A/N: Yes, I know. This took forever, and I apologize. Real life intervened a bit, and so did my computer…but here it is all the same: the last chap, aka a thorough dose of silliness to finish the fic off.
Thanks to everyone who reviewed and kept reading, I hope you all enjoy this last one!
Many, many thanks to my dear friend Sternenlicht for beta and constructive criticism!!
Here we go…
Champagne and Ice Cream
"Hey Abs."
Her head snaps up and it isn't a moment before she spins around, a bright, cranberry smile magicked onto her lips.
She missed the tell-tale swoosh of the slide doors over the blaring music that fills her lab, and she's pleasantly surprised.
"Gibbs!", she exclaims, as if that was just another form of Hello, and before he knows it he's got his arms full of Abby, her own arms slung around his neck and a pigtail in his face.
"Abs", Gibbs mumbles, "you gonna hug me every time I come in here now?"
Abby releases him and takes a step back, peering up at him through her pink lab glasses that turn her eyes an interesting shade of brown. "Only till I'm sure I'm not imagining you or something."
He smiles and walks over to the other side of her screens. "You're not. Rest of the team will testify that."
Abby purses her lips, contemplating that. "Okay, that's a start." She takes off the plastic glasses and stares at him through narrowed eyes. "I'll keep hugging you still. Always double check. Rule number … which one?"
Gibbs laughs and shakes his head. "Alright, I surrender."
"Very wise, my fox." She pauses and picks up the tester tube she abandoned when her visitor arrived. Now she quickly closes and labels it. "And what are you here for?", she asks, slipping the plastic vial into a rack that already harbours a number of other samples.
"Not the DNA test results, I hope?"
"You hope?"
"Yeah, 'cause the analysis still had ten hours left to run when you were here two hours ago, which means I couldn't give you what you want." She smirks cheekily. "And I hate not being able to give you what you want."
He smiles and shakes his head again. "No worries, Abs. I do remember something about results in the morning.
She has to think about Tony lying on the floor here the first day he was back after he'd been so ill, and Tony sleeping here the night they got that body from Air Force One. She also remembers Kate lounging in one of her chairs while she was waiting for a call, or she'd helped Abby and they both waited for a result. She doesn't have to start about McGee.
Somehow, it makes her wonder why on earth people like her lab so much. It's not like there wasn't a room a few stories above with couches, nice and soft chairs and a view of Anacostia River and the opposite river bank.
Not that she minds them hanging around here. She likes it. It just surprises her a little, now that she's actually giving it a thought, and it does even more today because it's Gibbs, and hanging around definitely is not like him.
She cocks her head and watches him for a few moments. He looks pale and tired, and as if he were cold, in a way.
"You look a little pale", Abby states. "Wanna lie down?"
Naturally, Gibbs answers No. "Thanks, Abs, but your rhino frightens me."
"Bert? Oh, come on, Gibbs! Give him a chance!", Abby exclaims in mock indignation. Gibbs looks at her with an expression that says Don't even start, but that only compels her more to lunge into a defence speech for her toy rhino: "He may fart, but he's got a good heart." She fails to retain a solemn expression when she realizes what she said.
Gibbs lifts a hand laughingly. "He scares me still."
"Ah, fine then."
One of Abby's machines starts beeping, and they are both silent for a while as the lab tech notes down a few test results and put another set of test tubes into her fridge.
Then she turns to look at her boss again.
"Gibbs? Can you promise me something?"
He doesn't even look up, but only smiles. "No, Abs", he says softly. "I can't."
"Duh, I thought so", Abby replies with a huff and finishes taking notes.
"It's not like we get hurt on purpose, Abby."
"Yeah, I do hope so", she replies, sounding as if she was just striking up a plan to kill everyone herself if they ever got themselves into trouble intentionally. "Just … take care."
"We do."
" 'Kay. I suppose That's all I'm getting, right?"
"Right, and now get up to the office, team's got something for you."
"Now?", Abby asks, silently wondering why on earth people again and again had to get themselves killed, abducted, or God knew what else on Friday evening out of all the times of the week they had at their disposal.
"Yeah, now", Gibbs replies, getting up from his chair. "I'll be with Ducky."
