Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by the writers, producers, et al of the television show 'NCIS'. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, internet persona, or other being, living or dead, is completely coincidental and unintentional unless otherwise noted.

A/N: It occurs to me that I don't believe I mentioned just when I've set this fic… To be quite honest, I'm not too sure myself, only that it's obviously well after the end of season two and before the end of season six. I don't anticipate many – if any – spoilers, so I think I'll leave it purposefully vague for now.

Sand, Sun, and Sotol

We are 100% SNAFU. – Goose, Mad Max

Elizabeth pried her eyes open and took stock of her situation. After checking in with her body parts, she was pretty sure she wasn't too damaged, though she knew she'd be sporting some Technicolor bruises for the foreseeable future. There weren't any bits screaming 'broken bone here' and nothing was setting off that burning, stinging sensation that usually meant stitches. She wasn't nauseous and what she could see in the flashes of lightning was crisply clear, so she didn't have a concussion. However, she knew from experience that adrenaline had an unhappy tendency to mask severe pain, and the storm had been more than enough to have her on an adrenaline high before the lightning strike.

She started small and wriggled her toes inside her boots. When that caused no sharp sparkles of pain, she slowly worked her way up her legs. After determining that her initial assessment, at least from the hips down, was accurate, she moved on to her arms. Her left elbow hurt, but dully, much like the other times she'd managed to hyperextend it. Gingerly bending and straightening it a couple of times, Lizzie was nearly positive that was all that was wrong with the joint – it didn't hurt bad enough for there to have been any major tears to the ligaments or tendons. Rolling her shoulders let out a pair of snapping noises, but that was par for the course with her as both shoulders had been dislocated several times in the past.

Running her hands over her head, she found that her hat had managed to survive the crash and that she had a small goose-egg on her right temple. She could also feel several small cuts and scrapes, much like the ones on her hands, but nothing that would require anything more than a little Neosporin and a band-aid. She rolled her neck and was rewarded with several pops and snaps; again, the noise was not unusual for her.

So far, so good. Elizabeth took a moment to simply sit and listen to the howl of the wind and rain around her. Though she could see brief flashes of her surroundings in the intermittent lightning, she wasn't sure why she wasn't being soaked by the rain. Think on it later, Liz. You got bigger problems just now.

She took a deep breath and held it for a three-count before letting it out in a relieved woosh. Nothing screamed for her attention, so she didn't even have any busted ribs for a change. She ached a little from where the seatbelt fit, but she felt she could live with that. Be stiff'n'sore for a week or two, but I think I might've lucked out on this one.

Elizabeth unclipped her harness. She trailed her hands over the shattered instrument panel until she found the hook where her clipboard normally hung. Moving down and to the right of the hook, she quickly located a smallish storage compartment. Don't let it be jammed. The latch gave way with minimal force. She grinned. In the jumbled mess inside the compartment, Lizzie quickly located her flashlight.

The strong beam from the 'can-double-as-a-blunt-instrument' Maglite revealed just why the rain wasn't getting in – the plane had skidded to a halt with at least its nose tucked into a rock wall. Unsure if it was a cave on the side of a cliff, a sinkhole opened by the crash, or simply a rocky overhang along a gully, Elizabeth twisted around on her seat. Noting in passing that both of her passengers were still breathing, the pilot peered through the shattered windows and the gaping chasm where the back half of her plane used to be. Pocket cave, she realized. Maybe fifteen or twenty feet deep, eight or so high, and about twelve or so wide. Wonder if it was sliding in here that tore my wings off or if that happened before we got this far? Know that clump of boulders tore the tail off.

"Okay," she whispered, "I'm pretty sure we're outta imminent danger, so let's check the feds. Dunno what kinda paperwork I'd hafta fill out iffen one died on my watch, an' I ain't about to find out." Since her angle was better for checking the guy first, that's precisely what she did. He had several cuts and scrapes on his head, much like Elizabeth did, but none of them seemed too serious. His eyelids fluttered in the light from her flashlight. "Hey, amigo, you with me?"

Tony knew that the comforting layer of black wasn't where he should be just then, but it took a few seconds for his brain to finish pushing it aside. The first thing he noticed was the loud crash of thunder far too close for comfort. He jerked at the noise before immediately stilling his motion at the sharp spike of pain from his right leg. Squinting in the bright light, he took several deep breaths to keep from shrieking as he resettled himself into his original position.

