Okay, here goes another one. I hope someone, somewhere, is reading this…

Again, comment. I'm all for criticism. **puts up shield** don't be too brutal…

DISCLAIMER: would I be writing this if I could actually have a say in what happened on NCIS? I think not.

(Bullpen/Squad Room)

I sat on the front of Ziva's desk, laughing at what McGee had just said, a story about when his sister was little, something funny she did. Gibbs walked into the bullpen and I sprang off the desk, tripping into his open arms.

"Is this for real? Is this my little Emma?" his smile was all mine, mine was all his.

"Yeah, Uncle Jethro, it's really me. It's been too long. How are you?" Gibbs was my Aunt Shannon's husband, but Aunt Shannon is gone now. I felt my face fall at the memory. I watched his follow suit. I dropped the question and moved on. I smiled wide at him and he returned it, wide and pretty with straight white teeth. I glanced up at the team, who had their jaws on the floor. I ignored it, stashing it away in the back of my mind to ask later.

"Well, it's really nice to see you, Uncle Jethro."

"You too, Em." He put his arm around my shoulder, drawing me close. He kissed my forehead, very Uncle-y. He walked away, his step was brisk and quick, he took the stairs two at a time and pushed open the door to the director's office.

"Okay," I said to the team—Ziva David, Tony DiNozzo, and Tim McGee—while rolling my eyes, finding it sill that their mouths were still wide open, "What's up? Why do you look so shocked? 'Close your mouth, Michael, we are not cod fish." I quoted Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins.

"Has he always smiled at you?" McGee asked me, my answer was automatic; I passed it off with a wave of my hand.

"Yeah, well family's different that co-workers. Of course my uncle's always smiled at me."

"I didn't know Gibbs had siblings," McGee rebutted, trying to prove me wrong.

"He doesn't. Shannon's sister's kid." At the mention of my aunt's name, the air became still.

"You knew Shannon?" Ziva asked, dumbstruck.

"You knew Kelly?" McGee asked, also flabbergasted.

"Yeah, Shannon was so nice and awful pretty. Kelly was the best cousin a girl could ask for. We were blood sisters." I held up my thumb, which had a thin white line in the shape of a tiny heart on the top part. I chuckled again at the memory of the two of us, I six, she seven, sitting in out in her tree house in their back yard with one of her mother's kitchen knives on the floor.

"We gonna do it, or not?" I had said. I was more adventurous. Kelly was having second thoughts.

"I don't know if we should. What if it bleeds?"

"That's the point, silly. We trade blood so we're really sisters. Now, do it or don't." she lifted the paring knife with her right hand, prepared to carve into her left thumb.

"No!" I stopped her, snatching the blade away. "I'll do it, it's gotta be on the right." I took her thumb before I stopped. She'd scream, it'd hurt. I grabbed a shirt discarded in favor of a bathing suit days ago.

"Bite on this." She did as I instructed. I took the knife and quickly etched a heart there on her thumb; awful glad I had given her the shirt to muffle the screams. I, being left-handed, did my own flawlessly, exactly like hers. I grabbed her bleeding finger and pushed it on mine. I could smell the salt and rusting iron aroma as the blood mixed. The deep red dropped once onto the floor. I took the shirt from her mouth and wiped it up as best I could, still pressing my finger to hers.

"Emma, this hurts, I think it's done, ow, OW!" she pulled her finger away and I rolled my eyes. I grabbed a band-aid and wrapped her thumb and then bandaged my own. I hugged my cousin, my sister.

I laughed again at the memory. I sat in Gibbs' chair and got another look from everyone. Apparently, this was simply not done.

"Tim, remember that time at Sarah's birthday party when you had the ponies? And how your saddle wasn't tight enough and you like nearly flipped over before someone caught you?" that always happened to me. I would be talking about something and then a memory would come and I completely forget about the previous topic, moving onto the memory, blurting it out no matter how embarrassing?

His face reddened. "Yeah, her sixth. I'm just that lucky, that I'd have last pick and I'd get stuck with a defective one."

"Ha-ha, Timmy, you did have last pick, didn't you?" he nodded and laughed with me.

"Yep. I would get stuck with it. It was a cute little horse, though." I laughed.

"Yeah, if you're a six year old girl."

"Whatever. It wasn't like I exactly wanted to go. My dad made me. He said he was teaching me 'humility', personally, I think it was just mean. And he laughed when I was falling and told the lady she should have let me drop, it would have given me 'thick skin'. He was all about lessons, and I hated that."

"Aw, poor tiny Tim." He sighed and went back to re-routing his modem—again.

I looked up to see a tortured DiNozzo looking at me. I hated him. He had screwed around with my sister, Alana. He got her pregnant and walked away from her. The baby killed her. That little boy was a cold blooded killer of my favorite sister and had died, too. I wasn't sorry for him. I had been glad; I'd even go as far as to say 'overjoyed'; when they said evil little Will was dead. I blamed tony for my sister's death. I say that she died of a broken heart, cause little William looked exactly like his awful father. Alana loved him and he turned his back on her. I don't care how long it's been (so what if they were seventeen?) people, in my experiences, don't change unless they die. Once a coward, always a coward. Now Ziva was uncharted territory, I didn't know her too well. I had no history with her. She seemed strong, courageous, but hey, I could be wrong. That's just how my eye saw it, how I beheld it.

I was probably wrong.