Abby stayed plugged into her iPod, flipping idly through a forensics journal for much of the flight, refusing to watch the movie. ‘Glitter' was underrated in Tony's opinion, if for no other reason than the amazing kitsch factor. It begged for heckling, but he didn't think his fellow travelers would appreciate his sense of humor and since Abby wasn't in the mood to talk, he watched in silence. That didn't stop him from grimacing at all the right moments, though, and some of the flight attendants seemed to share his pain.
Even with the sympathetic and mildly conspiratorial grins from the flight crew, he still wished Abby would pay attention to him. She'd been strangely quiet all morning, barely whispering a greeting when he picked her up, just smiling softly at his half-hearted attempts at conversation. He knew she wasn't particularly chatty before her first dose of caffeine, but even after the world's most overpriced and undersized cup of designer black coffee and a soda or seven, she was oddly calm. There was none of her usual impishness, and only traces of energy that always seemed to be whirling around her.
The movie ended and Tony turned his attention to watching Abby, shifting to look directly at her. She knew he was watching her, he was certain of that, and a tiny smile just barely touched her lips. The magazine closed and she held out her hand to him, still not making eye contact. He decided to take what he could get, and wrapped his fingers around hers, lifting her hand to his lips. He couldn't explain why, but it seemed like the right move, not that it was a move, not in the traditional sense. She wasn't a woman that called for moves, and Tony thought that any boy foolish enough to try would probably be left limping away. And he didn't think of her like that, not really. She was friend and sister and buddy and one of the most honestly beautiful women he'd ever known. So, it felt right to be kissing her hand twenty thousand feet above land.
*
Abby didn't have words. Not today, not after this week. Thoughts raced through her head faster than she could catch them, and after awhile, she surrendered, just letting them pass. She'd stopped feeling three days ago, running from the ache in her heart because she did not cry and if she stopped to feel, she'd do nothing else. Ever. The rest of her wasn't doing much better, surviving on minutes of sleep caught here and there and even though she knew it wasn't physically or chemically possible, she thought her blood stream had been replaced with a steady river of caffeine.
The case had affected her, without a doubt. She spent most of her days looking at some of the worst things people could do to each other, picking through tissue samples and blood, seeing the things that nightmares are made of. Most days, it was just work and she loved what she did. This case was different. It filled her lab with ghosts, and they followed her home, on the nights she made it home. Serial killer, targeting military families, parents with partners serving overseas and young children at home. The body count was fifteen by the time they got a break in the case, and eighteen when Gibbs and Ziva caught her. It would have broken twenty if they'd waited just a few more minutes.
Her work wasn't pretty, but there was an elegance about science, a certain artistic element to it. Ellison Cantwell's work had been ugly, and filled the lab with pieces of lives barely lived. Pieces of children hidden in Autopsy, kid bits, Abby called them in her more irreverent moments at the beginning. It took weeks to put it all together, hitting wall after wall. Her faith in science, and more frighteningly, her faith in Gibbs, were both shaken. She thought faith was meant to be tested, questioned, reaffirmed, she just didn't expect to find herself on such shaky ground with it. Feeling like at any second every certainty she held would fall apart.
Abby was grateful for this time away from the lab, from the rest of the team. She hated the required trainings, disliked her fellow forensics "experts," and generally found these little gatherings a waste of time, but she was glad to be away. Tony wasn't supposed to be with her. Kate had been scheduled to go, the arrangements were made almost a year ago, but Kate was dead and Director Shepard thought Tony could use the training hours. Gibbs didn't argue, and Abby was past caring. He wasn't bad company, and unlike McGee, he wouldn't try to take care of her and fuck it all up.
*
Tony wanted to take care of her, but didn't know how to ask. It was something that just happened between them, without being discussed. A matter of timing, mostly, knowing when to show up with a pizza, dark chocolate, Caff-Pow!. A lot of their caretaking was about food. Sometimes it wasn't, sometimes it was knowing when to give a hug, how long to hold on. Knowing when to fuck off and when to listen.
She scared him when she was like this, so still and so far into her own head. He'd dated a girl like her once, who wasn't really like her at all. The similarities mostly started and ended with being Goth, but Abby reminded him of Bela, the way she would just retreat into silence. Those lapses were almost always just the beginning, the opening melancholy that would lead into depressions so deep he worried she would never come back. He didn't like to think of her, and felt disloyal when he pushed her memory away because he did love her. He'd also been the one to find her. At first, he'd thought she was just sleeping, then he found the note. She made it through that time. The second time, he'd come home too late, and stepped on pieces of the mirror in the hallway. He didn't notice the blood until he was in the kitchen.
