Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. If I did, would Kate be dead? {bares fangs} Do not own "Twister", whose storyline, lines, and characters I have borrowed liberally. Don't own Chris Larabee, Vin, the Travises, JD, and that awful three-legged dog joke.... A few brief, recontextualized takes on different episodes.
A/N: As an AU, please remember that while most of the characters' stories remain in tact, not all of the details do. E.g., Jen Shepard and Ziva, Jen and Ducky do not know each other; Viv Blackadder never left. I've played liberally with the storylines (although maybe not as liberally as tptb do).
Kate's required TIS for the Secret Service makes her a federal agent longer than Tony, although she is younger than he in age, so that's translated into this story, too. (Even Viv may have been a federal agent longer than Tony, since she was FBI when the USS Cole was bombed.) Tony, of course, seems to have been the longest with Gibbs.
Kate's engagement was mentioned in her CBS profile. I came up with the rest of the storyline. It's time Gibbs took care of Kate instead of vice versa, as in most of my stories (though not all).
The legal block (Gibbs' sponsoring a team's TOTO project while trying to work for the NSSL) I totally made up.
NATIONAL SEVERE STORMS LAB (NSSL)
NORMAN, OK
The radio blared in the background: "At noon today, clear for now across the state. Ninety percent chance of thunderstorms this afternoon. Dryline high over central Oklahoma."
"Look at these gate velocities, Cassie." The blonde leaned over towards her coworker, showing her the reports, accidentally knocking over her nameplate. She muttered a small curse, then picked it up, dumping the 'Paula Cassidy' nametag upside down on her desk. She shook her head, pushing a pen over her ear. "That doesn't look good."
"You mean, it looks very good," Cassie grinned, sipping her coffee. "Hey, what happened to that meeting with Jen? I mean, now, Director Shepard?"
"She was here this morning, then left in a hurry. Postponed the meeting until tomorrow."
"Day 1 as the new NSSL director and she's not here?"
"Heard she had some personal business." Paula shrugged.
"Are you sure she's out here?"
"They'll be at the office, not at the lab. Just this morning you said that the caps were spiking at forty thousand."
"Well, yeah."
"Days like this, the team would have to be in the field. If we're lucky, at the office to finish up some last minute things." Gibbs paused, then looked over at his passenger, smiling a little as he drove. "It'll be fine, Jen. We'll just go in, get Kate to sign the papers, and we'll be gone."
"How do you know she'll sign? She didn't sign the papers you sent before," the redhead pointed out.
"She'll sign, Jen. She's not the petulant type."
"Considering you were the team boss, how come you can't sign the papers yourself?"
"We put Kate in charge of the accounts and the grants applications," Gibbs replied.
"One person?"
"Kate can make a dollar stretch farther than most of us," Gibbs replied, continuing to keep his eyes on the road. "She grew up crimping and shaving corners. That's why she's in charge of all the finances."
"What did you get us? What did you get us?" Abby exclaimed, hopping up and down as the team gathered in the cramped office of their new boss. She paused, then asked seriously, "Did you go to the awesome bar I told you about while you were in Texas?"
"I wanted to," Tony lamented. "But there was no time."
"Did you run into the Larabee boys?" Ziva chuckled.
Tony laughed. "Oh, yeah. They took me out to breakfast this morning before I drove back up here."
"And how late was this breakfast?" McGee asked, looking at his watch. "It's past noon here!"
"Hey! It takes a long time to drive up here," Tony huffed. "If you had been driving - "
"I drive fine! Gibbs chose me to drive Abby, excuse me. I - "
"Bet Vin's happy about being back in Texas," Kate cut into their squabbling with a chuckle as she stuck more papers into the portable filing cabinet. She looked over the grant application, licking a finger and flipping through the pages, then shoved it into a file in the front.
"He's in heaven," Tony joked. "You guys go out this morning?"
"They did," Ziva replied. "And only after McGee fixed the Doppler."
"You didn't go?" Tony frowned.
"I had to wait with the van," she replied. "Timing belt snapped last night."
Tony winced. "Did Fornell ... ?"
"No, they didn't get anything to fly, but neither did we."
Tony shook his head, still relieved their friendly rival hadn't beaten them to the punch, and turned his attention to his large bag. "Now...from my trip to Texas! For Abby," he grinned as he pulled out a glass box lamp.
"Thanks, Tony!" she said with her usual enthusiasm.
