You've been expecting this since the beginning, but that doesn't mean it hurts any less. After all, haven't you lived this story out before? Over and over again you have walked down this same road and even though you try and make different choices it always ends at the same place. Here.
You think back over this history, wonder where you went wrong this time. What moment was it when you sealed your fate, stepped that first step down the road of separation? Was it the first time you touched her? The day she asked you about family and you mentioned Sam and Deeks and Kensi and Hetty - not Romania or foster care at all? Was it the very first time you met? Because really, this has been a lie since the very beginning. But no matter how long or hard you think, it always comes down to the same choice you have made over and over again - loyalty versus happiness; and loyalty always wins. You are an agent first, before you are anything else - and even though she doesn't know that you can't forget it.
So then today comes and you have to decide, and even though you postpone as long as you can, when the time comes to choose between her harm and her anger, you choose anger. You take the loss just like you always have before and even as you save her life you are rebuilding the walls in your heart.
Deeks looks into your eyes at the wrap-up of the case and you hate the pity just as much as you are grateful for it. And she is as angry as you expected her to be and when she walks away you accept the rejection easily because it is familiar. You settle back into an old skin as you exit this relationship through her front door, and your memory rewinds, lightning fast, all the way back to the very beginning of today, when Sam looked at her picture on the OPS screen and squeezed your shoulder in the anticipation of the loss. You don't look back as you close the door.
Except this old skin doesn't fit as well as it used to, and Christmas is too close and she was too close for you to give up that easily. It is hard, hard and risky and so exceptionally vulnerable for you, but you call her and when she doesn't answer you leave a voice message. Sam tells you to leave it at that (because we all know it's Sam who advises you on relationships and not the other way around, no matter how much you bluster) and you listen to him.
Skating starts, and Deeks and Kensi are kissing across the rink, pretending like they don't know everyone is watching. Sam and his family are happily debating, bantering like they love each other. And you? You're skating alone, but you're happy anyway because these people are the family you didn't get the chance to grow up with but they're here now and for this moment that is enough.
Until you see her. She is sitting on the bench watching you, and your heart thumps in your chest while you execute an about-turn and come to lean on the edge of the rink in front of her. Your bandaged hand rests on the edge, and she looks at it for a split second but you don't notice because you're humble like that.
The conversation begins with obvious facts restated and an awkward tiptoeing around the words that can't be said, while trying to regain that [thing] you had before. She changes the subject. "Are they your family?" she asks innocently, and you hesitate in honor of your childhood but the truth spills out easily enough. "Yes." You invite her to meet them, and she can't know how big of a gift that is; but it doesn't matter because she is interested in more than that. "I have to meet you first," she says; and if you stop breathing for a moment at that forgiveness nobody really notices.
So you slide easily down onto your elbows and the reconciliation between you two is beautiful. You grin and she smiles; and the sadness you didn't think would matter this much melts slowly onto the ice under your feet, and the anger she didn't know would hurt this much leaks gently out and dissolves into the wind. This is what it means to love, Callen. This is what it means.