Chapter 8 â€" The Aftermath
Too impatient to wait for the elevator, Abby ran down one flight of stairs and into autopsy, hearing raised voices as soon as she entered. She skidded to a halt at the sight of Gibbs and Ducky facing off over an autopsy table.
"You need to go to the hospital, Jethro, and get that finger x-rayed," Ducky's exasperation was audible in his voice. His concern for his friend was understandable and predictable, as was Gibbs' equally stubborn response.
"You can x-ray and splint it, Duck."
Abby approached and sought to distract both of them before the argument escalated. "Tony said it was only a flesh wound but I wanted to see for myself." She refrained from revealing how the words Tony used when he called her earlier, 'Gibbs is injured,' had caused her blood to freeze. Walking forward she couldn't take her eyes off his hand, which was still seeping blood onto the bandage Ducky was carefully unwrapping. As she got closer, she could see the make-shift bandage over his eyebrow and the blood smears around his right eye.
"I'm fine, Abbs," was Gibbs typical reply.
His only concession to the concern on her face was to raise his good arm and gather her into his side, burying his nose in her hair and nuzzling close, as if he suddenly needed that extra contact himself, seemingly oblivious of their audience. She leaned into him, wrapping her arms around him tightly, not caring for now that Ducky was watching them.
Pulling back, Gibbs tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and gently stroked her cheek with his thumb, cupping her face. There was a tenderness about his actions and an easy intimacy between them both that the medical examiner would have been blind to miss.
Knowing that he would say 'I'm fine' regardless of how badly he was injured, Abby glanced at Ducky for confirmation, catching his intrigued look as he took in their closeness and Gibbs' uncharacteristically unguarded reaction.
"Alright, alright, come over here to the x-ray and I'll see what I can do." Ducky knew when he was fighting a lost cause.
Ducky eyed the two of them with interest while he worked, hiding a smile. Gibbs still had his left arm firmly wrapped around Abby's waist and she looked as if she wasn't about to let him go any time soon either.
Ducky knew how she felt about Gibbs. She'd confided in him long ago and he'd seen how she much she'd suffered when Gibbs left for Mexico several years ago. Along with Tony, he had helped pick up the pieces when she fell apart. It was the first time she'd realized that she loved him and that it wasn't merely a physical attraction she felt towards him. She was utterly lost without him in her life.
But whether Ducky had suspected that Gibbs shared her feelings or had picked up on his attraction to Abby, this was the first time he'd seen such overt evidence of it. Keeping his face neutral, he nevertheless allowed himself an internal 'Yes!' as he took in the subtle evidence of their changed relationship.
Trying to sound reassuring as he got to work, Ducky confirmed, "It does look worse than it is, Abby. As you can see, the finger is broken but it should heal well enough after it's been set and splinted. However, it's going to hurt like hell in the meantime. The head wound is fortunately just superficial."
Dismayed, Abby repeated "Head wound" as she turned to Gibbs to get a closer look at the blood around his eye.
"Just flying glass. I've had worse," he tried to brush it off. Realizing just how close she'd come to losing him today, Abby couldn't keep her hand from trembling as she brushed his hair back from his forehead.
"More to the point, Jethro," Ducky tried to re-start the conversation they'd been having before Abby arrived, "as I was saying just now, Michelle's death is not your fault."
Anguish in his voice, Gibbs flung back, "My bullets killed her."
Ducky was firm. "You had no choice, Jethro, and you saved the lives of the other passengers on that bus. You have nothing to reproach yourself for."
It was hardly a surprise that Gibbs would seek to take responsibility and the blame for tonight's events nearly going belly up, and for the night ending with the death of another agent, even if that agent was the mole. She and Ducky both knew that he felt things too deeply most of the time and was very adept at blaming himself, often unjustly.
Glad that she had Ducky there as an extra voice of reason but still doubting that Gibbs would listen, she felt moved to add, "Ducky's right, Gibbs." Not able to catch his eye when he kept his gaze lowered, she nevertheless tried to push her point home. "Michelle's had months in which to come to you, to the Director, to any of us for help and she chose not to."
Abby had some sympathy for what Michelle had gone through when she'd found out about Amanda, but she kept reminding herself that she had still murdered two men, and that she'd attempted to manipulate the situation right up until the end.
Gibbs glanced at her but remained silent, clearly unconvinced.
She tried again, wanting to get everything she felt out in the open, regardless of whether he would listen. "She had to have known that confiding in you was her best option for getting out of this mess and for getting Amanda back. We tracked down where Amanda was in a day, Gibbs. She could have ended this months ago."
