Summary: Tony DiNozzo finds out that he has a 6 year old daughter when her mother comes to him for help because she is dying of cancer. Tony becomes a single father and this story will follow Tony and his daughter's lives together over the course of the show. See how this special girl touches the lives of all of the people on the NCIS team. The story will span from before season 1 to the current season and Madeline will grow up accordingly throughout the story.

Chapter 1 – The Backstory - 1999

Alison sat in the oncologist's office, frozen to her chair; unable to move after the news she had just been given. She was trying to process what she had been told, trying to come to terms with it. But the only emotion that seemed to be able to play through her head at that moment was anger. How could this happen to her? She was a single mother to a 5-year-old little girl; she couldn't die now; she wasn't ready to leave her baby girl behind; Madeline needed her, and she would need her for many years to come. She wasn't just angry about her diagnosis today, she was angry at the way her luck had been going for years now.

Alison was a young mother, only 20 years old when her daughter was born. Madeline's father didn't know that Alison was pregnant and Alison wanted to keep it that way. She didn't think he would be a good father, as he was away at College and was quite a partier when Madeline was born. She made the decision that if Madeline wanted to know her father later in life, when she could understand what had happened, the choice would be up to her. Alison was thankful that she had the help of her mother and younger sister for the first three years of Madeline's life. Her mother cut back her hours at work when Madeline was born so that she could help raise her granddaughter. Alison also had a younger sister, Laura, who was 15 when Madeline was born. Laura became a very reliable babysitter when both Alison and her mother had to work, and soon became the cool, fun aunt. The life of the four girls was complicated and often unorthodox, but they made it work, and they were a happy family for the first three years of Madeline's life.

However, things started to go south when Alison's mother started forgetting simple everyday things like what she had eaten, where she had gone and what she had done that day. Alison began to fear that she was not capable of looking after Madeline anymore as she often forgot she was there. She was soon diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's and her memory began deteriorating more and more. She often forgot her granddaughters name and she required constant care. A year later Alison and Laura made the tough decision to put her in a home where she would get the care she needed and be safe. This was very hard on Alison and the stress began to take its toll on her health.

It was just before her daughters 5th birthday that Alison received the news that she had cancer. It was an aggressive form, with a poor prognosis and it had already spread, making it very tough to treat. Alison underwent chemotherapy treatments in attempt to shrink the tumors and prolong her life. Six months of treatment later, here she sat in the oncologist's office, having just been told that the cancer wasn't responding to treatment and they were out of options. The doctor told her that she would probably have three to five months left. How had her luck taken such a turn for the worse since Madeline was born? How had her life come to this? She had three to five months left with her daughter, to figure out a life for Maddy once she was gone. It was too much; this wasn't fair.

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Tony DiNozzo was a homicide detective at Baltimore PD. He had just closed up a long case and was grabbing a coffee and heading back to the station. He walked through the door and noticed a woman sitting on the bench outside the receptionist's office that looked strangely familiar. The woman looked up at him and immediately stood up and walked towards him. Tony noticed she looked very thin, and not the good kind of thin, but the sickly looking kind of thin. She was clutching onto a picture in her hand.

"Tony?" She spoke and it snapped him out of his daze.

"Yeah, that's me." Tony looked puzzled.

"I'm Alison MacDonald, you might not remember me, but we met at a frat party at Ohio State about 6 years ago and…" She didn't know how to continue. How do you tell someone you slept with a couple of times 6 years ago and haven't seen or heard from since, that he got you pregnant and now he has a 5 year old daughter? That's not just something you go and blurt out in the entranceway of a police station. Thankfully Tony spoke.

"Yes, I remember you. We went on a couple dates after that but that was all. What are you doing here?" This was starting to freak Tony out a little. Some girl he slept with back in College in Ohio tracked him down in Maryland.

"Can we sit down somewhere for a minute?" Alison asked him. Tony nodded and led her through the office to his station and pulled out the chair on the opposite side of the desk for her to sit down. Neither of them said anything for a couple of minutes; both just looking at each other and taking it all in. Tony wondering what she was doing there and Alison trying to figure out exactly what to say.

She hadn't been surprised when she started looking for Tony and found that he was a cop. He had seemed like the type of guy who would have a manly job like that, when she had met him 6 years before. She was definitely relieved to find that he wasn't a crazy drug addict or a murderer or something like that. A cop was a decent job; maybe he would be a decent father.

