Hetty has a new tea pot the team noticed as she was brewing one of her famous 'twig' teas. No one seemed to know where it came from but they noticed it because it looked new and it was Disney not some tea pot from the Ming dynasty. Once in a while the team will even catch her looking at it with a trace of a smile.
They just shake their head because they know the only way for Hetty to share a tea pot story was to earn it. For some reason Callen seemed to think that no one would earn that story for a long time to come and he was correct.
A few months later when Hetty decided to pack up some of her tea pots and move them to another area so there would be more room she ran into a tea cup. This was no ordinary tea cup and lo' and behold it matched her favorite tea pot. This particular tea cup had two mice sitting within. She recognized them as Jacques and Octavius or Jaq and Gus. The tea cup its self was magnificent. It was white with light purple flowers twined together with little blue birds along the top. It was busy yet graceful just like the pot. Inside was a note from the week before. "Just thought you needed something to make you smile."
Hetty thought back to that day and realized that she did need something to smile about. She smiled because on of her 'children' had seen that she needed a pick me up and was able to bring a smile to her face.
Hetty is a woman who would not admit to anyone that she needed love in her life but through these little thoughtful acts in her life she realized that she had a lot of love around her she just needed to open her eyes and realize it. She already thought of her team as her children but it was in this moment that she made the connection that the team was her family.
For years to come little tea cups and matching saucers would appear when she needed to smile or just because. She invited the whole team over for Thanksgiving and sometimes they would just show up at one of her houses on Christmas. They each had a bedroom if they needed and eventually they had a spare change of clothing. Her houses had become homes and she felt the love she had been missing for years. This made her so happy.
She never did find out how Deeks was able to smuggle the little 'gifts' past her 'Hetty alarm' but in the end she realized that she did not want to know because it would stop being such a great surprise. In the end she had tea cups from all the major original Disney movies including Dumbo, Sleeping Beauty, The Lion King, Fantasia (her favorite) 101 Dalmatians with many more and she suspected more to come. Each with an intricate design that matched her tea pot and each one loved. They were displayed in her office and no one ever questioned what happened to the Ming Dynasty or who gave them to her.