Chastity

Her smile across the bullpen would try the patience of a saint, and Leroy Jethro Gibbs is no saint. Neither is he unredeemed, despite the blood that may be on his hands. He has rules for a reason, and Kate Todd’s entrancing chocolate eyes and intoxicating vanilla scent are definitely two very good reasons for Rule Twelve.

He knows she would be his for the taking if he only beckoned. If he smiled at her in just the right way, he could probably have her on her knees in the elevator. And God, the thought of those cherry-red lips wrapped around him, those sparkling eyes looking up at him like that, could be his undoing. He resists.

Lust

Ziva David is a walking advertisement for sex. Her every movement is sensual, and men have drowned in her eyes. Her skin smells of the incense that might be burned in some temple at the top of a mountain somewhere, spicy and secret, and her fingers touch him with knowledge of the mystic Tantric rites that burns into his flesh.

Gibbs presses into her, his face in the crook of her neck, breathing in that intoxicating aroma that burrowed into his nose the first time he met her, his hands clutching her waist and his ears reveling in the sound of her breathy, soft cries. He tried so hard to resist her, but in the end he couldn’t.

Abstinence

Ducky considered the very good Scotch in his hand. It had been a particularly trying day at work, and then he’d arrived home for a particularly trying evening with Mother. Some days, he could really understand the matricidal urge. He finally poured himself two fingers of the Scotch and settled into his easy chair with a book, listening out of the corner of his perception for Mother’s even snores. She was asleep, finally, and likely to stay that way for the rest of the evening.

He sipped slowly at his Scotch, savoring it carefully, and resisted the urge to gulp it straight from the bottle.

Gluttony

Abby tossed her fifteenth empty Red Bull can toward the trash can, living the buzz, and slipped smoothly back onto the dance floor, her body already moving hard to the pound of Rob Zombie. She watched a joint move around the dance floor and considered partaking for a few minutes before remembering that "random" drug test time was coming up, and Admin never missed a chance to piss-test Abby.

No one could seem to wrap their heads around a Goth who wasn’t fucked up twenty-four-seven. She settled for another Red Bull, brought to her by the very pretty little Goth boy who’d been paying so much attention to her all night. The buzz was good, but when she got him back to her coffin, that would be better.

Charity

The bell-ringer at the corner was an annoyance to everyone, but Tim made sure to put money in the bucket every time he passed anyway. He’d been incredibly fortunate this year, and the sales of his book had made him a wealthy man. He could afford to drop a five a day into the tin for the help of others less fortunate.

That reminded him - he needed to get in touch with Sarah and find out if she’d picked out their Angel Tree child yet. That was a McGee family tradition - an Angel Tree child every year at Christmas, reminding the McGee children that not everyone was as fortunate as they were. Mother McGee’s lessons had stuck.

Greed

Tony glared across the street at the casual young man leaning against the red Porsche. It was the Magnum car, and Tony wanted it. Failing that, he wanted to slash its tires and make its owner regret ever having brought it out of the garage to taunt Tony DiNozzo with it.

He snarled when he saw the young shopgirl he’d been flirting with earlier come outside on her smoke break and admire the Porsche and its swarthy, well-built driver. She’d refused Tony’s number, but she took the Porsche driver’s with what looked like a minimum of effort on his part. It just wasn’t fair.

Zeal

Abby’s voice bubbled across the room, explaining the results she’d achieved after spending nearly twenty-four straight hours in her lab. She was even more enthusiastic than usual thanks to the vigorous application of Caf-Pow! and sugary doughnuts. In fact, she was practically twitching.

But she was good at her job, and she loved her job, and Gibbs couldn’t deny the warm feeling he always got when he saw her get excited over results that were next to incomprehensible to him. He let her burble on for some time about the processes she’d used before finally drawing her back to the point.

Sloth

Kate groaned at the sound of her cell phone. Nooooo. It was three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon and she’d just gotten comfortable on the sofa with a good book, cup of cocoa and her new dog at her feet. She glared at the offending device, and let Tony the Dog know in no uncertain terms just exactly how she felt about it ringing.

