Warnings: Well this time I guess I should warn Gibbs fans who might be offended at Tony's treatment and then again I'd better also warn his detractors who might find this encounter a little anticlimactic but as I said in an earlier A/N I strive to find new ways to write confrontations to make them fresh and wanted to avoid a repeat of the last chapter. Tony shares some thoughts in the next chapter about why he reacts the way that he does.

Gratuities: As usual I have to thank Arress for wrangling my irritating commas into submission and being a sounding board for the story. This chapter and the next are much indebted to my beta for her suggestions and support. I ended up seriously unable to write and in the end was forced to turn to a short story just to get things flowing again. Arress' assistance got me back on track so sorry for the delay but without her help this chapter would have taken a lot longer. Oh yeah and you all know the rules...any mistakes my bad.

A/N Thanks to everyone who left feedback, faved or alerted. I appreciate your support. I think I've said before that writing is a very solitary past time although I guess in some ways the characters in my stories end up becoming real the longer I spend with them (and yeah that does sounds a little creepy). Anyway... feedback is like oxygen to a writer. So thanks again for everyone who takes the time and effort to actually leave feedback for me even if it is just a couple of words. I especially love when someone zeros in on a little gem I've placed into the chapter and someone lets me know that it was noticed and appreciated.

I'm loath to say that the next chapter will be the last one given my track record but I will say that we are getting close . Hope you enjoy :)

What a Difference a Year Makes: 8760 Little Hours

Chapter 8 Ne'er the Twain Shall Meet… Well, maybe Part 3

An hour after his little chat with Leon, sitting with his partner in the trailer he'd been provided on set, Tony was sipping a green tea as he shared the crux of the exchange between him and Leon Vance. "He's always resented me. He seems to think that I had everything handed to me on a silver platter."

Shaking her head at the gall of the Director, Ceinwen gave him a comforting hug, knowing that Tony really liked her getting into his personal space, even if he wasn't keen on being touched by most people. She noticed that although he never said anything, he would tense up fractionally and his eyes would dilate when people encroached, and she figured he probably had never been hugged when he was a kid. "Dumb ass," she spat out. "Surely he didn't expect you to come back again? And that was pretty damned grubby pulling the patriot card. Have you still got that secret file, Babe?"

"It's in a safety deposit box, Lovely. Why?"

"Because… I know plenty of people in the media who'd leap at the story like a Hollywood starlet at cocaine. That's why!"

Tony smiled at her, knowing that a part of her was outraged that Vance had risen to the position of power within a federal agency, but the real reason why she was so furious was because Tony was pissed off and unsettled by his former colleagues and she wanted to hurt to them, make them suffer. Kissing her nose affectionately before moving on to steal a more sensual kiss involving lips and more, he finally surfaced for air. Damn his weakened lungs!

"Nah, as much as the bastard deserves to be outed, it would hurt Jackie and the kids. According to Morrow, he and Davenport are on the way out. They're about to be tapped on the shoulder and told to resign before their skeletons are released from the closet. They'll go quietly."

Sighing, Ceinwen admitted that Jackie Vance was a nice woman. "Do you think she knows?"

"Doubt it. I can't see her risking her family like that. Those kids mean the world to her, and they're nice kids too."

Changing the subject, she grinned. "Wish I'd seen Vance's face when you sneaked up behind him."

Tony grinned. "Yeah, the plan worked like a dream. Damn near peed his pants."

A knock on the trailer door and a shouted "Ready for you in five, Mr Paddington," abruptly interrupted their ruminations.

~ What a Difference a Day Makes: 8760 Little Hours ~

"Tony, whatcha got there?" Ceinwen hung over his shoulder, her chin resting gently on his collarbone as she perused the bunch of papers he was looking at.

Rolling his eyes before grinning good naturedly at the woman who had firmly entrenched herself into his heart. That wasn't to say that he didn't still have panic attacks sometimes when he realised what it would mean if anything ever happened to her, but he knew that if he let fear rule him he would end up alone and lonely. After just a few short months together, he remembered what he'd been missing out on. When Wendy broke his heart and he broke his own and Jeanne's hearts, he'd dealt with his grief by denial and avoidance, determined to never put himself in such a vulnerable situation again.

And then Ceinwen came along… kind, caring, beautiful and willing, she was capable of seeing beyond all the smoke and mirrors, to understand that he was fundamentally flawed and yet to trust him in spite of it. She recognised that those very flaws were what had made him who he was and spurred him to help others even as he hid himself because he had learnt not to trust others. She didn't take his flaws and demand he fix them, she simply accepted him the way he was, and it frankly puzzled him because she was the first person he could remember to accept him unconditionally. It made him want to be a better person for her, but he didn't feel pressured to change. It was weird!

