She found her pajamas and changed in the bathroom. Her makeup stained the crisp white washcloths, streaking it with black eyeliner and mascara. She looked like hell and felt worse. Yeah, she was pale, but her face was two shades lighter than the bright white of her satiny pajamas. Maybe she was finally disappearing. She had tried before and failed. Ironic that it would happen now, now when most days she had it all together, days when she wanted to be seen. So far from the kid who hid in the swamps with Exacto knives, seeing just how much pressure it would take to break the skin. She unfastened the vinyl cuffs at her wrists, laying them on the edge of the vanity, and looked at her arms. The scars were still there, fading as some scars do, the worst of them hidden under layers of black ink.

There was only so much of the world a girl could let in. Only so many stories, so many tears, so many secrets she could hold before she started to feel the undertow. She was better at swimming now, and she knew her way to many shores, safe ports to ride out the worst of the storms. What Abby knew now was that no matter how bad she thought it was, there was always something worse, and she had a choice to give into it or fight. Most days, she fought back with silly grins and bad puns, reveling in irreverence.

A knock on the door broke her train of thought and she pulled herself out of the mirror. "Hang on."

"Hey," a bleary eyed and still fully clothed Tony smiled sleepily as she opened the door. Again, she thought that he was such a little boy trapped in a man's body. All he needed was the footie pajamas. "Didn't think you were coming back."

"I could say the same for you. I saw you leave with the Christie Brinkley look alike," Abby forced herself to sound chipper, immediately knowing that she'd fallen short of the mark. She wanted to just fall into bed, fall into his arms, and sleep without dreaming. She wanted to wake up as herself. That's all. She started to edge past Tony but he stopped her. "What, DiNozzo?"

"Nothing," he shook his head and closed the bathroom door. She shrugged it off, and stood at the foot of his bed. She might regret it later, but right now, she needed it. He wouldn't say no. She knew that from other nights, and if she was lucky, she wouldn't have to explain. So, she pulled back the paisley polyester comforter and the top sheet and crawled into his bed. She was vaguely aware of him coming back and she curved around him, resting her head on his bare shoulder. She thought he said something that sounded like "sweet dreams" and he might have kissed the top of her head, but she was too far down to really be sure.

Tony dreamed of black and white movie sets, classic lines rolled off his tongue, and in every plot, he got the girl. He starred with all the greats, Ingrid Bergman, Sophia Loren, Greta Garbo. Final frames played in his head over and over, lingering kisses and the taste of oranges on his tongue. He didn't want to leave them, but he recognized the signs of waking up as it got harder and harder to keep his feet moving on cobble stone streets and the edges of buildings grew fuzzy.

There was a familiar weight across his body, holding him to the bed, one arm across his back and the distinct soft curve of a breast against his side. Abby, who also had one leg thrown across his thighs, her foot just brushing the back of his knee. Tony wasn't sure how they had come to their current positions, but it was going to make it damned hard to move without disturbing her. To make matters worse, moving wasn't the only thing that was damned hard, meaning this could also be incredibly awkward.

"Morning," Abby said, lifting her head from his arm. He turned to look at her.

"Hey, pretty girl," he said, and it was true. Some women looked like a train wreck in the morning after, providing plenty of evidence of why cosmetics companies existed. Abby was not one of them.

"After a night like that, you'd think you'd remember my name," she teased, dragging her nails lightly down his back. His toes curled in response and he realized that this would be a strange morning indeed.

"Abigail Sciuto, middle name omitted under previous threats of defenestration," he rolled onto his side, her leg still across his. She surprised him by moving closer, scratching him just a little harder, and he was aware that if she moved another inch or so, this moment was going to cease to be friendly flirting.

"Good boy, Tony," she said as her hand moved in small circles over his shoulders. Her shirt had risen just a little at her hip, and he rested his hand there. "Missed you last night."

"Yeah?" his breath caught as her fingers ran down his side and brushed his stomach. He knew she wasn't as harmless as she looked, but this was too much. He caught her hand in his and held it between them. "You seemed rather occupied the last time I saw you. Feeding fruits to a stranger?"

