Brand new fic in the Joy Buchanan series.

The Gathering – Some wounds must be healed. Team fic and family fic. The aftermath of my story Connecting the dots (crossover with Criminal Minds). Part of my Joy Buchanan series, so it probably won't make much sense if you haven't read the previous ones. Rated T, but rating will go up later. Normal disclaimers apply: No money is being made by this poor girl doing this, etc, etc, etc.

Washington DC
NCIS squad room
Present day

Gift sorting

"Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win." Stephen King.

The agents were silently typing in their reports, after a successful arrest. Tony, just to spite Ziva, made a paper ball and threw it at her. Ziva caught it mid flight.

"Wow, you have to teach me how you do that."

"Just my ninja reflexes, Tony," she said, smiling smartly.

Tony smiles, and looks at McGee, who is checking his watch for the fifth time in the last ten minutes.

"Do you have somewhere to go, McGoo?"

"Yes, I do," he answers, "Joy came back from Glasgow this afternoon, and I'm going to meet her in her place," and he fidgets nervously on his seat. After being kidnapped and shot by a psychopath, Special Agent Joy Buchanan was ordered to stay on medical leave for several weeks, and her family insisted that she recuperate in the family home, back in Montana.

If she stayed in DC, she didn't want to be a burden on either her NCIS teammates or her family, who all had other commitments. Her father promptly accepted to nurse her back to health, as he had done the last time, and even contacted the same nurse that helped her while she recuperated from her first kidnapping almost two years before.

So, she stayed back in Glasgow for the last five weeks, with only the occasional phone call to her teammates and video call to McGee late at night. Her doctor in Glasgow cleared her for travelling, so she was coming back to DC to be checked out by Ducky, before being reinstated on desk duty.

"Are her parents coming over as well?" asks Gibbs, curious about the patriarch and matriarch of the clan. After their forced interaction during the kidnapping, he couldn't help but feel connected to the gentle reverend and his fierce fire breathing wife.

McGee smiles, "I think only her father is coming with her, as her mother has been called to solve some type of emergency on the base in Nevada," he shakes his head, "the last time I spoke to Joy, she was shouting in the background about incompetent young bucks, fresh out of university engineers who can not figure out a proton from a neutron," he smiles, "she flew in two days ago and until she solves whatever happened she's not coming over."

Gibbs smiles, imagining her breathing down the neck of some young engineer. Poor bastard, he thinks.

Tony is curious, "what exactly does Joy's mother do in Nevada?"

McGee smirks, "according to her job description, she is a senior consultant in new weapons R&D," he looks at Tony, "but according to Joy, her mother creates different delivery methods for WMD," Ziva is confused, "her husband is a reverend, and she creates weapons of mass destruction, how does that work?"

McGee shakes his head, "I have no idea."

At that they hear the ding of the elevator and the doors open, and a stranger with a cowboy hat covering her face, hiding her identity, entered the bullpen, dragging a suitcase and a huge thermal bag on top of it behind her. Her winter coat was opened, her scarf hanging from her neck. She had faded jeans on, and her cowboy boots were evidently very old. Underneath the winter coat, her big flannel shirt hung low over her body, covering her toned hips, and there was a knot on the front, where one could see that she was also wearing a thick leather belt.

She smiles and lifts her hat as she gets close to the agents, and they can barely recognize Joy, "greetings from the countryside," and they stare at her, flabbergasted. She shrugs, "what, don't you like my outfit?" she does a short spin, and her flannel shirt flies around her petite body, but it does not hide the fact that her right hand is still in a small pink cast.

"What are you doing here? I thought you would come to the office only next week," says Tony, and he stands up and hugs the agent, her hat getting in the way. She smiles, "I had too many gifts to bring, so I left dad in the townhouse and came bearing gifts," she moves out of Tony's arms, and moves to give a hug to Ziva.

Ziva is shocked to notice how much weight her teammate lost, feeling the bones protruding under the skin as she hugs her, the thick big flannel shirt just hiding the fact from view. She looks up and her eyes cross with Tony, and she sees the same concern in his eyes as well.

She moves to stand before Gibbs, and gives him a mock salute, that she messes up because her right hand is still in a cast. They smile at each other and she moves to hug him, "How are you doing, Joy?" he mutters against her hair, as she hugs his middle, she takes a step back, "Not bad, dad said that you ought to visit him, you owe him a poker and a chess game."

