Secret Santa 2
by Crazy-Prune
for Caf-Pow
It was dark outside in the rising hours of the morning and the squad room was cast in Christmasy Red haze, something that she was certain she could thank Abby for. As sure as she was that there was something in the million pages of the Director's handbook that said Christmas decorations were not allowed, Jenny wasn't sure she could care too much this year; red and gold tinsel was wrapped around the stairs and along the balcony, Fairy Lights hung, twinkling between seasonal colours, from the ceiling, somehow huge glitter covered snowflakes had been snuck in too and were glimmering and glinting, hanging high above, in awe of all of the other decorations. The only thing that would finish of this scene as one of a winter wonderland would be a sleigh and a sprinkling of snow, but she could only wish; the sleigh she was sure was something that Abby could produce in a few hours – she daren't ask how – but snow simply wasn't going to happen. She certainly wasn't going to allow snow, real of fake, put inside so that it could destroy her Agency's carpets – explaining that one to the SecNav would be interesting, and whilst it was below freezing outside, for reasons unknown the sky was holding out on her too, this year. It seemed her dream white Christmas would have to wait yet another year.
"Jen," her attention was drawn to where the sound of her name was coming from; she turned to see Jethro staring at her from his desk. She was clearly his only focus in the otherwise empty room. It must've been something about Christmas Eve which she had yet to grasp hold of that made everyone else take the offered holiday – still she preferred to be here than an empty house and apparently so did he.
"Jethro, what are you doing here?"
"I could ask the same thing of you."
To Jenny, admitting she had nowhere better to be seemed just a little too pitiful to admit, instead she changed the question: "Did you know she was planning all this?"
Gibbs smirked; it was all the responsibility he needed to give to himself for her to know exactly how much he had known. She giggled childishly as she took another look around the room and its dazzling beauty, in a way; it was a shame that only they were there to enjoy it.
"Let's just say that she thought both you and I would be here, and so she said that if we weren't going home for Christmas, that she was bringing it to us."
Sometimes Jenny wondered where Gibbs had managed to find a 'daughter' as sweet as Abby, and yet as terrifying looking and strong as she was at times. She found herself in awe of a young woman so accomplished and loved. "She did all this for us?"
"That's what she said, although, I have a sneaking feeling that she enjoyed doing it a lot herself."
Jenny nodded in agreement – that was something anyone could be sure about. Abby was insatiable when it came to spreading holiday joy! "I have work to do, so I'll see you later?"
Gibbs didn't comment at first, he was here to do exactly the same, yet it felt as if they shouldn't be spending Christmas Eve, and most probably Christmas Day alone, even if they were spending it in the same place. "Jen!" She turned and he swallowed back his pride as he made the offer. "You could come and work down here, after all, Abby's put so much effort into all this it shouldn't just be wasted on me."
She smiled, almost beamed, in agreement. "I'll go and get my stuff."
"You know what would make this better?"
"Coffee?"
Jenny looked up at her desk-mate with a look of surprise on her face. "I wasn't talking about that, but coffee wouldn't hurt either. I was just thinking that with the squad room as decorated as it is, the only thing that would make it look better would be a sleigh and reindeer by the window – with the dark sky outside it really would look magical…and of course, the perfect addition would be snow, but not even Abby has the powers of that at her hands." Her eyes wandered over to the window where she imagined the scene in her mind and then back over to Gibbs who was stifling a little laugh at her suggestion.
"Seriously Jen, you want Santa as well whilst you're at it?"
She hit him playfully on the arm. "No! I just think it's nice, once in awhile to remind yourself what Christmas was like as a child – you only get that perfect Christmas once or twice, so…" She trailed off when she caught sight of Jethro, still trying not to laugh at her.
"It's sweet, that's all."
She gave him one of his own world famous Gibbs-glares that told him to shut up. "You want to get some coffee?" He agreed.
She grabbed her coat and bag, and watched as Gibbs did the same, only more slowly. He caught her gaze: "You go ahead; I'll catch up with you in a minute. I just have something to finish." Dubious, she agreed, feeling his eyes watching her until the moment the elevator doors closed after her.
Jethro pulled out his phone and dialled the number he knew by heart. "Abs, do me a favour – Jenny loves the decorations but she would love you forever if you give her a Santa sleigh and snow."
