Title: Ghost of a Chance
Challenge #79: Elements
Fandom: NCIS
Rating: G
Length: 692 words
Summary: It wasn't the murder weapon, but it was a murder weapon.
Author's Note: Massively lose interpretation of the prompt, stealth crossover with the Magnificent Seven TV show in a way.

Considering what the evidence was telling her, there was no way the noose should never have been preserved as well as it had. "I tested the rope you guys sent me. It's over a hundred and thirty years old," Abby explained when Gibbs called from Colorado. "The fibers, well, someone was hung by it, but it's no way it was any of the murdered marines, not the way the sample was degraded as badly as it was, but-" hearing the dial tone, she hung up with a sigh. Gibbs had never grasped the concept of phone etiquette and he never would. She spun around in her chair, about to turn her music back on, when she paused, her hand inches from the on switch. She thought she heard a harmonica playing from somewhere nearby, not a tune, just a few melancholic notes. She laughed, there was no one else down here but her; who would be playing a harmonica of all things? A second later, Bleeding Zombies' newest aria reverberated around the room.

That afternoon, however, when returning to the lab with a fresh caf-pow, Abby could have sworn she smelled whiskey in the air. Which was ridiculous. She didn't drink, and, besides, alcohol wasn't allowed in the building. She didn't find it unsettling though. Even when she started to feel something that shouldn't be there, a kind of displacement of air in the room as if there was someone in the lab with her, it didn't make her uncomfortable. She kept her music off, but the lab was far from silent- there was the occasional snatches of that harmonica, the beat of horseshoes running in the distance, and the whistle of wind blowing across an open plain.

The explanation for what was going on was a simple one. It was obvious. Somehow her lab was being haunted. All the signs were there! It was too bad the team was so far away, she'd have loved to talk with them about it, but she had to settle for looking into it herself. She and her trusty ouija board could handle it, no problem. That night, when all her babies were turned off, she lit some candles and set the board up on the floor.

Taking a deep breath she centered herself, placed her fingers on the marker, and called out, "Is there anybody there?" And then waited. And waited. Just when she was about to give up the marker moved under her fingers, a little jerk back and forth.

"Why are you here?" The marker bobbled under her fingers and the air moved past her cheek, like someone had sighed. "Too complicated a question, huh. Okay, an easier one. Do you need my help?"

The marker jerked again, but not in any particular direction.

"Oh wait, the age of the rope, I wonder what literacy rates were back then. Not great probably, I should have thought of that. Can you read?" She shook her head. "Not that you could tell me yes or no if you can't read which is which. That word in the top left corner? That's 'yes' and the one on the right is 'no', okay?"

The marker slowly shifted, pointing to the left and it took every ounce of fortitude she had not to squeal in delight.

"Yes! Now we're getting somewhere." She bit her lip, thinking. The research she had done before giving this a try implied that sometimes people didn't move on, became ghosts, because of how they died. "Did you die at the end of this rope?"

Yes.

Okay, so, she'd helped the team solve countless of murders; it was about time she tried to figure out the clues to one by herself. All she'd need to do was track down hundred and thirty year old records from the Old West. Not quite a piece of cake, but they had to be somewhere, right? She nodded to herself. She could do this. "Well, let's find out what happened to you then. Do you know your letters?" The move to 'yes' was hesitant, but there. "Perfect! Can you spell out your name for me, big boy?"