AN: Thanks to Kyrie and Choosing_sarah for betaing this chapter.

Chapter 3

Abby busied herself starting up all her babies as her thoughts drifted to her discussion with Tim yesterday. At first, she'd been surprised that he asked for some time before answering her, but the more she'd thought about it, the more she understood why he might not want to answer right away. As many times as they'd been together before — as much as they had shared a brain, a bed, her coffin, his dog — this was different. They had managed to split up once before, but it had hurt Timmy and hurt her some too. She could never see him with somebody else without that spike of jealousy that somebody else was with her Timmy. And he was the same with her, all pouty-big-lips and sad-eyed-puppy when she mentioned Marty or any other guy. That was one reason they had stopped sleeping together after a while — she knew he didn't generally have sex unless he was serious about a woman, and she just wasn't ready for his kind of serious before.

She couldn't imagine spending the rest of her life with anybody else, because who else got what she did and all the contradictions in her personality? Who liked computer games and science and her quirkiness without thinking the chains and leather meant she was into serious kink and only kink in bed? Not that she didn't enjoy some hinkiness, but she wasn't exactly hardcore BDSM either, clothes notwithstanding. Some days she thought her team members were the only ones who really got that about her.

Timmy loved her, leather, chains and all. He didn't mind that she worked crazy hours because his were just as crazy. He was great with kids, but wouldn't make her tone down who she was if they had them. Their kids would have the craziest wardrobe between MIT/geek T-shirts and her Goth shirts that would give their teachers fits, not to mention whatever Tony would dream up to give his godchildren and drive his honorary little sister and his Probie nuts, but it would be the perfect mix of them and their quirky, crazy team/family. She didn't know exactly when she had started thinking thoughts she'd never known she'd have, when family and kids became as important as nights out and partying at cemeteries, but they did, and they had, and when she pictured her life like that, Tim was the only one she could see in the picture with her.

And then she looked up, and he was standing there, his face tired and his short hair rumpled.

"Timmy?" she looked at her watch. "It's only 0700. Did you guys catch a case last night? You look like you haven't slept."

He handed her a Caf-Pow, sipped his own coffee and rubbed his eyes with his now-free hand. "No case. Just couldn't sleep. I figured I'd come in and see if the combination of coffee and Abby-energy could wake me up before Gibbs shows up."

Abby put her drink down and pulled him in for a hug, careful not to get his coffee between them. "Abby energy, huh? Is that something I should be bottling for you guys to keep around for all-nighters?" He snorted, and she could feel him smile against her shoulder. She loved that, even in her platforms, he still had a couple inches on her. "Do you want to lay down on my futon for a while? I can wake you before you have to be upstairs."

He shook his head, then pulled back. "No, Abs, I think I'm good. Although if we spend all day on paperwork, I might take you up on that."

"So what kept you up all night?" she asked. A thought flitted through her mind: "You could have called me, and I would have come over, used my Abby magic to put you to sleep."

He squeezed his eyes shut. "Not helping, Abs. Thinking about that particular Abby-magic is part of why I couldn't sleep."

"Really?" she said, winking at him. "Do tell."

"Not like that, Abs," he said, a faint smile crossing his face. "But why now? It's been years. What changed?"

She stood up and looped a finger through one of his front belt loops. "Come on. Let's go in my office if we're going to have this discussion." She led him in and grabbed a chair from next to the evidence table for him, then settled behind her desk.

"I think everything changed," she said, trying to figure out how to explain it. "You're all bad-ass field agent, and then you can turn around and bend the rules to give a little boy his Christmas wish. You don't stutter anymore, even when you're offering yourself to a drug cartel leader with a grudge to save my life. When Tony gives you grief, you give it right back. It's not just you, either. I still like going out and partying in a cemetery, but I'm just as happy to stay in and play video games with you and Jethro or watch movies with Tony or Ziva." She sighed and looked at Tim, sitting there straddling the chair, his arms crossed on its back, chin resting on his hands.

"Ziva and I were talking a while back, after Layla and Amira visited. Do you know, for the first time she's starting to feel like she can actually consider settling down, now that she's not subject to her father's assignments? She said when she was sitting in Bossman's living room playing with Amira, she could picture herself doing the same one day with her own children. It just — I don't know — got me thinking. I mean, not that I'm old or anything, but I'm the same age as Tony. I know you all think of me as the baby sister in our quirky little family, but I'm 10 years older than Ziva, almost that much older than you and Jimmy. I always kind of pushed it aside, figured I had all the time in the world. Because I've never been one of those people who says I'll never have kids, but like my friend Carol, Fisher's aunt? She doesn't have kids, she's just the really cool aunt they like to spend time with. And I always figured if that was the way my life worked out, I'd be fine with that because I didn't know if I could handle anything more. I mean, I go to pieces when you guys get hurt."

