Title: Christmas Memories

Author: Pandora of Ithilien

For: MyOwnWorstCritic

Rating: K+

Disclaimer: Yeah, not mine. Well... Alex is.

"Go!" Alex Shepard says with a laugh, her arm around her niece's thin shoulders. "Missy and I will be just fine on our own, won't we, Missy?"

"Go to the party, Mommy," Melissa Gibbs says seriously. Jenny Shepard-Gibbs shakes her head, smiling at the pair of them. She doesn't really want to go to the NCIS company party, and the reason is rather selfish. Her team would like to see her there, she knew, but Jethro and his team won't be there, and she has to admit it makes her less willing to go herself. She'd rather stay home with her daughter and her sister, making –

"What exactly are you two making?"

"Double chocolate-chip cookies!" Missy tells brightly. Jenny has to fight off a wince. Her eight-year-old daughter is already a whirlwind of energy; with that level of chocolate in her system...

Still, she has to smile as Alex holds open the recipe book for Missy to peer at. Looking at them, you'd never know that Missy's parents are team leaders for an armed federal agency, or that the doting aunt next to her is an intelligence analyst and sometimes hacker for the NSA. And she knows that said NSA analyst is not above forcing her out – or getting her girlfriend to come and drag her. Since Abby is NCIS' forensic specialist, she has a reason to be at the party, and since she also organized it, she will certainly be happy to drag Jenny there.

Sure enough, there's a car horn honking outside and when Jenny goes to look out the window, there's Abby in her hearse. "You called Abby?" she asks Alex

"You needed a ride," Alex says nonchalantly.

"I'm surprised you're not going with her."

"Someone needs to make these cookies with Missy here, and besides, I'm crashing at her place tonight. We're talking about making that a more permanent thing, by the way, but not until after the holidays."

Jenny takes the announcement that Alex and Abby will probably be moving in together in stride; after all, they've been together a year now, it's about time. Giving in, she waves goodbye, kisses her daughter, and heads out to the hearse. "Abby, are you sure it's safe to be driving this thing in winter?"

"Of course it is, Jenny, don't be silly."

As they drive through Washington's darkening streets, Jenny's mind drifts back to an earlier Christmas, one spent in London, nine years before.

There is a knock at the door to Jenny's flat – as they called apartments here – and she stands to answer it, remembering that Alex had said she'll be there today. Sure enough, it's Alex in the hall, but she's not alone. "Jethro?" Jenny says, astonished.

"Well, my work here is done," Alex says mildly, turning to walk away.

"Alexandra Jane Shepard, where do you think you're going?" Jenny snaps, glaring after her sister. Alex turns around, a determined look on her face.

"I'm giving you two privacy so you can work out whatever seems to be wrong between you. Considering this one – " she jerks a thumb at Jethro " – showed up at my place to ask where you are, I figured I should bring him along and let the pair of you sort this out." She doesn't let Jenny say anything else, just walks away, leaving the elder Shepard sister to stare helplessly at the man in her doorway.

"Going to let me in, Jen?"

She steps aside, her head spinning. What is he doing here? She left him with nothing more than a Dear John letter in her coat pocket; he should by all rights hate her. She would hate him, were their places reversed. So why is he here?

"I don't see that we have anything to say to each other," she says, trying to keep her voice cold but not quite succeeding. There is a nervous quaver in her tone that she can't quite shake off.

"Well, I do. What the hell was with that letter, Jenny?"

"That was five months ago, I don't see why..."

"I've been thinking about it, wondering if I should just let it go, and I almost did. But then I decided, you know what? I'm not going to do that. I don't believe you'd really choose your job over me, over what we had together. So I want the truth."

"What we had together? Hah! What we had was a sexual affair, or so I gathered."

"It was more than that and you know it!"

"Well, you sure as hell didn't act like it! Would it have killed you to say you loved me, even once? I said it to you, and you never said it back to me."

Jethro frowns, and Jenny can see she's struck a nerve. Finally, he says, "So that's it? You know, you could have said something, rather than take off on me."

