Title: My Space
Word Count: 2,114
Characters: Abby, Gibbs
Genre: Drama
Pairings: None
Line: "Abby works alone for a reason." - "Which is?" - "Something you should ask her yourself."- Gibbs and Director Shepard, Season 3 Episode 'The Voyeur's Web'

Abby's hands were folded tight to her body, her heavily buckled black boots performing a perfect clomp-clomp-de-clomp rhythm as she paced back and forth in front of Gibbs' desk.

"Abby…everything okay?" McGee asked hesitantly. His fingers had stopped their incessant typing, but were still splayed at ready across the keyboard.

Again, Abby didn't answer, her brow remaining deeply furrowed as she stared at the floor, her small, pale fingers clutching the sleeves of her sweatshirt to pull them down over her thumbs.

Kate entered the Squadroom after making a quick run to the vending machine and, upon seeing Abby, paused briefly at Tony's desk.

"What's with her?" She asked quietly, giving the younger woman a concerned look, which she did not notice.

Tony shook his head, returning his gaze to his computer as if to work, though his eyes repeatedly glanced back over to Abby and her agitated pacing.

"She's been acting strange since Director Morrow started that Lab Time-Share program," he dragged his eyes back to his computer, "Boss'll find out, I've just got to get some concrete results on that BOLO before he-"

"Any results on that BOLO yet, DiNozzo?"

As the old adage goes, 'speak of the Boss and he shall appear', Gibbs chose that moment to walk out of the second floor elevator. His coffee in one hand and his trench coat fluttering behind him, he entered the unit.

"Uh, nothing substantial Boss. The description of 'a medium white male, mid thirties driving a black SUV' is kicking back, as you might expect, a rather large number of hits."

Gibbs stood behind his desk and turned a blank but stern look on the younger agent.

"…which I will run down one by one until I find something. On it Boss."

"Kate?" Gibbs brought his coffee to his lips, listening to his team update him while staring at Abby, who'd stopped moving but was staring back evenly.

Kate, who'd taken the opportunity while Gibbs was talking to Tony, to slink back to her own desk, sat up straighter in her chair.

"I'm trying to get through to Captain Garcia's CO but I'm being stonewalled," she paused and glanced quickly at Gibbs out of the corner of her eye, "I'm calling them back now."

"McGee?"

"Still running down the Captain's phone and bank records, Boss. Nothing interesting so far."

Gibbs nodded once they'd all finished reporting.

"Is there something I can do for you, Abby? He asked, his tone uncharacteristically quiet, a sure sign he'd noticed her nervous fidgeting and subdued behavior.

Abby nodded, "I need to talk to you, Gibbs…"

His eyes narrowed minutely and he set his cup on his desk. "Okay." He tilted his head slightly to the left, waiting.

Abby took a deep breath; her low pigtails sliding across her shoulders as she glanced quickly back at McGee and then DiNozzo.

"Not here."

Gibbs body language changed then, minutely but significantly from interested and almost amused to tense and focused. He walked out of his desk alcove and back the way he'd come, beckoning Abby to follow with a single raised finger. Abby did, leaving McGee, DiNozzo and Kate to speculate on the sudden, private meeting between their boss and the quirky forensic tech.

"That was weird" McGee said, his lips pursed with concern.

"What do you think is wrong?" Kate asked, watching the elevator doors close.

"I don't know," Tony said, his voice uncharacteristically somber, "but it isn't good."

---

Gibbs and Abby stood in silence for a few seconds after the elevator doors shut. When they were between floors Gibbs reached over and flipped the small switch on the panel, bringing the lift to a sudden stop, which woke all the butterflies in Abby's stomach that she'd been trying to calm since early that morning when she'd decided to tell Gibbs.

"Okay, what's going on?" Gibbs asked, his voice still soft and at the same time, commanding.

Abby swallowed hard and pressed her arms tighter to herself. She opened her mouth, meaning to get directly to the point. But, as was usually the case when she was nervous, every thought that had occurred to her since 4 am that morning was what spilled out in one, long, breath.

"Um, okay, so I have a slight problem…maybe bigger than slight. Okay, definitely bigger, it's just that the last time I had a problem like this and I didn't tell you you got really upset and hindsight is 20/20 as they say and so I guess I probably should have told you sooner this time and last time but I just kept believing it would stop but it hasn't, it's gotten worse and I can't do it anymore Gibbs, I can't. And, um, I know you like for us to keep personal lives personal and stick to the job and leave everything else outside and everything but this one is kind of like personal and work trouble so I think it's ok even though you usually don't want to hear about Guy Trouble but this time it's kind of like...important and I-"

He was tracking her erratic movements with sharp blue eyes and he chose this moment to step forward, reaching out to stop her pacing with a gentle hand on her arm and his voice hardly above a whisper, he asked, "what kind of Guy trouble, Abs?"

"The scary kind." Abby said finally in a small voice, not looking at him.

Gibbs' face hardened and he was momentarily thankful that Abby was not looking at him, he would not have wanted her to think the anger was directed at her, "who?"

She swallowed hard, "It's Warren."

Gibbs' eyes narrowed, of the various and sorted people Abby came in contact with, he hadn't expected that.

"The Lab guy Metro sent over?"

Abby just nodded.

Gibbs took a deep breath and keep his voice steady, "when?"

"Um, it started about, um, three months ago," she shrugged slightly and dropped her eyes, "he sort of started saying things that, you know, gave me pause, but I just sort of brushed it off, I thought he was trying to be funny…"

She trailed off and was now steadfastly avoiding looking at him and Gibbs forced himself to remain calm and gently grasped her arms, urging her to continue.

