The doors of Autopsy wooshed open allowing Tony and Ziva admittance into Ducky's domain. The usually jovial M.E. was, although not in mid-autopsy, thankfully; still looking quite pensive and unhappy as he sat at his desk lost in thought.

"Ducky. We need to run something by you before you talk to Probie later." Tony wasted no time drawing the older man's attention or getting to the point.

"Why, Anthony, has something happened?" Ducky asked with a touch of concern as he came back to the here and now and looked at the Senior Field Agent.. After all, it had been but a mere 30 minutes since he and these two young people had parted company upstairs in the interrogation room.

"You could say that. Gibbs just came back down from talkin' with Vance. He gave me a message for Probie." Tony said with complete seriousness.

"Oh? It wasn't bad, I hope." The optimism in Ducky's voice was uplifting.

"He's got a week to cooperate with Vance and all this'll go away." Tony answered with concern.

"Oh, dear heavens!" Ducky softly exclaimed.

"Wait. McGee said something earlier that might help us figure out what it is that is going on here, yes?" Ziva asked as she looked straight at Tony.

"You're probably right, Ziva. Knowing Probie, he was dropping us the only clue he could figure that we'd catch."

"I'm afraid, I'm not following you. What did Timothy say that you consider to be this clue?" Ducky asked in confusion.

"He said:."I wish I could,... But, I can't. They still have to work on the team"

Ducky was still confused. "And from that you have deduced a clue?"

"Yeah, I'm just not sure what yet. We'll figure it out. Ducky, you think you could get him to spell it out for you when you talk to him later?"

"I certainly aim to try, Anthony. However, you must realize that if he is as intent on excluding you as he seems to be, he may very well garner my promise not to repeat any of what he discloses, back to you. If he does that, I will have to honor his wishes. Timothy's trust is important if we wish to keep him from allowing this to drive him away. I will not violate that trust."

"I know, Ducky, but we can't not figure this out. We have to help him. Even if he thinks we shouldn't." Tony protested.

"Well, Anthony, I admire your determination to not only stand by your teammate, but to help him, but we can only do so much as he'll allow. Unless he gives us something to work with, I'm afraid our efforts will be in vain."

"Ducky, no one's said anything about Abby. What's the deal with her in this?" Tony asked as he suddenly thought of the need to find out the answer to this new question.

"I haven't had the opportunity to look into how Abigail is doing. I suppose now would be as good a time as any to go see how she's faring in all this."

"Not exactly what I meant, but I'm game. We'll go with you." Tony offered although not feeling nearly as charitable toward their Lab Rat as Ducky seemed to be feeling.

"Anthony, do not think to make this situation any worse!" Ducky warned.

"I promise, I just wanna see what's going on with her. We kinda need to know if we're gonna be able to help Probie, don't we?"

"I suppose we won't know that until we ascertain where things stand with Abigail." Ducky admitted.

As they reached Abby's lab, her music assaulted their ears although at a lower decibel than normal. Ziva and Tony hung back in the doorway as Ducky entered the lab and called out for a seemingly missing Abby.

"Abby?" Ducky called out cautiously.

"Hi, Ducky." Abby said quietly as she stepped out from behind her Mass Spectometrer.

"How are you, my dear?" Ducky asked her sympathetically.

"You heard." Was her only response.

"Yes, Jethro explained it to us so that we would not need to pester you or Timothy with questions about Timothy's sudden departure."

"Wait. McGee left? Where'd he go?" Abby asked in what could only be described as anger.

Tony reacted before he could stop the angry words from escaping. "Do you really care?"

"Anthony!" Ducky admonished warningly.

"Sorry, Ducky. But you can't seriously think her anger at Probie is justified!"

"What I think is NOT the point here. Neither is what you think. What is important is to get to the bottom of what happens next. Now, Abigail, I'm guessing that you have managed to hold on to your job, as you are still here…."

