A/N: I don't own NCIS. Part nine of my Christmas fics.

Quote and title from "Christmas in India" by Rudyard Kipling which is actually a lot more depressing than these fragments make it sound. Mistletoe lore from mistletoe dot org dot uk.

Obviously, set before Kate died.

"Call a truce, then, to our labors - let us feast with friends and neighbors." - Rudyard Kipling

The break room was struggling up with a few optimistic strings of lights. A long folding table was inhabited with the annual offerings: cheap punch, the good cookies from HR, the gingerbread men iced to look like they'd died gruesomely from Abby's lab, the obligatory cheese plate, and a plastic bin of whatever dessert had been on sale at the store.

Kate poked unenthusiastically at her last cheese cub. She kind of wished Gibbs had stayed stubbornly at his desk like last year. Then she could have ducked out to bring him a plate and conveniently forgot to come back.

Tony wandered over toward her while he bit off the head of one of the gingerbread men. Red frosting coated his lips.

"Truly, you are descended from the monsters the legends speak of," she said dryly.

Tony grinned. "Hey, for something baked by someone who doesn't eat, it's not bad." He wiped his mouth absently. "Enjoying the Christmas party so far?"

"Tony, your desk is more decorated than this room is right now - "

"Because my desk is awesome."

" - the food is mediocre, we're wasting work hours, and to top it all off, it's not even a real Christmas party! It's a 'winter celebration.'" She couldn't do air quotes properly while balancing a plate and a cup, but she gave it her best shot.

"To be fair, we're not all even the same species. They can't exactly assume we're all part of the same religion." Tony was using his annoyingly reasonable voice, and he was doing it on purpose, which was worse.

"No," she agreed. "We're not all the same species. You can tell by the way they swerve to avoid the monsters lurking in the corners."

"Gibbs doesn't," he pointed out.

"Gibbs is special."

Tony conceded the point. "We really are lurking in the corner, aren't we?" He looked around them ruefully, then froze. "Er, Kate, don't look now, but I think lurking here might have been a mistake."

Naturally, she looked.

The sad, wilted remains of a sickly pale sprig of mistletoe were hanging in the ceiling tiles right above her head.

She took a brisk step to her left and took a sip of her punch like the incident had never happened.

"Pretty sure that's not the tradition, Kate."

"Did you know that in Greek and Nordic cultures, mistletoe had strong ties to death?" She smiled at him pleasantly. "If you don't want it to have strong ties to yours, you'll forget this ever happened."

Surprisingly, Tony's eyes lit up. "That's it. That's what's bothering you. The death thing."

She stiffened. "What?"

"It's not a Christmas party," he said in the same voice he used when he'd pieced the clues together. "But it still has some Christmas traditions. Like mistletoe. And," his eyes flicked to his watch, "in five minutes, carols. We all stand in a circle and sing, and you - "

"Can't," she finished with a sigh.

"You could," he pointed out.

"Somehow, causing a panic at the office Christmas party doesn't seem quite in the spirit of the season."

"Winter celebration," he corrected.

She rolled her eyes. "Whichever." She could just duck out without an excuse, but that felt too much liked acting as if she was ashamed.

"Well . . . We could . . . " Tony made to step closer, but he tripped. When he grabbed her arm for balance, her punch splashed all over his shirt. "Ah, man."

It wasn't quite her fault, but she still felt guilty. "Here, let me help you get cleaned up. I know a trick that might work."

Tony's mournful look brightened. "Really?"

"Yeah, come on, just - " She led him out of the room. The second they were clear, Tony was grinning with self-satisfaction.

Any traces of guilt vanished. "Can you even trip?"

"Not like that," he said, still grinning. He poked the stain. "I really would like that trick, though."

She sighed. "It's the least I can do. Come on." She headed down to their desks.

While she rooted through her purse, Tony fiddled with something on his computer. She froze when she realized what it was.

Christmas music poured into the room.

It took her a moment to find her voice. "Rudolph, Tony? Really?"

"No reindeer games for us," he reminded her. "So we on the Island of Misfit Toys will have to make our own." He caught her hands and started swaying to the music. "Come on. Sing with me."

She started to say something about how dancing with a fey seemed inadvisable, but she caught herself.

She couldn't sing. He couldn't dance.

"Nothing fancy," she warned instead. "And you'd better not run screaming."

"Scout's honor," he promised, grinning once again. He just whirled her around in a slow circle that didn't match the song at all but left them both with plenty of breath to sing.