Tim was really worried. He didn't like where this was going. His sister was not a partier and most importantly she was not a drinker. If she was an alcoholic he'd kiss DiNozzo right on the mouth. His stomach flipped at the thought and he shook the notion right out of his delusional head. He had been a little worried about alcohol when she went to college because he knew how convincing people could be and how casual and fun Sarah liked to keep things. It wasn't that he didn't trust her, it was just that her high school years had been so tame, and no one in the family really drank, so she went to college without a real look at all the aspects of alcohol. He shook his head in frustration at himself. Sarah smiled.

"Tim it really is late and I don't want to bore you with…" he cut her off with a stern look.

"Sarah your life is of great interest to me. Your pain is of the utmost importance. I don't want to see you hurting anymore. I'm just confused. I just want so many answers and I don't want to force you into anything you are not ready to talk about, I just want…I just…"

"I know Tim. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be so mysterious, I just didn't talk about any of this anger I was feeling for so long, and then I just let it engulf me. It was overwhelming and I was just too tired to fight it."

"What engulfed you?"

"My anger at my friends and myself."

"Why?" He asked the last question cautiously. He knew he was starting to interrogate her but she needed the prodding and he wanted the answers. Sarah looked at him through the strands of the hair that had fallen into her tired eyes.

"I look pretty terrible, don't I?" He blinked. That was not what he had asked.

"You look fine."

"Such a boy. Do I really look fine?" She moved the hair from her eyes and he took the time to really look at her. He noticed the bags under her eyes and the way her clothes seemed to hang off of her. She looked tired and worn; not the look one would expect from a young twenty two year old girl. He leaned over and gave her big hug and she greatly accepted his warmth and comfort. He felt tears on the front of his shirt and sighed heavily as he stroked her back and whispered comforting words to her. She started talking again as he shifted her to lean her head on his shoulder while he leaned on the arm of the couch. Like it or not he was not in college anymore.

"I was angry at my friends because the good ones kept leaving. Miranda left and then P.J. left mysteriously. I had tried so hard to find them and I just couldn't seem to get the right information down. Guess I won't cut it as an investigator, huh?" she started through her more quieted tears.

"You just have to ask the right questions. It takes time," he answered quietly.

"I was also angry at other people that I called my friends because they just kept enabling me to do the things that I knew I didn't want to be doing. I was furious at myself because I kept letting it happen." He pulled her closer and she hugged him back.

"Basically, I just turned into a nasty person Tim. I was an alcoholic not too far into the semester. I went from being a drinker to a full blown alcoholic. I needed it and I wanted the drunkenness, the numbness every single minute of every, useless fucking day. I turned into a needy, pathetic person that fed off of people. I used myself to get what I wanted, used people like candy to fill my desires. I wanted to party I called these people, I wanted to drink I called those people, I wanted to feel like a woman I called that person, and most importantly, when I wanted to not be alone, I called Abby." Tim held his breath. Surely, Abby would not have let her continue down this path if she'd know what Sarah had been doing. Abby was passive but not when it came to real situations with people's feelings; if he remembered correctly, she was nosy and borderline neurotic when it came to fixing people. Sarah must have felt him tense because she continued confessing quickly.

"Abby was the only person I could talk to who did not judge me or want anything from me. She knew something was wrong when I would come and visit her or when she would visit me, but she never made me talk. She just waited for me to come to her and I used her. God Tim, I hurt that poor woman so much. I pulled and needed and ripped things from her until I broke her." She moved away from him and got off of the couch and started pacing.

"She didn't know what I was doing for a long time. You have to know that," she looked at him in the eyes until he nodded at her to continue. Who was this girl pacing nervously in front of him? How did he become her priest?

"She just talked to me, like I said. She would come to me whenever I called and I abused that. Sometimes I would call her at 1 or 2, sometimes 3 in the morning and she would just come over and we would sit. We might sit idly or chat about nothing. She always left in time to go to work; always with a reassuring smile on her face and with a big hug. Copious hugs and kisses." She smiled here and stopped her pacing. McGee was thinking back to the argument he'd had with her earlier that evening. "Abs why is my kid sister calling you at all these weird hours?' 'Hey Abby, why do you keep coming into work looking like shit?'" Swirled around his head battering him at will. Sarah began pacing again.

"One night I called her and I think she was going to say no. So I told her that if she didn't come I was going to drink until she got there. It was right after I'd told her that I tended to drink a lot. She showed up at my door in record time." She looked ashamed, he-astonished. He would have never pegged his sister for a manipulator and here she was, explaining how he had tricked his girlfriend into making a fast one hour drive to and from his sister for weeks.

"One day I dropped in on her at work." McGee looked up sharply. "I waited till you were out on something and I came in and begged her to help me. She dropped everything that day and did what I wanted." He looked at her questioningly. He couldn't believe that she had been right there and he didn't know and that she hadn't wanted his to know.

"You can ask her about that. I don't have the courage right now. I just want you to know these things Tim, because I want you to understand that anything that she may have done or said during the whole fucking month of November was not her talking. It was some zombie I created and left for everyone else to deal with while I kept her for myself." Sometimes he forgot that she was getting a degree in journalism. She had always had a way with words.

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Hey guys, this is a really short chapter. I just wanted to post something so no one would think I had abandoned this story. I'm re-writing it, just about the whole thing. I didn't like where it was going and it was getting very long and BORING! So, I is tweaking it. I'll get it finished ASAP, as long as school and work don't kill me!