One Very Hot Day

by channeld

written for: the NFA Dog Days of Summer challenge
rating: K plus
genre: humor

disclaimer: I own nothing of NCIS.

"What's this?" Gibbs demanded, staring at the coffee cup on his desk. He'd been on his phone, busy, when the cup had been placed there minutes ago. "McGee!...McGee!"

Tim came out of the men's room, running his hands through his wet hair. A quick dunk of his head under the faucet had made him feel a little cooler after the walk outside in the 100 degree temperature…but he knew it wouldn't last. "It's, uh, your coffee, boss." He knew the test was coming, and he could feel Tony's and Ziva's eyes on him.

Gibbs' face radiated the heat of his displeasure. "Coffee is hot, McGee. This is not hot!"

"Ah, no, it isn't, boss. It's, uh, iced coffee."

"What?"

"It's real coffee just poured over ice cubes to make it a cold drink it's really good I promise you I drink it al ot Try it!" Tim said in a rush.

Gibbs continued to glare, and then glared at the cup. It didn't heat up under his glare, as he would have liked.

He took off the lid, raised it to his lips, and sipped…and then held the cup out and looked at it. He sipped again, and then again, talking a bigger gulp now.

"That's not bad," he said at last. "Good work, Tim!"

Tim beamed. In a non-heat-exuding way.

Tony took a call on the tip line. "Okay, got it. Thanks." Reluctance coated his voice. Hanging up, he announced dully, "Dead petty officer in Rock Creek Park."

No one moved. Finally Ziva said, "He probably died of sunstroke."

Still no one moved. "Maybe we should go out there," said Tim, still firmly in his chair, and his eyes closed.

Gibbs had considered that same notion. He could probably find another of these tasty icy-coffee things on the way there. And back. But he said, "It'll be dark in…seven hours."

"If the truck overheats and breaks down on the highway, we'd just cause a traffic jam, and that would give NCIS a black eye," Tony remarked.

"It is not right to wait," Ziva put in, while not making an effort to get up.

"The petty officer is still going to be dead when it gets dark out, Ziver."

"That is true…anyone want a soda from the vending machine while we wait?"

"Agent Gibbs; am I given to understand that your team is not investing the death of a petty officer in Rock Creek Park?" Vance rumbled. The air conditioning here in his office was only just bearable.

"There's always one dying in Rock Creek Park, Leon. Wait a few days and there'll be another. We can do two in one trip."

"You're not serious!"

"Nope. Just hot."

"But this is your job!"

"Keeping my team safe is also part of my job. High heat, high humidity, bad air quality—brutal to work in. Say; aren't you supposed to have a meeting over at the CIA today?"

"I called it off. It's a waste of the agency's resources to travel," Vance said, hiding a slight whimper. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a meeting in MTAC in five minutes."

"Must be nice. All that cool darkness."

Vance ignored the obvious fishing for an invitation to join him. "Go deal with your dead petty officer."

"Maybe it's really a misidentified Army sergeant, and therefore not our jurisdiction. "

"Gibbs..."

"Must happen all the time."

"Go!"

Gibbs exited.

Ducky did a double-take when he heard, faintly, music coming from one of the Autopsy drawers. Not again...

Carefully he walked down the bank of repositories, listening, his head moving up or down to try to detect if it came from a higher or a lower drawer. Finally he stopped before one: drawer 72. Yes, this was undoubtedly the one. (Or close to it. He'd know soon enough.) He pulled the drawer open. "Agent Punderline! What do you think you're doing in there?"

Agent Punderline looked up from his supine position, startled, and then pulled down his iPod, letting the music gush out.

"Get out of there!" Ducky roared.

"This is the coolest place in the building," the agent said meekly, but he climbed out of the drawer and scampered away.

"I don't know how they sneak by me, but that's the third one this week! Now, where has Mister Palmer gone off to...?" Ducky muttered, and ambled off.

When he was gone, Jimmy pushed open the door for drawer 68 from within and climbed out, knocking on drawers 67, 63, 60, 79, 84 and 94 as he did so. "Time's up!" he said. Men and women climbed out of drawers and scattered over some complaints of how cool it was in there and that really hadn't been long enough. "For your time and efforts," said one man, slipping Jimmy a five dollar bill.

Jimmy thought about refusing it, but then smiled and stuffed the bill in his pocket. It would come in handy, later. As a tip.

Vance entered MTAC, which was indeed noticeably cooler than the open areas of the building. All that computer power needed to be kept cool, he assumed. Whatever. It was nice in here today, dark and cool, and rank hath its privileges.

"Everyone except Josh, take a break," Vance ordered. "A long break. Be back here in two hours."

The MTAC technicians looked at each other. This must be some really top secret affair to have him throw them out for that long! But, obediently, they filed out.

"Start it up," said Vance, taking off his suit coat and selecting a seat, front and center.

