Title: Reindeer Games

Author: Aunt Kitty

For: MissJayne

Rating: K+

The bullpen was quiet.

Too quiet.

Pulling himself from the depths of a cold case (and a badly written cold case, no less), Gibbs glanced around and discovered the reason for the sudden silence: the primary cause of noise and mayhem—Anthony D. DiNozzo—was out of the work area. The fact that he shouldn't have been did not go completely unnoticed. "Where the hell is DiNozzo?" he growled. "Has he taken up permanent residence in the head?" Every time he turned around DiNozzo was going to or coming from the bathroom; he swore his senior agent had kidneys the size of dried peas. Or something interesting was going on down the hall. Some days it was like riding herd on toddlers.

Neither David nor McGee, engrossed in their own vintage cases, even twitched at their leader's snarl. McGee barely glanced up as he said, "Abby's lab, Boss."

"Why in the—" Gibbs cut himself off. What the hell. Why didn't matter. If DiNozzo felt like visiting the Goth lab rat, that was fine with him. Go ahead. Play hooky. David and McGee were probably glad for the chance to work without paper airplanes, airborne paper clips, singing, random movie quotes or other distractions—well, distracting them. Gibbs smiled grimly. DiNozzo could just stay until midnight to finish his case assessment. It would give the night shift someone to torture.

Or vice versa.

"I have run… totally… dry."

DiNozzo looked over Abby's head, sending a, 'Now, what?' look to Ducky. "Dry of what?" he asked cautiously. With Abby, the noun that followed could be darn near anything.

"I-deeeeeeeeeee-as," she drew out almost mournfully.

Well, that cleared up the matter. Not.

"Ideas for…?" he prompted. "Torturing the Probie?" Now, that had promise.

"Stop being mean to Timmy," she said automatically.

"Abigail," Ducky said gently, "is concerned about Christmas."

"Christmas," DiNozzo repeated in disbelief. He cocked his head at Abby. "You do know that it's July—right?"

"I know!" She raised her head from where she had propped her chin on her cupped hands. "I am so behind it's not funny. Don't laugh!"

DiNozzo held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Not laughing. Honest. But—what's the rush? Why the—" He checked himself before saying 'hysterical.' "—frantic text message?"

She looked at him like he was particularly dense. "I need to out-do what's been done before."

He gave Ducky another baffled look. "She's going to try to out-cook you?"

Now Ducky looked like he thought DiNozzo's transmission had slipped a gear. "No, Anthony," he said patiently, "though Abigail could give me a run for my money." Abby was raised from her funk enough to flash a smile at Ducky, then promptly plopped her face back onto her hands. "Abigail feels the need to continue and expand the traditions set forth these last two Christmases." DiNozzo looked at him blankly. "The holiday pranks, dear boy!"

"Oh." After a moment, his face cleared. "Oh!"

(Ducky more than occasionally pointed out to DiNozzo that his frequently fried, heavy carb and fat-laden lunches led to slower mental processes in the afternoon. It also led to accidental siestas and resultant head slaps.)

"Hey, it was fun, but—why not just sit on your success. We zinged Gibbs pretty good, he got Director Shepard back—and we all got tagged last time. Why bother again?"

"Because it was fun," she protested.

"Yeah—but it doesn't mean you have to do it every year," he countered.

"Gibbs said those were a couple of his best Christmases ever."

"Probably the only good ones since—well—you know," DiNozzo broke off uncomfortably.

"Christmas is a holiday one associates with children," Ducky said in an understanding tone.

"I remember you playing MacGyver with your chemical set, blowing up the house and scaring the dog," Tony teased Abby to gloss over the awkward moment.

Abby actually smiled and let it stay. "Poor Bubba."

"My Christmas memories are not quite so—ah—vivid," Ducky said. "Stockings, of course, and my grandmother would cook the most wonderful dinner—"

"Is that who you learned from?" DiNozzo jumped on the topic. Food was always a good topic.

