"Why are we here?"

Allison gave her partner a puzzled look. "Isn't that supposed to be my question?"

"This is NCIS." Tasmin waved her arm at the open plan office. "That's an organisation mostly made up of civilians. We deal with military based fandoms."

"And 80s based," Allison muttered. "Doesn't the N stand for Naval? That's probably military enough for Upstairs to send us here."

"That's probably it. So what kind of Sue have we got?"

"Daughter, wife, best friend."

"You don't know yet?"

"No, she's all three according to the intelligence report."

Tasmin rolled her eyes. "Great, an overachiever."

"And presumed dead at the moment."

Tasmin sighed loudly and hung her head. "This job just doesn't get any easier over time."

Tony walked in with coffee in one hand and his bag over his shoulder. He tried to avoid his colleagues, but they were having none of it.

“What’s the matter Tony you get up on the wrong side of someone else’s bed this morning?” She wondered with a smug grin on her face.

"I don't know what's more painful: the complete lack of commas in that sentence, or the subtle character bashing." Tasmin shivered.

"You know this canon? Enough to know this character was portrayed unfairly?" Allison pointed at Kate.

"I have a passing knowledge."

"And you wonder why we are sent into this fandom?"

"Well, if we could possibly be sent into any fandom I have a passing knowledge for, I'd be in Floaters. Don't know where you'd be, though."

Allison made a small cross-sign with her fingers and quickly turned her attention back to the characters.

Gibbs walked in, stole Tony's coffee and revealed the latter man had an ex-wife.

“Wait, you had a wife?” Kate laughed thinking to herself that this must be some type of joke. “Tell me was she blind or just stupid to have married you?”

"Very, very out of character. I think she could have joked about drunk and a Vegas wedding. I don't think she would have said blind. Blind is not the same as stupid."

"I'll make a note of it," Allison said and fished her notepad and pen from her jacket pocket.

Kate continued to yank Tony's chain. He yelled at her to stop it and then stormed out, leaving a frozen and scared Kate behind.

"I guess Kate is not this Sue's favourite character," Tasmin said. "She's a former secret agent. They don't freeze up like that."

"Character bashing and out-of-characterness."

Gibbs set his coffee down and went after Tony. McGee saw a tear escape Kate's eye and explained to her what was going on.

“She was murdered Kate, three years ago by a navy seal. Tony was really broken up about it, she was everything her ever wanted smart, beautiful, kind, and she was Gibbs’ best worker.”

"If she was everything he ever wanted, then why did he divorce her?" Allison asked.

"Don't know. I doubt Gibbs is confused about the difference between an ex-wife and a late wife."

"Perhaps he's wishing she was not married to Tony. She was his daughter."

"His daughter, his subordinate, Tony's wife. NCIS is not a family business. If she had joined NCIS after Gibbs she would have been stationed at a different office than he was. Whoever was in charge of the hiring would have wanted to avoid actual or apparent preferential treatment by putting a daughter in the team her father was supervisor of."

"So, if she wasn't a field agent, you would be okay with her being Gibbs's daughter ánd Tony's wife?"

"For the time being. Let's catch up with them in that elevator."

The PPC agents made a dash for it and managed to jump in just before the doors closed. The lift started to descend.

Tony was sitting in the corner, hugging his chest. Gibbs rammed a button that made the lift stop its decent.

"I don't know why elevators have that button," Tasmin said. "What could possibly be the purpose of having an emergency stop if you can't get out of the thing if it's in between floors?"

"Apparently, it is for private conversations."

"Utility cupboards are grossly underused. And they're much safer. You don't risk getting stuck in one when a fire breaks out."

"You do, if someone decides to block the door with a broom."

Tasmin gave her partner a weary look.

Both men were silent, each preoccupied with his own thoughts.

Allison looked from one to the other. "Okay, I concede that this lift is used for a private brooding session. What I'd like to know is, why I am more uncomfortable with that than these two men?"

"Because you have an instinctive grasp of character, and these characters are supposed to behave as the author tells them to."

Finally, Tony spoke up and said he was sorry.

“Don’t be?”

"That's not a question; that's a statement," Tasmin said.

Gibbs said that Kate was out of line.

"For what? For taking the micky?"

"Must be. 'Cause it can't be that Tony's out of line for yelling at a co-worker and storming out."

Tony confessed that he was still hurting and that he saw her face everywhere. Gibbs admitted to having the same problems. Then his phone rang. It was McGee telling them there was a body. Gibbs started up the lift again.

Tasmin stared up into the distance where the Words were giving off their soft glow. "We're missing out on some exposition with Kate and McGee."

“How did you know that?” Kate asked McGee. She was in shock that someone who hadn’t been there much longer than her knew more than she did about the private lives of her colleagues that turned out to be not so private.

"That is grammatically wrong, convoluted, and a bad case of not resisting the urge to explain."

Allison made a note. "How else were we going to find out that McGee knew the Sue too?"

"That's another thing: 'I was at MIT with her' is not really a good answer to 'how do you know all this?' I was at school with a lot of people, but I wouldn't know if any of them married a co-worker."

"Doesn't your school have an alumni newsletter?"

Tasmin growled in reply.

The lift reached the car park floor and Gibbs and Tony walked out to the van. A moment later, a second lift carrying Kate and McGee arrived. They went to the van too. No one said anything and they all tried to avoid eye contact.

"I think Kate has more sense than to let a bad situation simmer," Tasmin said. "She would have apologised for upsetting him."

"Are we going with them?" Allison nodded to the van.

"Not enough room." Tasmin grabbed the remote activator and opened a portal.

-oOo-

The PPC agents arrived at the crime scene only a moment before the NCIS agents. A female runner, who was now escorted by her husband and father -- Allison sensed a theme in the story -- had stumbled over a body in naval uniform on her morning run.

Gibbs and McGee went to question the woman, while Tony started an inspection of the body. The PPC agents went with him.

The body showed no obvious signs of violence and Tony wondered how it had ended up in the woods. He thought he recognised the face, but he couldn't put a name to it. Just sticking out underneath the body he saw something white. He decided to pull it out.

"It's good to know that at least one of his hands was gloved," Tasmin said.

"I still think this is tampering with evidence," Allison said. "He should have taken pictures, and left the envelop there until forensics had moved the body."

Tony called for Gibbs to come over. The envelop was addressed to Gibbs, and Tony recognised the handwriting.

On the front of the envelope in unmistakable handwriting which he had seen many times, were the words.

