That night had fallen over the city of San Francisco did not bother Kate Todd in the least. There was still enough ambient city light - not to mention light from the gorgeous full moon - to see, and therefore to sketch. She’d been caught by the beautiful architecture of the hotel when the airport taxi dropped them off in front of it, and had decided at the first available opportunity to go out and sketch it. That explained what she was doing on a bench in the later part of the evening with a pencil.

Of course, she was the only one who knew that - so it should probably not have come as a surprise to her that on the sixteenth floor of the hotel, her boss and teammates were staring in consternation at the cell phone she had accidentally left on the night table next to her bed in the room she was sharing with Abby.

"She wouldn’t have gone far without it, Gibbs," Abby was saying, trying to calm the boss down. "She probably just went down to the ice machine or something."

Gibbs wordlessly turned and stared at the ice bucket, which sat proudly on the vanity counter, unaware that it was the subject of dangerous scrutiny.

Abby swallowed slightly.

Gibbs, incensed, went back through the connecting door into the room he was sharing with DiNozzo. Tony was pulling his shoes on. "Where do you think you’re going?" Gibbs growled.

"Well," Tony replied, clipping his cell phone and then his gun and badge onto his belt, "I figured I’d go down and ask the doorman if he’s seen Kate, and which way she might have gone. Then I figured I’d track her down, whack her on the back of the head, and we can meet you and Abby and the restaurant. Probably take me twenty minutes, tops." He picked up his jacket and shrugged into it. "Okay?"

"Take her phone with you."

"You got it, Boss." Tony grinned, moving into the other room and picking up the item in question. He winked at Abby. "Relax. She’s fine. Probably wandering. She just forgot about rule number three, that’s all."

Abby grinned slightly. "I bet she won’t forget again. Gibbs hates it when we’re unreachable."

He clicked his tongue at her. "See if you can get him calmed down before we meet you. I’ve heard the Tsunami has really good sushi, and I’d hate it to be ruined by the bloodshed."

Easier said than done, Abby thought to herself, pushing her feet into her boots as Tony left the room through the hall door. She was doing up the buckles when Gibbs came back in, slipping his gun onto his belt as he entered.

"Ready?" he asked her.

"Almost," she replied, moving to the other foot to fasten the buckles up her left leg. She stood, now two inches taller, and stepped over to the vanity to double-check her makeup. Satisfied, she grabbed her coat and her purse and turned to give Gibbs her best grin, the one that never, ever failed to make him smile back. It didn’t fail this time, and he opened the door for her with the smile lines still around his eyes.

Tony came out of the elevator in the lobby and went to the doorman immediately. He held up his PDA with a photograph of Kate on the screen. "Have you seen her in the last hour or so?"

"Sure have," the man replied laconically, pointing across the street at a park bench under a street light. "There she is."

Tony rolled his eyes at the sight of Kate, head down, concentrating on her sketch pad. "Typical. Thanks, man." He slipped the doorman a twenty and headed across the street. "Agent Todd!"

Kate jumped slightly and looked up. "What, Tony?"

Tony tossed her cell phone at her; she caught it with ease. "Rule number three, Agent Todd: never be unreachable. Gibbs is a little on the pissed side with you right now."

Kate sighed. "Jesus, Tony, I’ve only been out here twenty minutes. It’s not like I’ve been missing for a week."

"No, but Gibbs wants sushi, and he wants us all to go with him, and he’s hungry, and we’ve been trying to get in touch with you for just about all of those twenty minutes, and you know how Gibbs gets when he’s hungry."

Kate rolled her eyes and began to put her sketch pad and pencil away in the little leather folder she carried them in. "Fine. Let’s go get sushi."

Tony watched her carefully. "Kate, your hands are shaking."

"Well, it’s cold out here, DiNozzo," she snapped.

"Let’s go get in this nice warm cab, then," he suggested, offering her a gentlemanly elbow as they started back across the street. "Hey, Boss!"

Gibbs looked up from where he was holding the cab door open for Abby, saw them, and nodded. He held the cab at the curb for them until they arrived. Tony and Kate squeezed into the back seat with Abby while Gibbs slid into the front next to the driver and gave their destination. Then he turned and glared over his shoulder at Kate.

"You can stop glaring at me like that," she said evenly. "I’m sorry I held up your dinner plans. I didn’t know you were expecting us to accompany you."

"Expecting?" Gibbs raised an eyebrow. "Kate, I’m in San Francisco with my team. Who the hell else would I even want to have dinner with?"

Kate paused. She had not actually considered that angle before. She studied his face for a long moment, and her expression suddenly softened. "I’m sorry, Gibbs," she said sincerely. "It didn’t even occur to me."

He turned in his seat again, facing out the windshield. "What were you doing out there, anyway? It’s freezing."

"Sketching the front of the building," she told him. "That arch is gorgeous."

"You’re going to be sick tomorrow," he warned her.

"Probably." She shrugged. "It’ll be worth it."

"You say that now," Tony jibed. "You won’t say that tomorrow when you’re begging for Day-Quil."

Kate shrugged. "We suffer for our art," she offered loftily, affecting a tortured-artist pose, nose in the air.

Abby and Tony collapsed against one another, laughing. Even Gibbs laughed. "You’ll be suffering come Monday if you’re still sick," the older man warned. "Your boss isn’t gonna care. You know what a bastard he can be."

"He’s a bastard all right," Tony interjected, reaching forward to clap Gibbs on the shoulder. "But he’s our bastard. Right, you two?"

"Oh, absolutely," Abby replied, grinning with her mouth but serious in her eyes. "And I don’t think he gets enough credit for that."

"What, for being our bastard instead of just any old bastard?" Kate asked, her eyes dancing. "You’re right, Abby. There should definitely be more love for the bastard."

Gibbs rolled his eyes. "Enough, already."

Kate affected an innocent expression. "We’re just trying to show our appreciation."

"Yeah, right." Gibbs laughed. "That’s why the sarcasm is so deep in here I’ve got it on my socks."

"That’s not sarcasm," Tony replied. "I can smell it from here, and it definitely does not smell like sarcasm."

That dinner would be slightly rowdy was ensured by the several bottles of sake that were consumed over the course of the meal. They shared their sushi liberally across the low table, Gibbs and Abby on one side facing Tony and Kate. Abby pronounced the unagi superb, while Kate convinced Tony to try the aburage and Gibbs taunted them all by stealing the last nigiri ball. By the time they caught their cab back to the hotel, they were all satisfactorily full and pleasantly buzzed.

Tony suggested a movie night halfway up the elevator, and while Kate groaned and Gibbs gave him a threatening look, Abby squealed with delight at the idea and none of them could bear to disappoint her, so they separated to change into lounging clothes and then reconvened in the girls’ room, all piling together onto one of the two queen beds. Kate won the wrestling match with Tony for control of the remote - she fought dirty - and found something on HBO that they could all live with. Not that it mattered - they were all asleep within twenty minutes anyway.

Abby rolled over in the middle of the night, waking slightly in surprise when her pillow turned out to be warm and breathing and something heavy was draped over her legs. She cracked an eyelid long enough to realize that the thing draped over her legs was actually Kate’s legs and her pillow was Gibbs. She smiled slightly. This was what family was all about, she thought vaguely as she fell back to sleep.

Above her head, Gibbs opened his eyes and looked over the sleeping forms of his team. He didn’t often indulge in evenings like tonight - too many of them would shoot his professional detachment right in the foot - but once in awhile it was nice to be sure that they were all together, all safe and all happy. For the next few hours at least, all was right in his world. Satisfied, he tightened his grip on Abby’s shoulders and closed his eyes.