For a few moments that seemed to last forever, neither of them moved nor said a word. Both were even afraid to breathe at first. Eventually, Abby was the one that broke the silence.

"How about we just chalk this up to being caught up in the moment?"

Gibbs sighed. He knew he should just keep his mouth shut, and usually he knew when to bite his tongue. Unfortunately, he didn't always do what he should. Now was one of those times. "What if it wasn't?"

"Damn it, Gibbs," Abby sighed getting off of him. Gibbs tried to hold her in place at first, but she pushed herself gently away. She paced around looking, and feeling, a bit lost. "What the hell?" she finally asked once she stood still. She had her hands on her hips looking rather frustrated. "Why would you say something like that? I thought this was good! I thought what we had going here was good! Nothing serious, remember?"

"Yeah," he said standing up. "I remember. You make it kind of hard to forget whenever I wake up in the morning and your gone." He was suddenly very aware of how naked they both were. Abby seemed to sense that and started looking around for her clothes. Gibbs saw his boxers and pants laying off to the side and quickly slipped them on as Abby dressed herself. He stood there with his hands on his hips and once she was dressed, Abby unintentionally mimicked him. "Abbs, I lo-,"

"Don't!" she said throwing her hands up and turning away. "Don't say it, Gibbs! Once you say it, that's it. You can't take it back."

"I already said it."

She abruptly turned back to him and pointed. "That doesn't count! It was said during sex so it doesn't count."

"So why is it such a big issue now?"

"Because you said it!"

"You just said that doesn't count."

"Stop using my own words against me, Gibbs! Don't turn this around on me. Its not just the words you used, its that its you that said them. YOU!" She saw a very small, very brief flash of disappointment flutter across his face and she immediately felt guilty. "I didn't mean it like it sounded. I'm not saying it as if its anything against you. Its just that you don't say things like that. When you say things like that, you mean them."

"I do-".

"NO! Don't say it, Gibbs! Don't say it!" She threw her hands over her ears and turned away again. She looked up at his bedroom door. He knew she was going to run. "I need to get out of here," she said making her way for the exit.

"Abby, don't," he said making a move towards her.

"Please. Just let me go," she said turning to look in his eyes for a brief moment. For some reason she found it a difficult task. "I just need to think for a bit, alright? Just need to get my head cleared."

"Just be-".

"I'll be careful. I promise." She walked out the door. He listened for her footsteps down the stairs. She briefly hesitated at the top and for a moment Gibbs thought of going after her, but before he could make a move, she was flying down them and out the front door.

He hadn't heard from her for the rest of the night. He debated calling her, but knew she needed the time and space to think. How much time and space, he wasn't sure about. He did know it varied from woman to woman and depended on the situation. On the one hand, this was a serious situation and warranted serious thought. On the other, it was Abby and she was never mad at her friends long. Unless they were very disloyal to her. Plus, did she really find it that shocking? He had told her he loved her before. True, it was never in such an intimate situation, and he may have never actually "said" the words. He had signed them and given her little things that said "I Love You", but he had never said them out loud. Did it really make that big a difference?

Apparently, yes. Abby avoided him as much as possible the next day. He had gone down to her lab once with a peace offering Caf-Pow!, but she quickly hurried him out claiming she had a lot of work to do. She shut the door behind him. Shut the door! She never shut the door. This was worse than he thought. Evidently, she needed more time and more space.

A week later things still hadn't gotten better. They got worse, in fact. For the first few days, Abby avoided Gibbs as much as possible. She even locked herself behind the glass door in her office once while he stood outside it with his arms crossed. Eventually the tension got to him and he started avoiding her as well. He would send someone, anyone, down to Abby's lab if he needed any information. He would only call when no one else was available to be the errand boy. Hell, even Palmer was used as a go between for one afternoon. He nearly quit.