"You got her a glass box?" Kate shook her head, unimpressed but grinning.
"And you say that you know more about women than McGee," Ziva snorted in laughter. She and Viv Blackadder exchanged high-fives when Tony scowled.
"Plug it in and turn it on," Tony told Abby.
She obliged, setting it on the small table in the room and plugging it in, then turning it on. Inside, a tiny little funnel began to appear, spinning inside as the light was on. Abby's face lit up. "Wow!" she shouted. "Wow! A tornado lamp! Tony, this is awesome!" she shouted, jumping across the room straight into his arms in a bear hug.
"That is a pretty good present," Viv admitted, laughing.
"For Zeeeeeeeva," Tony intoned, pulling out a small cooler. He grinned happily as she opened up the box up.
She took out the package. "You got me beef?" she exclaimed.
"Don't worry, it's kosher beef! I got kosher Texas beef brisket from a Jewish kosher deli."
"You got me beef," she repeated incredulously.
"It's kosher!" he pointed out for the third time.
"We are insane to continue to work for him, yes?" Ziva muttered, rolling her eyes at her present.
"Yes," came the chorus. Tony scowled.
"Why do we?"
"Because we don't want to be corporate sellouts."
"We got rejected by other teams."
"We have no money to go elsewhere."
"I become the life of the party when I tell Tony stories."
"Funny," Tony made faces at them. "Everyon'e s a freakin' comedian."
"Aw, you know we love you," Abby replied, hugging him again.
"For Vivienne," Tony purred out the name. "That's a beautiful name. Although that last comment was not."
"Just hand it over, smartie pants," Viv chuckled, taking the box. She opened it up. "You got me pink cowboy boots."
"At least I can eat mine and remove all evidence of it," Ziva joked.
"They're...PINK," Viv repeated, still staring at the boots in the box.
"Matches your red hair," Tony replied as he fished into his bag for another package. "And for McGeeeee."
McGee tore eagerly into the slim package, then frowned when he saw it. "'Texas Country Stars' Greatest Hits'?"
"Well, I was in Texas," Tony pointed out.
Viv waved at him from behind Kate. 'Did you get her present?' she mouthed, getting an affirmative nod in return.
"And last but not least, for Kate," Tony grinned, his expression softening a little as he handed her a slim box.
She smiled, but for some reason the others seemed more eager to see her reaction than to see what she had gotten. They watched her with knowing grins, and she frowned, slightly amused but puzzled. She was about to take off the paper when the door opened.
There was a long, stunned silence, Kate's gift entirely forgotten.
"Boss!" McGee exclaimed, the first of them to recover. "I mean, Gibbs. Sir."
"We're gearing up for another bad season, folks," the weatherman intoned over the television. "Make sure you're up to date on your escape plans and your storm cellars, and make sure to continue to watch NCIS-4 for continued coverage."
Viv pretended to look busy, looking over the large Oklahoma map with Ziva and Abby peering over her shoulder. "I thought Kate was going to flip when Gibbs showed up," Abby whispered.
"Caitlin's too professional for that," Ziva murmured. "Ex-boyfriend or not."
"Still," Viv muttered. "I wouldn't want unexpected visits from ex-es. 'Specially ones that bring their new girlfriends along. Think Kate saw Red over there in his new truck?"
Ziva snickered, then pushed down on the crease in the map. "There's a gigantic fold through Tulsa!"
"Somebody got into the stash and didn't roll the maps," Viv replied. Ziva narrowed her eyes, carefully straightening out the crease.
Abby slurped up the last drops of her Caff-Pow!. "Tony said Gibbs asked to be let out of his financial commitment to TOTO," she said, sounding hurt. "As a requirement for him signing permanently for a tracking position at the NSSL."
Ziva shook her head. "He'll never last behind a desk, even tracking storms," she replied. "One look at TOTO and he'll be on the road with us."
"Twenty says he goes home with Red," Viv disagreed with a grin. "He keeps telling us he's not back."
"You've got to see it," Tony said eagerly, looking at his former boss and mentor sideways as he led him outside. "We didn't think we could get it done this year."
"Have to say I'm surprised, too," Gibbs murmured, but he couldn't help the tiny, pleased grin that crossed his face.
Tony stopped in front of his truck, then looked at his boss, and then said with deadpan humor, "You might want to cover your eyes, boss." He grinned. "The brilliance might blind you."
"DiNozzo!"
