July 2011: Marty put on his best charming smile as he talked to Julia. Sincere and charming. Very sincere which was very charming. He said, "I just want to help them. I know Kensi would never do anything and I know Casey would never do anything to hurt your granddaughter."

Julia shook her head. "But you still want to talk to Winter and me. I know what you and Kensi do."

"Catch bad guys? That's what me and Kensi do. That's what I'm trying to do now, catch the bad guy who's trying to get the father of your grandbaby killed."

She sighed. Julia said, "Yes, you're very good at getting what you want." She sat down. "What do you want?"

"You knew these guys, right? All the people from your ex-husband's unit? Who are now dead."

Julia nodded. Marty pulled out his surface and drew up the pictures of the dead Marines. Julia blinked twice at the first picture. "He's not dead," she said. "I told Casey that."

"This one? Peter?"

"Yes," Julia said. "Why didn't the other agents show me this?"

"They're not smart like me," Marty said. "And Casey, apparently."

"He came by a few weeks ago. Peter did, a month ago. Just he was in town and he wanted to say hello," Julia said.

"He always thought you were hot," Marty said.

Julia shook her head again. She even blushed. No wonder Peter Clairmont was sniffing around all evil. He'd gotten nowhere, obviously, because Julia clearly didn't think much of that guy.

"Maybe," she said. "Casey saw him leave, he had come by to pick up Winter's horse riding equipment. I take her to her horse riding lessons, they're near here. But he was going to take her the next day. Casey asked who it was and he was very surprised when I told him."

Marty said, "Kensi had been investigating her father's death. So Casey was, too." He thought. Putting pieces together. "Can I see Winter?"

Julia frowned but she said yes.

As Marty went up the stairs he grabbed the burner phone he'd bought on the way over and texted Callen to let him know Peter Clairmont was alive. He found Winter sitting on the floor, idly moving around mahjong tiles.

"I don't know that game, Florawin, wanna play something else?"

She made an amused face. "No one calls me that."

"I call you that, I just did." He sat down across from her. "You like mahjong?"

"Daddy does," she said.

"And chess, right?"

"No," Winter said, loudly. "He hates chess. He refuses to play it. He says all the geniuses are supposed to be so in love with chess and he doesn't want to be a stereotypical. He won't even let me learn."

Marty grinned. "Your dad is not a stereotypical at all. So what games do you play besides mahjong?"

Winter pushed the tiles around in a pattern Marty couldn't discern. He was sure it was there. She finally said, "Go, we play Go. And backgammon."

Marty said, "Winter, I know your mom and dad didn't do anything wrong."

"Me, too," Winter said. "Duh."

"They wouldn't do anything that could ever get you hurt," Marty said.

"I know," Winter said.

"That's pretty awesome," Marty said. "When I was your age, I didn't know that. I actually knew the opposite."

Winter looked up at him. "I'm sorry."

"Thank you. I think, Winter, see, I think you might know where your dad is. Because he loves you and he would want you to feel safe."

She started building a wall with the tiles. "Maybe," she said.

"If you help me, Winnie -"

"Don't call me Winnie," she said.

"If you help me, Florence Winterina Michaels, I will go to your dad and mom and I will help them."

"And you won't tell anyone else?"

Marty considered. He wasn't going to lie to a 6 year old and he was planning to tell Callen. So he wouldn't tell Callen, he'd find them and let Callen find him.

"Promise," he said.

She handed him a bird made from computer parts. "Does this fly to him?"

She laughed at him. "Look at the wings, dummy."

"I'm no dummy," Marty said. "I did not think to look at these wings which I see now have a little map on them that lights up."

2 hours later, Marty drew his gun but kept it low as he entered the abandoned floor. Kensi still drew down on him first. Even Casey had a gun though he only remembered to bring it up towards Marty after Kensi said, "Drop it."

"I can do that, Kens, but I am on your side," Marty said.

Kensi said, "Really?"

"Well, it's just me and not our new Assistant Director in charge of hating your ass, which, have you met this Granger guy?"

