If Abby ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

Beta by Jake and Jordre

This story occurs at the same time as Savages. It's going to be just a bunch of short bits about the pranks. That means a lot of scene breaks as I switch between people.

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Abby Scuito was not a happy scientist. She was ready to do something really, really mean, but that jerk Dr. Osborn Symons the Third was getting on her last nerve. She was used to some of the team leads being demanding—Gibbs did come to mind—but they soon learned that treating her rudely or asking her to fudge results would get them reported to Vance.

Leon Vance was a politician of the first water, so he was well aware that certain people needed special handling to get the best out of them. The Forensics Department was one of those special groups. If she reported that anyone wanted her to 'fiddle' the data to suit their already established case, he'd have the offender up on the carpet at once. He was having trouble with Dr. Ozzy because he, the doctor, was convinced that his shirt-tail relationship to the Secretary of the Navy made him untouchable. She decided to prove him wrong. After all, she was one of only three people in the world who could kill someone, dispose of the body, and leave absolutely no forensic evidence behind. The other two were Temperance Brennan and Ilya Kuznetzov.

After a few moments of thought Abby sent several text messages, then went to see who had dinged at her. As she recorded the results of the tests, she also thought of what to do about Dr. Ozzy. No one called him Dr. Symons or even Doctor; most of NCIS called him Mr. Symons or Ozzy… or things not repeatable in mixed, or polite, company.

Abby nibbled at her lip, wondering what she should do. She was startled when the man in question himself stormed into her lab, slammed a tray of samples down on her table, barked, "Here! Do get it done in a timely manner," and left again.

"Okay, mister, that's it. I'm sick of you and your attitude." She called Autopsy and left a message, "You are rude. Do not come to my lab again. Send your samples by your assistant. Oh! I forgot. You don't have one. She cried and took a transfer to Outer Bumfuck, Minnesota. Don't come into my lab again. How you get samples to me is not my problem." She slammed the phone down, mumbling, "I hate you. Seriously. I'm a' declare a prank war." And with that Abby settled in to remember every prank Tony had ever pulled on Tim and every prank she'd pulled in her wilder days.

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Leon Vance glared at the latest complaint from DCPD; his temporary ME had antagonized another lead detective from another precinct. This was the second this week and the fifth since he'd taken over. He forwarded it to the appropriate people, which included Human Resources, Personnel, and the Office of the Secretary of the Navy. This man was on his way out, no matter what anyone said. Vance was actually contemplating sending Dr. Palmer a personal email, asking him to return ASAP. He rubbed his face and snarled, "Last damn time I yield to political pressure from someone who has no idea. This is just bad all around." He wondered in disgust how many cases had been compromised by Dr. Symons.

He wrote yet another letter of apology to the precinct captain, the Chief of Police, and the DCPD ME. After giving it to Cynthia to type up and mail, he helped himself to a very small whisky and water. He was due in MTAC in thirty for a conference with Rota, so it wouldn't do for him to be even buzzed. He contemplated murder for a split second.

For her part, Cynthia was considering assault and battery. She had filled out form after form, written dozens of letters, all trying to spackle the cracks Dr. Symons was creating in the cooperation between departments. He'd even pissed off JAG. She scowled at the new list of people who had to be apologized to and went for coffee.

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Dr. Osborn Symons the Third was not a happy man. He couldn't understand why people didn't just worship him as they should. Of course, he didn't think exactly that, but that was the gist of his thoughts. He was disgusted that the ME in Chicago didn't see his brilliance, annoyed that he was relegated to this third-class agency, and sure that all he had to do was put all these peasants in their place.

He settled down at his desk, which he'd finally gotten just last night, and began to type out his latest reprimand. He was disgusted to see that what was appearing on his monitor was nothing like what he was typing. In fact, it was not even English at all. He growled and called IT to come up and fix it at once. He was assured that he'd be helped as soon as his name came to the top of the queue. He demanded someone be sent at once, but was told, in a snide tone, "Director Vance himself sent a memo that IT help, especially on site, was to be given in chronological order, to prevent claims of special treatment from the techs. I'm sure you understand." The soft click of disconnect was more insulting than a slam.

He didn't know, or care, that all it would take was a simple mouse click in a drop-down to change it from Hangul back to English. He'd wait four days for the tech to come do it, four days in which he got behind on his paperwork and received three messages from various departments demanding their results, paperwork, or other forms. He also got a formal reprimand.

