“Jules, how long are they gonna stay here?” Frank Sullivan asked his wife as they got ready for bed.

“Don't take that tone with me, Frank,” Julia retorted. “They've got nobody they know in town, and their hotel screwed up their reservation. I did what I thought was right. The hospital couldn't keep them there forever.”

“And neither can we,” Frank said. “Jules, you said that the one guy – 'Tony'? You said he was a head case. You want a head case in the same house as Johnny?”

Julia pursed her lips. “Tony's harmless. A little confused about reality, maybe, but he's harmless. His uncle's a doctor, remember? He's taking care of him.”

Frank let out a frustrated sigh. After what he'd experienced the previous 48 hours, he was actually starting to question his own interpretation of reality. But he certainly couldn't tell his wife that he'd recently had a conversation with his grown son – Johnny – from the future, over the ham radio. She'd have him committed if he tried to explain that John had warned him about a fire that would claim him – had claimed him – but that he'd heeded the warning and was now alive, instead.

“All right,” Frank said. “They can stay until they clear up this hotel business.”

He was rewarded with a bright smile and a kiss.

Downstairs in the living room, a still-groggy Tony was resting on the couch, trying his best to keep up with Gibbs and Ducky. As he lay there, he found that his eyes were inexplicably starting to feel itchy, and his sinuses began to feel as if they were plugged.

The three were comparing notes, attempting to find some common thread that had drawn them all together to this time and place.

“Hmm... yes, well, I was starting to worry that I was showing signs of going dotty like my mother and my uncle. Dementia quite possibly has a genetic component, you see. But then I heard Tony yelling out, and that reassured me that I wasn't quite losing my mind – yet.”

Gibbs nodded.

“How did you manage to find yourself here, Jethro?” Ducky asked.

“One minute I was climbing the stairs in my basement, the next I was stepping up into this house.” He gave a short laugh. “Crossed my mind that maybe I'd had a little too much bourbon.”

“So, you just sat around and waited for the family to come home?”

Gibbs shrugged. “It's a nice house. Nice dog, too.” Elvis was once again dozing on his lap.

Tony sneezed loudly.

“Bless you,” Ducky said.

“Thanks,” Tony said with a sniff. “Something's irritating my eyes.”

“Allergies?” Gibbs asked.

Tony closed his eyes and shook his head. “Not to dogs.”

“It could be anything in the house, Tony,” Ducky said, trying to be helpful.

Tony sneezed again, loudly.

“Could you stop doing that?” Gibbs snapped. “You're gonna wake the family.”

“Sorry, Boss,” Tony whispered, “but I ca-ahhhh-chooo!”

Elvis jerked awake and gave a curt bark.

“I can't,” Tony finished his sentence with a yawn.

Gibbs stood with the puppy, who was starting to fall asleep again. “I think we should continue our talk in the basement. 'Sneezy' here is less likely to disturb our hosts.”

Ducky and Tony followed Gibbs downstairs, placing a sleepy Elvis on the couch. The animal seemed too tired to notice the new object of his affection was leaving the room.

***

After an hour of futility, detective Danny Houlihan left an uncooperative Ziva and returned to Tim and Abby. He looked at them expectantly, but they stared right back at him. Abby suddenly raised her hand.

“What is it?” he muttered through gritted teeth.

“I have to use the little girls' room,” she said coyly.

“Fine. I'll get someone to escort you,” he said stiffly. “What about you, Mr. Federal Agent? You need to 'go', too?”

Tim nodded.

Houlihan hollered for a female officer to take Abby to use the facilities, while he took McGee.

“So, um, what was all that yelling and screaming about earlier?” Tim asked as they headed down the hall.

“You heard that, huh?” Houlihan said with a smirk. “Aren't you tired of this? You're just making it harder on yourself. Come clean now, and maybe you'll get off light.”

“Get off light from what? You haven't formally charged us with anything! You've just held us for questioning. You haven't even read us our rights. I don't know how you do things in your universe, detective, but in mine, I do things by the book.”

Detective Houlihan stood glowering as Tim entered the stall. The younger man wasn't sure how much further he ought to try to push the detective. When he and Abby had heard what they recognized to be Ziva's angry voice, they knew they had to find some way to break her out. After that... they weren't sure what they'd do after that. Tim had a number of theories involving quantum physics and string theory to explain what was happening to them. He'd discussed them at length with Abby, until she'd put her head down on the desk and begged him to stop.

“Finished yet?” Houlihan snapped. “Come on, move it!”

Tim flushed the toilet, and Houilhan led him towards the sinks.

Left alone in the interrogation room, Ziva tried to relax. Losing her temper was not going to help matters, even if that detective Houlihan was a moron. Okay, maybe she had used excessive force when she'd beat up on the guy who'd tried to mug her, and maybe she'd been a little belligerent... but why was it that no one was taking her seriously when it came to Director Shepard? Everyone seemed to think she was fabricating some elaborate tale with the help of two other people they had in custody. She didn't know if they were just toying with her with that one. And then, to top it all off, she could have sworn that cop, 'John Sullivan', looked just like that James Caviezel...

Nothing was making any sense to her. Ziva wondered if she ought to demand to be released to the custody of the Israeli consulate. From there, she'd be able to connect with her father, assistant Mossad director. If these stupid cops wouldn't believe her about Jenny, would they take the word of a foreign agency? She decided she'd make that request as a last resort, but realised that something else was still bothering her: the fact that she'd seen the World Trade Center twin towers standing tall.

If I ask them 'What year is it?', they will think I am mad, Ziva thought.

