Keryl Raist's Blog, page 30

Shards To A Whole: An NCIS Fanfiction

McGee centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 116. Feeling Better

Day three Abby woke up, looked at Tim, still sleeping, and felt really good. Really, really good. Like, the kind of good she had felt when she woke up on their wedding day. She smiled, a wide happy grin, slipped out of bed, and went to brush her teeth and use the bathroom.
Okay, so the honeymoon hadn’t gotten off to the sexiest start, but she had some things planned, and it was high time to start doing them.
She hadn’t let him touch one of her bags because that’s where her goodies were. As he slept, she quietly grabbed it and took it into the bathroom.
The first of the goodies in it, which she had intended to surprise him with on the first night, but hadn’t because the headache was pretty awful by that point, was the next step in the theme of things Tim didn’t usually get to see her in. She has lace teddies. He’s bought them for her. So she knows he likes them on her. But this one, in light, sheer baby pink, with a matching g-string and thigh high stockings, also in baby pink, is a whole lot frillier and more femme then what she usually wears or what he’d get her.
She brushed out her hair, and then wet the roots and fluffed it up a little. Bedhair, just slightly more attractive than real bedhair.
And then she waited. She stood, leaning against the doorway to the bathroom, staring at him.
Tim’s sleeping on his stomach. He does that when she leaves the bed, rolls from his side onto his stomach into where she had been. It’s fairly warm so the blankets cover up to his low back, leaving her with an excellent view of the top half of him.
Part of her wants to get back in that bed, run her tongue from his earlobe, down his neck, to his arm, kissing the tattoo on his right arm, the one they have in common.
Part of her wants him to see her in this before they touch.
Part of her is just enjoying watching him. Abby is a connoisseur of Tim’s body types. She’s seen just about all of them and enjoys them all, too. Which is not to say she doesn’t have a preference when it comes to the different shapes of Tim. And the way he’s been looking the last six months or so is definitely her favorite. Apparently, cutting most of the sugar out of his diet did result in a very fine looking Tim. But this time he didn’t go overboard, he’s not the scary skinny he was a few years ago, but he’s quite a bit leaner than he was when they started dating the second time.
And from the looks of it, her eyes trace down his back and arms, a lot of sex is good for upper body development. He’s not cut, no washboard abs like Jimmy, (Of course, she knows how much time Jimmy spends at the gym to get that body, and if she’s got a choice between Tim with her and a less developed body, or Tim at the gym and ripped, she’ll take Tim at home.) but he’s noticeably stronger than he was when they started dating, and she certainly appreciates the fact that he can pick her up and keep her up long enough to fuck her senseless, let her come down from her orgasm, and then go for another round after that. 
And really, that’s all the upper body strength as any guy needs.
She’s grinning at him, thinking about licking down his spine, biting gently on the crest of his hip, which is just peeking out from under the blanket, when he opens an eye and looks at her. She sees that eye travel from the top of her head, down to her toes, and back up again. A smile spreads on his face as he pushes himself up.
He stands up, pulls her out of the doorway, quickly kisses her cheek and says, “Two minutes,” before vanishing into the bathroom himself.
She kneels on the bed, hands on her thighs, arms pushing her breasts up and out, waiting for him, and two minutes later he’s back out again, looking at her like she’s the most delicious thing he’s ever seen.
He stands in front of her, naked, half-hard, eyes raking slow, hot trails over her skin. If there was ever a man who understood how to eye fuck, it’s Tim.
“I take it you’re feeling better.”
She grinned, raised up on her knees, wrapping her arms around his neck, and kissed him long and hard.
“Yeah.”
“Good!” He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her tighter to him as he kissed her back with just as much enthusiasm as she had shown him a few minutes earlier. He pulled away for a second. “You’re all dressed up, anything in specific you want?”
“Lots and lots of things, but we’ve got lots of time, too.”
“Then what should we start with?”
She wiggled encouragingly against him, feeling half-hard perk into full hard, then leaned back in his arms, and began to rub her breasts, through the pink lace, keeping her movements slow and deliberate, using her whole hand as she cupped, lifted, stroked and rolled, knowing that watching her do that would drive him crazy.
His eyes were glued to her hands and breasts as she said, “Maybe it’s just my imagination, I mean, it shouldn’t be happening this soon, but they just feel really full and sensitive today, and you know how when you play with them, I feel it in my clit, too? And I’m wondering if you can get me off by playing with them.”His eyes lit up and rose to meet hers, while he grinned wildly and said, “Let’s find out!”
His right hand stayed firmly against her back, giving her something to lean into, while his lips trailed down her neck and shoulder. He tugged gently on the shoulder strap of the teddy with his teeth, causing the lace to rub against her breast.
She hadn’t thought the lace was particularly rough, but it’s not smooth either, it isn’t satin or silk, so there’s a definite friction to the way it’s sliding over her skin.
And it’s a friction she’s appreciating. She wasn’t lying when she said they felt bigger and more sensitive. There’s a sort of pleasant heaviness that’s just craving touch right now, and this light, rough, almost scrape is making that more intense.
She feels his fingers on her belly, slipping up from under the teddy, feathering over the skin on her ribs, tickling a little, making her skin heat, and drawing her attention to her torso, but not touching where she’s craving his hands.
“That’s not my breast.”
He let go of the strap, and that was unfortunate, because the tugging stopped, but the wet of his lips on her collarbone as he said, “I know,” felt pretty fabulous, too. “I’ll get there. As you said, we’ve got lots of time.”
His right hand stayed on her back, but in a heartbeat his left was hooked under her knees and she was on her back on the bed before she even knew he was thinking about doing it.
Tim hopped onto the bed, stretching out beside her, resting his head on his right hand, and used his left to stroke the edges of her teddy, getting the scoop of the top, the straps along her shoulder, and the lacy frill along her stomach.
“I like this color on you,” he said as his forefinger began a long, slow circle of her nipple. He bent the finger, so his nail caught and rasped along the lace, adding an almost stutter-y quality to the touch. “It’s really pretty.”
He raked all four fingers lightly over her breast, across her sternum, to the other one, pulling the fabric tight in the process, tugging it a little further on her breast, more gentle friction across her nipple.
“You know what’s even prettier?” he asked, between wet soft kisses on her shoulder and arm.
“What?”
“The way you squirm when I do this.” He laved his tongue along the scoop neck of the teddy while giving her nipple a quick flick with his middle finger. And she did squirm when he did it, arching into the touch, trying to get more pressure, because this teasing was sweet, but it wasn’t nearly enough.
“Tim!”
“Yeah?” He traced his tongue over her collar bone, slipping it down to just dip between her breast, and back up to her lips for a kiss as his fingers went back to that long, slow circling.
“Fuck,” she breathed it as he sucked on her lower lip, his whole hand cupping her breast, squeezing it gently, pulling his fingers over the flesh to caress her nipple.
He pulled back and grinned. “I certainly hope so.”  He moved quickly, yanking the g-string off, settling between her legs, ending with his weight on his elbows, lips on hers as he brushed his chest against the tips of her nipples. Abby wished she wasn’t wearing the teddy, she could feel the heat and pressure of his chest, but not the smooth slide of it, and she wanted the slip of his skin on hers.
Of course, it wasn’t just his chest that was touching her. The tip of his cock was also slipping along her, gently nudging her lips, rubbing against them slick and hot.
“So, how specific were you thinking on the ‘get you off by playing with them’ thing. Like, if I do this…” and he thrust into her while closing his lips over her nipple and sucking hard, “does that count? Or…” and he pulled out slowly, as his teeth grazed the wet fabric, ‘were you thinking just touching your breasts?”
“God, Tim!” That’s too much of a good choice. He’s slowly rocking into her, while he blows on her nipple, hot breath over wet fabric and needy skin.
“Or maybe…” He pulled all the way out and slid the length of his penis along her clit while licking slowly over her nipple.
“Show off.”
He grinned at her. “Of course.” And then rolled back to her side. “Sit up.”
She did, and he pulled the teddy off, tossing it on the floor.
“I thought you liked it.”
“I do. And when you ask me to get you off playing with your ears, I will happily let you keep wearing it.”
He sat back against the headboard and patted his lap. Abby straddled him, gently rubbed against his dick, slipping her pussy along it, but not letting him in, and then sat on his lap, leaving it pressed against her.
“I guess that answers my question.”
“For now.” She rose on her legs an inch, rubbing her clit against him as she did it. “Though I may change the rules at some point.”
He settled back, shifting the pillows some, and then spread his legs a little further apart, spreading her a little further, “In case you decide to change the rules soon.” And then bent forward to kiss her breast.
When she’s sitting in his lap, Abby’s nipples are right at lip level. His left hand cupped and stroked the right one, while his lips blanketed the right with wet, open mouthed kisses. He kept his eyes on hers, making sure she’s watching him as he sucked her nipple between his lips, mouthing along it wet and gentle, pulling back to lick it delicately, just the tip of his tongue circling it, followed by a firm bite to the underside of her breast.
Watching him is driving her crazy, the way he’s looking at her, hot sex in his gaze, while his tongue rubs and his lips pull, and she caught the wicked little glint in his eye right before he bit, and that sharp contrast to wet and soft made her jerk.
He groaned when she did that, arching against her, while squeezing her breast, laying his tongue against where he had just bitten, leaving a wide, wet patch, and the blowing it cool and dry.
Then he switched, hand on her left, mouth on her right. Like always when he plays with her breasts she could feel him do it, feel the deep satisfaction of his touch in her chest, feel her breasts go heavy and ache with a heady pleasure, and at the same time she feels it in her clit. No sensation of touch, just the sensation of the pleasure of touch. Her head fell back, and her hips started a slow roll, adding direct contact, multiplying the effect, pressing against him in a way that made her whole body feel hundreds of shades of golden perfect.
He nibbled over her breast and said, “Turn around.”
While she did so, he scooted a bit further away from the headboard, so he could lean back. “On me, cowgirl style.”
She did, sliding down him, very glad for the extra sensation. She was about half way down when his hands closed on her hips. “There. Lean back. Your back on my chest.”
“Ohhhh… fuck…” That position, angle, and depth meant one thing. And then he started to do it. Short, shallow thrusts that got her g-spot over and over, as his fingers twisted and stroked her nipples.
God, it was good! All sorts of good. His cock hitting at that exact right angle, and his fingers pulling, making her gasp each breath, body tightening on his, seeking more sensation.
And then he stopped, just holding the thrust, keeping up the pressure, but ending the friction, as his fingers went to light, feather touches over her nipples.
She was squirming, trying to get him to move, finding her own friction if he wasn’t going to do it for her, and he bit her shoulder lightly.
“New trick.” Tim sat up. “Off of me.” And straddled her, and for a moment she thought he was going to press her breasts together and rub off between them, but he didn’t. Instead he took the tip of his penis and circled her nipples with it, stroking her with that soft, wet, hot flesh, making both of them very happy with that sensation.
A minute later he was licking that wetness off. Lapping at her. Murmuring about how good she tasted as his cock rubbed against her hip, and his fingers stroked her pussy, deliberately avoiding her clit.
He’s told her about being so hard he could feel his pulse in his dick, and she gets it now. She’s never been more aware of her clit than she is now. And it does feel like it’s pulsing, like every touch to her breasts is ramping up the desire another notch.
Never in a million years would Abby have ever thought about Tim using his eyelashes on her breasts, but by that point they were so hard, so flushed, so sensitive, that the light fluttering of his lashes against her nipples was incredible. But it wasn’t enough. It was like the ghost of a touch. Or maybe the memory of one.
It was enough to make her squirm, make her moan and arch and beg to get off, but it wasn’t enough to do it.
He pulled back, bit her nipples, hard enough to really get her attention, not hard enough to mark, and then sat back against the headboard and pulled her into his lap.
She slid down him with a very loud groan, at least she thought it was loud, it was hard to tell because he was louder, but the fullness, the added stretch and friction made her teeth clench and her hands fist, and this: wet, hot tongue on her nipples, teeth pulling them, cock filling her, the long slip of slick friction, and his thumb on her clit, set her off and made her see stars.
When she came back to herself she wasn’t sure if he had gotten off or not. He still felt pretty hard but it takes him a few minutes to lose his erection. She was really wet, of course, she was also really wet when she slid onto him.
“Did you?”
He kissed her gently. “Yeah.”
“Good. I got a bit fuzzy there at the end and wasn’t sure.”
He grinned at that, looking pretty smug.
She poked him.
“Hey, you just told me I made you come so hard you couldn’t tell if I got off.” He giggled at that, still looking smug and very pleased with himself. “And, since me getting off isn’t exactly subtle, that just makes my day.”
She laughed, too, and then kissed him, and reached for the tissues. “So, what do you want for breakfast?”
“Pussy.”
She rolled her eyes, smacked him gently on the chest, chuckled, and slipped off, handing him a tissue while wiping herself up. “After. I need some real food.”
“Okay. Room service?”
“You planning on keeping me occupied until the food shows up?”
There was a huge grin on his face as he said, “I might be.”
“Nope. Shower, out, food, show me at least one interesting thing you saw yesterday, and then all the pussy you can eat for lunch.”
“I can get on board with that plan.”



Strolling around Charleston, pretty Goth wife by his side, arm around her shoulder, her parasol shading both of them from the bright, late fall sun, morning sex putting a spring in both of their steps, Tim found himself thinking that this was exactly how he had been hoping his honeymoon to go.

Shards To A Whole: An NCIS Fanfiction

McGee centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 115:

So there are things people usually do on their honeymoon. Sex. Sex is always on the list. Nice restaurants, that’s usually part of it. Sight-seeing, sure. Snorkeling, according to Gibbs, that’s popular, though they’re heading toward Charleston, SC, which isn’t exactly a snorkeling sort of place. Spending lots of time cuddled up, yep, very popular.
Downloading every pregnancy book available on Kindle and reading a bunch of them, well... That might not be common, but Tim sincerely doubts they’re the first couple doing it.
And, while they had planned to do honeymooning type things while driving around the south, checking out Charleston, Savannah, Atlanta, back up to Richmond, and then home, something else needed to happen first, something that wasn’t going to be pleasant, and until it happened, nothing else was going to be fun, at all.See, the thing is, caffeine is a drug. And like nicotine, withdraw isn’t pleasant.
And while caffeine and pregnant isn’t forbidden, the amount of caffeine that’s considered safe for a pregnant woman is about what Abby gets in two or three swallows with a CafPow.
At first, as they were driving down, and Abby was getting more annoyed and irritable, Tim was thinking that pregnant mood swings were kicking in a whole lot earlier than he would have liked, and he was starting to get scared. She was viciously jabbing the iPod, looking for new music, complaining about there being nothing worth listening to on it, and he gets they don’t have the same musical tastes, but it was her iPod loaded with her music.
If she was this emotional five days before her period would have shown up, later on was going to be insane.
They had stopped for gas, and he’d gotten their usual driving fuel, gas for the car, CafPow for her, coffee for him, and then she burst into tears while rambling about poisoning their baby and torturing her with what she wasn’t allowed to have, and he suddenly got what was going on.
She went to hide in the bathroom for a little bit. He got her a Non-CafPow, filled it two thirds full, and topped it off with CafPow, booked a few extra days in Charleston, bumped Savanah back, and cancelled Atlanta, fairly sure they weren’t going to be doing much of anything the first few days.
He was waiting in the car when she came out, about ten minutes later.
She looked at him, eyes red, and half-smiled, looking sheepish. “Sorry, I lost it.”
“Have you had any caffeine today?”
“No.” It was three in the afternoon, about the time she would normally be on her third or fourth CafPow.
“Cold turkey is a bad plan.” He handed her the cup. “It’s two thirds decaf one third caf. When we get to Charleston, we’ll do some research and figure out how to do this without killing you.”
“Okay.” She gulped down the not quite as CafPow, and sighed happily. “I can feel it tingling through me.” She petted the cup. “Oh, I’ve missed you, my love!”
He looks at her, shakes his head, and says, “It’s gonna be a long nine months.”


