Please see Chapter 1 for warnings and disclaimers.

A/N: Many thanks to all of the kind readers that have PM'd to ask after this story and when I am going to continue it! It has really motivated me to try and overcome the writers block connected with this fic. I will admit to having really lost my stride on this one but hopefully that doesn't show too badly in this chapter. I know where I want this story to go...I'm just having trouble writing it. A big thank you to Chelsea for helping me out with the scene with Abby.

Chapter 7

Ashlynn's chin dropped to her chest. She knew it had been just too good to be true. Four whole days with nothing getting hinky or going sideways was just too much to expect. She didn't even want to answer her little brother.

The final day with Pappy Jack had gone well. Though Gibbs had confiscated the bottle of champagne meant for her birthday, there had been nothing else said about her attempt to sneak out. Sunday they had seen Pappy Jack off with promises to see each other soon. The workweek had started out smoothly and Ashlynn was relieved to realize that the anger she'd been internalizing had dissipated. Gibbs and she were on good terms. She was no longer grounded. No one was in trouble. Life was good. Unfortunately, the teen had a very bad feeling that all of that was about to change.

"Ash?" Cam said, drawing his sister back to the present. "Did you hear me?"

"I'm not sure."

"You know how you owe me for covering for you when you wanted to get away from the FBI? Well, I'm ready to collect."

Yep. That's exactly what she had thought he said and somehow Ashlynn seriously doubted that this would bode well for either of them. She looked at the clock. Gibbs was due home any time now. Why oh why couldn't he have shown up five minutes early?

"What did you have in mind?"

"You know how I've been wanting to go to the skate park with the guys?"

"Yeah, Dad said we'd try to arrange it as soon as we could. It's kinda hard when you're in aftercare, Cam."

"Exactly. Well, there's this new skate park opening. It's actually walking distance from here and from the school, not even a couple of miles."

"Okay," Ashlynn had a sinking feeling in her stomach.

"Ryan and a couple of other guys wanna skip school this week and check it out. It would be so much cooler when there weren't a bunch of other kids there."

"Cam, that's a really bad idea."

"Oh, come off it Ash you can't tell me you actually think skipping one day of school is that big of a deal."

"No, but getting caught skipping school by Dad. That would be a big deal."

"Duh! That's why I need to call in my favor. I need your help at getting away with it. You owe me."

Ashlynn put one hand over her face. "Really? Honestly? You're going to do this to me?"

Cameron just gave her that unwavering look that reminded her of Gibbs.

She sighed heavily. Skipping one day of school really wasn't that big a deal and it wouldn't be that hard to get away with. She could email his teacher an excuse and redirect the automated call that the school always sent when a student was absent. They could make up an excuse about Cam going to Ryan's after school to work on a project. Honestly it really wouldn't be that difficult and surely it was better, if her brother was going to skip, that at least she knew where he was. "You'll take your cell phone, you guys will stick together, and you swear to go no where besides the skate park."

"Triple yes," Cam said with a grin.

***NCIS***NCIS***NCIS***NCIS***

Ashlynn was on edge all of Thursday. Cam had promised to text as soon as he was safely at Ryan's house.

"What is up with you?" Abby demanded clocking her with a balled up piece of paper.

"What?"

"Oh gee I don't know maybe I find it ever so slightly odd that you haven't said anything beyond 'Uh, huh,' or 'Yeah,' in the last twenty minutes. Or it could be that you just agreed that Tony's new pink hair color goes well with his purple heels and orange nails. Or possibly I'm curious why you keep checking your phone every thirty seconds."

"Tony has pink hair?"

"You haven't even heard a word I've said in the last half hour have you?" the Goth demanded her arms crossed and an accusing glare on her face.

"Sorry. I'm kind of expecting to hear from someone."

"A certain Greek someone?" Abby waggled her eyebrows suggestively at Ashlynn, giving the girl a knowing grin, immediately forgiving her for her inattentiveness.

"Maybe," Ashlynn said with a smile of her own. She wasn't being completely dishonest. She did expect to hear from Thales today, although it was a text from her younger brother that she was really hoping to see.

"So, Missy, have you spilled the beans to Gibbs about your young Greek demigod's visit to the states yet?"

"No, I don't want to give him too much time to think about it. It won't be until after my birthday anyway," the teen shrugged. "How about you? Anymore face time with GQ?"

"Maybe," Abby parroted Ashlynn's words back at her. In truth it was ALL she could think about. Grayson was just so...perfect for her. Well outside of his kind of yuppie, businessman, ken doll look, but if she had learned anything in her life it was that you couldn't judge a book by its cover. Besides his cover was rather hot, though not exactly what she normally went for.

Still what was more important was that he GOT her and she GOT him, and he was sooo exciting...just thinking about him throwing himself off the top of a building with NO fear sent chills up her spine. She couldn't wait to try that, though she was just a bit concerned about Gibbs finding out. After her spending a week on crutches following an attempt at bungee jumping, Gibbs had threatened her with dire consequences should she ever get it in her head to throw herself off any high places for purely recreational reasons, particularly without taking the appropriate safety precautions. Of course she had every intention of taking the appropriate safety precautions so really there was nothing to worry about.

"Good for you," Ash said smiling. Well aware that Abby had just taken a mental trip to somewhere and curious if the animated forensic scientist was going to share the details without further prompting.

"He's just sooo great...and so me," Abby explained her hands gesticulating wildly to emphasize her point. "We're kind of the same you know? He's all about his job and I'm all about my job so he totally gets all the time I spend here and me having to rush in when I get a call from our fearless leader. It's sort of the same with him with his clients but when he has free time he makes it count. He's all about living life to it's fullest."

