They settled into a routine of sorts in the following couple of months, they had a standing Friday night movie date unless Tony was working a case and they somewhat curtailed the amount of time they spent together during the rest of the week. All in all it seemed to make their relationship stronger, and their time together more meaningful.

He tried dating, but found it had lost its luster. He kept expecting his dates to know him, and to have the easy conversation he had with Laura but it didn't work.

He even tried the casual sex route just to see if he could take the edge off, and it was an unmitigated disaster. The leggy brunette flight attendant was beautiful and an enthusiastic lover, but his body for the first time in his life betrayed him. Mortified he wanted to crawl under the bed and die of embarrassment. But the woman was understanding and just asked, "Married?"

And it was that question that cemented a lot of the random thoughts about Laura in his head together and he answered honestly, "No, but I think I should be."

He finally gave up trying to deal unsuccessfully with these other women so he started fabricating some encounters out of whole cloth just so Laura wouldn't think anything was remiss. He hated lying to her.

----------

He was lost in thought when she came out of the bedroom, and when he realized that she was standing in front of him he did a double take.

She wasn't in her normal baggy faded jeans and white t-shirt. She had on jeans but they were tighter and more form fitting and a little pale yellow cotton blouse with what seemed like a hundred buttons down the front. She had left her hair down and soft around her face and her makeup was light. She looked ten years younger than she was and it almost took his breath away. Even with her shiner.

"Earth to Tony." He finally realized that she was talking to him and that he had been staring.

He snapped out of it quickly, "Hey. Sorry was zoning." He stood up and stretched and tried to be very casual when he said, "You look great. That new?"

She smiled, "Yeah, Sergeant O'Neill's wife Helen and I went shopping and I was yelled at for buying things two sizes too big. She beat me up so bad I finally just let her pick stuff out for me. So you like?" She giggled and spun around to show off.

He teased, "You realize in those jeans all the guys are gonna be staring at your…" she didn't let him finish his sentence before throwing a pillow from the couch at him.

They enjoyed the movie and had settled onto a favorite bench at the beach with their fish and chips when he asked her what she was doing the rest of the weekend.

She didn't answer right away and he could see a faint blush staining her cheeks, "I um, well have a date tomorrow night. A blind date."

He tried not to let that feel like a sucker punch to the gut. It didn't work. But he had to play along, "Who fixed you up?"

"Helen. It's a friend of her husbands that he served with in Kuwait." She tried to brush the whole thing off as just casual, "Its just dinner. He just got stationed here and doesn't know anyone."

He knew it wasn't casual. Laura didn't date much and generally only went on first dates, second dates just didn't happen.

"Oh god my eye, I can't go with a black eye!" she suddenly exclaimed.

He teased, "You went out with me with a black eye."

She turned to him and gave him an exasperated look that got both of them laughing.

"Oh well it will be a disaster anyway black eye or not."

"Why do you say that?"

"You know I'm not all that normal a person Tony, most men can't understand why I would want to see The King and I a hundred and forty-five times."

"Actually I think you are up to a hundred and forty-eight since I met you."

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah I do." And he really did.

And because he knew he wasn't surprised to see her standing on his doorstep at midnight the next night with two pints of their favorite ice cream in hand. Her dates went about as well as his did lately. And ice cream and a romantic comedy made them both feel better.

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The following week Tony had to fly to New York to interview a witness and saw this silly floppy woman's summer hat from Italy in the duty free shop at the airport. It was ridiculously expensive but he didn't even hesitate to buy it for Laura. She liked hats to keep the sun off her head, she claimed it was one of the joys of being a red head.

The hat got him to thinking about their talk about dream vacations and her wish to see Tuscany. A plan hatched in his mind and he couldn't wait to get home to surprise her.

That Friday he planned his surprise down to the last detail. He had made a wonderful Italian dinner, uncorked a bottle of a really nice Italian wine, and bought a copy of Under the Tuscan Sun for them to watch. He also had a big gift wrapped box full of travel brochures.

