A nice long chunk this time...
"The sneaky little devils!" Hetty couldn't help herself. "And I wanted to try to catch the bouquet."
Jack sat back in his seat and roared with laughter. "That's exactly what Maryanne and I did – we snuck away when no-one was looking."
"I remember," an almost forgotten voice said. "You thought you'd managed to foil any possible attempts at us hijacking you or the car." Bernie Brandel stood and looked down at his youngest brother. "It's been a long time, Jack." He paused for a moment and then held out his hand. "Too long and I was too quick to judge. And too slow to apologise."
For just a moment his hand hung in the empty air, and then Jack took hold of it in a firm grip. "It's good to see you again." His brother was a proud man, and he knew how much this had cost him. Of course, Bernie had his own share of family worries to deal with, as his adored and horrifically spoiled daughter was now in prison serving a sentence for the attempted murder of her cousin. Life was so unpredictable: Jack could recall Emily wheeling her baby cousin around in his pram and saying how much better he was than any doll. Perhaps it was better that you never knew what was going to happen in the future?
"As I remember it, you'd done a pretty thorough job of stuffing my suitcase full of confetti. Everywhere I walked, I left a trail of the stuff behind me." That had been a lifetime ago.
"We've done the same to the kids," Bernie confessed and gestured to another man, who bore all the physical hallmarks of being another member of the Brandel clan. "Stevie arranged for a corporate jet to fly them to New York tonight, and he and I have crammed each and every overhead locker with confetti. For old times' sake." He looked at his brother and they shared almost identical grins as the pictured the chaos.
Jack stood up. "How about we go on up to the house, where we can talk properly? You, me and Stevie? For old times' sake?"
Bernie put his hand on Jack's shoulder. "I'd like that. And so would Steve. We've got a lot of catching up to do."
"Do I sense the Brandel brothers are going to make a comeback?" Hetty whispered to Rowena as she watched them go outside, together again after far too many years.
"Why not? Jack's a shareholder in the company now. And I'm trying to persuade him to move back to California permanently. His family is here, and quite frankly I'm fed up with the Scottish climate. And I'm too old to take on the task of rebuilding the hotel. It would be much easier to buy a small inn over here and start again." She had her eye on a place at Carmel that was almost too perfect for words. And while it was in easy reach of LA, they would not be too close for comfort either.
"It's never too late to start afresh." Allison's eyes were glowing as brightly as her daughter's had done earlier in the day and her face was flushed. Jethro might not be the technically accomplished of dancers, but they weren't on Dancing With the Stars after all. Just the feeling of his arms around her was enough to make Allison's heart beat just a little faster. And on Monday she would be flying back to Washington with him.
Nell had been nursing her cell phone all night and finally got the text message she had been waiting for. Looking up, she saw that Ben was standing at the opening in the marquee, his jacket over one arm.
"Come and dance," she mouthed but he shook his head and gestured towards the gardens. The air was soft and warm and the perfume from the flower beds floated up to meet them as Nell's skirts brushed against the blooms. They talked quietly for a while and then, in the white painted gazebo that overlooked the knot-garden, they kissed. For a moment, Nell thought that the final surprise of the evening was a firework display, but then she realised the fireworks were inside her head.
"That was officially the best wedding ever." It was Monday morning and Nell was still officially on cloud nine, even if she was back at work. She and Ben had spent the rest of the weekend together, getting to know everything about each other. This was one of these rare times when you met someone and instantly knew that they were the one person you had been waiting for, the person who made you complete. She was seeing him again tonight and life seemed to have a new meaning and purpose.
"Maybe Callen and Nico's might be even better?" Sam suggested wickedly.
"Maybe you can think again?" Callen advised him. "This isn't a competition, you know." And he had other things to think about, the most pressing of which was the fact that Nico had woken up with a low, nagging ache in her lower back. Consequently, his cell phone was lying on the desk in front of him, and he kept giving it anxious glances from time to time.
"A watched phone never rings." Sam looked at his partner, who appeared more than a little green around the gills. "Something you want to share with us?"
"There's nothing to share. Yet." Callen looked at the phone again.
"If we weren't two men down already, I'd suggest you take some leave."
It wasn't as if they could even rely on tony and Ziva to assist if a major case came in. Their job in LA finally over now that the labyrinthine tangles of operation Frankenstein had finally been solved, the Washington team had only stayed to complete the final pieces of paperwork before going home later that day. Sam knew they were all anxious to discover how Tim was doing and what prospects there were for any hope of recovering his sight. A few months ago, Callen had been faced with a future of impaired vision, and thought of his partner being side-lined had scared Sam witless. But Callen had Nico, and he also had Sam. Partners could be as close as any other relationship, but Tim was completely different – he worked with Tony and Ziva, but he was not partners in the true sense of the word with either of them. Sam just hoped the man had a good support system in place, because he was going to need it. From all accounts Tim was pretty tight with Abby, the frightening talented goth with a heart of pure gold. Tony had theorised that Abby would have her bowling nuns saying novenas around the clock for her friend. It couldn't do any harm, that was for sure. Tim could do with all the help he could get.
