Title: How To Relate

Rating: T just to be safe

Blah, blah, blah, disclaimer stuff, blah: Just in case these things actually do something... I own nothing except my super-cool ideas. The NCIS universe belongs to Bellisario (a genius, btw) all I did was come up with a new obstacle course for the characters to play on.

Chapter 10

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back.

From the observation room, Tony gazed intently through the two-way mirror. Now that he had been reminded who Carol Trahey was, he was rifling through his memories of her, trying to think of any possible reason the girl sitting in interrogation on the other side of the glass would have to want him dead. He was drawing a blank.

Images of a kind blond woman with an infectious laugh and warm brown eyes flashed through his mind. Carol had liked him, of that he was fairly certain. And he had never known her daughter, never even knew she had a daughter. In fact, Ali probably hadn't even been born the last time he saw Carol. So why on earth would she now be trying to kill him?

His reflections were interrupted as McGee and Ziva joined him.

"Well," McGee began, sounding slightly amused, "I guess you were about due for something weird, Tony. My bet would've been a kidnapping or something, but I guess a crazy stalker works too."

Tony just harrumphed and turned back to the glass.

Gibbs strode into interrogation.

"Special Agent Gibbs." Ali began, rising.

"Sit." She obeyed. He threw a file down on the table. "I gather you know who I am."

She nodded, looking a bit apprehensive. "By… reputation, mostly."

"Good. Nothing I hate more than having to explain myself." He stared at her, hard. She flinched a little, at first, but then brought her green eyes to meet his icy blue, resolutely.

"Look, Agent Gibbs. I don't know why I'm here, but there has to be some kind of mistake. I haven't done anything."

"Nothing huh? How about harassment? Stalking? Intimidation? Criminal threatening? Attempted murder?" Gibbs spat out the last phrase.

She drew back, looking shocked. "What? Murder?! I… I don't-"

"That's what I can charge you with, to start with. Doesn't sound like nothing to me."

"You know, it's weird." McGee mused. "For a crazy stalker, she seemed pretty nice."

Ziva shrugged. "It is always the nice ones. That is what they say, correct?"

Tony turned toward her, a small smile on his face. "Actually, they say it's always the quiet ones, Zee-vah. But I'll give you this one because I think you got the general principle right."

Down in the forensic lab, the thermal cycler that was running Abby's unofficial test gave a telltale beep, indicating it had found a match.

Abby's eyes widened as she read through the results.

"No way! No. Freakin'. Way."

"What I want to know is why?" Gibbs grilled her. "Did he reject you, huh? Did he put away someone close to you? What is it?"

Ali looked perplexed.

Gibbs slammed his hands down on the table, raising his voice. "Why are you stalking Agent DiNozzo?"

"Agent DiNozzo? Tony? I'm not- Wait! Are you saying that someone tried to kill Tony?" Ali seemed genuinely distressed. "What- Is… is he ok?"

Gibbs didn't answer, just stared her down.

Ali was taken aback. "You think I had something to do with this? I didn't. I swear! Why would I?"

Gibbs shrugged, almost casually. "I thought you could answer that for me. And then maybe you can tell me why someone with your credentials is working here as a mail clerk."

Ali exhaled. "It's… it's a really long story."

Gibbs leaned forward. "Oh, we've got plenty of time." He promised, giving her his most intimidating glare.

Looking straight at him, she answered. "It's not what you think."

"Really? Cuz I think that you're working here because of DiNozzo."

"Ok." Ali frowned. "Maybe it is sort of what you think. Do I need a lawyer or something?"

"Depends. Did you do something wrong?"

"No."

"Then why would you ask for a lawyer?"

Ziva turned to McGee. "McGee, why do you think a woman like Ali would be after Tony?"

McGee pretended to think. "Tony would probably claim it's because he's irresistible."

Tony shook his head reproachfully. "Don't steal my jokes, McPilfer. It doesn't suit you."

"But," McGee continued, "in general I would say he'd probably driven her crazy with his incessant movie quotes and childish behavior."

"Well, you're right about one thing. I am pretty good at driving women crazy." Tony gave a suggestive grin.

His teammates scoffed and turned back to the interrogation.

"You drove past Tony's place last night."

"Yes. I did." Ali admitted, seeming surprised that Gibbs knew.

"Four times." It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"Seems an awful lot like stalking." Gibbs' eyes bored into hers.

