A/n the beginning: For those waiting for a One in Four update never fear. The next chapter is a little longer than usual and is taking me a little longer than usual.

I also really needed to get this little fic idea out of my head. If people like it I might write a follow up from the morning when Gibbs finds them but I'm not sure yet.

A/n the ending: You can read into this what you will, I just had this in my mind from the times I've watched Shalom (possibly my favorite season 4 episode). Abby transferred her hero worship of sorts to Tony while Gibbs was away and I wondered what else happened.

A/n Lies: I tried to make Tony as in character as possible or this but considering the extenuating circumstances here I wasn't entirely certain anyone would be acting much like they normally do. Anyway, here goes.

Warning: Subtle mentions of self harm.

Phylum Cnidaria

It was late. She'd been insomniac for the past few nights, barely getting any sleep. Tonight she at least had the excuse of some evidence to double-check to stay late. She was running on Caf-Pows and little else and now she was just resting her head for one minute. She'd get up as soon as her mass spec let he know he had something for her.

Footsteps behind her, nearly silent but not quite, told her Gibbs was approaching. She tried to open her eyes, to move to greet him, to beam at him the brightest smile she could to let him know yet again how impossibly happy she was he'd come back to her.

But the sleeping pills she'd taken last night seemed to finally be taking hold and she was being pulled toward oblivion and couldn't fight her way back to the surface despite her efforts.

"Are you sure about this Jethro?" Jenny's voice came from the door.

Abby didn't have to see him to know he was shooting Jenny a warning glare about talking when Abby was sleeping. He pressed a kiss onto the top of Abby's head and retreated before answering Jenny's question. "Yes, and make sure you file the retirment package this time Jen. I'm not coming back from Mexico again"

What? Her mind scream and she fought the sleep claiming her. She had to stop him. She still carried the handcuffs around just for this. She had to wake up. She had to stop him.

She fell to the floor with a crash still unable to move. Her bones gone, leaving her limp and phylum Cnidaria

Even as she fought oblivion claimed her and she knew when she woke he'd be gone.

Abby woke with a start, crying on the floor of her lab, the machines beeping at her but she paid them no mind.

She leapt to her feet, running toward the elevator her lungs heaving as she tried to keep herself together. She'd go see that Gibbs was working just as late as she was, that he was still here, that the world would continue to turn.

The light on Gibbs' desk was out. He wasn't there. It's three in the morning. She told herself. It was enough to hold her together long enough to get her back to the elevator. All his stuffs still there.

All his stuff was still there when he retired the last time.

With that thought she felt her self control crumbling. She wrapped her arms around herself like she was trying to physically hold herself together. She was stronger than this. She wasn't going to fall to pieces because she had a bad dream that Gibbs had left again without a chance to say goodbye. She wasn't going to flip out like she had last time and loose it on McGee because he acted like the world hadn't completely ground to a halt when Gibbs left, she wasn't going to get into a bitch fight with Ziva, and Tony was going to known how to handle her now even though her protector her mentor her her… her anchor, the thing that kept her from flying off into neverwhare, had abandoned her to it without even saying goodbye.

She wasn't going to slide to the floor of the elevator and breakdown. She was too emotionally stable for that. She had come too far since that first month after Gibbs left for her only motivation to leave the elevator was that she didn't have anything sharp on her person and without her silver haired fox she was already flying dangerously far into oblivion and if she didn't do something to stop it she wouldn't be dangerously close to a place she knew she didn't want to be.

She wasn't sitting on the floor crying with the fact that she'd become a jellyfish again the moment her dream had started turning nightmarish the only reason she wasn't repeating the night after Gibbs left.

Her hand found her cellphone. Habit formed in the past months taking over. She was crying too hard to see the keyboard but her hands knew the path by heart. Top left button to menu, twice down to friends, once down to pass Gibb's number for the one who she needed to talk to if she really wasn't going to fly into oblivion.

Which she was still pretty sure she was.

"Abby?" Tony's half asleep voice asked, a female murmuring in the background.