"One of many. There are a number of excellent cooks and chefs on both the Mallard and Kittridge branches. The food, the diversions, the snow—it always snowed on Christmas," Ducky stated firmly.

"Always? By the Queen's command?" Abby looked a little less morose.

"Think 'Camelot'" he said with a wink. "That was the best—playing in the snow with cousins and friends, all those silly, fun, parlor games—"

"What made it 'the best?'"

"Oh, Anthony—it was Christmas!" he chided with a grin. "One of those wonderful, old-fashioned, ice skating, bundled-up, hot chocolate Currier and Ives memories."

"Women in bustles, men in top hats?" DiNozzo was getting into the swing of this.

Ducky glowered. "Just how old do you think I am, Anthony?" he grumbled. But he was clearly teasing.

"Oh, not that old!" he said quickly. "Just thinking about those old pictures and all—way before your time, Ducky—it's kind of cool, like time travel." He wrinkled his nose. "Ugh. That sounds too McGeek."

Abby didn't take advantage of the moment to zing him for mocking McGee. She had a sort of faraway look. "Yeah," she said softly, drawing out the word. "Like time travel…" She sat up abruptly. "Let's do it!"

"Time travel?" Ducky laughed.

"As close as we can get! I'm sure I can think of another snowman adventure, I just can't think of it now. But it would be so much fun, all the women in fancy dresses, the men in frock coats and top hats, garlands of popcorn and cranberries and swags of paper chains—" She continued to babble, typing notes on her computer screen, Ducky reading over her shoulder and tossing out occasional ideas or memories.

DiNozzo listened distractedly. Abby was out of her blue skunk funk, which was why he had ditched his cold case. And this could be fun. He thought of his favorite Israeli assassin in Victorian dress and barely managed not to snort. McGee? Elflord probably had junk like that in his closet. His eyes suddenly widened.

"Anthony? Is something wrong?"

He began to smile. Then grin. Then snicker. Then laugh, laugh to the point of a stitch in his side and tears in his eyes.

"Do you need your meds adjusted?" Abby demanded.

"Gibbs!" he finally gasped. "Gibbs—dressed up like Prince Albert!"

Abby's eyes sprang open in shock and her jaw dropped. She clapped her hands over her mouth, but not before a horrified squeak slipped through.

"What?" he demanded.

Beside her, Ducky frowned for a moment, then something popped into his mind and he, too, looked mildly appalled. "You—ah—you do mean the Regent… yes?"

"Regent?" DiNozzo looked at him blankly, unfamiliar with the term. "You know—Prince Albert. Queen Victoria? Victoria and Albert? They named a museum after them? Dame Judi Densch played her in 'Mrs. Brown,' she was a big woman who wore big black dresses, he wore stiff suits and a top hat? That Prince Albert?" Ducky nodded politely. "What Prince Albert are you thinking of?"

Ducky exchanged a glance with Abby and gave DiNozzo a tiny smile. "Google it," he advised the agent. "But… I wouldn't do it at work. Just in case."

Frowning, DiNozzo left the lab. He was pretty sure he heard a pair of snickers behind him as the door whooshed closed…

"Two months to go. Do you know where your Christmas plans are?" Tony said in a mock-serious tone.

While Tim tried to explain to Ziva the reference that was slightly archaic to him (and archaic and totally baffling to her) Abby smacked Tony on the shoulder. "Yes, I do," she said smugly. "Ducky is—of course—in charge of dinner. I have a killer dress—oh, we found one in the attic that had been Mrs. Mallard's mother's, it's in perfect shape, she's going to look fabulous—I'm just having a hard time finding the right games to play. So far I've got Charades—" She ignored the groans. "—and Mad Libs, but most of what I've found is either too much action, like carrying spoonfuls of water across the room or passing an orange from person to person, chin to chin, without using your hands—"

"Abby, no offense, but that's sounding like a kid's party," Tony said cautiously.

"I know—that's why I didn't put them on the list. Duh."

