Authors note: The title pretty much explains it all, but in case it doesn't...For a long time now I have been thinking of writing a female character to interact with McGee, she started out with the idea of being the opposite of Abby and over time she morphed into various incarnations. I ended up starting a few stories but the plot bunnies would call and I'd run off to start a new one before I finished the one I was working on. I have decided to load up all the different versions of Lola as a series of one shots. They aren't in any particular order. See which one is your favourite :)

Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS or any of the characters, I'm just borrowing them. The rating is for bad language and violent imagery.

Version one: Hostage

Their jail was something straight out of an old school spaghetti western, a row of cells made of wrought iron bars with simple bunks along one wall opposite a solid looking brick wall separated by a narrow walkway. Special Agent Antony Dinozzo had a hundred and one puns and movie references for just this situation. Unfortunately, he found himself too irritated to use any in the manner they deserved.

"Ok, I'll be The Good, Gibbs is The Bad and Ziva you're The Ugly. Try to remember."

Ok so maybe I can't even help myself, Tony thought to himself while studying the woman leaning against the wall opposite him. Unlike the westerns of Hollywood this jail had no windows and the warm orangey atmosphere was replaced by a cold dinginess. Their jailer stayed sunken into the shadows, a vague female shape that blended in with rest of the darkness. Like an alley cat, Tony thought, his eyes squinting, attempting to resolve more detail. Long hair flowing past her shoulders and spilling over her face, she wore figure hugging trousers and a loose jumper which hung off her shoulders. I've got this all wrong, he thought, this isn't a western it's a full on Bogey Noir.

"Hey lady," Tony rasped doing his best Humphery Bogart impression, "I know I'm a catch but you didn't have to take it this far."

She slid from the wall and stepped towards him almost entering the dim pool of light from the loan bulb in the ceiling. "I don't want to upset your world view, Very Special Agent DiNozzo, but this has very little to do with you." She said, leaning slightly forward.

"Why are we here then?" Tony smirked at her. Gibbs leaned closer, watching them intently from the neighbouring cell. She sighed and walked away from them towards the main door.

"I told you all already, you're hostages. Although, I guess I didn't mention that I'm the one that rescued you."

Tony rattled the door to his cell. "Funny, I don't feel very rescued."

"Well, that's because you didn't realise the danger you were in before." With that last remark flung over her shoulder, she turned to leave.

"What's your name?"Gibbs' question stopped her in her tracks for a second.

"I told you alread-" She started without turning.

"No, you didn't." Gibbs interrupted, his face was a stone mask, his glare focused at the back of her head.

To Tony's surprise the woman gave a very girly giggle and spun round, for a brief flash he saw her face, dark eyes, long eyelashes and a soft smirk to her lips. "Lola. I'm Lola" She said smiling impishly. Then she left, closing the door behind her.

"Gibbs." Ziva called from the cell behind Tony. "You know something we do not." Her voice held quiet accusation.

"Yeah Ziva, I'm starting to think you may be right." Gibbs replied, dropping onto the cot in his cell. His gaze stayed fixed on the closed door Lola had just exited through. Tony had had just about enough.

"What the hell was all that? Rescued us? Who does she think she is? Boss?" Tony jerked his head between his cell mates. Neither answered, Gibbs remained glaring at the door, clearly thinking his own thoughts and ignoring Tony, while Ziva watched Gibbs with a frown on her face. "Well?" He shouted at them. Still receiving no response, he slumped back against the bars of his cell, all the energy seemed to leave his body. He had never felt so useless, he needed evidence, clues, a bad guy to chase down and interrogate until they confessed. This situation he couldn't get a handle on. Every time he thought he understood it something changes and the rug was swept out from under him again. The metal bars dug into his back and he felt his temper flare again, growling he slammed his hands back against the bars making them rattle and shooting pains up his forearms.

