Gibbs was speechless; Ducky was angry; Ziva was worried; and Tony was; well Tony was relieved the truth was out; the gist of it anyway. Sure, he was pissed at himself, too, for letting the cat outta the bag but he was more than happy to be the one to do it if it made things easier for McGee. Needless to say, that at that moment, Autopsy had never before been so quiet with so many live bodies present at the same time.

Ducky was the first to break the tense silence; letting his anger rip at what he felt was a betrayal of Timothy's trust and confidence. "Anthony!"

Tony turned back to Ducky. "No, Ducky. I'm glad it's out. Now, maybe Tim won't have to lose any more sleep over this crap. I'm sorry if you think I've betrayed his confidence, but in the long run, it's for his own good. I want him back and the only way to make that happen is to get the truth out so he doesn't have to carry it around alone anymore. He deserves better."

Tony left autopsy with a still silent Ziva on his tail. When Gibbs and Ducky were the only ones left in Autopsy, Gibbs slowly took himself to the table nearest Ducky's desk and hoisted himself up on it, arms holding on to the edges. "You gonna tell me what the hell's going on?"

"Unfortunately, Anthony is correct. This will not go away until the entire truth comes out and is dealt with. It is also unfortunate that Timothy does not feel comfortable talking to you about any of this. Of course, you only have yourself to blame for that, Jethro."

"Am I gonna have to guess or are you gonna tell me?"

"Jethro, no one should have to tell you. All you need to do is look back over the way you have favored Abigail and never once considered her at fault for anything. I will, however, advise you to look back to the first and last time you asked Timothy to be Abigail's protection. From what I understand your penchant for laying blame first and asking questions, never; had extremely adverse consequences on Timothy that night and he merely did not wish for such an occurrence again."

"Anything else?"

"Unfortunately, the problems did not start there; but rather back when Timothy was attacked by the very dog that he was essentially bullied into taking as a pet, by the very person who claimed to be his best friend, no less." Ducky answered as best he could without betraying Timothy's confidence. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I must take this sample to the lab, since I have already sent Mr. Palmer on an errand outside the agency. And, Jethro, please do Timothy the curteousy of fully thinking things through before speaking with him about this. Your penchant for going off half-cocked; so to speak, seems to be at the very root of the problem."

Gibbs nodded silently and took himself back up to his desk, his thoughts whirling in chaos as he went. He'd already been thinking back to the Mawher case. Why hadn't he realized just how close he'd been to hitting the problem nail on the head? How had he missed the real issue when he'd practically tripped over it in his search for understanding of this mess? Would McGee talk to him now after he'd mangled the two times the young man had tried to reach out to him already? God, I hope so!

Picking up his coffee cup, Gibbs headed out in need of fresh air, privacy and fresh caffeine. As he walked to the coffee shop, he hit the speed dial button on his phone for McGee. He wasn't willing to wait another minute to try to make this right or at least do his damnedst to fix it as best he could.

"Tim McGee." Came the much softer than usual voice as Tim answered the call.

"McGee. We need to talk." Gibbs said as calmly as he possibly could, not wanting the young man to think he was angry at him.

"Yes, Sir." Tim's answer was the one he only gave to Gibbs and only when he was super aware that he was royally in trouble with the boss and felt doomed.

"Meet me for lunch." the boss respectfully requested unexpectedly.

"Yes, Sir." The fact that Tim wasn't using his normally less formal way of talking had Gibbs feeling bad that this kid felt this threatened about this pending conversation with him.

"Relax, McGee. I just wanna talk." Gibbs tried to calm what he knew had to be frayed nerves.

"Okay." The insecurity still came through along with the wavering tone Tim answered with.

"Good. See you at 12 at the sandwich shop just outside the front gate." Gibbs strove to come across as calm and reassuring.

"Okay." Again, the uncertainty was audible

Tim was near frantic. What the hell did Gibbs know? What did he want? Was he in even more trouble now? Ducky! I have to talk to Ducky!

Flipping his phone open, he quickly called the M.E.

"Dr. Mallard."

"Ducky!" Tim couldn't hide his climbing panic.

"Timothy, I take it Jethro has contacted you?"

"Ducky, Please tell me what's going on!"

"Relax, Timothy. Please, calm yourself.

