Chapter Twenty Five

Doing the Hurricane Twist

The day they combined the two boats, old and new, was one to remember. It had taken them weeks to get to this point and it was not the end point, but it was one of the most critical. Everything was ready, had been inspected carefully more than once and now it was time. Once the boat was moved and secured in the Big Fish, the bunks and other items that had been removed would be added back.

The lower deck of the new boat was complete and floating in a narrow channel they'd dug into the cavern shore. The assault craft was maneuvered up onto the sand and ropes were attached to form one of Gibbs' now familiar 'nets'. Attaching the pull ropes to a fulcrum, the one woman and five men hauled until they had the smaller vessel in the air. Once it was at the right height and the pull rope securely tied, they very carefully edged it over the new ship and then as slowly as they could manage, loosened the pull rope and lowered the boat into the body of the Big Fish. When it sat snugly with no problems, the ship holding its volume in the water, they stood staring at each other before breaking into cheers. Gibbs had the biggest smile any of them had ever seen on the man's face, except for Tim and he wasn't telling. This made it real; this now felt like a real ship, looked like a real ship and they were going home in it!

After a break to celebrate they returned to work securing the former assault craft to the new hulls and lower deck of the new boat. Once that was done Gibbs had them set the anchor and add additional bracing so that their future home would stay put in the channel and not slip out into the cavern bay with the changing tides.

When they had finished and were relaxing around the fire pit, Ducky poured each a small tot of the brandy that had been found on board the boat recently, tucked between one of the bunks and the hull. Toasting to their continued success and the journey home, they enjoyed their treat.

XXX

Ziva looked at the scant number of eggs she'd found, then looked up at Mitas, puzzled. He shook his head and turning, walked over to Nanny with their milk jar. Nanny was fidgety today and only willing to part with a small bit of milk. The three youngsters, no longer babies, were nowhere in sight, unusual for them. Remembering Gibbs' words a few weeks before, Ziva pointed to the sky. "Mitas, there is a storm brewing. Remember in that last storm, Gibbs told us the chickens and the goats would know."

He nodded, looking to the storm clouds. "Yeah, that's not pretty, we'd better let the others know, aren't Tim and Gibbs down in Flotsam cove?"

"Yes, I believe so. I will call Gibbs if you will call Ducky, he will know where Tony is."

Making their calls on the WTs, they headed back toward the cavern, meeting Tim and Gibbs at the cistern, checking the volume. It was full, so they left the cover on, anchored it well, and grabbed the water end of the hose as there was no need to leave it up top. Gibbs grabbed DiNozzo's clothes off the clothesline, noticing the wind had picked up considerably. Tim, always fascinated by storms, was standing enthralled by the quickly approaching swirl of dark clouds. Gibbs stopped and shook him, "Tim, come on, we need to get down below."

"But look at that, it's weird. It's not like the last…holy shit, Jethro, that's a hurricane!"

Gibbs took one quick glance as he grabbed Tim and hauled him to the stairs. When they got below, the others were hauling the ship up the narrow channel as far as she would go. Once they had her as secure as possible, they dragged the rowboats and raft nearly up to the back wall, then started moving the cabinet and boxes from the kitchen area.

"Tim, in a hurricane how high will the tides reach?"

"Boss, the water marks on the sides of the cavern are lower than our common area. And if you'll look at the tallest rock in the wall between the common area and the workbench, you'll see the marks there too. That will have been the highest tide this cavern has been through."

"And how old did you say this island is?"

Ducky replied, "Jethro, we believe it to have been on the surface for at least a few hundred years."

"Ok, let's get everything moved up to the rooms though, yeah, tools and the work bench, definitely. Mitas, glad we had the barbecue and the solar oven down here the other night; we'd have lost them up top! Tim, sorry about the garden, nothing we can do." Tim nodded, he would worry about that later; there really was nothing they could do.

Within minutes the common area was clear of their belongings, which were carried to the pillar room. There were two rooms in the cavern that had a slight elevation, and the pillar room was one of them. They had a fire pit in there already, built to accommodate Tony when he had been felled by a stomach bug and Ducky wanted to isolate him in case it was contagious. Deciding to be extra cautious, they also moved their personal belongings and the beds. The table, bench and chairs were set up, the lanterns lit and soon the room looked cheery, although they were missing their bay and the now familiar hulls of the Big Fish. Tony had a thought, "What about the chickens and the goats? Will they survive hurricane winds, Tim?"