He could hear the exclamations of glee down the phone, he was sure that Jenny could probably hear halfway across the building at the volume level Abby used. "There'll be loads of Caf Pows," he assured her before he hung up the phone.
Grabbing his badge and gun out of the draw, he sprinted after the Director.
The pair arrived back quite a few hours later, a shopping bag or two in tow thanks to an excellent diversion in the form of a shop they had walked past, sure enough, Gibbs had allowed it to take enough time for everything to be prepared.
As the elevator doors opened, a blanket of white was revealed, one that stretched the length and breadth of the room, and brought gasps of shock to the both of them. Jenny stepped into the room first, bending down and scooping a handful of what appeared to be the tiniest polystyrene balls off of the floor and letting them fall back down as she unclasped her hand. She watched in awe as the little specks of white fell softly like snow. "How did you do this?"
"You wanted snow, so I made it happen, with a little help from the elves."
At the word elves, something else caught her eye, something even Gibbs couldn't believe Abby had pulled off – covering the floor in polystyrene was one thing, but getting a full sized sleigh into the building, let alone stacked with colourfully wrapped boxes of all shapes and sizes was quite another. Jenny almost ran over to it, dropping the shopping bags in her wake, like an amazed young child at their first sight of Santa's sleigh, running her hands over the apparently authentic wooden sides, feeling its texture under her fingers. She turned, rounding on Gibbs with an excitement and enthusiasm only before seen in the very young lady responsible for all this.
"Thank you!" She could've been bouncing, but he wasn't too sure, all he saw were the hundreds of tiny polystyrene balls splaying into the air around her feet, like kicked snow, as she moved. Grabbing him firmly by the shoulders, she wrapped her arms around him as her bouncing subsided – her little expression of her thanks. "I know you had more to do with this than you'll admit, so thank you – this is so amazing."
"Anytime, Jen."
Jenny unwrapped herself from him and took another look around what had once been the squad room, taking in every little detail that Abby and what must have been an army of people had created. "You know what, I should never have tried to stop her decorating before, I quite like the new look, perhaps we'll keep it this way and the teams can find somewhere else to work." She smirked at the thought of the looks on anyone else's faces if they ever saw the place in the state that it was in. The Legal Department would have a field day if they knew all the apparent safety 'dangers' of everything, particularly the fake snow. "How does Abby expect us to carry on working when there's all this around, it's far too distracting?"
"I think that was the point of the exercise."
"What are we supposed to do now then?"
Jethro smiled at her, "Talk, have fun – whatever it is that Abby demands more of. Perhaps you could tell me why you love snow so much?"
Within a few minutes, all the presents that had been in the sleigh were scattered all over the floor, the colours vibrant against the carpet of white; Jenny and Jethro took possibly the only chance they would ever get as serious adults to sit in the sleigh like children do at a winter funfair.
"…it makes absolutely no sense considering the fact that I hate the rain, but as a child my father and I would sit in the park when in was snowing or out in the garden if we had to, and we would sit with out faces up to the sky and our eyes closed just feeling the soft sensation of snow on our faces and catching in our hair – and it was something we always did. After my mother died, we always did it, no matter what, I don't even know how he did it, but whenever it snowed he would always come home early and we would go outside and that was every single time – he never missed one whilst I was a child…" She trailed off, lost in the memory, here face turned upwards as she remembered the sensation of the snow flitting over her skin.
"That's beautiful." He was struck for words at her memory, wishing there were something he could do to replicate it for her, but he could not make real snow.
"Mhm." She agreed, slowly bringing her eyes down to his and to be hit by a snowball of white. She shook it off, shock plastered almost permanently to her features and tiny beads of 'snow' stuck in her hair. "What the…?" she stuttered as she looked for Gibbs in her field of vision, now at least 10 metres, a safe distance away.
"Snowball-ish fight?" His face was an image of cheekiness.
"You're on!" Jenny jumped to her feet, grasping the first handful of 'snow' she could and lobbing it in his direction, missing by meters and realising that this was a whole new game with a whole different set of tactics.
So they went on throwing and kicking Abby's 'snow' until Jenny gave up, lying down in the middle of the squad room floor, a mermaid surrounded by a sea of white. Gibbs appeared next to her a few minutes later, sprinkling the last of his 'snow' over her as she gave him another of his death glares with her eyes half shut, before he finally gave in and laid down next to her. They looked to the ceiling in the same way Jenny looked expectantly at the sky, as if it were about to grant her wish of snow and dance it fleetingly over the both of them. Of course no snow came.
