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After Ari takes a shot at Abby, Gibbs brings her up to the squad room, tucked under his shoulder. By the time they arrive, Tony's already on the phone with Metro PD, coordinating the roadblock and the search for Ari's vehicle.
Abby's face is a whiter shade of pale, but she's managing a watery smile at something Gibbs says.
They pass Tony's desk on the way to Gibbs's, and Tony gives them both a nod. Over the phone, the Metro sergeant comes back with an update, and Tony turns away to concentrate.
The rain traces winding trails down the windows, turning silvery when the outside lights shine through it.
"Tony?" Gibbs says, as he drops the handset. Still too nice, too soft, for Tony; hard surfaces are easier to bounce off of. "Take care of her?"
"Sure, boss," he says, and Gibbs heads back to the elevators. Abby's filling out an incident report on Gibbs's computer, fingers flying over the keys.
Tony stops in front of the desk and watches her. The part in her hair is ragged, off-center, her pigtails done up haphazardly. Another reminder that it's been a bad day for the home team. He slides his thumbs into his jeans pockets, making fists against the damp denim.
"Hey, sailor, walk a girl to the locker room?"
Tony blinks as he turns his head. Abby's standing beside him. "Sorry?"
She slips a hand inside his elbow. "McGee brought the car back to the evidence garage. I need my monkey suit to climb around it."
"Right," he says, and starts walking. Abby works her arm around his, almost hugging his biceps, and he lets her. He's not going to be relaxing anytime soon, anyway.
They stop outside the women's locker room, and Tony dredges up a loaded smile from somewhere, because it seems like the thing to do. "Can you handle it from here, or will you be needing some assistance?"
Abby smiles back--her lipstick uneven, her smile as brittle as he feels. "I'm pretty sure I've got it covered, but don't think I don't appreciate the offer." She surprises him with a hug, arms tight around his neck, and he holds her around the waist.
"You're not copping a feel again, are you?" he asks.
Her hiccuppy chuckle makes her twitch under his hands. "Would that be so bad?"
"Ask me again later," he says. His throat is raw, and it comes out in a monotone. She gives him an extra squeeze.
"Just making sure I don't form any negative associations about hugging you." Abby lets go slowly, and he balances her as she settles back down on her feet.
"If you did, I don't think you'd be the first," he says, and she shakes her head. She's got her hands in his. Women tend to have colder hands than men, but now, they're both on the chilly side.
He's not even sure which of them had shifted, back there in the lab, but they did, and the glass broke, and the bullet spalled off the far wall, and Tony had dropped them both even as the report echoed in his ears. Just a little closer, and Tony would have had--
"You should change, too," Abby says, giving him a little shake. "You are very damp."
"So I've been told."
"Abby! Are you okay? I just heard about the shot--" McGee hustles up the hall to them, eyes wide. Tony takes a breath, lifts his head. McGee's too open, all fear and relief, and Tony feels something wind tighter inside him.
"We're both fine, Probie. Thanks for asking."
McGee looks at him quickly, a little stricken, and Tony's throat closes up again. He raises a hand to wave McGee off, ushering Abby forward with his other hand on her lower back.
Abby wraps her arms around McGee's neck, and McGee rests his chin on her shoulder, eyes closed. With both hands, he rubs her back through her black t-shirt, splayed fingers kneading the fabric.
Tony can't watch them any more. He's got his opening, and he slips into the men's locker room while they're occupied.
Abby wasn't completely right--Tony doesn't just need a change of clothes. He needs a shower, too. But he can't justify taking the time, not when Ari's still out there. The storm's taken care of that anyway, washed away--
Kate's blood. Washed away Kate's blood. It was warm on his face, but now it's all gone. Now, he's just damp, and cold, and even if Gibbs isn't really Gibbs right now, Gibbs told him to change, so that's what he's doing. Changing.
He grabs a towel from his locker and scrubs it over his head, hard--
--and then everything slides sideways in a sickening rush, and he expects to hit the lockers, starts bracing for it, because it's going to hurt when he--
"Tony. Tony. Sit--come on, sit down, over here..."
--hands on his arms, guiding him down. Not Abby's little hands, bigger hands, stronger. His butt hits the bench, and his head keeps going down, until those hands catch his shoulders. Holding him steady, and then a hand's on his neck, putting his head between his knees.
