So, remember all that time ago, a little fiction that I wrote called 'Intoxicated'? No, then I recommend you go and read that before you read this.
If you answered yes to that, do you remember my fiction 'Fairytale'? No, well, you really need to read that too.
This is set before 'DiNozzos-In-Training', so you do not need to read that one, but you could read it after if you want. Or before, it is up to you.
I was sorting through old boxes in the attic and I found all of my old school work from years and years ago. I found a folder of these things that my primary school did where every year we had to make a presentation about our hero, and then they presented them on our last day to our parents and all of the other children. My first three heroes were David Bowie (age 4), my dad (age 5) and Socrates (age 6). Just a little back story.
My Hero
"Thank you, Samuel. I am very flattered that you think of me as a hero." Mr Arnold smiled as the boy took his seat. He looked down his register. "Tahlia, it is your turn."
Seven year old Tahlia David-DiNozzo stood up and made her way to the front of her class. She handed her teacher the USB stick and smiled. "My presentation is on the computer, Mr Arnold." He took it and raised his eyebrows, but loaded up the PowerPoint document anyway. The first slide had a picture of her parents, her, her brother and sister and the rest of her large family of federal agents and NCIS employees. "My family are my heroes." She started and nodded to her teacher to change the slide. A montage of images of her mother appeared on the screen. "This is my Ima. Her name is Ziva and she is Israeli, which means that she comes from Israel, which is a very hot country. Papà says that Ima is a ninja and I think he is right because she is always sneaking up on people. She works at NCIS, which help all of the sailors when they are in trouble. She used to be in the Israeli Army, and then she was in Mossad, which meant that she did lots of dangerous things to protect Israel. That is how she met Papà. She is one of my heroes because she is really brave and she always knows how to make us stop hurting if we fall over and she has saved lots and lots of people."
The slide changed to pictures of Tony, many of them funny and goofy. "This is my Papà. His name it Anthony, but everybody calls him Tony. He is Italian, which means that we get to eat pasta and pizza a lot. He works at NCIS too. Both Ima and Papà are special agents. Papà gets into trouble a lot at work and Ima always has to save him. But he is very funny and he always makes everyone laugh. He almost died one time because he had the pneumonic plague, which meant he was in bed for a long time and he was very lucky to survive, because Grandpa Ducky says that lots of people died of the plague a long time ago and they still do. But he survived because he had a doctor called Dr Brad Pitt, who played basketball against Papà when they were in college and he broke Papà's leg then. Papà said it was Ima who fell in love with him, but everybody else says that they fell in love at the same time. They have lots of adventures together. Papà is one of my heroes because he always knows how to make people laugh and he always gets the bad guys, no matter what."
McGee was next. "This is my Uncle Probie, but his name isn't really Probie, it's Timothy McGee, but Papà has lots of nicknames for him. He isn't really Papà's brother either, but Ima and Papà say he is like their brother. Uncle Probie is an NCIS agent too, and he's really good with computers. He helped me make my presentation. He loves my Auntie Abby, but Grandpa Gibbs says that they love each other so much in so many ways that they will never get married like Ima and Papà did. Uncle Probie is really clever and he went to MIT and John-Hopkins University. Uncle Probie is my hero because he always fixes the TV and the computer when Ima breaks them, which she does almost as much as Grandpa Gibbs."
The screen changed to a picture of her and Abby, a Caf-Pow in the scientist's hand and a No-Caf-Pow in the child's. "This is my Auntie Abby. She's my most favourite person in the entire world, because when I stay with her I get to stay up late and have ice-cream and Caf-Pow, but I'm not allowed to tell Ima about that. She has lots of tattoos, which Ima and Papà say that I'm not allowed, and I'm not allowed to wear short skirts like her either, but that's okay because I don't like wearing skirts anyway. Auntie Abby works at NCIS, but she's not an agent, she's a scientist and she's always really busy but she's never too busy to give me a hug she says. She's really, really clever and she knows how to kill people without leaving any forensic evidence. But that's not why she's my hero, because I don't like killing. Auntie Abby is my hero because I have never seen her sad and she's always happy and I like that." Tahlia grinned and the photo changed again.
"That is my Auntie Jenny. She's the director of NCIS and Ima and Papà are supposed to do what she tells them to, but they don't. She has a really big house and I like sleepovers there because we get to have hot chocolate and we all sleep in the living room in front of the fire, which is better than sleeping in the big bedrooms of the house in my opinion because they are too big and empty. Papà says that we only call Auntie Jenny Auntie because she says she is too young to be called Grandma Jenny, but Grandpa Gibbs says that she's getting old so we should call her Grandma Jenny. Auntie Jenny lets us watch movies on the big screen at NCIS when everybody else has gone home, and that's really cool because it makes it feel like we're in our very own cinema. Auntie Jenny is my hero because she let Ima stay in America when she first came here, and if she hadn't then I wouldn't have been born."
