For: madpsychogirl
From: Left my heart in Paris
Title: A Yappy Christmas
Rating: K+
This is for Madpsychogirl, I really hope you like this and it was everything you wanted, Merry Christmas.
It was Christmas Eve and she was alone, she was always alone. Christmas day, birthday, Easter, Thanksgiving, not matter what she was alone.
When she'd been a little girl she'd pictured her future, it had always been an image of her married with kids.
Well she was sort of married and did sort of have kids. Married to the job and she often felt like a mother to team Gibbs, always cleaning up the mess they made, or did that make her their nanny?
Getting up from the arm chair her firelit study and went to stand at the mantel piece, loving how her legs were warmed by the fire.
She smiled at the picture of her father, the thought of his passing only making her feel more alone.
Taking in a breath Jenny decided she needed a drink, only then remembered she'd just polished off a bottle of bourbon and didn't have anymore.
Looking out of the window she saw snow was falling fast and she wouldn't risk going out to get stuck in the snow, plus, what shop would be open late on Christmas Eve?
Then an idea hit her, at the NCIS Christmas party she'd refused to drink as she didn't want to risk ruining her reputation by doing something stupid like getting drunk and accidently snogging Gibbs' face off, although now that she thinks of that it didn't seem such like a bad idea.
Shaking her head of thoughts of Gibbs, she thought back to the night in her head, Abby had insisted she try some of her homemade eggnog so put some in a cup which Jenny had taken home and put in her fridge; knowing Noemi hadn't been round since she knew it was still there.
She moved from her place by the fire and padded through her large, lonely Georgetown house until she reached the kitchen and went to her large fridge and opened it and smiled triumphantly when setting her eyes on the red party cup.
The redhead took a small sip of it; it taste okay, well actually it just tasted like alcohol, just what she wanted and then headed back to her study, where she slumped down into her arm chair again, nursing the eggnog in her hands.
After a couple of minutes she heard the sound of footsteps by her front door followed by scratching, looking around she couldn't figure out what was making the noise.
It freaked her out a little but it soon went away and her heart rate went back to normal. The perks of living alone – you have no one to blame for the strange noises that you heard in the dead of night.
Jenny looked down at the beige drink in her hand and shook her head, maybe it had gone bad, and maybe it was making her hallucinate.
Sighing she decided to watch some TV, hoping it would take her mind off of the noise and cover it up.
Soon she sat down on the brown leather sofa and wrapped herself in the red blanket that was folded up on the back of the sofa.
As Jenny flipped through all the channels there were only those sickly sweet Christmas films on, the ones that always ended in some sort of true love being found, as if Christmas was a magical time to fall in love; it never happened, as much as she wished it did.
There it came again, the scratching, now though there also sounded like sniffing too. She muted the TV and hopped up from the sofa and began to follow the noises and ended up at her front door.
Something or someone was outside. Okay she needed help, in that moment panicking and forgetting she was a federal agent and quiet a good one at that. Pulling her phone out from her jeans pocket she speed dialled one.
"Gibbs." The sound of his gruff voice was already making her feel better.
"Jethro it's me," Jenny said after a moment, her eyes transfixed on the moving shadow outside her front door.
"What do you want Jen?" Gibbs asked, sounding annoyed that she was taking him from his boat.
"I need you," she almost whispered, then realised what she'd said and how it could have been taken the wrong way, "I mean I need your help for security purposes and since you're the agent who volunteered to be on call during the holidays…" she trailed off.
"I'll be there in twenty Director," he growled at her before the line went dead.
Jenny hugged, he'd called her director, so he was in one of those moods which almost made her wish she'd never called him, surly Ziva would have been just as productive if not more.
Then the scratching came again and Jenny opened the draw of the phone cabinet by her front door and pulled out her spare Sig. She opened it to see if it had bullets and was happy when she saw it was fully loaded.
She then retreated back to the living room where she gave the cup of eggnog a nasty look, blaming it for making her insane, before sitting down on the sofa and waiting patiently for Gibbs to arrive.
As he had promised twenty minutes later he arrived at Jenny's house. She saw the car lights through her thick curtains and just hoped it was him and not someone else, coming to cause trouble.
"Jen open the door." Gibbs' voice came from the other side of the door, sounding tired and annoyed.
