For those of you who like to constantly remind me this is like NCIS, ding ding ding!
DUH!
That's kinda what I was going for. So congratulations on pointing out the obvious. I put something in just for you people in this chapter.
Enjoy.
I was typing on my computer when an instant message came up on the screen. 'Time is running out.'
"What was that?" Percy looked up at me from his own computer.
I nearly jumped, I hadn't realized I had my sound on and that they all probably heard the message come in. "Oh, nothing. Just a message."
Nico and Chiron waved it off, continuing to work on whatever they were, but Percy was intrigued by my sudden popularity. "From who?"
I glared at him, it was none of his business who was messaging me and who I was talking to. Even if it was just my father. "You do not need to know."
His green eyes widened and he put his hands up in surrender. I nodded in approval and went to answer my dad. My fingers hesitated over the keys, what was I honestly going to say? 'Thanks for the heads up!' ?
No.
'How long?' I decided on, making sure to type in Hebrew so Percy's wondering eyes wouldn't understand what we were talking about. It was a moment before received an answer. 'Three days, tops.'
I brought a hand up to my spinning head; that was so soon! How did he expect me to wrap up all the loose ends by then? The kids were my biggest problem, then the condo I suppose I could just leave that since I paid rent with cash every month.
'I need to talk to you.' I typed, knowing he wouldn't understand if I tried to tell him over the computer.
Sighing, I closed my IM and stood up. "I am taking my lunch break." I informed my co-workers and left before they could respond.
I closed the door to the condo, taking out my new cell phone to dial my father's desk number. "Navah, what is this issue you are having with your time limitation?" He answered on the second ring without so much as a hello, instead with annoyance.
"Aba," I stopped, rubbing my eyes. "I am so sorry, but what about the two children? I cannot leave them, they are not fit to live on their own or with anyone else-what do you wish me to do?" I'm sure I sounded like a scared child, but I could care less; I needed my father's advice.
I heard his sigh on the other end, he shushed in attempt to calm me. "No Navah, this is not your fault; it is mine. I told Celev to make you convince them that you were there to stay, and you did just that. I am very proud of you, and..." He trailed off; knowing from experience, I waited for him to continue. "I want you to bring them."
"Bring them?" My eyebrows went up. "You are sure?"
"Yes Nav, legally they are your children now, which makes them my grandchildren. I wish to meet the fine children I have heard so very much about."
I was surprised by the amount of emotion in his voice, and too shocked to disagree with him, I nodded. Then I realized he couldn't see me. "Ken aba, toda." Yes father, thank you.
He grunted in response, probably catching the emotion himself. "Three days, I will send you an email with more information. Shalom bat." Goodbye daughter.
"Shalom." As soon as I brought the phone down, it started ringing again. "Chase." I had gotten use to using my new name instead of my real one.
"Hey mom!"
"Madison? How are you-Did something happen? Are you alright? Is Kade-"
She laughed. "Chill mom, I'm fine. Kade and I were wondering if you have lunch free."
I smiled. "I am on my way."
Walking into the front office, I looked around for the two children but saw nothing. I heard shifting behind me and smirked. Just for laughs, I kept looking with my back to them, ignoring the obnoxious noises the two of them were making in attempt to sneak up on me.
When the whoosh of air passed my ear, I twitched out of the way and watched as a young boy fell to the ground. There was movement to my right, which was now my back, and I slid to the left.
A second body joined the laughing pile. "You are going to have to try much harder than that," I pulled them up. "If you want to pull the cloth over my eyes."
Madi laughed, "Wool, mom. Let's go, I'm starving!" She grabbed my hand and began pulling me out the door. I had just enough time to grab Kade's hand and heave him from the floor before I was whisked away by my excited daughter.
It was Thursday now, the day before my father was going to send me an email. I walked into work after dropping the kids off at school to find my three co-workers rushing about within their desks. I set my bag down and looked for one of them to explain.
Chiron finally did as he finished his rifling. "One of our agents was found murdered in his home."
I grabbed the keys to one of the cars from my desk and my coat. I threw the keys to Percy and followed the three males out of the building. We arrived at a two story Victorian house ten minutes later. James was already there. "Talk to me James." Chiron called as he walked through the door.
"Well, cause of death was this shot to the head. These two shots to the chest were done post mortem at very close range. Overkill if you ask me." He pulled a thermometer from the dead body. "Time of death is about...9 this morning."
"That might be why I didn't see him at the coffee shop before work today." Percy commented from a few feet away where he was taking pictures of the body so James could get it out of the house. We all turned and looked at him, glaring in my case. "Right, not the time. Sorry."
