Monday around lunchtime Laura was at work with her back to the library's reception counter trying to look something up on the computer on the back table when a familiar scent of sawdust permeated the air and she turned to see a smiling Gibbs standing at the counter. "Got time for lunch?" he asked.

They went to a little deli around the corner and got sandwiches and ate near the fountain in the courtyard of the library.

"So did everything go okay with Tony?" he asked, and she told him all about it.

They had finished their sandwiches and were sipping coffees when she said, "I have decided to take your advice about just letting him in. Just go with the flow so to speak. I'm really not good at talking about my feelings."

"Me either. Probably explains the three ex-wives."

"Oh by the way, if Tony kisses you at some point its all my fault."

Gibbs almost spewed his coffee but managed to contain it, "What?"

"Well he wanted to know if you were a good kisser so I told him if he were that curious to kiss you himself."

They shared a warm laugh and he walked her back inside. And as he was turning to leave he leaned in close to her ear and whispered, "Its comments like that one that show just how my type you really are Laura." He snickered and left. And she spent the afternoon trying to figure out what sort of bizarre friendship their relationship had morphed into.

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The following Saturday Laura called Tony late in the morning to find out if he was free that afternoon, they hadn't met for their normal breakfast as Tony had worked really late the night before. When he told her he was free she asked him to meet her at a strange address.

He pulled up to a neat little house in a nice neighborhood; he noticed the realtor sign out front and was confused. He saw Laura's car and another that he didn't recognize. He parked and got out heading for the door when it opened and an impishly smiling Laura appeared.

She pulled him in and he saw that the house was empty except for the gentleman in a suit with a realtor's badge hanging from the pocket.

Laura led him through the empty house chatting at him a mile a minute. He managed to discern that she wanted to buy it. The house was in great shape, and the price was a bargain and well within what she could afford. It had a nice back yard and had been planted heavily with shrubs and flowers. She was so excited that he thought she would burst.

He gladly sat beside her as she filled out all the paperwork with the realtor. He had never seen her so happy. Both of them were so distracted, he watching her and her taking in the nuances of the house that they didn't even correct the realtor when he started talking about how perfect the little three bedroom house would be when they wanted to start a family. He just assumed they were a couple.

As she finished up with the realtor Tony wandered a bit. He was mentally trying to place her furniture in the house and smiled. Then he frowned as images of his own furniture tried to join the picture. This was going to be Laura's home. Not just an apartment, not just a place to keep her stuff, but a home. Permanent.

Nothing in his life was permanent. He hadn't had a home since he was a child. He had apartments and places to live, but not a home. The closest thing to a home that he could envision was Laura's apartment. It was the only place he felt at home. Then he realized it wasn't the apartment that made it a home, it was Laura. And a fresh wave of regret washed over him.

Tamping down those feelings he put back on a happy face for her and they finished up with the realtor. He told her he had errands to run and they parted ways for the day. He didn't really, he just wanted some time to try and sort out his feelings again and try and compartmentalize them again.

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He drove for a long while trying to do just that when he found himself at Gibb's house. The Boss' car was in the drive and Tony knocked then entered, being careful to make some noise and call out as he went.

He found Gibbs as expected, in his basement working on the boat.

He got a simple, "DiNozzo." as a greeting and he sat on the stairs watching Gibbs work.

"Boss do you really think people have ‘types'?"

Gibbs paused his sanding and looked over at Tony, "Yeah. But I don't think they are necessarily set in stone. What about you, do you think people have ‘types'?"

‘I don't know. I used to think I was everybody's type. Now I'm not sure." He said in a quiet submissive voice.

Gibbs knew he was talking about Laura, "Did she ever say you weren't her type DiNozzo?"

"Yeah." Was the reply from Tony, who wasn't surprised that Gibbs knew who he was talking about.

Gibbs wasn't buying it though and he pressed, "She said those exact words?"

Tony looked at him and thought hard for a moment, "No, she said she was sorry she wasn't what I wanted."

"Did you listen to that she said DiNozzo?"

"Yeah, I can take a hint that I'm not her type."

Gibbs sighed, "Repeat what she said again."

Tony did and then mouthed the words again and the light bulb of understanding flared over his head.

"She thinks she's not my type Boss?"

"Monday I am signing you up for a remedial listening course DiNozzo."

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Tony had a plan. Well not so much a plan but a mission. A mission to try and show Laura that she was in fact his type. He just didn't know if she would believe him, but he had to try.

That Friday on their normal night out Tony volunteered to cook even though it wasn't his turn. He just needed her at his place so he could be nonchalant about showing her some things.

They worked side by side in the kitchen and he had a flashback to the first night they did this when she had gotten out of the hospital, there was teasing and laughter and no tension. It was a nice feeling.

He purposely steered the conversation to suit his needs and when they crashed in the living room with a couple Irish coffees he put his plan in motion.

They were laughing about bad pictures from the past and how they always turned up.

"I doubt you ever had a bad picture taken of you Tony, I really do." She teased.

"Ha! How little you know." He teased back and was extraordinarily pleased with himself for steering the conversation in exactly the right direction. He stood up and went to the bookshelf in the corner and pulled down a stack of yearbooks.

He settled back on the couch right next to her and opened the first one.