The good thing was it was a really nice hotel suite. Comfortable, attractive, good view of the historic district from the one side, and French doors that opened onto the piazza overlooking a lush green garden surrounding a fountain on the other. Tim had a pretty good suspicion they were going to be spending a lot of time in there, and unfortunately, not in a sexy-we-didn’t-get-out-of-bed-fucking-right-and-left sort of way.
They got there in time for dinner, had some, and started reading.
And yeah, cold turkey wasn’t going to be easy, or pleasant, but given how much caffeine is supposed to be safe for a pregnant lady, and how long it would take to get Abby down to that level if she eased off at a rate that wouldn’t hurt, well, let’s put it this way, it’s likely Abby would be wrapping up her maternity leave before she got down to the recommended maximum of 25 mg a day.
So, cold turkey it was.
And, for a good five minutes Tim thought about doing it with her. He’s a good husband (or will die trying to be one) and a supportive pregnant father, so quitting caffeine with her seemed like a good plan.
Until he actually thought about it and then decided that if she was going to be irritable, in pain, and insanely craving a drug, there was no reason for him to be all those things, at the same time. Sure, he’s not as hooked as she is, but he drinks six 20 ounce cups of coffee a day. To say he’s got a major caffeine habit is not an exaggeration. He just looks like a piker because he lives with Abby and works with Gibbs.
He’s going to have a much easier time being a good husband if he’s not jonesing for a fix. When it comes down to it, he’s thinking both of them insane at the same time is a bad plan.
So for right now, he can taper down a bit (maybe get down to four and a half, okay five, twenty ounce cups), and once she’s off it and sane again, and probably after they get home because he’s not seeing much reason for him to be annoying to everyone when they’re on their honeymoon, he’ll cut it out, too, because he is a good husband and a supportive pregnant father and it doesn’t seem fair to him that she has to quit and he doesn’t.


If there is anything lonelier than sitting alone on your honeymoon, Tim doesn’t know what it could be. And yet, here he is, alone, on one of the swinging benches overlooking the harbor, reading the kindle version of What To Expect When You’re Expecting, willing time to move faster.
Once they figured out cold turkey was the detox plan, all the rest of their plans got pushed back, and lay around and rest became the major goal for the next few days.
He’d been fine with the lay around and rest plan. Abby was hurting, caffeine withdraw causes headaches, and she was having a near migraine level experience, so she didn’t want to move. He was just sitting in bed next to her and reading or writing. He thought that was going fine.
About two hours into it, she rolled over, looked at him and said, “Tim, I love you, I always will, but I’m a little insane right now, and just hearing you breathe and click the next button on your Kindle is pissing me off. Get out of here. Do something interesting. Come back with dinner and tell me about it six hours from now.”He was about to say, “Are you sure?” but she was already glaring at him pretty hard, so he scooped up his stuff, got dressed in the sitting room, and went out.
And while it’s true that Charleston is filled with cool things, they’re cool things he wants to do with her, not on his own.
So, he kind of failed on the do interesting things part of the assignment, but he figures he can make something up if she asks him about it.


He opened the door quietly. It’s dim in their bedroom; the sun’s not quite down yet, but it’s close, and she doesn’t have a light on. But he sees her roll over when he opens the door.
“Hey,” he says, sitting down on the side of the bed.
“Hi.”
“You feeling any better?”
She sat up slowly. “Yeah. Still crabby and headachy, but it’s not as bad as it was earlier.”
“Good. I brought us dinner. You want to eat?”
“Yeah.” She stands up, heading toward the sitting room. “What did you get?”
He followed her out, pointing to the large collection of bags on the coffee table. “A little bit of a lot of different things. I wasn’t sure what you might want, and wasn’t sure if we’d be going out again soon. So...” Part of the reason for picking Charleston is that it’s a great food town. There’s a little bit of everything there, and most of it is supposed to be good. On the way back to the hotel, he’d more or less popped into any restaurant that looked even remotely interesting and ordered something to go. He had everything from Asian fusion to soul food.
And doing that allowed him to come up with something of a version of what interesting thing he might have done, because he didn’t bother to use the GPS to find his way back to the hotel, and got a little lost. So he can tell her about wandering around Charleston.
Opening all of the boxes and grazing through what he had brought seemed to perk her up. A thought occurred to him. “Did you eat anything today?”
They’d had breakfast, but she booted him out around what should have been lunch time.
“No.”
It’s true that most of the time they just sort of grab food whenever they can. Breakfast is pretty constant, but eating during the rest of the day tends to happen whenever, and both of them miss meals right and left, often making up for them with coffee or CafPow.
“Mental note, if you aren’t constantly sucking down CafPows, you need to eat real food.”
“I wasn’t hungry.”
“I don’t get hungry when my blood sugar drops, either. But I do get crabby, and I’m guessing that was part of my kindle annoying you.”
“Maybe.” She shrugged and took a bite of a sandwich. “Oh, God, Tim, this is the best thing ever! What is this?” She holds it out, and he takes a bite.
“I have no idea, but you’re right.” He looked at the box it had been in, and then the bag the box had been in, and hoped that it would trigger a memory of ordering it, but it didn’t. He took another bite. It was salty, sweet, crispy, savory, buttery, meaty, some sort of bird but not chicken or turkey, and just mind-meltingly good. He snagged one of the fries that were in the box with it. They were long and very thin and crispy and also amazingly good.
“When you feel up to going out, we’ll go back and figure it out. Have you had one of these fries?” He held one out to her, and she ate it from his fingers.
“Ohhhh!” She took another bite of the sandwich. “It’s duck. I can taste that.”
“Okay, I remember now. It’s duck confit with blueberry honey, on whatever sort of bread that is, apparently buttered and grilled crispy, with Belgian style fries.”
“Oh my god! We have got to go back there.”
He took the bag the food came in, folded it up, and put it in the pocket of his jacket. “So we can find it again.” Then sat down next to her, and took another bite of the sandwich.
She leaned her head against his shoulder, chewing happily. “So what did you do today?”
He told her about walking through Charleston, sitting at the Harbor, and watching the butterflies. It’s not so much that he’s got a thing for butterflies, but November in DC is basically winter, and down here it’s getting cooler, but it’s still warm, and the flowers are still in bloom, and there are butterflies everywhere flitting from flower to flower. And watching them flutter around, along with the palm trees, was just a really vivid sign that he was nowhere even remotely like home.
Honestly, he’s having a hard time believing they’re in the US. It’s just so tropical here. He tells her about the brightly colored buildings and the way everything feels like the Virgin Islands or the Bahamas.
They finished the sandwich and fries, and he poked around in the bags until he found the one that had the bread pudding with hard sauce in it, and that was awfully good, too.
So, they were sitting on the floor, in front of the coffee table, backs against the sofa, feeling comfortably full, and well, Tim was in a pretty good mood, but Abby was starting to get irritable again, and he could feel her tensing under the arm he had around her shoulders so he said, “Let’s go to bed, you lay down, I’ll give you a massage.”
“Are you trying to get sex?” She’s giving him the don’t even try it look. Which up until this point he’s never seen in relation to sex. Messing with Major Mass Spec, touching her computer while she’s got it working on something, let alone unpacking her doll collection (he’s not allowed to touch it, at all), but not sex.
He rolls his eyes and flashes her his really? look. “Yes, but not tonight. Sooner this crap is out of you, the sooner you’ll be happy and fun and interested in sex again, and I think we’d both like that. So, even though you’re all prickly and doing your best impression of a pissed off porcupine, I am offering to rub your entire naked body, slowly, and with a lot of care, because doing that will help your body produce endorphins, which it probably needs, and help you flush the caffeine out faster, and then, even though, as I said, you’ll be both naked, covered in oil, and I will have been touching you for at least an hour, I will not expect any sex from you.”
And for the first time since their wedding night, Abby laughed.
“I love you.”
He smiled, quickly. “You damn well better. On the bed, now!”
She got up, pulling off her clothing as she headed to the other room, and lay down on the bed on her stomach, still smiling. “What if I want sex after you get done?” she asked as he fiddled around with their luggage looking for the oil.
“Then you better be nice to me. We’re married now, so I’m not just some booty call for when you’re feeling frisky.”
She laughs again. And he’s very happy to see she’s starting to come back.
“Did we bring massage oil?”
“I remember packing some. I think it’s in the bag with the toothpaste, shampoo, and soap. Not the toys.”
“Why would it be in there?”
“Because it can spill. The lube is in there, too.”
“Okay, that makes sense.” He heads into the bathroom and locates both the massage oil and the lube, and also sees some Tylenol, and bring all three of them out. No he’s not thinking there’s going to be sex tonight, but he doesn’t see any reason to make two trips, either.
He sits next to her. “So, what still hurts?”
She sighs, posture slumping. “Everything. Headache’s the worst part, but I hurt all over. It’s like a full body headache. Like... you know how you ache when you have the flu?”
“Yeah.”
“Like that.”
“Yuck!”
“Yeah.”
He rests his hand on her shoulder. “I’m really sorry you’re hurting.”
“I know.”
“Want some Tylenol?”
“It’s got caffeine in it.”
He got up and put the bottle back, saying, “Why would they do that?”
“Who knows?”
A few seconds later he was back, straddling her hips. He poured the oil into his right hand, and then rubbed it between his palms, warming it up. He laid both hands on the back of her neck, then slowly slipped them down her shoulders and arms, a long, gentle stroke designed to just feel good. He’s great at working the kinks out, the kind of touch that hurts good, but that’s not what he’s aiming for tonight. Tonight he’s just petting her, letting his hands soothe over her in slow, gentle-firm strokes, starting at her neck and working his way down her body.
And after an hour of it, when he lifted his hands off her feet, she was asleep.
So he got up, brushed his teeth, debated jerking off, because naked, oil covered Abby stretched out under him as his hands rub all over her body has him pretty hard, but doing that on his honeymoon is so terribly depressing that he doesn’t care how horny he gets, it’s just not going to happen, so he snuggled around her.
This really wasn’t how he thought their honeymoon was going to go.

He kissed her shoulder, breathing in her scent, remembered why they were doing this as his arm wrapped around her, and smiled, a little, before going to sleep.

Shards To A Whole: An NCIS Fanfiction

McGee centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 114: A Present
He was putting the last bag into the trunk of Abby’s Roadster when a familiar Minivan pulled up.
“Good, we didn’t miss you,” Jimmy said while getting out. Breena hopped out, holding a small, green gift bag in her hand. Molly was dozing in her car seat.
“What’s up? We leave something at the hotel?” He didn’t think that had happened, let alone that Palmer would end up with it, though if memory serves, they did stay at the Adams House last night because Breena’s parents took Molly, and they wanted a night out, but he couldn’t think of anything they might have left. 
“Nah. Where’s Abby?”
“Right here,” she said, stepping out of the house.
Breena handed her the bag. “I couldn’t not do this.”
Abby stared at the bag, looking confused. They’d already gotten a wedding present, a really high end grill with all of the goodies, from the Palmers.
“Come on, open it!” Breena is grinning at them, beaming happiness in a way that puts Tim in mind of Abby in an especially good mood.
Abby did, and felt the smile start as she pulled apart black tissue paper. Tim was looking over her shoulder and also felt  a grin creep over his face. It was a onesie. A tiny, black, skull covered onesie. Under it were little white shoes with black spider webs.
“I knew if we waited, all of the Halloween baby gear would be gone, so we had to do it fast.” Then Breena wrapped both of them in a hug. “Congratulations. Okay, we’re not going to keep you from heading off, just had to give you that.”
As Breena pulled back, Jimmy hugged both of them as well. “Have fun!”
Tim’s grinning, just insanely happy at that moment. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” Palmer said, stepping back.
At least he looked like he was going to step back. A second later Abby was hugging both him and Breena, and babbling about how cool this was and how much she loved it. 

Shards: A Wedding Night

McGee centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 113: The Wedding Night
In almost any situation, if given the option, Tim will take real candles over the fake ones with the LED lights. He just prefers how fire works, how it looks, and the general feel of it.
But, tonight was an example of the only situation he could think of where he preferred the LEDs. Namely, before they left for the church, he set up their house for tonight, and if he had done it with real candles, he would have needed someone to sneak in and light the damn things, or left her waiting in the car while he got them all lit (and it would have taken forever because he’s got 75 of them).
Abby walked next to him up to the porch, holding his hand, and he unlocked the door, then picked her up, kissing her as she giggled, and carried her over the threshold, up the stairs, and down the hall to their bedroom, each step of the way lit by little LED tea lights in small crystal globes.
He’d put them on each step, clusters of them in the hall, and set collections of the different sized pillar candles all over their room. The whole house was  suffused with softly glowing gold.
The softly glowing gold lit a bedroom where the sheets had been changed out, their usual soft, nubby flannel replaced with cream colored 1600 thread count cotton. The comforter had been folded back to show off the new sheets. He’d thought about sprinkling rose petals all over the place but decided against it. He had no idea what the shelf life of rose petals yanked off the rose was, but didn’t want them to be getting brownish and dry by the time they got home.
But there were roses, whole, beautiful, sitting on her nightstand, and ready to be played with.
He placed her on the edge of the bed, kissed her long and soft, and then pulled back.
“Gotta close the door, and grab the rest of the stuff I got set up earlier.”
She smiled at him. “Got a few surprises of my own, too.” She checked the clock. “I want you back up here in fifteen minutes, okay?”
“I can do that.”


