AN: It was really hard for me to post this up here. I've had this idea for a long time. But was convinced no one would like it. So...I guess I need a lot of encouragement? Well, I have a rule, anyway. No reviews, no updates. So, yeah. Anyways, I hope you enjoy!

Oh, and shoutout to Athena (AthenaLarissa) for the final push to make me post this! You rock, girl!

"We're looking for Mr. Gibbs." The boy was almost a man, about the age of 16 with curly black hair and hazel eyes. His skin was pale, very pale. On his chest, he wore his visitor's tag stuck to his school uniform. It read "Giovanni." His younger sister, looking about 13, with matching curly black hair, hazel eyes, and school uniform, stood beside him holding a red pocket folder. Her tag read "Carla."

"He's not here yet," Tony said, looking up curiously from his paperwork. "What do you need him for?" This was certainly going to be interesting.

"Top secret," Giovanni said. His timid sister nodded and held the folder close, protectively.

Tony laughed. "Sorry, kid, but you can't just come up here and ask for Special Agent Gibbs without telling us why. It doesn't work that way."

Carla looked over at her big brother, who was trying to stare Tony down.

"Aren't you supposed to be in school, anyway?" Tony asked.

"No," Giovanni said.

"Then why do you have your school uniforms on?"

"Tony, give them a break," Ziva said, glancing up from her paperwork.

"School is very important!" Tony insisted. "I will not condone truancy."

"Truancy?" McGee asked, looking over at him from his own paperwork. "You know that word?"

DiNozzo gave him a face. "Yes, I know that word." He turned back to Giovanni and Carla. "So, what's so important that you have to skip school for?"

Giovanni bit his lip. "Fine," he said. "We need Mr. Gibbs because-"

"Ignore Agent DiNozzo," GIbbs said, coming around the corner into the pen. He went over ot his desk and sat down, looking over the two kids staring at him. Finally, he added, "What can I do for you?"

"You're Mr. Gibbs?" Giovanni asked as he and his baby sister walked towards his desk. Gibbs nodded. Giovanni took in a deep breath. "My mom was friends with your wife before she died. Kim Russo. But you probably knew her as Kim Dimarco." Gibbs nodded again, this time remembering the woman mentioned. She and Shannon had been good friends, indeed. Shannon was supposed to be Kim's Maid of Honor in her wedding before . . .

Giovanni nodded, too, and took in another breath. "Mr. Gibbs," he continued, "we need you to do something for us with the utmost secrecy. Will you do that?"

"Depends on what it is," Gibbs said.

Giovanni looked at his baby sister and nodded at her. She bit her lip, but held out the folder. "Sir," he said, turning to Gibbs, "we need you to find our sister." Carla opened the folder and dropped it onto his desk. Inside was the school picture of a girl around Giovanni's age with the siblings' curly black hair and hazel eyes. She, too, was pale against the white, collared top of her school uniform. The only difference between her and her siblings was that she wore no name tag.

Gibbs frowned and glanced through the folder's collection of stolen pictures of older versions of the girl and handwritten notes. Near the back, he noticed that the notes turned into full-length letters.

"She's been missing for a month," Giovanni said.

"Did your parents file a missing person's report?" Gibbs asked. Giovanni shook his head. Gibbs looked up at them. "How do you expect me to help you?"

"Please," the young man begged. "Our mom says that you're good at this kind of stuff."

"Then why didn't she come?"

The siblings frowned. "She doesn't know we're here."

"Why not?"

"Because she disowned Lia!" Carla spoke for the first time, forcefully. The pen went silent as Carla glared angrily at the folder on Gibbs' desk, too embarrassed to look him in the eye. Giovanni rubbed the back of his neck.

Finally, Gibbs let out a breath. "Your mother never was the forgiving type," he said. He remembered how Kim had blamed him for Shannon and Kelly's deaths, and broke off all connections to him. "Or reasonable . . ." She had also called him up and accused him of cheating when she had, somehow, learned that he had re-married.

The siblings nodded. "Neither is our father," Giovanni added. "Will you help us, then?"

Gibbs took a moment to think. He could put himself into big trouble if he helped these kids. Not only with Kim Russo and her husband, but with NCIS and Vance, since this wasn't an official case. However, there was a chance that this girl actually was missing. And something told him that Shannon would want him to help her friend's children, despite the friend's craziness. So, finally, he nodded. "Yeah," he said. "I'll do it."