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Abby snickered into her Caf-Pow. She had called her friend Petty Officer Jones and asked if he knew where to find string crackers; he'd said that he would get her some. "Only need to know what caliber you want." She'd asked for standard NATO 7.62x39. Jones had demanded, "Who do you hate that much?" She'd told him the whole story and laughed when he offered to smack the man around for her.

"No thanks. He's too stupid to learn anything from it. I've declared a prank war on him. I'd leave it until Tony gets back from vacation, but I don't want to wait that long. He's cruisin' for a bruisin', an' I'm gonna give it to him." She hung up. She was very happy to get a box of the crackers the next day and surprised to realize that they were handmade, by Jones. The box contained fifty of them, and a note that said, "Still willing to smack him as needed." She giggled a bit, then started trying to decide where to put each cracker and when to put it there.

After some thought, she decided on putting one in every empty drawer in the morgue; she wasn't about to disrespect anyone by using any occupied ones. She also decided to booby-trap the lockers, all of them. And his "secret" stash of snacks, which he kept in Jimmy's bottom desk drawer. Jimmy wouldn't be happy when he got back. She also decided to do the drawers a few at a time and the lockers another time. Jimmy's drawer she also put off until later.

She was headed back for her lab when she had a sudden inspiration; grinning, she went up to the squad room and into the Gibbs team bullpen. It took her a moment to unlock Tony's desk with a hair pin. As she was searching the desk, Vance's voice made her jump.

"Dang it!" Abby gave him a hairy eyeball, then realized who she was glaring at. "Sorry, Mr Director."

"I am too. I didn't mean to startle you. Um ... exactly what are you doing in Special Agent DiNozzo's desk?" His raised eyebrow said there'd better be a good reason she'd picked a locked desk and was now rummaging it.

"Oh ... um ... you know that rubber snake Tony has? The one he was throwing at everyone?" She grinned in remembrance. "Made Remy scream like a girl. Well, anyway. I remembered it and decided that I'd better ... um ... confiscate it. See? Before he gets himself jacked up by throwing it at the wrong person. He does tend to get carried away. You know?" Abby gave the director a hopeful look.

"I do." Vance smirked at her around his toothpick. "Just be careful what you do with it. I wouldn't want you to get shot at." and with that, he ambled off humming to himself, barely concealing a smirk.

Abby blinked once then gazed after the director. "Wonder what he actually knows? Hmmm." She found the snake and a half dozen stink bombs. "Well, well. Saves me the trouble of making them myself. Nice." She gathered her booty, relocked the desk and trotted back to her office. She had plans to make, computers to booby-trap, and alibis to construct.

She wished that Ducky or Jimmy were here to help her with her alibi, but that would make this whole thing unnecessary—if Ducky were here, that was. Jimmy, on the other hand, would have to be restrained to keep him from committing mayhem or murder.

After making sure that Dr. Obnoxious the Third wasn't in the morgue, she carefully opened the top right drawer and used homemade snot dots to stick a cracker to the bottom of the desktop and the side of the drawer. She'd made the dots herself, and wore gloves to keep from leaving fingerprints in the sticky things.

After planting her cracker, she also planted a remote camera that she'd liberated from Property, neatly avoiding the problems that she'd have trying to get something from any department with surveillance equipment. No paper trail, no questions, all good.

Her trip back to her lab was accomplished via the stairs and a back hall. She snickered all the way. This was going to be brilliant.

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Dr. Osborn Symons opened the empty drawer, then pissed himself as someone took a shot at him. He crawled from the drawer to the emergency alarm button and slapped at it, setting off half a dozen sirens, bells, and flashing lights. It only took a couple of minutes for a team to come running into the room, guns drawn.

They found the doctor crouched underneath an autopsy table, whimpering in fear. He jumped a foot when they charged in, banging his head on the table which attracted the attention, and aim, of the group.

He yelped and pointed to drawer 204. "There! There's someone in there and they shot at me."

The team lead carefully opened the door all the way. The dangling string with the remains of the cracker attached told its own story. The whole team dissolved into chuckles and began removing their gear.

The team lead eyed Dr Symons for a moment then said, "I don't know what you actually thought ... or if you thought at all. But the next time you call us out for a prank, I'm filing a formal complaint. And stop pissing people off." He turned to order his men out.