"I…to be honest, we won't know until it's over, Tony. Unless…."

"NO, no one is going out there to find those animals. I forbid it, Ziva; you sit your butt down NOW." Gibbs had used a voice none of them had heard in recent weeks and Ziva turned; her eyes wide. "I was not going up top, Gibbs, but I believe I hear the chickens and the goats, would they normally take shelter here, do you think?"

Gibbs sighed, "The chickens yes, I don't know how the goats would have gotten down before the staircase."

"There was a cave-in, Boss, remember? That's why there was so much rock. So maybe the room was open before and the rocks piled high enough for them to get to – maybe this was where they took shelter."

Gibbs glared at his SFA and then sighed. "All right, but just up the staircase, NOBODY goes outside, got that?"

Replies from everyone satisfied him and he led the way to the staircase. Moving their metal car door 'hatch', which had replaced the 'camo' bush, he was nearly struck in the face when one of the hens flew by him, squawking. The chickens were followed by the goats, bleating noisily. The livestock were led into the second room with a higher elevation and Tony and Tim found a large metal panel in their pile of spare materials that could act as a door to the temporary animal pen. Remembering the opened bag of rice he had eventually brought down to dry out some electronic pieces, Tim thought they could now use that to feed both chickens and the goats. That and fish parts; they'd had the afternoon off yesterday and Tim, wanting to test his solar powered refrigerator, had suggested a fishing marathon. Enough fish to feed the humans, goats and chickens was now cooling in the refrigerator…on the ship. He sighed. Tony looked at him, questioning and Tim explained.

DiNozzo's face lit up. "Ah McDoubter! When we got the call from Mitas about the storm, he asked us to grab enough fish – and milk – off The Big Fish for three days. Ducky and I grabbed extra and it's in the cooler. Plus we have some of that smoked fish Boss did; we can eat that if we have to. We'll be all right; we won't starve even if the storm lasts longer than last time."

Tim gave him a relieved grin, "That's great, Tony!" They returned to the pillar room.

Tony grabbed Mitas and they walked off, discussing menus for the duration of the storm. Tony had made gnocchi earlier that morning and they would serve that for lunch today, with a creamy garlic butter sauce, made with their fresh grown garlic, a bit of cream from their nanny goat, a little flour and fresh butter with parmesan cheese for anyone who wanted it. Ziva had found a box of bagged walnuts still in the shell and last night, Tony had cracked several of the whole nuts open, picked out the nut and would add that to the dish. Their regular lunchtime was still a few hours off, so they made their plans and then returned to the table.

While they were sitting there, Tony remembered that he'd wanted to talk with Tim about Zubin Cai and the fact that the younger man's three friends had begged to be included in the books. Tim had mixed feelings about this conversation, he hoped it would help with the never-going-to-die issue of including his team as characters in his Deep Six books but he was having a hard time relating his much younger, teenage self who'd started out publishing as Zubin Cai to who he was now. The two of them walked up and down the passageway talking. Tim finally got through to DiNozzo that he hadn't really thought about it, that including his team as characters hadn't even been a conscious decision. What he didn't tell Tony because it was none of his business, was that writing the first Deep Six book and his work as a Federal Agent had contributed to his recovery from the deaths of his lover and friends. Despite Tim's misgivings, the two had a good talk and Tony walked away feeling he'd gotten to know Tim better. Tim walked away hopeful the whole issue would never raise its ugly head again and thankful that Tony had listened to him. Maybe, just maybe they could finally move past this.

That discussion completed, they sat back with the others. They sat, they read, they talked and in far less than an hour were bored stiff. All of them. They led active lives and relaxing was one thing but enforced relaxation was something else. Ducky offered to teach them bridge and while Ziva and Tim were moderately interested, none of the others had any interest in the game. The cards were brought out however, and Ducky played endless games of solitaire or "Patience" as it was known in his homeland. Tony grabbed another deck and they played Double Solitaire and then a rousing game of "War". By the time Ducky had trounced DiNozzo, it was time for lunch.

