Set during episode 7.2, Reunion.

McGee's French fry stopped halfway to his mouth. "You said what?"

"Come on," said Abby. "I told you I was gonna tell her."

He shrugged. "Well, yeah, I just wasn't sure you were serious. I mean, I was sure you were serious, it's just that.... Wow, Abby." She rolled her shoulders in a half-defensive, half-apologetic motion. "The woman just came back from North Africa. Who knows what she's been through?"

"How can anybody know when she won't even talk to us?" Abby protested.

"We need to give her some time."

"No, McGee," she snapped. "The more time you give somebody, the harder it is to talk."

He chewed a bite of sandwich meditatively. "Think so?"

"I've had enough awkward conversations hanging over my head to know so."

He frowned. "But...you usually initiate the awkward conversations."

"Not the really awkward ones, just the surface awkward ones."

"You mean sometimes you keep running on and on to avoid anything that really matters?"

"I don't wanna talk about it." Her eyes widened. "See?"

He shook his head. "Strangely, yes, I do."

"That's what I like about you, McGee," she said. "No explanations required."

"If I required them, would I...."

"Nope," she said.

"Which is why I don't."

She stared at him suspiciously. "Circular logic aside, McGee, this is serious."

He paused before answering to give his brain time to recall what they had been talking about. It didn't take long. He'd had lots of practice.

"She'll probably come around," he said. "She's just...."

"Just scared," said Abby. "Just terrified that nobody will ever see her the same way again."

"Because of what happened in Africa?"

"Because of how she left," Abby said. She stuffed a bite of salad into her mouth and talked around it. "For real, Timmy, sometimes you're so clueless about women it's distressing."

Nudging another French fry into his ketchup suddenly absorbed all of McGee's concentration. "Ouch," he said lightly.

Abby winced. "You're right. Too harsh. Sorry."

"It's okay."

"No, it's not," she insisted. "It's the kind of stupid thing someone says that leads to another stupid thing and another stupid thing and then you're flying across the Atlantic without talking to anybody, and that flight takes hours."

McGee tried to picture Abby spending hours sitting in somber silence on a plane, even one filled with complete strangers. The image was so incongruous that he laughed out loud. Abby glared at him.

"You couldn't do it," he said by way of explanation.

"Oh, couldn't I?" she said, and she had that irritated-determined look in her eye he'd long since learned was trouble.

"I didn't mean...."

Abby took another bite of salad and chewed it in silence, her stare boring into McGee.

He thought of trying to explain that what he meant was that even though she was the most effusively emotional person he had ever met, she was also the most resilient; that he didn't think anything, even months of torture, could break her; that her run-on babbling spurts had cleared the clouds from many of his days; that he didn't want her to change...well, except maybe for one thing. But that was one of those awkward conversations they'd talked about, and a lot of time had accumulated.

He settled into the stare instead, and when he saw her eyes start to water he blinked quickly, and she crowed in triumph and immediately clapped her hands over her mouth. His eyes shone with suppressed laughter.

"That's not fair," she said. "I can't ever silent-treatment you for long."

You can't ever do it to anybody, Abby, he thought, but he said, "I like it that way."

She smiled and stole one of his fries. "You gotta help me get those two talking again. I know Ziva doesn't really hate Tony."

"Which is probably why she's having such a hard time talking to him right now," McGee acknowledged. "Gibbs, too. She'll come around, Abs, she just needs time to realize that even making big mistakes can't stop your real friends from caring about you. We don't need to throw logical arguments at her, we just have to make sure she knows we're still here for her."

She sat back, nodding. "You're not that clueless about women after all, Tim. Have a crouton."

"Thank you," he said.

"I don't like croutons anyway," she said.

But he was pretty sure she knew his thanks wasn't for that.