Tsunami

Disclaimer: NCISLA characters belong to Shane Brennan. All original characters and this story are mine.

Chapter 1

Operations of Special Projects, Los Angeles

Henrietta Lange entered the old Spanish style building, making the most of the space to herself. It was a Sunday morning, the previous day had been an emotional day and she needed a distraction. A familiar pounding sound from the gymnasium caught her attention, before she even made it across the open space and up the two steps to her office. She carefully placed her handbag on the hook and headed in that direction. She furrowed her brow, he was the last person she had expected to see in the office that morning. She cleared her throat.

The figure stopped and turned, sweat beaded across his brow, the amount of moisture on his grey t-shirt, proved that he'd been at it for some time. "Hetty. What are you doing in here? It's Sunday." He turned to continue his attack on the sand bag and the older woman sighed. She would need a new leather bag sooner than later.

"I think that is what I should be asking you, Mr Callen." He paused on his assault. She knew that by calling him by her old name for him, she'd catch his attention.

"Hetty…"

"No, George. You cannot provide a good enough explanation of why you are in here this morning. Of all the mornings in your life, this is the one time when you should be at the hospital with your wife and sons."

He knew that she was right. Hetty was always right. He swallowed the hard lump in his throat and licked his lips. The woman may be tiny, but she could make any man nervous. Just like he was right then. She was the closest he'd had in a long time to a mother and he trusted her more than most. But he needed to be there, right then.

She caught the look in his eyes. That lost look, to say, I need to be here. Hetty walked the few steps over to him and gently placed her hand on his arm. "You'll make a wonderful husband and father, George. You have a good heart." She placed his hand on his heart and held it there. "What's in here, is what matters. Not what happened when you were nine years old." Memories of that day when she had called his social worker to move him from the Worthingtons flashed in the forefront of her mind. She had no idea who Baxter was, only that Clara's boy needed her help. He was heading down the wrong path to destruction once he'd made that choice to steal a car.

"But Hetty, I made the biggest mistake of my life…I thought I wasn't good enough for them. I thought that they were just like the others. After…" He couldn't go there, tell her what the doctor had done to him, after all that he'd been through already.

"None of it was your fault, George. Your father should have told you who he was. Your social worker should never have placed you in that home with that…man." She couldn't even find the right words to describe the animal who had destroyed every bit of good left in him. She shuddered at the memory.

A tear fell down his cheek. It was one of the worst times in his life. "Why didn't I know you then, Hetty? If you had come to rescue me back then…I could have come to live with you earlier and not gone to that place."

She gently squeezed his arm for comfort. "I am so sorry, George. It was too late before word got to me about what you'd suffered. I should have had a closer watch over you. The last time I had seen you, you were doing great. You were happy. Please, George. Remember the good ones, not the bad." Hetty sighed. It tore at her heart on how unfair life had been for the man before her. She was proud of what he'd become, even when the odds stacked against him.

Callen shook his head. "No, Hetty. You have nothing to apologise for. You saved me. When I was fifteen, you saved me from going back to jail. If it wasn't for you, I'd be in jail for who knows what crimes. But instead, I can use what skills I learned as a teenager, to help our government put the bad guys away."

Hetty smiled at his own admission.

"What are you smiling about?" He looked at her slightly confused.

"You've always had a good heart, George. You've suffered more than you should have. More than anyone should have. They treated you like an animal, you never deserved any of it. But you found your way eventually, and look at you now. A good man, whose risked his own life to keep the people of this country safe. You couldn't have made me more proud." She sniffed back the emotion that threatened.

Callen bended over and hugged her. "Thanks, Hetty. I needed that." He looked over towards the showers.

"I'll brew a pot of tea, while you have a shower. I'll meet you in my office." She turned with a beaming smile on her lips. Her boy had grown up and she was indeed proud of him. It broke at her to see him doubt his self worth, after all that she'd done for him and that he'd proven to those around him. She wasn't surprised at the reason why all these emotions from the past had come back to hit Callen with another tsunami. His father showing up like he had the day before at his wedding, and his admittance of trying to adopt him when he was nine, had brought back the darkest of days for him. He needed all the love and support from his family and team to help him deal with it all. She smiled when she heard his familiar steps across the tiled floor. She looked up at him and smiled. "How do you feel now, George?"

Callen sunk into the cane chair opposite her and took her offering of a cup of tea. He shouldn't have been surprised by her choice of chrysanthemum tea. How many times had she told them about it's soothing qualities? He'd lost count. He took a sip and savoured the beverage. "A little better, thanks to you, Hetty." He took another sip before continuing. "So you were around when I was nine?"

Hetty nodded her head and her smile vanished from her lips. She took in a deep breath and waited for him to talk to her.

"I remember being happy, I was with a nice lady and she painted my bedroom yellow. It was my favourite colour back then. But then…" his visage darkened as the memory washed over him.

There was no judgement in Hetty's eyes as she too took another sip of the soothing tea. She sat and listened and had all the time in the world for him.