"I'll be fine. And Nico's not due for nearly three weeks. First babies are always late, aren't they?"
"Usually," Sam agreed cautiously. If this was going to go on for another three weeks, Callen would be a nervous wreck at the end of it.
Hetty came in from the courtyard, walking much more slowly than was usual. "Good morning, gentlemen. And Ms Jones." The team compound seemed much quieter than usual, but then that was only to be expected, as she was currently 50% understaffed. There was a subtle air of deflation that seemed to permeate the air, rather like the day after Christmas, when all the presents have been opened and real life begins again. Today seemed very dreary indeed.
"You shouldn't have." Sam looked at the flowers in Hetty's hands.
"I didn't. These are a few tokens from the bouquet: Ms Blye has asked me to press them for her."
She had also asked Hetty to lay the bouquet on Maryanne's grave, which was why she was in rather later than usual. Allison and Gibbs would lay the floral crown on Kensi's father's grave in Arlington later on that day, and were en route even as she spoke. There had been no traditional toss of the bouquet on purpose, not by mere oversight. In this way, her agents were honouring their dead parents, trying to involve them in some small wayfor thBut these were private, family matters, not something to be discussed at work.
"I'll be in my office, if anyone needs me." Right now, Hetty was feeling that the world was flat, stale and unprofitable, and while she would not dream of wishing for another major case, the period of quiet could not have come at a worse time. Still, a day of paperwork, no matter how boring and tedious, was a necessary evil.
Back in Malibu, Tony and Ziva had packed up their belongings and were taking one last walk around the gardens.
"I think I could live in California," Ziva reflected. "It reminds me of home." She was starting to miss the sunshine of Israel, the dry heat of the desert.
Tony looked at her curiously. Having grown up on the east coast, he pretty much regarded California as somewhere that was great to visit, but somewhat removed from reality. "In a house like this?" The mansion brought back so many memories of his own childhood: living on a grand scale, with memories of the past that inhabited every room. Although at least Deeks' mother hadn't insisted her son sleep in a four poster bed.
"Too big." Ziva's own childhood homes had been large and comfortable, but not on this scale. "But definitely somewhere with room for a family." She looked at him challengingly.
"A family?" Tony wondered what sort of a father he might be. Better than his own parent, he hoped, although that would not be difficult. Anthony DiNozzo senior had possibly the world's most casual approach to child-rearing ever. If Toy wasn't being shoved off to boarding school or summer camp, then he was being left in hotel rooms while his father pursued his own agenda. "I don't want to fuck-up my kids," he admitted.
"We will do what our fathers did not." Ziva had previously had a dutiful relationship with her father, but in more recent times she had come to appreciate that he regarded her as an asset, or a chess piece to be pushed around the board, a subordinate that moved to his beck and call. Eli allowed no personal feelings to intrude into his relationship with her: none at all. He was all business, all of the time. Love, devotion and loyalty were a one-way street with him. That realisation had initially made Ziva feel like a medieval princess, married off for the sake of a political alliance and it had played no small part in her decision to become an American citizen. She wanted the right to control her own destiny.
"Have you ever thought about how many NCIS agents come from seriously messed up backgrounds?"
Tony and Ziva's own childhoods had both been unorthodox, but they could perhaps be described by a charitable onlooker as being the recipients of benevolent neglect; Tim had clearly never been quite good enough for his father and had never managed to overcome his inferiority complex, although he was making strides to be more confident at work, while Kensi's childhood had been relatively normal, that had all changed when her father was murdered when she was just 15. Callen's background was the stuff of a Dickensian novel, with missing identities and labyrinthal plots going back decades and as for Deeks – the twists in his family story were positively Byzantian. Even Gibbs had been estranged from his own father for over twenty years. The more he thought about it, the more obvious it became: NCIS attracted people who were serious fucked up, and then it started to sort them out, so that they became normal functioning human beings. It didn't make sense and he couldn't begin to explain how it worked – but it happened. It definitely happened.
"Not Sam." Ziva had a good deal of admiration for the ex-Seal. He brought quiet confidence and great insight to the team and was a man she would work with again in a second. Sam also proved that you could be married, raise a family and be an outstanding agent. He had it all. Maybe she and Tony could be like Sam?
"Sam's the exception that proves the rule. He leads a normal life because he is normal." It was time to get this conversation back on track, he thought. "So - could you see yourself living in Washington – with me?" Tony wasn't quite sure he was ready to make too many changes in his life right now, but he did know that he wanted to make one major change. Life without Ziva at his side had suddenly become unthinkable.
"I could see myself living anywhere – as long as I was living with you." Somehow, they would figure things out together.
"Two weeks in Paris." Callen whistled softly. "This is going to be a hard return to reality."
