Author's Note: This one turned out a little darker than I'd originally thought, but hey. I'm almost done now, just have one last chapter to write. Hope everyone's doing okay!


The building McGee's given them the coordinates for used to be a hardware store. Through the dirty window, the empty shelving units and debris-strewn floor show no trace of Mawher or Abby. Ziva drives past and pulls to a stop a little further down the road, and she and DiNozzo turn to look out of the rear windshield at the place.

"You really think she's in there?" Tony wants to know.

"Mawher could be making a narcotic run," Ziva points out. "Ridgeway mentioned drugging her. And if we storm in and she is not there, he might never tell us where to find her."

It's a risk, Gibbs knows; one that under normal circumstances he'd hesitate to take. But his gut tells him this is the place – the level of traffic noise filtering into the car, the fact that the shop units to the left and right are vacant, the boarded-up window upstairs; all these signs call him to action.

Ziva and Tony are watching him expectantly. "Let's go," he tells them, getting out of the car and striding around the corner to the back of the row of houses without waiting around for them to catch up.

Reluctant to kick in the door and alert Mawher to their presence, he draws a couple of long, slim picks from his pocket and sets to work on the lock. With a click the mechanism gives, and Gibbs heads inside, trying to keep calm and cool. Images of Abby lying on the ground, dead of a massive brain haemorrhage, assault his mind, but he shoves them aside.

There's a passage through to the storeroom at the back of the shop unit, and a set of stairs upward. Though his mind screams at him that Abby's upstairs, he follows standard procedure – they can't help her if they're incapacitated. Mawher could be on the ground floor. Progressing with caution, he moves through the storeroom, weapon drawn, as Tony keeps an eye on the stairwell and Ziva takes the store-front.

"Clear," she whispers to him, appearing in the doorway, and he echos the word, finding nothing. Together they return to DiNozzo, shaking their heads.

Ziva follows Gibbs up the stairs as silently as a cat; behind her, DiNozzo is a little less graceful but barely audible. The door on the landing is closed, and he tries the handle as quietly as he can, relieved beyond measure when the door begins to open.

With a quick glance back at his team, Gibbs pushes the door, and the hinges emit an excruciating squeal. The opportunity for stealth gone, he abandons caution, shouldering past the door and into the living area.

It's as shabby and cramped as the room Abby's being held in. A tiny TV sits atop a scuffed wooden cabinet against one wall, and a frayed, worn couch is placed opposite. The first sound Gibbs becomes aware of is Mawher's voice, muffled by a closed door but raised in anger.

To his right, DiNozzo heads into the kitchen, and Ziva makes for the bathroom on the left. Both return confirming the coast is clear, and Gibbs steels himself to kick in the door to the one remaining room just as Mawher flings it open, a hypodermic needle held aloft.

In the split-second it takes for Gibbs to assess the situation, Mawher takes in the three weapons levelled at him and reacts swiftly. Slamming the door shut again, he takes cover inside Abby's prison, and Gibbs is left with the impression of his panic-stricken face.

Not wasting time on strategy, Gibbs kicks in the door and strides in after him. When he sees Mawher's position his blood turns to ice, and he pulls up short, motioning Ziva and DiNozzo back.

Mawher crouches behind Abby, one hand yanking her head up by the hair, the other holding the hypodermic an inch from Abby's wide, terrified eyes. She doesn't seem to register that Gibbs is there; all her attention is concentrated on the needle.

"Please, Mikel, don't do this, please, please-" Her voice is a barely audible whisper; every molecule of her body screams with silent distress. Gibbs tries to tune it out, to focus on Mawher.

The younger man keeps one eye on Gibbs, the other on Abby and the hypodermic, his words fast and almost unintelligible. "Ab, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I just want us to be together, y'know? But you wouldn't listen and then the cops got involved and I can't let 'em take you away from me! Please tell me you understand, I can't lose you again, I love you so much, I don't wanna hurt you but I gotta do this…"

Gibbs doesn't have a clear shot – if he takes it from this angle the bullet might exit the bastard's body and plough into Abby's flesh. On the other hand, if he stalls for too long Mawher might decide to take Abby to the grave with him.

For one long, eternal, crystal clear instant he watches Mawher's eyes tear up with emotion, the hypodermic wavering a little as the liquid blurs the lunatic's eyesight. And then, taking the biggest risk of his life, Gibbs adjusts his angle with a rapid sidestep left, aims and fires.

The needle drops to the carpet as Mawher falls backward, his eyes losing their intensity as a fine spray of blood and brain tissue paints the wall behind him. Abby cries out, recoiling from the body in horror. Ziva and DiNozzo venture into the room as Gibbs lowers his weapon, and breathe sighs of relief as they realise Abby's unhurt.

Gibbs hardly even registers that they're in the room. "Abby." He crouches beside her, tilting her chin to divert her stunned gaze from Mawher.

She blinks a few times in rapid succession, struggling to process events. Then she bursts into tears, throwing herself into his arms with the last of her strength. He holds her as tightly as he can without crushing her, kissing the top of her head and stroking her hair, trying to impart all the reassurance he has in him.

Next to him, DiNozzo crouches over Mawher, double-checking what Gibbs already knows – that the son of a bitch is dead, a neat bullet-hole in his forehead. Once he's looked the body over, he places a hand over Abby's. "Good to see you, Abbs."

Ziva puts in a quiet phone call to Ducky, her tone troubled as she asks him to bring the morgue van out. As Abby's tears subside, she hangs up and speed-dials McGee, letting him know the situation.

Abby draws back, her eyes seeking out the other two before landing on Gibbs again. And slowly – unbelievably – she manages a shaky smile. It only just reaches her eyes, but it's there. "What day is it?"

I'm gonna find you, Abbs. Before the weekend. He remembers his words, uttered impulsively out of desperation, and thanks god they weren't vainglorious. "Friday. Around nineteen hundred hours."

She squeezes his hand. "And you got here with five whole hours to spare. That's my Gibbs."

As she beckons Ziva forward for a hug, which for once is reciprocated without resistance, Tony frowns at Gibbs. "Five hours to what, Boss?"

The first genuine amusement he's felt since Abby's capture wells up within him, and he grins, shaking his head. "The weekend, DiNozzo. The weekend."