"Do we haveta play games?" he said plaintively. "Why not just do what we always do but with the costumes added on?" (He had been against the costume idea until trying on a Victorian outfit at the shop and getting wolf whistles from three different women.) "I just don't want to spend all day playing dorky games." Though he had admitted earlier it could be funny to watch Gibbs play Charades.

That earned him a glare from Abby, an, 'oh, really?' look from McGee and a cocked eyebrow from Ziva.

"Well… this is different," he said defensively.

Saturday night. The week before Halloween. Elflord, Lab Rat, Ninja and Self-Proclaimed Lady Killer were huddled around the coffee table at McGee's—

—playing Trivial Pursuit.

It had started about a year and a half ago when Tony had his appendix out. He had ignored the symptoms until they were almost life threatening, then had post-op problems that sent him back twice and kept him home for most of three weeks. While he was happy to play DVDs and watch TV morning, noon and night, it was quickly company he craved. So the fourth day home, when he was climbing the walls, his friends showed up with pizza, six-packs and a stack of games—unasked but greatly, greatly appreciated. (And playing a game called Lie, Cheat and Steal was bound to be fun—especially against Ziva. Even though it turned out to be 'how to get elected by using the most dirty tricks' it was still fun.)

But the idea of all of NCIS—especially Leroy Jethro Gibbs—discovering Anthony DiNozzo was happily spending one or two evenings a week saying, "Mrs. White in the conservatory with the wrench" or "Ha! Passed 'go,' give me my two hundred bucks, Probie!" was not just something he didn't want to get out, it was a secret to defend with his life. Ducky had stumbled over a planned meeting and, while disagreeing that life would be hell on earth if the intel got out, agreed to keep it on the q.t., occasionally joining them on game night.

"It's different," DiNozzo repeated. "I'm sorry, can you see Gibbs playing Yhatzee?"

"He's got a point," McGee conceded.

"But this is Christmas," Abby argued. "Gibbs is willing to play along for Christmas." The others looked at her doubtfully. "Well… sort of."

"What did he say about wearing a costume?" DiNozzo continued.

Abby pouted. "Something anatomically impossible regarding non-Kosher food."

"Oink-oink, flap-flap, leaves falling from trees," DiNozzo snorted.

"More like a flight plan that includes taking off from where the sun don't shine," Abby corrected.

"What is sardines?" Ziva suddenly interrupted.

"Are sardines," McGee gently corrected her verb. "Smelly, salty, tiny fish packed tightly in a can and dripping with oil."

"I am familiar with the fish." She pointed to the television. "They are playing parlor games, one character suggested playing Sardines. What is—" she said with a mildly arched brow, "—the game Sardines?"

The other three looked at each other. "Never heard of it," Abby said while McGee spun around in his chair and turned on his monitor.

DiNozzo tipped his head at the television. "Call me crazy—"

"You are crazy," Ziva said agreeably.

"But that guy looks like Ducky."

Abby and Ziva looked at the screen while McGee tapped at the keyboard. "Yeah. He does," Abby agreed.

"Looks good in a monkey suit," DiNozzo said.

Abby grinned. "Wait until you see him in a tux. The real Ducky, not—" She canted her head. "Timmy—what is this show?"

He didn't look up from the computer. "Use the remote, look up the guide."

Abby clicked the buttons. "Sapphire and Steel?"

"Oh, yeah. British series a couple of decades back, really weird—oh, Sardines!" He started to laugh. "It's kind of like Hide and Go Seek. But in Sardines, one person goes off to hide and everyone hunts for them. The trick is, once you find them, you don't 'out' them, you join them. So instead of one person hiding in the hall closet, you get two, then three when the next person finds them, then four, then—"

DiNozzo grinned. "Oh, that could get kinky. I like it."

Ziva snorted. "You would."

"—and you finish the game packed together like sardines," McGee finished.

Ziva arched an eyebrow. "Why do I get the feeling this could end up with a sensitivity training session?"

The others exchanged a glance. "Out," Abby sighed.

"Skip it," Tony agreed.

McGee started tapping keys. "Back to the drawing board…"

Ziva was still watching the television. "Oh, dear."

