Chapter nine

Abby’s eyes widened. “Ghosts?”

Gibbs would have felt stupider asking had it not been for the fact that he’d been conversing with a ghost for the last few days, and he’d relied upon said ghost to clear a crime scene.

“Yeah, Abs,” Gibbs said. “Ghosts.”

“You’re telling her?”

Tony’s shocked voice came from just behind him, but Gibbs managed not to jump.

“Tony?” Abby asked.

“She can see me?”

Gibbs frowned. “You can see him?”

“What?” Abby asked. “No! Is it—are you serious? Tony’s here? As a ghost?”

Gibbs wanted to slap himself. She was an extremely intelligent forensic scientist who was more than used to putting two and two together, and out of all the people at NCIS, she was probably the most open minded. Of course she’d figure it out without a problem. He sighed; this wasn’t the way he’d planned on introducing the whole thing. Not that he’d had much of a plan to begin with, given that he’d chosen it about sixty seconds ago.

Finally, he nodded, because he couldn’t get out of it now.

“Oh my god,” Abby said. “Really? How—and you can see him? And—can you prove it? You know, tell me something you shouldn’t know or something?”

“Everyone wants evidence,” Tony muttered, rolling his eyes.

Gibbs sighed. “Abs—”

“I don’t think you’re crazy, Gibbs,” Abby said quickly, eyes still wide. “I just—please? I just want to know for sure—”

“That I’m not crazy,” Gibbs said.

Abby thought about it for a moment, and then gave a light shrug. “Well—”

Gibbs sighed. “He told me McGee spent the night at your apartment last night.”

Abby’s mouth dropped open, and a series of expression passed over her face – in rapid succession, she went through surprise, shock and astonishment. Finally, her brow knitted together into a frown of annoyance.

“What was he doing in my apartment?” she asked, hands on her hips.

“Boss, did you have to pick that bit?” Tony whined.

“I told him to check up on everyone,” Gibbs said evenly, because he had and Tony had simply been following orders, and right now, Tony couldn’t defend himself as he usually did when they teased each other.

“I didn’t stay,” Tony said. “I just checked that you were both safe.”

“He didn’t stay,” Gibbs relayed to Abby. “After he found Ziva yesterday, I told him to keep track of everyone, because we’re spread thin.”

Abby’s eyes widened. “Tony found Ziva?”

“Mm-hmm,” Gibbs said.

“McGee told me there was something hinky about it,” Abby said. Gibbs gave her a look. “Not hinky with you, bossman! Just hinky with how quickly you jumped to her being in trouble and then he said you knew where the bad guys were and McGee said Ziva—oh, this explains—”

And then, just like that, as though a light bulb turned on in her head, her face crumbled into agony. Understanding dawned in her eyes, and they filled to the brim with tears that would fall the second she blinked.

“Oh god—is he dead?”

Gibbs glanced at Tony, who looked just as crushed as Abby, but Gibbs didn’t think it was because of the question. Instead, Gibbs suspected that it was because Tony hated causing Abby pain.

“Don’t cry, Abs,” Tony said, and he reached out a hand that was dropped equally quickly, as he reminded himself that he couldn’t touch her.

“We don’t know,” Gibbs said, voice rougher. “We need information.”

She sniffed. “Information?”

“Yeah,” Gibbs said. “Rules. About ghosts.”

“Information,” Abby said. “Information. I can do information. I’m good at that. No, I’m great at that. I will find you information. Every bit of information there is to find on ghosts, I will get you.”

She drew in a deep breath, and straightened her shoulders.

“Good girl, Abs,” Gibbs said, placing a kiss on the top of her head.

“But he’s here?” Abby asked, the fragile façade of strength dropping away again. “And you can talk to him?”

“Yeah,” Gibbs said. “He’s standing over there. He doesn’t want you to cry.”

That didn’t seem like the right thing to say, because new tears welled up in Abby’s eyes.

“Oh Tony, I miss you.”

Tony reached out to place his hand on her cheek. It went through, his fingers melting into her skin. “Miss you too, Abs.”