He believed it was a hoax and would ask Abby to fingerprint the envelop.

"Test for fingerprints," Allison mumbled, "not put extra fingerprints on it."

Gibbs arrived and Tony handed him the envelop.

Gibbs snatched it from him and looked down at the words written on the envelope.

"I think Gibbs is doing the fingerprinting now," Allison said.

"Rule number two: always wear gloves at the crime scene."

"What?"

"Gibbs has a set of rules for being a good field agent. Number two is 'always wear gloves at the crime scene'."

"The narrative so far has been pretty detailed about these things. It doesn't say he's wearing gloves, so, he's not wearing gloves."

"Okay, write them both up for tampering with evidence. Or at least, uncharacteristic, unprofessional behaviour."

Gibbs tore open the letter. It contained a single sheet of Navy stationary with the same handwriting. He quickly read the letter twice. Then he put it in his pocket.

Tony was confused, but he got no other explanation than that Gibbs wanted them to go back to the office.

The PPC agents were left alone with the body.

"It would have been nice if Gibbs had even shown a cursory interest in the body. Asked a question like, who is he, or how the hell did he get this letter," Tasmin said. "Now, we've got nothing."

"We've got a flashback." Allison nodded up at the Words. "Sue's getting married and Gibbs is so happy he's crying."

"Trust a Sue to make a grown man cry."

"She's doing it again now." Allison pointed at Gibbs, who was standing not too far away with heaving shoulders. He had an arm stretched out to seek support from a nearby tree.

"Oh, yuk." Tasmin curled up her upper lip. "That is not a pretty picture."

Kate came to tell him that Ducky and Palmer had arrived, and to apologise for what she had done earlier. Gibbs brushed past her, saying he didn't need her apology.

"Another rule: never say you're sorry."

"I'd like an apology, though," Allison said. "There are a few flashbacks to the Sue and Tony on an undercover mission before they were an item, and they are sugar sweet."

She had her headphones on and iPod in hand.

"They also use technology in an anachronistic setting."

"The iPod, you mean? When was that first introduced?"

"October 23, 2001," Tasmin replied. "She could be an early adapter, but that means that her and Tony's courtship and marriage lasted about six months, seeing as she needs to get killed a little more than three years before Kate is killed."

"Could be an AU, in which Kate is not killed and this story is set at a later time."

"I doubt this Sue would miss out on the opportunity to have Kate killed off."

"If Kate is dead, who's she going to bash?"

Tasmin squinted an eye. "Anachronistic use of technology," she dictated.

While the PPC agents waited for Ducky and Palmer, they read the rest of the flashbacks. But what started out as a clichéd romance with an argument over who got the shower first, soon turned into a smooth, obstacleless romance, when Tony caught the Sue wearing one of his shirts and told her she looked good in it, rather than telling her to take it off.

"You know how you always look away when two people are making out in public, but try to get a better look when they are fighting in public?" Allison asked.

Tasmin nodded.

"It's the same with stories: readers want to see the conflict. Happy people are boring."

Palmer and Ducky put the gurney down next to the body. Kate told him about her case of foot-in-mouth disease of earlier that day, and Ducky realised what day it was, 'the anniversary of a terribly traumatic day' for both Gibbs and Tony. He continued by telling Kate and Palmer all he knew about the Sue.

“As I recall she was quite a charismatic and ambitious young woman. If she wanted something she worked hard to achieve it. She was a fierce woman she took after Gibbs you know. She was like him, never afraid of a challenge. She was beautiful too breathtakingly so, she stole our Tony’s heart almost immediately but neither one of them knew it for awhile but soon enough they figured it out. She was exceptional in everything that she did. Absolutely everyone loved her and the way she looked after Gibbs you sometimes forgot which one was the child and which was the parent. She was also vastly intelligent. She graduated from MIT with top honor and was awarded the position of valedictorian. I believe she was best friends with Timothy they had classes together and shared an apartment for quite some time while they were attending school. Then when she came to work here she sat at the desk across from her father the same one Timothy occupies now. She was actually the reason he became a special agent. She was also tough in other ways than Gibbs but sometimes the same. She had a big heart as well. She was well beyond extraordinary.”

"I am not going to write all that down," Allison said.

"I think you have too. Ducky just summed up most of our charge sheet."

Kate asked him how she was killed, but Ducky didn't think it was his place to tell her that.

"We're not getting anything from here any more. Let's go see if Abby tells Gibbs off for not properly handling the evidence."

-oOo-

At the lab, it was Gibbs telling Abby off, about a female singer she was listening too.

“No Gibbs you agreed that I wouldn’t I never actually said anything.” Abby bit back and for now Gibbs let her.

"Five pounds says she was listening to the Sue," Allison said.

"Whatever she was listening to, I think it ate her punctuation."

Gibbs pulled the envelop, which he put in a plastic evidence back when no one was looking, from his pocket and gave it to Abby. She turned it in her hands and quickly spotted that it was addressed to Gibbs and that he had opened it. Gibbs shrugged it off and left.

"Is he always this impossible?" Allison asked. "He makes Stockwell look like a well-adjusted human being."

"He likes to have things done his way, but I think the author is embellishing here."

Abby waited until she heard the doors of the elevator close before she went to her other lab room. There she told someone they could come out of hiding.

The PPC agents looked cautiously around the door frame. Whoever was in the other room might not be canon.

“I don’t know that I can do this Abby.” She said quietly pacing around the lab.

"Punctuation, you mean?" Allison remarked. "Or correct grammar?"

"That must be the Sue," Tasmin said. "Through her Suefluence she's inflicting the same grammar on the other characters."

Abby assured her that she could, and that she had to, before 'they' found out on their own.

"Ooh, what could that be about?"

"I think our Sue has risen from the dead," Tasmin said. "And the fic has conveniently left out the part were Abby kicked her butt for breaking everybody's heart."

"It sounds more like Abby thinks no one is going to be that bothered about their heart break. Because they're all going to be too happy the Sue's back."

The Sue borrowed Abby's phone to make a phone call.

“That was Agent Fornell, in order for me to be completely and officially out of the program I have to identify the body in his presence.”

"She's in a witness protection program?" Allison looked at her partner for confirmation.

"Then what is she doing here? Protected witnesses are not supposed to come back to where they came from, it jeopardises their protection."

"It seems she was only protected from one person, and he's assumed dead now."

"That's two stupid assumptions. One, that he was indeed the only threat she needed to be protected from, and two, that she comes out of hiding before they are certain he is dead."

