Meeting Abby
Loud music blasted through the corridor when they came out at Abby's Lab floor. McGee smiled at the familiar sound, but when he looked at Buchanan's face there was a faint grimace on it.
"You don't like the music?"
"Come on, do you?" she asks incredulously. They enter the lab and are hit full force.
"Abby," he calls her. She is standing by her computer staring at the screen faintly bouncing to the beat. "Abby!" he screams louder. She still doesn't hear him.
Buchanan walks to the radio and forcefully pulls the plug.
"Hey, what do you think you are doing?" Abby screams angrily. She goes to the stranger who dared invade her lab and forcefully takes the power cord out of her hands.
"I couldn't hear my thoughts," Buchanan softly answers.
"McGee, what is this… this..." Abby can't find a word to describe her indignation "person you brought to my lab?"
"She is the new member of Gibbs' team."
"New member?"
"Yep."
"How come nobody told me that before?" Abby is mad.
"Because we found out only today."
"So why am I the last one to find out?"
"Oh, because I was bringing her to meet you, and…"
"So you are a forensic analyst," interrupts Buchanan before McGee digs an even deeper hole for himself.
Abby looks at the new woman with squinting eyes. She approaches the stranger and says angrily.
"You may be new, so I will forgive you this time, but never ever again mess with my music."
Buchanan looks at the tall woman who hovers over her at least eight inches, without adding the platform boots and serenely answers:
"I will do my best to remember that."
"Good, because I can kill you without leaving any forensic evidence."
"That's really impressive."
"Good." Abby plugs in the radio again, and the music blasts through the lab with all its might. She lowers the sound once she sees the grimace on Buchanan's face she can't quite hide and returns to her work table.
"So, introduce me McGee," says Abby with a saccharine voice.
"Oh, yes, sure," he stammers. With a firmer voice "Special Agent Joy Buchanan, this is the amazing Forensic Specialist Abby Sciuto." Buchanan is looking between McGee and Abby with a carefully blank expression, which for some reason seems to irritate Abby even more.
"Nice to meet you, Miss Sciuto." Buchanan doesn't bother to stretch out her hand.
"Nice to meet you too, Agent Buchanan." Abby decides to hate that new agent at that moment, already planning different strategies to make her life difficult in NCIS.
Introductions made, Abby asks McGee without looking up from her screen. "What brings you to Abby's Labby?" McGee smiles, comes to stand closer to Abby and asks overlooking her shoulder. "Have you received the autopsy records from Ducky?"
"The stabbed dead petty officer?"
"The one and only."
"Just came in." She clicks something and the images from downstairs appear on the big screen on the wall.
"Zoom in that," says Buchanan moving around both agents and the computers to stand before the screen.
"That?"
"Yes."
More clicks.
"Can you zoom more?"
Click zoom.
"This is the best I can go without it pixilating and losing image integrity."
"What do you think?" McGee walks to stand by her.
"I don't know," says Buchanan. She goes to Abby's side and looks at Abby's screen. "Can you enhance the midtones?" Abby looks at the new agent and does what she requested.
"It is better," admits McGee.
"Not good enough."
"What exactly do you want?" asks Abby impatiently.
"Can you assign colors to each pixel in the screen?"
"What do you mean?"
"Like that game naval battle," she looks around, finds a pen and paper and makes a grid on it, painting some squares with the pen "Put a grid over the image and assign different values to each square according to the depth of the abrasion, not the color of the contusion." Abby frowns, looks at her screen and type for a couple of seconds.
Buchanan decides to let the specialist work in peace, and looks around the lab. McGee goes to stand by Abby's side and gives her some help, offering suggestions now and then. There are bizarre-looking pictures on the walls, which strangely appear like human tissue magnified in a laser telescope.
Buchanan walks to the end of the worktable and curiously counts the number of fizzy drinks in the trashcan, and briefly looks to the one sitting on the worktable and the other one sitting in her fridge.
"Buchanan," calls McGee.
She walks up to them. McGee points with his chin the image in the screen. "That is the best we can do for now," says McGee.
"well that's…"
"It seems like a ring." Says Abby squinting at the enhanced picture.
"Not any ring." Buchanan looks at McGee. "It is a high school graduation ring."
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