Finally! I realized I only had a week to finish anything I wanted to get in before they totally ruin my plot bunnies with the new season (SO nervous), so I got this one done... hopefully at least one more before next Tuesday!

Small references to the last few episodes of Season 6.

Jethro nosed his way between their legs and bolted for his water bowl, dragging his leash behind him with his tail lashing frantically.

"Well," Abby said with a grin, folding up her parasol, "I guess somebody enjoyed the park."

McGee chuckled as he dropped his keys on the counter. "Seriously. He would live there if we let him."

Abby leaned her parasol against the wall and crossed to sit on the couch, settling herself comfortably and grabbing the remote. She whistled for Jethro. "C'mere, boy!" McGee bit back a reflexive "Not on the couch!" Everyone – Jethro included – knew that when Abby was visiting, she made her own rules. The German Shepherd obediently ran over and jumped up beside her, resting his head on her knee. "There's a good boy," she crooned, scratching behind his ears. "McGee, want to order a pizza in a little while? I'll see if there's anything good on tv."

"Not tonight," McGee answered distractedly, flipping through the stack of mail he'd picked up on their way into the building. "I'm having dinner with Jules in a couple of hours." He frowned at his electric bill and didn't notice the slight pause before Abby spoke again.

"Sooo…" she said, her voice very carefully casual. "You guys are getting serious?"

He found a postcard from Sarah, finishing up her junior year abroad at Oxford. "Not really, yet," he said as he skimmed his sister's tiny, messy handwriting. "Haven't had time. She just finished a special assignment and I've been busy since…" he stopped. "Well, since we've been…shorthanded."

They'd been trying to avoid Ziva's name around Tony, and it had started extending to their conversations away from him as well.

He shrugged and tossed his mail next to his keys. "Anyway, we've just had dinner a couple of times."

Abby concentrated very hard on smoothing the fur on Jethro's back. "Elf Lord melts the ice princess," she said, her voice teasing but with an edge. "God, McGee, does she even know what M.I.T. stands for?"

"Don't call her that, Abby. And be nice – you know she's not a ditz," McGee said from inside the fridge. "You want some orange juice?"

Abby sighed. "No, I should probably go," she told him, though she made no move to get up from the couch. "Let you get ready for your 'dinner' with 'Jules.'"

A deaf, dumb, and blind man couldn't have missed the sarcasm in her voice that time. McGee straightened up and closed the refrigerator. "What is with you, Abby?" he said, irritated.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she informed him, the irritation in her voice matching his. "I'm just getting out of your way."

He crossed to her and looked down at her pretty, annoyed face. "Then why aren't you leaving?"

She frowned at him. "Fine. You want me to go?" She stood and started for the door but he caught her by the arm.

"No, I don't want you to go." He studied her eyes. "I want you to tell me what's wrong."

"Nothing's wrong," she said, but she slid her gaze to the side, away from his. "I just thought it would be fun to hang out tonight, that's all. We'll do it some other time."

McGee stared at her for a minute. "You're sulking," he accused her.

Her eyes snapped back to his. "Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Are t-" He cut himself off when he realized that she could keep it up far longer than he could. "Fine. You're not sulking. Then why are you so cranky?"

Abby huffed out an annoyed breath. "I am not cranky."

Are too, he thought, but didn't say it. "Okay, then you're not sulking or cranky. But something's wrong, and it wasn't wrong before I mentioned dinner with Jules, and you're one of my best friends and I respect your opinion, so I'd at least like to know what it is that put you in a bad mood. Is it something about her?"

"I'm fine with Princess Jules. Have a great dinner with her. Have a great dinner with the entire damn female population of the world if you want," she snapped. Then she took a deep breath and managed a smile. "Didn't I tell you she wasn't out of your league? I want you to be happy, Tim," she said. Her voice was sincere, but her eyes were still…off, somehow.

He scrubbed his hands over his face in frustration and stepped away. "Trust me, Abby, I want to be happy. But I hate that I'm doing something that's making you unhappy." He sighed and turned back to her. "You can't do this, Abby. You don't want to date me, but you don't want me to date anyone else. It doesn't work like that."

"I never said I didn't want –" She stopped suddenly and paused before continuing. "– you to date anyone else," she finished, her eyes flicking to the door.