Over the gnocchi, which everyone loved, Gibbs mentioned a few card games he'd played with his family when he was growing up. He thought a game called 'Hearts' would be fun and competitive enough for his bunch. So after the lunch dishes were done up, they settled in to learn how to play. The game was an instant hit and they played for several hours before Ducky called a halt.

"I need to move, I cannot sit here, nor can any of you, for two more days doing nothing!"

"Suggestions?"

"If the staircase is not wet, walk up and down ten times a day."

"Run up and down the corridors, have races, do some weight training using rocks as weights. Stretch, do yoga, Pilates, we just need to move!"

"Dance!"

"Well, yes, Timothy, however that's always easier with music."

"My laptop is fully charged and I've got a lot of music stored."

"On your work laptop, Probie?"

Tim rolled his eyes at him, reached into the storage tub that held his personal belongings and held out his IPod. "On this, Tony; my IPod, which I can plug into my work laptop."

Tony shrugged, not sure how dancing with only one girl in the group was going to be any fun. Gibbs grinned; oh this was going to be fun. He bet none of them but Ducky and Tim really knew how to dance and they were going to show them. He and Tim had danced under the stars on a few occasions and he'd taught Tim some of his favorite dance moves. He'd teach them how to enjoy dancing, no partner necessary. Ducky grinned at him and turning, asked Tim to show them the titles he had. As he scrolled down the list, Ducky was relieved to find Tim's taste tended to the eclectic with a distinct absence of the heavy metal they were used to being subjected to in Abby's lab. He finally picked a list of 70's hits that he knew Jethro would know too. Tim smiled when he saw the playlist, he loved the dance moves Jethro had taught him and he was really looking forward to this. He got everything set up, turning the volume up before hitting play for the set. Ducky and Jethro were up on their feet in no time and Tim soon joined them. Ziva jumped up and watching carefully, quickly learned the steps the three men were doing. Mitas followed and Tony finally gave in to the music. Jethro would change the dance, Ducky and Tim would follow and the others would flail along until they figured it out. They danced for over an hour, until the playlist had finished. They were breathless, exhausted and laughing, having had a wonderful time. Tony had forgotten all about not having girls to dance with, with all of them dancing it didn't matter.

When the music stopped and they were still trying to catch their breaths, they laughed some more when they heard the goats bleating, seemingly in time to the last song that had played.

Gibbs had been thinking while he was dancing and teaching the others. There was a rather large task still needed for the Big Fish that hadn't yet been tackled – the making of the sail. Using the height of the mast and the measurement of the ship, Tim had calculated the necessary size of the sail and had double checked it on an advanced spreadsheet program he had on his laptop. Gibbs had sketched what the sail needed to look like and he and DiNozzo had figured out the pattern pieces, as it were. That was as far as they'd gotten. Now he looked around and spotted the large bolt of sailcloth; they could work on this and continue working toward their goal. They had too much stuff in this room to spread the cloth out; but he remembered a room across the passageway that was bigger. It was chilly in there so no one used it much. It would do for the laying out and cutting of the sailcloth.

He whistled, getting everyone's attention. "There's work we can do here getting the ship ready. Anyone have any ideas?" He was standing at the back wall of the room, next to the upright huge bolt of fabric.

Tim smiled, "Making the sail, Boss. We'd have to lay it out somewhere else to cut it though."

"I'm thinking the room next to the animal pen. Yeah, I know its cold in there, so the sooner we get the pieces cut; the sooner we can come back in here and start sewing."

Tim and Ziva, feeling proprietary about their bolt of sailcloth, moved it to the 'chill' room as it was quickly dubbed. Ducky helped them roll it out and Mitas and Tony started marking it, large pieces first, for cutting, keeping a close eye on the drawing Tony and Gibbs had made of the various pieces. Once they had the main pieces marked, Gibbs and Ducky inspected it, Gibbs making a slight adjustment on two of the larger pieces and then approved the layout.

They traded off doing the cuts from piece to piece. As a left-hander Tim had some problems with the scissors, but managed to overcome that obstacle. None of the younger set had ever cut fabric before, so Ducky was on hand to watch and guide. Gibbs had disappeared; he told Tim later he was too nervous to watch the newbies cutting into their only large piece of fabric.

