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ncisficathonTitle: Contact With The Enemy
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pixie_on_acid (pinch hitting)
Written for:snowglow1275
Archive: Sure, but credit me.
Pairings: None. I took the Gen option
Prompt: Story 1: gen or slash Tony/Tim, a case involving an undercover assignment at a circus! Keep it light and fun.
Rating: PG, if even that.
Disclaimer: I own neither NCIS, nor the characters involved. They belong to CBS Television. I realise no financial return from these works, they are for entertainment purposes only.
Word Count: 3,800 (approx) (not including headers)
Credits: Togoodisrelative and rinkle for their beta work.
Summary: There is a saying.
Author's Note: Sorry this took a while, getting up. As the above says… sometimes that's more true than you can imagine. I hope you enjoy it,snowglow1275
Contact With The Enemy
Tim – surprisingly – had it easiest. All he had to do was show up, and the manager nearly went into shock. Thom E. Gemcity, here! At his circus! For…
"Research," Tim supplied. That was one of the perks of being a writer. He could excuse nearly anything as 'research'. Hanging out with rural cops who didn't know NCIS from CSIS? Research. Checking out the goings-on behind the scenes at a casino, all the no-go areas the public aren't allowed? Research, and I promise I won't give anything away, that would truly compromise your measures, honest, would you like me to autograph that? Poring over the design of a classified mil-spec piece of machinery? Okay, for that one it was better to flash his badge and point out that a dead body had been found sprawled across the prototype, but still… "Secret research."
"Oh, of course, of course. You know, I have read all of your books. Every single one. Sometimes twice. Oh, Mr. Gemcity, anything you could possibly want here… it's yours." If the man were any more obsequious, he'd ooze.
"Um…" He thought for a moment. They needed more than one pair of eyes in here, and circuses were tight-knit, weren't they? It wasn't like a McDonalds where they'd hire you if you looked like you could get out the sentence 'do you want fries with that?' in mostly comprehensible English. Circus employees had specialised skills, ones not found in the sub-set of society known as 'normal.' Sudden inspiration struck. "Can I see some of your acts?"
Ten seconds was all it took to make disaster strike. It wasn't hard when you'd already done the research, but it was interesting to watch the results.
"I told you there were problems, Joey! Didn't I say the springs seemed slow? 'It's all in your head', you said. Well, what do you call that?" Betty-Lou McGrath, a.k.a, the beautiful assistant, gestured angrily at the knife-thrower's target. "Two springs gone! Snapped! Huh? What are we supposed to do now?"
"Can't we fix it?" Joey – Joseph Larouche, according to the manager's introductions – looked forlornly at the platform, as though it were a favourite toy, shattered by a bully in the schoolyard.
"Not in time." Betty-Lou crossed her arms over her chest, snapping her bubble-gum impatiently. "We need new springs and then we've got to recalibrate the whole damn thing. The last thing we need is for the damned thing to go off before you even throw." Her eyes narrowed, considerably. "Not that timing is your strong suit, anyway."
"Wow… um… I thought you guys used real knives," Tim lied. He pointed to one of the circus advertising posters. Real Knives! Real Danger! screamed bright red text underneath a picture of the Great Lorenzo (and his assistant, screaming as she fought to free herself and escape near-certain impalement), light glinting off the blade in his hand.
"Oh, yeah, like I'm gonna let someone like him throw anything sharper than mashed potatoes at me." Betty-Lou turned her 'don't be an idiot' gaze to Tim. "It's all clockwork. He fakes the throw and then another blade comes out here." She pointed at the target and its network of secret compartments. "And the only reason I'm telling you this is because Stan, here," she pointed at the manager, "says we're supposed to let you in on all the secrets. Since I don't want to get my ass fired, I'm telling you. Maybe in your books someone can throw knives that accurately all the time, but I'm not betting my life on it, when it's really my life."
Tim chewed the inside of his lip to keep from answering that. Either Stan wasn't his only fan, or he wasn't as good at keeping secrets as he promised. He didn't want to tip his hand, either, by claiming he did know someone that good, and he'd stake his life on it. With any luck, Stan would remember the pair he turned away a couple of weeks ago, claiming he already had a knife act, and thrilling as theirs might be, he didn't have room for two. Especially since a certain writer had provided an infusion of cash and the company could now afford a replacement, and keep Joey and Betty-Lou paid, too. Maybe when they weren't in so close proximity to a clearly-sharper-than-she-looked Betty-Lou, Tim could drop a few hints.
As for Tony… Tim tried to think of applicable skills Tony might possess. Only one came to mind. The man's incomparable talent with…
"…shit. You wouldn't believe how much one of those things can produce." Tony stared at him, the kind of stare that said that sometime very soon Tim was going to pay for this, and not even Gibbs could save him. "If we weren't trying to save Gibbs, I'd kill you right now."
"I'm sorry, Tony." Tim tried not to wrinkle his nose. It would only make things worse. At the same time, there weren't that many openings that could be arranged – only one, in fact. If their positions had been reversed, he was sure Tony would have given the clean-up job to him. He told himself this was only fair. That somebody had to do it, and it was for saving Gibbs, so… He couldn't help feeling sympathy for the guy, though.