He had a plate of strawberries, cream for whipping, and chocolate in the refrigerator. He’d planned on strawberries and champagne, but yesterday changed that plan. Bottled water would do. 
He’d gotten the idea for the strawberries over the summer. They’d been out with Palmer and Breena, some sort of farmer’s market thing, and Breena had grabbed a big box of them.
And later that afternoon, while he and Jimmy played with Molly in the baby pool, he was watching Abby eat them, really enjoying it, probably with a pretty stupid smile on his face the whole time. Finally she had said to him, “What?”
He just grinned. “The man who doesn’t appreciate watching a woman eat strawberries is gay or has no imagination, and since neither of those things are true about me…” and then he pulled her, giggling, into his lap, splashing water all over both of them, (and Jimmy, and Molly who grinned a two-toothed, six month-old-baby smile, decided splashing was the best thing ever, and spent the next twenty minutes at it) and kissed her.
And since then, whenever they’ve had strawberries, she’s given him something of a show when she eats them.
He took the blender out of the fridge, set it up, and whipped the cream. And that really was easy.
He’d been planning on spooning some Cool Whip into a bowl, but a few minutes before they were going to leave for the wedding Ducky had put the left over snacks in the fridge, seen the Cool Whip next to the strawberries, and then came out of the kitchen, tub of Cool Whip in his hands, looking at Tim with disgust.
“Timothy.” Ducky sighed, and held up the Cool Whip. “This atrocity has no place in your home, let alone any plans you might have for your wedding night.” Ducky tossed it into the trash can. “Real whipped cream takes less than a minute to make and is vastly better for anything you might want to do with it. Watch.” He took the cream Tim uses in his coffee out of the fridge and poured it into the bowl of his blender. “Oh, that’s convenient,” Ducky said looking at the measures on the side of the bowl. He added a little sugar. “Do you have any vanilla?”
“Yes.” Tim pointed to their cupboard. “It’s kind of old.” He only uses it to make Christmas cookies.
Ducky opened it, sniffed, and poured a few drops into the cream and then put the lid on the blender.
“The secret to great whipped cream is making sure that everything is very cold when you do the whipping. By the time you get back tonight the cream, the bowl, and the blade at the bottom of the blender will all be thoroughly chilled. Just set it up, hit the whip button a few times, and you’ll have whipped cream.”
“Oh.”
And standing there, spooning a nice, cold, fluffy mass of what does indeed taste significantly better than Cool Whip, and honestly, has a better texture, too, into a bowl, he realizes the old man was right.
He popped the chocolate into the microwave, forty-five seconds in there and a quick stir would take care of it.
Tim checked his watch, four minutes down, eleven to go.
He headed for the powder room and looked at himself. He’s sure Abby’s up there doing something to make herself look sexy… She’s already sexy. Sexier… He swallows hard at the idea of what that might be. So some effort on his part would be a good thing.
Sometimes he wishes that lingerie for guys didn’t look so goddamn stupid. He’s not adverse to costumes and playing or anything like that, but for whatever reason little silky things on him always look dumb as hell. (And yes, he does know that from first-hand experience; it’s not just conjecture on his part.) He’s read that a man in a good suit is for women what a woman in something small and lacy is for men, and he agrees with that, because from his experience (and from what Breena, Abby, and Ziva have agreed with) men in lingerie just makes them giggle.
Of course, Abby prefers him dressed up, but a little undone.
He took his jacket off, unbuttoned his top button, loosened the cravat a little more, and rolled up his sleeves. She likes to be able to see the wrist cuff. He stood there and debated unbuttoning his vest, but eventually came down on the side of it looked better on. He took his watch off; it makes the cuff on his left stand out a little more if his right wrist is bare. Tim took his boots and socks off, not so much because it looked better now, honestly, now it looks a little strange, but he doesn’t want to mess with the boots later, and black socks and naked isn’t a good look for any guy.
Which left him with eight minutes to kill.
He wandered back into the kitchen, and messed around with the strawberries a little, rearranging them in the bowl, trying to make them look prettier.
Then an idea hit. The whipped cream is mostly for him. Abby’s not a huge fan of it, so he was thinking of licking it off of her. But she does like chocolate mousse, and though he’s not a great cook, he’s fairly sure chocolate mousse is basically melted chocolate (in bowl A) and whipped cream (in bowl B). Twenty seconds of googling, a minute long youtube video, and he’s folding the cream into the chocolate, well, not like a pro, but like someone who’s very eager to make some chocolate mousse, quickly.
And with a minute to go, he was heading up the stairs, strawberries, water, and chocolate mousse on a tray, very eager to see what she’s been up to.


It had taken Abby a while to figure out what she wanted to do tonight, after all, it’s their wedding night, so it’s got to be special, really special.
In all honestly, she’d probably spent longer bouncing ideas around for this than it took to come up with the idea for the wedding.
Granted, she didn’t have Palmer and Breena helping her plan this.
Well, not Palmer. Some ideas did get bounced off of Breena and Ziva, but none of them really loved the ideas she was playing with.
In the end, it was mostly a matter of chance. The lady who made her dress was a costume designer, and her Etsy page had a lot of interesting things on it, mostly period dresses, but one thing she had on there had been custom designed for someone else, and was just being held on Etsy to make it easier to pay for.
It was a beautiful, calf length, 1950s Hollywood style peignoir in peacock blue with a black lace trim. And when Abby saw it, the idea started to form. Judging by how Tim reacted to her in the Marilyn get up, both from the it-didn’t-look-like-anything-she’d-usually-wear side, and from the it-was-just-really-pretty side, she figured this should hit a bunch of his buttons, as well.
Seeing how into the first-time-at-the-lake-girl-scout fantasy Tim was solidified the idea.
And so, picture in hand, she asked if Jennie (the costume designer) could make one for her, but for a wedding night. In white, pristine, virginal white. Jennie looked at her, and suggested that a cream lace trim would make it look better, add just a little contrast, and make sure the white didn’t wash her out. Once she saw the colors against her skin, Abby agreed.
It was also the lightest, sheerest silk Abby had ever felt. It was like wearing the idea of lingerie. Hints of her nipples and tattoos were visible through it.
That would certainly get his attention.
She took her hair down. In order to have enough of it to put it up properly yesterday she’d had extensions added in. And Breena had put in the red streaks. Which meant right now, she had a long, fluffy spill of black hair with red highlights curling down her shoulders and back.
Abby washed off her makeup, and then redid her eyelashes and brows. She didn’t want anything that would feel (or worse, taste) like makeup on her skin, but darker, longer eyelashes are always a good thing. The red lip stain she’d put on before the reception had faded a bit, but still left her lips darker and fuller than normal.
She patted her hair a little, and fluffed the roots a little higher.
That done, she opened the bathroom door, and stepped out.


He was putting the tray with the food on it on the nightstand when she opened the bathroom door.
And it was a good thing he had it almost all the way down because his hands went slack when he saw her, so he dropped it the last inch. For a long minute he just stared, saying nothing, looking his fill at this amazingly beautiful woman in front of him.
It’s a white nighty. The kind the looks a little like an old-fashioned slip. And she’s looking up at him, a little shy, catching his eye, then looking away, biting her lip.
“It’s just, I’ve never done this before, and I’m a little scared.”
His eyes went wide and his breath caught in his chest. That’s a game they’ve never played before and it sears into him, making his dick go hard so fast he felt light-headed.
He licked his lips, taking a moment to figure out what to say to that. What would be in character? What works with the clothes and the setting and their wedding night, and it hits him, and he smiles.
“Me either, and I’m a little scared, too, but we’ll figure it out together. We’re good at that.”
She grinned, eyes lighting up with joy at that response. And he feels so happy he doesn’t know what to do with himself.
They stepped toward each other, meeting in the center of the room, in front of their bed. His hands hovered over her shoulders for a second, letting the heat build between them, before gently slipping down her arms, his fingers twining with hers.
“We’ll take it slow, see what we like, and play it by ear.”
She smiled at him, still nibbling her lip, looking so amazingly adorable and sexy. “That sounds good.”
They’re both in bare feet, so she raises on her toes, and pressed into him for a long, slow kiss. It’s soft, easy, gentle, just lips on lips, exploring. He can feel her wedding band, and gives her hand a gentle squeeze, then lets her hands go and traces his fingers lightly down her back.
She shivered a little at that, so he pulled back to ask, “Good?”
“Yeah.”
“How about…” He twisted one hand into the mass of her hair, lifting it off her neck, as she rested her head on his shoulder, and scraped his fingernails, once again, lightly, from the nape of her neck to the top of her peignoir.
She purred gently and pressed in a little closer, as he played the tips of his fingers over her neck and shoulders.
Part of him was wishing this really was his first time, though he’s fairly sure that he couldn’t do this if it was. Not so much just the experience of it, knowing her body well enough to read each touch and response, but the patience of it. He’s pretty certain that if they had never done this before, he’d be way too turned on and keyed up to just relax into this and enjoy each touch.
A starving man can’t savor the meal in front of him, and he wants to savor this.
Abby reached for his cravat and untied it, slipping it out of his collar, and then touched the base of his throat, fingers resting on the dip of his collar bone, and in any other situation that’s not a touch he’d find particularly erotic, but right now, at the start of a long, steady build, he’s enjoying it immensely.
He took a half step back, her fingers still on his throat, and cupped her face in his hands, thumb tracing over her bottom lip. “Did I tell you you’re beautiful?”
“Not today.” She kissed his thumb.
He shook his head. “Sorry. You are so beautiful. Every minute of today I’ve been thinking about it. That you’re beautiful: your body, your mind, your kindness, and your joy, and all of it together is just so beautiful, and I love you so much that I can’t begin to find words big enough for it. I don’t think there are words big enough for it. I love you, Abby.” He stepped closer to her again, and kissed the top of her ear. “Love your ears.” He kissed her jaw. “Love your jaw.” Kissed her shoulder. “Love your shoulders.” Kissed her chest, and each breast. “Love these.” He smiled up at her, nuzzling against her right breast. “Really love these.” She grinned down at him, petting his face, and he turned his lips to her palm, for another kiss. “Love your hands.”
Then he slipped a little further down, and kissed her belly. “Love your tummy.” He slid his lips a few inches below her belly button, and slipped out of the game to whisper, “Love you, too, baby,” before inching his lips to her hip, and tracing his way down her leg with kisses and cherishing words.
The slit on the peignoir came to mid-thigh. He kissed her knee, and then placed his fingertips on her leg, just below the cream colored lace edging the fabric, gently playing them over her skin, circling down to her knee and tracing back up again within the bounds of the slit. For a moment he just looked at it: his fingers, wedding band on the fourth one, on her leg. He looked up at her, and saw her watching his touch as intensely as he was.
“You’re so soft.”
She smiled, and he let his whole hand caress her thigh, reveling in the feel of her skin under his hand, and the immense intimacy of touching her like this. His woman, his wife, and he gets to put his hands on her, he alone gets to enjoy the pleasures of her body, and yeah, it’s not pc, but that feeling of ownership hits him hard, and the feeling that she’s given herself to him hits him even harder.
He wrapped both hands around her thigh, and traces them down her leg, slipping over her calf and cupping her ankle. He kissed her knee, and then gazed up at her. “You chose me. And I am going to spend the rest of my life making sure you’re always glad you did that.”
She knelt in front of him, fingers twining in his hair, and kissed him, slow and deep, lips lingering on his, tongue easing against his. Then she pulled back. “Timothy.” Her safe word, and he’s never heard her use it before, so he stopped everything and just looked at her.
“Nothing bad. I don’t want this to be a game. Not tonight.”
He took her left hand in his, kissed her ring finger just above her wedding ring, and stroked his fingers lightly down her arm, goosebumps rising in their wake.
“It’s not. Just because I’ve felt it before, doesn’t mean I don’t marvel at how soft your skin is, let alone how good it feels against mine. And, you’ll probably think this is dumb, but the fact that you’re mine, really mine, and that I’m the only one who gets to do this, is hitting me so hard it’s making me giddy.”
“You think I don’t feel that about you? My husband. My man, now and forever, wearing my ring. Yeah, I get it.” She kissed him again, harder this time, deeper. “Mine!”
There’s a visceral thrill that goes with that word, a palpable rush, and he pulled her closer to him, returning her kiss, putting all of his feelings into his touch.
Eventually she pulls back, stands up, letting him know to stand as well with a gentle tug on his hands. As he does she begins to unbutton his vest, fingers moving quickly over the buttons. A second later it was tossed on the floor, and she started on his shirt, taking her time this time, kissing each bit of chest or stomach as she undid each button.
When she got done she pulled the tails of the shirt out of his pants, but left the shirt on, and then stopped to just look at him.
He’s not breathing hard, yet, though he was breathing faster than normal. His eyes moved over her body, and the expression on his face was a mix of hungry lust and transcendent joy.
Her fingers traced lightly, just the barest brush of the tips across his chest and stomach, and he inhaled quickly, small goosebumps raising on his skin, nipples going tight.
“Have I told you how much I love watching you like this?” Abby asked him.
He shook his head, and she pressed forward so he was sitting on the edge of the bed. She hiked up the skirt of the peignoir and straddled his thighs, resting her hands on his shoulders, leaning in to kiss his throat.
“I always have. You, half-dressed, hard, ready to make love to me, it’s my favorite sight.”
He grinned, hands settling against her hips.
“Part of it’s the anticipation. I know what goodies are under that clothing, and enjoy seeing what we’re going to get up to.” She pushed his collar aside, and ran her tongue lightly over his right shoulder. “Part of it’s the fact that you’re drop dead sexy when you’re half dressed. I’ve never seen a man do just a little skin better than you do.” She pushed the other sleeve down his left arm, and bit gently on his shoulder. “But mostly it’s that when you’re like this, your face, your eyes, they’re completely open. Everything you’re feeling, everything you’re thinking, it’s on your face. You never shut me out when we make love, and I love that, cherish it.”
She kissed his lips, and he wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, and from there he lost the details. He remembers the light on her skin, and the all-encompassing feeling of being adored, and he knows it was slow, that they took their time, undressing, kissing, making love with mouth, hands, and words.
And eventually he rolled onto his back, and she followed, straddling him. Her eyes were on his as she held him in place, pausing for a moment, waiting for him to nod, before sliding all the way down in one long, slick moment of exquisite contentment and joy.
She lay forward on his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her, both of them still and reveling in the completeness of it. He kissed her forehead, nose, and lips.
“I love you so much.”
And like everything else this night it was slow, focused, pulling as much sensation and depth out of each stroke as possible.
He kept his eyes open, watching her, lit gold, hair wild, rising in falling on him, hands twined with his, head back, chest flushed, gasping with pleasure, clenching around him: his wife, best friend, partner, the mother of his child, and he felt so gloriously loved and so intensely whole and home.
“I love you, Tim, now and always, this life and the next, forever…” The words, the feeling of it, the pleasure of this, all crested in a rush of golden-white ecstasy blended with even more love and bliss.
When he came back to himself, she was lying on his chest, gently stroking his ring finger and wedding band. 
Her forehead was within easy reach, so he kissed it. She kissed the bit of his shoulder that was under her mouth. And they didn’t speak, just laid there, and enjoyed feeling that moment.
And eventually she pushed up, stretched across the bed and grabbed a few tissues, because no matter how perfect a moment is, it’s still a moment, and the next moment has to come. So they cleaned up, and snuggled into each other, enjoying the fact that 1600 thread count sheets are insanely soft, and fell asleep.
And the next morning they found out that chocolate mousse and strawberries made a pretty good breakfast.

