Taylor was not looking forward to today's field trip for a number of reasons, the least of which would be the mind numbing boredom. They'd been put into groups of four, with one parent per group. Somehow Taylor had found herself in a group with Emma, who had only moved from New York and had barely spoken two words to her in the time she'd been here, and Ashley and Hannah. The same Ashley and Hannah with whom Taylor had almost come to blows with on a number of occasions. Then just to top off the perfect day, her dad had actually volunteered to help out. Taylor had tried to convince him that he'd be better off at work, but he hadn't bought it. Sometimes life really sucked.

Ashley had claimed the front passenger seat of the car, and babbled incessantly to Gibbs as he drove. Even a sneaky kick to the back of her seat hadn't been enough to shut her up, so Taylor, fed up listening to her, pulled out her ipod and turned up the volume. Emma did the same.

*******

Their group was the last in the long procession trailing past the exhibits. Taylor hung back with Emma. Patricia was making her way along, stopping at every group before moving on to the next. Unfortunately she spotted Taylor and Emma complete with earphones and made a beeline for them, hand held out.

Realising quickly she was going to lose her ipod, Taylor switched it off, wrapped the earphones around it and stuffed it into her pocket.

Patricia didn't lower her hand. "You'll get it back later."

"No way. It's mine." Beside her Emma was following Taylor's lead and slipped her own into her pocket.

"We went over the rules yesterday. No mp3 players."

"I forgot I had it on!"

"Problem?" Gibbs, complete with his own personal fan club of Hannah and Ashley had made their way back to see what the hold up was.

"No." Taylor glared at Patricia as she handed her the ipod. Then stalked past her to the next display.

"Nice try."

Taylor looked round to find Emma leaning against the rail beside her. "Didn't work though. Now we'll have to listen to those two all day." She nodded towards Hannah and Ashley.

"They really love themselves don't they." Emma performed a perfect imitation of Ashley.

Taylor grinned. "Yeah, but at least they're keeping my dad busy."

"What, don't tell me you're not excited to be here! Improve your mind and all.""Yeah, right!" She watched as Hannah and Ashley passed them again, her dad trying hard to keep up. He didn't even glance back before disappearing round a corner.

Taylor made a move to follow, but Emma stopped her.

"It wouldn't be hard to get lost in here would it?" Emma stated innocently.

"But…"

"He'll think you're up ahead." Emma started walking back towards the main entrance. "You comin' or not?"

Taking one last look over her shoulder Taylor ran to catch up with Emma. "So where are we going?"

"Gotta be something around here worth doing." Emma shrugged as they stepped out into the sunlight.

*******

Emma had been right, they hadn't been missed, that was until all the groups were led into a lecture theatre for a talk given by some of the museum staff. Gibbs scanned the rows of kids for his daughter, then for Emma. Neither one was there. Thinking they were probably dragging their heels at the last few exhibits he let Patricia know what was going on, before retracing the route they'd taken. As he forced his way through waves of pupils from other schools he realised it wasn't going to be as easy as he'd thought. By the time he'd made his way all the way back to the main entrance he was not a happy man. He had even checked the canteen. There was no sign of either of them. Standing just outside the doors he called Patricia, just to make sure they hadn't shown up while he'd been looking for them. They hadn't. Either they were somewhere in the building where they weren't supposed to be, or they had left the museum completely, and they had no reason to do that. Clipping his cell back onto his belt he took a deep calming breath before asking the woman at the reception desk if it was possible to have the two missing students paged over the tannoy system. She was very helpful, but four announcements and forty minutes later there was still no sign of Taylor or Emma. Now he was starting to worry. There was absolutely no reason why they should have left, not of their own accord anyway. Swallowing down the panic that was starting to bubble up, he went in search of the security office.

*******

The arcade they found was definitely more interesting than the museum, and they were pretty evenly matched when it came to the games. They worked their way steadily through their lunch money, only abandoning the machines when then they both had empty pockets.

"So where to now?" Taylor wasn't willing to go back just yet.

"How about some shopping?" Emma eyed up a nearby grocery store.

"We're broke." Taylor reminded her.

"Don't need any money." When Taylor looked at her suspiciously she added, "No we're not gonna steal anything, just have a little fun. Come on, I'll show you."

Taylor watched as Emma picked up a bottle of shampoo from one of the shelves before following a bald guy along one of the aisles. The second he turned his attention away from his shopping cart Emma dropped the bottle in along with his groceries.

"See, it's easy, and he probably won't even notice until he's home. Your turn."

*******

His badge was very effective when Gibbs asked to see the security footage of the main entrance. He scanned the video carefully as the guard rewound the morning's recording.

"Stop. Play it from there." Noting the time on the bottom of the screen he watched his daughter and her partner in crime make a break for freedom. They'd been gone for hours. Although his first reaction was to go looking for them, Gibbs was well aware that they could be anywhere by now, so assuming they were going to sneak back at some point he decided to rejoin the class and wait them out.