Team Approach

Determined to convey his displeasure at his forced medical rest, Jethro Gibbs threw open his front door and stomped into the house, wincing as shards of pain shot through his injured leg. "See!" he demanded over his shoulder as Dr. Mallard followed behind him, clutching a black leather medical bag, "It makes no difference if I'm at NCIS or at home to recuperate."

Well versed in his friend's rants and correctly diagnosing the real cause of the outburst as frustration, Ducky gestured towards the sofa. "Sit down, Jethro, and allow me to administer the painkiller. Once you sleep and rest that knee, the body will commence to heal itself, I promise. By the time I return to check you tonight you should be on the road to recovery and ready for the agency tomorrow."

Despite the soothing timbre of Ducky's voice, Jethro, in no mood to cooperate, remained petulant and determined that his friend feel and experience his displeasure. Ducky had pulled rank and gotten him benched after a particularly brutal takedown of a homicide suspect earlier in the day, and nothing he had argued had swayed the doctor into agreeing with his side of things.

Government agents, no matter their rank or the number of threats they uttered, could not slip out of medical benchings from physicians.

Ducky held the whip hand.

Jethro had learned the hard way years before that even playing upon their long friendship would not change Ducky's mind once the medical examiner had made a decision.

"Thanks to you I will have a ton of work on my desk tomorrow," he accused, grumbling as he braced himself against further pain before lowering himself down carefully onto the sofa cushion.

Then to add substance he muttered, "I genuinely hope that dirtbag's buddies commit no more crimes while some doctor throws his medical weight around NCIS."

"Hmmm…." Ducky responded absently, rubbing briskly at Jethro's upper arm with an alcohol swab. Plunging the hypodermic into the bottle of painkiller next, he slid back the plunger and eyed it expertly as it filled the tube. "You have left behind a capable team long trained in the duties of the agency and the expectations of their fearless leader. I think you overestimate the trouble an afternoon at home will create." Slipping the hypodermic from the bottle of sedative, the medical examiner stabbed the needle efficiently into Jethro's muscle. "Sometimes you need to let the youngsters perform without your direct supervision, not hover so, as a father would," Ducky concluded.

Leaning his head back against the sofa back and turning his head side to side, Jethro scowled. "Ducky, you want to ignore reality. You can make these claims, but you know that Tim, and Kate, and Abby, and Tony, or those youngsters, as you call them, require every second of my direct supervision or they go off the rails. Mark my words, if the Agency still stands tomorrow, consider that a miracle."

Not bothering with a verbal response, the good doctor patted the sofa arm, refusing to take the threats personally. He and Jethro had years of friendship between them, built upon positive, as well as negative, interactions.

Moving towards the door, Ducky shook his head and reiterated the importance of Gibbs calling should he need him, though privately the doctor recognized from the physical response that the Marine had already relaxed with the medicine.

Unable to stay awake as the wave of pulsing painkiller infiltrated his body, Jethro slid into sleep before Ducky closed the front door. His last thoughts centered on the fact that the last time Ducky administered a painkiller that intense, he dreamed that he had fathered four children.

The children of Leroy Jethro Gibbs commenced their campaign for a trip to the movie theatre early in the week, and by Wednesday, he agreed, citing their good behavior and attention to their household responsibilities as deciding factors. Thursday Tony approached him and assured his father that would supervise. For the first time, Jethro could abdicate the cinema supervision to his eldest. While Jethro ran errands for two hours and used his time constructively, his oldest could easily oversee his siblings during the movie's screening.

Gibbs studied him and realized his son deserved the chance. Tony had matured in the past few months, and anyway, the others would obey Tony because Tony took his position as the oldest seriously.

He acquiesced.

Watching them hurry towards the ticket booth that weekend, Gibbs kept his gaze locked on his oldest. He would love to know how Tony planned to manage the kids at their first movie without their dad, but would not stoop to spying. Around the house the others obeyed Tony's instructions as the second in line to their daddy, but away from home could present some obstacles.

However, that belonged in Tony's hands.

As soon as the car eased from the parking lot and disappeared from sight, Tony motioned his siblings to form a group around him.

He pointed towards the road, where the license plate of Jethro's vehicle now faded. "Dad's gone, and we need to make sure that we tell the same story when he picks us back up after the movie finishes."

Abby beamed at him, her green eyes excited at the conspiracy. At eight, she adored her older brother, and awarded him a place of honor in her small world right under that of her father. Twirling one of her black pigtails with a finger, she skipped from foot to foot while he talked.

Tony placed a calming hand on her shoulder, and she stumbled to an abrupt stop.

"Are you absolutely sure Dad won't know that we went to another movie?" Tim stammered anxiously, his mouth turned down a bit. A year older than Abby, his dark blond hair fell onto his forehead, and he blew a breath upward to scatter it back into place.

Before his brother could respond, ten year old Kate snapped, "He will know if you give it away by saying something stupid when he comes to get us. Just stay mum."

Tony narrowed his eyes at her and she met his gaze boldly. Petite and ladylike, Kate tended to approach life as a perfectionist and as a stickler for details. Her sharply spoken observations, though, often ended up hurting feelings among the children.