"I wasn't… I just… I wanted to talk to him. But he wasn't home."

"You never went to the door. How would you know he wasn't home? Unless you knew he was in the hospital because you were the one who tried to kill him last night."

"No! I just figured that he wasn't there because I didn't see his car."

"So, you know what car Tony drives? That's not helping your case here."

Ali gave a sigh. "Well, of course I know what he drives. I couldn't help but notice a car like that. A 1967 Camaro 350 isn't exactly inconspicuous, you know."

Gibbs allowed himself a slight eye roll. DiNozzo did have a taste for ostentatious cars.

Abby rushed out the door of her lab, results in hand and pigtails flapping madly. In front of the elevator door, she punched the up button several times in quick succession. As she waited for the car to come to her level she tapped her toes anxiously and then did a little dance in place.

"Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on." She chanted impatiently.

Unable to wait any longer, she made a dash for the stairs. Tearing up the steps and through the hall toward interrogation, her lab coat billowing out comically behind her, the forensic scientist ran smack into someone as she rounded a corner.

Her mind processed that she had just bowled over Jed from evidence lockup and she called out a quick "Sorry!" over her shoulder, but didn't stop or even slow down. As he righted himself, she vaguely heard him shout something after her about crazy people and too much caffeine.

Oh well. She'd have to make it up to him later. This was much more important.

"I should never have come to D.C. This whole thing was a mistake." Ali buried her head in her hands.

"Going after one of my people is always a mistake." Gibbs growled.

Ali's head snapped up and she fixed him with a scowl of her own. "You don't understand. It's not like that at all."

"Then what's it like? Explain."

The door to observation suddenly flew open with such force that it hit the far wall. Tony, McGee, and Ziva all turned to look, surprised, as Abby burst into the room.

"Ok everybody, hold the phone! I've got something good!" She announced, panting slightly, her hair askew.

Ziva looked around the room, confused. "What phone are you referring to, Abby?"

"It's an expression, Ziva. It means to stop what we're doing." Tony explained patiently. He turned to Abby. "What is it, Abbs?"

"This!" Abby waved the paper in her hand excitedly. "I ran all the way here after I got these results, and let me tell you it wasn't the easiest thing. These platforms are a good 4 inches, and definitely not the best for running in. I really do need to keep more appropriate footwear around here for occasions like these, you know? I mean, I keep extra clothes around, so maybe a decent pair of sneakers would be a good idea. Ooh or some cozy slippers could be handy. Well, not for running, obviously, but just for comfort's sake-"

"Abby." Tony broke in as soon as Abby paused to take a breath. "What results?"

"Well, first of all, for those of you who weren't convinced that Ali really is who she says she is; unless she's some sort of super-secret spy who's connected with some really good hackers-which I seriously doubt- I can say for sure that she definitely is Allison Trahey from Oak Park, Illinois. But-" She paused dramatically. "She may be something more. I found something when I ran the hair for DNA. I was running it against every database I could think of to see if-"

Tony interrupted. "Wait, hair? What hair? Whose hair?"

"Ali's hair, of course." Abby rolled her eyes as if that should have been obvious.

Tony looked perplexed. "How did you get Ali's hair?"

"Ziva gave it to me. She wanted me to see if Ali was related to any ex-cons who might be after you."

Tony turned to the Israeli. "Ziva, do I want to know how you got Ali's hair?"

"Well, yesterday, in the elevator-" Ziva began.

"You know what?" Abby interrupted what was sure to be a highly entertaining anecdote. "It doesn't really matter right now, because what I found… is big. Really, really big. Huge, even. Enormous. Massive. Colossal. It's so big, it-"

"You guys, listen." McGee cut short Abby's rant. He'd been paying attention to Gibbs and Ali on the other side of the glass. The others leaned in, now focusing on the interrogation too.

"What did she just say?"

"What did you just say?" Gibbs asked, not quite believing his ears.

"Tony… Agent DiNozzo… is my brother." Ali repeated.

"Your brother?" Gibbs replied, incredulous.

"Well… half. Brother. We- we have the same father."

Absolute stunned silence permeated the room on the other side of the mirror until Abby cut in, brightly.

"Ok, well she totally stole my thunder."

"Abby?" Ziva asked. "You knew this?"

"Well, I didn't actually know it till my babies told me, but I knew something was hinky with this whole thing. I could feel it in my bones."

