No spoilers, set some undefined time in the future, just plain Abby/McGee happy-ending-ness. Second part from Abby's POV to follow (hopefully soon, so that I stop getting doing that glazed staring-off-into-space-thing at work...someone's going to notice soon)!

Lack of impulse control was not a problem anyone would suspect Timothy McGee of having.

But when it came to Abby Sciuto, it was a fairly major one.

It started when they were dating, and they had to maintain a very strict "no relationship stuff at work" policy. He would watch her sometimes, in the lab, and fight the urge to touch her, kiss her, drag her into the back room and talk her into sex on one of the stainless steel lab tables. He was head over heels for this impossibly strange girl who had dropped into his life and seemed inclined to stay, at least for a while, and at first every day was a severe exercise in impulse control.

It got easier – or he just got more used to it. It was worse when they broke up; or, more accurately, stopped dating, since there was nothing actually broken about them. But it did mean having look at her and desperately want to trace the curve of her lips with his thumb…and not be able to.

Not just not at work.

Not ever.

It was all those ridiculous little things. Wanting to see her hair loose, or smell her skin. Wanting to trace the spider tattoo on her neck, or the infinity symbol on her arm. Wanting to touch her, just a moment longer than was absolutely necessary, or to hold her gaze just an extra second or two, or hug her for just another minute…

Sometimes it drove him crazy that it never seemed to bother her. Not a bit. She flipped some switch in her head that turned him from the guy she was sleeping with to just a friend, and that was it. She could even make little teasing remarks about it. Not to torture him – Abby wasn't that mean. Just…because.

And so he learned to steel himself against each moment of temptation. Every hug, every smile, every "I love you" ("like a puppy")…each chance he had to make a mistake, to cross the invisible line they'd drawn in the nonexistent sand, he learned to fight it, until it became second nature and he didn't even have to think about it anymore.

Most of the time.

#

They'd spent the evening in the park with the dog, and they detoured on the way back to the car for ice cream. Abby smiled at something he said – he didn't even remember what – and without thinking, he reached out and caught her chin, and wiped a smear of chocolate from the corner of her mouth with his thumb.

Abby turned her face into his hand, too smoothly for it to be anything but instinctive, and pressed a kiss to his palm.

And then they both froze, standing like statues in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at one another.

McGee thought about moving his hand, but he didn't actually want to. And Abby wasn't moving either…wait, now she was. Her hand crept slowly up and covered his, and for a moment he was afraid she was going to push him away. But she didn't, just left her hand on his, and kept looking at him.

They stood like that until he felt a cold, wet nose press into his free hand. Jethro had decided he was bored standing around, and was ready for his people to start moving.

For the first time in a long time, McGee let himself act on an impulse. He laced his fingers with Abby's and started walking again. After a moment, he risked a glance to the side. Abby walked along beside him, her hand in his, eating her ice cream cone, and he thought he saw the tiniest hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

There was still a smudge of chocolate there, too.

#

She didn't just pull up in front of his building to drop him off with Jethro. She found a parking spot, and came with him up to his apartment. Once inside, he unhooked the dog's leash, dropped his keys on the counter with a loud clatter, and looked up to find Abby leaning against the wall across from him.

McGee waited.

"Do you ever…tell yourself not to do things you want to do?" she asked eventually. Her eyes never left his.

Right now, he was telling himself not to cross the two feet of space that separated them and kiss her until neither of them could form a coherent thought. "Yeah," he admitted.

Abby took a step towards him. "You ever want to just stop telling yourself no? Just do…whatever it is that you want to do?"

God, she was dangerous. "Such as?"

One more step, and she looped her arms around his waist. Not the standard Abby-hug she gave everyone routinely. This one brought her in close, so their bodies were almost-but-not-quite touching, and she slid her arms just under the hem of his t-shirt, so that her fingers brushed against his skin. "Like that," she told him softly, and leaned her forehead against his shoulder for a second. Lifting her eyes back to his face, she smiled. "What if we just did what we wanted?"

He gave in – a little – and closed his hands lightly around her arms. "What –" The words caught, and he cleared his throat. "What do you want?"

Her lips were a hairsbreadth from his. "I want you." She took a breath, let it out. "What do you want?"

Her voice trembled on the last word, and he wanted…he wanted to tell her how beautiful she was, and watch her smile, and peel off her clothes and run his fingers through her hair and taste her lips and find her ticklish spots and hear her laugh and feel her body against his and hold her for as long as she'd let him.

He wanted to pull her close and see if her skin smelled as good as he remembered, so he did. Wrapping his arms tight around her, he buried his face in the curve of her neck, breathing in the faint smell of the chemicals she worked with, and gunpowder from ballistics tests, and some unidentifiable sweet smell that was just Abby.

In other words, perfection.

"I want you," he said finally, and her lips curved into a smile as they met his.

She tasted like chocolate ice cream and that same indescribable Abby-ness, and McGee decided that impulse control was highly overrated.