It was 3 AM and Tony woke crying. True to form, the poor little boy’s teething was causing him grief. Gibbs had awoken to the little boy snuggling into his side and sobbing.
“It’s alright Tony…. Shh…Daddy’s here, we’ll get you all fixed up”.
After changing his diaper and wiping down the flushed little face with a cool washcloth, Gibbs took Tony back downstairs to calm him, so not to wake his dad from his slumber in the guest room down the hall. Rocking the boy softly in his arms and walking around the lounge room, Tony’s sobs became less and less.
Gibbs looked out the window - it was a clear night and the moon was reflecting on the white crisp snow that had fallen earlier that day. It was freezing and Gibbs suspected they would have more snow falling by morning. The fireplace was still burning slowly, giving off wonderful warmth and basking the lounge room with its soft, flickering glow. Everything was peaceful, and Tony had fallen asleep again with only the occasional sob escaping him. The Christmas tree stood in one corner of the room; mountains of gifts piled underneath. He and his dad had wrapped up and placed the gifts under the tree for the morning, waiting excitedly for when Tony would share his first Christmas with his new family, although Tony was still too young to fully understand the concept of Christmas it held a significant importance to both Jackson and Gibbs and they wanted to make sure Tony had a wondrous day.
Tony snuggled closer to Gibbs; burying his face further into the man’s neck, Gibbs placed another soft kiss on the boy’s head and walked over to the mantelpiece where four photos were placed.
Gibbs had gone with Abby to finish off his Christmas shopping, and they decided to take Tony to see Santa and get photos done. These were the photos sitting before him. The first one had Tony bawling his heart out on Santa’s knee, his little face red and tears streaming down his cheeks, arms reaching out to his daddy, who was thankfully off camera. The second photo had Abby grinning brightly, and an uncertain looking Tony, sitting together on Santa’s lap. The third made Gibbs chuckle, Tony had gotten his confidence back and was standing on Santa’s lap and pulling off the man’s beard and grinning cheekily, poor Santa looked a bit flushed. And the fourth made Gibbs’ heart burst, Tony was sitting on Santa’s knee, eyes sparkling and a big grin on his face.
“I’m a lucky daddy.” Gibbs whispered down to the boy in his arms. He took another fond look around the peaceful room before heading back upstairs to sleep.
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It was early, the first hint of dawn just starting to light the frosty sky, when Gibbs was woken by small hands exploring his face, gently tracing with little fingers his eyes, mouth and patting him softly on the cheek. Gibbs kept his eyes closed, enjoying the peaceful tender moment with his son - a moment which a second later was ruined by Tony shoving a small finger right up his Daddy’s nose " Tony had developed a fascination with noses. Gibbs’ eyes snapped open,
”Tony, that’s yucky.” His voice a little course, he softly admonished as he took hold of the small hand and removed it from his nasal passage. Tony’s bright green eyes looked at him intently, and Gibbs wrapped an arm around the boy pulling him closely into his chest, bundling the comforter around them both, trying to steal another half an hour of sleep in the comforting warmth of the bed,
“Just a little more sleep, okay buddy?” Sure it was Christmas morning, but another half an hour would really be welcome after the late night and Tony’s awakening. However sleeping was not to be, no more than 5 minutes later Tony had started to wriggle restlessly, escaping from his daddy’s arms and wriggling under the covers to the bottom of the bed, laughing and squealing as he crawled and wriggled his way under the covers and over his daddy legs.
Gibbs winced as a small foot connected with his groin, “Ok Tony, I’m up.” He sat up and uncovered Tony, who looked up at him with surprise,
“Da-Dee.” Tony smiled and wrapped his arms around his daddy’s neck, giving him slobbery kisses.
“Good morning to you too Tony,” Gibbs laughed, “Happy Christmas,” A familiar smell invaded his nostrils, “Poo Tony, you stink. Let’s change you out of that smelly diaper, then we will go make breakfast for your Poppy, hey?” Gibbs scooped up Tony to take him to the nursery to be changed, quietly creeping past the room where his dad was sleeping, Gibbs put a finger to his lips “Shhh, we have to be quiet now buddy.”
Tony copied his daddy’s actions and put a small hand up to cover his own little mouth.
“Good boy.” Gibbs whispered. Tony looked at him strangely and covered his daddy’s own mouth with his little hand. Gibbs bit back laughter but his eyes sparkled with amusement as they entered the nursery to begin the epic changing.
Jackson Gibbs awoke to the soft sounds of Jingle Bell Rock and a wondrous aroma coming from downstairs. Getting up slowly, he stretched out his limbs and tried to clear the fog from his mind. Leroy and himself had stayed up well into the night " or was it morning? - talking, reminiscing, wrapping gifts and drinking - Jackson suspected it was the latter which was responsible for the current haziness he felt.
Making his way downstairs and into the lounge room/kitchen area he stopped - Tony was standing in the middle of the floor still in his reindeer pyjamas, bobbing up and down to the tune of the Christmas music coming from the T.V, a pair of reindeer antlers sitting crookedly on his head and a mouth stuffed full of pancake with another pancake smooshed in his little hand. Jackson smiled widely, and looked over to where his son was making breakfast, the aroma of bacon, eggs and pancakes sent his stomach into overdrive.
