AN: I own nothing.
I wanted to write something short and sweet. This is as short as I get, apparently.
This is Callen/Nell with established Kensi/Deeks.
XXXXXX
Callen had been waiting twenty minutes.
As if it weren't bad enough that he'd agreed to a blind date, now this mystery woman was wasting his time on top of it? He swirled his drink in his glass and wondered what qualified as a sufficient amount of time to wait before he could slip out of O'Ryan's Bar & Grille (he at least wanted credit from Sam for trying).
It was 6:50 on a Thursday evening, a somewhat unusual day for a first date, but he was originally supposed to have the next day off. That was until Granger reminded them they needed to update their personnel files by month's end and ordered them to come in on Friday. Callen didn't mind – he'd rather work than not, to be honest, but Hetty never let him get away with skipping too much vacation time.
He was only there because he'd lost a bet – a completely stupid bet (who knew Sam was such an expert on dolphin training?). The price he had to pay for his loss was one date. Despite that, Callen had considered backing out until Sam threatened two things: first, he'd make it known to everyone that Callen hadn't honored the terms, and second, his partner swore up and down, left and right, that it would be worth his while to go.
It was also easier to say yes and earn himself a few months off from the nagging that he was 'slowly killing himself with social isolation'. Maybe he wanted to be socially isolated, did anyone ever think of that? His partner seemed to care more about his love life than he did, which was somewhat troubling, but whatever.
Now he was sitting at a bar, drinking by himself, and that was maybe a slight step above drinking alone at home. However, it also made him feel pathetic in front of an audience, so that was a downside (cue the bartender asking 'you still waiting on her?' which gave Callen the distinct impression that everyone else at the bar had given up on his date arriving long before he did).
He might have texted to ask where she was, except he didn't actually have his date's number – or her name for that matter. He'd bought Sam's claims that he wanted it to be a surprise, but the more Callen thought about it, the more suspicious the lack of details became. Perhaps it should have tipped him off that there might not even be a date. The longer he lingered at the bar, the more he entertained the possibility that Sam might be using the supposed 'date' as a cover to get him there for an early birthday celebration, since it being a surprise was the only way he'd be present for something like that. (If Kensi and Deeks strolled in with hats and streamers, he wasn't admitting he knew them.)
The only clues Sam would give were that he supposedly knew the woman and that they would 'definitely hit it off'. His partner had spent most of the week raving about her virtues, which was unusual to the point that Callen took notice. He had to admit that Sam's enthusiasm had made him a little – and only a little – intrigued. Mostly, though, he was filled with the usual apprehension that settled in him whenever he faced an evening like this, not to mention how tiresome it was to maintain a fake persona. Unfortunately, it was the price they paid for the jobs they chose.
When the clock changed over to 7, Callen threw some money onto the bar. He'd given her a half hour and that was generous enough. He would have texted Sam to complain, but he didn't feel like dealing with it tonight. He could berate his partner tomorrow morning. And afternoon. And evening. Sam was going to be hearing about this one for a long time, and not because Callen was upset, but because if he played up his 'victim' status of being stood up, he'd probably avoid set-ups for the next six months at least. 'I was dejected all night, Sam. I had to drink alone to get over it…' Yes, that was perfect (even if his partner wouldn't buy it for a second – let Sam prove he was lying).
For now, he'd go home and…watch TV alone. What a thrilling night ahead. He made his way to the front of the restaurant, which was starting to get more crowded, and had to dodge people waiting for tables. To his left was the hostess stand and to his right was the exit to the street. On a whim he'd never fully understand (maybe a last ditch effort at grasping onto anything other than an evening ahead of him that was as interminable as every other), he turned to his left.
He vaguely recognized the pretty, twenty-something hostess smiling broadly at him (he and his team were there often enough).
"Hi, I was supposed to meet someone at the bar," he told her. "I'm wondering if she got a table instead?"
"Her name?"
"That would be helpful, wouldn't it?" He absently scanned the main room of the restaurant that spread out behind her. "Unfortunately…" he trailed off when someone caught his eye. Was that who he thought, sitting alone in a booth along the far wall?
"Sir?" she'd been trying to get his attention as people began lining up behind him.
"Never mind," he said. "I'm pretty sure I see her."
Was he crazy for even thinking it? He might be. Although, his partner had claimed 'you'll know her when you see her' so many times that Callen had the phrase practically ingrained in his mind.
Callen crossed the room and came to a stop next to her. "Nell?"
She glanced up from the menu, smiling in recognition when she saw him. "Hey! How's it going? I didn't know you guys were coming out for drinks."
Callen wasn't sure what to make of her greeting. She clearly thought he was with the rest of their team. "It's just me. Are you supposed to meet someone?"
She nodded slowly, wondering what was going on. "He's not here yet. At least, I don't think he is. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure who I'm meeting."
"You're not sure?" he asked, carefully.
Something in Callen's tone struck her. There were only a few reasons why he'd be asking about her date, and none of them were good. "Did something happen to him on the way here? An accident?" Cold dread filled her. "He's not dead is he?" Granted, she had no idea who he was, but if he'd died on the way to see her, she didn't know how she'd get over that.
He smiled a little at her concern. "No, I'm fairly sure he's alive and well."
She sighed with relief, which turned instantly to confusion when Callen slid into the booth across from her.
"Nell, your date…"
He obviously wasn't sure how to go on, and she thought of her second worst scenario. "Is he some kind of criminal? Did you arrest him on his way here?"
Her suggestion completely derailed his train of thought. "What kind of people do you date?"
"Hey, I'm only trying to figure out why you're here."
Well, damn. "You think he's dead or a criminal. Both of those are more plausible to you than me being your date." He thought he might have a case to feel insulted, but he was having too much fun and he'd only been talking to her for two minutes.
Nell thought he might as well have told her they'd fallen down a rabbit hole and were now in Wonderland. Actually, that would have meant his claim of being her date made sense. "No, you're not."
"I think I am."
"You think?"