"Well, I like that! Someone shoots at me and you jump me? I'll thank you to at least give the room a thorough search." He stood up. That was when he realized that his bladder had let loose. "Damn it!" He scurried away to clean up and change into the only scrubs he could find. Since they were a pair of Ducky's very well-worn, sea-green ones, they were way too short and splotched with chemical stains. Since he'd pissed off the laundry deliveryman, it was all he had. The company had informed Vance that, since their replacement ME had called their deliveryman a "retard," he wasn't taking anything into Autopsy until Dr. Mallard was back. He dropped it off at the Evidence Garage door, and someone had to carry the bundle of towels, scrubs, and sheets to Autopsy. That someone had made sure that all Ducky's good scrubs got tucked away in Evidence, leaving three sets of too-small, too-short, and very stained scrubs for Dr. Symons to use.

So, while Dr. Symons was changing, the team carefully opened each drawer, checked to make sure that it was occupied by a body, or empty, then closed it again. Abby hadn't booby-trapped more than one. She was going to trap things one at a time and on an odd schedule so that "Dr. Jerk" wouldn't get comfortable.

The team lead yelled, "All clear!" then took his team off to their bullpen, where they laughed their heads off, told everyone who had a second to listen, and said, "Spread the cheer." It took about an hour for the story to be all over the building and half the rest of the Yard.

Abby got word from Sheryl from Accounting, who heard it from Dan in Human Resources, who got it from Mark in Evidence, who heard it from Jack, who was on the team. She nearly hurt herself, she laughed so hard. She could be heard giggling then saying, "Peed himself."

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Leon Vance got a formal complaint from the doctor and another from the team lead. He filed the one from the response team and found out that his shredder was in good order with the other. He wasn't going to worry about anything that came from that man, or that happened to him, as long as he retained life and limb. He absently wondered if he could get hold of some security-camera stills; he knew he was going to have to do a lot of fence-mending, and the stills might help with that. It took him several minutes to compose himself, as he kept snickering.

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Abby tapped her fingernails on her keyboard, something that drove Tim nuts. She was trying to come up with something to do for the next day, until it was time to booby-trap Ozzy again. She sighed; she needed something really good. She distracted herself by flipping through some evidence she needed to fingerprint, as soon as they got a court order to allow her to open the already-opened briefcase. She noticed a credit card, and a lightbulb went off. It didn't take her long to cancel all Dr. Symons' credit cards. "That'll fix him. For awhile. But still." She smirked to herself; she'd reinstate them in a couple of days.

Abby went back to work on some evidence that required her attention right away. She nearly jumped out of her skin when a very unwelcome voice barked at her from the door.

"You! Girl! I'm going to lunch. If anyone wants me, call me." Dr. Symons was sure that, this time, that stupid tech would get it right.

Abby pressed a hand to her chest and snarled, "Fuck that. You scare me out of a year's growth, then get rude? Do not call me 'girl.' My name is Dr. Sciuto, and I'm not a tech, a personal assistant, or a secretary. Go. Away."

Symons snorted at her and stomped off. He did look silly in the too-small, very stained scrubs. Abby waited until she was sure he was gone, then hurried to Autopsy. She put a cracker in his locker and stole his clothing. After filling out all the proper bio-hazard paperwork, she dropped the urine stained clothing off at Evidence, announcing, "I got this out of Autopsy. Urine stained. I took appropriate samples. Be a doll and check it in for me?"

The Evidence clerk was happy to do the check-in while Abby waited. She chattered happily about swabs and swatches and other evidence-type stuff. She cheerfully informed the clerk, "I didn't take swatches, just swabs, so I might have to come back and do some cutting. Thanks. Bye." and with that she returned to her lab to see what other misery she could inflict on the "good" doctor.

She checked for activity on the credit cards, saw that all of them had been accessed, all six of them. She snickered, then reinstated them.

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"What do you mean you'll need an alternate form of payment? I just paid all those cards off." Dr. Symons was furious. He was hungry and annoyed; it had taken those yokels ten minutes and two tries to make his order right. He wanted his food. It took him a couple of minutes to rummage his pockets to find enough cash to pay. People behind him got loud in their complaints, but he ignored them.

He settled down to eat and was firmly requested to either only take up his allotted space at the counter, or leave. He left, bitching all the way. The gossip about his attitude was all over NCIS before he got his meal finished. As he was leaving the small pocket park he'd been eating in, a security guard stopped him and ordered him to pick up his trash.

He started to argue but the guard fingered his Mace, so he picked up the mess and tossed it, cursing all the way. The guard snorted; he'd heard little old ladies who cursed worse.