Shards To A Whole: An NCIS Fanfiction

McGee centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 112: The Reception

“Ziva’s going to want to get changed, too,” Abby says as they walk into the bedroom of the suite at the hotel.
The plan was finish up the formal photos, head back to the hotel, get changed into the less formal reception costumes, and then party time. Palmer and Breena had been nice enough to give Tony and Ziva a lift, and the wink Palmer gave Tim made him pretty sure they’d drive slow, which meant Tim and Abby had had his car to themselves. And he probably set the land speed record from the church to the hotel.
Tim grins at her, shutting the door to the bedroom, or as Breena had called it, ‘the good light room’, locking it, pressing her against it, saying, “They can wait. I’ve got you all to myself, Mrs. McGee, and I intend to take advantage of it.”
“It or me?”
“Both!”
He steps back, and turns her away from him, kissing her neck, and starting on the line of tiny buttons down the back of her dress.
“I get why they call them bodice rippers. This is impossible!”
Her eyes are wide as she looks over her shoulder at him. “Don’t rip it! I really like this dress and want to keep it.”
“Then you better hope I can get this off in the next two minutes, because I’m going to go crazy if I can’t.” He’s nipping wet kisses down the part of her back he has managed to get exposed, about the top three inches.
She reaches behind her, cupping him through his trousers, and gives him a firm squeeze. “God, Abby, that’s not helping my concentration.”
She laughs, joy and happiness bubbling out, gently squeezes him again, and then lets go, starting on the buttons on her sleeves.
His fingers yank at the buttons, forcing them through their holes fast, and in less than two minutes he did get the bodice off. Tim tosses it aside, pushing the straps of her shift down, kissing her shoulder while he starts on the knots holding up her skirt.
“Who tied this for you?”
“Palmer.”
“Palmer is evil. Pure unadulterated evil.”
“Why?”
“Screw this.” Tim grabs the small knife he’s got in his keychain and begins to cut through the ties on the dress and bustle. “Triple knots. Tiny, little, impossible to untie, triple knots.”
Abby giggles as her skirt falls to the floor. The bustle and hoops join it a second later.
For a moment, Tim stops to just look at her. White, button up, high-heeled, ankle boots, pure white stockings, a white shift skimming from her thighs to her shoulders, and a white corset, embroidered with tiny, blue roses.  His eyes drift to the tattoo he put on her arm, and the ring on her finger, and to her stomach, still flat under the corset but not for all that much longer, and that insane rush of MINE that Palmer had talked about hit him like a hammer to the skull.
His hand drew up her leg, looking to tug panties off, and found bare skin.
“Oh, that’s so hot!”
She grins at him. “I thought it was possible we might find a time to do this.”
He hooks her leg over his hip, fingers caressing virginal white stockings tied with light blue ribbons. “God, I love you.”
“I love you, too. Now quit fooling around and fuck me!”
“Yes!” He drops his pants and slips into her. “Ohhh. Fuck baby, you’re glorious!”
“Damn right I am!”
It’s fast. It has to be, Ziva and Tony are going to be up soon, and while the potential to get caught adds to the thrill, actually getting caught isn’t something either of them want.
And happy. They both keep laughing between hot, wet kisses and soft, muted groans.
Tim thought he’d seen every version of Abby’s orgasm face, but this one, a mix of smile and pleasure so sharp it almost hurt blows him away.
He’s standing on shaky legs, breathing hard, enjoying his own post-orgasmic tingles and the soft aftershocks of hers, forehead on her shoulder when he looks up at her and says, “We should make a habit of this.”
“This?”
“Up-against-the-wall quickies at weddings. Definitely need to slip off during Tony and Ziva’s.”
“I’ll be five months pregnant then.”
“Oh God, you will.” His eyes light up as he imagines her five months pregnant. “You’ll be all soft and round and curvy. And we will definitely have to do this. Tony and Ziva’s wedding, no panties for you!”
She giggles at that. His hand closes on her breast and he kisses gently, then her shoulder and neck.
“I can just see it. Soft round breasts, soft round belly, God, you’ll have to beat me off with a stick to keep me away from you when you’re five months pregnant.”
“Beat you off with a stick? We’ve never tried a stick before, but I suppose I can do that. What are you thinking, a long thin rod, like a pointer, or a branch from a tree?”
He laughs, head back, eyes closed, joy just bubbling out.
“We can figure that out then.” He leans his forehead against hers. “You know what?”
She kisses the tip of his nose. “What?”
“We got married!”
She’s smiling, eyes bright. “Yeah, we did.” They hear the door to the suite open followed by Tony and Ziva’s voices.  She kisses him again, arms around his neck. “And now we’ve got to get changed and act appropriate.”
He twists and reaches, just able to grab the box of tissues on the dresser. “There’s one thing to be said for condoms,” he says, voice quiet. “The clean-up for this last time was a bit easier.”
“Yeah, but this time you’ll know that I’m wet with you for the rest of the wedding.”
His eyes went wide. “I hadn’t thought about it. But now I am. I’m going to have a hard-on in all the wedding photos.”
“Creative cropping should take care of that.”
He starts to giggle again as he wipes up and she heads to the bathroom.
Tony knocks on the door. “You two decent?”
“Almost.” Tim opens the window, realizing the room has to smell like sex. Oh well, they notice, they notice. Not like they didn’t just get married.
He didn’t have a whole lot of changing to do. He pulls up his pants and tucks his shirt back in, making sure the vest was straight, then swapped out his ascot for a loosely tied black cravat and his spats for boots.  A black frock coat replaced the morning jacket, and though he had intended to mess up his hair, Abby had already taken care of that. Gloves off, post sex glow, mussed hair: he looked properly rakish.
Abby comes out of the bathroom a minute later and turns her back to him. “Help me out?”
“Oh yeah.” He unties her corset, and she slips out of the shift, leaving her naked save for the stockings and boots.
He was stroking her back, pulling her closer to him when she says, quietly, “They’re in the next room.”
“Then don’t make a lot of noise,” he whispers, grinning, turning her in his arms and kneels down. He lightly kisses her belly and then inches lower to her pussy, for a soft, wet, and much too quick kiss. “If I have to walk around knowing you’re wet with my cum, you get to know that you’re on my lips.”
She pulls him up and kisses him soundly, licking herself off of him. Granted the groom doesn’t get kissed nearly as often as the bride does, but still, he’s likely to be kissing other people tonight, and that’s a bit too much of an advertisement of what they’ve been up to. “Come on, we need to get dressed.”
The white stockings stay. So do the boots. She steps into a ruffled black and white skirt that falls from mid-left thigh to her right calf. Over that goes something that looks like a cross between a tank top and a corset. It has shoulder straps like a tank, but the snug fit, light boning, and lace up front of a corset. And, this tickles Tim to no end, it’s leather, white leather. She adds a small white top hat, with a tiny white lace veil, pinning it to her hair, and checks her makeup, swapping out the light pink lipstick she had worn during the ceremony for a red stain finishes her look.
“Ready?” she asks.
“I think so.” He checks himself in the mirror one last time, making sure he didn’t have any lipstick on his neck or a semen stain on his trousers, but he appears to be all put together.
His hand is on the door when she said, “Wait!”
“What?”
“Garter.”
“Oh.” She heads to one of the bags on the bed, shuffles around in it for a moment, and finds a circlet of red lace and black satin. She tosses it to him. “Put it on me?”
“Thought I was supposed to take it off.”
“You’ll do that, too.”
He grins, promises of sexy fun in his eyes. “Oh, yes, I will.”
She holds out her right leg, and he slips it up, making sure it’s nicely snug around her thigh. “Good?”
“Yep.” She kisses him one last time.
So, about five minutes after Tony and Ziva got there, he opened the door, both of them looking significantly more playful, relaxed, and mildly flushed than they had half an hour earlier when they had last seen them.
Tony takes one look at them and says, “You’ve been married for five minutes! You couldn’t have waited until after we needed to use that room?”
Which causes both of them to collapse into a giggling heap.


Five minutes later, while Ziva was getting changed, and Abby and Tim were sitting on the sofa, snuggling, the rest of the wedding party found their way up to the Bridal suite.
Jimmy grinned at them. “Gibbs finally shot the photographer with a tranquilizer dart, and we were able to get free. The guests are downstairs, munching away and mingling. DJ says that as soon as we’re ready for the grand entrance, he is as well.”
“Just waiting on Tony and Ziva,” Abby answered.
Which was when Ziva stepped out, looking sleek, cool, and dangerous in her gunfighter costume. “Not anymore.”


“For the first time in public, Mr. and Mrs. Tim McGee!” The DJ’s words echoed through the ballroom, followed by the first notes of their first song together. Tim wrapped Abby in his arms, feeling her body, soft and warm against his, letting the music move through them, and the rest of the world slid away as they danced.
He was singing along and didn’t care how stupid he might have looked doing it. She was smiling at him, eyes warm and filled with joy, and he was just so exultantly in love at that moment.
When the music shifted to You Shook Me (All Night Long) and the other couples joined them, some of them looking pretty shocked at this music choice, he began to laugh, just to let the joy out. She laughed with him as they danced close and sexy, and he thinks this might be the heart of love, the ability to laugh together while wanting each other. That sex and joy and humor should all be one big ball of good.
Or maybe not.
But it felt really good, so he wasn’t going to argue with it.


One of the ways Tim can tell nervous from excited is that nervous makes him want to eat all the time and excited kills his appetite.
There was food. It smelled good. He ate about two bites of it. It was probably tasty, but he didn’t really notice.
But eating gives everyone a chance to just settle back, relax, focus on something pleasant.
He felt very outside himself. He was enjoying watching everyone he loved having a good time, but there was still a very deep surreality to it.
Like, he sat there, chatting with Palmer for a few minutes, almost feeling normal, and then it would come back in a massive wave, they just got married, and he’d have to touch Abby, kiss her, find the ground again, and then there’d be another few minutes of normal while he watched her eat, or listened to Tony tease Ziva, or something like that, and then he’d feel the ring on his finger or see the one on hers, and another swamping wave of married would hit him.
She saw it hit him, and took his hand in hers gently, caressed his face, and leaned over to kiss his ear and whisper, “I love you, Tim.”
He kissed her back. “Love you, too.”
Then she took her fork, pierced a piece of the salmon on his plate, and fed it to him. “Have you eaten a real meal today?”
He thought about that and shrugged, honestly not sure.
Once more she leaned over to whisper into his ear. “I’ve got plans for tonight, and they aren’t going to happen if you pass out from low blood sugar. Eat.”
So he did.


When a solider gets married, he uses his dress saber to cut the cake. Tim supposes the equivalent for  him would be shooting the cupcakes with his service pistol, but that would just be messy. And besides, they’re cupcakes, not too much reason to cut them.
He knew which sort of cupcake she liked the best. The almond-cherry ones. And they were awfully tasty. He found one of them, the pale, cream colored frosting with two almonds and a cherry on top let him know he had the right kind, peeled back the paper, and fed her a bite of it.
She licked the frosting off her lip, found a tiramisu one, and like him, peeled back the paper, and offered him his cupcake.
He took her wrist in his hand and kissed the fingers holding the cupcake, then took his bite. 


Abby was dancing with Gibbs when Tony came over to him and said, “You’re ghostwriting my vows.”
“No!”
“Please. I will never, ever sound that good on my own.”
“Yeah, and it just about killed me to come up with them. Get your own vows.”
“I’ll pay you.”
“You can’t afford me!”
“Try me.”
Tim was almost tempted to actually tell Tony how much he gets paid to write, (At one point, while he was procrastinating, he worked out, based on his hourly rate, how much his vows cost. $3,472) but decided against it. “No. I’ve plotted out entire novels in less time than it took me to come up with them. I don’t have hours to sit around thinking about your vows.”
“Look, I’ll end up sounding like Palmer if I do it on my own. Worse, I’ll sound like the stuff Palmer cut out of his vows because it was too goofy.”
Tim was singularly unmoved by that plea.
“If I write a rough draft, will you at least help?”
Tim smiled. “That I will do.”


A thought occurred to Tim as the DJ announced the garter toss. Abby wasn’t wearing panties. She saw the quick flash of panic on his face and grinned at him, sitting down, quickly crossing her legs, and then extending her right leg, toe pointed.
That worked. He grinned back up at her, kissed her knee, eased it off, and then whipped it right at Tony’s head. Sheer reflex alone meant Tony caught it before he was even aware of the fact it was coming at him.
For a second he just stared at it in his hand, and then he broke out laughing, folded it up carefully, and tucked it into the pocket of Ziva’s coat.


Jimmy got him alone as the party was starting to wind down.
“You don’t ever get to rag on me about being too sappy again.”
Tim raised one eyebrow.
“You were singing along to her with your first dance.”
“Singing along to The Troggs, quietly, in her ear, not serenading her with Bette Midler’s greatest hit.”
Jimmy grinned and shook his head. “The only reason you weren’t serenading her is because you can’t sing.”
“Un huh. Keep telling yourself that. I was doing fine with the Troggs.”
“The Troggs can’t sing, either. Wind Beneath My Wings is technically challenging and actually requires vocal skill. And if you could have done something like that you would have.”
Tim laughed, aware of the fact that Palmer is probably right, but not about to say it. “No, I wouldn’t have because they’d have to tap me every spring to let the sap out if I did.”
“Says the guy who was writing a love poem ten hours ago.”
Tim smirked. “A non-sappy love poem.”
Jimmy half-snorted half-laughed, and sang, “I feel it in my fingers...”
“Classic rock is not sappy.”
“The addition of guitars and British accents does not lessen the sap factor. ‘I feel it in my toes.’“
Tim shoved Jimmy a little. “I nailed my vows.”
Jimmy smiled. “Yeah, you did.”
“And there was nothing even remotely sappy about the second song, so that balanced things out nicely.”
“If you say so.”
They stood there for a moment, watching Abby dance with Jackson and Breena with Ducky. “So, I noticed that Abby didn’t actually drink any of the champagne after Tony’s toast.”
Tim nodded.
“When did you find out?”
Tim grinned. “Yesterday morning.”
“You get it now?”
Tim nodded again. “Yeah, I do. I almost killed you last night. And you’re right, it’s completely insane. My hand was in a fist, ready to hit, just at the idea that you might have... And at no point did my brain have any input on the subject. It was just sitting back and watching like it was a TV show. Never even imagined I could feel this way about someone.”
Palmer smirked happily at him. “It’ll get worse when you can actually see her body start to change. And, from what I can tell, it doesn’t go away.”
Tim thought about that. “Breena’s pretty much been pregnant or nursing for the last year and a half. So I think that’s sort of what you’re designed to do at this point. Protect your woman and kids.”
“Probably. So, who all knows?”
“You and Gibbs. Maybe Ziva. If you noticed Abby not drinking, she probably did, too.”Jimmy shook his head. “Both of the girls have to know. No way they went out last night and they didn’t notice.”
“Good point.”
“But you told Gibbs”
“Yeah, yesterday.”
“How’d he take it?”
“He hugged me.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“He hugs guys?”
“He does today. Ducky hugged you when you told him about Breena, right?”
“Yeah, he did, both times. But he’s not... Well, he’s not Gibbs.”
“True. When did you tell him? I mean with Molly.” Tim had been there when they made the announcement for the new baby, and honestly, just about everyone hugged both of them, though if he remembered correctly Gibbs did slap Palmer on the back rather than hug him.
“About two hours after we found out. He had to ask me for a scalpel three times, and I still hadn’t given it to him, so he finally turned to me and asked me what was so pressing that I could not be bothered to pay attention to the poor murdered man on the table, so I told him, and he seemed to think being distracted was an appropriate response.”
“I’m really glad I’m not on duty for two more weeks. That’s enough time to get used to this, a little at least.”
Jimmy just grinned at him. “A little.”


Talking with Jimmy made Tim realize that if he didn’t get a move on, Tony was, once again, going to be left out of their big news, and probably wouldn’t be happy about it.
He cut in on Abby dancing with Luca, and let her know what was going on.
She rested her head on his shoulder, not only was it comfortable, and sweet, but it also let her speak to him easily, without everyone seeing what they were talking about.
“Yeah, told Breena and Ziva last night. Had to. We had planned to go dancing and drinking, and the drinking thing wasn’t going to happen.”
His lips were pressed to her temple. “Okay. I’d like to tell Tony, so he doesn’t feel left out.”
“Good idea.”
They continued swaying together through the rest of that song, and the next one, (Can’t Help Falling in Love, the original Elvis version) and then he broke off to find Tony.
He was talking with Gibbs, good. Tim didn’t have a plan for what to do if, say, Senior or Luca or someone had been there.
“Hey.”
Tony stared at him. “You’re looking really serious.”
Tim smiled. He’d been doing it so much today his cheeks felt sore. “Not serious, well, I guess it is, important mostly.”
“What?”
“This is just for the immediate family: you guys, Ziva, and the Palmers. Don’t want it getting spread around, yet.”
If the grin on his face was any hint, Tony knew what was coming next.
“Abby’s pregnant.”
Next thing he knew he was being hugged, pounded on the back, and Tony was saying, “This is great!” Then he pulled back, turned, and stared at Gibbs, who found his wallet and handed Tony a hundred dollar bill.
Gibbs shrugged. “He didn’t think you’d make it to the wedding. I did.”
Tim snorted and then full on laughed.  “This is what you two do when I’m not around?”
Gibbs smiled. Tony said, “Among other things.”