When she got to his apartment the first thing he did was plunk the floppy hat on her head and hand her a glass of wine. She saw something simmering behind his eyes and knew that he was up to something. "What are you up to Tony?"

Without hesitation he zinged back, "Six two, give or take a quarter inch."

She rolled her eyes, "Everybody's a comedian these days."

They ate dinner and chatted about their weeks. Laura could see that Tony was almost vibrating with excitement over something.

She finally cornered him in the kitchen as they waited for the coffee to brew, "Okay spill it already. You're making me twitch."

"Okay okay." He laughed and went and got the wrapped box. He handed it to her and said, "This is your birthday and Christmas present."

She shot him a questioning look then proceeded to open the box. She looked at the brochures then raised her eyes to meet his, "I want to take you to Tuscany. We can see it all. Look at this stuff. There is so much to do. We've got to plan."

She looked down at the brochures but didn't see them through the tears that filled her eyes. "Tony this is incredibly sweet but I can't accept this."

"Oh c'mon it will be great. It's like you said, we'll eat and drink our way through it and find all those little out of the way places."

Her voice would only come out in a whisper, "Tony when I told you it was my dream vacation it wasn't exactly true. It's not my dream vacation it's my dream honeymoon. I'll go anywhere else on the planet with you but I can't go to Tuscany. I know I'm getting older and I'll probably never have the wedding and the husband and kids and the white picket fence but I can't give up the dream, it's all I have left. I'm sorry."

She put the box on the counter and went to walk out of the room. He was quicker though and snaked out a hand and pulled her into a tight hug. He hated the fact that she sounded so defeated and so accepting of the fact that she would never have any of those things. And sounding almost like she didn't deserve to be loved and have all those things. And he ached to be the one to give them to her. He held her and stroked her hair. After a few minutes she pulled back a bit and gave him a peck on the check and squeezed his hand and left. And she hoped he realized it was her own demons that upset her and not him.

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She stopped at the liquor store and bought a bottle of eighteen year old bourbon and called Gibbs' cell phone.

"Gibbs."

"If you've got some time I've got a very expensive bottle of bourbon that I'll share."

He and Laura enjoyed each other's company and they went to lunch when they could and caught coffee after work fairly often. It was a flirty friendship that they both valued and guarded. He didn't like the catch that he heard in her voice and wondered what exactly Tony had done now. He gave her directions to his house and told her that the door was open.

She got there a half hour later and went inside. When she called out he answered from the basement but warned her to grab glasses from the kitchen on her way down.

If ever Gibbs had seen a look on anyone's face that indicated a need for bourbon it was the look on Laura's.

She smiled and handed him the glasses and bottle and he cracked it open and poured them each three fingers worth.

She took the glass he offered and clinked it to his, "Cheers." She turned and looked inquisitively at the boat skeleton, "So this is the infamous boat."

They stood there sipping their drinks and she explored the in's and out's of the boat with almost a reverence. He watched her as he leaned up against his workbench. He knew she would tell him in her own time what was wrong.

She finished looking over the boat and made her way over to where he was standing and climbed up on the stool he offered. "It's going to be a beautiful boat Gibbs."

He winked at her in reply and refilled their glasses, "So what did DiNozzo do now?"

"He wants to take me to Tuscany on vacation."

Gibbs wasn't often speechless but this beat all, what was Tony thinking? "I thought you two had worked everything out."

She took a deep breath and told him everything. He listened without comment and when she was finished he scratched his head and refilled their glasses. "Look Laura, I'm not the best person to give relationship advice. But I gotta ask. Why are you so afraid of letting him in? Everyone can see that he's crazy about you."

"Because men like Tony don't end up happily ever after with frumpy, weird, almost middle-aged, librarians Gibbs." She replied flatly as she picked up the bottle and poured them each more.

So that was it in a nutshell Gibbs thought to himself. He wondered who had placed that huge kernel of self-doubt in her mind. Father? Past lover? Someone had. And she had built a pretty sturdy wall around herself because of it, very sturdy in fact if Tony's unfettered charm hadn't been able to breech it. Or maybe it had and that was her problem.