Symons returned to his morgue and opened the locker to put his windbreaker away. He jerked the locker door open, and the explosion of the cracker, magnified by the enclosed space of the locker, sent him into hysterics again. This time he screamed like a girl and bolted down the hall and into the Evidence Garage. "Shots fired! Shots Fired! Call someone!" And with that, he scurried into the inner office and hid behind Department Head Sarah Moore.

She just walked away from him and sent her Senior Clerk Mark Adams to check things out. "Mark, be careful, but go see what happened."

It only took Mark a few minutes to return with the remains of the cracker dangling from his fingers. "Cracker. Big one." He tossed the string and mangled paper into the trash. "Someone doesn't like him."

Symons blew up. "You're all on report. Your lack of respect is disgraceful. You don't know who I am. I'll have all your jobs. Someone go clear the Morgue. Now!"

Sarah just shrugged. "Report all you want. No one really cares. If you want your Morgue cleared, clear it yourself. My people have other things to do. And I'll thank you not to scream in my Evidence Garage. Out! Go!" she shooed him out, flapping her hands at him as if he were a bothersome chicken; which, in a way, he was.

He went, bitching and grumbling all the way. It took him twenty minutes to build up the courage to open all the drawers to check for more crackers. There weren't any, so he went back to paperwork.

Only to find that, as he typed, his keyboard barked and swore at him. He called IT again but was told that, since he could actually get work done, he'd have to wait until all the people who couldn't work were taken care of.

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The scuttlebutt pumped out its usual fare with glee. Abby heard about the newest adventure of the fill-in ME from Sarah Moore herself. She smirked at Abby as she said, "I don't know who has it in for that jackass and I don't want to know. Plausible Deniability, you know? But, should that certain person need something from Evidence that won't come back to bite me on the ass? She should just help herself and leave a computer-generated note on my personal monitor. A sticky would do fine." And with that, she winked, then trotted out to deal with some arriving evidence.

Abby grinned after her and resolved to poke around in the evidence locker to see what she could find.

One of her babies binged, and she scurried to check her results. She also decided that Senior Special Agent Carlson, who'd been pressuring her to fudge some results to support his current theory, needed a bit of attitude adjustment as well. Ten minutes later Agent Carlson's keyboard also began to bark and swear.

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A few days later, Abby was logging in some evidence from a car she'd gone over, when she heard one of the clerks snicker loudly. "What's so funny?"

"We got in a huge box of crap from a stakeout hole, and it's all sex toys. Really, who's actually gonna use a blowup doll?" The clerk laughed again. "I'm just gonna log this in as assorted ... something. I am not putting sex toys in the log. Nope, nope, nope with a topping of oh, hell no." The girl taped the box shut, wrote a number on one side, and scribbled in the log. She walked away with the box in hand and came back in seconds, empty handed. Abby got a quick peek at the log, memorized the number of the box and the location, then went back to her work.

When break time came, Abby made a quick trip back to Evidence, found the box, and extracted the item she wanted. She did a bit of fiddling, added a thing or two, then stashed the results away. She was going to give her tangos a bit of rest, let them relax a bit.

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Director Leon Vance called the SecNav and said, "I don't care if this idiot is some relative of yours or not. Once Ducky comes back, he's gone. He's managed to alienate every Division Commander in the city, the CO of Quantico, the acting CO of the Marine contingent there, and most of NCIS. Miss Sciuto refuses to have him in her lab; he keeps calling her a tech. And no one will run samples from him to anywhere."

The SecNav sighed and rubbed his face. "I'm sorry. If I'd known what was actually going on, I'd have told my cousin, his mother, no way. But she cried. I swear, women who cry don't play fair."

Leon, who was well aware that tears from a woman turned even the strongest men into fools, just replied, "Well, you tried; I tried. He failed. I just hope the resident pranksters don't do him a permanent mischief. Good day." He disconnected, then settled back in his chair to read the latest flurry of reprimands and complaints generated by Dr. Symons' presence in his kingdom. His shredder worked very well.

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Abby dialed Tony. "Tony, how do you make a shaped charge that will explode in all directions? I can make a directional one, but I want a good splatter pattern with the paint."

Tony's voice came back to her. "A … what the ... hell? Abby? What are you up to?"

Abby managed to reply with that awful politeness that meant she was on the verge of some sort of explosion. "An all-directional shaped charge. I need to know how to make one. Not real big, I don't want to damage the locker ... or whatever. But ... tell."

