Hey guys!

So... I kinda lied? There's actually one more chapter after this, before the epilogue. I ended up writing more than I anticipated? I would say "oops", but I guess that's better for you guys! Plus, take it as kind of an apology for not writing more over the summer, haha.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter!

As soon as the words came out of Ziva's mouth, Gibbs felt his heart momentarily stop.

Run away? He… he supposed he could understand if the children weren't happy being at the home. After all, they'd recently lost their parents, had been taken into witness protection, and were now living somewhere completely unfamiliar, not making many friends (if any at all). Jessica was a closed off child, and was probably getting more and more closed off the longer she stayed there. Andrew, on the other hand, was getting more agitated, was easier to anger, and from what little he'd heard from the boy he was having regular nightmares that stopped him from being able to sleep. The children weren't happy at all, and the other children at the home… they weren't that accommodating of the two newcomers when they weren't trying to settle in.

But still, that didn't mean they should run away. After all, that was the only place that they could be visited, the only place where people knew exactly where they were. It was the one place they were where Gibbs knew for a fact they would be taken care of, the one place Gibbs knew that Andrew's slowly adjusting diet would be followed to the tee and he wouldn't be left to fend for himself, the one place where he knew they would have warm meals, a bed and a roof over their heads.

The tense silence was almost suffocating, and the woman beside Gibbs cleared her throat, bowing her head and frowning slightly at the situation that had arisen. "Well, I should be heading back to the office now," she said, trying to move past the agents.

That seemed to snap Gibbs out of his reverie. "Ziva, escort Ms Fischer out of the building," he ordered, ushering the woman out of the door before moving to head down the corridor. "DiNozzo, McGee, with me."

The two male agents briskly walked after Gibbs, hot on his heels as they headed back to the bullpen whilst Ziva began to escort the woman out of the building.

As soon as they reached the bullpen, Gibbs began barking out orders.

"McGee, get a BOLO out on the kids! They're witnesses of a murder where the murderers still have contacts outside prison. DiNozzo, head over to Virginia's, go into their rooms, look through their stuff for anything that could give reason as to why they ran away or where they're heading." He tossed Tony the keys to the charger, barely even watching as Tony caught the keys single-handedly and briskly left the bullpen, bag and coat in hand.

As soon as he heard the elevator open, Gibbs grabbed his own bags and coat and began to head out of the bullpen with his keys. "McGee!"

"Yes, Boss!"

"When Ziva gets back, tell her to contact the schools and head over there to search! You start looking through traffic cams for any sign of those kids."

"Yes, Boss!"

With a single nod, Gibbs headed out of the bullpen and towards the elevator, jumping in before the doors could close completely and heading down to the garage. Maybe Tony would be looking at the home, and Ziva at the school, but Gibbs knew the other people the kids would've been in contact with. So he had ideas of where they would go.

Tony sighed as he pulled up to the children's home, quickly switching off the engine and climbing out of the vehicle, gloves in his back pocket. He quickly shut the car door and moved up the pathway towards the front door, noticing the flurry of activity. He quickly made his way up to the front door and headed inside to the reception area, heading straight to the desk. He pulled his badge out of his inside pocket to show to the woman sitting there, making calls.

"Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo of NCIS," he announced, which caused the woman to quickly end her call and focus on him.

"Oh thank God, you're finally here," she breathed, looking frenzied. "I've called the police, but they haven't arrived yet. I thought since they were involved in a case of yours, you could help."

"Do you remember the last time you saw them, Miss…"

"Wilson," the woman answered. "Mrs Wilson. And the last time I saw them was when they left for school yesterday. Andrew didn't mention anything about being out with friends or staying over at someone's for a night, but one of the other children told us that he'd told them so at school. I didn't think anything was wrong until their schools called me to tell me that the children hadn't turned up at school that day. I waited until the time they would usually arrive from school, but when I realised they had actually disappeared… well, I called the police as soon as I could, but I wasn't sure how long they'd been gone…"

Tony nodded as he quickly pulled out a pad and started noting all of this down. "And you didn't notice anything strange about his behaviour before he and his sister ran away…?" Tony asked.

"Not exactly. Those two have been mostly quiet anyway, so I didn't hear or see anything different about their behaviours…"

Tony nodded slowly. "Would it be okay if I have a look at their rooms, see what stuff they took?"

Mrs Wilson nodded, standing from her seat behind the desk. "Of course; let me show you to their room." At the look on the Special Agent's face, the woman elaborated: "The two of them asked to share a room when they got here. They were very attached and didn't seem to mingle well with the other children."

Tony nodded slowly, noting that mentally. There seemed to be a lot about the children's stay here that he didn't know about…

Maybe he should ask Gibbs about it when he gets back with is findings, he thought as he followed the receptionist towards the staircase and upstairs to the bedrooms.

Returning to the bullpen, Ziva wasn't surprised at all to see that McGee was the only one left of the three male agents – she'd assumed that the other two would've gone out to look for the kids personally.

What she didn't expect was for Gibbs to leave a task behind for her to complete. After all, those left behind usually got stuck with computer work and putting out BOLOs and the like. In other words, what McGee was doing.

"Gibbs wants you to head down to the schools and see if you can find anything there," McGee informed her as he kept his eyes glued to the screen, looking for any sort of indication of where the children could be on the traffic cameras in the area. So far, he hadn't come up with much, if anything at all.