"Yeah, unlike poor Probie…" Tony muttered angrily.

"What? Just what are you saying, Tony?" Abby demanded as she stomped over to him.

Tony backed up and crossed his hands over his chest before he spoke to her. "Probie's been suspended for a month. We just came to see what the deal with you in all this was."

"Oh. " Abby's response came out sounding like a deflated but successfully placated balloon. Silently, she stomped back over to her computer and turned to face Ducky.

"Abby, you are pleased that McGee has been so severely punished, yes?" Ziva asked cautiously as disbelief filled her heart. Surely, she was reading her friend wrong. Abby was usually McGee's biggest fan.

"I've been given the same. I just have to tidy up in here and get it ready for a sub lab tech." Abby admitted as she deliberately turned the question and answer session away from her feelings toward McGee.

Before anyone could say anything else. Tony's cell phone rang.

"DiNozzo"

"Where the hell are you?"

"With Ducky and Ziva talking to Abby." Tony answered Gibbs' irritated question in a calm quiet voice that gave evidence to how less than happy he was with what was going on.

Silence met his response.

"We'll be right up, Boss." Tony offered calmly and respectfully into the unusual and disconcerting silence.

The empty air of a phone call silently ended met his ear. Tony snapped his phone shut and looked at it silently for a minute.

"Tony?" Ziva asked in concern.

"Boss man." Tony relayed calmly.

"He is angry that we are not at our desks working?" Ziva asked with understanding.

"No. Just asked where we were." Tony answered almost absently,

"And when you told him?" Ziva pushed to find out exactly what was going on.

"Nothing. He didn't say anything." Tony replied as he looked over at Ducky across the room.

Ducky nodded in silent understanding of Tony's silent message of concern. This was very unlike Jethro which spoke volumes of how much this had set the Senior Agent's world off-kilter.

Abby , in the meantime, was feeling the heat of a re-lit fuse. Gibbs had yet to come talk to her. Hearing that he was obviously upset only sparked her ire. Usually, when he was concerned about her, he'd already have been down here checking on her. In a sudden burst of escaped venom, she spit out,

"I need to be alone! I have a lot of work to get done!"

"Certainly, my dear. Ducky answered calmly for all of them. As he silently abandoned her to the solitude she'd just demanded, Abby felt the tears returning. As the ding of the elevator gave evidence that she was once again, alone in her misery, she flopped down on her stool and gave in to her tears.

Suddenly she felt herself helped up from her stool and enveloped into a heartfelt embrace of emotional and physical support. Recoginsing Ducky, she allowed herself to cave into his support.

"Oh, Ducky!"

"Ssh. Just let it out, my dear."

As Tim sat on the park bench, he realized he would need to make another call. Luckily, at this time of day, her cell phone was always off, so he'd be able to get by with a voicemail message. For this, he felt relief. He really didn't know if he could handle actually having to talk to her right now, The last thing he wanted to do was break down on her. Just because they were dating didn't mean she needed to see this side of him.

"Hey, honey. I'm really sorry you had to be put in the middle of all of this. I know typing up that letter had to be hard for you. Seeing me having to wait while Vance dealt with Abby couldn't have been easy either. I just wanted you to know that I'm worried about you. I'm going to Ducky's for dinner. He's worried about me and I don't want to cause him any more worry by refusing him this.

"I'll call you later and we can talk about when I should come get Jethro from you. I don't really feel like driving him all the way back home to my apartment before coming back here to Ducky's tonight. I hope you don't mind. I promise, I'll call you later tonight. Bye."

The problem, Tim realized, was that he had the rest of the day in front of him; it was a long time between 9 AM and dinner tonight at Ducky's. What the hell was he gonna do with himself? Feeling like getting lost in the masses for once, he settled on the idea of going somewhere that would help him occupy his mind as well as get lost in time; the Library. Once he'd made his decision, he felt calmer, felt like he could function again.

