Power Down – part 1

Gibbs picked up Eloise from Ducky's house. Ducky had gone into the office early as the power had gone out in the night and Ducky had asked him to give a lift to Eloise into the office. He drove up to the front of the large house and found Eloise ready waiting outside, dressed in a tan coat, that was slightly open, over a dark blue Mod-style dress. Her normal backpack was over one shoulder and she held two travel mugs. He stopped and Eloise sat in the passenger seat. Eloise handed over a travel cup of strong black coffee to Gibbs. The other one was full of her morning tea. A light green tea with a dash of fresh lemon juice.

"Your power out too?" he asked her.

"Went out last night. Lucky Uncle Ducky has a fireplace and all the equipment to boil water to make drinks and wash," Eloise fastened her seatbelt. "So, what are we going to do today? I am sure that Abby and I will not be given power in our departments. And there is not going to be any use of computers."

Gibbs smiled and laughed, putting his foot down, and sped off down the street.

"Well, you don't need electricity to use hand tools or drink a bottle of bourbon," Tony stood by the left door a traffic cone up to her mouth as a microphone. He chuckled at his joke.

Not noticed by Tony Gibbs and Eloise walked into the ballpen from the back of the room. Gibbs quietly stood behind Tony a finger to his lips to Eloise.

"He's right behind you, isn't he?" came McGee's voice from inside the left.

Tony did not even need to turn around. "Yes, he is," he put the cone down. "Boss, you know there's nothing wrong with the occasional cocktail."

"Tony, you know that Gibbs does drink mixtures he takes his bourbon straight," Eloise laughed as she sat at Gibbs's desk at the scene. "So how long have they been in there?"

"All night apparently," Tony answered.

"Grab your gear. Got a dead Navy lieutenant at an internet provider," Gibbs read from a piece of paper using a torch to light it.

"So, we're still…" Tony started.

"Working?" Gibbs finished the sentence and grabbed his to-go kit from his desk.

"Yeah. Of course, we are. I didn't mean to suggest that I wasn't planning on being productive today," Tony rushed out.

At the left doors, an engineer was talking into a walkie-talkie. "Try patching it to the backup generator." There was a whirring noise and McGee almost fell out of the left as the door opened.

"Oh, thank God."

"You're late, McGee," Gibbs threw McGee's kit bag at him. McGee groaned as the sudden heavy object pushed into his stomach. Gibbs also handed Ziva her bag. Eloise watched the two formally tripped agents shook her head and decided that she would go and see Abby in her lab via the stairs.

A few hours later the body of Lieutenant Emma Paxton was in with Ducky. Eloise was in the lab when Ziva, who dropped off some evidence asked if she could do an eyewitness sketch. She agreed and walked upstairs with Ziva.

"I have noticed that you and Tony are very close," Eloise said.

Ziva shook her head and smiled. "We are just partners. Teammates."

"I only said because you and he both have weird looks on your faces when you are around each other," Eloise explained. "I am not the best when it comes to meat bags. I mean goldfish... I mean humans. But there is more going on with you two."

"We are just friends," Ziva said. They reached the boardroom and walked in.

"Hello, I am Doctor Eloise Bridgerton can you describe the gunman you saw?" He described one of the gunman's face. Something was off to Eloise about the eyewitness and so she stored it in the back of her mind palace for later. She sketched as he described the person, he saw quickly with a pencil finishing off the image with a pen outline. Ziva and Eloise thanked the witness as he left. Eloise could feel a headache coming on.

"He's hiding something," Eloise whispered to Ziva. Ziva nodded. Both women could not shake off an odd feeling they had.

Ziva went upstairs with the sketch and Eloise went back down to see her Godfather in autopsy.

"What do you got?" Gibbs asked as he marched into the lab. He noticed that Eloise was missing. Her coat was hung up on its coat hanger and her bag was placed on Abby's desk. But she was missing.

"The better question is, what do you not got, Abs?" Abby was annoyed and missing her normal drink of choice. And she was experimenting. "And the better answer would be a Caf-POW! I mean, I'm trying to make my own here, but I'm missing, like, 400 ingredients."

"You alright?" Gibbs asked the normally happy Goth Scientist.

"No," Abby said. "I'm not okay, and I'm not going to be okay until the power comes back on, and I can run diagnostics on my babies. These aren't like lightbulbs, Gibbs. You can't turn them on and off. They're complex pieces of machinery that require precise shut-down sequences. I don't understand. I mean, why does Autopsy get backup power and I don't? MTAC, I get that, but what does Ducky have that I don't have?"

"Corpses Abby," Eloise said as she walked into the lab to stand next to Gibbs who nodded his head. "Uncle Ducky has corpses that tend to go off."

"I'll get some corpses," Abby reasoned.

"Abby corpses would not be good for your lab environment," Eloise explained. "They do tend to start to smell after a while. That is why I prefer bones. But I do not think that having some bones in here would help you get power in here. I have them in my office, and I still do not have any power. My mini X-ray machine is not going to be happy when it is back on. And my..."

"See we both need power," Abby interrupted and turned to Gibbs.

"Okay, I'm going to start this again. What have you got?" Gibbs tried again.

"Nothing," Abby said. You called me down here to say you have nothing?

"That's why I called you down here. To say you have nothing?"

"Well, I have some tyre tracks, Tony brought the mould down," Abby explained as she pointed to the evidence bag in on the table. "And my babies could I.D. this thing in like two minutes, but at this point, I'm going to have to do this by hand, Gibbs. By hand! I mean, do you understand what that means?" Abby said. Eloise smiled at her friend. "Maybe you know what that means, but I just need to know that you know not to expect my normal miracles."

"Yes," Gibbs said.

"Great. I'll see you both in an hour," she started to push the pair out of the door. Behind them, they heard Abby's music distorted and winding down and Abby's panicked voice as the radio died. "No! No! No!"

Gibbs walked up the stairs with Eloise. Halfway up she suddenly stopped on one of the landings and turned to him. He stopped too.

"I have been thinking about something I want to do," she said.

"What is that?" he asked.

"I want you to kiss me," Eloise said. Gibbs stared at her in shock.

"Did you say you want me to kiss you?" he asked in an almost whisper.

"Yes," Eloise nodded her head. This pulled Gibbs out of his head, and he pulled her towards him.