A character on the show was heard to say, "Oh, come along, Veronica, you're spoiling it all! We weren't going to play Murders til after dinner!"

"She's not playing," DiNozzo said drily, just as the woman on the television said, "She's not playing, is she, Arthur?"

"Gee, Tony, if NCIS doesn't pan out, you could write for tv," McGee said. He grinned at DiNozzo's glower.

Abby had a hand on her chin and was tapping her lip thoughtfully. "Y'know… the almanac says we won't get much snow this winter. Maybe we should just play Murder and not plan on snowmen."

"Sure." DiNozzo was already bored with the subject. He looked at the board. "Whose turn is it? And when are we ordering pizza?"

"You have got to be kidding."

The bowl of Jenny's snifter hid what was probably a wide grin. She shrugged and sipped her brandy. Gibbs held the announcement Abby had circulated the day after Labor Day ("To give us time to get our costumes together!") at arm's length (he had sat on his reading glasses that morning). "'Fancy dress?'" he quoted. "What the hell does 'fancy dress' mean?"

"Well, if this were a hundred years ago, Abby would have simply said 'formal dress.' But wearing historical dress makes it more of a costume affair. I think 'fancy dress' was Ducky's doing—and I find it charming."

Her senior MCRT team leader snorted (rather rudely).

"I already have a dress," she said in what she hoped was a wheedling tone.

"Good."

"It's two weeks away, when are you—"

"No."

"Oh, Jethro, you'd look—"

"No."

"Nothing like a top hat, frock coat—" He snarled something in response and she glared at him. "Gibbs, that is not how you pronounce frock coat!"

"Ducky, this is wonderful. I've never had anything like it." Ziva threw aside any pretense of manners and lavishly slathered cheese spread on a homemade cracker (her sixth).

"That, my dear, is a very old family recipe. It was brought into the family by my great-great-great—" Ducky thought for a moment. "—great uncle, Nicholas Wallace-Hunniford. He married Emily Jane Proctor, she was from the Ballard side of—"

DiNozzo let the conversations float around him. Ziva and Ducky, trading recipes and genealogy. Mrs. Mallard and Palmer talking about wrestling. Abby and McGee talking nerdy to each other. All the screwy family relations were here, but where were mom and—

"Oh! More guests!" Mrs. Mallard said happily as the bell rang. Before Ducky had a chance to set down his tray of appetizers, she was out of the living room and into the hall, coterie of yapping Corgis at her feet. "Your mom is fast, Ducky," he said, snatching an appealing blob of something on a half-dollar-sized round of bread.

"Tell me about it," his host said darkly.

"Matthew! How delightful! You're joining us for Christmas!"

"Mrs. Mallard, you look… grand." Gibbs' voice floated back to the room. It wasn't a word Gibbs would normally use, but it certainly fit. Mrs. Mallard's outfit was scads of ice blue satin and lace with scallops going down the back into a swooping train (Abby and Ziva called the mess a fishtail). Packed away for a hundred years and a dozen moves within the UK and two in the US, it was in amazingly good shape. She had pulled a set of jaw-dropping diamonds and sapphires from the wall safe to add to her ensemble and could have sailed into an embassy ball without anyone batting an eye.

"And you've brought a young lady with you, how charming." Even if she didn't always remember Jenny Shepard, she was always polite. At the very least, she had never spit at her.

"Mrs. Mallard, Jenny Shepard." Gibbs introduced them for the hundredth or more time as they walked into the living room.

"Oh! My son works with a young lady named Jenny Shepard! How amusing!"

"Yes, isn't it," Jenny agreed. "Oh, you've done a wonderful job of decorating the room!" She looked around at the swags of greenery, strings of berries and popcorn, miles of paper chains and twinkling lights. It was bright, cheery and, like their costumes, old-fashioned. She smiled brightly at the earlier arrivals.

They stared at Jenny—and Gibbs—in silence. "Gibbs," Abby breathed. "I—you—it—!"

