A/N: When August comes around it will be three years since my first story, The Bench, was posted. There are a few more storylines that grew from it and some have been posted but some still languish on the shelf collecting dust motes. This is one of them. I wrote and posted Time to Think as a one-shot but a precocious professor made me look at it as more. She made me see it more like an examination of Callen's emotions and his ability to process how everyday people live with their own emotions and how they work together as couples not as lone wolves. I hope I've given him the ability to eventually have faith in Sara and his team mates as support and people who love him. In advance of you taking time to reading 'thank you'. BlackBear53

Leaving Home

Opening Salvo

Chapter 1

I had walked through the door to a wonderful homecoming last night and now it was time to leave. I'd come home to a house full of love, happiness and laughter, and truly enjoyed spending time with my ladies, but I couldn't stay now. I felt angry, bewildered and betrayed. I needed to go.

I answered the door when Sam arrived and just by looking at his face I knew that he wanted to talk me out of what I was doing. I needed time and being here in my own home wasn't helping. Sara turned the corner, walked out of the kitchen into the living room and found us just as Sam opened his mouth to speak but instead of trying to head me off, Sam offered to take Gretchen out to the back yard and play so that I could speak with my wife. As Sara's gaze panned over me she noticed my duffle bag and bedroll sitting on the floor by the door. Knowing that I hadn't used them in years, it seemed to shock and dismay her. She obviously thought that I had a new assignment and it gnawed at me that she couldn't see how angry and upset I was.

Sara had happily told me last night that she was about four months pregnant with our second child. That might have been something I would have wanted to know a lot earlier. When I asked her why she hadn't let me know she expressed her feelings of wanting to share that information with me personally, not through an intermediary, like Hetty. She felt that it would have put me in danger because I would be thinking of her and the baby and not my job or my own safety. She might be right but that should've been my decision, not hers. Gretchen and Sara mean the world to me and so will this new baby, but to not tell me after I missed most of Gretchen's pregnancy, seemed heartless. I was infuriated and I wanted to strike out, not physically, but I did end up doing it emotionally. At the moment I felt I couldn't trust her and with those thoughts I reverted back to my own childhood. That lack of trust that I had lived with during most of my youth couldn't be fixed and I couldn't see how to fix this either. I needed to go, think about our life together and figure out how to deal with my confusion and the resulting fury I felt.

She asked where I was going, was it work related? I said the one thing that I knew would irritate her the most. "No, I need time to think." I heard the acid in my voice and saw the pain in her eyes and while I didn't truly relish inflicting that pain, she needed to understand what I felt at that moment. She stepped back to regroup but I just kept coming. "I need time to think about our marriage and how you could keep this from me."

When she asked what this was really about I couldn't answer at first. I looked her in the eye and seethed inside at what I thought of then as her secretive behavior. In turn I had to make sure of what I needed, so I responded with the only real thing on my mind. "In all reality… trust." I knew exactly where her mind would go and it did. I also knew that she'd be devastated by my lack of trust in her and I used it to cause her pain. She believed that I thought she got pregnant elsewhere. I never for one minute thought that. I knew she'd never do that, but trust is a funny word. It conjures up so many images in a person's mind. "You kept this from me, I had a right to know and make the decision to come home or stay undercover on my own. I didn't need you or anyone else to protect me."

I could feel my fury mounting as the moments passed. All I wanted was to pick up my bags and walk out but she wasn't done yet and while I didn't realize it at that moment, neither was I. At that point I asked for the other reality from her, total honesty. It jolted her. I cut her to the quick with that remark. As I look back on it I felt her pain and her essence crying out. I know now that it was selfish but I just couldn't let my own pain go.

With the heartache and pain I was feeling, she needed to understand where I came from. It wasn't just not being told about the new baby, but the operation we'd just run had an odd twist to it that left me feeling exposed. It had become more personal for me so I started to tell her about it. I told her how Sam and I had caught the bomber we'd been after but we hadn't known about a second one, one who aimed not at public venues but a private one.

Sara stood across from me aghast. She thought that I'd lost my mind and screamed at me. "What on Earth has this to do with us?"

I hadn't wanted to tell her and I'm sure the look on my face darkened the more she spoke, for I knew my mood had. She left me no choice but to tell her. "She came into our home, our kitchen and she meant to hurt my family. The same family you didn't think would need protection. This is why this is so important to me. I wasn't here to protect you." I know that she didn't know how this woman meant to blow up my house, my family and in the process destroy what would have been left of me. But I hoped with time she'd understand how devastating that would have been for me.

Sara crossed the room and put her hand on my cheek. She'd done it once before when I went to find her in Rhode Island. I removed it then so that I could help her sit up. I removed it now because it was lessening my determination to leave. I wanted to scoop her and Gretchen up, slip out the back gate and move away from Los Angeles. I just couldn't do it feeling the way I did so I took her hand away. I hated myself for that. I turned from her and emotionally pushed her away from me by using the last painful remark I had. "I need time to think about us."

Sara blew up. "What is it that you have to think about? Is it how to deal with the fact that someone cares this much about you? What it means to be part of a family? What it really felt like to have someone protect and love you?"

Those were all damn good questions and they were what kept me thinking for the next two months that we lived apart.

With those words ringing in my ears I picked up my bedroll and duffle bag and walked out the front door. I speed dialed my partner and waited in the car realizing that he was going to give me hell all the way to work. I thought about a way to shut him down at least for the ride to work.

A moment later Sam came through the front door and strode to the car. The look on his face was concern and anger.

I sensed the riot act that he was about to drop on me and I stopped it before it could start. "I don't want to talk about this now."

Sam, incredulous, wouldn't let it drop. "You just walked out on your wife and daughter. We just came home last night for the first time in three months and this happens? What's going on G?"

With my jaw set and staring straight ahead Sam knew he'd learn nothing here and now. I'd bet that he thought that maybe later I'd tell him.

Sam turned the key and started the car. As we drove to the mission I'm sure Sam kept seeing the stricken face of my wife. He also knew that as far as stubborn went both Sara and I were evenly matched. We would both need help and as soon as he had a free moment he'd call Michelle and then talk to Hetty. When we arrived at the mission Sam tried one more time. He grabbed my left arm as I moved to leave the vehicle. "G, talk to me."

I looked down at his hand, shook my head no while gritting my teeth, got out of the car without saying a word and went into the building leaving him sitting there steaming and worrying.

I'm sure that Sam just sat thinking about how to help the man who he thought of as a brother and I knew that he had nothing at that moment.