Tony obviously banged his phone against his forehead a couple of times. "I do not want to know." Then he explained very carefully how to make it, ending, "And don't use more than a pea-sized lump. Got me?"

"I do. I'll weigh it out ... 3 grams?"

Abby hung up on Tony who just closed his phone moaning, "I do. Not. Want. To. Know. Seriously. just nope times ten."

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Abby settled at her computer. She missed the Pod so much. She grumbled, "None of you are allowed to go anywhere for the next few months. Anywhere. Without me, at least." She sent email to everyone, then settled down to wait for her babies to talk to her. She had every machine she had command of busy. "And you're not allowed to leave me with inexperienced ME's and a ton of bodies. And cyber crimes. And ... and ..." she sniffled. "I miss you guys."

She wondered why it was that she missed them when they were gone but she didn't miss them when she was gone. Not this much, at any rate.

Several machines dinged at the same time, so she hurried to record results, compose interoffice emails, and attach her results. It took her nearly an hour to get it all organized and sent off. Then she had another round of lab work to get into the appropriate machine. She eyed the sink full of dirty lab glass with disgust. Jimmy usually helped her with it, or, if he couldn't, one of the SEALs would. Dean was especially good at it.

Another sigh brought a voice from the door. "And what was that heavy sigh for?" Director Vance stepped into the lab.

"Oh! Holy ... I'm putting bells on all of you, I swear." Abby grinned at Vance. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, Dr. Sciuto, you can. I just have one thing to say to you: No C-4 in the building. No." He gave her the same look he gave Kayla when she was bound and determined to do something foolish. "I mean it." He then presented her with a jumbo Caf-Pow, smiled, and left.

Abby yelled after him, "Okay. No C-4. Party pooper! Thanks for the Caf-Pow." She took a hefty pull off the straw and began to figure out how to make her paint bomb without C-4. Perhaps just a pull string with a detonator attached.

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Osborn, who hated being called Ozzy, as he was not a rock musician, settled at his desk and looked for "his" tea kettle; he needed coffee badly. He had his own grind, which he kept in a special canister in his desk, along with the drip maker that fit on top of its own special cup. The kettle was missing, again. He'd had to go look for it twice now. Miss Sciuto had had it in her office. He got up to go look for it again.

He found it in the break room on the Lab floor, plugged in but empty. He snatched it up, never noticing that it was plastic, while the one Ducky had brought in was stainless steel. He took it back to his office and poured water into it. As it heated he prepared his coffee maker, putting the paper filter and measure of coffee into the ceramic cone and placing the cone on its cup. When the water boiled, he poured it over the grounds and waited. The coffee done and sugar added, he took a healthy gulp. He nearly choked, spit the coffee back into the cup and snarled. Someone had exchanged salt for his sugar, and the cup was ruined.

He poured the coffee down the hand sink, something he'd been told a dozen times not to do, and rinsed out the mug, filter cone, and sugar container. "Damn it. Someone is going to pay." He settled at his computer to send a complaint to Vance, but nearly had a tantrum when he realized that his keyboard, in addition to barking and swearing, was now typing Cyrillic. He swore too, which was picked up on the hidden surveillance camera and sent directly to one of Abby's computers.

Abby quietly had a snicker fit.

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Senior Special Agent Carlson opened his locker to get out his sweats. He jumped back as something surged out of the locker and straight into his face. He yelped and punched it.

Someone yelled over the not-so-stifled laughter, "Hey, Carlo, is that any way to treat your date? Seriously?"

Hamish Carlson eyed the blow-up doll then said, "Nope. Come get your sister."

There was more catcalling and laughter over that. One of the clean-up crew just ambled over, stabbed the doll with his pocket knife, rolled it up into a messy ball, and walked away with it. All the crews were used to this sort of thing and took it in stride, only complaining when the prank was especially messy and hard to clean up. They really, really hated confetti.

Carlson shoved his clothing into the locker, changed into sweats, and left the gym. No one asked him where he was going; they all knew.

"Miss Abby? You need something done?" Carlson gave her a hopeful look.

Abby examined him for a moment. "You all over being a dick?"

"Yeah. Rectocraniectomy was successful. And ... um ... sorry."

Abby gave him one of her especially brilliant smiles, pointed to the sink, and said, "I'd really like that washed. You know how?"

