It hasn't even been a week and I'm updating. I can't help it, I already have the next two chapter written. My summer will definitely be interesting if I keep this up.

This chapter may seem weird but it will all make sense eventually. It's all planned out and in my world nothing is impossible.

Max felt she'd gone in a circle. She'd started in D.C., gone down, then to the other coast, up, and now she was back where she started at NCIS.

She'd been mildly surprised that Gaara had greeted her in the bull pen in English with the hug that didn't seem to be ending any time soon.

"Uh, Gaara, can you let me go now? The team's probably getting the wrong idea, if they walk in." It was too late anyway as the lift had pinged emptying out the agents just as she said the last part.

"You almost died and you care more about what we think?"

"Again, it's not the first time I've almost died. It won't be the last. Didn't we go over this?"

"We have heard about some of your exploits. You had fun in Miami then?" Ziva asked with a small smile.

"Never going back," Max vowed. She renewed her effort of trying to get out of Gaara's grasp still having no success. Eventually she gave up and basked in it, remembering what she had decided in California, she wouldn't shy away from people again.

By pure chance she noticed the team all giving each other looks, ones that meant words but probably weren't for someone's ears. DiNozzo seemed to lose what ever discussion.

"Uh, Rho, um. Do you have any family?" DiNozzo asked awkwardly. Max froze, what kind of question was that?

"Not biologically that I know of." 'Nor should there be any' Max thought to herself.

"Uh, well. You should probably come to Abby's lab, we need to show you something." Max looked to Gaara for advice, he nodded and released her.

There was an awkward silence in the lift as it descended. The small, crowded metal box was bringing back claustrophobic thoughts of Max's as she shrunk into a corner.

"Are you ok?" Gaara asked, switching to Japanese so not to embarrass Max with her answer.

"It's nothing to worry about," she reassured him. Gaara frowned at her wording, she hadn't said it was nothing, just nothing to worry about.

Abby greeted them with her usual enthusiasm. She turned down her music and went to typing at her computer.

"I guess you're here about 'it', huh."

"She needs to know," Gibbs said. Max raised an eyebrow, they were obviously talking about her. Now she was curious.

"Needs to know what?"

"When you broke your arm in Forks they did a DNA test to find any blood relatives to inform," Abby said, diving into the issue after seeing the others unsure at what to say. "Normally they would check you file but yours is heavily classified especially for a lowly place like Forks and no next of kin is registered. Anyway, they got a hit, a close relative."

"I have a wha – But that's, that's impossible." Max couldn't believe what she was hearing. Abby had brought up her DNA profile and the one she was related to showing the common genetic markers. The evidence right in front of Max's eyes. Like Abby, Max believed in science, everything she did had some relation to science, her techniques especially. Science wouldn't lie to her.

"It wasn't a sibling match or a parent-child one, more like a half-sibling."

"Who?" Max asked, she didn't want any more sugar coating on this explanation. Abby tapped away bringing up Max's 'Rho' ID and then her relative's NCIS ID.

Anthony DiNozzo.

Silence reigned in the lab as Max processed this information. This was wrong. Couldn't be happening. She was from a different dimension for Kami's sake.

She did what she normally did best when faced with something like this. She ran, stopping just short of the lifts, pushing the button and waiting. It was taking too long and it was the first place they would go for to look for her. When it arrived she pressed the up button then got out, taking the stairs down to autopsy.

Ducky could take her mind off it with one of his stories or maybe provided some rational advice. Either way she was glad Palmer wasn't around when she entered the cool autopsy room.

"Hey Ducky," she greeted, her voice close to cracking. Ducky immediately led her to a chair seeing the emotional state she was in. "Can you tell me a story, anything, I just need to hear something."

"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?" Max shook her head. "How about I ask you about something else?"

"Shoot"

"What does the name Murdock mean to you?" Ducky asked as he riffled through his desk.

"That would be classified but I'll say it has got a meaning to me."

