A/N: Happy birthday to Megan! The most amazing friend I could ever ask for; I don't deserve you my dear. You headslap me whenever I'm being an idiot, you save me from myself, you remind me that it's possible to be happy. I miss you muchly at the moment, but hopefully this time next year I will be writing your birthday fic and trying to hide it from you =P

Trapped

Abigail Scuito was having a boring day.

This was not a normal occurrence in her role as Forensic Scientist Extraordinaire at NCIS, especially when Agent Gibbs and his team regularly brought her mounds of bizarre and fascinating items of evidence – anything from possibly poisoned junk food to exploding ambulances. And not when Doctor Donald Mallard made her gifts of tissue samples and stomach contents from his guests for her to analyze. Not to mention all the computer evidence she was given to examine (although people did need to be a bit more creative when hiding their porn stash).

No, today was boring because there were no exciting cases. Gibbs had decided his team needed to catch up on paperwork during a lull in people breaking the law, and no one had died of mysterious and apparently inexplicable causes in the last week.

Except Major Benson, and she was a different story.

What had affected the young Goth most was the completion of the installation of her new security system. It had all been Gibbs' idea – he had not been happy for a while at the thought of her only line of defense being a flimsy lock on her lab door (pointing out the Ballistics lab right next door had not soothed him). And so for the last few weeks, her every spare minute had been consumed by the installation of this system.

It was cool. An electronic lock coupled with a much stronger door. A fingerprint scan was required to open the door from the outside, while leaving her lab was as simple as walking past automatic doors. Of course it did mean Gibbs had to knock now, rather than sweep in, Caf-Pow! in hand, but he was content that she was safe. Very safe.

"Abigail." Ducky's melodic voice reached her ears and she smiled.

"Lay some tissues samples on me, Ducky," she grinned, looking down at Major Benson and wondering how exactly someone could accidently incinerate themselves while cooking pizza. There were several witnesses to this odd incident, but an autopsy was required regardless.

This would keep her occupied for a while. She needed to look for any drugs, illegal or over the counter, to see if there was an explanation for the accident. And then she would need to head down to the evidence garage to check the cooker, in case someone had rigged it in some way.

Ducky smiled as he handed over a collection of samples and a clipboard. She signed the documents, aware the chain of evidence needed to be preserved, and headed towards the door.

All the power went out.

She turned around to where she knew Ducky was standing, though she couldn't see him, and had opened her mouth to inquire what was going on when the lights came back on and the freezer began to hum.

"What was that?" Ducky questioned.

"Power surge," she predicted. "It's a good thing I wasn't in my lab – I bet it's done something hinky to my new lock."

Five minutes previously

"This is a really bad idea, Tony," the Probie muttered for the third time.

Anthony DiNozzo ignored the apocalyptic predictions of his co-worker. Yes, there was a distinct possibility that a certain Goth would kill them for snooping in her lab, but there was a bigger picture to consider.

El jefe had a birthday coming up. While the man might growl and act as though he hated the mere thought, Tony thought it would be far more dangerous not to buy something to placate the beast.

But what to buy the man who had nothing and wanted nothing?

Bourbon was obvious, but Ducky always provided that. Hand tools were an option, if the man who lived in his basement did not already have such a complete collection. McDoofus had suggested vouchers for the coffee shop Gibbs frequented, but Tony felt that was a little impersonal.

Despite their ponderings for the last month, Abby had managed to come up with something. Something that was in the only locked drawer in her lab. Desperate for inspiration, Tony and Ziva had come to the conclusion that someone needed to find out exactly what the favorite had bought.

Personally, he would have preferred Ziva take the risk, but she had pointed out that extra people meant they could simply claim they were waiting for Abby to return and shield whoever was doing the actual breaking in. So here they were, McGee uttering prophecies of doom, Ziva playing with her knife, and Tony himself trying to break into a locked drawer.

Next time, he was picking a better support team.

"Zee-vah," he called. "Pick this lock!"

She glared at him in a way that promised an extremely painful death if he made her leave her perch on top of Abby's desk.

"She's going to kill us," McGee muttered.

"Shut up," Tony ordered. "She'll be back any minute; she only went to Ducky for some tissue samples. How long do those take?"

"We should have asked Ducky to delay her," McGee complained.

Tony and Ziva shared dismayed glances. Next time, if there ever was a next time, they would leave him behind. Or send him on an errand that would keep both him and Abby out of the way for a while.

The power suddenly went out.

"What was that?" Tony asked unnecessarily.

Just as suddenly, the power came back on.

"No no no no NO!" McGee cried, racing for the door.

"Power surge," Ziva suggested. "Although I do not know why McGee is so worried."

"Maybe the surge broke the electronic lock?" Tony offered. "McGoo's just worried about his precious computers. Now will you give me a hand so we can get out of here?"

"That's… going to be a problem," McGee announced, strangely calm. "The power surge broke Abby's door. We're trapped."