"No, but I learn quick." He went to the sink, listened carefully to Abby's directions, and earned her goodwill back by doing an excellent job. He also sent her a bunch of Dark Angel tulips. Abby especially appreciated that; everyone else just gave her roses. Not that she didn't like the roses, but the tulips proved that he'd put some thought into his present.

She kept the tulips on her desk until they were drooping and dropping petals.

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The next three days were a misery to Dr. Symons; every door he opened seemed to explode, slam shut due to being bungeed to the wall, or refuse to open. His keyboard barked, swore, typed wingdings, or glued itself into uselessness. He was so jumpy that, when the IT tech came to check his computer, he screamed like a girl.

The tech just mumbled, "Sorry. I'll just check to see what's going on with this. Only take a sec." He sat down at the computer and began his checks. He left that computer to run and went to check on the other two computers in the office, only to find that they were gone. "Um ... you're supposed to have two more computers. Right?" His puzzled expression set Symons off again.

"I was. But ... as I'm the only permanent member of the department ... someone, in their infinite wisdom, took them. No idea where. And one of them had files that I need."

Jason eyed the ME for a moment, then shrugged. "No idea. I'm just a tech. I'll fix whatever's wrong and get out of your hair." He returned to the computer and checked his results. There was actually nothing wrong with the computer, no bugs, viruses, trojans, keystroke loggers, or other malware. He changed the font to Arial, and closed down his program. He pocketed his flash drive and stood up. "Ok. All fixed." He got out before the idiot could drown him in a barrage of questions and prayed that he didn't manage to change his font to something weird again.

He got out just in time as Symons opened a cabinet he had never opened before. The stink bomb that went off with a loud crack filled Autopsy with a cloud of noxious yellow smoke and set off the biohazard alarm. Symons ran for the biohazard shower and jumped in, clothing and all.

This led to him having to wear another set of too-short, too-small scrubs. He also shot off another flurry of complaints and reprimands, as he wasn't pleased with the way the biohazard team treated him. He thought that the whole team should have taken their helmets off the second they started talking to him.

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Abby thought she'd pranked Symons enough for now, and in order to put him off guard, she wondered if she shouldn't give him something. Perhaps a Caf-Pow. She nodded to herself and trotted off to get herself one and one for her tango. She absently wondered if he'd like fruit punch, her favorite, or cola, or grape.

She finally decided on cola, as everyone seemed to like that. She paid for her Jumbo Gulp and a regular cola, nodded to the server, and hurried back to NCIS; she had tests coming due any moment.

It only took a couple of minutes to drop the cola Caf-Pow off ―she actually handed it right to Symons with a straight face― and get back to her lab just in time for a flurry of bings, dings, and honks to go off. She took a pull of her drink and went back to work. She knew that Vance was going to get on her; this was her third Caf-Pow of the day, and she was only supposed to have two. She got a little nuts if she had too much.

She decided to put the rest of this cup in the fridge for later.

After tucking her drink safely away in the "clean" side of the fridge, she returned to recording her results and cataloging them in her computer files. She also generated the paper reports that had to be sent to the teams and the archives.

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Dr Symons eyed the cup of soda that Abby had given him, smiled, and mumbled, "It's about time she realized that she's my subordinate." He sipped at the cola, frowned at the slightly bitter aftertaste, but took it back to his desk to drink while he worked.

As he worked he drank; the more he drank, the more he wanted. He realized his cup was empty, so he got up and went out to the break room. After asking around for a bit, he found that Caf-Pow was only available in a small strip mall nearby. The Caf-Pow was in a mini-mart at one end, while the coffee shop was at the other. The mall also had a restaurant and a couple of other small stores.

He decided to get himself a sandwich and another Caf-Pow. He got a tuna salad on rye with extra mayo and a cola Big Gulp Caf-Pow. He took a seat at a tall table for two and settled in to eat. He didn't realize that he was jigging his foot as he did so.

When he finished eating, he gathered up his trash, remembering his run-in with the security guard. After balling the trash into a tight ball, he tried to dunk it in the trash can, but missed. A boy of about fifteen snatched it up and did the job, smirking a bit when he called, "Nothing but net," then trotted off to rejoin his buddies.

Symons nodded to him and scurried off to go back to his office, carrying his refilled Caf-Pow with him.

