NEXT MORNING
"Hey, breakfast!" Ziva grinned as the women trooped down. A huge plate of scrambled eggs and toast and pancakes were already stacked on the table, and she could see her old boss in the kitchen, still frying away. Tony was now putting silverware on the table. "Never thought I'd see you setting a table."
"Funny. Funny. Gibbs had me clear the table."
"Adorable," Ziva joked. She looked at the pile of things on the little table in the corner. "Did you just shake the books and papers on the tablecloth to the floor?"
"Everybody's a comedian," Tony muttered. "No, I dumped them all into a pile and put them to the side."
Across the table, Abby and Viv exchanged looks as Jen slipped into the kitchen and gave their old boss a long, lingering kiss. Abby made a face. Viv chuckled.
"McGee," Tony began. "How much money did insurance give us for a new truck?"
"Not enough if we want to get a new one," McGee grumbled. "Ten grand."
"That's it?" Tony frowned, his mouthful of egg. "Old Faithful was worth more than that."
"Tony, Old Faithful was most likely worth a quarter of that when it crashed," Abby pointed out as she put jam on her toast. "We're just lucky we got it insured when we first got it, for more than we figured on getting."
"We'll go to Mike's," Kate replied, setting jam and butter onto the table. "He should give us a good deal."
"Mike reamed Fornell," Viv said doubtfully.
"Viv used to be a corporate sellout, too," Tony told Jen cheerfully. "Until she came over from the Dark Side."
Gibbs thumped him in the head as he set down a new, steaming plate of pancakes. "I'll go with you. I'll talk to my old boss; Franks should cut you a better deal."
There were a few happy - but hushed - cheers, and Tony grinned gratefully. "Thanks, boss!"
Gibbs nodded with a tiny grin, then looked up almost inadvertently but instinctively to look at Kate. Two seats down sat Jen, and neither woman looked particularly happy. Jen looked put out; Kate, puzzled.
He looked to Kate first. "Problem?"
"No, no," Kate said slowly. "I just...thought you would have wanted to go once you got what you came for. You've already spent twenty-four hours with us."
"Not a problem," Gibbs replied carefully.
"Then it's done!" Tony said with a big grin. "We're off truck shopping."
"Tony! We don't have the money for that truck!"
"But it's better than that one!"
"They both drive well - you said it yourself."
Mike Franks just stood on the side, with a smirk on his face.
"Looks like you'll get a replacement today," Gibbs began slowly.
Kate nodded. "Mike was willing to shave off a few thousand from the price," she began. "Thank you."
There was a long pause, and then Kate said quietly, "You can go, if you like. I doubt that Jen wants to stay around here much longer, with us. She seems to hate the storm chasing."
"She was a good chaser, Kate," Gibbs said defensively.
"I didn't say she wasn't," Kate replied mildly. "I said she seems to hate it now."
He couldn't argue with that. Jen was a good chaser, that one season she had chased, but she hadn't liked it much - then or now.
"And you got what you came for."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
She looked at him incredulously. "The papers, Gibbs," she said, and he tried to hide his wince at the businesslike use of his last name. "The papers."
"I didn't get any papers."
"I left them signed and sealed on the dining table last night. There was no way you could have missed them."
"Tony must have cleared them from the table," Gibbs muttered.
"Well, I doubt Ducky would get rid of them. So you'll have them."
"And then I can go," he said shortly, looking at her. She didn't respond but focused her attention on Tony and McGee. "Kate, I didn't leave the team because I disliked them," Gibbs said sharply. "I left because it was time to go. I'm not getting any younger."
"No one is," she pointed out drolly.
"Fifteen years and we're barely closer to better storm predictions than we were then, or even after the Hardings got Dorothy in the air. It's pointless. Nothing changed," he said sharply.
She gave him a long, quiet look. "But running away won't change it, either."
He watched as she stepped away from him, towards Mike to close out the deal.
"We got one!" Abby shouted. "Twenty miles south of us! NSSL says it's huge!"
"Let's go, let's go!" Tony shouted. "Just get the moorings out of Ziva's van, put TOTO on there." Ziva and McGee were racing towards the van as Viv threw open its doors, yanking out the battered steel scaffold. The other two pulled out the TOTO in the van and started to wheel it over to the new truck. "We'll deal with it on the way there!"