The towel's gone, and Tony's vision finally fades back in, like an old television warming up. From this angle, all he can see are knees, kneeling in front of him, but he knows those knees. They're McGee's knees.
Tony sees McGee's knees. It's like a very weird children's book. He chuckles without sound, a stuttered exhalation of breath.
He finally looks up, and McGee's just--there, too close and too concerned and too... close, and Tony swallows hard, clamping down on everything again. Getting back in control. "I'm fine, Probie."
"No, Tony, you're not. You need to take it easy." McGee looks like hell--trying to cover it up, 'cause he's a good kid, good agent, but there's too much white around his eyes, and watching his senior agent fold like a deck chair can't be helping any. His eyelashes are spiky from the rain.
"I could be worse," he says. It's biting, a little cruel. He wants this conversation over.
McGee blinks and breathes out through his nose. He looks back at Tony with almost sullen determination. "Like you keep saying, there was that whole thing where you had the plague last week. And you got blown up yesterday."
"Two days ago." At least, he thinks it was two days ago. It feels like the down side of midnight, anyway. And if it's not, it should be.
"Fine. Two days ago." McGee's looking him over. He's got to learn not to show so much in his eyes. "The point is, you're still not a hundred percent."
"Close enough." Tony sits up straighter, putting a safe distance between himself and McGee. "We don't have time to be weak, McGee."
McGee sets his jaw, not giving in. "It's not weak to have feelings, Tony. It's not weak to be here for each other."
Tony curls a hand around the sharp edge of the bench. "If you start singing 'Lean on Me,' I'm going to stuff you into a locker."
McGee rolls his eyes and stands up, moving down the row to his own locker, muttering something Tony chooses not to hear. Tony strips down as fast as he can, though he gets caught up a few times when the fabric binds and his fingers don't cooperate. He leaves his wet clothes in a tangle at the bottom of his locker. He's got to go call Metro PD, find out whether they found the scene of the shooting, and what they got from it.
"McGee, look after Abby," he calls.
He slams his locker shut, and McGee's right there--dress shirt untucked and half-buttoned, no tie yet, but he's got his arms folded and a vaguely stern look on his face. "You know, Abby said the same thing to me about you."
Tony keeps his hand flat on the locker door, so he doesn't have to worry about it shaking. "We catch that bastard, McGee, and I'll be right as rain. That's all you need to worry about."
"Tony--"
"Go take care of Abby," he says, and it's not a suggestion. McGee watches him for a minute, but that big brain makes him smart enough not to say anything else, and he finally nods and moves away.
The locker room door eases shut on a hydraulic damper, so there's barely a click. But Tony can tell when it closes after McGee, because that's when she pipes up behind him.
"I thought you were never afraid."
"I'm not," Tony says, without turning around. He stares at the three parallel ventilation slots cut into the locker door. "We're going to find Ari, and Gibbs is going to kill him."
"That's not what I was talking about."
There's a rustling sound that Tony can't place, and so he turns his head. Pom-poms, which go nicely with the teeny-tiny skirt and the tight little sweater.
Locker room, ergo cheerleader. Of course.
"You're not afraid of Ari," Kate says. She crosses her arms, tucking the pom-poms against her sides. "It's them." She points her chin towards the door, though her eyes never leave Tony's. "You're afraid of them."
"Only when Abby's been overdoing the caffeine. Or when McGee starts to make sense." Tony frowns as he thinks about it. "That's never a good sign."
"You shouldn't lie to the dead, Tony," she says. "It's not nice."
Tony leans against the lockers, slowly, stiffly. Every muscle in his body aches.
Kate rolls her eyes up to the ceiling--not dulled, not lifeless, and that's the biggest lie here, not anything Tony might have said or not said. "When you hit the inevitable junk food binge, try not to involve Abby. Too much sugar's not good for her."
"She's a big girl," Tony says, but he makes a note to watch for that.
"And stop being such a bastard to McGee." She shrugs, rustling the pom-poms. "Well, not all the time, anyway."
"But it's so much fun."
"Being a bastard is Gibbs's job."
"He doesn't seem to remember that."
"He will." Kate gives him a smile he's seen a thousand times, the one that says there are some things he'll never understand the way that she understands them.
This time, he believes it.
His phone rings, and Tony can't help looking glancing down as he digs it out of his pocket. He knows she'll be gone when he looks up again.
But he's wearing dry clothes, now, and he can start to feel his hands again. Maybe he's warming up a little.