This story was written for Semper Fi Sweatshirt for the 2010 NFA Secret Santa fanfic exchange. To read all this years NFA secret santa stories, find the link at the top of my profile page. The requirements for this story were as follows:

Spoilers or Season Setting: I haven't caught up with season 7.
Gen, Het, Slash, Mixed: I don't mind.
Pairings: Anything except Ziva/Gibbs, Ziva/Tim, Gibbs/Hollis and Jenny/Tony. Pretty much everything else is good including OCs.
Must Haves: Interaction between two or more main characters. Third person POV. Some humor even if it is in the form of sarcasm.
Don't Wants: Sex. Heavy violence or angst. Heavy swearing. I also hate mushy romances. Humor is good.
Request or Prompt: Take some of the main characters and put them in an outside the office situation that is odd and not work related, such as two of the characters ending up as partners at a golf tournament. If that doesn't inspire any muses, whatever works. I'll read pretty much anything.
Rating Cap: FR15
Other Comments: A little OOCness is okay. However, if a character has a total attitude reversal, there'd better be a reason. I also like inside jokes that'd you'd have to pay attention to the episodes to know.

This story was inspired by the prompt and the episode Under Covers (no, not the Tiva bit) where Abby appears in her bowling outfit. The episode ends, appropriately enough, with the words "Semper Fi" – the recipient of this story. Thanks to JKM758 for both techical and US cultural help.

Chapter 1

"Good news!" Abby enthused, bounding into the squad room.

Tony, Ziva and McGee froze solid, creating a snapshot of three stages in the NCIS packing-up- for-home routine. A silent worried glance passed around them: Abby's "news" at this hour was rarely "good" for them. The large plastic bag grasped tightly in her hand did nothing to allay their fears.

"Remember the 'Brain Check' you guys gave me when you all promised to come see Brain Matter and then bailed so you could deal with your ..." she turned pointedly to McGee, "boat phobia", then to Tony, "rat phobia", and finally to Ziva, "and ghost phobia?"

McGee glanced nervously at Abby's spiky bracelet. "Ahh yes."

"Well, now you get to pay me back."

A sea of excuses washed over the room.

"It's not a band!" Abby yelled over the noise.

Silence.

Abby's tone turned to a plea. "It's my league bowling night but Sister Rosita just called and said something really serious came up and they can't make it tonight so I don't have a team. We're on top of the ladder and we're playing the number two team and I really hate them and if I can't get a team together for tonight we'll have to forfeit the game and lose our place at the top of the board so I need you guys to come play with me."

"Oh yes!" Tony grinned, "Bowling!"

McGee heaved a resigned sigh. "Let me guess: bowling summer camp?"

"Don't be silly, Probie," Tony admonished. "Camp Pocequatic was strictly about the clogging. No, I was Captain of the Ohio State Alpha Chi Delta bowling team: fraternity bowling winners three years running." He high-fived with Abby.

"So you have a handicap?" she queried.

"Oh yeah."

There was a pause as Tony and Abby looked at Ziva and expectantly.

"Bowling is far more of a recreational activity in Israel than it is here," said Ziva, finally.

"No league?" asked Tony.

"No; no league. You would no more compete in bowling than you would compete in movie watching."

"There are movie watching competitions?"

Ziva eyed him for a moment before shaking her head in amused disbelief. "No Tony, Israel does not have championship movie watching."

"So, how good are you?" Abby probed. "Did you get all the pins down, some of them, none of them?"

Ziva's eyes flashed ruthlessly, succinctly summarising her sporting abilities.

"You're in," said Abby.

"What about you, McGutter-ball," said Tony, "a Wii bowling hero?"

"I can't... that is I haven't bowled in a very long time," said McGee uncertainly.

"I feel a phobia coming on..." said Tony. "Let me guess: found a maggot in a bowling ball? Had to bowl from a tall building? Bowling alley full of cats?"

"Stop it, Tony!" McGee snapped. "I just don't like it, OK."

"But you can learn to love it, Timmy," Abby assured him. "It's a world of calculations." She crouched next to the desk where he was sitting and looked off into the distance. Casting her hand about she urged him to share her vision. "A lane, 60 foot long, three and a half feet wide. At one end: you, at the other: ten pins, twelve inches apart. There's a single ball, 16 pounds and eight inches in diameter. You need to hit the front pocket between the two leading pins at an angle of six degrees to bowl a strike."

"But that means you'd have to stand 6.3 feet to the side. How far apart are the lanes?"

"Curve, McGee," Abby said mystically. "It's all about the spin."

She let the moment linger.

"What about friction?" said McGee, suddenly, breaking the mood.

Abby reverted to her lecture voice. "The lanes are oiled between the foul line and up to about 15 feet from the pins. That's where you do your work. Now: are you up to it as a scientific challenge?"

McGee pondered for a moment, weighing his options. He clearly did not want play but he also didn't want to get on Abby's bad side – again. "Will there be computer games?"

"Gears of War," she confirmed. She whispered mischievously in his ear. "I might even show you my new tattoo."

"OK I'm in," he relented, "but I still can't bowl."

Abby straightened and looked around her new team mates. "It doesn't matter if you can't bowl, McGee, we work on handicaps. All newbies get 60: house rules. I don't need great bowlers. I just need four people in matching pink skull jackets."

There was a pause.

"In what?" said Tony.

"We're a team," said Abby. "We wear the team jacket." She opened up her plastic bag and pulled out a pink jacket."I've just been round to the convent to pick them up."

"Well they must have been hard to find, camouflaged in all those nun habits," Tony commented, taking one of the jackets out of the bag for himself and holding it up for inspection. "And pink is soooo my color."

"Pink wasn't my idea," Abby pointed out. "But if three nuns can wear them and still look kick-ass pious then so can you, DiNozzo. Suck it up."