The red head promptly opened the door, gun still in her hand. When she opened the door she knew she must be going crazy, I mean she never ever expected in a million years to ever see this.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs stood on her doorstep wearing faded blue jeans, trainers, black coat dotted with flecks of snow, his hair also covered. But it was what was in his arms that shocked her.
A cocker spaniel puppy, black all over, save a white fleck by its mouth and on one of its back paws, its ears still too big for it, long and floppy as well as the longest eye lashes she'd ever seen on a dog.
"I'm never drinking eggnog again," she mumbled without thinking that he could hear her.
"You what?" Gibbs asked not having fully heard her as he tried to keep a hold on the wriggling puppy.
"Uh why are you holding a puppy?" Jenny asked him, trying to stop a small smile on her face.
"It's your Christmas present," Gibbs deadpanned.
"Really?" she asked, still not letting Gibbs and the puppy in.
"Not from me, from whoever left it here," Gibbs told her motioning to the note attached to its pink collar. "It's what was scratching at your door," he added.
"Well it's starting to snow again, I guess I'll have to let you both in," she sighed, pretending it was something that she didn't really want to do and stood aside.
"Where do you want it?" Gibbs asked as Jenny shut the door behind him and locked it.
"Excuse me?" she asked taken a little back by his question.
Gibbs smiled at the look on her face. "The puppy, where do you want me to put it?" he elaborated.
"In the living room is fine," Jenny smiled, not needing to tell him where the living room was as she suspected he still remembered from years ago and then followed him.
"I would offer you some bourbon but I'm all out," she told him.
Watching as he put the puppy on the floor and the puppy immediately rolled on to its back and wagged its tail, showing it meant no harm and also that it wanted a belly rub. "At least we know it's a girl," Gibbs almost chuckled as he sat on the floor and began to tickle her belly.
Jenny smiled at them both softly, he was good with children and dogs, before sitting on the living room floor with them. "Why do you think the owner left her on my door step?" she asked him.
Gibbs shrugged his shoulders and pulled the letter off of the collar. "Just says: Merry Christmas, this dogs yours now, look after it well." Gibbs read it and then handed it to Jenny, their fingers brushing against each other, making both try and avoid eye contact. "We can sort it all out tomorrow." Gibbs stifled a yawn.
"Tomorrow's Christmas," Jenny reminded him.
"I know but I haven't got anything else to do," he shrugged. "You probably do, I should have…" He began but she cut him off.
"I'm not doing anything. I just thought you would be going to Ducky's for dinner," she explained having overheard the rest of team Gibbs talking about it.
"Christmas isn't a great time for me, they understand," he explained as the puppy snuggled into his lap.
"It seems you have a friend," the redhead teased.
Gibbs looked up at Jenny, his soft blue eyes meeting her green, the shared look was long and intense, he saw into the deepest darkest corners of her soul; he could see the women he used to know, love end, his Jenny. He could see the love, the desire, the face she was scared shitless about what could come of this, them, together outside of work, with obvious unresolved feelings for once another.
The puppy yawned in Gibbs' arms letting out a high pitched squeak. "I should go," Gibbs said as he scrambled to his feet.
Gibbs picked up the cocker spaniel from the floor and looked at Jenny for a moment "Are you sure?" he asked.
"Of course, I wouldn't want you getting stuck out there," she explained. "Plus I have more than enough spare bedrooms," she added, subtly letting him know they wouldn't be sharing her bedroom like in the past.
"Okay," Gibbs nodded and then followed her up the old oak staircase and they stopped outside a door.
"You can have this room, the bathroom's next door and my room's at the end of the hall if you need me," she explained not really sure why because he probably still remembered.
"What about Puppy here" Gibbs asked lifting the puppy up so her face was in front of Jenny's, her soft brown eyes melting Jenny's heart.
"She likes you," was Jenny said before turning on her heels and heading to her own bedroom.
Gibbs admired her figure as she walked away; she must have felt his eyes on her because he could swear she had added an extra sway to her hips.
"Wow," Gibbs mumbled to the puppy before walking into the guest bedroom.
It was just how he remembered it – cream walls, wooden floor and a dark cherry red chest of drawers, cream bedding for the king-sized bed, and everything smelt like her.
He put the puppy down on the floor. "Don't chew or scratch anything," he told the puppy sternly. "She'll get really mad," he told her, knowing from experience how angry the redhead would get. The puppy immediately tried to jump on the bed but was too small so Gibbs gave her a helping hand and smiled when the spaniel curled up on one of the pillows.