I rolled my eyes but before I could say anything, I heard a commotion outside. I turned on my heel and walked out to see what all the arguing was about. Sure enough, there were four people in a heated discussion with the police guarding the yellow tape line.
Sighing, I strode over, assuming they were just some grieving friends.
No one's POV
Gibbs was about ready to pull his sig on the two buffoons in front of him, they were worse than DiNozzo, and that's saying something. "NCIS, let us in." He repeated for the thousandth time. The goon on the left opened his mouth to continue arguing, but a woman's voice sounded from behind them and made them stop cold.
"Everything alright over here?" She had an accent all four agents recognized immediately.
"N-No problems M-Miss Chase. These bystanders are trying to get in, keep flashing badges and saying 'NCIS'; whatever that is." The right cop stuttered and cringed away from the young blond.
She remained calm, like his behavior wasn't out of the ordinary, and raised an eyebrow. "NCIS?"
"Navel-" Tony began to recite the anagram but was promptly cut off by a sharply risen hand.
"I know what it means. Why are you here?" Annabeth clarified her original meaning, slightly annoyed.
"The dead man," The grey haired man in the very front grunted. "He's navy."
"That may be true," She said, recalling that Chrion had told her he was once a Marine as well as an ex-agent of NCIS. "But he is currently our director's assistant, and it is vital we find his killer soon."
"And what government branch are you from?" The tall brown haired man she interrupted before asked snidely, like he already knew the answer. "FBI? Where's Fornell?" He looked around her and above her head, not hard for his height advantage, trying to locate the agent he spoke of.
"Who is Fornell?" Annabeth shook her head. "Nevermind, I do not care to know." She started to walk away, when the chubbier male spoke up.
"Wait!" The blond turned around. "What branch are you from?" He repeated the question, if only to keep her there longer and maybe let them in.
Deciding it would just be easier to answer him, Annabeth walked the ten steps back to the 'DO NOT CROSS' line. "Criminal Investigative Service."
"CSI?" Tony exclaimed, totally surprised, exchanging looks with his co-workers.
"If that is all...?" Annabeth trailed off, hoping they would just wave her off in their confusion.
Unfortunately, the dark haired woman-who hadn't spoken a word since her arrival, did noticed. Not only did she notice, but the whole time the blond had been interacting with her male partners, the gears in her head were turning. "Navah?"
Four sets of eyes were on her after her random outburst, three confused and one almost horrified. "I do not know what you are-" The blond stopped talking suddenly, recognition making her face go slack. "Ziva?"
Both Israelis smiled at each other, for the rest of her team, one of the biggest smiles they've gotten out of the woman for years. Ziva ducked under the yellow line and did something that surprised the men behind her.
She hugged the woman.
Annabeth was ecstatic about seeing her old mentor again, the last time she had was close to five or so years between. The older woman pulled back first. "How are your brothers? And Noam, has he gotten his first assignment yet? How is your father?" She rambled off questions. All of which made the blond relive horrible memories she had been trying to forget.
Ziva noticed her friend's sadness right away, pulling her chin up so their faces met again. "What is wrong? What happened?"
"Noam got his first assignment." She said simply, looking down again.
"Loir?"
Annabeth paused before she looked off to the side in shame and disappointed in herself. "Terminated."
Ziva embraced her once more quickly, placing her at arm's length. "By whom?"
The men behind the two Mossad officers glanced at each other, very much confused and interested at the same time as they listened for the next response. Grey eyes hardening, she answered. "Me."
"Ziver...?" The grey haired man trailed off, wordlessly demanding an explanation.
The brown haired woman glanced back at the men, then to the younger girl in front of her. "We will continue this later. Now, let us in."
Annabeth
I sighed. I knew Chiron wouldn't be happy about me letting more investigators in, but decided it would at least make them go away. "Alright, follow me." I lead them inside the house and to my leader. "Chiron, visitors." Without saying any more, I wondered off to help Nico.
The old man turned around from talking to crying woman, his solemn face lit up. "Leroy, old man! How are you?" The two men shook hands.
"Whoa, am I the only one here who doesn't know someone!?" The brown haired man from before exclaimed.
"What brings you here?" Chiron continued, ignoring the outburst. I quietly listened in.
"Your dead agent is ex-navy." He said simply like that was all that he needed to say.
"Ah, so you want to take over." Huh, maybe that is all he had to say. Leroy nodded. "How about a joint investigation? He had very high clearance in our department."