"Okay, bossman." She shrugs off her white coat and elegantly flicks it onto a hook on the wall. "Don't go home without saying bye, right?", she calls back over her shoulder on her way out.
"Yes, mum." Her laughter rings through the lab before the slide doors shut it out.
Three minutes later, the elevator's good-natures bling releases Abby into the squad room, and she bounces past a happy-looking Agent Balboa who wishes her a nice weekend before the takes her place in the elevator.
In the middle of the office, Abby finds Tony and McGee both busily typing away on their computers, and Kate gazing out of the window at a grey evening.
Grey, but at least dry.
The 24th is the first day this year that passed without precipitation this February. There's been snow, sleet, hail, rain, and everything in between, just as though someone up in the heavens felt like sampling the whole gloomy-wet-weather-panoply, and did so very thoroughly.
Kate looks undecided whether she should like the fact that nothing's falling down from the sky at the moment, or be irritated about the prospect of (according to the forecast) another weekend without sun.
Noticing Abby approach them, however, her face lights up in a smile and she gives her a small wave to say hi.
"Hey gang", Abby greets everyone, out of habit taking up a post on a low file cabinet behind Kate's desk. "What's up?"
"Nothing much", her friend replies. "Basically getting ready to leave." As if that's her cue, she closes the last file on her desk and turns to stow it away.
Abby groans and practically drapes herself over the partition that shields Kate's desk from the printer and fax of the second office section. "And what's so damn important that it can't wait for me until next week as well?"
Kate casts a glance over her shoulder at Tony, who quirks and eyebrow and shrugs his shoulders. "Don't know, Abs", he says. "What is?"
The lab tech fixates him with her gaze thoughtfully. "Hm, no, Tony", she states after a while. "That is my question to ask, not yours. So spit it out: what've you got for me?"
"What makes you think we've got something?", comes McGee's voice from his desk.
" 'Cause Gibbs told me. He sent me up to you just now."
The three agents exchange questioning glances. "We don't have anything." Kate tells her after everyone's assured themselves that they didn't miss anything.
"And if we did", Tony adds, "we wouldn't say it. It's Friday evening."
Abby teasingly cocks a disapproving brow at him. "Just when did you develop this attitude towards your job, Anthony? You don't have that from Gibbs."
She grins as Tony sticks his tongue out at her, and Kate rolls her eyes.
"Honestly", she says in an attempt to bring some maturity back into the conversation, "there's nothing for you to do here, Abby." She seems to ponder the whole thing for a moment. "Unless we don't know it yet as well, that is."
Abby purses her lips and frowns.
"Where is Gibbs?", Tony asks, and the lab tech just replies: "Ducky."
"Well, maybe he just…", Tony begins, making funny swirling movements with his hand, as if he wanted to coax his brain into producing some usable explanation.
The whole process is interrupted by something behind the girls' backs, however, something that actually causes Tony's mouth to drop slowly open.
While the others watch their obviously astounded team mate, probably waiting for a bright green writing to appear on his forehead and tell them what's causing so much fascination in him, Kate realizes that there suddenly is an unusual amount of quiet laughter around them.
She and Abby turn around just when McGee stands up from his chair to get a better view.
All three of them end up in much the same open-mouthed state as Tony.
By now, they've all been doing this job for long enough to be forearmed against pretty much everything, and if something happens to really catch them unawares, they usually can mask that well.
This, however, is clearly beyond both their experience and their acting skills. As it is beyond pretty much every one else's here, it seems.
Then again, you can't really blame them. Who would expect a fully-fledged, round-bellied Santa Clause shuffling though a federal building on a Friday afternoon, the 24th of February?
He's just dragged a big, brown bag out of the elevator and now pauses for a moment, either to gather some breath or to study with intense fascination the mechanism of the silver doors closing. A moment later, it becomes clear that it probably were the doors that enthralled him, because he swings his bag over his shoulder with a merry giggle and a winks at the digital numbers above the elevator.
Obviously having marvelled enough, he starts making his way over to the three gaping agents and a no less gaping Goth.
