Away With the Gibblet Fairies
"Again, Ducky, save the babysitting for someone who needs it," Jethro Gibbs ordered. He punctuated each word with his semblance of a stomp, difficult to take seriously when he could only engage one leg.
"Just sit, Jethro," the ever patent Dr. Mallard- generally referred to as Ducky- retorted as he pointed towards the sofa. "All I ask is you stay put the remainder of the day. If you continue to ignore my instructions to rest your leg your knee will further deteriorate. Jethro, we've been down this road before."
"So you say," Jethro mumbled, shooting his friend an icy blue stare. "While you force me away from the Agency I can't deal with protecting innocent people or meting justice."
Ducky stopped walking and stood stock still, remaining unmoving until Jethro finally sank into the sofa's cushions. The older Scotsman was one person Jethro had never managed to intimidate and remained immune to attempts of verbal manipulation. "Well," he raised his eyebrows dramatically and pursed his lips. "You have a team of trained agents still toiling back at NCIS, and you have never doubted Anthony's ability to lead the team in your absence. I trust they will handle business until your return tomorrow."
Though the team leader refused to admit it, it did feel good to prop his throbbing knee. Still, to ensure his point had been driven home, Jethro crossed his arms behind his head and glared.
Ducky smiled. Long accustomed to his friend's obsessive need to control, he ignored the petulance instead and busied himself with pouring a glass of water. He handed it to Gibbs and pulled a medicine canister from his jacket pocket. Shaking out two pills he offered them to his patient and watched as Gibbs swallowed.
Ducky replaced the vial's cap and set the bottle down on the coffee table. "Take two more at bedtime. They'll make you a bit drowsy, so don't plan to drive."
Gibbs nodded affirmatively.
"Good," Ducky grinned. "Since you're finally cooperative I'll bid you adieu. I'll tell Anthony to soldier on, and reassure Abigail that you are not at death's door. Caitlin will applaud the decision to nurse that knee. I'll give Timothy a status report as well, though the last few days he's seemed to constantly be away with the fairies."
"Ditto," Gibbs growled. "The past couple of days I've had to interrupt a couple of daydreams. At least I think they were daydreams."
Ducky chuckled, "They most certainly were daydreams. The alternate would be that he simply ignored you, and I think we both know that wouldn't happen. You have that paternal air whether you mean to activate it or not."
Jethro closed his eyes and leaned against the sofa's frame. "I'm not their father," he muttered irritably.
"Certainly not," Ducky agreed with a twinkle in his eyes. "Nowhere in the vicinity, in fact. Anyway, I'm leaving now."
The patient didn't offer a goodbye and Ducky let himself out, stopping to stretch on the front stoop before driving away in his Morgan.
Before the wise Dr. Mallard could turn onto the next block Gibbs had already sunk into dreamland.
Seated across the metal desk from Tim's sixth grade homeroom teacher, Leroy Jethro Gibbs attempted to clarify Ms. Ronsen's concern.
"Is it a focusing problem, Ms. Ronsen? Is that what you think you're encountering?"
"No, not per se," the teacher contradicted. "It is just that once Tim activates his imagination I find it hard to get him to relinquish that creativity, to come back down to earth and zero in on school." She smiled encouragingly. "He loses himself in his daydreams and I find it hard to snap him back into the reality of sixth grade curricular instruction."
Jethro shifted in his chair and leaned forward. "Right. He does have- Tim has always had a great imagination."
"Indeed he does and I have witnessed it firsthand! Tim can take one incident he experiences and turn it into a charming story," Ms. Ronsen agreed.
Gibbs understood that point without further elaboration. His youngest son would spend hours following him around to share stories he had written, or ideas for stories he would like to write. It always amazed the father that Tim displayed such an evident aptitude towards creative narrations. The child always strengthened his plots with wonderful character descriptions, elements of mystery or drama, and structured dialogues.
The complexity of his stories seemed incongruous to the little boy's shy demeanor.
Ms. Ronsen continued. "I guess what I am trying to express is that though Tim is very talented, the truth is that I don't want him to lose himself …"
"Away with the fairies," Jethro interrupted, drumming his fingers on the chair's arm.
"…in reveries the entire school day," she concluded. "But if that means the same thing as away with the fairies, then yes."
"According to my Agency's medical examiner, it does," Jethro assured her as he stood. He sighed. "Thank you for the head's up on Tim."
She stood as well and smiled, "Agent Gibbs, he's a credit to you and it is apparent that you take his academics seriously. Thank you. I wish all of my parents were this involved and invested."
In his car driving back to NCIS a few minutes later Gibbs pondered what the teacher had told him. Without question Tim possessed a love and fascination of words and though he himself had often been accused of being taciturn, Jethro nevertheless admired the opposite character trait in his child, in his sons.