Kate hurriedly skimmed the rest of the insurance agreement, signing with a flourish and handing it back to the insurance agent. "All done."
"Please don't ruin this one," he begged.
"Of course we're going to take care of our new truck," Kate shouted over to him in pretended affront as she ran towards the truck. "We always do!"
Abby reached out, hooking the portable radio onto Tony's belt in one swift downward motion, then tossed the headphones at him before dashing for the RV.
"Let's go, let's go!" Kate shouted, jumping into the truck bed and yanking up the tailgate behind her, climbing over TOTO to get to the truck moorings.
"You all right, Kate?" Tony called, opening the window in the truck bed leading to the back.
"Just don't slam on the brakes and don't take turns too fast," she called back. There was a loud, metallic clang as she shoved the stand forward, buttressing the moorings tight up against the back of the cab. She grabbed the rubber mallet, swinging it down hard onto the metal bar on the left, snapping it into place before turning her attention to the one of the right.
"We need to take the 167 to get on the 35," Viv was already calling over the radio.
Jen hurried over to Gibbs, who was still watching the cars disappear down the road. "Aren't you going to follow?" she asked.
He shook his head. "Kate signed the papers," he said, with less enthusiasm than he ought. "We just have to pick them up from Ducky's."
"But what about that?" Jen asked, pointing at TOTO 1 and 3 sitting on the back of Gibbs' truck.
His eyes widened. "Get in the truck!"
Abby typed away as fast as she could on the laptop, watching the computer screens in front of her as she worked. The red and green dots of the Doppler swirled slowly on the monitor, and ahead of her, on the other screen, it signaled a touchdown. "Touchdown!" she shouted. "We've got a touchdown! Tornado is on the ground!"
"Where?"
"Groundspeed 30 miles an hour," Abby continued. "It should be right in front of us! Look southeast!"
"On 183," Viv radioed.
Kate stood up in the truck bed, grabbing the ledge of the truck cab window for balance. "Where is it?" she called, banging on the top of the truck cab. "Do you see this?"
"I do NOT see this," Tony replied, leaning over the wheel, looking up at the sky through the windshield. "Abby said southeast."
"It's not southeast," Kate murmured, her eyes turning dark with concern.
Tony frowned as Abby's voice came over the line again, excited: "She's gaining strength! It's going to be a whopper!"
"Abby, you have to help us out," he called frantically into the mic. "We don't have a visual. We're doing this blind, here."
"It'll be coming right on this road, past that treeline," Viv replied.
"You gonna go for it, boss?" McGee called.
Tony reached up, banging on the ceiling of the cab to get Kate's attention. She crouched down to his level. "You can get TOTO ready?"
"TOTO doesn't require these moorings to be in place!" Kate replied. "Ready when you are."
"Glad you joined us!" McGee shouted as Gibbs' truck pulled up to where the RV and the SUV were parked and prepared for TOTO's deployment. Ziva waved briefly before returning to setting up the telephoto lens on the camera. "Wanted to come along?"
Gibbs pointed at TOTO 1 and 3 in the back of his truck. "Yesterday you moved TOTO 1 and 3 onto my truck so you could all get in the RV to go to Ducky's," he reminded.
"Here, let us get it," Ziva offered, waving Viv over.
"No, you can do it after you finish this," Gibbs replied. He came up to where Jen still sat in the truck, watching the sky. "We can wait a bit."
The team nodded, going back to their preparations.
"Jethro," Jen said quietly, watching the sky with a frown. "I don't see this thing."
Kate swore as she quickly dropped her tools through the window into the truck cab. She turned her attention to TOTO, pulling it closer to her and locking it half-way into its truck stand so she could work on it.
"We got hail!" Tony shouted, as Kate yanked up the hood of her raincoat over her head. "And debris!" he shouted. "We got debris!"
"WHOA!" Kate shouted as a motor scooter flew over her head. She ducked, looking up just in time to see it crash a few hundred feet behind them, making a small fireball.
"We're almost there!" Tony called.
Kate opened up the cover to the instrument panel, quickly tossing each switch on. She slammed the cover shut, then quickly looked over the machine to ensure it was ready.
"OK, this is good enough!" Tony shouted, slamming on the brakes. Kate slammed against the moorings, then quickly got up, not seeing the blood mixed with the rainwater on the steel.