Ducky's picture came on the screen next. "This is my Grandpa Ducky. His name is Donald Mallard and he's English and he works in Autopsy at NCIS. He is a doctor for dead people, but if any of us are hurt, we go down to Ducky first, because he's the best doctor I've ever met. If Auntie Jenny is getting old, Ducky is really, really old. But you wouldn't know it, because he's always happy to play with us and he's always telling stories. Grandpa Ducky tells the best stories, and Ima says that is because he has been to so many places and met so many people and he's done so many cool things. Some of his stories are really funny and some of them are interesting, but some of them are quite boring, but we're not allowed to tell him that. He always has a lollypop in his coat pocket for me and Caleb and he always wears a bowtie. He has the best car, because it's really old and he fixed it himself, but it goes really slowly, and Ima is never, ever allowed to drive it because she drives really fast. He is my hero because he is so clever and he tells really good stories and he is knows almost everything."
The screen changed again and she looked up at it and smiled at the picture. "This is my Auntie Kate. She's dead now; she died in the line of duty. I never met my Auntie Kate, because she died before I was born, but we go to her grave every year and we lay roses down. The whole family goes, and we stand in silence for a minute because Auntie Abby says that is when we should be remembering her. I can't remember her, because she died even before Ima and Papà met, but she's very special because she worked with Papà and Auntie Abby and Uncle Probie and Grandpa Gibbs and Grandpa Ducky for two years and she was like a sister to them as well, and they loved her and she died too early. She used to protect the president of the United States, which I think is a very scary job because I would be worried to get it wrong. Papà says that she stayed with him when he had the plague and pretended to be sick too, so she could keep him company. That was just before she died in the line of duty. She's my hero because she died whilst trying to save a lot of people and she was very brave and if she hadn't died then Grandpa Gibbs would have died instead and she saved him. I think that's important." She looked at her shoes for a moment and then looked up at her class again.
"I don't have a picture of my last hero, but my Auntie Kate did a drawing of him a long time ago." The image flashed up on screen. "That's my Grandpa Gibbs. He looks slightly older now, but not by much, and he says that he looks older because he should be retired on a beach in Mexico with a beer, building a teak hot-tub. Grandpa Gibbs did retire for a little bit, but he came back home the day that my baby sister, Via, was born, because he missed us all. Grandpa Gibbs has married a lot of women with red hair, and Papà says that is why he loves Auntie Jenny, but they both say that they don't love each other. I think they do and they are just scared. Grandpa Gibbs' first wife and his daughter died a long time ago, and they are very special to him. His daughter's name was Kelly and he says that she was very beautiful, just like me and Via and Auntie Abby and Ima. He used to be a marine and he says that he still is because there's no such thing as an ex-marine. He has a lot of rules, about fifty of them, and we all have to learn them. His rule number one is 'never screw over your partner' or 'never let suspects stay together', it depends on what situation you are in as to which one you use. He has another one, rule number twelve, which says 'never date a co-worker' but he says that since Ima and Papà are married and not technically dating it is okay, and because he was in Mexico when Ima and Papà were dating, it didn't matter because he was ignorant, but he wasn't really because Ima always sent him letters telling him how everyone was. Grandpa Gibbs used to be Papà and Ima's boss, and then he retired, and now he's their boss again. He has a basement where he builds boats, but he won't tell anyone how he gets them out of there. When someone in the family is worried, or upset, or scared, or in danger, or just need someone to talk to, they go to Grandpa Gibbs basement, because he's always there and he's a very good listener. When Ima told Papà that she loved him, she ran away to Israel and Grandpa Gibbs had to go and bring her back because Papà loved her too. Auntie Abby says he can read minds, because he always knows when someone is lying. He's saved lots and lots and lots of people, and that's why he's my hero. But he's not just a hero, he's a superhero, because he's so good at keeping people safe.
"So they are my heroes. They all work to keep people safe from the bad people and they are all my family, even if we aren't actually related, and I love them all and I want to be as brave and as clever and as interesting as them when I grow up, but most of all I want to be like Grandpa Gibbs because I want to be a marine and I want to help lots of people and I want to be like the men and women who Papà and Ima help and keep safe. They are my heroes. Thank you for listening." She smiled and everyone clapped as she sat back down at her desk.
"Thank you, Tahlia. You're a very lucky girl to have such a big family and to have so many heroes. I have to say that they sound like a very good group of people."
"They're the best, Sir."
Sorry it is all one big block of text, I do that a lot. I like it that way, though.
Amendment: I have split the one big block of text into multiple blocks of text, because when reading it on here I realised how hard it was to read, and because other people said it was harder to read. It should be slightly better now.
For my reference: 34th NCIS fic.