Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS
It was Christmas and Gibbs was beginning to wonder if everyone had decided not to celebrate this year. Besides a tree and a few decorations, no one on his team had asked him to join their annual celebration. Maybe they had finally decided it was futile, he thought but he hoped that his luck held out for a few more hours.
It seemed like it was the first Christmas they would not be working a case. He decided that everything here was done so he let his team go home. Now he could work on the boat and drink as much bourbon before he passed out.
Gibbs had knocked over a box while getting one of his tools. The box happened to have pictures of Shannon, Kelly and him on various Christmases. Gibbs knelt down and picked up the pictures. Slowly he went through the pictures, Kelly dressed as an elf for her first grade school play, he and Kelly covered in flour and eggs while trying to make cookies, Kelly standing next to a snowman they had built, Shannon and Kelly on a toboggan, Kelly and Maddie making snow angels.
Gibbs put away the pictures and trudged upstairs, hoping that he fell into a dreamless sleep. The pictures had dredged up all the memories he had of his girls before they were taken from him. He collapsed on the bed and shut his eyes. Downstairs the door cracked open and six faces peered in.
"He's not here," Abby declared in a whisper stepping in to the house. Ziva stepped in after her with a bag of decorations leaving Tony and Tim to lug the tree in. Jenny and Ducky strolled in with armfuls of food before shutting the door.
"I'll find Jethro and determine how long we have," Jenny said creeping up the stairs.
"Let's get to work," Abby announced. The Christmas tree was set up in a corner and Tim began to decorate the tree.
Abby set up the stereo to play soft Christmas music but left it off for now.
Tony lit a fire in the fireplace as he was positive that it was 0® in here.
Ducky began to set out the food while humming an old Christmas song.
Jenny came downstairs and informed them that the Boss was indeed asleep the she went to assist Ducky.
Once the gifts were stacked under the tree, Jenny decided it was time for the moment of truth. She headed upstairs as Abby turned on the music. It was not loud but Gibbs would hear it.
Gibbs opened his eyes, trying to figure out what was going on. He saw Jenny standing over him and shot up.
"Jen! What the heck is going on?" Gibbs asked blinking rapidly.
"Jethro its Christmas Eve and since every year you ditch the annual party, this year we ditched it too." Jenny told him.
"And decided to spend it here, why?" Gibbs questioned
"Because, Gibbs we want you to be happy."
"I am happy with my boat and bourbon." Gibbs said simply.
"We both know that's a load of crap," Jenny said with an eye roll," Look Gibbs why do you insist on being miserable when you have people who care about you, your team is downstairs waiting for you to complete their celebration! None of them have had an ideal childhood and they look up to you as a father, if not for yourself than for them Jethro, at least pretend you appreciate their hard work and when they leave go back to whatever you were doing," Jenny said, pleading with him.
She had watched as they made preparations and she knew that despite the fact that Ziva pretended not to care or Tim and Tony insisted that it was a bad idea that they were all hoping that Gibbs joined them.
"Fine, Jen, I guess it wouldn't hurt besides I smell coffee." Gibbs said a grin forming.
She broke into a smile. She never thought that Gibbs would actually agree. But in hindsight she had delivered one hell of a speech.
They walked down the stairs and she saw that the team was watching the stairs and when Gibbs followed her down, they all had ear splitting grins plastered on their faces.
After a quick dinner, the team insisted on baking cookies.
"Its tradition Boss," Tony said looking at Gibbs with puppy dog eyes. Abby and even Tim and Ziva joined him and Gibbs just laughed.
"Fine!" Gibbs announced leading them all into the kitchen. Ducky had magically pulled out baking ingredients and several baking tools. Gibbs shook his head, they planned well.
While baking Tony had 'accidently' thrown flour on Ziva and Ziva retaliated by throwing McGee's eggs at him. Abby who was walking through got hit by and egg and grabbed a nearby carton of milk and chucked it at Tim who was cracking eggs. Tim chucked an egg at her in response.
Jenny and Ducky were watching with amusement wondering how he was going to put a stop to all of this but instead Gibbs flicked some flour her way.
"Oh it's on Jethro!" She yelled charging for an egg. The next fifteen minutes saw an all-out Girls' vs. Boys' food fight. Eventually the girls declared a truce after Tony had yanked open the fridge and grabbed a week old Chinese food and threw it their way.
"Well I guess cookies are out," Tony said with a rueful grin. Gibbs simply opened a cabinet and threw a tray of Oreos at his head.
"Boss you keep Oreos!" Tony exclaimed in shock. Gibbs glared at him and Tony wisely shut up and handed out Oreos.
Ducky found a camera and snapped a picture of the team messed in flour and eggs, eating Oreos and smiling and laughing. It wasn't a normal Christmas Eve but hey since when did they do anything the way it was supposed to be done.
"So what are we doing for Christmas," Gibbs asked and everyone froze to stare at him instead.
"Gibbs are you really gonna come this year?" Abby asked with a hopeful look.
"No, Abs I'm not coming," Their faces fell and Jenny glared at him but he continued," We are holding Christmas right here!" he announced.
They broke out in to a cheer and Abby threw herself into his arms.
Since they had all been rather occupied, when they opened the door to leave they found that it has snowed! They couldn't drive home like this.
"Looks like you guys a spending the night here, so you can clean up the kitchen after you guys are cleaned up." Gibbs said with his trademark smirk.
A/N: I will be posting one more chapter about Christmas Day.
Please review!