His suit is a perfect cranberry red, lined with fur that's just as snowy as his beard, and he's wearing a hat with a fluffy bobble that keeps swinging to and fro in front of his eyes as he walks.
By now, everyone else in the office have abandoned their work, willingly risking half an hour more in Headquarters for the sake of this peculiar display.
Santa sets down his bag, huffs alarmingly, and surveys the team for a few moments from underneath bushy eyebrows. "Ho ho," he grumbles after a while, "Abigail, Caitlin, Anthony and Timothy! That's you, right?"
They all nod mutely.
Even after a few moments of calculating silence, only Tony seems to be able to find his voice. "Did you kill someone?", he asks flatly in an attempt to make sense of this person's presence here, and Santa Clause is momentarily confused. His dark, beady eyes blink a few times. "Anthony, what did your parents tell you about me?", he asks after a while, and Tony frowns. "Uh…"
"Anyway. Glad I found you." Santa opens his bag and begins rummaging about in it, meanwhile going on in his low, raspy voice: "I am horribly late, I know. Very sorry about that. Never happened before and-", he looks up and twinkles at them, much in the same way as he did to the elevator numbers, "will never happen again. I won't start explaining now, though, you won't believe it anyhow."
He huffs again as he digs deeper into his bag, downy white beard fluttering with each violent exhale.
"What day is it?" he asks as his head comes up again, sounding quite breathless.
Kate, finally regaining some of her composure, glances at her watch. "The 24th", she says, and Santa straightens and looks at her. "I mean what day of the week, Caitlin dear."
"Oh." Kate frowns. "Friday."
"Ah, good. You have to forgive me, with all that darkness at my home, I usually lose track of time." He dives back into his bag and Abby whispers: "Where is his home?"
"Why, Abigail," Tony whispers back, "at the North Pole, of course. What did your parents tell you about Santa Clause?"
Abby shrugs. "Do I look like someone who heard a lot of Christmas stories as a child?"
"Only the ones about the Grinch, huh?", Tony enquires, and the Goth smirks.
"I like the Grinch!"
They all turn their attention back to Santa when he gives a triumphant "Ha!", and brings forth a few bottles of champagne. He looks at them and smirks. "So you do not have to work tomorrow, do you?"
They shake their heads.
He smiles a very satisfied smile and transfers the bottles into Abby's arms. "Take those, dear, will you?"
Abby grins. "Happily."
"So," Santa says, "my book told me you were very good agents last year." He makes and apologetic gesture. "I hope you won't bear me a grudge for not bringing it, it's just so big and heavy. And I have a bad tennis arm."
Opposite from Kate, Tony's beginning to have trouble suppressing his laughter. How the hell do you play tennis at the North Pole? Or maybe it is true and Santa Clause does spend the summer months in Florida.
Unperturbed by Tony's amusement, Santa goes on: "Anyway, let me tell you this." He turns to the girls with a festive expression on his chubby, pink-cheeked face. "Caitlin: Who would have thought you'd make such a fine interrogator? You're a good agent, just keep going. Abigail: Just stay as you are. There's nothing more to ask for. Timothy: You're doing better than you think most of the time. Go on, you'll be surprised where it'll get you. And Anthony: You may have had a tough time, but, again, there's nothing more one could have asked for. You did everything right."
There's a moment of silence, then Santa Clause's face breaks into the brightest smile. "Very well!", he declares, and fishes in his bag some more, eventually producing a few containers of ice cream.
Tony finds his arms full of them a moment later, staring at them quite perplexed.
He's visibly having trouble deciding what he finds more astounding: the things Santa just said to them or the champagne and ice cream.
"Wonderful," Santa exclaims merrily. "Enjoy! Oh – and stay good." He twinkles at them again, picks up his bag and before anyone can say a word, he's vanished into the elevator.
For a few moments, the team stand there open-mouthed, then Kate slowly asks:
"What happened?"
Abby grins. "I think Tony might have mentioned something about that Christmas party we didn't get last year." She sets down the bottles safe for one and promptly stars peeling away the aluminium wrapping of the cork. Softly, she says: "I love you, Gibbs."
And that's it!! Thank you so much for reading, and especially for reviewing!