"Elephants, Timmy? Do you have any idea how much one of those things stinks?"
"As a matter of fact, I do." All he had to do was stand near Tony. The man was quite the sight to see in rubber boots up to his knees and a pair of coveralls that made Ducky's ME uniform look stylish. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite the scent anyone wanted to smell.
"Kill you, McGee." Tony's repeated use of his name indicated that he felt the slight was personal. "I could chop you up and bury you in a pile of that stuff and nobody'd ever find you."
"Gibbs would," Tim said, automatically.
"I mean aside from Gibbs," Tony hissed through clenched teeth. "Of course Gibbs would, because the man can find anything and anybody. Which is why we need to find him." The clenched teeth quickly morphed into a grin as Betty-Lou wandered past. Tony was probably betting that she was used to men who smelled like elephants.
"Don't remind me." Tim tried not to think about the possibility of them not finding Gibbs, or worse. It wasn't that Tony was a bad team leader – some things, hard as it was to admit, he did even better than Gibbs – but he'd come to pieces if he ever had to face Gibbs being gone for good. Tony, Tim had discovered, wasn't actually very good with change. It was probably because he didn't let himself get very close to very many people, so he cared about the ones he did. Tim had met a lot of natural jerks over the years, but never anyone who worked so hard at it as Tony did. It had taken Tim a while to come to the conclusion that Tony, while a jock, was not, actually, a jerk. Hidden beneath the 'cooler-than-thou' attitude was a rather sensitive and, Tim suspected, intelligent human being. Every time Tony went into his anti-geek posturing, Tim reminded himself that even he did not have Tony's total recall for… well… Total Recall. Maybe he wasn't a computer geek, but he was most certainly a film-geek of the highest order. Then again, given what the guy let slip of his childhood home life, escape into fantasy was probably a survival tactic.
"What I don't get is how circus people could make Gibbs disappear. I mean, they're… circus-people. They're not the CIA, and even the CIA hasn't managed that, with Gibbs."
"No, only we've managed to pull that off." Tim wasn't sure where the impulse to mutter that came from. It was true, though. Only NCIS and the SecNav's office themselves had managed to send Gibbs into an extended absence.
"Don't remind me," Tony shot back. Tim winced. Tony had a lot of baggage from that period. It wasn't all Gibbs-related: even words sounding like 'Franks' had been enough to trigger something akin to hatred, for a while. Tim had a feeling that Tony would be quite happy if that man were the one who disappeared, instead of the boss. "So, come on, circus-people?"
"We could be entirely on the wrong track," Tim conceded. "All we know is that Gibbs' last known destination was here. He might not even have gotten this far."
"Wrong is not an option, McGeekster." Tony pointed the handle of his pitchfork at Tim who found himself grateful it wasn't the other end. "I did not go through this for 'wrong'."
"No, no, of course not." Tim backtracked quickly. Doubt, at this point, was not allowable. Tony didn't need a devil's advocate – if you knew the man you could see the fear in his eyes.
I'm losing too many people. Not long ago, Tony had uttered those very words, when he believed Ziva to be dead and no new agent worth adding to the team. Not 'we', but 'I', as though he believed himself responsible for each and every one. Tim had gotten the sense that it ran deeper than this team, right down to the roots of Tony's need for stability. Like an abused kid (according to the research Tim had done), Tony took responsibility beyond the basic nature of causality. If it turned out Gibbs had been struck by lightning, Tony would probably blame himself for not being there as a taller, more obvious target for the electricity. Consequently, it was why Tim found himself willing to go along with the guy's crazy schemes. He'd never consciously expose someone to unnecessary risk.
Which, Tim realised, led to a kind of compliment if you thought about it. Tony had volunteered him for that vengeance mission turned rescue and the only way he'd do that was if he trusted Tim to be able to handle it. It wasn't that long ago that Tony hadn't trusted him with the coffee run. "We'll find him."
"Of course we will. Or, rather, he'll find us and wonder why we wasted all this time." Of course, his worship of Gibbs was almost religious in its devotion. "And I'll have to blame it all on you."
"Sure, sure." Tim turned and started walking away. "You just keep shovelling that…" He had to dodge quickly, to avoid getting hit.
"I fail to see how this is helping us locate Gibbs." Ziva let fly with a knife; it landed with a satisfying chunk sound in the wooden target. "And don't move."
"I'm not moving." Indeed, Abby seemed preternaturally calm for someone in her situation. Despite Tony's drug-addled claims to being the 'wild card' of the team, Ziva wasn't quite so sure the designation was correct. She pitied the soul who tried to classify Abby and predict what the girl would do next. Woman, she corrected herself, silently, though the other appellation worked better, in some ways. Abby had all the emotional range of a child – from an unbounded optimism and trust in the people around her, to a temper grown men would be wise to fear. She reminded Ziva of a story-book character from childhood. Ziva doubted she'd be that amazed if she discovered Abby could lift a horse with one hand. She'd found other ways to alter the natural course of the universe, so why should an equine be a problem?
