A/N: Oh lovely day! An update! This chap is slightly more on the angsty side, and please forgive me if it feels redundant, I wanted to show the seriousness of the situation so let me know how you think I did. The next chap will be a little bit more of the banter and whatnot that everybody (including me) loves. Verdad-y-Vida glad you liked! Haha, it just seems like a Tony think to do/say. twomomsyour wish is my command. lol. Enjoy! -pj

Tony had allowed Abby to 'hack' their systems at NCIS so he could run backgrounds nd bank records on the main suspects of their investigations, and then shooed her, in the most polite and Tony manner, to the bathroom to change and for a shower.

Abby couldn't help the slightly maniac delight she got by being given carte blanche to sift through Tony's clothes. There were many NCIS t-shirts and several from his college, but she couldn't really see herself wearing any of those. She rummaged a little bit more and found a blue tee with white writing that suited her just fine.

Federal Agents do it in the Field. She grinned and shook her head, pulling the soft, well worn fabric over her head. She couldn't think of where Tony would have gotten such a shirt, but it didn't surprise her one bit that he had.

For the bottoms she knew enough about Men's organization to know to go to the bottom drawers, mostly she found jeans and khakis there and a select few sets of cargos, all folded neatly by the maid no doubt, but amongst them, at the bottom of the heap, she happened upon a pair of grey sweatpants that, when she rolled them up at the ankles and tightened the drawstring considerably, just barely fit her.

She admired her…eclectic look in the mirror for a moment before starting down the hall, trying to comb her hair, still wet from her shower, into some semblance of order in a low ponytail.

"Hey Tony I-" she began, but stopped short at the sound of snores coming from the couch. She turned to look and, sure enough, Tony's head was flopped back against the back of the couch, his mouth wide open in slumber.

She smiled softly, "oh Tony," she said to herself and, after some finagling, was able to work him down into a more comfortable position across the couch, complete with a pillow and blanket from his bedroom. She allowed a small frown to cross her face upon feeling the warmth of his skin, even through his clothes. But, when she was unable to locate a thermometer in the medicine cabinet (which was also almost completely lacking anything even remotely resembling 'medicine') settled for providing him with a box of kleenex from the bedside table and a glass of water.

Feeling warm and fuzzy and positively maternal, she ran off to the kitchen to see if she could find some chicken soup or the like, and frowned again when she found most of the kitchen cabinets to be in the same condition as the medicine cabinet. Only the door beside the sink had a meager contents of three plain white dinner plates, all chipped, a half dozen shot glasses from different places, some she recognized, some she didn't, and four drinking glasses with hard water stains. She also came across some plastic cereal bowls and a kid's sippy cup (she'd have to ask him about that later).

Field trip to the JCPenny home store for you and me asap, DiNozzo, she thought, pulling out one of the cereal bowls and a pot from the drawer under the oven. She lit the gas stove with the matches she found in the silverware drawer, and started cooking the soup. Her ears perked up to the sound of coughing coming from the next room and she froze, listening intently. When it didn't immediately stop, her entire body tensed before she flew from the room.

Tony awoke, not really remembering having fallen asleep, and to the realization that he couldn't breathe. Along with that came awareness of coughing from somewhere nearby and, by the time he could open his eyes, he knew the two were related. He clutched his chest in a desperate attempt to get a hold of oxygen and squeezed his eyes shut against the spots that kept dancing in front of them.

"Easy Tony, easy," he thought he heard a voice say, but his head was pounding and his eyes were watering too much for him to make sense of it. He felt the sweetness of air tickle the insides of his lungs breifly, but it was too short and too distant. Not nearly enough to satisfy the over-powering craving he suddenly had for it. Cold sweat trickled across his brow and down his back but the only sensation he really understood in that moment was his need for oxygen and the fact that there just wasn't enough.

That and someone shouting in his ear.

The sharpness of the voice startled him and he gasped, sitting up, too quickly, while trying to get bearings on his surroundings. It almost started his coughing fit all over again and set him partially off balance. His eyes couldn't focus and his head was spinning, but when he felt hands reach out to steady him he flinched back, still unsure as to whether or not he was in danger. Why was it that he couldn't breathe? Did it have anything to do with the shouting voice? Was Gibbs there? Was he hurt too?

"Tony! Tony can you hear me?" Abby didn't mean to yell, but he'd not even acknowledged her since he'd woken. Not that she expected him to recite a soliloquy, but the wet, urgent coughs had died down and he hadn't even glanced at her, or fed her his 'I'm fine' routine. It was like he didn't realize she was there. Her eyes widened when he flinched away from her touch and she jumped back in response, "Tony?" she squeaked.

After a few agonizing minutes he turned to look at her and their green eyes locked. Abby had her legs pulled up to her chest as she sat beside him on the couch, biting her lip relentlessly.

"Tony?" she said again, her voice still too high and soft to sound right. Finally, his eyes cleared and he blinked hard to clear the haze.

"Abbs," He said, his voice gruff and he rubbed at his face.

She took a shaky breath and scooted closer to him, "Tony," she paused and waited until he looked at her again, "what was that?" She'd never seen Tony look like that before. Like he didn't know her. Didn't know himself.

He gave a small shrug and looked away again, "Nothing Abbs," no need for Abby to know that for a split second he couldn't tell if he was on his couch or lying in a pool of blood and urine on a cement floor in the warehouse district, "déjà vu or something." Yeah. He could call it that.

"Déjà vu is when you think you've done something before," she said quietly, still wrapped around herself and still watching him like a hawk.

"Well," he said, sounding even more tired than before and pushing haunting images out of his head, "this feels familiar." He closed his eyes and then whipped them open again. He could've sworn the lights flickered blue in his living room.

"For me too," she said softly, pushing back memories of Tony's time in the hospital during the whole fiasco with the plague. They were weeks she did not like to swell on, though it seemed fate was bent on their repeating them.

They were enveloped in the silence of the snowstorm outside for a moment, and it was in that moment of silence that the coughs Tony had suppressed earlier suddenly broke forth, he moaned at the pressure it put against his temple and eyes. And groped for the glass of water on the coffee table to soothe his raw throat. Abby reached out and grabbed his hand.

"Tony, we've gotta call Dr. Pitt."

"No," Tony gasped around his swallow, "It'll be okay."

"Tony you can hardly breathe," she snapped, though the sharpness of her words were set off by the worry that overflowed in them, "please."

"Abby if I go into the hospital again Vance'll have me on desk duty until," he coughed and screwed his eyes shut until he could speak normally again, "until I need a walker to get around the squad room."

"I don't care," she said flatly. He turned to look down at her, Abby was now wrapped around his right arm, "it'd be better than having to attend your funeral."

Tony honestly wished he had a comeback to that. And maybe if Abby had looked angry instead of scared, he would have. Instead he turned away, absently rubbing his aching chest as he glanced at the television.

"Well, either way, doesn't look like we're going anywhere in this mess."

Abby turned to follow his gaze to the TV just in time to see the news flash a picture of an ambulance that had slid off the road into a ditch, it lights still flashing.

TBC