"This is my junior high school yearbook. Welcome to the 80's have a nice day." He chuckled and proceeded to show her not only his awful formal picture but some of the candid shots as well. There was a girl beside him in most of the candid shots, and he ran a gentle finger over the picture and there was genuine affection in his voice when he said, "That's Megan. She was my girlfriend for all of junior high. She was so smart and funny and she got me into more trouble."

Laura looked at the pictures of Megan he was pointing out and was a little surprised, by anyone's standards the kindest thing that anyone could have said about the little girl was that she was homely. She had big owlish glasses and wore braces on her teeth. Their prep school uniforms weren't exactly stylish but hers just seemed to make her ganglier.

"She went to a different high school than me and we had to split up. But I still get Christmas cards. She's a teacher and got married to a great guy and they've got three beautiful little girls." The gentle smile on his face was a testament to his affection for her.

He pulled out his high school freshman yearbook and she was treated to pictures of a young Tony starting to look like the handsome man sitting beside her. He played football and basketball and she was surprised to see that he was a member of both the Spanish and Home Ec clubs. He pointed to a girl that was in both club pictures and said, "That is Anna. I met her the first day of school and decided about two minutes after meeting her that she was going to be my girlfriend."

Again she was surprised, the girl wasn't prom queen material, she was plain and a little chubby but she had an amazing smile and there seemed to be a glint of a trouble maker in her eyes. "She wouldn't go out with me at first, said I was too much of a jock. So I joined her two clubs to show her I wasn't. Took six months but finally she decided I was worthy enough to be her boyfriend." He laughed and dug out the next yearbook.

This one had lots of Tony playing sports, even as a sophomore he had been extremely talented. He flipped to the candids in the back and stopped on one in particular. "This is my favorite picture of us and I bribed the yearbook committee photographer to put it in." The picture showed Tony in jeans and his football jersey sitting on the ground leaning back against a tree with Anna wearing a copy of his jersey sitting between his legs with Tony's arms wrapped around her and his chin tucked on her shoulder. Both of them grinning like fools.

They went through the next two yearbooks and saw more pictures of Tony and Anna. They were together all through high school. Laura saw a flash of pain in his eyes when he said, "We ended up going to two different colleges, and it was too hard to do the long distance thing. We tried for a while but it just didn't work. She's married now and works as a translator in Houston. I guess she's doing okay, we haven't kept in touch really. It just hurt too much."

There was a catch in his voice and Laura put her arm around him and he dropped his head to her shoulder.

"Sorry I got so maudlin on you." He said quietly.

"You're allowed. You've haven't told me very much about you growing up. I'm glad you shared it with me."

He sat up and took a deep breath, "Laura I have to be honest with you about something. I have been going over every conversation I have ever had with you in my head trying to figure out why I wasn't your ‘type' and then I finally replayed your words in my head again and realized that somehow, someway you came to believe you weren't my ‘type'. And I just don't get it. You're smart, you're funny, you're beautiful, and you're sexy as hell. So please for the love of all that's holy tell me why you wouldn't be my ‘type'."

She looked at him for a long moment and decided that the moment of truth had arrived, "Because of a man named Marcus Bastina…" She told him the whole story, same as she had with Gibbs and wasn't surprised at his reply.

"So you're lumping me in with this jerk Marcus?" he asked a little coldly.

"No! I'm lumping myself in as a coward who's afraid of being hurt again by anyone."

"So is that why you stopped kissing Gibbs and didn't sleep with him, afraid he was going to hurt you in the end?"

She glared at him and for a moment he thought he might have pushed her too far and he was totally unprepared for her quiet response, "No Tony, I didn't sleep with him because it would have been wrong since I am totally in love with you. And I've got to tell you that letting you in scares me to death because what I feel for you is a thousand times stronger than anything I felt for Marcus."

She sat there staring at her hands in her lap waiting for him to say something, anything. She couldn't believe that she had blurted all that out, so much for not being able to talk about her feelings.

Tony was dumbfounded, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to find words, but none would come. His brain was spinning as he tried to process everything. She was in love with him. She was afraid of being hurt again. He needed to kill Marcus, well okay maybe just maim him a little bit. She was in love with him. She was in love with him. She was in love with him. Screw remedial listening, he got her point loud and clear. But he still felt like he needed to reassure her.

"You know when Anna decided to call it quits it hurt so bad I almost couldn't stand it, and then right after that my parents wrote me off and it just felt like I had lost everything. And I didn't have anything left but a big empty hole in my chest. And I decided that it hurt too much to really care about anybody. So I didn't. I wouldn't let anyone in. And I put on this mask of a frat boy player. And I hated it. I just wanted to find someone who would care about me like Megan did, like Anna did. Someone who cared about me. Not the jock, not the frat boy, not my looks, just me. I want someone I can laugh with, and cry with, and someone who needs me just as much as I need them. And I've been alone for so long Laura, waiting for you. Because you're it for me. You're everything I want, everything I need. I love you."

She looked over at him to find that intense stare that he had given her a few times since she had known him but this time she wasn't intimidated by it, she finally understood what it was, what he was trying to say and do with his eyes. It was as if he were trying to memorize every line of her face in case he never got to see her again, if she left him like everyone else that he loved had. So this time instead of shying away from it she smiled. A smile just for him, one that she hoped let him know that she finally got it, finally understood. And when he tilted his head and squinted one eye at her with a little smirk playing up the corners of his mouth she knew that he knew that she got it.

And with a gleam in her eyes she asked, "So are you going to ask me out on a date or what?"

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