"We're talking about a man who has outwitted some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world. How could a bunch of clowns make him disappear?" Privately, Ziva didn't think the clowns were responsible, but it was hard to ignore the look of disbelief and disgust on the face of a woman who'd watched them for a while, across an open space between tents. Then again, she might have just been angry over being replaced. There had, after all, been another knife-throwing team.
"Don't underestimate clowns." Abby's expression took on a deadly earnestness. "Have you seen the way they fit so many of themselves into one of those tiny cars? Clowns defy time and space. Gibbs is marvellous, but even he may be no match for clowns."
Abby, doubting Gibbs? It seemed impossible. Then again, Ziva didn't expect a fear of men in make-up, either. "I had no idea they were so formidable. I thought they were there for people to laugh at."
"Ziva! Clowns aren't funny! Only somebody like Tony thinks clowns are funny. Clowns are the embodiment of that which we dare not express."
"Tony thinks clowns are frightening," Ziva corrected her. "Then he kept going on about 'it', but he wouldn't tell me what 'it' was."
"It." Abby didn't seem to be any more helpful than Tony. "It was not really a clown, it only wore the aspect of a clown." She suddenly clamped her mouth shut and Ziva realised that someone approached. The reason for Abby's apprehension became clear as a clown trudged past, shooting them a dirty look as he did.
"I don't think people around here like us," Ziva said, when the clown was out of earshot.
"It's because we don't like outsiders." A third voice made both Ziva and Abby jump, and Ziva breathed a quick prayer of thanks that the intruder hadn't timed the interruption mid-throw. "Especially outsiders who are only here to pry into our business." It was the woman from earlier, the one Ziva had assumed was part of the sidelined act. The shotgun she held didn't make her look any more friendly. "And if there's one thing you're not, it's circus."
Ziva wondered about her odds of beating a gun with a knife. Without Abby there, they'd probably be better. With…
"Oh, I can see you're good, honey. I am too." The woman seemed to read Ziva's mind. "I wouldn't try it if I were you."
Tim's phone vibrated. He fished it out of his pocket, the alert telling him someone had sent him a text. Not Gibbs, for sure, because Gibbs didn't send texts. Tim wasn't sure Gibbs even read the ones he received.
Elephant enclosure. it read. You have two minutes. It wasn't from Tony, either, but Ziva. Why the elephants? Was something wrong? He tried not to look like he was in a hurry as he rushed across the grounds.
Tony couldn't remember the last time he felt this disgusted with himself. He could do undercover. La Grenouille hadn't busted him this quickly. Not only him, but Ziva and Abby too. Out of all of them, shouldn't Abby have been able to blend in among freaks?
"You're cops, aren't you?" This from the woman holding the three of them at shotgun-point. Kind-of at shotgun-point. Ziva and Abby were strangely cooperative for women he knew could take down an armed opponent in less time than it would take him to realise the opponent was armed.
"No." He took refuge in a strict truth. He saw Tim approaching and realised that, at his angle, the man wouldn't be able to see the shotgun until it would be too late. Was Tim even armed? Long-time training from Gibbs said 'yes', but undercover called for different rules, and would Thom E. Gemcity carry a weapon, or would it wreck the line of his jacket? Would the computer-brain see that there were details here that didn't fit, and act accordingly? Or would Probie-McGee blunder in and get blown to pieces?
"Bullshit." The woman shook her head, as if truth were the wrong answer. "You, them…"
"Tony?" By now, Tim was too close. He'd be a casualty if he tried anything. Tony prayed he wouldn't. The last thing Tony needed was more blood on his hands. "Ziva? What's going on?"
Betty-Lou? Tim didn't quite believe his eyes. It was Betty-Lou, and the way she had the others here, it looked like a trap. Tony's wide-eyed expression really made it look like a trap, but something didn't seem right. He didn't have Gibbs' gut, but he wasn't a probie anymore, either. Something made him take a chance. "Tony? Ziva? What's going on?"
"And Baby-face makes four." Betty-Lou nodded, keeping her eyes fixed on Tony, shotgun aimed somewhere between him and the other two women, where it could easily be brought to bear on any of them. "Makes you wonder how they all fit with number-five."
"Gibbs?" Tony blurted.
"Shorter than you. Stocky. Wasn't into wasting time, like you four."
"Gibbs," Tim confirmed. He felt his heartrate start to settle a little. If Betty-Lou wanted them dead, why talk? It was only in bad movies that the bad-guy laid out a truckload of exposition before taking on the heroes. That, he realised, was what had bothered him. If Betty-Lou had wanted to take them out, she was smart enough not to take them all on at once. This wasn't a trap, but a conference.
"So, you are cops."
"NCIS," Tim clarified. "Naval…"
"…Criminal Investigative Service," Betty-Lou finished for him. "My brother's Navy. I know who you are."
"When did you see Gibbs?" Tony and Ziva seemed more than willing to let Tim handle the questioning, probably on the grounds that he already had a connection – however tenuous – with the questionee. Abby, on the other hand, was vibrating with impatience, but smart enough to know when she was out of her area of expertise.