"Ducky Gibbs wants to talk!"

Ducky chuckled in spite of himself. "Timothy. You really must relax. Just because talking is not Jethro's favorite thing to do, does not mean he doesn't know how to do it, young man." Ducky tried to reassure Tim, but his sense of hilarity at Timothy's proclamation couldn't seem to be stopped.

"I know, Ducky, but he wants to talk to me! What's going on? What does he know? And how'd he find out?"

"Relax, Timothy. Jethro has simply been made aware that he is the one whom you have been trying to protect. He is also aware that it is his own doing that helped create this mess and he must figure out for himself what to do about it."

"Oh, man. Okay. Do I wanna know how he found out?" Tim asked almost sadly.

"Well, it would seem that Anthony was rather irritated with Jethro and his temper got the best of him.

"What? Is he okay? He didn't get himself in trouble, did he?"

"No. nothing like that, Timothy." Ducky reassured the young man. "Anthony simply allowed his anger to overrule his ability to keep his mouth closed.

"Whew, okay. Well, I guess that's one way for the truth to come out. I mean, I didn't want Gibbs to know, but I guess he was gonna find out anyway, he usually does."

"Timothy, perhaps you could look at this as the opportunity to clear the air between you."

"Huh. That would be nice. I'll believe it when I see it. Thanks Ducky. I'll talk to you later."

"DiNozzo." Tony answered his cell phone as it rang some fifteen minutes after he'd returned to his desk.

"Tony. What happened?" Tim's question in his concerned and sad mixed tone had Tony's heart dropping down in his shoes.

As Tony looked around the squad room and took note of Ziva watching him closely from her desk as well as Gibbs pretending to be working but stealing glances out of the corner of his eye every few minutes; he knew he had to be cryptic on this call. "Everything's fine. We can still meet and go over those details later."

"Tony? Is this a bad time? I just called to tell you can relax. I know you went off on Gibbs and I'm not mad at you about it. So, please, don't sweat this."

"Thanks. Really. Thank you."

"No problem. I'll talk to you later, okay?" Tim ended the call.

Tony closed his phone and put it back on his desk and turned his attention back to his work silently.

"DiNozzo." Gibbs said from across the space between their desks.

"Yeah, Boss." Tony answered as normally as possible.

"What did McGee just say?" Gibbs asked as he watched Tony for his reaction.

"I don't know what …" Tony attempted to back away from the pit he saw opening up in front of him.

"Tony. Just answer the question." Gibbs said in that tone that left no doubt he'd gotten one up on his agent.

"Um, Well, he just said he wasn't pissed that I told you what I told you."

"Does he know what it is you told me?" Gibbs asked with enough doubt to remind Tony of the very possibility that Tim didn't know the specifics of what had been said.

"I'm not sure. He didn't say."

"Mmm Hmm." Gibbs answered. "Get back to work."

Lunchtime rolled around and Gibbs was silently gone before Tony or Ziva even realized it was time for food. Funny thing was, when they did realize what time it was, there was a pizza delivery guy standing there looking like a lost puppy and they hadn't even heard him come off the elevator.

"Can we help you?" Tony asked as he approached the kid that looked even younger than Probie.

"I'm looking for a Tony DiNozzo." Came the hesitant answer.

"Well, you found him, but I didn't order anything."

"Um, this was pre-ordered several hours ago. Order specifically called for delivery now." The kid answered.

"Oh. And did that order have a name attached to it, by any chance?"

"Um, no. But it was paid for in advance, even the tip. So, here you go and enjoy your lunch. Oh, and this is for a Ziva Dav'id?" the young man held out a sandwich box.

"Gibbs." Ziva said with a smile. "He knows I do not always enjoy your taste in pizza." She looked over at Tony as she reminded him of this tidbit of information. "Gibbs must have done this to save us the trouble of going out for lunch."

"No, he's disappeared so it was probably to keep us at bay. Nevertheless, I refuse to look a gift horse in the mouth." Tony said knowledgeably as he lifted the pizza box off the hands of the young man who'd brought it to him. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." The kid turned and headed back to the elevator.

"Tony, do you really think that is it? That Gibbs ordered us lunch to throw us off from somehow following him? Why would we do such a thing?"

