Here's the next chapter! Thank you to all those who have reviewed so far, I try to answer each review but if I didn't, I'm sorry. I really do appreciate them. Thank you to Celtic Crossings who beta's this story! :)


On the way home, Gibbs dropped Caitie off at the library; she'd asked to be dropped off so she could check out some more books. Apparently she'd nearly read through all the books she'd checked out earlier in the week.

Gibbs was grateful that she'd requested it, the storage room needed to be cleared out and he didn't want Caitie to mess with any of Kelly's stuff. He doubted that the girl would ruin anything, but it was still hard to talk about Kelly and he didn't want to answer any questions, not now anyway.

He brought all the furniture into the house and then went upstairs. The storage room wasn't that messy, there were just a few old things of Shannon's and Kelly's that he needed to move. First, he moved all of Kelly's items into her old room. Closing the door gently he turned back to the things of Shannon's. The elliptical machine would be by far, the hardest to move, and where would he put it? He knew there was no room in his bedroom and he finally decided to simply drag it out into the living room, shove it up against a wall and figure it out later.

There was noise downstairs and Gibbs went to the stairs to see what it was, Tony, Ziva, Abby and McGee were down stairs, they each had a couple of shopping bags with them.

"Gibbs! We came by to give Caitie some stuff." Abby said.

"She's at the library right now but you can unload the bags in the kitchen. McGee, DiNozzo; you can help me move something out of the storage room."

"Yes Boss." Both agents set their bags down and moved upstairs quickly.

With DiNozzo's and McGee's help, Gibbs soon had the storage room cleared out and all the furniture was being moved upstairs so Gibbs could build it. Normally he wouldn't have bought furniture from a store and he would have made the things Caitie needed but he also knew that Caitie needed places to put her things, he didn't have the time to make from scratch the furniture she needed.

He could faintly hear Abby and Ziva moving around in the kitchen as he started building the bedstead, they were supposed to be getting the box spring and mattress on Friday and he wanted to make sure that the bedstead was built. Ignoring the instructions he simply started building it but was only about half done when Caitie knocked on the door. "Dinner's ready." She said.

Everyone went down stairs and Gibbs could smell that Ziva, Abby and Caitie had made breakfast for dinner. "Abby made chocolate chip pancakes, blueberry pancakes and regular pancakes." Caitie announced.

"Smells great Abby," McGee said and the rest of them murmured in agreement.

They all sat down and started eating, about half way through his first stack of pancakes though, Gibbs heard it. A bark, it sounded like it was coming from the basement. Ignoring it, he kept eating, then it happened again. Ziva, Abby and Caitie all looked at each other and then put food in their mouths, clearly trying to ignore it.

"What's that?" Gibbs asked, Caitie motioned to her mouth and kept chewing. Finally, Gibbs got up and went to the basement door. He opened it and the fattest dog he'd ever seen rolled out. Barking happily, it bounded over to Caitie, panting and whining as it smelled the sausage.

"He followed me home from the library. I brought him in because it was so hot outside." Caitie explained, "I thought he'd sleep through dinner and then I could put him outside again."

"You can keep him until the heat breaks." Gibbs said, he knew it had been hot and the girl was like Jenny in that she'd never been able to say no to a stray dog.

Caitie smiled and slipped the dog a sausage. Dinner continued and soon, Gibbs was going back upstairs to finish building as much of the furniture as he could before Caitie would go to bed.

Even with DiNozzo and McGee's 'help' he finished the bedstead and most of the dresser before Caitie stuck her head in. "Is it okay if Castle sleeps on the bed?" She asked.

"Castle?"

"The dog."

Gibbs nodded and turned to McGee and DiNozzo, "both of you go home and get some sleep." He all but ordered.

"Yes Boss." Both men said as one.

Gibbs left his tools in the storage room and glanced into his bedroom as he walked by, Caitie was lying on his bed an arm wrapped around the dog, sleeping peacefully.

