Ok, so I'm super sorry, I know I suck for not updating sooner. But I had to fix my computer and that included moving EVERYTHING I had on there to another computer so that I wouldn't lose all of my files. And when I finally got that straightened out and went to write some more I couldn't access any of my stories, which freaked me out/pissed me off and so I left it alone for a few weeks. AND THEN I got really busy and was in North Carolina and didn't have my computer. SO I just finally go around to finishing this chapter and I'm sorry for making you guys wait soooo long. I hope you really like it and that everyone is still reading, it won't happen again (she says almost every time). But seriously, I will try to update more often.
If there is anything you can think of that you would like to see, just let me know and I will try to find a way to put it in there.

Be warned, there is a little bit of language in this chapter, but it's only one word I think, so not a big deal, but just know that it is there.

"So what's up?" Amelia asked as they got in the elevator, trying to figure out what Gibbs could want.

"I want to show you something," Gibbs told her vaguely as he pressed a button. The doors closed and the elevator took them up to a floor she had never been on.

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see," he told her as he led her through a plain door and up a flight of stairs. When they reached the top they walked through another door and she came to a dead stop. They were on top of the NCIS building and she could see for miles.

"Wow," she said bluntly as she walked over to the edge, starring out at the city in one direction and the river in the other. Gibbs followed,

"I know it's not New York, but I figured you might still like it," he told her. Amelia nodded,

"I do," she said simply. As a child her mother had taken her on the roof many times, it was a special place that the two of them shared where they could be alone. When they were up there her mother wasn't worried about the next party she was throwing or the latest Upper East Side gossip. She was just a mom who wanted to spend time with her daughter. They had spent countless hours on the roof of their building, playing board games or painting nails. They had once built a giant fort across the whole roof and had even let Matt and their dad in on that one. The family had eaten dinner and then camped out on the roof for the night. As she grew older there were less bored games and more gossip on the newest middle school drama. Amelia cherished those times with her mother as the woman was usually much too busy to spend time with her or pay her much attention.

Gibbs stood back a little and watched his daughter stare out at the city in front of her. The sun was setting, casting a magical glow on everything, and he could see tears in her eyes. After a few minutes he finally spoke up,

"Tony told me that Matt was at the school today," he said. Amelia turned around quickly,

"What are you talking about? Matt wasn't at school," she said, trying to play dumb, as if she had no clue what he was talking about.

"Don't lie to me Amelia," Gibbs warned, "He also told me that he heard you guys fighting." Amelia quickly switched from playing dumb to being pissed off,

"I can't believe he would tell you that! I told him not to tell!"

"This isn't first grade Amelia. He's not going to keep a secret like that just because you tell him not to."

"Well he should," she pouted, crossing her arms around her, pulling her coat closer.

"It's a good thing he didn't keep it from me, because you obviously weren't going to tell me."

"It doesn't matter; it's not a big deal," she said dismissively.

"It is a big deal Amelia. Your brother showed up at your school, drunk, and started accusing you of not caring about your parents. How is that not a big deal?" he looked at his daughter, her chin was trembling and tears were in the corner of her eyes, but he could tell that she was refusing to cry. He was impressed and proud of how strong she was right now, a lot of people would have broken down and cried already, but she was holding it in. Not that he really wanted her to hold it in, he would much rather she let it all out than have it eating away inside of her.

"I don't want to talk about it," she said shakily.

"Well I do. So you don't have to talk, but you're going to listen. What he said, none of it is true. You are allowed to make friends here, and to enjoy spending time with the people you see on a daily basis. You aren't forgetting about your parents if you make new friends and enjoy your life. That's what they would want for you. They just want you to be happy, no matter where you are. And by doing just that you are making your parents proud. So it's ok to be happy. Smile, laugh, make friends, you're never going to forget about them, they'll always have a special place in your heart, no matter what anyone says. Understand?" Amelia simply nodded and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.

"I don't like fighting with my brother," she said quietly after a few minutes. Gibbs nodded,

"I know. It's ok, he'll come around. He's just hurting from your parent's death and just doesn't know how to deal with it yet," he told her reassuringly. Amelia nodded again,

"Can we go? I'm kinda tired and still have homework to do." Honestly she was tired and she did have homework to finish, but really she just did not want to discuss her parents or brother anymore and that seemed like the perfect excuse.

"Sure, c'mon." Gibbs held the door open for her as she walked to the stairs, casting one more glance over her shoulder just as the sun disappeared below the horizon. They made their way back downstairs and to the car park. The ride back to the house was silent for the most part, Amelia spoke up every once in a while about something that happened during school, but never went into much detail. When they got home she refused dinner and went to her room to finish her homework before going to bed for the night.

Once Gibbs dropped Amelia off at school the next morning he went to work and had McGee trace Matt Covington's phone number. He was surprised to see that he was still in town, staying at a small hotel nearby. Deciding to take the morning off to pay his daughter's brother a visit he left Tony in charge before leaving the building. Tony had wanted to go with him and give Matt a piece of his mind for what went on yesterday, but Gibbs assured him that he would take care of it himself.

