Tasmin closed the door behind Cali and Miah, who had come to collect their mini and a few others Tasmin and her partner had brought back with them from their last NCIS mission. "It's nice when everything is quiet again."

Allison ducked to the floor and covered her head with her hands.

Tasmin rolled her eyes. "It never beeps when you expect it." She walked towards the bathroom.

A loud and piercing beep came from the console.

"You stopped expecting it, didn't you?" She glared at her partner.

Allison glared back. "There just is a lot of badfic." She turned to the console and pressed a button to accept the mission. The console stopped beeping. "At least there is in NCIS fandom. We've got another mission going there."

"Why do we keep getting those missions? There two other agent teams who can do NCIS missions. Miah and Cali, for instance." Tasmin pointed at the door.

"They must have not gotten back to their response centre yet. We got the mission instead." Allison scanned through the Intelligence report. "You will be happy to know that this Sue is not related to any of the canon characters or romantically involved with them."

"But?" Tasmin asked. She had come as far as putting a hand on the bathroom door on her way to taking a shower, but it didn't look like she was going to be taking a shower any time soon.

"But what?"

"There's always a but."

"It's a Sue. How much good news were you expecting?"

"Not much. Just open a portal."

-oOo-

The agents took their places behind the desks on the other side of the partition where team Gibbs' desks were. None of the team were there yet.

Tony arrived first. He carried a box and frowned at the additional chair placed at his desk. He ignored it for the moment and started unpacking the box and getting ready for work. He was about to type in his password, when a young woman arrived on the scene and captured Tony's full attention. She sat down on the extra chair at his desk. Then she introduced herself to him.

I was assigned here by Director Vance. The um...boss...told me you were going to return and i was going to have to share a desk with someone.

"I can understand if she was assigned to the team while Tony was afloat," Tasmin said, "but why is she still here now that he has returned? And if she must be here, can't she get a desk of her own?"

Allison put her notepad down on the desk and wrote down the charges.

Next, Gibbs arrived and was greeted by Tony and the Sue. Shortly after, Ziva and McGee walked off the lift, followed by a little man.

"Oh no, she didn't." Allison put down her pen and beckoned the mini that looked like McGee except for a darker skin tone and a thick mop of black hair.

The mini came over and greeted the agents. He put his hands together and bowed his head slightly. "Hello, young ladies."

The agents frowned at his Indian accent.

"Why does McGee always get the weird ones?" Allison asked. "Weird as in, nothing like him," she hastened to add.

Tasmin shrugged. She pulled a strip of bacon from a pack she had put in her bag after their last mission had resulted in the gathering of four minis.

The mini, called McGhee, looked at it and curled up his nose. "I don't eat meat."

"Of course you don't." Tasmin put the bacon on the desk. "Chocolate okay for you?"

The mini nodded. Tasmin found some chocolate in her bag and broke off a piece for him. The mini took it and squatted down on the floor where he started nibbling.

Not much had happened in the bullpen in the mean time. Gibbs did a quick now you see him, now you don't and returned with a case. He held out a second set of car keys, which the Sue snatched out of his hands.

DiNozo, ride with Kelsey. McGhee, Ziva, your with me.

Allison managed to tackle the new mini before he entered the lift with the others. "And that's two." She deposited DiNozo next to McGhee. "How many more?"

"At this rate? We should be glad Miah and Cali opened a mini adoption centre. When we return to HQ we best portal straight into their response centre."

Allison held out the strip of bacon for DiNozo, who had no dietary qualms about taking it and wolfing it down. "It just occurred to me, we never named these minis. We always just call them minis."

"I see nothing wrong with that." Tasmin turned her attention to the Words where she read that team Gibbs took Dodge Charges to drive to the crime scene, one black, one navy blue. "Why don't they take the van to the crime scene? It has all these useful tools for collecting evidence."

"I think we should call them mini-Leos." The two minis looked at Allison. "What do you think of that guys, mini-Leos?"

The minis looked at each other. DiNozo ran his hands through his hair to roughen it up a bit. He roared like a little whelp.

