Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS or any of it's characters.

Chapter 1

Taylor had been back to school for nearly three weeks now and absolutely hated it. She hated the classes, the teachers, the assignments and the homework. The fact that she knew there was absolutely no chance of getting away with skipping the odd day only made it worse, after the last time the school would be straight onto her dad to check up on any excuses she made.

Sitting at the back of the classroom, she ignored the request to pass their homework up to the front, there was nothing to hand in anyway, she hadn't done it, again. She'd decided that she might have to be here, but that didn't mean she had to work. So far it had worked out pretty well. Pulling her new cell phone from her pocket, she made sure it was on silent before opening one of games she hadn't tried before. Her mission to save the world from aliens was interrupted when the kid in front set two sheets of paper in front of her. It was an exam paper and answer sheet. Not even looking at the questions Taylor lifted her pencil and began filling in the little circles, picking one for each multiple choice answer. That done, she double checked no one was watching her and resumed her game. She had just made it to level four when the phone was snatched from her hands.

"What the f***!" She was so startled the words escaped before she could stop them.

Miss Wilson stared down at her.

"Sorry." she whispered, the whole class had turned round to see what was going on.

"You can have this back at the end of the day, and I think you should take the empty desk at the front."

Just grateful she wasn't being pulled on the swearing, Taylor gathered her stuff together and moved to the only empty desk at the front. Keeping her head down she spent the rest of the class doodling on her answer sheet, and trying to look as if she was working.

When the bell rang at the end of the last class Taylor waited until everyone had filed out, before asking for her phone back. Miss Wilson retrieved the phone from the bottom drawer of her desk and handed it over. Still a little embarrassed by her earlier outburst, she uttered a hurried "Thanks." before turning to leave.

"Wait a minute, you need to take this as well."

Taylor looked round. Miss Wilson was holding out a white envelope. Taking it from her she read the name on the front. Mr Gibbs. Her heart sank.

"What is it?" she managed to ask, fighting a rising wave of panic. "I already said I was sorry for swearing!"

Miss Wilson shook her head. "Just make sure he gets it Taylor." she warned, before turning her attention back to her pile of marking.

Staring at the letter, she could feel the anger building up inside. There was no way she was gonna deliver that.

Dropping the letter onto the stack of paper. "No!"

The teacher looked up in surprise.

"Pardon me?"

"I said no."

"Taylor, you're only making it worse."

"Don't care, I'm not takin' it." Just before she walked out through the door she looked back and added, "If you wanna send it so bad, stick a stamp on it!"

Taylor fumed the whole way back to NCIS. Okay, she knew she shouldn't have been using her cell, and she did swear, but she had said she was sorry. When she reached the bullpen her dad wasn't there so she dumped her bag on the floor and claimed a chair at an empty workstation. It was only when she spun round in the chair a few times she realised everyone was watching her. Dragging her foot along the ground to stop the spinning she stared at one agent after another.

"What?" she directed her question to Tony.

He just looked at her and shrugged. Ziva and Tim quickly turned their attention back to their computer screens. Taylor looked over at her father's empty desk before slipping off the chair and going to stand beside Tony.

"Is he upstairs?"

Tony shook his head. "Had to nip out for a while".

"Where?" She was starting to feel a little bit nervous.

Dropping his pretense of typing he burled round to look at her, trying very hard to keep a straight face.

"Think he mentioned something about a stamp."

"Crap!" she didn't think he'd find out that fast.

Tony couldn't hold back the huge grin any longer "You really told your teacher to go stick a stamp on it?"

Taylor nodded.

"Oh you should have seen the look on your dad's face when he took that call."

"It's not funny Tony, he's gonna kill me!"

"Sorry, you're right." He tried to look serious. "Any last requests?"

Glaring at him first she turned and looked for her bag,

"Maybe I'll just go home and wait."

Tony grabbed her round the waist, and lifted her onto his knee.

"Don't think so kiddo, your dad said to make sure you stayed here."

Somehow that didn't surprise her.

"Why don't you pull up a chair, I've found a really good game site you can check out."

"Ok." she sighed, figuring she might as well do something she liked in what little time she had left.