Ellicott City, Maryland

7.30pm on December 23rd

"I don't know what else to do, Soph .." Jenny said as her friend slipped into the room.

She didn't stop pacing, and Sophie felt into step next to her as she walked around the large bedroom holding Imogen close.

"I guess she isn't hungry."

"No. And she's clean. I'm so sorry to have to put you through this .."

"Oh don't be silly. Babies are designed to eat, poop, cry, and sleep."

"I bet you can hear her all the way downstairs," Jenny said nervously. "Is your mother-in-law appalled?"

Sophie gave her a forced smile.

"She uh .. she went home."

"Because of us?" Jen wished the ground would open and swallow her up.

"She'll be back tomorrow. Don't worry about it."

"No, you know .. it's already the third night this week. It's been going on for two hours now, and it isn't going to stop anytime soon. I think I'm just going to take her home and let you get on with your family stuff."

"None of mine ever had colic, so I don't even know what to tell you. We could look it up online ..."

"I'll call the pediatrician's office again in the morning. I think we just have to tough it out. But that doesn't mean you. We'll just go home."

"Are you sure? I don't want you to feel like we're throwing you out."

"It's fine .." Jenny said as she started throwing things into a bag with her free hand.

Suddenly she couldn't wait to get out of there.

"I'll get Ross to pack your car."

"Thanks, Soph."

When she was gone Jenny looked down at her infant daughter. As she rocked and talked soothingly to her, she rubbed the hard distended little tummy. But nothing she did seemed to help. Every muscle in the child's body seemed to be tensed up, and the screams emanating from her blue lips were blood-curdling. Not for the first time Jenny wondered whether banshees sounded like this.

She tried not to think of the hour's drive ahead of her with an hysterical infant in the back seat.

Shepard Residence, Georgetown

9pm

"Señor Gibbs?"

His head whipped round.

Noemi stood in the doorway, holding a plate and a flask in her hands. She smiled as he stared quizzically at her. He was sure she hadn't been in the house when he'd arrived three hours earlier, and he hadn't heard her come in either.

"If you are going to be here all night again you need to eat."

It took him a moment to remember that she'd almost jumped out of her skin at six o'clock that morning when she'd walked into the kitchen to find him inspecting the plumbing under the sink.

She placed the plate on a nearby stool and held out the flask. "Coffee," she said with a knowing smile.

It took him a moment longer to realise that she'd come by on his account, and his murmured "thank you" seemed paltry somehow.

She nodded, and smiled as she looked round the nursery. "The baby will be happy in here."

When she'd gone he walked back into the room's tiny ensuite bathroom. His brow furrowed momentarily as he poured himself some coffee and stood contemplating the shower wall. He'd sent the team home hours earlier. McGee had proved particularly inept at painting, the sexual tension between Tony and Ziva had grated on his nerves, and he was sure Abby's take on the way the room should be decorated wouldn't go down well with Jasper. The man himself had shown up too. Had watched him in thoughtful silence, and then gone to dinner with Ducky.

9.30pm

Jenny slid down the door into a crumpled heap.

"Please stop crying," she begged of the baby in the car seat next to her on the floor. "Please."

A drive which should have taken fifty-five minutes had turned into a two hour nightmare due to snow and congestion on the roads; and Imogen was still screaming.

She was starting to understand why parents of babies with colic swore that although their babies grew out of it, they remained with deep psychological scars which sent them scurrying for the nearest exist every time they heard a baby cry.

Suddenly the long staircase in front of her seemed insurmountable and all she wanted to do was disappear into the night.

Having determined that the tiles were set in adhesive, Gibbs knew they were going to fight him every step of the way. He considered using a cold chisel to break the tileup, and then decided he didn't want to risk damage to the adjacent tiles and reached for the carbide drill instead.

Imogen stopped crying abruptly - and then started again - but the lull was enough for Jen to hear the sound of something whirring upstairs. Intrigued, she scooped Imogen out of her car seat and walked upstairs slowly. Grateful that her father was here, because he would take the baby off her hands for a while and let her get some kind of rest.

Gibbs had finished drilling a series of holes in tile and was using a chisel to pry the rest of the tile out, when a baby's screams echoed in the nursery.

"Dad?" Jen popped her head round the bathroom door.

They stared at each other in silence for a long moment.

"Found a small leak in your bathroom," Gibbs said after a while - as though that explained why he was standing with his clothes and shoes on in her shower. "Bigger job than I thought."

But Jenny wasn't staring at him anymore. She was staring at the baby.

Imogen had stopped screaming at the sound of Gibbs' voice and her eyes were darting about wildly. When he didn't say anything else she started screaming again, and Jenny felt her eyes well up with tears. The harder she tried to contain them the more intent they seemed on escaping and it took all of her willpower not to break down and embarass herself completely.

"Got a vacuum?"

Jethro's question was so unexpected that it stumped her.

"For the dust in the bath?" she asked as soon as she could wrap her head around the question. Conscious only that the baby had momentarily stopped crying again.

"For the baby."

"For the baby?" She wondered briefly if post-natal depression prompted hallucinations – because why else would Jethro be fixing her bathroom and talking to her about vacuum cleaners?

"White noise, Jen," he said as put the tools aside, his instincts kicking in as he took Imogen from her. "It'll put her to sleep."

He placed her lying face down with her tummy on his forearm and her head near his elbow.

"Football hold," he explained as he created pressure on her tummy by rubbing her sacrum with his free hand. "Where's the vacuum? Jen .. the vacuum .." he insisted when there was no response.

"Spare room," she said absently.

The baby had already calmed down considerably, but the situation was entirely too surreal.

"Uh-huh."

She was still standing in the doorway like a pillar of salt when he returned, and made no move to take the baby back; too mesmerised by Jethro plugging in the vacuum and rubbing Imogen's back, and the sight of her tiny body going limp as sleep claimed her.

Gibbs placed the infant gently in her new crib and left the door ajar as he ushered Jen gently out of the room.

"I think she hates me," Jen said in a small voice. Suddenly on the verge of tears again.

God, she hated being hormonal. This was infinitely worse than pregnancy hormones, she decided.

"She doesn't hate you. It's colic. It'll pass." He didn't have the heart to tell her that it could take several months. Or that there were plenty of nights from hell in her immediate future.

Silence fell; an awkward silence filled with questions which she knew she had to ask.

"Did you do all this?" she asked, nodding at the door.

"Yeah."

She reached for his hand on the landing and felt a merciless surge of emotion sweep through her as he gave her hand a small squeeze in return. It opened the floodgates, and her fingers curled around the side of his red hooded sweater as she dropped her head against his chest.

"Thank you," she said when she could look him in the eye without falling apart.

"Get some sleep while you can, Jen. I'll come by tomorrow night and do some more work on the bathroom."

"It's Christmas eve, Jethro," she said incredulously. "Don't you have somewhere you need to be?"

"You goin' anywhere?"

She surprised herself by laughing.

"No."

"Jethro ..." she said as they reached the bottom of the stairs and she stood looking at him beside the front door. "How long is this going take?"

"Could take a while," he said with a smirk.

Jen smiled.

"Good."

Author's note:

Technically this story could end here, but somehow it feels like it needs a kiss or something. A bit of fluff, as it were. Plus it is Christmas .. so I'll write one more chapter and then it will be officially done.