The Grain of the Wood Underneath Your Fingers
McGee, Abby, & Gibbs
Rating: PG13
I. SOULS CAUGHT IN TREES:
And you're saying oh oh oh each time.
*
You meet her on a Wednesday, but you have a job to do, and try to imagine nothing is different after you've mapped the corners of her smile. Imagine this is normal. That you know what she does to you, what she will do, and what she won't.
When Gibbs appears with a Caf-Pow, she is suddenly still, and it burns right through you. He glances at you for a beat, then to Abby, and hands her the drink. He turns away from her wearing a face that suggests a stray thought, clears his throat, and stays put. At her side, like it's where he belongs. As if he's been there since before forever.
Okay, you think as you eye Gibbs' bracelet, his hand that hovers at the small of her back. Okay.
-
"Our life is separate from the life around us, McGee."
She smirks because your eyes are on her like headlights. The way she said your last name caught your attention. Familiar, like a book with a creased spine that always splits itself open at the same two pages.
"We accumulate spectacles. We now experience things by proxy instead of experiencing them directly. Once a moment is taken out of that reality, it becomes a commodity and anything we actually manage to experience is detrimental to reality. At least that's what Gloria says." She pauses thoughtfully. "Of course, she also said that one of my college boyfriends looked like an extra from Velvet Goldmine."
She's talkative. Eager. You feel the weight of your profession and stare down at your shuffling feet.
"So, that's, uh, that's a yes?"
Her brow knits. "What?" she asks.
"I asked you to lunch," you tell her, "and you went into a dissertation—"
"Oh." She plays with the ring on her finger. You notice another tattoo. "Yes," she nods.
Your eyes are gentle. "Good," you say.
"No," she corrects. "Excellent."
Then Gibbs walks into the lab with his coffee and his lack of sleep, the world firmly on his shoulders, as usual. Tony and Kate follow, silent in yesterday's clothes, sharing a look that says: we're going to screw each other one way or another, a sentiment that seems even more prevalent in high stress jobs. Gibbs looks at you and looks away.
-
When she comes over to your apartment she brings food, something in a black casserole dish that smells questionable, but she assures you is homemade. You show her around as well as you can: there's the kitchen, the bedroom, two of my favorite sweatshirts and books piled on the couch. She lowers her eyelashes as she edges out of her coat and you try not to smile at the blush that's spread across her shoulders like an old movie.
-
You're smiling from the weekend when Tony saunters—there's no better word for him on a Monday morning—over to you and, with an exaggerated groan, sits on the edge of your desk.
"Hey, Probie." He glances down at the papers next to him. "Good weekend?"
You're still grinning and Tony's fishing for something. Great. You decide to start talking before he does.
"Yeah, it was."
"Really?"
You hadn't planned to say anything else, but for some reason are encouraged by the suggestion in his voice, and suddenly understand why witnesses are usually forthcoming with him.
"Abby drives a hearse," you say without preamble. "A Cadillac. Mid-sixties, I think." He gives you a look. This was the last thing he expected. "Whitewall tires, double-stitched leather seats …"
"McGee," Gibbs greets.
You trail off when Gibbs passes your desk. He gives you a very hard look for those few seconds and shakes his head like he tastes blood or the beginning of words he first heard in the dark.
"Boss," you nod.
You're not sure what it means, as if anyone will ever figure out Gibbs, but later Abby tells you she has other plans for lunch, later Gibbs is gone in the middle of the day, later it will all make sense.
-
Tell yourself that you know this woman. That you understand what she says to Gibbs with her fingers. Her dominance, she's curious and will break you apart, hands soft as she searches your body for weaknesses. Pretend that you love her: pale like Ducky's corpses and eyeing you with the same hardness. Tell yourself it's what you want.
-
It's 2:37 in the morning and you have a pocketful of bar napkins. She kisses you on the damp street outside her apartment. She smiles through the kiss and talks against your mouth—something about motherboards—and it's perfect.
-
You once asked her about Gibbs. Nothing specific, just how long she'd worked at NCIS, and how well she knew him.
"I can't tell you stuff like that," she says after a succession of shrugs. "You have to find out those things for yourself. Get to know a person."
She touches the inside of your forearm, your wrist, and you feel her breath across the line of your jaw like a set of invisible fingers. She laughs against your throat and kisses you out of your clothes and into bed.
The following morning in the lab, you give her a teasing smile. You are an investigator, though, which means you work with other investigators, and naturally, everyone notices even if the reddened tips of your ears hadn't given you away.
