Disclaimer: I don’t own NCIS

A/N: Hi, A new chapter short as always :) … Read. Enjoy. Review…

Hands Off

Chapter Seven – Fear

I sat at my desk as long as I could. The silence in the room around me was deafening, usually I enjoyed the silence that ensued after the team’s departure, but with nothing to do but replay my last conversation with Abby in my head, it was driving me crazy. Not to mention every time I watched it play it out I wanted to go down and talk to her, but experience told me to wait at least an hour before going down. She’ll have cooled down a lot and as I looked at the clock in the corner of my computer screen I noticed it had only been fifteen minutes. I picked my coffee cup up off my desk and took a sip before throwing the now cold coffee into the trash bin that was next to my desk.

Then I stood up, happy for an excuse to go and do something. I left my coat where it was and headed over to the elevator. I could feel all the other agents in the squad room’s eyes on me as I pushed the button for the doors to open as I turned around and saw several heads bend over their desks. I glared around the room for a second while the doors opened behind me.

“I’m just going to get some coffee,” I said to them as I got on the elevator, “There won’t be any show.”

As I backed into the elevator and the doors closed in front of me, I pressed the button that would bring me to the ground floor. Then I sensed somebody behind me, and I whipped around. Abby was sitting in the corner of the small room and I stopped the elevator as I cocked my head to the side to look at her. She looked up at me with tears in her eyes and I sank down to sit next to her as I wrapped my arm around her and she cuddled into my side. I kissed her head as I slowly let my grip around her loosen and she cuddled into me even more, so I tightened my arm once again.

“Abbs?” I asked quietly and she remained silent, but I quickly decided that I needed her to speak to me again, “I thought your elevator days were over Abbs.”

She chuckled a little through her tears but really didn’t say anything as she looked around at me and I smiled a little at her. Then she very quickly hid her face into my side once more and I held her tight, kissing the top of her head lightly in the dark elevator.

“Ya gonna talk to me, Abbs?” I asked and she shook her head violently as I chuckled a little, “Ok, I guess I deserve that, how long ya gonna shut me out, Abbs?”

She shrugged her shoulder and I sighed heavily as I started to stroke her hair gently as I had done a few hours ago when our lives weren’t all this complicated. Well, I guess it really wasn’t all that complicated for me, I love Abbs, that’s about all I knew at this point. I didn’t know if Abby had changed her mind after seeing the side of jealousy erupt in me, and I didn’t know if that mattered anyways. I loved her, she claimed to love me more than she loved him, why couldn’t I just believe her?

My mind flashed to the moment Andy had walked into the lab. I remembered his ecstatic expression and her scared one as she had looked from him to me and back. It was a face I had seen a million times down in interrogation on a million different faces. It was fear, but it wasn’t like they’d seen a ghost or perhaps they thought someone was going to attack them. It was the look a deer got in the headlights, when the people know they’ve been found out. It didn’t make sense, as I thought through the morning in my head as I held Abby close, sitting on the floor of the elevator.

If he had really left Abby at the altar or whatever then wouldn’t she have just been pissed off rather than scared that I would be mad. I tugged her tighter to myself, not wanting to shield my heart any longer. I knew it would be a fight for her heart, and I was all in. This time I knew it wasn’t the physical fight that I had tried earlier. It would be a war. I would put on the charm and deal with this guy until she realized he was just some guy from Louisiana years ago. I was done shielding myself from feeling this for Abby, I had put up a wall between myself and whoever I was dating for years, trying not to get quite so hurt again. Now I was done.