"I'll take that as a yes."

Tasmin smacked her partner. "I take it you haven't been writing down charges."

Allison glared at her partner, rubbing the back of her head. "I take it you'll inform me of them regardless."

Tasmin glared back and pointed at the notepad.

In the car — the Sue drove — Tony tried to make small talk. The Sue cut him off by asking it he had ever been to Iraq. Her father and brother had been killed there.

I was just wondering if anyone knew them.

"I'm sure someone knew them. Just not random people," Tasmin said.

"Point for angsty past?"

"At the moment she's not angsting."

Allison snorted.

Then a lot of things happened at the same time. Another car came speeding towards the intersection with no intention of stopping, people screamed and the Sue's brakes failed. In a split second she pushed Tony out of the car.

If he stayed in the car, the high speed impact would have killed him.

"Whereas being pushed out of a moving vehicle left him unscathed." Tasmin tapped at the notepad again. "If she had enough time to undo his seatbelt, open the side door and push Tony out of the car, she should have taken the additional split second and push him in the back seat. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety rates the rear passenger safety in a side collision of a Dodge Charger as good."

Allison rolled her eyes. She was excellently capable of spotting sarcasm, thank you very much.

The Sue herself could not undo her seatbelt and jump out of the moving car.

Dun, Dun, Dun...

The author's note boomed and scared the minis, who clasped their little hands over their ears.

"Seriously." The sudden noise had caused Allison to push her pen across the charge sheet, crossing out several charges.

As Tasmin predicted, Tony seemed to suffer no ill effects from being thrown out of the car. He was on his feet before the two vehicles collided. The Sue's car was rammed to the left and flipped over. The other car, a red and black Mustang, had come to a stop too. When he saw the accident happen, Gibbs turned his car around and drove back. Ziva and McGee rushed over to the Mustang.

They began pulling the driver out, inspecting him over.

"What are they trying to do? Kill him?" Tasmin asked. "People shouldn't be pulled out of cars until after you've assessed you aren't going to make their injuries worse. Preferably, this sort of thing should be left to trained professionals."

"Perhaps we should have been at that scene to stop them," Allison offered.

Tasmin nodded. "After our last mission, I'm not taking any chances portalling anywhere. We're following as much as we possibly can of this mission from this exact spot."

Allison briefly frowned, but decided she had no problem with that.

Despite the fact her seatbelt would not come undone, the Sue had been thrown out of the car by the impact of the collision. She too managed to get to her feet. Though she staggered and was bleeding from several wounds. Tony helped the Sue sit down and then she passed out.

She woke up again in a hospital bed.

Being in a hospital reminded Kelsey of her little brother. He had cancer, the same their mother died from when he was only 2, leukimia.

"Now you can charge with an angsty past."

"She's still not angsting," Allison reminded her partner.

"Than make it a tragic past that has no function to the story other than to make us feel sympathy for the character."

Tony entered the room and thanked the Sue for pushing him out of a moving vehicle. Tony was disappointed when she replied she did it because it was the right thing to do.

"What does this Sue think seatbelts are for? So people can experience what it's like to wear a sash?" Tasmin said. "No, they are there to protect you from getting thrown against the windscreen or out of the car in case of a collision. Doesn't she know that pedestrians, cyclists and people without seatbelts are far more likely to die in accidents than people who use their seatbelts? For the simple reason they don't have the protection against being propelled and hitting hard surfaces at high speeds."

"I think we should go to that hospital," Allison said. "So we can monitor your blood pressure."

"My blood pressure doesn't need to be monitored. It's fine."

Tony left and Gibbs came in to have a rather odd conversation with the Sue about her younger brother, who was of high school age.

"What's that got to do with anything?" Allison asked.

"I know as much as you do."

"That's very grand of you to admit, Tasmin. I remember back in the day when we first worked together, you claimed I knew nothing. In fact, I remember as far back as only last week that you-"

Tasmin smacked her partner in the back of the head. The minis giggled.

"Thank you, come again," McGhee said.