She startled, eyes widening. “Did he touch me?”

Gibbs’ eyebrows rose in surprise, and he nodded. Could Abby actually feel Tony?

“It felt—prickly,” Abby said. “On my cheek.”

She looked at Gibbs, and then reached out her hand, very slowly, into the space next to Gibbs where Tony was standing. Gibbs could see that her hand was shaking, and she closed her eyes.

Gibbs watched Tony’s face, which was open and vulnerable, eyes wide and mouth slightly open. Perhaps there was a bit of fear of what would happen when Abby touched him – Gibbs knew that the fear was that she wouldn’t be able to feel him, that the touch to the cheek had been a onetime thing.

Abby gasped the moment she came in contact with Tony’s ghost, her fingers moving back just slightly, to move carefully up and down the contours of the body she couldn’t see. With her eyes still closed, she sensed her way up his arm, over his shoulder, up his neck and to his face. She was breathing fast, tongue darting out to moisten dry lips. She let her fingers move across his face, and Tony watched her, not so much as blinking. She felt his cheeks, his nose, light fingers running across his lips and his eyes.

Time seemed frozen, nothing existing but the two of them – Gibbs felt like he was watching an incredibly private moment, but he couldn’t bring himself to look away. He wondered what it would feel like to run his own hands across Tony’s face, to draw the lines of Tony’s face with his fingers. His heart beat loudly in his chest.

Finally, Abby opened her eyes, and there was a brief second of disappointment – although she could feel him, she still couldn’t see him.

“He’s really there,” she breathed.

Gibbs couldn’t find his voice, so he simply nodded.

She kept staring intently at the space where she now knew Tony was standing. “Why can only you see him?”

“Don’t know,” Gibbs said. “It’s one of the things we need you to figure out. And he can only visit the team and you, Ducky and Palmer. We don’t know why.”

She swallowed, and then nodded, finally looking away. “I’ll find everything I can.”

Gibbs nodded, and then turned to leave.

“Tony?” Abby said, and Gibbs stopped.

“Yeah?” Tony answered, even though he knew she couldn’t hear her.

“He’s listening,” Gibbs said.

“Touch me whenever you’re here, so that I know,” Abby said. “And come by often.”

Tony smiled. “I will.”

There was an odd sting of jealousy at the edge of Gibbs’ mind upon Tony’s words, and he realized that in the last few days, he’d gotten used to being the only one Tony really wanted to be around.

Still, he relayed Tony’s words to Abby, and then he left, Tony trailing behind him quietly.

“Nothing, boss.”

McGee sighed, standing by Gibbs’ desk.

Gibbs heard Tony sigh too, and held back one of his own. They were getting nowhere.

“We looked at three galleries and spoke to the managers about the artists,” Ziva said. “We do not seem to be on the right track; they said nothing suspicious.”

She looked exhausted, even though she tried her best to hide it. There was a weariness that made her shoulders slump, and shadows around her eyes. The bruises did nothing to help her appearance.

Gibbs stood. “We’re going to start over.”

“Again?” McGee asked, and then turned red. “I mean—of course, boss.”

Ziva looked at him with hollow eyes. “Perhaps it is already too late.”

Gibbs fixed her with a glare, his gut churning at the thought. He had thought the same thing too many times already. It was the first time Ziva had actually finished her sentence, even though she’d tried saying as much since five days after Tony disappeared.

“And what then, Officer David?” he asked, tone chilly. “Do you think we should give up?”

“Gibbs, come on,” Tony said softly. “It’s just her way of dealing with everything.”

Ziva didn’t look away from Gibbs’ hard gaze, and he saw the sadness and grief in her eyes. “No, Gibbs. We will keep looking.”

Gibbs nodded, anger abating. He knew Ziva wouldn’t give up; none of them would. They were family; they would keep looking, keep searching, until all hope had been extinguished.

“Let her rest,” Tony said. “She’s been through the ringer.”

Gibbs considered Tony’s words, knowing they were true, but battling with the need to have his team near to continue their search for Tony and the serial killer. Still, there was little they could do now, other than go over the evidence they had already collected.