And surprisingly, he found it easy to trust her, not just professionally, but to let her see his vulnerabilities, which probably contributed to him falling head over heels for her. It was such a damned relief not to have to worry about being weak in front of her after a lifetime of it being it bashed into his psyche about never showing weakness to the two most significant males in his life. And wasn't it one of life's big cosmic jokes that while his father had always demanded that he apologise for his many inadequacies, Gibbs made him feel even crappier about his failings when his childhood habit of apologising slipped out when he was under pressure or nervous breaking Rule 6. So, it wasn't so surprising that Ceinwen's faith in him affected him so deeply and she didn't accuse him of being weak when he told her he was sorry.

Realising he'd been away with the pixies, he smiled up at her. " Sorry, I zoned out there. Carter sent me the contract for the screen rights to the Deep Six franchise."

Ceinwen raised her eyebrows. "That's a very thick standard contract, Tony, What's in it?"

He grinned and grabbed her pulling her around into his lap and kissing her fondly, before handing her the sheaf of paper. As she flicked through the contract seeing nothing out of the ordinary, she realised why the contract seemed to be oversized. "Why is there a screenplay in there, Babe?"

Chuckling, he filled her in. "Carter says he submitted it when he signed over the film rights. Along with suggestions about who should play the ensemble cast. He must have been burning the candle at both ends."

Snorting as she flipped to the end to see McGee's suggestions for the cast, she gave him an amused smirk. "Delusions of grandeur methinks, hey, Agent Tommy?" She noticed the slightly hurt expression morph into one of devilment that she'd learnt soon after they began working together always meant that he had mayhem on his mind. Resigned to waiting until he was ready to share, she recalled what had brought her into their trailer. Tony wasn't due on set for some close ups until after lunch and there was pizza in the catering tent.

~ What a Difference a Day Makes ~

Waiting impatiently for Tony to finish rehearsing his choreographed fight scene with the stunt co-ordinator and his stunt double on hand, Ceinwen was picturing the scene in her mind. She knew that Tony thought it was a dumb scene, but the movie wasn't exactly Shakespeare. Anthony Paddington had to start somewhere and it was just unfortunate that Tony had worked for so many years for the Navy and could pick apart all the procedural rules being flouted by the director and the scriptwriters in this less than historically accurate film. She was trying to mollify him, and luckily after protesting the unlikelihood of the scene where he and the German spy battled each other with Ceremonial Swords, he'd finally agreed that if it was nonnegotiable, he at least wanted to do the stunt himself. Tony knew that he would have to do a lot of training and rehearsal for the scene, and at least it would keep him busy, too busy to pick apart the plot holes.

Tony's handler was surprised and pleased to discover that he'd done a fair bit of fencing at RIMA and had retained quite a lot of his technique. When she mentioned it to him after he'd finished running through the fight sequence for the umpteenth time before calling time he grinned. "It was during my Douglas Fairbanks' movies phase that I got hooked on fencing. Shame about the dorky uniforms, though."

Ceinwen grinned wickedly. "Oh, I don't know, I think I might enjoy the view… and I bet Matt would, too," she teased him, giggling. "Tell me you've still got them, Tony?" She pleaded.

Mock scowling, he smacked her on the butt lightly. "Behave," he admonished her. "Y'know we had a case years ago that involved Ceremonial Swords and a dead sailor. I got to go to Roosevelt Roads Naval Base in Puerto Rico because they were illegally selling Officers' Swords to enlisted sailors. These baby sailors were playing this MMORPG, and then started playing with swords for real when they realised they were both on the same ship. It was back when Cate was still a probie agent, and she was horrified that we all had to share a cabin together. So naïve when she started."

Looking at her sideways, he changed the subject. "Did you want something, Lovely, or did you just come to watch me practice?"

She grinned. "Yep, to both questions. I missed the last ambush regarding Operation Stalk the Stalker/ Shadow the Shadower. Can I be in on the next one?"

He grinned, right back at her. "I don't know. Can you?" He teased.

Poking out her tongue at him she rolled her eyes. Falling to her knees she began pleading theatrically, hamming it up in a performance worthy of a children's pantomime and drawing plenty of amused looks from the various crew members. Laughing boisterously, he dragged her off the floor, agreeing she could be there when he ambushed Gibbs. Truthfully, he would feel better having her close by. She probably sensed that having him following Tony around was making him pretty antsy.

"Okay, Ceinwen, we'll ambush him by the coffee cart down near the running track. I'll meet you there after I do the switch with Jake. Worked pretty well the last time, Sweet Cheeks," he observed, referring to his stand-in, Jacob Somers. "Once the sub takes the field and we swap clothes, I'll slip out and meet you near the coffee cart and we'll ambush him. Okay… questions?" He queried?

