I would love to hear your opinions and look to working further on the story.
I do not own or have connection with the "Criminal Minds," "NCIS" and "Numb3rs" programs or their characters.
Chapter Four. Morning Play
It is three days since our agents have become children in this woman's house. They have been given chores to do and have created a pattern to the day. It is morning and breakfast has been eaten and the dishes cleaned up. The children are in the living play area working at maintaining their 'ages'.
The youngest children are in a large cage like play pen. The sides are four feet high and the space is seven feet square. One of the sides can be put down to two feet high to bring the babies in and out of the area. Tony is placed in the pen into a toy that looks like a large infant sit up car style. It looks like he is sitting in a car with all sorts of bells, whistles, rattles and other things for the baby to grab and have fun with. To satisfy the man's ego, she had it made to look like a Ferrari and has all of the accruements of the machine. She even put a pair of sunglasses on him after putting him in the toy car. Spencer and Colby are put in the pen and go to play with the many other types of toys in the area, including blocks, action dolls, stuffed animals, cars, trucks, and sound and music makers. Our littlest girl Abby is also placed in the pen and she didn't like it but got to playing with the boys in crashing toys together. Jimmy goes to the corner with the big building blocks and begins to build a city of buildings with them. Emily goes to the playhouse and begins to become a mommy to the dollies that are there.
The primary school age boys have gone to the boys' room and are discussing what they want to do. These boys range from Don at age six to Derek at age ten and five of the boys have set up a clubhouse type of organization in a corner of the room. They have created a club of sorts.
"Well, what are we going to do today guys?" asks Derek.
"I am more interested in what Aaron found out last night," says Jethro.
The man in question gives a slight yawn as he answers, "Not much, the land is fairly immense. I haven't been able to get to the edges of the property yet so I don't know if there is a fence or not. I did see a large lake on the north side which is where I went last night. Hopefully, the team of Ducky and Charlie will find out more as they go on their bike trip this afternoon."
"Maybe tonight someone else should go out. You've gone the last two nights and we don't want 'mother' to get suspicious."
"I am fine." He answers, slightly yawning again.
"You've been yawning all morning and that's not good for you. She might think that you are not getting enough sleep and put you to bed with the babies."
"Maybe you should take a nap in the afternoon."
"I am supposed to be seven, not four and I don't need a nap." He responds slightly angered at the thought that he should have a nap.
"If you keep sneaking out at night; you are not going to get enough sleep and she will notice."
"I am fine and can do the job. What else have we found out about the place?"
Tim answers, "I haven't found anything to communicate with and I am too young to get on the computer. Have you talked to Charlie yet about it, Don?"
Don answers, "Yeah, but he claims that it is completely child protected and hasn't been able to break free from that. Penelope is supposedly our best hope for that but last I heard she hasn't even been able to hack it."
"That's saying something about it if Penelope can't do it.", says Derek. Aaron nods his head in agreement to the statement. "She is a master hacker and able to create her own firewalls and discover ISPs and things like that. I don't completely understand it all myself but she is a whiz at it."
Tim says, "Maybe I should talk with her. I am pretty good at that stuff too and our two heads together might come up with something."
Jethro then says, "Anything else to report?" There is a slew of heads shaking no. "Then we need to decide what we are going to play today. Mother insists that we play like the children we are supposed to be. So what should we do. The trunk has a lot of dress up clothes and stuff; I noticed that there are even play guns and stuff."
"What are you suggesting Jethro," asks Derek?
"Why don't we do something that might help else keep our skills? We could play cops and robbers."
There is a bunch of guffaws and chortles at this remark by this group of federal justice agents who solve some of the country's most savage crimes. Don says, "My dad said that I played that a lot when I was a child and that's why they got me into baseball. To encourage me not to shoot and be a cop, I enjoyed playing baseball but I did finally become the federal cop they were so afraid for me to be. I don't know if I remember how to play cops and robbers."
"It'll come back to you little boy." Don takes a swing at Derek for that remark. "Hey, hey you are the youngest here."
"Exactly, that's why I can hit you but you can't hit me."
"Is that right?"
"Yeah, you are older and more responsible and should know better than to hit your little brother."
"You are right." He instead grabs him by the head and puts him in a headlock and then a noogie on the head before letting him loose. Don then tries to return the favor but the other guys get in between them.
"Come on, we don't need to fight amongst ourselves."
"I like the idea though about playing cops and robbers, it could help us keep our skills up. But who is going to be the cops and who the robbers?"
"We could make it by lottery." He gets up and picks up a game of Chinese checkers and pulled out three light blue marbles and two red marbles and put them into a yatzee cup. He comes back to the others and puts the cup between them. "the blue marbles are cops and red marbles are robbers." The others just look at him.
Growling slightly, Jethro says, "Give me that." He closes his eyes and pulls out a marble which he hides in his hand. He passes the cup over to Aaron, who repeats his actions. The next to get the cup is Don who then passes it to Derek. After which Derek returns the cup to Tim who pulls out the last marble. After Tim picks out his marble, the guys all open their fists and look at the five marbles in the palms. There is a blue marble in Jethro, Aaron and Tim's palms which puts the red into Derek and Don's palms.
"Okay, we know what we are. So how do you want to do this, " asks Aaron?
Derek says, "Since Don and I are the bad guys, we have to go find another place to discuss what kind of crime we want to do. This place here can be the police station." More smiles and chuckles are heard when he says that.
Don gets up and the two men leave the clubhouse/police station.
"Now that they are gone, what kind of crime do you think they will come up with?"
"I don't know, what do you profile them to do Aaron?"
"I do try not to profile my fellow agents or in this situation, my brothers."
Don and Derek leave the boys room and goes to the dining room where they create a hideout under the table.
