Gracie's Journal 6/6/29


A:n/ I don't have much to say, but I appreciate your prayers rn for unspoken reasons. Reminder that I'm taking prompts on this story, and I've gotten a lot of positive response to this story so I hope you will send me some! This chapter, the box.


So it's the first day of summer and I apparently am not allowed to stay home alone for a couple hours while Mom and Dad are at work. No, that's not the case. A few weeks ago they had a case involving a child, and now they're being overprotective again.

So there is this rule about no outsiders in the NCIS building, but there is kind of this exception for me.

I was laying on this little couch, bored out of my mind. There wasn't an active case going on. Uncle Callen and Uncle Sam came over to talk to me for a while, and then they'd go back to their paperwork.

So Aunt Nell took me to lunch with her, we went to this little smoothie truck she frequents, and the guy at the register called her 'Samantha,' and I was her 'niece'. Yeah, undercover operations.

So we drank our smoothies on the sidewalk and we talked for a little while. Aunt Nell is like the best thing ever.

"Why won't Mom and Dad tell me their love story?" I asked suddenly.

Aunt Nell shrugged. "I guess they aren't ready yet."

I was all, "But you know it, right?"

And she smiled and said, "Most of it, yes."

So I asked her why she couldn't just tell me their story. And she came back with this "Its not my story to tell," and "they'll tell you when they're ready."

We went back to NCIS and I just went back to my couch. I was SO bored! I was looking around, and I found this unopened box just lying up on the shelf… I saw no harm in getting it down and opening it.

I pulled my knife out, it's such a beautiful knife. I know I have to be my mother's daughter to call my knife beautiful. It was my 13th birthday present. It looks just like Mom's, but it's mine. It's basically my prized possession.

So I sliced open the box, and opened it up.

There was another box. So I sliced it open too, then put my knife away.

The box had a photo in a frame, Mom and Dad in a gym. They were smiling, his arm draped around her shoulder.

That's all that's in a box that size? Um, no. So I opened the frame. There was another photo behind it, one of Dad on a camel. He was smiling ear to ear, on a camel. A camel. Yeah okay I also missed the story where Dad went camel riding.

There was also a letter in the frame.

I started to read it. It was like,

Dear Deeks,

So, your birthday. I'm really sorry I forgot. I know these photos aren't a lot. But they mean a lot to me and I know they mean a lot to you too. We've come so far in our partnership this year, and I really like that. I think these photos show us being happy; and happiness is something we want most in the…

That is about when Mom and Dad walked in.

"Excuse me?" and "So that's what's in the box,"
The box?

So apparently like a million years ago Mom forgot Dad's birthday. And so to make it up to him she bought this box, but he refused to open it because she said everything he's ever wanted was on the box. He figured if he knew that, he didn't need to open it. After that big op that's still too classified to tell me about, she opened it for him, and there was another box in it, so he just put it back on the shelf.

And then I came into the picture not too long after, and the box became forgotten.

Dad loved what was in the box after all. He said that what he wanted most in the world could not be put in a box, and he nuzzled his nose into Mom's hairline. Of course the remainder of the letter was snatched away from me before I could read the rest.

I'm kind of surprised that they weren't upset that I opened their box. Like it kind of sounded like a big deal.

I guess you win some, you lose some.

Learning a little more each day.

-Gracie.