While he watched Danno, Grace, and Charlie dance around the Christmas tree he couldn't stop thinking about one of their first Christmases while deployed. It just felt so similar.
How they were laughing with each other. How they were making fun of each other. How they were decorating the Christmas tree.
It was like one of those Déjà Vu's you see in Movies sometimes. His lover and their kids (yes, after a war of paper, he could now officially call them his too) turned into his comrades. Turned into a laughing Sam, a joking Booth, a smiling Hondo, and their two love birds Mac and Kid.
It had been their second deployment. They had just known each other for a little over three years. They had had countless missions together, but somehow, they had never been away over Christmas. So that had been their first.
They had spent it in the desert on a base. Kilometers away from civilization.
Mac's parents had sent them a little plastic Christmas tree and they had made some ornaments out of stones and sticks. It wasn't beautiful, but it was theirs. They had loved it.
It was important to all of them, to have this little Christmas Tree in their bunk. But it had been especially important for their Kid. Later, much later, they had learned that it not only had been his first Christmas with the team or with Mac as his partner. No. It had also been the first Christmas he enjoyed.
Steve still wanted to pay the Buckley parents a visit and let them pay for everything they had done to his kid. How it was possible, that Buck turned as wonderful and loving as he was, after what he had been through? It was still a mystery to Steve.
He could still remember how Booth and Hondo had taken Mac between them and thrown him on his bed like he was a small child.
He could still feel the warm hug, he got from Buck, once he discovered what his commander had bought him for Christmas. How happy the man had been over a copy of his favorite movie on DVD.
He could still hear the laugh they all shared when Sam told them that he was going to go to the NCIS once he had finished his contract with the Navy. They hadn't believed him.
He loved to remember these good memories they shared. It helped him through the tough times. When he would see Mac covered in blood. Hear Buck scream at the top of his lung. Fell the bullet that ripped through his shoulder.
A hand on his shoulder startled him out of his daydream.
"You okay?", asked Danno. Concern obvious in his voice.
"Yeah. Just happy to spend the holidays with my family." He put on the biggest smile he could manage and swore to check in with Sam, Hondo, and Booth tomorrow. Maybe one of them had heard from their kid.
Just because the old times lay behind them didn't mean they weren't brothers anymore. They would be family for the rest of their lives. And even in death, they would be there for each other.
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Brotherhood last a lifetime - Prequels
ספרות חובביםEvan Buckley has once been a Navy SEAL. He didn't like talking about it. Too many painful memories would resurface. But with the help of his partner Jim Street maybe he can learn how to live with the memories. Maybe he can live again. This is the st...
