"DiNozzo, sketch and shoot. McGee, computer, answering machine and phones. Kate, you're with me on the witnesses. Duck, what do you got for me?" After setting everybody to work, Gibbs crouched next to the ME, who was just testing for the time of death.
"Hard to say, Jethro, but I dare say the poor fellow has been dead for at least 36 hours. As for the cause of death… The first thing to come to mind would be strangulation, you can see some marks here on his neck, but I would say severe head trauma, because of the dents in his skull. Any other ideas, Mr. Palmer?" The assistant shook his head in silent agreement, after which Ducky sent him away to go get a body bag.
"I will know much more once I got him on my table back home, Jethro."
Gibbs nodded and took off, calling out the rest of the team on his way. Back at the bullpen Kate and Tony were fighting over something of absolutely no importance, while McGee was busy tracing some phone numbers for another case. But Gibbs wasn't paying attention to the noise around him. He was looking for something, pulling out drawer after drawer.
"Where the hell did I put the damn thing…"
he was muttering to himself. From the shadows under the stairs to MTAC, Abby was watching Gibbs closely. She had found this spot recently, after having yet another breakdown over the fact that Gibbs would never see her as anything else than his daughter. The thought killed her, and she had decided that she was done with it. She had loved him for nearly five years, but he would never love her back. Not the way she wanted him to love her, anyway. She was his favorite, but nowadays the title she had once loved had started to torture her. Why would he call her his favorite, kiss her cheek when she did a good job, feed her Caf-Pow! on a daily basis and not care? How could he be the smartest agent she had ever met, but not pick up all the clues she had left him? Deep in thought Abby didn't notice the fact that Gibbs had finally found his phone – on his belt – and that he was on his way to the lab. To her. And so, when she finally wandered away from the shadows, she bumped right into a lean body. The first thing she noticed were his shoes, and those showed her she had a problem. When she finally gathered the courage to look up, into his eyes, she saw his concern there.
"Hey Gibbs" she tried to sound like her normal self, hyper and happy, but failed miserably.
"Abbs, why are you standing in the middle of the bullpen instead of being in your lab?" Gibbs looked at her with something that may have been anger, but if you knew him very well, you could see that it was pure worry. He had never seen Abby so… lost.
"I…eh, well, I think I can speed up the process of the… the er, you know, the evidence from the new case, but then you will have to leave me alone" For the last part she was rattling, and she wouldn't meet his eyes. When he didn't say anything, but just studied the face that was still turned away from him, she couldn't take it anymore.
"Well I'll just be in my lab if anybody needs me" after that, she turned and fled the scene.

"O my God… Abby could you be more obvious?" Abby cried out to the image in the mirror. She was in the bathroom downstairs, where nobody ever came. It had become a hideout in the past couple of weeks. Right now, she couldn't go into her lab. She hadn't really been crying, but she had been rubbing her eyes and so she had to redo all of her make-up. After finishing her make-up and take a deep breath, she walked back into the lab.
"Music, I need music" she mumbled. After picking out a Nine Inch Nails CD, she went back to work. She had evidence to check.

While Abby collected herself and finally started doing something, Gibbs was sitting at his desk, staring and deep in thought. He'd been to Ducky earlier, and he had confirmed that their Petty Officer had in fact died from severe head trauma. Ducky was still working on all the other wounds, but it was severely suspected that 'the poor man didn't fall off his bike' as Ducky put it. The wounds on his neck were still unexplained, and he had countless other cuts and bruises that didn't make sense. But at the moment, Gibbs' thoughts were one floor higher than the dead petty officer – in Abby's lab. What was wrong with her? She wouldn't meet his eyes, and there was no way in hell she had come upstairs just to tell him that she wanted to be left alone. He just couldn't figure out why she had been avoiding him. What he did know, was that he didn't like it. He didn't like it at all.

"Hey Abby, what's up?" Abby looked up at Kate's voice.
"Hey Kate! I got you those DNA samples, from our dead petty officer? Meet Leon Winters, 34 years old."
"Good job Abbs, thank you" Kate said. She was almost out of the lab, when Abby called her back.
"Kate? Do me a favor?" At Abby's nervous face, Kate was worried.
"What do you need Abby?"
"Could you take over from Gibbs? The whole come-down-ask-what-Abby's-got-feed-her-Caf-Pow!-and-leave-thing? Like, maybe not forever, but just for a while? Please?"
The look on her face seemed pretty desperate, and Kate had a feeling why that was. Just because Gibbs hadn't picked up the hints, didn't mean that the team was just as ignorant. Kate had suspected Abby to love Gibbs more than she showed for a while now, and she was a little worried about her friend. Of course she knew that Abby was older and more experienced than she often seemed, but Kate still felt protective of her. Abby was besides a good friend like a sister to her.
"Why, Abby? Has it really become that hard for you?"
"H-hard? What are you talking about?" Abby tried to sound nonchalant, but almost started crying at the idea that Kate figured out how she felt. Because if Kate knew, then maybe Tony knew too. Or even McGee.
"Abbs... I was part of the Special Forces. We were trained to pick up every single detail, no matter how unimportant it seemed" Kate walked over to Abby and gave her a supportive hug.
"So yeah, I figured some things out over time. But I don't think the boys know. There minds can't focus on one thing long enough" Abby smiled a little.
"There you go, girl. I was already afraid I lost the hyper, genius, awesome Abby in this mess" Kate smiled gently and after a last hug she left the lab.