"Sam set me up on a blind date and refused to give me a name. He said I'd know you when I saw you, and I certainly know you." He leaned back, taking her in, and wondered if telling her how beautiful she looked would help or hurt his case. "What'd Sam tell you about tonight?"
"Nothing. I didn't talk to Sam, I got an anonymous letter asking to meet me here. Which I'm guessing you didn't write?"
"Yeah, I don't know anything about a letter."
She wondered why that admission hit her with such sharp disappointment (she'd known it was coming, after all). What he told her about Sam made sense, though. It would explain why they were both there despite having no idea who they were meeting (did that make them both adventurous? Or desperate?). "I can't believe he planned this."
"I'd call him now to ask about it, but I'm sure he's dying of curiosity. Let him wonder."
Now that she knew how it happened, Nell was beginning to realize Callen might not even want to be there. He didn't seem that enthusiastic, although who would be upon finding out they'd randomly been set up with a co-worker? Not that she was upset, herself, but she could understand if he were hesitant to stay.
She tried to gauge his expression. "He went to a lot of work to make sure we wouldn't figure it out."
"If he'd told me who I was meeting, I might have looked forward to this evening instead of dreading it."
He was a charming liar, she'd give him that. "More like you would have asked Sam if he'd had a head injury recently."
"Maybe," he allowed, smile playing at the corner of his mouth, "though now that I'm facing the reality, I'm much happier to see you than anyone else." Just sitting across from her had caused a weight to lift, actually. He could forget about his cover, forget about impressing or entertaining her. They were friends and he enjoyed her company, and maybe he didn't need anything else.
"That was sweet," she told him. And sincere. "I'll give you points for it."
Their waiter arrived and took their orders, though Callen was barely aware of what he was saying, too wrapped up in trying to grasp what had happened to his night. Nell hadn't factored into any possible outcome, never mind one where she was his blind date. A disgruntled chef taking the entire restaurant hostage would have been a far more likely scenario.
"Don't we solve crimes for a living?" he asked her, once the waiter left. "You'd think we'd have noticed the clues."
"We were pretty easy marks, I think, letting ourselves get tricked into meeting each other."
A new awkwardness descended, as if her words made everything real. They'd been set up by their friend. On a date. They couldn't deny the potentially romantic connotation of it, either, which brought up an obvious problem: the ramifications could be disastrous if they weren't on the exact same page about the evening.
She was the first to offer an out. "Look, Callen, we don't have to do this. We could just go home. I mean, not together. Separately. We could go to our own separate homes." She pleaded with herself to stop talking.
He was trying not to smile at her. Going home was about the last thing he wanted and he searched for an alternative option to set them both at ease. "Why don't we call it a friendly dinner? Not a date, not romantic, nothing like that."
Whatever tension had been in the air dissipated once they no longer had the pressure of 'being on a date' hanging over their heads. "That works," Nell agreed. "I suppose I can tolerate an evening with you."
"Please stop, my ego can only take so much." He was quite fond of the look that earned him. "Why don't you tell me about this letter?"
"I brought it with me." She rummaged through her purse. "Basically it says I have an admirer and to meet them here tonight. I assumed I'd be meeting a co-worker, but I didn't rule out the possibility that someone wanted to set me up with a friend of theirs outside of work." She pulled out a sheet of paper that had clearly been unfolded and refolded multiple times.
Callen read through the type-written note a few times before holding it up in disbelief. "Let's be honest, Nell. This is one step away from being made with cut-out magazine letters. If this were real, the person who wrote it would probably have a shrine to you in their basement."
"It's not that bad," she scolded. "Talk to your partner if you have an issue with the content. Did you notice he quotes Yeats in there? At least he tried to make it seem romantic."
"Except there's no way my partner wrote this. Not unless he found a generic letter online and used it as at template. If I had to wager, I'd say this was most likely written by Deeks. Maybe Eric."
Nell had noticed a certain Deeks sort-of feel to it with some of the phrases that were used. "You think they were in on it?"
"Knowing them? It's a definite possibility."
"I found it at my computer on Monday night, mixed in with a stack of files Granger brought me. It could have been there all weekend and he inadvertently covered it up."
"You're missing the obvious, Nell."
"Don't say it."
"Sam might have had nothing to do with it. Granger could be your secret admirer." He enjoyed the dismay that crossed her face.
Despite knowing the idea was ludicrous, she couldn't stop herself from doing a quick sweep of the room.
"Don't worry. If he shows up, I'll gracefully bow out and let you two have your time together."
"I'd much rather you stayed," she tried for lighthearted, though she suspected there was more truth in her words than she'd meant to reveal.
"If you say so, but never let it be said that I would stand in the way of true love." His smile was genuine, and if she weren't mistaken (or too hopeful), a tad affectionate. "Given that you had no idea who wrote the letter, I'm surprised you came."
"I went back and forth," she admitted. "Mostly I worried that I might feel obligated to stay even if I disliked the person who showed up."
"Do you? Feel obligated?" He sipped his drink to try and hide his concern. If she were staying out of politeness or not wanting to hurt his feelings…
"I've always liked you," she said, a bit sad that he felt the need to ask her that question. They were friends and he still wondered that? Then she mentally kicked herself for how he might interpret her response. They'd already agreed there was nothing romantic about their dinner – time to steer hard left and distract both of them. "If I had to pick potential candidates, you would have definitely been in the top eight."
"Eight?!" he exclaimed. "Are there even seven other single men in our building?"
She started laughing. "I'm kidding. Top six, for sure."
"You're hysterical," he said, and the words weren't entirely hyperbole.
"You're also using the wrong parameters," she informed him. "I never presumed he'd be single."
He raised his eyebrows. "Nell, I'm learning about a whole new side of you."
"I'm not saying I'd date a married man, I'm saying that I've been asked out by men who weren't single. Some guys go for it and hope for the best."
"I hope no one we've worked with," he said, tone a bit darker than before.
"Only one. He's gone now."
When she didn't offer a name, he ran through the list of married agents they'd worked with in the years since Nell arrived. "Lyle? Clayborne? Not Beecham!"