Ceinwen shook her head, smiling at the thought of finally meeting Leroy Jethro Gibbs. She couldn't wait for Tony to give him a piece of his mind. According to Tony's friend, Rocky Balboa, Leon Vance was still in an evil mood, even reducing one of the new security staff members to tears with his temper tantrums. She was really sorry she'd missed it.

~ What a Difference a Day Makes ~

Tony was running sans Ceinwen this morning. It was just him and the personal trainer, Matt, and as they ran they swapped opinions on the NBL teams for the season, since Matt was almost as big a fan as his client. They'd even started up a pick-up game amongst the crew, who seemed a bit surprised that Tony wanted to hang out with them playing ball. Knowing that Gibbs was following along behind them unsuspectingly like the bulldog that he was when he got a bone between his teeth, he prepared himself mentally for their skirmish.

Approaching the amenities block, he yelled out to Matt. "Hey, Man, I'm busting. I need to take a leak."

Ignoring the eye rolling from his trainer, he ducked into the toilet block and shed his exercise gear and baseball cap and changing into the jeans, T-Shirt and hoodie that his film stand-in, Jake, had waiting for him, before Jake quickly dressed in Tony's exercise clothes. Shoving his cap onto Jake's head, Tony grinned and gave him a thumb's up. Jake was disappointed that he didn't get a chance to hang out with Ceinwen this time around, joking that they'd had a good time making out together before. Tony had responded by saying that she'd obviously had such a good time that she refused to run with him a second time and Jake had pretended to be gutted. Telling him he was an ass, he slapped him gently on the back and Tony slipped out a couple of seconds behind him. As his stand in, Jake did a lot of preparatory blocking of scenes for close-up shots for him and for some of the filming of scenes that didn't need close-ups. The two of them were similar enough in appearance to pass for each other in a cursory examination, but up close the substitution would be obvious.

Taking a shortcut across the grass to get ahead of the Jake pretending to be Tony and Matt the personal trainer dog and pony show and their faithful tail, he rendezvoused with his handler (and he admitted to himself happily she was so much more than that) as they waited for the procession to catch up with them. As they ran past, Tony prepared to waylay Gibbs and confront him, but his Lovely was quicker. She stuck out her foot and deliberately tripped up the famous Leroy Jethro Gibbs, and while he collapsed heavily on the grass all tangled up in his limbs, she smiled at her partner innocently, shrugging before turning to Gibbs.

"Oh, oops, my bad… what a klutz I am, Gibbs… It is Gibbs isn't it?" Holding out her hand to the man to shake it how do you do, even though he was still lying prone on the ground, she smiled her piranha smirk that had been honed into that of a predator from dealing with the Hollywood elite. That was when Gibbs paled as he noticed Tony, and he looked shocked as he saw Matt and Jake aka the Tony doppelganger running along the path ahead. Glaring at everyone, he increased the intensity as Ceinwen grinned at Tony who was amused, if a little shocked, that his Lovely had deliberately tripped his old boss.

Gibbs ignored her outstretched hand and scrabbled to his feet, annoyed to have been placed at a height disadvantage, and even worse, to have been made to look foolish. For someone who thrived on psychologically intimidating his opponents, loss of face was a serious blow to his ego.

Looking at Ceinwen, who smiled sweetly at Gibbs with her I'm as pure as the driven snow expression, Tony gave her an admiring look. Man, talk about sneaky! Grabbing her playfully and giving her a breath-stealing lip lock, Gibbs interrupted, growling, "Keep it in your pants, DiNozzo."

Tony wiggled his eyebrows cheekily. "Jealous, Gibbs?"He dropped the amusement and glared at Gibbs before switching to their silent communication mode, letting his facial expression demand, "What's with the stalking?"

Gibbs grunted, which although Tony was rusty in Gibbs-ese if he wasn't mistaken meant: 'To get ya back where ya belong, on my six'. Well, either it was that or else 'my six is getting long, wet your back,' which on second thoughts didn't sound terribly plausible.

Going with the first option he glared back at Gibbs which meant in SFA DiNozzo-ese, "Kiss my ass, Boss."

Grinning with a wolfish leer, Gibbs launched himself at his former agent, clearly deprived of being able to head slap him for over a year and in severe withdrawal. Grabbing his fist long before it connected with his head and squeezing it harder than was strictly necessary, Tony made it clear that he wasn't going to cop any of Gibbs' crap.

Need you watching my six, no one else I trust, DiNozzo, the functional mute maintained stoically, mostly sans words with the odd grunt/growl thrown in for emphasis.

Of course, this made interpreting Gibbs-ese a bit hit or miss, especially when he was so out of practice, but it was all coming back (just like a bad takeout meal). 'Too bad, so sad I can't say the same about you."

