A/N Lets start with an apology since I am not Gibbs :) I had this chapter ready to upload over ten days ago but my computer tragically died. Finally I was dragged kicking and screaming to a new one with the latest Windows 8.1 which I hate. It's going to take me ages to familiarise myself with it. And I have an urgent work project that needs to be started immediately so no time to play around and get to know it beforehand. Anyway enough whining, the upside of not having a computer was not being able to work so I ended up catching up on my writing (the old fashioned way with a pen) and got quite a lot done. I finished a rough draft of Rising to the Bait, wrote a chapter that was missing from my Angel Paula series, plus almost finished another Angel Cate chapter, and ended up writing some additional chapters for Be Careful What What You Wish For and also worked on the next chapter of An Eye. Now I need to find time to type it all up lol. So the good news is that this was supposed to be the last chapter but there are at least two additional chapters ,I think. I was planning to leave the ending open but decided to put everyone out of their misery. Hope you enjoy :)

Thanks to Arress for Beta-ing this chapter. Any errors are my bad. Thanks for the reviews, favs and alerts, I never expected so many. To the guest who asked whether MW was leaving because of the way his character has been treated on the show I can only say that I hadn't heard that. Although I can see why he might not feel like his character has been given story lines that match his considerable acting ability. His talents haven't been well utilised IMHO but here's hoping that will change.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Chapter 8

Dr Donald Mallard had received a phone call from Director Vance requesting that he make his way down to Ms. Scuito's laboratory and render medical assistance. According to Leon, Abigail had barricaded herself in her office and was refusing to respond to anyone, and since Gibbs wasn't available, the director was hoping the medical examiner could talk the emotionally fraught forensic scientist down off the ledge. Of course, Ducky was cynical enough to suspect that their most pragmatic leader, Director Vance, was more concerned with the state of play regarding forensic evidence than the emotional and mental health of their forensic virtuoso. Normally Gibbs, or in lieu of his presence, young Anthony, were the ones who were best placed to handle Abigail when she was in such a state. The pair, for all intents and purposes, were acknowledged experts in the role of Goth Whisperer, but then again, neither of them were here now to fulfil their highly specialised role.

Jethro had taken off like a bolt out of the blue when Thomas Morrow had called to tell him about the tragic situation with Anthony. He'd flown up to New York to attend the hospital following the brutal attack upon their former senior field agent's life. And of course, the reason why he wasn't there was also the reason for Abigail's meltdown, as she depended upon Gibbs to be her emotion rock in times of crisis. Arriving at the door of the lab, Ducky found a crowd of people, all standing around trying to get into the lab to comfort the forensic scientist. Somehow, one of the most brilliant of forensic minds had managed to train the entire staff into cosseting and spoiling her like some fragile hothouse orchid, but it seemed that not even Caff-Pows were enticing her out today.

Frowning, Ducky spoke to the mob, "I think that it would be prudent if everybody return to their department or desk and give us a little privacy. I'm sure everything will be fine, ladies and gentlemen," The medical examiner noted that all but his assistant, James Palmer, Officer Ziva David and Special Agent McGee melted away silently.

Her forehead furrowed, Ziva placed her hand on Ducky's arm. "What is going on with Abby, Ducky? And why has Gibbs disappeared in such a county? Do you know where he went?" She demanded in her typically imperious fashion, which Ducky surmised some time ago was one she probably considered to be caring and sharing, since empathetic wasn't something that had been featured on the Mossad extra-curricular.

Ducky patted her shoulder, quickly deciding to put them off rather than filling them in since he wasn't sure exactly what was going on at this stage. Had Abigail just gone off the deep end because of Anthony's accident and Gibbs refusal to take her with him to New York? Much to her fury, he'd declined to wait long enough for Vance to organise a replacement for her, since there was evidence pending on cases. Of course, since she and not Gibbs was now his medical proxy and had been ever since Domino occurred some weeks before, it was understandable that she'd gone off the deep end at being prevented from going up there. Vance forcing her to fulfil the role via fax and video hook-up rather than in person had seemed especially hard-hearted. Ducky wondered if he really couldn't organise a replacement for her until tomorrow or he was just making her pay for Gibbs taking off without leave. Of course it was possible, he concluded, that Abigail had received more bad news in the interim.

