"Thanks Abs, good work. And while we chase down this lead, follow up on the bank transactions that you were tracing."
"But Gibbs, McGee was doing that."
"And he will now be in the field where he belongs." Gibbs let a hint of confusion through his voice.
"But Gibbs it's so boring. I hate it. That's why I gave it to McGee."
"Abbs, I sent McGee in here to help you when we didn't have any other leads. This is your job, not his."
"But it will take me a million years more since I haven't done it from the start and have no context."
"Better get to it then." Even though Abbs was his favourite and there was nothing in the world that he wouldn't do for her, she sometimes did know how to irritate his last nerve.
"But Gibbs you already have this lead. I'm feeling very confident about it. You don't need any more."
"Abss, last I checked, I was still leading the team."
"But you're doing it wrong!"
"Excuse me?"
"Sorry that came out wrong. I just meant that in this case, you aren't seeing that it isn't necessary."
"Abs, in any case, we tie all loose ends. Period."
"But I don't want to!"
"Are you sick?"
"Of boredom, yes!"
"Not good enough, get to work."
"But Giiibbbbssss…" Gibbs didn't have time for this. He had a dead marine's young daughter waiting for him to provide answers. He moved towards Abby and gave her two hard smacks.
"Get. To. Work." Abby glared at him but moved towards her computer. She was about to sit down, then thought better of it, glared at him again and continued working standing up.
"Get me results and get rid of the attitude before I'm back."
'Who does he think he is' Abby thought. Generally the goth loved her work and wouldn't dream of complaining about it to Gibbs but today she had been out of sorts all day. Her brain was fuzzy, jumping all over the place and she was struggling to focus. With this, tracing through bank records would be excruciating. Besides by the time Gibbs and the team returned with the suspect and interrogated him, Gibbs would also understand that this was a fruitless exercise. Just then her computer beeped. A friend was telling her about a party at a cemetery that night. She considered it for a moment but shook her head no and left the message as it was. She packed up and left but didn't turn off the computer in case McGee needed something on it.
She drove to her place, changed into pajamas and went to sleep.
By the time GIbbs finished with the suspect and asked everyone to go home, it was almost 11pm. He got into the elevator to go home but then remembered Abby and didn't want her to be disappointed that he hadn't come for the results and so pushed the button to go down to her lab. He wondered if she would want to crash at his place tonight and they could do something nice for breakfast the next morning.
The first thing he noticed as he exited the elevator was how quiet it was. 'Abs tell me you didn't disobey a direct order' he pleaded to himself. He turned on the lights, hoping against hope that Abby had left the results for him somewhere even though in his gut he knew that if she had finished and had to leave, she would have left them on his desk with some flashy marker to catch his attention. He still checked. As a last resort, he tried to read what was on the screen and then saw the message about the party in the cemetery. And the message was received barely a few minutes after he had left. He sighed, he really didn't want to deal with a wayward daughter tonight but it had to be done. He noted the address of the cemetery and walked back to the elevator.
When Gibbs reached the cemetery, the party was in full swing. He groaned but got out of the car and started looking for Abby. After a few minutes, he called her but it went to voicemail. He wondered why his kids always insisted on making bad situations worse by not answering the phone. Things would be so much easier for everyone if they just answered the phone, even if they were disobeying so that he at least knew that they were safe. But then he himself had done that in his youth. So it was like paying for his sins. After the third phone attempt, he gave up and started asking people if they had seen Abby. He got answers ranging from she hadn't come to she was making out with some guy to she was sleeping in one of the coffins. He eventually gave that up as a fruitless exercise and started walking to the DJ. he pulled on the power cord, shutting off the music. Everyone turned to him. He said in his scariest marine voice, "has anyone seen Abigail Scuito?" Nobody said anything. "I'm not turning on the music till I get an answer."
A girl piped up, "I invited her but she never responded." That was strange.
He walked away leaving the DJ to set up the system again and called Mcgee. McGee answered on the second ring.
"Yes boss?"
"Locate Abby's phone."
"Is everything okay?"
"Absolutely. I'm running a phone location exercise drill for you in the middle of the night after a long, hard case."
"On it, boss." McGee didn't want to risk any more conversation.
"It shows that it's at her house, boss." She did not. How could she be so stupid again to intentionally ditch her phone at her house. Especially after how hard he had been on her the last time she pulled a stunt like this. Gibbs sighed thinking of the further harsher punishment that he would have to mete out.
"McGee, I'm going to go look in her favorite clubs and restaurants. I know she's not at home right now but could you swing by her place anyway in case she comes back before I find her?"
"Sure thing boss."