None of this went unnoticed between Tony and McGee though neither of them were stupid enough to mention it to either Gibbs or Abby. Everyone had bad days, even bad weeks. Bad months? They hoped it wouldn't last that long. Gibbs had been unbearable the last few days. Barking orders like both agents were probies and had no idea what they were doing. They knew something had to be done to fix the two, but no one knew what was wrong exactly, which made it a little difficult.

"So," Tony said one day, wheeling his chair over to McGee's desk while Gibbs was upstairs in a meeting with MTAC, "what are we going to do?"

"About what?" McGee asked pretending to be busy on his computer.

"About what?! About Abby and the boss!"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?!"

"Its none of our business, Tony."

"None of our business?!"

McGee stopped typing. "Are you going to repeat everything I say like that?"

"Everything you say?!" McGee rolled his eyes and tried to go back to work. "Okay, okay, okay." Tony put his hand on McGee's keyboard to get him to stop typing again. "Seriously though. We aren't going to do anything? This is getting to be a problem. Things ran much smoother around here when Gibbs would just go down there and get the evidence. Now he has to spend five or so minutes trying to find and talk someone else into doing it. Its disrupting our work, Probie, and that makes it our business."

"I hate to say this, Tony, but you're right." McGee looked around. "You know that yesterday he called me back from lunch 2 miles away to come and talk to her?"

"Really? Wow. Maybe this is worse than we thought." Both sat contemplating the situation. "What could have set them off like this?"

"I don't know. They've always been so close. She is his favorite."

"Yeah, she loves Gibbs." Light bulb! Tony sat straight up in his chair.

"What is it?" McGee cautiously.

"She loves Gibbs," Tony whispered to himself.

"Don't you two have work to be doing?" Gibbs asked as he entered the squad room. Tony sat staring off into space, not even having heard Gibbs enter. Gibbs walked by McGee's desk and saw McGee typing at his computer…again…and Tony not doing much of anything. "Hey, DiNozzo." Nothing. "DiNozzo!" *smack*

Tony stood with a start. "Boss! Hey! Didn't hear ya come in."

"You alright, DiNozzo?"

"Me?! Fine. I'm fine! Just dandy even." Both stood looking at one another trying to figure them out. "I'm just gonna…" Tony pointed over his shoulder to his own desk, "yeah."

"Hey, could you go down to Abby and-".

"Yup!" Tony said and took of for the elevators.

He could hear Abby's music before the doors even opened. But that wasn't unusual. She had always played her music just a tad louder when she was angry or annoyed. This last week, you would have thought there was a live concert going on down there. Almost as if she was trying to drown out the sound of her own thoughts. Tony just hoped her work wasn't suffering along with the scientist. "Abby!" Tony screamed, but he couldn't even hear himself. She was sitting in her office typing away at her computer. For a brief moment he though that maybe she was chatting with McGee, but there's no way McGee had the cajones to do that in front of the boss man. As he moved closer to her, she jumped having caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye. She put her hand to her chest and Tony saw her lips moving, but couldn't hear a word that came out of them. "What?!" he screamed. He thinks that's what she said back, but again, couldn't hear her. Once reaching her office, he turned off the loud, abrasive noise. "Good God, woman! How do you even think with that on?!"

"I don't!" she yelled. Realizing her mistake she quickly apologized and said it once more. "I don't. That's the point."

"What's going on?"

"Nothing. Just a bit stressed out. Need to clear my head. Stop thinking. Ever have those days?"

"Days? Yes. But weeks? Not really." She cocked her head to the side trying to figure out what he meant. "Abby, you've been like this for a while. Why not just tell me what's going on?"

Because I can't! she thought. She couldn't just unload onto Tony about what was bugging her when she was so worried about him and his state already. Ziva being gone did a real number on him. "I'm just stressed is all. I told you that."

"Just stress?"

"Yes."

"I don't believe you."

"Then that's your problem, not mine." She stood from her chair and walked past him into her lab. She started fiddling with some do-dad Tony didn't know the name or the purpose of and took that as his cue to leave. He knew when Abby was upset, when she was stressed, and when something was really, really wrong. Now was one of those times. And he would bet his life that it was linked to Gibbs.