"I really don't know what's going on, my dear." He temporized. "Why don't you all return to work, too, and I'll see what I can discover,"

He shooed them all off, with an eloquent glance at Mr. Palmer to indicate he would fill him in later, and waited until they all disappeared into the lift. Taking out his phone, he dialled Abby's number and when she answered he asked her to let him in. Hearing the door release, he entered, surprised to see that Abby was standing there staring at him with a terrified expression.

"Has there been any more word, Ducky?" She whispered brokenly.

"I'm afraid not, dear. I take it you haven't heard anything either?" Ducky enquired as the Goth disappeared back into her office, which was swathed in darkness and he heard her sniffling as she started crying. Ducky placed his arms around her comfortingly. "This isn't like you, dear Abigail. You must not lose hope. While there is life there is hope, child."

"I haven't, Ducky. I know that if there is the slightest chance, Tony will take it, so until we know for sure, I'm going to hold onto hope."

"Then I don't understand what this breakdown is all about, Abigail." Ducky asked gently, feeling confused by her reaction.

"I destroyed the team, Ducky. I'm the reason that Tony is lying in a hospital in a coma in New York right now and the team has been shattered."

"Abigail, that isn't true, you didn't stab Anthony."

"No, but I am the reason he left NCIS. If I hadn't told him that Gibbs said that he needed an attitude adjustment for Christmas, he would never have resigned."

Ducky snorted indelicately. "I don't see how you can blame yourself for the uncouth behaviour of Jethro, my dear. How is that your fault?"

"Because, Ducky… I told him, not because I thought he should know, but because I couldn't deal with the fact that Gibbs, my Silver Fox, the man who can move mountains and is all-knowing and powerful; the person who is perfect in every way is nothing more than a myth, that my fantasy Gibbs said what he said in the first place. I've built him up to be a God, Ducky, a mythical magical creature who knows when my babies have something for him, even before I can call him. Whose gut is all knowing and where Gibbs is never, ever wrong. And when he said such a horrible, mean thing about Tony and it was Christmas time, I couldn't deal with it because it was like he slapped me in the face with meanness and vitriol."

She rocked back and forth, her arms wrapped completely around her torso and Ducky knew she was trying to self soothe as she took a breath before continuing. "You know, I don't like sarcasm and it was like he was forcing me to confront how much of a mean-spirited individual he was being. I didn't want to face the truth that he's simply human like the rest of us, with the same faults and frailties, and because I didn't want to have to face that truth I went to the one person who always puts me back together again, no matter what. But I never thought about how much it would hurt him."

She stood up and took a photo of Gibbs off her wall – a poster sized picture of him head slapping Tony out in the field for some undoubtedly minor infraction, Ducky thought. Taking it over to a shallow metal dish, the Goth poured some chemical from her lab over it before which seconds later he realised was flammable, as she ignited the photo which burned in a combination of white hot and bright blue flames, until it consumed the picture and all that was left was blackened ash.

"Ah, my dear, Abigail, I understand that you are angry at Jethro…"

"I didn't burn the photo because I am angry at him, Ducky… well, I am angry, but that's not why I did it. It's time for me to stop acting like a child and pretending that Gibbs is going to make everything magically better. I'm not a little girl; I'm a mature intelligent woman with a bunch of degrees and diplomas in forensics. Who can kill someone without leaving a trace, yet, I went running to Tony when Gibbs upset my view of him as being perfect. You know, he took me home and let me cry on his shoulder all night and took care of me, and I didn't give a thought to the fact that no one was going to look after him. He does such an awesome job of looking after everyone, but who looks after him? He's never had that, and yet not only does he not have a chip on his shoulder, but he never expects anything from any of us."

Ducky felt himself becoming uncomfortable as Abby vented. He felt a prickly feeling that he knew was his conscience. He, too, had been remiss in his own dealings with young Anthony. Apparently, his young friend had found out that he and Jethro had been joking about him, likening him to a serial killer they were investigating who was a poster child for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Probably why he didn't transfer his medical proxy to the medical examiner, which was totally understandable, he concluded.

Apart from that inexcusable lapse, he'd been less than supportive of the young agent when he'd taken over from Gibbs several years ago. Instead of encouraging him and defending him to the rest of the team, he'd been consumed by his own anger at his old friend for leaving the way that he did. And the irony was that Anthony had some innovations that Ducky had found to be very positive, like his campfires and burning CDs so that Abigail, himself and young Mr. Palmer could stay in the loop.

