Abby heard something like a sigh and then, momentarily, saw a blur of blue, heard an outraged squawk and a flapping of wings before something beat against the window of her lab and slipped through the open window.

Agent Gibbs strode into the lab a moment or two later and gazed in concern at an Abby who stood stock still in amazement.

"Abby?" he said. And then, when no reply came, "Abs? What's going on?"

Abby turned a dazed smile on him and jumped up and down in excitement, "Gibbs, Gibbs, Gibbs! I did it! I did it … I didn't think it would work, but it did. It did! It did! It …"

Gibbs interrupted the eruption of excitement, "What did you do, Abs?" he asked tolerantly.

"Oh, well … don't get mad, Gibbs! Like I said, I didn't think it would work … but it did, it did! That's so cool!"

"Abs!" said Gibbs sternly, "Talk to me."

"Well, I am," pointed out Abby. "But you're right," she went on hastily when she received a Gibbs glare, "It's just that I'm excited."

Gibbs decided on another tack, "Is it anything to do with the case my team is working on?"

"No."

"OK." Gibbs decided to cut his losses and turned to go.

"But …"

There was something in that but which touched Gibbs' spidey senses. He turned back, "Yes?"

"But you might need to know about it," said Abby with a touch of reluctance.

"Go on."

"Well, you know I've been helping out at the drop-in centre for recovering drug addicts?"

Gibbs nodded.

"And I've met some really interesting people. And they've got some interesting stories to tell. And some of the things they smoke … well, they're …"

"Interesting?" suggested Gibbs.

"Yes! Interesting is the word," said Abby enthusiastically.

An unwelcome thought came to Gibbs' mind, "Abby, you haven't been experimenting with anything, have you?"

"Oh no, Gibbs! I don't allow any artificial stimulants into my body! My body is a temple."

Gibbs looked at her sceptically as he thought of her devotion to junk food and CafPows but then, he thought as he took a sip of his coffee, he was in no position to criticize Abby for her choices of beverage. He nodded at her to continue.

"Well, I met this really nice lady called Azaria …"

"Azaria?"

"I know, isn't that a cool name?" said Abby as she misinterpreted Gibbs' reaction to the name.

Gibbs decided not to get into a discussion around the merits of Azaria as a name and simply shrugged.

"So, Azaria told me she had special powers," said Abby in a slightly lower tone.

"Was this before or after she'd smoked something?"

"Gibbs! Not nice! No, Azaria is completely clean. She said that she had these powers, but she wanted to share them with other people."

"For free?" asked Gibbs.

"Well," said Abby cautiously, "I'm sure she would; she really doesn't think it's right that people don't know about special powers … but …"

"But what?"

"But she's really poor and she needs the money. She wants to set up a service offering her special powers but at the moment … well, she has to work on a smaller scale."

"And you believed her? About these special powers?"

"I'm a scientist, Gibbs," said Abby indignantly, "I applied my scientific instincts."

Gibbs looked at Abby's voodoo dolls standing next to her tarot cards and raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"And what did you decide?" he asked.

"I think she believes it," said Abby after a long pause, "And there was something about her …"

"What did you do?"

"She gave me a spell to change a living … being … into a blue parakeet," said Abby.

"A blue parakeet? She had a spell for changing something into a blue parakeet?"

"Well, no … I asked for a blue parakeet and she wrote one."

Gibbs wanted to ask why Abby wanted a blue parakeet but decided that was a discussion for another time.

"How much did she charge you?"

"53 dollars."

"53 dollars? That's specific."

"I thought that was cheap," said Abby.

Gibbs shrugged again as he realised he had no idea what the going rate was for changing something into a blue parakeet.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I decided to try it in my lab," said Abby. "'Cos it's really clean here and I didn't want anything to interfere with the spell."

"Like what?"

"I don't know … I didn't want something foreign substance to mess things up. I just thought I should do it here."

"And what happened?" asked Gibbs, "When you tried it?"

"I can show you!" said Abby. "I recorded it." She spun around to her bench and tapped on her keyboard to bring up a recording on her screen.

As Gibbs watched, he saw Abby standing in the middle of her lab, arms outstretched and chanting something.

"I figured the arms outstretched might help," said Abby confidentially, "But Azaria didn't say it was important."

Gibbs didn't take his eyes off the screen and presently heard a rushing sound before the middle of the screen pixilated for a few seconds before returning to normal.

"Oh," said Abby disappointed, "It doesn't show anything. But that's cool really because it shows something happened. My cameras never pixilate."

"So, what happened then?"

"It worked!" said Abby.

"I don't see a blue parakeet," Gibbs pointed out.

"For a second," said Abby, "I'm sure for a moment there was a blue parakeet flying overhead. But then it changed into something else, I think it had a curled beak … and then it got out of the window and it was gone."

Gibbs wasn't often at a loss but, experienced as he was with Abby's Abbiness, he wasn't sure what was expected of him this time.

"Oh, well," he said at last, "Maybe you'll just have to ask Azaria what went wrong." Once again, he turned to go.

"I will," said Abby fervently. "She'll know what to do."

Gibbs didn't want to get involved anymore in Abby's schemes; he thought that perhaps they'd got off lightly but something in Abby's voice set off an alarm for him.

"Do about what?" he asked, "The … bird … has gone. If it was ever here."

Abby wrung her hands anxiously, "Well, don't get mad, Gibbs."

"Abs?"

"You remember I said it was a spell to change something into a blue parakeet?"

"Yes?"

"Something living?"

"Yes," Gibbs was aware of an increasing sense of impending doom.

"Well …"

"Abby, what did you want to change into a parakeet?"

"Not something," said Abby.

"You turned an animal into a parakeet?"

"No!" said Abby scornfully. "I mean, how would I have got an animal on to the Navy Yard?"

Gibbs felt that, if required, Abby would have been more than capable of smuggling a hippopotamus or two into her lab but, once again, decided not to argue the point.

"Abby, what did you change into a parakeet?"

"Not a what … a who," said Abby.

"A who? And who …" Gibbs trailed off as he remembered that he had come down to the lab to chase up Tony DiNozzo who had left a few minutes before to deliver a CafPow.

"A Tony," confessed Abby. "Oh, Gibbs! I turned Tony into a blue parakeet! And now he's gone!"

AN: er … this is a little different to what I normally write …