Allison made a note of it on the charge sheet.

"It's also a violation of rule number three: don't believe what you are told. Double check."

"Does this Fornell also live by Gibbs's rules?"

"No, but I would imagine the Sue does. She's his daughter, and takes after him."

The Sue then finally asked how everyone was and Abby told her what a hard time they all had, and still have coping with losing her.

It’s the same way he has always felt about Shannon and Kelly.

"This is interesting," Tasmin said. "Shannon was Gibbs's first wife, but apparently not the Sue's mom, or Abby would have said 'your mom and sister', and the Sue is older than Kelly would have been at this time. How do you think this adds up?"

"It doesn't add up."

Tasmin and Allison shared a meaningful look. Well, it was meaningful to Tasmin. It took Allison a little bit longer before the penny dropped.

"I guess it adds up to a charge." Allison made a note.

The PPC agents caught a glimpse of the two women hugging. Tasmin decided they had learned all they were going to learn, and suggested to move on.

-oOo-

"I've put us a little bit backwards in the fic," Tasmin said just after the portal closed behind them. "I think there's some charges for us to be found here." She pointed at the interrogation room through the two-way mirror. "That, for instance, is a violation of rule number one, never let suspects sit together."

McGee sighed softly while standing in the corner of the interrogation room, the woman who found the body sat at the table with her husband and father causing McGee to think about how Tony and Gibbs must feel when they see families like this, especially with the date being the reminder of the worst day of their lives and his.

"They're not suspects. That woman is a witness. We saw her at the crime scene."

"Why would he bring her in if he didn't think she was a suspect? Witnesses at the crime scene are questioned at the crime scene."

"What rule number is that?"

Tasmin shrugged. "Gibbs hasn't mentioned it yet, but I'm sure it's there."

Tony came into the interrogation room and told McGee the witness was free to go. The woman, who like the Sue was named Brooke -- which gave Tony quite a shock -- said she had something important to say and that they should call their boss.

A little while later Gibbs arrived, told Tony and McGee to go see Ducky about the autopsy, and the witness's father and husband to wait in the hall. Gibbs then had some chit-chat with the witness, to make her feel comfortable, before asking what she saw that morning.

"Wouldn't it make more sense for him to ask her why she wanted to see him?" Allison asked. "It makes sense it's about the body she found, but it's rather presumptuous of Gibbs to not check first if she could have anything else on her mind. Didn't he ever quote that as a rule?"

"Nope, but he likes to get to the point quickly, so if a witness asked for him specifically, he would like to know why."

The witness started to tell the story of that morning. She had been on one of her walks when she suddenly heard someone call out her name. She turned around to see that the person yelling had his back turned to her. She ducked behind some shrubs when she saw his rifle. Then the man suddenly collapsed. Shortly after, a woman that had been hiding on the other side of the clearing (the witness had spotted her) came into the open, felt the man's pulse, left something near the body and took the rifle. She hadn't seen the woman's face, but she could describe her clothing.

“Just a lot of long straight brown hair, a medium blue cable knit sweater over a white button down shirt, and a pair of designer jeans.”

"This woman must have extraordinary vision. Not only can see someone hiding when someone with a better vantage point can't, she also can see what people are wearing underneath their jumpers."

None of this information excited Gibbs into asking any more questions. He opened the door and told the witness she could go home.

"I can't help shake the notion that Gibbs actually knows what's going on," Allison said. "At least, he doesn't seem to make any effort to find out what is going on."

"Perhaps all was already explained to him in that note he found."

"Why would anyone carry around a block of Navy stationary on the off chance that they needed to write a note in the middle of the woods?"

Tasmin shrugged. "Perhaps the Sue had foresight and wrote the note earlier. Wouldn't put it past her with her being brilliant and all."

Allison rolled her eyes. "When you start making excuses for the story, things are going very wrong."

"I'm not making excuses. I try to find reasons that fit the story to explain why characters seem to behave irrationally."

"Just open up a portal and let's go see if people are more rational somewhere else."

-oOo-

In the autopsy lab Ducky was trying to be rational as he explained his findings to Tony and McGee. The body lay, internal organs showing, on a slab with the three men surrounding it.

Tasmin joined the little group, but Allison decided she'd prefer to look anywhere else in the room.

Ducky said that the man had died of a heart attack and that he had gun powder residue of a rifle on his right hand. Tony said they hadn't found any rifle or bullets on the crime scene.

"Well, you haven't exactly been combing the crime scene for evidence, have you?" Allison said behind his back. "We were there longer than you."

Tasmin bent a little backwards so she could look behind Tony's back at her partner. "Obviously, charge."

"Obviously, written it down already." Allison showed the notepad.

Tony suggested the man had been hunting.

“That’s not likely Anthony, not in his uniform anyway, no I’d venture a guess that he was after someone.”

"Now, why would he not hunt fowl in his uniform, but would hunt a person in his uniform?" Allison asked.

Tasmin bent backwards again. "It's not permitted to hunt fowl with a rifle in either Virginia or Maryland. It's not permitted to hunt -- period -- in Rock Creek Park, where this body was found. I think Tony would have known that."

Allison thought about it for a moment. "That doesn't really answer my question why the dead guy would be wearing his uniform to go after someone. Navy personal are permitted to wear their own clothes when they take leisure, aren't they?"

"When on authorised leave or off-duty they can wear civilian clothes." Tasmin turned her head to the body. "The fact that he wasn't, either means he wasn't off-duty, or the Sue needed a plot device to get team Gibbs involved quickly."

"I'll make a note of it so we can ask her which it was."

Tony and McGee left to go and see what Abby had come up with studying the clothes of the corpse. The PPC agents decided to share a lift with them. The men talked about the difference between questioning and interrogating. When they arrived at Abby's lab Tony was quick to point out a woman in the lab that stood with her back towards them. Gibbs, who had taken the stairs, told them they knew the woman already, then hit both men in the back of the head for not recognising the Sue.

Tasmin quickly pulled her partner into a corner before the Sue would turn around and see them.

"That's a little unfair," Allison said. "His wife's been dead three years, he's entitled to not expect to see her in the flesh again. On the other hand, he's been thinking about her all day and how he still sees her everywhere. The least I would expect is that he would find the way she arched her shoulders familiar. Unless she has considerably, bulked up, or down."

The men continued to stare at the woman.

“She hasn’t changed at all.”

"Which makes it all the more unlikely that Tony did not recognise her."