"Ten minutes ago," Betty-Lou said, which didn't fit the time-frame of Gibbs' disappearance at all. "Two days ago, he talked to Stan," that did fit the timeframe, "and Stan got jumpy after that." Her voice became dry. "Then he went on a hiring spree."
"Stan?" Tim wondered if he looked as confused as he felt. "Why would Stan…"
"Despite having claimed to have read your books, Stan probably doesn't know NCIS from the IRS." Apparently satisfied that she did have four federal agents at gunpoint, Betty-Lou aimed the shotgun a little more towards the ground. "He probably figured your..."
"Boss," Tony supplied.
"… was going to bust him for payroll fraud. Pressure like that makes Stan do funny things."
"Well, Gibbs can do that to people," Tony admitted. "But…"
"I know," Tim said. "I can't see it, either."
"See what?" Betty-Lou now looked confused.
"Stan beating Gibbs." Tim and Tony chorused. They looked at each other, oddly.
"No way." Tony shook his head. "That'd be more unlikely than…" he stopped, staring.
Tim followed his gaze. Someone else was watching them. A clown, one he'd seen wandering around quite a bit. All the other times he'd looked like a hobo-clown, but there was something different about him, now, something in the way he stood, and the gestures he seemed to be making that looked almost like…
"I can't believe you clowns ever managed four months without me." The clown spoke with Gibbs' voice, and now Tim could see under the greasepaint and stubble the hints of a more familiar face. He wondered just what message the man had signed to Abby. "What part of 'keep working the mail-fraud angle' don't you idiots get?" He walked up and slapped Tony across the back of the head, hard.
"See, I told you," Abby whispered. "You don't mess with clowns. They got him."
Betty-Lou turned her attention to Gibbs; fortunately for all of them she didn't threaten him with gunpoint. "They need work. So do you."
Gibbs looked at Betty-Lou, appraisingly. "You figured them out."
"All four." She looked at Tim. "A writer at your level goes to Barnum and Bailey to research a circus, not some nothing outfit like this. You," she directed this one at Tony, "don't know shit about shovelling. I'm surprised you haven't put your back out yet. You two…" she nodded at Ziva and Abby, "are pretty good… too good. Like I told him, no knife act does it for real. Too many things could go wrong, and the insurance would kill us. You don't sell enough books," she turned her attention back to Tim, "to be able to afford the premiums, and our sales aren't even a tenth of yours." Finally, her gaze rested on Gibbs. "You, I just plain didn't recognise. Just because we live on the edges doesn't mean we're stupid."
"Smart enough not to actually shoot Federal agents," Gibbs agreed.
"So, why are you all here?" Betty-Lou didn't seem to think that her non-status as civilian made her any less in charge.
"Well…" Tim swallowed guiltily. "We were looking for him."
"Well done," Betty-Lou told him sarcastically. "You only walked past him about fifteen times." She shook her head. "All of you." She looked at Gibbs again. "And what do you want, Mr. Boss? We're not exactly a hot-bed of naval crime, here." She snorted. "Hell, half the folks here probably get seasick."
Gibbs stared hard at her, probably sizing her up and seeing what his gut said. Tim hoped that, whatever it was, it didn't lead to him sending them back to headquarters to sit on Betty-Lou. "Some people in your audience don't."
Betty-Lou nodded. "But they are allergic to cops."
"Almost as much as you people are," Gibbs confirmed.
"We don't like outsiders, period," Betty-Lou said. "Almost as much as you people don't."
Tim winced. This was not going to go well. Gibbs was going to lose his patience and then…
Gibbs laughed, a short bark, but a laugh nevertheless. "Who else knows?"
Betty-Lou shrugged. "All the clowns… they don't recognise the face. I convinced them to keep quiet. Apparently Stan gave them some bullshit story how you were supposed to be a rover… keep the audience entertained in the lineup and maybe sell some extra candy. They aren't happy with you being here… clowns really don't like outsiders coming in with out consultation."
"See," Abby insisted again, "I told you. Don't mess with clowns."
"Abby," Gibbs said, patiently, "not now." He looked back at Betty-Lou. "Well?"
"Well… our apparatus is still broken – you guys are paying for that, by the way – and the show could use a knife act," Betty-Lou shook her head, "as long as you guys fake that things aren't real, and since his compo is going to pay out when he throws out his back," she nodded at Tony, "he might as well keep shovelling."
"You're helping us?" Ziva asked incredulously.
Betty-Lou rolled her eyes. "You're not after us, but outsiders, so why do I care? Like I said, my brother's with the Navy and he says you're the good-guys. As for you, Mister Wire-cutter…"
Tim could feel his heart sinking. This wasn't going to be good.
"…I've got an even better job for a writer like you." The smile that spread over her face could only be called evil.
"Let me guess." There was only one thing writers got asked, more often than 'will you sign this for me?' "You have a manuscript you want me to look over." He glanced around, but his back-up was already leaving.
"Oh, no." The smile grew wider.
"Oh?"
"Joey does."
Tim closed his eyes, fighting the urge to break down and cry. Behind him, Tony cackled evilly. And Thom E. Gemcity wondered how many ways he could kill off his lead character and get away with it.