He met her gaze over his glass and asked gently before taking a sip, "Are you speaking from experience or just supposition?"

She didn't answer right away and got off her stool to walk to the other workbench and examined the tools lying there. She sighed and turned around leaning back on the bench, "Experience. My junior year of college I worked as a tutor and was assigned in the spring semester to tutor a fellow junior named Marcus Bastina. He was a frat boy and a jock and drop dead gorgeous and everybody loved him. He was the life of the party. But he was also flunking two major classes and was going to lose his scholarship and get pulled from sports so they got me to tutor him."

She laughed at a memory and continued, "You have to keep in mind I was the quiet one that lived in the library and did a lot of volunteer work, a nerd of the highest order. Anyway Marcus was charming and he did work hard to get his grades back up, but he also took it as a personal challenge to get me to loosen up and have fun. Somehow he managed to convince me to start going out with him as a friend to things outside of the tutoring. He discovered that I do in fact have a sense of humor and that I have other interests outside of my books and he dragged me everywhere."

She paused and took a big sip of her drink, Gibbs standing there fascinated by the story, "Everything was going great, he was passing his classes and the semester was wrapping up. He invited me to party at his Frat house the weekend after classes broke and when he insisted on walking into the party holding my hand I realized that we had become more than friends. I should have run the other way." She chuckled.

"I said that after my second divorce." He commiserated raising his glass in salute.

"Things went really well after that though; at least I thought they did. I was staying on campus during the summer to take a couple of the master's level classes I was able to take early and Marcus took a couple summer classes so his class load would be lighter in the fall. We were happy, in love, and just living large I guess you could say. We got an apartment together and he proposed just before classes started in the fall and I said yes. I really, really should have run the other way."

"To ex-wife number three." He snorted.

She teased, "Should I remind you of this if you ever decide to find an ex-wife number four?"

"Please. Or just shoot me. So back to your story what happened?" he splashed more amber liquor into their glasses.

"Time marched on and I met his parents over Christmas, it was a disaster. They were used to him dating the homecoming queen and being the local hero, and here he was bringing me the frumpy little bookworm home as his fiancée. It got ugly and we left a few days early because of the arguing. I noticed he was a little withdrawn after that for a long time but I just chalked it up to him not liking to fight with his parents. Boy was I wrong."

She took a sip and shook her head, "I guess I should have seen it coming or maybe I just didn't want to but I had traveled to Washington for a special symposium at the Library of Congress for three days, and through a fluke was able to catch an earlier flight home and walked into our apartment to find him having sex with the president of one of the sororities in my bed. She was this blond, graceful, beautiful thing that was everything I wasn't."

Gibbs didn't say anything but he went over and stood shoulder to shoulder with her leaning up against the bench to offer his support.

"So needless to say I broke the engagement and he found someplace else to live. And I decided that I would never be taken in again by a good-looking, charming man." She ended with a wry little grin and belted back the remaining bourbon in her glass. She could feel that she had a really good drunk coming on and welcomed it.

"So you are putting Tony in the same category as Marcus?"

"No, I am putting myself in the category of being too much of a coward to even think of trying."

He stood up and shook his head gently and grunted, "Hmpf." He went over to the other bench and put down his glass and picked up a sanding block. He plied it gently to a rib of the boat. He was also feeling the effects of the almost whole bottle of bourbon they had consumed and was trying to put his thoughts together.

She meandered around the basement and picked up a handful of wood shavings and sawdust, closing it gently in her hand she brought it to her nose and inhaled gently, "Mmm, they should bottle that smell and make it cologne. Women would go nuts for it."

She heard him stop sanding and when she looked over he was standing there with the silliest expression she had ever seen on his face, and she suspected that not many people ever had, "What's so funny?"

"Just remembering a conversation I had with Abby once about cologne, I told her that the women that I date like the smell of sawdust."