There came a small knock on the door. "Come in," Gibbs called over his shoulder.
Jenny then walked in holding a familiar pair of jogging bottoms and old NCIS t-shirt. "Must have been left behind in the past," Jenny sheepishly handed them to him.
"From what I remember Jen, they always looked better on you," Gibbs told her with a knowing smile as he took them from her.
"Well goodnight," Jenny said ignoring his comment and his dreamy blue eyes. She reached over and scratched the dog behind the ear and then turned to leave.
"Jen," Gibbs stopped her.
"Jethro," she replied as she turned to face him.
"I…" Gibbs wouldn't find the words to say what he was feeling, instead he leant forward and kissed her cheek. "Night," he said, his breath hot against her cheek.
Jenny nodded before leaving, shutting the door carefully behind her.
They both fell on to the double beds and stared up at the ceiling, wondering how they hell they had got to where they were, to go from two people so in love, two perfect halves to a piece. Now they were almost like strangers, friends maybe, but nothing more.
Gibbs was brought from his thoughts by the puppy, crying and scratching at the door. He slipped out of the bed and padded over to the door, thinking that the puppy probably needed to go out.
To his surprise when he opened the bedroom door the puppy ran over to Jenny's bedroom door and began scratching and howled at it.
"Sh sh sh," Gibbs tried to get the vocal little puppy to quieten so she wouldn't wake Jenny up but it was no use.
Moments later the bedroom door opened revealing Jenny, in a pair of jogging bottoms and an old NCIS hoodie that he recognised from the past. "That been taken in the past?" Gibbs asked her with a smile.
"I thought you said it always looked better on me anyway," Jenny countered, raising an eyebrow at him as she bent down and picked up the puppy, stroking its head softly.
Gibbs smiled. "It seems she likes you too," he countered her earlier statement.
"Or she just hates shut doors," the redhead pondered.
"Maybe," Gibbs grumbled, the awkwardness setting in once again between the two, acting like they hadn't once been lovers, hadn't been stuck on stakeouts and missions together months at a time. "Well, night Jen." Gibbs turned on his feet to walk away.
"Jethro." Jenny made him stop and turn to face him, much like he'd done to her earlier. "I'm sorry for the past," she admitted. "Not the fact we were together but how I left you, for being such a coward."
Gibbs shrugged his shoulders. "It's the past Jen, we can't change what's happened, we just have to focus on what we are today, we're still friends," he told her.
Jenny almost laughed. "Friends Jethro, really?" She shook her head as he nodded "We are tolerant of each other on the best of days, that's not friends"
"What are we right now then?" Gibbs asked, knowing they were being more than tolerant with each other.
"We're at a crossroad," she told him, putting the puppy down on the floor and all of a sudden they both stepped closer to one another.
"A crossroad?" Gibbs asked her.
"We can go one way alone," she told him.
"Or?"
"We can go the other together," she spoke, her voice almost above a whisper as Gibbs wrapped his strong arms around her waist and pulled her close to him, her hands automatically bracing herself again his chest.
"Hard choice," Gibbs mumbled with a small smile.
"Hmmm I don't think it is," Jenny added after a moment, before reaching up and letting her lips cover his softly in a kiss.
Gibbs' hand went straight to her hair as his tongue rediscovered the corners and taste of her mouth, while her hands ran up and down his back before resting on his bum.
After a couple of moments, the need for air came apparent so they had to part, "I love you," Jenny mumbled breathlessly as she leant her head on his chest, Gibbs didn't reply, instead he pressed a kiss to her head and to her it conveyed that he felt the same about her, he was never a man of words, mostly because around her a lot of the time he was lost for words or couldn't think straight, but also because he liked to show how he felt instead.
"Come on," Jenny grabbed his hand and began to drag him to her bedroom, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes and he liked it.
The puppy tried to follow them but once inside Gibbs shut the door on the puppy that had grown close to their hearts and pushed Jenny up against it. "She doesn't like closed doors," Jenny hummed as he placed feather light kisses on her neck rediscovering her soft spot.
"What's going to happen behind this closed doors is not a sight that is appropriate for her age," Gibbs told her making Jenny laugh.
Meanwhile outside the door the black cocker spaniel puppy began to scratch and howl, not wanting to be alone.
The puppy is based on my dog when she was a puppy and at the age of six she still hates shut doors, howls any chance she gets and likes her belly being rubbed.
Hope you like, Merry Christmas.