Her older brother often had to step in to soften Kate's blows. He pointed at her and directed firmly, "Cut it out, Kate. Timmy had a good question."

Though certainly guilty of reacting impatiently with his brother, at other instances he proved extremely supportive and protective. He smiled reassuringly at the younger boy. "Let's review it again so you won't feel nervous. Now, Dad dropped us off to watch The Sound of Music, and he will certainly expect that we enjoy it again, our sequel viewing, since we got to see it last week with Mrs. Mallard."

"I liked that nun singing on the boat, and I liked the nuns when they stayed at that monastery." Abby provided.

"Convent," Kate corrected.

"Oh," Abby frowned, "I meant to say that."

Steepling his hands, Tony continued. "Right, but the point is that we all agreed that we are going to slip into other movies today, and watch those, then run sit in Sound of Music again. So we won't be lying to Dad that we watched it again, sorta. But remember that we do not- and I mean a big do not under any circumstance- let Dad find out we went to different movies without his permission."

"Even if it's a somewhere in the same theatre building," Tim elaborated.

"Right," Kate agreed, "so once we get in the car, we all just talk about everything we liked the first time when we really saw the whole Sound of Music movie."

"So make sure that everyone ends up back in the theatre with Julie Andrews so that we walk out together. It shouldn't be a problem since that's the longest movie of them all," Tony shook his head.

At eleven, his status as the oldest remained implicit in his dealings with his siblings, and despite his playful nature, he did consider his responsibility to his family sacrosanct. He rewarded them all with a brilliant smile, his green eyes sparkling at the thought of the subterfuge. "Ticket time, then, ladies and gentlemen."

One by one, the kids marched to the ticket counter and purchased a child's matinee to The Sound of Music. Tony held the door open and let them pass before him, but then motioned them to an alcove in the complex's interior once the exterior door snapped closed.

Pointing at the marquees near the cinema's ceiling, he made sure everyone vocalized their specific destinations before reminding Tim and Abby to use the restroom before their movies started. As an afterthought he cautioned them against buying a tub of popcorn with their spending money.

With hurried good byes, finally all four children scattered in different directions.

Nevertheless, three hours later they stood reunited in a small circle by the cinema's exit door, not willing to leave the comfort of the air conditioning to venture into the sweltering summer afternoon without spotting their father first.

Tony, clearly annoyed, held onto Abby with one firm hand as his other gestured angrily at Kate. "You knew better than to let her go into something that scary. Thanks to you she's been crying and upset! What part of you are older and know better than to let her get scared is difficult for you, Katie?"

Sure enough, tears stained the child's face. She turned and wiped her face on the side of Tony's shirt.

Kate refused to accept responsibility, a typical reaction from her. "Quit blaming me! She found me in my movie and I told her to go somewhere else but she didn't. She kept hanging out with me. Blame her, how about it!"

In an attempt to ward off a fight between his brother and sister, Tim tried to calm the waters. "Well, I liked my show a bunch. It was really good, and…."

Tony interrupted, his voice laced with irritation, "You should have brought her to me, Kate, or sent her to go on …."

Before he could finish Abby pointed towards the parking lot. In a shaky voice she announced, "Daddy's here, 'cause I see him now."

Tony bent down quickly and rubbed the remainder of tears from under her eyes, stooping to add a kiss to her forehead. Placing his hands on both her little shoulders he regarded her intently and grinned conspiratorially. "Ok, Honey, now remember that we will all say we went to only one movie, Sound of Music. You get to practice being an actress now, like one of those little Von Trapp girls in the movie, ok?"

"And that's not a whole fib, because we really did go in there," Tim supplied, happy to insert the ethical arm of the covert plan.

Noting that Jethro had pulled into a parking slot Kate whispered urgently, "You know if you tell that we disobeyed Daddy by not going where he thought we were going we could get spankings, right? No matter what, we have to keep this our secret."

Squaring her shoulders, the baby of the family nodded firmly and grinned up at them. "I know just how to approach the situration!"

They all laughed at her serious, but questionable, lexicon, and on that note, raced out to rejoin their father.

After the flood of greetings and chatter during the car ride home failed to elicit any hidden information from them, the children relaxed once again into their normal summertime routine. The secret held through the worrisome drive, and they considered that a testament to their solidarity.

Later, though, Abby's acceptance of bedtime proved problematic. After directing her two times to head upstairs with no response, Jethro strode into the living room and picked her up from where she perched on her sofa seat. Setting her squarely on the floor, he pivoted her towards the steps and promised decisively, "Young lady, if you are not in that bed in five minutes when I come to tell you good night, you will regret it."

The other children watched in morbid fascination as Abby's lip started to tremble, certain that she would let the cat out of the bag and betray them all. Tears began to fall, but she did not snitch on them.

Climbing resolutely, she followed her father's instructions.

Not long afterwards Kate and Jethro climbed up the stairs together and to the room the girls shared. Jethro tucked in Abby, though, while Kate selected a nightgown and left to bathe. She was able to share with her brothers that the baby of the family had remained silent about the day's subterfuge as Jethro read to Abby and finalized the bedtime ritual.