Kate thinks it's cute, Tony slaps you on the back twice but threatens you when nobody is looking, Ducky regales you with a tale about him and a woman named Emma, and whatever Gibbs' thoughts on the subject, they don't travel to his face.
-
It's been a very long day and she offers to drive you home. Underneath the radio and nestled firmly in its holder is an empty white coffee cup. It stands out as the only thing in the car that isn't black. A stutter in his step or the curve of Abby's hand, you've seen how they unconsciously give each other permission, and that means something. The meaning is slippery. You're the one who's with her. You are here now.
When you kiss Abby goodnight it's so hard she tells you to stop.
-
You are thinking of Gibbs. He gives away nothing, keeps a knife in his pocket, and drives like he's trying to escape still-falling shells from a war that ended fifteen years ago. He would not have been this gentle with Abby. He only touches boats and no one touches him.
Here is her hand, her wrist, her thigh, her heart, the sweat between her breasts that beads like pearls. You never want this to be familiar and are making a map, mumbling low when you touch her. All night you want to stretch your arms across her, seeking out skin-and-bone landmarks, all those places her clothes keep secret. She interrupts.
"Do you think you're my future?"
"No," you sigh, hands already trying not to forget her. "An imitation of it, maybe."
She shifts. "What do you mean? I've got a McGee-lite occurring somewhere down the line?"
Her body tenses beneath you as she tries unsuccessfully not to laugh. You take her hand and describe a circle or a square, something you both can stand inside.
"Time repeats itself in a way," you tell her. "The future will present you with a similar situation, but the repetition is in your reaction to each one."
"Wait a minute," she says incredulously. "Your pillow talk is a specious physics argument? You've just made Einstein cry like a huge baby. Time is linear, Timmy—"
You pull her against you, hands diverging as they come to a rest: one on the back of her thigh, the other at her left elbow. It's maybe what you intended to say all along, and you raise her arm towards you, as if waiting for ink to dry.
-
It lasts about a month. She is bent over a microscope and does not seem surprised.
"It's not that I don't think you're great," you reassure her while flattening your tie. "I like you a lot … Abby," you pause at her cocked head, "though you can be a little bit overwhelming." She crosses her arms. "In a good way," you add.
She takes off her gloves and turns to face you.
"I dreamt about this a week ago," she says. You'd agree even if you didn't. "I need something different."
"And me?" you ask. "What do you think I need?"
"I have no idea, McGee." She smiles sadly. "But, that's sort of the point, isn't it?"
II. STILL COMPLEX:
Your eyes closed as if no one is left out.
*
You've been staring at Gibbs for the past ten minutes trying to figure out what's different about him and it's driving you crazy. He came in Monday acting strange. You spent the next two days just trying to find a word to describe his behavior. You never found one and it's been nagging at you all week long, that something has changed and you've got not idea what. Right now, you're watching him, and are glad he hasn't noticed.
"Something wrong with your eyes, McGee?"
Okay. He has noticed. Thankfully, you're saved from giving him a reply when Abby steps off the elevator and makes a beeline for his desk. You can't hear what she says to him, but he doesn't say anything in return. Not right away. Just looks at her. Stares like he's trying to decide how to touch her, which would never—and it hits you—what's different. It's you. You and Abby aren't together anymore.
"Hey!" Gibbs shouts, successfully scaring you out of your reverie. "McGee!"
He looks conflicted, sad and happy. Everyone's searching for that type of ending, a perfect note that's just held forever.
-
The next time you see her she's playing with Gibbs' collar, fingertips teasing at the stitches and the fabric that press into the curve of his neck. She's standing too close to him to give you any focus and as you pass, you resist the urge to tiptoe around them both, and whatever it is you're not understanding this time.
-
She's somehow managed to break the computer at her desk for the third time this week. According to her, it suddenly shuts itself down and then displays the blue screen of death. You have a sneaking suspicion her computer malfunctions are related to the huge number of Simpsons episodes she's been downloading.
"Abby," you yell towards her. "I need a flashlight."
"Please don't shout." She manages to scowl at you from several feet away. "It's not polite." She sighs exaggeratedly and takes her time walking over to her desk. "What was it you needed?" she asks. "And use an indoor voice."
"Could you just give me a flashlight?"
She points. "Second drawer from the bottom." You begin to reach and she grabs your wrist. "Second, McGee," she says, then narrows her eyes, and lowers her voice. "Not third."
You look at the drawer and back to her.