This might go on all night. "It was Owens."
"Owens," Callen swore. "I knew there was something off about him."
"You liked him," Nell countered. "Everybody liked him. Even me. Just not enough to sleep with him while his wife was away on business."
Callen tried to reconcile the information with what he'd known of the agent who'd transferred a few years before. "You never really know anyone." He sent her an assessing look. "They can always surprise you."
Nell felt lighter than she had in some time. "That's not necessarily a bad thing."
"No, it sure isn't." He signaled the waiter for refills on their drinks. "Who was your number one guess for who'd meet you tonight?"
She twisted her wine glass absently. "That would be Eric, although I confronted him several times and he kept insisting it wasn't him."
"Did you want it to be him?" It was odd how he found himself bracing for her answer.
"No," she said, firmly, and Callen let himself relax. "I would have been fine going out to dinner with him, but we established long ago that we're friends and staying that way. I wouldn't have put it past him to send me an admirer message as a joke, though. He has that type of humor."
"What I want to know is how long Sam, and maybe the others, have been planning this. No one's ever so much as hinted to me that they thought we should date each other."
"Me either," Nell agreed.
It was all the more strange to Callen when he considered that his partner wasn't one to hold back his thoughts or feelings, especially when it came to his personal life. "Maybe Sam felt it was too problematic to suggest, or he thought we'd shoot the possibility down without giving it a chance."
"What would you have done?" she asked, curiously. She'd teased him about it earlier, but now she genuinely wanted to know.
Callen studied his 'date' for the evening. She was off-limits, she'd always been off-limits. She wasn't a woman to date for a while and then move on from. Nell Jones was the kind of woman to stay with and he found that dangerous in a much different way than the peril they usually encountered over the course of their jobs.
So no, he'd never seriously considered it, and maybe that was deliberate. That wasn't to say that he didn't recognize how well they got along. He admired her intelligence and the way she approached problems. He appreciated everything she did to save him and the rest of their team. There had never been a time he couldn't count on her, and in turn, he'd probably do anything she ever asked of him. He loved her drive, her passion for what they did, the way she strove to be better, and her sense of humor. (She had a way of making an off-hand comment that seemed completely innocuous and a few seconds later the hilarity of it would hit him and they'd share a look after everyone else in the room had moved on.)
However, none of that was anything new. He and Nell were the same with each other as they'd always been, so how (after literally years) had Sam come to the decision that he should set them up?
More than that, what exactly was Callen allowed to admit to, here, when they'd already said they were only friends?
"I'm not sure what I would have done," he hedged. "What about you?"
"I might have given you a shot. You're a step above criminals," she teased, referring back to when he'd first come over to her table. "And you're not dead."
"So your criteria is breathing and not in jail?"
"Yeah, upon reflection that joke doesn't paint me in the best light." She could tell he wanted a serious answer, though. "In all honesty? We probably would have laughed it off and never brought it up again."
"Ah, the tried and true method of dealing with potentially awkward things. Avoidance is practically my life motto."
She tipped her glass at him in some degree of unspoken recognition. "You didn't avoid tonight, did you?"
"No, I didn't." And he was inexplicably glad about that.
XXXXXX
Deeks was looking forward to a nice, relaxing evening with his partner at their favorite bar & grill. No, he reminded himself, for tonight it was just 'girlfriend'. They'd agreed to leave work behind…until the next morning, unfortunately, since Granger had annoyingly called them in.
He waved at the hostess who recognized him as a regular and wound his way among tables in the crowded restaurant. He'd gotten stuck in traffic and Kensi texted him that she'd already gotten a table because she 'wanted appetizers and wasn't going to wait for him'. She told him she was in the back right corner of the main dining room, and he saw her a split second before he heard familiar laughter from off to his left.
Well, well, well! Nell was out on the town tonight and having quite the time, if her demeanor was any indication. He couldn't see who'd caused her laughter until he took a few steps forward and then stopped short enough that a server nearly ran into him.
That couldn't be Callen with her. No, it had to be his doppelganger. Callen and Nell didn't spend time together alone, certainly not at a restaurant in a cozy booth, sipping wine and looking as if they were more than friends. Deeks did a quick 360, searching for cover, and then ducked behind a partition that ran down the center of the room. The half-wall created an alcove for a hidden servers' station.
He peered over the top of the wall to check – alright, to spy, to blatantly spy – on what was happening. His eyes had to be deceiving him. It wasn't unusual for their team to congregate at O'Ryan's, but it was mostly in groups for dinner or drinks. He'd never seen Callen and Nell there alone. He checked the table settings to see if they'd been joined by anyone else, like Sam and his wife, but there were only two plates of food in front of them.
"What are you doing?" asked a waitress he'd never seen before, as Deeks glanced up at her from his half-crouching position. "Are you the new server? Tables 17 and 21 are waiting."
"No, I'm a patron of this fine establishment. I needed, um, extra napkins." He helped himself to a tall stack. "And this menu!" He ducked his head and used the menu to try and cover his face as he booked it to the back of the restaurant where Kensi was impatiently waiting.
"Where did you go?" she asked as he took a seat at the table across from her, dropping the napkins, half of which fell into her lap. "Why did you clear out their napkin supply?"
"Long story," he said, dropping the menu and putting his left hand up to cover his eyes.
"I saw you walking over and when I blinked you disappeared. It was as if you literally ducked out of sight."
"That's because I ducked out of sight," Deeks confirmed. He was facing Callen and Nell's booth at an angle, which meant he could only see Callen's side, and Kensi had her back to them. There were enough tables between the two sides of the restaurant that Callen might not have spotted them, but it was Callen, so there was at least a 75% chance he was already aware of their presence.
Kensi noticed her partner was trying to hide and turned to scan the restaurant, searching for the problem. "Is one of your exes here? Oh God, is one of my exes here?"
"Stop looking!" Deeks hit her repeatedly with the menu, causing her to turn back around and rip it away from him.
"What am I supposed to stop looking at?"
