Disclaimer NCIS is not mine

Authors note Easter is underrated on fan fiction, and there are nowhere near enough fics. So here is a little bittersweet snapshot to remind you all that Easter is fantastic!

(This has no religious meaning or anything, I know Easter is not just about chocolate. However, for the sake of this fic, that's all I decided to focus on)

Happy Easter!

Traditions

Spring.

Birds chirping.

Fluffy clouds reappearing in the sky.

Red wellington boots jumping into puddles.

Children laughing and winter clothes stacked away.

Ran falling whilst the sun still shines, and rainbows give everyone a magical thought.

Spring.

Every year it got April, and something in everyone changed. A light, perhaps, came on. Those thick chunky scarves were put away for next year – even if it was no warmer. The sun made its self known, and cherry blossom made the roads seam pink with delight. Bright green leaves presented themselves, and yellow daffodils shot up everywhere.

Then the Easter Bunny made his rounds.

Chocolate was delivered, that cheap, dry chocolate that all year round everyone moaned about. But at Easter it was the chocolate that everyone ate by the bucket load. Those chocolate eggs, with the hexagonal patterning, and different coloured foils wrapped around. All sat in cardboard boxes, some with themed mugs, others with a selection of chocolate bars. Others filled with chocolate.

The mugs would be smashed in a week – or forgotten about.

The chocolate would be gone by Easter Monday.

But it was tradition, and no one ever messed with tradition. Everyone had their own way of doing it. Some would hide it all the night before like it was Santa, so that children would run down in the morning to a table covered with confectionary. Others would hand it all out, or hide it in the garden ready for the annual hunt.

They'd always had their own tradition, the old team. The original team, in her eyes. Just in the way that Gibbs, Tony, Ziva, Abby and Ducky were a family now. In the same way that they had thanks giving together and even Christmas, they had had those holidays. Back then it had been a little different – Gibbs had been married every other Christmas, and Ducky's mother had been in better health. But Gibbs, Jenny, Stan Burley, William Decker and Ducky, they'd all been their own family.

Just as families had their own traditions, they'd had theirs. Traditions, that although did not still take place, she still remembered with a fond heart. Simple things, like gathering at Gibbs' house after a tough case and eating stake, or take away. Drinking bears in front of his fire if he was married, or down in the basement if he wasn't. Christmas parties and the tradition of her and Jethro driving will and Stan home when they had too much to drink –

-the time when Jenny and Gibbs had been the ones getting driven home.

Sometimes, she thought about those times, about those traditions. When on thanksgiving she'd seen them all head off to Ducky's, and she'd declined the invitation, she remembered. Like the time when Stan had volunteered to cook and forgotten to put the turkey in the oven – so they'd had it for breakfast the next day. When Will had gotten creative with mistletoe and caught Jenny and Gibbs under it – in front of Diane.

Every now again she'd pull out the photo album and see the old pictures. Barbeques in the garden – Gibbs' garden. A tradition that Diane had started and they'd continued. That had begun with a massive spread of fancy food and then ended up being stake and beer. Back in those days she had been classed as one of the boys. The way they'd all sit there drinking beer and laughing, or smirking in Gibbs' case.

Every one of them was different back then. Gibbs was less guarded, less hurt and haunted. She was just another agent, she wasn't separated by rank. Like she was now. These days Will had returned to LA, and Stan was working internationally. She wondered if they thought about those days, or whether it was just her and her regrets.

Spring.

Easter.

They'd had their own Easter tradition too. One that still made her smile and one that she still didn't know who had started. But one that just like all of the others had stuck. She remembered the morning she walked into the bull pen, it was Easter Sunday, and they'd been given the shift. It was silent, and the only sign of the festive spirit was the few desks which held miniature Easter baskets. The ones with the small fluffy yellow chicks with plastic orange beaks in fake straw baskets.

As she walked in, she had frowned at the sight of boxes on all of team Gibbs' desks. All different colours, but all the same size. Jenny was the first one in, but she was pretty sure Gibbs was probably up in MTAC or something – she never beat him. Walking up to her desk, she smiled when she saw what it was – an Easter egg. And written on a yellow post it note, stuck onto it, said 'from the Easter bunny'.

Every year they had worked Easter weekend after that – which was more often than not – an Easter egg had been sat on their desks. She never found out who did it, until one year she decided to do it, and they all got two. No one ever said anything about how they got there, none of them. Except for one year, there were mini eggs hidden all over the place. She'd always thought it was Marrow, but she guessed they'd never know now…

It was Easter Sunday, and whilst she didn't have to be in, she felt bad spending the day at home when her agents were working. Agents, some of whom had children at home wanting to see their parents. So she walked across the catwalk, and smiled softly at the scene below her. Gibbs' team was on duty, Tony, Ziva, Abby and Tim were all sat on the floor playing cards and laughing, whilst Gibbs sat at his desk. There was an unspoken rule amongst agents, that if it was a holiday, unless there was a case, you just relaxed in head quarters – it had always been that way.

Back when it had been her down there they too had played cards – a game which more often than not ended with the cards being thrown all over the place and one of them complaining that someone else had cheated. But that was back then. The agents sat down there now were not her, Will and Stan. They were different. She noticed a film on the plasma that they were all half watching, and it made her smile.

Dressed in jeans and thin, loose white top, and brown heels, she made her way across the cat walk to her office. And as she did so, she could feel that eyes of Jethro on her, just as they always were. It was like when she was on the catwalk she was on display, in his eyes she was vulnerable, but if he was watching her then he thought she was safer.

The red head walked past the vacant desk of Cynthia, and picked up her mail. The assistant had been willing to work when she discovered that he boss was. Yet Jenny had quickly told her no, and said to have a good holiday. Walking into her office though, she stopped at the sight of her desk, and felt the corners of her mouth tug up slightly in a smile.

There on the wooden desk that had played host to every Director since the old days of NCIS was something that completely surprised her. Sat on top of the classified case files and reports was a bright yellow box. And as she rounded to corner of her desk to take her seat, she saw that it was in fact an Easter egg. Jenny placed to mail down and looked at it; the small smile had transformed her face into a bright light – much like that of many children earlier that morning.

Keeping with tradition, on the front of the box sat a sticky note, reading 'From the Easter Bunny'. And she laughed to herself. The only difference was that this time around she recognised the handwriting as being that of her former partner. The red head picked up the box, and ran a manicured finger gently over the writing, feeling the intent into the paper.

Easter.

Family.

Traditions.

Sometimes, it doesn't matter how much time had passed, or what argument is currently dividing you.

Sometimes, all it takes is one small gesture to bring back all the memories of all of those little traditions that hold a dear place in your heart.

Down in the bull pen, Gibbs knew that she had found it, and he smiled to himself. He may not have been the one who had left the Easter eggs all those years ago, but in that moment, that was not what mattered. It was a symbol of remembrance between the pair, one which showed neither would ever forget the past.