"That's not all! My career is important to me, and I wasn't about to risk throwing it all away on someone who didn't seem to feel as strongly as I did. Especially when my fath-"

"Alex did say she thought your father had something to do with this. Jenny... Please. Tell me the truth. I deserve that much, don't you think?"

She looks at him, into those fathomless blue eyes, and she tells him. She tells him about her father, about how he'd been framed, she knows it, and how she has to get herself to a place where she can clear his name.

Jethro is quiet as she tells him, and then, when it's over and she's biting back tears, he crosses the room and pulls her into a hug. She should push him away, but she doesn't. She's missed him too much, his warmth and the familiar scent of bourbon and sawdust reminding her just how lonely she's been without him.

"You don't have to do this alone, Jen. Let your sister help – let me help."

"Why would you? It's not your fight."

He tilts her head up so she's looking him in the eyes. "Because I love you," he says bluntly. "I should have been able to say it before, but I couldn't. There's a reason for that, and I'll tell you tonight if you want to hear it, but first..." He kisses her softly, no mistletoe required, and she falls into the kiss, into him, and it's like coming home.

He tells her about Shannon and Kelly that night, and she holds him while he cries this time. It's a rough restart to their relationship, but it's exactly what they need.

The party's not so bad, but she misses having Jethro and his team there, half her family seems gone without them. Her team is there, of course, and Ziva's brought her brother as her date. Ari would have been there either way despite his job as a CIA agent, as he's dating Jethro's agent Kate Todd, but Kate and Ziva's fiancé, Tony DiNozzo, are both with Jethro, so the siblings are each other's dates. Both of them got away from Mossad and their domineering father, with help from Jenny, and it's one of the better things she's ever done. She doesn't want to know how things might have turned out for those two had she not – Ari has admitted privately to her that his resentment of his father was beginning to make him sympathetic to the enemy, simply because his father hated them so much. Ari as a real terrorist would have been terrifying.

She leaves early, despite Abby's protests, and gets a cab home. When she arrives, the house is quiet, to her surprise. Alex is probably upstairs with Missy, who always tries so hard not to fall asleep at night. It's sweet, except when Jenny and Jethro are exhausted, and then it's aggravating. But they don't take it out on Missy – Jethro is all too aware that this is his second chance after losing Shannon and Kelly, and Jenny remembers too well what harsh words did to her father's relationship with Alex.

Glancing up, she notices a sprig of green hanging from the ceiling. "OK, whose idea was the mistletoe?" she mutters.

"I don't know, but you'd better not move," says a voice, and she spins around.

"Jethro! I thought you weren't coming home until tomorrow!"

"Got an earlier flight. Todd and DiNozzo were grumpy as hell – don't know why, their other halves don't even celebrate Christmas – so I had to. Just to keep them from whining."

Jenny laughs. "Oh, I'm sure that's all." She quirks an eyebrow at him. "You tell me not to move, yet you're still all the way over there. I'm getting mixed signals over here."

"Well, we'll just have to fix that, won't we?" he asks with a wicked grin – the same one that almost got them arrested for indecent exposure in Spain once. Then he crosses the room, pulling her into his arms for a long, heated kiss.

"Well, that's certainly not Santa Claus, is it, Mommy?" Alex's laughing voice has them pulling apart slightly, shooting twin glares at the younger redhead. The NSA analyst is unfazed, smirking at them both.

"Your offspring is down for the night, and I need to go before my girlfriend gets worried. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"Well, that leaves the night open, doesn't it?" Jethro calls after her. All things considered, he's rather fond of his sister-in-law. More laughter is his only response, before the door clicks shut.

"So, if the night's open, and Missy's asleep..." Jenny trails off, her fingers tracing invisible designs on her husband's chest.

"We should hang this stuff up all over the place," Jethro laughs, gesturing at the mistletoe.

"As long as I'm the only one you're kissing under it, Marine," Jenny says playfully.

"Of course, Agent Shepard."