Tim opened his mouth to say something, but she reached over and put a finger there to keep him quiet.

"The whole time you were in Somalia, I don't think I slept because all I could think was that Ziva had gone there and gotten dead and the same thing would happen to you even though Gibbs was with you, and Bossman can stop speeding bullets with his glare. He kept you safe in LA — I told him he had to because the last time we'd sent agents to LA, not everybody came back alive, and I can't lose you guys. And then, in Mexico, you offered yourself up for me, and I was mad at you because what if she had taken you and you'd died? I know you could die any time you go out in the field, and it scares me like polyester suits scare me. And we've almost lost Tony and Gibbs, and we thought we'd lost Ziva, and it didn't hurt half as bad as thinking I could have lost you." She tried to keep her voice, even, but she could feel it wobble a little and any hope she had that he hadn't noticed disappeared when his eyes widened and he reached over to rub her shoulder.

"So I picked a fight with you because if I was mad at you, I wouldn't worry, like you picked a fight with me over the typewriter when my crazy stalker ex was after me so you wouldn't worry about how close he came to getting me then." She was rewarded with one of his smiles that always warmed her heart, the ones that were so him, so happy.

"In hindsight, that probably wasn't the best time to try and make a move," he said. "Although some of it was leftover adrenaline gone hinky. I think I might have been channeling Tony giving me grief after things go bad in the field." For no reason she could see, he winced.

"You two have been teammates for years, Timmy. No wonder he's rubbed off on you. Until you start quoting movies and he starts hacking government agencies, I wouldn't worry about it." She smiled, appreciating the break in the tension, but then forced herself to get serious again. "And after we got through saving everybody from the crazy drug cartel and Bossman from his past, I couldn't stop thinking about it, and I realized that even though we aren't together, losing you would rip my heart out, and if that's the main reason I was afraid of getting serious, then it was stupid of me to have pushed you away for the last five years because if my heart's getting ripped out if something happens to you when we're not together, then why am I trying to protect myself from getting hurt by not letting myself see if you want the same thing I do?"

She stopped and took a big sip of Caf-Pow. Timmy was just sitting there, looking at her with those wide green eyes that had hooked her heart from the first time they met. "Timmy?"

He sighed. "So that's what it was. I always wondered why you didn't want to get serious." He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed again. "Abs, why didn't you ever just tell me this? If I'd known..."

Suddenly uncertain, Abby bit her lower lip. "If you'd known what?" She felt a sinking in her stomach. "I ruined it, didn't I? You were just kidding in Mexico, and you really do just think of me like a little sister, and now it's going to be all weird and awkward, and it's my fault."

Tim got up and crouched next to her chair. "No, Abs. You didn't ruin it." He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and kissed her like he had on Christmas Eve, sweet and gentle, the kiss of a friend. "Your timing was just a little..."

"Hinky?"

"Yeah, I guess," he said. "It's kind of complicated."

"This have anything to do with why you look as tired as you did when you were taking care of Gibbs while his shoulder was healing?"

She felt him nod against her shoulder.

"Is there somebody else?"

Again, she felt rather than saw his shrug. "I don't know, Abs. That's kind of what I was wrestling with when you asked me. And I'm not going to tell you about it."

"Conflict of interest," she said, her heart sinking a bit. "You can't have me contaminating the evidence."

His body shook as he laughed. "Yeah, something like that. Just... too many things going on at once."

She swallowed past the lump in her throat. "Well whoever he or she is, if you start something with them, they'd better treat you right. No stealing your identity or trying to assassinate you or anything like that."

"I promise, Abs, that's not an issue," he said.

"And Tim? Don't go thinking you're not good enough for them, like you did with Jules. Anybody would be lucky to have you."

He pulled away and turned to face her. "Do you know what I've always loved about you, Abby?"

She shook her head.

"You always want what's best for your friends, even when you hate whatever it is. It's that huge heart of yours that I can't help but love." He sighed. "Listen, Gibbs will be looking for me soon. I promise I'll get back to you tomorrow about us. I just need... time."

Abby nodded, not sure she could speak. "I made you wait five years, Tim. I can wait a couple of days."

He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "Thanks, Abs."

As he left the lab, Abby stood and cranked her music up. Some pounding Android Lust would keep her from kicking herself while she waited to see if she'd made what had to be the dumbest mistake of her life — and with her track record, that made it pretty bad.