I AM SO SORRY! I LOVE YOU ALL AND I HOPE YOU'LL FORGIVE ME FOR MY WAY-TOO-LONG HIATUS!

See, with the bad weather, the parts for my computer were delayed. When it finally got fixed, I got swamped with assignments, and even now I have an essay, science fair project, two tests, and all that crap this week. However, next week should be much easier, and then on until well into… err, March. I hope to continue updating regularly. Oh, and if the science in this chapter defies all logic, feel free to point it out to me—I'm still in 7th grade science here, people, and just theorizing.

Lastly, does anyone know how to do those page breaks in stories on here? Y'know, those gray lines? Thanks a bunch. I'm going to go look it up and see if it works… lemme know, 'kay? On with the show!

Edit: Tried to edit it through FF and use the horizontal page break, but it keeps going away. I guess it isn't working D:

Palmer frowned at the back of the small group and slowed his pace as they hurried theirs. The absence of his footsteps went unnoticed in their rush to reach Abby's side before she fell to the poison injected into her. However, Palmer was a smart man. A bit awkward at times, yes, but smart nonetheless. It just didn't make sense to him.

As he stopped on the stairs, he pondered. Methanol killed fairly quickly after severe symptoms, as Abby's had been hours ago. She had been in excruciating pain not only from her abdomen, but as Ducky and he himself had from her claims diagnosed, headaches, dizziness, and an abnormal fatigue. After discovering the injection of methanol, Jimmy and Ducky suspected that the glossy look she had given them in the original car ride to the hospital, the one where she didn't seem to be looking at anyone, as Ziva acutely pointed out, was credited to temporary blindness. At the time, they might have been able to credit it to a bad case of the flu, but she was sent to the hospital nonetheless.

The hospital's medicines hadn't changed her condition, and it only worsened; that's when their suspicions originally rose, as had been reported to them only minutes previously. What stumped Jimmy was the fact that, as grim as the thought was, she should have died by now. Gibbs was her emergency contact—the hospital would have called him, and he would have been beyond out-of-character if he had received that terrible news. She wasn't dead yet. How was that possible…?

He made his way back down the stairs and into Abby's lab, where the deadly report of methanol was still blinking on her computer screen. With a bit of her blood still leftover, he conducted the test again with a narrowed search; anything poisonous or otherwise abnormal. The methanol came up yet again, but instead of stopping, the computer continued scanning this time.

His brow furrowed as the result came up. The methanol was the only poisonous substance found, but it had been diluted. Someone, whoever did this, had injected her with a mix of the methanol and it's antidote as well. From his knowledge, that antidote would have delayed the deadliness of the poison for a few hours, which were soon ticking away. He was no detective, but it was easy to deduce at first glance that the guy who did this had meant to cause her pain and even fear. The symptoms of methanol poisoning were most definitely no walk in the park.

He couldn't bare having watched Abby writhe in pain for an hour before the team decided to send her to the hospital when it was obvious Ducky didn't have the proper medicines and her condition wasn't letting up, only worsening. A frown tugged at his lips, but he needed to announce his findings, and quickly.

That had been hours ago, and Gibbs and Ducky were just learning of it now. The other three agents had unwillingly submitted to finding a space to park the car; apparently it was a busy day in the hospital. Jimmy had sought them out once they arrived, after having been given the news that Abby's condition was still worsening, and her pulse was slowing, and she was showing no signs of waking up from her current sleep. They still couldn't diagnose her condition; after all, methanol symptoms bore resemblance to plenty of other ailments, but couldn't be cured the same way.

Presently, Jimmy just finished whispering his findings to a silently steaming Gibbs and a worried-as-ever Ducky.

"The son of a bitch who did this just meant to hurt her?" Gibbs questioned as coolly as possible.

"It appears that way, Jethro," Ducky said wistfully. "Good work, Dr. Palmer." Normally, the young man would have beamed at the praise, but it just wasn't in him.

They were currently sitting in a small huddle in the waiting room, in a small grouping of chairs around a white coffee table they had found. The waiting room, unlike the parking garage, was relatively empty.

"Well, hurry up, we need to tell the doctors," Gibbs urged, managing to keep his voice down.

"I cannot simply go in there and interrupt anything they might be doing," Ducky responded. "Until her doctor, or one of her nurses, come to meet us out here, it will be a difficult wait."

When they had arrived, Ducky had tried to rush straight to Abby to supply the doctor with his findings, but he had been busy with another patient. Abby's room had been locked off with the possibility of a pesticide. The only information Ducky had been supplied with was from the lady at the front desk, who simply told him that she was alive, and nothing more. When he tried to strain the fact that she was dying, the woman said to wait for the doctor. And so he did.