Had Callen glanced in their direction? Deeks slunk further down in his seat. "I saw two of our team members over there. You'll never guess who."
Kensi tapped her fingers against her mouth, as if deep in thought. "There's four of them besides us…hang on, this might take me a while."
He couldn't keep it in – not even long enough for her to fake guess. "It's Callen. And Nell. Callen's with Nell! Nell's with Callen!"
"Stop saying their names." She glanced over her shoulder again, not sure why her partner seemed freaked out, unless… "Are you implying they're here together, like on a date?"
"Why else would they be here?"
"I don't know, for dinner? Or drinks?"
"That's a date."
"Two people together is not necessarily a date. If Nell and I were here alone you wouldn't call it a date."
"Oh, I might in my imagination," he said, flippantly. "Wasn't Callen talking about Sam setting him up again? Was that tonight?"
"Now I know you're delusional. Nell would be dead last on the list of people Sam would ever set Callen up with, rivaling only myself."
"Stranger things have happened," her partner argued.
"I won't deny that," she said, clearly referring to the two of them. "I will say that I think you're making an impossible leap based on little more than a hunch and two co-workers having dinner."
"Stop trying to rationally argue with me," he chastised. "Man, it took me like five years to convince you that we had a thing, and you were half of it! How long is it going to take me to convince you about them?"
"I'm not trying to give you a hard time."
He stared her down.
"Alright, I'm not only trying to give you a hard time. It's just…too unbelievable. Before tonight, would you have ever considered it?"
"Of course not, because it's weird! They don't make any sense. Nell should be with someone like Eric, you know, some tech genius type of guy. And Callen, well, I always pictured him as forever-alone, but I'm sure if he looked hard enough he'd find some equally enigmatic shut-in with whom he could live out his days."
"You've thought too much about this," Kensi informed him. "Like, way too much." The waiter came by for their order. Instead of opting for a single drink refill, Kensi ordered him to bring back the bottle.
"You're mistaking my argument. I'm not saying they should be together, only that the evidence clearly shows they are."
Kensi crossed her arms. "What's this evidence?"
"The two of them sitting across the room – that's my evidence. I can't explain it, exactly, except it seems like it's more than a casual dinner." He was frustrated, sure he was right, but with no idea how to prove it to her. "Don't question me, okay? I'm well-versed on the intricacies of love."
"Oh, now it's love? You're right. How can I argue with your obvious expertise?" She was enjoying this way too much. "Have you seen anything around work?"
He pondered that for a minute before reluctantly admitting, "No, I haven't."
"There's your ans–"
"Which means nothing," he interrupted, mind racing with possibilities. "Callen could have mentioned being set up to throw us off the trail. What if he and Nell have been together for months and hiding it from us? Kens, what if they're married?"
"That's ridiculous," she admonished, as the thought gave her a moment's pause. No, they'd never pull it off. Though if anyone could…no, she wasn't going to entertain this insanity! "They're not married. They're not secretly together. And I'll believe it's a date when they outright admit it's a date. Why don't you go ask?"
"No way, I'm not falling for that. Callen barely likes being involved in his own personal life, never mind wants us to have anything to do with it. You can go ask if you want."
"I would never do that. I respect boundaries." She applauded herself for saying it with a straight face.
"Since when?" he accused, motioning for her to move her head so he could see better. "They're laughing again," he murmured. "It's almost like they're having a good time."
"The audacity." Kensi sipped liberally from her wine. "Nell helps Callen with research sometimes. Or maybe they're setting up for another case."
"You can choose to think that if you want. However, once you realize I'm right, we need to consider that they could threaten our status as the team couple."
"The team couple? What the hell is that?" And did she want to know? "Please don't tell me people refer to us as that."
"It's our label…that I gave to us. But it might not be exclusive anymore."
"Is it too soon to ask for the check?"
"We haven't even gotten our meals."
"My question stands."
"I'm going to…it doesn't matter what I say since you know where I'm going. I'll be back."
She moved to Deeks' abandoned chair to take advantage of the partial view he had of their friends' booth. Callen was deep in conversation and Kensi couldn't remember the last time she'd seen him that animated about anything. She couldn't see Nell from her vantage point, but if she had to guess, based on Callen's reactions, she'd say the other woman was probably having a great time that evening, too.
What if their lead agent and analyst were dating? The thought had never crossed her mind, not even in one of those 'where-the-hell-did-that-idea-come-from?' type moments that are immediately dismissed as impossible.
She decided that once Deeks returned she'd go on her own spying mission to try and prove him wrong, on principle. She'd already committed to her side of the argument, and besides, it was much more fun to spar with him than to give up and concede defeat.
Who knew, maybe she'd be the one proven wrong instead?
She might be surprisingly fine with that.
XXXXXX
Nell couldn't believe how well their evening was going. Everything felt so normal, as if she and Callen regularly met up to discuss their lives. They'd talked about everything from past cases to what they did outside of work in their free time. Callen knew a surprising amount about their co-workers, which he attributed to his ability to lurk in plain sight (and he refused to call it 'gossip' no matter how many times Nell insisted that avoiding the word didn't make it anything else). When the subject came around to their upcoming week, Nell revealed that Granger had given her and Eric a long list of plans to improve security measures around work (Callen requested an option whereby he could prevent people he didn't like from getting within twenty feet of his desk).
"You could move your things to the boatshed," Nell suggested. "We'll lock you in. Lots of peace and quiet there."
"That actually sounds pretty nice," he said, thoughtfully. "Unfortunately, I don't think Granger would sign off – he needs me within a two minute walk of him at all times so he can harass me whenever the urge strikes."
"We appreciate that you distract him from us."
"It helps to know that others benefit from my suffering."
The waiter came over to ask how things were and Nell told him she'd never had a better meal there. She meant it, though how much of that was because of her company, she couldn't say.
"I don't want to alarm you," Callen took advantage of the lull in their conversation, "but we're being watched."
She paused with her fork halfway to her mouth. "What?"