"Tony?" Abby looked at him now, and he realized how tightly he'd been gripping her hand.
"Sorry," he tried to let go, shaking his head, and she held on. The woman next to him merged for a moment with the girl in his head and a tiny shiver ran through him. Tiny grew into noticeable as Abby reached to cup his face, holding his gaze. It wasn't until then that he really saw how bloodshot her eyes were, how red-rimmed. The makeup did a good job of hiding most of it, but it was clear she had been crying. He wanted to kick himself for not noticing sooner and more so when Abby leaned in and kissed him lightly on the lips.
"Did you enjoy ‘Glitter'?" she asked, settling back into her seat and seemingly into herself with the return of her usual open grin. He believed none it, not the easy tone or the expression. He was as skilled as she at pretending, putting on the face that said everything's fine, especially when it wasn't. And they both knew when it was bullshit, even when no one else could tell.
"It's a remarkable cinematic endeavor. A fine example of modern American film-making," he returned her grin, full force, and fully aware that they were still holding hands.
"That's one way of looking at it," she said, arching one eyebrow. Tony let her draw him into a comparison of other unfortunate films, finding himself defending the indefensible just to pass the time and just to keep her talking.
*
Abby thought Tony looked at home here, taking long strides across the parking lot with the sunlight playing off of his hair. His sunglasses were a little goofy, his blue cotton shirt rumpled from the long flight, but he seemed at ease. Abby fished for her own glasses in the huge black bag, balancing it on top of her small suitcase as Tony unlocked the rental car. Her hands, emerging from long black sleeves, looked ghostly in this light. Girls had stared at her as they'd made their way through the airport, and she had stared back. She wondered what they saw in her that made them turn away, flustered giggles reaching her ears. She wished she'd had time to stop and ask, but they had places to go. Funny thing about airports, everyone had some place else to be.
She threw her bag in the trunk next to Tony's and stood back to let him unlock the passenger door. As he slid past her between the cars, she felt his hand rest on the small of her back. She couldn't help it, she leaned into him, one hand reaching for his and the other on the door handle.
"Abs, you okay?" he said softly, mouth close enough to her ear for his breath to tickle her skin.
"What would you do if I said yes?"
"Take you on your word and be hurt that you lied to me," his voice was just a little husky, and his arms closed around her waist.
"Then no, I'm not okay and neither are you and can we stop pretending that we are?" she turned to face him, lifting her hand to the line of his jaw. "How long did it take you to find the right cover?"
"What?"
"I know he hit you. I was outside interrogation, you walked right past me, didn't notice. You did a good job covering up the bruise. Lucky he didn't break your jaw," her hands shook as she touched him. He winced, closing his eyes but didn't pull away, not physically at least.
"It's nothing. I pushed him too far. We were all on edge and these things happen."
"Not on our team and not with Gibbs," Abby's voice took on a hard edge, her heart hurting again. Emotions were inconvenient, distracting.
"He apologized, I apologized. It's fine," Tony insisted, avoiding meeting her eyes.
"Now who's lying? He doesn't get to make you his whipping boy, DiNozzo," she was the one to move, taking a step forward.
"What is this, an intervention?" he asked from the other side of the car.
"Maybe it is and maybe it's not my place to say anything, but he's the one who went too far," she finally opened her door and sat down, that simple motion taking more energy than she had. "He went too far and you let him and it scares me."
"It's not about you, Abby."
"Yeah, it is."
"What was I supposed to do? Go to Shepard so she could fire him? Hit him back? Tell me, Abs, because I did what I knew how to do. Just let it go," he said. She took a deep breath, considering her next words and watching his face as he steered them toward the highway.
"I love my job and I was afraid to go to work yesterday. I believe in a lot of things, but there are only a few that I trust, and until Monday, Gibbs was the one person..." she shook her head, voice breaking. "I've been shot at, held at knife point, suffered through Ziva's driving, and averted more explosions than I could reasonably account for, and I've never been afraid to be in my lab. My best friend had her brains blown out in the line of duty and I watch three of the men I love most in this world put themselves in harm's way every fucking day and I've never, ever doubted that you would come back. I've never not trusted any of you, and yesterday, I sat in my car for an hour before I could go into the building. So don't you dare say this isn't about me."
*