milliways_bar | (no subject)

"Yes, good lady--I'm a longtime soldier, since I was strong enough to lift a sword."

Good lady? Abby definitely knew that Tony would snicker if he heard that. Hell, even Gibbs might. But then Kate would kick Tony and she could tease Gibbs about his inability to deal with technology, so it was all good.

"That's what I thought. I work with military types, so I can usually tell." Sure, Abby, sure. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she loved fantasy, did it?

"Ah . . . you come from a time like my friend Sara's, I suspect. Women are not soldiers in my time, but I understand they are warriors or work for the City Guard in others."

"Sara?" Definitely sounded like a name from her time. And she had seen many people who seemed to be from her time, so there was a good chance that she was. If she was from the same world, however, was another story.

"I'm not exactly the warrior type..." That much was apparent from her build. Abby rarely went out into the field and was quite pale, too. That could happen if you were holed up in a lab all day.

"But yes, there are women who fight. My friend Kate's one. She used to be part of a team that protected the president." She paused, knowing that the term probably wouldn't flow. "That's basically someone like a king."

"That is an honorable position. Do you, er, also use 'bullets'?"

"You bet," Abby said in response to Kate being in an honorable position. She was proud for her friend, and glad to have her as a part of the NCIS team.

"I don't. Like I said, I don't fight. I do forensics. That's basically..." Hm, how to explain this to a man from Gondor. "Finding evidence at a crime scene. Murder, rape, kidnappings... I look for any clues to find out who did it. I process the evidence. Get my hands dirty, so to speak."

"Sara said she does much the same thing. There is a great deal of unnatural death in your world, it would seem."

Abby guessed that this Sara girl was probably part of a police force. She was going to need to see if she could find her. Maybe they could talk techniques and technology.

"Sadly, yes. I guess it's a part of human nature. Jealousy, rage, need for revenge..." Abby shrugged her shoulders. At her age, she had already seen quite a lot. "But I work for a branch where the cases are limited to the involvement of military men. That is, both as victims and suspects."

"I see . . . like an inquiry board. We have something like that, to keep soldiers in line. It is difficult, at times, when men are trained for fighting, to keep the fighting to against the enemy.

"Though our enemy takes up so much time and energy there is no reason for soldiers to take out their aggressions on each other."

"Most of the time, the military men -- and women -- are usually the victims. That's how we hear about the cases, mostly. And it's not always violence. A lot of times, they go missing. Or illegal activities like smugglng or drugs. But unfortunately, there are the occasional murders.

But some are involved in the guilty party. There was a man who killed his best friend to cover up the fact that he was sleeping with his friend's wife." That had ended ugly, from what Abby had heard from Kate and Tony.

Boromir grimaces. "That is a sad state of affairs. How wretched."

"Yeah. Those are the cases that really suck rock. Sometimes I think the outright murders from hate are better." Abby did live in a sad, twisted little world, when you thought about it. But she also thrived in it. It was where she belonged.

"But you know. I get paid because of the cases, so I guess I can't really complain much," she said with a shrug.

"It is better than going hungry," Boromir agrees. "Er, suck rock? What does that mean?"

Oh. It would make sense that Boromir wouldn't understand slang. Well, most people didn't really understand Abby-speak anyway, but that was another story.

"Oh, it means that it's no fun. Bad. Depressing. Take your pick, really."

"I see." He frowns. "If the work is so suck rock, why do you do it? Even aside from the pay?"

"The work, per say, doesn't suck rock. It's just the cases that do. I mean, considering the fact that I stay down in my lab all day, it's pretty easy to detach myself from the actual cases. Don't see faces, just the facts. Sure, I have to deal with dead human parts and stuff, but I'm used to that. Grew up with it, even.

The work...well, it's really kind of an art. Or so I see it, anyway. And I like what I do, especially when I help crack cases." Kinda felt like you were a detective or a superhero.

"I see," Boromir murmurs, though he truly doesn't. Crime solving is much simpler in his world.

"I bet it's not as complicated where you come from, huh?" Abby said with a grin, as if she could read his mind.

"I do not know entirely what you mean by 'lab', or how such a place would assist in solving a crime. The city watch will qestion witnesses and examine a scene, but we can only learn what our eyes tell us. There is no alchemy involved."

Alchemy...well, Abby figured that was a good word to describe it, from where Boromir was coming from. The technology NCIS had was foreign to those who lived in Gondor, definitely.

"We have different technology. We can identify specific weapons from marks left on bodies. We can find out who various body fluids and such belong to. That's what I do down in the lab."

"That sounds . . . terribly complicated," Boromir says helplessly.

"It's not so bad, since I've been trained to do it, and I like what I do. In a sense, it's a bit like...solving a puzzle." And Abby had always liked puzzles and challenges.

"I mean, it's really no different from you telling me how to do a certain fighting sequence or something. I'd probably have no clue." She said with a laugh.

He smiles. "If I had my sword I could show you any feint, parry or thrust you could wish to see."

And no. Abby was not going to think dirty, perverted thoughts. Because Boromir is a gentleman, and probably didn't mean for a sexual innuendo to be included in that statement.

But that didn't mean that she could stifle that brief giggle. But she quickly cleared her throat.

"I'd be delighted to see that sometime," Abby said with a wink.

"As soon as I find a good partner to spar with, then. I understand I can practice outside." He gestures to the window. "The weather has not been conducive to exploring, however."