Allison glared at him. "Aren't you supposed to be a pacifist, or some other non-violent type?"

The mini shrugged and held out his hand. "Chocolate?"

"Talk to the angry one." Allison jabbed a thumb over her shoulder. Then she quickly ducked, cautious of another blow to her head.

The scene turned briefly dark to indicate a chapter break, when light returned the PPC agents and the two minis found themselves by the road side.

"What happened?"

"FLF on the blink again." Tasmin dug through her bag for the device. She found it was still set to manual. "That's odd."

"What else is odd is that the Sue is back on the job." Allison pointed her out among the people gathered by the side of the road.

"Typical Sue. If it doesn't pertain to her, it doesn't get a mention in the story." Tasmin growled. "Did the team ever get to the crime scene they were assigned to? We'll never know. She didn't even have the team investigate her car crash. Brakes don't suddenly not work and the team would have liked to know who sabotaged a federal car."

"They're given an investigation now. They were personally assigned to this case by director Vance."

"Is that supposed to make the needle of my suspicion metre deflect?"

Gibbs assigned tasks to his team members and another mini-Leo popped into the fic.

"You again," Allison said to the mini.

"Me again," the mini replied. He smiled broadly at Allison. He extended his hands to her, indicating he wanted to be picked up. Allison complied and the mini tried to cop a feel.

"You didn't learn from last time, when I dropped you on your head." She held the mini at arms' length.

"You don't cook bacon," the mini replied.

Allison grumbled and let go of the mini with her left hand.

"I'm getting nauseous," the mini said, dangling in the air.

"Must be all that bacon you've been eating."

Allison dropped Dinozzo down by the other two minis. "When we get to Miah and Cali's we also have to scan their place for plot holes. It's not right that minis keep escaping them."

Tony and the Sue descended towards a crashed car. The Sue winced when she recognized the car — an orange Mitsubishi Eclipse — and rushed over to it.

"This Sue is starting to annoy me with her constant mentioning of car makes. She's coming off as very pedantic."

Allison decided not to comment. Her head was still smarting.

The Sue recognized the driver as her brother. He was shot in the head. The Sue turned around and rushed back up the slope. She jumped into a car and raced to the NCIS building.

"Now, I think we should take a portal." Tasmin pulled the device from her bag.

-oOo-

The agents had just installed themselves, and their entourage of minis, when the Sue came storming from the lift and took the stairs to Vance' office two steps at a time.

"She seems upset," Allison noted.

The Sue busted into Vance' office and demanded an explanation.

"You specifically assigned us to that case. You knew it was my brother. What the hell is wrong with you!"

"Suggesting that Vance plays sick little mind games."

"He's in a managerial position. All managers play mind games of some sort," Allison replied.

"The operative word here is 'sick'."

"I thought you would rather deal with it instead of letting someone else."

Both agents rolled their eyes.

"So Vance thinks it's a good idea to let someone know their loved one died by sending them to the crime scene unprepared," Allison noted.

"Write that down. And write down that once again an NCIS Major Case Response Team is put on a case that has nothing to do with the Navy."

Vance did not give in to the Sue's angry glares. Frustrated, the Sue left and went to the morgue where she waited for Ducky's return.

She had a little nap while she waited. When she woke up two bodies from the crime scene were laid out on autopsy tables. The Sue asked Ducky what he could tell her about the nearer of the two bodies.

It was the bald one, the one that was in the drivers seat; her brother.

"Who wasn't bold in the previous scene," Allison pointed out. "He had hair 'falling off to the right'."

"Continuity error," Tasmin said.

"Or hair as a euphemism for wig."

"Continuity error," Tasmin said with emphasis.

Though Ducky could not have had time to do an autopsy, he could tell the Sue's brother had died of a bullet to the central lobe, but if that hadn't killed him his leukaemia would have.

"Must he say 'central lobe'?" Tasmin asked. "Its proper name is insular cortex. And without an autopsy, he's just guessing — an educated guess, I'm sure — but still, a guess. How can he even know that the boy had leukaemia?"

