For Jethro, the next couple of weeks flew by in a haze. He and Shannon had gone out for dinner with the Ericksons one evening, his wife wanting to go more than him, but Jethro had been quite busy the rest of the time, pulling more than one all-nighter and going home little after Midnight that Friday night.
Jethro had however, been able to get off early on the fourteenth, however, so he could take Shannon out for their wedding anniversary.
It had been a very long week, and finally wrapping up the latest case they'd caught had been a huge relief. For all of them.
Their daughter, having gone out with a friend from work the night before, had ended up crashing at her friend's apartment, so wasn't home. Kelly was going to see Maddie later as well, so she wasn't going to be home until much later.
Maddie seemed quite happy with her decision to take the local job at Kenwood Animal Hospital, and Kelly recently informed him and Shannon that the two girls were actually getting a place together. Maddie was having some issues with her roommate and Kelly, understandably at her age, wanted to go off on her own.
The girls would be moving into a two-bedroom apartment in Georgetown at the end of the month, which was going to be a bit of adjustment for him, as he'd just got used to having her around again. He understood, though. Hell, he'd moved out of his father's place the second he was old enough. Still, he'd be lying if he didn't admit to hoping he would have a bit longer with his not-so-little girl under the same roof.
Saturday, Jethro luckily managing to not get called into work like he had the previous one. Thankfully. He needed the break after a really long week.
"So," he said, giving Shannon a quick kiss, "what do you wanna eat?"
She gave a little hum. "Some French toast?"
"I can do that," he replied before pulling her in for another kiss.
After the pair separated, Jethro headed to the kitchen and started making the both of them some breakfast. He then tidied up the kitchen quickly while his wife went and threw a load of laundry into the wash. Satisfied with the state of the kitchen, Jethro dished out two plates and took them to the living room along with a hot cup of coffee for both Shannon and himself.
The pair then sat, chatting intermittently, between bites of food and watching reruns of an older show that his wife had put on. Jethro had let Shannon pick the show as he was wont to do more often than not, her liking television more than he did.
They watched a couple of episodes of the show and then spent the rest of the morning just lounging around the house before heading into the District for the day. They didn't have anything planned really but they both wanted to get out of the house for a bit, so the pair got dressed for the colder weather and made their way to Georgetown Glow, given that the event was about to end, to check out some of the lights.
Georgetown Glow was a popular holiday celebration in D.C's oldest neighbourhood that featured numerous public light art installations.
That was nice and after that, they headed to Elaine's Diner for lunch while they figured out what they were going to do with the rest of their day.
"Hey, you two!" Elaine greeted them.
Shannon gave the waitress a warm smile. "Hi, Elaine."
Elaine then turned to him. "The usual, Gibbs?" she asked, referring to his tendency to almost always order the club sandwich with fries and a coffee.
"That'd be great," he replied with a small smile.
"And I will take," Shannon as she gave the menu another quick once over, "the Turkey Reuben with the Russian dressing and an order of fries. Oh, and a coffee."
Elaine eyed his wife conspiratorially. "I'm pretty sure your husband here thinks that that last item's the most important part of the meal."
His wife gave the waitress a rather amused look. "He's not the only one, Elaine. After moving onto base with him at Camp Pendleton, I quickly came to the conclusion that everybody's veins in the military are filled with coffee."
They had lived on base at Camp Pendleton for two years when Kelly was really young, the family of three relocating back to the D.C area, quite happily in fact, when Jethro got new PCS orders just after Kelly's fourth birthday. They had moved into the same house that they were currently living in, actually. Marine Corps Base Quantico where Jethro had been stationed at the time had remained his Duty Station until early '91 when Jethro received both PCS orders and Deployment orders in close succession.
He shot Elaine a smug look. "See."
The waitress gave a little chuckle at that as she walked away, heading back behind the counter once more to give the kitchen staff their order.
