Summary: When a pair of Russian mobsters kidnap two of Callen's friends, he "goes rogue" to take them on all by himself. Sequel to "Everything That Can Go Wrong." Bromance, hurt/comfort, adventure.

Previously on NCIS Los Angeles: In my story, "Everything That Can Go Wrong," Sam and Callen were kidnapped and tortured. They befriended their jailers - two orphaned brothers named Jake and Darren. What they thought was a run-of-the-mill Los Angeles gang turned out to be a school of sorts where street kids learned how to torture federal agents. The masterminds were two Russians. In the final scene, Callen admitted to Hetty that he knew them. When pressed for more information, Callen just said, "I hope you'll find it in your heart to forgive me, Hetty…"

Dark Corners

PenPatronus

Chapter 1 of 5

Will Go Wrong

Fifteen Years Ago

Moscow weather is torture. The wind sneaks up sleeves, the rain penetrates coat collars, and the snow suffocates. There's no escaping it, no hiding from it. DEA undercover agent G Callen ruminated on this as he tied up a pair of Russian mobsters back-to-back in rusted metal chairs, and that did not improve his mood. Nazarov, a slim, stern-faced Russian man with salt-and-pepper hair, glared at his captor through cracked eyeglasses. "Can I offer you a vodka?" he asked, nodding his head at his own kitchen. "You look like a man who could use a drink."

"Where's Tracy?" Callen demanded through clenched teeth. He pressed his SIG saucer against the man's temple. "Where's my wife?"

"Is that her name? If I'd known you and the little bitch were married," he taunted in a low voice, "I still would've bedded her." Callen punched his gun against Nazarov's nose. "My wife just had the carpet cleaned," the Russian bemoaned as he bled onto his living room floor.

Callen scratched his chin through his beard and pivoted around to face the other Russian. Portnov was as slim as his companion but a head shorter with blond hair and muscular arms. "You're all show, all talk," he told Callen. "You think that if you just point a gun and say the right words you'll always win."

Callen switched his weapon to his left hand and reached into an open rucksack with his right. Slowly he took out hammers, knives and a blowtorch and arranged them so that both of his victims could see. "American agents aren't supposed to torture people," Portnov said.

"Says the man who tortured and killed a DEA agent just last month," Callen spat.

"I am a broken man," Portnov announced. "I see the cracks in your soul. It is splintered, but not broken. Only fractured souls are equipped to carve their name into a man's arm and hold a blowtorch to a woman's throat."

Callen leaned in close. "Where's Tracy?" he asked once more. "Where's my wife?"

"With a broken man," Portnov hissed.

Movement from the dimly lit hall. Callen fired his gun without thinking and Nazarov bellowed, "Violet, no!"

An unarmed woman carrying a basket of laundry stumbled into the living room. She was at least eight months pregnant – probably nine. Blood oozed from her stomach and mingled with her husband's. She collapsed at Callen's feet and stared up at him with terrified unseeing eyes. Nazarov shrieked swearwords in Russian and fought against his bonds so fiercely that the ropes bruised his skin. "My child!" he wailed over and over in Russian. "My child! My child!"

Portnov looked at Callen's pale, horrified face with a complacent expression. "Now," he said, "you are a man capable of torture."

A tear trickled down Callen's cheek and into his beard. "Yes," he agreed. "Yes, I am."

Present Day

Eric Beale's body was an avalanche. It trembled so hard that the bullets in his gun rattled. Beads of sweat tumbled down his skin like falling stones as he ran, arms pumping, trying to keep up with Callen and Sam. He turned a corner at full speed and crashed into G at the foot of a steep staircase. "Oh – yikes – sorry," Eric sputtered. His too-large helmet slid down his forehead and knocked his safety glasses askew.

"Beale, shut up!" Sam hissed from halfway up the stairs. "You want to get us all killed?"

"Sorry!" Eric said. That was too loud, so he repeated it at a whisper. "Sorry…" Eric put his hands on his knees and wheezed.

"Hey, look at me." Callen took Eric by the shoulders and forced eye contact. "Take a deep breath."

"Can't – can't even catch my – breath…"

"Eric, do you trust me?" Eric nodded. "Take a really deep breath. So deep that your lungs start to cramp." Beale obeyed. He wiped his sleeve across his forehead and focused on his breathing. He didn't realize that his sight was slightly out of focus until the fresh oxygen restored it. A moment later his hands stopped shaking. "You good?"

"I'm good."

"Yes, you are," Callen said firmly. "You're doing fine, buddy. Now, let's go." Callen gestured for Eric to climb ahead of him up the stairs.

Sam stood in front of a frail white door with his gun held against his chest. Quick motions with his left hand told Eric and Callen that there were two hostiles in the next room. Relief made Eric shiver. Three against two were good odds. They would bust in, G and Sam would take the bad guys out and Eric could just admire them from afar like he was back at Ops. "Kensi and Deeks are dead. We're the only ones left," Callen reminded Eric. "It's up to us to eliminate the threat."

"I'm r-ready," Eric stammered.

"We're going to breach on three, all right? Shoot to kill."

"Shoot to kill," Eric confirmed.

Callen nodded at Sam and started the countdown. "One, two—"

At "two," the white door burst towards them. Two figures in black hoodies and ski masks emerged firing. Before Eric could blink, Sam took a hit in the chest and toppled onto his back. Callen bolted forward, sidestepped his partner's dead body and took out the first hostile with a pair of bullets to the torso. He aimed at the second and pulled the trigger – twice – but nothing happened. "My gun's jammed!" Callen shouted. Masked figure number two aimed at G's chest. The echo of the shot deafened Eric. As if from far away, as if watching the scene in slow motion, Eric saw the bullet slam into Callen's heart in an explosion of red. The momentum shoved him to the left and when he fell, face first, he landed right on Sam.