McGee wanted to go in and talk to her, but Gibbs pulled him back and explained to him why he couldn't.

“Our victim lying on the slab in autopsy went after Brooke for witnessing a murder of his, something I’m sure you remember Tim, but she didn’t die. Brooke was placed into the witness protection program and until she identifies the body we can’t be in contact with her.”

"How can Gibbs now all this already?" Allison asked. "The Sue only just finished telling Abby. Did that note really explain all?"

Gibbs received a phone call from Kate telling him that Fornell requested his immediate attention. A lift was called and Gibbs and McGee stepped in when it arrived. Tony stayed behind -- the doors of the lift closed before Gibbs could pull him in.

"I wonder how that safety inspection went: button for making the lift get stuck between floors, check. Button to make doors open again when they close at inopportune time, uncheck, who needs those anyway?"

Tony mustered up his courage and entered the lab. Abby quickly made an excuse to be somewhere else -- despite having offered the Sue earlier to be there with her when she would tell the others that she was still alive.

The Sue said she was sorry she had put him through all this. Tony did not wonder how come she was still alive, but did ask why she was there.

“Witness protection, they wouldn’t even let me have a picture of you.” Her voice sounded far away as she buried her face in his shirt taking in his smell.

"Yes, because witness protection likes to break up families like that," Tasmin commented.

Suddenly, a toddler came running out of the ballistics lab and grabbed hold of the Sue's leg.

“Mommy, why are you crying?”

"That has to be the first flaw this Sue has shown," Allison said. "She's an irresponsible parent by leaving a toddler unattended, in a ballistics lab."

"Sounds more like she is throwing a toddler into a story as an afterthought or contrived plot device."

The Sue suggested to her daughter that she should go around the building to look for Abby. The daughter protested.

“But Mommy, Nanny Ziva said we shouldn’t wander around the building without her or Jenny.”

"What are the odds?" Tasmin said.

"For what?"

"That Ziva is in this story? She's canon, but she's not much of a nurse maid."

"I guess we're going to run into her sooner or later. She's part of the Sue's entourage."

The Sue's daughter -- or mini-Sue as Allison suggested she should be called -- skipped out of the lab. Tony suggested the Sue had found someone new rather quickly. The Sue replied he was the father.

"What did you say earlier about the witness protection program and breaking up families?" Allison asked.

"I'm just trying to figure out how old the kid is. I guess the Sue didn't even know herself she was pregnant before she was supposedly killed. That would make the kid 27 or 28 months old."

"Older if she was premature."

"Still, not old enough to make it likely for her to skip already. Or ask her mother moral questions for that matter." Tasmin followed mini-Sue with her eyes as she skipped past them. "I think we should follow her."

Mini-Sue pressed the lift call button, and when the lift arrived it revealed McGee sitting on the floor looking at a picture. He quickly put it away when the little girl addressed him.

“You’re Thom E. Gemcity!” She exclaimed with delight and her eyes lit up.

"This is not how a two-year-old behaves," Tasmin said. "They've stopped being totally self-absorbed, but I doubt they'd recognise strangers other than the people appearing on Sesame Street. They certainly do not recognise authors who write adult crime novels."

"McGee is her mommy's best friend. Perhaps she bought his book to show her daughter the photo on the back cover."

Tasmin pressed her lips together and hit her partner in the back of the head.

"Why do you always hit me?"

"Because you always make up stupid excuses for the characters."

"You do it too."

"When I do it, it doesn't give me a headache."

"No, it gives me a headache," Allison muttered under her breath.

McGee was also surprised a toddler would know him.

“Your picture is on the back of Deep Six, it’s my favorite book!”

Tasmin hit her partner in the back of the head again.

"I didn't even say anything."

"No, but you were gonna." Tasmin turned away from her.

Allison made a gesture she was going to attack her partner.

Despite the baby-fat in mini-Sue's face McGee recognised her looks. He asked her where her mother was. The girl told him her mother had sent her out to find Abby. McGee offered his help.

"I guess the two-year-old just made our hit list," Allison said.

Tasmin just nodded in reply. She pulled the remote activator from her bag. "Let's see if we can find Ziva in this building."

-oOo-

Tasmin's first attempt to find Ziva brought the PPC agents back to the autopsy room. Ziva wasn't there, but Palmer was and he was telling Ducky that he had met Abby's new assistant when he took the corpse's clothes there. A gorgeous woman that introduced herself as Ziva. Ducky was surprised to hear that Abby got a new assistant after what happened with the last one.

"What happened to the last one?"

"Nothing that's important in this story, other than that it places it firmly past the first half of season three, when Ziva should be working at NCIS, and Kate shouldn't."

Ducky and Palmer examined the intestines of the corpse from the woods.

Ducky ignored the last part of Palmer’s statement as he was consumed with his work. “Mr. Palmer, it appears as though our victim has suffered from a fatal heart attack.”

"You've already come to that conclusion before," Allison said. To her surprise, Palmer made a different assessment.

“If it wasn’t a heart attack then what was it Doctor?”

Ducky thought the man had been poisoned by arsenic.

Tasmin frowned. "I don't think acute arsenic poisoning looks like someone had a heart attack to the trained medical eye."

The scene turned to black for a moment, and when colour returned Palmer was sewing up the corpse. Kate walked in and asked if they had anything new. Ducky told her the dead man had been poisoned.

It appears to be arsenic, quite a complex chemical actually way back when it was used in food and or drink to kill an enemy almost instantaneously,

"No, it's not," Tasmin said. "Arsenic is an element. White arsenic trioxide is the formerly popular poison. That can take a rather complex chemical structure as a monoclinic polymer, but that's at temperatures well above room temperature."

Kate stopped Ducky from going off on a tangent about a stage play with the word arsenic in the title.

"And I think Ducky could have come up with a lot more interesting tangents about arsenic. For instance, that despite, or perhaps because of its well known toxicity it was used in medicine, and even in some forms to give candy a tasty colour. Or he could talk about the Marsh test, that can detect arsenic in the body, even at small quantities, and that this test was first used in a murder trial in 1840; the first time forensic toxicology gave evidence!"

"I have often wondered if you perhaps were a character that was rescued from a badfic, rather than someone that came from the real world. Now I know. You are the love child of Ducky and Gibbs."

Tasmin narrowed her eyes. "I am not an NCIS badfic character."

"Going off on tangents, slapping people in the back of the head? Typical behaviour for the child of canon characters."