Abigail Scuito was not impressed at the trio who had managed to become trapped in her lab. Part of her was tempted to leave them to rot, especially as she knew exactly why they had been snooping in there. But then she thought about Bert, who was also in there and desperately needed her, and her precious babies who needed her TLC and not Tony the oaf.

She glowered at the door as though it would cower and suddenly open to allow her to slaughter her friends. Now she was going to have to come up with a way to get through the door, preferably without resorting to the blowtorch in the evidence garage.

"A bomb!" she heard Tony yell through the door. "We could blow the door open!"

Naturally it would be Tony who thought of explosions and James Bond scenarios. She nodded to herself. "I can tell you all the things you'll need to make such a bomb," she shouted back. "You'd be surprised how easy it is – even you could do it, Tony."

She heard a grunt of complaint at her assessment of his chemistry skills. "How far back will we need to stand?" he checked.

Quick mental calculation… "About a thousand feet," she told him. "Oh, wait…"

She could hear three groans through the door.

"She's going to kill us," Tony whined. "Literally kill us, Probie."

Ziva David glared at him. "I will kill you first if you do not shut up. Painfully."

The men took one look at her knife and the manner in which she was holding it, and shut their mouths.

She had had worse days. At least there was running water in here. And heat. They were not alone in the middle of nowhere with only their wits about them, although she suspected Tony and McGee had no wits to begin with. There may be a homicidal forensic scientist on the other side of the door who would happily kill them without leaving any forensic evidence behind, but Ziva knew she could blame it all on the men and walk away scot free.

As long as Gibbs did not get involved. He would see right through her.

She was, however, bored. There was little she could do in Abby's lab. She was not interested in the contents of Abby's drawer, especially as she could simply make polite inquiries on their next girls' night out and therefore not leave obvious tool marks in places which could lead to dismemberment.

She settled on the rarely-used chair by Abby's computer and began to think. There had to be an easy way out of here.

At first, Abby Scuito did not register what the ding of the elevator meant.

If she was honest, there was a Pavlovian response. The ding of the elevator meant Caf-Pow! and rewards. It signaled Gibbs' arrival and her explanation of evidence. But today, she did not realize that it meant things were about to get more complicated.

Gibbs barreled out of the elevator, took several long strides, and then came to an abrupt halt as he saw her standing outside her lab, pouting and tapping a foot impatiently. He gave her a look which clearly stated 'What the hell is going on?'

"Your team is stuck in my lab," she summed up neatly.

She could practically see the wheels turning in his head as he worked out the best way to deal with his wayward team. A quick death, slow torture, paperwork for a month or reassignment?

"We could shoot out a window!" Tony's voice came through the door at exactly the wrong moment; Gibbs looked livid. "But we don't have any guns. Ziva has her knife and keeps threatening us with it – would that do?"

"I keep a spare in my Ballistics lab for emergencies," she called back.

"It's bullet proof glass." This time it was McGee's voice that wafted through the door.

"There's no such thing," Abby instantly corrected. "Bullet resistant."

Gibbs sighed, having apparently decided his team was stuck for the present and there wasn't a lot he could do about it. "Didn't think of this before installing the lock?" he asked in a soft voice so his agents couldn't hear him.

"I could survive for days in there," she pointed out. "I stocked up on Caf-Pow! and snacks. And I calculated that you could get out if you were trapped – the windows might be bullet resistant, but you have magic powers and could easily shoot a hole big enough to crawl out of. No one else visits me on a regular basis, except Ducky and I asked him and he was fine with the very low probability I calculated. I'm not even sure how the power surge occurred, especially as I wasn't playing with any electronics at the time and you can ask Ducky about that because I was with him. Do you think it was those guys in Tech Support, because they were talking about –"

"Breathe," he reminded her.

She looked at him to check he wasn't mad at her for rambling, before turning her attention back to the door.

"Don't worry about the lack of a restroom! Just go in one of my clean beakers. I can test it afterwards to check you haven't caught any nasty infections."

Leroy Jethro Gibbs was not happy.

Any employee at the Navy Yard (and a good more NCIS agents beside) would cheerfully inform anyone that Agent Gibbs was never happy. He was always in a mood about something. He ignored the scuttlebutt, aware he could do nothing and not giving a damn. He had better things to deal with after all.

Like his three agents getting trapped in Abby's lab.

Abby had finally given in and collected the blowtorch from the evidence garage. She had not been happy at creating a hole in her door big enough for DiNozzo to climb out of, but his agents were becoming restless and he needed them released so he could kill them painfully.

They had not realized he had been waiting for them, and the looks of dismay on their faces as they spotted him were priceless. Still, they were going to be doing Probie duty for months, and that would be after whatever punishment Abby came up with.

He kissed her cheek as he stalked towards the elevator, his despondent team in tow. He wondered when they would figure out Abby had not been keeping his birthday present in that locked drawer at all, but one of the unlocked ones in her desk.