep an eye on Eric. Abby had taken him down to her lab to show it off. Ducky was downstairs getting Palmer so the two of them could collect the body. Left in the bullpen were Hetty, Ziva, Callen, and Sam.
After a few minutes of silence, aside from the typing from her computer and the surrounding bullpens, Ziva looked up, sure she was alone. She was shocked to find that all three were still in the bullpen, each working at a desk: Hetty at Gibbs’, Callen at Tony’s, and Sam at McGee’s.
Hetty looked up. “Is everything all right, Miss David?”
“Yes…no…it is very quiet.”
“Well, of course it’s quiet! There’s a lot of work to be done!”
Ziva noticed Callen and Sam’s exchanged smirks. “Really? That is not the case with our team, specifically Tony.”
“What do you mean?” Hetty asked.
“And what are these for?” Callen had found Tony’s stash of paper balls. He tossed one at Sam, hitting him in the head.
Ziva grinned. “That is what I am talking about, and that is what they are used for.”
“I see,” Hetty said, turning back to her work as if she didn’t see the full-blown war directly across the bullpen from her.
Ziva smiled. It was nice to have some normalcy in her life at the moment.
Washington, DC"Labby
“Babies, I’m home!” Abby exclaimed upon entering her lab. She ran around the lab, turning on her machines. Her last stop was her stereo, wher she blasted her favorite music.
“What do you think?” she asked Eric, gesturing to her lab.
“Uh…” he was overwhelmed. “It’s…loud,” he said finally. “And…is that a hippo?”
“Yeah. That’s Bert.”
“That’s Bert?” Bert had appeared in quite a few of Abby’s e-mails, but Eric had assumed that he was her lab assistant. So all those times he’d asked how Bert was… The expression about assuming was right. His face reddened.
“Well, of course, that’s Bert. Who else would he be?”
Eric made the decision not to answer that.
“Oh! Excuse me,” Abby said as her phone began to ring. She walked into her office.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Abby.” McGee was relieved that she actually picked up her phone.
“Hi, Tim!”
“We should probably be done here by lunchtime,” he told her.
“Great! Then I’ll run some preliminary tests and we can go out!”
McGee sighed in relief. She was going to lunch with him, not Eric! “Sounds great, Abs. Oh, I have to go. Gibbs caught me.”
Abby laughed. “Bye, Timmy.”
“Bye, Abby.”
Walking back into her lab, she said nonchalantly, “Hey, Eric, what are you doing for lunch?”
Washington DC"Crime Scene #7
“Petty Officer Charles Castor, two shots to the chest,” Kensi concluded from her position kneeling beside the body.
“Yes, thank you, Agent Blye. I can take it from here,” Ducky said, somewhat shortly.
“Sorry, Doctor Mallard,” she mumbled, straightening up.
He sighed, both because she was doing his job and because of her refusal to call him Ducky. “Mr. Palmer, get the gurney. We haven’t got all day.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“What are you McGrinning about, Probie?” Tony asked. McGee had just walked back into the room after his phone call.
“I just got some good news,” McGee answered smugly.
“Let me guess: new McNovel news or Abby-lunch news?”
“Tony, I wish you’d stop calling it that!”
“So, does that mean that it is about the novel then, Mr. Gemcity?” Kensi asked as she walked into the room. Tony and McGee just stared at her. “What? None of us can wait for the sequel.”
Tony recovered quicker than McGee. “Okay. Probie, answer the question.”
When he looked pointedly at Kensi, she rolled her eyes. “You could be blind and still see what’s going on between you and Abby and Eric. But if you need me to leave the room and pretend I don’t know…”
McGee sighed. “ Fine.” His smug grin returned. “Abby and I are going out to lunch today.”
Tony shot a look at McGee. Had he already forgotten the conversation they’d had in the hotel room that night? He’d explicitly told him to cool it with Abby. “Are you getting a little forgetful, McMemory?”
“Tony, she asked me, I swear.”
“Either way, remember what I said.”
*Back in the room with the body*
Ducky was just concluding one of his infamous stories, and Dom was hanging on his every word.
“Yes, my boy, things certainly have changed since my first year as a medical examiner.”
“That’s so cool! I love history!” Then, realizing what he was implying, he hastened to say, “Wait, I didn’t mean"”
Ducky laughed. “That’s quite all right, Dominic.”
“You two done swapping stories? If you are, I want you to go back to base, Duck. Vaile, I need you bagging and tagging! I’ve got an agent in danger, and your BS isn’t going to help anything!” Gibbs turned and stormed out of the room.
Tony and McGee looked at each other as Gibbs slammed the door.
“It’s worse than Ari,” Tony stated.
“Who’s Ari?” Kensi asked.
Ignoring her, McGee pointed out, “He’s known Ziva longer than he knew Kate. You’re working harder than you did then, too.”
“Who’s Kate?” Kensi was beginning to get annoyed.
“She was"” McGee started to explain, but was cut off by Tony’s angry outburst.
“McGee! Are you saying I like Ziva more than Kate?”
“No! Tony, that’s not what I said.”
“Good! Because Kate was one of the best agents to ever come through NCIS! She might even have been better than me if she’d lived longer!”
“I know, Tony, I know. I was just saying"”
“What are you saying, Probie?”
“I think he’s trying to say that after what happened with your Kate"” Kensi decided to butt in. She was tired of being ignored.
“She wasn’t my Kate,” Tony said defensively. And a little too quickly, Kensi noticed.
It was her turn to pretend he hadn’t spoken. “"this time you’re expecting to lose another agent. To make sure this doesn’t happen, of course you’re working harder this time around.”
Dom walked in and smirked. “Someone’s been spending too much time with Nate.”
Kensi shot him a glare so fierce it wiped the smirk right off his face.
“There, Tony,” McGee teased. “You don’t really care about Ziva, just yourself, as usual. You’re just being selfish.”
Tony glared at him and stalked from the room.
McGee winced. He knew exactly what he’d said wrong, and he knew that it would take a lot of work on his part to get Tony to forgive him.
“I’m going back to base, Boss,” Tony informed Gibbs.
“You’re taking a detour.”
“Where am I going?”
“You and Agent Blye,” Gibbs corrected, “are going to check out a crash.”
“Why?” Tony was confused.
“Do you need a reason, DiNozzo?”
“No, Boss… It’s just that car accidents usually don’t warrant a call from NCIS.”
“Fatal hit and run. Witnesses say we’re looking for a dark car. And Eric caught him running the next red light.”
“That still doesn’t explain"”
Gibbs was growing impatient. “Male, middle-Eastern driver. Rental car.”
Tony quickly realized what Gibbs was implying. “So you’re saying that the guy who did this is a Middle-Eastern man with violent tendencies, from out of town, driving a dark car. Court’s going to say it’s ‘circumstantial,’ but I believe in your gut. I’m on it.”
Then he hollered, “Kensi!” When she appeared in the doorway a minute later, he simply said, “With me,” and turned around to walk out the door. She hurried to keep up with him.
Author's Chapter Notes:
some more stuff about eric/abby/mcgee. lots of references to the past, including Kate. Read it, I promise it's good!
Chapter End Notes:
You may notice that my sense of time is off. You know I can't apologize, but know that the thought is there. I just want to write a good story, which I can't do if I'm being realistic about things like time!