After lunch, they headed home and Jethro got to work cleaning the attic. He needed to sort through some of the junk that had been up there in the attic for quite some time, reorganize a bit, and check for any problems. Somehow they'd managed to accrue an insane amount of stuff the last year or so in particular, and Jethro had been charged with rectifying the current disaster that was their attic. Thankfully, there were no issues, but it didn't look overly decluttered afterwards either, even with his having put a few things in the back of the truck for an eventual dump run. At least they seemed to have gotten the worst of it handled back when Shannon and Kelly had moved in just under eight months ago.
And wasn't that a crazy thought? In a week it would be exactly eight months since the girls had come back into his life. It felt like it had been a lot less.
Heading back downstairs, he spotted Shannon sitting on the couch, quietly chatting on the phone with his mother-in-law. Jethro gave his wife a small smile and then headed to the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee before going and taking a seat beside his wife on the couch.
"How's your mom?" he inquired.
"She's fine," Shannon said with a smile. "Started dating someone, not sure how I feel about that, but -"
He dipped his head slightly. "Not easy."
"Yeah," she said with a half-nod. She then took his coffee out of his hands. She gave a happy little hum as she took a sip.
"I can get you one," he said with a pointed look.
She just gave him a cheeky smiled and took another sip.
He rolled his eyes in fond exasperation. "Or I can get myself one." He gave her a quick peck on the cheek. "I'll be right back."
"Love you," she said with a chuckle.
He gave a little snort. "I love you too, Shan." He then took both of the mugs, put them down on the coffee table, and pulled his wife in close to him. After eighteen long years of missing her, Jethro couldn't get enough of just being there and holding her.
They both stayed there for a while, just chatting before his phone rang. Jethro initially thought it was work, but the call display quickly showed that it was Tobias Fornell who was phoning, the man sounding very stressed out. And not without good reason as he quickly found out.
"Tobias," he said, "calm down. I don't see it being a problem."
Shannon eyed him. "What's wrong?"
Jethro sighed. "Nothing, Shan, but how do you feel about watching Emily Fornell until Monday morning?" Diane was apparently out of town for a couple of days and Tobias had just gotten called away to work a RICO case. Tobias needed someone to watch his nine-year-old daughter Emily. "I can take her to school Monday so you won't be late."
"It's fine by me," Shannon quickly agreed, "but what's going on?"
"Got called away for work," he said simply.
She nodded. "Tell him to bring her over. Having a little kid running around'll be fun."
"You get that, Tobias?" he said.
Jethro smirked at the sarcastic comment that he got in response from Tobias. Messing with Tobias was fun, the man always gave as good as he got.
He and Tobias discussed details for another minute or so before they finally ended the phone call, everyone rushing to get things done.
While Tobias went to get Emily ready, Shannon sent Jethro to the store to buy some soda and a couple of other snack items, during which she went upstairs to take out some bedding for Emily to use and fold the laundry that she had started earlier.
Jethro had been back from the grocery store for maybe five minutes if that when there was a knock on the front door.
"Hi, Uncle Gibbs! Miss Shannon!" Emily said excitedly, the young girl beelining it over to Jethro and throwing her arms around him.
He smiled down at the nine-year-old. "Hey, Em."
"Hi, Emily!" his wife said warmly.
"Thank you both for doing this," Tobias said, eyeing both Jethro and Shannon. "I really appreciate it. I know I dropped it all on you very last minute."
"It's no trouble," assured the man as she took the nine-year-old girl's bags from him and put them off to the side. "We're glad to help."
"It's fine, Tobias," he said. "Emily's a great kid."
The next few minutes were father and daughter saying their goodbyes. Once the front door closed behind his friend, he turned to face the young redhead with big blue eyes that was standing by the door. "You wanna do some crafts'?"
"Yeah!" Emily said with a grin. "What are we going to make?"
"How about some paper pinwheels?" Shannon suggested. "We can paint them too."
"Sure," the nine-year-old replied happily, "that sounds cool." With that, the young lady took off in a run towards the kitchen table.
Jethro briefly glanced at Shannon, shaking his head slightly in amusement. He had no idea where Emily got all of that energy from.
