(xiv)
-
”Well. That's inconvenient.”
-
Fatal error. Abbysworld.exe has crashed. Please restart your computer.
Tony wasn't moving. Tony wasn't breathing.
And there was another thing Tony wasn't doing, Tony wasn't bleeding, because his blood was soaking the ground and his fur and Abby's white knee socks, and there wasn't any of it left to lose.
What the hell was she supposed to do now?
Call a vet?
Yes, hi. I've got a werewolf...yes, a werewolf! And he's sort of kind of dead, can you fix him? ...Hello? HELLO?!
Maybe not.
”Tony...come on. Wake up.”
She lifted his heavy head into her lap with shaking hands and petted him over and over and over.
”You can wake up now,” she whispered. ”Tony. You can wake up now.”
The big gray wolf was as still as ever.
”Don't do this. You promised not to do this. You PROMISED!”
The knife sticking out of his chest was mocking her. The song was mocking her.
lie there, lie there, little Henry Lee
till the flesh drops from your bones
for the girl you have in that merry green land
can wait forever for you to come home
and the wind did howl and the wind did moan
No! Tony wasn't dead, he wasn't! Ignoring everything she'd ever learned of crime scene procedure, she pulled the knife out and sent it skittering across the gravel. It wasn't like she didn't know who'd done it already, so what did she need DNA and fingerprints for? And NCIS didn't investigate lupicide. Not that it was lupicide, because Tony wasn't dead.
He was just...just...glowy?
Abby's eyes widened. There was a faint shimmering light playing over the wolf's body. Her hands tingled where the glow touched them. As she watched, it grew stronger and stronger until she had to close her eyes against the brilliance, and when she opened them again, the wolf had changed back into a man.
A very naked man, with a rather nasty stab wound to the chest.
Oh shit.
'If I die and people see me dead, if my death becomes official...My body would be recovered and brought to revive elsewhere...I would be every bit as dead to you as Kate is.'
NCIS did investigate homicide.
Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit.
She was kneeling in the middle of a parking lot, with a naked, bloody and...temporarily discorporated...man in her lap, and it was pure dumb luck that no one had passed by and seen them yet. She had to get them out of there. Now.
She bit her lip. Gibbs knew what to do in situations like this, (or not situations like this, because Abby didn't think this happened very often, but hinky situations in general) the only problem was that calling him was out of the question since he Absolutely Could Not Find Out. Tony said no telling anybody, and she wouldn't. Oh sure, Gibbs only played by the rules as long as they suited him, but she had a sneaking suspicion that he, to quote Tony, looked unfavourably upon miraculous resurrections. Also, he'd be quite pissed off about the fact that Tony knew their suspect and didn't say anything, and...no. Even if she'd been allowed to tell him, that wouldn't end well. She didn't want Tony to be killed. Again. Oh, this was so bad. The only good thing she could see was...well, naked Tony. After all, he wouldn't have changed back if he was really...dead, right?
There was no way she was getting Tony up the three flights of stairs to her apartment alone. He was heavy " maybe werewolves had extra dense bones or something, she should really test that...if he'd just wake up! She shook him hopefully, but there wasn't even a flicker of movement.
”This is a really sucky thing to do to me, Tony!” she told him, scanning the parking lot for options.
Tony's car was out. Mustangs were made for flashiness and speed, not for carting around bodies. Not to mention Tony would have something to say if she got blood on the seats, even if the blood was his. Also, people paid attention to the Mustang, and attention was bad. Her car, on the other hand...well, people paid attention to that, too, but a seemingly dead, albeit very attractive, male would seem less hinky in a hearse.
Much less hinky. Yes.
-
Lottie danced around her room, humming to herself as she spun, skirt flaring. She waltzed with the cherry patterned dress, one-two-three, one-two-three, before folding it with a flourish and dropping it into the half full suitcase on the bed.
She was going home! Finally! Away from this uncultured, gaudy land and its lack of history. She had, of course, hoped her brother would follow of his own volition " after all, she asked very nicely " but she certainly wasn't displeased with the way things turned out. There was a certain poetry about it, and it was much more...final. Antonio always did have a tendency to get too attached to his toys; this way, all strings would be irrevocably cut.
He would be all hers again.
-
Abby had (after some minor mishaps) managed to get Tony into the hearse without too much additional damage. She had covered him with the fleecy black blanket she kept in the car for emergency picnics, picked up his discarded clothes and retrieved the nasty little knife. It made her shudder, and she touched it as little as she could. Her boots were covered in dust from kicking gravel over the pool of blood, to make it a bit more inconspicuous. Not really all that effective, but at least it wasn't glaringly obvious at first glance that someone had been exsanguinated there. Second glance, no doubt about it, but first glance should be alright. It never rained when she wanted it to. Stupid weather.
Now, there was the question of where to go.
She couldn't take him to his place, for the same reason she couldn't take him to her place in the first place. Place was a lovely word. Place. Pllllace. Yes. Focus, Abby! And she couldn't just drive around until he...undied, because she had no idea how long that would take and she had to be at work in the morning or Gibbs would be suspicious...suspiciousER, and...bad.
She could really use a CafPow! right now.
Right. What Would Gibbs Do? Gibbs would...think Tony was dead and store him in the morgue and go off on a rampage. That was out.
She needed a safehouse. With safe people in it. Okay, options. Ducky had a house. But Ducky would probably (she wasn't quite sure exactly what his thoughts on the undead were, since he did hold long and involved conversations with all bodies that passed through his hands) think Tony was dead and store him in the morgue and poke him with a liver probe, or, if he was cool with the whole werewolf thing, there was no telling what Mrs Mallard would do to a naked and defenseless Tony. Also, he'd insist on Gibbs being informed.
Her bowling nuns? Um...naked undead guy. Nuns. Maybe not.
Come on, think, Abby, think!
There had to be someone who had a house and was trustworthy and wouldn't freak out about miraculous resurrections! She really didn't think it was too much to ask for! What she needed was someone like Jos- oh. Oh!
Duh. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
She fished Tony's phone out of his pants and dialed as she drove.
-
Josie was waiting for them in the shadows of the driveway, wearing a white shirt and brown tweed trousers instead of the green dress she'd had on for dinner, looking completely unruffled as if things like this happened to her every day. It was infinitely reassuring.
”Hello again, Abigail. Let's get him inside, shall we?” She crawled in next to Tony and pulled the blanket aside to look him over. ”Oh, you silly boy,” she chided. ”Always getting yourself into trouble. Abigail, there is a wheelbarrow outside the greenhouse, would you be a dear and fetch it?”
The wheelbarrow was large and rusty, with a wonky wheel, and after wrestling Tony into it Abby and Josie wobbled their way to the house. With combined strength they got it up on the porch and through the stained glass entrance.
”I know who's going to vacuum my floors when he wakes up,” Josie muttered, glaring at the dried mud falling from the wonky wheel onto her persian carpets, and Abby let out a long deep breath of relief because Josie sounded so sure, like there was no doubt whatsoever that he would wake up, and it was so good to not be alone in this.
to be continued.
Author's Chapter Notes:
what to do, what to do, what to DO?
Chapter End Notes:
i don't own, there is no money made and no insult intended.