The Third DiNozzo

Chapter One ~ Moving onto Better Things

"Pen? Pen? You still here?" Called a voice from the front room. 

"Yeah, Sam. I'm still here." 30-year-old Aspen Jacobs called from her closet. "Just saying one last goodbye to my sanctuary." She tapped the back wall of the closet and a small door opened into an itty bitty crawl space. She was just about to crawl in when someone grabbed her belt. 

"No. I know you, the minute you crawl into that cubby hole, you're never gonna leave it," said 29-year-old Samantha George as she pulled her best friend back. "You have a flight to D.C. in two hours, and you're not spending them locked up in there!"

"It's the only place I feel safe though, Sam!" Aspen cried. "This is the only place that hasn't given me problems. Unlike everywhere else I have lived, this place has given me happy memories." Sam walked over and wrapped her arm around Aspen.

"I know, Pen. But, you can't crawl and hide in there forever. Besides, you were requested by the director of NCIS. That's almost completely unheard of!" Sam said brushing her long red hair over to her left shoulder. "Not many part-time FBI agents get offered to work at NCIS full-time! Hell, even any!" 

Aspen thought about that for a moment. Samantha was right for once. Aspen had only been working as a part-time agent for about a year. Her only big achievement was when she helped catch a most wanted criminal with her stubborn attitude and of course her athletic abilities. 

*FLASHBACK*

It was early one morning at a local cafe in Pasadena. Aspen was wearing her normal pantsuit with a thick headband. Not a fabulous disguise but just enough to fool the perp they're after. Who is their perp? None other than Aspen's step-brother Jason Jacobs. 

"Agent Jacobs, are you sure you want to go through with this?" Says the Senior FBI agent Marcus Mohanson, who also happened to be her current boyfriend. 

"Yes, Marcus." She groaned into his earwig. "I'm a regular here, so it won't cause suspicion on his part."

"Be careful, Penny," Marcus said cheekily into his headset from the van across the street.

"I will, and QUIT calling me Penny!" She could hear him laughing and quickly flashed the middle finger in the way of the van before heading in to get her "regular" coffee. Once inside she ordered her coffee she went and sat down at a table across from their suspect and began to drink her coffee. After about thirty minutes the suspect got up and started heading toward the door. 

"Suspect on the move," Aspen whispered into the earwig.

"Good. We've got agents stationed all around the block. Just head straight towards the van Aspen." Marcus replied. 

"What? Then who's guarding the back entrance?" She replied. 

"Well," He paused looking at his papers. "No one..." 

"For fuck's sake! He's going out the back!" She cried jumping up and following him with her gun drawn.

"Aspen? Agent Jacobs?! Stand down! I repeat STAND DOWN!" Marcus shouted into his headset, but he was too late. Aspen was already right behind him and following far enough back she was unseen. Eventually, he turned abruptly and started climbing up a fire escape. 

"Suspect is moving up the fire escape on the backside of the Fairfield Apartments," Aspen said. "I'm gonna follow."

"Agent Jacobs! I forbid you to follow him!" Mohanson shouted. 

"I'll be fine, Markie."

"That's not the point, Penny! He's dangerous!" 

"I can handle myself against him, thanks." She said before climbing up the fire escape and following their perp into an open window on the fourth floor. As she crawled through she noticed a door open at the end of the hall. "Marcus, where's the backup?"