Jethro was of the school of thought that information must be hoarded like gold and doled out sparingly by him with a miserly regard, because knowledge was power. He'd always used it to foster the mystique that Abby and the rest of his team were mesmerised by. Anthony's style of leadership on the other hand, was much more collaborative and egalitarian, and frankly Ducky found that it was far less exhausting.

"Quite true, my dear child. But you know that while Jethro has obviously played a part in our young man's decision to move on to a job where his talents would be better appreciated, we are not without blame either, even you and I. When Jethro left us all, we were all so busy falling apart and lashing out like a bunch of developmentally immature children, we all made Anthony's life a misery, each in our own way. I was so angry with my old friend that I wasn't there for our new leader in any meaningful way when you young 'uns turned on him.

"Indeed, I was perfectly happy to use him to take out my anger on, and I wasn't the only one. He couldn't win – if he did something like Gibbs, you pilloried him for being a wanna-be, but when he tried to be his own man – you mocked him for being big headed and thinking he was better than Gibbs. Timothy and Ziva questioned his orders and didn't give of their best, you slapped a trainee sticker on him, and yet your own behaviour was hardly professional, collapsing into tears several times a day."

He gazed at Abby as she flushed crimson and tears leaked out from under her eyelashes. "Tell me, my dear," He pressed. "Why didn't you ever feel the need to whack a trainee sticker on young Timothy, too? If anything, he as an agent that was barely out of his probationary period and not actually eligible to serve as a senior field agent because of his lack of field and investigative experience, was a far more likely a candidate. Apart from Tony's wealth of investigative experience which added up to over a decade in law enforcement as part of his role as SFA, his duties and training involved preparing him to lead the team when the SSA was unavailable. Anthony was more than prepared and capable to lead the team, both in Jethro's absence when he was indisposed and after he left and he received his promotion. Yet Timothy had no such experience or training to step into the role of SFA, and frankly, he should never have been asked to take on the promotion since he didn't possess the prerequisite skills."

Abby looked shocked. "I… I… I never thought about it that way, Ducky. And me having Gibbs' photos plastered all around the lab and begging him to get Gibbs back constantly. That must have been horrible for him, and yet he took such good care of us all and we trashed him and his feelings. You're right, we are all to blame – how we blamed him when we found out what he'd been doing for Jenny, how we teased him when Gibbs came back. We are horrible people, Ducky. Horrible! I don't blame him for leaving."

"Unkind, juvenile, unthinking perhaps but maybe horrible is a trifle too dramatic. An unfortunate conflagration of individual personalities, weaknesses and circumstances. Each of us eccentric, needy or afflicted with authority issues, all orbiting as tiny satellites around the gravitational pull of the charismatic leadership of Leroy Jethro Gibbs and failing to perform our own personal due diligence when it came to our professional roles. It has led us to this sad impasse, my dear. We all must accept responsibility for the consequences of our actions, I'm afraid."

Ducky looked at the forensic scientist, her woebegone features more than enough to melt a heart much harder than his own, but nevertheless knowing that it was a necessary and long overdue metamorphosis. Facing up to the truth that someone you have elevated to god-like status for years was simply a mere mortal like everyone else, was always going to be painful. Abby's realisation that her Silver Fox had feet of clay like the rest of them was an obligatory milestone of maturation, which he had to concede, was long overdue. Most individuals achieved it somewhere around the time that they realised that parents were imperfect, and that magical thinking was a vestige of cognitive immaturity.

Abigail never intended to hurt her friends and colleagues, but emotionally she was hard work, and perhaps they all were to blame. They frequently indulged the happy Goth more than was prudent instead of encouraging her to develop coping skills. Growing up was a painful process, even if you'd managed to delay it until your mid-thirties.

Sighing, he stood up and encouraged Abby to return to her lab since there were machines that had been beeping, indicating that tests awaited her attention. Promising to try to use his considerable contacts to gain a medical update, he headed off back to his own little fiefdom, feeling considerably older and colder. Even if they had a miracle, Ducky knew that nothing would ever be the same again…for any of them.

Endnotes:

Zivai-sm : And why has Gibbs disappeared in such a county? And why has Gibbs disappeared in such a state?