Verdant

Kayla stopped her dad before he left for work, “Can I ride with you to work?”

“No. You have school.” Leon replied narrowing his eyes at her.

“I can go to school after. I don’t have first period today. I need to ask Agent DiNozzo a question.” Kayla attempted to reason with him.

“What do you need to ask him? I can just ask him for you.” Vance eminently reasonable offered as a counter proposal.

“No. I have to ask him in person. It’s for a school project.” It was stretching the truth, but she wasn’t about to tell her dad that she planned to ask Agent DiNozzo, Tony, to the senior prom.

“Fine, but you can’t stay long. Just ask your question and leave.” Vance reluctantly agreed.

“Yes, Dad.” Kayla rolled her eyes. She was practically an adult. She could take care of herself, but still her dad tried to control everything.

Her legs bounced eagerly in the car. She couldn’t wait to ask Tony to the senior prom. Emily had dared her to, saying Tony wouldn’t say yes and she was determined to show her wrong.

“Thanks, dad.” Kayla jumped out of the car and headed for the bullpen.

“Wait.” Vance commanded. “With me.”

“Dad.” Kayla whined.

“I’ll make sure Agent DiNozzo talks to you. Now with me.” Vance demanded determined for his kids to fall in line when they’re at the office and thus representing him.

“Yes, dad.” Kayla sighed.

“DiNozzo.” Vance yelled as he walked through the bullpen.

“Director?” Tony jumped up from his desk.

“My office, now.” Vance snarled.

“Yes, director.” Tony glanced at Tim, Bishop, and Gibbs to see if any of them had any idea why he was being called to the office. But they all indicated they had no clue, Bishop and McGee with a shake of the head and Gibbs with a look.

Vance led Kayla and DiNozzo to his office closing the door behind all of them, he turned to DiNozzo. “Remember she’s my daughter.”

“Yes, director.” Tony replied quickly and smoothly determined to show how professional he could be until he had some clue what was going on.

“Dad!” Kayla whined.

“Go ahead, Kayla. Ask him whatever you need to.” Vance encouraged.

“Dad. You need to leave. It’s private.” Kayla glared at Vance.

Vance glared right back. He liked DiNozzo better these days, but he remembered the football game where Kayla gushed over his looks. He didn’t think DiNozzo would take advantage of her, but he couldn’t chance it.

Kayla stomped her feet. “Dad!”

Vance couldn’t hold up against her anymore, she had him wrapped around her finger. With one last glare at DiNozzo, he turned and left closing the door and standing outside.

Tony glanced between the door and Kayla. “Kayla?” He asked questioningly.

Kayla looked at Tony and then looked down feeling a little shy now.

“Kayla, what’s going on?” Tony inquired starting to get nervous that something was really wrong with her.

She rubbed her feet together shuffling nervously. “Will you take me to the senior prom?” She blurted out finally.

“Uh… What?” Tony asked blushing a bit himself.

“It’s in two weeks on a Saturday. Please you have to take me. Emily will make fun of me forever if you don’t.” Kayla begged.

“Emily? Emily Fornell?” Tony wondered aloud very confused.

“Yes. That Emily. Please. Will you take me?” Kayla flashed puppy dog eyes at him desperate to get him to say yes.

“Uh. I guess so. If your father says it’s alright.” Tony nervously responded remembering the threat Vance made in regards to anyone who dated his daughter.

“Let’s ask him, right now.” Opening the door, Kayla babbled. “Tony says he’ll take me to the senior prom. That’s ok, right, dad?”

“Uh. Sure, sweetheart.” Vance answered slowly not sure what the right answer was here especially as he didn’t expect that question at all.

“You’re the best, dad.” Kayla hugged him. “I’m off to school now. Thanks Tony. Two weeks on Saturday, remember, and don’t forget my corsage.” She waved heading off to school eager to tell Emily that Agent DiNozzo said yes.

When Emily heard that Kayla got Agent DiNozzo to agree to take her to the senior prom, she was extremely jealous. She hadn’t thought Kayla would get it past her dad or Agent DiNozzo. Now she’d have to find an even better date than Kayla’s. Worrying about this distracted her for the rest of the day.

The next day before school, Emily turned to her dad using her puppy dog eyes that usually got her whatever she wanted even though she was 17 now. “Daddy, can we go over to Uncle Jethro's this weekend?”