Tony was on a date… or after one… "so…sorry Tony… wrong number" She said, trying to keep the hysteria from her voice. She didn't want to bother him when he was with a date. She didn't want to bother him period, but she needed someone right now.

"No Abbs… whats up?" He said muttering something about a team member to the woman.

"It'… It's okay…" She insisted, rocking herself. Despite how she was trying to get out of the conversation she was clinging to it like the only thing between her and oblivion, which at the moment it was.

"Abby…" Tony said, using the same tone he'd picked up from Gibbs.

Gibbs…

That sent another crash through her. "I… ha…had a dream" She admitted. "And I think Gibbs is gone but I know he's not and I just… I'm… I'm sorry. Go back to you-"

Tony interrupted her. "I'm on my way now Abbs, your still at NCIS right? Don't apologies remember? Sign of weakness. What are you?"

"Weak." She answered softly. His silence was pointed until she gave the right answer. "Strong."

"You don't sound like you mean it Abigail." He said again, using her name to annoy her, trying to snap her out of it.

When Abby didn't reply quick enough he called again. "Abigail! Don't make me mangle sign language." He used the threat he'd developed when she wasn't communicating with him or was using sign language while knowing he didn't understand it.

"I'll see you here Tony" She said softly, too tired all of a sudden to keep the conversation going and meet his demands. It was pointless… there were easier ways.

"Oh no you don't. You're staying on the phone until I get to you. Don't even think about hanging up Abby." He threatened again. The sound of a car starting and she knew he was on his way.

She said very little from then on, dutifully staying on the phone and answering his questions but she knew his concern was growing with each monosyllabic answer she gave.

She was drifting on the borders of oblivion, her exhaustion, emotional instability, and probably a bad mix of prescription drugs she was on keeping her in a semi conscious state she was too apathetic to try to completely wake up from but Tony's voice kept her from slipping completely into it.

"Where are you Abbs?" The question was the first one in a few minutes and jostled her a little closer to reality.

"Elevator" She said simply.

"Did you press the emergency stop?" He asked, breathing heavily. Abby could hear the sound of his feet pounding on pavement.

"No… I'm tired Ton" A weird mockery of a smile flittered across her face at her most recent mangling on his name. "I'm going to sleep…"

"Abby! Did I give you permission to sleep on the job?" He asked, the way his voice sounded so much like Gibb's made her draw a sharp breath.

"It's three thirty in the morning."
"And you're still at NCIS because you're working. Stay awake so you'll be able to fill me in on what you found out when I get there."

"Too tired" She said and closed her cell phone. She reached up, hitting the button for her lab.

She unsteadily got to her feet when the doors opened and stumbled into her office, collapsing at her desk. Her hands finding the drawer just as a voice broke the silence. "What do you think you're doing?"

She looked up. Tony stood in the doorway with a Caf-pow Abby knew he probably still kept in his fridge for emergencies in one hand and a pointed look on his face.

Abby just stared at him, her knuckles tapping together like they always did when she was freaking out. She hated him seeing her like this but right now all she really cared about was that she couldn't take feeling like this much longer.

Without further prompting he put down the Caf-Pow, came over, helped her to stand, and walked her back into the lab grabbing the Caf-pow on the way.

Sitting against the wall, a iceless caf-pow in her hands and leaning against Tony's shoulders watching him pull out his phone to play Tetris she finally felt grounded in reality a little.

She wasn't sure how long she sat there, her entire world made up solely of the wall against her back, the floor under her, the Caf-Pow in her hands, the special agent she leaned against and the cellphone screen of soothingly hypnotic falling blocks. When she took a sip only to find nothing left she sighed. "Your really bad at Tetris Tony"

"Hey" He protested before turning to look at her. "Ready to report Abby?" He asked.

"I guess." She said with a sigh, closing her eyes. She began telling him about the dream, about how she was still afraid that might happen, about how she still felt like she could turn into phylum Cnidaria anytime.

The last thing she remembered before sleep claimed her was Tony telling her she didn't have permission to turn into a jellyfish.