When the Skies Reached Down

by channelD

written for: the NFA Threat Alert challenge
rating: K plus (violence from Nature)
genre: drama
setting: the Washington Navy Yard, August 2009

author's note: This story follows on from my fic Staring Down the Storm, in which Tim, Tony and Ziva recklessly went out to see a hurricane...and became trapped in the storm. It isn't quite what I'd call a sequel, but reading it will probably help you to understand several characters' reactions.

There are also in this story five original characters whom I have used in other stories: Kale McGee (Tim's father), Supervisory Special Agent (a team leader, like Gibbs) Klara Schultz, and her team, Joe Wicker, Balere LeBeouf, and Mickey Power.

- - - - -

disclaimer: I own nothing of NCIS.

- - - - -

Prologue

They would always remember where they had been when it happened. It would be something to tell the kids and the grandkids about, as well as the disbelieving distant relatives and new acquaintances.

I was there. And I lived through it. Hastening to add, usually, Of course, not everyone made it; poor souls.

God rest and keep their souls.

Most were at their duty stations at work. Some were outside, heading back from a late lunch. Schultz' team was heading out on a field assignment. Across the Navy Yard, new recruits toured the USS Barry; at the Marine compound, members of the Marine Silent Drill Team drilled (actually, it was a special, midweek performance); and just next door to NCIS, tourists flocked to a new exhibit in the Navy Museum.

Vance was in his office, his attention momentarily caught by the American flag in a flag holder in the corner of the room. It occurred to him that flags must accumulate dust, like everything else, and probably should be cleaned now and then. He wondered who cleaned flags.

Gibbs was down in the lab with Abby. He'd really only stopped by to ask for status on their current case, but it was so technical, and important, that it took her three times to explain it before he understood. He was just starting to ask her important questions about details when it happened.

His team was in the squad room, working in their area. Ducky had just wandered up to ask them something. Jimmy trailed behind him.

Thursday, August 20, 2009.

They would always remember the day that the skies struck at the Navy Yard without mercy.

- - - - -

Chapter 1

- - - - -

It had started pretty much like any other summer day in Washington—a city where summer ran for six months in most years, as Tony would say. It was hot, of course. And humid. Washington, DC had long ago been carved out of a swamp, and Nature was loathe to change the arrangements she had made.

The old Forge Building that housed NCIS HQ aboard the Navy Yard (building #111) had fortunately been fitted for central air-conditioning, and most of the time this was a blessing, from April through October. The air-conditioning was a little too cool for women in lightweight summer outfits, and a little too warm for men in suits, but with only a minimal amount of grumbling, they got through it. The windows in the old building still opened, if grudgingly, in places, but at this time of year they were kept closed. Cool or not, air-conditioning was better than working in a sauna.

This circumventing of Nature's design, however, made changes in the weather less apparent to those inside the walls' protection.

"Balere! Let's go!" Supervisory Special Agent Klara Schultz called from the brink of the elevator.

"Just a second," said her team member Balere LeBeouf. She stopped to pull out an umbrella from her desk drawer. "It's starting to cloud up."

Tony looked at surprise out the window. All he could see, in the southward view, was heavy, hot, blue sky. "Time for an eye exam, B?" he asked.

"To the west, Tony," she said with a grin. "Got to go—they're waiting for me." The ever-stylish agent turned and trotted for the elevator.

"A little rain would be nice," Tim said, not taking his eyes off his monitor.

"I would be happy just to have clouds," Ziva chimed in. "Anything to blot out the sun. If we have to go out in the field today—"

Tim winced. "I've replenished the sunscreen supply in the truck," he said. "None of us want to get sunburned again, believe me."

A few minutes went by, and then Intel analyst Nikki Jardine came out of the elevator. "I'm glad for the clouds," she said to no one in particular, "but I just came back from a late lunch, and the sky is freaking me out."

Tony wasn't quite able to suppress a smile. The whole world freaked out Nikki Jardine. "What's it doing—raining toads?"

Jardine only shuddered at the thought, and moved on to her workstation. Tim, though, perked up and went to the window. As the son of meteorologists, he'd grown up hearing endless discussion of skies. "Nikki," he called, what's the temperature like outside?"

"Funny you should ask, Tim. It's dropped like at least ten degrees from when I went into the food court."

"Oh, boy," Tim said, and he sounded worried.

"What is it, McGee?" Tony asked. "I know they were saying on the news this morning 'possible thunderstorms', but…"

Tim stared at the sky for a moment, irritated that he could only see to the south. That wasn't the direction he needed to be looking in, he knew. Then he ran back to his desk and began pounding at his computer keyboard, almost as if blindly, his fingers not working in synch with his mind. Where to go? Which site? ? Local news?

Come on; come on…blasted slow internet… He cursed the TV shows that had computer programs load instantaneously. Like it ever really happened that way. Come on…

"Is, uh,,,is the sky supposed to look like that?" asked Jimmy, pointing up. Through the skylights they could see a very different sky now: gray with a sickening shade of green coating everything; clouds swirling as they moved. A low rumble, like a freight train, sounded.

"I don't think so, Mr. Palmer," said Ducky. "What hath God wrought?"

Outside, the winds had whipped up the trees, bending them over horribly. "My God. We're in a tornado. Another freakin' tornado!" Tony exclaimed.

Ziva froze at her desk, feeling breaths hard to come by. She hadn't forgotten the horror of being trapped outside just five weeks ago, with a tornado bearing down on them. She'd said she was all right, in the weeks afterwards. So had Tony and Tim. We're okay. But she knew they were not okay. They just hadn't wanted to go to counseling. They had been sure they could tough it out, given time.

And so they had never spoken of the nightmares, and the flinching that each of them experienced when the skies suddenly clouded over,

"McGee!!" Tony thundered. "You're the expert here. What do we do?!" When Tim hesitated, Tony repeated it, louder. "What do we do???"

Tim hadn't found any definitive answers on his computer. "I can't…there's no confirmation of funnel clouds…"

"I've got visual confirmation, McGeek! I've been through tornadoes in Ohio! Now either you tell us what to do, or I'll make decisions as best as I can!!"

Something clicked in Tim's mind then. He jumped up on top of his desk and cupped his hands to call out. "Attention, please! We need everyone to evacuate this room immediately! Go down the stairs to a lower floor and take refuge in an inside, windowless room, or else in a room on this floor that likewise doesn't have windows. Don't use the elevators; we may lose power. Stay calm, and don't run, but move out now."

Sirens sounded, and they all stopped in curiosity. None of them had ever before heard those sirens. The sirens were almost as frightening as the clouds, and the increasingly-loud rumble was.

"Move it, people!!" Tony bellowed. "Now! Now! Now!"

Tim pulled Ziva to her feet. "We've got to get out of here, Ziva. This isn't a safe place to be."

She was fighting tears. "You said…you said back out there, when it…you said that if we were inside NCIS, we would be safe…"

He didn't remember what he had said. "Chew me out later, okay? When we're in a better location?" He pulled her hand, and on wobbly feet, she started to follow.

Too late.

With an enormous bang, one of the skylight windows broke free of its moorings and flew up away from the building, only to, moments later, come crashing back down, falling against its original position and there breaking apart, throwing glass and metal onto the floor below.

Another skylight window, and then another and another followed suit, over the screams of the NCIS employees below. A few windows fell, nearly whole. One of the floor-to-ceiling windows broke, followed by another as a street sign (Sicard Street) came through it.

Almost no one had made it out of the room. Rain poured in from the windows, both on the south and the broken skylights. Wind gusted in, too, blowing over anyone who tried to stand up. People screamed in panic or in pain.

And then the lights went out.