“Let me check with him, pumpkin. He might be busy.” Fornell responded wondering where this was coming from.

“Daddy. I'm 17. Pumpkin isn't an appropriate nickname for me anymore.” Emily put a hand on her hip and shook her finger at him.

Fornell sighed. They had this argument every time, but he's called her pumpkin for so long it was hard for him to remember to call her by her name and he hasn't found a nickname she found suitable. “Sorry, Emily.”

“It's fine, Daddy. Can you call Uncle Jethro now and find out if it's OK for us to come over this weekend?” Emily questioned hopefully. The sooner she knew if Uncle Jethro would fall through the sooner she could consider backup plans though honestly right now she had no backup plans.

“I'll ask him while I'm at work, ok, sweetheart. Why is this so important anyway?” Fornell worried wondering what his daughter was hiding from him now. She didn’t share near as much with him as she used to now that she was older.

“It's a secret, Daddy. I need to ask him a question.” Emily smiled sweetly trying to appear as innocent as possible.

“Ok. Sweetheart, off to school with you. I'll let you know what he says when I pick you up, OK?” Fornell hurried Emily along needing to get to work soon himself.

“Thanks daddy.” Emily dropped a kiss on Fornell's cheek before grabbing her backpack and walking out the door to head to school.

Fornell was not looking forward to asking “Uncle Jethro” if they could come over. It wouldn't be the first time Emily and him visited with Gibbs, but he always preferred dropping by alone. His girl had some serious hero worship going on about Uncle Jethro and it bothered him. He tried to tell himself he was just worried but he knew he was jealous that his little girl would ask Jethro whatever instead of him.

However, he would do just about anything for his little girl. So that’s why his lunch break found him over at the NCIS offices with no case reason to be there. Ignoring the suspicious looks from Bishop and McGee, he sat himself in Gibbs’ chair and put his feet up on Gibbs’ desk knowing that it would annoy him when he came in.

Tony returned first, strutting out of the elevator with that DiNozzo charm and beauty that he made look so effortless. “Why are you here, Feebie? You come to arrest me again?” Tony really didn’t have any problems with Fornell, but he had to keep up appearances at work.

“Nope. For once, my being here has absolutely nothing to do with you.” Fornell smirked a smug smile, leaning back further in Gibbs’ chair.

“So why are you here?” Tony narrowed his eyes focused on Fornell as a target now.

“None of your business, DiNozzo. I need to talk to Gibbs is all.” Fornell grumbled.

“Gibbs isn’t here. Why don’t you come back later?” Tony growled.

“Now is fine. Get out of my chair, Tobias.” Gibbs roared moving around his desk to take his seat as soon as Tobias vacated it.

“Your office?” Tobias asked.

Glaring Gibbs, stalked for the elevator again. This time Tobias followed him. Slapping the elevator stop button, Gibbs turned to Fornell. “What do you want, Tobias? You come just to irritate my agents?”

“No. That was simply a bonus. Emily wants to visit her Uncle Jethro this weekend. I told her I’d ask if it was ok.” Fornell explained knowing that getting to the point as fast as possible tended to get the best results with Jethro.

“Fine. Tony will be there as well.” Gibbs curtly responded.

Tobias nodded. “Thanks, Gibbs.”

“Now shoo. Go back to your own office.” Gibbs said as he pressed the stop elevator button again and the doors opened back up in the bullpen.

Tony shot Gibbs a look silently asking him if it was something to be concerned about. Gibbs responded with a slight shake of his head and another look that said I’ll tell you later. Out loud, Gibbs yelled. “Back to work, everyone.” His glare sweeped across the whole bullpen making it clear that he wasn’t just talking about his team. Fornell’s visits always attracted attention as it usually meant something big was brewing.

Later that evening after both Tony and Gibbs had gotten home, Tony clarified, “So lady Emily will be visiting this weekend? Wonder what's up?” Tony asked rhetorically.

“Yep.” Gibbs had more than used up his maximum number of words and was trying to respond as succinctly as possible.

Rolling his eyes, he glared at Jethro. “And what are we doing with her?”

“No idea, but I'm sure she has something planned.” Jethro muttered.

“But Jethro.” Tony started.

