Ellie x Nick Oneshots

Lying by omission

Today Ellie had met with Delilah for brunch to chat a little and bring each other up to date on their lives since they hadn't seen each other in a while.

It had been nice to have a girl talk with a female friend for once since she usually spends almost all of her time around Gibbs, McGee, and Nick with how many hours they worked a day.

And even when she was home again with her little family, she was the only woman.
That is not to say that she doesn't love her two boys, quite the contrary actually.
She loves Nick and their 8-year old son Jayden with all her heart, and couldn't be happier to have them in her life.

Even though she had to admit, when she had first met Nick Torres more than a decade ago, she had never ever thought that she would someday be in a relationship with him, much less marry him and have a child with him.

And what she also hadn't expected was to find her two boys acting really weird when she came home after the meeting with Delilah.

As soon as she had unlocked the door and stepped into the apartment, Nick and Jayden came into view, both hurriedly standing in front of her.

''Hey, Ellie, you're home early. We thought you'd be gone longer,'' Nick said with a smile.
But despite that, Ellie couldn't help but feel like something's up, with the way both her husband and son were smiling at her stiffly. And their posture seemed kind of rigid too, she thought.
She noticed that Jayden looked up at his father occasionally so that he could copy what he was doing.

Irritated, she answered them, a frown visible on her face. ''Yeah, something came up, Delilah had to leave earlier than planned. Apparently, McGee had some trouble with John and Morgan.''

''Oh.'' Nick nodded, wanting to seem understanding, making Ellie narrow her eyes in suspicion as she saw that her son mirrored Nick's action.
''So how was your talk with Delilah?'' Having seen her expression, and knowing that she knew something was up, Nick tried to distract her with that question.

''It was good,'' she shortly answered, but said nothing more than that about the matter, knowing full well that Nick had meant to distract her from what was really going on here. Or from whatever mess he and their son had seemingly made if the way the two of them were acting was any indication.

Ellie spoke to them in a demanding tone of voice, with her hands on her hips to underline that she wasn't going to let them off the hook. ''Okay, what's going on here?''

Nick just looked down at Jayden and they exchanged a look, after which the older one of them just shrugged his shoulders, his son imitating him again and therefore doing the same.
''No idea what you're talking about.''

This made Ellie raise a brow and give them a stern look, now crossing her arms.
''What did you guys do?''
And she did, in fact, know that they did something that they didn't want her to find out about. Her best guess was that they had broken something again. It had happened a few times before, and she really hadn't been happy about it.

When she again received no satisfactory answer from either one of them, she decided to resort to other measures.

First, she spoke to her husband, making sure that he was looking her in the eye as she reprimanded him for lying to her, which she knew he was doing. ''Nick, you're the adult here, so act like one and just admit what you broke. Or you can gladly sleep on the couch for the next few days.''

Then she turned to their son, and since he was only a child, her tone was a little less stern as she talked to him. ''Jayden, you know that we taught you to be honest and not to lie, so you shouldn't listen to your dad when he tells you to lie to me.''

This caused her son's expression to turn slightly guilty, but he still tried to defend himself and his father. ''But dad said that it wouldn't be a lie if we don't tell you about it, he said it would just be an omission then.''

This confession caused Ellie to glare at Nick, who then apparently decided that it was finally time to come clean and tell the truth.

Holding his hands up in a defensive gesture, he admitted what they've been trying to hide from her.
''Okay...maybe...we might have broken something. Maybe even a few things.''

It didn't come as a surprise to him when she exclaimed his name in a sharp and angry voice, after which she let out a slow sigh to calm herself.

''Did you play ball in here again?'' she asked them, now with suppressed anger.

The answer didn't come verbally this time, instead, both of her boys gave a small nod.
''How many times did I tell you two not to play with the ball inside of the apartment?'' Ellie wanted to know in a frustrated tone, again letting out a sigh.
She had already told them so a dozen times, especially after they had broken the first item because of their antics. But it seemed like they hadn't listened to her.

Jayden felt bad now. He didn't want his mom to be angry with him. Tears started to form in his eyes.
''I'm sorry, mama. We didn't want to break anything. But dad said it was alright to play with the ball indoors since you weren't here. And after some things got broken he said that maybe we shouldn't tell you right away because you'll get angry.''

Realizing that there was no way to talk his way out of it now, Nick decided to at least try to reduce her anger at him by adding ''I know, I know, you don't have to say it, Ellie. I'm a bad role model for our son. But I thought we would manage to play ball without breaking anything this time, honestly.''

He waited for Ellie's reaction. Unfortunately, she was still frowning, obviously internally deciding on what to think about what they were saying and if Nick was telling the truth.

But then Nick got an idea, knowing what to say to make her forgive them and let the matter go quickly. And it was even the truth, he didn't have to lie about it. Which of course he would never do just so that he would not be exposed to Ellie's anger.

''The only reason I suggested to play ball in the first place was because this little guy here was missing his mom and he was worried about you, so I wanted to distract him with something and we couldn't really play outside with all the snow out there,'' Nick told her, while he placed his hand on his son's shoulder and looked down at him in sympathy when said boy lowered his head. Nick was well aware that Jayden didn't like it when his mom went somewhere without them.

He hadn't liked it since Ellie and Nick had been called to work on a weekend about two years prior and hours after they had left him at home in the care of a nanny, his dad had come home without his mom, had dismissed the nanny and then driven to the hospital with him because Ellie had been injured by a bad guy, his dad had explained to him on the way there.
She'd had to stay in the hospital for quite a few days back then, and Jayden had visited her with Nick as often as possible until she had finally been well enough to go home again.

Since then he had been afraid of the same thing happening again, that his mom would go somewhere and get hurt again, or worse.

Ellie knew of her son's fear of something like that happening again too, of course, thus her expression softened after Nick's clarification and she kneeled down to be closer to her son's height as she pulled the boy into a tight hug to comfort him.

''I'm sorry that I've worried you, Jayden.'' she gently said to her son, who pressed his tear-stained face into his mother's shoulder and wrapped his arms around her as tight as possible.

''And I'm really sorry for playing ball indoors with dad and breaking a lamp and vase, mom,'' Jayden sobbingly spoke into Ellie's shoulder.

''It's alright. Don't worry about it, it's already forgiven,'' she said to her son while rubbing his back to console him and hopefully calm him down so that he would stop crying.

Meanwhile, she turned her head towards her husband, who was still standing beside their son with one hand on the boy's shoulder, and their eyes met before she spoke again to both of her boys.
''But...maybe just play hide and seek or a board game next time.''