Abby was packing up later that night, around midnight or so, to head out of the lab, but she didn't feel like going home just yet. Removing her lab coat and hanging it up, she thought of all the bars and clubs near her apartment that she could go to for a bit. She had to choose one of the close ones so she'd be able to head home just in time to still get to sleep around 2 A.M. Ever since college, Abby only needed about three hours of sleep and she had to be up for work around five or six in the morning so leaving work at midnight still gave her a couple of hours to wind down before bed.

After hanging up her lab coat, she went to the mirror she had up on her office wall, reaching up to her hair, about to pull her pigtails down when she heard a voice.

"Doesn't that hurt?"

Abby let her hands fall to her sides again, her pigtails still up, as she turned to look at Tony leaning against her office doorway with his hands in his pockets. "Does what hurt?" She asked him.

"Your hair being so….tight everyday?" Tony pushed himself off the frame of the door and stepped more into her office, grabbing a ball made of colorful rubber bands off of her desk to fiddle with it in his hands.

"No. I've gotten used to it." Abby responded, almost forgetting that she wasn't supposed to be speaking to him at the moment because she was still upset with him. "Though I will admit that taking my hair down at the end of the day is really the best feeling in the world."

"The best feeling in the world? Really?" Tony asked, not believing it.

"Yeah." Abby answered, trying to stay mad at him again and she tried to take her rubber band ball from his hand but he quickly switched it to his other one behind his back so she couldn't reach it.

"Sex….Sex is the best feeling in the world." Tony argued, continuing to play Keep Away with her and the rubber band ball, moving it away from her whenever she tried to take it and holding it high up in the air like he would to tease any other woman. But Tony had forgotten that Abby was not just any typical woman. She was Abby. And quite tall, even without her platform heels.

She was able to rip the ball out of Tony's hand and set it back down on her desk as if still outrageously angry with him though for some reason, she had felt that she had already started to forgive him and she hated that. After setting the ball back onto the desk, she folded her arms over her chest like a stubborn child in timeout.

"Ah. Still mad at me, I see." Tony said though he had a smile on his face.

"Yes, I am mad at you. You made poor McGee get a tattoo on his hiney."

"I did no such thing, Abby. I merely told him that unless he had THE URGE to get a tattoo on his ass then he might not exactly be your type." Tony defended himself.

"And what exactly does Anthony Dinozzo think my type is, hm?" Abby asked him, moving her hands from across her chest down to rest on her hips now.

"I don't know. Scary- looking goth…guys." Tony slowed down after the word 'scary,' already realizing he had made a terrible choice in words once Abby's eyes turned into daggers piercing through his soul.

"You think I'm scary, Tony?" She asked like an offended high school girl.

"No, no. Not scary. Just…"

"Then why are you backing away from me?" Abby asked him as she took slow steps towards the Italian man.

"I-I….didn't know that I was." Tony chuckled uncomfortably just as the back of his thighs hit Abby's desk behind him. He snuck around just before she reached him so he wouldn't get trapped between her and her desk and he exited her office to step into her lab. "I didn't mean scary. I just meant that I thought your type would be more like guys who are into hard metal and stuff like that." He continued to try and redeem himself, hoping his big mouth was not digging himself an even deeper hole than before.

"What makes you think McGee isn't into hard metal?" Abby asked him as she stepped out into her lab as well.

"Come on, Abby." Tony turned to face her with an expression that said 'really?'

"That's beside the point, Tony. Whether he's my type or not….a girl still likes to be asked out. It makes us feel special. Makes us feel pretty. And you discouraging guys to ask one out just because you THINK we might say no could be you ruining someone's chance of making a girl's day a whole lot better."

"I, uh….guess I never thought of it that way before. Sorry, Abs." Tony said, genuinely meaning it as he apologized.

"It's okay." She said in a stubborn voice as if still trying to act upset, though she wasn't anymore.

"How did your lunch date go?" He asked her, remembering that McGee did mention them having one the other day, assuming that's where Abby had heard about Tony's discouragement in the ask out.

"It was fine." She answered, going around to start turning off all of her machines in the lab before heading out.

"Just fine?"

"Yes…the date was spoiled when he told me that you said that…Ruined the whole mood."

"Gosh, I didn't realize I had that much power." Tony half joked.

"This isn't funny, Dinozzo." Abby turned to look at him after turning off the Mass-spectrometer.

"Alright, I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He apologized again, having a split second of self-hatred. He had seconds like that daily. Mostly whenever he'd say something really dumb or offensive and he'd notice the reactions of the people around him. In those seconds right after he'd open his big mouth, Tony would hate himself. Just for a second as he'd think to himself that he really needs to learn how to shut up, but he's never mastered that skill. "Did you drive to work today?" Tony asked her to try and change the subject.

"No. I took the bus. My car's in the shop again, getting a new radiator." She replied.

"Let me give you a ride home. You shouldn't be on the bus this late at night." Tony offered.

"It's alright. I wasn't gonna go home anyway." She answered, grabbing her black, lacey parasol from the corner of the room and shutting her lab and office lights off.

"Where are you headed?"

"The Blaze. It's a club on my block." She shrugged, walking toward the elevator as Tony followed.

"I'll drive you there." He insisted.