"Well," Ducky announced, setting his knife down. "I think I'm as finished as I am going to get."

Ziva looked down at hers, feeling satisfied at the jagged grin staring back at her.

"As am I," she said, reluctantly putting her knife down. It turned out that it was quite a good knife.

"I just need to cut out this bit-" said McGee, his tongue sticking out as he sawed his knife around the bottom bit of his pumpkin.

A piece fell from his pumpkin and landed on the table. McGee gave it a satisfied look.

"I'm done as well," he announced, carefully placing his knife on the table.

Everyone copied him, apparently, they were all finished with their creations. Ziva had to do a double take at the clock. Three hours had passed. Three hours. It definitely had not felt like it. That was a good thing, wasn't it?

"I'm not done yet!" Tony said loudly, not looking up from his pumpkin. "One minute!"

It looked like Tony did actually enjoying carving pumpkins. He was very involved in his design.

"Tony?" Abby prodded impatiently.

He held up his hand as he looked critically at his before trailing his knife for a final time around a part of it.

"Okay, now I'm done."

"Finally," McGee said.

"You can't rush perfection, McRushy."

"What about idiocy?"

"Boys," Jenny warned before Gibbs could threaten anything.

Neither of them said anything further, unfortunately. Or maybe it was fortunately for them. Another head slap today was probably not on their list of things they wished to happen to them.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Abby exclaimed, waving her hands at them.

Obediently, they all froze and looked expectantly at her. What was Abby planning now?

"Let's show them one by one! That way we get to see them all properly."

"We can see them just fine from the table," McGee said hurriedly.

"Scared yours isn't good enough?" Tony taunted.

"Line 'em up on the counter," Gibbs suggested in a way that made it clear it wasn't a suggestion.

So, of course they did as they were told. There was a brief moment of squabbling about who would get to put their pumpkins at the head of the line - Tony tried to place McGee's there as he was being secretive about his. McGee, quite naturally, complained about this. Gibbs resolved it by shoving both men's pumpkins down and putting Abby's then his next to each other. No one dared complain. Not that it mattered, you could see all of them at once anyway.

"Mine's a bat!" Abby said proudly, holding hers up. "See?"

It most definitely was a bat, wings outstretched and all. Ziva was impressed that the wings were identical to each other - she hadn't managed that with the mouth of hers, giving her grin a lopsided look.

"Nice," Tony approved as they all nodded.

"Gibbs next!" she said happily.

Of course, Gibbs somehow managed to incorporate a boat into his. Or, to be more exact, Ziva supposed it was actually a sailboat. A rather basic one but definitely recognisable. Were boats a symbol of Hallowe'en that she bad yet to come across or was this Gibbs being Gibbs?

"Really, Jethro?" Jenny said with a snort, gesturing at his pumpkin.

Ah, Gibbs being Gibbs it was.

"I like boats."

"I think we all know that."

"Nothing wrong with a boat."

Well, they couldn't exactly argue with that, could they? Well, Jenny looked like she wanted to but Abby moved them swiftly on to McGee's.

"What's that meant to be?" Tony asked, staring in confusion at McGee's pumpkin.

He wasn't the only one, everyone except Ducky and Abby looked completely baffled by the weird shapes on McGee's pumpkin.

"It's a dalek," Ducky announced.

"Bless you," Tony said semi-seriously.

"From Doctor Who," McGee said in exasperation.

"Doctor Who?"

"A British sci-fi show that is amazing," Abby said. "And that is a very good dalek."

"If you say so," Tony said in an unconvinced tone and then he turned to her. "What's yours, Ziva?"

"Just a face," she admitted.

She had pretty much copied it completely from the image on the back of the box the tools came in. Jagged mouth, upside-down triangle eyes and a triangle nose.

Okay, so maybe hers wasn't the most intricate or interesting looking but Ziva was quite proud of it. She had done it; she had carved a pumpkin. Without any injuries or destroying the fruit (vegetable? That still hadn't been cleared up). It had been fun? Well, maybe not the effort of all of it - of which there was a lot for very little reward in her opinion. But being here had been fun. Being with the team.

"Yours is recognisable," Tony assured her just to get a huff from McGee. "Very traditional."

They were interrupted by a chuckle from Gibbs.

"What's that supposed to be, Jen?"

Jenny got an offended look on her face.

"It's an owl."

Gibbs made a snorting noise. "Uh huh."

"It is!"

Ziva looked over at the pumpkin in question. It had two big staring eyes and a triangle shape between them which she assumed was meant to be the beak. A weird slashed, stretched out shape extended from each side of the face.

"Are those the wings?" Tony dared asked only to get a glare.

"Yes." Jenny replied shortly.

"It's a nice owl," Abby assured her, which thankfully mollified her.

What was most impressive, was Ducky's. At least to her. Looking around, it seemed everyone else though so as well. It was a wolf howling at the moon. But it wasn't just a simple cut out of a wolf shape. No, this had detail and a lot of it. Somehow, he had managed to carve away layers of the pumpkin skin (round?) so that he didn't actually cut right through it, giving his carving various shades of orange. They really provided depth to his creation. It really was impressive.

"Nice one, Duck," Gibbs congratulated.

"That took some skill," Tony said after a long, drawn out whistle.

"Just something I picked up in my army days," Ducky said modestly but he looked, quite rightfully, pleased with himself.

"It is quite lifelike," Ziva praised.

She was almost jealous of his skills with a knife. There was no way she would have the patience to create something like that. Pumpkin was hard enough to carve without throwing that level of complexity into the mix.

"And, last but not least, Jimmy's!" Abby announced, elbowing the man who blushed.

"It's not as good as some of them," he said, scratching the back of his head. "It's just Frankenstein's head."

"A sound choice, my boy," Ducky praised.

"I like your bolts," said Tony.

"Thanks?"

'FLASH'

Ziva blinked as she was stunned by an extremely bright flash. When the spots cleared from her vision, she was faced with a slightly guilty looking Abby holding a camera aloft.

"Pictures!" she happily declared. "I need pictures of everyone and their pumpkins!"

Abby was soon in her element directing everyone what to do. Of course, they all obeyed her - this was Abby after all. Thankfully, she was happy with them simply holding their pumpkins in front or beside them.

And that was how the evening ended; Abby taking far too many pictures and Tony bragging about his pumpkin. Ducky squirreled himself in a corner with a bowl of the first of the roasted pumpkin seeds that Gibbs had done, explaining to Palmer how he had managed to do his design. Carrying her own pumpkin, Ziva decided to join them. Those seeds did look (and smell) tasty after all.

It had been a fun evening, even if she had ended up stickier than she would have liked. This Hallowe'en business was quite enjoyable.