This is the longest continuous writing marathon I've been on lately - usually I'm either tweaking a really short fic over a day or so, or working on a longer one in fits and starts over a few months. It's kind of exhausting...but fun, too! And it's taking my mind off my cold. :-) Thanks for all of your comments! Seven parts down...four to go...


She loved him.

She had to love him, because if anyone else had stepped off that elevator with more bruises than she could count and a splint on his finger and gauze on his head that probably hid a Frankenstein-like set of stitches, she would have been instantly compassionate and concerned.

Instead, she was furious.

It was all his fault: the fear, the tears – and Abby hated people who made her cry –the lost sleep and the ulcer she was pretty sure she was developing, and the fact that she was going to have to listen to him whine about how the scar made his hair grow back funny. For about thirty seconds, she was so mad at him that she wanted to go back down to her lab and leave him to take care of himself.

Nobody else could make her that mad…because nobody else could scare her that badly. Because she didn't love anyone else nearly that much. And suddenly, she wasn't mad anymore, because he was alive, and he would heal, and she was wasting valuable time being mad about this when she should be getting him well and convincing him that she loved him, and that he loved her, so that he would give her plenty more chances to be furious with him over things that didn't matter nearly as much.

So she took him home, and left him lying on the couch with strict instructions not to move unless absolutely necessary while she took the dog for a walk and filled his prescriptions. And worried about how pale and exhausted he'd looked lying there. Not even miserable; it was like he didn't have enough left in him to be miserable. Just…empty. Drained. He wasn't broken, at least not beyond repair. She knew McGee, and he was too tough for that. Just…bent a little. Possibly slightly cracked. But fixable.

He was hers now. She'd give him whatever he needed, do whatever she could to help him heal, because he was hers.