Title: Just Wondering (25/?)
Rating: G
Disclaimer: If you think this is real, then no disclaimer is going to save you, despite the twenty-four repetitions of the fact that all of this is just fiction. All I can say is that I don't own any of the characters who appear here. All players are property of the Minnesota Lynx, the WNBA, Val Ackerman, themselves, their family, their family, their friends, and any theoretical romantic attachments. The tractor, if it really existed, would belong to Katie. The management forbids the taking of flash pictures, as they may disorient any other readers and maybe even the characters. And you wouldn't want to disorient Katie, now would you? If you are in any way connected with the WNBA, please don't sue me; this is done with tongue firmly in cheek and without any malicious, slanderous, or libelous intent whatsoever.
A/N: This is what happens when you talk to strange people late at night; you get strange tidbits that you never would have known otherwise. Such as Katie's green thumb. Yes, I know the coach isn't. I'll change it when I feel like it. The location of the farm is a nod to Demetri's home turf.
Summary: The missing Lynx have been found on a farm in Knox County, Ohio.

 

Heidi VanDerveer, coach of the Minnesota Lynx, looked at the address on a rumpled sheet of paper and looked up. "Dear God, this must be the wrong address. But the locals wouldn't steer me wrong, would they?" A nagging voice inside her head snidely suggested that perhaps she was in the wrong town in the first place, and wouldn't that just be a riot for the beat writers back in Minneapolis? But somehow she suspected that her sense of direction was not the problem.

Still, she was more than a little unsure of what she was doing as she came up the path and knocked on the farmhouse door. To her complete non-surprise, there was no answer. "World, I've officially lost my mind," Coach VanDerveer informed the sky. "Not only that, but I've also lost most of my team. I am completely and utterly screwed into oblivion." She was about to leave when she caught sight of what might generously be called a vision. A John Deere tractor was coming her way with a tall sandy-haired woman perched atop it.

"Coach?" the woman shouted. At that point, Coach VanDerveer could take no more and showed the good common sense to faint.

 

She recovered consciousness far too soon for her liking, only to immediately come face to face with the dust-covered, tractor-riding apparition. "Jesus, Katie, what the hell were you doing on a tractor?" was her first question.

Katie Smith cracked a smile. "The same thing anyone else would be doing, Coach. Seriously, what else would I be doing?"

"Katie, you know what I mean. You're a basketball player. Basketball players don't ride tractors."

"Unless they're severely broke and need a way to make money consistently," someone else broke in. Michele VanGorp came through the doorway, making sure to duck her head as she came through. Apparently this farmhouse hadn't been built for six-foot-six blondes; unsurprising, since few places actually were designed with people on the extreme fringes of height in either direction.

"You have got to be joking," Coach said.

"Who, us? Would we do that to you, Coach?" Katie said sweetly. "No, we're completely serious about this. And completely broke, so we've got nothing much to lose except Boopsie."

"Who or what is Boopsie?" Coach asked with the sneaking suspicion that she really didn't want to know.

A pained expression came over Michele's face as Katie explained in a hurt tone, "Boopsie's my tractor."

Coach sighed. She had been right. She didn't want to know. The last thing she needed was for her sharpshooter and leading scorer to go off the deep end… although, if she could still land her threes, then that wouldn't be a very big issue. But Boopsie?

"So who else is involved in this scheme of yours? Anyone else that I need to know about?" Coach inquired, hoping against hope that anyone else on the farm was with some other team.

"Yeah, pretty much the entire team," Michele said. "What did you expect? None of us have a lot of money; it took our combined savings to buy the land and that tractor that Katie adopted. It looks like it's going to be a good crop, although you never really know with these things."

"Uh-huh," Coach said impatiently. "So when can I expect to see you guys doing what you actually get paid to do?"

"Oh, soon," Michele promised.

Katie perked up. "Coach, can I bring Boopsie?"

 

But wait! There's more!
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