"Casper, her name's Casper. She made my collar," Abby rolled away now and he saw the danger signs. She had that mildly crazed look that said a tangent was brewing. "She's amazing, Tony. She works DVU out in California, but she's also a silversmith and does leatherwork for a company called Femme. We talked for hours and it was great. We're going to get tattoos together before the end of the weekend and she invited me out to LA next month when she's got some leave time to model for her."

"That's great, wonderful. I'm glad you had a good time," he said once he could find his voice. He'd completely struck out last night and she was planning to get ink with a stranger named after a friendly ghost. In Abby's world, that was tantamount to getting a puppy for two normal people, not quite married, not quite kids but certainly on that path. Abby reached for him again and he pushed her away. "Knock it off, Abs."

"What? You didn't mind a minute ago."

"Just don't," he said, feet hitting the floor. "Breakfast downstairs?"

"Sure, Mr. Crankypants," Abby wrinkled her nose as she fell back onto the bed. He hadn't even waited for her to respond, just slammed the bathroom door. Evidently, something had his knickers in a twist, which was too bad because they seemed to be having a nice little moment in bed together. Grrr... she hated when he acted like this, one moment so cuddly and wonderful, then it was like he was channeling Gibbs. Except Tony in a mood was like Gibbs having a warm fuzzy, which made it even more aggravating because Gibbs having a warm fuzzy was nice while Tony acting like Gibbs was not. Gibbs did silly things then like kiss her fingers and smack her bum, which was really just a step shy of sexual harassment. Except she didn't mind so much, because it was kind of sexy, flirting but not really flirting because he was Gibbs and there were Rules. And he was a bastard who couldn't hold his temper, and fuck, she didn't want to be thinking about seeing him in the tiny interrogation room.

She'd tried to forget, but you couldn't un-see something you'd seen. No amount of time or effort could make memory blind or change hindsight to anything other than twenty-twenty. Abby sighed, rolling across the bed, stretching over the space between the two mattresses to drag her laptop case toward her. When all else fails, check your email, and she did. Four messages from McGee, a misrouted memo from Gibbs forwarded from the NCIS auto shop about the gas budget, thirty two offers of Viagra, six for Fendi watches, and a picture of the Partridge Family up a pear tree. She saved the last one, skimmed the messages from McGee and sent short replies—Yes, No, What time? and She said WHAT about me?—for him to ponder.

She scrolled through the major news stories, paying particular attention to the latest on Brangelina, then found her favorite search engine. On a whim, she ran Tony's name and skimmed the results. Sports articles nearly twenty years olds, commendations from his prior departments, articles on the OSU college paper's site, a small write up about Kate's death. Abby skipped that one, opening the OSU page. Three of the articles showed pictures of a much younger Tony, same careless grin, slightly longer hair. The fourth was a different Tony, but one she knew. Shoulders bowed, standing with other students and wearing grief as clearly as the stylishly cut black coat. The caption said something about a funeral and Abby read the article.

"So that's... Bela Guaraldi...self-inflicted wounds... oh," she sat back against the pillows, mind whirling. The girl staring at her from the yearbook photo was lovely, startlingly blue eyes and a generous mouth painted glittering pink. Her hair fell in soft curls around her face, black with streaks of blue, and Abby just stared. She could hear Tony muttering to himself through the paper thin wall, something about Amazons and ties, and she finally closed the browser window. She didn't want to know this.

Abby shoved the thoughts down and dragged herself out of bed over to the closet. It was Thursday, he'd want to wear jeans, probably the darker ones, and she took them down from the hanger without really thinking. The purple-y blue shirt brought out his eyes, she found the tie that matched and placed them on the bed. There was no reason to do it, not really, but she liked that he trusted her taste, and she always made him look good. He could be sort of like a Ken doll sometimes, pretty, empty-headed, but if what she felt in bed was what she thought she felt in bed, he was quite anatomically correct.