"You have to admit, I did win."
Jenny turned to him, this time not bothering with a glare, instead a look of incredulity. "What have you been doing, picking up lines from DiNozzo?"
"Why would you assume that?"
"Attacking girls then – it's not a good image."
"I thought you believed in equality, that women can be just as good as men?"
"I still do – when it suits me!" She rolled her eyes sarcastically at him and offered him a sly grin.
Jenny sat up, sensing something different as she caught sight of movement over the tips of her toes; over the sleigh and out of the window it had turned dark again, the shortened daylight hours having past them by but sure enough against the dark and in the light of the building she could swear she saw dots all over the sky. Jumping to her feet, she grabbed Jethro by the arm and pulled him after her, this time actually racing over to the window to behold what fell before her – it was most certainly snow!
The bouncing was already starting as she glanced down at her watch and saw that it was after 9 at night – finally she was going to get her White Christmas, all the snow had to do was to hold out for another 3 hours and she would get her snow falling on Christmas Day as well to make it even better. Jenny's face was a picture, one of childhood, full of the excitement of the unknowns of snow. For once Jethro seemed to share her excitement as he pulled her towards him, holding her in a tight embrace and absorbing her exuding energy.
Just then a shrill noise rang out in the otherwise quiet but electrically atmospheric room, Gibbs saw the Caller ID was Abby and put the phone on speakerphone as an equally ecstatic voice bellowed out into the room:
"Oh My God Gibbs! You made it snow – your psychic powers worked cos you knew both me and Jenny wanted snow and you made it happen. Thank you! I knew you could do it – I said you would, I told McGee and Ziva and Tony – I bet them $100 that if I wanted it to snow you'd make sure it happened!! Gibbs, I'm sending you e-hugs right now, I'm hugging you in my mind!..." Neither of them was sure what Abby said in the next 30 seconds as most of it came out as exhilarated screaming and overexcited mumblings.
"Abs!" They shouted together, repeatedly calling her name until she calmed down. Gibbs made no attempt to contradict Abby's claims deciding that it was easier for him if he let her believe that it was in fact him who had brought her and Jenny the snow.
"Abby, it's alright – you just spend that money wisely and the next time you want snow, I'm sure Gibbs will do his best to help both me and you out." Jenny shouted back at Abby, realising making more noise than the girl was the only way to get any message across over her still squealing voice. It seemed that she quietened down on hearing the voice of her co-wisher – as she thought of it.
"Okay. You should come over tomorrow, you have to come over tomorrow and we can all play in the snow!" She took a breath as if to say more, but Gibbs interrupted her before she could say another word.
"Goodnight Abs!" He hung up the phone for they both knew that girl could squeal away about Gibbs' magical powers if they let her.
Putting his phone away, Jethro tore his eyes from the woman in front of him to take a look outside where, thankfully, it was still snowing. "Shall we go and restart that snow tradition of yours?"
Jenny nodded vigorously with a gleeful smile plastered to her face.
Dressed in coats, gloves, scarves and all the layers they could possibly need for the sub-zero temperatures outside, Jenny and Jethro stepped hand in hand out into the glorious columns of falling snow. The cool flakes pitter-pattered over their skin, as they eyes closed and face upwards welcomed the magical sensations – a feeling so strange but enchanting. Jethro slipped his eyes open to watch his partner's beautiful smile as she relived the memories of her tradition both literally and in her mind; the image of the shimmering white snowflakes scattered through her dancing fiery long hair was stunning, he ran his thumb along her cheek to slip an unruly strand of hair away from her eyes as she opened them, aligning them with his and seeking the significance of this shared experience in his seas of blue.
A phone rang again, breaking the enchanting moment, but not for more than a few seconds, their eyes remaining connected with the others. This time it was Jenny's phone, which she slipped from her pocket and answered quietly; taking in the information in a few words and hiding the device back away again. She whispered the news she had received as the nothingness that it meant to her in that moment: "Assistant Director Vance just died, apparently in a blizzard."
Gibbs accepted the new information with a little "Uh-huh." Not really bothering to process it, as it was a side note in what he was about to do. Reaching forward he took Jenny's cheek back under the rough skin of his fingers and pulled her closer, pressing the kiss to her lips that he had been wanting to all day, absorbing this amazing woman into him and finally relighting the burning connection between them.