Brat
Chapter One – Al
Indi rock posters and quirky pictures plastered the walls in the dim room, clothes peppered the floor and all surfaces were covered in strange cluttered décor that ranged from chipped tea cups to plastic bobble heads. In the centre of the room sat a teenage girl with medium length brown hair which was wavy and messed up over her back, she had her legs crossed in their purple skinny legged jeans as she locked her green eyes on the screen of the old TV that sat on top of the wardrobe. Her black band branded singlet crumpled as she hunched over her controller as she twiddled her fingers over it and the on screen character jumped and twirled over the dancing image. As the cheesy music echoed through the cheap old speakers indicating that she had again beat the game, she discarded the console over the carpeted floor and clambered on to the messy bed.
"I'm home!" Called a voice from the hall, she didn't bother to emerge from her room but merely buried herself under the blankets, peaking out through a fold. The sound of keys being put down, an exhale of relief and then footsteps approached, a woman of about 39 years of age stood at the door with her blond hair being released from its bun.
"Al, you up?" She asked, the girl lay still in an attempt to appear asleep to her aunt and the woman shook her head and dimmed the light. "You should talk more, get people to like you."
She resisted the urge to snort at the irony of the workaholic's words but held hit in, remembering her sleeping act.
"Night then." With a small hesitation, the door was closed and she had left.
The teenage girl waited a few hours in the same position with her eyes locked on the same spot her aunt had left. At around 2am she finally shed the blankets and slipped off her bed and sunk to the ground to recover the box under her bed. She clicked it open and found the slip of paper she was looking for, with it tight in her grasp she stood and grabbed her black denim coat from a rust hook on the wall and a small canvas bag, she fought to pull on her high top chucks then inched towards the door, she turned the handle gently and slipped out in to the hall, avoiding creaky floor boards. The front door swung open and she glanced around to ensure no one was coming out of their apartments, before rocketing down the old stairs and in to the lobby.
"Al, whatcha doing up?" A call greeted her from the porter's desk, a middle aged African American man was watching her over his black coffee that was energizing him for his night shift.
"Just need to make a call, thought I would use the street phone." She gesture out the doors that sat closed near her.
"Ain't you got a cell?" He tilted his head to an angle as he observed her jumping, canary like behaviour. "Aren't all kids these days digitally wired?"
She shrugged in a manner to say 'I'm not'
"Alright, alright." He pressed his thumb to a button and she shot him a grin of thanks as the door succumbed to her push and opened. The road wasn't a challenge to dart across and she cut through the notoriously dodgy park without a flinch until she reached the phone booth that stood by a skip. The paper was withdrawn from her pocket and she began to dial the number written on it. The ring tone buzzed in her ear for a few seconds before it was picked up.
"Yeah it's me." She turned her back on the box and looked out in to the night. "It's time."
"Okay," Ziva David was sitting at her desk with her ear pressed to the receiver. "Alison, get in to the black car across the road and we will send in the swat team."
The special agent hung up the phone and stood to begin to arm herself.
"Ziva." Gibbs strode in with a quickening pace as he saw her clip her SIG to her hip
"It's time Gibbs, Miranda is getting in to the car, her aunt is home."
"Alright let's do this." Gibbs opened a case and handed Ziva her earwig before rushing to his desk.
"Surveillance teams are around the apartment block are in position," She stated as she strapped on her bullet proof vest "Tony and McGee should be driving Al to the safe house-"
"Al?" Gibbs stowed his knife
"That is her name." Ziva rolled her eyes and pressed the remote control, buzzing a image on to the screen of a dark haired girl's passport photo.
"Alison Collins, 16 years old, father and mother were both navy seals, met at work and were killed last year in the line of duty." Ziva buzzed up the parent's pictures to sit beside their daughters as Gibbs observed them
"Aunt?" He asked and armed his back up.
"Aunt works as a senators aid in liaison with the pentagon, Alison tipped us off last week that her aunt was taking confidential files home and going to late meetings, irregularities in log books show that they were not checked out, we have her for multiple counts of robbery and espionage."
"Swat team." He demanded and began to leave the elevator.
"My half will take the fire exit, yours the elevators, Her Bed room is located in the south west corner of the apartment." The elevator doors closed and Gibbs threading his last strap on his vest
"Nice work David," He gave her a rare smile "Remind me to let you work alone more."
Ziva smiled indulgently at the work she had accomplished while Tony and McGee were on the dreaded steak out.
"Alison?" McGee asked as the girl climbed in to the back seats, he glanced from her face to the photo ID he had for confirmation.
