This is my first NCIS fanfic story; my second fanfic total. I would love to hear your reviews, but please, be gentle!

I never did see "Bloodbath", with Abby's stalker. I hope this isn't like that. I'm also not sure what Abby's apartment looks like either, so I took some liberties with that as well.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters or NCIS.

Hang Ups

Chapter 1

It was 2 a.m. Abby was sound asleep in her bed after a long day at work. She was having happy dreams of blood splatter patterns and DNA when a shrilling, devil sound woke her.

"Hello?" she said when she answered her phone.

Nothing.

"Hello?"

Still nothing.

Giving up, thinking it might just be a wrong number, she hung up the phone. Within minutes she was fast asleep once again.

2:30 a.m. the sound of the phone wakes her again. Still no one was there. She checked her caller I.D., but the number was blocked. After she hung up, she turned her ringer off, knowing Gibbs would kill her if he tried calling her to a case and she didn't answer.

Abby quickly sat up in bed and looked around for the noise that awoke her. It was her alarm clock. She leaned over and turned it off. Jumping out of bed, she quickly made a pot of coffee while she got ready for work.

It was another long, relentless day in the Lab. Gibbs was on her at least once an hour trying to find if she has any new information for him. The sixth time he came down and she was empty handed, he snapped at her and left. Abby would be lying if she didn't admit it stung a little, but she also knew that was just Gibbs being Gibbs and let it slide.

45 minutes later he returned.

"I don't have anything!" she yelled over her blaring music. Gibbs set a Caf-Pow! down on her table and gave her a quick kiss on her cheek. With that, he was gone. I don't care if he thinks apologies are a sign of weakness, she thought. I love it when he apologizes. She finished her Caf-Pow! in record time with a smile on her face.

At the end of the day, they still had nothing. Abby was beat, but she still stayed a few hours longer to work. She wanted this case to be over with. Everyone did. A Lieutenant Commander and her husband had been brutally murdered in their own home. There were no suspects. Everyone loved them. No jewelry or money had been taken, so it wasn't a robbery. Everyone was stumped.

Around 11 p.m., Abby finally gave up for the day. She cleaned up what she could and headed for the elevators. She knew Gibbs was probably still here, even if the rest of the team wasn't. So she pushed the button for the floor and waited for the doors to open again.

Sure enough, there he was at his desk writing something down. "Goodnight, Gibbs'" she yelled from the elevator door.

Without even looking up, he raised his arm and said, "Night, Abbs."

When she got home all she wanted to do was take a hot bath. So, she started filling the tub with water. Some hot tea sounds nice, she thought. She headed to her kitchen and warmed up some water. She realized she hadn't checked her messages yet. My goodness! she thought. 10 messages? I am really popular today!

When she pressed play, the first message was blank. So was the next one. And the one after that. In fact, they were all blank. No one was on any of them. Abby got a weird feeling in the pit of her stomach. When she checked her caller I.D., she found that all the messages had come from the same blocked number that called her in the middle of the night.

Her usual busy mind went blank. She didn't know what to think. She had just finished re-locking all her doors and windows when she remembered she left the tub running. She undressed and climbed in. A hot bath always made everything feel better. She closed her eyes and tried to relax. She thought she was doing a half way decent job of it, too.

Then, her phone rang. She had left it in the other room. She heard her answering machine pick-up, but she didn't hear if someone left a message. She closed her eyes but she definitely could not relax anymore.

Drying herself off, and slipping on some pajamas, she went to check the machine. She pushed play. Again, there was nothing. Checking the caller I.D., there was nothing there either. Just the same blocked number.