The other three agents made their entrance minutes later. There was still no word from the doctor, and the three already situated relayed the information they had.

"Well, is it enough to cure her?" McGee inquired, after having received the full run-down from Jimmy.

"Not nearly," Ducky pitched in. "Only to delay…" He was close to adding the inevitable. But her death wasn't inevitable, in truth. Not quite yet.

Finally, the doctor was able to make an appearance. He stepped into the waiting room none too calmly. Though he wasn't on a personal level with his dying patient, the loss of life, no matter who's, was always tragic. It was his job to prevent that if possible.

Before the huddle of concerned agents and ME's could properly acknowledge them, he whisked over to them and sat down. His face was somewhat grim.

"She's in a coma," he informed them, his trained voice void of emotion.

"She's also been poisoned," Ducky said. There was a great strain in his voice. "Methanol."

The doctor gaped for a moment. Methanol wasn't naturally occurring, and for it to be this deadly it had to be injected. The same question rang in his head, though. How was she still alive? Then again, that was probably a concern for later.

"Ethanol treatment," he mused, standing up abruptly. "Dr. Mallard, Dr. Palmer, feel free to accompany me," he said, turning around and running through the doors, trailed as quickly as possible by the two doctors.

The four agents just watched, their hearts in their throats, praying that it wasn't too late. There was a very, very real possibility she could die in the next few minutes. All they could do was sit there and pray with stony faces, glaring down at the white table that Abby would despise.

"They should let Abby decorate," Tony muttered.

They all fell silent.

(Did the page break work?)

Alarm shot through Ducky and Gibbs like a cold tendril, eating them from the inside out as they watched helplessly. Her heart rate was slowly, ever so slowly going down, down, coming nearer and nearer to the deadly flat line. The nurses were doing everything they could to stall, but the diagnosis had been made and tested for. She had been indeed poisoned, but it wasn't everyday that Bethesda had to handle a case of methanol poisoning, and it was proving a bit difficult to find the cure.

Gibbs and Ducky, weathered old men, were accustomed to resisting the urge to fidget. The three agents plus Jimmy, however, were not; with the exception of Ziva, who was also trained not to give her position away at any cost. Jimmy was constantly readjusting his glasses on his face, dissatisfied. Tony was shifting his weight from foot to foot anxiously, and he could feel his own heart pounding. McGee couldn't seem to steady his breathing, no matter how hard he tried.

The small group refrained from making noise. Any sound put them on edge. That last shallow breath that Abby just managed to take could have been her last, and had they been talking, they might have missed it. All they could manage was to strain to listen to the telltale sound of her unsteady breathing, the shallow, restricting breaths that she was still taking. The line was dropping… dropping…

"We're losing her," a nurse reported sullenly, the one monitoring her pulse and blood pressure. Gibbs wanted to growl, tell me something I don't know, but managed to bite his tongue. His other agents seemed to take a collective breath, a deep one, one that they all wished they could share with their dying friend.

The beeping slowed. Abby was dying. Tears managed to find Ziva, Tony, McGee, and Jimmy, even a little hint of one in the corner of Ducky's eye. Gibbs had never cried.

At some point, when treatments started to fail, the nurses stepped back, as helpless as anything. There was nothing more they could do except view her last few minutes.

"I promised—" Gibbs choked out, but stopped.

McGee silently shook his head. Tony dabbed at his eyes in a vain effort. Ziva shied away slightly.

"Not…" Tony trailed off.

"…your fault," McGee finished for him, barely managing to conceal a sob.

"The rat," Ziva snarled softly.

Jimmy couldn't find any words. He had gone to visit her only the day before, and she had been smiling and cheery then, hadn't she? The man smiled slightly to himself, recalling his last delightful memory of Abby. Normal day, but he would no doubt treasure that brief minute he had been chatting with her for a long, long time. All he had done was bring her some old samples from Dr. Mallard—nothing more, nothing less. They had struck up a conversation, something about Chinese food, before Jimmy felt obliged to return to Dr. Mallard. That had been that.

Suddenly, reviewing the memory as clear as crystal daylight, he found something to be missing. It wasn't a patch in his memory; every detail was vivid, and it was completely unlike him to block something out, traumatic as it was. No, something was definitely missing, and it wasn't him. His smile quickly turned into a frown.

It hit him. There had been no music playing.

She hadn't been doing one of those strange chants of hers, or anything remotely similar that required the music to be deadly silent. Her music could often reflect her mood. He should have seen it earlier… It had all been a lie, a mask, right in his face. Did he not care about his friend enough to notice the obvious signs of distress?