He flashed his badge when he got to the front desk and was given the room number quickly before making his way to the third floor and pounding on the door of room 315. After a few minutes of pounding the door finally opened, with Matt standing on the other side, looking very hung over, possibly even still drunk.

"What?" he asked rudely when he saw Gibbs, "I'm sleeping."

"At least you aren't yelling at your sister," Gibbs said. Matt looked at him oddly,

"What are you talking about dude?" Gibbs grimaced, trying to figure out if the young man in front of him was drunk enough to have forgotten the incident with Amelia yesterday, if it was possible he was a little high also, or if he was just still half asleep and not fully aware of everything yet. Deciding to give him the benefit of the doubt Gibbs explained,

"You met Amelia at school yesterday, started yelling at her for being happy, made her cry along the way and she's been moping around ever since," he said simply. Matt made a face,

"Hey, you know what, she deserved it. She's moving on and forgetting everyone else who has always been there for her, her whole damn life. She needed a reminder so I gave it to her. She'll get over it eventually," he answered angrily. Upon hearing him speak more Gibbs decided that he truly was drunk and no longer deserved the benefit of the doubt. Gibbs stepped closer and lowered his voice to a threatening tone,

"Listen here," he started, "You are not going to come around Amelia when you are drunk or high on drugs. You obviously can't control your emotions and I'm not going to have my daughter be exposed to that. If you want to see her or talk to her you can call me first and I will decide if you will be allowed, but I will not have you yelling at her like that and hurting her again. She has been through enough hurt lately and does not need more pain piled on top," Gibbs looked past him, into the hotel room and saw probably twenty beer bottles laying around along with several empty bottles of some kind of liquor, "You need to get your drinking under control and take responsibility before you put yourself or my daughter in danger or I'm not going to allow you to talk to her. I suggest you get to working on that. I don't want to keep her from seeing you, but I will if it keeps her safe." Without waiting for an answer Gibbs turned and walked back towards the elevator. As the doors slid shut he heard a loud scream and glass shattering against a wall.

Once he left the hotel Gibbs made his way back to NCIS slowly. He was still angry at Matt and did not want to take it out on his team. After driving around aimlessly for about twenty minutes he finally pointed his car in the direction of NCIS, feeling calm enough to go back to work and not kill his agents. As soon as he stepped off the elevator Tony started asking him questions,

"How'd it go boss?"

"Went fine DiNozzo, as fine as it can when you're talking to a drunken man."

"He was still drunk?" Tony asked disbelievingly, "He's not going to go find Amelia again is he?"

"He better not. I told him not to come around again until he had his drinking under control. I can't have Amelia exposed to that, it's not good for her." It was rare that Gibbs explained his actions to his team, but he felt that he needed to share this information with the three agents sitting at their desks, listening carefully. After all, if they all knew it was much more likely that they would be watching out for Amelia and be able to keep her safe, though they were very good at doing that already.

"Good, he doesn't deserve to see her if he's going to be a bastard," Tony said hatefully. It was obvious to Gibbs that his team had come to care about his daughter greatly in the short time she had been with him and it made him happy to know she had people he could trust looking out for her. Gibbs simply nodded and sat down at his desk, silently agreeing with Tony and his agents eventually all began working again.

The day passed slowly and Gibbs made sure to leave early to pick up Amelia, wanting to be there before she got out of school so he could make sure Matt didn't show up again. By the time the final bell rang and students started pouring out of the building Gibbs had not seen his daughter's brother and began to relax. He watched as Amelia walked out of the building with a few other people, smiling widely and laughing at something that had been said. She waved goodbye to her friends and started walking over to the car,

"Gibbs, guess what?" she said before he could even say anything to her.

"What?" he asked, completely unsure of what she wanted him to guess.

"I'm going to join the cross country team!" she told him excitedly, then hastily added, "If that's ok with you, of course." Gibbs smiled,

"Of course that's ok with me. I think it will be great for you to have an activity to do, and you will definitely be good at it. As long as your grades don't slip I have no problem with you joining cross country."

"Awesome! My grades won't slip, I swear! I have some papers for you to sign in my backpack and we have practices like every day after school, so you won't have to pick me up until later. And we have meets during the week and on the weekends, but you don't have to come to those since you have to work so much, I can just get a ride from someone else. My friend Riley is doing it also and she said her mom could drive us, and she gets her license soon, so she will be able to drive us by herself! It's going to be so great! The coach says I have a lot of potential and that he sees me doing great things! Can you believe that, he thinks I'm going to do great things! Of course I am though, I mean, I am pretty awesome so all of my actions must be great. Even the stupid ones, those are great in their own way!"

Gibbs starred at his daughter highly amused as she continued to ramble all the way to NCIS, never getting a word in until she stopped to talk to the security guard, Nick, who scanned her bag every day.

"How was your day?" he was finally able to ask as she waved to Nick.

"It was awesome! We did this really cool experiment in Chemistry today! Can I go see Abby? I want to tell her about it!" Gibbs nodded and she instantly took off for the stairs rather than the elevator. He shook his head slightly as he made his way to the bullpen, his daughter sure is something.

