A/N Fear not my little one's I haven't abandoned my other stories only the dreaded flu has me tucked up in bed with my trusty laptop but my other files are downstairs so I will be carrying on with those tomorrow. This my darlings is the result of paracetamol and me sneezing and not sleeping at one am.

So will post chapter one of a strangely fully mapped out story...

Disclaimer, I don't own am not sharing...unless you want some of my little evil flu germs...


Sleeping Hunter

Chapter 1

1993

16-year-old Eric Beale grabbed his surfboard and leant it up against the outside of his family's large home in Delfern Drive, in the affluent Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles. As the maid opened the door, she shook her head at him, "Mr. Eric, your father is going to have a fit at you, and he said he would burn it if you left it there again." She grinned as the blond boy shook his head and ran inside.

Christian Beale looked over his paper as his son flew up the stairs; "Eric!" he called, his youngest son was always an enigma to the whole household. He attended Harvard Westlake School and had a 4.0 GPA but had already turned down a place at Harvard Business School like his two older brothers and had instead opted for a place at M.I.T. Where his older brothers liked Polo, Tennis and Golf Eric preferred surfing and hanging out at the beach. Eric was in many ways mothers son, a free spirit, which was what Christian had loved about her and losing her in childbirth had been hard on him.

Christian Beale had managed to contact his old governess that his mother had brought with her from Germany when she had emigrated here in the forties just after world war two. He himself being the son of an American executive and a German Aristocrat had found it difficult growing up in a post world war two America, but his governess that his mother had brought over being only twenty years older than him had shown him the wonders of America and straightened him out. He had hoped that Ms Schultz would be able to straighten Eric out as well however she was well into her seventies now and Eric ran her ragged.

"Papa?" Eric answered his father skidding to a halt in the conservatory.

"Where is Frau Schultz?" He asked hoping his son remembered he had lessons with her today.

"Elsa? Er…I saw her this morning," Eric said with a cocky grin.

Christian raised an eyebrow, "Eric, my boy you left here before dawn." He said he had been awoken before sunrise by the squealing of tires on Eric's Trans Am as he pealed out of the driveway at 3.30am.

"I had to catch the tide Papa, the swells were awesome this morning," Eric grinned from ear to ear.

"And did you?" He asked his youngest,

"Oh Papa, it was great and I met the cutest girl, I have to go I'm taking her out tonight." Christian had to smile at the exuberance of his youngest.

"Go then, I will deal with Elsa. Just this once."

Eric ran out of the conservatory and up to his room getting ready for his first date with the fiery Irish redhead he had met on the beach this morning, He knew he had answered just enough questions to keep his father happy and he hadn't asked the one that would have got him grounded. If he had told him, his date lived in one of the poorest area's of L.A. Nothing would have saved him from one of Elsa's lectures.


Eric didn't care. His father was rich, but money was not what Eric Beale was about; He liked his friends and he loved computers and surfing. Everything else was irrelevant, to be honest if Eric could have hacked from a surfboard in the middle of the ocean, he would have been in heaven.

Right now he was off to see the next best thing to heaven one. Myra Paige O'Conner.

Rushing to his room to change he saw both his brothers down at the tennis court with the girls they had been introduced to at the country club, he was glad he didn't have to spend time with them today.

He grabbed a shirt and jeans and changing out of his sandals, he grabbed a pair of worn sneakers and his credit card.

Within the hour, his Trans Am pulled up outside a small two-bed bungalow in Reseda. Myra's father Shamus opened the door to him and gave him the 'if you hurt my daughter; they will never find your body' speech. Which Eric took in the spirit in which it was given….he was terrified.

Myra laughed at her father, kissed him goodbye and they went off on what was to be the first of many dates.


Six months later, both teens sat on the beach looking at the small white stick in Myra's hand that spelt their doom. She was pregnant.

Eric, being the man he was, insisted on marrying her, the fact he loved her helped as well.

He took her to his house and she held his hand as he introduced her to his father. His brothers leant over the balcony barley containing their glee as their little brother listened as his father yelled at them both.

"How could you be so irresponsible?" He yelled at Myra.

Eric stood between his girlfriend and his father, "Don't yell at her, I love her!"

"And she's from where? Who are her parents and what to they say?" Christian could not believe this was happening.

"I live in Reseda Mr. Beale with my father, he runs a bar."

"Oh this gets better and better." Christian rolled his eyes.

"I'm going to marry her." Eric declared.

"Over my dead body!" Christian Beale growled. "You young lady should try gold digging somewhere else and you should leave."

Myra put her hands on her hips, "I love Eric, I am having his child and I will marry him with or without your permission." She said her Irish accent filling the air.

Eric looked at her proudly, "I love her too,"

"Then leave!" Christian said sadly.

"What?" Eric looked confused.

"If you love her, then leave, I'll have no gold diggers in my family, we are German Aristocracy and I will not have my family tainted. You have ten minutes to pack what's yours and leave." Christian turned his back on his son.

Myra stood holding her bag as Eric threw three heavy duffel bags over the balcony onto the floor below and walked calmly down the stairs, "Papa, this is your last chance, If I leave now you will never see me or your grandchild again."

Christian, stubborn as his own father refused to turn and look as his youngest left and broke his heart.


Three years later, Myra and Eric Beale woke up as their young daughter Summer opened the door to the bedroom in the small apartment they were living in and dive bombed her parents. Eric laughed as Myra got their little red headed firecracker washed and ready to go to daycare on campus.

MIT had an excellent daycare program and Eric took advantage of it while he studied and Myra worked in the campus canteen. Neither of them regretted leaving L.A for an instant. Eric in his spare time wrote programs and did some hacking with friends while Summer played on the floor in the evenings.

Eric had been offered $1000 to hack an email address, he had thought it was for a school project but he was curious about this one, which made him check as he handed the information over. The man he was due to meet was late and Eric was starting to get worried, he had just graduated and they were going to have to move from student accommodation and Eric really needed the money.

The man he was due to meet pulled up and got out of a van.

"Eric Beale?" he asked.

"Yes?" Eric answered, "Look do you have my money." He snapped time was getting on.

"No, you looked into the file; give me the information I need."

"Not without my money." Eric said

The man gestured behind him and the side door on the van opened, Eric gasped to see Myra with a gun to her head tears streaming down her face.

"Myra!" he started forwards.

"Beale, be glad we just took your wife and not your daughter too. Now hand it over."

Shakily Eric handed the package over. "Please let her go! I won't tell anyone what was on the flash drive."

"Get out of town Mr. Beale, if you want your daughter to live you have 12 hours to pack up and leave. If your wife lives she'll find you." The door slammed shut.


Fifteen years later in LA in his trailer on the beach, Eric Beale woke up sobbing.

Eric arrived at Ops before everyone as usual, and as usual as soon as the computer was running, he took a small thumb drive from his pocket and plugged it into one of the terminals.

Operation Sleeping Hunter was a go. He had written the program the first week Myra had gone missing; it ran in the background of the facial recognition software that he had designed which had ultimately got him the job at NCIS.

Out of all the terrorists and wanted criminals, it looked for there was one face that had priority over all others. Myra Paige Beale's.