Allison nodded and wrote down the charge of making Ducky display poor professional judgement.

Ducky and the Sue moved on to the next body. The cause of death here was someone forcefully breaking the boy's neck.

The Sue thanked Ducky and left the morgue. To avoid Gibbs she decided to take the stairs to Abby's lab.

"What can you tell me?" Kelsey asked, with pleading eyes.

"She's taking Gibbs' role," Allison said.

Tasmin nodded.

Abby could not tell the Sue anything. She had only just received the phone of the driver as evidence, but she was hopeful it was useful.

Then the Sue went to her desk. Her colleagues just stared at her. Tony stated one of the victims was the Sue's brother, but added no further comments. Gibbs arrived in the bullpen. There had been three boys in the crashed Mitsubishi. Ziva was the first to rattle off what information she had gleaned so far about the back seat passenger: the boy with the broken neck.

His dad is currently doing some secret spy work.

"Secret spy work as opposed to public spy work?" Tasmin asked.

"Perhaps in case of the latter all the bars in all the world know the spy's favourite drink. In case of the former, they don't."

Not sure on what, its confidential.

"Let's take a moment to relish the beauty of that statement."

Tony gave the information on the front seat passenger, who had survived the crash.

Has father was in the Navy and his mother was a Marine.

"Still doesn't make this a case for NCIS," Tasmin said.

McGee was last and talked about the second dead victim, the driver.

Gibbs assigned new tasks and invited the Sue to go into the lift with him. There he yelled at her about leaving a crime scene and reckless driving. Then he made the first sensible decision in the fic:

Go upstairs or go home, you're off of the case.

The Sue didn't seem to take this as anything other than an optional suggestion. She begged her colleagues if she could be the one to interrogate the surviving victim.

Tasmin stood up from her seat. "Let's go. We're going to charge this Sue."

"We are?" Allison stared at her notepad. "We don't have that many charges."

"We have enough stupidity. And there probably is going to be some more. Apparently, we are supposed to believe that someone would shoot the driver of a car to make sure he is dead, but not check on the front seat passenger, plus crawl into the back of the car to snap the back seat passenger's neck. The Mitsubishi Eclipse is a coupe. It only has two doors. To get into the back, you have to fold down one of the front seats, which were both still occupied with people when NCIS arrived at the crash scene. So either this killer is really, really stupid, or he ran out of bullets at a very inopportune time."

Allison added the additional charge to her notepad and stuck the pad in a pocket.

"As to this interrogation she begged her colleagues to let her do: That boy should not be interrogated at NCIS. He is a minor and most likely injured. He should be questioned at the hospital with one of his parents or a legal guardian present." Tasmin hoisted her duffel bag over one shoulder and picked up McGhee.

This left Allison to deal with both DiNozzo minis. "Great." She grabbed both of them by the scruff of the neck. "You will stop kicking now if you know what's good for you."

The PPC agents took a lift down to the interrogation rooms. Without knocking they barged into the room with the Sue and victim.

"Who are you?" the Sue said.

"We are Protectors of the Plot Continuum," Tasmin said.

"We are here to charge you." Allison put the minis down on the ground.

DiNozo made a few staggering steps and fell down. Dinozzo faired better. He ran over to the two way mirror and jumped up to catch his reflection.

With her hands free, Allison pulled the notepad from her pocket and flicked to the pages that contained the charges against this Sue. "Kelsey Montague, we charge you with bad grammar, bad punctuation and bad spelling. In particular ..." Allison gestured towards the minis.

"We charge you with being put on team Gibbs as a replacement for Tony, but not being assigned a new team when he returns. Rather you were told you had to share a desk. What a way to say there wasn't actually any room for you on the team. We charge you with capturing Tony's attention the moment you step off the lift. We charge you with making Ducky give an autopsy report, before having done an autopsy.

"We charge you with displaying professional stupidity and forcing the same behaviour on others. We charge you with not taking the evidence van to a crime scene, with team Gibbs not being curious in the least why your brakes failed, and with Vance assigning you to a case that has nothing to do with the Navy. Being the kid of Navy personnel is not good enough.

