Tony's parents had paid for a world famous photographer to come and take carefully posed pictures of him since infancy. Each picture was staged with just the right lighting and costume, and, once he was old enough, each smile was demanded and tweaked until it reached perfection. The finished products were framed and placed strategically around the house. Smaller shots were placed in designer wallets to be shown off to business associates or, after Tony's mother died, wealthy women who looked like they might appreciate cute baby pictures, never mind that they were ten years out of date.
Tony had stolen a cheap camera from the housekeeper's purse one Halloween and snapped a picture of himself in his homemade costume. The defiant, crazy grin in it was the most authentic thing seen in a picture of him since infancy.
His father had given him a lecture on the value of expensive possessions when he got home, but he was cut off two minutes into it by a business call.
Tony was disappointed. Not by the lecture, but by the fact that his father was once again distracted.
There was another picture that hadn't been staged, one from a fishing trip that had actually been . . . really nice, one where Tony was grinning with genuine glee beside his father. Tony's cheeks were flushed with pride and sun in a way that he could never quite get them after - Well. After.
Abby had managed to get a copy of the picture for Gibbs. He kept a cropped version of it on his bedside table beside Kelly's.
That was private, though, and not for general viewing. No photos of Tony could be, really, so the front hall and the living room were conspicuously free of them. Upstairs was a different story.
Tony at a batting cage with him, grinning like mad. Tony in his grown up guise as an agent, proudly holding a badge. Tony at a popsicle stand, licking a bright orange pop and snickering at the "Living patrons only" sign.
They weren't for showing off. They weren't for anyone but them. Private moments, quickly captured in a way that lacked artistry but captured everything important.
Tony loved each and every one of them.
Kate's parents had captured her first moments with the love you'd expect from parents. Her early years had the usual candid shots, a few family posed ones, and school photos marching up the grades until they abruptly stopped.
Her parents had proudly displayed her photographs just as they did their other children's. Until after - Well. Until after.
Then looking at them hurt too much, and the therapist said the way her brother stared at them wasn't healthy, so they packed them away where they wouldn't have to look at them.
No one could hear Kate demanding, "What about my emotional health?"
No one could see the way she clenched her fists to keep them from shaking because she didn't want to be forgotten.
Gibbs had Abby pull her last school picture. She was smiling in it, rosy cheeked. Gibbs placed it beside Tony's.
Soon, more pictures of her had joined Tony's. Kate crouching behind a bush with a water gun, biting her lip in concentration as she took aim at Tony. Kate flying fearlessly through the air as she jumped off a swing in midair. A picture snapped by Tony of Gibbs being ambushed by Kate at the Haunted House at the fair.
One of the pictures never would hang quite straight, but stopping to adjust it was always a good excuse to stop and look at them.
Kate smiled a little brighter every time another one went up, content in this proof of her permanence.
Tim's photos could be grouped into two categories: quick, happy snapshots taken by his mother, and uncomfortably stiff family portraits that included his father.
The number of photos didn't decrease as he aged, but the older he got, the shyer his smile got and the more hunched his posture, even in his mother's pictures.
There were a few by his grandmother as well. All of them had a definite aura of settling, as if Penelope had tried in vain to get him to be more something - more confident, more photogenic, more natural - and had finally given up and just snapped off whatever worked.
There was one picture of him holding a winning trophy from a science fair, though, that had been taken by the school. Gibbs added it to his collection and pretended not to notice Tim's pride every time he saw it.
By this point, it was hard to say which new photo belonged to which kid as they had a habit of crowding in together in various silly poses, including one time they posed with their hands making finger guns like they were playing at being secret agents.
Gibbs made sure to get a few just of Tim, though. Ones of him hunched in concentration over his computer. Ones of him surprising himself by winning the ring toss. Ones of him crowing over how easy it was to make the perfect costume now.
All three kids had taken to stealing his camera, but that was alright. Gibbs treasured each silly shot they took.
However many photos had been taken, Ziva had access to exactly two.
One showed her with her siblings before everything had gone wrong. The other was of her as a ghost with a gun, clipped to a CIA report.
The first was private and the second was unthinkable, so Gibbs chose one of her laughing a few months after she'd moved in instead.
Life as a Mossad agent had made her camera shy, but slowly pictures of her joined others on the hallway wall. It was getting pretty crowded by now, but Gibbs didn't mind. He added pictures of all three of them with Jackson, Ziva giving in to Abby and wearing a costume on Halloween, and Ziva balancing carefully on top of the monkey bars, despite that not being their intended use.
Ziva seemed puzzled by them at first, but at last she stumbled upon an explanation.
"These are so you will remember us, yes? In case you hit your head again?"
Tony stared at her, horrified.
But to Ziva, that effort equaled caring, and she wasn't entirely wrong.
There weren't many pictures of Jimmy in the house, but there were a few of him with Ducky or the kids, and one memorable one of Abby testing whether or not permanent marker would show up on ghosts.
He wasn't one of Gibb's kids, but he was kind of like the weird cousin, and the whole family needed to be represented.
Bishop wasn't quite one of his either, but when Vance got one of the whole team together at the Christmas party, Gibbs was happy to have a picture he didn't have to hide.
And besides, she was part of the family now, too.
The only person relatively absent from the walls of the house was Gibbs.
He was not, however, at all absent from the scrapbook Abby had put together and proudly presented one Christmas.
And if some of the pictures were taken from security footage, well, it was just a compliment to his vigilance that they were hard pressed to sneak pictures any other way.