"Great job of not looking suspicious." He nudged her hand to encourage her to keep eating. "Deeks and Kensi are at a table across the room. I didn't say anything in case it was a coincidence, but they've both done circuits around the restaurant. Normally I'd take issue with their lack of subterfuge, but they've gotten less careful as the evening's gone on. I think they're barely trying to hide at this point."
Nell wasn't sure how to feel about that. "Our suspicions were right, then. They were in on it."
Callen had to agree that the two of them conveniently showing up was pretty damning. "I haven't seen Sam, and while that doesn't necessarily mean he's not here, my guess is they're reporting back to him."
"This is turning out to be quite the elaborate operation. Do you think they expected it to go badly?" She frowned as another thought occurred to her. "You don't think it was meant as a joke on us?"
Maybe at one time he'd have thought it a possibility, but too much didn't add up. His partner's excitement about the date, the amount of work it had taken to get them there without either knowing, and then, of course, the implications if it happened to go well. He didn't believe the others would try to throw a romantic wrench into his and Nell's life for a cheap laugh.
"I think it was too much of a risk for a practical joke. I have to believe they were sincere and couldn't wait to see if their efforts paid off." He didn't mention the other thing his team would have known: how he'd react if he discovered they were doing this for their own amusement. He didn't care about himself, but if they'd done it to Nell? Unacceptable.
Nell knew their team was capable of nearly anything when they put their minds to it, but she'd never thought they'd go to such lengths to get her on a date with Callen. "There were easier ways to go about it. Like inviting us out with the group and then everyone else conveniently leaving early."
"Or…talking to us? Like normal people?"
"That implies they're normal," she said, wryly. "I don't think there's any way around it, Callen. They're crazy. They're all crazy."
He tried to remember this was a friendly dinner and nothing more. He still couldn't help himself. "Or maybe they came to a conclusion that we've failed to see over the years."
"What would that be?" she challenged.
Yeah, it definitely hadn't been a good idea to bring that up. He needed an exit, and the viewing gallery on the other side of the room was his perfect excuse. "I'm going to go remind them that it's impolite to spy."
"No." Her face filled with sudden determination. "I have a better idea."
"You do?"
She came around to sit on his side of the booth. "We should kiss."
"We should what?"
"Think about it. They set us up, they're spying on us, clearly they're desperate to see something. This must mean a lot to them, for whatever reason. Why don't we teach them a lesson?"
"How does us kissing teach them a lesson?" (And he'd thought he was capable of far reaching, at times.)
"Once we reveal it's a joke, they'll realize they went too far. They'll be embarrassed about spying on us, probably feel bad and apologize, and everyone will move on."
He wasn't so sure about that. What if there was no moving on? What if he didn't want to move on? They were getting right back into the dangerous territory he'd been trying to avoid. "I don't know, Nell."
"If nothing else, it'll teach them to think of the consequences next time they consider interfering in people's lives."
He didn't seem convinced and it hit her with devastating clarity: she was asking him to kiss her as a prank and what the hell was she thinking? Callen was the most guarded person she knew and this was her suggestion to get back at their friends? He must think that she'd lost it, or worse, that she'd been looking for an excuse to kiss him this whole time (which she hadn't been…right?). If there was a line to never cross, she'd jumped it five miles ago and never looked back.
"I'm sorry, I'm completely out of line. Let's pretend this conversation never happened."
He took her arm before she could escape from the booth. "Nell, wait. I'll do it."
It was her turn to hesitate. "You will?"
"If we have to, then we have to." His tone had turned oddly fatalistic and he'd cleared his expression completely. It bothered her for some reason.
"Alright, I need a minute to get ready." She stared at him with an eerie focus that made him distinctly uneasy.
"Your seduction techniques could stand some improvement," he joked, though it wasn't his normal joking tone. It was like…he'd become another person.
That was hardly fair. She knew why he might do it, but if she was going to kiss him – pretend to kiss him – then she wanted it to be him. Not him-as-someone-else.
She edged a little closer to him. "Do you have any tips for me, then?"
"On seduction?" He was taken aback. "How about the opposite of whatever you're doing right now."
"This isn't me trying to seduce you. You'd know if I was trying to seduce you."
"I hope it wouldn't be this terrifying."
"Oh," she lowered her voice, "it might be."
That finally broke through his façade and he started laughing. "You can't be serious."
"There you are," she said quietly, grinning at him. "I was afraid I'd lost you."
He was confused. "I'm right here."
"Physically, yes," she agreed. "I was talking about mentally, though. I want you here, Callen. Not some version of who you think I want you to be."
For a moment, it felt like he couldn't breathe. Had anyone ever said anything like that to him before? How often did anyone even notice when he fell back on playing other people? (In his experience, others usually preferred it when he became who they wanted, or needed, or expected.) He could probably count on one hand the people who'd known the real version of him, never mind said that was the only one they wanted.
While he was trying to process what she'd said, she was trying to erase the past five minutes. "Callen, we don't have to –"
He reached over to run his fingers along her cheek. "Actually, I think we do."
She suppressed a shiver. "Are they paying attention?"
"Since the moment you came over to this side of the booth."
Nell had a sudden mental image of Deeks and Kensi across the room, downing popcorn and eagerly waiting for the next act in the play they were watching. She began laughing and ducked her head into his shirt, hoping she hadn't given everything away to their friends.
"Yeah, this is the reaction every guy imagines at this moment."
"Sorry. I'm sorry. I was thinking about their reactions and how absurd the whole thing is and what are we doing? Do you know? Because I don't know, Callen."
"You're thinking about all the wrong things," he whispered. She couldn't argue because he was kissing her before she came up with a response. It was somewhat restrained (probably due to their setting and the fact that it was…fake) but the press of his mouth was real enough that it made her want to forget their reasons for doing it. They should have stopped after a few seconds – they'd made their point. Instead, by some quiet agreement, they deepened the kiss right when they should have ended it. Nell tried to remember that they had an audience until Callen pulled her closer and she forgot about that audience altogether.
