Title: Silence
Fandom: NCIS
Characters: Tony DiNozzo/Abby Sciuto
Prompt: "We don't need anything or anyone, if I lay here, if I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world?"
Word Count: 531
Rating: G
Author's Notes: This can be taken as Tony/Abby friendship or something more. Your call. Written for a friend on livejournal. Possibly one of my favorite pieces I've ever written. Spoilers for "Hiatus pt. 2" and "Kill Ari pt. 1."

Gibbs walked to the elevator, not stopping to look back even once. The doors slid open, he stepped inside and pressed a button, his back still to the team gathered in the midst of the bullpen. As the doors hissed shut again, Abby lost it.

She ran to the elevator, banging on the cool metal with open palms. "Gibbs!" she screamed, crying audibly.

Tony and Ziva rushed over, pulling her away from the doors, while McGee stood dumbfounded in the background. Abby fell into Tony's embrace, sobbing.

"Shh, it's okay, baby," Tony said, smoothing her hair and looking at Ziva worriedly. Abby didn't cry. She especially didn't lose control. The only other time Tony had seen her like this was after Kate died.

Ziva looked down at the ground, reaching a hand out and touching Abby's back. She couldn't do much, because Abby was still upset from earlier, but she would try.

Abby tensed up under Ziva's touch, however, so she quickly retracted her hand, feeling helpless.

"Abby, you wanna go home?" Tony asked, feeling as helpless as Ziva. He felt her head move sideways against his shirt, signalling "no." "Your lab?" She lifted her head and looked at him with bleary eyes, nodding.

Tony looked back at McGee, who was still standing at his desk, looking awkward, and then Ziva, who looked like she was either pissed or trying not to cry, and sighed to himself. "Guys, I'm gonna..."

"Yeah, yeah, Tony, I got things under control up here," McGee said, straightening up and clearing his throat like they were on some huge case that needed to be watched carefully.

Tony just nodded, not even in the mood to tease McGee, and veered himself and Abby around to the elevator. They stepped in and rode to Abby's lab, silent the entire trip.

The elevator doors shushed open, and Tony gently prodded Abby into her lab. She dragged her feet across like the floor like she was afraid to enter her own lab, and Tony managed to get her sat down in a computer chair. He removed his arm from around her shoulder, and as soon as the contact was lost, Abby grabbed for his hand.

"You okay, Abbs?" he asked, not sure how to procede.

"Would you," she began, looking up at him, "would you lie with me?"

He narrowed his eyebrows. "Lie wi.."

"On the floor, just lying down," she interrupted. "Please?" She looked up at him with teary eyes and he saw the vulnerability in her gaze.

"Yeah, yeah, I can do that," he said, helping her stand and leading her to a spot big enough for them to both lay comfortably.

He laid down first, not knowing what to expect from Abby, and his tenseness must have showed to her, because she managed to let out a hiccupy laugh.

"I'm not gonna lay on top of you, Tony," she said, lowering herself to the ground and laying right next to him, barely leaving an inch between them.

He lifted up his left hand, she lifted her right, and they stayed like that for hours, hands clasped in silent holding on and prayer that everything would be okay.