Amelia practically sprinted down the stairs and quickly burst into Abby's lab. Abby spun around when she heard the door open,

"Mia!" she said happily upon seeing the teenager. She had taken to calling Amelia by her nickname not long after she arrived and Amelia did not seem to mind at all.

"Abby! I have to show you what we did in school today! It was the coolest thing ever!"

"Ok!" Abby replied excitedly, she had no clue what had Amelia in such a good mood today, especially after what she had been told had happened yesterday, but she was not going to do anything to ruin it. She watched as Amelia recreated the experiment she had done in chemistry today. It was a fairly advanced experiment and Abby was a little surprised they were allowed to do it in a school setting but Amelia assured her that only the honors class was allowed to complete the experiment.

"You really like science, don't you?" Abby asked as she helped Amelia clean up. Amelia nodded,

"Yeah, it's my favorite class. And I'm really good at it, so it's easy, which is awesome!"

"Do you think you want to do some kind of job with science when you get older?" Amelia shrugged,

"Maybe, I've thought about it. My mom wanted nothing more than for me to become some trophy wife like she was, but she knew that was never going to happen. My dad always told her I had too much potential. Of course, he wanted me to be a lawyer, just like him. But it's not something I'm interested in as a career. I think I would really like to be a doctor though. My friend Jamie, her mom is a doctor and we got to shadow her at work one day; it was the coolest thing ever! She got to help so many people and I think I would like to be able to do that. So that's kind of science-y," Amelia finally finished.

"It is science-y," Abby agreed, using Amelia's made up word, "and I think you would be a very good doctor."

"Thanks Abby," Amelia said smiling. She was quiet for only a moment before she began telling Abby how she was joining cross country, which prompted another rambling session from the fifteen year old. It was shocking how much the teenager was like the Goth scientist when it came to their rambling. Amelia sure gave Abby a run for her money and no one wanted to get both of them going about something at the same time because at that point there was almost no way to get them to stop talking and whoever got stuck with them had to stand around for a while until they wore themselves out, which didn't happen very quickly.

For the next few hours Amelia hung out in Abby's lab doing her homework and watching Abby run evidence for an old case. Eventually Gibbs came down to the lab and told her it was time to go. She packed her backpack and followed him out of the lab, telling him about redoing the experiment with Abby.

By the time they got home Gibbs was more than happy when Amelia decided to go take a shower before dinner. He loved his daughter to no end, but her rambling wore him out and she had been right on point today, hardly even stopping to breathe let alone allow Gibbs to get a word in. Knowing his daughter would be in the shower for quite a while he ordered take out for dinner then made his way to the basement to work on his boat.

Thirty minute later he heard the doorbell ring and footsteps on the stairs. He came up out of the basement right as Amelia was opening the door. On the other side stood a young teenage boy holding several boxes filled with various Chinese food.

"Oh thank God, I'm starving!" Amelia said gratefully, quickly taking the food out of the young boys hands, "You go to my school, don't you?" she asked curiously. The boy nodded but didn't say anything. Amelia continued, "I thought you looked familiar, I don't think we have any classes together though, right?"

"No," the boy said shortly.

"Oh, I didn't think so. But it's a big school and I'm new, so I'm still getting used to everything. Well my name is Amelia," she said, being friendly.

"I'm Adam," he told her, a slight smile crossing his face.

"It's nice to officially meet you Adam; maybe we will see each other at school sometime. Thanks for the food," Amelia smiled and moved out of the way for Gibbs to pay him. She said goodbye before he left then went into the kitchen.

"So he goes to your school?" Gibbs asked conversationally as he filled a plate with food.

"Yeah, I think he is in the grade above me though, since I don't have any classes with him. He's kind of a loner though, hangs out alone in the library a lot. I've seen him there when I'm studying during lunch."

"He seemed nice enough." Amelia shrugged,

"Sure, I don't really know him, but you're right, he always seemed pretty nice" She said, choosing to see the good in someone she didn't know rather than judge him and assume he was a loser or something because he chose to hang out alone. They finished dinner quickly and Amelia then went to bed, wanting to be well rested for her first day of cross country practice the next day.

Gibbs picked Amelia up the next day a few hours after he normally would and found his daughter sitting on the steps with a few other people. She quickly said goodbye to the kids and got in the car, taking a drink of the bottle of water in her hands.

"How did it go?"

"It was good. Coach Sam is right, I'm going to do great things," she said cockily. Gibbs laughed and rolled his eyes and they pulled out of the parking lot. When they got home Amelia went on inside while Gibbs checked the mail, sorting through it as he walked through the yard. He stopped when he came upon an envelope in between a clump of ads and the electric bill. It was addressed to his daughter, but what made him stop was the fact that the name on the return address was her brother. He quickly shoved it in the stack of ads and made sure Amelia would not happen to see it if she walked by. It wasn't that he was trying to steal his daughter's mail, but that he was not sure what Matt would have written in this letter and did not want Amelia to read it and have it upset her. Instead he would set it aside and make sure to read it after he knew his daughter was sound asleep. He finally went inside and the two began their evening routine of homework and dinner, Amelia oblivious of the letter waiting to be read.

So how was it? PLEASE REVIEW! I would love to know what you thought of the chapter and what you think should happen from here!