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

Chapter 1

Both Taylor and Jason were up and ready for school early. Taylor waited impatiently for her mom to punch in the code for the alarm, she could see Jason waiting across the street, and she didn't want him to leave without her.

"Come on mom, hurry up, he's gonna go without me!"

Patricia was just about to punch in the numbers when she turned to look at her daughter. "He'll wait Taylor. What are you two up to anyway?"

"Nothin'."

"You sure?"

"Yeah mom." Taylor replied, sighing. "Are you gonna let me out now?" She was almost bouncing up and down by this stage. Patience was definitely one of Taylor's strong points.

"Okay." She typed in the four numbers. "But make sure you're not late for class."

Taylor was out the door and halfway down the path before Patricia had finished her sentence.

XOXOXOXOXOXO

The two early birds headed straight for woods, they had found themselves a new hobby. Stashing their bags at the bottom of a tree, they climbed as high as they could, to a branch strong enough to hold the both of them. It was the perfect position, right beside the path, giving them a good view of the passing joggers. Jason pulled his new flip camcorder out of his pocket and checked the battery. Now all they had to do was wait.

It wasn't long before they heard their first victim approaching. Jason readied the camera, and once the jogger was close enough Taylor cupped her hands in front of her mouth to make herself louder and gave her best rabid dog impression. The woman stopped running and frantically looked around her for the animal. As soon as she started to jog again, Taylor started barking again. The poor woman didn't know what to do as she spun three hundred and sixty degrees trying to spot where the noise was coming from. No one ever thought to look up. Deciding she had had enough, Taylor stayed silent as their victim sprinted away in the direction she'd come from.

"Did you get it?"

"Yeah. Don't know if its good enough to post, but I think I got a good shot of her looking scared.

They had tried this quite a few times now. The best one they had posted on youtube so far was one of a marine. Taylor had recognised the t-shirt he was wearing and instead of barking, or shouting some random insult at him she had filled her lungs and blasted out only one word. "INCOMING!" The poor guy had immediately thrown himself to the ground and covered his head. Now she had felt a little guilty about that, but it had turned out to be their most frequently watched video on the internet site. Jason checked his watch and camcorder. They had time, and just enough space left on the memory card for a couple more, before they had to leave for school.

XOXOXOXOXOXO

No new victims appeared and Taylor and Jason were just about to start climbing down, when they heard someone approaching. This time it was someone walking. Not wanting anyone to see their prime position in the branches, they stopped moving and waited for them to pass by. Both kids gave a sharp intake of breath when they realised the man was in uniform. He was a cop.

Jason whispered into Taylor's ear. "Do you think someone reported us?"

When Taylor shrugged Jason began to speak again. "I didn't think anyone….."

Taylor gave him a dig in the ribs with her elbow and shushed him. Something wasn't right. For a start there was only one, normally they worked in pairs. But it wasn't just that, he was looking around nervously, and even though it was cold, Taylor could see the sweat breaking out on his forehead.

They watched as he checked out the area on both sides of the path, before concealing himself behind a tree trunk, just a few feet away from them. Where he was standing now, he couldn't be seen from the path, but Taylor and Jason had an unobstructed view. When he reached down to his left ankle, and pulled up the leg of his pants to reveal a small pistol, both kids froze. At first Taylor couldn't figure out why the ankle holster looked strange. Why she was thinking about that, when it was the gun she should be worried about, she had no idea, but when he removed the weapon she realised the holster was covering part of a large snake tattoo.

The police officer used the sleeve of his jacket to wipe away the sweat that was running into his eyes, as he leant up against the tree. When the footsteps of a jogger could be heard, the cop peeked out from his hiding place to see who was coming. It was a young woman, and mustn't have been who he was looking for, because he ducked back quickly behind the tree again, and she ran on past without seeing any of them.

A good five minutes must have passed before footsteps were heard again, although to Taylor and Jason it seemed like hours, as they prayed frantically that the cop wouldn't look up, or change his location and spot their bags. This time they were louder, and as a man came into view the policeman stepped out in front of him, and blocked the path, pointing the gun straight at him. Taylor could feel Jason moving behind her, and glanced round at him. For one awful moment she thought he was gonna try climbing out of the tree and running, but he was pulling the camera out of his pocket. She turned her attention back to the two men who were now arguing. The officer was really starting to lose it now, and was yelling loudly at the guy in the red shorts.

"I told you what would happen if you went anywhere near my wife again!" He took a step closer to the terrified man, who was now backing away from the gun, with his hands in the air. It looked as if he wanted to speak, his lips were moving, but nothing was coming out. Then without any warning the cop pulled the trigger, and the jogger fell to the ground, his t-shirt slowly turning the same shade of red as his shorts.