Reluctantly, he agreed. "Alright, for old time's sake." They shook hands again. "DiNozzo! McGee! David!" I laughed as the two males rushed to obey and Ziva followed calmly behind them.
"Seriously! There's like one of us reincarnated on your team!" Tony waved his hands around to get his point across. "Look, Annabeth is the Ziva, Percy is the me, Nico is the McGee, and Chiron is the Gibbs!" He leaned back against Percy's desk and crossed his arms across his chest with a satisfied expression.
Ziva and I rolled our eyes, he has been trying to convince us of the similarities between our two teams since we arrived at the CSI office so Chiron, Leroy, Joy, and the other director could talk about the details of the case.
The six of us were waiting in our cubicle, talking. Or really, Tony was.
"Really? How?" Nico challenged. Ziva groaned next to me, sending me a look like 'Here we go'.
"Well the obvious, Ziva and Annabeth are both Mossad!"
"Not anymore." We chorused.
Tony merely rolled his eyes and waved it off. "They're the ninjas of the groups! And it's pretty obvious Percy and I are the bad boys." He rapidly moved a finger between him and my partner. I let out an amused laugh.
"Yeah, sure."
Ignoring my comment, he continued, but Percy glared at me. I winked jokingly back. "Nico is your computer geek, I can tell."
"Am not!" He protested, his black hair moved in front of his face making him look younger than he was.
"We all know about computers equally." I translated. "Anything we cannot decipher is sent to Rachel."
"Who's Rachel?" Tim asked.
"Our lead scientist." Percy answered.
Before Tony could say something about it, Piper handed me a piece of folded paper. "Here's the subpoena for DNA tests Annie." Under some mental blank, I had allowed her to call me Annie. I nodded in thanks. She was about to go when she noticed the new faces. "Who are your new friends guys?"
Tony enthusiastically strode up to her. "Hi, I'm DiNozzo, Tony DiNozzo."
Piper laughed, picking up on his flirting right away. "I have a boyfriend Tony, but it's nice to meet you."
McGee stood next as Tony's chest deflated and he stalked back to a laughing Percy. "Tim McGee, pleasure."
"Hiya Tim, and you are?" She turned to Ziva who introduced herself. "Hey you have the same accent as Annabeth!"
"Yes, we were childhood friends." Ziva gave the brunette a half smile. I suppose that wasn't a complete lie, I was a kid when she was teaching me how to kill.
"That's amazing! I mean how often do you meet someone from your past that you haven't seen in like forever?" Piper kept rambling on, I smiled lightly at her. Ziva raised her eyebrow at me with an amused and questioning smile. I just shrugged lightly back with my own quarter smile.
Just as they were about to dive into another conversation, Chiron and Leroy walked into our now limited space. Piper quickly made herself scarce. "Get use to each other, this is going to be a long case." He told us, placing a hand on my shoulder.
"DiNozzo, McGee, find a desk and get to work. David, Chase, come with me." I looked at Ziva in confusion but she was already on her feet and following the grey haired man. I sighed and moved to catch up with them.
"What are we doing?" I asked my friend.
She shrugged. "Just follow." However, she looked a little confused herself when her boss led us into an empty room. "Gibbs?"
"You two are going to be doing something more classified." My eyebrow cocked up. "When Chiron said he had high clearance, he was naive. This man had one of the highest levels of clearance I have seen in a long time. You two need to find out why."
"Why us?" I questioned with my arms folded over my chest. I don't do well with direct instructions from a stranger, especially one who thinks he can just come in and control me.
"You are the best at what you do." He responded easily, like he expected me to rebuttal and knew exactly what to say.
My mouth opened on reflex but no sound came out in shock. Finally I decided to just agree and nodded along with Ziva. Satisfied, Leroy motioned behind him at the rest of the room. "All these resources are at your disposal. We'll keep you in the loop." With that, he left.
I sighed, sitting down at the closest computer. "What do we do now?" I asked, looking up at my friend from a much lower plane.
She shrugged, "Get to work, he is going to come back and expect something."
I sighed, this was going to be hell.
So speaking of hell, I've been living in my own personal version recently, which is why I haven't updated.
I could go into details, but basically my grandmother died, and it hit me hard. Plus, seeing dead bodies may be easy to write about, but it's nothing like seeing them in person; even if she was all dressed up.
Plus, I had a 2 week camp, in addition to the funeral, visitation, and burial; I've been swamped. Nor in the mood to write, which I'm still not really in yet.
I hope you guys like the story enough to be patient with me.
Yours always,
~Arty
