Title:Three Minutes
Rating: K+
Spoilers: Hiatus
Warnings: Touches on the idea of abortion… I've tried to keep it as neutral as possible, though.
Summary: After your second marriage or so, you get to know that look women get.

Author's Note: Some of you know how big a fan I am NOT of Gabby pregnancy – you can blame Jo.R for this one, for re-pointing-out that you can rearrange the letters in 'Abby' to make 'baby'. *shudder* And yeah, I know that Abby would know that home pregnancy tests can give you false negatives, but somehow it doesn't have the same impact that way, so I've gone with 'one-test-resolves-all'.

"Gibbs?"

Abby hovers uncertainly in the doorway, one hand behind her back, her eyes troubled. A ripple of unease goes through him, and he tries to ignore it, but he already knows what's going to come next. After your second marriage or so, you get to know that look women get.

He sets down his coffee and gets off the couch, approaching her and halting a few paces away. "You okay?"

Her gaze slides from his, and she nods, then stops herself and shakes her head slowly. "I'm… late."

Yeah, he was right. God-damnit… Having this discussion with Abby is something he always prayed wouldn't happen. She loves kids as much as he does, though she's never discussed the possibility of having a child with him. He imagines that falling pregnant would make her indescribably happy, and that she'd have everything planned out, including a list of possible names for the child, by the date of her first ultrasound scan.

"How late?" he asks, keeping his voice neutral.

"Like… two and a half weeks late." She gnaws on a fingernail, her eyes fixed on his shoes.

"Done a test?"

Abby pulls her hand from behind her back, revealing a home pregnancy test, still sealed in its box. At the sight of it, something within him gasps with relief: at least it's not a completed test with a positive result. "I'm about to," she says, looking up at him through eyes filled with tears. "I'm scared, Gibbs."

He pulls her into a rough hug, holding her tightly. "Scared of what?"

Abby's bitter laugh is muffled against his neck. "You're kidding, right?"

Gibbs draws back to look at her, feeling a little unbalanced. "Talk to me."

They sit on the couch, both tense and shaken. Abby shrugs, turning the test over and over in her fingers. "I'm scared that I'll be pregnant! I mean, I love kids, but I can't be a mom! I'm a good aunt to little Marie, but I can just hand her back to my brother when she gets tired and go 'you deal with it'. I don't even make sure that I eat and sleep properly – I can't raise a kid, Gibbs!"

"I'm not asking you to," he reminds her, and the other options stretch out before them: adoption or abortion.

She falters for a second, then decides not to go down that road yet. "Can you imagine? With most kids, the most they can come across is a loose electrical socket or a pan handle sticking out on the stove. If we had a toddler around, it'd be crime scene photographs, hazardous chemicals and hand tools from the basement!"

"Could be worse," he deadpans, because he doesn't know what else to say. "Could be power tools."

"And you…" Seeming not to hear him, she shakes her head, remorse twisting her features. "The last thing you want is another baby."

She doesn't elaborate, but both of their minds go to Kelly anyway – the daughter tragically taken from him at only eight years of age, along with his first wife, Shannon. Their deaths will always haunt him, and though he's finally found happiness again with Abby, it's taken him years of hurt and failed relationships. If he had that much trouble finding someone to love… how can he bring up a child?

"Abbs-" he begins, but she silences him with an emphatic shake of her head.

"I screwed up, Gibbs. I don't know how, but I did."

He covers her hands with his, hoping to reassure them both. "We don't know yet. You've been through a lot in the lab recently – stress can make you late."

Tiredly, she rubs her forehead. "Maybe. I just… I don't know what I'll do if the test comes out positive. If I have this kid, then I'll have to stop working to look after it…" She trails off, her eyes widening in dismay. "In ten years' time, I could be a soccer mom, and talk about nothing but groceries and what my kids have done, while my brain dribbles outta my ears and you wonder what happened to the Abby you used to know-"

"Abby," Gibbs tries to interrupt, but she's in full flow now, deaf to his gentle cautioning.

"And you'll need to keep on working cases, and you'll come home at three a.m. to find me awake, trying to stop baby Gabby from crying, and you'll be stressed out and so will I, and we'll argue, and then we'll split up-"

"Abbs." Sounding calmer than he feels, he puts a finger to her lips. "Gonna put a muzzle on your imagination for now?"

Closing her eyes, she nods. "Okay," she whispers, a tear rolling down her cheek.

Gibbs' mind runs back over her babble, halting suddenly. "Baby Gabby?"

The ghost of a smile appears, a little forced. "It's an amalgamation. Of 'Gibbs' and 'Abby'. I guess Gabrielle for a girl and Gabriel for a boy."

