Basement Makeover
Early morning light filtered through the narrow ceiling windows bathing the wooden benches of Gibbs' basement in an ethereal light. Standing in the middle of the room, Gibbs smiled. It was a comforting room. It was his room. It was perfect.
"This place needs a woman's touch."
Gibbs turned at the sound of Fornell's voice and sighed. This was not going to be pleasant. Why he'd ever decided to hand over his beloved basement to the NCIS Christmas dinner mafia he'd never know. There was something about Ducky's house being unavailable and no one else having space but really, is it so hard to eat out?
He watched in silence as Fornell descended the stairs cradling a stuffed panda, followed closely by Abby, lugging an enormous bamboo screen, Jimmy, sporting a large stone Buddha statue and Ducky, hoisting a box of what looked like actual Christmas decorations. Somehow he had expected more boxes of festive decorations and fewer bamboo screens, Buddhas and pandas but it was clear that this wasn't going to be one of those days where the expected happened.
They assembled in a small group at the bottom of the stairs, dumped their offerings in a pile and began analysing his territory. Gibbs again cursed himself for ever agreeing to this 'basement Christmas makeover' in the first place. He told himself it was just one Christmas party. One: Never again.
"Definitely needs a woman's touch," Fornell re-iterated. "What ever happened to Dr Ryan?"
"She took off," said Gibbs.
"Probably just as well. With those matching hairdos, I was starting to get you two confused."
"You weren't looking for another hand-me-down wife?"
Fornell raised his hands in surrender. "Hey, I've learnt my lesson."
"You don't have a lot of Feng Shui going on here," Abby cut in. "What is your vision for this room?"
"Great place to build a boat."
"You'd never get it out," said Fornell reflexively.
Gibbs raised an eyebrow at him.
"OK," he relented, "you'd get it out."
"You need a Christmas vision," said Abby. "We need something make the whole place Christmas-y – plus a lot of Feng Shui."
"What about a smoke machine?" Jimmy enthused.
Gibbs cringed: smoke and wood was never a happy union.
"Oh don't mind him, Jethro," Ducky said. "Mr. Palmer here has a fetish for belching machines. Yes, you know he once suggested we put a fog machine in autopsy so it would look like the Haar on a cold Scottish morning. Said it would make me feel at home. At my age, you don't really need to feel any more 'at home' in a morgue."
Gibbs picked up the bamboo screen and examined it.
"It's a screen to hide all your tools and stuff," Abby explained. "There's plenty more in my car."
"Don't make a boat out of it," Fornell warned.
"It's wood, I could cut it," Gibbs mused.
"Strictly speaking," Ducky pointed out, "bamboo is not wood. It's a grass from the Poaceae family. Grass differs from trees in that it grows primarily upwards rather than outwards in rings. Bamboo can reportedly grow more than 3 feet in 24 hours."
"Can you cut it?"
"Well yes…"
"Can you sand it?"
"Of course but-"
"Wood," Gibbs summarized. He turned to Fornell who was still cradling the stuffed panda in his arms. "What's with the panda?"
"It's from Emily for the party," Fornell explained. "She says that Abby says that pandas are good Christmas Feng Shui: they're a symbol of happiness."
"She talks to Abby?"
Fornell shrugged. "Cheap babysitting: you get what you pay for."
"Besides," Abby piped up, grabbing the toy from Fornell and dancing it in front of Gibbs' face. "They're like a Gothic Buddha: cute and cuddly but still a decent amount of black eye makeup."
Gibbs tried to ignore the creepy feeling crawling across his skin. Christmas Gothic panda Buddhas: this was not going to be a normal Christmas. His basement would never be the same.
He picked up the actual Buddha and inspected it. It bore a striking resemblance to a constipated man with serious BMI issues.
Jimmy smiled. "He's from me."
"I think I'll put this in the bathroom," Gibbs grumbled.
"Oh that would be quite out of the question, Jethro," said Ducky, horrified. "A Buddha must be placed in a position of reverence."
"You don't revere the bathroom?"
"Well, yes I am grateful for every visit, but a Buddha should be placed in a prominent position above eye line so that you never look down upon it."
"Can't we just do the traditional red and green tinsel," said Gibbs, appealing to some un-evident common sense.
"Ahhh," said Ducky, "now we come to Feng Shui."
Abby smiled serenely. "You go Duck-man."
"Colours are, of course, aligned with the traditional Feng Shui elements. If we confine ourselves to the major colours we have: blue and black to create calm and encourage mediation, green for decisive action, red to alleviate depression and encourage passion, yellow to improve mental acuity and stability and white and metallic to promote caution and…ah… purity."
"Kinda makes me wonder why Diane wanted to paint the bedroom red," Gibbs commented.
"Be thankful," Fornell countered. "She painted our bedroom green."
"Did it work?"
"I guess so, she left me."
At that moment there was a loud noise from the top of the stairs as Tony, Tim and Ziva arrived carrying a solid-looking pine tree along their length.
"We need to clean out this floor before we start dressing the tree," exclaimed Abby as the three agents traversed the staircase carefully.
Fornell pulled out an apron from his pocket and unfolded it. "Now where is your vacuum cleaner, Jethro?"