"Callen!" Eric yelled. His arms went limp. His gun flopped against his thigh – useless. The world shrunk until nothing existed but Eric's thundering heart and Callen's unblinking blue eyes. By the time he realized that he was next – just a second or two later – it was already too late.

Eric looked down at his own chest and saw red liquid splatter. "Dammit," he muttered.

The gunman swiped his mask off and raised his arms in victory. "Team Deeks wins!" Detective Marty Deeks shouted. "The crowd goes wild! Women are throwing panties, men are throwing… women!"

Lying on her back with Callen's Simunitions burrowed into her bulletproof vest, Kensi peeled off her own mask and asked, "Why isn't it Team Blye?"

"Cuz you're a loser," Deeks taunted, kicking Kensi's boot.

Sam Hanna wiped a splatter of red paint off of his face and then poked his partner in the ear. "G, get the hell off me."

"Sorry, I can't," Callen said with the slyest of smiles. "I'm dead."

"Dead men don't talk. If I have to move you myself, I won't be gentle," Sam threatened.

Callen made an extra slow show of lifting his body. Once on his feet he winced and rubbed his chest. "Landing on you was supposed to break my fall, not break my ribs."

"Abs of steel, baby," Sam said, drumming his fingers on his stomach. He took G's outstretched hand and climbed to his feet. "I missed the final showdown – what happened?"

"Everybody died." The team turned to see Hetty at the top of the stairs. She padded over to Eric and squeezed his arm. "But you're improving. You didn't drop your gun this time."

"Hooray," Eric said in a dry monotone. He sighed and rubbed his palms down his face.

Deeks stood on his tiptoes and wrapped his arm across Eric's shoulders. "Don't beat yourself up. I am a formidable warrior."

"Do you even know what 'formidable' means?" Kensi asked. She passed the boys and headed down the stairs.

"Of course I do," Deeks said as he and Eric followed her. "It means – it means awesome. It means super cool warrior dude."

"Yeah, that's the definition in the dictionary, Deeks," said Sam. "Super cool."

Hetty and Callen stayed behind as the rest of the group exited the Kill House. "So how did Eric really do?" Callen asked when they were alone. He put his glasses in his helmet and shrugged off his bulletproof vest.

Hetty fingered the gold broach over her heart. "He froze when you got shot."

Callen shrugged. "Not unexpected. That can happen when you're facing the bad guy alone."

"Hmm," Hetty hummed. "That could have been a factor, yes, but I think it was more than that. I think he was emotionally compromised."

Callen cocked an eyebrow. "How so?"

"He saw you die," Hetty said matter-of-factly.

Callen's other eyebrow joined the first. "He saw Sam die, too."

Hetty slowly pivoted. She folded her hands in front of her and sat down at the top of the stairs. Callen hesitated, then sat beside her. "Do you remember," Hetty began, "what Mo was like around Sam?"

"You mean the hero worship?"

Hetty shook her head. "It was more than admiration, Mr. Callen, it was faith. To Mo, Mr. Hanna was bulletproof."

Callen stared at his own shadow on the steps. "What does that have to do with Eric freezing in the middle of a shootout?"

Hetty slid her arm through Callen's and squeezed his elbow. "You don't realize what a role model you are to young men like Eric, Mr. Callen."

A brief, sharp laugh left G's chest. "Obviously Eric doesn't know me very well. If he knew my sins…" Callen shook his head sadly.

"I know your sins," Hetty said quietly. "Now, put yourself in Mr. Beale's shoes – or his flip-flops." Hetty and Callen shared a laugh. "For years Eric has watched your every move from Ops. He's seen you do things that would be impossible for anyone else to pull off. He's watched you survive more than any man should ever endure. Intellectually he knows you're not bulletproof, of course, but when he saw you go down… It was like all of the fight went out of him. You're his hope, Mr. Callen, and he lost it."

"Well…" Callen scratched an itch on his ear that didn't exist. "Maybe that's what Eric actually needed to learn today. I'm not invincible."

"Neither am I."

Callen rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Hetty, I've been watching you. If anyone is invincible, you are."

"Do you feel that, Mr. Callen? That faith you have in me," she said quietly, "is what Eric has in you."

Callen looked at her. "Hetty… Was this Kill House for Eric, or for me?"

Hetty sighed deeply. Her exhale caused goose bumps to bloom down Callen's arm. After a minute of contemplative silence, she said, "I know that today is a very difficult… anniversary."

Callen's chin wobbled for a fraction of a second. "Because it's the fifteenth anniversary of the day I murdered a woman and her unborn child and tortured two men nearly to death to find my fake wife who betrayed me and left me for dead?" Callen's throat closed up and it took a moment to loosen again. "Those same men who came here six months ago, captured and tortured Sam and I and got a bunch of kids killed…" Callen dug a knuckle into one eye, and then the other. "Yeah, Hetty… it's a difficult anniversary."

"Mr. Callen," Hetty whispered, "we've all made mistakes and we all have regrets. When you see that woman in your mind's eye, I want you to replace her face with Eric's."

Callen snorted. "Eric would look ridiculous in that dress."

Hetty didn't smile. "Please," she whispered, "please remember all of the good you've done, all of the lives you've saved in the past 15 years. I have faith that their faces will light up the dark corners of your soul, Mr. Callen."

Callen squinted at her. "Eric has faith in me, and I have faith in you," he said. "Hetty, who do you have faith in?"

Hetty smiled the saddest of smiles, then used Callen's shoulder to help herself up to her feet. She walked down the stairs without another word.

"I hate it when she does that," Callen muttered.

To Be Continued