Chapter 25: Sitting, Waiting, Watching
Disclaimer: Come on, if I owned NCIS do you really think that I'd be writing fanfictions?
Author's Note: Okay, bear with me folks. This one is a little longer and a little more pointless than they've been being. The length and pointlessness are to make a point. Waiting is dang boring when there's nothing to do.
So, without further delay, here it is. It's tornado time.
After finding no one at the house and going on a fruitless hunt for evidence, they returned to the car.
Frustrated, Tony slammed his hands on the steering wheel, "Damn it!"
"Tony, please, there is no reason to let this bother you like you are doing," Ziva said.
He shook his head and as he began to drive he argued back, "No reason?! No reason?! Ziva, let me remind you that we are stuck in Hillbilly Hell and our only lead on where our main suspect could be was empty."
"It could be worse, Tony," she argued back, as rain began to pelt the windshield.
"Yeah, it could be raining," he shot, sarcastically.
"Tony! Calm down. You are being-"
"Oh my god, Ziva...that's not- It isn't- It can't be-" Tony slammed on the breaks and pointed to the sky, that had became a sickening shade of toxic green.
Shelooked in the direction he was pointing in, and saw what he had saw, "Oh my god, Tony, is that-"
"Yeah, it is."
"What do we do?"
"How the hell am I supposed to know?!"
"Tony, it's coming this way!" Ziva shrieked, pointing to the gnarled funnel winding down from the clouds.
"I- uh- I don't know!" Tony shouted, becoming hysterical.
"Over there!" she shouted.
Near the road was a young man beckoning them to come with him, someone behind him was already running down into a storm cellar.
Tony and Ziva abandoned their car and ran to the boy, they followed him down into the cement structure and he pulled the heavy metal door behind them.
Down in the cellar, a girl had a lantern lit and a radio on and was listening to weather reports.
She pulled out a cell phone and called someone and told that there was a tornado on the ground.
It took Tony and Ziva a moment to recognize that the girl was Syd Carter, from the school and as the boy stepped around them and into the lantern-light they recognized him as Jack Harper.
"Officer David, Special Agent DiNozzo...nice weather we're havin' innit?" Jack joked, smiling at Tony and Ziva.
Tony sighed exasperatedly.
"You guys okay?" Syd asked.
They both nodded.
When a report came over the radio about the storm passing over them, they all froze, eyes and ears glued to the radio.
The report ended and they went on to detail more storms in the area.
"They said that the line won't be completely out of the area until after midnight," Syd said.
Tony rubbed a hand over his face in frustration.
"And even then, there'll be downed power lines and debris on the roads, y'all shouldn't plan on leaving before morning," Jack continued.
The loud banging sound of something crashing on to the top of the cellar made them all jump a little and Syd added, "Morning at the earliest."
Tony sighed, and collapsed onto a bench in frustration. Ziva sat down beside him and Syd and Jack occupied the bench across the cellar.
"Well, it could always be worse," Syd said, unaware of what had happened the last time that was said. "Don't think of me as rude, but how?" Tony said.
"Well, let me set the scene for ya. It was the afternoon of January 21, 1999. The afternoon highs that day had been in the 80's and the humidity was next to unbearable-"
"Syd, get to the point," Jack groaned.
"Shut up," she said, continuing, "There were, like, 60-something tornadoes that night and we were in a storm cellar for about 10 – 12 hours...and the cellar leaked, bad. I had this gigantic stuffed toy dolphin and he got drenched."
"Syd...why do you remember crap like that?" Jack asked.
Syd punched him hard in the arm.
"Some pacifist you are!" Jack shouted, rubbing his injured arm.
"Wuss," she teased, sticking her tongue out at him.
"...Anyways!" Jack shouted, in order to change the subject, "Anything interesting happening with you guys?"
"Nope," Tony shrugged.
"No," Ziva shook her head.
"Will the fun ever stop?" Syd replied dryly.
"So what do we do for the next," Tony checked his watch, "Fourteen hours?"
"Sleep?" Jack offered.
"For fourteen hours?" Ziva looked at him skeptically.
"I could," he shrugged.
"There is no doubt in my mind that you could, Jackson," Syd said, shaking her head.
"So where are your parents, Jack?" Tony asked.
Jack shrugged, "I hope that they stayed at my brother's house. They went over to see my baby nephew. I hope to God that they didn't try to come home in this storm."
"You've got a new nephew?" Syd asked.
"Yeah, Oliver Gregory. He's, like, a week old," Jack shrugged again.
"So what were you two doing here without any adults?" Tony asked, raising his eyebrows.
"Working on a project for Spanish class," Syd replied, "We usually just throw them together at the last minute, but after that last one...all of them will be fully planned from here on out."
"What happened last time?" Ziva asked.
"Jack, would you care to tell the story?"
"Oh, but you tell it so much better."