"Same place it always is."
"Bromance", Tony coughed.
Behind him, McGee sniggered.
"Yes, thank you Special Agents Pot and Kettle," grumbled Fornell. "You wait until you're our age and have shared a wife or two."
DiNozzo and McGee looked at each other and shuddered.
"I'm not taking any woman who dumps my partner for me," Tony declared, selflessly.
"What makes you think women wouldn't dump you for me?"
"My sense of sight, mainly," Tony retorted. "That I and I have an IQ over 30."
"Barely," Tim muttered under his breath.
Abby started setting up the bamboo screen in front of Gibbs' cluttered shelves. "You know, you have waaaay too much wood in this place. We need to balance it out with some serious fire."
Gibbs blanched.
"Oh, don't worry Jethro," said Ducky, "She doesn't mean actual fire. Goodness me, no. The guidelines for Feng Shui are intricately complicated. They merge the colours we have already discussed with elements and even compass direction. We may have to draw up a Feng Shui map of this room."
"A what?"
"Not the kind of map that eludes Mr. Palmer here…"
"Hey, I was driving…"
"No, a map of the Feng Shui elements as they pertain to this particular space."
Gibbs closed his eyes for a moment then opened them to see if it had all been a bad dream. It hadn't. He could feel his blood pressure rising as Ducky kept talking.
"To start with we have the five elements: Fire for passion, Earth for stability, Wood for health and vitality, Metal for clarity and precision, and Water for ease and freshness. We don't need to use actual fire to balance out all the wood, just something representative of fire. For example, it could be just something red."
"Like Agent Gibbs' face," Jimmy offered.
"Thank you Mr. Palmer," Ducky scolded. "I was thinking something more permanent ..."
"That looks pretty permanent to me," Jimmy considered.
"In fact, if we put the bamboo in a red metal vase surrounded by stones, we can cover the five elements of wood, earth, metal, fire and water at once to bring you wisdom."
"Maybe it'll make me re-consider this who event," Gibbs muttered.
Abby put an arm around him. "Relax," she said. "If we all pitch in, this room should be ready in no time."
"I'll be upstairs."
"No," said Abby firmly putting her hands on her hip. "I invoke rule 15."
The rest of the NCIS staff chorused at Gibbs: "Always work as a team."
Gibbs sighed, not for the first time that day. He knew those rules would come back to bite him one day – especially that team one.
From then, everything got very busy. Ducky, Ziva and Jimmy retired to Ducky's house to prepare the feast while the others set about cleaning and decorating.
By nightfall the basement had been transformed. Bamboo screens formed an inner wall, obscuring all Gibbs' tools and workbenches but leaving a top shelf visible so that Buddha could oversee proceedings.
A large work table dominated the room but it was covered in a white table cloth and festively decorated with two long lower benches running down both sides serving as seating. The Christmas tree stood at one end, covered in red, blue and silver decorations to 'balance' the wood. It was cool in the basement despite the fact that most of it was hewn into the ground, and the team had set up small electric radiators around the room in lieu of a roaring fire. It wasn't traditional but it was warm and definitely good Feng Shui.
Abby placed the panda on top of one of the bamboo screens. "There," she said. "Pandas love bamboo."
The sound of voices upstairs heralded the arrival of the food and it wasn't long before Ducky, Ziva, Jimmy and Breena appeared at the top of the stairs each burdened with a large platter of food.
"That turkey looks out of this world, Ducky," Abby enthused.
"Yes," Ducky agreed, "but I can't take credit. That honour goes to Mr. Palmer's delightful Breena."
"Jimmy's a lucky man," said Gibbs.
Jimmy beamed proudly. "No one prepares meat like an embalmer."
"Breena's not quite so lucky," Fornell commented under his breath.
As they sat down to dinner that night, Gibbs reflected that the setting and food might not have been as ornate as Ducky's estate Christmas dinners of other years, but it was homey and, after all, Christmas was all about home and family.
-six months later-
The basement was silent save the gentle hiss of metal against wood. The soft smell of freshly mown wood shavings filled the air. With each deliberate stroke, the roughly hewn surface transformed to a silky smooth artwork of perfect shape and form. The work was a labour of love and devotion indicative of years honing the craft.
"That intervention didn't last long." Fornell's jarring voice from the top of the basement stairs brought Gibbs back from the depths of ecstasy with a rude thump.
"The Feng Shui really did bring me wisdom," he said.
Fornell chuckled as he descended the stairs. "I supposed six months was too much to ask but why another boat?"
"It impresses the women."
"You mean the type of women who appreciate some quality time in a dingy basement with a man who smells like a tree?"
Gibbs nodded to the Buddha statue still perched on the top shelf of his and now covered in a fine layer of wood dust. "George here seems to like it."
"Does George know the secret of how you get the boat out?"
"Rule number 4," Gibbs replied. "Besides, Buddha is all-knowing."
Fornell made his way around the hull until he came to the fore. He frowned at the name he found painted there. "I pride myself on keeping track of the many, many women who pass through your life, Jethro, but who on earth is Eve?"
Gibbs smiled gently to himself. "Just someone special."