"No! No! Have to get closer!" Kate shouted, banging on the window. "Look at how far away it is!" Suddenly a gigantic tree branch fell straight on top of the cab, just a few inches from her. "OK, never mind!" As she pushed it off the car, she looked up to see where it had torn off - the branches were twisted into the spokes of the wheels of a bicycle.
Kate kicked down the tailgate and jumped off the truck bed. She yanked at TOTO, pulling it towards the tailgate as Tony appeared at her side. With a jerk, TOTO came off the truck bed and onto the road.
Suddenly the strong wind tore off one of the power lines, sending sparks off as the wire fell to the ground. Soon a power pole began to teeter.
"We got to get out of here!" Tony shouted, starting to push Kate ahead of him, back to the truck.
Suddenly the roaring wind came by, sweeping the bicycle and branch of the ground where Kate had pushed them and sending it hurtling towards the truck along with several large branches.
"Duck!" Tony screamed. There was only the sound of metal striking metal, a sharp thud, and then the wind picked up the branch and bike again; and then a metallic crash and thud - and then the sickening sound of tiny metallic-plastic balls bouncing on the road.
"NO!" Kate screamed, jumping up as Tony did.
TOTO was lying on its side on the road, the balls rolling about on the highway. The branches and had tangled with the top of the machine, and the added weight of the bicycle as it continued its rapid descent yanked the machine down with it, despite the weights in the bottom.
Kate took off, scooping up as many sensors as she could. "Help me, Tony! Get that branch off of TOTO!"
"Kate! The pack's wasted!" Tony shouted. "C'mon!"
"Uh-oh," Abby muttered, and began to type frantically. "Uh-oh!"
"Abby, I do not want to hear another uh-oh!" Gibbs said sharply. "What's going on?"
"No no no!" she shouted, typing frantically. "The storm's gone!"
"The cone is silent," McGee said softly, staring up at the clearing sky.
"Tony," Abby radioed, obviously disappointed. "Tony, I'm sorry - it's over. It was on the ground, it was going good, and then - now - it's just - disappeared."
Ziva swore in Hebrew, throwing a map in frustration at the van. Viv began to gather her things, and Jen started heading back to Gibbs' truck.
He stood alone, watching the sky, and suddenly turned and sprinted towards the RV, snatching up the microphone to the radio out of Abby's hands. "Tony!" he shouted. "Tony, listen to me. The tornado's not through yet. It's backbuilding!"
"We're tracking it, we're tracking it," McGee assured him as Abby, who began to type frantically, trying to bring up more Doppler images.
"Nothing's coming up," Abby said in frantic disappointment.
"Abby! They're in there blind!"
"It's not giving me readings!" Abby muttered.
Gibbs squeezed the talk button on the microphone. "Tony, listen to me. The data's incomplete. It's a jumper, and we can't track it - you need to get out of there. Get out of there, now!"
"Tony!" Kate shouted, spreading her jacket on the ground, pushing sensors frantically onto it. "Tony, help me!"
"Kate, we gotta get out of here!" Tony shouted, turning towards the truck, accidentally banging his knee straight into TOTO. He hissed out a brief curse. "Kate, c'mon!"
"Help me!" Kate screamed over the rain and the wind. "Help me!"
"Forget the sensors! The pack's wasted!" Tony repeated. "We gotta go! Gibbs said it'll jump - it's going to drop on us!"
"Abby'll see it!"
"Abby's data's incomplete, they can't track it!" Tony grabbed at her arm. "Kate, c'mon!"
"No! Tony, we only have two more machines!" Kate shouted.
Gibbs threw the microphone against the dashboard in a fit of anger, the mic bouncing all over the place. "D-mn!" he shouted, then grabbed it again. "Tony, listen to me! Get Kate out of there!"
"I don't think Tony is the one unwilling to leave," Ziva murmured.
"D-mm-t, Tony, get Kate out of there!"
Tony grabbed her bodily, shoving her into the truck before jumping in. She whipped around, slapping at the dashboard frantically. "No! Go back! Go back!"
"KATE! Stop!" Tony threw the car in reverse as the twister appeared briefly a half a mile in front.
"It's not too late!"
He stopped the car to turn it around, and she opened the door and jumped out. "D-mn!" he hissed.
