A/N: Written for the NFA Very AU challenge. This is a very long story (40 chapters) that completely took over my brain. It's centered on Tim and Ducky, and you'll see pretty much everyone else as well. It takes place far in the future when all human beings live underground. The Very AU requirement is definitely present.

Disclaimer: The characters belong to DPB and the NCIS franchise. The world, the OCs, etc. belong to me. In any case, I'm not making any off this.

Underground
by Enthusiastic Fish

Chapter 1

...and Man was not meant to dwell underground for all time. The real world, open skies, freedom to move about an entire world, that is our destiny. The war that forced us below the surface, the destruction it wrought, that cannot last forever. Millennia of works from ancient times to now show us that our caves are not our natural habitat. We are MEN and we cannot be kept down here forever. The conspiracy that would tell you to deny what is fact would keep you down. That cannot be. It must not be.

A creak brought Tim's head up and he looked around furtively. If someone knew... A cart appeared and he sighed with relief as the old, old librarian threaded his way through the stacks, replacing books, realphabetizing them...he was nearly deaf and going blind. He was also Tim's employer...meaning that Tim did most of the work because the old man was nearly at death's door. This was a good day (meaning slow) and Tim had hidden himself at the back of the library, right beside the rock walls that defined everything that was bad about his life. It was the best place for privacy because the library was a fairly popular gathering place...during the day.

At night, however...

Tim waved at the old man who gave him a wrinkly smile before continuing on his way. As soon as the cart passed, Tim went back to typing. Yes, he could tap into any of the numberless databases. He could use the library computer, his home computer...anything. ...but this Remington he had discovered in a box in the storage area of the library...it was perfect. No one could copy this. No one could trace it...not even by power usage because it had none. Of course, his copying could be tracked...and they certainly tried, but Tim was better at using computers than the average citizen and knew how to avoid the traces. No one would suspect him of fomenting discord with the life they were forced to live.

Night and day. They are diurnal cycles we all live by. Even those who control us have to admit that these caverns are set to follow a diurnal cycle of light and darkness. Why? Why twenty-four hours when studies have shown that humans actually have a diurnal cycle of approximately twenty-six hours? Surely, this would make no sense if not for the fact that the world we currently live in (and should be living on) actually rotates in a twenty-four hour cycle as the real science books tell us. Surely, this is yet another evidence that we belong on the surface, feeling the sun they tell us does not exist, seeing the moon in its many phases, watching the stars twinkle far away.

Tim sighed and leaned back. He dreamed of those things so often that it amazed him to remember that he had never seen any of them himself. He had never seen the sun, the moon, the stars... He had never seen the endless sky rather than the rocky ceilings soaring high above his head. He looked sourly up at them. He had not seen the sky...nor had his parents, or grandparents, or great grandparents...and on and on. It was difficult to find good sources to tell him when the war had occurred. The sources certainly existed, but finding them, reading them...and not letting his almighty leaders know he was reading them...that was much more difficult. The librarian himself had mentioned seeing books about the war, about the times before the war...but he couldn't tell Tim where they were, not because he didn't know (Tim suspected anyway), but because he was afraid of being found out.

Let us consider what we know. Fact: There was a war. It was a terrible war. It was a war decided upon by leaders, leaders who were supposed to be speaking for the people. These leaders made decisions. They probably told the people that it would be the war to end all wars. ...and in a way, it was. ...because they destroyed the world in the course of the war. Finding this information is difficult, but possible. The leaders don't want us to know that there was a war. They don't want you to think about what that war means to us, to our history...to our future. The war was probably nuclear in nature. There is too much evidence to suppose that the surface wasn't nearly decimated by the bombs that were probably launched at the opposing nations.

Tim suspected that the librarian was much more aware of what he was doing in these back corners than he let on. He wasn't senile by any means...but he also hadn't made the slightest effort to curtail Tim's efforts. They didn't talk about it. It was safer that way.

You might try to protest and say that we are taught about the war in school. How could I claim that the leaders don't want us to know about the war when it is taught? Think about it. It is useless to deny all knowledge of a war. Collective memory is too strong for that, even after all this time. However, think back to your school days. Think back to the lessons taught to you. Think about how it was presented. Was this the war that drove us underground? No. This was a war that brought us back to our origins...it put us where we belonged. Underground. Safe from all the dangers that are found in the open air. Safe from the sky falling down on our heads.

A sardonic smile crossed Tim's face as he read the sentence he'd just typed...the sentence fragment he'd just typed. These weren't grammatically correct, but they were far more effective than boring prose. No one listened when he spoke to them in reasoned tones. They listened when he was as sensational as the newspapers...as the dime-store novels...as the tabloids. The newspapers had to report things that happened...like that cave-in last month. No one would forget that in a hurry. Nearly all of Sub Phoenix had been buried in the rubble. Thousands had been killed. They were still trying to figure out what had happened. Tim could have told them. The sky had fallen...fallen on their heads. Would this happen on the surface? Well, he had to admit that he didn't know. Probably, there were other disasters waiting to happen up there as well. ...but at least they wouldn't have to worry about the sky falling.

Fact: Mankind did not always live underground. Yes, you can point to those who lived millions of years ago. We still have the preserved drawings from many thousands of years before...but that doesn't negate the fact that we belong on the surface. We belong in the sun. Why else would the sun lights be necessary? You can't try to tell me that the ancient humans had sun lamps. Right. Along with their invention of the wheel, they also put up sun lamps deep inside the caverns. ...and I have a bridge to sell you. Not even our glorious leaders can deny that we used to live above ground. They know...probably better than I do, just when our sojourn on the surface was ended. They know...and they are keeping it from us. We are under their control down here. No, I do not think that the cave-in at Sub Phoenix was a plan because a surface cell was growing there. I think it was a tragedy. The people our leaders want to stop, they make disappear. No fuss. No mess.

Tim jumped as his wristband began to vibrate. He'd be late if he didn't leave right now. Carefully, he pulled out the finished page, picked up the Remington and then ran to the special wall. It was the wall that held everything he valued. ...well, almost everything. Sarah wouldn't fit inside. Tim smiled as he thought of his sister. She was his only family after the destruction of Sub Salt. He could still see, in his mind's eye, the water from the broken dam filling the cavern as he held Sarah in his arms and watched the rest of his family die. Mother, father...three brothers and a baby sister. They had all perished because there was nowhere to escape to. Once the cavern filled with water, there was nothing else. No open air to flee to. Just a sixteen-year-old boy and his eight-year-old sister at the very top of the cavern. They had been there for so long before rescuers finally came, before they finally figured out how to drain the cavern. Tim looked at the holograph of his family. He kept it in this special place because that was his whole world...encased in rock.

He set the typewriter on the shelf, stored the pages he'd typed today and closed it all back up, hidden within the walls of the library. He'd be ready for another printing soon. Soon enough, Thom the Gem would publish another diatribe against being trapped under the rocks.

...but in the meantime, he had to get to his night job. He smiled to himself at the multiple lives he led. Menial librarian by day, revolutionary in secret...

...and lounge singer by night.