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Original
December 2007. Last modified March 15, 2009. Written for Abby.
Please see the endnote
for disclaimers, credits and all that good stuff.
|
Sopwith
Pup
a NCIS fanfiction
G
by Amy
R.
|
"How can you have never seen Peanuts?"
Tony almost toppled off his desk chair in surprise. He had tilted
it back a tad more than specifications allowed, angling for the vent from which
he believed the breeze would come when they fixed the air conditioning. If they
ever fixed the air conditioning. "Not knowing Snoopy is -- well, I was
going to say 'un-American,' but--"
"That is not what I said,
Tony," Ziva corrected him without looking up from her computer screen.
Her
steady keyboard tapping showed her as unfazed by the sweltering heat as by his
antics. "Of course I am familiar with Peanuts. It is the most popular comic
strip in the world. When I was a child-- In any case, just because I have not
seen your cartoon does not mean I--"
"When you were a child,
what?" Tony leveled out his chair and perked up, staring brightly across
the aisle at her. If anything was more classified than the contents of the vice
president's man-sized safe, it was Ziva's personal life.
"You're just wrong anyway,
Tony," McGee said, sweating in his suit jacket; Tony had taken his off
hours ago. McGee got up to fetch a sheet from the color printer. "Everyone
knows that the Halloween special is best. You just favor the Christmas one today
because you've got delusions of snowflakes dancing through your head."
"Mmmmm, snowflakes." Tony's
eyeballs rolled back at the delicious thought. The power of imagination would
bring him snow and ice on the smooth cool breeze of Vince Guaraldi's jazz score.
Instead, sweat ran down his forehead and dripped off an eyelash. He opened his
eyes. Stupid heat wave. Stupider air conditioner. "No, seriously, I see
your point about the Great Pumpkin as a metaphor for tolerance, but have you
considered Snoopy's decorated doghouse as a metaphor for consumerism?"
"I keep telling you: a metaphor
is a comparison or a symbol." McGee returned to his desk. "When
something just is what it is, it's not a metaphor."
"Your proofreader tell you that,
probie?"
Ziva's typing stilled. Either she'd
finished her report, or it was closer to lunchtime than Tony had thought. "Is not a television cartoon somewhat below your usual requirements as a
film aficionado?"
"Are you questioning the
coolness of Snoopy?" Tony strove to sound appalled rather than amused.
"Of Joe Cool himself?"
Abby walked over from the elevator,
keeping a hand-held electric fan in front of her face all the way. "Who's
questioning Snoopy?"
"Tony believes that the
Christmas Peanuts special is superior to its Halloween counterpart," Ziva
informed her.
"Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown
is really, really good, but everyone knows It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
is best." Abby frowned at Tony, then swung back to Ziva. "Hey, have
you seen them? Oh, my goodness! Do you want to borrow the DVDs?"
"Well of course you like the
Halloween one best." Tony stood when the center of attention threatened to
drift away from him. He realized his mistake as Abby turned back toward him and
the air from her fan turned away.
"Me? Why me?"
"No reason." Tony narrowed
his eyes and did not mention the skulls on her pigtail holders. "But have
you really considered the speech Linus gives when Charlie Brown asks whether
anyone knows what Christmas is all about? And the World War I Flying Ace, down
behind enemy lines? Can't you just see Snoopy's doghouse taxiing across a flight
deck on its way to destiny?"
"The World War I Flying Ace is
in the Halloween special, not the Christmas special." McGee was twiddling
with a screwdriver, a flash drive and a thingamajig Tony didn't recognize.
"No! Really? Ow!"
Tony
reached up to rub the back of his head as Gibbs came around from the stairs.
Gibbs had taken off his jacket in the heat, too, but he was carrying it over one
arm and holding paperwork in the other hand. "What was that for,
boss?"
"They had seaplane tenders
during World War I, not aircraft carriers. And the Sopwith Camel was an Army
plane. Sopwith Pup was Navy."
"Are you saying Snoopy is
Army?"
"I'm saying you don't always
know what you think you know." Gibbs slapped a manila folder on McGee's
desk, handed another to Abby and put on his jacket. "Commissioned Warrant
Officer Eddie Hombert, 43. Missing for two weeks. On Ducky's agenda now.
DiNozzo,
David, you're with me. McGee, Abby--"
"On it, boss."
"I'll be in my lab."
"I will drive."
"No you won't!"
In the elevator Tony looked
skeptically at Gibbs, not entirely trusting his boss to know better than to give
Ziva keys outside a controlled raceway with professional stunt drivers, or
possibly a Mad Max sequel. Gibbs was unreadable on the subject of keys.
But
Gibbs was clearly not going to tell them anything more about the case right now.
So Tony concentrated on the thought that whoever drove, at least the car would
have air conditioning.
Two floor-beeps down, he remembered.
"Hey, Ziva?"
"Yes, Tony?"
"You were gonna say something
about Peanuts and when you were a kid."
"No. I was not."
"Yeah, you were."
Ziva looked at the elevator ceiling,
then at Gibbs, who had his eyes on the dropping floor numbers. She looked back
at Tony. With one floor left before the door opened at the parking garage, she
said, "When I was a small child, I had a stuffed Woodstock. My brother had
a stuffed Snoopy."
Tony stared.
Stepping into the parking garage,
Gibbs clicked the remote. A car beeped back at him. "And DiNozzo? Everyone
knows the Great Pumpkin is the best."