Something sickening entered his mind. Had she known about the poisoning?

"I should have…" he started before he could help it, and after a moment found his words had left him. He cleared his throat and continued despite the fact that nobody seemed to acknowledge him. "Should have no-noticed… there w-was no mu-music yest-sterday."

Gibbs noticeably tensed in front of him along with Ziva. Tony and McGee looked up at him, sorrow etched on their faces, and Ducky looked over his shoulder curiously. It wasn't often that the doctor visited Abby's lab, but he knew the symbolism the music could have.

"Could she have known?" McGee echoed Jimmy's thoughts.

They all took a moment to consider this, the slow beeping being the only sound in the room for a few undisturbed moments.

Before they could say anything, they were interrupted. Abby's rushing doctor pushed them aside, leaving apologies for later, carrying a bag filled with clear liquid that could easily pass off as water. Without needing an explanation, it became apparent this could save Abby's life, but they weren't past the crisis yet. Even as the doctor hooked it up to the IV in her hand, her heartbeat still slowed painfully.

"We might still be too late," the doctor warned them as ethanol began dripping into her bloodstream. They weren't getting their hopes up.

"Even if it works," he continued, his voice the steadiest of all, "she could still be experiencing symptoms for a while yet."

"We'll keep a close eye on Abigail," Ducky said, barely above a whisper.

"If she wakes up," Tony said, sorrow dripping from his tone.

"When she wakes up," Gibbs insisted, though the effort was futile; they all knew the chances were very real, and they weren't good.

For a frightening moment a minute or so after her body had the chance to respond to the ethanol her heartbeat became unsteady. It went from its slow rhythm to nothing for a few seconds, to one somewhat resembling a normal heartbeat, but that only happened once and didn't last long. It once again rested in a flat line for a few terrifying moments.

Then a slight beep. A slight bump in the line. That was all it took for all of them to release a sigh they hadn't known they'd been holding. It wasn't exactly the breath of life, though. Her heartbeat was still slow, horrifyingly so. They were so close to losing her…

Inset-whats-supposed-to-be-a-page-break-here-but-stupid-ff-is-deleting-it's-own-horizontal-line-thingy

She felt herself drifting in and out occasionally. After Gibbs' and Ducky's conversation, she had disappeared to who knows where, and lost her fragile grip on reality for a little while. It was true that in all honesty, she wasn't afraid.

What had always disturbed her about her own death, not anyone else's but her own, was not death itself. That was a relatively easy thing, if vague, she could imagine. The problem was how her death would come about. That's what humans anxiously waited their whole lives for. Now that she knew… well, it didn't frighten her so much anymore. Didn't mean she was ready to die, though.

It was like balancing on a tightrope with a cord attached to her waist. For a few brief moments her balance was steady, and she managed to tune in to the beeping. After those few relieving moments though, when she became close to waking up or gaining any of her senses back completely, a flash of pain hit her and she'd fall off that tightrope. That damn cord held her on though, it kept her from falling into the blackness below that held infinite possibilities. Then she'd hang there, in limbo, desperately trying to claw her way back to the tightrope. There, she'd continue trying to walk to the end, where a shimmery image of Gibbs, Ducky, Jimmy, Ziva, McGee, and Tony stood, fading in and out as her balance came and went.

This went on for a while, though she didn't grow bored. It was an ongoing effort that required every little ounce of her focus. If she let go, she'd fall, and that frail cord would snap and she'd disappear, disappear into the nothingness that leered at her from underneath, always a threatening possibility.

Suddenly, as she hung in limbo, the cord yanked her up roughly. When she made a grab for that thin tightrope she clawed at air. The shimmering image of her friends started to fade as the cord fell, straining, as she went down, down, nearly becoming enveloped in the darkness. She could feel herself slipping away, being pulled down into a numbness that would last forever.

Then, when she was just ready to pull herself free of the cord and let the darkness overwhelm her, the cord snapped back up and swung her towards the now solid image of her friends, her family.

The shadowy, uncertain figure that loomed behind them, however, was what she had wished would disappear.

Please note the tightrope walking thing was completely an analogy, and just how I pictured her predicament in limbo. It doesn't mean that's how she's actually seeing it.

AND YAYAYAYAY I FINALLY UPDATED! SOOO HAPPY! Sorry for any grammatical mistakes and crap… yep… thanks for reading! Reviews feed the writing monster, don't ya know? Oh, and I apologize for any confusion—my ideas conflict greatly, I know. My whole life is an oxymoron.

Lastly, in case anyone was wondering, that thing about not being afraid of death itself but how it came about, that's a real conversation I've had with friends. Depressing, I know.