His sons- Tim differed so much from Tony, his elder by two years.
Gibbs shook his head. Maybe they weren't so different after all. To be honest, he had certainly accused Tony more than once of spending hours in a row away with the fairies instead of on topics at hand.
Tony was a true athlete, fit and competitive no matter the sport. He excelled. Further, despite Tony's efforts to mask his intelligence, he actually was very smart. The child would seize one detail or snippet of information and immediately launch it into what-if scenarios so complex that attempting to follow his mental path would prove exhausting.
Just the week before Gibbs had reprimanded the thirteen year old over a phone call he had received from Tony's math teacher, who reported that he had redirected Tony six times that day in order to keep him on task.
In the middle of his lecture on the importance of academics Jethro realized Tony had slipped away with the fairies. He sighed in exasperation. "Son! What did I just say to you?"
Tony's vivid green eyes widened and he regarded his father sheepishly. "Sorry, Dad. I was thinking about how one pane of glass can tell a story."
Trying to control a rising temper Jethro snapped, "What does glass have to do with math or the fact that your teacher called?"
"In a roundabout way it does." Tony straightened in his seat, then leaned forward towards his father to speak sincerely. "Listen to this, Dad. Across from my math classroom and across the courtyard is one of the science rooms. Yesterday we had a fire drill and we always go out the back door of the classrooms when that happens. So on our way back I noticed a couple of shards of glass outside the science class- well, actually between the science class and my math class. Last week when we got to school the teachers said kids had vandalized the science room overnight. They had broken a window and trashed some stuff in the classroom. But yesterday when the fire drill finished and we started back on the math lesson it got me to thinking about that window glass I'd found. Then it hit me that the window couldn't have been broken from the outside. That glass had landed outside because someone had broken the window from inside the room instead. So that made me think it was kids who get to school early and who probably sneaked down the hall to get in the classroom. Sometimes the custodians will open the classroom doors before teachers arrive. If the school had some kind of camera system it could record what's going on during times like that."
Astonished at the logic, Jethro rubbed his chin. "So," Jethro reconciled Tony's version of events with the teacher's. "That's where your mind was during math?"
"That's why I was daydreaming," Tony shook his head and awarded his father a sheepish glance.
Jethro tousled Tony's hair. "Great reasoning, Anthony, and it makes me proud that you analyzed that scene as you did. I train agents to do just that."
His oldest smiled in response. "I'm just a chip off the old block, right Dad?"
Thinking back on the incident after his meeting with Ms. Rosen, Jethro conceded that Tim and Tony's imaginations did serve them well, though certainly they had to learn there was a time and place for daydreaming.
Turning onto a side street Jethro reminded himself that his two girls could also lose themselves in woolgathering as easily and readily as the boys.
His youngest, Abby, often unbalanced him with her ten year old insights. A couple of months before when he had gone to tuck her in for the night she had patted the bed beside her to indicate her desire for him to sit.
Jethro did, and brushed back a strand of her dark hair and tweaked the tip of her nose.
"Daddy, I've been thinking about something really important when I was getting ready for bed. I went away with the fairies in an important way."
Gibbs smoothed the covers. "Is that so?"
"Yes," she nodded emphatically. "All those hungry people in the world just don't get anything to eat because sometimes they can't grow any food."
"True, but also sometimes the problem might be people can't pay for their food."
She grabbed his hand. "I know that, but I'm thinking about the growing part only."
Jethro rubbed her cheek with the back of a forefinger. "Tell me, Honey."
"Well, remember I explained to you that we are growing mold in one of those dish things in science class?"
"Petri dishes," Jethro supplied. "I recall that."
Abby's nose crinkled. "Well that made me think that maybe I could grow vegetables in dishes like that and then it would give all the hungry people healthy food. If I grow up and get to be a scientist I can work with all the important equipment and figure out from experiments what kind of food to grow. So if I get a microscope for my birthday like I have asked and asked ever since Christmas to get I can start thinking about kinds of soil and the best seeds for me to use."
Jethro sat speechless for several seconds, stunned at the intelligence and problem solving skills shown by his youngest. This had been where her mind had travelled when he sent her to bathe and get ready for bed? He leaned over and kissed her forehead, then powered off the bedside lamp. "If that kind of thinking is what you've been doing when you're away with the fairies, I can't wait to see what you come up with when you're asleep and dreaming."
The NCIS parking lot came into view.
Jethro reminded himself that Tim, Tony, and Abby evidently made productive use of their daydreaming.
As Gibbs drove into the parking area and slid the car into an available space he considered Kate.
Kate indulged in daydreaming as much as her siblings did.
He cut off the ignition but didn't get out of the vehicle right away as he reflected upon Kate and her imagination.