"Feel smarter now DiNozzo?" Gibbs voice echoed around their prison. Tony growled again, damn Gibbs and his sixth sense cryptic bullshit, but their long standing relationship kept him from losing his temper at his boss and he bit his tongue. "I wish I had my boat." Gibbs said to himself, before turning away from both of them and lying down, the discussion apparently ended before it'd begun.

...

Gibbs lay awake hours later, the image of the girl smiling in his mind. Girl? He asked himself, why is she sometimes a girl and sometimes a woman? Probably because of her age, he answered himself. That was one of thing things that had been bugging him since he had first laid eyes on her, why did her age matter so much to him? For that matter why did he seem to think he could work out her identity as long as he could keep his mind focused on it. He was sure he'd never met her.

There was no doubt she was one of the bad guys. She had that arrogant air about her when she looked at them. A hint of excitement in her eyes, daring him to catch her and figure out who she was, and Gibbs was happy to meet that challenge. Even as he thought that he frowned, that was the other problem. Sure, she was taking pleasure in teasing them, but when he had demanded her real name she had almost seemed pleased. Or was she relieved?

Gibbs stared up at the ceiling. He could hear Tony snoring in the next cell, his head slumped against his chest as he remained sat on the floor. His neck would regret that in the morning. Ziva, ever sensible, had laid down on her cot to sleep. Once in a while Gibbs heard her softly mumbling. Hoping this entrapment hadn't caused a Somalia related nightmare, Gibbs tried to refocus on figuring out their situation. Who had told him about Lola? Wait, told him? Where has that come from? A vague memory of the bullpen at the yard swam in front of his mind, but before he could focus on it a slamming door broke his concentration.

The sound had been muffled but loud enough to hear through their prison door. Gibbs strained his ears and could make out people talking, it was too muffled to make out any words but there was definitely more than one man while the other sounded more like a woman. Suddenly the voices rose in volume, something was obviously going wrong on the other side of the door. Gibbs moved from the cot closer to the door trying to make out what the voices were saying, but Ziva had started moaning louder, their voices obviously disturbing her sleep. Gibbs tried to concentrate, seeing if he could recognise the voices but his mind kept floating back to his memory of the bullpen. He shook his head. What was the matter with him why couldn't he focus? Why the bullpen? Somebody talking to him in the bullpen?

"McGee!" Ziva's shout broke Gibbs' thoughts apart. He jerked back towards her cell and the voices abruptly stopped in the other room. Gibbs held his breath but no one entered.

"Jeese Ziva!" Tony said rubbing his neck as he stood up. "Can't you save your...er...dreams for when you sleep in private?"

"It was not that sort of dream, Tony" Ziva growled, glaring at him. "It was not that sort of dream." She repeated again quietly. Gibbs watched as Tony shuffled towards her looking ashamed. Ziva's body was completely tense and she jumped when Tony stuck a hand through the bars to touch her elbow.

"Hey, sorry." He said trying to get her to face him, "I'm worried about him too."

"Why isn't he here with us Tony?" She asked.

"You want him stuck in this hell hole with us?"

"If what that Lola person says is true, if we are in danger, he is too. He is a member of our team. He should be here with us."

"Why should we believe what she says?" Tony replied, his earlier anger tingeing his voice, "I bet McGoogle is out there running searches and tracking us down as we speak." Tony clearly didn't believe his own lies but somehow his words made Gibbs' gut clench.

"I can't wait to tell McGee you called out his name in your sleep!"

...

Gibbs had finally fallen asleep after Ziva and Tony had settled back down again. As he slowly came back to wakefulness he realised he was being watched. The woman sat opposite him facing him, her legs were stretched out and crossed at the ankle, her back against the wall. The light from the bulb cast deep shadows across her face as if she'd been cut into pieces. Gibbs didn't move, carefully watching her trying to gauge the situation before acting. She shifted position and Gibbs saw the pool of darkness in her lap form the hard black edges of a gun, one of her hands was resting over it, appearing relaxed but in the precise position to quickly reach the trigger if needed. Guarding us, from escaping or from being attacked? Gibbs was reluctant to admit they had pretty much demonstrated their inability to escape so far, he assumed she really did think she was protecting them.