"I'm never going to be able to get rid of that dog." Gibbs said, remembering Kelly and the stray dog she'd taken in.

"This surprises you?" Ziva asked. "You took Tony in all those years ago."

"I will have you know Ziva," Tony began, "that I am the purebred dog of the bunch, it's you and McProbie that are the strays."

"Yeah and I've had better luck getting them to do what I want." Gibbs shot back, but before anyone else could answer, Abby came up the stairs.

"Gibbs?" Abby's voice made him turn.

"Yeah Abs?"

"The kitchen is clean and the dishes are done."

Gibbs nodded "Thanks Abs."

"I brought some junk food for Caitie; I figured that you wouldn't have much in the house. Let her eat it, she's just a kid, don't expect her to act like an adult."

"Okay Abs." Gibbs said.

"And I don't want to see you in the office until Monday morning. Vance made me promise that I'd get a promise out of you that you wouldn't come in until Monday."

"I promise." Gibbs told the younger woman.

It took nearly half an hour more, but the rest of his team left and he was left alone with Caitie and the dog.

He tried to go to sleep, but about midnight he realized that he wasn't getting to sleep anytime soon. Grabbing the night table from Caitie's soon-to-be room he took it down to the basement and started putting it together. If he couldn't sleep the least he could do was make sure the girl had furniture to put her stuff in tomorrow when everything was delivered.


The next morning, Gibbs made breakfast, the smell woke Caitie up and she came down the stairs, her hair messed up.

"Pam said her son would be by about 9." She yawned as she grabbed a glass and poured some orange juice into it.

Gibbs glanced at the time. 7:30, He would have the dresser and one of the bookshelves done by the time he came over.

"I've gotta finish building the furniture that we bought, stay down stairs until I'm done, then we can move stuff around to where you want it." Gibbs told her.

Caitie nodded. "Okay, I'll just play games on my computer until he gets here."

Gibbs nodded as well, "That computer stays downstairs by the way; I don't want you to have it upstairs." He'd read somewhere that it was safer to have any computer in a public room.

Caitie shrugged "Okay." She said, "Grandmother had the same rule that my computer had to be in a common family room. I've got a desk that I think would fit right there, between the stairs and the kitchen wall." Caitie vaguely pointed to where she was talking about. "We might need to get a chair for it though."

Gibbs nodded and went upstairs to finish building the furniture.

It took nearly 4 more hours, but Gibbs finally went downstairs, finished with building the pieces of furniture.

Boxes littered the front hall and Gibbs could see that the living room had several pillars of boxes stacked up.

He turned to see Caitie had already put her computer on the desk that, had in fact fit where she'd hoped. A box was open beside it and she unpacked what looked like school supplies and put it all into the drawers.

"I'm done building everything." He said, "Finish unpacking that box and then come up and decide where you want your furniture."

Caitie nodded and turned back to the desk. Caitie soon finished and joined him upstairs. "The bed is fine where it is." She said. But I'd like the book shelves to be at different parts of the room, one by my bed, on the other side of the bedside table." She said, "That way I can get a book to read if its bed time but I'm not tired." Caitie muttered more to herself then to Gibbs. Soon though, they were both moving the furniture around and the room was the way Caitie wanted it.

"Do you like Chinese?" Gibbs asked.

Caitie nodded Gibbs kept speaking. "I know of a good all you can eat Chinese Buffett."

Caitie nodded and they left, the drive to the buffet only took a few minutes and Caitie hopped out, eager to eat lunch.

The meal was long, partly because Caitie went back for several helpings and partly because Gibbs didn't want to go back to the house. He didn't mind having Caitie there; while it was difficult it got easier every day. Somehow, deep down he knew he'd always keep Jenny's daughter, even if she hadn't been his. But having Caitie there made him remember what the house had been like when Kelly and Shannon had lived there, it made the house more alive.

It wasn't that he didn't love Caitie, because on a deep level, he did. It was just…new, this love. He wasn't used to it.