With a smile, he relaxed. On the largest screen the opening credits for The Polar Express rolled.

"Okay, great! I'll meet you at the entrance and clear you to enter." Jimmy clicked off his cell phone and ran for the Autopsy doors.

"Oh, there you are, Mister Palmer. Would you happen to know how unauthorized persons are managing to sneak into our domain?"

"I…don't know anything about that, Doctor. People who aren't authorized to be people?"

Ducky squinted at him. Sometimes the young man seemed to operate on a different plane of reality. "Not fake people, Mister Palmer. People with no business here."

"People who don't work for NCIS?"

"No! I mean…oh, never mind." It must be the heat, frying their brain cells on griddles. And here he'd always thought Autopsy was a comfortable refuge from the summer heat! He walked away.

Jimmy took advantage of the dismissal and walked out, briskly, breaking into a gallop when he was out of sight.

At the top of the ramp that was the delivery entrance to NCIS and also the passageway to Autopsy for the Medical Examiner's van, Jimmy conferred with the guard on duty. "It's okay, Ken; he's making a delivery for me."

The guard looked doubtful. He knew Jimmy didn't have a high rank in the scheme of things, and had never before signed in anything like this. But, Jimmy was trustworthy. "If you say so, Palmer." He was in a better mood after Jimmy palmed him a five dollar bill.

Jimmy grinned, and hopped into the truck's passenger seat. "We're going to hang a sharp left where this ramp T's at the bottom," he said to the driver.

Needing answers on another case they were still pursuing, Gibbs headed down for Abby's lab…which turned out to be quite dark, other than the light coming in from the high windows and some glow from the computer screens.

"Ow!" Gibbs had bumped into something. "Abby, turn on the lights!"

"Lights add heat," said a dark shape about 20 feet away, stubbornly. "With lights on, it's like 95 degrees in here."

"No, it isn't. Ow!" He'd bumped into something else, and decided to slow down his forward motion. First, he stopped to rub his sore knee. When he looked up, he couldn't see her. "Where'd you go?"

"I'm over here," she called. "What did you come down here for, anyway, Gibbs?"

He tried to home in on her voice. "Came to ask you—ow! If you'd—ow! Found out—" This was followed by a crash! as he knocked something over; something on a table, maybe. He cursed, and in turning, knocked another table over. "Abby, turn on the lights!"

"If you ate your carrots, you would have good night vision. Stop knocking over my stuff!"

"Abbs…"

Her phone rang, and she shrieked at whatever she was hearing. "It's here! It's here! Come on!" Through the dark path of destruction, she ran nimbly, leaving the lab behind.

"What's here?" he asked, and slowly, slowly, made his way out.

"Okay; don't shove. Everyone will get their turn!" said Jimmy, standing at the front of the growing group of employees, his back to the truck. The people cheered.

"The Autopsy Gremlin pulled it off," Tony said in grudging praise. "I didn't think he could."

The man with Jimmy addressed the group. "We got your Neapolitan sandwiches, your drumsticks, your push-ups, your popsicles, your berry bars, your frozen yoghurt cups, your sugar-free freezes, your creamsicles…just about anything you can name."

"It all comes from being nice to someone," said Ziva. "Jimmy was nice to the man who'd seen his Marine brother get wounded in that two-man shooting, and the man appreciated it. So he told Jimmy he wanted to express his gratitude to NCIS…with the best from his ice cream business."

"A perfect day for it," Tim agreed. "And a little happiness goes a long way."

"Everyone is here except for the Director," Ducky said, coming up to them with a Klondike bar in hand. "Poor man; he really works himself too hard."

In MTAC:

On screen, the train conductor sang.

Here we only got one rule
Never, ever let it cool
Keep it cooking in the pot
Soon we got hot chocolate!

At five minutes to six, Gibbs' people were back at their desks, with another round of cold sodas. The rest of the afternoon had been slow. Gibbs' mind kept wandering toward alluring visions of those icy-coffee things.

"The sun is getting lower," said Ziva. "We could…"

"Maybe," said Tony, making no attempt to gather his gear, nor stand up.

"Schultz' team is due here any minute now," said Tim. "They could…"

"Already on that," said Gibbs. "They're headed for Rock Creek Park now."

"I am sure they will do a fine job," said Ziva, sipping her soda.

"Maybe we shouldn't be here when they get here," said Tony. "By tomorrow, they'll have forgotten this."

"You hope, Tony. When they find out they also missed the ice cream…"

Tim looked unhappy. "The sun will still be up for two more hours. I don't want to go home and go out in that heat just yet."

"I have an idea…"

They all turned and looked at Jimmy, who'd just come off the elevator. "Doctor Mallard asked me to bring you this file, Agent Gibbs. He's gone home. But as I was saying, there are spots in Autopsy that are really comfortably cool. You're welcome to make use of them. Just follow me…"

-END-