Tuesday Daytime

"KIDS! WAKE UP!"

Zach, Sarah and Jayden were brought to awareness early Tuesday morning by the loud voice. Zach jumped up to his feet, banging his head on the ceiling, Sarah fell out of the bed because she was still leaning on her boyfriend when he shot up, and Jayden was disoriented and tried to climb out of bed not realising he was in a bunk bed and landed in a tangle on the floor with Sarah on the blankets.

"OW! What the fuck Grandpa!" Zach rubbed the back of his head, glaring at his grandpa. He wasn't a morning person, and his grandpa hadn't even given him any time to adjust to it, so technically it was his own fault that he had sworn at him.

Sarah and Jayden picked themselves up of the floor, looking with wide-eyed horror as Jackson's eyes narrowed at the boy on the bed. Maybe it wasn't such a great idea after all to skip school, and Sarah was starting to regret staying in the boy's room last night.

"Excuse me Zacharriah?" Jack looked deadly at the minute, nothing like the kindly old man they were used to. And Zach was just grateful that he was still standing on the bunk bed and out of reach of his grandfather for the time being.

"That is not my fault! How can you expect me to not swear when you've just walked in here screaming and made me bang my head on the ceiling?" His hair was sticking up wildly because he hadn't washed the gel out of it before he went to bed last night, and it gave him more of a crazed look as he shouted back at the elderly man.

"Come here" He pointed to the spot on the floor in front of him.

Zach shook his head, he was going to stay exactly were he was. It wasn't his fault that he had been rudely awakened, so he wasn't going to get disciplined like some naughty child in front of his girlfriend.

Thankfully, Jack was not like his dad in this aspect. Where his dad would have expected immediate compliance, he was pretty sure his grandpa did too, but Jack could see that it wasn't happening and instead of hounding him until he did, he turned to the other two in the room.

"What are you doing in here Sarah? I thought we made it perfectly clear that you and Zach are not to be in each others bedrooms" He raised his eyebrows at her.

"Uh…" Sarah smiled awkwardly. "We were just talking, all three of us, and then we feel asleep. And before you know it, you're waking us up. Sorry."

"That's not what I asked. I wanted to know why you were in here in the first place." Jack actually seemed calm with Sarah; it was just his eldest grandson he kept shooting glares at.

"It's not like we were going to do anything Gramps! For the record, I wouldn't do it while all of you lot were in the same house, especially if Jayden was in the room! We can control ourselves you know, we are not like dogs in heat" Zach still hadn't woken up properly. That was the only explanation they could come up with for why he was still arguing when he was already in trouble. But then again, he had never been very bright when it came to self preservation.

"Sarah, Jayden, go get ready for school." Jackson dismissed them.

Sarah walked out of the room quickly, shooting her boyfriend a look which said 'shut up before you get into more trouble'. And Jayden quickly grabbed his uniform and left, opting to get changed in the bathroom than have to walk back in here.

"Come here now young man" Jack told him again, and the blond shook his head. His grandpa looked pissed and he didnt want to go near him.

"I won't ask you again Zacharriah. Don't make me climb up there, becuase I swear I will, and you will be one sorry little boy"

Zach thought it wise to not let it get that for and sat down on the edge of the bed, reluctantly sliding onto the floor and shuffling over to the spot the man wass pointing at. The elderly man took a step towards him, gripping his forearm, spinning him around and planting half a dozen solid smacks to his behind before pulling him back around to face him.

"I don't know if it's just that you've woken up on the wrong side of the bed, but I will not have that language in my house. And when I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it straight away, not get cocky with me." Jack's voice was the strictest Zach had heard, and he was sure the man was quickly coming to his limits.

"Consider this the only warning you'll get, because I don't do warnings like your dad. Next time you act up, you will find yourself on the end of my belt, got it?"

"Yes sir" Zach nodded.

So maybe that was what his dad had meant by his grandpa not being as lenient as him. His dad would never use a belt on him for something like this, and he always gave him three warnings. They really shouldn't be trying anything today, the teen realised, Jack would slaughter them all if he found out. But the ball was already rolling, and he wasn't going to back out now.

"Good. I don't like punishing you Zach, but if you give me reason to and I will. Just because your dad is away, it doesn't mean that you have no rules" He warned him, hoping he would take the warning and pass it onto the other kids.

"I never thought that anyway" It wasn't him that thought Jackson was a softy, it was Sarah. He was just along for the ride.

"You sure son? Because it seems to me you do. I know full well that you and Sarah wouldn't dare being in the same room if your father was around, so don't take me for a fool" He told him before leaving the room to fix breakfast for the four of them.

The blond sighed. Right now as far as there plan for the day went, they were all going to be busted within ten minutes. It would be too obvious when the whole group of friends went missing for a day, even more obvious if they phoned up pretending to be their parents. The only way they could get away with it, was if they didn't do it at all, which wouldn't really be getting away with it. Unless, he got his Whiz kid cousin to hack the school servers and mark them all present on the register.