"Ah, good, then this probably isn't dangerous," Ducky said holding out a small wooden crate a label declaring it was to Rho from Murdock. Max's eyes widened at it, it was even her own handwriting. Just a bit hinky.

"This makes even less sense than having a relative," she muttered. She took out a knife and unscrewed the screws that were holding the lid down.

"I got it in the mail, it was wrapped in brown paper with a note enclosed asking me to hand deliver it to you," Ducky explained as Max removed the lid and moved the packing hay. There were three things inside, a box, a bottle of some of the finest scotch availible and an envelope.

Logic dictated the envelope would explain this mess so Max opened it first, smiling slightly as she saw it was written in Japanese, just in case it had fallen into nosey hands she assumed. There was another piece of paper tucked into the letter. The smiled faded as she read the letter and other bit of paper and ended with a groan, it had cleared that mess up, and made life just a bit more complicated.

"Well, the bottle is for you, as a gift for looking after the box and hand delivering it." Max held up a hand as Ducky began to protest. "The rest is business I need to attend to at some point in the future. I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention this to anyone. Especially not now." Ducky reluctantly nodded earning a genuine smile from Max. "So, what were you working on before I dropped in?"

The team had split up to look for Max, wanting to make sure she was ok. They all made one mistake though, they assumed she had left the building. Gaara had stayed in Abby's lab, from there he could feel Max in case she moved. He didn't quite understand how they could be related but Max's past was a bit of a mystery before the age of three. It would explain how she knew English so well.

It was almost the end of the day when they converged on Autopsy to check out the body Ducky had been working on. The case had been driven from their minds with the days events.

There had been some spluttering in disbelief when they found that Max had been there all the time. Followed by questions about the body when Ducky attracted their attention. While they were distracted Max took her stuff and left. She had stuff to do.

She was joined by Gaara at her car, he didn't ask questions about it and for that Max was grateful.

"Pizza?" he suggested. Max smiled shaking her head slightly.

"Sure, why not?"

In Autopsy the conversation had drawn back to Max after her absence had been noticed but the agents. Ducky had noticed her leave but not mentioned it.

"I would highly recommend you give Rho some space unless you want to scare her off. She's been wandering around on her own, distancing herself from people for a while so it'll take her a while to adjust, if you don't give her that time she may just give up and move on. Probably without warning." Ducky advised them.

"What else can you tell us about her?" DiNozzo asked, eager to hear about his newfound relative.

"Well-"

Max should have been expecting that phone call at four am, the one that asked her to go somewhere else to help an old friend. She was used to her feet never hitting the ground, barely finishing her mission before starting a new one. It was her life, she liked it far too much to give it up.

That was why she had just snuck out of the flat Gaara had obtained a while back. She knew he'd probably noticed but figured she should at least give this a try. She needed to be on her way to the airport, she had a flight to catch. A note was left on the table along with the keys to her Mustang. She trusted him to look after it.

She thought about leaving a voice message for the team but she didn't have the faintest idea what to say. They would find out from Gaara at some point.

She landed in Colorado Springs a bit later, heading directly to another gate at the airport. Ultimately she was going back to England, but she had to find someone first, preferably before they both got on the flight.

She slipped between some army guys, her slim stature helping a lot. She caught sight of her target and yelled.

"Alex!" A familiar blond turned his head to see her a slightly confused look on his face but he allowed for her to catch up. Neither of them noticed the army guys had watched this, a glimpse of recognition in their eyes.

"What brings you here Rho? You are Rho at the moment, right?" Alex asked with a smirk.

"It's what my ID says. I'm here to accompany you to England." Max watched his face sour. "I know you don't need a guard or what ever but I needed to get away from D.C. this was my perfect excuse. Besides, why pass on an opportunity to hang out?"

"Cub?" Alex froze, Max hadn't said that, behind her stood four guys, incidentally the 'army guys' Max had passed. Only these guys weren't regular army as Max had assumed. They were part of the British SAS, known as K-unit. Max didn't know this though, she'd only been about to tell they were military out of instinct.