Gibbs smirks, "I don't owe him anything, he just doesn't know how to lose," she laughs, "not many people beat dad in chess, he just wants a rematch," they smile at each other, and she looks to the right, where McGee is standing with his hands in his pockets, she steps out of Gibbs' arms and stands before him.

Both are very self-conscious, as they want to properly greet each other but they know they shouldn't, as they are in their work environment. McGee studies her for a while, and he can't deny that she looks hot in the attire, but it just barely hides the fact that she lost a lot of weight during her recovery. Her eyes are sunk in her face, and there is still some yellow pallor on her skin.

"Hey."

"Hey," McGee takes the initiative and just drags her into his arms, and holds her, and she folds her arms around his middle and buries her face in his chest, "I missed you," he mutters against her neck.

She smiles, certain that he can't see it, and mutters, "I missed you too," they take a step apart, and each studies the face of the other. McGee notices the pain lines and how thin she looks, he felt her fragility under his fingers. She studies his face and sees the worry lines around his eyes and mouth, and she's sad that she added those to him.

"Mom said that she hopes you like her gifts," she puts her cowboy hat on his head, "as she went to great lengths to ensure all were perfect for each of you," she looks at the other agents and tries to move the thermal bag from the top of her suitcase. It looks heavy, and Gibbs and Tony move to help her to get it on the floor.

"Thanks guys," she opens, and delicious smell of pie comes drifting from it, and all agents stand around it, "what do you have in there?" Tony asks, salivating already.

"This is for you," she carefully gets a Tupperware from the thermal bag and gives it to Tony, "it is homemade chicken pie with baby peas, a family recipe, mom said that there is enough of it to last maybe two or three days," she smiles, "depending on how much you like it," she shakes her head, "my brothers would always get some before they left on a marine deployment, and they said that it never lasted a day, as they would start eating and their buddies would attack it like a pack of hungry wolves."

Then she turns to Ziva, and gives her another container, this one made of glass, with a plastic lid. "This is for you," Ziva looks at the contents through the glass, but she can't identify it, but there is a white and a dark brown line on top of each other. It seems to be a wet cake, "what is it?"

Joy smiles, "Mom's version of tiramisu, however she uses real Italian espresso and Belgian dark chocolate, it is to die for, may I have some?" Joy asks with a smile, but Ziva's mouth is watering at the description and she moves the sweet out of Joy's range, "your mom made it for me, get your paws away from it."

"Ahhh Ziva," moans Joy, and Ziva smiles, "later, maybe a little bit later," Joy smiles, "ok, then I will also give you this," and she grabs an opened box of chocolates, "mom gave it to me for safekeeping, but I couldn't resist," Ziva looks at the box, "you opened my Godiva chocolate! How dare you…" Joy laughs out loud, "I couldn't resist, they were just there, in my hand luggage calling my name, whispering," she lowers her voice, as a whisper, "eat me, eat me, I'm so delicious, eat me," both women laugh out loud.

Gibbs shakes his head at his two agents, and Joy turns to him, and smiles, "to you, mister Gibbs," she rummages a little further and grabs another Tupperware, an opaque white one that he can't exactly see what is inside. He shakes it a little, and looks at Joy, "what is it?" she smiles at him, "open it," she is fidgeting like a small child, he shakes it again, and opens the lid, and smiles when he sees the contents, "pumpkin pie."

"Mom said that you looked to be the traditional type of guy, so she chose the traditional type of pie," she smiles.

"Say thanks to your mom for me."

Joy frowns at that, "uhm… mom didn't make that pie."

"She didn't."

"Nope," she smirks, goes to her suitcase and opens it one handed, and gets a pile of written cards from it. She struggles one handed to find the right one, once she finds it she starts reciting, "her name is Dana Stratton, she's forty three, she's a widow, two adult children, she likes going to the park and watching the birds sing, she likes action movies and she's also a senior aide in the Secret Service at the White House," she selects another card and gives it to Gibbs, "here are her telephone and mobile numbers, emails, house address."

Gibbs is looking at her, seriously questioning her mental health, "why would I need that?" she takes a step back and grimaces, "because you have a blind date with her Saturday night at the Tabard Inn, at eight p.m sharp." She theatrically covers her head with her arms, just waiting for his explosion.


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a/n: The Buchanan matchmakers are on the roll. Gibbs has no chance.