Guilt – post-scene to episode 10x01 "To Live and Die in Mexico"

I enjoyed most of the premiere, but I found myself feeling unfulfilled at the end. It felt rushed, and like it was missing something. The more I thought about it, the more I realised what was missing was Hetty, and in particular Hetty with Callen. So, I put her there :-)

I've got to say, this turned out a lot more melancholy than I excepted! When the words started coming to me, it isn't what I thought I would create at all. It's my first 'one-shot', and my first time writing from Hetty's perspective, so I'll be interested to see what you think.

In the quiet room of the Balboa Naval Hospital, Hetty listened to Mosely in the corridor dispassionately relating the condition of the team to the Admiral back home.

"Everyone is stable. Deeks and Sam are conscious. Callen's got a long way to go. Punctured lung, internal bleeding and fractured vertebra."

In the dim light, Hetty wondered how she could remain so cool, so emotionless. But that was Mosely all over.

"I did what I had to do to get my son back."

Still hiding under the peaked cap and dark clothes so unlike her normal office attire, she turned slowly to look through the glass to the room where Hetty quietly sat.

"Of course I understand the cost."

After a long moment, during which time she did not make eye contact with Hetty, Mosely pocketed the phone and turned away, disappearing into darkness as she walked down the dim corridor. Hetty shook her head. Mosely was not at the moment her concern.

She supposed, if you only looked at the bare facts, that the mission had been worth it. The life of one military personnel traded for that of an innocent child. That the life in question was so young herself, barely scratching the surface of what would surely have been a successful career, a positive force of good against evil, Hetty hadn't yet allowed herself to fully process. In time, she could feel at peace with Agent Hidoko's death, the young woman now forever reunited with her lost love. In time.

In time, maybe she would feel at peace with all of it. For after all, how was what Mosely had done over the past three days any different to the trails she herself had laid in times of need? Looking down at her hands, Hetty felt twinges of guilt as she remembered the dangers she had placed her team in all those years ago when they had followed her to Romania, and more recently to Vietnam. True enough, the mission to Romania was specifically to protect the life of the man held dear to her, the man she thought of as a son. The man lying here now in front of her, once again quiet and damaged by enemy hands. She had known he would follow her to Romania and Vietnam just as she had known, deep down, he would go to Mexico, blindly, on faith. It was what he did. Protect the innocent. Particularly if that innocent was a child, a child being raised by the murderous hand of a villain. Try as Hetty might to still lay the blame at Mosely's feet for Callen's condition now, she found that blame coming ever harder, to be replaced by understanding, and by guilt. Oh so much guilt. Years of it. She had known he would follow her into danger and she had used that knowledge. Abused that knowledge, abused his loyalty to her for her own ends. She could lie to herself, pretend that her team had done what they had done, followed her into the jaws of potential death, of their own free will. She might not have given a direct order, but she had played on that loyalty to create unsanctioned missions of her own, where the ends justified the means. How was that any better than Mosely holding Callen to his rash promise? Sure, he had made it lightly all those months ago, with no real idea of the hell it would draw him into, but he was and always had been a man of his word and once that promise was made, he would keep it. She knew that. Hell, she had even driven Mosely to confide in Callen in the first place, knowing how that conversation would go. Did that make her complicit now to what had happened to them all? If she blamed Mosely, how could she not blame herself?

Maybe guilt was an emotion pre-disposed to them all. She knew when Callen woke he would feel guilt for what had happened to his team. He hadn't wanted them to go to Mexico, but Hetty had known they would, and Callen would take that responsibility on his shoulders. Mosely would not yet admit it, but there had been guilt in her face through the glass too, hidden under the dark cap and the carefully controlled emotions.

And how many times had she herself been driven to resignation by the loss of an agent? Driven by guilt, and the thought that she could bear no more losses under her name? First Sullivan, then Dom, and Renko and Lauren Hunter. Each one weighed heavily on her soul, and with her hand closed softly over the warm and unnaturally still hand of the agent she treasured most of all, Hetty felt herself once again shed a small tear for each of those she had lost, brought to the fore once again by the close brush with death of her whole team in this recent folly. How many more would there be? How many more could her heart stand? Each time they went out into the field, they gambled with their lives. She knew it, they knew it. A lot of the time it was expected, for the greater good. But that didn't make the losses any easier to bear.

And yet, maybe some good had come of it. A mother and child reunited. All her team home, and secure in the knowledge they had done the right thing. They would heal, of that she had no doubt. What they had been through… she understood some from Harris Keane, who had overseen their rescue from the Mexican hospital, and yet more from Arlo Turk. She knew just how strong each of them was. How they had not given up. Kensi and Deeks, torn apart by love, would now let love put them back together. Each had seen a glimpse of the harsh reality of what their life might be like without the other, and now they could talk again, and heal their emotional wounds.

Sam, poor Sam, had come close to losing the closest thing he had to a brother. After the loss of Michelle, Hetty could well imagine the terror running deep in his soul at the thought of losing Callen too. It was, after all, a terror she felt every time he walked out of that door, every time he put himself in a dangerous position to save another. The closest thing to a son, to family of her own, that she had ever had. But they hadn't lost him, not this time. Sam's skills and knowledge had saved Callen's life, and Hetty hoped that would go some way to repairing the hopeless void left by the knowledge he had been too late to save his wife.

Callen had done as he had always done, led his team through hell and out the other side. Hetty looked sadly at his still form, willing his recovery to be smooth.

Just as it would take time for them all to physically heal, it would take time for them to accept the loss of Harley Hidoko. A loss none of them were yet aware of, but they would all feel it deeply when the time came. The bright young agent had slotted well into the close-knit team and there would be grief over her passing. But time healed grief, and Hetty knew that the loss of someone else from this, their work family would only make her team yet more determined to come back whole from each and every mission. To fiercely and loyally have each other's backs the way they always did. Sitting quietly at Callen's bedside, Hetty said a silent prayer for all those lost from her family. She knew, they all knew, sometimes the dice didn't roll favourably and no matter how skilled, how tenacious and loyal, sometimes it just wasn't enough. One day, they might not all come home.

But, for today, they had, and for that Hetty was thankful. Grief, guilt, blame – that could all wait. For now, she simply felt gratitude that she still had her team. She still had her family.