"Fine. We had to do a skit like we were in a restaurant, in Spanish, of course. It was me and Jack and a senior girl named, Payton. One of the things that we had to have in the skit was a problem, ours was that the waiter; played by Jack; didn't give me any silverware. So, Payton writes up the skit the night before we perform it, we've got cue cards and everything. The teacher starts filming it and everything is running smoothly, then I say that I don't have any silverware, in Spanish, and Jack looks down at the table and says, 'That's awful'...in English! Then he looks up at the camera and says, 'Lo siento.' and proceeds to read Payton's lines! It was terrible!"
"So...no more procrastinating, huh?" Tony asked, smiling.
"That sounds just like something you would do," Ziva whispered to him, making him chuckle a little.
"See, we just waisted, like, ten minutes," Jack replied, smiling, "We'll make it."
"How exactly are we going to sleep?" Ziva asked.
"Good question," Syd said, looking at Jack, and Tony nodded in agreement.
"That cabinet has pillows and blankets in it, and the benches fold out into cots," Jack said.
"Dibs!" Syd shouted.
"What?! So I have to sleep on the floor?" Jack demanded.
"Or sleep with your head at the foot of the cot, right next to my feet," Syd smiled.
"Better than the floor," Jack nodded.
"Anymore stories?" Tony asked, seeing that this would be the only way to pass the time until the storms were over.
"How 'bout the 'Stormy Story', Syd?" Jack offered.
"Oh, that is a good one," Syd agreed, "You tell it."
"Yeah, yeah," Jack smiled, "So me and Syd are on the quiz bowl team with this really goofy girl named Mya. So we were in a game and they asked some kind of question like, 'What was the name of the foal of Misty of Chincoteague', none of us have read this book. So Mya waits until right before they call time and buzzes in and says, 'I dunno...Stormy!' and it was the right answer. Then she goes 'Oh my god! I just guessed!'. So that was at regionals, when we're on our way to state we stop to eat at...somewhere, I don't remember...anyway, our waitress comes up to us and says, 'Hi, my name is Stormy'...we all almost fell over laughing. When the waitress left, Mrs. Davis gave us this awful look and said 'You weren't making fun of her name were you?', so we had to remind her of the story...I swear, none of us could keep a straight face through that meal."
By the end of that story Jack and Syd were laughing hysterically.
"Oh, Jack, dude, I gotta tell you what me, Jeremiah, and Levi did to Mya yesterday," Syd laughed.
"Yeah, what?"
"We were looking up stuff for Model United Nations and Mya got up and went to the printer because she was printing off, like, 47 pages on the national policies of Chile, or something like that; so me and Jeremiah and Levi all get on her computer and she says, 'Don't use my computer to look at porn.' and I looked at Jeremiah and said, 'Did she just say 'corn'?'. So Jeremiah and Levi went into Google images and typed in corn and started saving all these pictures to Mya's name. It'd be just like a regular picture of corn but they'd save it as, like, 'corn on corn' or 'naked kernel' or 'corn strip'. One was a can of corn and Jeremiah labeled it 'nice can'. One was a compost pile with corn cobs in it and Levi labeled it 'dirty corn'. There was this thing that took corn off the cob and we labeled it 'stripper'. There were two pictures of corn cobs that we labeled 'hard core corn' and 'shaved corn'. But the best one was this picture of President Bush holding some corn and the caption was 'Something's wrong with this banana' and we saved it as 'bushy corn'. Oh. My. Gosh. You should have been there. By the time we were done we had saved, like, 21 pieces of corn porn to Mya's name. It was fan-freakin'-tastic," Syd laughed.
This time Tony laughed along with Syd and Jack.
Ziva just leaned over to Tony and said, "Why do I have the feeling that you are planning on doing something similar to McGee when we get back?"
Tony smiled an evil smile.
"You got any stories, Tony?" Jack asked.
"Oh! God, no!" Ziva faked terror.
"Man, if I told you guys everytime that I super-glued McGee's face/hands/etc. to his desk/keyboard/anything I can put glue on, we would still be talking when we left this hole," Tony grinned.
"Okay then...Ziva? Anything? Anything at all?" Jack asked.
"Well-"
"No. Hell no. I don't want to hear how many people you've killed or how you've killed them. Hell no. Stop. No. Don't tell any stories. Because, to quote myself, you're a sick chick, David." Tony said.
Ziva just grinned back.
"How 'bout a game?" Jack offered.
"What kind of game?" Tony asked.
"How 'bout I quote a movie and you have to name the movie it's from?" Jack said.
"Oooh...you have peaked my interests."
"We'll play teams, okay? You and Ziva versus me and Syd?"
"Sounds fine. Who starts?"
"Age before beauty, my friend," Jack replied smoothly.
"Okay, whatever," Tony grinned, thinking, "We'll start easy."
"'Illinois Nazis!' 'I hate Illinois Nazis!'" Tony said.