More than anything, he wants to tell her not to name their possible offspring; not to personalise it. It'll only make it harder if they decide not to keep it. Instead, he says, "No son of mine's ever gonna be called 'Gabriel'.

Abby's smile is a little more genuine now, if a little desperate. "Sorry, Leroy Jethro."

For a couple of seconds, they cling to the lighter mood, but reality pulls them to their senses. This is a real possibility, and they need to deal with it, not with ifsand maybes.

Locking his emotions away, trying not to think of the options, he pulls her to her feet. "You need to do the test before we talk about this any more."

In silence, they ascend to the bedroom, and Abby reluctantly vanishes inside the en-suite bathroom, test in hand. Left alone in the stillness, Gibbs gazes at the bathroom door, memories assaulting his mind.

He and Shannon had been so happy she was pregnant. She wanted a child, and he wanted whatever she wanted – but upon seeing his wife's belly swell as her pregnancy progressed, he'd grown as enthusiastic as she was about the baby that was about to come into their lives.

And when he'd held Kelly for the first time, nothing could have been more perfect. But when he thinks that he might soon hold in his arms a replacement for the baby she'd been…

He doesn't want to go through all that again. Back then, he was a different man – almost twenty years of experiencing loss, and of witnessing some of the most horrific crimes ever committed, have ruined him.

Every now and then, he's looked at Emily, Diane's child by Tobias Fornell, and fleetingly wondered what she would be like if his DNA had gone into her at conception… but those thoughts are few.

Abby returns from the bathroom with empty hands, meeting his questioning eyes. "It needs three minutes."

Three minutes. An eternity divided into a hundred and eighty seconds, each one ticking by with infuriating slowness. Abby sits beside him on the bed, and he folds his arms around her, kissing the top of her head.

"I always thought," she mumbles against his shirt, "that if I accidentally got pregnant, I'd just have it aborted. Okay, I'd feel bad about it, but it would be something that was necessary, like having a tooth pulled or something. It'd only be a bundle of cells – not sentient or even looking like a person yet."

She looks up at him sadly. "It's not like that. If there's a baby in here…" she touches her abdomen for a fleeting moment, "I can't kill it. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I did."

Her words don't surprise him – it's what he'd expected from the moment she told him she was late. One of the things he loves about her is how deeply life affects her, but it's a curse as much as a blessing. "Your choice, Abbs. I won't tell you what to do with your body."

"Part of me wishes you would," she whispers.

Gibbs closes his eyes, unable to imagine how much worse it must be for her. After a moment, she takes a deep, shuddering breath and straightens in his arms, inviting him to share his feelings as she's spilled hers. "What about you?"

He looks into her pale face and speaks the only truth he can utter. "I don't know."

Abby kisses his cheek, as he has hers so many times over the years, and gently pulls out of his arms. "It's time."

She crosses to the bathroom, and hesitates almost imperceptibly in the doorway. He gets up to follow her, watching as she picks up the slim white stick and examines it. From this distance, he can't see its result, and he bites down on the urge to demand that she tell him.

Abby's shoulders tense a little, and she double-checks the leaflet that came with the test without sparing him a glance. Gibbs watches her, prepared for the worst and beginning to run the next few steps through his mind-

"Negative!"

The test and its leaflet clatter simultaneously into the sink as Abby spins with a Cheshire Cat's grin, launching herself into his arms. It's an effort to keep his balance; the relaxation of his tense muscles combined with Abby's weight is too much to bear. With a sigh of relief, he manages to navigate them both back to the bed, holding her tightly and thanking everything out there for the result they both wanted.

"Jesus, Abbs, you scared me," he breathes against her scalp, and she tightens her arms around him a fraction.

"Not half as much as I scared myself," she admits, through giggles a hair's breadth from becoming sobs.

"You'd make a better mom than you think," he says, able to entertain the idea now that he knows it's not a reality.

Abby draws back a little, looking up at him curiously. "What would you have done if I'd been positive?"

Asked by Stephanie or Diane, the question would have been loaded; a wrong answer would trigger an explosive argument followed by a four-day sulking period. Abby seems to want his response for nothing more than to satisfy her own curiosity, so he answers, "Dealt with it – whatever we decided to do about it. Only thing you can do in that situation."

She reads the subtext beneath the statement, a simple, powerful message. I'm here for you – no matter what. She leans across the distance between them to kiss him briefly, and her smile echoes the sentiment when he lays a hand over her flat stomach. "I have a craving for more caffeine than any pregnant woman should drink..."

Gibbs gets up from the bed, feeling lighter than he has all day. "You get rid of the pregnancy test, and I'll go on a Caf-Pow! run."

END.