Abby suspected that Gibbs had developed a certain amount of respect for Lee, despite his anger at her actions. The addition of a kidnapped child to the mix had shifted Gibbs' sympathies somewhat, as Michelle had known that it would, presumably. She didn't know the full details of what had happened tonight, other than that Michelle had somehow sacrificed herself. But in doing so, Gibbs had been the one forced to shoot her in order to kill Bankston, to save not only his own life but those of the other people on the bus.
"She crossed the line when she killed Langer." Ducky chipped in, adamant his friend would not walk out of here weighed down with yet another unnecessary burden.
Finishing the splint on his finger and applying fresh bandages, Ducky unconsciously echoed words she and Gibbs had used the previous weekend. "She deliberately chose to sacrifice an innocent man in order to maintain her cover."
His brief glance towards her before dropping his gaze again confirmed that Gibbs had heard the same echo in Ducky's words.
Ducky was determined as he tried to press his point home, "That act alone should mean that your sense of responsibility for what happened tonight should be limited."
"It's not that simple, Duck," Gibbs cut in, sounding increasingly angry. He wanted to pace but Ducky working on his hand prevented it. "And I don't want to talk about it," a note of finality in his voice.
"You don't need to beat yourself up about this... but I know that you will," Abby's soft voice interrupted them as Ducky began cleaning and applying a bandage to the cut above Gibbs' eye. "So you just need to know that we're here when you need us."
Not wanting to take his anger out on Abby when she'd done nothing to deserve it, all Gibbs could do was nod, looking defeated. But he knew he would be seeing Michelle's face mouthing 'Do it' in his nightmares for some time to come. And tomorrow he would have to find a way of telling a little girl that her protector wasn't coming back, a little girl who'd already spent too much of her short life as a prisoner.
Ducky sounded weary as he handed over a bottle of painkillers without much hope his patient would take them, "Take him home, Abby. He needs to rest."
Nodding, Abby gave Ducky a quick hug and then led the way to the elevator. Hand on his shoulder, Ducky stopped Gibbs and told him softly, "I'm very glad you're alive, Jethro. I'm not ready to mourn another friend so soon."
Gibbs reached up and squeezed his friend's hand, acknowledging his reference to losing Jenny, still a raw wound for both of them.
Abby paused the elevator at her lab and Gibbs leaned tiredly against the wall as she collected her bag and coat. He just wanted to go home and retreat to his basement, his exhaustion and feelings of guilt making him feel numb. Walking to his desk, Gibbs nodded at his three agents, collected his gun, badge and coat before heading for the elevator.
Abby kept close to his side, sharing tired smiles with her friends as she followed Gibbs. She couldn't be sure he wouldn't just leave of his own accord if she let him out of her sight and before she could drive him home. She knew he would just need to get out of there and go home. Everyone needed their own way of coping and his was always to be found in his basement, and she didn't want to change that. She just wanted to make sure that he knew she would be there if he needed her, that he didn't have to cope alone.
She didn't expect him to suddenly start pouring out his heart or his feelings to her. That wouldn't be him and she had no desire to change him. He wouldn't be her Gibbs if he changed. But if just by being there, she could help him with some of the burden, then that was enough for her.
But she knew that wasn't likely to happen overnight.
Walking by his side towards his car, she felt him withdrawing from her with every step, his face drawn, and she decided to try and break through before he retreated from her completely. Turning towards him, she said simply, "Which three Bs do you need tonight, Gibbs? Boat, bourbon, basement or bath, bourbon, bed? Or mix and match any of the above?"
Slightly startled at how succinctly she'd summed it up and intrigued by her variation on a theme, he focused on her for the first time since leaving autopsy, finally seeing how much strain she had been under and how tired she looked.
"What are you offering, Abbs?"
"I'm offering whatever you need, Gibbs. If you just need to be alone in your basement, that's fine. Just..." she struggled to express her thoughts without making him withdraw from her further. "Just let me stay so I can at least change those bandages in the morning and make some food. If you want to stay in the basement and climb into a bourbon, that's also fine. After this week, I just might join you in more than a glass or two."
Abby waited while he stared off into the distance. He looked so strained and tired that it was all she could do to stop herself wrapping her arms around him right there and to hell with who saw them.
"Just let me be with you tonight. I nearly lost you and I need to remind myself you're okay," was her final sally when he didn't reply, wondering if she'd gone too far and merely succeeded in pushed him even further away.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Abby's help in unmasking the mole at NCIS becomes a catalyst for change