Tasmin raised a finger, but couldn't think of a point to make. She glared some more at her partner. Then she decided to follow Kate when she left the autopsy lab.

"Where are you going?" When no reply came Allison followed her partner at a dumb run.

She just managed to jump into the lift before the doors closed. She caught Kate giving a longing glance to a picture on her mobile, but didn't manage to see the picture before Kate put the mobile away again. Tasmin looked less inclined to talk to her than usual, so she didn't bother making conversation. She decide to observe elevator etiquette, stepped to one side and stared into the distance. Which was where the Words were.

The Words said that Abby had found a substance on the letter Gibbs had given her, but that she hadn't been able to determine yet what it was.

“Did Brooke kill him?”

Abby replied that the witness could have been the killer. Gibbs ordered McGee to call her back in.

Allison puzzled for a moment how Abby knew the name of the witness. She thought it was unlikely Kate had told her the witness's name over the phone as Abby claimed had happened. But who else could have dropped the name? Had the Sue known about the witness in the park and that she said her name was Brooke?

The lift stopped. The opening doors revealed McGee. He told Kate to go to the interrogation room; the witness was back.

From the Words Allison gathered that the witness had managed to make it from her phone, through building security and up to McGee's desk -- unescorted -- in about five minutes.

"Not only does she have X-ray vision, she's superfast too. There's another one for our hit list."

Tasmin didn't reply.

Kate nodded quickly and left the elevator in pursuit of the observation room and to keep this bizarre behavior of McGee’s from continuing.

"His behaviour is bizarre? She's the one that's trying to catch up with a room." Allison said as she left the lift in pursuit of her partner who had gone after Kate.

The PPC agents joined Kate in the observation room, and only then did Gibbs decide it was time to talk to the witness. Gibbs told her he wanted her to tell him what she had really seen. The witness replied she had told him that.

I have evidence that tells me your story was not the truth. It would really help me out if you told me what happened.

The witness cracked and told him what had really happened.

"That was quick," Allison commented.

"No backbone," Tasmin added. "This witness, I mean. She doesn't even call his bluff on the evidence. Makes me think she has nothing to hide, and if she has nothing to hide, why would she have lied in the first place?"

Kate stepped out of the observation room. The fic had jumped ahead in time and now the Sue stood at the door of the interrogation room debating whether she should interrupt Gibbs. Kate told her he was busy and that she, as a visitor, should not be in this part of the building. The Sue gave her a challenging look. She showed Kate her old badge and introduced herself.

Gibbs stepped out of the interrogation room at that moment and father and daughter were reunited. Gibbs told Kate to escort the witness upstairs. When the witness came out of the interrogation room the Sue flung herself at the woman. The two engaged in a cat fight until the Sue got the upper hand and managed to pin the witness against a wall.

“This bitch tried to kill me.”

Gibbs pulled the Sue away from the witness and into a quiet corner; Kate grabbed hold of the witness just in case. Gibbs asked the Sue what happened. She tried to dodge the question, but Gibbs put a fatherly arm around her shoulder and suggested she'd start at the beginning.

The PPC agents cautiously followed them to the employee lounge, but did not enter it. Instead they hung out just outside the door.

Gibbs gave the Sue some coffee, and some water to wash the coffee down with. Then he pushed the letter Tony had found that morning across the table to her. She read it twice, like Gibbs had done that morning. Gibbs explained where they'd found the letter.

“I gave this to you after I graduated from High School I left it in the basement on your work bench the day I left for MIT.”

"The envelop was addressed to Special Agent Gibbs. Why would she address a letter to her own dad that way?" Tasmin said.

"Why would she claim that leaving a letter somewhere is the same as giving it to a person?" Allison asked.

Gibbs said he never found it on his workbench. The Sue then suggested it must have been stolen, by someone connected to the woman who had tried to kill her today.

"That was some ten years ago," Tasmin said. "Why would someone deliberately steal a note to Gibbs and then keep it for ten years? Did they forget they had it?"

it’s obvious that they both want me dead. She had to know that I wasn’t which means that I’ve been compromised.

"No, it is not obvious," Tasmin said. "That someone took your note ten years ago does not obviously mean they want you dead. Not then and not now. It may mean that someone wanted to play you a trick, but if they wanted you dead, they would have acted on that probably a lot sooner after going to MIT."

Gibbs asked her to tell him why she was here and why the witness had tried to kill her. The Sue first would like to have a question of her own answered. Instinctively, Gibbs knew what she wanted to know and told her that Tony hadn't so much as looked at another woman.

"Which is pretty much a contradiction of what Abby had told her earlier," Allison noted. "That Tony flirts with lots of women to ease the pain. Unless he can flirt without looking."

"I doubt he can. Gibbs could be lying to make his daughter feel better. It's acceptable dad behaviour."

Gibbs's phone rang. He ordered standard lockdown; no one to go in or out of the building. Apparently, the witness had managed to get the better of Kate and knocked her unconscious. Director Shepard came in and she and Gibbs started arguing. The lights went out and Fornell arrived to join in the argument. The Sue started to get uncomfortable: there were people arguing about her as if she wasn't in the room, the power was off and she wanted to get to her daughter.

Just then she heard mini-Sue's voice and she bolted out of the room.

"How can she see anything in the dark?" Allison asked as the Sue blew past them.

"Mom's can do extraordinary things when they think their kids are in danger."

Around the corner, in the squad room, she found Tony cradling mini-Sue.

“The blackout scared her,” He explained nervously as he handed his child off to his wife.

And thus Gibbs found out he was a grandfather. And realised that Director Shepard had known all along.

“How dare you.” He whispered loudly.

“Jethro, I’m sorry but witness protection law states”-

"There's no such thing as witness protection law," Tasmin said. "Witness protection is provided for under the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970. Title V stipulates that the Attorney General is authorised to provide for the security of witnesses and their families if he thinks that giving testimony could place the witness's and or their family member's life in danger. It does not say that NCIS directors may not blab."

Gibbs hissed he did not give a damn about this -- non-existent -- law, and made his way to the stairs when Shepard wanted to protest and stepped on his heel.

"Making Gibbs hiss words that don't have an S-sound, and making Shepard turn on his heel."

"Can we go somewhere where there's a light? I can't write any charges down in the dark."

"Everyone else seems to be able to see just fine. I'm surprised they even noticed the power went off."

"I'll add that as another charge, when I get the chance." Allison didn't bother glaring at her partner; she wouldn't be able to see it.

