AN: As promised, here is the first chapter of my newest fic! And also as promised, Bethany Woods makes her first real appearance! I hope you all like her. She won't put up with all of Callen's crap - some, but not all - but she's still insecure about her abilities as an agent and thinks...oh, you'll see when you read the story. So enjoy and please, leave me some feedback to tell me what you think!

Toxic

Chapter 1

The entire building at the Office of Special Projects was quiet, as it always was after eleven p.m. The bullpen was mostly dark, the overhead lights dimmed to the barest glow. Bethany Woods, temporary replacement agent for Sam Hanna while he was on vacation, walked out of the locker room with her gym bag in her grasp. Her long auburn hair was damp from the quick shower she took ten minutes ago, and she had pulled it up into a ponytail on top of her head. Pulling her mp3 player out of the bag, she was about to put in her earbuds when she saw a form slumped on the leather couch in the alcove, seemingly asleep. She had to admit that she was a little surprised as she had thought everyone beside the night crew had gone home. As she got closer she realized who it was, and her face softened into a smile. Her hand lightly stroked the person's shoulder, trying to wake him without scaring him to death. Bright blue eyes slowly opened and stared at her, and her smile widened.

"Trouble sleeping lately?" Beth asked.

"Not just lately," Callen shrugged, scrubbing his hands over his face. Truthfully, he was none too keen on the idea of having a female partner, and even less enthusiastic about having any partner beside Sam. Which, if he thought about it, was ironic since he and Sam had not gotten along well when they first met, either.

She glanced down at the paperwork he had been trying to finish, the open folder sitting beside him on the couch, and frowned. "It'll still be here in the morning, y'know."

"Yeah," he sighed. "But I wanna get it done while it's fresh in my mind."

Taking in his haggard appearance, she said, "If you don't get some real sleep, your mind is gonna be anything but fresh."

He shot her a look, but she just put up her hands in a defensive gesture. "Hey, you can complain that I sound like your mother, but you know I'm right."

Callen continued to try and glower at her, but she only stared back. He wisely gave up.

"I'll go home in a bit. I promise," he told her.

She gave him her best skeptical look, but a moment later she nodded. "Okay. G'night."

"Night, Beth."

Only then did she plug in her earbuds and walk out the door.

Callen picked up his pen and went back to writing his reports. He made it through two sentences before he was asleep again. The pen slipped from his hand and fell to the floor, half under his couch.

She was back at seven the next morning, and was unsurprised to see Callen standing at his locker, his shirt from the night before balled up in one hand and a new one from his gym bag in the other. As she walked past him she flicked his ear and said, "Liar."

"Ow!" he cried, turning to glare at her. "What was that for?"

"You never went home. You promised!"

"I had a lot to catch up on," he explained. Slipping his shirt on, he walked into the gym and grabbed a basketball from the corner. He dribbled it for a while, passing it from one hand to the other, then tossed it toward the backboard thirty feet away. It bounced once on the rim, and then dropped through the net.

Beth got to it first, and as she took a spot to shoot from he moved under the hoop, watching. She bounced it to him and he checked it back, and with a simple flick of her wrist she launched it right through the hoop.

"Nice," Callen remarked. "Been practicing, huh?"

She shrugged. "Not much. So, did you get any sleep after I left?"

He noted that the conversation had been directed back to him, but he let it go. "No. Been up the whole time."

He took the spot she vacated and missed his shot, then waited for her to throw the ball back to him. She kept it in her hands, her eyes hard.

"Are you trying to kill yourself?" She asked.

"Beth, come on..." he began, but she shook her head.

"No. I don't wanna hear it."

"Well, too bad," he growled, stepping forward and impatiently grabbing the ball back from her. She made a move to take it back, but he was faster and made a basket before she could try again.

As Beth snatched up the ball and dribbled it angrily, she said, "It's great that you think it's none of my business..."

"Because it's not," he muttered.

"...But your actions affect me - you know, your partner?"

"Temporary partner," he corrected her. "Just until Sam comes back."

"Fine. Temporary partner. But that doesn't make it okay to put my safety in jeopardy."

"You're not in jeopardy..."

She stopped dribbling and peered at him in disbelief. "Do you know the statistics for insomnia and its effects on driving, or decision-making? With each hour you lose, your response time slows down by a few milliseconds. Cumulatively, a full day awake is comparable to having a blood-alcohol of .1 percent. It's obviously bad to drive like that, and even worse to be in life-threatening situations like we are every day!"

"Okay, first, you sound like Nell..."

"Good. At least she's got a head on her shoulders..."

"And second, I've only lost an hour here or there, not counting last night. I'll make up for it eventually. Okay?"

She chucked the ball at him and he caught it with a grunt.

"No," she spat, "but since you're team leader I have to deal with it."

Callen tossed the ball away, his eyes stormy. "Look, I don't need you to be my mother, okay? I get enough of that crap from Hetty and Sam and pretty much anyone else who thinks it's their job to watch every move I make!"

"They're just trying to help, Callen!"

"I don't need help!" He shouted. "I didn't need it growing up, and I sure don't now!"

She shook her head. "No, you did need it when you were young, and no one gave it to you. And that sucks, because you never learned to trust anyone with your safety, or your love. Now, you think anyone who cares about you is either gonna leave you or hurt you. But what you fail to realize is that Sam and Hetty and everyone else have been here with you for years. Through everything, they've been behind you - the family you never had growing up - and they're waiting for you to wake up and see them."

Taking a step forward, she laid her palm against his chest and stared up into his blue eyes. "They know you're hurt, hiding behind that wall, but they still care. So stop pushing them - us - away."

Callen stood still, his jaw working as he took in her words. Then, softly, he said, "It's...I'm not used to this. I had to do everything myself, for a long time. I don't know how to let anyone help, or how to tell if I even need it."

Beth smiled then, a beaming grin that lit up her face. "You're a smart man. You'll figure it out."

As the two left the gym through the locker room door, they failed to see the dimunitive form of their boss standing beside a pillar, a sad smile lingering on her bespectacled face. She was proud of Beth for possibly getting through to Callen, for daring to challenge his stubbornness. But she was saddened by the fact that she had been unable to protect Callen as a boy from the string of terrible foster homes he had been pushed into and then kicked back out of. As a result, he had become the scarred and withdrawn man he was now, and the guilt of this was almost too much to bear.

Sighing heavily, Hetty turned on her heel and walked out of the gym, turning out the light as she left.

TBC...