Tony yanked the tarp off the machine, watching Gibbs' reaction. To the observing stranger, there was no reaction, but his protege was easily able to read his obvious astonishment and delight as the older man slowly shook his head. Tony beamed, his grin threatening to split his face. "There it is."
Gibbs shook his head again, just slightly, as if in disbelief. The corners of his mouth turned up. "Yeah, there it is." He reached up a hand to touch the big, cylindrical machine.
"Kate's been cutting corners and scrimping money for the last year to finish it off," Tony put in. "You know Abby and McGee. They use what they got. It's brilliant."
"Sure." Gibbs was not immune to Tony's enthusiasm.
The older man hopped up onto the truck bed, popping the top and lifting out one of the round sensors. His protege and the new boss grinned up at him. "Great, huh?"
"Yeah," Gibbs murmured, his smile widening, showing his delight. After a moment, he popped the ball back in and waved at the metal contraption holding TOTO on the truck. "What's all this?"
"Relocating its center of mass - that idea you and Kate came up with - it was a great idea, but we had to lock TOTO up better. Kate got McGee and Abby to design something to make releasing TOTO easier but keep it stable in the truck in the meantime."
Gibbs fingered the metal contraption. "How does it work?"
"We load TOTO into the truck moorings, which are lashed onto the truck. Lining up the truck moorings takes almost twenty minutes, but once the moorings are in, they're in."
"You don't need to remove the moorings every time you load TOTO."
"Right. We've got TOTO 1 here, one in the van, one in the mini RV. We can interchange them in less than five minutes; just roll them over to the truck, lock them into the truck moorings." Tony waved at the release strap. "Go ahead, tug on it."
Gibbs yanked, and suddenly TOTO 1 rolled free from its stand.
"One tug on the release strap sends the machine rolling out of the moorings," Tony explained. "We can get it on the ground in three. We even tried it single-handedly; one person in the bed can lower it to the ground in record time."
"And if the wind knocks it over, the center of mass gets it to right itself," Gibbs murmured. He gave TOTO 1 a good push. It teetered back and forth, slowly righting itself.
Tony nodded. "It was a genius idea, boss," he said quietly. "It was a really good idea you and Kate had."
"How long does it take to activate?"
"McGee tied all the wiring together. That leaves us three switches here, here, and here. Cuts down time that way, too."
Gibbs shook his head, smiling. "Getting closer than ever."
Tony grinned proudly.
Gibbs nodded silently, then asked, "Were you in budget?" Tony shifted a little uncomfortably, and Gibbs frowned. "How bad was it?"
"We were a couple thousand in the hole," Tony muttered. "TOTO turned out heavier than anybody anticipated, and we had to fix that. Then the Doppler finally failed on us. We had to get it fixed; no way around it."
"We needed TOTO heavier," Gibbs frowned. "The Harding prototype and the ones after were too light to reach the core."
"Right, but we still needed to hit a fixed target weight."
Gibbs frowned. "We budgeted almost a hundred grand. How much were we over?"
Tony fidgeted. "Almost six thousand."
"Seven thousand," he repeated, staring at the younger man. "Six thousand. How'd you cover it?"
Tony looked nervously at his feet, then looked around, anywhere but at his boss.
"DiNozzo."
"Well, we sold the station wagon," Tony began. "It was old, and we really didn't need it after - " he stopped.
"After I left," Gibbs replied.
Tony shrugged, almost apologetically. "It's easier this way - two of us in each car," he continued. "And we had to pay a lot less car insurance. With one less car that freed up half a thousand."
"DiNozzo," Gibbs said quietly. "That car wouldn't have gotten more then three thousand."
Tony tried to look nonchalant. "They were kind enough to give us a little more," he said carefully. "Four."
"Not six thousand," Gibbs replied, raising an eyebrow. "Where'd the other cash come from?"
Tony looked at the entrance, as if looking for somebody, then admitted, "Kate covered it," he said quietly. "She came in one day with a check for two thousand."
"Where'd she get that money?"
"Uh...not sure?" Tony tried.
"Where'd. Kate. Get. Cash."
"She sold stuff," Tony blurted nervously, still watching for Kate at the doorway, and Gibbs knew that she would yell if she found out Tony had told. "I don't know how much of her stuff she sold; we only know of some. And don't tell her I told you. She kept it secret for a long time, until Ziva noticed some things missing in her apartment."