"Help me!" Kate half-screamed, half-begged, running in the rain to gather up the other sensors, scooping and kicking sensors onto the jacket, lying on the ground. "Help!"
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"
"WE CAN STILL GET HER TO FLY!"
"Kate!" Tony shouted, roughly grabbing her arm. "You've gone crazy!"
"You've never seen what that storm do!" Kate screamed.
"I just DID!" he shouted, starting to reach for her arm to drag her back to the car.
She shoved him away from her, dropping back on her hands and knees to gather the tiny sensors. "You've never - never mind!"
"Kate, stop this!" Tony shouted.
"You don't understand!" Kate cried, grabbing at the bike roughly and tearing it away from the machine. "You don't understand."
"Kate, stop this! I'm sorry your fiance died, but killing yourself isn't going to change that!" Tony ran a frustrated hand through his wet hair, turning away. "What do I tell Gibbs if I don't return with you?"
The rain fell on the team, drenching them through as they listened to Tony and Kate's voices, booming through the radio, loud and clear. They sat silently, everyone looking awkwardly at the ground throughout the yelled conversation.
Jen stood quietly to the side, water streaming down her hair and her face; Gibbs sat on the hood of the RV, his elbows on his knees, his head bowed over.
"What happened?" Ducky exclaimed, running into the emergency room. "I came as soon as Abby called me. What happened?"
Ziva turned a dark look at Abby, who shrugged sheepishly. "Nothing, Ducky. We are quite all right."
"That's why you are in the emergency room?" Ducky questioned.
"Kate got a couple gashes in her left arm," Abby replied. "Doctor says they're shallow, though."
"Tony screwed up his knee. He accidentally crashed into TOTO. Didn't really notice it until Abby saw him limping around here."
Ducky nodded, satisfied. "Did you succeed?"
The team looked at him dejectedly and shook their heads. "We lost a TOTO, too," Ziva murmured.
Ducky reached over, gently patting her cheek in consolation. "Where are they?"
"They're both in recovery now."
"And Jethro?"
"Over there," Ziva replied, motioning to where their boss sat by the window, alone, his dark expression more than likely scaring off anybody else.
"Jethro."
Gibbs looked up to see his old friend standing there, a minute before he dropped into the chair next to him. "They got banged up a little," he replied.
"Yes, Abby and Ziva informed me of it." Ducky held out an envelope with Gibbs' name on it, in Kate's careful print. "You left this this morning."
Gibbs took it half-heartedly.
"Jethro," Ducky said gently. "You cannot always protect your team. These things happen. They happened when you were on the team. They happened to you."
"Not that, Ducky." Gibbs ran a hand through his hair. "Ducky, you should have heard her." He shook his head. "She was almost crazed."
Ducky frowned. "Kate?"
Gibbs looked up sharply. "You know." He paused. "How long has she been like this?"
"So devoted to her work?" Ducky replied quietly. "Her entire career, Jethro."
"Ducky!" Gibbs muttered in exasperation. "I'm talking about this...almost obsessive behavior."
"I noticed no great difference."
"Even I noticed it. Sinking that much of her personal money into TOTO, then what she did out there today. It was staring me right in the face. When did this change?"
"Or perhaps this time you finally saw it?" Ducky said gently. "Jethro. You always went your own way. Quite often she was going the same way you were. It would hardly be likely you would notice anything." He paused. "Not until you stepped away from her."
Gibbs frowned, watching the elderly doctor. "But she was always so...normal."
Ducky chuckled. "She was balanced. No emotional baggage." As Gibbs looked away, he knew he'd hit the target. He laughed quietly. "That's what we want, isn't it? We want our women to be emotionally stable, to anchor us. We don't want them to be quirky and eccentric; we don't want them to be intense workaholics."
He smiled. "We're two old chauvinists, you and I," he said with a little mirth and a little sadness. "We think that, since Kate can still joke with her teammates, that she eats normally, that she watches out for her teammates' health, that she has every facade of normalcy - that she is." He shrugged. "That may simply mean she hides it better."
"Why didn't she ever tell me?" Gibbs said softly.
"I believe she did tell you about Paul," Ducky pointed out.
"She told me about Paul, but." Gibbs stopped short. "It was just - so detached."
"What was she to say, Jethro? You lost your wife and your daughter. Did you think Kate was the sort to beg you to set aside your feelings because she lost her fiance?"