Nodding, disappointed, but not seeming too surprised, Gibbs' arctic glare softened somewhat and he gave a frustrated groan that Tony interpreted as 'coulda…maybe done it different,' which Tony figured was as close to an insincere apology as he was ever likely to get from his former mentor. Being ever the pragmatist, he accepted it for what it was.

'Damn straight!' he responded silently as he looked across at Ceinwen who was staring at them both, confused. She was perceptive enough to pick up the strong passions, but not the nonverbal subtext beyond their emotions since she'd never met Gibbs before. And if he was fair, even people that knew Gibbs well couldn't speak Gibbs-ese.

Tony decided that he didn't really have anything left to say to the man who had been such a major influence in his life for so long. He actually felt at peace after having faced all his demons, with the exception of a certain Israeli assassin who had apparently gone down on a ship called the Damocles off the coast of Somalia. Extending his hand to Gibbs who shook it, he observed, "Good talk," before smiling at his supportive handler, grateful for her presence.

Obviously deciding that all was forgiven, Gibbs zeroed in for a parting head slap, clearly unable to control himself. Shaking his head at the foolhardiness of the man, Tony feinted and slipped under Gibbs' arm, spinning around 180 degrees so he was facing the Marine's six, sorely tempted to deliver a head slap of his own. But there was no need, since on the somewhat uneven ground when Jethro ended up slapping the air, he overbalanced and ended up ass over turkey for the second time in five minutes.

~ What a Difference a Day Makes ~

Glaring up at his former senior field agent who used to leap to obey him, his former protégé who used to think the sun rose out of Gibbs' ass, Jethro growled, frustrated and disappointed. Twice DiNozzo had evaded his head slaps with graceful catlike ease, and Gibbs had the sudden realisation that all those times he thought he was sneaking up on him might have been more a case of DiNozzo toying with him. After all, he had set him up with a clever sting and then ambushed him very effectively.

A wave of sadness washed over him when he realised that Tony was the only one who had ever stood up to him, ever bothered to learn how to communicate without words, dared to call him on his crap, ever had the nerve to tease him or make him laugh. Or if it came down to it, the only one who had ever been able to get one over him. Finally realising just how much he'd underestimated his protégé and taken him for granted, he also recognised too late, just how much he'd lost.

Looking across at the calm expression of the former agent and the stormy glare of the blonde woman with the blonde locks and curvy figure, he realised that Tony was happy, and he felt of twinge of envy that he'd found someone that gave him that contented look. He remembered that look, that feeling. He'd had it with Shannon for over a decade of his life, and he missed it. He looked at DiNozzo's girlfriend closely, noting that she was a beautiful woman with an inner core of steel that reminded him of his own soul mate. Forgetting that the blonde had deliberately tripped him up, he accepted her hand to help pull himself up, as his knee didn't appreciate hitting the deck twice, even if his vanity didn't want to admit he could do with a little help.

Afterwards he claimed that it was the smell of the coffee that distracted him which had suddenly appeared in her hand like a conjurer. And in his defence it had been almost an hour since he'd drunk his last cup, but as she was helping him up the woman, who DiNozzo hadn't even introduced, stumbled against him and spilled the scalding hot beverage all over him. Clucking apologetically and fussing with the ubiquitous clean hanky, she took the opportunity to lean up close and personal, her lips brushing up against his ear.

"Stay away from him. You hurt him again and I'll crush your nuts." Withdrawing from his personal space, she smiled sweetly. "I'm such a klutz. Send me the dry cleaning bill, sugar. Keep the handkerchief… no, I insist."

Grabbing DiNozzo by the hand, she smiled a breathtakingly loving smile at him. "We'd better head back, Babe. Interior shots this afternoon and you need to head to make-up."

Gibbs watched in shock as the woman who had just exhibited a degree of menace that Ziva David would have heartily approved of, morphed back into demure girlfriend, or whoever the Hell she was. Chuckling in spite of his discomfort and ire at being threatened by a perfect stranger, he couldn't help but be reminded of a certain red-headed spitfire of his own acquaintance. One he mourned each and every day since she'd left him.

Watching them nostalgically as they strolled across the grass arm in arm, he caught a snatch of conversation. "That's it, Babe? All that angst and all that planning and that's it? Four freakin' words? JEALOUS GIBBS and GOOD TALK? Really? That's ALL you wanted to say?"

Hearing the lower bass tones from DiNozzo's speech but not the words, Gibbs saw him smiling goofily at her. He said something before teasingly kissing each eye, the tip of her delicate nose and finally her lips. He really could keep his hands off her. As they walked away, Gibbs heard her say, "I WILL NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS UNDERSTAND GUYS!"

Oh, yeah, Shannon definitely. Bet she'd love that one. Looks like DiNozzo had found himself a keeper!