By the time they broke apart, she no longer cared why they'd done it, or what Deeks and Kensi thought. All she could do was stare at Callen as if she were seeing him for the first time in her life (and she knew, in a way, she was).
Callen seemed as lost as her, which was more jarring than how she felt. He was never lost.
She swallowed. "That was…"
"Real?"
"Yeah," she breathed, stunned.
Callen thought about everything: how comfortable they'd been with each other, the common interests they'd found beyond work, their ability to talk about anything. The surprising turns their evening had taken (how fun it was). That he'd known kissing her might be something he couldn't come back from. That he'd done it anyways.
She was talking, presumably to him, but also to herself. "Did we mistakenly go on a real date?"
"No."
Well, that was definitively brutal. Nell needed a remote control for her life. She could fast forward through the worst parts, and mute people at will, and pause when things were going too fast. And she could replay the really incredible moments, like the one and only kiss she and Callen would ever –
"Nothing about tonight was a mistake," Callen broke into her thoughts, and Nell was smiling before he finished his sentence.
XXXXXX
Deeks and Kensi hadn't managed to reach a consensus despite multiple 'casual strolls' around the restaurant in an attempt to better observe their friends.
Deeks could see the momentum building on his side, though. It reached a crescendo nearly two hours into their evening when Nell moved to Callen's side of the booth.
Kensi tried to think of any possible ways to spin that (in her defense, they were really making things difficult for her tonight). "Maybe they need to talk about something confidential."
"I know when I need to discuss top secret information, I like to do it in popular restaurants where dozens of people might accidentally overhear me."
"Stop making sense," she complained. She'd more or less accepted the fact that her partner was probably right about them, but she was fighting until the bitter end – it was her way.
"Now I'm making sense? Careful, partner, you're sounding awfully close to a concession," he warned.
"There might be an explanation. A platonic explanation."
"Those are some desperate straws you're grasping."
"Sitting next to each other isn't –"
That was when Callen and Nell kissed, stopping her mid-sentence and awarding Deeks a decisive victory. Sure, she'd been leaning towards him being right, but to see it was something else entirely. They gave up any attempt at hiding their blatant observation of the couple across the room.
"Correct me if I'm wrong," Deeks sounded way too smug, "but friends don't do that, right? And if your answer is yes, they do, then I'm going to be severely disappointed that I've had the wrong kinds of friends my whole life."
Kensi had been wondering if Callen and Nell knew they were being watched, but they gave no indication of it. In fact, they appeared to have forgotten they were even in a restaurant. They separated, talking quietly, and they looked so content that Kensi felt something in her chest constrict.
"You should never doubt me," Deeks tried his best not to gloat too much.
"Dinner and a show, we really got our money's worth tonight," Kensi said, thoughtfully. "And I feel creepy even as I'm saying this."
"As if those two haven't gotten their fair share of entertainment value from us," Deeks brushed aside her guilt. "I can't get over how happy they seem. I take back what I said earlier about them not belonging together. I guess I was caught up in my surprise."
"That's a quick turn around," Kensi said, impressed. "Must be a record for you."
"You know I have a romantic heart," he chided, placing his hands over it as if that were proof. He'd meant what he said about them, too. "If there's one thing I want for my friends, in this world, it's for them to know the same happiness I do."
She loved this side of him, even if she liked to tease him about it more often than not. "I feel the same."
"We'll have to ask Sam if he was responsible. Imagine if he did set them up…"
"I'm glad I'm done with that entire scene." Kensi shuddered at the memories of blind (and miserable) dates.
"Those days weren't all bad," he told her, realizing that he'd allowed himself to become unforgivably distracted from why he was at dinner in the first place. "In fact, I wish I'd been set up years ago."
She regarded him with no shortage of skepticism. "Oh really?"
He took her hand, kissing the back of it. "With you."
XXXXXX
"How was your night?" Sam ambushed his partner the second he walked into the bullpen. "I never heard from you, complaints or otherwise. Am I correct in hoping that means it went well?"
"Well is an understatement," Callen told him. He and Nell had agreed to see each other again, and he'd spent most of his night replaying their dinner over in his head, trying to reconcile the before and after. "It went amazing. I have to hand it to you, partner, I never imagined we'd be so compatible. Since we were confused at first, we agreed to have dinner as friends. We were having a great time and then…" when she'd said she wanted to make sure she was with the real him, the evening's dynamic had irrevocably shifted (or at least, that was when he could no longer deny it).
"Then…?"
Callen moved on to the part he knew how to explain. "She suggested we kiss because Kensi and Deeks were watching."
"Hold up, what?"
His partner's disbelief told Callen he hadn't sent them to spy, after all. Interesting. "They were across the room, I'm sure they'll fill you in on their night when they get here. The point is that we kissed and it was like I finally knew what I'd been missing. For years." He sent a look to his partner, hoping the gratitude showed. "I don't know how to thank you."
Sam slapped him on the back. "I knew I'd pull it off one of these days! What have I always said? You just had to trust me, G. It may have taken me a little while to realize it, but once I did, I knew she was the perfect woman for you. Michelle gets no credit, by the way. I'm the one who saw the potential this time around."
Callen dropped his things at his desk. "What made you think of the two of us?"
Sam wasn't exactly sure. "I guess I saw an undercurrent of some sort? I had this premonition, like I knew it was the right time and it'd work."
"Well, I owe you. Or should I say, we owe you."
Sam grinned at him so hard that it actually hurt. "I think I'm going to start a matchmaking service, that's how confident I feel right now." He paused, eyeing his partner with sudden worry. "You're not putting me on, right? You didn't have some horrific night and this is all a set-up to pull the rug out from under me and announce it was your worst date ever?"
"Most assuredly not." Under other circumstances, he might have lied for fun, but he was too grateful to his partner to pretend the previous night had been anything other than what it was.
"How far did things get?" Sam asked, slyly. "Did you wake up alone?"
"Yes, I did." Callen met his eyes, needing him to see the truth of what he was about to say. "I can't ruin this, Sam. It's too important." The last thing he needed was for Nell to think he wanted a fling, or worse, to scare her off completely by getting too serious, too fast.