The bouquet toss at a wedding with three adolescent girls is something to behold. Kayla, Harper, and Emily were really intensely interested in ending up with that bouquet. Really.
Sarah stood a few feet away from them, next to Penny, and Luca’s girlfriend. Penny was saying something about patriarchal marriage expectations, but Sarah had dragged her over none-the-less.
Tim didn’t know if Abby intentionally tossed the bouquet at his grandma. But he does know it’s a good thing the old lady is a great catch and fast on her feet, because she was able to snag the flowers out of the air before they hit the ground and side-step Harper Sciuto who almost tackled her in her effort to get them.
And he didn’t miss the way Ducky winked at her as she stood there holding them, looking like she can’t believe she’s got them.


Eventually it was getting onto ten. Not terribly late, especially not for them, but it’s been a long day, and as Abby said, they’ve got plans for the night.

They left the hotel under a shower of bubbles and headed for his car, and from there, home and life as Mr. and Mrs. McGee.

Shards To A Whole: An NCIS Fanfiction

McGee centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 111: A Wedding

A formal Catholic wedding wasn’t anything that mattered to Tim. But it did matter to Abby, and so he’s standing there, on the front steps of the St. Sebastian’s, chatting with Father John, who he rather likes, greeting the guests as they wander in.
Getting married at St. Sebastian’s had required two things, first for him to be Catholic, and, at least on paper, that’s true. And six weeks of pre-marital counseling, which he hadn’t been thrilled about, but at least it gave him a chance to get to know the man marrying them. And, as an added bonus, Father John took a very gentle approach to trying to bring Tim back into the fold. 
He thinks Father John took one look at him, and decided that if there was any shot of turning Tim back into a believer, brow beating him about the need for eternal salvation wasn’t the way to do it.
And he agreed with Tim that if he didn’t feel he could take Communion, that he shouldn’t. He’d serve Abby, not make a big deal of Tim just sitting there, and then offer the rest of the guests the opportunity to partake.
Tim’s honestly somewhat curious to see how that’ll work. This isn’t a very Catholic intensive group. Luca, Harper, Melody, Abby, and her pet nuns, maybe Fornell and his daughter? Maybe not, Fornell’s divorced. This time last year, Tony would have taken Communion, but since he’s Jewish now, that’s not going to happen. Tony’s dad? Like Fornell, he’s divorced, a whole bunch of times over. Tim doesn’t mind the idea of the Mass part of the ceremony being short, and less than a third of the guests taking communion will speed it up.
Honestly, he’d happily skip all of the ceremony but the vows.
Tony joined them. “Just got the text from Ziva. They’re five minutes out.”
“Almost show time. I’ll go meet them, get your lady into the bride’s chamber, and soon we’ll get you married,” Father John said, heading through the entryway.
Tim smiled. “Soon.”
Vance and his kids showed up a few seconds later, and Ducky swooped in, wrapping Kayla’s arm around his, washing her in a stream of gentle words about how lovely she was looking in her costume, while leading her to their seats.
Sister Rosita showed up a minute later, kissed him on the cheek and wished him well.
And a few minutes after that Kyle and his girlfriend came in, and by Tim’s count, that meant the whole party was there.
Father John came back a few seconds later. “Is that everyone?”
“Yeah,” Tony answered.
“Okay then.” He turned to Tim. “Got a handkerchief in your suit?” Tim nodded. Then to Tony he said, “Got the rings?”
Tony patted his jacket. “Got the rings.”
“Doctor Mallard, do you have the readings you’ve selected?”
Ducky touched his breast pocket. “Song of Songs is ready to go.”
“Well then, gentlemen, I think it’s time for you to line up, and head on in. You know where you’re supposed to stand, so get over there.”
Tim took a deep breath, let it out, and forced his hands to stop jittering. Go time!
Tony saw him do it, grinned, and then gently squeezed his shoulder.
And then he walked to the front of the Church, turned to face the aisle, and waited for the first glimpse of his bride.


Tim and Abby had decided on a family-only wedding. It amuses Gibbs to see who qualifies as family. His dad is there, in full on Western gambler wear, as is Tony’s, in perfect bespoke cut-away, ascot, top hat, and silver tipped cane. Tim’s dad isn’t. But his sister, sister’s boyfriend, mother, step-father, and grandmother are. Luca’s family is here, and so is Kyle and his girlfriend. Vance and his kids are here. Fornell is here, with his daughter as his plus one. There are a few cousins that Gibbs doesn’t recognize, half a dozen nuns, and that’s it. Thirty people, tops.
He’s supposed to be hiding out in the Bride’s chamber, but the photographer wants shots of the girls together, so he drifts over to Fornell, looking at a very plain, almost military style uniform in navy blue topped off with a buckskin duster and a something he’d call an 1880s style cavalry hat with goggles and gears on the band.
Fornell looks him over and smiles, vastly amused. “What are you supposed to be?”
“Father of the bride. I should ask you the same thing.”
“I have no idea. Ever since Christmas she’s been messing around with this costume, doing research, sketching, sewing. She kept muttering about dirigibles and aeronauts, and sketching more and tossing sketches away and starting over, bossing me around and nagging about buying more fabric and things to stick on the costume.” Fornell sighs. “As soon as I said yes to her and Abby, I lost any control I had over this.” Gibbs looks over at Emily Fornell. She’s sitting in a pew, playing with her phone, taking pictures of everything, and chatting with Kayla Vance and Harper Sciuto. Emily and Kayla are in outfits he’d call dance hall-girl-wear designed by someone who had to get her father’s permission to leave the house in it. Harper’s in leggings and a corset covered with a knee-length gold brocade coat. All three of them appear to be having a blast.
“She’s taking lessons from her mom?”
“I think she’s teaching them.”
Gibbs shakes his head. “Dirigibles?”
“Like the Hindenburg.”
“Uh huh.”
“Yeah.”
Vance joins them. He’d gone for the Western Sherriff look, and was, with the exception of a cobalt vest and tie, and his Texas Ranger style badge, in head to toe black. He looks Gibbs over and smiles, and then says to Fornell, “Why are there gears on your hat?”
“I have no idea about that, either. But I’ve got them on my gloves, too.” Fornell shows both of them a pair of cavalry gloves he has folded and tucked over his belt, also bedecked with gears on the cuffs. “Almost everyone here has commented on how ‘cool’ I look. I’ve got nuns telling me I’m cool. I’m not sure I like being cool.”
“Your cross to bear, Tobias,” Gibbs says dryly.
“You ready to do your part?” Vance asks Gibbs.
Gibbs nods and checks his watch. “Yeah. I should get back over there.”
“Okay.”

How many photographs does one wedding need?
Gibbs is fairly sure that the guy with the camera has taken more shots of him with Abby and Ziva than were taken of him as the groom in all four of his weddings combined.
Fortunately Father John came in and put a stop to that. “Everyone is here, and the guys are in place. It’s wedding time.”
Gibbs silently thanks God, and the photographer heads off to set up in the Church somewhere to get seventeen million more shots.
They’re waiting in the front hall, lined up, ready to go. Ziva’s going in first, then Breena, followed by Jimmy, and then the two of them.
The doors open, and some pleasant, mostly piano, music echoes out. Ziva smiles at them, looks forward, and takes her first step down the aisle.
And suddenly Gibbs is really hoping the photographer got a shot of Tony’s face as he saw Ziva because the utter shock at Ziva in a concoction of fluffy, lacy red, combined with the look of a man so deeply in love he doesn’t know what to do with himself was priceless.
With Ziva halfway down the aisle, Breena gives Jimmy a quick kiss, and she’s off. Then he turns to Abby, kisses her cheek again, squeezes he hand, whispers, “I love you” in her ear, and follows his wife down the aisle.
It should only be thirty seconds before they go, but it feels longer.
“You doing okay?” Gibbs asks as they wait to walk down the aisle. Palmer’s almost all the way down. He was expecting Abby to be bouncing around all over the place right now, but she’s not, she’s beautifully calm, composed, and radiant.
“Yeah. I am.” She takes a deep breath. “I think this is the difference between happiness and joy.”
Gibbs smiles, gives her a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. The music changes, her bridal march. They wait for a beat longer, as everyone stands up. “You ready?”
She squeezes his hand, and he wraps her arm around his. “Yeah, Gibbs, I am. Let’s go.”
He found himself grinning. “Let’s go.”


Tim didn’t cry when he saw her. He was actually pretty proud of that.
He couldn’t have named the emotion going through him as he watched Abby walk towards him, radiant in white and red, Gibbs at her side, with a week’s worth of time and every thesaurus ever written.
But, if you were to ask him to describe it, the best he’d be able to do would be this: it was like every good feeling, every great feeling, love and hope and joy and bliss and contentment and peace and ecstasy and more love on top of that, all jumping around trying to burst out of every pore.
So, instead of crying, he stood there, beaming, huge smile plastered on his face, forcing himself not to fidget, watching her smile back at him, burning every detail of this into his memory.
They stood there, just a few feet away, and Tim wanted to reach for her, take her from Gibbs, but it wasn’t quite time for that yet.
The Priest began his part, and Tim waited, willing it to go faster.
“Who gives this woman...”
“Her brothers and I do.” Gibbs hugged Abby for a long minute, then kissed her cheek, and gave her hand to Tim, squeezing both of their hands as he did it and headed to his seat, next to Luca.
Tim held Abby’s hand. She was so excited she was trembling, and he was too, and he had no idea what Father John was saying, couldn’t care less. The perfection of this moment, of Abby in front of him, hands in his, washed everything else away.
He tuned in just enough so he didn’t mess up. Father John was going to ask some questions, and he can’t just sit there, staring at Abby, memorizing how the red strands entwine with the black of her hair, or the curve of her ear, or the luscious slip of the pearls of her choker against her throat each time she breathes.
“Do you Tim take Abby to be your wife – to live together after God’s ordinance – in the holy estate of matrimony? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sadness and in joy, to cherish and continually bestow upon her your heart’s deepest devotion, forsaking all others, keep yourself only unto her as long as you both shall live?”
Time to talk. “I do.”
She smiled, eyes so happy, whole being suffused with joy as he said that, and he felt all lit up, seeing her respond to two simple words.
“And, do you Abby take Tim to be your husband – to live together after God’s ordinance – in the holy estate of matrimony? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sadness and in joy, to cherish and continually bestow upon him your heart’s deepest devotion, forsaking all others, keep yourself only unto him as long as you both shall live?”
“I do.” He heard her say that and knew how she felt half a moment earlier, the intense high of words that feel better than almost anything else in the world.
“What token of your love do you offer?” Tony got the rings out of his pocket. “Would you place the rings in my hand?” and handed them to Father John.

John held the rings in his upturned palm. “May these rings be blessed as the symbol of this affectionate unity. These two lives are now joined in one unbroken circle. Wherever they go – may they always return to one another. May these two find in each other the love for which all men and women yearn. May they grow in understanding and in compassion. May the home which they establish together be such a place that many will find there a friend. May these rings on their fingers symbolize the touch of the spirit of love in their hearts.”
He handed Abby’s ring to Tim. “Tim and Abby wanted to expand on those ideas, add something more personal to them, so they’ve written their own vows to go along with the exchange of rings. Tim...”
Tim held the ring in his right hand. He took a half-step closer to Abby, raising his left hand, realizing he’s got the glove on and taking it off quickly, this touch needs to be skin to skin, and then rested his palm against her jaw, fingers by her ear, thumb gently stroking her cheek.
He held her gaze, reveling in the green of her eyes, the black of her lashes, and the sublime beauty of her smiling at him. He took a deep breath and began to speak. “Every day, we go out, fight the bad guys, and make the world a better place. We use our time and our energy to do important things.” He was smiling, but he could feel the tears starting, and hoped his voice would hold for this. “And I promise, from today until I take my last breath, to remember that you and our children are a world unto yourselves, filled with important things, one that I am privileged to belong to. Today, I pledge my life to putting that world first.
“I love you, Abby, that’s my bedrock. It’s the foundation of my life.
“Above and beyond anything else, I am the man who loves you.
“I love you. That’s the catalyst of my life becoming our life.
“I love you. And from that love, and from our life, comes new lives.
“I love you, and from this breath to my last, I will live that love in everything I do, valuing it above and beyond all other commitments, knowing that it’s both my honor and my duty to do so.”
He swept away her tears with his thumbs, and felt his own on his cheek, and it didn’t matter that the priest hadn’t said he could do it, words like that need to be sealed with an action, so he leaned in and kissed her.
For a good ten seconds there was nothing but silence while they kissed, her lips sweet and warm on his. Then the priest cleared his throat, causing Tim to pull back.
Father John made some sort of half-hearted joke about getting an early start in, which caused the guests to giggle a little, but mostly served to tone down the intimacy of his words and dull the force of them on those who had assembled to witness this.
Tim quickly wiped the tears off his cheek, took her left hand in his, grinned at her, and slipped her wedding ring onto her finger.
“And now for Abby’s vows.”
She smiled at him, already holding his hands, but he felt her give him a little extra squeeze, and then took his hand, lifted it to her lips, and kissed the palm.
“You told me once, that symbols should matter. And you live that. You wear me on your skin,” her hand caressed his arm where the tattoo was, and brushed over the wrist cuff he only took off to shower, “and carry me in your heart. And today is a symbol of that, but it’s more than just the symbol; it’s also action. It’s ideas made real. It’s a promise, and a hope, and the first step of something familiar, yet new. Today is both of us taking on a new symbol, and pledging to live up to it, to make it matter. I love you, Tim, and I promise to be worthy of this symbol. I will be worthy of your life, your heart, and your name. I will treat you with care and respect, with love, and with the joy having you near brings me. From now until you lay me to rest, I will be at your side, traveling through this world with you, and anywhere with you will be my home.”
She slipped the ring over his finger, holding his hands, thumb stroking over it, grinning brilliantly at him. He was starting to lean in to kiss her again when Father John started talking, reminding him they weren’t alone.
Tim tuned back out again, focusing on Abby and not what Father John had to say. But since he was focused on her, he caught the slight shift in her expression which meant start paying attention.
So he noticed when Father John said, "You may now kiss the bride."
And so he did.