Not much later power was restored. Allison started scribbling down saved up charges. Nothing was happening in the bull pen, so Tasmin decided to read the Words.

"They're going to organise a protective detail, which involves all of them going to Tony's house."

Allison looked up. "Is that wise? Or even effective?"

"Could be effective, if the members of Team Gibbs and the FBI agents all acted as a human shield for the Sue. Other than that, I have no idea what he is thinking."

"He's probably not thinking human shield either."

"Oh, look, there the Sue explains the reasoning to Tony." Tasmin pointed at the Words of a later scene. "He says his place is the first place anyone would look, and the Sue thinks it's the last."

“Think about it Tony, someone who is looking to kill is going to look in the last place they would think of as opposed to looking in the first place they should look which will end up being the last.”

"That makes no sense," Allison said. "If I wanted to kill a Sue, I would first look in the places I know she could be, being her flat, her husband's house, her place of work, her kid's day-care place. I'm not going to think of all kind of places she could think of that are better hiding places, such as an out of state hotel. How would I even be able to find such a hotel?"

"She's right about one thing, though."

"What's that?"

"Tony's place is the last place they will look for her, because if they find her there..." Tasmin pretended her hand was a gun and fired three shots.

Tony, however, thought it was a clever idea to assume that a killer would assume a person wouldn't be so stupid as to hide in their own house.

"I think that's a cue for bad things to happen at Tony's house."

Tasmin shrugged. "Let's go see how that protective detail works out."

-oOo-

The PPC agents arrived in the street Tony lived just as the Sue and Tony were getting out of Gibbs's car. Gibbs, Jenny, Fornell, Kate and McGee had arrived a little earlier and had already begun securing Tony's place. A moment later the car exploded.

No one was injured, except for Tony who was elbowed in the nose when going down. The Sue immediately assumed one of them should have been in the car, and perhaps now the killer was coming after all of them.

"If I wanted someone to blow up with a car, I would make sure the car blew up with them in it," Tasmin said. "For instance, by putting in remote detonator that I could push when I saw someone in the car. Or by making the ignition the detonator. I would not use a timer that was likely to go off at a time when no one was in the car."

"Perhaps it was a warning?" Allison offered. "The killer used a remote detonator at a time he knew no one was in the car."

The corner of Tasmin's mouth curled up in a smile. "That would mean they aren't safer in the house."

This thought did not occur to any of the NCIS agents as they all went into the house. The Sue took Tony to the bathroom to take care of his nose. Tony asked her where she had been living. The Sue said she wouldn't call it living, but Fornell had set her up in nearby Georgetown.

"If there is one law about witness protection," Tasmin said, "it is to not put the witness somewhere where it is highly likely they could accidentally run into the people they are not supposed to run into."

"Perhaps this was another case of using reverse logic on the bad guys: they would never believe she was hiding somewhere so near."

Gibbs and Jenny waited for the car to stop burning before they went out to investigate.

"Make a note that they did not call the fire brigade, or even used a fire extinguisher, to help with that," Tasmin said.

"And that only a few moments later they are able to touch parts of said car," Allison noted. "Or Jenny has asbestos hands."

Kate crossed the lawn to come and help. She suggested the fire started in the trunk. Gibbs agreed and they popped open the trunk. In it they found a corpse.

Kate reached for her phone to call Ducky. Then she went back into the house to round up everyone and tell them they were going back to headquarters. Gibbs and Jenny took a closer look at the unrecognisable corpse and saw something silver around its neck. It turned out to be a necklace with a Star of David pendant. This prompted Gibbs to turn around and start questioning Ziva, who had arrived a little earlier with a box of the Sue's things.

“I don’t understand how could I have done this if I was with you all day Fornell?” Ziva asked.

Tasmin dropped her face in her hands and shook her head. "Just because two people are wearing the same necklace doesn't mean that one of them has anything to do with the death of the other. They're Jews, not those Highlander folks. They don't have that 'there can be only one' motto."

Ziva argued that the only time she was not with Fornell she had been talking to the Medical Examiner's assistant and stuck in a lift. Gibbs and Jenny started to believe she had nothing to do with the corpse in the car. Then the Sue stepped into the group to back up Ziva's story. She showed them the back of the victim's pendant. It showed the family crest of the assassins that were after her.

"How does this clear Ziva?" Allison asked. "She's working with the FBI to catch these assassins. She could have gotten a little overzealous."

"Apparently, they leave this mark on their victims. Because they've never been caught they got cocky and started leaving jewellery as their calling card."

“It’s a family crest belonging to a family of Italian know how to hide and it’s apparent that they know how to kill.”

"Seeing as an assassin is someone who kills for money, it's more than apparent that they know how to kill," Allison said.

"Actually, an assassin is someone who kills a famous or important person usually for political reasons or in exchange for money," Tasmin said.

"Important? I don't think the Sue has mentioned being important to anyone other than her friends and family. And though she seems to be a little more the light of their lives than most people are to their own families, I can hardly say this puts her at the importance level of say a president. Or someone in local government , or even a lib-dem. Why are there assassins after her?"

"Delusion of grandeur. Of the Sue. It's a charge."

“That crest was stamped into the wax on the envelope of the letter you showed me and...it was carved into the bullet that I was hit with.”

"Surprisingly, with all their cries for attention, the FBI has never been able to match the crest to any actual persons. These assassins don't boost much in public."

Gibbs demanded an explanation from the Sue. She replied she could handle this on her own. Which the PPC agents found surprising. The corpse and the explosives had been in Gibbs's car and the letter the Sue referred to had been stolen from his basement.

"If she's saying she can handle herself, because she doesn't want to involve Gibbs, she's dead wrong. Gibbs is already involved."

"It's probably the 'asking for help is for weak people' mentality that is rampant in action series that is causing her to talk this way," Tasmin said.

The Sue explained what she knew about the corpse that had been found in the park that morning. She knew nothing, really, she just suspected that he had been left, in Navy uniform, as a message that the assassins still knew she was alive. She had, however, run into the witness/other Brooke in that park, who had then tried to kill the Sue.

The Sue turned around to get a cuddle from Tony. He was still a bit annoyed with her for pretending to be dead for three years, but his protective instincts took over.

"What I don't get," Allison said, as the action was paused for another flashback, "is, how were Gibbs and Tony made to believe that the Sue was dead? I don't know them well, but they seem like the type of people who don't think a loved one is dead until they've seen the body. And after they've seen the body they do what is necessary to bring the guilty party to justice."

