There it Sat
by channelD
inspired by: the NFA There It Sat… challenge. The aim of the challenge is to start a story with the phrase, "There it sat..."
rating: Kplus
genre: drama
characters: Tim & the team
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disclaimer: I continue to own nothing of NCIS.
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Chapter 1: Sunflower
There it sat, the little yellow cloth flower in a flowerpot, resembling a sunflower with a smiley face. It wasn't as kitschy as the description sounded. The flower was hand-painted, maybe even hand-sewn, and painstakingly detailed. The face seemed to have a gentle, tentative, won't-you-be-my-friend? look, which wasn't really off-putting. The leaves and stalk were firm and yet supple; the stalk of a nubby textured fabric. The flowerpot was a real clay pot, although the "soil" in it was some sort of fabric-plastic heap. Not all that bad, Tim thought.
"That thing is as ugly as sin," Tony said, scowling, as he stopped by Tim's desk.
"I think it is rather sweet," said Ziva, and Tim smiled, grateful for her support.
"Though hardly what I expect a man to have on his desk," she added with a saucy smile, and Tim sighed.
"I'll give it to my grandmother," Tim retorted stoutly. "It's folk art. She collects this stuff. Particularly stuff that looks like it's from the Plains states."
"Has she had her vision checked lately?" Tony cracked, and accepted the headslap Gibbs gave him in passing.
"Go to coffee break on time, DiNozzo, or don't go at all," Gibbs added. He did a double-take on seeing the flower. "What…is that, McGee?"
"It's a sunflower, boss."
"I can see that. What's it doing here? Did you need new tchotchkes for your desk?"
Tim reddened. "I didn't buy it, boss. A client sent it to me. Remember the Barkins family? That case with the murders confined to the family?"
"Yep. The all-Navy bunch. Uncle Jim did in cousins Betty and Lon and Uncle Randy."
"That's the one. Aunt Peg, who makes a living making these…things, liked me, you know."
"I never pictured you as one for a May-December relationship, Probie," Tony said, with what was almost a sympathetic look. "She must be three times your age."
Tim ignored him. "I took time to help her remember clues, and helped keep her calm through the ordeal of finding the guilty family member. She reminds me a bit of my grandmother. I was just being nice to an older person; that's all." A thought hit him. "Uh, boss, I have to report this as a gift and I can't keep it, right? I just remembered that reg."
Gibbs eyed the eight-inch-tall decoration. "It's under the gifts limit in value. I…don't think your coworkers really want to share in it, so you can have it. But you might want to take it home in case…I'm…wrong and everyone else decides…they do want one."
Tim didn't really feel right about glaring at the boss, so the face he made was more like a nauseated squint. "Am I too late to take a break?"
Gibbs sighed, "Oh, get out of here…", and ignored the fact that Tony slipped out behind Tim.
Tim had to endure gibes from his coworkers all day on the smiling sunflower. The Director chuckled on seeing it and then sobered; Ducky coughed back a laugh, and Abby—Abby was worst of all. Worse than Tony, even. She burst out laughing when she saw it, "I'm…sorry…Tim," she struggled to say. "Our tastes must be really different. As in, colossally out-of-this-world different. I know you like that thing, but I think it's the ugliest thing I've ever laid eyes on!" She bent over to hug him and show that he shouldn't take it personally.
Tim was a little irked by this. "It was made with love, Abby. I'm sorry you can't understand that."
"Love is blind," Abby snickered, and started laughing all over again.
"If you don't have work to do, Abby, I'll find you some," Gibbs said levely.
"I do, Gibbs, and I'm going. If I stay up here any longer, I'll hurt myself laughing!" She stopped to give Tim a kiss on top of his head. He wasn't mollified. But the sunflower, born with a cheerful soul, didn't seem to mind Abby's laughter at all.
The sunflower sat the rest of the day front and center on Tim's desk. He could have put it in the box it had come in, but he eventually admitted to himself that he liked looking at it. He could picture Aunt Peg stitching it, for he had watched her work on another project during the case. She wasn't really three times his age, as Tony had said, but rather a fit 70, content to let her blonde hair go mostly grey. Her hands were still nimble, and she could cut out shapes, wield a sewing needle and a glue gun, embroider, press, and shape faster than a teenager. She would have four or five projects going at once, and a stack of sketches on graph paper for future projects. "Idle hands," she would murmur, and shake her head, eyeing a young granddaughter sprawled on a sofa with her ipod on.
" 'Are the devil's playground?'" Tim had finished the quote.
"What? No, no; no devils around here. Idle hands help the brain atrophy. That's all. I was a research chemist before I retired, Tim, did you know that? Of course you did; you NCIS people know everything about this family now. I started cutting things out with my Rosie when she was small. She lost interest after awhile, but I kept doing it. It was a nice hobby to come home to after a day at the lab. I got better at it, and now I make a modest income from it."
She was such a nice lady. Tim was already composing a thank-you note in his mind. He wanted it to sound just right.
For awhile, Tim kept the side with the smilie face turned outward, so people passing by could see it. Then he started to accept the fact that no one seemed to appreciate it like he did, so he turned the face to face him, leaving the rough brown seed-like back of the sunflower head facing out. And still the sunflower smiled.
A case came up, and the team went out. In the field, the sunflower was forgotten. After a chase through muddy woods, suspects were apprehended, a hostage was freed, and they were all back at NCIS by the normal end of the work day.
Tim, Tony and Gibbs hit the men's showers to rinse off the mud. "Hey," said Tony. "Ziva and Abby and I, and a couple guys from Intel, who aren't as geeky as you'd think, are hitting Mulligan's for a drink after work. You guys coming?"
Gibbs only rolled his eyes and smiled a regret. He'd spend the evening with his boat, they knew. "Nah, I want to work on the Filburt case a little longer," said Tim.
"If you're going to stay late, you should be working on your report for the case we just had today," said Gibbs.
"I will, boss. First thing in the morning. But I just got an idea on the Filburt case, and I want to explore it before I forget where it's leading me."
Gibbs raised one eyebrow. "All right, McGee. Don't stay too late, though."
Back in the squad room, as the day shift left and the much smaller night shift came on, Tim settled back down at his desk with a cold can of Diet Coke. The sunflower smiled its same, static smile at him. The smile warmed his heart.
By 8 o'clock, Tim couldn't keep his head up any longer, and rested it on his arms on his keyboard. His heavy arms. A place for his heavy head.
The difference now was the subtle change in the air, as the invisible gas seeped out of the sunflower, which it had started to do half an hour ago. The smiling sunflower had plenty of poisonous gas left to disperse.