They had a good chuckle over that and he went back to his sanding and her meandering. She stopped at the back wall of the basement where a large rectangular sheet covered object hung on the wall.

"Hideous family portrait Gibbs?" she teased.

He dropped the sanding block and walked up behind her and reached around her with both hands to grab and lift the sheet off. What she saw took her breath away. It was a mirror. The frame was made up of hundreds of small pieces of wood in all different colors and grains. They had been painstakingly sanded and fit together with small dowel pegs. Layer upon layer it was built up into a heavy frame. It was stunning.

Gibbs was watching her in the mirror as she gently ran her hand over the frame. Her face was luminescent and her smile wide as she took in the mirror's details with her auburn curls cascading around her face. She suddenly felt his stare and she met his eyes in the mirror, somewhat intimidated by the intensity of it.

He stepped a bit closer to her and murmured, "Beautiful."

She broke the gaze and looked at mirror's frame, "It is a beautiful piece Gibbs."

She met his eyes again in the reflection and shivered as he traced a finger along the line of her cheek, "I wasn't talking about the mirror Laura. You are so beautiful here," he traced her cheek again and trailed the finger down her neck and followed her sternum to stop above her heart, "and in here. And any man that doesn't see that doesn't deserve you."

She felt a huge lump rise in her throat and she didn't know what to say. And she couldn't bear the intensity of his gaze any longer. She dropped her chin and closed her eyes. She felt his hands on her shoulders turning her gently around and it wasn't a surprise when he crooked a finger under her chin and lifted.

It also wasn't a surprise when she felt the warmth of his lips pressing to hers. She opened her eyes to meet his and felt his tongue teasing for entry. She felt his hand slip around her neck to tangle in her hair and she found her hands holding onto the front of the unbuttoned denim shirt he wore over his t-shirt trying to find something solid to hold on to since she felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole.

He let them catch a quick breath before fusing his mouth to hers again. His hand on her back pulled her in closer, and she could feel the heat of his body. Everything felt so right, his mouth and tongue were waking up all sorts of sensations she had been trying to forget she wanted. His mouth left a trail of fire in its wake as it moved down to her neck where he knew just where to nip and lick.

Everything was so right, but so wrong and a vision of Tony's green eyes and warm smile flashed before her and she felt herself pulling back from Gibbs, "Gibbs, wait. Please."

He pulled back and met her eyes and she whispered, "You're going to hate me but I can't do this."

His eyes softened and he tilted his head to one side and replied softly, "Why?" Already knowing the answer.

She rolled her eyes to the ceiling and he could see the tears forming and she was biting her bottom lip fiercely, "Because I'm in love with Tony." And the tears started in earnest.

He pulled her into a tight embrace and tucked her head under his chin and stroked her hair, "I know."

"What am I going to do?"

"Tell him."

"I don't know if I can."

"Then just don't push him away when he tries to get close to you, let him in. You know he's going to keep trying. Let him in."

She looked up at his face and saw the caring in his eyes, and reached up and stroked his cheek, "I'm sorry about this."

"Just tell me that Tony is really the only reason we're not rolling around in the sawdust." He asked with a glint of humor in his eye.

That got him the smile he was looking for and she chuckled, "I like sawdust remember?"

He planted a gentle kiss on her forehead, "Things will work out Laura just have faith."

----------

She woke with a start the next morning and it took her a second to realize what woke her up, her cell phone beeping with an incoming text message sitting on the coffee table. Not her coffee table. Not her couch. Gibbs'. She sat up and let the soft blanket that had been covering her, fall. The instant stabbing pain in her head brought back all of the previous night's events and she groaned as she rubbed a temple.

She flipped open her phone to see a message from Tony asking if they were still on for breakfast at the beach. She looked at her watch and realized what time it was.

"Damn."

"Something wrong?" said a low voice from the kitchen doorway.

"I'm supposed to meet Tony in an hour for breakfast, we do it every Saturday." She walked towards him.