He called her Career Girl Barbie once, and it was true. Director Shepard would pay for that in time. She'd also be billing NCIS for the necessary therapy to repair the PTSD from actually wearing pink. Today, though, she'd wear black, because it was a day that ended in day. She tossed her pajama top on the bed and wiggled into a thin black bra. Her hair went up in little twists, her own personal variation on Princess Leia and she considered adding a tiara but rhinestones weren't really day wear. At least not unless you came with a British accent and a long history of inbreeding. The lack of forking in the royal family tree disturbed her, but those princes were pretty boys. Pretty and Illegal.

"All the pretty boys are verboten," she said to her reflection and jumped to find a pretty pair of eyes watching her. Why were all the men in her life determined to sneak up on her? Tony looked away quickly, but not quickly enough. "Caught you, kiddo," she winked at him in the mirror, reaching back to grab his arm.

"Abby," he sighed, not even trying to pull away.

"Come here," she said, actually being the one to step back. She guided his arms around her waist, eyes on their image in the glass. He'd closed his eyes again, mouth set in a firm line. "Pretty and pose-able," she lifted her face to rub her cheek against his. He made a noise somewhere between a moan and a growl, but he didn't move, didn't let her go. He just parted his lips slightly and it was enough of an invitation. She curled her fingers in his hair and pulled his head down, meeting his mouth with hers. Like the clothes, there was no reason to do this, not really, except she wanted to and she could. She liked that he was clean shaven, his lips soft, she worried about her own morning breath when his tongue brushed hers and he was minty fresh and she was distinctly not.

Self-restraint. Tony knew he had it, and by the truckload evidently. Self-restraint, his and Abby's, mostly hers, and he was watching her cross the dining room to the buffet when by all reasonable estimates, they should be in bed. If she had been anyone else, any other woman, a sane and reasonable woman, they would still be upstairs and he'd have had his hands wrapped around anything other than a glass of apple juice. Thank god for table cloths, for they hid what jeans would not, and he watched her hips sway as she balanced on the four inch heels of her knee high boots. She'd let him zip her into them, when it was the last thing he wanted to do. Unzipping was more his style, and he'd watched her dress, fascinated by the methodical way her hands moved, as if all of the little snaps and clips and hooks had logic. He wasn't sure Houdini could get out of—or more truthfully, in to—that skirt or remove the wrist cuffs or trio of collars she strapped herself into. The boots zipped, though, and he'd knelt before her, fighting to ignore the lines of her thighs beneath yet another pair fishnet stockings, ignoring the edges of the garter belt peeking out from beneath her skirt, and he'd thought of Cinderella after the ball as he held her foot in his hand.

She was turning him into a nervous wreck. She wasn't the first, he figured she wouldn't be the last, but it was damned unexpected. There had been a time, when he first came to NCIS, that he thought maybe he would make a play for her, but she was so... so Abby, and he figured it wasn't worth the trouble. He'd dated wacky, and wacky usually turned scary, and he didn't want to go there. It wasn't even that she reminded him of Bela, he didn't make that connection until much later, until after they became friends. The similarities were there if you knew where to look, but they were hidden beneath the black lipstick and hair dye. It was in Abby's eyes and the way she looked at him when she thought he wouldn't notice. Bela had looked at him like that, past the straight teeth and charming smile, she wasn't impressed by his clothes or his muscles. She wouldn't let him get away with being just another pretty boy, and the way she looked at him, it was like she saw through all of it, and liked what she found. Like there might be something there worth knowing, worth loving.

But Abby wasn't Bela, not at all. She was here and laughing across the room, holding the arm of that Casper woman as they walked toward him. He pushed his plate away and rose as they approached.

"You must be Tony," Casper extended her hand toward him. Her voice had the same raspy quality as Abby's, and she carried a feeling of quiet around her. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, there was something about the look in her eyes and the sound of her voice that disarmed him. Everything about her posture and presence seemed crafted to convey that she was not a threat, even though she was as tall as he and, judging from her handshake, probably easily as strong.

