Tropical Storms
by: LavenderAndSnow
Characters: Hollis Mann, Leroy Jethro Gibbs
Themes: Angst, Hurt and Comfort, Character Study—Hollis Mann
Warning: spoilers until S5
Summary: She savored on the precious cold memory of Gibbs again and again in this tropical storm.
She was standing in the living room watching the heavy storm darkening the skyline. Opening the window she was welcomed by a mixture of heat and humidity swirling in the wind.
The tropical weather she had not yet gotten used to.
The tropical weather she was trying hard to be familiar with.
Hollis Mann was holding up a glass of iced tea. Looking at her own reflection in the window she thought of how different she used to be. Instead of that camo uniform she usually wore, she was in her silky floral pajama dress. Her blonde hair cascaded on her shoulders with that natural curls she was proud of. Oh, Gibbs loved her curly hair.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs.
The split second thought of him brought back a familiar sense of pain, yet it also brought a light smile to her lips.
She remembered how Gibbs touched her hair, his fingers lingering on those curls softly as he leaned in to kiss her. She remembered all those moments, like tiny, sharp fragments of time, when she was drowning in his crystal blue eyes. She remembered when she turned around from him for one last time those beautiful moments became nails digging into her heart.
Hollis started to think about her days in D.C..
She fell for Gibbs too fast. Before she knew it she was in love with him. Until this day she hated herself for that.
She savored on the precious cold memory of Gibbs again and again in this tropical storm. The way he held her from her back on the baseball court, the sweet, soft muttering of "Holly", the gentle stroke he placed on her heart before it became a painful pinch.
But she knew she had to leave him.
She could not always walk in the shadow of his Shannon and Kelly. She loved him just like Shannon did but her pride wouldn't allow her to receive anything less than what she was giving.
Hollis had too much pride.
She sat down at the table, sipping on some tea and watching the storm completely taking over the sky.
Sometimes she wondered if Gibbs had ever regretted letting her go. She wondered if he would ever regret it. But she would never ask, and she would never know.
That evening, trying hard to push Gibbs out of her head, she picked up the book from her nightstand and resumed her reading. Old habit dies hard.
On the page it reads, "When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object".
What an irony.
The storm finally stopped.
"When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object".
—Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being.