Origin
by channelD
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written for: the NFA Area 51 Challenge
rating: K plus
genre: Science Fiction/AU
characters: Tim & the usual
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disclaimer: I still own nothing of NCIS.
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"Thank you all." Tim was so overcome that he had to stop and blow his nose. "Thank you for being so supportive."
His coworkers-no, friends-grinned on his behalf. They understood how much this confession had meant to him, and he loved them for it. Abby, all skulls and glitter, pointy jewelry and ponytails, perhaps understood best what it meant to be different. She had lived her whole life reveling in being different. Gibbs, never different, but willing to see the best in the people under his command. Tony, setting aside his usual put-downs and smiling as if for a brother. Likewise Ziva, looking at him with sisterly affection.
"You'll want time off," said Jenny, smiling as well. "To go to Roswell, to...do what you must there, and then...well, I hope you'll be coming back. I don't want to lose you, Tim."
"If it's okay, Director," Tim said, his eyes full of hope.
"Just put on your leave slip for type of leave, 'extraterrestrial'," Jimmy cracked.
"Might as well put that down for the other seven of us," remarked Ducky.
Tim blanched. "What did you say?"
"We're all coming with you, McGee," Gibbs grinned. "New Mexico's gotta be warmer than DC in November!"
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This was not how Tim had imagined his journey would go. When he had first felt the siren call of Area 51 a few months before, he knew that it was a return journey he'd have to make...and, quite possibly, a one-way one. Or, to be precise, the other half of a long-ago-purchased round-trip ticket, paid for in some strange currency of a substance...well, enough of the analogy. It was so long ago that he didn't remember the journey; didn't remember any life other than the one right here.
On that day last week when he had called his NCIS friends (even Director Shepard!) together, and told them...showed them, by a slight amount of concentration, and a wave of his hand, that his skin was not Caucasian white but really a soft lavender, matching the true color of his eyes, that he saw that these really were people on whom he could count. They liked him for who he was, not what he really and truly looked like. And while their faces showed their sadness at his leaving (possibly for good), they weren't afraid of him for being different, they weren't running for pitchforks and flaming torches, they weren't making jokes.
They accepted him. And that was a good feeling.
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Jenny's connections got them Army drivers and three vehicles for their travel once in New Mexico, and swift pass-through into Area 51.
"Anything look familiar, McGee?" Ziva asked, linking her arm with his (which Abby, on the other side, promptly did as well).
"No," Tim answered immediately, looking up at the starry night sky. And it was true: he had no sensation of anything other than the planet earth he knew and loved. He didn't feel he could look down upon it from above. His images of non-humans had been formed only through watching Star Trek, Star Wars, Galaxy Quest, and so on. "But something's going to happen. I just know it..."
It was Tony who asked the elephant-in-the-living-room question. "If you have the opportunity, will you go? Home? To your real home, wherever it is?"
"I don't know, Tony," said Tim, clearly torn. "I have no idea where I'm...from. And it's not like there's a one-way-rent-a-spaceship place around here, anyway."
Gibbs cleared his throat. "Jen?"
She gave him a sharp look. "No, I've never heard of such a thing, Jethro. Despite all my contacts."
"Would you tell me if you did?"
"Of course not."
Across the fenced yard, an Army guard gave them a patient, kindly look. Had others come before them, seeking the truth of their origins as well?
Tim walked around the grounds, leisurely, hoping answers would come. Who was he, if not Timothy McGee? Was his real name something that could not be pronounced by human vocal cords, or was that just sci-fi nonsense, and his birth name was really something simple, like Sam Snerd?
His seven friends walked with him, saying little, wrapped in their own thoughts, apparently expecting...what, they didn't know. A mother ship. A rocket coming out of a forgotten, disused silo. A force field winking into existence, or a tractor beam from the heavens. But all that could be heard were crickets, a few night birds, and an occasional Army jeep driving by on the road.
The circle of the grounds complete, Tim stopped. "This isn't it," he said sadly. "I'm not getting any feelings of...anything. Maybe I imagined it all."
"You didn't imagine being violet, Tim," said Jimmy. "We all saw that."
