You wanted HappyZaedah? I got your HappyZaedah!
A little breeze called Sandy is to blame for the delay and my cold. Hope all are safe and dry.
Life in Drips and Sputters
4
It was a dark and stormy night.
Well, in actual fact it's a bright and sunny morning but the truth lacks drama. And strained effect is the only shield to hold before the onslaught of overload when one is looking at half a body. Or trying not to look, which makes searching the remains for identification somewhat like maneuvering a dump truck though a slalom blindfolded.
A preferable activity.
The legs turn out to be the prettier portion of chief warrant officer Markum. Even in their current sate of joint defiance. Knees simply shouldn't achieve that nearly backwards angle. There is little evidence, however, that Markum had been more attractive while alive. The man's identification indicates a rebellious decision to bleach the few follicles that hadn't abandoned ship, stray wisps caught straining inelegantly upward by the DMV's lens. Cameras are literal beasts, something the human eye frequently lacks.
The location of the pock-marked face that grins behind state-issued laminate is presumably in the vicinity of his head. Something Gibbs announced must be found before coffee.
Early mornings and the gruesome dead have nothing on her.
Maybe it's because her legs are, unlike the corpse's, thoroughly available for viewing. And viewed they shall be since wasting the beauty of nature is not eco-friendly. And one must remain on the good side of the environment when it promises to play a role in the betterment of DiNozzo's day.
Namely a spot of woods where a head waits the hour it takes to nearly trip over it.
Federal feet miss the protruding nose, but only while dodging the more visible root that promises a sore toe later. The root has stopped the roll. A shame, as the face that stares heavenward might have been improved by extended travel though the thorns.
There is a straining professionalism that marshals the team's activities, which doesn't mean inappropriate comments and the well-placed leer are left in the car. It makes McGee uncomfortable, the sometimes tacky suggestiveness that sees his colleagues through unpleasant moments. The probie hunkers over a ribbon-thin stream, likely wishing for a gush of bubbling water to wash away the sounds of Tony's appreciation for the curve of Ziva's hip as she crouches before a stranger's air-dried eyeballs that have likely seen her variety of beauty only between the staples.
The camera is summoned. The shots are snapped. The head is bagged. Hair fragments, dislodged on the way through an unfriendly bounce across flora and fauna, are lifted from the decaying leaves for analysis. Silly, really, since they have the entire head to study and there's no conceivable way the killer stopped to buy a bottle of Desperate Vanity dye on the way to the slaughter. It takes the hatred of years to imbibe that shade. Thoroughness, Gibbs has taught the underlings, is only silly in matters of bureaucracy.
As Ziva unfolds, the certified Grade A posterior positioned at cruel eye level to the kneeling man. If, in distracted response, the camera's shutter button just happens to be pressed, he can hardly be blamed. The resulting flash startles him.
"You were thinking," she says, backside hovering on the edge of unfair, "that this is just like one of your movies."
"Not exactly," is shoved past the Sahara lips of a man who cannot stand and still be considered responsible.
"You mean you cannot think of a single film this resembles?"
None with a clean plot. "I mean, that's not what I was thinking."
In part because her assets deserve the unhinged study of a raving celibate and also because of what Ducky is offering the greenery after McGee holds up the baggy of stray hairs. Even coroners, it seems, stand on the wrong side of Tony's sudden interest in crime scene etiquette.
"Did you know that the human follicle has three zones? I recall in school we had to study a cross-section of the shaft."
What makes Tony more uncomfortable is the dart of Ziva's eyes to, well... his belt isn't that interesting.
"The what?" She asks, innocent as a marauder.
"Oh," Ducky warms to the willing audience. "The shaft is the hard filament extending from the..."
This is what leads to sudden blackout syndrome. There is no blood where mobility requires it. Her goal. She's teasing with violence now, because while the sway of her hips is carefully understated, it still screams of an ability lying in wait as a panther in the dark. Never has he felt more affinity for the gazelle.
The woods remain steadfastly behind them, mocking his lack of excuse to haul her behind an ancient tree and... and now there's a rampant lyric in his head about mammals and the Discovery Channel. God, he hates nature. And the headless dead. And partners who have become better at taking it out of the bedroom than he is. She'll remind him later that he started it. And he'll promise to finish it. Just as soon as the case is solved, the dead is buried and the reports are in.
And it need not be a dark and stormy night. Because their drama has never been conveniently scripted.