Author's Notes: Missing scenes from NCIS:LA Episode 5x4, "Reznikov, N ". Callen was just so wrecked. I couldn't leave it like that.
I own very little and absolutely nothing related to NCIS:LA.
Summary: Family doesn't end with blood.
"Tell him the debt is paid."
His head throbbed, there was the smoke, the dirt, the fire, the blood. Death. And always the death. Callen wiped at his face and looked up as Sam stumbled back, coming to rest on the concrete. Callen staggered to his feet and fell to his knees next to Sam.
"Just dizzy, G, no big." The smoke, the fire, the blood, the gasoline. The car overturned. He hadn't seen it, but suddenly he could put it together. Vassily tried to burn his partner in that car. Tried to take away one of the few things Callen was really sure of, to hurt him as much as possible.
He stared at the body of the man who claimed to be his father. No family. No home. And every time he got close, another link to his past died bloody.
"G."
Callen realized he had a handful of Sam's shirt in his fist, buttons cutting into his palm. He looked down and tried to let go, but his fingers refused to unclench. Not this. He couldn't lose this, too.
Sirens and smoke and dirt and fire. There was shouting and Granger covered in blood and Sam, Sam covered in gasoline and blood and fire and death...
Sam's big hand covered Callen's lightly, warm and real.
"I'm right here."
Callen felt the steady thump beneath his fist.
And he nodded.
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"What is it?" Sam looked up at his wife.
"What do you mean?"
"Try that with someone who doesn't know you like I do, baby. Something is on your mind."
"That's not exactly new."
"No. But there are different kinds. And this is of the G variety."
"What makes you say that?" ask Sam as his wife slid into his lap.
"Thunderclouds." She traced his forehead with gentle fingertips, skirting the lump from the car crash. "I can always tell when you're worried about him. Something happen today?"
"More stuff with his past, his family," muttered Sam roughly. "Every time I think he might catch a break, learn something, it gets ripped away and it tears him up. I hate it. I hate what it does to him."
"So go see him."
"G doesn't want me checking up on him."
"You're not gonna rest until you do." Michelle smiled and wrapped her arms around Sam's neck. "And besides, we both know that what Callen wants and what he needs are rarely the same thing."
"You are a wise woman. Beautiful. Wonderful mother. How'd I get so lucky?" Michelle laughed.
"Flattery will get you no where, but you don't need it. Go see your boy."
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When Sam let himself in to G's house, it didn't take long to find him. He sat in his only chair, framed by the flickering light of a film strip. Sam stood behind the chair and watched as a little girl placed a kiss onto the hand of a light-haired baby boy, under the kind of smile any father would recognize.
The film ran out, fluttering around and around until Callen reached over and shut it off.
"My family."
"Yeah." G didn't turn around, just stared at the blank sheet hanging in the darkness.
Sam knelt next to the chair and looked at G. His partner didn't wipe away the tear tracks, just looked at Sam like a kid who'd never known a real home, never felt like he belonged.
"We'll find out what happened to him." Callen shook his head.
"You don't know that. Like Arkady said, it was a long time ago."
"We'll try." Callen took the film strip from the projector and rolled it up, turning it over in his fingers.
"Proof," he said holding it out, "that, once, I had a family. That someone loved me. Wanted me." Sam folded the film into Callen's hand.
"This is not the only time you were wanted, G. And family doesn't end with blood." Callen stared at their hands, holding the past and the present together. He looked at Sam, eyes swimming in the darkness.
"You're here."
"Damn straight. I'm right here."