Author:
pixie_on_acid (pinch hitting)Written for:
snowglow1275Archive: Sure, but credit me.
Pairings: None. I took the Gen option
Prompt: Story 1: gen or slash Tony/Tim, a case involving an undercover assignment at a circus! Keep it light and fun.
Rating: PG, if even that.
Disclaimer: I own neither NCIS, nor the characters involved. They belong to CBS Television. I realise no financial return from these works, they are for entertainment purposes only.
Word Count: 3,800 (approx) (not including headers)
Credits: To
goodisrelative and rinkle for their beta work.Summary: There is a saying.
No plan survives contact with the enemy.
Author's Note: Sorry this took a while, getting up. As the above says… sometimes that's more true than you can imagine. I hope you enjoy it,
snowglow1275Tim – surprisingly – had it easiest. All he had to do was show up, and the manager nearly went into shock. Thom E. Gemcity, here! At his circus! For…
"Research," Tim supplied. That was one of the perks of being a writer. He could excuse nearly anything as 'research'. Hanging out with rural cops who didn't know NCIS from CSIS? Research. Checking out the goings-on behind the scenes at a casino, all the no-go areas the public aren't allowed? Research, and I promise I won't give anything away, that would truly compromise your measures, honest, would you like me to autograph that? Poring over the design of a classified mil-spec piece of machinery? Okay, for that one it was better to flash his badge and point out that a dead body had been found sprawled across the prototype, but still… "Secret research."
"Oh, of course, of course. You know, I have read all of your books. Every single one. Sometimes twice. Oh, Mr. Gemcity, anything you could possibly want here… it's yours." If the man were any more obsequious, he'd ooze.
"Um…" He thought for a moment. They needed more than one pair of eyes in here, and circuses were tight-knit, weren't they? It wasn't like a McDonalds where they'd hire you if you looked like you could get out the sentence 'do you want fries with that?' in mostly comprehensible English. Circus employees had specialised skills, ones not found in the sub-set of society known as 'normal.' Sudden inspiration struck. "Can I see some of your acts?"
Ten seconds was all it took to make disaster strike. It wasn't hard when you'd already done the research, but it was interesting to watch the results.
"I told you there were problems, Joey! Didn't I say the springs seemed slow? 'It's all in your head', you said. Well, what do you call that?" Betty-Lou McGrath, a.k.a, the beautiful assistant, gestured angrily at the knife-thrower's target. "Two springs gone! Snapped! Huh? What are we supposed to do now?"
"Can't we fix it?" Joey – Joseph Larouche, according to the manager's introductions – looked forlornly at the platform, as though it were a favourite toy, shattered by a bully in the schoolyard.
"Not in time." Betty-Lou crossed her arms over her chest, snapping her bubble-gum impatiently. "We need new springs and then we've got to recalibrate the whole damn thing. The last thing we need is for the damned thing to go off before you even throw." Her eyes narrowed, considerably. "Not that timing is your strong suit, anyway."
"Wow… um… I thought you guys used real knives," Tim lied. He pointed to one of the circus advertising posters. Real Knives! Real Danger! screamed bright red text underneath a picture of the Great Lorenzo (and his assistant, screaming as she fought to free herself and escape near-certain impalement), light glinting off the blade in his hand.
"Oh, yeah, like I'm gonna let someone like him throw anything sharper than mashed potatoes at me." Betty-Lou turned her 'don't be an idiot' gaze to Tim. "It's all clockwork. He fakes the throw and then another blade comes out here." She pointed at the target and its network of secret compartments. "And the only reason I'm telling you this is because Stan, here," she pointed at the manager, "says we're supposed to let you in on all the secrets. Since I don't want to get my ass fired, I'm telling you. Maybe in your books someone can throw knives that accurately all the time, but I'm not betting my life on it, when it's really my life."
Tim chewed the inside of his lip to keep from answering that. Either Stan wasn't his only fan, or he wasn't as good at keeping secrets as he promised. He didn't want to tip his hand, either, by claiming he did know someone that good, and he'd stake his life on it. With any luck, Stan would remember the pair he turned away a couple of weeks ago, claiming he already had a knife act, and thrilling as theirs might be, he didn't have room for two. Especially since a certain writer had provided an infusion of cash and the company could now afford a replacement, and keep Joey and Betty-Lou paid, too. Maybe when they weren't in so close proximity to a clearly-sharper-than-she-looked Betty-Lou, Tim could drop a few hints.
As for Tony… Tim tried to think of applicable skills Tony might possess. Only one came to mind. The man's incomparable talent with…
"…shit. You wouldn't believe how much one of those things can produce." Tony stared at him, the kind of stare that said that sometime very soon Tim was going to pay for this, and not even Gibbs could save him. "If we weren't trying to save Gibbs, I'd kill you right now."
"I'm sorry, Tony." Tim tried not to wrinkle his nose. It would only make things worse. At the same time, there weren't that many openings that could be arranged – only one, in fact. If their positions had been reversed, he was sure Tony would have given the clean-up job to him. He told himself this was only fair. That somebody had to do it, and it was for saving Gibbs, so… He couldn't help feeling sympathy for the guy, though.