"It doesn't make a difference," Gibbs replied sharply, "how many people died."
"No, it doesn't," Ducky agreed. "But do you think Kate sees it that way?" He shrugged. "She's spent her entire career on this team watching over the rest of you - breaking up Tony and McGee's squabbles, making sure you eat some semblance of healthy food, running your finances."
The doctor sighed. "She looks normal because even if she wants to run away from it all, she doesn't. She stays in that job, and so people think she's over it."
Gibbs leaned forward, running a tired hand over his face. "The guys are angry with me, aren't they," he said quietly.
"Jethro, they're not angry. Disappointed and sad, perhaps." Ducky laughed sadly. "Kate could forgive you leaving her, but not leaving them, not leaving TOTO. They - I believe they can forgive you leaving them, but not leaving Kate."
The doctor gently patted his knee. "Jethro," he said gently as he got up to go. "I do not wish to dismiss your loss any more than I wish to dismiss hers. But perhaps you were as much her stability as she was yours."
"We finished setting up TOTO's moorings on the truck," McGee replied. "TOTO 1, ready to deploy."
"I hope she flies this time," Viv muttered. "We've got only two left, and then back to the weather balloons."
"We're back to big white balloons even if she does fly," Ziva pointed out. "We don't have enough TOTOs for every tornado."
"Are they out yet?"
"Right over there," Viv replied, looking over at the desk where Tony and Kate were signing out, Tony leaning on his crutches, Kate's arm wrapped in thick white bandages.
"We got one, we got one!" Abby suddenly blurted, yanking the phone away from her ear. "Two of the cells are merging - it's going to be a doozy!"
Tony, at the counter, turned instantly. The team looked at him uncertainly. "What are you waiting for?" he barked.
Ziva tossed the SUV keys to Viv. "I'll drive Kate," she called.
Viv nodded, shoving the keyring into her mouth as she helped Abby pack up the laptops. "Let's go!"
Gibbs looked up, watching as Kate's left arm hung still and unused at her side, and Tony limping out after his team. "Jen," he said, half-running over, pulling her out of the emergency room waiting room into the sunlight. "Jen, take these." He shoved the papers at her, then took out the car keys and handed them to her. "Take the truck, go home."
Jen nodded weakly, smiling. "I think it's best."
Gibbs nodded. "You'll be safer in Norman. I gotta help them - with Tony and Kate at less than a hundred percent. I'll be home tonight. I'll see you then."
She shook her head. "No, you won't," she said quietly. She smiled bravely at his puzzled expression. "Jethro, I don't know what induced you to give chasing. I don't know what made you run from this."
He stared at her, surprised. "Jen - "
"Quite frankly, I don't know you," she continued. "That person I met in Norman - that was not you. I thought perhaps you'd changed in six years, but I was wrong. You are still you - when you're out here. I don't know who you are when you're in the city."
"Jen, wait."
"Sooner or later, you would have realized that this - this new life is not what you wanted, not who you are," she said quietly. She waved at the team, now testing their satellites and Doppler again. "Jethro, I can't compete with this. I never could."
There was a thump that got their attention. Kate had jumped to the ground from the truck bed, McGee having reached up a hand to help her down. Gibbs' eyes lingered on her a moment longer than Jen's, and when he turned back, she was smiling sadly at him. "I don't know what you're running from here," she said softly. "But your answer isn't in Norman." She paused. "Or with me."
She gently squeezed his hand. "Jethro, I'm not even surprised it ended like this," she said. "What does that tell you?"
"Jen," he murmured. "I - I didn't mean - "
"I know." She gave him a brave smile. "Go on." She waved vaguely in Kate's direction. "She needs you, just as much as you do her."
Tony yanked himself up into the passenger's side, swinging his legs into the van. "Get both TOTOs onto that truck! You'll have to tie down the other one!"
"Ziva!" Kate shouted, grabbing the video and the photographic cameras. "Come on!"
"Ziva will drive the van," Gibbs said suddenly, plucking the keys to the new truck out of the Israeli's hands.
The entire team froze, looking between Tony and Gibbs, and then Kate and Gibbs. "Fine by me if it's fine by Kate," Tony said carefully, tossing the decision to his partner.
McGee gulped audibly as Kate unconsciously rubbed her hurt arm. "OK," she said, trotting off to the truck.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.