A couple of months before Kate had wandered into the basement as he attached a section of the boat to the frame. She sank down thoughtfully on one of the middle steps and propped her elbows on her legs.
Jethro checked the body language, noting the twelve year old's serious demeanor.
"Something bothering you?" Jethro raised an eyebrow. His other children were upstairs enjoying their post-homework television viewing.
Kate ran a hand through her chestnut hair. "No, I just want to finish thinking about something, Dad."
"All right, then." He blew her a kiss and continued his work, visually checking on her every couple of minutes. Obviously something important was on her mind, because she barely changed position in that interval.
Nearly fifteen minutes later she slid off the steps and joined him. She tapped his hand. "Daddy, I've been figuring out something."
Jethro set down his tools and motioned her to a bench. They both sat.
"Let me hear it," he invited.
Kate daintily crossed her legs. With a pang Jethro realized she would soon leave girlhood behind and develop into a young woman- a confident, intelligent, and attractive young woman.
Kate licked her lips. "Today there was an assembly for my grade and a lady and man from the FBI came to speak to us about how we can protect ourselves if some bad person tries to kidnap or hurt us." She glanced at him and added, "They taught my whole grade.
Jethro rubbed his chin. "Well then, good for the FBI, and I hope you paid attention."
"I did," Kate confirmed, nodding. "But you had already taught Abby and Tim and Tony and me all of the things to do that the FBI said today."
"So what is on your mind then?" he prodded.
"While they were talking I started thinking about how I bet criminals do certain things or act in certain ways that we could predict things about them. We could already know about them. The criminals, I mean-"
"Go on," Jethro encouraged, taken aback by his daughter's serious contemplation.
"Wouldn't it be a good idea if all the police agencies started writing down descriptions about criminals and the kinds of crimes they have committed? Then they could compare all these facts and figure out what kind of person is going to do a crime even before the person does."
Jethro smiled at her. "Honey, that's something that has begun to gain some popularity. It's called profiling, and it is exactly what you are thinking. When a crime is committed the law enforcement agencies can put together a profile of the possible age and educational level, for example. You are pretty bright to have thought of this yourself. I'm proud of you."
"Well, I just already knew what the FBI had to say so I just let myself daydream, but Dad, do you think one day I could grow up to be one of those profiler people? I think I could be pretty good at it."
"Oh, absolutely!" Jethro assured her, pulling her to him for a hug. "You would be wonderful at it because you pay attention to details."
Did other fathers have kids like his?
A true cacophony of words suddenly assailed him. The details of his enforced rest came back to him and he reassured himself that he had experienced a vivid dream and not real life. Tony, Abby, Kate, and Tim did not belong to him. He was not their dad.
Still, their familiar voices surrounded him.
"What if Boss wakes up like around supper time and he doesn't see us. What then?" Tony demanded.
Based on the voice range, Gibbs pinpointed Tony's location as right next to the stairs.
"Wait," Tim threw support to Tony. "Tony's right. We need to go now and get back here within the hour or we can't set up anything. Can you imagine what Boss would say if he found out ahead of time?"
Kate's voice answered from nearer to the front door. "Making up future scenarios is costing time. Just come on or else we'll miss our opportunity for subterfuge!"
Evidently his underlings planned some type of surprise. Jethro exaggerated his breathing to appear deep within the sleep cycle.
He felt a soft breeze and realized Abby had moved from the kitchen to the living room. She hissed to her colleagues, "Use your intellects, people, and not your imaginations!"
"Good advice, but I think we're all scrambling now because we didn't expect Gibbs to get hurt or Gibbs to be home this afternoon. We need to coordinate and condense our whole afternoon agenda into a sixty minute one," Tony countered.
Kate tapped her foot. "Then you and Abby stay and start readying the house for the gathering. Tim and I will go pick up the cake and ice cream and other groceries and zoom back here."
"I'll call Palmer and Ducky on the way and update them," Tim offered.
Now Gibbs understood the urgency. They planned to surprise him with a celebration for his upcoming birthday.
His initial reaction was to instantly order them to ditch their plan. Then he reconsidered. Rarely did the whole team have a chance to mingle outside of work, and rarer still were the opportunities to join together for a positive purpose.
Another flurry of activity followed and Kate and Tim hurried outside.
Jethro waited until he heard the car start before he opened his eyes.
Across the room from him Tony balanced a tray of paper products and plastic utensils. Noticing Gibbs, his eyes widened and he hastily slid the tray on a side table. "Uhm, hi Boss. Glad you're awake and hope you're feeling better. Did the medicine help? Do you feel relaxed?"
Jethro grinned and sat up against the sofa's back. "Yes it did, and yes I do, Tony. I've had a couple of relaxed hours away with the fairies."