“Smells good son,” Jackson announced as he walked further into the room. Tony looked up from where he was ‘dancing’ and mumbled something, a mushed up glob of pancake fell from his mouth on to the floor. Un-perplexed, Tony bent over to pick it up and shovelled it back into his mouth before anyone could stop him, “Apparently tastes good too. Tony here couldn’t bear to lose any and ate it off the floor.”
Gibbs laughed, “That’s typical Tony. If you want to take a seat, Dad, I’ll bring in breakfast.”
“Sure, son. I take it by the fact the tree looks untouched Tony hasn’t seen it yet?”
“Oh no, he saw it alright. First thing he ran over to this morning, I caught him before any damage could be done though. That’s what the music, antlers and pancakes are about…. Distractions.”
“I hope you got some good photos of that, it really was sweet.”
“I did one better, got it all here on video camera,” Gibbs held up a new video camera from the bench, “I bought one a few months ago when Tony arrived, at the insistence of the team. It took me a while to figure it out, but at least now I can get it to record. Thought it might be nice to have some memories of Tony as he grows up, although Tim - I mentioned him last night - will have to put them on a disk for me, my technological skills are limited.”
Placing plates loaded up with breakfast items on the table, Gibbs scooped Tony up off the floor and placed him in the high chair. Tony grabbed a hold of the antlers on his head and took them off, throwing them over the side of the chair
“Uhhh-Ohh!” He laughed and clapped his hands before grabbing one of the small ‘Tony sized’ pancakes his daddy had made and waved it about.
“Eat up Tony, or no presents.” Jackson scolded gently.
Tony looked over to his dad checking that it was ok, before shoving the pancake in his mouth.
“Lucky you made those small Leroy, or he’d choke.”
Gibbs and Jackson both laughed and started to tuck in on their own food.
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With breakfast done, it was time to move on with the morning. Gibbs and Jackson had both decided to shower and change before they got into the presents. Jackson went to freshen up first, while Gibbs (with Tony ‘helping’) cleaned up the kitchen. Once everything was cleaned up, and Jackson had come back down, Gibbs went to change.
Jackson sat on the couch with Tony on his lap, looking at one of Tony’s plastic books.
“Dat?” Tony said and pointed at the picture of a cat.
“That’s a cat,” Jackson said, “The cat says Meow.”
Tony nodded his head “Dat?” he repeated pointing at the ducks.
“Those are Ducks, Quack, Quack, Quack.” Jackson made the quacking noise, and tickled Tony each time he said it.
Tony giggled, “Dat?” he said pointing to the dog.
“That’s a dog.”
“Ooof, Ooof.” Tony said bouncing up and down.
“Well done, that’s right the dog says Woof Woof.” Jackson ruffled the little boy’s hair. Tony’s eyes were shining brightly with happiness as he read with his Pop and tried eating the pages.
“Your boy is smart Leroy, “ Jackson called to his son, who had just entered the kitchen, “Show your dad Tony, what does the dog say?”
“Ooof, Ooof.”
“You’re a clever boy Tony.” Gibbs said as he walked over to Tony, picking him up off Jackson’s lap and giving him a cuddle, before setting him down right in front of the tree.
“And I think clever boys need presents. You ready Tony?”
Tony’s little eyes were popping out of his head as he looked at the presents, all done up in brightly coloured paper and ribbons. The number of presents had grown significantly since the little boy had seen the tree the previous night - there were big and small presents, and one giant present from Santa for Tony that was larger than the child itself.
“Oooohh.” Tony let out a noise clearly impressed with what he saw, and wasn’t able to decide where to ‘attack’ first.
Jackson and Gibbs had thought about the possibility of Tony making a grab for the presents and, of course, his attention span left much to be desired, so all the presents for Tony were right at the front where he could get to them easily.
“Okay then, Tony, this one first huh?” Gibbs said, grabbing a present from under the tree, “Dear Tony from Poppy.” Placing the gift in front of the child. Tony looked up at him, not attempting to tear open the paper; apparently all the times Tony had been told not to touch the presents had actually sunk in, and left Tony a little unsure. Gibbs crouched down next to Tony and ripped a bit of the paper,
“It’s okay Tony, you can open it,” Gibbs ripped a little more and watched as understanding dawned on the little face, his eyes lighting up as he tore at the packaging.
“Ooooh!” Tony made an excited noise as he looked at the box “Car!”
Jackson chuckled from where he was holding the video camera, “It’s not a car Tony, it’s a Train.”
“He thinks everything with wheels is a car dad.”
Inside the box was a little wooden train set, complete with tracks, trains and carriages, which were all attached by magnets.
“Brrrrrr.” Tony made raspberry sounding car sounds as he drove the train on the floor, before trying to eat the wrapping paper.