Sam was surprised at his partner's tone. "Wow, what are you thinking, here? Long-term potential?"
"If I have anything to say about it, then yes. Very long-term. Maybe longer than that."
Sam had never heard his partner talk about a woman that way before, never mind one he'd been on a single date with. He'd take it, though – as far as he was concerned, Callen had a few decades of happiness to make up for. "Why don't you two come over this weekend? It'll ease the pressure of trying to repeat the first date, and you can thank me by cooking me dinner."
Callen pulled out his tablet to check his email. "Sounds good, I'll ask her."
Sam kicked back in his chair. He'd been optimistic, sure, but he'd never imagined things would turn out so well. "When I first met Miranda, I knew she was different. Something about her, you know? Michelle was more skeptical –"
Callen looked up from the screen. "Who's Miranda?"
"Good one, G. It's a little late to pull that joke, especially after you told me you were serious."
What was his partner going on about? "I'm lost."
"First, you tell me you like Miranda, then you pretend –"
"Who is Miranda?" Callen's patience was wearing thin.
"Your date! The woman you had a fantastic time with? Who you're thinking about as more than long-term?"
"My date wasn't Miranda, whoever that is. It was Nell."
Sam stared at him, without blinking, for an uncomfortably long time. "That's a good one. You really got me, I have to hand it to you. What's the truth, G? You and Miranda hated each other? You cooked up this little scheme to get back at me, try and teach me a lesson about setting you up? Let me remind you that you agreed to it this time, even if you did lose a bet."
Callen was getting more frustrated by the second. "I had dinner with Nell. I was talking about Nell. You set us up and you didn't tell me her name on purpose, remember?" Now he was beginning to wonder if Sam was the one putting him on to get a reaction.
"I didn't tell you Miranda's name because I was trying a new tactic. Like clockwork, whenever I tell you who you're supposed to meet, you inevitably come up with a long list of reasons why it won't work and why you're sure you'll both have a terrible time. I figured you couldn't do that if you didn't know who you were meeting. I also thought the mystery of it would give you more incentive to show up and not cancel last second, like you've been known to do."
Wow, his partner had put a lot of thought into it, and the worst part was everything he claimed was true. On more than one occasion, Callen had talked himself out of liking his dates ahead of time. (To his mind, it saved everyone a lot of trouble that way.) "Sorry, Sam, she wasn't there. And I know you told me before the date that I'd met her, but I have no idea who she is."
Fine, maybe Sam would buy that Miranda hadn't shown, but the whole part about Nell was still too much for him to believe. "Miranda was at the barbecue last month. 5'6", strawberry blonde hair, the medical receptionist? I know your memory isn't that far gone."
"Ohhhh." The memories clicked into place as he put a face to the name. "Miranda. Yeah, that never would have worked."
Sam's look was scathing. "Now you see why I didn't want to tell you her name? I know what I saw that day, though. Every time I turned around you two were talking, and when you weren't, you were asking me where she was."
"Because I was trying to avoid her!" Callen couldn't believe his partner had set him up with her. "She kept finding me. If I didn't know better, I'd have sworn she put a tracker on me. No matter where I went, she popped up out of the blue. One time she jumped out at me from a hall closet, Sam. A closet. What adult woman hides in a closet?"
"She was playing hide and seek with the kids. She's very maternal."
"Tell me, did she nag Michelle for a date?"
Sam looked a little sheepish. "Maybe. I thought she felt a strong connection with you."
"Why do you think we didn't exchange numbers at the barbecue?"
Sam threw his hands up in defeat. "Because you're stand-offish and avoid personal intimacy at all costs?"
"No offense to Miranda, but I'm glad she wasn't there." Callen thought the worst part was the knowledge that if she had been, he never would have gone looking for his date and he never would have seen Nell. They would have passed each other by, again, like they had every day for the past six years. He actually felt sick at the thought of it.
"Now I'm supposed to believe that you found Nell through some twist of fate?" Sam still suspected this was Callen's weird idea of revenge: try to make him believe the unbelievable and then laugh at his gullibility. "According to you, you waltzed into O'Ryan's, ran into Nell – also alone – and the two of you assumed you were being set up?"
"It seems suspicious when you put it that way," Callen admitted, "but I swear it happened."
"Why was Nell even there?"
Oh right, this would definitely help convince his partner. "I know how it sounds, but…she got an anonymous letter."
"Now there's a magical letter, too? Fess up, G. Your web of lies is getting more convoluted with each passing second."
Nell chose that moment to come over, with uncannily perfect timing. "Hey guys, Granger's not too happy about –"
"Nell," Callen interrupted, "who did you have dinner with yesterday?"
"You should know. You were there." For a brief second, Nell had a terrible flash that maybe last night hadn't happened and she'd dreamed the entire thing.
Callen held his hand out to his partner as if to say 'See? Irrefutable proof'.
"You probably made her say that," Sam dismissed them. "I'm disappointed, G. I was actually happy for you this morning and everything you told me was a lie."
Nell glanced between them, hoping for some clarification.
Callen had accepted that Sam had nothing to do with their date (it actually made more sense than if he had), but he'd had no idea that convincing his partner of the truth would be such an arduous task. "Nell, Sam doesn't believe that we had a date last night, even though we'd have nothing to gain by lying to him."
"You're the one who set us up," Nell said to Sam, as if her reminder would fix everything.
"Sam had no part in this," Callen told her. "The woman he wanted me to meet didn't show."
"Really?" Nell asked, as Callen wordlessly nodded. What were the odds of that? Probably not much better than anything else that happened last night.
Sam thought they were being strangely insistent about everything. Was it possible they were telling the truth? That would mean they'd found each other through a comedy of errors (and the last time he'd checked, their lives weren't a sitcom). Granted, his partner had gotten himself into some bizarre situations in the past, but this was definitely above and beyond. He couldn't picture it. More accurately, he couldn't picture them, no matter what Callen claimed.
