Abby finally gets to go to Paris! It's a bit of a shorter chapter, but it works.

A/N; I just want to thank-you all for sticking with me even though I didn't update last week. Last week was my final week of classes so I had so many papers and projects and presentations due it was just too hectic. But I just gave my last presentation this afternoon and only have 3 finals left which at only 2 hours a piece I have a lot more time now and thus you get another chapter.

Reviews are my inspiration people
VillageVoice

"Ladies and gentlemen, if I can ask you to fasten your seat belts and put your seats into the upright position, Air France flight 29 will be landing in Paris shortly."

Abby reached up and pushed her eye mask from her eyes and immediately brought it back down. This flight has been the earliest she could get out, and by that the lady behind the desk at the airport meant the earliest flight. Abby was not a morning person and waking up at 5:30 in the morning to extremely bright light squeezing in through other people's windows and attacking her retinas was not her idea of fun.

"Ma'am? Ma'am I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to put your seat up."

Abby groaned. "I'm going to over look you calling me 'ma'am' and consider it."

The flight attendant chuckled. "Not a morning person either?"

Abby took her eye mask off. "I think of it this way, the more I resist waking up the easier it will be for me to fall back asleep once I get to the hotel."

'Camille,' as her nametag read, reached over and pulled up the leaver to the seat. Abby groaned again. Lying down was much better suited to her plan. "Thanks." She mumbled.

The flight landed with minimal bumping and jostling and in one piece, which was pretty much the only criteria that Abby really had. She didn't check any luggage, so with the help of some guy who had sat in the row behind her, Abby was able to pry her overstuffed bag out of the overhead. He laughed when he saw the little skulls adorning the black bag and tried to stealthily slip his number into the front pocket. Too bad for him that the zipper was permanently stuck. Abby grabbed the bag away from him before he could try to physically hand the little piece of paper to her and was in a taxi headed to the hotel before he even made his way through customs. There were perks to being what some would think of as 'scary.'

It was well into the afternoon when Abby finally ventured out of the hotel after quite a few hours of restless tossing and turning as she tried to sleep in the hotel room. The bed was quite comfortable, but sleep just would not come to the forensic scientist. She kept thinking about how this was supposed to be her and Ziva's vacation together. She spent even more time sitting on the balcony watching the sunset behind the Eiffel Tower before she decided Ziva wasn't going to magically appear and if she wanted to go to the Eiffel Tower she was going to have to do it by herself.

She opened her parasol and slowly walked the third of a mile to the Eiffel Tower. When she got there the stars were just beginning to fill the sky and the lights all over the city were turning on. Abby found herself an empty bench and closed her parasol, watching all of the couples enjoying being together in the most romantic city in the world. While she remained alone.

Before she knew it the last rays of the sun were gone and in their place a clear dark sky with so many stars twinkling and shining for everyone to see. As per her every night tradition Abby made a wish on the first star she saw. "Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight" She looked away and thought for a minute. She knew it would never happen, but it was the only thing she truly wanted enough to ask. "Please little star, bring Ziva back. She can't be dead. I won't accept it. Pease bring her back." Abby looked away and looked over at the Eiffel Tower. "This would be so much better if you were here." She whispered into the dark as a lone tear slid down her pale cheek.

Tony looked around the room. There were a lot more people than he thought would be there. A lot more people than he thought Ziva even spoke to, let alone got to know in the few years she had been at NCIS. They had to move the memorial service to another location as the room they were supposed to be in wasn't large enough to fit everyone.

"It was a nice service." McGee said, breaking the silence of the group.

Gibbs turned to his agents. "It was."

"Abby would have liked it."

Gibbs nodded. "Probably."

"Good turn out." Tony said. "Ziva touched a lot of people."

"Always made sure to say good morning to the guard or the janitor. Chatted with the woman who runs the muffin stand downstairs." McGee added.

"She was a good agent." Gibbs said, watching as everyone filed out of the room. When the last person left he turned to Tony and McGee. "You guys should go home."

"If it's okay with you Boss I'd like to stay here. Get some work done." Tony quasi-asked.

"Me too Boss. We've been behind since . . ." McGee caught himself. "Since, you know."