"Good morning, Casper."

"I see Abby told you about me. I was sad when she ran off on us last night, but now I see why," she gave him a blatant once over, ending an easy smile and a quick nod. "If she'd mentioned how cute you were, I might not have had abandonment issues."

"Ah, Casper, you're making him blush," Abby patted his back as she sat down, and if he wasn't mistaken, grabbed his ass while she was at it. "That's my job."

"Yes, Mistress," Casper gave Abby a half bow. What the hell? "I'm sure I'll see you later. I've got to get back to Morena. I left her in the middle of a hot and heavy debate over the uses of leeches in ancient healing rituals. You know scientists, it could get ugly."

"Meet us for lunch? Bring Morena, too," Abby called as Casper retreated. She picked at the plate of fruit, only fruit and only red fruit at that, for a moment. "She's not so bad, Tony," she said softly, covering his hand with hers.

"I never said she was," he had thought it, repeatedly, emphatically, loudly and in variations this morning but he'd never said it.

"Cherries and strawberries, and fresh fruit in the dead of winter," she sighed. "This place is perfect, Tony. Let's stay here forever." And when she looked at him, when she kissed his cheek and nuzzled the side of his neck, he thought that might not be so bad.

Abby's mind had died fifteen minutes ago. The COD? Boredom, in a major way. They'd gotten to the lecture late, a pesky hazard of distractions via public displays of affection. They'd been late and the seats were mostly filled and she ended up in a corner and Tony was in the middle of row somewhere behind her and she was Bored. How many times could a girl have basic fingerprint analysis explained? Sheesh. It was like the presenters assumed no one in the room had ever worked a case, let alone collected base level evidence. So, her brain died even though her skin felt alive where Tony had touched her, and the places he didn't touch were buzzing in anticipation of being touched, even though there was no way he was going to touch those places any time on this trip or probably ever. She had boundaries, and there were clear lines you don't cross with a co-worker.

Of course, those were the same lines she had skipped gleefully across with McGee in tow last year. He wasn't exactly kicking and screaming at the time, that came later, but he'd been hesitant. Whether that was about boundaries or Tim just being Tim wasn't entirely clear to her, even now, with months since the last time he'd shown up at her place on a Friday and didn't leave until Tuesday morning. They'd had some surprisingly athletic sex, what he lacked in skill he made up for in enthusiasm and stamina. Now, McGee had a girlfriend and she kept him on a short leash. Rachel didn't like her puppy playing in Abby's yard, so she didn't see him much outside of work. She kind of missed him but it gave her an idea.

She knew Tony had his cell phone in his left hip pocket. When she remembered how she knew, her face burned a little. She leaned over and dug through her bag to find her Treo, hoping she had service.

"Tired, baby?" she typed.

"Why? Am I running through your mind?" he replied quickly.

"Absolutely. I was wondering, DiNozzo, do you have a map? Every time I look at you, I get lost in those gorgeous eyes."

"What about you, Ms. Sciuto? I bet your parents were thieves because they stole the beauty from the heavens and gave it all to you."

"You haven't met my sister, have you? She's the pretty one. I'm the smart one."

"I find it hard to believe. You're over there with all those curves, and here I am with no brakes... could be tragic."

"Oh, Tony, you smooth operator. I'm receiving a ‘get busy' signal from you."

"Beautiful and funny. Do you need a light? Because I think we've found the perfect match."

"You know I don't smoke. Speaking of which, did you make sure they turned off the sprinklers? You're so hot they might mistake it for a four alarm fire."

"That's just wrong. You know if you were text on a page, you'd be fine print."

"If you were a laser, you'd be set to stunning."

"I bet you have sweet buns. Can I get a taste?"

"While we're making like fabric softener and having a Snuggle?"

"Got a first aid kit? I scraped both my knees falling for you."

"Oooh... Tony on his knees. We should talk about that one later...but if you're gonna regret it in the morning, we can sleep late."

