"It's two in the morning, proby. What do you want?" Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo said into the phone as he wiped drool off his bottom lip.
"Tony, Gibbs called. Abby's in the hospital."
DiNozzo wiped the sleep from his eyes and sat upright.
"Which one Tim?
DiNozzo never called McGee by his first name, ever.
"Georgetown."
"OK. I'm on my way."
"Tony, I'm in my car. I'll be at your place in 5 minutes."
"Thanks, Tim. I'll see if I can find my pants."
----
Gibbs was leaning against a coffee machine when McGee and DiNozzo came up the corridor. He was drinking coffee out of a paper cup with a little angel on it. He looked dour and reflective, his brow furrowed in deep concentration.
"Boss, we got here as soon as we could," McGee said as he and DiNozzo approached.
"You beat the ambulance's time. I don't know anything yet."
"Boss how is she doing?" Di Nozzo asked.
"Not well. I'm not sure what it is. I need you and McGee to go her lab and start looking for anything. See if anything catches your eye. Wear suits."
Gibbs just spoke more than he usually did in one breath.
"Suits, Boss?" Dinozzo asked.
"Haz mat suits," Gibbs snapped back.
"Got it."
His faced screwed up as he tried to keep tears away.
"DiNozzo?"
"Gibbs. You don't have to say it. we'll find something."
Jethro Gibbs sank into a chair next to the nurses desk. He hadn't prayed in years. Now, he put his hands together and appealed to someone whom he hadn't talked to in a long while.
----
McGee didn't like being in the lab without Abby. It was supposed to be the place that had her written all over it. It did.
Even though it had been years since they held each other, he wished he were at the hospital by her side instead of dressed up like a big white doughnut in her lab.
DiNozzo walked among the items in her lab and didn't say a word. DiNozzo always said something. It's different when it's one of your own.
Through the hazmat mask, DiNozzo could hear McGee breathing and he could detect something else.
"Proby, we'll find something," he said. He was making a promise to himself too.
An empty Caf Pow sat on the table next to Abby's white key board. DiNozzo went to pick it up and swab the inside of the straw.
"McGee can you run a test on this?"
McGee turned to him. Through the mask, DiNozzo could see McGee's checks were streaked and wet.
"Sure," he said, holding a picture of a dog collar that Abby had been working on.
McGee got work as DiNozzo kept scouring through the desk drawers and lab containers. He opened one drawer. McGee barked.
"Tony, not that one. Close it."
"Why?" DiNozzo asked feeling some mischief in the air.
"Because..."
Too late. DiNozzo pulled out a picture of McGee and Abby. He looked at it a while despite McGee's demands to put it back.
"McGee, you two were good together. She's the one."
McGee looked at him, nearly shaking. Then spoke.
"Tony, I just saw something in this microscope. Something isn't right."
DiNozzo put the pic back in Abby's desk and walked over to McGee, who was bent over the microscope. McGee was mumbling something.
DiNozzo grabbed his cell phone and ran out of the lab. He ripped off his suit and called Gibbs.
"Yeah?" Gibbs answered.
"Boss, the swine flu, big dose."
-----
Abby never got sick, ever. She was so caffeinated most of the time that anything in her would simply die from the constant excitement. But that day she felt like shit. She could barely keep her head up and walking was almost impossible. Gibbs told her to go home and she didn't listen even after she almost threw up on his shoes.
The room was spinning and her eyes were feeling heavy. She could barely move her arms. She felt tired beyond belief. Gibbs, she wimpered, Gibbs.
When she woke up, Gibbs was standing over her, rubbing his arm.
"Hey Abbs," he said. She smiled.
"Gibbs," she whispered.
"Abbs someone got you with the swine flu."
Abby Sciuto sat up for the first time in days. Although she thought it was a few hours. She felt tired but not sick. It had been three days and there was a chance somewhere in there that she might not have made it. Gibbs had been there the entire time. He remembered DiNozzo and he was not about to leave her side.
"Abbs, you are going to be all right. And yes I am rubbing my arm, you were a little contagious there for a while."
In the door way through her blurry vision, she saw a figure. holding roses painted black. She couldn't make out the face but there was the man she had wanted to keep it casual with. Somehow that didn't seem to matter now.
-Scott Pearlstein 8/21/09 3:45 PM
Author's Chapter Notes:
Abby Sciuto gets sick. She never gets sick.