She did, "then he sort of started to like…brush up against me and I thought it was an accident but…it was just happening way too often to be an accident. And then he just started coming kind of right out with it. I told him I wasn't interested, I even stopped wearing skirts and some of my lacier tops because of him," she said plaintively and Gibbs' head tilted slightly to one side. He'd thought he noticed something was different. She shook her head dismally, "it hasn't helped."

Gibbs took another tiny step forward, "Has he hurt you, Abby?"

Abby bit her lip, her eyes stinging with the implications of the question.

"I-I don't think he did it on purpose," she said weakly, the excuse sounding lame even to her own ears.

"Show me," he was whispering now but leaving no room for argument. She couldn't have denied him if she'd wanted to, and she did a little bit.

Swallowing hard again, she stepped back, unwinding her arms from around herself. She slowly raised them to him, pulling back her sleeves.

Gibbs looked down and clamped his teeth to keep in a flow of expletives. Abby's thin, pale arms were marred with reddish purple splotches. In the shapes of hands.

Unable to take his silence or his cold gaze on her flushed skin, she looked off to one side and rambled, filling the silence with her shaky and overly-upbeat voice.

"It happened last night. Everyone had gone…it was just us two," she paused when she thought she heard a low almost-growl from him and nodded, "I know, I shouldn't have been there with him alone but…I just got so caught up in the test I was doing. I was listening to music in my headphones, since he always turns it off when I play it on the stereo, and I didn't realize how late it had gotten. I turned to get a Petri dish from the counter and there he was…just…staring at me. Saying something. I tried to get away from him but I-I…I couldn't."

He stiffened considerably, and tried to quell the desire to shoot the next person he saw. His first impulse being that of jumping into action and making Gordon Warren eat his own scanning Microscope.

But another part of him, a paternal part that often lay dormant, would not allow him to do so, not yet.

"Abs," he waited, but she didn't look up, "Abby," he reached out and tipped her chin up to look at him, "you should have come to me sooner."

She nodded and looked down again when he dropped his hand, ashamed of the tears building behind her eyes, "I know. I wanted to, but…like I said I thought I was just being paranoid. Or that maybe I was…sending the wrong signals or something…I don't know. And Director Morrow was very clear when he said how important this Time Share thing with Metro is. He said I had to do everything in my power to make them feel welcome-"

"Not this, Abby," Gibbs cut in, regarding her seriously. She nodded and swiped quickly at her eyes.

"I know," she shrugged one shoulder and wrapped her arms back around herself, "I'm sorry."

The sound of her heartfelt, vulnerably apology tore at him and he almost couldn't get her into his arms fast enough. He cupped the back of her head, holding her to him as she wrapped her arms around his back and clung to him with full force. He was just as guilty, if not more so, as her.

Yes, she should have said something, but really, he should have known. Abby was one of his and he'd failed to protect her this time.

"No, Abbs," he whispered against her hair, "I'm sorry."

It wouldn't happen again.

---

Tony's eyes were glued to the elevator almost the entire time they were gone, despite his best efforts to stay focused on the task he'd been given.

"They've been gone a-" he didn't get a chance to finish, because at that moment the doors opened and Abby stepped out. Immediately Tony stood from his chair, causing both his other teammates to look up at him. He saw Abby's uncomfortable stance, the way she hugged herself protectively, but what troubled him most were her red, splotchy cheeks and glassy eyes.

"Boss?"

Gibbs poked his head out of the elevator and his suspicions were confirmed in the hard, cold, calculating look on Gibbs' face.

"With me, DiNozzo."

He didn't pause, didn't think twice. But he did glance briefly at McGee as he stepped away from his desk, his message silently, but clearly conveyed.

Take care of her.

Tony joined Gibbs in the elevator and, taking his cue from Gibbs, turned to stare rigidly at the back of the mirrored doors.

"Gonna read me in, Boss?"

He could have sworn he heard Gibbs' teeth grinding.

"One of the lab guys has been harassing Abby."

Tony's head snapped over to him, "by harassing you mean..?"

Gibbs' pointed look was answer enough and suddenly Tony understood and shared Gibbs' fury. He also understood why Gibbs was having him tag alone as the elevator car slowly descended to the basement lab area. It was a classic interrogation technique, have someone else in the room for no other reason than to make sure you don't do something you might regret, aka, kill the sorry SOB.

Unfortunately, Tony wasn't sure he'd be much help this time. He didn't even have any of the details and he was ready to beat whoever it was to a pulp.

Suddenly a thought occurred to him, "one of our guys?" Tony frowned at the thought, there were only a few other lab technicians than Abby and most of them worked opposite shifts or were more a part of the tables and graphs ends of things than the chemical science. Still, he didn't like to think it was one of their own that was threatening Abby.

"No," Gibbs shook his head, "one of Metro's."

Somehow, that was a relief and he found himself relaxing slightly even as his hands clenched into fists.

"Okay," he said with false lightness in his voice, "he's dead then."

A flicker of something that was almost a smile crossed Gibbs' face as the doors opened and as he stepped through, Tony heard him answer.

"Oh yeah."

A/N: First of all, thanks so much for the reviews last chap, as always they make writing even more rewarding. I liked this line mostly because of what Gibbs says to the director after she asks for the reason. That she should ask herself, it implies a personal and possibly uncomfortable reason. But, as always, it's all just MHO. Also, I'm sure there will be those wondering why I stopped where I did, the first reason is because I've written a 'Gibbs confronts bad guy who's hurting his girl' before and we've seen it more than once on the show. No need to beat a dead horse. That...and I'm really excited about the next chapter (probably mostly this part of the reason) so I thought I could get away with stopping this here.

Next Line: "Ha! Nice try. I'm sitting on my MOAS."