"Yeah, you're with me," Elizabeth said. "But you ain't all stars an' sunshine. Where ya hurtin'?"

"Just…gimme a minute." Tony let out the breath he'd been holding and forced himself to look. The door of the plane had disappeared at some point in the crash, and its frame had buckled inwards, pinning his right leg to the seat. "Can I see the light?"

Elizabeth shifted to a kneeling position on her chair and leaned over, aiming the flashlight where the fed was looking. She let out a low whistle. "That's gotta hurt like blue fire." Lizzie definitely knew what she was talking about – she'd had a horribly dislocated knee herself once, a souvenir from the second Hollywood crash she ever did.

Tony glared at the brunette. "Ya think?" The jagged edge of the doorframe had also made a pretty impressive gash just above his misplaced kneecap.

Smiling, Elizabeth let the snark slide. "Aside from that, you hurt anywhere else?"

Tony closed his eyes and checked in a manner not wholly unlike the process Lizzie had gone through on waking. He slowly shook his head, "Feel like I been hit by a truck, but I think the knee's the worst of it."

"Sit tight, then. I'm gonna check the chica." Matching words to actions, Elizabeth moved the flashlight to her other passenger.

Much like the crash had crumpled the doorframe inwards, something similar had happened with the window on the female fed's side of the cabin. It didn't take much effort to connect the inward-dented ring of metal with the impressive goose-egg on her head and its sluggishly bleeding split in the skin stretched over it. More worrisome to Elizabeth's way of thinking was the broken stick of creosote that had punched its way through the window hole at some point in the crash and pierced its way through the woman's blouse and into her left bicep.

Tony turned as much as his pinned leg would allow. "Ziva?" He reached over and nudged her. "Hey, Ziva."

The woman came-to with an abruptness that startled Elizabeth almost as much as the murderous look that flashed across the fed's face before she realized where she was. The fed muttered something that Lizzie was positive wasn't repeatable in mixed company, even though she didn't know what language it was. "Ooh, slow down there, chica. You got some greasewood issues we gotta deal with," Lizzie nodded to the stick. "Other than that, and what I'm sure is one helluva headache, you hurt anywhere else?"

Ziva maneuvered so she could reach the knife she carried in her boot. "I do not believe so," she replied through clenched teeth, while using the seven-inch blade to slice her shirt sleeve out of the way.

At a loss to explain the woman's actions, Elizabeth looked over at the other fed. He didn't appear overly concerned. "Once you're done there, Ziva, you think you can get me unpinned from this damn seat?"

"No problem, Tony," Ziva replied, recapturing Elizabeth's attention as she reached up and grasped the long end of the branch that had pierced her arm.

Seeing what the woman was about to do, Lizzie said, "Hey, I don't think you –" The loud crack of the stick, only slightly thicker than an average arrow shaft, interrupted her. "…should do that," she finished as the woman tossed the broken stick out the hole where the window used to be.

"It is just under the skin," Ziva said, directing her comment to Tony. To Elizabeth, she said, "I need light."

Elizabeth repositioned the flashlight beam and Tony was hard-pressed to keep from laughing at the poor girl – mind-numbing pain or no. Her eyes were wide enough that they looked like they were about to fall out of her skull, and they only got wider when Ziva used her blade to cut the end of the branch out of her arm; which was no easy task since she was seeing two of everything. The only indication to either of the observers that it was at all painful was a light hiss of air through her teeth. When the bloody end of the creosote stick was tossed out to join its larger half, Ziva used the scraps of her sleeve to improvise a quick bandage around the wound. When the bandage was tied to Ziva's satisfaction, she finally turned her attention to Tony. A subtle nod in the pilot's direction had her switch her gaze to Elizabeth.

Even through the double-vision, the pilot's face could only be described as 'awestruck'. Until that point, Ziva couldn't have honestly said she'd ever seen that precise expression on anyone's face – at least, not in person. She had imagined it a time or two from books she'd read, and had seen a decent facsimile of it in a movie once, but never before in the flesh. "What?" she had to ask.