Ziva raised a single eyebrow, silently wondering why McGee wasn't doing that instead, but nodded, grabbing her bag and coat and heading down to the garage. Within twenty minutes, she'd reached Jessica's school, heading straight in to the reception area. The woman who greeted her there was friendly enough – maybe not so helpful, but friendly.

"Oh, Miss Parkson? Oh that sweet child – I haven't seen her smile since before her parents died, the poor soul. Always smiling, that one was. Always talking, and very friendly. Never had a bad word against her name. And very bright, too – I was always passing on messages to her parents about how well she was doing in her classes for her teachers…" The woman's brow furrowed slightly. "She didn't turn up to school today, which I found very strange. Very difficult to miss her in a crowd, what with her red hair. I called the home, but they said she wasn't there." The woman put her hand to her cheek. "The poor thing. I hope she's alright."

Ziva offered the woman a smile. "We do also, but we need as much information about Jessica as possible," she told the woman gently. "Is there any way to find out where exactly she would have been in the school."

The woman was quiet for a few moments (something very surprising to Ziva) before she began typing away at her computer. "I can obtain her class schedule for you. It lists all her teachers and their classrooms. They should all still be here."

Ziva's smile became relieved as the woman began to print off the class schedule for her. "Thank you very much," she told the other woman. "Is there any chance I could also get directions to the rooms?"

"Oh, I'll print off a map for you as well, dearie."

Within a couple of minutes, two sheets of paper were set down in front of Ziva – one with Jessica's daily timetable, and the other with a map of the school. The female agent took them gratefully, smiling at the woman at the desk.

"Thank you very much."

"Oh, not a problem, sweetie! You just find those children and make sure they're safe."

Ziva nodded, before beginning to head off to one of Jessica's teachers' classrooms. Even though she looked calm on the outside… Ziva desperately hoped that at least one of the teachers she was going to interview had some idea as to where Jessica had disappeared off to.

Knowing that Tony and Ziva were covering the schools and the home, Gibbs only had ideas of two more places that the children would disappear off to. One was definitely more likely than the other, he knew, but he had to go to both, just in case.

Pulling up in front of the house that he'd deemed more likely, Gibbs had barely turned off the engine when he climbed out of the car and slammed the door shut, heading straight up to the front door of the building. Knocking on the door, he didn't have to wait long before the door was opened to reveal Alice Miller, looking fairly confused.

"Uh… hello…?" she asked slowly.

"Hello, Alice," Gibbs greeted.

"Did my aunt do something?" she asked slowly. "I thought she was awaiting trial or something."

"No, not your aunt."

"My mom isn't here."

"Don't need your mom either."

"…And neither is Andy."

That made Gibbs pause, which in turn made the teenager's eyebrows rise.

"Oh, so you're looking for Andy?" She leaned on the doorframe, her arms folded. "Well he's definitely not here. Last time I saw him was at school yesterday." Her brows furrowed. "He looked really shifty and unsure, and didn't really talk much at all. I mean, he hasn't been talking much recently, but yesterday he was talking even less than usual. And when we actually did talk… he was saying stuff about how he couldn't stay there anymore…"

Gibbs would've asked where, but he had a feeling he knew exactly where there was.

"Did he give you any indication of where he was heading next?"

The girl shook her head.

Gibbs nodded. "You got my number?"

"I think so."

"Call me if anything changes."

The teen nodded, watching Gibbs as he half-jogged back to the car, climbing straight in and starting the car before heading to his next destination.

Tony barely had to ask for directions before he reached the room Andrew and Jessica shared – it was the only bedroom on the landing without any sort of decoration on the door other than a piece of paper stating their names.

Pushing the door open, Tony didn't know whether to be surprised or disappointed that the room seemed pretty bare, considering how long the children had been there. The only sign that the children had been living there at all was the fact that there were still sheets on the bed, despite them being ruffled as if they had been used. There were some clothes spread out on the beds, but other than that Tony could see no obvious clue that the two of them had run away.

Pulling on a pair of latex gloves, he took a deep breath. "Let's get searching, then."

Ziva sighed as she walked out of the elementary school, notepad tucked into her back pocket with a pen as she headed for her car. She'd had no luck so far in finding anything – none of the teachers recalled anything about Jessica, other than the fact that she was perhaps quieter than usual. Not a huge help to Ziva considering that meant they didn't hear anything about her thinking of running away. Not even the school's counsellor knew anything, which Ziva thought was fairly appalling considering the counsellor was supposed to be seeing Jessica regularly.

After getting into her car, it didn't take too long for her to reach the high school, where Andrew was now a student. Climbing out of the car, she took a deep breath.

If the children were running away, it was more likely that Andrew had everything to do with it and was pulling his sister along than the other way around. Which meant that she would probably find more clues here. Hopefully.

Walking into the reception, she wasn't surprised to see the receptionist typing away at her computer – most likely sending emails to the many parents of the students attending that school. When she heard the clicking of Ziva's boots, she looked up.

"Hello," the woman started, giving Ziva a polite smile, "I'm sorry, but it's after school hours. I'm afraid I may be unable to help you."

"Oh, I'm sure you'll still be able to help me," Ziva corrected with a polite smile on her own. "I'm here to try and find out some information on Andrew Parkson…"

Hope you enjoyed it! Please review!