Once those pieces were cut, they were checked off the drawing, more fabric was rolled out and the same process was followed. Each fabric piece was numbered to correspond with a numbered piece on the drawing. They followed the process until all the pieces had been cut and numbered. Ducky and Mitas had been removing the cut pieces to their temporary living quarters and once done with the cutting, they all re-grouped in the much warmer room, grinning at each other. They had been dreading making the sail but now it felt like a big step toward going home and today, hunkered down here away from hurricane winds, being home sounded pretty darn good.

There were no pins, but among the various sewing items they'd found were bottles of fabric glue. Ducky and Gibbs carefully glued together the seams of the largest piece of the sail, then set it aside, carefully keeping it flat and straight, while the glue dried. Ducky had instructed Tim in the fine art of hand sewing; he'd practiced first on scraps of this and that and then had graduated to repairing some of the rips and tears of his crewmates clothing. His long fingers proved to be adept at the simple stitches needed and he enjoyed sewing, much to his surprise it was soothing and had immediate results. The others seeing him work at it, had gradually all fallen in with practicing and so their shirts and pants and other bits of clothing soon had additional stitching; in the case of both Mitas and Ziva, some decorative stitching. Luckily some of the sewing supplies they'd uncovered while coving had needles large enough to use on the sturdy sailcloth. There were enough of the needles so that three people could work at the same time. Gibbs and Ducky had spent some time worrying about the reliability of the thread and had finally decided to use a quadruple sewing pattern. Each seam would be glued, then hand sewn, using a triple length of thread, four times. That should provide the tensile strength needed for their sail.

They worked the rest of the day on the largest pieces, finishing their last stitches as their stomachs were starting to rumble for dinner. As they finished, Gibbs got dinner started while Ducky and Tony went to feed and water the goats and chickens. The nanny goat was bleating, so Tony ran back across the passageway and grabbed their milk jug. They were both surprised when they got a full jug of milk from nanny; Ducky theorized that she was feeling secure in the closed pen. As Tony finished milking nanny, Ducky heard some of the hens clucking and taking the now empty pail used for the scraps to feed the animals, he found enough eggs to last them for a few days. It seemed these animals were happy here in their temporary quarters and he hoped that was a good omen for their future lives aboard the Big Fish.

After the group had eaten dinner and washed up, they sat around the fire pit, as was their custom and Tony handed Tim a book he'd found in the foot locker. It had been in the very bottom and covered by a large atlas. Tim looked at it and then at Tony.

"Would you please read it to us, Tim?"

"Are you sure, Tony?"

"Yeah, hearing your words in your voice will give me a different perspective and Mitas here really loves your books."

"As do I, my boy."

"Me too, Tim."

When Tim looked at Ziva, she smiled and nodded, "Please."

Tim swallowed and then opening to the first page, began reading the book, the first Deep Six novel. He read several chapters before he started getting a bit hoarse. Hearing the hoarseness, Ducky tapped him on the shoulder, "Thank you, Mr. Gemcity but I think your voice needs a rest now." Smiling, Ziva patted Tim on the back, "I will read tomorrow night, if that is all right with you?" Tim nodded, grinning. He'd never envisioned this day, when his co-workers would not only drop their antagonism but also ask him to read his book to them. Sitting with Gibbs and Ducky, having a last cup of coffee, Tim couldn't stop smiling and Gibbs realizing their legs and feet were out of viewing range of the others, crossed his foot with one of Tim's. That made Tim's grin even bigger, until a yawn escaped and he headed to his bed.

The storm roared around them for two more days as the crew continued their sewing and physical activity as prescribed by Ducky. On the second day of the storm, they staged races along the passageway. After warming up, they held various sprints followed by a relay with the four younger ones with Gibbs and Ducky holding the stopwatches. They measured laps for a mile in the passageway and Ducky held the stopwatch on that one as Gibbs wanted to compete. As a federal agent, he needed not only to sprint but also be able to hold up in a longer chase after suspects. Rather than crowd the passageway, they ran in two heats, Tim, Ziva and Mitas followed by Gibbs and Tony. Ziva and Tim tied for the sprints, Mitas and Tony won the relay and Tim, much to his surprise, won the mile with Ziva coming in a very close second, Gibbs in third, Tony in fourth and Mitas in fifth. Tony was appalled and vowed to lose weight and build his strength. Tim was too astounded to say anything; he'd never won a physical race of any sort. Gibbs was so relieved he finished, he didn't care how he placed.

