Chapter 2 - Falling through the mirror

It was another rainy afternoon. Music blaring through her forensics lab, but it didn't bother her concentration, it rather improved it. This day was something special though, this day things were not as they should be, and all over the NCIS building different people began to realise it gradually, then suddenly. Had they been outside Abby's lab, they would have heard her play music never heard in those speakers before. Of course, no one was there at the time. Had they been, they would have heard Metallica's "One" play at an extraordinarily loud level. Another sign that not everything was as it should be. She never played Metallica, she played Plastic death, Suicide Commando, Android lust and the occasional The cure song. Never Metallica.

"This is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong." She muttered, sitting on the floor with her knees drawn up close to her chest, rocking slightly from side to side. Over the blasting music no one could have heard it, but it wasn't meant for anyone's ears. "This isn't happening. You're too smart for your own good sometimes Abby." She whispered it, and emitting a raw growl, her head lashed backwards, baring the neck to anyone willing to attack. Beside her on the floor lay a sharp scalpel from autopsy, from the girl on the floor there was a low singing in rhythm with the music while tears made a wet trail across her face.

--

Meanwhile, in autopsy Ducky was just finishing the report of their case. Palmer was going through the inventory again, cleaning and counting everything. It was his punishment for being unreachable and too late for work for the second time that week. "Are you sure this is really nessesairy Ducky?" Palmer complained, tired of sterilizing and counting already. "Until you've learned your lesson it absolutely is Mr. Palmer." Secretly Ducky smiled with his back turned to the young assistant. Someday he would surely make an excellent M.E. He was sure of it.

"There's something missing here Ducky." The words caused no alarm to Ducky. "Are you sure Mr. Palmer. You might have been too hasty in your eagerness to be done." "I'm sure. I've been through everything twice. We're missing our best scalpel." Those words did cause slight alarm to Ducky, but no sirens went off inside him. "Where are you going Ducky?" The M.E only walked out of autopsy with a slight hurry in his step without answering or giving any inclination he even heard the young boy's question.

"Where is Gibbs?" Ducky asked Ziva, obviously observing the fact that he wasn't in his usual position at his desk. "Not here." The tone was somewhat sarcastic, but without seeming inferior at all. "I observed that." He sighed, the boss had the habit of taking off with no explanation. "Just tell him to call me when you see him. I need to speak with him right away, and he's not answering his phone." He'd almost turned around to return to his autopsy when he heard the grumpy tone of a man without his coffee behind him. "Speak to me about what Ducky?" Gibbs asked, sneaking up on him as he usually did on everyone. "Alone please?" They both walked to the elevator, not saying a word before Gibbs hit the emergency switch. "Speak up Ducky. I don't have all day." "It's about Abby. I have a bad feeling."

"She's taken Kate's death pretty lightly, too lightly if you ask me." Ducky proclaimed. "They where close Ducky, but Abby is being reasonable about it." "There's nothing reasonable about her death Jethro, and you know that as well as I do. We both also know, as the only other people, that there was more between Abby and Kate than friendship." "Is this going somewhere?" Gibbs was impatient and weary, the death of a co-worker had been hard on them all. "She's been in denial this whole time Jethro. I think she's going to break soon." "I didn't think you speculated about these things Ducky." His eyes were closed now, hoping and praying perhaps? "I'm not. There's a scalpel missing from autopsy. It's only my suspicions, but I think Abby took it." "Damnit. Why didn't I see this? She wants us to know." Gibbs swore some more while hitting the switch of the elevator quickly and pressing the button to Abby's floor in the same move.

--

I can't remember anything

Can't tell if this is true or dream

Deep down inside I feel to scream

This terrible silence stops me

The music was too loud, even by the usual Abby standards. The speakers were on the brink of being too overworked to function. The Metallica song played, drilling sorrow into the marrow of living beings nearby. The door to the lab was locked. She'd made sure no one could enter, not even Gibbs. The glass doors would not open for anyone, but they allowed a view.