Sam's phone buzzed and he checked it, frowning the further he read. "Michelle says that Miranda called her today to say she was sick last night and couldn't make it, and she apologizes. She wants another date, if you'll forgive her."
It felt like a wave of ice water washed over Nell. She and Callen had run into each other through sheer coincidence, both of their nights straying far from their intended course, and if he wanted to set things right, she couldn't fault him for that. Maybe he wanted to meet Miranda, or maybe he'd thought it over and decided they should keep things professional (which was the smartest course of action, no doubt).
"I accept her apology," Callen was telling his partner, "and no, I don't want another date."
"Why?" Sam asked, mostly to test how his partner would respond.
Callen shifted his gaze over to Nell. "I'm seeing someone else."
Nell tried to figure out how to say what was bothering her. "You are?"
He went to stand in front of her, recognizing the worry on her face and the tenseness of her shoulders. "It doesn't seem like you believe me. Have I not been clear enough?"
"It's not that," she tried to explain. She couldn't get past the fact that none of it should have happened, and didn't that give him a moment's pause? "Why now? We've known each other for years and the possibility never came up before. I don't want us to get swept up in the surprise of how well things went last night. Obviously we'd have a better time together than if we were strangers. We have a background, a history together. We share a life, in a way. This place, our friends, the things we've both chosen to dedicate our lives to – I don't want us to mistake that for something else. We don't have to go any further; we had a fun time last night and we can leave it there."
"You are crazy if you think I want to leave it there. You asked why now? It's a damn good question, so let me flip it around: why not last month? Or last year? Or three years ago?"
"Because we didn't think of each other that way." It hadn't been in the realm of possibility. Or was she lying to herself about that, too?
"So what, that means we never can?"
Instead of answering, she stood on her tiptoes to kiss him, and the echoes of the previous night were evident to both of them. If possible, Nell felt even more for him than she had the night before. She understood he was trying to say that things had changed. They were allowed to change. And that was okay – it might even be better.
"I'm in this if you are," he whispered in her ear.
She leaned back, gracing him with a slow smile. "I'm in this."
"Whoa, hey, what?" Deeks' voice drifted over, interrupting their moment.
They turned to find him and Kensi standing in the hallway. Deeks was shaking his head while Kensi tried, and failed, to hide her smile.
"I'm shocked," Deeks declared, as he went to his desk. "Truly shocked that I could walk into work and find the two of you kissing right out in the open, as if it's a completely normal –"
"We know you were there last night," Nell interrupted his spiel.
"Oh good, then I don't have to pretend to be surprised when I could be grilling you on what the hell is happening?"
That led to a conversation where Sam, Deeks, and Kensi all tried to talk over each other to explain what they thought was going on, while Callen and Nell corrected them as best they could. Sam finally accepted it – they'd reached the point where this being true was more plausible than anything else (and that was saying something). They realized no one was behind any of it; they'd ended up at dinner together through a series of strange occurrences and wrong assumptions.
Deeks gave them the last piece of the puzzle when Nell brought up the letter. "So…uh, that might have been…from me?"
Everyone stopped to look at him.
"I knew it sounded like you," Callen said.
"It wasn't for Nell, either," Deeks revealed. "I lost it. And then forgot about it."
"Of course you did," Kensi sighed.
"Don't look at me all disapproving, that letter was for you," he told his partner. "You were going on about romantic gestures and I wrote it as a fun invitation to dinner Thursday since we already had plans. The last I remember, I had it when I was helping Granger move some files, then I forgot about it until Nell mentioned it."
"It was in with those files," Nell told him. "I can't believe you accidentally gave me an admirer letter. It figures."
"That note was a little stalkerish," Callen told the detective. "Saying that one of your favorite things is to watch her…from afar?"
"Hey, that part's true," Deeks winked at his partner.
"You might want to run now," Callen whispered to Kensi.
"You're missing the part where it was supposed to be mostly campy," Deeks said, exasperated. "Besides, it can't have been too bad if it got Nell there."
"Her bar must have been set pretty low," Callen countered.
"That's obvious," Deeks smirked, "considering she didn't leave when you showed up."
Callen had to laugh in acknowledgement of getting bested; he'd set himself up for that one. "I guess I was a better alternative than eating alone."
"Hmm, barely," Nell tried for serious, though her tone easily gave her away.
"My invitation stands for this weekend," Sam announced. "Everyone's welcome, and you still owe me dinner, G."
"For what?" Callen questioned. "You had nothing to do with this, which means you get no credit. So much for that side matchmaking service."
Sam couldn't believe how quickly his partner forgot. "Without me, you wouldn't have been at O'Ryan's last night. I don't care who I intended for you to meet."
"I was equally instrumental," Deeks reminded them. "Without my letter, Nell wouldn't have gone, either."
"I'm the one whose complaints spurred the creation of said letter," Kensi chimed in. "If we're handing out credit, I get at least 30%."
"What about me and Nell?" Callen asked, exasperated. "Don't we get any credit?"
The three of them looked at him and Nell before shaking their heads in unison.
"You two had no power in the forces at play around you," Sam explained.
"You were swept along by the tide that we unknowingly set in motion," Deeks sounded almost philosophical. "You might say, a tide of love?"
Nell instantly recognized his analogy. "Hey, that's from your letter!"
"I have to read this thing," Kensi muttered.
"I saved it," Deeks assured her. "I'll print you another copy."
Sam raised his voice, trying to get their attention. "The point is that without us, you two wouldn't be here. At least, not together." He wasn't sure he'd ever truly understand it. "How do two people manage to accidentally date each other?"
"I have no idea," Nell admitted, "but from now on, it's intentional."
"What a world," Deeks said, cheerfully, "where everything can go wrong and still work out better than if everything went right."
Callen was inclined to agree with him, because he had no better answers than anyone else. He brushed his hand against the back of Nell's, and the look she gave him was one he'd never seen from her before.
Maybe it didn't matter how they got there – only that they did.
(What a world, indeed.)
XXXXXX