Gibbs nodded. "Yeah I know McGee." At least in the office with him he could make sure his team didn't get any smaller. Kate, Ziva and even Abby. No one was going to be leaving his sight for a while to come. The only reason Abby was out of the country was because he didn't find out she was going anywhere until the plane was already well over the northern Atlantic and they wouldn't turn the plane around, and yes he had tried. In the matter of national security. Abby Sciuto was a world-class forensic scientist and without her many many, many criminals were going to get away with their crimes. It was true, but they hadn't bought it. They would have, however, if it has come from the Director, but Gibbs knew there was no point in asking him. He settled by getting in touch with a contact in Paris and having him keep an eye on Abby. So far she had been staying in her hotel room untill late afternoon, doing some shopping until dusk and then sitting at the Eiffel Tower until sun rise to go back to her hotel room and start the process all over again.

It wasn't long before Gibbs, Tony and McGee were all in his basement sanding and hammering away on the boat while working on getting really, really drunk. More so on Tony and McGee's part than Gibbs's. Someone had to stay sober enough to watch out for the group. A task Gibbs was only too happy to take upon himself.

"What is it about NCIS and women?" McGee asked, not even noticing how much of his drink he spilled as he waved it around. "It would make a great science fiction novel. They all come in, but they never come out-go out. Well, they go out, only not alive . . . anymore. As they were when they went it."

Tony chuckled. "McGoo can't hold his alcohol Mr. Boss Sir."

Gibbs shook his head and put down the sandpaper. Instead picking up his cell phone and dialing the number off a piece of paper he has tacked up on his workbench.

"Hello?" Came the groggy greeting.

"Hey Abs."

"Gibbs! . . . Gibbs do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Yeah. Do you?"

He heard shuffling as Abby moved around looking for the clock. She groaned. "It's time for me to be sleeping."

Gibbs rolled his eyes at Tony and McGee's arguing over what they should name Jenny's character in this new science fiction book McGee was planning that would surely be forgotten about by tomorrow. He walked around the other side of the boat. "Depressed Abby?"

"Wouldn't you be?"

Gibbs nodded. He would be and he had been. Two times with women he had been in love with, and another time when he lost his daughter.

"Gibbs I'm on vacation. I'm allowed to sleep. Isn't a vacation about relaxing?"

"Relaxing, yes. But the point of a vacation isn't to sleep Abs. It's to go out and see the place you're in. And you're nightly trips to the Eiffel Tower do not qualify."

"I should have known you'd send someone to follow me."

"There may be a guy in Paris who owes me a favor."

Abby sighed. "I'm fine Gibbs. I'm dealing the only way I know how."

"You let me know the minute you're not okay. Say the word and I'm on the next flight."

"I'm okay Gibbs. Well I'm not, I mean I will be. But" Abby sighed. "I'm working on it."

"Abby-"

"And I promise to call you if things get really bad. How's my team doing?"

Gibbs looked around the boat to see Tony holding McGee in a headlock and messing with his hair. "Oh, they're . . . being themselves. The Director had a memorial service for Ziva this morning."

"I know. He told me about it before I left. I couldn't Gibbs."

"It's okay Abs. I know."

"I know too Gibbs. And I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too Abby. Stay in touch."

"I will. Bye Gibbs."

Gibbs shut his phone and walked back over to his workbench to get a new piece of sandpaper. He noticed one very important thing missing from his bench. "DiNozzo! What did I tell you about the superglue?"

Tony stopped from his position above McGee's head and capped the glue. "That the skin may not grow back Boss."

"Or the hair."

McGee looked up, grabbing the super glue from Tony completely oblivious that Tony was just about to squeeze massive amounts of it into his hair and make his little Probie McHairless. "Did I ever tell you guys the time …"

Gibbs smiled and walked over to Tony and McGee, giving each one a sharp slap to the back of the head.

It seemed to smack some of the drunk out of McGee, as he handed the bottle of superglue over to Gibbs. "I needed that. Wait, Tony what were you doing with the superglue?"

Tony scampered away and went back to his sanding. "Nothing McClueless. Nothing at all."

With Gibbs keeping tabs on her, Abby decided against throwing the blankets over her head and just going back to sleep. Instead, she got up and decided she would start off with some breakfast – well, lunch rather, and do some shopping. She heard from an older couple that sat at the bench next to her for a while last night that there were some cute little shops not too far from the hotel. With a quick call to her brother to see how her dog was doing, and her niece and nephews of course, she grabbed her parasol and headed out.

