McGee had been running behind all week. He had no idea why. But every day, something went wrong. His alarm clock had broken Monday morning, Jethro had thrown up all over everything on Tuesday, he’d been late on Wednesday for no apparent reason, Thursday had been the longest day of his life, and now here it was, Friday evening, quitting time, and he couldn’t leave yet because he still hadn’t finished his report.

Even Tony had finished.

But Ziva’s computer was having issues again and he’d had to stop her from throwing it out the window, and Abby was swamped with work from another team and needed his help, and Gibbs had broken another cell phone, and McGee was having a hard time concentrating while Tony was shooting rubber bands at him, so McGee felt just a little bit justified for being so slow.

Gibbs had left him there, barking out, “Leave it on my desk if you ever finish it, McGee.”

So now McGee was seething, pounding on his keys harder than strictly necessary as he typed the stupid report for the stupid director and his stupid toothpick. Gibbs might’ve let him off the hook, but Vance had just issued a new policy about filing reports “in a timely fashion, given certain teams’ tendencies to procrastinate.” Translation: Gibbs and his team needed to get their butts in gear and finish their damn reports.

And of course, when McGee finally finished and hit print, the printer was jammed and he spent almost half an hour trying to figure out the problem, only to find a rubber band—Tony!—wedged in there.

And then he got back to his computer to find that it had, inexplicably, shut itself down. And of course he hadn’t saved that report. Every other day of his life he was a compulsive control+Ser, but today he’d forgotten.

Since he was the only one in the bullpen—possibly in the whole building—McGee allowed himself a howl of pure frustration and rage. He didn’t even care anymore. It wasn’t required that he keep a copy of the report on his computer, and he’d printed three copies anyway—one for the director, one for the filing cabinet behind Gibbs’s desk that Gibbs probably didn’t realize was there, and one for his own personal file that he kept. So he was leaving. At least his computer was already off.

He was packing his things into his briefcase and knocked over a cup of stale coffee that had been sitting on his desk since lunchtime. He bellowed again. It didn’t solve anything, but it made him feel a little better. He considered leaving the puddle of coffee there, but his conscience wouldn’t allow it. He mopped it up as best he could and even sprayed stain remover on it, because after working with Tony for so long he’d learned to keep stain remover in his desk.

He got his finger caught in his desk drawer as he put the stain remover back, so he went ahead and screamed for the third time in less than thirty minutes. But this time, he heard a clunk of heavy shoes and a clink of chains and a small eep of distress.

“Tim, what is wrong with you?”

He didn’t have a chance to answer before Abby launched herself on him, squeezing him tight and pushing something that felt suspiciously like a bowling ball into his kidney.

“I was finishing up some tests and closing down the lab and saying goodbye to my babies for the weekend and I kept hearing this sound, kind of like a water buffalo that I saw on Animal Planet once, and at first I was really freaked out that it was coming from Major Mass Spec, because that would just be horrible, so I checked him out but he was fine, but I realized it was coming from up here so I grabbed my bowling ball—you know, in case I needed to take someone out, and if it really was a water buffalo, a bowling ball probably wouldn’t hurt it too bad—maybe just knock it out, or stun it long enough for me to run away and call animal control. But that sound was you, and Timmy, I’ve never heard you make a sound like that! Ziva, yes. Gibbs, once or twice. Tony, definitely. But never you, Tim!”

She finally stopped for air and let go of him. He coughed once or twice, trying to fill his lungs back up, and rubbed at his sore kidney.

“I just had a pretty awful week, Abs. I was letting out some frustration.”

“Well, get a stress ball, McGee, jeez. You freaked me out.”

“Sorry.” He muttered, running a hand through his hair. Abby looked closer at him.

“You had a really bad week, huh?” She asked, sympathy etched on her face.

“Horrible.” He answered, rubbing a hand over his eyes and then grimacing because his pinky was already starting to swell.

“Oh, Timmy! Your pinky!”

“I shut it in my desk on accident.”

“You need some ice on that!” Abby scolded, like she was some sort of first aid whiz.

“Yeah, yeah. I promise I’ll put some on it when I get home.”

“Hm. That’s a long drive for your poor, swollen pinky to endure.” She set her bowling ball down gently and grabbed his hand. She raised his hand to her face and tenderly kissed his sore finger.

“There.” She chirped. “All better. Are you done here? Let’s leave.”

And even though Tim’s week had been awful and he still had a swollen finger and he really, really needed some sleep, he found himself smiling. She may have kissed only his finger, but Abby had made everything all better.