Derek asks, "What kind of crime should we do?"
Don says, "I was thinking of a kidnapping."
"What?"
"I thought we could kidnap Emily's baby doll." Derek opens his eyes wide and laughs.
"I think that is inspired."
"We are supposed to be siblings and family and don't big brothers pick on their little sister's toys? I don't really know. I had a little brother and he had a different kind of toys than normal kids."
"I did have two little sisters and I remember teasing them by taking their dolls. How do you want to do this?"
The boys continue to discuss how they want to do their crime against Emily.
Emily is playing sweetly in the living room in the corner that had a little house set up. Nikki was playing with her but had set up her own little house and the two 'girls' were having fun playing mommy. Jimmy got bored with his blocks and came to play with her by pretending to be the man of her house. Nikki thought that she might want a man of her house too and goes to the boys room to find one of the boys to pretend to be her husband.
"Hello guys." She looks around and sees that Don and Derek aren't there and three 'boys' pointing their water guns at here. "Hey I didn't mean to interrupt anything but I wondered if you want to play with us in the living room. Emily and Palmer are playing house and I was set up in another house and wondered if one of you could play house with me."
Three guns come down and Jethro says, "Sorry about that but we are playing cops and robbers. Don and Derek have gone out to be the robbers and I guess we thought they might have come back."
"You can still play that and one of you can play house with me too.
"I don't know if I remember how to play house. It has been a long time since I was married or living with someone else," says Jethro.
Aaron says, "It hasn't been that long for me but I really don't want to play house with you. Sorry Nikki."
Tim says, "I have never been married but I did play house when I was younger with my little sister although she was the one who made the decisions as to what we would do."
"Well, you can be my husband who is a police officer and will come home to lunch and dinner and spend time with our babies. I'll see you soon for tea and remember to bring your partners." Nikki turns around as the boy men just look at her with open jaws and slightly shocked faces as to what she said. After she has left they look at each other.
"Tea?," is the word that each man said to one another and then slightly groan at the thought of sitting down and having tea with Nikki and the dolls.
Back in the living room, Nikki goes back to her house after going to Emily's 'house' and inviting her to tea when the boys come out. She proceeds to continue to play with the dolls and to prepare her 'tea'. From the dining room, our robbers are looking into the room watching through the slit in the door when they are bumped by Sinclair looking at them.
"What are you two up to skulking in the door?
Derek says, "We are playing a game with the other guys and trying to keep away from them right now. We need to keep ourselves hidden. What have you been doing?"
"I am doing a chore with Jennifer. We are doing the laundry and I came in for a drink. What kind of game are you playing."
"We are playing cops and robbers and are representing the robbers. We are deciding upon what kind of crime we want to do."
Sinclair nods his head in thought and asks, "What are thinking about?"
"Do you have a suggestion?"
"No, just curious as what you are thinking about."
"We don't want to tell anyone because we want it to be a complete surprise for everyone involved and even those not involved."
"Okay, but don't get hurt and don't hurt anyone else. Have fun because I have to go back to work." He walks through the door to head back to the laundry area where Jennifer is taking a load out of the dryer and putting another one in from the washer. Sinclair starts another load of washing and helps her fold the dried clothes.
The other older children are doing other chores or playing separately. Ducky and Rossi are both working in the garden in the back yard, weeding and pruning the vegetable patch. Twelve year old Charlie is mowing the front lawn while thirteen year old Ziva is pruning the bushes and flowers in the front lawn. Penelope is actually playing by herself in the girls' room. She is playing with the Barbie doll collection.
It is after ten but not yet eleven in the morning and Tony is playing in his car but getting very tired and all of a sudden his head slumps down and causes a horn to beep loudly. Big brothers Spender and Colby come over to take his head off of the noisy horn while the other children in the house come rushing into the room and over to the play pen. Sinclair reaches down and takes the man baby out of the toy and then hands him to momma who has come in. She has been watching her 'children' in a private screening area which gives her complete privacy to watch without interfering in their play. She takes her baby to the back room and changes his diaper, feeds him a bottle and puts him in his cradle for a morning nap. While she is feeding him his bottle, Sinclair brings the other babies into the nursery to change their diapers and they are each given a small snack and kept in the nursery to play quietly in the room. Jennifer takes little Abby to the bathroom to go potty and then has Emily and Jimmy use the potty as well.
It is during this time when our robbers decide to perpetrate their crime of kidnapping Emily's baby doll. The other boys have gone back into their clubhouse and Nikki goes to the girls' room to ask Penelope to join in the tea party that she is giving in a few minutes. Derek does a lookout while Don heads to Emily's playhouse and picks up the doll.
"mamaaaaa," the doll cries out softly. Derek looks over to Don and motions to keep the doll quiet. Don responds by looking at him and mouthing sorry. He wraps the doll and very gently picks it up so that it doesn't make any more noise. The boys quickly go back to the dining room to their hangout. They hide the doll in the dining room credenza in a cabinet. They lie it down on a bed of linens and close the door to it. They go to the dining room door to once again look through the crack into the living room.
The playpen is kept empty while Nikki begins to set up her tea for the younger children in the house. Emily comes back into the living room and goes to her play house to check on her baby and sees it gone.
"Nikki, have you seen my doll?"
"It's right there in its cradle."
"No, it's gone."
"What do you mean it's gone? Where would it go? It can't just get up and walk out on it's own." She goes over to Emily's house and begins to look around with Emily. She notices a small note attached to the doll's changing table. It reads, 'If you want your baby back then put one dozen chocolate chip cookies in a bag and wait for my call. Signed the robbers. Nikki laughs and says "Oh no, they didn't."
"They didn't what?" Nikki hands the note over to Emily. Who laughs as well but then gets back into her little girl character and sobs "My baby has been kidnapped."