"The Blues Brothers" Syd answered, "'If I gave Pudge tuna, I'd be an abomination! I'm late 'cause I had to go to the store, to get some peanut butter, 'cause all we have, is, IS STINKING TUNA!'"
"Oooh! Lilo and Stitch!" Ziva shouted out, "'Uh, well, if anyone from the, uh, from the IRS is watching, I... forgot to file my, my, my 1040 return. Um, I meant to do it today, but, uh...'"
"Apollo 13," Jack replied, "'One third of a gopher would only arouse my appetite without bedding it down.' 'Oh, you can have the whole thing. Me and Pete already had one apiece. We ran across a whole... gopher village.'"
"O Brother, Where Art Thou?." Tony replied, "'In the words of the late great Colonel Sanders: I'm too drunk to taste this chicken.'"
"Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, good one. My go," Jack thought for a moment, "'There used to be a way to stick it to The Man. It was called rock 'n' roll. But guess what. Oh, no. The Man ruined that too with a little thing called MTV! So don't waste your time trying to make anything cool or pure or awesome, because The Man's just going to call you a fat, washed up loser and crush your soul. So do yourselves a favor and just give up!'"
"School of Rock, come on, kid. Challenge me!" Tony laughed, "'Dozens of people spontaneously combust each year. It's just not really widely reported.'"
"Oooh! One of my favorites! This is Spinal Tap!" Jack grinned big.
"Is this getting boring to anyone else?" Syd asked. Ziva nodded in agreement.
"Hey! Shut it! My turn!" Jack shouted, "'So, Lone Starr, now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.'"
"Spaceballs! Damn, that is a good movie!" Tony shouted.
"Really. Isn't there something else we could do?" Ziva sighed.
"Not now, I've gotta teach this punk a lesson," Tony said, gritting his teeth, "'What did you expect? "Welcome, sonny"? "Make yourself at home"? "Marry my daughter?" You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know…morons.'"
"Blazing Saddles. I think that's enough with the Mel Brooks movies," Jack grinned.
"I think that's enough with any movies," Syd commented.
"Quiet!" Tony and Jack demanded at the same time.
"My turn," Jack called, "'We are working a con, walking the razor's edge. On one side, gold. On the other side…painful, agonizing failure!'"
"The Road to El Dorado. My tu-"
"No!" Ziva and Syd shouted.
"It's almost nine o'clock. You two have been playing this stupid game for an hour. You're done. Tie. Draw. Truce. Armistice. Whatever you want to call it. It's done. This is the Treaty of Ghent to your stupidity War of 1812. ...Heh, heh...that was actually pretty good because the War of 1812 was pretty much a draw, too...Just a little history nerd joke..." Syd chuckled. Jack laughed a little, but Tony and Ziva just gave weird looks to the two.
"Soooo...nine...huh....nine...doesn't sound like the storm's let up any...They're still broadcasting tornado warnings on the radio...I guess we should make ourselves comfortable. Get some sleep, yeah?" Jack rambled.
"Sounds like...well, it's really our only option," Tony shrugged.
Jack and Tony got up and pulled some pillows and blankets out of a trunk then Jack showed them how to pull the benches out to make a vaguely bed-like bench.
Tony and Ziva curled up together and fell asleep; Jack and Syd stretched out on opposite ends of their bench and followed suit.
A.N.: Can't say I didn't warn you.
The phrase 'Hillbilly Hell' is a quote from Cars.
The story of January 21, 1999 is a true story. (there's actually a lot more to it, I shortened it for this)
All the school stories were based on real things that I've done/been involved in/said/etc. Oh, and yes, the third story was the infamous Corn Porn. (You can stop remembering it now) I think that's the funniest, most nerdy thing we've ever done.
The movie lines are some of my favorite lines from some of my favorite movies...I know, my taste in movies is questionable...at best...
The cellar, sky turns green, only the radio works (the local stations play the same weather report for an hour, even after the all-clear sirens have sounded) part of the story; yeah, I've been there. In case you haven't, it's not fun...at all.
OH! My nerd joke! I thought of that when I was reading over this and I was like 'Oh! Yeah! Treaty of Ghent was like a truce after the War of 1812, which really didn't prove anything! Yay for APUSH!' So, yeah, that is just like something I would actually say.
Continuing, please hit the fancy, new, green review button (or use the old drop-down thing if you still have it an prefer it. Pffsht! Purists!). Review this one for Walker (Jack), Amy (Mya- Which is just Amy rearranged, she came up with that), Ashley (Peyton), Jeremiah (Jeremiah...why did I even use the parentheses), and Levi (Jordon...Socialist Jordon).
...And as a bonus, while Amy and I were rearranging letters in people's names we rearranged the letters in Cote de Pablo...Yeah, check this out...Deep Taco Lob. Yeah. I know. Awesome, huh?