Ducky saved the day. "Jenny, you look wonderful." She did; her hair was swept up in a soft Gibson Girl, held in place with glittering pins that went with the jet beading of her forest green gown. It was interesting that all three of the NCIS women were costumed in ankle-to-toe gowns that looked damned sexy even though nothing was revealed; less was more. "Jethro." No titles at this party. Ducky held up a tray. "Hors d'oeuvre? May I get you a glass of champagne punch?"

"Thanks, Duck, yeah," Gibbs said, Jenny echoing his assent with a smile and a nod.

"My compliments to your tailor," Ducky said with a straight face as he headed toward the punchbowl.

Gibbs' frock coat was from the beginning of Victoria's reign, his jacket, waistcoat and trousers were form the last year of Edward's—and his shirt from J C Penney's about three years before. "By the time he got around to calling the costume shops, everything was rented," Jenny explained.

"Yeah, I was lucky—" Gibbs said with a sardonic smile. "—to find this stuff."

"But you dressed up!" Abby squealed. "Thank you!"

Jenny accepted her cup of punch from Ducky and went over to ooh and aah over dresses and accessories with Ziva, Abby and Mrs. Mallard (with Jimmy throwing in an occasional knowledgeable comment about footwear). "How did you convince him?" Abby asked as they settled onto the couch.

Gibbs gave Jenny a mild glare from across the way. "I have my ways," she said mysteriously.

Gibbs tossed his drink down, decided it was pretty good and went back for a second cup, and turned around to find he was facing DiNozzo, McGee and a very bemused Ducky Mallard. He sighed. "She threatened me with sensitivity training," he admitted. McGee snickered and turned it into a cough. "All day." DiNozzo flat-out grinned. "Every day." Ducky couldn't stop a chuckle. "For a month."

"Hey." DiNozzo ran his thumbs down the lapels of his jacket, imitating a prosperous Victorian gentleman. "This beats sailor suits."

"Oh! What a lovely idea!" Mrs. Mallard cried. Gibbs looked around DiNozzo and caught sight of her sitting on the couch, hands clasped enthusiastically. "Parlor games!" He forced a smile. "I know—Sardines!"

Not recognizing the name, he looked at DiNozzo for help. "You may be in that sensitivity training anyway, Boss…"

"Murder!" Abby announced.

They had worked through Mad Libs, On My Trip Around the World, Fortunately/Unfortunately, Twenty Questions and Charades. (Gibbs had proved to be quite good at Charades.)

Jenny grinned. "Another snowman murder?"

"No… just Murder." Her mouth turned down in an almost cartoonish frown. "No snow. Probably not for a couple more days."

"It always snows on Christmas… well, maybe not," Ducky said ruefully. "Do we have enough time for Murder?" he cautioned. "Dinner is set for four."

"Oh, sure," she said breezily. She ran over to the credenza and walked around the room, holding out one group of envelopes for the women to choose from and one for the men, chattering all the while. "Okay. Inside the big envelope are a set of papers and another envelope. Don't open the envelope til the end! It will tell you if you are the murderer. One of you will be the murderer, the others have to figure out who the murderer is, who I am—I'm the victim, because I wrote this and it wouldn't be fair for me to play, would it?—where everyone was sitting at the table, how I got killed, why I got killed, there's a whole list and a grid if you want to work it like a logic puzzle, and—okay, this part is kind of subjective—also what Christmas song would be a good title for the mystery. One of the pages is your name and your background and the grid and blanks, one is clues, one is red herrings. We go around in a circle, you get to ask anyone one question, we keep going around and around. You have to figure out if what they're saying is true or false, but so does everyone else. If they say something that you can look at your clues and you know it's false, you write it down, everyone else may get it wrong. It's… part Twenty Questions, part Bullshit, part logic puzzle, part crime scene investigation—"

"I am so no good at this," DiNozzo groaned, thumbing through his papers.

"Yeah, I can tell by your case reports," Gibbs shot back. But he was smirking. "No snowman murder?" he muttered, glancing through his own papers.

"No snow," Abby said sadly.

He held up the envelope. "I meant on paper?"

