A tiny little ficlet - kind of like an offering to the NCIS Gods. I have many hopes for the upcoming season...but more Abby and McGee is pretty high up on the list! Right now this is complete as stands, but if inspiration strikes I may add an Abby POV.


Eventually, he'd wake her up and send her back to her room.

Ever since L.A. – and especially since Mexico – he'd been deputized as her escort if she had to travel for a conference, presentation, lecture…if it was work-related and she was going more than three hours away, he went too. They'd stopped arguing with Gibbs about it, and instead started to kind of enjoy it.

They were supposed to be going over the notes for her presentation tomorrow, but he'd been watching some special on the History Channel when she came in, and as usual whenever she sat still for a minute and focused on the tv, she'd dozed off, curled against his chest. It always made him laugh – she burned through so much energy that the moment she relaxed, she was out. It was one of the stupid little things he knew about her that not many other people knew, which he loved. Like where all her tattoos were, and what she looked like with her hair down and no makeup, and that when she talked in her sleep, her voice had a tiny bit of the Louisiana drawl she must have lost years ago.

Eventually, he supposed, he'd find some other girl with her own quirks and secrets and odd little habits, and he'd learn all of those, and love them, and love her.

Except (and this was the part he tried not to think too hard about) there was this sort of bone-deep feeling of contentment that came from being with Abby that he'd never found with anyone else.

Abby sighed in her sleep and tightened her arm around him, muttering something he didn't catch about Major Mass Spec. He really should send her back to her own room.

He would. Eventually.

FIN