Shards To A Whole: An NCIS Fanfiction

McGee centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Saturday Noon:
Gibbs helped Palmer lug what felt like six hundred pounds of wedding apparel into the suite the girls’ team had claimed, and then got the hell out of there. 
Breena had walked in, taken two minutes, checked out both rooms, and claimed the bedroom as the one “with the good light,” and started to get set up for hair and makeup and God alone knew what else. And it made him feel, honestly, a little claustrophobic. Snipers, death squads, terrorists, and drug dealers, bring ‘em all on, Gibbs is willing and ready. Three girls doing hair and makeup for a wedding, two of them pregnant, even if one of them is only barely, and Palmer hanging around being a modern, sensitive version of Ducky, and well, that scares Gibbs.
So he volunteered to go get snacks, check on the set up, and check on the guys.
He headed down from the suite and poked a head into the ballroom. It looked the way he supposes it should look. Dance floor, five tables, lots of flowers, unlit candles all over the place, cupcakes over on a table on the far side with even more flowers. He heads over and inspects the cupcakes a little closer. Right after they had picked them out, he ended up with one of the coffee ones on his desk, a present from Tim, and well, he doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth, but that was awfully tasty, and he was pleased to see a decent number of them were waiting for tonight.
He checked the ballroom off his list.
Go see the church next. It’s not exactly between The Adam’s House and McGee’s but it’s close enough. He pulled in, noticed the McGee-Sciuto Wedding signs were easy to spot. Not that there were going to be a ton of guests who were likely to get lost, but still, signs help.
He headed in, and again everything looked right. Basket with pamphlets on the wedding, check. (He knows they’re got some other name for them, but it’s not coming to mind.) Flowers on the pews, check. He stopped and looked at them a little longer, realizing that yeah, one flower is more or less the same as any other flower to him, but Abby wanted specific flowers, and if he comes back saying they’re fine and they’re not, he’ll be in trouble. He takes a moment to remember what they’re supposed to be: white roses with red edges, mixed with a few red ones and a few black ones. Yep, they are. Flowers, check.
Priest, and there he was, at the altar, doing something, waving at Gibbs, check.
He headed over and said hello.“Everything in order?” Father John asked Gibbs.
“Think so. Just checking up.”
Father John smiled. “Getting away from the Bridal party for a few minutes?”
Gibbs laughed. “That, too.”
“Well, tell Abby the sisters and I have done right by her. Everything is ready to go on our end.”
“Good.” 
Heading over to the guys was up next. They’re at McGee’s. Only a twenty minute drive from St. Sebastian’s. He’ll head over, get any snack orders they may have, and then get everything in one fell swoop.
He pulled up and noticed both Tony and Ducky’s cars in addition to Tim’s. Looked like Team Groom had managed to assemble on time.
It’s a good house: sturdy, well built, large enough you won’t always be in each other’s way, small enough you can’t get lost in it, extra bedrooms for future small people, and a small, tidy yard. He’d call the style, sort of Victorian-ish. Victorian as built by someone who had heard about it, but never seen it.
He walked into Tim and Abby’s, noticing they also seem to always keep the door unlocked. Ducky and Tony were sitting in the living room, highlights from the night before’s World Series game on the TV, no Tim in sight.
“Tim?”
Ducky nodded toward a closed door. Tim’s office. “Timothy is taking a few moments for quiet contemplation.”
“Can I go in?”
“Yes. I think he’d appreciate a visit from you, Jethro,” Ducky said.
Gibbs knocked and heard, “Yeah?”
He poked his head in and saw Tim sitting at his desk, typewriter pushed to the side, paper in front of him, and from the looks of it, writing away. “Can I come in?”
“Sure, Boss.” He was tapping the back of the pen against the page.
Gibbs leaned against the desk, in front of Tim, and looked at the paper. He could see the first two words: For Abby, and decided he doesn’t need to know what’s on the rest of that page.
“You doing okay, Tim?”
Tim looked up at him and sort of smiled. “Yeah. It’s just... you know... big day.”
Gibbs smiled back. “Yeah, it is.”
Tim stared at him, eyes wide and earnest, looking impossibly young, ran his fingers through his hair, took a deep breath, and said, “I became a father yesterday,” he half-laughed, half-shook his head, looking entirely like he can’t wrap his head around that. “In...” he looked for a clock, “three hours and twenty four minutes, I’ll be a husband, and it’s all just sort of... big, ya know?”
The difference between the night before and the day of. Gibbs remembered that well. “Yeah, Tim. I know.”
Tim sighed. “But, yeah, I’m okay. I really am.”
Gibbs stared at him. He figured that by now he’d seen every emotion Tim has, and, yeah, he is okay. This is intense and scary for him, but not in a bad way. “Can I suggest something?”
“Sure.”
“Tell DiNozzo about the baby before he figures it out for himself and ends up pouting about no one telling him anything.”
That made Tim chuckle. “When we get back from the honeymoon. We’ll tell him and Ziva and Jimmy and Breena. Then no one else until the second trimester. And he’ll crack a joke about me knocking her up on the honeymoon, and I’ll smile and say something like ‘Not on the honeymoon’, and he’ll get that disturbed look on his face.” Tim took another deep breath, looking slightly to the left and behind Gibbs. “It’s real, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, Tim, it is.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head a little. “I kind of want to jump around,” he looked at the pen tapping against the paper, seeming to notice for the first time that he was doing that. “Or jitter like crazy.”
“It’s normal. Been married four times, felt that way before each wedding.”
“No offense, Boss, but I really hope I won’t be doing this again.”
“I hope you never do, either.” Gibbs stood up. “You need anything? I’m going on a snack run.”
“Would you read something for me?”
“What?”
“My vows.”
Gibbs felt a little uncomfortable about that. Vows aren’t his specialty. “You really want me to read them? I don’t have a great record with marriage vows.”
Tim nodded. “Yeah. I want... Just... If you knew your time with Shannon was going to be short, is this what you would have said to her?” He removed a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it, smoothing it out carefully before handing it over.
Gibbs read, eyes scanning the page quickly, and then, for what felt like a long time he just held the paper, not really seeing it. He remembered his own wedding, feeling so nervous and so happy and having a hard time standing still, and then seeing her walk toward him and how the entire world narrowed down to her, and how right, how amazingly perfect hearing those words come out of her mouth felt. He remembered her smile, and the way she looked up at him as he said his vows.
He touched his ring, and, God, he wished he’d had the sense to say something like what he just read to her, let alone live it with her. 
Tim was looking up at him, expectantly. So he nodded. “It’s close enough.”
“So, they’re good.”
“Yeah.” His voice was a lot rougher than normal as he said that, so he cleared his throat. Time to get into more comfortable territory. “So, anyway, snacks?”
“Nope, but, if you’d wait a minute or two, I’ll finish this, and you can give it to Abby.”
“Take your time.”
“Thanks, Boss.”
“Tim.”
“Yeah?”
“You can call me Jethro. Or Gibbs, like Abby does.”
Tim nodded. And the next thing Gibbs knew, he had two arms full of Tim hugging him. He was shaking a little, so Gibbs patted his back. “You’re okay, Tim.”
After a minute, Tim pulled back, but Gibbs still had one hand on his shoulder, steadying him, and Tim seemed to appreciate the contact. Tim wiped his eyes, and said, “Yeah, I am. Really. It’s just...”
“Big. I know. Trust me, I know. I remember getting married the first time. I was so nervous I almost threw up, so excited I couldn’t stand still. I remember the day Shannon told me she was pregnant.  I wanted to run and jump around telling everyone, and I was so scared that...” He let that go because his worst fears for Kelly did come true, and today is supposed to be a happy day. “I can’t imagine wrapping both of those things into one day. You’re doing fine, really. Just, don’t lock your knees when you’re up in front of everyone, and make sure you’ve got a handkerchief in your suit, and you’ll be fine.”
“What happens if you lock your knees?”
“You pass out mid-vows and feel really stupid when you come to.” Gibbs smiled dryly, remembering one of his best buddy’s weddings.
“Okay, yeah, thanks... Jethro.” It sounded a little awkward, but felt very right. “Let me get this wrapped up, and then...”
“I’ll give it to her. What is it?”
Tim smiled a little, looking amused. “Something even Tony would consider romantic.”
“Ahhh...”  And with that, Gibbs headed out, grabbing the pad he’s got in his jeans pocket as well as his pen, and began asking what Ducky and Tony want.

For Abby: Four Hours To Go
In our living room, there’s a small pyramid of boutonnieres in boxesand our suits are hanging from the bathroom door,the rings are in my pocket (I’ll give them to Tony after we get changed.)the shoes are shined.
So, I guess that means this is real.Tony’s trying to talk to me, but Ducky’s pulled him away.“I think Anthony, that Timothy needs time for quiet contemplation.”I love him so much right now.
I wonder what you’re doing.Time’s inching by, moments per second.And I want to see you.
Funny, huh?It’s been less than two hours since youvanished into Palmer’s van while Breena tutted about seeing each other before the wedding.Like we need luck when we’ve got love.And Palmer saw her before the wedding, and look, two and a half years later,happy as larks, and a second baby due in the spring.(Think they’ll be surprised when ours shows up in the summer?)
God, I still can’t quite wrap my head around that.
Right now, you’re probably starting to get ready for our wedding,and right now, there’s a tiny person, the size of a grain of rice(Okay, smaller, really)that’s you and me,growing inside you.
Blows my mind.
Abby McGeeThat’s blowing my mind, too.
Feels so good.
Maybe it’s some sort of weird possessive kink,but I love the idea of marking you with my name.Maybe it’s just a Y chromosome thing,but right now, you with my namemy child—
God, Abby!
Can’t even begin to turn that feeling into words.
Gibbs is here.I can hear him talking to Ducky.
------
Back again.He popped in, wanted to know if I was okay.Top of the world, Boss!Getting married today!Became a father yesterday!Good day!
I think he’s worried I’m about to freak out and star hyperventilating.Or maybe he just remembers what this feels like,and how hard it is to hold it in.(Okay, I might have cried on hima little.)Anyway, he’s getting ready to go see you.So I’ll wrap this, and give it to him to give to you.
3:17 now.
Love you, Mrs. McGee.


Saturday:  1:30
Gibbs headed back to the hotel rooms the girls had claimed, and found himself in the middle of an impromptu make-over party.
The female McGees, (well, McGee, Allister, and Langston) had joined Team Bride, and were enjoying the pre-wedding fun.
Tori and Sarah were cooing over the dresses, and flowers, showing off their own costumes. Penny and Palmer were talking about something science-y. And Breena appeared to be in charge of the whole thing, directing traffic while setting Ziva’s hair in curlers.
Abby looked up at him as soon as he came in and smiled at him. Everyone was being pretty loud, and she had some of her music going, so the chance of being heard was pretty slim. He signed to her, Got a present for you.
Really?
From Tim.
She smiled and headed over to him. He passed off the envelope while unloading a bag filled with snacks. He figured he had everything covered: salty, sweet, hot, vegetable, chocolate, and crunchy. It’d been a while since he’d fed a room filled with women, especially pregnant ones, but like riding a bike, it came back pretty easy.
He also had, as per his instructions from Abby, two super big CafPows, each with a half-caff, half-decaf mix.
He’d been a little surprised when she asked for that, back when Shannon was pregnant caffeine wasn’t on the forbidden list, hell, cigarettes were barely on the forbidden list. But she had asked, so he provided, and she looked awfully happy to be getting at least some caffeine into her system.
“Doing better?” he asked as she sucked down a long slurp, a look akin to ecstasy on her face.
“Oh, God, yes. Quitting this is going to kill me.”
Gibbs smiled. “You’ll make it.”
She nodded, put the CafPow down, and headed to find a quiet corner to read Tim’s note. And with this party, quiet corner didn’t seem to really be an option, because two seconds after she opened it, Sarah was by her side, asking about it.
She said something, shooed Sarah off, and sat down to read, her eyes going soft and a warm smile spreading across her face.  Then she folded the paper and tucked it into her pocket.
“Okay, Ziva, you’re done for the time being. Abby, you’re up next,” Breena had spoken, so Abby headed over to the chair in front of the mirror.
Gibbs drifted over to Palmer and Penny, who appeared to be doing the least girly thing in this room, but he watched as Breena did something that put red streaks into Abby’s hair.
Penny offered her hand and he shook it. “Have you met Tori, yet?”
“Yes, last night, briefly. Tim introduced us.” They had talked for a few minutes at the rehearsal before Gibbs got called in to do his part.
Penny nodded and then looked at Gibbs for a long moment. “You’re calling him Tim now?”
Gibbs smiled.
“Good. He needs more male friends.” Though Gibbs caught that what she meant was she was very pleased to see him step into the long vacant father role for Tim.
Jimmy added, “There’s Gibbs and I, and two more of them over at Tim’s.”
“Good, that’s really good.” She thought about that. “Two more? Is Ducky over there?”
“Yeah. He and Tony are standing up with Tim.”
Penny smiled.


Saturday 2:45
“You know, this isn’t nearly as bad as I thought it might be,” Tony says, standing in front of the mirror in Tim and Abby’s room.
“Did you think Abby and I would pick something that made you look like a dork?”
Tony doesn’t answer that, he just looks at Tim in the mirror, and grins, then goes back to messing with his hair.
Tim’s honestly a little surprised at how well Tony was doing with this. Not that he’d think Tony would look bad in Steampunk, sure Tim’s not particularly interested in men as objects of beauty, but he’s spent more than enough time watching women react to Tony to know that he’s objectively attractive. So he didn’t think Tony would look bad in a black suit, high cut crimson vest, squared off collar, white dress shirt, and black cravat, he just didn’t think Tony would look so comfortable in it.
Tony looked at himself in the mirror, fussing with his cravat.  “Why couldn’t you have just done a tux like everyone else?”
“Because I want to be able to tell my wedding pictures from yours at a glance.”
“Ha ha.”
“You look fine.” Tim finished righting his gloves. For the ceremony, he’d gone for the full on morning suit. The coat was dove gray, trousers charcoal with a dove pinstripe, and he finished the look off with a crimson waistcoat and charcoal ascot. “Scoot over.” Tim looked himself over in the mirror. From his spats to his tie pin he looked good. He looked ready. “Got the rings?”
“Just like the last seven times you asked, I’ve got the rings. They’re in my right breast pocket.” He pulled them out and showed Tim. “See, not going to lose the rings.”
“Good.” Tim opened his boutonniere, and began to pin on the red tipped white rose.
“So, last chance to back out. We gonna run?”
“What?” Tim cannot believe Tony would say that.
“Wedding’s in less than two hours, my tank’s full of gas, and I can have us to Philadelphia before they notice we’re missing. This is our last chance to get out of here. We running?”
Tim stared at Tony in horrified stupefaction. “You’re my best man, it’s your job to nail my ass to the ground if I try to run.”
Tony winked at him. “You’re ready.”
Tim rolled his eyes, and threw the box with Tony’s boutonniere in it at him.
Gibbs came in a moment later, while Tim was fussing with his hair. He’d let it grow out a bit, and was in the process of slicking it back. Nothing looked less steampunk than very short hair.
Tony looked at Gibbs. It was less than an hour and a half to wedding time, and Gibbs was still in his usual off work jeans, t-shirt, and USMC hoodie. “Okay, I know you told us you were going to keep what you were wearing a secret, and I know McGee said we didn’t need to be completely formal, but I didn’t think you’d go this casual.”
He shot Tony his, ‘very funny’ look.  “You two ready?”
“Once Marty McFly gets done with his time travel hair, we’ll head off.”
“You got the rings?”
“Why do you all assume I’m going to lose the rings? They’re right” he pulled them out of his pocket, “here.”
“Good.”
Ducky came out of the bathroom, resplendent in kilted glory. Gibbs’ eyes went wide. “That’s one hell of a look, Duck.”
Ducky adjusted his sporran slightly. “A morning suit with kilt is the traditional formal Scottish wedding attire. The Mallard tartan has been worn proudly through four hundred years of Mallard weddings. Why my mother...” And off Ducky went on the history of weddings, family tartans, honeymoons, and love in general. Tim didn’t pay much attention to his words, though he found the gentle burr of lightly Scottish accented noise soothing. He wasn’t nervous, buzzing with excitement, yes. He wanted to pace, or maybe go for a quick jog, something to burn off the energy. But not nervous. Not anymore. He’d watched Gibbs read the vows, and if they choked him up, they were ready to go.
Gibbs caught his eye and smiled at him. A look that said, ‘I know how you’re feeling, and it’s normal.’
“DiNozzo, Ziva gave this to me, wanted you to have it.”
Gibbs handed Tony a small, rectangular, white box. Tony took it and just looked at it. “What is it?”
“How would I know? I’m just on delivery service today. And Tim, whatever you wrote for Abby, it was a big hit. I’m supposed to give you a kiss in return—“
“Not necessary.”
“Didn’t think you’d want it.” Gibbs checked the clock. “An hour twelve ‘til showtime. I’m gonna go meet back up with the girls. See you at the church.”
Tony opened the box and grinned, then he pulled out a pair of red sunglasses with round lenses. He pushed his hair back a little, and slipped them on.
“Oh my!” Ducky grabbed his camera. “We must have pictures of this.” He arranged Tim and Tony together and began snapping away.