"Coffee?"

"Oh you are a god among men, how is your head by the way?"

He chuckled, "Fine. You're just an amateur."

Sipping the coffee he poured for her she found him staring at her over his own mug with a little grin playing at the corners of his mouth, "What is so funny?"

"You're cute in the morning, not very graceful, but definitely cute."

She laughed then groaned softly, "Does that line work for you often?"

"I don't know you tell me." He countered.

She doubted that very many people got to see this side of him, this caring and playful man that he kept such a tight reign on. She stood up from the chair and made her way towards the door, stopping behind him where she impulsively snaked an arm around his chest and leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek, "Thank you for last night, for everything."

He reached up and rubbed the arm she had pressed to his chest, "Just remember that if he hurts you I know how to get rid of the body without leaving any evidence."

She giggled and made her way to the bathroom to try and freshen up a bit before meeting Tony, she just didn't have time to go all the way home. She was looking at the horribly wrinkled disaster that was her linen blouse when there was a gentle knock on the bathroom door.

She opened it and Gibbs handed her a neatly folded t-shirt and he said simply, "Clean shirt." And gave her a wink. She laughed when she saw that it said Property of the U.S. Marine Corps and she laughed even harder when she put it on and realized it smelled like sawdust.

----------

Thankfully the aspirin that she had taken at Gibbs' house was kicking in by the time she pulled into the parking lot at the beach. Keeping her sunglasses on against the glare she made her way over to where Tony was sitting on a blanket he had spread out.

"Hey." She said as she walked up behind him and sat next to him.

"Morning." He handed her a large coffee that he had safely tucked in the sand.

He could see that she wasn't at her best. And he noticed a couple of other things too but didn't mention any of it. Yet.

"Tony I'm sorry I reacted that way last night. You were being incredibly thoughtful and I was jerk. I should have told you about all that long before now. I hope you can forgive me for it. It wasn't you, it was just me being me."

He looked out over the water and said very matter-of-factly, "You and I seem to be apologizing to each other a lot lately."

"Yeah." Was her reply in a low voice.

"Maybe we can wipe the slate clean and call everything even. But I have to know something first." He said still not looking at her.

Confused she asked, "What?"

"Did you sleep with him?"

She choked on her coffee and when the coughing subsided she asked, "What are you talking about?"

"Gibbs. Last night."

She sat there just staring at him.

He decided to elaborate, "After you left my house I drove over there to get some advice but I saw your car there. And now you show up here in yesterday's jeans wearing Gibbs's t-shirt, hung over, and smelling like sawdust. Not to mention your lips are bruised from being kissed."

He sighed and continued in a lower voice, "And your car was still there this morning when I drove by. So please just tell me."

Honestly being her policy and not wanting to hurt him she took a breath and without hesitation said, "I didn't sleep with Gibbs Tony. I went over there for the same reason you did, advice. We drank, I finally got to see the boat, we talked, we did kiss but we stopped because it wasn't right. And the reason my car was there this morning was because after we drank an entire bottle of bourbon driving was out of the question so I crashed on his couch which did no favors for my back or my linen shirt hence the borrowed t-shirt."

The relief spread through him like a drug. He knew she wasn't lying.

"How's your head this morning?" he said with a little grin, finally looking at her.

"Better than average." She teased.

"Repeat after me, bourbon is not my friend."

They had a good laugh and all the tension was gone. They finished their coffee and muffins and decided to take a walk down the beach together.

He was dying to know so he asked, "So was Gibbs a good kisser?"

She punched his arm playfully, "I am so not going to answer that, if you are curious kiss him yourself."

He laughed and they walked a bit further and his expression grew thoughtful, "You know Abby was right about something. You really are Gibbs' type. You've got the red hair, brains, you're beautiful, sexy, and have an attitude. Match made in heaven."

"I may be his type but you forgot the other half of that equation, which asks is Gibbs' my type?"

"I'm starting to wish we had never had that ‘types' conversation at the bar."

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