She finally reached across to the coffee table and picked it up, half-snarling her greeting. And of course it was DiNozzo, calling her into the office. Something about a dead Naval officer and she didn’t really care because it was cold outside and warm in here and she really wanted to read this book. She hung up and cursed her job.

Patience

Palmer was new and nervous. Ducky reminded himself over and over again that new and nervous did not equate to incompetent. In fact, the boy was likely to prove quite competent. That didn’t stop Ducky from becoming frustrated with the boy’s stammer or his lack of confidence.

He finally had to sit himself down and remind himself that once upon a few decades or so ago, a young Donald Mallard had been quite nervous and lacking in confidence at his own first job as a Medical Examiner’s assistant. It helped to remember how patient his first boss had been with him. It made him able to smile when Mr. Palmer arrived at work the next day, tripping over himself.

Wrath

He wasn’t going to escape this time. She knew where his heart lay, and she would trap him this time in a web of her own design. DiNozzo was the perfect choice to insert into the life of La Grenouille’s daughter, and Jenny was confident in his ability to pull off this mission with no trouble.

Until Gibbs came back from Mexico. She hadn’t been lying when she told him she didn’t want him back. And the fact that he had returned against her wishes infuriated her… but not nearly as much as the fact that, with his return, DiNozzo’s loyalties had swung back a hundred and eighty degrees to Gibbs. He was no longer committed to the mission, because he was committed to Gibbs. This was going to ruin everything, and Jenny Shepard was pissed.

Kindness

When the little girl fell, her mother wasn’t looking. She was a small girl, perhaps six years old, wearing a pretty dress and shiny shoes. Hands that had committed cold-blooded murder reached down and slipped under her arms, carefully lifting her to her feet and checking the little knees for scrapes or bruises. Fingers that had had delivered pain to make grown men scream brushed the dirt and gravel away from tender skin.

Black eyes that could freeze hard enough to terrify arms dealers smiled warmly into big, ash-lashed blue ones. In her gentlest voice, Ziva asked the little girl if she was all right. The little girl nodded as Ziva rubbed at a scuff on the shiny new shoe, and then Ziva gave her a piece of candy and a gentle push back in the direction of her mother.

Envy

McGee felt his blood begin to boil when he saw the flowers on Abby’s desk and read the card from Marty. Who the hell was Marty and what was he doing sending Abby flowers?

The answers Abby gave - evasive and teasing - didn’t help. He didn’t want Abby seeing some other guy. He wanted Abby seeing him. Jealous? Oh, yes. And not ashamed to admit it, either. He wanted Abby for himself, to be his Goth princess. Just because she didn’t want him… He shook his head. That was the kind of thinking that would end him up turning into Mikel Mawher.

Not that logic stopped McGee from boiling about this Marty guy, just a little bit. He couldn’t help it… Marty had something McGee wanted: Abby.

Humility

There was something about the night sky that always made him feel sort of small and insignificant. It was best from a beach or somewhere out in the country, with very few lights, because all the stars and the sight of the universe whirling on its way above him really couldn’t be seen from within the glow of the D.C. lights.

Tony DiNozzo leaned back on the hood of his car, staring up at those wheeling and twirling stars, and thought back on the last few years of his life since he’d joined NCIS. He’d had a lot of successes, but he’d had a lot of failures, too. Chief on that list would be his failure to save Kate and breaking Jeanne’s heart - in that order. But he’d always done his best, and if that wasn’t a defense, it would have to do. He sighed, watching the cold and uncaring universe move on above him, unaware of his pain.

Pride

He had the best team of NCIS agents in the world.

Jethro Gibbs sat back in his chair and watched them do what they called work - Tony and Kate harassing one another and McGee, McGee jumping and whimpering every time Gibbs looked at him, Abby sitting on Kate’s desk making a nuisance of herself. He wondered where Ducky was, and remembered that the doctor had been forced to go home early and tend to his mother.

They worked well together, they worked well with him, they were learning to anticipate and to think like he thought, and they operated like a well-oiled machine. They were smart, they were tough - well, McGee would be, eventually - and they were good.

They were the best team of NCIS agents in the world, and they were his team.