McGee could see the thought as clearly as if she'd spoken it.

Escape.

The memory of their first fight popped into his head for some reason. "So it's insecure to want to know the status of your relationship when one of the people in that relationship can't accurately communicate her feelings?" he'd asked her sarcastically. And her "Yes!" to his surprise, had not been sarcastic, but instead happy, satisfied, and triumphant, as though she'd finally gotten through to him. As though that made perfect sense.

He studied her face intently, and she looked back at him with deliberately wide, innocent eyes. A thought began to form in his head. It was a vague, nagging thing, and he was almost afraid to focus too hard on it, in case it turned out to be as ridiculous as he suspected it was.

But it wouldn't go away.

"Abs," he said thoughtfully. Carefully. He had to be very, very careful. "Why… why don't you like any of my girlfriends?"

She blinked at him, confused, and then smiled sweetly. "They're not good enough for you, Timmy." She patted his cheek. "You need someone who appreciates you. Who understands you."

"Someone…" Something caught in his throat. If he said it out loud, he couldn't take it back. If the truth wasn't what he wanted to hear… He swallowed, tried again. "Someone like you?"

Abby's expression went startled. "Maybe you got too much sun today, McGee. I'm always telling you guys to stay out of –" She started to move away, but he reached out, fast, and hooked a finger through one of her belt loops.

There had been surprise in her face, and nerves, but not outright denial.

"Just a minute, Abs. Just…hang on a minute." He tried, very hard, to keep the uncertainty out of his voice. "Help me?" She'd been avoiding his eyes, but at that, she looked up at him. "Help me understand." McGee tugged lightly on her belt loop, and drew her a step closer. "You're one of my best friends."

"Yeah." Abby's voice was a whisper. "You mentioned that."

"And I'm… at least, I think I'm one of your best friends."

She smiled a little at that, and her voice was stronger. "Don't be ridiculous, Timothy. Of course you are. You know that."

It was way too easy for him to get lost in her clear green eyes. He thought he'd become immune; apparently, he'd been wrong. He tugged again, and pulled her another step closer. He wondered if he had the strength for this, to tempt himself this far.

"And we were…I mean, you always seemed to…At least, I know I…we…" he stuttered before finally giving up and leaning in to brush his lips lightly over hers. Gentle, at first, sweet, but once he tasted her he couldn't resist. He pulled her closer, kissed her deeper, and realized he didn't know whether he could still step away after this. After a second, he felt Abby melt against him, her hands sliding over his shoulders, up his neck, into his hair. McGee held her tight and kissed her as though it were his last moment on earth.

"And that…that part always worked out well for us, I think," he said when they finally pulled apart.

Abby laughed shakily. "Um, yeah," she told him.

"What's wrong, Abby?" he asked softly. "You… give love away without being asked. You love everybody, and everything, and once you love someone, you don't give up. Why…" He took a breath, and took a leap, trusting that she would understand what he couldn't find the words to articulate. "Why is this so hard for you?"

She tried to step back, but he'd taken her hand and wouldn't let go, so she took refuge in confusion instead. "You're talking crazy, McGee. Shouldn't you be getting ready for your dinner?"

He'd run out of things to say, arguments to make. He was a half-step away from begging, but for the moment, he just looked at her.

Abby looked at him pleadingly. "Tim…"

He never could deny her anything. When she tried to pull away from him again, he let her escape. She was halfway to the door when frustration finally got the best of him. "Why the hell can't you ever just say what you feel, Abby?"

Whirling on her heel, she glared at him. "Are you kidding me? I don't exactly keep my mouth shut often, McGee."

"Only about the important things. And it's less like you're keeping your mouth shut and more like you're saying anything you can think of other than what you mean," he retorted.

"I say exactly what I mean," she informed him, folding her arms.

He stood and matched her stance. "So you don't like Jules."

"Maybe I don't like the way you are around her," she without thinking.

Okay, he thought. Okay. The key is getting her to react, not think. "Fine. Why not?" he asked immediately.

"Because…" She bit her lip, and he took a step closer.

"Why not?" he demanded.

"Because it's the way you used to act around me!" she snapped.