She walked along the streets of Paris thinking of the couple. She wondered how long they'd been together and what road blocks they had to face in their relationship. Probably not the same as she and Ziva with Ziva being in Mossad and all, but Abby was eager to learn the secrets of a successful relationship from those who has been there and done that. Now that she thought about it, the couple didn't seem all that much older than her parents. And she could swear that she had seen the man more than just last night. She stopped in the middle of the street and smiled. She looked around and sure enough - sitting on a bench on the other side of the street, the man smiled at her and tipped his hat. Abby waved and went along with her shopping. At least Gibbs's goon seemed nice enough. And his choice of costuming was intriguing.

There wasn't much shopping to be done really. She picked up some cute little things for the twins and Becca, and some souvenirs for Ducky, Palmer, McGee, Tony and of course Gibbs. After picking up a few things for herself she headed over to the Eiffel Tower to wait. But for what she didn't know. Her heart told her to be there and something was telling her to listen. So she was listening and sitting. A lot of sitting. All of that sitting has produced some really nice pictures though. As she waited she thought about the scrapbook she would make about the trip. She had picked up a scrapbook at one of the little shops she had visited. It had black and white pictures of Paris with a beautiful picture of the Eiffel Tower over the front and 'PARIS' in big, bold lettering. Although she hadn't been doing much of anything, so there wouldn't be much to put in the scrapbook, but she did have quite a lot of pictures. She tried to keep her thoughts as far away from Ziva as she could, but it was hard to do knowing that this was supposed to be their vacation, their pictures, their scrapbook. They were supposed to share Paris together.

Ziva was gone - really gone. As in never coming back, gone. Abby felt totally alone. She didn't have Tim or Tony or Gibbs or even Ducky anymore. With her new job she didn't get to see them every day. She knew that they would still always be there if she needed them, but it wasn't the same. It just wasn't the same. Everything was changing and this forensic scientist did not like it one bit.

"Hey."

Abby looked up, more than a little surprised to see Kate walk over and sit down next to her. "Did I miss something?"

"You fell asleep."

Abby rolled her eyes. "Great. Very safe Abigail. Falling asleep in a strange city, alone, in the middle of the night. Not your brightest move."

"Don't worry. We've got you covered."

"I'm not even going to ask what that means because I know you won't tell me." Abby rubbed her eyes as she stifled a yawn. "Why am I so tired? I feel like I've done nothing but sleep since I've been here. And I'm still tired."

"Well one, because you've worked steadily since you were a teenager and that takes its toll. Especially working for NCIS. Your body got so used to being called in at early hours and going days at a time with little to no sleep and now it's all catching up to you. And two, you're depressed Abs." She wrapped her arms around the Goth. Abby laid her head on Kate's shoulder and closed her eyes. "With the new house, new job, leaving NCIS"

"And Ziva." Abby added sleepily.

"And Ziva." Kate placed a soft kiss on Abby's forehead. "Get all the sleep you can now Abby. You're going to need it."

Abby jerked awake. "Gah!" She muttered under her breath. "One of these days I am going to go to sleep and not wake-up with more questions than I went to sleep with." She stretched her arms out wide, wondering why as of late she has been waking up with Kate's voice in her head. Perhaps one day she would remember Kate coming to her in her dreams, but it was not time yet. For now all she had to know was the information Kate was telling her, not necessarily that it was coming from Kate.

Abby got up and started walking around, determined to wake herself up so that she didn't fall asleep again. It really wasn't safe for her to be falling asleep in the middle of Paris at night with who knows who and what out there. She walked away from the Eiffel Tower, noticing more and more stars as she got further away from the bright lights of the famous Parisian tower. She felt herself focusing on the first star she saw and whispering her nightly prayer to the stars, "Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight. I know that I've been asking for the same thing every night for the past eighteen months and I know that it is an impossible thing, but she's all I want. I understand that you can't bring her back, so I don't even know why I'm asking, but please, if there is anything you can do…"

She sat down on a nearby bench and brought her long legs up to her chest to rest her head on her knees. "'If there is anything you can do.'" She repeated, mocking herself. "I'm a scientist. What do I really expect a star to be able to do about my problems? I know better than to ask anyone, let alone a star millions of light years away to resurrect the dead." She looked back up at the star, twinkling brightly above her head. She sighed and brought her head back to her knees. "Dammit Ziva! I need you here with me." She tried to blink away the tears, but they wouldn't be held back. "I need you here with me."