Elizabeth blinked twice before a delighted grin spread across her face. "Can I be you when I grow up?"

The question confused Ziva. According to her research on the pilot, Elizabeth Cambry was thirty-two. "Are you not already an adult?"

Ziva's reply sufficiently confused Elizabeth enough to leave her at a loss for words. Luckily, Tony could usually be counted on to fill any silences. "It was a joke, Ziva – I think you've impressed our friend here with your mad Mossad ninja skills."

Only the rush of the storm outside their little safe-haven replied to Tony's comment. Several moments later, Ziva was the first to speak. "You are pinned to the seat?"

Tony nodded. "Part of what used to be the doorframe. It scraped me and dislocated my knee, but otherwise I'm just stuck."

Lizzie moved the flashlight to the problem area being discussed while Ziva unclipped her seatbelt and leaned over to see. The metal was in too awkward of a position for Tony to be of much use in helping to remove it. Ziva quickly ran through several scenarios in her head. "Is there something to…" she started to ask, only to trail off when her vocabulary didn't provide her with the right words. I hate concussions, they make finding the right words so much harder than it needs to be. She switched tactics and tried again, "Is there a lever?"

"A lever?" Elizabeth wasn't sure what she meant at first, then it hit her. "Oh! Sorry, sweetie, but I don't carry a pry-bar even when my cargo area's still attached. But, you did just gimme an idea."

With no further warning, the pilot – and her flashlight – swiftly disappeared through the glassless and mangled frame of the former windshield. She reappeared like a jack-in-the-box heartbeats later, standing outside the plane's equally-mangled doorframe. She held the flashlight out to Tony. "Here, you hold this." She peered around Tony and told Ziva, "You push from the inside, and I'll pull from out here. Should be enough so's he can move his leg outta the way. I mean, it ain't like it's steel or nothin', just aluminum, an' only a li'l thicker'an a pop can."

It only took a minute or so for everyone to arrange themselves. "On three," Tony figured that since it was his leg, he'd best be the one counting. "One…two…two-and-a-half…two-and-three-quarters…"

"Oh, for the love of hell," Lizzy grumbled, then shouted, "Three!"

The metal screeched and groaned in protest, but managed to move enough that Tony could pull his leg out of harm's way. Elizabeth and Ziva let go and the frame snapped back with a bang.

Tony, still seeing stars from moving his leg, let out a few breaths and then asked, "Okay. Now what?" It just had to be the same leg I broke in college, huh?

Ziva moved herself into the pilot's seat and Lizzie leaned against the plane. "Well, next thing I'd do is see iffen we can't get your kneecap back to where it's s'posed to be."

"You ever do that before? Relocate a knee, I mean?" Tony asked.

Elizabeth shrugged. "Sorta."

Tony opened his eye and aimed the flashlight in Elizabeth's face. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just that I've done it on myself a coupla times, but not on anyone else." Seeing Tony's raised eyebrows, she elaborated, "After the first time I dislocated my shoulder, I heard the EMT say it's best to get joints back in place as soon as possible, else it might not go back without surgery, 'cause of the swelling an' all."

Tony grimaced, though neither Ziva nor Lizzie knew if it was at the thought of surgery, in sympathy for Elizabeth's statement, or at the imminent prospect of a painful application of first-aid. "First time?" Tony stalled for time. "You get injured that much?"

Lizzie let out a chuckle, "Honey, I'm a stunt-pilot. I've had more concussions, broken bones, dislocations, and stitches than I can count. Hellfire, this marks my forty-eighth crash – though all the rest, save one, were on purpose."

"This is not helping his leg," Ziva interrupted.

Tony groaned. "Thank you, Zee-vah."

Realizing that the man had been stalling the inevitable, Elizabeth smirked. "Yeah, this ain't doin' what needs done, Áłtsé Hashké." (1)

When all was said and done, it wasn't quite as bad as Tony had feared. Yes, the actual act of manipulating his patella back into its normal groove was the single most-painful moment of his entire life, but once it was done, the pain almost totally evaporated. It still throbbed and sent little lances of stabbity pain through his leg if he moved it too much, but it was a far cry better than the white-hot agony it had been before.

