Author's Note: This is another story I wrote for the Comment Fic community on LiveJournal. The prompt this time was "no holding back." It's a short one-shot I wrote last week, and of all my McAbby stories to date, it's the first from Abby's POV. I hope you enjoy it.

No Holding Back

Abby was lost.

Well, that wasn't exactly true. She knew where she was, physically at least. She was in her apartment. It was a Saturday afternoon and she was sitting at home alone.

Still, Abby was lost.

She couldn't remember being so confused and unsure of her next step. She was a person who let the winds of fate take her wherever they chose, reveling in the random chaos of life. When you didn't plan your future, what was there to worry about?

Uncertainty simply wasn't part of Abby's equation. But here she was. Alone. Confused. Unsure.

And it all had to do with Timothy McGee.

It had been 11 years since she first met the nervous but so incredibly sweet NCIS agent.

It had been nine and a half years since she ended their relationship, afraid of what commitment would do to her.

It had been a year since McGee started dating Delilah.

It had been nine months since she realized his relationship with Delilah wasn't like the others.

It had been seven months since Delilah almost died in a terrorist attack.

It had been three months since she moved to Dubai and McGee gave her a key to his apartment.

And it had been three weeks since Delilah told McGee she met someone else while overseas.

It had been 18 days since McGee told Abby about the breakup.

So for 18 days, Abby had found herself confused and unsure. Because while she understood the anger at Delilah for becoming the latest girlfriends to break McGee's heart, and her own sadness as her heart broke for him, there was also tiny - but not as tiny as she would have liked - part of her that felt...relief?

Sure, she had bristled at McGee's previous girlfriends and felt some satisfaction at the relationships' eventual demise, but that was mostly because the vast majority of those women were not worthy of someone like McGee. He deserved better and the breakups were to his benefit in the long run.

But Delilah had been different. She was good for him. She was good to him. He was good for her, especially after the explosion.

And she'd had to accept that McGee may have finally found the one for him. And in realizing that McGee might not always be there as her trusty friend and confidante, she had also come to realize that what had frightened her so long ago was exactly what she wanted now.

Fate and the chaos of life had given her nine years to realize that mistake, but she'd ignored the winds and held herself back out of fear. In the end, she had found found herself grounded, trapped from the place she truly wanted to be. She need McGee, but he was gone.

But now those winds had given her another chance. Hadn't she been the good friend, encouraging McGee each step of the way with Delilah because she had seen how happy the NSA agent made him? She had stepped back and let him walk away from her.

It wasn't Abby's fault Delilah found someone else. It wasn't Abby's fault McGee was now hurting.

So why couldn't she be McGee's one? And he hers.

She knew McGee needed some more time to get over this. And she would be there for him, just like they had been there for each other time and time again.

But there would be a day soon when the time was right. And when that day arrived, she would take the step she hadn't been able to before. She would throw herself into the winds and let them take her where they may, only this this time she and McGee would ride them together.

This time there would be no holding back.