Sweet Adventure
by channelD

written for the NFA Deserted Island challenge
rating: K+
genre: adventure/humor
pairing: Tony & Ziva

- - - - -

disclaimer: I own nothing of NCIS; nada, zip, zilch.

- - - - -

Waves slopped mostly gracefully on the classic-yellow-sand-of-tropical-postcards beach. It would have been a lovely sight to behold, were Tony and Ziva not stranded there. Through no fault of my own, thought Tony, as he clumsily carved a stake from a stick.

This is all not my fault, thought Ziva as she watched Tony nearly cut his finger off.

"McGee," they said simultaneously.

"We should be able to be rescued before too long," said Tony. "We should be, if McGee doesn't screw up again. How can an MIT honors grad be so wrong about reading a map?! Right now, they're probably looking for us on the other side of the globe!"

"Perhaps not. If indeed he did invert the latitude and longitude—"

"He did. I just know it! How else could we have gotten so far off course? I used the numbers he gave me!

"—then he should realize this quickly enough, and they will start searching for us here."

"And if he doesn't?" Tony said sourly.

"He will. I have faith in him," she said simply, then added, after a beat, "but just in case, we should continue building a shelter and start stockpiling food."

"Yeah. Keep your eyes peeled for a McDonald's."

- - - - -

"Okay, put your hand here so I can pound this stake in," Tony said, wiping his brow a little while later. The hot sand dug uncomfortably into his skin as he sat at the jungle edge of the beach. It was hot, typical of the tropics, and they needed to construct shelter if they were not to broil like hot dogs.

"Oh, no, no, no," said Ziva. "I do not trust you to not hit my hand. I will need both hands if we are to survive here on this island, alone, cutaways…"

"You mean 'castaways'," Tony corrected. "And if you don't help with pounding these stakes, we won't have shelter."

"I did not say I would not help. I said I did not want to hold the stake. Here, you hold it and I will pound."

He thought. "Do you pound mallets like you drive cars? If that's the case, I don't want my hand anywhere near—hey, what's that you're drinking?"

She glanced down at the coconut shell half she held, and smiled at it benevolently. "I believe it is lemonade. It tastes like lemonade."

"What th'—where did you find lemons? And sugar? I thought we were lucky just to find clean water!"

"No lemons. Or sugar. Although I have not thoroughly explored the island, so I do not know that they are not here."

"But—" Tony took the coconut shell from her, noticing she wasn't putting up much of a fight. What does she know that I don't know? Cautiously he sipped the pale yellow liquid, and his eyes bulged. Lemonade, all right. Not too tart, not too sweet. "How in the world did you make lemonade without lemons and sugar?!"

"I did not make it. I found it."

"What do you mean, you found it? You just don't find lemonade…wait; you found a bottle of it? Is that what happened?"

"No," she said, waving her hands. Why did he not understand? "There was no bottle. Just a creek, or a, a, how do you say it? A spring of lemonade."

"A spring of lemonade," Tony repeated. "We'd better get these palm leaves rigged up so we'll have shade. You've clearly been in the sun too long."

"Yes, it was a spring of lemonade. In that direction. It was ice cold and delicious. A bluebird was singing there." She got up and started walking.

"Where are you going?"

"I want a refill. Bring your coconut shelf half, and you can get some, too."

"But—" She has already walking, so he threw down his stone "mallet" and the sticks he had carved into stakes, and followed her into the jungle.

She had spent more time, so far, exploring the island than he had. They had agreed that would be the wiser course: he would collect and assemble materials necessary for their survival from close by the beach, and start shaping tools and shelter. She would walk the island, seeing what it had for food, primarily; secondarily she would look for other things that could be put to good use. They certainly couldn't live on coconuts alone.

Knee-high plants tried to trip them as they walked. Plants with a faint minty aroma. Tony stumbled, envying Ziva for her more sure-footedness (or was that 'smaller footedness'?). Was it darker now than it had been before? The light seemed dimmer, not just because of the thick tree canopy. Thunder rumbled…aha, a storm. Ziva came back a few steps and steered him off the route, into a small cave she'd found earlier.

- - - - -

When the storm had passed by, they emerged into a landscape of dripping leaves, and sweet-smelling air. Air that smelled like…

"What is that I smell?" Tony said, sniffing.

"Chocolate," said Ziva, likewise sniffing. "Uh..dark chocolate, except…over this way I smell a hint of caramel in it."

"Okay, now I know we're hallucinating."

Ziva was trying to concentrate. "No, I do not think we are," she said after a moment."Perhaps there are plants that give off a chocolate scent."

"Well, if that's the case, too bad they aren't really chocolate," he grumbled.

"Yes. However…" She was walking, and suddenly stopped and lifted her shoe. "Odd…"

She had stepped in, or on, something gooey; yellow-white and creamy. Curious, she scooped some off with her finger and sniffed it. Her look turned from curious to pleased, and she raised her finger to her mouth.