She looked chagrined. "I didn't even think of it… Okay." Abby picked up her script. "Welcome to Christmas dinner at Little Scrumping-On-the-Bay. Grandmother and Grandfather—" She saw Jimmy start to raise his hand and gave him a glower. He dropped his hand. "—have invited all the children to dinner and a good, old-fashioned holiday. Sadly, someone will not live to the plum pudding. Who? How? Why?" she recited dramatically.

Gibbs rolled his eyes. Why? An excellent question… just not the way Abby meant it.

"Grandfather and Grandmother are Ebenezer and Adrianna Crawford. They have three children, Eugenia Gillingham, who was widowed in The Great War, Christopher, who is married to Millicent, and Algernon, who is separated from his wife, Felicity. Felicity is not attending the festivities," Abby read.

Gibbs snorted. "Instant victim." Abby glared at him.

"All of the adults have children who are in attendance but some are not assigned to anyone because we're kind of a small group. If there are clues from the rugrats or other people, I'll read them. Also joining us will be Agnes Kilgore, Adrianna's elderly sister. Oh, we do have adult children who are in the envelopes—Ethelred and Bertram are two of Christopher and Millicent's sons."

"Abby, where did you get these names?" DiNozzo said with a snigger.

"My family tree," Ducky said mildly.

Gibbs grinned as DiNozzo withered in his chair. He opened his envelope and peeked at the first paper. Hmm. He was Christopher Crawford, eldest son and proud father of five. Who was his spouse? He glanced around the group. With my luck, it's Palmer.

"No, Maxwell is not sitting to the left of his great-grandfather." Abby read off the clue for Eugenia's youngest child.

Gibbs read over his notes, new glasses perched on the end of his nose. "What kind of car do you drive?" he asked DiNozzo.

"Gee, Pops, you probably bought it for me." DiNozzo had been revealed early on to be Ethelred Crawford, ne'er do well second son to Gibbs and—not Palmer, Jenny. DiNozzo consulted his cheat sheets. "Um, I drive a—jeez, Pontiac Shadow? Please."

"What gift did you give your grandfather?" Ziva (Aunt Agnes) asked Ducky (Christopher's elder son, Bertram).

He perused his notes. "It doesn't say." He looked at Abby in surprise.

"Make it up."

"Hmm. A set of Sherlock Holmes, I believe."

Jenny frowned at her synopsis sheet with circles, arrows, cross-through lines and question marks. "Um… Algernon." McGee looked up sharply. "What car do you drive?"

"A… Plymouth. Plymouth Valiant."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Abby said for the third or fourth time. "They didn't have Valiants or Shadows or Comets or Solstices back then, but they did have Wizards and Glorias. Well, in the 30s, anyway."

"And that isn't Victorian era—or even Edwardian," McGee said.

"It's not?" she said, surprised.

"Did you take anything outside of science classes?" he teased.

"Sure," she said with a grin. "Theatre arts."

Gibbs exchanged a look with Jenny. Whether Abby was telling whole or half truth… it explained a lot.

The game had taken so long that they had needed to break for dinner and were now sitting around the living room, leisurely nibbling on plum pudding and pie while winding down the game.

"Mother," Ducky prodded gently. "It's your turn. To whom would you like to ask a question?"

She pointed to Ziva. "You drive too fast!" she pronounced.

"Now the question: is that being said to Aunt Agnes… or Officer Da-veed," Tony muttered sotto voce to Jenny. She smiled and shrugged.

"Mother, that's not a question." He looked over her paper, pointed out a line and whispered something.

"She doesn't look a thing like Adrianna," she said with a pout. Ducky looked at her. "Very well." With Ducky prompting her softly from the side, she asked Abby, "Did you ask someone to drive you to the village?"

Abby grinned. "Yes, yes, I did."

Gibbs nodded to himself as he scrawled an x next to Aunt Agnes. "I've got it." He looked up in surprise.

Ducky, who had just said, "I have it!" looked equally surprised. "Please." He waved a gracious hand indicating Gibbs should go first.