"What's in the third one?"
"An experiment of sorts." She leans close. "Two words: Eccrine glands."
Before you have a chance to respond, she makes a noise that resembles a smothered giggle, as Gibbs has just walked into the room, sliding a hand across her shoulders as he walks up to the both of you. He notices you at her computer and his routine non-smile slides into a tight frown.
"Abby," he says in that way, lingering just a bit too long, like the words themselves are searching for a place to settle. "We've talked about this."
"Gibbs," she protests. "I said I wasn't doing that anymore." She shoots you a loaded look, obviously annoyed that you told him about her penchant for the Simpsons, and continues. "People don't realize you can actually learn from the Simpsons. Take, for instance, the oh-so-subtle allusions to Les Misérables and Kraftwerk—"
"It's not that," you tell him, cutting off Abby before she's in full lecture mode. He knows you're lying but doesn't care. "It's just a short."
"Upstairs when you're done." You shake your head. He tosses you his phone. The display is cracked and it smells like coffee. "This is broken."
"Come on, boss man," Abby says, taking Gibbs by the elbow. "Let's talk firearms."
You watch them walk over to her comparison microscope. The fabric over your eyes is falling away and what to do next?
-
There is a bar and a jukebox and a song about a plane crash.
Abby grabs your hands, tugs you backwards, hips leading the way to the dance floor as she half-hums along with the jukebox, "Teach me how to dance real slow …"
She nudges you with her hip and somewhere in the back of your mind, you're made aware of her faults, or of your own. It makes you uncomfortable having her only in handfuls, and though you finish out the dance, your eyes are on the door the entire time.
III. THE DEPARTING BODY:
This moment is more and less than could ever be conveyed.
*
Asleep at a lab table, she is dead to the world and wearing a faint smirk, and it's hard to imagine her still, as restless as she is when awake. Your gaze travels from her mouth to her eyes to her neck as you suddenly question the reason behind every mark drawn indelibly on her skin. You press your thumb against the tattoo on her left shoulder. It's an impulse you've never cared to curb. Not even after you hear Gibbs clear his throat.
"McGee."
His words are whispered but their insinuation is setting off car alarms.
"Boss," you point to Abby, "I was just—"
"She know you do that?"
"You mean, that I still care about her even though—" He takes a long sip of his coffee. "Well, I try to make sure, yeah." You try to shake the doubt from your voice. "Yes."
"Good." He squints as if he's trying to remember something. "You find our guy's car yet?"
You say no, but not in those exact words, and he says fine. Tells you to go back upstairs, that he'll be there in a minute.
-
He's leaving. It's a hasty decision. He was nearly blown to pieces and the moment is still open, still too fresh, and someone needs to tell him not everything comes at a price, that one decision shouldn't come at the expense of another. You think he knows this. The man's heart must be a rumpled sheet.
When he gets onto the elevator, you expect someone to stop him, but no one does. All of you stand stone still, struggle with the silence left in his wake. You force your hands into your pockets and if anyone else notices the room slowly dimming, they don't mention it.
-
Time has pulled itself back for the last three nights as she's cursed fate, shed tears, and taken the blame for Gibbs' departure.
You held her the first night because there's nothing else you could do. You held her the second night because things were coming to a head and you were always too cautious for her, too safe for forever. You're not sure why you held her for a third night.
Your arms are getting tired.
-
Gibbs has been gone two weeks when you walk into work and find Abby sitting at his desk. You grab a chair and sit down next to her. She's playing solitaire on his computer and does not acknowledge you until her game is over. Even then, she just scoots closer as she restarts the game. After she loses for the second time in a row, she turns to you with a heavy sigh, and leans her head on your shoulder.
"This totally sucks." She reaches under the desk for your fingers. The studs from her collar press into your shoulder. "Big time."
"He didn't leave you, Abby." Her fingers tighten around yours. She's asking you to stop. "He left this place and you know that."
"It isn't right."
"There's nothing we can do," you say. You know Gibbs better now that he's gone, the way he needed to be an island. "Stop thinking about him and just—"
"And just what, McGee?"
She stands up and leaves. You glance at your surroundings. Sitting at Gibbs' desk makes you feel strange and small.
-
Her laugh comes a little slower. You try to understand. You try and try and try.
-
It was very strange at first, unexpectedly having Tony as a boss. You don't doubt his ability to do the job and trust him with your life, but as for everything else, time can only do so much, and Abby says you're colder each time she sees you. Still, though, she moves closer.
