Still not mine, all mistakes, however, are.

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It's my thinking that while Tony would easily know things about Jimmy like his family and such because Jimmy would tell him, I think that it would take a while for Jimmy to know things about Tony besides the surface things since sharing personal information has never been Tony's forte so here Jimmy gets a glimpse of something from Tony's past.

Spoilers: 4x07 'Sandblast'


"I heard that you actually got along with Josh Cooper."

"I wouldn't say that I got along with him, just convinced him to go to Princeton instead of the Marine Corps right now," said Tony as he fiddled with his glass before setting it down on his coffee table.

"Think he'll follow though?"

"Yeah, he definitely will. The kid's made up his mind, he won't back out of that plan," Tony replied as he stared at the collection of pictures on a side table next to his big screen TV.

"Think you'll get another chance to catch Sharif?"

"We'll get him," Tony told Jimmy confidently.

"What makes you so sure?" asked Jimmy frowning slightly, it's one thing to hope that they got another opportunity but it was another thing to have complete confidence that they'd get another opportunity and that they'd come out on top. From the tone of Tony's voice Jimmy guessed that it was the latter.

"I promised Josh that we would find the people responsible for his dad's death and that, Palmer, is a promise I intend to keep," Tony told him, his voice had a bit of an edge to it but his eyes never left the frame they were currently trained on. A slightly heavy silence followed before Tony started to speak again. "Hey, you want another drink? I'm going to get another soda," he told Jimmy, flashing him one of his trademark grins that, in Jimmy's opinion, was just a bit too forced.

"Uh, sure thanks, Tony," Jimmy said as Tony made his way to the kitchen.

Jimmy found himself along and curiously drawn to the cluster of picture frames that Tony had spent a good part of the evening staring at. By that point Jimmy had been to Tony's place several times before so he knew that the pictures on that particular table were of friends from his days at Ohio Sate University to the various police departments he had worked for before coming to NCIS. He picked up the frame that had held Tony's interest; it was the picture of a beautiful young woman who couldn't have been any older than twenty-two when the picture was taken. She reminded Jimmy of his sister, Lauren, same bright smile and lively eyes; he bet that she was just as vivacious as Lauren was. Everything about the picture screamed college so he surmised that she must have been a college friend of Tony's. A quick scan of the myriad of pictures on the table revealed some more pictures of the young woman but she was never any older in any of them, always trapped in college years despite the fact Jimmy could find numerous pictures of various college friends as adults. He wondered about that, obviously she had meant a lot to Tony so why did all the pictures of her stop after college? Jimmy sighed and he found his mind wandering back to one of the first times that Tony had visited him in his apartment.

--

"She's pretty, is she your sister, Palmer?" asked Tony indicating the picture of Lauren that had been taken last summer on vacation.

Jimmy glanced at the picture before nodding. "Yeah, that's Lauren; it's from the cruise she took last year with her husband, Tyler, two months before he got deployed."

"Your brother-in-law's a Corpsman, isn't he?"

"Yeah."

Tony picked up another photo, it was one of Lauren, Tyler and Kevin at his parents house for Easter last year. It was one of Jimmy's favorites of the many photos that Lauren routinely sent to her baby brother.

"That's from Easter last year at my parents' house, it's one my favorites."

Tony nodded and for a moment Jimmy saw something in his eyes that he couldn't quite place but before he could examine it further it was gone and Tony was talking again.

"So when does your brother-in-law get back?"

--

Soon afterwards they had gone out to play another game of basketball and Jimmy had forgotten all about that look until tonight. It was the same look that he had in his eyes when he had talked about keeping his promise to Josh Cooper, something at odds with the edge evident in his voice. He was so lost in thought that he didn't even know that Tony had returned until he heard the clink of the glass hitting the coaster causing him to jump slightly.

"Oh, hi, Tony, you're back. See, I was just looking at the pictures you have here, they're all really nice. I didn't move anything out of place I pr—"

"It's okay, Jimmy," Tony said quietly and Jimmy had the good sense to not let his surprise show too much, Tony had never called him Jimmy before. "I got you another drink," he said gesturing to the glass sitting on the coaster before joining him at the picture table. "She was a beauty, wasn't she?" he asked indicating the picture of the young woman who reminded Palmer so much of his older sister.

Jimmy's mind latched on to that one word, was. Well, that explained why all the pictures stopped after college.

"Who was she?" he asked quietly.

"Her name was Charlotte," Tony answered sadly.

Jimmy almost didn't ask but he had to know. "What happened to her?"

"You know what, I think it's time that we get back to that movie," Tony said taking one last look at Charlotte's picture and Jimmy is finally able to identify the fleeting look in Tony's eyes.

It was the look of someone who had lost someone close to them.

Perhaps one day Tony would tell him about Charlotte but tonight, tonight they would watch the movie he had brought over and Jimmy was okay with that.


So, I know that Ari's mother died when he was younger in a bombing while Ari was with his father but did they ever say how old he was at the time? I ask because I've been planning a story out with mentions of what happened to Ari's mother.