The heat of the Mexican sun was getting to him.
Yeah, that's all it was. Sitting there on the beach with his old buddy Mike, taking slow, indulgent swigs of cheap Mexican beer - or sometimes even cheaper Mexican tequila - while the sun baked them both at an even slower rate was getting to Gibbs.
He saw things in his mind that no man his age should see. Visions of himself in various military uniforms, things out the pages of history books. Fighting in the Battle of New Orleans, carrying a wounded buddy to a fox hole in World War I. They weren't reenactments and they sure felt real enough, even as they faded from in front of his eyes every time Mike handed him another bottle.
"You okay, Probie?" Mike asked whenever he would catch a glimpse of his face. Sometimes adding, "you look a little poleaxed."
Gibbs felt a little poleaxed. Maybe the explosion had fried his brain more than anyone realized. He thought it was just memory loss he had suffered, but now he was beginning to think it went deeper than that. The things he kept seeing couldn't be real, could they? Especially not the more outrageous visions.
Last night, he had dreamed that he was a cowboy in the old west, only instead of fighting with guns, he was attacking another man with sword. They went round and round, circling each other. Thrusting and parrying, dodging and twisting to avoid getting stuck. He could still hear the clang of the metal ringing in his ears.
A few nights before that, a different dream played out. He was standing in ... a morgue? ... standing over the body of man with that sword raised above his head. The man stirred with life, chest rising as air filled his dead lungs, eyes opening only to widen in the realization that ... and then Gibbs brought the sword down in a sweeping motion. The blade slashed through the air and then through the 'dead' man's neck, severing it clean from his body. A moment later, the room around Gibbs was filled with lightning, which struck him over and over again... until Gibbs awoke to the sound of Mike pounding on his bedroom door and the surf pounding the beach outside his window. His body and bed linens were soaked in sweat, heart racing at a break neck speed as tried to keep up with his overworked mind. And still didn't know how any of this could be real.
"You know what, Mike?" Gibbs said at last, taking the proffered beer and staring at it before he spoke again. "I think I've had enough sun for one day."
He stood up, took one more look out at the never ending rolls of ocean wave sparkling where the sun hit it almost like the lightning from his dreams, and headed back towards the hacienda without another word. That night when the dreams returned, he couldn't blame the sun, though he was desperate to do so.