He settled at his desk, glad that his computer was cooperating for once, then the printer started spitting out sheet after sheet of paper. At first he thought it was printing out a remote report for him, then he realized that it was printing nonsense. He snarled and unplugged it. He took a fortifying gulp of his drink and called IT, again, and told them, again, that his equipment was acting up. He was told, again, that he would be put into the queue and seen to in turn. He snarled, slammed the phone down, and wondered what he could do until his next autopsy. It never occurred to him that everything worked perfectly when he had an autopsy, or reports were needed in a current investigation.

He paced restlessly for a few minutes, then decided that, as no one else was doing it to suit him, he'd clean the whole morgue. He spent the rest of the day running people out of the morgue for tracking his newly mopped floor, washing down unoccupied drawers, and detailing the whole morgue, ME's office, and side rooms, including Jimmy's tiny office space.

He overslept the next morning and woke up with a caffeine and too-much-sleep hangover. He was late to work by nearly an hour. It didn't really matter, as there wasn't an ongoing autopsy, but Vance reamed him out anyway. He retreated to his office/sanctuary in a sulk and tried to work, but his hands were shaking so hard that everything he tried to type turned into gibberish.

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Abby snickered into her first Caf-Pow. She had promised Vance that she wouldn't have more than two a day. She was keeping her word, but the store had instituted a new cup size. She'd been drinking the Large Gulp; now she was drinking the Double Jumbo Gulp. She smirked a bit as, by her calculations, two Double Jumbo Gulps equaled six Large Gulps or just about what she'd been drinking before her promise. If he didn't specify in ounces, it wasn't her fault.

She picked up her clipboard and began the startup procedures for her babies. She sighed and wished that people understood that these machines needed to warm up; you couldn't just barge in and start doing things. She clicked this, punched that, primed something else, and started setting out her first set of tests.

As she lined up her test tubes, pipettes, petri dishes, and slides she also planned out what tests to do first. She always tried to do as many of the same tests as she could at one time. That way she wasn't preparing the same test over and over. The only thing was to keep everything labeled properly and avoid cross-contamination. That was one of the reasons she was so picky about people touching things, bringing food and drink into the main lab, or smoking in the lab. That one really set her off, as the smoke got into things and contaminated anything it got near.

She got her first round of tests set up, started, and logged in. After making sure all her tests were started properly, she settled in to text Tony, McGee, and Remy—Tony because she was missing him like crazy, and she wanted to ask him how to do something; McGee because she wanted to know where he'd hidden a program; and Remy because he had the best gossip. She spent the next hour, while she waited for results, texting the three men, happily occupying wasted time with a bit of fun.

She wasn't best pleased when Director Vance tapped on her door and demanded, "Is this how you spend your time? Texting and playing games?"

She frowned for a moment then said, with considerable mildness, "Well, yeah. I've got all my paperwork up to date, I've got the first run of tests started, and the lab, fridges, and work spaces are all clean… as is all the glassware. So ... what does Dr. Nosy-Parker-I'm-too-good-for-this Symons think I should be doing? Perhaps worshiping at the altar of his so-called greatness? Or do you want to find something ... something within my job classification ... for me to do?"

As a man who'd been married for over 20 years, Leon Vance knew when he'd stepped into it. "I see. I apologize. And it wasn't Symons who said something." He frowned. "But I'm wondering who lit a fire under the person who did." He turned to leave, calling over his shoulder, "Again, I apologize. Go back to what you were doing. Tell Gibbs ... never mind." He went to find out who had sent in the complaint and why. HR explained that the complaint had come from Symons and would have been ignored, except for the fact that they had a young thing who was determined to set the world on fire, but usually just wound up stepping in things best left alone.

This generated another reprimand in Symons' jacket. Vance eyed the nearly half-inch-thick file and snarled to himself.

.

Abby finished her third set of tests and third Caf-Pow of the day, started another set of tests, and decided to go to the break room for a snack. When she got there, she found two of her friends from Evidence sitting at the main table. They were both looking unhappy, so Abby asked, "Hey! Why the long faces? You don't look happy."

Melanie shrugged. "We're not. Someone's been eating all the lunches. I mean ... most of them. Mine's gone. So's Janice's. And other people have been missing food too."

Janice nodded. "And it's a real pain. I'm hungry, and I don't have any money with me, so I can't get anything. Beside the fact that I don't want to eat junk. I had some nice carrot sticks."

Abby frowned, then said, "Spread the word not to mess with the food in the purple containers." Both ladies agreed and trotted out to spread the word. Not that it was really necessary, as no one ever bothered anyone else's food.