"Wolf." Max was confused, that was her codename, but it was obvious Alex was talking to the guy behind her. She moved to create a circle of people instead of being in the middle.

"You been cheating on me Alex?" Max asked with a smirk which only grew with the indignant looks she received from the two men. Max wasn't the only one who was amused though, 'Wolf's team mates seemed to find it comical. "You guys even have pet names for each other."

"Very funny Rho, you're hilarious. We have a flight to catch though."

"Gate five to Heathrow?" Wolf asked.

"This is getting creepy, if you wanted to go to England with him and not me you should have just said." Max was not letting up on this joke.

"Let's just get on this plane. I have somewhere to be," Alex said walking off, not really bothering to check if any of them were following him.

The aeroplane was taking off by the time Gaara found the note.

Hey Gaara,

Gone to England to help a friend, see you in a while.

Max

Gaara sighed, it was so like Max to do this, leave at the first sign of anything she didn't like. He didn't believe there was a friend, Max could have just made it up, he wouldn't put it past her.

Now he had to tell the agents she was gone, he knew they wanted to talk to her. Ignoring this would get them all nowhere.

On the flight Max found out exactly why Alex was back from Atlantis. His close friend and ex-guardian had been shot at. The woman had taken down her attackers and was in hospital recovering. Alex was out for vengeance and Max was ready to join him, just because she could really.

K-Unit were just returning from a vacation, being on the same flight was just coincident. There presence meant Max and Alex couldn't talk about confidential stuff like Atlantis or even the Stargate, K-Unit would be too interested in anything they whispered about.

London seemed as depressing as Max remembered. Early November wasn't too early for the icy winds that seemed to ignore Max's jacket and chill her to the bone.

"Do you have a plan?" Max asked trying to hide her hands up her sleeves in a vain attempt to keep them warm.

"Visit Jack, find the bastard who did that, kill him."

"You sound so flippant about that."

"I was actually half expecting you to try to talk me out of it," Alex admitted.

"What do I do for a living?"

"Point taken."

There was some silence as they waited for the bus. Neither of them felt like walking the distance.

"Why did you want to get away from D.C.?"

"Uh, I found out I have a relative, it kind of freaked me out a bit," Max admitted.

"I'm going to assume this means you didn't tell them you left."

"How'd you guess?" Max joked as the bus pulled up. It felt weird, almost like her life was back to normal, no fast cars or sweet guns. She almost wished the gun laws weren't so strict in the UK, but they were so her gun was safely sealed away. Her car would have to stay in America, it was just too much effort to take it everywhere.

It was still early in London so the bus wasn't to full, there was one woman who was talking loudly about her sexual encounters of the previous night but she shut up when everyone had started staring.

It reminded Max she hadn't turned her phone back on since catching her flight. She probably had quite a few messages from people. She was apprehensive about checking, she didn't want to listen only to find out they all hated her or something. She would check them later in a less public place at least.

Visiting time wasn't until much later so the pair sat in the park discussing what ever came to mind. Atlantis came up quite a bit. Max didn't miss it there, she missed some of the people though. At least Haku was doing fine. Max missed the ice nin, he always knew what to do in the situations Max found herself in and so she found her self wishing he was here.

Max only briefly met the woman, she had felt like she was intruding a bit so went back to the park. Now was as good as any time to check her messages.

You have *seven* new messages.

Most of them were predictable for Gaara who sounded just a teeny bit annoyed. She did get one from DiNozzo, asking her if she wanted to meet up when she got back. Max smiled weakly at that, she wouldn't mind it but it depended on so many things, like if she ever got around to getting back to D.C. with her unpredictable schedule she could be anywhere at any given point in time.

I swear everything will make sense eventually. It's going to be one of those longer plot points (Ok two of them)

I'm going to be revisiting some earlier crossovers over the next few chapters but because there's been a huge time gap between them in my story imagine Max turned up a few weeks after she last saw them just for the sake of continuity.

Please leave a review, feel free to give your theories about what's happening, I'd love to hear them.