Christmas time was a wonderful time for many people. It was a time of joy and happiness, a time of family and friends, a time of giving and loving, and a time of giving thanks for the wonderful things in one's life. A person couldn't even step out of their home without hearing a Christmas carol, seeing beautiful decorations, or feeling an overwhelming sense of serenity and peace.
Usually at NCIS, the center of the holiday spirit came from the lab of one Abby Scuito, forensic and ballistic scientist extraordinaire. This year, though, there was an eerily somber tone hanging over the normally jolly lab. Tim could feel the tension the moment he stepped foot inside.
"Abby?"
She looked up from her place. She wasn't wearing her typical Christmas garb—red sweaters, bells in her pig-tailed hair, and a Santa choker wrapped around her neck. Instead, her outfit consisted of just plain black clothing, as did her make-up which was beginning to look a little smeared, specifically beneath her eyes. It was almost as if… "Have you been crying?" he asked softly.
"No," she said as she sniffled, belying her words. "It's just I have a cold."
Tim knew better. He'd known Abby long enough to recognize when something was wrong. Aside from the lack of Christmas spirit and the telltale mascara stains on her face, there was a sparkle lacking in her eyes. "Abbs," he said as he took the seat beside her, "tell me what's wrong."
She averted her eyes and wiped the heel of her hand across her cheeks, catching make-up debris. "I was supposed to go home this year for Christmas. I haven't had a New Orleans Christmas in five years and I was really looking forward to it. But the weather is so bad here that they don't think the plane will even be able to take off." She sniffled again. "Looks like it's gonna be another D.C. Christmas."
"Oh, Abby, I'm sorry," he said, slinging a friendly arm around her shoulder. "But you've got us here, you know that."
"I know, but it's still not a New Orleans Christmas. I miss the warmth and the food and the songs."
"Well, I know we don't exactly have a lot of warmth here at the moment, but is our food and our songs so different than the food back South?"
"It's the only place where I can get a steaming bowl of authentic gumbo, my Aunt Wendy's bread pudding, and a Christmas Night Hurricane at Pat O'Brien's. It's also the only place where I can hear The Twelve Yats of Christmas."
He raised an eyebrow. Gumbo and bread pudding were familiar to him, but he didn't understand why someone would want a hurricane on Christmas and he was still trying to figure out what a 'yat' was. Still, he didn't want to dishearten her further. "I'm sure we can put something together for you," he assured the dismayed girl. "Ziva's a wiz in the kitchen and I'm sure she could churn out some sort of gumbo and bread pudding, even if it's not the kind you're used to."
Abby nodded. "Yeah, you're right. I guess it was silly of me to get so worked up over not being able to go home right now. There's not much there that I can't find here. My mom sent me a package of Hurricane mix anyway, so all I need is the rum."
"Right," Tim said, pretending like he'd known a Hurricane was a type of cocktail all along, "and as for the Twelve…whatevers of Christmas…"
"It's Twelve Yats of Christmas," she said, a small smile playing on her lips. "To be honest, I know the entire thing by heart so I could teach it to you guys, even if it won't make much sense."
"That sounds like fun," he told her. It was good to see her happy again. Well, at least happier than she had just been. "It'll be just like if you were home. Except it'll be colder and you won't have your family here."
Abby went to her stereo and switched it on. It had already been set to the Christmas station, so the soft chords of "White Christmas" wafted through the speakers, filling her lab with holiday cheer.
"No," she said to Tim as she began plugging in her Christmas lights, "I'll have my family here. My family away from my family."