“Go lie down in Abby’s lab, Ziva,” he said.

He remembered after the plague, when he had told Tony the same thing. Tony had looked bad then, but he hadn’t had sorrow in his eyes; he had simply been happy to be back to work. That had changed soon enough when Kate—

“I can work,” Ziva said, interrupting Gibbs’ thoughts.

“It wasn’t a suggestion,” Gibbs snapped.

Ziva glared at him defiantly, but finally bowed her head slightly in defeat. She picked up her jacket and left the squad room, taking the elevator down to Abby’s lab. Gibbs glanced at Tony, and gave a very small nod towards Ziva. Tony understood, and faded away, going after her to see that she’d be okay and actually rest.

McGee sat nervously by his computer, already following Gibbs’ orders on going over the evidence again. Gibbs sat down to the same task, even though he was painfully aware that they had already started over twice, going over every clue with a fine-toothed comb, without finding anything. Without holding much hope, Gibbs thought that perhaps they could see something new, now that they had uncovered the killer’s intent to recreate The Raft of the Medusa.

They spent three hours on the clues they’d already gone over, McGee checking through the phone records of all the victims while Gibbs tried in vain to connect the victims with each other – and they both came up with nothing. Gibbs didn’t think his heart could grow any heavier – at this point, he seemed to do nothing but wait for the phone to ring, to tell them that there had been another body, and that it was Tony’s.

Tony mostly stayed down in Abby’s lab with Abby and Ziva, only coming up every now and then. Gibbs didn’t know if it was because he wanted to see to it that Gibbs and McGee were safe too, or if it was simply to keep the pull that dragged him back to Gibbs under control. Gibbs hoped it wasn’t the latter.

“Ziva’s still sleeping,” he told Gibbs when he returned the next time. “And Abby – she can really feel me. She can’t hear me, but—I swear, I can almost feel her touch.”

Jealousy festered in Gibbs’ mind at Tony’s awed tones, but he didn’t say anything. What could he say? He couldn’t ask Tony to stand still so that Gibbs could see if he could feel Tony as well; beyond the head slaps, they had never been particularly physical. To ask to touch now would raise questions.

“She’s done some ghost research, though,” Tony said. His tone became lighter. “You know, I don’t think there’s anything she couldn’t find out. Add that to the whole she-can-kill-without-leaving-a-trace thing, and she really makes for a very scary person.”

Gibbs had already stood and was heading towards the elevator, to go down and see what she had found. After the doors closed, he reached out and smacked Tony’s head – or the spot where Tony’s head ought to be, anyway.

It wasn’t so much because Tony had gone off on a tangent – though he had – but more to see if he could actually feel Tony at all.

Tony hadn’t winced, but he had fallen very silent, regarding Gibbs.

Gibbs wondered if he had imagined the prickling feeling, if he simply wanted it to be there so badly that he made up the sensation. He would need to touch Tony for a longer period, caress him the way Abby had, to be able to tell.

Tony looked almost afraid to speak, which was unusual. He could be wary, especially when someone had spilt Gibbs’ coffee, and he could hold back, if there was the possibility of Gibbs hurting, but he was never afraid.

“What?” Gibbs snapped, just as the elevator doors opened. He stepped out and Tony followed.

Tony swallowed visibly, tongue darting out over his lips. “Try—try to touch me, boss.”

Gibbs’ heart beat faster, the ka-thump loud in his ears. A thousand thoughts swirled through his mind; emotions meshing with reasoning about as well as oil meshed with water. For once, he was at a loss for words, and his hands hung limply at his side.

Finally, he settled on two words. “Not here.”

Tony’s eyes were wide, but he seemed to process the words slowly before nodding.

Gibbs turned, trying to calm himself before he entered Abby’s lab. With Tony’s ghost looming behind him, and a million thoughts running through his head – every one of those thoughts to do with his hands on Tony’s smooth skin, his lips against Tony’s, their bodies moving together – it didn’t work very well.

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