"What?" Ellie said smiling. "Well, he's going to kill me if he finds out about this. Go to sleep."

After that they were both fast asleep and the house was in complete silence, in wonderful silence.

* * * ********* On the morning Jack woke up, made breakfast and got everyone into the car. They first went to Maria's to get Hannah and Kate into their school uniforms and then dropped them off, leaving Caia in kindergarden. Then Jack got Ellie to her class and he and Samantha got to the FBI just in time. They parked and shared the elevator up to Jack's floor, then she went up one more.

At two, Ellie stood just beside the elevator watching how her father had gathered his team around the conference table and was now giving instructions. No-one saw her, no-one heard her go into his office and sit on Jack's desk. Not until Jack wasn't at sight and Danny went in looking for him and finding the young woman instead.

She was puzzled, starring at a picture when Danny placed his hand on her shoulder and pointing at it asked "I'd never seen that picture before, do you know them?" And when Ellie looked at him with the same sad eyed she'd given Samantha the day before he added "I'm sorry, I'm Danny. Do you know where Jack is?"

"I'm Ellie. I think he's using the bathroom...mmm...yeah, I know who they are," she said looking back down at the picture: A young woman with reddish hair and big brown (not too dark) eyes, and a little four year-old girl, the same eyes and dark, long, wavy, brown hair. Both smiling.

"Miss, you okay?" Danny asked in a sweet tone of voice.

"Yeah, I'm fine...just this picture. I would have never thought he still had it."

"I'd never seen it before, it's nobody I know."

Ellie just put down the picture she had taken from the back of one of Hannah and Kate and looking up at Danny, she noticed Jack standing on the doorway.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"It's fine," he said to her. "So, you've met."

To that Danny made a comment "Well, actually all I know is that her name is Ellie, but I don't know who she is."

"I can't believe you still have it," Ellie said, ignoring Danny and what he had just said. She had no intention of telling him she was his boss' daughter.

"There's a frame in the bottom drawer, you can use that. I didn't want to have to answer any questions but it's pointless now."

Jack knew exactly what Danny would ask. And Danny knew that if Jack didn't feel like answering he would just say something like that they had work to do

"What is it I'm missing here?"

"Danny...the girl is my daughter Ellie, this one is Terri, her mother," Jack answered, pointing at each person. "Fifteen years ago."

After blinking several times and a shallow 'oh', Danny gave Jack a file and walked away. He sat at his desk, looking towards the office.

"Check the lamp," Jack said as he sat on the coach.

From the lamp hanged a small cross, T-J-E craved vertically on one of the sides, a cross Ellie recognized immediately. Her mother had given one to her when she was little, and now her mother was gone, she had hers too. The only difference was the order in which the initials had been craved... She reached her pocket and took her mother's, hanging it from the lamp too.

"I made up my mind. If the offer still stands..."

"Of course you can stay."

"I should let you work. Do you want me to pick up the girls from school?"

"Maria's picking Hannah and Kate."

"Then I'll pick Caia, see you later J."

"Sure, just let Sam know."

* * *

Since then Ellie picked up from school Caia every day and Hannah and Kate twice a week.

* * *

MONDAY

"There's a new case, Jack," Paula Van Doren informed. "His parents and girlfriend called it in this morning. His name is Jesse Emerson."