All in all, Kelly and Michael were slowly adjusting to parenthood. Still, Jethro knew that his daughter was already looking forward to when Paisley started To sleep through the night. She was exhausted. The new parents had a lot of support around them though and little Paisley already had her Papa Jack around her finger.

As for Jethro and Shannon, the pair had quickly been dubbed Grammy and Pappy. The paternal grandparents were christened Nana and Pop-pop. He and Shannon absolutely loved being grandparents. Paisley was such a calm and easygoing baby girl, something that neither of Paisley's parents fully appreciated just yet given how tired they both were.

On the work front though, his team had drawn the short end of the stick and ended up being assigned the Christmas weekend shift.

Needless to say, Jethro woke up the morning of Christmas Eve less than ecstatic about having to go to work that day. Still, he also couldn't begrudge the fact. It wasn't the victims' fault. They deserved justice regardless of what day it was.

So, getting up, he got ready for work and headed downstairs where his father already had breakfast on the go for the three of them. The man had always been an early bird and that was likely never going to change.

Shannon glanced up in between forkfuls of her egg. "Thank you for breakfast, Jack."

"Of course," Jack said with a warm smile. "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Gets your batteries charged."

Shannon gave a soft chuckle. "Very true."

He eyed his father. "Mom was a wise woman."

His father dipped his head slightly in agreement. "That, she was."

"Mike got a foot up his keister last night," Shannon commented in amusement.

"Oh?" he asked, his curiosity immediately piqued.

His wife quirked a brow. "Remember how you came home from work when Kelly was a baby and you'd pass out cold all night?"

He nodded. "Yes."

"Well," she stated, "he got a similar lecture to the one I gave you."

Jethro took a sip of his coffee. "A baby and a full-time job. It's an adjustment. For the both of them. They'll figure it out eventually."

"They will," his wife agreed. "But now our daughter understands why I was possibly a little tempted to smother you in your sleep when your butt wouldn't get out of bed at three o'clock in the morning."

He gave her a wry smile. "Thankfully, you just settled for elbowing me in the ribs."

Shannon smirked. "Eh, I would've missed you."

He rolled his eyes. "Gee, thanks, Shan."

His father eyed them, more than a little amused. "You two are something else."

Shannon glanced between both of the men. "Did you two hear about the snowstorm we're supposed to get tonight?"

Jack sighed. "Supposed to be a nasty one."

"Good thing you're not flying or driving down today," he commented. With the weather being what it was, it would've been too easy to get into a bad accident or delayed.

The three of them continued to chat amicably over breakfast and some hot brew and then Jethro, not on holidays like his wife and father, had to throw on his green jacket and head out to do another day's work.

Jethro grabbed two hot coffees from Elaine's Diner and then made his way to the Navy Yard. Once at NCIS, Jethro left his badge and weapon in his desk drawer and dropped a couple of toys into the Toys for Tots box that the agency had every year. Jethro then headed upstairs for a meeting with the agent running the Far East desk.

The meeting lasted twenty-five minutes and then Jethro got a call from dispatch telling him that they had a dead body at a local hotel.

"I say it with the utmost respect," he heard DiNozzo say as he approached the squad room. Apparently, the younger agent had been giving Palmer, who was wearing a very Christmasy sweeter-vest, a hard time.

"No, I know that. I know that." Palmer didn't look so sure. "But Ed doesn't." The young man adopted a rather incredulous look. "You guys, he actually thinks that I'm stuck in some government job which pays too little and requires too many hours."

Breena's father? That made some things make a bit more sense. Still, the man wasn't wrong at all. They worked crazy hours and frankly weren't paid enough for the things they had to see and do day in and day out. "You are." He walked up to his desk, which Palmer had decided to sit on. "Get off my desk." Jethro turned to his team as Palmer stood up. "Grab your gear. Dead body at the Freemont Inn."

"Ah!" Palmer said, a little too chipper about the call. "Yes. Uh... Duty calls." The young man took his cellphone out and started walking towards the elevator. "So, I had better call Ed and cancel."

He walked up to the young man. "You're not going anywhere, Palmer." Jethro gave him a pointed look. "Family first." His expression softened. "Nice sweater."

With that, Jethro headed to the elevator leaving a Palmer who was not at all impressed with the fact that he was benched and had to entertain his future father-in-law.

At the hotel, Ziva identified their likely murder victim as Navy Captain Jake Marsden, currently stationed and living in Charleston, South Carolina.

While DiNozzo and McGee were outside processing the victim's car, Ducky and Jethro sussed out that the murder was committed by multiple weapons and shooters. There looked to be a few different calibres used. Ziva suspected, as did Jethro, that silencers were used since no witnesses had overheard any weapons discharge.

"Agent David," Ducky said, "would you give me a hand in wrapping up the captain? I was premature in giving Mr. Palmer the morning off."

The hotel room phone started ringing.

"If that's the hotel manager," Ducky said with slight irritation leaking into his tone, "tell him we won't take the body through his lobby."