"Elephants, Timmy? Do you have any idea how much one of those things stinks?"
"As a matter of fact, I do." All he had to do was stand near Tony. The man was quite the sight to see in rubber boots up to his knees and a pair of coveralls that made Ducky's ME uniform look stylish. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite the scent anyone wanted to smell.
"Kill you, McGee." Tony's repeated use of his name indicated that he felt the slight was personal. "I could chop you up and bury you in a pile of that stuff and nobody'd ever find you."
"Gibbs would," Tim said, automatically.
"I mean aside from Gibbs," Tony hissed through clenched teeth. "Of course Gibbs would, because the man can find anything and anybody. Which is why we need to find him." The clenched teeth quickly morphed into a grin as Betty-Lou wandered past. Tony was probably betting that she was used to men who smelled like elephants.
"Don't remind me." Tim tried not to think about the possibility of them not finding Gibbs, or worse. It wasn't that Tony was a bad team leader – some things, hard as it was to admit, he did even better than Gibbs – but he'd come to pieces if he ever had to face Gibbs being gone for good. Tony, Tim had discovered, wasn't actually very good with change. It was probably because he didn't let himself get very close to very many people, so he cared about the ones he did. Tim had met a lot of natural jerks over the years, but never anyone who worked so hard at it as Tony did. It had taken Tim a while to come to the conclusion that Tony, while a jock, was not, actually, a jerk. Hidden beneath the 'cooler-than-thou' attitude was a rather sensitive and, Tim suspected, intelligent human being. Every time Tony went into his anti-geek posturing, Tim reminded himself that even he did not have Tony's total recall for… well… Total Recall. Maybe he wasn't a computer geek, but he was most certainly a film-geek of the highest order. Then again, given what the guy let slip of his childhood home life, escape into fantasy was probably a survival tactic.
"What I don't get is how circus people could make Gibbs disappear. I mean, they're… circus-people. They're not the CIA, and even the CIA hasn't managed that, with Gibbs."
"No, only we've managed to pull that off." Tim wasn't sure where the impulse to mutter that came from. It was true, though. Only NCIS and the SecNav's office themselves had managed to send Gibbs into an extended absence.
"Don't remind me," Tony shot back. Tim winced. Tony had a lot of baggage from that period. It wasn't all Gibbs-related: even words sounding like 'Franks' had been enough to trigger something akin to hatred, for a while. Tim had a feeling that Tony would be quite happy if that man were the one who disappeared, instead of the boss. "So, come on, circus-people?"
"We could be entirely on the wrong track," Tim conceded. "All we know is that Gibbs' last known destination was here. He might not even have gotten this far."
"Wrong is not an option, McGeekster." Tony pointed the handle of his pitchfork at Tim who found himself grateful it wasn't the other end. "I did not go through this for 'wrong'."
"No, no, of course not." Tim backtracked quickly. Doubt, at this point, was not allowable. Tony didn't need a devil's advocate – if you knew the man you could see the fear in his eyes.
I'm losing too many people. Not long ago, Tony had uttered those very words, when he believed Ziva to be dead and no new agent worth adding to the team. Not 'we', but 'I', as though he believed himself responsible for each and every one. Tim had gotten the sense that it ran deeper than this team, right down to the roots of Tony's need for stability. Like an abused kid (according to the research Tim had done), Tony took responsibility beyond the basic nature of causality. If it turned out Gibbs had been struck by lightning, Tony would probably blame himself for not being there as a taller, more obvious target for the electricity. Consequently, it was why Tim found himself willing to go along with the guy's crazy schemes. He'd never consciously expose someone to unnecessary risk.
Which, Tim realised, led to a kind of compliment if you thought about it. Tony had volunteered him for that vengeance mission turned rescue and the only way he'd do that was if he trusted Tim to be able to handle it. It wasn't that long ago that Tony hadn't trusted him with the coffee run. "We'll find him."
"Of course we will. Or, rather, he'll find us and wonder why we wasted all this time." Of course, his worship of Gibbs was almost religious in its devotion. "And I'll have to blame it all on you."
"Sure, sure." Tim turned and started walking away. "You just keep shovelling that…" He had to dodge quickly, to avoid getting hit.
"I fail to see how this is helping us locate Gibbs." Ziva let fly with a knife; it landed with a satisfying chunk sound in the wooden target. "And don't move."
"I'm not moving." Indeed, Abby seemed preternaturally calm for someone in her situation. Despite Tony's drug-addled claims to being the 'wild card' of the team, Ziva wasn't quite so sure the designation was correct. She pitied the soul who tried to classify Abby and predict what the girl would do next. Woman, she corrected herself, silently, though the other appellation worked better, in some ways. Abby had all the emotional range of a child – from an unbounded optimism and trust in the people around her, to a temper grown men would be wise to fear. She reminded Ziva of a story-book character from childhood. Ziva doubted she'd be that amazed if she discovered Abby could lift a horse with one hand. She'd found other ways to alter the natural course of the universe, so why should an equine be a problem?
