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Sometimes, when Abby comes home from work, he's waiting for her. The first time had been before she'd told him where she lived, which, okay, had been pretty hinky, but as soon as the burst of panic had passed, he'd looked so worn down that she had just wanted to hug him.
He is kind and steady, quietly competent; she thinks that Gibbs would like him. Not that she is ever, ever, ever going to tell Gibbs about the guy who shows up in her apartment, uninvited and unannounced.
Sometimes he has a meal waiting when she comes in. Sometimes he's passed out on the couch, or after he's sure he's welcome there, in her bed. More than once he's been standing at the kitchen sink patching up split knuckles or sewing up a knife wound, small, neat stitches pulled taut by a steady hand. It's taken all of her self-control to not run his prints, but he'd promised that nothing he does in his daily life would be a threat to her, and she wants to believe him; he'd sounded like he'd make it true, and again she'd thought that Gibbs would like him.
Abby's got a box of evidence stashed away with a note, anyway. That's just common sense.
Tonight, she hears the water running in the bathroom when she enters her apartment, and there's some sort of soup simmering on the stove, filling the room with an herby aroma that she can't untangle into its constituent scents.
She doesn't try to quiet her approach - she doubts that she could sneak up on him, and doubts that it would be a good idea to try. She doesn't own many outfits that she can strip out of silently, anyway. He turns his head towards her at the clank of her belt as it hits the tile, and he smiles as he opens his eyes. He greets her with an exaggerated, "Evenin', Miss Sciuto."
Abby grins back at him, and the rest of her clothes flutter or thud to the floor as she strips down to her underwear. The bathtub full of water aborts her customary pounce, but she bounces over to the edge of the tub and bends down to deposit a kiss on his cheek. She settles down on the bathmat and folds her arms on the edge of the tub and rests her chin on top. She starts to run a critical eye over his body for bruises or new scars, but then the warm, damp weight of his palm settles on the back of her neck, and he tugs her forward for a proper kiss hello.
Later, when they're both damp and flushed and curled around each other in the tub, his subtle drawl lengthens into what she recognizes as his storytelling voice. Recently his stories have been less Pulp Fiction and more Robin Hood, but they're still carefully anonymous, set in improbable locations with impossible casts of characters. It doesn't seem like he has to work as hard to find the joy in the retelling, and she's happy to let the words wash over her without having to worry so much.