Saturday 2:55
“I have never been more glad to live in the present than I am now,” Ziva said as Jimmy pulled on her corset strings. “Why are we wearing corsets?”
“Realism Ziva. The dresses won’t look right if you aren’t properly laced into them.”
Okay, sure she didn’t have to be wearing a dress with a corset. In fact, with the exception of Abby, who was already laced into hers, and currently in the other room, having Breena work on her makeup, no one else was wearing a real corset. And Ziva wasn’t planning on wearing this for very long, just for the ceremony. See, the thing she didn’t much like admitting was how, well, pretty all of this lacy, fluffy girly stuff was. And she really wanted to wear some of that pretty. Just for a little while, at least. So like Abby, she had a ceremony dress and a reception costume, happily letting both halves of herself play.
“I can’t breathe in this.” Jimmy let the strings out a bit. “Palmer, how did you get the job of ladies’ maid? Isn’t that supposed to be something another woman does?”
“Usually,” he said as he tied the strings. “But Breena’s doing Abby’s hair and makeup, and I’ve got more upper body strength than any of you.”
“Are you sure about that?” Ziva asked.
“I can bench 180.”
Ziva looked over her shoulder at Jimmy, shocked. “Why can you do that?”
“I move corpses around for a living. There’s no magic fairy that moves them from the ground to the gurney and from the gurney to the table and the table to the cooler. That’s mostly me and that takes strength.”
“Okay, you have more upper body strength.”
“So, as man of honor, I’m on corset lacing and dress lugging duty. Now stay still, I’ve got to finish getting this tied.”
When Ziva looked in the mirror, she had to admit the effect looked amazing, looked as good as she had hoped it would. Her posture was perfect, and her torso was shaped into a perfect hourglass. It felt like crap, and all she wanted to do was slouch, but it lookedfabulous. She couldn’t wait to see Tony react to this, couldn’t wait to see him react to the reception costume, too. And in order to get to enjoy his reaction in full, both outfits had been kept top secret.
“Okay, petticoat next.” Jimmy held it open, and she stepped into it. She could tie it herself and did so while he got the hoop ready.
Of course, liking the idea of how this looked and coming face to face with all seventy layers of clothing was a somewhat different thing. “You had to suggest Steampunk.”
Jimmy smiled. “Steampunk is a lot of fun. Have you seen what Breena’s gonna be wearing?”
Ziva nodded. Breena hadn’t gotten dressed yet, since she was on makeup and hair duty and she didn’t want to risk getting anything spilled on her dress, but Ziva and Abby had been there for her last fitting, so they had seen that she had gone for a long flow of silk, asymmetrically falling from her right shoulder to just above her knees, color bleeding from white to crimson with every shade of pink in between, cinched tight (ish, she’s two months pregnant after all) with a black corset. A crimson choker, black stockings, and crimson ankle boots finished a look more or less designed to make Jimmy swallow his tongue when he saw it.
“At least I won’t be in this too long.” For the reception, Ziva had gone for a long black leather coat, fawn colored leggings, black boots, a crimson blouse, and black leather vest, holster slung low on her hips, tied down gun fighter style (she had asked Gibbs for help with the costume) and a replica Colt.
“Not too long. Okay, let’s get this set.” He tied the hoops around her waist and then added the bustle. “Shirtwaist next.”
“Did they really use so many buttons? There has to be thirty of them.”
“If it’s going to be properly tight, and you live in a world that doesn’t have elastic, you end up with lots of buttons. I can help if you want.”
“I can button my own shirt.”
And Ziva did, until she realized the four buttons at each wrist. As Palmer was closing the last button, Ziva realized there was absolutely no way she’d be able to do up her own shoes. 
“I think shoe buttoner just got added to your to-do list, Jimmy.”
“Not a problem. I’ve got the little hook they used to make that easier.”
“They had special hooks for buttoning shoes?”
“Have you seen the buttons on those shoes? They’re miniscule.”
“And are you planning on being around to help get me out of this?”
“I think Tony can figure that out on his own, but if he’s having trouble, feel free to call me.” It occurs to Ziva that only Jimmy could say that without any hint of salacious intent. “Okay, I’ve got your skirt set. Arms up.”
Getting the skirt on took close to three minutes. It wasn’t just that you had have it draped over you, and then tie it closed, it was getting it arranged and draped over the bustle properly.
They had just about gotten it set when Abby and Breena stepped out of the next room.
Both Jimmy and Ziva stopped dead and stared.
Abby’s dress was white, mostly. Pure, pristine white. Practically the mathematical ideal of white, but like the roses in her hair and bouquet, that perfect pristine white was edged in deep, beautiful red. At her wrists, and at the edge of each flounce on her skirt was a line of crimson. And on her neck, resting just above the dip of her collarbone was a pearl choker with a black on red cameo.
The bodice clung to her exactly the way it should, not a hint of gap or wrinkling as it skimmed down her upper body before flaring into a collection of ruffles over a hoopskirt. Her posture was straight and regal. Breena had started her hair by clipping in several red streaks, and then set her hair in perfect Gibson girl style, mostly black with occasional red, curls piled atop her head, accented with pearls and miniature roses. The makeup was fresh, glowing, playing up the natural contrast between the white dress and Abby’s dark hair and lashes.
“You’re beautiful,” Ziva and Palmer said in almost perfect concert.
“My best work, ever,” Breena said, arm around Abby. “You know, it’s a lot different doing the makeup on a live person.” Jimmy nodded and kissed his wife, feeling very proud of her at that moment. Then he kissed Abby’s cheek.
“He’s so going to cry when he sees you,” Jimmy said with a laugh.
Abby smiled, enjoying the way they were looking at her.
Gibbs took that moment to come in and felt his breath catch in his chest. He forced himself to exhale. “Oh, Abby.” If he’d ever been on the verge of tears, this was it. He remembered Tim crying on him, and damn if he didn’t feel like he might cry, too. His beautiful girl, one of them, anyway, was getting married today. And, like Palmer a minute before, he kissed her cheek, carefully, not wanting to smudge anything, and held her close, feeling swamped with how much he loved her right that moment.
“I told you, you’d like it.” She squeezed him back.
He kissed her again, and went to hug Ziva. “You’re beautiful, too.” And she was, her own dress, a deep blue-red ruby trimmed in black, went perfectly with her skin and hair.
Breena got a hug and a kiss as well.
“Palmer.” He nodded at Jimmy.
“It’s okay, I don’t need a hug.” Gibbs gave him that somewhat bewildered look, the sort he often ends up sending to Jimmy when he says something so far outside what’d he consider the rules of normal behavior that he doesn’t know what to do.
That got Gibbs back on track. “We’re due downstairs in twenty-seven minutes. The guys sent me to make sure Jimmy and I were dressed in time.”
Jimmy looked down, seeming to realize for the first time that he was still in a button-down, jeans, and sneakers. And Gibbs, of course, was still in jeans, a sweatshirt, and t-shirt.
“You’re right, we should get changed. Let me just help Ziva get the bodice on. The sleeves are designed so the girls can’t move their arms much.”
“Still think this was a good idea, Abbs?” Gibbs asked the bride fondly.
She was staring at herself in the mirror, almost like she can’t believe this is really her. “Tim’s gonna cry when he sees me. Oh yeah, this was a good idea.”
Gibbs kissed her one more time, for some reason he can’t seem to stop doing that. “Yeah, he is.”  
Jimmy smoothed the sleeves of the bodice down Ziva’s arms. “You got the buttons for yourself?”
“Sure. And if not, Breena or Abby can help me with them.”
“Okay, I’ll be on shoe duty in a few minutes.”
Gibbs looked at Palmer, curious. “Shoe duty?”
“You try putting on shoes with twenty buttons when you can’t bend at the waist.”
Gibbs nodded. That didn’t sound too easy.


Saturday 3:07
The girls headed into the “good light room,” giving Jimmy and Gibbs a little privacy for getting dressed. Okay, giving Gibbs some privacy for getting dressed, at this point all three of them know Jimmy well enough that seeing him in boxers isn’t an issue.
Gibbs hadn’t gone for the Stetson. In fact, with the exception of Jimmy, who was absolutely rocking the ever-living snot out of a bowler--who looked like he’d been waiting his entire life to wear one, who for all practical purposes appeared to have been born for the 1880s and the combination of the double breasted black frock coat and vest he was wearing along with the bowler and a crimson cravat--none of the guys opted for hats. Sure it wasn’t precisely in tune with the style, but they’re modern guys.
And Gibbs hadn’t gone for the western sheriff look, no matter how fitting it might have been.
He had, like Tim, gone for a dark-gray morning suit, with full on waistcoat and ascot. To mark himself as father of the bride, his waistcoat and ascot were white, and matched with a white rose boutonniere. It occurred to him that he has never, ever dressed up so fancy in his life. Not even for his own weddings did he don clothing like this. The things you’ll do for your kids. He thought while shaking his head, pinning the flower into place.
He drew the line at the gloves, though he noticed Tim had been wearing them. Kind of silly, he’ll be taking the damn things off about ten minutes into the wedding to put the rings on. He’ll figure that out soon enough.
He’s pulling on his shoes, listening to Jimmy natter away, marveling at how much Jimmy is turning into a junior version of Ducky, and also how, in costume, dressed one hundred and thirty years out of time, Jimmy looks completely comfortable. Like, somehow a costume lets him be his real self.
He straightens the pin that goes through his ascot, and thinks about how he’ll be doing this again, though in a regular tux, thank you DiNozzo!, in five months.
And he thinks about a third wedding, one that will never happen, and how he had, from the day she was born, dreamed of giving that bride away. He focuses on the present and enjoying the people he has, and trying to not miss the ones he’s lost, too badly.
He’s here, alive, and getting ready to give the bride away. Soon, he’ll be a grandpa, or close enough it won’t matter. Which boggles his mind, and not only because of how much he’s looking forward to holding Tim and Abby’s baby.
The dreams you build with the people in your life don’t die when those people do. That’s the horror of dreams, they linger and taunt you with a future that’s gone. But, given time, some awfully sweet new dreams could come along, and they could quiet some of the pain of missing the old ones.
Jimmy’s still talking, but he’s finished tying his cravat, so he looks done to Gibbs. “Come on, let’s let the girls know we’re ready.”


Saturday 3:16
When the girls return to the main room, Ziva’ s hair is out of the curlers, pulled toward the back of her head and allowed to cascade down her back in a long flow of gentle curls, and like Abby, her makeup is light and glowy.
Palmer doffs the hat, bows low, offering the three of them a courtly gesture and kissing hands. That he would do it, and look natural at it, has Gibbs flabbergasted.
Breena’s still not dressed. “Jimmy?”
“Yeah.”
“I need some help.”
Jimmy grins, looking like he was really going to enjoy ‘helping.’ “And help is on its way, my lady.” He picks the shoe hook off of the dresser and tosses it to Gibbs. “Looks like you’re on shoe duty.”
Gibbs looked at the hook in his hand and said, “Who’s up first?”
Abby pulled up her skirt. “Mine are already on. I put them on before the corset.”
“Good thinking,” Ziva said.
“I’ve worn a corset before. I’m guessing you haven’t.”
“No.”
“Well, let’s get you in your shoes.” Gibbs waited for a beat, expecting Ziva to sit down, and then another thought occurred to him. “Can you sit in this?”
Abby smiled. “Yes, it just takes some practice.” She carefully sat on the edge of the bed, showing them how to move to make it work.
Ziva sat down, and a minute later, Gibbs started on shoe buttoning.  He expected more chattering out of Abby, but she seemed happy with quiet. So a long minute stretched in comfortable, content quiet while he wrestled with Ziva’s shoes.
They could hear Palmer and Breena softly giggling in the other room.
Another minute passed, and he finished up with Ziva’s shoes.
As he was standing up, both of his girls hugged him. Both of them, so different, so perfect, so his, in his arms, broke Gibbs, and he felt the tears slide down his cheek and the grin he just couldn’t stop spread across his face. He kissed both of them again.
Abby smiled brilliantly at him. “I love you, too, Gibbs.”
He kissed her forehead one more time.
Palmer and Breena came out and joined the hug, after a minute Jimmy pulled back and wiped his own eyes. “So, we ready to head off and get you married?”
Abby nodded. “Yeah, Jimmy, we are.”