"Hey!" Tony flew to her side. "Don't eat that! You don't know what it is! It could be lethal to humans, set here as a trap!"

"A trap by whom?" she said in some exasperation. "There is no one here but us. Perhaps there never has been anyone here. This is a naturally-growing substance. It is unlikely to be harmful. And it smells like.." She sniffed it again: once, twice, and with a big AHHHhhhhhhh… on the third shot.

"Smells like what?" Tony was still a bit worried.

She licked the tip of her finger. "I was right. 'Custard."

"Custard?!"

Coyly, she offered her finger. He wiped a bit off her finger with his own. Like a steamroller trying to set a world speed record, slowly, slowly, slowly the finger advanced to his mouth, until Ziva could stand it no longer and, grabbing his hand, shoved the finger in.

"Custard," he said, after a few chokes."It does taste like custard!"

"That is what I said."

"Custard," he repeated, now smiling. "I wonder if there's more of it where that came from?" He ran off the path into the jungle, despite Ziva's pleas to stop or at least slow down. When Ziva caught up to him, he was lying on his back in a clearing, laughing, as fragrant flowers of an unfamiliar shape bobbed around his head.

"Look at these!" he creid. "Smell them! Taste them! Strawberry shortcake!"

"But no whipped cream?" she said, dubiously.

"The leaves." He snapped one off the stem, tore it in two, and a fluffy pale green substance oozed out. "Voila. Whipped cream."

"Does this not seem odd to you, Tony? Custard, and now this?"

"All I know," he said, patting his stomach, "is that I was hungry, and this island provided. Nice island! If I'm dreaming, I hope I don't wake up soon."

"You are hopeless. Get up; we must still look for real food, and materials for shelter."

Reluctantly, he got up. "You were going to show me where you found the lemonade."

"I am not certain I did not imagine it."

"You didn't, because I tasted it. Do you think it's this way, or—" He broke off, on hearing a bird sing. A bluebird. "You said there was a bluebird nearby! Come on!" He set off, and she felt obliged to follow him. I should have traveled with McGee when I had the opportunity, she thought with dismay.

- - - - -

The spring was deep enough so that light did not penetrate its yellowy depths. It was crisp and cold; continuously agitated by unseen obstacles that kept it well-mixed. Tony filled his coconut half shell again and again and drank. Nothing had ever tasted sweeter—and just a little tarter—than this lovely, lovely drink.

"Tony, look!" Ziva exclaimed from a short distance away. She was on her knees at the spring's edge, in the shade, examining something.

"What'cha got?"

She held up two rods; one brown and the other, dark blue. "Do you prefer root beer or raspberry?" Her face showed a mixture of wonder and concern.

"Root beer, I guess. Why?"

"Have a root beer frozen treat," she said, handing the brown item to him.

"A Popsicle? How—"

"I do not know how it is here, how it stays frozen, why it is root beer, or why this other one is raspberry when I would rather have cherry! Why, why, why? Everywhere we turn, there are more answers than questions. Why?"

- - - - -

He had no answers. Instead, they kept exploring, taking careful note of every plant they came across. There were large flat ones like flans, little flowers like gumdrops; thick brown leaves with sweet centers like Danishes, grasses like candy canes; sweet cinnamon bun clusters; and in less shady spots along the edge of the spring…half a dozen or more flavors of ice cream. Everywhere they stepped, there was something new and different. When night came, them slept in a meadow of little shells filled with crème brûlée, forgetting their worries.

- - - - -

A helicopter landed on a nearby beach two weeks later, and out popped Gibbs and Tim. "Di Nozzo! David! Ready to stop sun bathing and go back to NCIS?" Gibbs said, but he was grinning. They'd been worried about their two missing agents ever since their plane fell off the radar. It was through a combination of computer analysis and luck that this island was located.

"Yeah, boss. We'd never have wound up here if McGeek hadn't given us the wrong coordinates!" He waved a tattered paper that he drew out of the pocket of his pantshis too-tight pants.

"Let me see that!" Tim snatched the paper from him, and then sighed, rolling his eyes. "Tony, aren't the coordinates! First of all, this is your handwriting; not mine…"

"So?" Tony was starting to have doubts, but a well-placed "So?" always sounded convincing.

"Second, these aren't coordinates! This is a phone number! And I think it's the phone number of that Shipley case tip you were supposed to follow up on!"

"Um…" That was the best comeback Tony had at the moment, so he said it again. "Um…"

Gibbs was eyeing them. "I would have expected you two to be thin as rails after two weeks, stranded. Yet Di Nozzo, you must have gained at least ten pounds! And you, Ziva—"

"I know, I know," she moaned. "I think I gained half a pound. I am sick over it!"

"That's what you can expect," said Tony, "when you get marooned on a desserted island!"

- END -