"Come here often, Abs, or do you wanna wait until we get back to the room?"

"Bad boys get spankings. Kiss your momma with that mouth?"

"Tease. And no, but I'll call *you* mommy if you want."

"What's a hot boy like you doing in this dirty mind of mine?"

"Wondering if you're like an M&M. I bet you'll melt in my mouth."

"I'm easy, Tony, but I bet you're hard."

"You could find out. Sit on my lap and come over here."

"I'm rearranging the alphabet. So far I've got F,C, K. I just need U."

"Why don't we put U and I together?"

"Session's ending," she typed, grinning. "Let's blow off the next one while I blow you."

"Tease," he responded, the single word flashing across her screen before she turned the phone off.

Tony'd be on his knees, on his back, he'd stand on his head, stand at attention, walk on his hands if she asked. She wouldn't ask. This was just them, flirting because flirting was what they did, and if it was with each other, it was because they were there and it was convenient. The kissing didn't mean anything, it couldn't, not between them. And so what if she made him feel like he'd be hard pressed to remember his own name sometimes? It was just hormones. The past few weeks had been rough and of course they'd be looking for escape, and if they happened to find it together, well, so be it. If they didn't, that was good, too. Their friendship would be intact and they'd have some nice memories of the trip. No harm, no foul, right?

He slipped his phone back into pocket and moved with the crowd toward the double doors. Many of his colleagues were looking particularly well rested as they grumbled about the lecture. He looked around for Abby, but saw no trace of her, which was odd because today's boots made her taller than him. He knew her last text had been joking, like the rest of them, but he wouldn't have minded if it wasn't. He broke from the group and headed toward the elevator. Whatever Abby was doing, he wasn't sitting through another one of those presentations.

"Hey, sexy," a pair of hands covered his eyes as he waited for the elevator. He could hear the crinkle of Abby's vinyl skirt as she pressed against his back. "I'm only a tease if what I do gets you hot," she whispered in his ear.

"Breakfast Club," he responded automatically, her hands slipping down to his shoulders.

"Ooh, good boy, and good boys earn rewards. Can you think of anything you want?" she asked. He thought of several things as she rubbed her breasts against him, pushing her pelvis against his ass.

"I want an answer. Why are you doing this to me?"

"Because you need it," she flicked her tongue against his earlobe and he turned around, stepping back to put some space between them.

"Not like this," he said. "Not with you."

"If not me, then who?" she asked, reaching for him again. He grabbed her wrists lightly but firmly, enough to hold her but not hurt. She looked at him, playful being replaced by serious. He often wondered about how quickly her mood, her body language, could change between such extremes. "Tony, if I've done something wrong, I'm sorry."

"To add to our list of cliches, it's not you. It's me," he let go of her hands and stepped into the elevator. She looked uncertain for a moment then joined him. He couldn't look at her, not when she had that worried look again. He ran his hands through his hair, concentrating on the rising numbers on the display.

"Do... do you want to talk about it?"

"I want... I want things to be normal, Abs. I don't know what the hell is going on here, or what you think you're doing, but it stops now," he said. "I'm not McGee, not a fucking boy scout."

"You don't think I know that?" she said quietly, reaching past him to press a button. The elevator lurched to a halt. Christ, she could be like Gibbs when she wanted to, and with the look on her face, she could have been his daughter. "You know what, Tony? I'm not your dead girlfriend, either."

"What are you talking about?" he asked, backing against the wall as she stepped toward him. There was no way she could know about Bela. It wasn't in his records and he hadn't talked to anyone about her.

"It's amazing what a little internet search will get you. Come on, Tony, it's what I do for a living," she stood toe to toe with him, staring him down. He'd forgotten about the news articles, just a few lines in the town paper. Of course Abby would be able to find them. "You dream about her. You talk in your sleep and you dream about her. I know I remind you of her, and there's nothing I can do about that, but I'm here and I wouldn't do anything to hurt you, Tony. I thought you knew that."