Title: There's A Truth In Your Eyes

Rating: T

Classification: Suspense/Angst

Spoilers: NCIS – Hiatus and Witness. Thoroughbred – Breaking The Fall, Allie's Legacy, Calamity Jinx, and Legacy's Gift, although this story is set before all of the above.

Disclaimers: I don't own NCIS, I don't own Thoroughbred, and I don't own the convenience store with the bullet-riddled ceiling. (For which I'm truly thankful – that repair cost would be astronomical)

Summary: A crossover with the Thoroughbred series for the NCIS June 2006 Challenge. Two people are taken hostage one evening in a convenience store in fall of 1991.

A/N for Thoroughbred readers: I have had to take some liberties with the year timelines in order to fit this into the NCIS universe. Also, Jilly would have probably been sick with leukemia during this time period, but having known someone dying of cancer, I cannot handle writing about that. So for this story's purposes, consider her in remission.

Bullet holes riddled the ceiling. Christina Reese whirled at the sound of the gunfire, dropping the container of milk she was holding. It splattered in all directions, drenching the linoleum. Someone shoved her to the floor.

"Keep still," a man's voice whispered in her ear. The 13-year-old nodded, terrified and the man shifted slightly to one side, but still keeping most of his body draped over hers.

"Give me all the money in the registers! Now!" The voice came from somewhere across the room, but she couldn't see precisely where over the rows of shelves in front of her. And after the gunfire, not to mention whoever had taken her to the ground, she had no intention of raising her head enough to look.

I should never have volunteered to go get the milk, Christina thought. She and her mother had been helping Jilly Gordon-Avery cook dinner in the woman's California kitchen, when they'd realized the milk had soured before it's due date. Jilly, an old friend of Christina's mother Ashleigh from their days as jockeys, hadn't wanted to leave because she was expecting more company for dinner, a nephew-in-law or something like that. Christina had volunteered to go instead. And walked into a nightmare.

A sob caught in her throat at the irony. She'd been having nightmares almost every night for the past three weeks, ever since she'd taken a scary fall while training steeplechase with her horse, Sterling Dream. Christina had hit her head and briefly lost consciousness. She hadn't been able to practice steeplechase since without feeling like she was about to get sick to her stomach. It was part of why her mother had pressed her to come along on the visit to Jilly, hoping that time away would help Christina with her fears.

Well, it's certainly done that, Christina thought bitterly. At that moment, she would give anything to be back on Samantha Nelson's steeplechasing course. Not that it mattered anymore, since she was probably never going to get the chance to be out there again. The sound of the bullets echoed in her mind again and she began to shake, uncontrollably.

A hand squeezed her arm gently and Christina shifted her head slightly, enough to see the blue eyes of the man who had taken her to the ground. Blue and reassuring. For the first time, Christina realized that although the man was holding her to the floor, there was no sign of a gun or anything else threatening about him. Christina offered a tentative smile.

The man smiled back.

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