Imagine, if you will, the team sitting down for a game of Clue during a slow moment at headquarters.
Disclaimers, etc. I do not own the NCIS characters. Clue (or Cluedo) is a trademark of Parker Brothers, Waddington Ltd., etc. etc.
xNCISx
"I don't want to be Mrs. White!" McGee said petulantly.
"Well, Probie, if you want your pick of the game pieces, you've gotta get down here faster," Tony smirked as he twirled his game piece – Mr. Green – between his fingers.
On this particular Thursday morning, an unusually slow one at NCIS, the team was in the process of setting up a game of Clue on the evidence table in Abby's lab.
All of the suspect tokens had been spoken for: Ziva was Miss Scarlet, Abby was Mrs. Peacock, Ducky was Colonel Mustard and Palmer was Professor Plum.
"McGee, do you have trouble with playing as a woman?" Abby asked as she scattered the weapons pieces out onto the board.
"No! It's just, well – look, I always play as Professor Plum!"
"You know, Timothy, the gender of the characters varies in different versions of the game," Ducky said as he sorted the cards into three piles: weapons, suspects and rooms. "For example, in Switzerland, Colonel Mustard becomes Madame Curry while Mrs. Peacock becomes Capitano Azzurro, while in Chile, Professor Plum is…"
"Yes, Ducky, we get it," Ziva said. "At the end of the day it's just a piece of plastic on a game board, McGee. Now sit down."
McGee let out a sigh, and took his seat at the table.
Ducky held out the three card piles, face down, and Palmer took a card from each one and slipped it into the evidence file. Shuffling the remaining cards, Ducky handed them to Abby, and she dealt them out to the other players with a speed that would have impressed a Vegas card shark.
"I haven't played this game since forever. A good, old-fashioned, body in the library story," Abby said with relish as she dealt the last card.
"The plotline of a million Agatha Christie stories." McGee chimed in.
"And let's not forget that the 1985 classic, based on the game itself that we are playing, starring Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn and Lesley Ann Warren." Tony picked up the dice. "C'mon, lucky six." The dice landed on the table with a clatter. "Two."
Ziva got the high roll, with six, so she was the first to go.
A hush fell over the table as one by one, the other players took their turn with the dice, and the game pieces made their way into the mansion.
Tony was the first to enter a room. "Norman Bates, in the bathroom, with the knife!" He picked up the knife token and stabbed the air with it as he made shrieking violin noises.
"Tony!" the entire table protested.
"Nah, just kidding." Tony grinned. "All right, with my super-duper very special agent investigatory powers, I suggest that it was Mrs. Peacock, in the ballroom, with the pipe."
"Sorry, Tony." Palmer flipped the pipe card down on the table.
"Dang it, gremlin, you're not supposed to show your cards to everyone else!" Tony said.
"But that's how we've done it before!" Palmer protested.
"That's only applicable when two people are playing," Ducky said. "In this case, since you're on Tony's left, you would have shown the pipe card only to him."
"Oh. My bad," Palmer said sheepishly.
"Do we restart the game?" McGee asked.
"Nah, it's early yet. Lots of opportunities for murder and mayhem!" Abby said cheerfully. "Your move, Ziva!"
Ziva threw the dice down onto the board with enough force to cause the other pieces to bounce, and moved her piece into the hall. "I suggest Colonel Mustard, in the hall, with the rope."
Tony slyly showed her the rope card. Ziva nodded curtly and made a few notes on her notepad; her pen stroke almost cut through the paper.
The game went on, with suggestions being offered and proven, or disproven.
You could tell a lot about the different players by looking at their notepads. Tony's was mostly empty, save for random scribbles and a few movie quotes.
Ducky, on the other hand, had already filled his notepad with tiny scribbles, each one containing notes on what he had observed earlier in the game. "A. has the knife and/or the revolver." "Mr. P. has either Green or the lounge." And so on.
Abby's loopy handwriting covered almost the entire pad, with weird arcane theories, mathematical theorems. "Secret passageway to study – actually a wormhole?"
When it was his turn, Ducky reached for the dice, rolled a four, and he entered the lounge. "Ah…I suggest that it was," he paused as he looked down at his cards, "Professor Plum, in the lounge, with the candlestick."
McGee had the Plum card, which he subtly showed to Ducky. There were a few flickers of eyes around the board as people quietly consulted their cards.
Ducky quietly made a note on his notepad. "Blunt force trauma likely."
"You know," Palmer said as he took the dice, "Isn't it funny how no one can figure out how Mr. Boddy died?"
"I know." Ducky chuckled. "I'd want to have a serious word with the medical examiner working this case."
"Unless Abby or Ziva killed him," McGee said. A few ripples of laughter went around the table.
"Imagine the possibilities," Abby said dreamily. "An NCIS-themed Clue game. Tony, in the squadroom, with the Mighty Mouse stapler!"
The entire table erupted in laughter as the other players started suggesting possibilities.
"Gibbs, in the conference room, with the terminal head slap!" More laughter at this one, and Tony rubbed his head.
"Abby, in the lab, with the adulterated Caf-Pow!"
"Hey! Don't touch my Caf-Pow!" Abby exclaimed.
"McGee, in the evidence garage, with fragments from the jet pack!
"Ziva, in the elevator, with the edge of a credit card!"
Palmer chimed in with "Dr. Mallard, in the autopsy suite, with the really long-winded story about…"
"You are treading on very thin ice, young man." Ducky tried to sound stern in his warning to Palmer, but the smile playing around his lips gave him away.
By now, it was Abby's turn again. She rolled the dice and moved her piece into the dining room.
"All right," Abby said eagerly. "I'm going to make an accusation. I accuse…"
"Gibbs, in the forensics lab, with a threat to fire the entire team if they don't get moving!" Gibbs shouted as he walked into the lab, an equally stormy-faced Vance behind him. "Grab your gear, we've got a dead sailor in Rock Creek Park!"
The entire game scattered. Ziva, McGee and Tony went upstairs to the squadroom to grab their gear. Abby went downstairs to the evidence garage. Ducky and Palmer went down to the autopsy suite to put on their coveralls and grab their ME cases.
"Rock Creek Park. How many cases have we had to respond to up there?" Vance wondered.
"Third one this month," Gibbs said. "I've got the NPS police superintendent up there on speed-dial."
"I'm beginning to think that place is cursed," Vance said dryly.
Gibbs and Vance stared down at the Clue board and the scattered cards and pieces.
"Looks like they were really getting into it," Vance commented. "You ever play this game? My kids beat me at this every time."
"I'm too busy solving real murders to think about playing a game about a fictional murder," Gibbs said.
Both Gibbs and Vance's eyes fell on the evidence folder in the middle of the board.
They looked at each other for a moment. Then Vance picked up the folder. "C'mon, Gibbs, give it a shot."
Gibbs took a long look around the board, paying attention to the discarded cards and the notepads with the different players' scribbles on them.
Finally, he said, "Miss Scarlet, in the dining room, with the candlestick."
Vance slid the cards out of the folder and looked at them with a slight lift of his eyebrow. Sure enough, the cards in the folder matched Gibbs's accusation exactly.
"You know, Gibbs, if someone played Clue with you, they'd want to kill you instead of killing Mr. Boddy," Vance remarked.
Gibbs laughed.
xNCISx
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