Gibbs sighed, shaking his head. He shoved TOTO back into its moorings, hearing the distinctive click as it locked into place. He jumped down from the truck, his knee creaking a little. "You should have come to me."
Tony paused now, and his expression changed. He straightened, and for a moment Gibbs was briefly taken aback by the commanding stance the younger man took. "This was Kate's baby as much as yours," he disagreed flat out, quietly but firmly shooting down Gibbs' last comment. "She was as much involved with getting it off the ground as you were. It was her decision, and as her boss, I respected that."
The two men stood unmoving, Tony refusing to concede the point. They were still face to face when the officer door popped open and Kate came out, stretching her arms into a jacket as she walked briskly towards the truck. She looked up then, seeing the two men there. She paused. "You saw TOTO," she said, a proud, delighted smile crossing her face.
"Yeah," Gibbs nodded, a tiny smile on his face as his eyes drifted from Kate to TOTO and then back. "Yeah, I did."
"Boss!" McGee called out the front door. "Come take a look at this," he shouted, and Tony took off.
The two of them stood in awkward silence for a moment, then Kate spoke up. "Glad you caught up to us," she began. "We were about to head into the field when you came."
"Yeah." Gibbs paused.
She opened up the passenger's side door to the truck and began to clean out old coffee cups, wrappers, and the like from the inside. "We're getting another big series of storms," she began. "More active then normal, though nothing like '96." She paused, then laughed. "Not that I'd need to tell you that, I guess."
She handed him a grocery bag full of trash, then disappeared deeper into the cab, leaning over the seat into the backseat to pick up more stuff.
"Kate, I came about TOTO."
"Still glad you didn't sign out of your commitment?" came Kate's muffled voice from inside the truck. "When the grant comes in, TOTO will be worth more than your original investment. In more than just money."
"You know I didn't sign in for the money," Gibbs replied.
Kate shrugged in acknowledgment, dumping some more trash into the grocery bag. She took it from him, knotted the top, and left it on the car hood to throw out later.
"I came for you to sign the financial papers releasing me from responsibility for TOTO."
"What's the rush?" came her voice, muffled as she dug through her own bookbag. "You sunk this much time and energy in."
"My new job at the NSSL - I can't be showing 'preference' to any particular Vortex team."
"It's hardly about showing preference any more but seeing you get some credit for it," Kate replied, emerging with a pristine stack of large envelopes, stamped and ready to go.
"You know I didn't sign in for the money," he repeated.
Kate just shrugged, turned, and headed towards the mailbox.
"I still need to be signed out. I want you to sign the papers I sent you," Gibbs called out, striding after her on the gravel driveway outside the office.
"I didn't get any papers," Kate replied, whirling around to stand toe to toe with her former boss.
"I sent them last week!" Gibbs said impatiently, crossing his arms.
"I didn't get any papers," Kate repeated, her voice rising.
"How could you not have gotten them? They take two days to get out here."
"I don't know," she retorted. "How did you manage to get in the mail the honey dust Tony meant for somebody else?" Point made, she continued down the long gravel parking lot.
"I brought a copy. So sign them now."
"What's the rush?" she muttered. "You know the business deal will take awhile to go through anyhow."
"It's been four months since I quit," Gibbs growled. "I'm doing research and I want to settle into my job."
Kate stopped a minute, trying to suppress her laughter, then shook her head. "I never figured you for the desk type," she said, her voice full of mirth.
He sighed. "Kate, I'm older. I can't chase storms my entire life."
"Yeah, but a desk job?" Kate laughed. "And one advising the local media channels. You always hated the media." She continued her trek to the mailbox and then stopped short.
She looked at the navy blue truck parked in one of the far spaces, and saw the redhead inside.
"Kate - " he began quietly.
Her hesitation was over in just a few seconds, and she strode over with a wide, dimpled smile, sticking her hand into the passenger's side window. "Hi, I'm Kate," she said with a friendly grin.
"Jen," Shepard replied, smiling forcedly, climbing out of the car. Gibbs shifted his weight onto his other leg, electing not to say anything.
"I'm sorry he dragged you out this far," Kate continued in her usual, genial tone. "Our office is kind of out in the middle of nowhere."
"Not a problem," Jen replied, offering back another nervous smile. "It's beautiful country."