"We charge you with making Vance think it is a good idea to send you to a crime scene that involves your teenage brother without giving you the least bit of a head's up. Vance is not that cruel. Nor is he stupid. He would not assign you the case of a family member. We charge you with having a tragic past that served no purpose other than to have a tragic past.

"We charge you with thinking it is a good idea to throw Tony from a moving vehicle. We charge you with Tony not suffering any injuries from that treatment. We charge you with not telling the parts of the story that did not involve you. In short, we charge you with being a Mary Sue. Your punishment for these crimes is death." Allison folded up the notepad.

"What are you judge, jury and executioner?" the Sue spat.

"No, I'm the public prosecutor, and the jury."

"I'm the executioner," Tasmin said. She shot the Sue.

"Ah now. First I get her brother's brain on my face and now hers as well." The boy wiped a cloth he had been holding across his face.

Tasmin shot him too.

"I believe the proper cause of action is to recruit the minor characters for the PPC."

"What, Faceless guy here? He hadn't said a word yet before we stopped this fic."

"Well, he is faceless." Allison looked at the once surviving victim.

"Let's clean up here an take those minis to the NCIS mini adoption agency."

-oOo-

The portal brought the agents and minis to a large room lined with mini-sized bunk beds. In the middle was a table — also mini-sized — strewn with computer parts and wires. Tasmin looked around cautiously, the chaos wasn't as bad as she had expected from her last visit.

"Is that a cat? With wings?"

Tasmin glared at her partner. "You're in the PPC. It's not like you've never seen anything unusual."

"I usually work in real world like fandoms. And the work load is such that I don't get out much." She put the two minis she was holding on the ground. "Any one here?" she called. "Visitors."

"Good folk," Tasmin added.

Two humans came rushing in. The first one a woman, wiping her hands on a tea towel, the second a young man with blue hair.

"Tasmin? Allison? Didn't we just see you guys like ten minutes ago?" Miah asked.

"More like a few hours," Allison replied. "We've been on another mission and come bearing minis. This one's escaped your attention." She pointed down at Dinozzo.

"Oh, it's not the first time one of them went missing," Miah said, trying to sound airily.

"Did you miss me?" Dinozzo asked.

"Like an annoying sound that's suddenly gone."

"This one doesn't eat meat." Tasmin put McGhee down.

"No meat? No bacon? What am I going to feed it?"

"Chocolate," Tasmin offered.

"I don't think we should put sugar into a McGee mini." Cali gestured towards Magee. "They're quite ... energetic."

Magee gave his opinion on that in a few choice words. He looked his brother, of sorts, up and down, decided the little man passed muster and pulled McGhee away to assist in his latest experiment.

"We're not keeping him," Miah called after him. "This is an adoption agency. First person that wants him, gets him."

Magee also had a few words to say on that.

"Or, we keep him and give the old one away," Miah said in a conspiratorial voice to the other agents.

"We don't want him," Tasmin quickly said. "Either of them. We already have plenty of minis."

"No, we don't. We don't have any minis. We're the only agents that don't have a single mini."

"We have the mini-Deckers." Tasmin started to make her way towards to exit of the response centre.

"Trent has those. And he's at the other side of the building." Allison followed.

"Technically, those are our minis."

"Then why don't we have them at our response centre?" Tasmin and Allison left their colleagues behind without saying good-bye. "A response centre is not a response centre without a mini to guard it while its agents are away."

"You want a mini-Decker in our response centre? And risk it blowing things up? You've seen what they've done to the play-pen. I don't want that in my RC."

"Your RC? It's my RC too, and I want a pet."

"Fine! You can have a goldfish."

"A goldfish! In a bowl, I imagine. That's simply cruelty towards animals. A goldfish in this case. Cruelty towards partner too."

Thus distracted by their argument — which further touched on topics as diverse as weapons and soup — it took the agents only five minutes to get to their own response centre.