"Ally. Call me Ally." She sighed moodily.
"Well 'Ally', we are gonna take you to a safe house, you will be perfectly safe there." Tony said quietly as he started the car to a low purr.
"Well yeah! That's probably why they call it a safe house." Ally commented sarcastically as the car subtly slipped out from its stationary position.
McGee chuckled at Tony and He narrowed his eyes. "I've got to supervise the swat team, good luck babysitting." They pulled over and McGee jumped out.
The can drove for a while before he spoke to her "My name is very special agent Anthony DiNozzo."
"DiNozzo, Is that Italian?" I heard my voice asking the question
"Yep, you can call me Tony if you want."
"Tony." she tried it out and the name seemed good to utter on her lips so she nodded in acceptance of the use of his first name. The dark blue or maybe it was black mustang drove them through the city and soon the views of cars and traffic under the street lights through the window turned in to the view of run down houses and then trees as they neared Wheaton National Park, the car turned up Kemp Mill road which she had only been up once for a school trip to the botanical gardens. Down some more main roads.
Agent DiNozzo seemed keen to keep up conversation and as Ally zoned out he took up her slack in discussing movies which seemed to be a passion of his.
"Marlon Brando! He played Stanley in street car!" Tony was on a movie rant perhaps he was trying to take her mind off the betrayal of her last living relative.
"Where are we going?" She asked, turning her gaze to Tony and interrupting his vocal review of A Street Car Named Desire.
"North-West Branch park, Safe house by the river, we'll be there in ten." Tony seemed annoyed that she had interrupted him and she was keen to make friends.
"Seen Gone with the Wind? Some say that the lifestyle in it relates to streetcar."
If he were a dog his ears would have pricked up in excitement.
"Have I seen it? Are you kidding it's a classic, last time I saw it me and Ziva watched a full marathon of old American films-"
"Who's Ziva?" She raised my eye brows "Your girlfriend."
"Don't be stupid!" He chuckled somewhat nervously "Ziva's- no, no. Just co-workers."
"Oooooh! Ziva the woman who I've been reporting to? You work with her!" She clicked and grinned away at his poker face which was deflecting the questions "So you two an item then?"
"Okay we're here!" He stopped the car in front of a small cottage near a long river surrounded by lush green trees
She narrowed her eyes at him, keen to start up this later but got out of the car anyway and let her black chucks crunch on the twigs under them. A cold chill swiped over her harshly making her shake as it bit through the coat and skilly leg jeans that covered her. They crunched their way over the twig coated ground towards the porch of the safe house. Tony walked her front of me with his hand hovering over his hip where his SIG was concealed.
"You really think someone is gonna try to kill me, don't you?" they took to the creaky wooden steps as she addressed his back.
He looked back and chuckled before unlocking the door. "Well Ally, your aunt was trading government secrets those buyers are going to awful unhappy now."
"I am underage; don't you need social services to monitor me or something?" The front door swung open and they walked in to the cold siting room.
"C'mon it's Sunday morning, no-one is hanging about at Social Services." Tony dropped his duffle bag on to the nearest couch and darted around to secure the room.
"So why were you in?"
"Because my boss is a good Nazi! What's with all the questions already?"
Silence fell between them and she gave him a blank stare until he sagged his shoulders and exhaled.
"Hungry? Tired? It is 5am"
"Now who's the one with the questions?" She chuckled and made her way to the kitchen to hunt for something edible.
"No food in the, nothing worth eating anyway, I'll call Probie to get some food."
"What's a Probie?" She snorted at sat at the breakfast bar. "Sounds like an illness."
"Something like that." Tony chuckled and flipped open his phone, hitting a number.
"McGee!"
"What Tony?
"You coming out here?"
"Ziva's on her way."
Her eye brows rose and he frowned and waved a dismissing hand at her and turned around.
"Is she bringing food?"
Ally couldn't hear the response but assumed it was a good one because Tony's mumbles sounded happy. He turned around to her.
"What d'ya want on your pizza?"
"Vegetarian."
"What's wrong with you? You've got the world's best ingredients at your fingertips and you pick vegetarian!"
"I don't eat meat!" she squawked back and he shook his head in a defeated manner.
"Yeah bye Probie."
He hung up and flung his cell down on the bench.
"So…" Ally followed him in to the living room again as he fought to be rid of her questioning presents. "Ziva's coming."
"Yeah so?" He spun round and fell on to one of the old squashy armchairs.
"Tonyyyyyyyyyyy you can tell meeeee!" she stretched out her e's and jumped on to the chair across from his.
