Very many thanks to my lovely Beta-reader MyOwnWorstCritic!

Chapter one: We've got ourselves a case

"You never really talked about your father's death..." Nate sat himself down in the seat by the window and patted on the spot next to him. Kensi stared at Nate... more like stared through him. She had been dealing with this for so long, and had indeed never told anyone. She never could. Everything was still so fresh in her mind, like it all happened just yesterday.

With Dom gone, shot before her own eyes and those of Sam and G as well, everything came back to her so fast. She experienced it all so realistically again: the sneaking out of the house at the base where her father was stationed and her father never returning there. She hadn't slept for more than 4 hours a night since Dom's death, and she knew that it would stay that way if she didn't give in to the opening Nate was giving her right now.

Kensi broke the stare and pushed herself off the pillar she was leaning against, and sat down on the spot Nate had motioned her to.

"We were living on this base in the middle of nowhere. One night I wanted to go with my friends to the movies, but my dad said no. He left me at home to go and have a beer with some guys in his platoon, so I snuck out anyway. Anyway, after that I came home. He didn't. MP's found his body on the side of the highway the next day. Coroner needed dental records to identify him," Kensi said, opening up to their psychologist and friend, but not as much as she had hoped to. She still couldn't wash away the feeling of nausea waving over her every time she thought about her dad.

Murdered.

They didn't let her near his body. Too badly beaten, she wouldn't have wanted to remember him that way—or so they thought. Every night that she hadn't been able fall asleep, she debated with herself what she would have chosen had they let her choose for herself. She still doesn't know whether she would have chosen to see him or not. Or if it would've made a difference, for that matter.

"What about his drinking buddies?" Nate broke her out of the daydreaming state she was currently in.

"Questioned, cleared, and shipped out. Case was never solved."

The only response Kensi got from Nate was a questioning look on his face.

She really wasn't ready for this part. To open up about how badly she wanted to find those guys and either ask them nicely what happened that evening, or simply murder them one by one. She just wasn't ready yet, so she smiled at Nate, cracked a joke about the Titanic movie she saw that night and stood up to leave. She slowly walked away and didn't look back while walking to her desk downstairs.

She didn't need to know if she had hurt Nate's feelings by giving up so soon. She just had to make sure it wasn't interfering with her work so he wouldn't ask her about it again.

When Kensi almost arrived at her desk, she smiled and welcomed the familiar bickering between her two best friends, forcing her to put her downbeat mood aside.

"I'm still pretty sure I'm the best Special Agent on this team." Callen's smug face was staring at the big pile of paperwork that was just dropped onto his desk, like his stare was going to dissolve the papers one by one.

"Oh yeah, and how would you define 'the best'?" Sam's mocked, looking straight towards G's face so that he could be ready for whenever his partner would look his way.

"Well that would be 'G. Callen.'"

A snort could be heard from the other side of the desk.

"I would define it as the person who's gotten himself in a dangerous situation the least because of his own stupidity." Callen still didn't look up, even though the expression on his face changed slowly into annoyance when he saw that the stack of files on his desk didn't flinch away of his angry stare.

"I would still win."

"Seriously? You really think that?" Sam was now genuinely shocked.

"Uh uh."

"Okay then, let's see... getting yourself at gunpoint while 15 Militia people are surrounding you, gotten yourself held hostage, getting yourself knocked unconscious, getting yourself three speeding tickets in a row, and of course not to be forgotten, getting yourself shot." This got the attention of Callen, making him glare at Sam, a determined look on his face.

"Losing your suspect in a chase 3 times, getting your favorite car filled with bullet holes, getting your alias already exposed after 15 seconds, and last but not least, always in need and relying on your partner." G's smile grew wider.

"See! I would still be the winner."

Just when Callen was about to become triumphant, Sam added, "Being shot five times at the same time counts double. You lose." It was Sam's turn to smile at his partner when he saw G's mouth fall open.

Right at that moment, Kensi arrived. Both men turned around and Callen saw his opportunity to win.

"Kenz, who do you think is the best Special Agent on this team?"

Her eyes flew back and forth between the two tough guys. "With or without all the facts you just mentioned?"

"With."

"Without."

Sam and Callen looked at each other with narrowed eyes when they spoke up at the same time. Kensi smiled. She liked it when they spoke at the same time. She didn't answer though, because Eric's whistle disturbed their conversation.

With a sigh, both men got up and where planning on moving towards the stairs when Kensi spoke up, "Then it would be me of course." With a big smile she walked past her two colleagues and made her way upstairs leaving behind two baffled men.

When Sam and Callen arrived in the OSP center, all the others were already present and impatiently waiting for the two last to arrive.

The little woman known as their boss was the first to speak, "Glad you could both join us. We've got ourselves a case. Eric?"

Eric gave Hetty a small nod and pushed a button on the keypad in his hands. The big screen flickered alive and started playing a video. The video was seen through a security camera; it was taken somewhere in downtown Los Angeles. Two middle-aged men on the left side of the screen were arguing, pushing and pulling at each other. There was no sound, but the man most visible to the camera was clearly yelling. After 15 seconds of arguing, the lesser visible man pulled a syringe out of his pocket and injected it into the right thigh of the man he was arguing with, emptying it completely. The injected man got a pained expression and pushed the other man away, hurrying towards an area not obscured from the security camera. After that, the video froze.

All of the people in the room kept staring at the screen, waiting for something else to happen that could explain why Hetty had them watch the video, because there was still nothing referring to the Navy. When nothing followed, Sam spoke up.

"Is there something I'm missing here or...?" The moment he said that, Sam turned his head around so he looked straight into the big smile of Callen.

"Oh, don't you even try to command that, skinny, or I'll make sure you don't miss my fist in your face."

"Would that be wise, Sam, to threaten me while Hetty's in the room?"

Sam didn't get the chance to answer that.

"I'll just answer your question, Mr. Hanna. You're not missing anything, I just haven't showed all of it yet." Again, with a single look towards Eric, the guy with the glasses spoke.

"The man in the video who was injected with the syringe tried to run the hospital..." Mid-sentence, Eric pulled up a photo on the big screen. "But he didn't get as far as he had hoped." The picture showed the man lying face up in the middle of a grass field just around the corner of the entrance to a hospital in downtown LA.

"The man you are looking at is a former Marine by the name of Glen Fortell. A little less than 15 years ago, Mr. Fortell gave up his career as a Marine to work at the counter in a supermarket. No one had ever heard of him since, until now."

Sam was again the first one to speak up after Hetty's dialogue, "So a former Marine who turned his life around almost 15 years ago, gets killed now. Why?"

"That is exactly what needs to be found out, Mr. Hanna."

As obvious as it sounded, Callen wasn't satisfied with the information presented to them. There was something missing. "How old is Fortell?"

"Next week he would've turned 47 years old," Eric said.

"So, at the time he stopped working as a Marine, he was what, 32 years old? Why stop at that age and start working in a supermarket?" G's thoughts began to wander. A long pause followed, while Hetty slowly turned her gaze from the questioning look on Mr. Callen's face towards that of his female colleague.

"I am sure Ms. Blye can provide you with that information."

With that, Ms. Lange took little, but firm steps towards the grand entrance of the OSP center to quietly leave the room. Meanwhile, the rest of the team looked at Kensi hoping she would indeed shed some light on the situation like Hetty had just said.

Only Nate didn't quite look as surprised as the rest of them...

Nate looked shocked.