"Sounds like you really like him."

"Yeah, I kind of do, but I don't know," Abby was wringing her hands. "I'm kind of gun shy, you know? I mean I've had some really crummy experiences and I so don't want to get into something that's just going to end badly with one or the other of us…well, you know," Abby rolled her eyes expressively.

"No guts no glory Abs," Ash said with a shrug. "What happened to living life to its fullest?"

"You're right." Abby said stepping forward to give Ashlynn a hug, "Thanks. I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm not usually like this when it comes to guys."

"No problem. I just have one question."

"What's that?"

"Does Tony really have pink hair?"

"You got something for me, Abs?" Gibbs voice startled both the young women.

With a tap of her fingers Abby answered, "Of course," and proceeded to fill him in on her most recent discoveries on their current case.

***NCIS***NCIS***NCIS***NCIS***

"How was school?" Gibbs asked before taking a bite of meatloaf.

"It was really cool cause we did a 'speriment today," AJ answered around a mouthful of mashed potatoes.

"Swallow before you talk," Gibbs stated gruffly.

The boy did and continued on as if there had been no interruption. "And we got to watch a movie and Peter had a birthday so his mom brought cupcakes."

"Always a good day when you get cupcakes," Gibbs commented with a grin for his youngest.

"Yep!"

"How about you, Cam?"

"It was okay. We put together a good game of ball at recess, and it was cool working with Ryan on that social studies project after school but I have a math test tomorrow and Ms. Lerrin gave us this really long study guide to finish."

"Best get at it right after dinner then," Gibbs suggested.

Cam wrinkled his nose but didn't complain.

Ashlynn silently sighed in relief. That had all gone down rather smoothly. Cam was just as good an actor as Deirdre or herself.

"Bobby's coming to my aftercare, now!" AJ informed everyone excitedly.

"Really?" Ash was surprised, but happy for her brother that his best friend would now be joining him after school.

"Yeah, she got some sorta special somethin' cuz her dad was a Marine and died, and her mom don't even hardly gotta pay nuthin' and it's real good cuz she don't hafta deal with Terry no more."

"Something special, huh?" Ashlynn replied, pinning Gibbs with a knowing look. Just weeks ago he had lit into her for essentially paying a bribe to get the boys into the charter school but she'd lay odds that he'd pulled a few strings and/or called in a favor or two to make the arrangement for Bobby. Her blue green eyes twinkled in merriment as she smiled at her dad, who only raised a questioning eyebrow. His look gave nothing away but that in no way diminished Ashlynn's certainty.

***NCIS***NCIS***NCIS***NCIS***

Two weeks later, Ashlynn was astonished to find that life was still on an even keel. They had breezed by the ditching school incident without creating so much as a blip on the Gibbs radar. Ash was finding she actually liked at least parts of her internship. She had finished up her rotation with Ducky and spent some time with legal. To her tremendous surprise, her next assignment was cybercrimes. Somehow she had thought Vance would want to keep her as far away from the NCIS computers as possible.

Life had fallen into a somewhat predictable routine, which was just bizarre so far as Ashlynn was concerned. Her life had never been predictable or routine. Though what was perhaps most curious to the teen was the fact that she found herself rather comfortable with this more structured lifestyle.

Since her internship hours only went until five, and Gibbs was seldom done for the day by then, she would pick up the boys and one of the team members would drive them home or if no one was free they might take a cab. Gibbs had been reluctant to grant driving privileges just yet, and though this was frustrating, Ash wasn't overly bothered with the arrangement. Her birthday was drawing close after all.

On her two off days she even picked up the boys early so they would have time to play outside or ride their bikes. Ashlynn would make dinner and help her brothers with any uncompleted homework. Gibbs usually made it home for dinner and they'd get some family time before the boys needed to clean up for bed.

Since it wasn't one of her intern days and Abby was in court, Ashlynn sat in the bullpen reading her email on her laptop. Ziva and Tim were tracing down a lead on the most recent case, a young Marine had died of a drug overdose, which had led to the discovery of a drug ring within his battalion. There was currently some suspicion over whether his death was accidental or not. Gibbs was in MTAC and Tony sat at his desk, touching base with some of his contacts in the PD. Ashlynn watched the senior field agent surreptitiously. Despite his class clown persona, it was easy to see that he was good at his job.

"Dinozzo," he said, answering yet another call on his cell.

"No, Don, we had drinks last month, you know I don't have a kid. What?" Tony listened for a moment. "Light brown hair, blue eyes? Kind of mouthy? Yeah, thanks Don, I'll be right there."

Ashlynn looked at Tony quizzically.

"Any idea why your brother would be in arcade on E street in the middle of the day?" Tony asked.

Ashlynn's face lost all color. He wouldn't! But she knew her brother and she knew he would. She had paved the way and shown him how. How could she have been stupid enough not to realize that he'd do it again?

"Arcade?" She replied weakly.

"Yeah, arcade," Tony replied coming out of his seat with a glare. "And not in a very good part of town. As a matter of fact there was just a gang shooting two streets over. Apparently he and his friends just barely missed the excitement and then didn't want to give their names to local PD. Don recognized my name on the NCIS cap Cam's wearing."

"He's okay?"

"For now. Can't say he'll be that way for long once the boss get's a hold of him."

"I'm coming with you," Ashlynn said, closing her laptop and coming to her feet.

"Negatory. You are going to stay right here with the enviable mission of telling Gibbs where I've gone."

"Gee thanks."

Tony just grinned evilly at her as he punched the elevator button.

TBC...