“No Tony, don’t eat that,” Gibbs said taking the paper out of the little boys mouth, “Go say thank you to your Pop,” Gibbs pointed to Jackson and took the video camera out of his hands to film the thank you. Tony toddled off over to where Jackson sat on the sofa and struggled to climb up to the older man’s lap. Jackson hoisted him up and Tony gave him a slobbery kiss and patted him on the cheek.
Gibbs smiled with pride capturing the precious moment on camera.
The rest of the presents were unwrapped with haste. Tony was definitely spoilt; new cars, movies, toys and clothes were piled high on the coffee table.
“You don’t think you went a little overboard Leroy?” Jackson said as he piled up more of Tony’s gifts.
“This coming from the man who brought his grandson half a toy shop…”
“Point taken… Although we could have just gotten him a box, he seems to be more interested in that than anything else.”
The giant box, which once housed a ride-on/push along car, was giving the boy much enjoyment as he crawled in and out, closing himself up in the box and popping back out again with a giggle. He was having a little trouble manoeuvring however, as he was currently wearing a much too large football jersey " a gift from his daddy. Even though it was a t-shirt the sleeves were rolled up so he could use his little hands, and he kept tripping over the bottom of it (which was much too long) and bunching up on the floor. Tony would be wearing it for many years to come, and Gibbs looked forward to the father/son bonding time over football they would have as Tony got older -The way Tony could throw things now, the kid was going to have a heck of an arm as he grew. Gibbs thought proudly.
The two men spent the afternoon playing with Tony, pushing him around on his ride on car and building the train set, which they ran around and under the coffee table. Tony was so distracted he didn’t even try to destroy the tree once, instead he was a perfect angel, relishing the time he was spending with his Daddy and Pop.
“Catch!” Gibbs called, as he threw the new soft stuffed football at Tony. Tony tried to catch it but his co-ordination wasn’t quite there yet and the ball rolled away. Tony toddled after it, picking it up off the floor and taking off, racing past his daddy’s legs. Gibbs fake-tackled the little boy, hoisting him up in the air and rolling on the floor on his back with Tony held up in the air by strong arms. “Got ya.” Gibbs said as he tickled the boy. Tony laughed and laughed, before he was put back on the ground. Tony gave his daddy a cheeky grin and took off again, apparently liking the new game. After close to an hour of the gentlest roughhousing ever seen, Gibbs was exhausted, and Tony looked about ready to drop as well.
Jackson, who had been sitting comfortably on the couch watching the spectacle, chuckled to himself as Gibbs rubbed his knee as he stood.
“That’s what you get, Leroy, for playing rough.”
“Ha, ha, very funny, Dad,” Gibbs said with a grimace, “I think it might be quiet time now. I’ll put on one of Tony’s Disney movies and we can relax. With any hope he’ll have a rest.”
The two men settled on the couch and started the movie with Tony snuggled up in-between, pacifier in his mouth " which he had found under the couch - and head on his daddy’s lap.
An hour into the movie, Tony had fallen asleep. Gibbs looked down at his baby boy curled into his lap and patted the blonde curls fondly, Gibbs couldn't imagine his life without Tony now, in the few months Gibbs had been his daddy, he had brought so much joy into his life, a contentment to his soul, one which he had thought he had lost forever. Of course he still missed Shannon and Kelly always would, but with Tony by his side it made the pain fade and gave him something to look-forward to every morning.
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“Times getting on, I guess we should start cleaning up a bit, put some of these toys away. Good time to start while he’s still sleeping - he can’t get into anything while he’s like that,” Jackson gestured to the sleeping bundle on the couch, “Although I have to admit he has been an angel today.”
“There are a few more hours of the day left yet, Dad. “ Gibbs laughed quietly.
“Sure, but even ‘Tornado’ Tony can’t be trouble everyday.“ Jackson joked back to his son.
“When we’re done I’ll warm up the Christmas pudding and custard. I think we can skip dinner tonight since we stuffed ourselves with leftovers for lunch.” Gibbs lifted a pile of toys in his arms to take upstairs as he spoke.
“Sounds like a brilliant idea, I love brandy custard.” Jackson commented as he followed his son upstairs with another armful of gifts to put away.
It took them a good half hour to put the toys away in Tony’s room (the kid had quite a collection), but finally it was done.
“Now; for pudding and custard, I’ll get it, if you want to go back to the lounge room?” Gibbs asked as he walked down the stairs, and into the kitchen.
“Aww Hell!” Both men exclaimed as they saw Tony sitting next to the open fridge the plastic container of custard spilled open and Tony happily finger-painting with in on the floor. He was absolutely coated in it, all over his clothes, in his hair, covering his face, there even looked to be some up his nose - the yellow mess was everywhere. Both men were shell-shocked.
“I take it back. Tony really can be trouble everyday.” Jackson stood, eyes wide, as he surveyed the scene.
Gibbs crossed the kitchen and lifted Tony up at arms length, a small smile on his face, as he held Tony out to the older man - sure they wouldn’t get custard this year, but they did get family and Tony; Gibbs wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Merry Christmas Dad!”
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And there you go, Christmas Gibbs and Tony style! As always please review and leave a comment..... Im still figuring out how to reply to them.... But seriously Thank you to everyone whom has Commented so far, keep it up!
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.