"We're talking about a man who has outwitted some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world. How could a bunch of clowns make him disappear?" Privately, Ziva didn't think the clowns were responsible, but it was hard to ignore the look of disbelief and disgust on the face of a woman who'd watched them for a while, across an open space between tents. Then again, she might have just been angry over being replaced. There had, after all, been another knife-throwing team.
"Don't underestimate clowns." Abby's expression took on a deadly earnestness. "Have you seen the way they fit so many of themselves into one of those tiny cars? Clowns defy time and space. Gibbs is marvellous, but even he may be no match for clowns."
Abby, doubting Gibbs? It seemed impossible. Then again, Ziva didn't expect a fear of men in make-up, either. "I had no idea they were so formidable. I thought they were there for people to laugh at."
"Ziva! Clowns aren't funny! Only somebody like Tony thinks clowns are funny. Clowns are the embodiment of that which we dare not express."
"Tony thinks clowns are frightening," Ziva corrected her. "Then he kept going on about 'it', but he wouldn't tell me what 'it' was."
"It." Abby didn't seem to be any more helpful than Tony. "It was not really a clown, it only wore the aspect of a clown." She suddenly clamped her mouth shut and Ziva realised that someone approached. The reason for Abby's apprehension became clear as a clown trudged past, shooting them a dirty look as he did.
"I don't think people around here like us," Ziva said, when the clown was out of earshot.
"It's because we don't like outsiders." A third voice made both Ziva and Abby jump, and Ziva breathed a quick prayer of thanks that the intruder hadn't timed the interruption mid-throw. "Especially outsiders who are only here to pry into our business." It was the woman from earlier, the one Ziva had assumed was part of the sidelined act. The shotgun she held didn't make her look any more friendly. "And if there's one thing you're not, it's circus."
Ziva wondered about her odds of beating a gun with a knife. Without Abby there, they'd probably be better. With…
"Oh, I can see you're good, honey. I am too." The woman seemed to read Ziva's mind. "I wouldn't try it if I were you."
Tim's phone vibrated. He fished it out of his pocket, the alert telling him someone had sent him a text. Not Gibbs, for sure, because Gibbs didn't send texts. Tim wasn't sure Gibbs even read the ones he received.
Elephant enclosure. it read. You have two minutes. It wasn't from Tony, either, but Ziva. Why the elephants? Was something wrong? He tried not to look like he was in a hurry as he rushed across the grounds.
Tony couldn't remember the last time he felt this disgusted with himself. He could do undercover. La Grenouille hadn't busted him this quickly. Not only him, but Ziva and Abby too. Out of all of them, shouldn't Abby have been able to blend in among freaks?
"You're cops, aren't you?" This from the woman holding the three of them at shotgun-point. Kind-of at shotgun-point. Ziva and Abby were strangely cooperative for women he knew could take down an armed opponent in less time than it would take him to realise the opponent was armed.
"No." He took refuge in a strict truth. He saw Tim approaching and realised that, at his angle, the man wouldn't be able to see the shotgun until it would be too late. Was Tim even armed? Long-time training from Gibbs said 'yes', but undercover called for different rules, and would Thom E. Gemcity carry a weapon, or would it wreck the line of his jacket? Would the computer-brain see that there were details here that didn't fit, and act accordingly? Or would Probie-McGee blunder in and get blown to pieces?
"Bullshit." The woman shook her head, as if truth were the wrong answer. "You, them…"
"Tony?" By now, Tim was too close. He'd be a casualty if he tried anything. Tony prayed he wouldn't. The last thing Tony needed was more blood on his hands. "Ziva? What's going on?"
Betty-Lou? Tim didn't quite believe his eyes. It was Betty-Lou, and the way she had the others here, it looked like a trap. Tony's wide-eyed expression really made it look like a trap, but something didn't seem right. He didn't have Gibbs' gut, but he wasn't a probie anymore, either. Something made him take a chance. "Tony? Ziva? What's going on?"
"And Baby-face makes four." Betty-Lou nodded, keeping her eyes fixed on Tony, shotgun aimed somewhere between him and the other two women, where it could easily be brought to bear on any of them. "Makes you wonder how they all fit with number-five."
"Gibbs?" Tony blurted.
"Shorter than you. Stocky. Wasn't into wasting time, like you four."
"Gibbs," Tim confirmed. He felt his heartrate start to settle a little. If Betty-Lou wanted them dead, why talk? It was only in bad movies that the bad-guy laid out a truckload of exposition before taking on the heroes. That, he realised, was what had bothered him. If Betty-Lou had wanted to take them out, she was smart enough not to take them all on at once. This wasn't a trap, but a conference.
"So, you are cops."
"NCIS," Tim clarified. "Naval…"
"…Criminal Investigative Service," Betty-Lou finished for him. "My brother's Navy. I know who you are."
"When did you see Gibbs?" Tony and Ziva seemed more than willing to let Tim handle the questioning, probably on the grounds that he already had a connection – however tenuous – with the questionee. Abby, on the other hand, was vibrating with impatience, but smart enough to know when she was out of her area of expertise.