'Because he's probably meeting Probie for lunch." Tony answered almost as though he'd plucked that conclusion out of thin air.

"Why would you think such a thing?"

"Because, Ziva. Shortly after I let it slip to Gibbs who it was McGee is really trying to protect, Gibbs talked to Ducky, which was followed up with a phone call to me from McGee telling me that he knew what had happened and he was okay with it. Add that to the fact that Gibbs knew it was McGee I was talking to? It all fits. and It all says Gibbs called McGee right after he talked to Ducky and told him they needed to talk. So, it's lunchtime and Gibbs has gone to 'talk' to McGee."

"Do you think that was wise?"

"Do I think what was wise, Ziva?"

"Gibbs going to talk to McGee. Is that not like the bad wolf going to talk to the little pig?"

"Ah, ha! You've been reading American fairy tales, have you? Very good, Ziva. But, no. I seriously doubt Gibbs will screw this up again. I think he knows he's already screwed this up big-time and only has this one last shot to get it right."

"Tony."

"Ziva?"

"Has anyone checked on Abby lately?"

"I haven't. Have you?"

"No. I have not. I have been too busy and my off work time has been spent either sleeping or worrying about McGee."

"Same here. Guess we should go see how she's doing after work."

"Maybe you should call her now instead of waiting?"

"Why me?"

"Because you are her big brother, yes?"

"Yeah, okay. You do remember I kinda went off on her the last time we saw each other?"

"Tony, I seriously do not think that will matter. It has been four days. I am certain she will be happy to talk to you."

"Yeah? Let's hope so." Tony answered as he dialed her number on his desk phone and put it on speaker so Ziva could hear as well. Ziva brought her chair over to Tony's desk and joined him for this in case he needed help getting through to Abby and letting her believe they still cared about her.

"Hello." Abby's voice sounded tired and miserable.

"Hey, Abby."

"Tony. Nice of you to remember me."

"Hello, Abby." Ziva chimed in, hoping to keep Abby grounded in the friendship they were offering her instead of the anger that seemed to be jumping through the phone at them.

"Ziva. Wow, both of you together. Let me guess, you're in the squad room and I'm on speaker."

"Well, yeah. We thought now that we have a minute between case work that we would call and see how you are doing." Ziva explained in hopes of getting her to see that they hadn't just abandoned her out of spite.

"I'm here. Not working. Alone. No where to go. Nothing to do. And no one to talk to because the people who were supposed to be my friends haven't even bothered to call me." Abby ranted.

"Abby. We have been extremely busy with two cases in one week. The days have been very long and tiring." Ziva explained with barely restrained exasperation at Abby's lack of thought to that possibility.

"Oh. Sorry. I know Ducky said you guys had been busy. I guess this seclusion's kinda really gotten to me. I didn't mean to take it out on you guys."

"Do you want to have dinner with us tonight?" Ziva invited.

"By 'us' you mean you and Tony?" Abby asked.

"Yeah, Abbs. I mean we could invite Ducky, too. If you want." Tony joined back in the conversation.

"Tony, the last time you spoke to me, it was quite obvious whose side you were on. Why the change now?" Abby asked in confusion.

"Abby, don't go there, okay. You're like my little sister and I care about you a lot. Do you wanna get together for dinner or not?"

"Are you gonna bug me to talk about what happened?"

"No. But at the same time, we're not gonna listen to you badmouth McGee, either. So, take it or leave it." Tony answered her authoritatively.

"Okay. Yeah. Dinner sounds great. Can it be just the three of us for now? I don't think Ducky wants to be around me right now."

"Abby, why would you say such a thing? Ziva asked in confusion.

"Cause I've already talked to him and he didn't sound too happy with me by the time we'd talked for a minute."

"What you rmean is that you didn't like what he had to say." Tony reasoned out as best he could, knowing both Abby and Ducky and how their minds worked. "Ducky's always happy to hear from you and you know it."

"Yeah. Okay. I guess you're right."

"Well, we shall see you for dinner then. Shall we meet at 6?" Ziva asked.

"If you guys can get away from work then. Just call me when you're ready to meet. And thank you, guys." Abby said with genuine gratitude.

"You're welcome. See you tonight." Ziva answered as they disconnected the call.

"Well that went well." Tony breathed out on a sigh of relief.