"In your bones?" McGee asked.

"What? Gibbs feels things in his gut; I feel things in my bones."

"And what makes you think that Tony's father is your father?" Gibbs questioned.

"Well, before I was born, my mother was his secretary. She died when I was young and my grandmother never told me who my father was. I'm not even sure whether she knew. But after my grandmother passed away last year, I found some old things of my mother's in a box up in the attic."

"Things." Gibbs raised his eyebrows.

"Her diary, some letters, things like that. I read them, and, well, I just kind of figured it out. And I went to go see him."

"Him?"

"Anthony DiNozzo Sr. My… father. Wow. It's still kind of weird to say."

The team all turned to look at Tony.

He hadn't moved since hearing Ali's revelation and was staring through the mirror in astonishment.

"Tony?" Abby started toward him.

Tony didn't appear to have heard her.

She touched his arm. "Tony? Are you ok?"

He turned to her, still looking dazed. "Is it true, really?"

"Oh, it's true." Abby was adamant. "You two share a parent. Of course, considering I don't actually have Daddy DiNozzo's DNA to run I can't be 100% conclusive, but the probability of someone randomly pretending to be your sister and then turning out to actually be such a close genetic match are… well, I can't think of the exact odds off the top of my head, but they've got to be pretty wild. Something like 1 in 500 million."

Tony rested his forehead against the glass with a very peculiar expression on his face.

Ali continued with her story. "I'm not sure why I wanted to meet him; I guess I thought maybe he'd want to meet me too. But he didn't. He first denied being my father, and then he thought I wanted money. I don't know if I expected him to greet me with open arms, but he didn't want anything to do with me."

"Didn't want anything to do with her." Tony muttered. "Well, she's clearly met my father," he proclaimed to the room at large, not for a second pulling his attention away from the drama unfolding across the way.

"So you came to D.C. to meet Tony?"

"Yeah, well in the letters my mother had mentioned a son. Tony. I was curious so I tracked him down, but I was afraid that he might react the same way that… our father did if I told him who I was. I wanted to get to know him, but I didn't want to just come in and mess up his life."

"Yeah, she's definitely been talking to my father." This was said in a slightly bitter tone of voice, but Tony still looked bewildered by the turn of events.

Ziva folded her arms. "Tony, even if she is your half-sister, it does not mean she could not still be the one trying to kill you."

Abby shook her head emphatically. "No. That's something else I came to tell you guys. I checked the security footage from Monday for the time you were at the crime scene, and Ali was here at work the whole day. There's no way that she could've been the one who tried to run Tony down. Which is good and bad, I guess, because it means we're back to zero suspects."

"She could have an accomplice." Ziva persisted stubbornly.

"Oh come on Ziva, give it up. She's not Ari." Tony told her sharply, immediately regretting it when he saw the hurt on her face. "Ziva wait, I didn't mean..."

Ziva ignored him and stepped out of the room.

McGee watched her go then looked back at Tony. "Wow, Tony. That was a little harsh."

"I know!" Tony snapped, and then sighed, rubbing his temple with one hand. He was starting to get a headache. "I know, ok? I'll apologize to her later."

Making up his mind, he left the room too.

McGee and Abby let out twin gasps as they saw him open the door to the room on the other side.

"I don't think Tony has ever interrupted Gibbs in interrogation before." McGee looked at Abby for confirmation.

Abby shook her head slowly. "Nope. Never."

"So I took the job working here, just so I could maybe get to know him, and I was trying to get up the nerve to talk to him but I'm sure I screwed up any chance that he might want to get to know me. I acted so weird around him he probably thinks I'm a total freak now."

At that moment the door to interrogation opened and Tony slipped in. "No, he doesn't." He addressed Gibbs. "Boss, can I talk to her? Alone?"

Gibbs first instinct was to yell at Tony for disturbing him in interrogation, but the look on his second's face convinced him that it could wait. He gave a curt nod and left the room.

Tony slowly walked over to the chair Gibbs had just vacated and sat down in front of Ali. He studied her face. She looked equal parts eager and apprehensive.

He leaned forward and extended his hand. "Let's start over. Anthony DiNozzo. I guess I'm your brother. Nice to meet you."

A look of surprise flitted briefly across her face before being quickly replaced with a thrilled smile as she shook his hand. "Alison Trahey. I guess I'm your sister. And likewise."