Finally Alison got up the courage to say what she came to say. "Tony, I don't know how else to say this other than to just say it. I have a daughter; she's 5 years old. She's yours Tony." Tony just stared at her for the longest, most awkward few minutes in either of their lives. He was in shock. He had a child; a five year old daughter, and he didn't even know it until now. Kids were something that he hadn't seriously thought about yet, other than the thought that maybe someday in the distant future he'd have them. Alison didn't know what else to say so she wordlessly reached across Tony's desk and handed him the picture she had been holding onto so tightly. It was from only about a month ago. It had been a beautiful fall day outside and her and Laura had taken Maddy to the park. The picture was taken as she came down the slide, with a giant smile on her face, her dark brown hair blowing slightly in the wind and her big beautiful green eyes showing nothing but happiness at that moment.

"Uh…what's her name?" Tony finally spoke with a cracking voice, as he took the picture from Alison's hand and focused intently on it.

"Madeline. Madeline Alyssa MacDonald. She goes by Maddy," Alison smiled at the small smile that crept onto the corner of Tony's mouth.

"It's pretty. And she's beautiful." He couldn't take his eyes off of the picture. He thought she was the cutest little girl he'd ever seen in his life. She looked exactly like her mother too; other then the green eyes of course; those were unmistakably his eyes.

"She has your eyes. I always knew her eyes were yours but now that I see them again... it's crazy how much she looks like you Tony."

"I was just thinking about how much she resembles you." His brain wasn't working properly right now. He didn't know what to say or do. He wanted to ask why she didn't tell him she was pregnant, and why she came to him now, now that Maddy is 5, but he just couldn't take his eyes off of the picture.

"I know you're probably wondering why I came to you now," she read his mind. "I didn't want to tell you when I got pregnant because I didn't think you were ready for a child, and I don't know if you're any more ready now or not but now I don't have much of a choice anymore." Those last words finally caught his attention and he looked up and took in her appearance with more detail this time. He had noticed before how thin she was. Her eyes were sunken in and he could see her collarbones and shoulder blades sticking out; she didn't have much meat on her bones at all. And she was very pale. He could see the pain and sadness in her eyes as she spoke.

"I'm sick Tony, and I'm not going to get better. I uh…don't have a lot of time left…" Her voice broke as she admitted it out loud for only the second time since she had spoken to her doctor. When she had told her sister Laura about the doctors latest tests, and that they were stopping treatment, she had barely had to say anything and Laura knew by her tone of voice and her tears that it was not good news. They had cried and held each other for a long time, both trying to come to terms with what this meant. She had not told Maddy yet about any of it; although she had a feeling Maddy knew something wasn't right. She would ask questions when Alison came home from her chemo not feeling well. Alison would always say she just had the flu but Maddy was a smart kid for 5 years old.

"My father passed away when I was a teenager," She continued, "and my mother, she has Alzheimer's; we had to put her in a home. My sister only just turned 20 and is in her first year of University. Maddy doesn't have anyone else…" She paused for a minute to compose her-self. "My sister isn't ready to take Maddy, she's in school, she doesn't have much money and I don't have much to leave her to help her out. She'll have to quit school if I leave Maddy to her, so…" She stopped talking, not knowing how to say the rest.

"You want me to take her…" Tony finished her sentence for her, knowing now why she came to see him today.

"I don't expect you to say yes, and I still have a little bit of time, so I guess what I want now is just for you to meet her and get to know her over the next couple months. I don't want to die and leave my child parentless Tony," she started to cry, "I want her to know her dad."

This was a lot for Tony to take in in a short amount of time. He couldn't help but stare at the picture of Madeline again. She was so beautiful and seemed so sweet and loving. It made him sad to think that in a few short months this child would lose her mother and everything she had come to know in her short 5 years of life. A five-year-old should never have to go through something like that. No kid should ever have to endure that much pain. Staring at the picture he already felt a slight attachment to the young girl; just seeing that she looked like him and knowing that she was his did that. He didn't think he was really ready for a child and a child definitely hadn't been in the plan for him anytime in the near future, but since when does life go according to plans? Alison was still sniffling softly across from him. Tony slowly reached across the desk and grabbed a hold of Alison's hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

"I'd like to know her too."

Please Review! I have the timeline written out for the entire story already, but I want to know if you like the idea before I write more chapters. Next chapter Tony gets to meet his daughter.