Tasmin nodded. "That's a good assessment. It's one of the things that doesn't add up in this story, there's no believable explanation for the Sue's fake death."

Ducky and Palmer arrived to take away the body in the trunk. Gibbs walked over to Ducky and asked him why he hadn't told him about the bullet.

“Jethro I made a promise that I had to keep. If I had a choice you would have been the first to know. I took no pride in putting you, Anthony, and Timothy through all that. I know that it was especially difficult for you to lose Brooke but no one is to blame for that except for the shooter and the organization behind him.” Ducky replied harshly. He was not willing to take kindly to being accused of intentionally causing someone emotional harm.

Allison gave Tasmin a puzzled look. "So, I'm supposed to believe that Gibbs believed his daughter was dead because Ducky said so?"

"Not only that, you're also supposed to believe that Ducky forged a death certificate for the greater good. And that he believes that he is not responsible for his own actions because those actions were a reaction to someone else's actions. I'm torn between 'does this author know who she's writing about?' and 'did we accidentally end up in original fic with familiar names?'"

"It's never the latter, is it?"

"I doubt it's the former."

Gibbs thought it made sense Ducky shrugged off responsibility and apologised to him for coming on too strong.

"This Sue is good," Tasmin said.

"What?"

"I thought if anyone can resist Suefleunce it would be Gibbs. But she's broken him. She's even broken Gibbs. I would be impressed if I wasn't so angry."

Ducky and Palmer loaded the corpse into the van and most of the others made to leave as well. Only Tony and the Sue (and mini-Sue) were left behind.

"So much for that protective detail."

Tasmin nodded.

Allison flicked through the pages of her notepad she had filled with charges against this Sue. "We could go and charge her."

Tasmin nodded again. She pulled the remote activator from her duffel bag and opened a portal.

-oOo-

The portal brought the agents to Abby's lab. Allison looked around in surprise. "Why are we here?"

"Must have got the settings wrong."

"We could have just walked into the house."

"I wanted to catch the Sue when she's just coming out of the shower. If she's anything like you, she'd be only wearing a towel."

Allison frowned.

"Otherwise, rule number nine: never go anywhere without your knife."

"Into the shower as well? Where are you supposed to put it while soaping up?"

Tasmin shrugged. "You can ask Gibbs yourself. There he is."

Gibbs walked into the lab. Allison lifted a foot in an attempt to go talk to him, but Tasmin grabbed hold of her shoulder and held her back. "I didn't actually mean that."

Abby told Gibbs that she had found a partial print on one of the cuff links of the uniform the corpse in the park had been wearing and that she was running it now to see if she could get a match.

"Why is she running a partial print for a match?" Allison asked. "They've got the corpse in an icebox in autopsy. She could get a full set of ten from the body, and drastically increase her success rate of finding a match."

"That would make sense," Tasmin said. "Which is probably why she's not doing it, because nothing anyone does in this story makes sense."

"Running the partial could have made sense if Abby had reason to believe it didn't belong to the corpse in the icebox," Allison said. "But she's just been arguing the partial belongs to him." Allison made a note on the charge sheet.

Tasmin set the controls of the remote activator again and opened another portal. "This one will hopefully lead to Tony's bedroom with en suite bathroom."

-oOo-

"It's an en suite to Tony's room in a way," Allison said. "That's his interrogation room and we're in the observation room."

Tasmin gave the remote activator a critical look. "I think this thing needs servicing." She looked around. "This room needs servicing too. All the walls are slanted."

"That's because we are caught in a flashback," Allison said. "Though, according to the Words, this is the story Ducky tells Kate about how Tony and the Sue met."

"How would he know about that?" Tasmin asked. "He's not in this scene. That's the Sue. Slightly younger version of her." Tasmin pointed at a young woman sitting at the table in the interrogation room. "And that's younger Tony just walking in. Where's Ducky in all this?"

On the other side of the two-way mirror Tony introduced himself to the Sue. She had found her boyfriend dead in their hotel room and was brought in for questioning. Tony asked her a few questions, and after answering those the Sue said she didn't want to answer any more. She wanted to go home.

we can finish this tomorrow,

"What? So she can think up a plausible story, get rid of some incriminating evidence? Come on, Tony, you must hit the iron while it's hot," Tasmin pleaded.

The Sue said she had nowhere to go, no friends to stay with, and she didn't want to be alone.

“You’re welcome to stay with me until we sort this out.” Tony offered.

"What?"

"Was he fired from the police for stupidity?" Allison asked.

"I'd almost think so, 'cept that Gibbs doesn't allow stupid people on his team."

"He does in this fic. I know, charge," Allison replied to Tasmin's glare.

"I've had enough of this. We are going to charge this Sue, and we're going to charge her now." She opened another portal and ushered her partner through.

-oOo-

This time the portal took the PPC agents to Tony's bedroom.

The Sue, however, was not coming out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel. She was fully clothed in front of the wardrobe, and saw the agents arrive in the full size mirror door. She spun around. "Who are you? What-"

Allison charged forward and knocked the Sue against the door. This winded the Sue and Allison managed to wrestled her to the ground. A moment later the Sue was prone on the floor, her arms twisted behind her back, Allison on top of her pinning her down.

The Sue looked up and stared into the barrel of the silencer Tasmin had screwed on her Beretta 92SB. "What do you want?"

"Brooke Monica Gibbs DiNozzo, we are Protectors of the Plot Continuum and we are here to charge you with crimes against fanfiction in general and NCIS fanfiction in particular."

"You've got to be kidding me. Tony!"

"I advise you to stay quiet."

"Tasmin does not kid," Allison said. "Unless you mean in the sense of making someone look like a child by talking down to them. She does that a lot."

"I advise you to stay quiet too."

"Fine. You do the charging."

"Where's the charge sheet?"

"Over there." Allison nodded to the foot of the bed. "I dropped it when we came through the portal. There was this other pressing matter that needed sorting."

Tasmin turned around to pick up the notepad. She flicked through the pages. "Your handwriting is atrocious. You need to work on that." She thrust the notepad at her partner.

Allison took it and had a quick look through the charges. "I suggest we go for the abridged version."

Tasmin shrugged.

"Special Agent Brooke Monica Gibbs DiNozzo, we charge you with bad grammar, some cases of wrong word, and many, many cases of wrong punctuation. You know, it is okay to use commas to make text easier to read. It's not okay to use commas as replacement for full stops."