Driving to the library, Tim actually felt some of his jumbled emotions slip into the background, allowing his mind to find a sense of peace, putting all of this behind the screen of the here and now. As he parked his car, locked it and got out, he turned his thoughts to ideas of what he'd like to read; where he'd like to get lost in; fantasy; murder mystery, history; biography. All the choices were viable; but as he perused the shelves, he found himself drawn, ironically enough, to his own published book.

It had been several years since he'd even looked at any of what he'd written in these pages. The team had put him through hell over this book. Could he see it with a different perspective than the one he'd written it with? Pulling a copy of it from the shelf, he found and settled into a comfortable chair, gently removed the book jacket so that his photo was not visable to whoever happened by ; and settled into re-reading his own book.

As Tony and Ziva returned to the squad room; each going back to their own desk and immediately diving back into the cold case on their desk; neither failed to notice that Gibbs had steadfastly kept his full attention on his own work. Or had he? Tony noticed the furtive glances the boss had sent their way as they'd settled back into working. He had also noticed that Gibbs was quick to return his eyes to his work. Not a word was spoken. Tony didn't know what worried him more, what little of the pieces to this puzzle that he had to work with; or how hard this seemed to be affecting the boss.

Gibbs watched his agents come back from talking to Ducky and Abby. They were still upset, which he expected. Both of them were obviously tuned in to the fact that he wasn't himself and had silently gotten back to work without so much as a single word spoken. Yeah, this was hitting them pretty hard, of that there was no doubt. Although jumping on their case for not working was his normal way of doing things, he currently saw no reason to amp up the frustration vibrating through their work space as it was.

Ziva was still trying to process all the different facts that she'd been given and shown in the last hour. She wished she could talk to McGee, but then again, it was blatently obvious that Tony wished that, too. While she could understand Tony and Gibbs being knocked by this; she failed to understand how Abby could be so angry at McGee or seem so happy that he was being punished so severely. Even if they could get him to take the easy way out of this; and cooperate with Vance to keep his punishment down to almost nothing; he… Wait! That was it! Cooperating would be the easy way and if McGee was willing NOT to take the easy way, he had to be convinced that what he was doing was absolutely necessary! It was yet another piece to this puzzle. She opened her email and sent Tony a message:

"Tony;

McGee knows what he is doing is not the easy way out. This means whatever reason he has for not cooperating must be extremely serious and for McGee the only thing to do.

As her email was sent, Ziva diligently got her mind back on her work. Tony sent a reply promising that they'd get it figured out, but it stopped there. Ziva was somewhat disappointed, but understood. Gibbs always seemed to know when they were emailing each other instead of working and neither wanted that to come down on them; not today.

And so the remainder of the day was spent working on their case files, lunch was, surprisingly enough, delivered before they'd even realized it was time for it. From out of nowhere, two large pizza's were delivered to the squad room and sadly enough, placed on Probie's empty desk, As the delivery boy turned to leave, Gibbs handed him the money and made the announcement to Tony and Ziva,

"Lunch."

As they looked up from their work and looked at him, he silently pointed to the pizzas. Gibbs picked up his coffee cup and headed out for a refill. On his way back, he did what he'd been putting off all morning, hoping by now, that her anger would have cooled enough for him to get some answers from her.

Stepping off the elevator, for once, without a caf-pow in hand, Gibbs hoped this wouldn't get to out of hand. It had him concerned enough that he'd just called and warned Ducky of this impending conversation, wanting the M.E. to check in in a few minutes; in the off chance that things got dicey.

"Abby." Gibbs said calmly as he entered the lab.

"Gibbs." Abby answered back with bite as she turned from her line of microscopes, where she'd been checking to make sure they were aligned right and cleaned, and all of their supplies stocked and ready for use.

"How you doin?" his question was full of genuine concern, because, after all, she was still his surrogate daughter and had been for quite some time. That hadn't just disappeared because of her behavior. That wasn't the way family ties worked.

