A/N: Really? Never had a cold? Never had the flu? Really? Well then it's about time, don't you think?

Disclaimer: Not mine, just love to take them out for a spin every now and then.

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"This is a bad idea, Abbs," Tony muttered, dragging his feet and shifting the brown paper bag she had made him carry from one arm to the other.

Abby sent him a glare over her shoulder, "no Tony, what's a bad idea is you continuing to complain," she stopped suddenly and turned to shove her spiked bracelet in his face, "not for show, remember?"

Tony gave her a wary look, his eyes bouncing between her face and the supposed 'weapon disguised as jewelry' a few times before grunting, "yeah Abbs. I remember."

She dropped her hand back to her side, "good," and spun back around to continue up the small walkway.

She didn't even pause on the porch, merely reached for the doorknob and let herself and Tony in as if she owned the place.

Abby led the way further inside and pointed at the kitchen counter, "set everything up."

Dutifully, Tony went to the counter and began carefully emptying the bag while Abby made her way across the room to the basement door, which was ajar as usual though the sound of scraping sandpaper was curiously absent.

Abby stood at the top of the stairs for a few minutes, watching Gibbs from above. For the most part he seemed okay and she almost second guessed herself in coming. Almost. It wasn't as if she'd overreacted...much.

Just because when she'd run into Ducky earlier and he'd told her that Gibbs had seemed paler than usual and had gone home because he "had nothing better to do here" and had proceeded to pass off all her running tests to a barely competent (in her opinion) lab tech and collected Tony and hauled him out of headquarters with her to clean out the nearest pharmacy of all medical supplies available aand then sped straight over to Gibbs house…that wasn't necessarily overreacting. Right?

But as she watched she realized Gibbs wasn't just his usual self sanding away on his boat like always. She tilted her head to one side, watching closer.

He kept stopping and allowing his head to drop a little, as if suddenly too heavy for his neck to support. He leaned against the bench for several moments longer than was needed when he went to retrieve a mug of coffee and she noticed that his hand trembled slightly when he raised it to take a sip. She quietly descended the stairs, not exactly taking pains to be silent but not stomping either, and as she came closer could see a thing sheen of sweat on his skin. But what was more troubling was that he hadn't seemed to notice her yet.

Gibbs set down the coffee, now turned cold and, while he wanted a refill, he didn't really want to contemplate climbing the stairs in that moment, and turned to go back to his boat. He just barely caught sight of a figure in his peripheral vision and froze, his muscles all tensing at once. It turned out to be a rather painful reflex.

He caught a whiff of the specially brewed perfume that smelt of gunpowder and realized who it was that had infiltrated his domain, both to his relief and chagrin.

"Abby," he said. He didn't have to look at her to know she wore a deep scowl with her hands on her hips, ready to read him the riot act, which was usually amusing but right now he was just too damn tired to deal with.

"Gibbs," she responded tersely then, without warning, reached forward and pressed her cool fingers to his forehead. To her credit, she didn't wince, but did pull away quickly. "You're burning up," she told him, managing to keep her scolding front against the concern welling inside her, "you need to be upstairs in bed."

Gibbs didn't look at her. He picked up the sandpaper and returned to his boat, "nope. not sick, Abby."

She rolled her eyes, "you the most sick looking 'not sick' person I've ever seen."

Gibbs didn't respond and Abby huffed, "Gibbs-" she said, warning him.

When he still showed no signs of listening to her she sighed dramatically, "fine. You leave me no choice."

With that she stepped forward and, taking her life in her hands, not that she saw it that way, reached out and plucked the sandpaper from him. Studiously avoiding his deadly gaze, she replaced it on the bench and then returned to him, taking his hand to pull him toward the stairs.

Gibbs didn't move. She tugged a few times but he remained firmly rooted to the spot.

"Gibbs," she said, girding her loins for a fight. She turned to face him, crossing her arms over her chest, "you have a fever. You're pale. I'm willing to bet coffee is all you've had to "eat" in over a day because you can't keep anything else down. You're shaky, clammy, sweaty, and you left work early, which you never do which means you feel worse than you want to admit and, I'm sure I don't need to remind you since they obviously covered this when you got your PhD infectious diseases, but just because you ignore it, does not make it go away." She titled her head to one side and raised her eyebrows. An unspoken challenge in her eyes.

Gibbs narrowed his eyes. Very few people on earth dared speak to him that way, and even fewer lived to tell about it.

Fortunately for her, Abby was one of those people.

Giving up, much easier than Abby had expected and thus furthering her worry, Gibbs slumped his shoulders slightly brushed past her toward the stairs.

In the kitchen Gibbs scowled to see that Abby had brought reinforcements.

"Hiya, Boss," Tony grinned at him from the stove, where he was cooking what smelled like chicken soup. He was smart enough not to say so, but his Boss looked like crap. Pale skin, bags under his eyes and he was even swaying a little on his feet. He silently thanked Abby's stubborness for dragging him over there. Gibbs had a tendency to watch everyone's six but his own.

"DiNozzo-" Gibbs' tone held all the warning his words did not and Tony nodded.

"I know I know, not supposed to touch your stuff but," he turned to the counter where he had cough syrup, aspirin, sore throat drops, antihistamines, aspirin, menthol gel and a thermometer spread out before him, "I was forced to ask myself who I feared more, you or Abby," he shrugged, plastering on another of his cheeky smiles, "at the moment Boss, you're not at 100%, so Abby won."

"Damn right I did," Abby entered the kitchen a few paces behind Gibbs and proceeded to usher him through the room toward the stairs, "go upstairs, get in bed. I'll be there in a minute with medicine and some real food. I'm afraid you're off the caffeine for a while, Gibbs."

Abby heard a muttered curse and more indistinguishable grumbling as Gibbs made his way up the stairs and shook her head, returning to the kitchen.

"What'd he say?" Tony asked, ladling the hot soup into a bowl and reaching for a glass for water so Gibbs could wash down the pills Abby was setting aside.

She shrugged nonchalantly, "that we're fired."

Tony turned to stare at her, forgetting the bowl was hot and nearly burning himself.

"What? What do you mean fired?"

Abby gave him a thoughtful look, "Don't worry, it's for a good cause. We have to help Gibbs get better as soon as humanly possible," she explained patiently, loading a tray with the food and medicine, "he's our leader, Tony. Without Gibbs we're just…another team. We're like a bear without it's claws, a lion without it's teeth, we're…" she paused, her eyes widened and she dropped her voice conspiratorially, "we're Jedi, without the Force," she raised her eyebrows and dipped her chin, emphasizing her point. And then she collected the tray and headed for the stairs leaving Tony to stare after her, unsure if there was really any response he could give to that.

He winced at the threats Abby shouted, as she ascended the stairs, if she did not find Gibbs in bed when she got up there.

He dropped his head into his hands, "I just hope he's too out of it to remember any of this when he comes back to work on Monday."

"Think you'll be that lucky, DiNozzo?" a voice called out from above.

Tony looked up at the ceiling in wide-eyed horror.

How does he do that?

"Of course not," Tony answered the rehtorical query in a quiet mutter and dropped his head back into his hands, "the gods aren't that kind," and then added, "at least Abby won't be mad at me."

Then, as if on cue, Abby's voice sounded from upstairs.

"DiNozzo, get up here."

He groaned and jogged toward the stairs.

It was going to be a long weekend.

END