"You know I might just call social services." He teased and her chest sunk.
"NO!" she gripped the arm of the chair until her knuckles turned pearl white. Not back there, she couldn't go back to social services, it would just remind her of after her mom and dad died too many skeletons at that place.
"Okay, okay." He must have seen that his empty threat had caused a spark at her.
"Ziva and I are just co-workers- and friends." He checked himself.
She nodded, not willing to chase this until later.
"So what do we do here?" She drummed my black painted nails over the arm of the chair.
"We wait." Tony sighed.
"Boring! Let's explore!" She jumped up like a kid and dashed out of the room with Tony walking fed up in her wake.
"There's nothing here!" He sighed as she jumped up the stairs two at a time,
"We'll see!" She laughed and rolled up her gaze.
When the knock on the door came an hour later Alison was ready to kill and cook Tony, she was so hungry. He took to the stairs and she slid down the banisters beside him. He pushed her back to sit on the steps and he pushed back the curtain of the door to peak out at the visitor. Then he pulled open the doors and revealed the woman she had never seen before. She wore dark blue jeans and a red sweater, two pizza boxes under her arm. She was beautiful with creamy olive skin and dark chocolate eyes and hair that curled over her shoulders.
"Hey I-"
"So you're Ziva!" she rubbed her hands together and popped her head in to her view from behind Tony he looked down at Ally suspiciously. "I have heard so much about you from Tony."
She raised her dark, shaped brow and turned her gaze to Tony who shrugged and turned back in to the kitchen. Tony and Ally followed and Ziva placed down the boxes and Tony opened them eagerly.
"Thank YOU!" He grabbed a slice of meat covered pizza and munched it, finally speechless.
"So what's been going on?" She picked out a mushroom and nibbled on it, directing her question to Ziva.
"Well," Ally couldn't help but notice her eyes seemed magnetic to Tony as they darted back to him. "We have arrested your aunt and she has confessed but not for the murders of our petty officer, there only seems to be one link to her from him."
"And that is?" Her throat went dry, knowing what was coming.
"You." Ziva looked directly at Ally with her dark brown eyes.
"Oh." She bit the pizza, not really hungry anymore but just wanting something to do.
"So now we are multiplying your security, we are not involving Social services but you will have to stay here for a while."
She shrugged, better than a foster home.
"Anyway, Tonight I am going to your Aunts apartment to get you some clothes and any belongings you may want." Ziva spoke kindly
Again she shrugged and tried to remain straight faced as her mind ran through her belongings she could be without, her treasure box, pictures of her parents, a crudely constructed doll her mom had assembled in art school.
"I can think of a few things." She finally said slowly, she realised she could probably trust Ziva, she didn't seem like any government lady Ally had ever met before.
"I shall go in the dark." Ziva leaned back to a window and pulled back the curtain to observe the dusky light.
"Okay." She flumped her arms against her sides and looked around at the two agents who stood side by side before her. "So what are we gonna do?"
"You can watch TV if you want, I think NCIS pays for cable." Ziva gestured to the postmodern set that sat in the next room. She nodded because what else could she do and left the two and pretended to flick through grainy channels while really listening hard to their conversation.
"She was driving me insane with questions."
"Tony, she is doing very well for her situation, her file says she lost her parents in the line of duty last year, now her last relative, her aunt has been arrested for aiding in the very cause that killed her parents and she may be next!"
The shiver went up her spine as Ziva spoke her worst fears.
"She is a 16 year old girl, she shouldn't have to go through this crap, and she should be sneaking out and dating and causing trouble!"
"She is not you DiNozzo! It is imperative that she does not sneak out while her life is in danger."
"There is something going on with her, she found out about what her aunt was doing and dobbed her in, whether it was because she knew that her aunt helped kill her parents or what!" Tony lowered his voice and she thought her ears would break from straining.
"Ziva, I can't work it out. She is all questions and teasing on the outside but something else is going on under that. I just can't decide what that is."
"Well, she seems to be letting you in, her file says she has little friends at school and does not excel in social situations."
She chuckled under the cover of the TV sardonically, of course the school report would say that. The school phsyc thought she was a social hermit.
"It's nearly light, have either of you slept?" Ziva was saying and she payed attention again.
"She says she isn't tired." Tony sighed his footsteps approached her.
"Ally?"
She flicked off the TV and turned to look at him.
"Tony I'm tired."
He smiled and shot Ziva a look before nodding and yawning in agreement.
Okay so there is Chapter one, great another open story, almost finished WLGYL and new chapter of B12 Soooooon! Thanks for reading! Gibbslets xx