The Gingerbread-Gibbs

Summary: Abby makes Xmas cookies with her twins. Set in the Future Perfect universe. Contains original characters.

Disclaimer: Katie and Leigh are mine; the rest belong to other people.

A/N: I was attacked by this plot bunny this morning and it wouldn't let go....

This is set in the 'Future Perfect' universe, which features Caitlyn and Leigh, the twin daughters of Abby and Tim.

Gibbs left his snowy shoes at the front door and followed the sound of Christmas carols into the kitchen. At least, he thought it was Christmas carols. Frankly, it sounded like someone had taken a deep hit of helium before they started singing. A new song started and he recognised the opening strains of the Chipmunks' Christmas Song. Kelly had listened to that until he was ready to cut the cord on the stereo, for the sake of his own sanity. Were those damn rodents still around?

He stepped into the kitchen, looking around at the chaos that results from child-assisted baking. Every available flat surface was occupied by mixing bowls and cookies in various stages of production, and a trail of small floury footprints wandered back and forth between the counter and pantry. Leigh was perched on a step-stool next to her mother, concentrating hard on stirring a bowl of batter. Katie was kneeling on a chair at the table, treating assorted lumps of garishly-coloured cookie dough exactly as if it were modelling clay, rolling and pinching it into misshapen candy-canes, wreaths, and unidentifiable yellow somethings.

Gibbs planted a kiss on each twin's head and helped himself to a finished cookie.

'Never had you figured for a baker, Abs,' he said with a grin.

'It's just chemistry, Gibbs. You combine your ingredients in the specified proportions and you get a reaction,' she said, not turning around. 'Ok, honey, it's time to put the raisins in.'

'But, I don't like raisins, Mama!'

'I know, honey, but Grandma does, and these ones are for her, remember?'

Leigh still looked sceptical, not entirely convinced that anyone could possibly like raisins. Abby drained the raisins she had soaking in hot water and dumped them into the mixing bowl before Leigh could protest further. Gibbs left them spooning the dough onto cookie sheets, with Abby subtly evening out Leigh's splodges so they would bake in the same time, and sat down at the table with Kate.

A few minutes later he felt a tug on his sleeve and looked up from his attempt to fashion a blue reindeer for Kate.

'Uncle Gibbs! I made you a gingerbread!'

She was grinning from ear to ear, a smudge of flour on her cheek and a smear of chocolate around her mouth. Her braids were swinging wildly as she bounced up and down excitedly, holding out her creation. It was more icing than cookie, and it was clearly him. The gingerbread man was wearing icing jeans and an icing T-shirt with USMC written on the front in yet more icing. The C was below the other letters; she'd clearly misjudged the size of her writing. The icing face was decorated with blue candy eyes and a red candy mouth, and a row of those silver ball things were clearly meant to be his hair.

He took it from her, but before he could tell her how much he liked it, she was giggling and telling him, 'You've got sandpaper, see?'

So that explained the orange gumdrop glued to one of the hands.

'I see. This is great, Leigh. I love it. Thank you.'

Gibbs glanced over her head at Abby, who was grinning at him while she dried her hands on a tea towel.

'In fact, I'm gonna take it home and put some special clear paint on it so I can keep it forever.'

'You don't want to eat it?' she asked with a small pout.

'It's too pretty to eat, sweetheart. I'll eat some of the ones that aren't so special, ok?'

'Ok,' she agreed, and scampered off, presumably in search of a less special gingerbread man.

Abby took the cookie from him and set it safely out of the way on a shelf out of the twins' reach, then joined them at the table and reached for a lump of green dough.

'I made a gingerbread man for Uncle Tony,' Katie began. 'But Daddy says he's pro'lly gonna have to work on Christmas, 'cuz of the kissletoe, so I don't know when I'm gonna give it to him.'

Gibbs raised a questioning eyebrow at Abby.

'Someone hung up mistletoe at the office Christmas party. Tony spotted it, and gave the Director's wife an Oscar-worthy kiss. She thought it was funny...'

'The new Director didn't?'

'Nope.'

'Leave it to DiNozzo...'

Gibbs pulled Leigh onto his lap, accepting the decapitated gingerbread man she handed him. Like the other one, the proportion of icing to cookie was definitely weighted on the side of icing. The crumbs now adhering to the chocolate on Leigh's face gave him a pretty good idea what had happened to its head.

'Yeah, some things never change...'