The Sue wriggled.

"And try to lie still too. If you move too much Tasmin's finger might slip off the trigger and she could shoot you before I'm done charging, and you don't want that to happen."

"Why's that?"

"Because she's not a member of that Italian assassin family. When she shoots you, you're dead."

Tasmin smirked at the Sue, who rolled her eyes in reply.

"We further charge you with having a ridiculous plot. Or rather plots. None of it makes sense. You have assassins after you because one of them failed to kill you in Italy, or because you saw one of their murders; you're not very clear whether it is either of these or both. You go into witness protection, but can come out of it when the assassin that tried to kill you is dead, because when he is dead you are, apparently, no longer a witness, even though you may still need protection. Witness protection places you very near to where you used to live, yet everyone around you is made to believe you are dead. How were the assassins supposed to know you were dead? Did Jenny and Fornell think there was a leak in Gibbs's team? That one of them could have told the assassins about you?"

When the Sue did not reply Allison continued. "Here's the part that doesn't make sense about that leak: at the time of your so called death on Gibbs's team were you; Gibbs, your father; Tony, your husband; and McGee, your best friend since childhood. Whom do you suppose was the leak?"

"McGee wasn't on the team at that time," the Sue bit.

"That wasn't entirely clear, but my mistake," Allison said. "What isn't my mistake, but another charge for you, is that Tony and Gibbs and McGee all believed you were dead, even though -- seeing as you are still alive -- no one of them had actually seen your dead body. I would imagine that these men would have wanted to see your body. If not to make sure you were dead, then at least to say their last good byes.

"Which brings me too my next charge: making characters behave out of character. Most importantly, making them behave stupidly and overemotional. A few cases in point, Gibbs out of character for believing you're dead without proper evidence, for unprofessional behaviour, for questioning Ziva about a corpse wearing a Star of David, and for breaking his own rules, many times. Tony, out of character for believing you are dead, for having an emotional break down, for thinking everything you do is clever, even if it is something stupid like assuming assassins think the way you do, and for not recognising you from behind when he's been thinking about you all day.

"We charge you with making Ducky your personal biographer, for having him claim he is not responsible for lying to Gibbs about you being alive, and for having him go off on a tangent about the least interesting factoid about arsenic."

"And for incorrectly claiming arsenic kills instantaneously," Tasmin added. "Arsenic was so popular as a method of poison because its symptoms were a lot like cholera, which people commonly died of, and which kills a person slowly and painfully."

"We charge you with messing with the time-line of canon. Kate, Ziva and Jenny are all in the same story. McGee and Tony have been working together since before Kate joined NCIS and Jenny was Director then."

"Jenny was Director in Europe," the Sue argued. "They were on an undercover mission in Italy."

Allison thought about it for a moment. "I guess that could work. It does still clash with the fact that Kate in chapter one did not know that Tony and McGee had worked together before she joined NCIS. She thought McGee joined the team after her. To that effect, we also charge you with referencing a season five event when this story can't be set any later than season three, if you want us to believe that Kate and you had never met before. That is, assuming you supposedly died some time before season one."

The Sue just snarled at Allison.

Allison was unfazed. "We charge you with portraying Witness Protection as a law, which it isn't. As an institutionalised way of breaking up families, which it doesn't. I doubt witness protection deliberately and without consent from the witness in question, compromises their human and constitutional rights. Witness protection also isn't stupid and wouldn't place you so near your old life, and getting set up with a new life in witness protection is not a temporary thing.

"We charge you with breaking several, if not all, of Gibbs's rules. We would have thought, seeing how you take after him in the glaring department, that you also would take after him when it came to the rules. We charge you with writing a letter to your father and addressing it with his job title, rather than 'Dad'. We charge you with being Gibbs's uncanonical daughter. We charge you with being his daughter and still being on his team. We charge you with being on his team and married to another member of the team. NCIS is a federal agency, not a family business. We charge you with being Tony's uncanoncal wife, and with baring his uncanonical offspring. We charge you with repeatedly claiming said offspring is three years old while also claiming to have just found out you were pregnant exactly three years ago. That's also a charge for bad maths.

"We charge you with seeing just fine with the power off, for jumping to odd conclusions, and making stupid assumptions. We charge you with not resisting the urge to explain. And last, to sum all this up, we charge you with being a Mary Sue." Allison threw the notepad on the floor.

"You're done now? I can go now?"

"Not really. Your punishment for these crimes is death. Tasmin will shoot you now."

Which Tasmin summarily did. "Right, you get the mini-Sue, then I will take care of this one."

Allison nodded, wiped some of the blood off her face and got up. "You could start using a smaller calibre. I bet it would get less messy."

Tasmin shrugged. She returned her gun to her duffel bag, grabbed the remote activator and opened a portal.

"What about the other Brooke? That witness."

"She was the corpse in the car boot. She's dead, not much left to charge there." Tasmin grabbed the Sue by her arms and started pulling her through the portal.

"We don't know that."

"In the reality of this story, she's the most likely candidate for ending up in the boot."

"And don't forget to bring back some carpet cleaner." Allison pointed to the floor. "I don't think Tony likes his carpet with splatters of Sue blood on it."

"It's in the bag."

"Of course. Why wouldn't it be." Allison quickly stepped out of the room. She figured the guest room would be the one across the landing.

Some red hair was sticking out above the covers. Allison pulled the duvet away and looked at the curled up form of a small child. She poked the girl against her shoulder to wake her up.

"What? What is it?" The mini-Sue looked up drowsily. She balled her fists to rub in her eyes.

"Parker DiNozzo? I'm a Protector of the Plot Continuum and I am here to charge you with crimes against fanfiction. I charge you with being two years old yet claiming to be three years old. I charge you with still being too mature for your age. You don't talk like a normal two-year-old, your motor skills are well beyond that of a normal two-year-old, and your favourite author writes adult crime fiction. I charge you with said author entering into a some what serious conversation with you about his novel. I charge you with being left alone in a ballistics lab and being sent out into the NCIS building to find someone. Although, I probably should have charged your mother with treating you like a twelve-year-old. Of course, you didn't help your case any by asking her a moral question. I charge you with being a Mary Sue. Your punishment is death." Before the mini-Sue could respond Allison pushed her back down on the bed and held a pillow over her face until she stopped kicking.

Allison checked the mini-Sue for a pulse. When she found none she picked her up and carried her back to the master bedroom, where Tasmin had left the portal open, to throw the body into the incinerator at HQ.