"Gibbs." He turned to face Ziva who was pointing to the phone. "The call's not coming from inside the hotel. The area code, that's northern Maryland."

He walked across the room and answered the call without speaking. He wanted to see what the caller would say unprompted.

"Jake? Is that you?" A woman was on the other end of the line and she sounded quite concerned about Captain Marsden. "What happened?"

"Well," he said, "I'd like to know the same thing."

A bite of anger entered her tone. "You killed him, didn't you?"

"He's dead," Jethro admitted, "but I didn't do it." He was honestly rather curious now about what was going on. "Who is this?"

"Who is this?" the woman asked rather than answered. "Are you a cop?"

"NCIS," he stated simply.

"Prove it," the woman demanded.

"How?" he inquired.

"If you are who you say," the woman stated, "you'll figure it out."

Wrapping up at the crime scene, Jethro headed outside the parking lot to meet with DiNozzo and McGee regarding their findings.

The two agents had ascertained that the bullet-riddled silver car had been sideswiped. They also found a Marine sea bag in the back of the car, which was weird since their victim was in the Navy and not in the Marine Corps. Given the feminine clothes inside, the captain likely hadn't been travelling alone. Possibly with the female hotel room caller from earlier.

Finished with processing, they all headed back to the Navy Yard to get started on their usual back-checks. Meanwhile, Jethro grabbed himself another cup of coffee and wrote up his report on the earlier meeting.

Dropping the finished report off at human resources and returning to the squad room, Jethro requested an update from his field agents.

DiNozzo immediately jumped in, pulling everything he had up onto the plasma. "Navy Captain Jake Marsden. Single, no family, well-liked. But according to his unit, the only thing he made time for was his job. It's kind of sad, really."

Ziva leaned into DiNozzo and whispered something Jethro couldn't make out.

The Italian-American continued with the update unperturbed. "McGee and I searched Marsden's car. Nothing that IDs the female travel companion."

"Perhaps she was our mystery caller," Ziva suggested.

Jethro had already considered that. "McGee, hotel phone records."

"Prior to the murder," McGee informed him, "our victim made one outgoing phone call from the hotel room. To a cell phone registered in his own name."

"You track it?" he asked.

"It's been turned off," McGee replied.

"Incoming to the room?" he questioned.

"I already ran a backtrace," McGee said. "The call to the hotel came from..."

Just then the elevator opened and Palmer walked in with a man close to Jethro's age who he assumed was the father of Palmer's fiancée, Breena.

"Hey, team!" Palmer said, trying a little too hard to seem happy about the tour. "Just came to introduce my future father-in-law, Ed Slater." The younger man had clearly realized he'd interrupted work. "This a bad time?"

Jethro decided to be somewhat magnanimous "Go ahead."

"Okay," Palmer said. "Ed, this, uh..." The man gave Palmer a dirty look. "Mr. Slater,
this is, uh, our fearless leader, Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs."

Jethro nodded his head with a small smile.

"Over here," Palmer continued, "we have Special Agent Anthony "Tony" DiNozzo."

His Senior Field Agent waved at Mr. Slater.

Mr. Slater seemed to treat Palmer the same way Jethro had often been treated by his mother-in-law Joan. Hell, Mr. Slater insisted on calling the man James which Palmer decided did not go by. "Stop speaking, James. I don't need their dossiers. Only here for a few hours, but what a pleasure."

Jethro rose to his feet, trying to do Palmer a solid and talk him up. It was beyond easy to see how happy Breena made Palmer. "Welcome to NCIS, Mr. Slater." He shook the man's hand. "Can't say enough about your future son-in-law and his work ethic here." He patted Palmer on the shoulder. "Jimmy's an integral part of our team."

Palmer smiled, evidently appreciating the effort.

"Yes, well," Mr. Slater commented, "that's why I'm here, isn't it? To make sure that if my daughter marries James, she gets him. Not the bureaucratic baggage that comes with a government job, you know?"

"No," he replied curtly.

"No?" the man asked, confused.

"No," he reiterated.

"I'm sorry," Palmer said, eying the man, "Did you just say 'if she marries him'?"

"Big if," Mr. Slater stated. "Let me ask you something, Special Super-Agent Gibbs. You the only team leader who makes his folks work Christmas Eve?"

Jethro didn't give the man a response but he was far from impressed with the man's attitude. Mr. Slater was extremely rude.

The man didn't take the hint. "I guess when Uncle Sam calls, you answer. Even when he calls collect." The man chuckled at his own bad joke.

Palmer gave a rather awkward laugh of his own and attempted to defuse the situation. "Ha...! I think we've seen all we should in the squad room. Why don't I show you, uh, any place else?"

As Mr. Slater walked away, Palmer leaned in and whispered to him. "I'm so sorry."

Once the pair was out of earshot, McGee spoke. "He's a pleasant man."

He decided to redirect his team and focus back on the case. The sooner they closed it, the sooner that they could all go home.