The events had covered the entire passageway, which ended in the cavern, so each of the racers had seen that their cavern was not adversely affected by the high tides and winds of the storm. After the races were finished, Gibbs gave Tim and Tony permission to check out the Big Fish and the various boats.

The two men reached the cavern and stopped to take a closer look before they ventured over to the ship. The back wall and their sleeping area were dry as was the storage area where the bunks and other items removed from the assault craft were being temporarily housed. The sand where the table normally sat was relatively undisturbed; it still showed the markings of the table legs. The first evidence of high tide was their fire pit, with a puddle of water at the bottom. The sand below it and to the side where the dish box usually lived and down to the shore, was very wet and the tall rock, the one with the high water mark, was wet but not as far up as the existing high water mark. They took their shoes and socks off rather than deal with a mess and walked through the wet sand to the ship. The rowboats were at the head of the channel where they'd been dragged and happily, the barge had not escaped the cavern although it had changed its position and was wedged backwards on the shore toward the north wall of the cavern bay. It was tightly wedged so they left it there and turned back toward the ship. It was in the same place they'd left it at the head of the channel, although some of the temporary bracing had fallen. They put that back in place before they turned to examine the bay itself. The water was murkier than they had ever seen it but calmer than they had expected. They moved to the spot on the shore where they could see out the cavern opening and saw dark clouds still covering the horizon as far as they could see. This storm was not done yet.

They returned to their storm quarters and reported their findings to Gibbs, who was currently sewing with Ziva and Ducky. Mitas lay asleep on his bed and both the younger men sent questioning looks to Ducky. "He's all right, said he didn't sleep well last night."

Shrugging, Tony took a look through their food supplies to see what was available for lunch. He decided to try something new to him, a repeat of Mitas' vegetarian chili and cornbread. Tim offered to help, so he was assigned the task of making the cornbread, which Mitas had baked in their solar oven. Luckily it had been fully charged before the storm hit. Tim followed the recipe Mitas had written out, stirring the batter he felt it tasted just right and had Tony try it. Tony agreed and Tim popped it into the oven for its bake. He took the butter out of the cooler so it would be a little malleable by lunchtime. Tony had no trouble with the chili, although he did tweak the recipe a tiny bit. In no time, lunch was served. The sail-makers (having turned their noses up at the normally respectable titles of seamstress or tailors) carefully pulled the pieces flat and straight and headed for the table. Ducky woke Mitas and he joined them, impressed by Tim's cornbread and Tony's chili.

The third day they checked the cavern again and finding the water in the bay near its normal color and the clouds outside dissipating, Gibbs and Ducky agreed they could swim in their bay. Having had no swim or chance to really clean up in three days, all six of the castaways were eager to at least rinse off in the bay water. They moved the barge, anchoring it about midway in the cavern bay and soon found themselves racing each other. Gibbs' strong upper body proved to be the edge he needed to beat all three of his agents, although they had to stop and make some rules. Ziva's lithe body was more powerful underwater, so they allowed that, but disallowed some of the tricks Tony had tried. Mitas swam peacefully along as did Ducky, neither interested in the competition. When Gibbs declared himself the winner, he was deluged with water from his team, he fought back and the four played in the water until Ducky called them out for a rest, having first snapped several photos, including one with Ziva perched on Tim's shoulders kicking water at their boss while Tony floated nearby in his pink pony, arms and legs flailing, adding to the attack on Gibbs. The wonder of the shot was that all four of them were laughing so hard they were in danger of drowning themselves with the amount of salt water they were swallowing.

They finally staggered out of the water, grabbed towels to dry their prune-y selves off and headed back to their temporary quarters for dry clothes. Ziva took her stuff to her bathroom, but Tony stayed and dressed, much to Tim and Gibbs' disappointment, each was hoping he could steal a moment or two with his lover.

The storm had moved on by the next morning, so they moved everything back to the main cavern, then set out to resume the work they'd had to drop three days before. The sail was not yet complete, but Gibbs thought they could work on it in the evenings and when they reached a stopping point on the ship.