***

Once they'd settled in the basement of the Sullivan abode, Gibbs, Ducky and Tony once again tried to take stock of their predicament.

Tony wasn't of much help because he was still woozy.

“What's his problem?” Gibbs asked.

“Diazepam,” Ducky answered.

“What?”

“Valium, Jethro,” Ducky replied. “They gave it to him in hospital because they thought he was getting a little too worked up. The best we can do is to let him sleep off the effects.”

“At least he's not sneezing anymore,” Gibbs observed, while Tony drifted off, head lolling on his chest as he slumped on an old couch.

“Mm-hmm. Maybe the poor fellow does have an allergy to pet dander.”

“Let's take it from the top, Duck,” Gibbs said. “I wanna know everything about how you ended up in that hospital.”

Ducky related to Gibbs how he'd first been about to leave the NCIS autopsy bay, but was then somehow in the hospital morgue.

“You were in the morgue; I was in my basement...” Gibbs mused.

“Do you think there's a connection?” Ducky asked.

“Right now, I still don't know what to think,” Gibbs answered. “How'd Tony come into the picture?”

“I don't know,” Ducky replied. “He was apparently brought in by paramedics. Curiously, he didn't have his shoes on, but he did have his I.D. Jethro, I've had to weave quite the elaborate tale to cover up the fact that we are not exactly from around here. I.D. Cards and credit cards simply didn't exist in this form in the late 60s. I've told them Tony suffers from a rare psychological disorder, and that I'm his uncle. I've also told them I'm an expert in the field of such disorders, and that we're here for a symposium.”

Gibbs looked at his colleague with extreme skepticism.”And they bought all that?”

“I don't know. They seemed to. I suppose the white coat I'm wearing might have had something to do with it. People tend to trust doctors implicitly, you know. Do you know what I find fascinating?” Ducky asked, without pausing for an answer. “It's that we've all ended up here together. Nurse Sullivan was looking after Tony, and you somehow popped into the Sullivan residence. Shouldn't that mean something?”

Gibbs sighed. “Maybe... I'm hoping that when DiNozzo's head clears, he'll be able to make himself useful. 'Cause right now, I'm not seeing any way to explain what the hell's been going on, or how we're getting back to where we came from.”

***

When morning came, the three men were no closer to a resolution. Gibbs and Ducky had talked to the wee hours of the morning and had finally managed to grab a few hours' worth of sleep, however fitful. Tony had slept like a log.

He opened his eyes, and was at once startled by his surroundings. “Aw, noooo. I was hoping this was all a bad dream,” he groaned. “You mean I didn't imagine waking up in hospital and being drugged by crazy doctors?”

“Calm down, Tony,” Ducky said soothingly. “What do you remember about last night? What were you doing before you woke up on that gurney?”

Tony reflected. Gibbs waited patiently for his answer.

“I was watching a movie,” he said brightly.

Gibbs rolled his eyes. “Of course you were.”

“No, seriously, Boss... I was watching my free movie rental. You know, the one I got from that nasty box of cereal you forced down our throats.”

“Then what?” Gibbs prompted.

“Then? Then I uh, I had to, you know...go...”

“'Go'?” Gibbs repeated.

“Yeah, go,” Tony said, “as in normal, human biological function.”

“So the Fiber Flakes did work,” Ducky smiled his amusement.

Tony ignored the M.E. “After that, I noticed the movie had started playing. Since I missed the beginning, I picked up the remote to flip back to the start. The next thing I know, I'm waking up in that hospital.”

Tony grimaced at the memory, then cracked a smile. “Smokin' hot nurse, though... Funny... she seemed kinda familiar, too.”

“Uh, yes, Tony,” Ducky said uncomfortably. “Nurse Sullivan. You were probably too tired to realise, but she's actually our hostess. When she heard of our plight, she offered to let us stay for the night.”

“She did?”

Ducky nodded. “And we need to explain a few things. One: Gibbs and I have determined that we are not in DC.”

“Where are we?” Tony asked, suddenly growing wary.

“It would appear we are in Queens, New York; circa 1969.”

Tony cracked a grin and started to laugh. “Right... Is this some sort of agency test? I mean, one of those tests that are supposed to test how prone to suggestion you are?”

“Tony!” Gibbs snapped. “Focus! This is not a joke, or a test. This is serious.”

“Sorry, Boss,” Tony said. “I'm focusing. What else do you want to know?”

Gibbs frowned, then hit upon something: “Yeah. I wanna know what movie you were watching...”

“Oh, that's easy: Frequency.” His eyes suddenly went wide. “...Which was about time travel! Well, not exactly time-travel, because no one actually went back or forward in time like in Back to the Future, but information got passed to people in the past using an old ham radio. Something about massive solar flares and the aurora borealis... I mean, the premise was totally sci-fi and all 'movie logic', but it's still pretty entertaining. Wait a minute! 'Sullivan'! Gibbs; Ducky... that's the name of the family in the movie! That nurse! She's from the movie!”

Gibbs glared at Tony, ignoring his long-winded discussion of the movie plot and focusing instead on his last few comments. “Tony, are you saying that we're somehow trapped inside of a movie?”

Tony checked himself and tempered his excitement. “Yes, Boss. That's what I'm saying. It's the only explanation that makes any sense.”

“None of this makes any sense at all!” Gibbs snapped. “Ducky, check him out as best you can. Make sure he's not suffering any lingering effects from the Valium.”

Ducky's expression grew serious. “I don't think that's the Valium talking, Jethro.”

“What, you believe him?” Gibbs shot back.

“Under the circumstances, Jethro, I think it's time we started considering that the impossible may just very well be possible.”