Leroy shook his head as he surveyed the scene around him. Bodies littered what once was his living room scattered where they had succumbed to sleep in a variety of uncomfortable positions.

He noticed that Ducky seemed to have secured himself the best sleeping arrangements slumped over the far corner of the sofa leaning towards the warmth of the extinguishing fire.

Palmer sat by his feet, screwdriver still in hand and tousled hair covering his eyes. If Gibbs didn't know any better, he would have presumed him to be still hard at work. It was only when his grip on the trusty screwdriver failed him and it slipped from his hand that Gibbs was sure he had followed his mentor into the land of dreams. The ex-marine had had barely enough time to manoeuver round the human obstacles to catch it before it hit the hard wooden floor and woke the other residents of the room.

Shuddering at the thought he placed the object on a table that had become a graveyard for discarded tools. Tobias sat slumped over in a chair pulled up to the table. His head lay flat across its surface and with every breath he caused one of the runaway screws to roll back and forth.

Two low murmurings drew his attention to the floor where Tony and Ziva lay, between them the half- finished pair of flat pack draws that Tony clutched protectively even in sleep. He rubbed his temples at the memory of the vicious argument the two had been embroiled in for what felt like a lifetime, and all over the size of an alan key. He would have to come up with a rule later about never doing DIY with your partner or else risk being cursed with another alan key incident.

It would seem that Abby and McGee were also casualties of the flat pack furniture as Abby lay in the middle of the newly built bed. The wooden structure had looked stable enough but she had insisted in making sure and no sooner had she lay down she was out for the count. He only wished she had waited till they had at least put the mattress on the bed, the cold wooden support beams could not be comfortable. Agreeing to himself that She had spent too many nights sleeping on her lab floor for her own good he walked to the hallway to retrieve her stuffed hippo that had been dumped along with an assortment of shoes and coats. Tucking it under her head and kissing her goodnight on the forehead he stepped back to check on this last guest.

Timothy lay on the floor just across from the bed, McGee and Abby faced each other in sleep. The instructions to the flat pack bed were still grasped tightly in Timothy's hands and from the look of the picture on the front it would seem that the pair had managed to successfully complete the bed, a sense of pride filled him at this as only hours earlier he was ready to through it all onto the fire and just make a new bed from scratch convinced it would be quicker than trying to translate the mumbo jumbo they called instructions, all that was left to do was attach the ornate wooden headboard that he had made.

It was a labour of love though and he could not begrudge the many hours it took, the end result had far surpassed his expectations when he had this crazy idea, at the time fuelled on far too many glasses of bourbon and black coffee. As on the head board engraved deep into the wood were the names of its future occupants, each in a different style to suit their character. Abby came first, followed by Tony, Tim, Ziva and as a last minute addition even Jimmy made the cut. Tobias and Ducky had already claimed the existing spare bed, for their less frequent stays.

A loud farting noise reached Jethro's ears as Abby rolled in her sleep to be closer to Tim, other than a murmur from McGee the room remained oblivious to the disturbance.

After checking on his unexpected troop of followers Gibbs made his way to sit in the space on the sofa next to Ducky sighing. He would have a stiff back tomorrow but it would be worth it. Someone had to keep watch over his rag tag family, God knows what trouble they would get up to. It was only then that he could really sit back and take in how this unlikely scene had come to pass.