"I'm a genius" Zach spoke to himself, proud of what he'd thought of. They would get away with this for sure, and it would be Kids 2, Grandpa 0. He felt slightly guilty treating his grandpa like this after he thought of it like that, the man only did the best he could for them, and they were repaying him by acting like a bunch brats. He quickly forgot about that though when he realised this may be the only time his dad was away, he would never get away with anything with him.

"And….. done" Jayden shut the laptop closed on his lap, placing it gently on the bed besides him. "As soon as the teachers send the registers off to the main office, it will change all our absent marks to present."

"It's so great having a brain for a cousin. You know, me and you should do this more often" Zach grinned, throwing a change of clothes into his school bag and hoisting it over his shoulder.

"I don't think so. I actually like going to school. I'm only doing this so I can meet Holly" Jay picked up his own bag and followed the teenager down the stairs.

"Nerd" The blond scoffed.

"Jock" The pre-teen shot back.

"Boys! Hurry up, your lift is here" They heard Jackson shout and walked double-time down the steps, grabbing Sarah on their way out the front door, waving goodbye to the elderly man and six-year-old before cramming into the backseat of Tom's car.

Tom grinned, looking over his shoulder at Jayden "So Jay kid, who's your girlfriend?"

"For the millionth time, Holly is not my girlfriend. She is just a friend." The boy glared at his cousin for telling his friend that.

"Jayden and Holly sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" The two best friends sung teasingly "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Jayden with a baby carriage"

"… Heard the boys got into a bit of trouble with the car last night" Gibbs spoke to Vance on the large monitor in NCIS LA head quarters. They had just finished talking about their undercover operation that was taking place this week, and now Gibbs was trying to subtly to hear more news about his son, other than what Jackson had said.

"They did?" Vance frowned. "I never heard anything about it"

The silver haired man growled lowly, knowing straight away that his son lied "That little brat. My son seems to think that you went to help them when Jared's car broke down"

G Callen was watching the exchange interestedly. He had gone for coffee with the elder man straight away when he landed in LA to catch up on the last few years of each others lives. Like a proud father showing of his newborn baby, Gibbs hadn't wasted anytime in telling him he had a son and showing his friend a picture of the blond teen that was spitting image of him. Now he just seemed like an annoyed dad thinking of screaming at his errant child, making G glad he didn't have children.

"Let me guess. He didn't tell you that Sarah and him went to a concert with Jared and Amelia?"

Gibbs shook his head, watching as Vance's secretary came onto the screen whispering something to the man. Vance tried to dismiss her so he could finish his video talk with Gibbs, but she insisted on telling him what she had to say, and he watched as the dark mans face grew annoyed.

"Thank you, tell Jackie I'll handle it when I get home" He dismissed her, turned back around to face the screen and commenting dryly. "It seems Gibbs, that when the cat is away, the mice will play"

The silver-haired agent shut his eyes, calming his anger. He didn't know what it was that Vance was on about, but he knew he would be angrier than he was at the moment with his son for lying to his grandfather. "What has he done?"

Callen was still amused, as was Sam who had joined them, and Hetty was sipping a cup of tea and giving a disapproving snort as she heard about the tales of the young Gibbs. While Tim and Abby were in another part of the building, blissfully unaware of everything that was going on back in DC.

"I can't say for definite that Zach's involved, I'll let you be the judge. But apparently Jared and his group of friends have gone awol from school today. And managed to hack into the school server to change the registers"

"Oh, he is definitely involved." He growled. There was no doubt in his mind that his son wasn't the ring leader of the little group, and the whole idea was his alone. He may have felt guilty for thinking so low of his son, but he knew the boy too well, and knew that if the teenager got away with one thing, he would push his luck and get more daring. Well this was the end of the line for Zacharriah Gibbs.

He pulled his ringing phone out of his pocket, seeing the schools ID on it and watched Vance give the signal to cut the video feed before answering it. Oh, he was going to kill his son when he got back to DC.

"Can we go and see the pandas first?" Zach asked excitedly as they walked through the park gates. Considering they were with two twelve-year-olds, Zach was the one who had the most child like excitement.

"They are all the way on the over side of the zoo" Jared told him, reading the map.

"Oh…" The blond looked slightly disappointed, before he took Sarah's hand and was running in the direction the signs were pointing, calling over his shoulder "Last couple there is buying the ice cream!"

Then the race was on. Jayden and Holly were quickly running up to try and catch the older two teens, with Jared and Amelia, after the boy with an afro shaking his head, right behind them. Tom stayed where he was for a minute, giving them a head start and stopping his girlfriend from running with them.

"Come on Tom, I don't want to be the one buying" Sophie tugged on his arm.

"Don't worry, I'll buy them. I don't mind" Tom took hold of her hand and slowly strolled in the direction the others had run.

"Why? We could easily catch them up"

"Because then I wouldn't get to just spend time with just me and you" The brunet boy gave her a fantastic smile, and she was left unaware that that wasn't the full reason.

Tom was a good friend, and he knew that if any of the others, besides Amelia because they both had credit cards from their parents, would be left penniless if they were the ones who had to buy the ice cream. And he had learnt that they didn't like charity so he couldn't just offer. So instead he would just take the friendly teasing, and pretend he lost.