“Tony, go to sleep.” Gibbs growled. “We need to be up early tomorrow.”

Even though it was only 2 days away, Emily had a terrible time concentrating for the rest of the week in her classes. All she wanted was for it to be the weekend so that she could go to Uncle Jethro’s and get her question answered once and for all and hopefully happily resolve this whole prom thing so that she didn’t have to worry about it anymore.

Finally, early Saturday morning rolled around and Emily could be seen grabbing Fornell’s arm and trying to drag him out the door in an effort to get to Uncle Jethro’s that much faster. “Come on, dad. It's time to go to Uncle Jethro's.”

“I'm coming. I'm coming. Stop pulling on my arm or we won't go at all.” Fornell huffed.

“But daddy you're so slow.” Emily whined. She already had her backpack packed and was ready to go and just waiting on him.

Tobias rolled his eyes and grabbed his offering of beer to apologize for descending on them. “Ok. Sweetheart. Let's go.”

Arriving at Gibbs house, Emily excitedly jumped out of the vehicle before it had finished stopping.

“Emily!” Fornell yelled.

“I'm fine, daddy. I'm going to go sand with Uncle Jethro.” She dropped her backpack just inside the door before running down the stairs where she hoped Jethro would be working with the wood.

Fornell rolled his eyes. Nodding to Tony, he sighed. “Teenagers. What can you do, right?”

“Let me put the beer in the fridge for you and let's get you a nice cold one. I have a feeling you'll need it before the day is through.” Tony suggested wondering if Emily’s visit had anything to do with Kayla’s request of him and how Fornell would handle it if she did.

Jethro was ignoring his boat today. Instead he was working with smaller wood figurines to provide more variety for Emily to choose from. Working with the wood was kind of their thing even if they didn't get to do it often.

“Uncle Jethro!” She announced excitedly bounding down the stairs.

“Hey Emily. What do you want to work on today?” Jethro indicated the wide variety of wood options that he’d laid out and possible plans that were scattered about as starting points if needed.

“Can we make a bouquet?” Emily asked shyly.

“Of course. We can make anything with wood that you dream up. You wanna draw your idea first?” Gibbs asked knowing that sometimes Emily preferred to draw things out to use as stencils or molds or examples of some sort and other times preferred to free-hand it.

“No. Let's just make random flowers in the bouquet.” Emily shook her head slightly in the negatory.

“Ok.” He handed her a piece of wood. “Make your first flower and I'll make a different one then we'll figure out how to group them together later.”

After less than an hour of working with the wood together, Emily shyly asked “Uncle Jethro?”

“Yes, Emily?” Gibbs smiled slightly in what he hoped was an encouraging manner.

“You know how Tony is taking Kayla to prom?” Emily questioned kind of going sideways out of nervousness.

“Hm. What about it?” Gibbs hummed as he worked.

“Will you take me to the prom?” Emily looked down at her wood afraid to meet Gibbs eyes.

“Of course.” Gibbs stated matter-of-factly.

“Great! My dress is this awesome verdant green sparkling thing that does wonderful things for my figure. Make sure you bring a corsage.” Emily gave Uncle Jethro’s cheek a kiss before she ran up to where her dad was.

Gibbs stared after Emily bemused. At least Tony would be there to share his pain in whatever this senior prom thing ended up being.

“Daddy, daddy. Guess what?” Emily beamed excitedly.

“What, sweetheart?” Fornell’s voice lilted questioningly.

“Uncle Jethro is taking me to the Senior prom.” Emily remarked happily.

Fornell blinked. “He’s what?” Fornell roared.

“What’s wrong, daddy?” Emily asked innocently.

“Jethro!” Fornell yelled.

Gibbs ambled up the stairs. “No need to yell, Tobias. I can hear just fine.”

“What’s this I hear about you taking my daughter to her senior prom?” Fornell continued to exclaim with a raised voice. Tony’s eyebrows were rising higher and higher as this progressed not having expected quite this reaction.

“She asked. I said yes. What’s the problem exactly?” Gibbs replied in his no-nonsense tone of voice that usually made people nod their heads agreeably.

Tobias grumbled glaring at Gibbs. “You better take care of her and treat her right.”

Gibbs rolled his eyes. “That’s a given, Tobias. She’s like a niece to me.”