"A mass hallucination, then," said Tim, grasping at straws. At this point he would much prefer to think that it had all been a dream, even an embarrassing one, than to believe he was not of this earth, but stranded here. Unwanted by his own kind. Not a member of either world.
"Highly unlikely, Timothy," Ducky tutted. "Area 51 has been known for less than 100 years. It's not at all implausible that those who came here just have yet to find a way back."
"So I'm stuck here," Tim said, swallowing hard. "All alone, among...you people. You humans."
"Are we all that bad, McGee?" asked Gibbs.
"Well, no, boss; but-"
"You feel unique, Tim, is that it?" asked Jenny.
"Yeah. An outsider. I'm not like you...people."
"It's true that I've never met a race of lavender-skinned humanoids, but I have met many types in my years," she added. "You know, I'm just a little shorter than average for a female special agent, but that's not my real self." As the others looked at her in wonder, Jenny closed her eyes, and suddenly grew to a height of close to 9 feet; her short red hair billowing in waves down her back, and an enormous sword in one hand.
"Director!" came a few muffled cries. Gibbs chuckled and said, "Now I know why you've always seemed fearless, Jen."
"You're..." Tim was unable to continue.
"Not of this earth. Yes, Tim; I too am from somewhere else. Where, I don't know. I must have been very young when I came here."
Tim started to laugh. "That's...incredible! Two of us...outer-space aliens...coming to earth and winding up working at NCIS!"
She shrank back down to her Jenny/normal size. "Yes. Now do you see, you're not alone here."
He laughed again, a trifle hysterically, and looked at the others. "I hope we're not scaring the rest of you. I mean, movies aside, I have no desire to take over your bodies or eat your brains."
"Actually," said Jimmy, "I've heard that in some societies, brains are considered-"
"Mister Palmer!" Ducky said sharply, and Jimmy shut up.
"Two out of eight," said Abby. "One-quarter of this group have been shown to be E.T.s." She exchanged meaningful glances with the other five.
Ducky coughed. "There's a reason, Timothy, why we accompanied you here today, besides showing support for you."
"Oh?" asked Tim, feeling he had missed something.
"McGee, perhaps you are not the only one who has felt the call of Area 51," said Ziva. She screwed her eyes shut, tossed her head so that her long, dark brown hair flew back...and then in place of Ziva there was a canine standing erect, a beautiful creature with the finest traits of a human and a dog, with a long white muzzle, dark eyes, and long, dark brown ears. "Yes, this is my real look," said Ziva as the others ohhh'd and ahhh'd.
Then almost so fast that it was hard to tell who went first, the others transformed. Ducky had two heads, which started carrying on a conversation with each other. Jimmy was a shape-changing skeleton dressed like a circus clown, growing fat and thin and fat again, grinning all the while.
Abby had wings: large, soft moth wings, and a depth in her eyes that spoke of a war between death and love. There was a dangerous side to her now, and she kept back a bit from the others, as if keeping herself in control. Tony, on the other hand, did not change his looks at all-except for shrinking to a height of only six inches. "It's not easy to be an agent like this," he squeaked.
Gibbs was the last to comply, and for a moment Tim was convinced that Gibbs was the lone, true human of the group. But then Gibbs addressed him, his back turned...and Tim spotted the eye in the back of his head. "You thought you were unique, McGee? Well, wake up. We're all unique."
"NCIS looks for special talents," said Jenny, smiling. "Our recruiters and interviewers were specially hired to check for...non-humans. With the Army's permission."
It sunk in now. "NCIS is where aliens go to work," Tim said, scarcely daring to breathe.
"Until a way can be found to send aliens back home-those who want to go home, of course-yes. It's been a very successful program."
"I do want to go home," Tim declared, suddenly. "Back to the home I have now. In Washington."
"That's the spirit," said Gibbs, clapping him on the shoulder, as they all returned to their human identities.
Abby threw back her head and started to sing, and they all joined in:
And I'm proud to be an alien,
'Cause I know I'll still be free
I go to work at NCIS
Where there's others just like me
And I'll proudly stand up every time
And defend where I come from
Though my heart is here on dear old earth
I love Area 51!
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Author's note: My apologies to Lee Greenwood for appropriating his song, God Bless the USA, but it's been parodied so much that I felt one more parody wouldn't hurt. I really do like the (original) song.