I let her brush past me, using the time spent closing the door to rack my brain. I came up blank. I couldn't think of anything I'd screwed up or forgotten lately- at least not anything that would bring Abby over here at 4am to yell at me. I turned to look at her. She was pacing the length of my small lounge room, obviously thinking about whatever it was that was apparently my fault. This was one of the things I loved about Abby- how passionate she was. True, I'd rather that the passion wasn't anger directed at me, but I loved her in any mood. She was drenched and starting to shiver, though she didn't seem to be aware of it. Wordlessly, I went to the closet and got a towel, handing it to her. I knew from experience that Abby would talk when she was ready. The pacing was her way of organising her thoughts; if I interrupted her now she'd just get angrier. So I went into my room, searching through my drawers for some dry clothes that she wouldn't swim in. I was worried; I wanted to know what had upset her this badly. I put the dry sweats on top of the hamper in the bathroom. Once she wasn't in danger of freezing to death, I'd try to get her to tell me what was going on. She was still pacing when I returned to the lounge room. Eventually she started to calm down, her movements slowing. She looked at the towel she still held like she'd never seen it before, wrapping it around her shoulders and shivering.

"I put some dry clothes in the bathroom for you" I told her. I got a half smile in return, the last of the anger dying out of her eyes to be replaced by something I couldn't quite define.

"Timmy-"

My heart leapt a little at her calling me Timmy, the way it always did. When she was annoyed or focused on whatever case we were working on, she always called me McGee. I was used to it; my given name rarely got used by anyone I worked with. Calling me Tim or Timmy was gentler somehow.

"Go on, get comfortable. Then we'll talk."

...

Restless, I wandered aimlessly around the apartment while she was showering. What had made her come over here in the middle of the night? Had something gone wrong with her date? I instantly dismissed that thought; if something had, she wouldn't be blaming me for it. The bathroom door clicked and swung open. She looked small in the too-big sweats, and totally different to her normal self. She settled down on the couch with a sigh.

"Abs, what's wrong?" I asked, unable to wait any longer. I didn't want to push her, but I was apparently the reason she was upset, and I needed to know why.

When she didn't respond, I reminded her "You came all the way over here at 4 am and yelled at me, Abby. What's wrong?"

With another sigh, she began "After we broke up, I started dating other guys." I grimaced; I didn't need the reminder. The jealousy I always felt when she was interested in another guy surfaced; I tried my best to control it, but I'd never had much luck hiding that particular aspect of my feelings for Abby. Luckily she didn't see the face I made. She continued "But it never really felt-right, I guess. I didn't really click with any of them. I mean, we'd have fun for a while and then it just wouldn't work. I'd get bored, or there'd be something hinky about them like Mikel, and I'd end it." The mention of her crazy stalker ex- boyfriend always made me angry, I couldn't help it. He'd put her in so much danger. She saw it in my expression and gave me an odd little half smile, one I couldn't interpret. This conversation was getting a little strange, too. I could sort of understand why she was upset, but I couldn't figure out why it had led to her standing on my doorstep in the pouring rain. And I didn't really want to hear about her dating problems; I remembered how it felt to be the one she ended it with, and it still hurt 6 years later. "I started thinking that maybe it wasn't the guys I'd been dating, maybe there was something wrong with me."

"No." I cut her off. She wasn't perfect, no one was, but there damn well wasn't anything wrong with her, and I didn't want her thinking that there was. "Don't even think that, Abby."

She gave me another one of her enigmatic half smiles at my interruption, then looked down again "And then there was my date tonight." She looked up at me, and the glint of anger was back in her eyes. I didn't understand why, but I knew we were getting to the reason she was here; suddenly it occurred to me that I should stop her, prevent her from saying whatever it was she was here to say. She was a lot closer to sober than she'd been when she woke me, but she'd still been drinking. I should let her sleep on it. But something held me back from doing so.

"I really liked this guy, Tim. He's a field agent with the FBI, really into computers, minored in forensics..." She got up and started pacing again. "The whole time we were at dinner everything seemed really familiar... I kept half expecting him to call me Abs, and I couldn't figure out why." She stopped in front of me. "Then it hit me. He reminds me of you."

A/N: Ok, I know I said this would probably be a two shot. I could have finished it in this chapter, but it lost something along the way. One more chapter, tops. F.