The next day Abby arrived with a couple of containers, one purple with a clear lid and the other clear with a purple lid. One contained chicken salad laced with a laxative, and the other was dip and veggies, which contained an emetic. She had been very careful to only mix in enough to make the offender have two or three "incidents," but not enough to do him any harm. She based her calculations on the most probable identity of the offender. She hoped this would teach her tango something; she doubted that it would.

She checked back just before one and found both containers in the sink. That was one thing; at least he didn't toss the containers in the trash. He didn't see any need to hide what he was doing. Abby wasn't sure he even realized that it was wrong.

.

The scuttlebutt about Symons' latest faux pas ran through NCIS at about the same speed that the pranked food ran through his system. He spent most of the afternoon alternately sitting on the porcelain throne, then hugging it.

Abby leaned against the wall outside the ladies' room on her floor. This floor didn't have many people on it, so each facility only had two stalls and a single sink. She wasn't sure but what the men's had one stall, a urinal, and a sink. All she cared about was the conversation between two of the security guards.

"I'm not goin' in there and try to haul his ass out. He's pukin' again." Abby thought the speaker resembled Mr. T with a high-and-tight.

The other guard was shorter and blond; Abby thought he looked a lot like Tim with a bleach job. He was just as disgusted as Mr. T. He shook his head and announced, "I'm not tryin' to drag him out either. He ... um ... messed himself before he got to the john. Not dealin' with biohazards, bodily waste, and all that. Not in my job description."

"So what do we do? Can't leave him in there."

Abby perked up. "You come to my lab. I'll give you some gloves. You get him to the biohazard shower, and I'll find him some scrubs. Okay?" She gave them a bright smile, then led the way.

"Here you go. Double? You think?" She gave each man two pair of the gloves she kept in a filing cabinet for her "boys." "Just go get him and haul him to the shower. I'll find some scrubs and be right there."

Mr. T and Not-McGee accepted the gloves. Mr. T asked, "And what do we do with his clothing?"

"It's contaminated with who-knows-what. If it was me, I'd put it in the incinerator. Do not touch anything with bare hands until he showers. I'll get going." She waved her hands in a shooing motion, then trotted off to find scrubs.

While the two security guards dragged the doctor out of the men's room and down the hall to the showers, Abby happily scurried to the supply closet to get scrubs. She just grabbed the nearest pants and shirt, never mind that they might not fit.

Mr. T said, "Okay, Doc, let's get you up. Come on."

Symons whined but got up. "I don't feel so good. What happened?"

Not-McGee opined, "You ate someone else's lunch and made yourself sick. They probably left it out on the counter overnight without thinking about it. You need to only eat your own stuff. Up you get."

The two men dragged the doctor off the floor and helped him to the shower. He moaned and bitched the whole way. His main two complaints were, "I didn't think anyone would bring something that'd make me sick. What's wrong with those people? I'm sick…" and, "Don't be so rough; I'll puke again."

Neither man felt sorry for him. If he'd kept his hands off other people's food, he'd have been fine. So they stripped him off, stuffed him into the shower with the order to, "Scrub and use lots of soap," then Not-McGee gingerly picked up the now wet, stinking clothing and shoved it into the incinerator next to the shower. He slapped the activate button then stepped back.

Abby showed up just then with a rather ratty wool blanket to use as a towel and an armful of scrubs. "Here we go. I couldn't find a nice towel but this'll do and here's some scrubs." She handed the loot to Not-McGee and hurried off, calling over her shoulder, "I'm off. Not in the mood to see his dangly bits or whatnot. If you need something else, give me a call. You might also give him some ginger ale ... settle his tummy." She cut off any further remarks by popping back into her lab, which was just down the hall from the shower.

She had to lean against the wall of her tiny office, as she was snickering so hard her balance was off. She didn't even feel sorry for the jerk; several of the people whose lunches he'd taken had gone hungry, as they couldn't afford to get anything from the machines or go out for something. He'd be okay in about an hour; she'd carefully calculated the dose and was sure. She didn't want to make him really sick or actually hurt him, she just wanted him to think. She wasn't really sure it would work, but it couldn't hurt to try.

She wasn't that surprised when Vance called to tell her that she wasn't to pull such tricks again, as the possibility of catching the wrong fish was real. She agreed to that, especially when Vance reminded her that someone lighter than her target, or in ill health, could get really sick. She apologized for wasting his time on this sort of thing, then went to planning her next attack.

She knew that, when the Pod got back, she was going to have to change her methods, but that wasn't for another ten days. She was counting.