Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS Los Angeles or the characters. I don't make money from this story. I just hope people enjoy reading it.
Warning: This is a death fic and I have tried to make it sad just to prove that I could write something like this. So, if you are looking for a story with a happy ending, this is not the one for you.
He knew it would happen one day. Knew it, but never acknowledged it. Not until now. He hadn't let himself think about it before. But the more he thought about it now, the more he realised the truth.
He was made to die.
G Callen waited with his team as they prepared to storm the building where a group of home-grown terrorists were holed up. Bomb makers. Soccer mom's and house husbands turned killers; crusaders for the cause.
He wondered briefly what had made them that way. Had they woken up one morning and decided to change the world by bathing it in blood? Or had it happened gradually? A slow burning fuse.
Like him.
He'd had this feeling for a while now. That he was a slow burning fuse and soon enough the fuse would burn out and light up…something. Him? His mind? His body? He wasn't sure but he had the feeling it would come soon.
His bones, aching from years of injuries and general neglect, had been buzzing lately with anticipation. He found himself pausing at odd times and losing himself in a moment where he was certain something was about to happen. But it never did and the moment passed him by, unnoticed by anyone else.
Except maybe Hetty.
She had been watching him for a while now too. Almost as long as Callen had known.
Did she know too? Know that he was going to die? Well, in their line of work, dying wasn't exactly out of the realm of possibility. It was probably more likely that they would be killed on the job than survive to retirement. But did she know?
As he checked his weapon, his mind wandered back to when he first truly let himself acknowledge this certainty in his bones.
It had been when Lauren Hunter was killed.
The look on her face; so scared and angry while a mad man had her chained to the inside of a car. It had changed in the split second before the flames had engulfed her.
She had known too.
What she had known, Callen hadn't been able to figure out at first. She had seemed so certain for that split second, so calm. She had known. She had accepted, even embraced it. It hadn't surprised her.
But what was it?
Only after his near screaming match with Hetty had he realised what that look had meant.
Hunter was the same as him. They both had been raised for this life. Selected, trained and led into this dark world of spies and secrets.
And just like Lauren Hunter, G Callen had one purpose in this life he led.
His purpose was to die.
He had raged against that logic as soon as he realised it. He wondered if Hunter had as well. Had she ignored it too? Had she wondered: why me?
Callen had thought long and hard about why he didn't get that kind of life. The kind of life he had always seen from a distance as he grew up. Grew up, but never grew out. Never grew past the limits that had been unknowingly set for him, for Hunter, for the other children.
In the present, Callen finished his check on his weapon and wondered if Hetty had planned it back then. Had she known what those children she selected were destined for? Or had she seen only the good in the endeavour? Had she really thought about what the end game would be? Because raising broken kids to be broken adults with no way to stretch their wings could never have a happy ending. It hadn't for Sullivan or Hunter. And it wouldn't for Callen.
Sam's voice, asking him if he was ready, caught Callen's attention. He made his normal snarky reply and the team was assured he was fine. They had no idea about the buzzing in his bones and he would never tell them.
They split up into two teams, Sam and Callen going in the front and Kensi and Deeks covering the back door.
3…2…1…
They entered in perfect sync, the movement going off without a problem. They took the people in the building by surprise. The every-day civilians turned terrorists lay down meekly without a fight. Kensi and Deeks moved to cuff the people and haul them up.
Something was wrong.
Callen turned to look around and as if in slow motion, he spotted someone that had been hiding before now. A child. A teenager no older than fifteen. A baby-faced killer with confused tears in his eyes and a determined look on his too-young face.
In his hand was a gun, a rifle too big for his young frame. It was held firmly, the child knew how to use it. Someone had taught him. The boy had been taught to kill if necessary. And he was going to do just that.
The gun swung up and pointed at Kensi as she hauled one of the women to their feet. The boy was going to shoot Kensi and then Deeks, Sam and Callen if he could. He would go out with a bang.
Callen didn't think. He shouted a warning but knew it would come too late. Kensi tensed, dropped and prepared to defend herself and the woman in her custody. Her gun was in her hand and being lifted to take the shot of the boy but it was too late. The rifle kicked as it fired, sending the boy stumbling back a little. A volley of gunfire entering the teen's chest sent him to the ground, dead. The woman Kensi was holding onto screamed, hysterically calling for her son. She spewed hatred and obscenities as Kensi hauled her up and away.
Deeks moved to the boy's body and removed the rifle. He closed the teenager's eyes and bowed his head for a moment at the wasted life.
Another body lay on the ground, blood surrounding it in a gory red halo. A single shot had entered the neck, severing the artery so completely that death came almost instantly.
He died with a calm look on his face. It was as if he accepted his fate, someone later remarked. As if he had known.
Special Agent G Callen was laid to rest in the cemetery next to his sister. Not many people attended. Only the people he had ever held dear to him.
His team mourned his loss, confused and adrift without him. At the grave, Kensi cried, Deeks comforted her, Sam glared from behind sunglasses, Eric moped and Nell flitted around like a nervous bird.
Hetty Lange was silent. She did not speak or even seem to mourn as she stood by the grave she had commissioned for her agent.
Inside she was wondering when it would end. Those children…had she really rescued them? There had been many, so many, whom she had dragged from the system. Orchestrated their entrance into this world. And none of them had ended any different. She had thought that it might have been a coincidence, that none of them really lived the lives they should have. None of them had family outside the agency; none of them had lives outside what the agency told them to have.
She had tried to ignore it but now she couldn't. The reality was right there in front of her, being lowered into the ground and covered up with dirt. She'd had good intentions, but how can you teach a bird to fly when it has never even known it had wings?
She had raised them up, to die.
The others left, moving away from the scene of awful finality. Hetty remained where she had stood for hours. The grave was arranged and then left untouched. Hetty looked to another headstone, the grave she had visited for some time. The grave of a little girl, long dead, buried under another name. Now she was reunited with her "baby brother".
She looked to the fresh grave and her eyes traced the words she had had engraved on the headstone.
Use the wings you were denied in life,
To fly forever
She finally turned from the grave. She wasn't ready to head home but it was time. There was nothing more for her to do here.
As she turned, Hetty saw something move out of the corner of her eye. She had been seeing these for some time. She had seen a figure when she had buried Sullivan. Her first real failure. When Hunter had passed as well, she had seen another figure. And now there were three, and they all had wings.
Three winged figures always at the edge of her vision. Never really more than a twist of the imagination. But she had seen enough in her life to believe that they were real. They were there, haunting her. Their presence, she believed, wasn't malevolent. They weren't angry, didn't blame her. But they didn't have to. She blamed herself.
She had raised them to die, and die they had. Just as she had trained them to.
Taking a steadying breath, she made her way to her car, leaving behind yet another grave, another reminder to haunt her.
The three figures were gone when she looked back.