The game was pretty three sided. It was only 10pm but already Kate, Gibbs and Abby were taking charge of the table. It took Tony longer than it really should have to figure out that bluffing with two profilers in the room, ones that knew him well at that, was not really a good idea. He decided he must have a series of tells, but only after they had strung him out for quite a number of hands. Now he was relying on dumb luck and that was working about as well as it usually did for Tony in these situations. At least he was doing better than McGee.
Despite being a super-geek, McGee had obviously spent more time at college in front of his computer than scamming other undergrads for card money. He really didn't have that much of a clue and, if Tony had tells, McGee had neon lights. They all knew this from other poker nights and they were fine with it. McGee showed up for the atmosphere and the company and to be a part of the group. He generally lost his money by 10.30, and left with the first person going his way.
Ducky had a number of successes in the first few rounds and had kept himself well in the game, but it was clear that Lady Luck was favouring only certain members of the group that night and although Ducky played a good game, he was making significant losses with only minimal gains at this stage.
For all his protesting that he hadn't wanted to come, Gibbs was having a great time. His team were in good spirits, they had all had slightly too much to drink and were loosening up around the table as he hadn't seen them do in a long time. ‘Whose fault is that, you old fool,' he chided himself. It was true; it was no ones fault but his own that he hadn't seen this group happy in a long time. He only saw them at work, where he badgered them constantly and was forever on their cases. It gave his weary heart a moments rest to see them smiley, happy and enjoying themselves in each others company. Plus, he was actually being given a run for his money, and that hadn't happened for a long time.
He had his reasons for keeping himself to himself. He loved his team, not that he would ever tell them that, really liked them all on a personal level, too (with one small niggling exception, but that was part of his problem as well). He was trying to keep himself out of danger, as he had discovered he REALLY liked one of his team.
It had started off simply enough. Abby would ask to ride with him to group events. It made sense really; he lived closest to her and of course it would be no problem, it was Abbs, why would he say no?
So he would pick her up to take her to bowling, to team dinners, over to Kate's place to watch cheesy DVDs and pelt Tony with popcorn. They would chat all the way there; talk about how their day at work had gone, outside of the Boss-lab-rat-relationship. Talk about their plans for the weekend, and just what the hell kind of animal was Goofy anyway if Pluto was a dog?
It was fun. Inane conversation was something he never really had much time to indulge in, hence his constant reminders to both Ducky and Abby to stay on track at work, not to mention DiNozzo's Gibbs-slaps.
Then when they got there they would laugh constantly, at the others, at themselves, at nothing. Celebratory hugs at sporting outings (they were always on the same, victorious, teams). His stray fork reaching into Abby's double chocolate melting pudding with vanilla ice-cream, despite stressing numerous times that he didn't want desert; that he didn't have a sweet tooth. Innocent evenings sitting close in the dark; her on the floor in front of the couch, resting her back and pig-tailed head against his legs, her laying on the couch with her head on his shoulder, or on memorable occasions, across his lap. Him cradling her head against his chest as she turned in his lap, cringing from the scenes on the screen. Not the blood and the gore, she saw enough of that at work, but from the sappy romantic bits that she "just couldn't take".
But no one questioned it. They were Abby and Gibbs. They were just like that; it was how their relationship functioned. She was his girl. No questions asked. They were friends, they had fun. And anyway, it's not as if Tony and Kate weren't doing exactly the same thing across the room/table/pitch.
Then he would drive her home, or escort her in the cab after they had all drunk too much to drive. They would talk briefly about the evening, laugh at the silliness that had been allowed to take place off the clock and then Abby would invariably fall asleep. For a while Gibbs would contemplate his team. They were a great team, and it was nights like these ones that kept them that way, he was sure. The team that played together, stayed together. That they could get along like this kept them close in the field. They knew how each other operated, how they thought, and so could rely and trust on each other, knowing how they would react in a situation.
Then his thoughts would turn to Abby. Asleep on his passenger side window or in the back of the cab, she would look childlike in her pigtails, innocent in her sleeping state and beautiful in herself. He had always known she was beautiful, but it was one of these evening when he had first felt he thought she was beautiful.
Contrary to popular opinion, Gibbs hadn't married three times because he was a ladies man or because he was a fool who had been taken in by more than one pretty face. It was because, above all, he craved companionship and love. He had loved them all, despite of himself in some cases, and he had tried to be there for them all. But in terms of companionship he took more than he gave. He couldn't communicate, and yet with Abby, with her explosive enthusiasm for life and her love for everything in it, he could, and had, open up. He had told her some of his darkest secrets, and she was still sleeping peacefully in the dark next to him, not running screaming from him in horror.
He could let himself love Abby, as his heart had been threatening to do a little more every time she kissed him sleepily on the cheek on her way up to bed as he finally dropped her home, or he could distance himself from the danger; from these evenings where his need for her companionship began to overcome him.
This evening, he watched her face as she studied her cards in semi-shadow. It was another cause for concern for him that she could hold her own against him in cards. Few women had ever done that before, he could generally read them. Kate he had expected, she was a trained profiler herself, she had probably taught herself to control the signs of bluffing, but Abby he was surprised at. What else could she be hiding from him?
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