"Ten minutes ago," Betty-Lou said, which didn't fit the time-frame of Gibbs' disappearance at all. "Two days ago, he talked to Stan," that did fit the timeframe, "and Stan got jumpy after that." Her voice became dry. "Then he went on a hiring spree."
"Stan?" Tim wondered if he looked as confused as he felt. "Why would Stan…"
"Despite having claimed to have read your books, Stan probably doesn't know NCIS from the IRS." Apparently satisfied that she did have four federal agents at gunpoint, Betty-Lou aimed the shotgun a little more towards the ground. "He probably figured your..."
"Boss," Tony supplied.
"… was going to bust him for payroll fraud. Pressure like that makes Stan do funny things."
"Well, Gibbs can do that to people," Tony admitted. "But…"
"I know," Tim said. "I can't see it, either."
"See what?" Betty-Lou now looked confused.
"Stan beating Gibbs." Tim and Tony chorused. They looked at each other, oddly.
"No way." Tony shook his head. "That'd be more unlikely than…" he stopped, staring.
Tim followed his gaze. Someone else was watching them. A clown, one he'd seen wandering around quite a bit. All the other times he'd looked like a hobo-clown, but there was something different about him, now, something in the way he stood, and the gestures he seemed to be making that looked almost like…
"I can't believe you clowns ever managed four months without me." The clown spoke with Gibbs' voice, and now Tim could see under the greasepaint and stubble the hints of a more familiar face. He wondered just what message the man had signed to Abby. "What part of 'keep working the mail-fraud angle' don't you idiots get?" He walked up and slapped Tony across the back of the head, hard.
"See, I told you," Abby whispered. "You don't mess with clowns. They got him."
Betty-Lou turned her attention to Gibbs; fortunately for all of them she didn't threaten him with gunpoint. "They need work. So do you."
Gibbs looked at Betty-Lou, appraisingly. "You figured them out."
"All four." She looked at Tim. "A writer at your level goes to Barnum and Bailey to research a circus, not some nothing outfit like this. You," she directed this one at Tony, "don't know shit about shovelling. I'm surprised you haven't put your back out yet. You two…" she nodded at Ziva and Abby, "are pretty good… too good. Like I told him, no knife act does it for real. Too many things could go wrong, and the insurance would kill us. You don't sell enough books," she turned her attention back to Tim, "to be able to afford the premiums, and our sales aren't even a tenth of yours." Finally, her gaze rested on Gibbs. "You, I just plain didn't recognise. Just because we live on the edges doesn't mean we're stupid."
"Smart enough not to actually shoot Federal agents," Gibbs agreed.
"So, why are you all here?" Betty-Lou didn't seem to think that her non-status as civilian made her any less in charge.
"Well…" Tim swallowed guiltily. "We were looking for him."
"Well done," Betty-Lou told him sarcastically. "You only walked past him about fifteen times." She shook her head. "All of you." She looked at Gibbs again. "And what do you want, Mr. Boss? We're not exactly a hot-bed of naval crime, here." She snorted. "Hell, half the folks here probably get seasick."
Gibbs stared hard at her, probably sizing her up and seeing what his gut said. Tim hoped that, whatever it was, it didn't lead to him sending them back to headquarters to sit on Betty-Lou. "Some people in your audience don't."
Betty-Lou nodded. "But they are allergic to cops."
"Almost as much as you people are," Gibbs confirmed.
"We don't like outsiders, period," Betty-Lou said. "Almost as much as you people don't."
Tim winced. This was not going to go well. Gibbs was going to lose his patience and then…
Gibbs laughed, a short bark, but a laugh nevertheless. "Who else knows?"
Betty-Lou shrugged. "All the clowns… they don't recognise the face. I convinced them to keep quiet. Apparently Stan gave them some bullshit story how you were supposed to be a rover… keep the audience entertained in the lineup and maybe sell some extra candy. They aren't happy with you being here… clowns really don't like outsiders coming in with out consultation."
"See," Abby insisted again, "I told you. Don't mess with clowns."
"Abby," Gibbs said, patiently, "not now." He looked back at Betty-Lou. "Well?"
"Well… our apparatus is still broken – you guys are paying for that, by the way – and the show could use a knife act," Betty-Lou shook her head, "as long as you guys fake that things aren't real, and since his compo is going to pay out when he throws out his back," she nodded at Tony, "he might as well keep shovelling."
"You're helping us?" Ziva asked incredulously.
Betty-Lou rolled her eyes. "You're not after us, but outsiders, so why do I care? Like I said, my brother's with the Navy and he says you're the good-guys. As for you, Mister Wire-cutter…"
Tim could feel his heart sinking. This wasn't going to be good.
"…I've got an even better job for a writer like you." The smile that spread over her face could only be called evil.
"Let me guess." There was only one thing writers got asked, more often than 'will you sign this for me?' "You have a manuscript you want me to look over." He glanced around, but his back-up was already leaving.
"Oh, no." The smile grew wider.
"Oh?"
"Joey does."
Tim closed his eyes, fighting the urge to break down and cry. Behind him, Tony cackled evilly. And Thom E. Gemcity wondered how many ways he could kill off his lead character and get away with it.
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