"No, no, Duck, you go."

"We can alternate," Ducky suggested. At Gibbs' nod, he said, "The victim was my dear grandmother, Lady Crawford."

Gibbs nodded in agreement. "She was sitting at the south end of the table."

"My father—" Ducky suppressed a smile and inclined his head toward Gibbs. "—sat to her left, my Aunt Eugenia—" he glanced at his mother, who had done quite well with the game (she lived in a land of make believe half the time, it wasn't that hard of a stretch), "—to her right."

"She was killed by Aunt Agnes."

Ziva gasped at Gibbs' revelation. "Why would I kill my dear sister?"

Ducky reached over and patted her hand. "It was an accident, dear. You got into the car, your glasses fogged up—truly, you didn't mean to run her down."

Ziva gave Abby a sad look. "I am sorry, Addie." She was having great fun playing along.

"That's okay, I forgive you," she said cheerfully. "Next?"

Ducky and Gibbs ran through the rest of their answers, Ducky getting the last. "Aunt Agnes drove a Comet. The song would be Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer—Dasher, Dancer, and Prancer and Vixen," he sang. "Comet and Cupid—"

Everyone opened the envelopes marked "?" Ziva ruefully turning over the card reading "murderer."

"Two winners!" Abby crowed. She had provided little prizes for the winners of the other games, but hadn't figured on two—and this was the "big" game, with one "big" prize (a bottle of Electric Reindeer wine).

"Huh." Gibbs seemed surprised. "Not what I thought."

Ducky gave him a puzzled look. "What else would it be?"

"Given who the victim was… I figured, Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer."

Amid the whoops of laughter, Ducky pointed to Gibbs and caught Abby's eye. "Winner," he said loudly. "One winner!"

But she was quickly distracted. "It's snowing!" she shrieked. She threw her papers on the floor and ran to the window. "Look! Look, everyone! It's snowing!"

She ran back, grabbed Mrs. Mallard's hands and excitedly led her outside, the others following behind.

Gibbs stood on the porch, watching friends and coworkers scamper about in the falling snow like children, heedless of their winter finery. "Ducky said, 'it always snows on Christmas.'"

"It does!" Ducky said happily. "Pardon me, Mother. Pardon me, Father," he teased, heading down the walk.

Gibbs grinned, enjoying watching his "children" at play. "Looks like the top off a box of Christmas cookies."

"Currier and Ives," Jenny clarified, tucking her hand through his elbow.

McGee nailed DiNozzo with a well-aimed snowball and DiNozzo took after him, yelling, "You are so dead, Uncle Algernon!"

Gibbs shook his head, thinking of the serenity in the old pictures. "If you squint." He smiled down at Jenny. "Merry Christmas, Millicent."

Jenny let Gibbs put an arm about her and pull her closer to his side. "Merry Christmas, Christopher."

Author's notes and oddball stuff

The title and Gibbs' one-up on Ducky is thanks to a friend in real life, Rose Baker.

The other cars mentioned and songs would have been:

Plymouth Valiant ("All I Want for Christmas Is You" by Vince Vance & the Valiants)

Pontiac Solstice ("Ring Out Solstice Bells" by Jethro Tull)

Triumph Gloria Southern Cross, 1936 (though there is also a Gloria luxury car from 1959, from the Prince Motor Company of Japan) ("Gloria in Excelsis Deo (Angels We Have Heard on High)" (traditional))

Hillman Wizard (1930s) ("Wizards in Winter" Trans-Siberian Orchestra)

Pontiac Shadow ("Oogie Boogie Shadow" from "Nightmare Before Christmas")

There really is Electric Reindeer wine. I've bought it at Cost Plus over the past 30 years. Not bad suff.

If anyone figures out how to play Abby's version of Murder, let me know. It was the biggest hodgepodge of games; unlike the be-all-end-all Scrabble game from Enharmonic Interval, we did NOT play this IRL.

The episode of Sapphire and Steel is "Dr. McDee Must Die." Interesting series, if you get the chance to see it.