Mica starred out the back window of her dad's truck. She could not believe that her grandpa Jack was dead. She had just seen him just before Thanksgiving. Heck she had just talked to him a few days before and he was just fine. It was obvious that he was getting older and that he was going to die soon the last time she saw him. She just didn't think it would be this soon. Her dad was in the driver's seat. He had his eyes fixed on the road and he was breathing heavily. The way he always drove when he was upset. She could not imagine how he must be feeling right now. She knew that her grandmother, her dad's mom, Grandpa Jack's wife. Had died when her dad was just a kid, not much older than her yet. She had never gotten to meet her but she had plenty of stories from Grandpa Jack and her middle name was in honor of her grandmother Ann. After Ann died Jack had raised her dad on his own. Just like her dad was doing for her. She would be completely heart-broken if he died. Even if she was all grown-up and older like her dad was.

"Mica are you OK?" Gibbs asked.

"Yeah I am fine." Mica replied.

"Good but it is OK to be sad." Gibbs explained.

"Are you OK, daddy?" Mica asked.

"Yeah I am fine." Gibbs assured.

"Good" Mica replied.

"This is the last town for a while so if you need the bathroom or anything to eat or drink. Speak up now." Gibbs explained.

"No I am good." Mica assured.

"Are you sure?" Gibbs asked.

"Yes I am fine." Mica replied.

"Great we should be to Stillwater in an hour and a half." Gibbs explained.

"OK wake me up when we get there." Mica replied picking up her travel pillow.

Eight year old Mallory Nell "Lori" Hudson leaned against the wall of the Stillwater sheriff's office. Her little sister ten month old Katherine Elizabeth "Katie" slept in a playpen beside her. The year before in for a project in school. She had to learn the meaning and origin of her name. She looked at the baby name book her parents had used to name Katie and learned that it meant "Unlucky one". She remembered being mad that her parents had given her such a terrible name. Now it was just mocking her with its appropriateness. Her parents died the next summer just three and a half months after the assignment. Poor Katie was less than a month old. With no living relatives left, they had spent the past ten months in foster care. For months they were in a different home every week. Sometimes she was in two new school's a week. The agency didn't want to split her and Katie up and she didn't want to be separated from her sister but unfortunately very few people wanted two children. Even less wanted an eight year old. The majority of people wanted to adopt babies but as the months wore on and Katie became less new. People lost interest in adopting them. She was starting to give up and prepare to spend the next ten years moving from home to home every few days but then she met Jack. In January she and Katie were taken to a small-town in Pennsylvania called Stillwater. To live with their newest foster-father. Knowing that it was a single man, she was sure it would be another quick turnaround. She had to be forced by her social-worker Bess to even bother bringing her bag out of the car. Thinking she would just be back in the backseat of the Buick within a matter of days. Jack was different though. He ran the general store in town and had for almost fifty years. He had been widowed decades ago and never remarried but he had a grown son but he was a Navy Cop and he had a daughter of his own who was seven. She also learned that Jack had become very ill a couple of months before. He thought he was developing Alzheimer's but it turned out just to be a bad reaction to a new medication. Luckily the doctors got him off of it in time and he got back to normal in a matter of weeks. When he recovered he vowed to start helping people and was immediately signed up to be a foster parent. Two weeks later the girls were brought to his door. Lori was starting to think she had found her forever home. Then today she got called out of class. The town sheriff picked her up and brought her to the station. Where he told her that Jack had suffered a stroke at work and had died almost instantly. She and Katie had spent the past two and a half hours sitting in the sheriff's office. Waiting for Bess to come and get them and take them to their newest foster home. Once again she was an orphan who would be bumped from foster home to foster home. Except this time she doubted she would find another Jack. She would spend the rest of her childhood without a home or family and she had sentenced her baby sister to the same fate. She was terrible. She bit her lip and hung her head. She tried not to cry but it was a futile exercise and within seconds she was bawling like a baby. Lori was still crying when the door opened and Bess walked in the building. She slowly walked over to the girls and pulled Lori into a pity hug.

"Oh Malallory I am so sorry dear girlie." Bess apologized in her heavy accent Lori could not quite place.

"It's not fair!" Lori cried.

"I know honey I know." Bess replied.

"Where am I going to live now?" Lori asked.

"We don't have an homes available so I am going to have to take you to a group home until we can find a family willing to take you." Bess explained.

"I don't want to go to a new home." Lori sobbed.

"I know you don't sweetie but it's not like somebody is just going to walk through that door and agree to adopt you on the spot." Bess apologized.

"Hello I am Jethro Gibbs, Jack was my father I need to go to the morgue but I don't want my daughter to see the body and I don't have my key to his place. Can she stay here?" A voice called from the doorway.

A/N: Gibbs always shows up at the perfect time doesn't he? New chapter will be up soon and much better. Please review and thanks for reading.