‘Hollis’

“So that’s how you get them out,” Tony says as he walks around the boat. There is admiration in his voice and it makes Gibbs turn his head away to hide a smirk.

“Yeah – and if you ever breathe one word –“

“Understood, Boss,” Tony promises and makes a locking motion at the corner of his mouth before he mimes throwing away a key.

The boat – how many does this make now? – has already been loaded onto the trailer. A tarpaulin has been tossed carelessly over the half-finished hull, but Tony can see inside the cockpit, to where two cans of fuel have been stowed. He shakes his head, amused: he has never been to a boat barbeque before.

“You wanna give me a hand or you just here to watch?” Gibbs, his voice gruff, manages to make the simple request sound like an order, but that’s SOP for him so Tony brushes it off.

With the two of them working in unison the trailer is hitched to Gibbs’ truck in double time and with the minimum of fuss. It’s times like these that both appreciate how well they work together, each anticipating the other’s moves, the silent, almost telepathic co-operation between them as efficient as any high-end piece of machinery. Tony knows he works well with Ziva and McGee but with Gibbs there is an empathy that is lacking with the rest of the team.

Finished, Tony climbs into the truck without waiting for an invitation because he knows what Gibbs needs of him, and it’s not just an extra pair of hands and some muscle. “Where are we headed?” he asks. It’s not important, but he is curious.

“Out by the river. There’s a place... Friend of mine owns it.”

“Understanding friend,” observes Tony, to which Gibbs replies, “Yes, she is.”

~~~~~~

There is an easy silence between them as they make the drive across town. This is a ritual that has been enacted several times in the past and Tony is aware that it is something Gibbs is reluctant to discuss, and so he doesn’t push it, preferring instead to let the older man deal with it in his own way.

They drive for thirty minutes then turn onto an empty lot, where a familiar silver sports car is waiting, an equally familiar red-headed woman in the driver seat. Tony smiles. After seven years she is still a mystery. They have developed a nodding acquaintance in that time, but he still knows nothing about her – not even her name. It’s not important; Gibbs considers her a good friend and that’s all Tony needs to know.

“Let’s do this,” Gibbs says, the abrupt instruction startling Tony from his thoughts.

They unload the boat and Tony waits while Gibbs moves the truck to a safe distance, close to where the red-head has parked. She exits the car and when Gibbs returns to Tony and the boat she comes with him, nodding a smile in Tony’s direction. It amuses him, the way they are around each other, like people who repeatedly meet in the same line at the bank and never exchange more than a casual comment on the weather or the length of the queue. It should be awkward, uncomfortable, but it’s not. He simply returns the smile and the nod before turning to help Gibbs strip the tarp from the half-finished hull.

There is a name on the prow and he sees a certain incongruity in the perfectly executed lettering that adorns the un-sanded wood. He knows that the three boats that Gibbs previously built and burned, each one named for an ex-wife, had all been completed before their destruction, as if in building them he was striving for the perfection that was missing from the marriage. It is testimony to the hopelessness of this latest liaison that he has chosen to leave ‘Hollis’ unfinished.

Gibbs leans into the hull to retrieve a can of fuel and as he does so his gaze locks with Tony’s. There is misery in the blue depths, and regret for time wasted, but there is also hope and a fierce determination to get his life in order. Tony senses a line being drawn here, the defining of the end of an era and he wonders if, by requesting his presence, Gibbs is asking for his help in finding the way forward.

They douse the boat from prow to stern, inside and out, and as they stand back Tony watches Gibbs load and cock the flare gun that starts the blaze. It’s an incredible sight as the flames leap almost instantly towards the sunset, the fire roaring as it takes hold of the dry wood.

Watching the funeral pyre of another of Gibbs’ aborted relationships, Tony can sense the feeling of failure that flows through him. Will he try again? Tony is sceptical. This was his first attempt at something deep and meaningful since coming to terms with Shannon’s death and it seems to Tony that this time the wounds are too deep, too raw. Each new liaison is finding the chinks in his armour, burrowing under the surface to feast on the rotting flesh of his dreams of happiness. Gibbs may be a man of steel at work, but in his personal life he is astonishingly vulnerable. There are so many ways to hurt him.

“Number four,” the red-head murmurs as the skeletal remains collapse in on themselves, sending a plume of sparks high into the air.

Gibbs nods. “The fourth,” he says, “and the last.”

“Really?” She sounds dubious.

“It’s a promise.”

She looks at him a moment longer, then stretches her gaze past him to settle it on Tony, studying him until he feels as if every mask he has ever worn has been stripped away and he swears she knows who he is, right down to his DNA. It’s an unnerving experience and he finds himself holding his breath, until at last she returns her attention to Gibbs and tells him softly, “For once I believe you.”

Gibbs snorts and replies “Thought you would.”

The heat from the burning boat is fading now and the chill of an autumn evening is creeping in on them, pushing beneath their coats to tickle their skin with shivers. Gibbs nudges Tony and jerks his head towards the truck. Time to go. He doesn’t look back as he walks away from the smouldering remains and that serves to confirm Tony’s earlier impression that all ties to Lieutenant Colonel Hollis Mann have been severed.

“Usual time on Sunday?” the red-head asks, as Gibbs dumps the fuel can in the back of the truck.

“If we don’t get a case.” He kisses her on the cheek before climbing into the driver seat.

Tony brushes past her to circle around to the other door. As he does so she catches his arm, he expression friendly but firm. “Take care of him,” she cautions, and he nods: “Always,” which seems to please her because her grip slackens into a gentle pat on his forearm.

“I’m Ann,” she tells him.

“Tony.” He wonders if he should offer her his hand.

“I know.” There is a Gibbs-like smugness about her smile. It’s not the saccharine smile he has seen countless times on Jen Shepard’s face, the one gauged to remind him, in no uncertain terms, that she and Gibbs have a History. Nor the acid ‘hands off’ smirk that Hollis adopted whenever Gibbs was around. No, this smile is light and teasing and full of affection, and if he had harboured any doubts about her being a true friend to Gibbs they are dispelled in an instant.

“I’ll see you on Sunday,” she tells him enigmatically. It is not a question.

“You will?” Tony asks, mystified. “I don’t –“

“Jethro is bringing you to lunch.”

“He is?” His head whips around, eye narrowing as they fix on Gibbs – and there’s that look again, Gibbs the Cat complete with feathers around his mouth.

By the time Tony turns back, Ann is already driving away.

“Lunch?” Tony questions as he climbs into the truck.

Gibbs shrugs and starts the engine. “That’s what the lady said.”

“You ever gonna tell me who she is?”

“Nope. You wanna know who she is, you ask her yourself.”

Tony growls in frustration. He wants to know – and if they are having lunch on Sunday doesn’t he have a right to know? – but for years he has guarded Gibbs’ right to privacy and going against that isn’t easy.

Lunch on Sunday. With Gibbs. And the mysterious red-head.

He always did like a puzzle.

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