While they were concentrating on Tony's knee, two things of note happened. Firstly, the storm finally moved on. With the absence of clouds and the general wet conditions, the temperature swiftly plummeted. Weeks later, Tony looked up the official nighttime low for that night and found it nearly impossible to believe that it had been eighty-three degrees. However, a thirty-degree drop from any daytime high makes it seem much colder than it might actually be; rather like how a stiff breeze on a cool day can make it feel much colder than the thermometer says it is.

Secondly, Lizzie noticed that Ziva's pupils weren't the same size. Knowing how she felt about admitting to little things like head injuries herself, Elizabeth opted not to say anything. She simply made a mental note to set the alarm on her wristwatch to sound in two-hour increments if the other woman decided to sleep.

With all the necessary first-aid out of the way, it was time to take stock. The first thing they checked was the radio after Lizzie had climbed back into the plane and Ziva returned to her seat. Unfortunately, not only was the CB fried from the lightning, but the mic had managed to disappear during the course of the crash.

"Don't you have an emergency location beacon?" Tony asked after Lizzie got done cursing at the broken radio.

Elizabeth nodded. "Yeah, I do. It's in my toolbox."

A smile started to surface on DiNozzo's face. "Great! Then we don't need the radio. Just turn it on or whatever, and someone will figure out where we are."

"Just one small, nearly insignificant li'l problem with that, Áłtsé Hashké."

"What is the problem?" Ziva asked.

"Well, the toolbox, the first-aid kit, your packs, and my cooler are god-only-knows how many fuckin' miles thataway!" She flung her hand in the direction of the great gaping hole where the tail end of the plane had broken away – just a few inches behind where the agents' seats were bolted down. Elizabeth forced herself to calm down a little. "Look," she glanced at her watch, "it's comin' up on midnight already, so they know we're missin'. When they don't get a signal from the emergency beacon, they'll start lookin' come dawn. How 'bout you two get some sleep? I'll keep an eye out for any critters what might be lurkin' an' see iffen I can't get somethin' burnin' so's they know we're here."

After having seen Elizabeth – who was a good four inches shorter than Ziva – shatter what little remained unbroken in the control panel with one swift kick when the radio wouldn't work, neither of the agents felt they had a good enough of an excuse to pass muster with the pilot. So they didn't even try. Instead, Ziva lent a hand in helping Tony out of the remains of the airplane so he could stretch out on the floor of the small cave. While the agents did that, Elizabeth managed to find that her catch-all had gotten caught up in the small hollow under her chair. Well, that's one less thing to worry about. If the canvas bag had been any smaller, it would have been deemed a purse – any bigger and it would qualify as an actual backpack or messenger-bag. Terminology aside, however, it contained not just Lizzie's puzzle book, but also her maps of the region and the surveyor's compass that once belonged to her mom's father. At least I'll be able to figure out just how far from nowhere we are come sunup.

With an 'it figures' sigh, Tony stretched out on the dirt floor of the cave with no regard for his formerly-expensive suit and silk shirt. Ziva picked a similar spot of cave floor a few feet away. While Ziva quickly began snoring, Tony watched as the pilot climbed out of the wreck one more time. She stood close to where the nose of the plane used to sport a propeller and reached out. With her palm flat on the crumpled metal, Tony heard her whisper, "Vaya con Dios, mi corazón. You served me well." (2)

Figuring that Elizabeth's relationship with her plane was probably at least as important to her as his own relationship with his car, Tony didn't say anything until she'd turned and began making her way to the mouth of the cave. "You wind up needing sleep yourself –"

"Don't worry. Iffen I can't make it 'til daylight, I'll wake y'all. Get some sleep, Áłtsé Hashké." Lizzie smiled at him. She stopped at the mouth of the cave and stared out at the night. From the concern in his voice at that last interrupted comment, Elizabeth was convinced that her earlier assessment of Tony's character was accurate. He really is an Áłtsé Hashké, isn't he?

A/N2: Just why Lizzie is calling Tony 'Áłtsé Hashké' will be addressed later in the story, so please hold all questions on that until later. Thanks in advance!

1. Áłtsé Hashké – Coyote (Navajo)
2. Vaya con Dios, mi corazón. – Go with god, my heart. (Spanish)

Since this is a new fandom for me, I would really like to know what y'all think…good? Bad? Too OOC? Lemme know, please.