"The next place, they ruined everything. He…" Callen couldn't even say the man's name, he'd tried as hard as he could to block out the man's name from his memory. "He did things that no one should ever do to a child. I hated yellow after that. Nothing I had ever loved before brought the comfort it had again. It changed me. Sent me on a dark path, towards hatred, crime and I felt numb. So numb that it didn't matter what anyone tried to do or say to me afterwards, no one was going to hurt me again like he had." He took in a ragged breath, it laid heavily on his chest. "Then the Worthingtons took me in. They were nice, especially Gloria. I remember how kind she was. But Baxter….he had this look that scared me. I thought he was ready to hit me, like…" Callen wiped his hands over his face as he tried to clear the cobwebs away from his memory. "But I got it wrong. He was angry, but not at me. I thought he was angry at me. I was used to men being angry at me, with me, telling me it was always my fault. If only I had known…"

"You were but a child, my dear George. No one can expect a child to understand grown up things. If only I had found out, I could have helped, all I did was have your social worker remove you from there. I saw how scared you were, how broken you'd become in such a short time. It scared me on how quickly you'd changed."

Callen knitted his brows together. "That was you? You sent my social worker to the Worthingtons'?"

"That I did. And now that I know the truth, I wish I hadn't. You could have lived with your father, found out who you really were, and so much of your past would have been different."

Callen shook his head. "No, Hetty. I only returned to collect my bag. I was running away. I was leaving no matter what. But I remember how sad they looked when I left. I kept hoping that Baxter and Gloria would fight for me, but they didn't." A tear escaped. "Why didn't they fight for me?"

"I've been thinking over that exact question myself, George. From what I remember, you were in such a bad state at the time, I think your father blamed himself for what had happened to you and he couldn't deal with it."

The pain in Callen's chest was strong. Every painful memory of that time returned and hit him with full force. The tears fell more freely and he quickly stood up and left her. He needed the time to take everything in. To deal with the emotions that threatened to destroy the hard work he'd done to lock it away. But it was no good.

She let him be, giving him the space that he needed. She poured a second cup of tea and sipped, while she opened her laptop and tried to focus on work.

Another set of footsteps came her way. Much heavier than Callen's. She looked up and smiled at her visitor.

"Hetty."

"Mr Getz. It's always a lovely surprise to see you back here. What can I do for you?"

"Where is he?"

Hetty raised her brow, "who?"

Nate sat down in the chair that Callen had recently vacated and sighed. "Savannah's worried about him. He left her two hours ago and he's not answering his cell." He caught Hetty's gaze up to the second floor and followed it.

"I think he needs some time to deal with everything, Nate." Hetty poured a third tea cup with the chrysanthemum tea. "Drink this."

Nate took the cup and sipped. He was more a coffee person, but he'd accept the gesture, knowing that it was more a ritual with the older woman. "Has he said anything to you?"

Hetty pursed her lips.

"I take that as a yes then. That's good. He needs to speak to someone. I'm glad that he's opening up to you."

"We have a long history together. He sees me as a surrogate mother. So that helps."

"How far back, Hetty? How far back has Callen known that you've been there for him?" She'd allowed him access to his limited file, most of which had been redacted.

"Since he was fifteen. I had to step in to save him from the path he was heading down."

"But that wasn't the first time that you'd stepped in, was it?"

She took in a deep breath and shook her head. "No. I found him when he was seven. But he never knew about me until he was fifteen. I took him out of the orphanage where I had found him and tried to find him a good home. There were a few good ones, but they kept moving him. In the end, the experiences he'd suffered, destroyed him. I had to step in when he was nine. He'd stolen his first vehicle. Only yesterday, have both of us realised whose car it was."

"His father's?" Nate had heard how Baxter Worthington had tried to adopt his son at nine.

"Yes. But it was I who forced his social worker's hand to move him on from them. I couldn't risk him being sent to a boys' home. I had no idea that I was moving him away from his father. Baxter never said. George had stolen the car to run away. He mistook Baxter's anger at the previous foster father and the doctor who was suppose to treat him at the hospital."

"He thought that Baxter was angry at him?"

"Yes. Whether I stepped in and had him moved or not, he was running away."

"George has just admitted to me, that he'd wished that Baxter and Gloria had fought for him back then. But they didn't and he still cannot understand why they didn't. Until he sorts this out, I don't think that there's any chance of him seeing his father again."

"His father won't leave until he does. He's with Savannah and the twins right now. I've just left them. It's affected Baxter more than we realised. It may appear that he's gone on with his life without his older children, but it's been a burden on him for all of this time. Both Callen and Baxter need to deal with this. Otherwise it's going to destroy the two of them. And I'm not sure that Baxter will recover as well from another stroke, the next time."

Hetty broke the pencil in her hand. That had worried her too. "I agree. But we can't force George to see his father, if he's not ready for it."

"Let me speak with him. See if I can persuade him to see Baxter."

"No." They both looked over to the figure that leaned on the pillar. "I'm sorry, Nate. But I can't. It's one thing to keep everyone happy yesterday, but now that our wedding is over, I will not be forced into talking with him. He had his chance when I was nine. Tell me when he's left the hospital and then I will return to see Sav and our boys." He exited the mission, grabbing his car keys on the way out.

"Oh Bugger."