-
You're cleaning your weapon, each part is laid out very neatly and very carefully on your kitchen table, and you run through a mental checklist: frame, barrel, slide, magazine to your right along with the solvent, and -
There is a very insistent knock at your door. You glance at your watch. It's about a quarter past five in the morning on a Saturday and there is no question as to who is at your door. You're not sure how to describe it, but there are three frames flat against that particular wall, and she makes each one rattle.
"McGee," she yells, muffled by the door.
It suddenly swings open by itself and you see Abby slipping something thin and metal into her bag.
"You picked my lock?" you accuse.
She isn't apologetic. "I just wanted to see if I could."
"I can't believe you picked my lock." She shuts the door. "It doesn't surprise me, though."
She frowns. "I'm letting that slide," she says, sitting down at the table. "I am here with a purpose, McGee. I am a woman with a plan. There's a specific reason for my presence."
"What is it?" You watch as her hands fidget, finally reaching for the magazine, and you are suddenly nervous. "Abby?"
"Who decides how many rounds per magazine? I mean, is there a guy who just chose fifteen out of the blue for your gun? What about a revolver? You think that was just convenience? Six seems like a decent cylindrical number. Who'd want a seven-chambered revolver? Especially considering how unlucky the number seven can be for some people. Did you know that Edgar Allan Poe actually—"
"Abby."
She sits up straight in her chair and pulls it closer to the table.
"It's about Gibbs."
You hear her and lower your eyes.
"Memorial Day is in two weeks," she continues. "I want to send him something from us. From all of us."
She is taking bullets out of the magazine one by one and arranging them in a straight line. They flicker with potential and you start to shake your head slowly. She was ready and shows you her big green eyes with soul in them.
"I'll find his exact location," she says, without a trace of what she is thinking on her face. "I'll make sure he gets it." Her chair scrapes against the floor as she stands. "It'll be good for him."
You believe her. She smiles and it's like someone opened a window. She misses him and you miss her.
-
"Tony is doing a good job, yes?"
You turn to Ziva. She's taken to pulling her hair back as of late. It's nice.
"Yeah, I think he is." You drum your fingers on the steering wheel. Surveillance is not your favorite part of this job. "Especially since he realized he doesn't have to act like Gibbs. I'm glad that was short-lived."
Ziva makes the sort of face in which you can see everything on which she hasn't given up. She turns as much as her seat allows, her hands gesturing as she begins to speak.
"Tony only acted like Gibbs because that was how we were treating him," she says. "It's understandable. It's what we wanted."
"When we got used to Tony we stopped treating him like Gibbs," you say, pausing to consider a passing car. "And as a result, he stopped acting like Gibbs?"
"Something like that," she says, dryly, and glances at the clock. "And how is Abby doing with all of this?"
Abby is owed more goodbyes than most people think and you're not sure how to answer Ziva's question. Turns out you don't get the chance. The man you're waiting for finally shows his face and two minutes later Ziva's got him handcuffed. He's cursing and writhing on the ground at her feet. The image strikes you as odd and you start laughing very loudly.
"McGee?" she asks while dragging the man to his feet. "Are you alright?"
You don't have an answer for that, either.
IV. A SENSE OF KNOWING:
Light that hits the window and sprinkles downward.
*
It is Memorial Day weekend and you've taken about five steps into your parents' house. Your mother is on her tiptoes with her arms around your neck and your father, always a few steps away, asks you how you how you're doing while not asking how long you'll be able to stay. You're about to ask after your sister when a balled up pair of socks hits the left side of your head. You don't get a chance to tease her about her boyfriend because your phone rings and your family stops.
"Sorry, Mom," you say, taking the phone out of your pocket and stepping towards the front door. "I have to take this."
"I figured," she says, knows her sighs have never stopped you. "Find us in the kitchen when you're finished."
At first, all you hear is noise, a sort of whooshing sound that seems to lessen every few seconds, and then return louder than before. Then there's an exhale so familiar that it can't be excused.
"McGee?" he asks.
His voice is strong and you've forgotten how it sometimes makes your heart work harder. You wonder what he's like now, if he goes to sleep with the windows open and wakes with the sea on his skin, or what he does to keep his hands occupied. Some branches are for holding, others are for letting go, and you have no idea what type Gibbs is extending.
"Tim?" he asks, slightly concerned.
You are still thinking of Gibbs. It's got nothing to do with Abby.
Author's Chapter Notes:
This is what is between and this is your head full of doubts. McGee wants Abby, or so he thinks.