"I doubt that you're really here to ask me that. If you really cared, you would have been down here way before now, Gibbs." Abby's tone was still biting with full fledged self-righteous anger so hot it almost sizzled in the air between them.

"You're busy. I'll leave you to whatever it is you're doin." Gibbs turned to leave. He didn't come down here to fight with her. He damn sure hadn't come down here to be talked to like this. She really was out of hand. It looked like his original thought that they shouldn't try to talk about this until another day, when things had cooled off, had been the way to go.

"No! Gibbs! We need to talk!" Abby declared in objection.

Gibbs stopped just short of the door. He turned back and took one step back toward her as he looked at her and answered her with all the authority he had in him. "No, we don't. Not right now."

"Yes, Now!" Abby said loudly as she picked up the remote to the doors and locked herself and Gibbs in her lab.

"You done?" Gibbs asked in steel laced irritation. He hated it when she took this high horse attitude with him, but knew he only had himself to blame since he'd let her get by with it for so long.

"No! No, Gibbs, I'm not! You've turned your back on me! You swore you'd never do that!" Abby yelled with unveiled anger.

"Abby. Open. The. Door. Now." Gibbs ordered in deliberately measured tones that left no doubt how fast she'd just riled his anger.

As the tense silence built in unsaid anger and other misplaced emotions, the staring contest that came with it was not pleasant. Finally, realizing she wasn't about to win this, Abby caved and meekly she clicked the remote to unlock the doors and waited for Gibbs to leave without giving her the answers she was demanding of him.

Retracing his steps, he walked up to her and reached out, and removed the remote from her hand. Looking her square on, he finally answered her question, making sure to keep his tone low but deadly serious: "Me having your back was never supposed to be a license to act the way you did in Mexico."

His quiet answer to her question stifled anything else Abby had waiting to let out. Abby closed her eyes in frustration; only to find herself alone, once again, when she opened them back up.

Completely devastated, she sat back down and again gave in to tears. She hadn't missed the disappointment and look of hurt betrayal in Gibbs' eyes just now. It left her suddenly no longer angry at him because he was right. It hurt to realize he was, but Vance's words came back to join forces with Gibbs answer and between the two of them, it was the worst double edged head slap she'd never gotten:

"Ms Scuito, not even Superman can protect us from our own recklessness, stupidity or stubborn pride."
"My having your back was never supposed to be a license to act the way you did in Mexico."

The end of the work day came early for the team. Cold cases weren't getting any warmer and everyone was emotionally on edge with what had gone on today. In hopes of giving his agents time to pull themselves together, Gibbs let them go at five. Once Tony and Ziva had gone, after sending looks of concern they didn't think he'd noticed, Gibbs remained at his desk, lost in his thoughts.

"Jethro?" Ducky's quiet question of concern pulled the younger man from this musings.

"Hey, Duck. You callin' it a night?"

"Yes, Jethro, I'm expecting Timothy for dinner."

"Good. Keep an eye on him, Duck." Gibbs left the 'for me' unspoken but knew the M.E. understood exactly what it was he was asking for and counting on.

"Don't worry, I will look after him, so much as he will allow me to, Jethro."

"Thanks."

"Jethro, Abigail has gone. Did you by chance, speak with her before she left? I know you called me to alert me to that pending conversation, but I haven't heard from you since."

'Yeah, Duck. We talked."

"Oh? It went well, I hope?"

"No, Duck. And I don't really think you expected it to. I sure didn't"

"Well, I must admit that with Abigail being your most favored child of your four surrogates, she most likely expected your sympathy and your shoulder to cry on. I take it that is not what she received?"

"You'll let me know if McGee needs anything, Ducky?" Gibbs came back with, unwilling to get into his very brief conversation with Abby.

"Certainly, Jethro. Have a good evening." Duck took the hint and left the younger man to ponder over what little he'd just laid in his lap.