Kate was just about to say something when McGee came racing out of the building, shouting, "We got one!" Behind him, Tony, Viv, Ziva, and Abby were running along, throwing on jackets and grabbing laptops as they ran. "NSSL says the caps are breaking up fast!"
Kate quickly turned back to Jen. "Nice to meet you," she offered with another smile, then took off, grabbing a falling bag out of Abby's hands, tossing it into the refurbished old mini-RV as she took off towards the team's truck.
"Let's go, let's go!" Tony shouted, pulling the connecting wires off of the instrument panel and tossing them into the SUV.
McGee clapped the laptop shut, starting to run towards the mini-RV as a cord ripped out the back. He swore softly, grabbing it off the ground as he continued to run and nearly ran into Gibbs, who quickly stepped out of the way. "Sorry, sir," he barely called over his shoulder as he sprinted towards his car.
"Camera, Ziva!" Kate shouted, sweeping the maps off the top of the van and throwing them into the front seat.
"I got it, I got it," the Israeli called back, snapping the tripod into its closed position.
"Viv, a little help!" Abby shouted, quickly taking apart the Doppler satellite and tossing down the parts without looking. The redhead caught each, stowing it quickly into the back.
"Come on!" Ziva shouted, waving at her teammates, then saw Gibbs standing there. "Welcome back, Gibbs!"
"I'm not back!"
Jen came out to the door, and seeing the commotion, walked over to Gibbs, who stood watching quietly, an indescribable look on his face. "They can handle this," he replied.
He seemed unbothered as she handed him a coffee. "You're not going to follow?"
"Hm?" he asked, distracted, looking up at the sky.
"TOTO 2 ready!" Viv shouted, slamming down the trunk door, running around to the passenger's side and climbing in to the already moving van.
"TOTO 3 ready!" Abby called, shutting the RV door and running towards the passenger's side as McGee started up the engine.
"You're not going to follow?" she repeated.
He smiled. "I don't chase any more, Jen," he said measuredly. He paused, then suddenly frowned. "The papers."
"What?" Jen stopped. "Kate didn't sign them?"
Gibbs grabbed her hand, running towards their truck.
"Where are we going?" Jen exclaimed as he jumped into the truck.
"We're going to chase," Gibbs replied, starting up the truck.
"I can't believe this," Jen moaned as he wheeled out of the parking lot. "I've been a director less than 24 hours, and I'm back in the field."
"Just think of it as reliving the past," Gibbs prodded earnestly. "Like when we were chasing together in Kansas."
"Then you'll remember how I hate this part," Jen exclaimed as Gibbs ripped out of the parking lot.
"Jen, you were a good chaser," he pointed out. "And I'm only going to get the papers."
"Welcome back, Gibbs!" Abby shouted, waving happily as the RV tore past them.
"I'm not back!"
Story Notes:
AU challenge: Take the team out of NCIS and put them in another world. If you like "House, M.D." or "ER", make our team all doctors. If you like "CSI", make them all CSIs ( ;-) ). If you like "West Wing", make Gibbs the president. (Scary.)
You can also put them in a different time period. (Any who have seen "JAG", I'm talking about an episode like "Each of us Angels" or "Mutiny").
The catch is this: THIS IS NOT A CROSSOVER. You can make references to a related fandom (e.g. to Dr. House if you've made them all doctors), and have one appear for just a tiny bit, but the idea is the "NCIS" people in a different world.
Author's Chapter Notes:
The AU challenge. Squabbling stormchasers work to put storm-tracking devices inside tornadoes. ("Twister" AU)
Chapter End Notes:
AU challenge: Take the team out of NCIS and put them in another world. If you like "House, M.D." or "ER", make our team all doctors. If you like "CSI", make them all CSIs ( ;-) ). If you like "West Wing", make Gibbs the president. (Scary.)
You can also put them in a different time period. (Any who have seen "JAG", I'm talking about an episode like "Each of us Angels" or "Mutiny").
The catch is this: THIS IS NOT A CROSSOVER. You can make references to a related fandom (e.g. to Dr. House if you've made them all doctors), and have one appear for just a tiny bit, but the idea is the "NCIS" people in a different world.
You can also put them in a different time period. (Any who have seen "JAG", I'm talking about an episode like "Each of us Angels" or "Mutiny").
The catch is this: THIS IS NOT A CROSSOVER. You can make references to a related fandom (e.g. to Dr. House if you've made them all doctors), and have one appear for just a tiny bit, but the idea is the "NCIS" people in a different world.