He felt something like hope flare in his chest, but forced himself to ignore it. "So?" he pushed.

"So maybe I don't like seeing that you're not mine anymore!" She flushed, and then went very pale – which for Abby was an achievement.

The pain in her voice cut at his heart, and part of him wanted to back off, but her words made him mad. It was his turn to react instead of think. "You – What do – you didn't want me to be yours, Abby. Remember?"

"I didn't… I don't…" She began to pace, tugging on one of her ponytails. "I'm not…"

McGee's patience was wearing thin. "You didn't, you don't, and you're not what?"

Abby stopped pacing and turned on him. "You can hurt me!" she half-yelled at him.

He stepped back as though she'd slapped him. "Abby, how could you think I would ever…"

Jethro had been watching them both intently from his couch, and now he let out a low whine. Abby sat back down and hugged him, laying her cheek against the top of his head. "I didn't say you would," she said quietly, her words muffled by the dog's fur. "I said you could."

He wanted to… yell, to walk out, to beg and plead, to hug her and tell her it would be all right.

But he didn't. Instead, he waited.

Eventually, she sighed. "I can't lose you."

"What makes you think you would lose me?" he asked, watching her carefully.

She shrugged. "We'd get bored."

He snorted. "Never."

"You'd want me to be normal."

"I wouldn't change a thing about you, even if I could."

"We'd fight."

"We fight all the time. You're still here. I'm still here." There was something in her face that kept him pushing, that kept a tiny spark of hope alive.

Abby sighed impatiently. "We'd have a really big fight. Or lots of them. One of us would go crazy over the way the other one breathes. You could die." There was a catch in the last words that stopped him in his tracks.

And then he got it.

Abby never did anything halfway. She was passionate about her job, her interests, her family, her friendships… everything. If she fell for him, if she let herself love him, it would be with her whole heart. And if something went wrong, she wasn't sure she could survive losing that.

McGee sat down on the couch, on the other side of the dog, and considered his next words. There could be no fumbling, no insecurity or hesitation, because this was his last shot. "Abby," he said at last. "I would rather fight with you than agree with anyone else. I know from experience what it's like to be completely exasperated with you, but I can't imagine ever being bored with you, or wanting to change you. I know for a fact that we will drive each other crazy, because we've been doing it for almost six years, but it's never stopped us caring about each other." He reached out and touched her face lightly, turned her head with a gentle finger on her chin until she was looking at him. "And whenever I die, you will be one of the last people I think about no matter what. I'd rather be thinking about how much I love you than regretting a bunch of missed opportunities."

He watched her blink, sooty black lashes resting on creamy pale skin for half a second, watched her throat move as she swallowed, watched her green eyes that never once flickered away from his.

Abby didn't say anything, or move towards him, or even move at all… but she wasn't moving away, either.

Slowly, he leaned over and kissed her, keeping it light, trying to gauge her reaction. She sat nearly motionless at first, and then gradually moved in, closer, finally giving the dog a gentle shove off the couch so that she could crawl into his lap. Giving him one final, firm kiss, she lay her head on his shoulder, keeping her arms tight around him. "I don't want you to go to dinner with her," she said eventually, her voice low.

He let out a deep breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, and kissed the top of her head. "Okay." They were quiet for a few moments. "Does that just apply to Jules? 'Cause there's this girl down in Dispatch who –"

Abby punched him in the shoulder. "Shut up, McGee," she said, but she was smiling. And then she was kissing him again.

"Hey Abs?" he said between kisses. "If you can give me a minute, I have to make a call and cancel some dinner plans."

Immediately she sat up and practically leapt to the other end of the couch. "Yes. You go do that. No more kissing until you do that." She gave him a stern look. "I have very, very firm rules about kissing men who are involved with other women."

"I'm not actually involved with –" She cut him off with a look, and McGee made a face and heaved himself to his feet. "You're right. Calling," he told her. He fished his cell phone out of his pocket while he crossed the room to grab the cordless hooked up to his landline. "Here," he said, handing her the phone. "You can order the pizza. Whatever you want on it."

"Right. Pineapple only on my half, I promise." Smiling, Abby caught hold of his shirt and pulled him towards her.

"Maybe one more kiss before you make that call."

FIN