Sam looked at him incredulously. "You actually think they saw anything except the inside of their hotel room?"
"This is Paris we're talking about. The city of lovers? Kensi will have dragged Deeks around the streets."
"They'll have snogged on every street corner." Sam sniffed curiously. "G, you really need to get this car valeted. Did Bobby bury one of his dead seagulls in the trunk or something?"
Callen opened the windows wide. "I was beginning to think it was my imagination. I was wondering if he'd peed on the upholstery or something." They'd both been concerned that the dog was pining for his master, and had taken Bobby and Crosby for several trips to the beach.
"It's much worse than pee." Sam took a deep breath of fresh air. As the father of two, he knew only too well what stale urine smelt like.
"Thanks for that. You've really cheered me up." There seemed to be a pall of unrelieved gloom around the Mission for the past week: Hetty had been withdrawn and almost morose, while Nell had plunged from euphoria into deepest despair when Ben had disappeared as suddenly from her life as he had entered it. And Nico was still pregnant. Her pregnancy seemed to have been going on forever.
"Anytime. And you might want to consider buying some air-freshener next time you stop at a gas station." The turn-off for LAX was right ahead, which was a blessing, as the car was smelling riper by the second.
"You really know how to make me feel good."
"That's what partners are for." Sam knew Callen was feeling the stress of those last few days of pregnancy. For everyone's sake, he just hoped the baby came soon.
They strolled leisurely towards the arrival gate, grateful that for once the flight was on time.
"You reckon Deeks knows how to ask for coffee in French now?"
"Nothing surer. And Kensi knows how to charge her shopping to his credit cards."
"She's probably got her own cards now."
"Do we have to start calling her 'Deeksette' do you reckon?"
"Or maybe 'Deeksella'?" Callen pondered this briefly. "No, she'll always be Kensi." He hoped so, at any rate.
"Marriage changes people, G."
"It doesn't have to." He and Nico wouldn't change just because they were married, would they? Callen didn't want anything to change, because he'd finally found what he had been looking for over the course of so many long and lonely years.
"It changes for the better. Believe me." Sure, the Hannahs had money worries – huge money worries, if he was honest, the sort that kept him awake at night, but apart from that, everything was better than Sam had ever dared to dream of.
"I'll get back to you on that." Callen refused to be drawn any further, and was relieved to see Kensi and Deeks finally appearing, along with a luggage cart that was piled up high.
"The shops in Paris must be empty."
"Paris and New York," Deeks said with a wry grin. "We stopped there for a couple of night in each direction."
"I didn't buy that much." Kensi took a guilty look at the luggage.
"I don't think there was a day went by that she didn't buy something," Deeks confided.
"So I'm a woman and I like shopping? So sue me."
Callen listened to the familiar bickering and realised that absolutely nothing had changed and was profoundly grateful for that. "Did you do anything other than shop?"
Kensi stared at him. "We did everything. A cruise on the bateaux mouche on the Seine, trip to Verasilles and sightseeing all around Paris." She sighed happily. "It was wonderful."
"It was pretty great." Deeks smiled at the memories. "And Paris wasn't too shabby either."
"Maybe we could go back for our anniversary next year?" Kensi wheedled.
"Maybe we could. Or maybe we could go to Venice and then to Rome?" They started to walk out of the terminal, leaving Sam to push the cart, which was surprisingly heavy.
"Venice!" Kensi sounded ecstatic. "I've always dreamt of arriving in Venice by boat, at sunset." She was barely back in the US and here she was planning another trip to Europe and that was completely insane. Except that it had been so wonderful to finally be alone together, far away from the pressures of work and what had seemed at times to be the omnipresence of the team. Just to be able to be themselves had been magical.
"The rich are different," Callen whispered and then realised that Nico was pretty wealthy in her own right too.
"Yeah." Sam pressed down on the handle of the trolley and put his back into pushing. "They have more money than the rest of us." And that did make a difference, no doubt about it. Still, he knew that Kensi and Deeks would have gladly given all their money away in a heartbeat, if only it could have saved their baby, which put everything into perspective.
Callen pressed the trunk release function on the key fob and watched in astonishment as Kensi and Deeks leapt backwards in unison. "Very funny, guys. What's your next party piece? Synchronised target shooting?"
"No joke." Deeks took another look in the trunk and then pulled Kensi away. "You might want to come take a look, because someone's put a DB in your car."
As Callen got closer, he could smell the sweet, fetid scent of decomposition and hear the faint murmur of insect activity that had previously been obscured by the engine of the car.
"Sweet Jesus."
Finally he knew why Ben appeared to have dumped Nell – the poor guy was in the trunk of his car and by the looks of things, he'd been dead for at least three days.
Evil plot bunny is back with a vengeance.
The Washington team will definitely appear back in this story in the future - and Abby may also turn up too. But there's a bit to go before that happens, so be patient!