Her eyes were fixed on something beyond the room, and above this world. The scalpel is hard in her hand as she holds onto it with her life. The pain inside, it's too much for just one person. All the last days, weeks, months come crashing down to her at once. The sheer pressure of it filled her with hysteric sobs. Love and pain came as a pair, she'd been told before, but had never imagined something like this.

Now that the war is through with me

I'm waking up, I cannot see

That there is not much left of me

Nothing is real but pain now

"There's no world left for me her without you Kate." Abby whispers, knowing that Kate will hear her, wherever she is. "I'm coming to you baby."

Nothing in the lab was fixed anymore. Everything floated before her. It was hard to tell the difference between the real world, and everything else. "Abby is gone" She thinks. "Nothing left of me but the endless pain." The pain, she had to make it real. It had to be real on the outside, not only inside her. The hard blade fall against her left wrist, cutting deep but missing the main vein with inches. If she had she severed it, all the blood would leave within seconds. The blood-flow is surprising to her though, she bleeds more than she ever has before. It is strangely satisfying. It is not enough. She needs more. Using her weak left arm, she makes another cut. Not as deep, but the blood keeps flowing out of her. She looks at Gibbs through the glass door when she cuts, using her fiercest stare. She's good at telling when he's watching her. Leaning down, she hears a shot and the shattering of glass, but doesn't take notice. On the floor she writes, "I", a heart and then "Kate".

Gibbs and Ducky exited the elevators running. As soon as they did, the music broke against them, and forced them to cover their ears. The sound was so alive, angry and loud it hurt their ears. Without trying to communicate they set to the lab doors to find them locked just in time to see the gruesome sight of Abby pressing the scalpel against her arm for the second time. A shock, for both of them. None of them reacted for seconds, it seemed like minutes or hours. She cut the other wrist as well, raising her head to look at Gibbs as she did. Her eyes burned in him, accusing him of her death. Failure of protection. Then she screamed. A horrible pained scream that could be head through the music, and through the walls. It woke the two men, and Gibbs reacted instinctively. Reaching for his gun, Gibbs shoots at the glass, and it shatters. He runs to her, at her side within a second, almost crying himself when he sees all the blood, and what she wrote in her own blood.

"Why did she leave me Gibbs?" Abby screams sobbing into his arms, she released all of her anger and pain. The music is suddenly gone. Her arms clutching around him for her dear life, bleeding all over his shirt. "Shhh. Everything is going to be okay. I promise you."

"I love her Gibbs, but there's no more Kate left here for me to love. Why? Why her? WHY NOT YOU??"

Hold my breath as I wish for death

Oh please, God, wake me

Abby is surprisingly strong for someone who has lost so much blood. When the two men try to force her to stay still, and calm down, she hits her fists against Gibbs's chest. He doesn't even try to stop her, signalising to Ducky to step away. Grabbing her wrists, he forces her to look at him, and he sees her pain. "I would trade places with her if I could Abby." His voice doesn't have a hint of a lie in it, but she disregards him anyway, driving herself into hysteria. The blood flows gradually slower from her arms, and turns darker. Gibbs doesn't realise which tears are hers or his, not even realising his own sobs. "Please Abby." Desperation clear in his voice now. "Make her come back Gibbs." She eventually blubber as she passes out, clenching to him again.

Gibbs and Ducky look at each other in panic. Ducky puts compression's on her wounds to stop the bleeding, and calls emergency at once.

Gibbs holds Abby in his arms, trying to protect her, and cries into her hair. Both of them are covered in her blood and he holds his breath to make sure she's still breathing. There's not much of a pulse she has, and Gibbs nears complete panic when the medical team finally arrives. Ducky squeezes his shoulder reasurringly.

"Please step back Sir." Someone orders him, and he obeys. Still in shock, and still crying. "Can I please go with her to the hospital?" "Are you family Sir?" "Practically I am. I'm Special agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, her boss." They look at him sympathetically, before lifting her up on the stretcher. "I'm sorry Sir, only family allowed. You can follow us though, but I advice you get cleaned up first." Only then does he realise he's covered in her blood. He watches them leave with her looking more dead than alive. His heart breaks at the sight.

"How do we fix this Ducky?" Gibbs asked with a pained voice, but knowing it had no immediate answer.