A Wedding Story
Disclaimer: Not my characters, though I'd love to borrow Jimmy and McGee indefinitely… ;)
Summary: When the child of an NCIS agent asks about Mom and Dad's wedding, they're in for quite a story…
Author's note: Written at T1bb's request, after a rather interesting chat in the NCIS Special Ops chatroom one quiet Saturday night/early Sunday morning. This was originally written on the fly in the chat. It was after midnight. 'Nuf said! Some of the ideas were suggestions put out by T1bbs and Michele, so I thank them and acknowledge them!
"Mom," Jillian asked, "tell me again about your wedding day."
Jillian Palmer gazed up at her mother, nearly her height already, but still not quite. Michelle smiled down at her. "Let's grab our lemonade and go outside. It's such a beautiful day, we don't want to waste it. I'll tell you then."
"Grandpa Ducky always tells it so well, but I know he must exaggerate some. Doesn't he?" Jillian asked, as they carried the glasses outside.
They stepped outside into the warm summer day, the sky a brilliant azure, the trees rustling gently in the soft breeze. Jillian chose a spot underneath her favourite tree, shaded from the blazing sun, and affording a nice view of the fountain in the middle of the yard.
"Not really honey. Grandpa Ducky pretty much had it right…" Michelle replied, as she delicately settled herself down on the Adirondack chair, placed there by Jillian one day after her father started to complain about the grass stains on the backside of her pants from lounging on the lawn.
"It was a beautiful ceremony," Michelle said dreamily. "Well, a bit unconventional, but we were so busy at NCIS with no end in sight. We decided we'd better do it on our lunch break. Grandpa Ducky had just put the last body of the morning to bed"
"He said it was a gunshot victim," Jillian said, sipping delicately on her lemonade.
Michelle nodded at her daughter. "That's right. I think it was a Marine, but I can't remember the circumstances. Anyway, we didn't have any traditional music of course, you don't find too much of that at the Navy Yard. Auntie Abby had a cd in the lab though, she always has music stashed away in there. It was funeral dirge, but since she was the only one from New Orleans, nobody else knew the difference."
Jillian giggled, then paused as a butterfly landed on her leg. Michelle watched patiently while the little girl was distracted by the graceful insect, and when it fluttered away in search of some flowers, she continued.
"All we had for the reception was some leftover pizza. It was Uncle Tony's – we had to fight him for it too." Jillian giggled at this. Even now, Uncle Tony was pretty possessive about his pizza, in spite of Grandpa Ducky's warnings that it would give him a heart attack someday.
"What did you have to drink?" Jillian asked. Whatever it was, it couldn't have been better than her lemonade. Her Dad made the world's best lemonade – not too sweet, not too sour. And he always added a dash of pink, just for her - something that always drove her brother nuts.
"Well, again, we weren't prepared. Uncle Gibbs had his coffee, Grandpa Ducky had tea of course. The rest of us had Auntie Abby's Caf-Pow. It was a pretty hyper reception…"
"But it didn't go too smoothly, did it Mom?" Jillian smiled mischievously. Michelle gazed over at her and reached over, brushing her hair out of her eyes.
"No. Director Sheppard barged in. It seemed some smart-assed little probie told her that Uncle Gibbs and Colonel Mann were eloping in autopsy. She went completely ballistic. She barged into the autopsy room in such a rage you'd have thought that La Grenouille himself was there." Michelle paused to sip on her drink.
"Well, he was, wasn't he? In drawer number five? At least that's what Grandpa Ducky always said."
"Yes, he was." She didn't know what sort of embellishments Ducky had added but she always thought that he never really could quite top what REALLY happened that day. "Anyway, Jenny was so angry that the probie in question ended up in a backroom somewhere at the Navy Yard, spending two solid weeks rearranging and sorting dead files." She winked at her daughter, savouring how her green eyes – inherited from her father - sparkled in the sunlight.
Michelle sighed at the memories, closing her eyes and drinking in the warmth of the sun and the sweetness of the breeze. "Auntie Abby insisted that love was in the air that day. But then Grandpa Ducky informed her that your father had spilled a jug of formaldehyde earlier that morning."
"Where was Uncle Tim?" Jillian asked, wondering if THIS part of Grandpa Ducky's story was true as well.
"He was missing for awhile, until Uncle Tony caught him hiding in the corner, documenting the whole thing on his old typewriter, to use in his next novel. It didn't go over very well. Later on, Grandpa Ducky promised him that he'd have the autopsy results on the typewriter for him soon enough."
Jillian giggled. "So that part was true too?"
Michelle sighed, wondering how such a lovely ceremony ever recovered from that sort of interruption.
"Yup. All of it's true. Uncle Tony had shot it, Auntie Ziva had stabbed it and Auntie Abby had stomped it to pieces with her platform boots. But the fatal blow had come from Uncle Gibbs."
"He felt sorry for it, didn't he Mom?"
Michelle smiled. "Yup. He confessed that he had been using it in case his computer died. Uncle Tim was horrified to discover that his beloved antique typewriter had been touched by another man. Anyway, it turned out that it was a mercy killing in the end. Grandpa Ducky concluded that the fatal blow had come from Uncle Gibbs' bullet. By this time, Uncle Tony was saying that he was sure he'd seen this all in a movie once…"
Jillian stretched out her long legs, having inherited her father's height rather than her mother's. "Uncle Tony sees everything in a movie though," she stated, matter of factly.
"After that, the ceremony proceeded pretty normally. Well, as normal as you can get in scrubs." Michelle winked.
"But, I thought Dad was in a suit? Didn't he wear suits to work?"
Michelle nodded. "Yes, he was in suit. I was the one in scrubs. I'd lost my clothes in a supply closet somewhere." She blushed at the memory, wondering how much she should really tell her daughter. She finally decided, her father was a doctor, there wasn't much she didn't already know. They weren't raising their children to be naïve, after all.
"Later on, after the ceremony, Uncle Tony found them while he was scouting out a supply closet for our honeymoon. Grandpa Ducky fixed up a toe tag that said, "Do not disturb" and Auntie Ziva strung cans and such across the hallway, to warn us if someone came looking for a lightbulb or something. She didn't want anyone to be too enlightened if they opened up the wrong closet door…"
Michelle paused. "But that's a story for when you're older. Much much older."
"And nine months later, here I was!" Jillian said, laughing.
They turned around as they heard a familiar voice. Jimmy had just arrived home from the Navy Yard.
"Oh, that old story again, I see," he said, laughing as Jillian stood up and ran over to him for a hug.
"Hi honey. How was your day today?" Michelle asked, arising herself and walking over to her husband for a welcome home kiss.
"Oh, same old same old. Gunshots. Drownings. Off-duty sailor in a Santa Suit found in a chimney. You know, the usual."
Michelle and Jillian giggled as they each took one of Jimmy's arms, and he escorted his girls into the house to tell them about his day.