"What a mess Agent Gibbs." She said in a whispered sigh. Gibbs sat up and turned to face her directly, from this angle he could see new swollen purpling injuries to her jaw and arms.

"Who did that to you?" He asked.

"Ah, no need to feel protective Agent Gibbs. Just some average thugs, they're gone now and none the wiser about your location. So don't you go worrying, Lola's keeping you safe and sound."

"We can't be worth the pain. I know you've not met us before, but this isn't really about you and us, isn't that what you telling Tony? Who are we worth all this for?" Gibbs watched as Lola shifted uncomfortably.

"I love him, even though he hates me."She reluctantly admitted. As she looked him right in the eye, it suddenly all snapped into place, a scanned photograph of a young girl with a wicked smile mostly hidden by the dark hair falling over face as she tackled the young man trying to pose for the photo in front of her, both of them smiling big care free smiles.

...

Abby had gotten into one of those states where she loses focus on the rest of the world, bouncing around the bullpen at the yard and demanding to understand why the latest suspect could have committed the crimes he had and why, despite his clearly malicious intentions, his wife continued to support him.

"People aren't characters in a cartoon Abby." McGee's soft voice had cut into her rant.

"I know that McGee." She'd sneered back at him, "Isn't that why you based all yours on real people?" Tim winced at the jab but nodded.

"Yeah Abs. People are complicated and just because a person does terrible maybe even evil things, doesn't necessarily mean they are an evil person, or that they are incapable of love or good deeds."

Abby hadn't been satisfied of course and Tony and Ziva had ended up taking her out for a Cafpow to distract her. The ensuing peace in the pen had allowed Gibbs to watch Tim more carefully, the case and Abby's rant had clearly affected him. His work hadn't suffered but he had been distant and introspective.

Gibbs would never normally pry into his team's private life, he didn't see it as any of his business. Until it ended up being integral to a case he thought ruefully. But this time his curiosity pricked him, he realised out of them all, his youngest agent's history was the one he knew the least about. Sure, he knew what was down on paper but hardly anything about the life he'd actually lived through, what experiences had moulded the man he'd grown into?

"What was her name McGee?"

...

Tony stirred in the next cell bringing Gibbs back to the present. Turning to stare right back into Lola's eyes, Gibbs found himself smiling his first genuine smile in a long time.

"What did Timothy McGee ever do to earn a favour from a girl like you?" He asked.

Tony sat up abruptly to stare at them, clearly also having been faking sleep. Lola leaned back so she could speak to both of them.

"You know he didn't speak to me for four years? And then suddenly he calls out of the blue and needs a truly huge favour. And what do I do? I do whatever he asks, with a song in my heart. What a massive girl I am." She smiled at Gibbs, her dark eyes twinkling with amusement. "I guess no one can forget their first true love." Tony opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by a shrill ringing.

"Oo, one sec." Lola said as she pulled the phone out of her pocket and opened the door to leave. She was back again before Dinozzo had managed to form a complete thought.

"I hope you don't hold my abandoning you against me, but it's probably a good idea to try and avoid any further awkward situations and I don't have long." She made a move to run out the door but turned at the last minute. "I'm really happy I got to meet you." She beamed that familiar big smile at them all before finally disappearing for good.

It was another half an hour before the door opened again. McGee looked exhausted and battered, his clothes torn with a smattering of blood on his collar. Gibbs decided to wait for him to release them before he kicked his ass into the next century.

Authors note: So this is the first one, I think I may have rushed the ending a little but as I said in the beginning, these are snippets of longer stories that were never going to get finished. If you read the others, you'll not only notice similar themes and characters but probably some dialogue too. It'll hopefully be interesting, maybe you'll get some ideas on my story writing process and why I didn't pursue these any further or maybe you think I shouldn't have given up on them. I look forward to hearing from you either way. Thanks for reading.