Shards To A Whole: An NCIS Fanfiction

McGee centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 109: Perspective

His house is dark when he walks in. He flicks on the light, tosses his keys and cell onto the little table near the front door where keys, mail, change, small electronics, and any other bits of whatever get tossed when they come in, and sticks the bucket they’d put the Halloween candy in on the floor under it. He looks at it for a second and wonders if the first kids to their house cleaned it out, and then smiles a little at the idea of how a year from now, he’ll be handing out the treats with his three-month-old baby.
Then he shakes his head and gets back to why he came home early.
It’s a little after eleven.
He walks into his office and looks at the now considerably less blank piece of paper on his desk and crumples it up.
Start fresh.
A though hits, and he acts on it. He knows he’s a little drunk, which is probably a good thing, because he doesn’t think he could do this cold sober, but at the same time he’s feeling like this is probably where the block is coming from. This is what has to be dealt with before he can get the words to flow the way they should, the way they want to.
So he goes back to that table, grabs his phone and calls Penny.
She sounds sleepy when she answers.
“Tim? Are you okay? Shouldn’t you still be out?”
“I’m fine. Just got home. Can you give me Dad’s phone number?”
He hears her pause, feels her think about that. Finally she says, “Let me text it to you.”
“Thanks.”
He gets another beer from the fridge. Might as well. He’ll be a lot more likely to actually dial those numbers if he’s well lubricated. He took a deep drink, and then dialed.
Two rings, and then “Hello?”
“Dad.”
“Tim?” His father sounds only mildly surprised by this. Like they talk regularly on say, Tuesdays, and he’s calling on a Monday, instead of this being the first time they’ve talked since the March before last, and the first time he’s called in over two years.
“Hi Dad.”
Nothing.  And this has always been part of the issue. Barking orders, his dad is fine, just talking, not so much.
Finally. “Is everything all right? Is Sarah okay?”
That’s a fairly plausible reason for why he’d call. “Sarah’s fine.” More quiet.  “I’m getting married tomorrow.”
“Penny told me.”
No congratulations, no why are you calling, just quiet.
“We’re having a baby in the summer.”
“She’s pregnant already?” He can feel the disapproval over the thousands of miles.
“Yeah, Dad. Just found out today.”
“Is that all?”
“Married, baby, first call in years, sure that’s all.” Why was he doing this again? As a focus. Break the block, let the word free. “Why did you marry mom?”
“Tim?”
“Obviously, I wasn’t there, but Mom was, and Penny was, so I heard how it happened. They’ve shown me pictures. Traditional Catholic ceremony at the Annapolis chapel. You stood up there, in front of God and everyone who had ever mattered to you, and promised to love my mother until the day you died. Love, honor, cherish, hell, forsaking. Forsaking all others. What did that mean to you? Just not fucking around? Did you even manage that? You were gone three hundred days a year, new port every month. Did you have a woman in each of them?”
“Are you drunk?” His dad sounds like he can’t believe Tim would ask any of this.
“A little, but that doesn’t answer my question. Why did you marry her? What did it mean to you? Why have kids when it was patently obvious you didn’t want them.”
“Why do you think I don’t want you or your sister?”
Now it was Tim’s turn to not say anything. That his dad would ask that has him stupefied. Eventually he said, “Really? You have to ask that? Thirteen out of seventeen birthdays, you missed them. All four of my graduations. Twelve Christmases. I was in a building that blew up two years ago, and you didn’t call. Penny called and visited. Mom called. Sarah visited. I know you knew what happened, everyone in the entire Navy knew.”
“I had a whole fleet I had to secure.”
“Bullshit! Ziva, one of my partners and best friends, her dad ran Mossad, and I don’t mean he was one of the higher ups, I mean Eli David, Director of Mossad, within an hour of the bombing had called to see if his daughter was all right and offered the power of his whole organization to help us. He could do that, while running security for the entire country of Israel. But you were so busy with your fleet that you couldn’t take five minutes to find out if I was still alive?”
“I checked the casualty report.”
Tim takes a deep breath.  Of course he’d do that.
“And when you saw my name on it, what the hell did you do?”
His father doesn’t say anything to that. He’s quiet for a full minute, probably hoping Tim’ll change the subject or hang up on him, but Tim doesn’t, so he says, “I made sure every ship on my roster was under constant watch, and that every person on those ships was accounted for and accountable.”
“Of course.” Deal with what you can change and help, ignore everything else.
“You could have called me, Tim.”
“I was busy getting stitched up and then actually catching Harper Dearing. You know, making sure that none of your ships or your men got hurt.”
“Which is what you should have been doing. Duty comes first.”
“Yeah. Duty. What about your duty to us? Seriously, why marry mom if she had no claim on you? Why make vows you knew you wouldn’t keep?”
His father doesn’t answer. Tim holds the phone, hoping for... he doesn’t know. He knows there isn’t any answer that will make his relationship with his Dad better, but he hopes there might be one that will help crystalize the nebulous thoughts whirling around in his mind.
Finally his dad says, “I never lied to your mother. She knew the Navy came first, that it would always come first, and when we got married she seemed fine with that. Eventually she changed her mind, or stopped lying to herself, I don’t know which. I married her because I wanted someone to come home to when I wasn’t at sea. I wanted someone to look forward to my return, but not miss me too much when I was away. I wanted someone to raise my children, and I trusted her to do a good job of it. It was a Catholic ceremony because we’re Catholic. We got married because it was 1974 and you didn’t just shack up with a woman and have kids with her back then.”
Tim closes his eyes and sighs. “You wanted a whore and a nanny.”
“You stop that right this second! You do not disrespect your mother!”
“I’m not disrespecting her. I’m disrespecting your idea of her!” His father doesn’t say anything to that, either. Finally Tim says, “Thanks, Dad.”
“For what?”
“Perspective.”
He puts down the phone, hangs up, grabs his pen, and starts to write. This time the words knew what they needed to do and why, and so they did.
Next

Shards To A Whole: An NCIS Fanfiction

McGee centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 107: The Rehearsal Dinner

At the rehearsal dinner, Tim noticed something. Contrary to how general demographics worked, he was sitting in a group with three elderly single guys, and only one single woman.
And while it’s true that usually only members of the wedding party and out of town guests go to the rehearsal dinner, Penny was in attendance as well, because she wanted some extra time with Tori and Sarah.
And she was getting that extra time, and also, a lot of extra attention.
Which she appeared to be enjoying.
For the most part, Ducky hung back. He’d catch her eye and smile, or wink, but he kept his distance. Tim knew from talking to Penny that though the two of them had hit it off, and gone on a few fairly promising dates, their combined schedules meant that they rarely got to see each other. They went out for drinks, had a pleasant time, made plans to see each other again, and then Ducky caught a case, then she had a lecture in Europe, and he caught another case, then he had a lecture series, then she was teaching a seminar in Georgia, and so forth and so on.
Given the pace of their schedules, they decided to be friends, and Tim decided that he was quite happy to believe that they just liked to get together for a pleasant dinner now and again and nothing else happens.
And if Ducky appears to be in an especially fine mood after the two of them get together, well, Penny is a lovely and brilliant woman, and spending time with her is fun, and Tim absolutely has no interest in knowing anything else on that topic, thank you very much.
Jackson tried a less direct approach, as well. Specifically, he let Senior head in, charm blazing, smile amped to 11, and then came to Penny’s ‘rescue’ a bit later.
Tony was standing next to him, watching Senior chat up Penny, and said, “So, they hit it off and get married, what does that make us? Step-brothers? No… I’d be your uncle, right? Uncle Tony.”
“God, that’s a horrifying thought.” Tim said.
Then Jackson swooped in, drink in each hand, and neatly cut Senior out of the picture as Penny smiled. “Her and Jackson, that’d make Gibbs--”
“Still your boss.”
The three of them watched Jackson flirt with Penny, which she handled with a pleasant smile, grace, charm, and a fairly definite brush off. Tim looked across the party and noticed Ducky appeared smugly pleased.
“You think those two…” Tony asked.
“They’re friends,” Tim answered, probably a bit quicker than was strictly necessary.
“Uh huh,” Tony said. Then Ziva caught his attention, waving him over to her and Breena and Abby.
He and Gibbs watched the party for a little while, and then Gibbs said, quietly, “Can we talk in private?”
“Sure.” Tim looked around, wondering what Gibbs would want to say to him without an audience, hoping this isn’t the hurt my daughter and I’ll kill you slowly and messily conversation, because, honestly he thought they were past that, and noticed that there was a small area behind the bar where they could talk without too much attention being paid to them.
He nodded in the direction of the bar. Gibbs saw it. And they headed over.
Tim waited for Gibbs to start, and eventually, he did.
“Tim, I know Abby’s family would normally pay for this, or at least help out, and...” he slid a check into Tim’s hand.
Tim unfolded it, and it took a moment before his mind could make the numbers on it make sense, finally, ten thousand dollars registered.
His first response, which he acted on, was to wrap Gibbs in a massive hug. Gibbs handled that by going stiff, looking confused, but then he sort of melted into it and hugged Tim back. Tim found himself thinking of this as the Godfather exception to the no hugging guys rule. On his daughter’s wedding day, (okay, rehearsal dinner day) the Godfather will grant hugs.  
Tim stepped back and said, “This is the sweetest thing anyone has done for us, thank you. Really, thank you. But... look... I’ve got to be honest, we aren’t hurting for cash.”
“Weddings are expensive.” By which Gibbs meant this particular wedding looked God-awful expensive because Tim and Abby aren’t pulling any punches on this. From what he can tell Abby’s ceremony dress (because she’s got one for the ceremony and one for the reception. Something about dancing in hoop skirts and corsets...) was more expensive than his last two weddings combined. “You just closed on a house, and I know what you make.”
Tim nodded. “You’re right. This is expensive. And look, this isn’t a I’m-too-proud-to-accept-your-help sort of thing. If we needed it, I’d take it in a heartbeat. But I don’t want you thinking we’d do something we couldn’t pay for. We’re not going into debt for this.”
Gibbs didn’t quite believe that, but he was also confused because he could tell Tim wasn’t lying. Apparently it showed on his face.
Tim read the look, and pulled Gibbs a bit further away from the rest of the wedding party. “Yeah, my pay grade isn’t too impressive. I know that. But... okay, I don’t like to talk about this. Abby knows, but I’d rather no one else did... So, anyway, the advance for The Traitor Within was three hundred thousand dollars. Right before we closed, I got the first draft of Most Precious in, so they sent me the first third of that advance.” Tim smiled a little. “We’re good on cash.”
Gibbs stared at him, disbelieving. He did it for a full minute, which felt like forever to Tim, and made him want to squirm. Finally Gibbs said, “They pay you hundreds of thousands of dollars to write about me?”
Tim shrugged. “All of us really. Foreign and Domestic was mostly about Ziva. Palmer had a lot of action in The Traitor Within. Most Precious is mainly Abby and me.”
“Why?”
Tim resisted the urge to say, “I’m a good writer,” and came up with, “People like these stories. They like reading about us. You’ve got fans. Lots of them. Some of them even write further adventures for you. If you were to go to Fanfiction.net and search Deep Six, you’d find over fifteen thousand stories.”Gibbs looked somewhere between intrigued and horrified. “What do they write about?”
Tim thought for a moment about what they actually write about, mainly Gibbs and Tony screwing each other silly, and decided that he was willing to break, or at least seriously bend, his don’t lie to Gibbs rule on this one.
“New adventures, new romances…”
Gibbs just stared at him, waiting for more.
“Many of them like you with Ziva,” he said it fast, voice low.
Intrigued vanished and utterly horrified replaced it. Tim decided not mentioning the stories with him and Tony was a good idea.
“They write about me and Ziva?”
Tim felt the blush creeping up his cheeks. “Yeah, together, like romantic and... explicit.”
“Yeah, I got that, Tim.” He shook his head, and Tim decided to get back to the topic at hand.
“So, look, this is amazingly generous, and if you mean it as a gift, we will happily take it, but if it’s about helping us out, it’s still amazingly generous, but well, I know what you make, too, and I don’t want you putting yourself out for us.” He was holding the check, looking at it, trying to figure out a way to get out of this with some sort of grace.
Gibbs took Tim’s hand and closed it around the check. Then he hugged Tim, who was utterly surprised by this.    
Abby bopped over a second later, looking amused and slightly annoyed.  “You told him, didn’t you?”
“No, Abby.” Tim shook his head a little. “I swear, I’m leaving it to you.”
“Then why are you guys hiding way over here, and why is he hugging you?” she asked Tim, but she was looking at Gibbs.
Gibbs shrugged, smiled a little, and pulled Abby in for a hug. He had an arm around her when he asked, “What do you think Tim told me?”
She looked at Gibbs, beamed at him, unadulterated rays of Abby joy bathing him, and said, much more calmly than both he and Tim were anticipating, “We found out this morning. We’re pregnant!”
“And you tell me you don’t need this?” Gibbs eyed the check in Tim’s hand as a huge grin spread across his face, the sort Tim had never seen on Gibbs before, but if he had to guess, he’d call it pure happiness.
“We don’t, Boss, but there’s nothing in the world we want more than a crib made by you.”

Gibbs hugged both of them, kissing Abby on the cheek. Abby cried. Tim pretended he wasn’t crying. And Gibbs pretended he didn’t notice as he held both of them close. 

Shards To A Whole: An NCIS Fanfiction

McGee centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

106: Errands

No one tells you that part of a wedding is running ten million errands the day before.
And no one tells you how hard it is to give a damn about them when you found out you’re going to have a baby less than an hour earlier.
What he’d like to be doing is sitting at home with Abby, maybe making love, definitely basking in the we’re-pregnant glow.
What he is doing is running back and forth to different airports. Sarah moved to New York three years ago, and she and her boyfriend Glenn were coming into Dulles at ten. His mom and Ben were coming into Reagan at one. Luca’s family was coming into Dulles at three. It’s his job to get them all picked up, to the Adam’s House, and settled in in time for the rehearsal tonight.  
And in between that, he’s also got pick up his suit. Sure, he had to put his reception suit together on his own, that’s not the sort of thing he could rent, but the formal morning suit he’s wearing for the ceremony, that he could and did rent, so he’s got to go get it.
Which means he’s spending a lot of time in Jimmy’s car (Tim switched cars with him, since neither he nor Abby has a car with a backseat.) enjoying the glorious joy that is DC traffic, and mostly just stuck in a sort of blank headspace where the only thing really going on is the immense shock of BABY.
It feels really weird. There’s this huge, everything in his life is about to go sideways immensity to it, but there’s also this sort of gentle blankness, too.
Part of him wants to jump around and tell everyone. Even strangers. He’s chatting mindlessly with the guy waiting next to him at the luggage carousel that’s been assigned to Sarah’s flight, doing the usual, glad-the-flight’s-on-time, who-are-you-waiting-for thing, and the guy next to him congratulated him on the wedding, but he’s feeling this desire to just talk.
He keeps it in check. With the exception of Gibbs, they aren’t planning to tell anyone until after they get back from their honeymoon. Won’t tell most of the world until the first trimester is over. Because if something happens… He quickly shuts that train of thought down. Just the idea of it makes him feel sick to his stomach, and he really doesn’t need that right now.
A crowd of people are heading toward the carousel, and it takes a moment, but he spots Sarah and waves. She waves back and a minute later he’s hugging her, and a few seconds after that she’s introducing Glenn, who Tim probably should have paid more attention to because this is the first of the boyfriends he’s been introduced to, but he’s kind of distracted.
Fortunately, as the groom, everyone expects him to be distracted.
As he was driving them towards the Adam’s House, Sarah mentions that they’re moving back to DC shortly after New Year’s, and that does get Tim to start paying attention to this Glenn guy, because obviously his sister must be serious about him if she’s not only living with him but moving to a different city with him.Apparently he’s giving Glenn a pretty good version of his interrogation technique because Sarah sends Glenn to the front desk to get their key cards, pulls Tim aside, glares at him and says, “What are you doing?”
This is where it occurred to him that, just possibly, he hadn’t been making polite, introductory small talk. “Talking?”
“Like hell, you’re acting like Dad.”
Tim stared at Sarah, one eyebrow high, looking exasperated. “Please. Like The Admiral would even notice you’ve got a boyfriend, let alone take any interest in the guy.”
“He met Glenn when he was in New York for Fleet Week and likes him.”
That yanked the metaphorical rug out from under Tim’s feet. “What?”
Sarah calmly said, “He visits when he’s in New York.”
“When did that start happening?”
“When didn’t it happen? He always drops by when he’s within 100 miles.”
Tim sighed, shoulders slumping. “Of course he does. And let me guess, he has signed copies of all of your books in his office next to the flags and medals.”
Sarah looked a little chagrinned at that because the answer is yes, and no, none of Tim’s books are there because their father considers his books a waste of time.
Tim gritted his teeth a little and reminded himself that it is not Sarah’s fault that their dad is an ass, and that she doesn’t owe it to him to cut their dad out of her life, especially since, besides never being around, he’s always been nice to her. “And how is he?”
“He’s Dad. As long as you don’t expect him to be anything other than Dad, he’s fine.”
“Great.” He and Sarah had talked about that before. He’s fairly sure Sarah and Penny have as well. If there is one thing he and his dad have in common, it’s the fact they both wish the other one was someone else.
“I take it we aren’t going to see him tomorrow?”
“Not unless something goes horrifically wrong.”
Glenn catches the tail end of that as he heads back with the keys. “What’s going horrifically wrong?”
Sarah takes his hand in hers. “Nothing. Just our Dad.”
“Is he okay?”
Tim’s a little surprised to see that Glenn looks genuinely worried, and his opinion of the guy rises.
“To the best of my knowledge, he’s as okay as he ever is. Let’s get you settled in. Then we can grab some lunch and go get Mom and Ben.”
“That sounds good,” Sarah says, and they head up toward their room. “So, tell me about the house? You all moved in now?”

And that got them on a comfortable topic.