Kensi had already lowered and holstered her gun. Casey just put his down on the table. Casey said, "Owen Granger? He hates me a lot. It's pretty weird because I don't think I've actually done anything to him. There are lots of people who I totally understand why they hate me, but he's a mystery. Maybe he knew my mom? She was apparently very abrasive to everyone who wasn't me or my dad."

"He knew your dad, Kensi," Marty said. "But thanks for all that information."

"Sometimes he babbles," Kensi said.

"That was not babble," Casey said. He went back to his computer which sort of resembled a laptop. "Get this girl drunk and you'll hear babble. Oh, god, worse, go out with her and the two Tiffanys."

Kensi glared at him.

"So you know Peter Clairmont is alive and framing you," Marty said. "And probably trying to kill you."

"Yeah," Kensi said.

Casey said, "But not actually killing her. Instead of killing her back in 2006, he fakes his death. Clearly, he killed Donald Blye, but why?"

Marty said, "What do we know about their relationship?"

Kensi said, "My dad and his killer?"

"They were part of a black ops unit," Casey said. "They assassinated people for the US government. Sorry, Kensi."

"It's okay," she said. "I get it. I've know since before Winter was born."

"She's fine, by the way," Marty said. "Julia is taking good care of her. She was playing mahjong."

Casey's fingers stilled on the keys. Then he said, "Good."

Kensi said, "My mom didn't let anyone else in to see her?"

"God, no, she barely let me see her, she's a mama tiger," Marty said.

"Here we go," Casey said.

Marty said, "Exactly which files have you broken into?"

"That's not a good question," Kensi said. "We don't ask that."

"Clairmont and that company had 18 kills and one accident, mistake. They buried it deep, but looks like Clairmont killed someone when he was drunk. And someone found out," Casey said.

Kensi said, "My dad wouldn't stand for that. I know that."

"Well, he was murdered shortly after that," Casey said. "So it sounds like you're right."

Marty said, "Your mom was the abrasive one, huh?"

Kensi smiled at Marty. She said, "I'm fine. I'm good. I know what he means."

"Ironically, I never did a very thorough investigation into Donald Blye's murder until Peter Clairmont framed me," Casey said. "I just helped her out a little because Kensi was fixated."

Kensi had left to find the daughter of the journalist who had been digging into Peter Clairmont. Marty was acting as Casey's bodyguard.

Marty said, "Anything to help Kensi, right?"

"I did love her," Casey said. "I used to do a lot of things to try to make her happy."

"She's not unhappy," Marty said.

Casey shrugged. "I am not enjoying this whole being on the run thing. It used to be more fun, I think."

"So why did you go straight? I'm sure Kensi asked," Marty said.

Casey looked over at him with a small smile. He said, "Nope. She never did. By the time she knew my dastardly past even existed, Winter was two months old and she didn't want to know. You know the agent Kensi, she wasn't like that with me."

"And you're not going to tell me why you went straight," Marty said, smiling back.

Casey shrugged. "Fine, you're not the usual asshole asking. Here you go. Ironically, given the current circumstances, I nearly killed someone. I met a lot of bad people in my bad old days. And I never judged, because I considered myself to be a very bad man. I was wrong. I was very impressed with myself. I mean, I didn't do that much real evil, lots of theft and extortion. But there was this one time. This guy was actually bad. He was evil. He was going to kill me and I knew it so I set him up and it went wrong. It was a really good plan, too," Casey said.

"So he got away," Marty said.

"No. We had a, uh, physical confrontation -"

"Is that genius IQ speak for a fight?"

Casey smiled. "Neither of us were used to being the ones who actually fought, so it wasn't very John Woo of us. But I was younger and not as interested in drugs and I actually did work out sometimes, so. Eventually he ended up having fallen down a lot and his pupil was blown and I was looking around at his stupid room and I thought, he really needed to die. It wasn't actually a stupid room, you understand."

Marty nodded. "It was an evil room."

"And I thought, killing him would be a good thing." Casey stared off into the space. Marty knew that look. He'd been undercover enough to know exactly that look. Casey said, "And I had a revelation." Casey said revelation like he was describing something foul.

"So I found out I had a conscience and realized my not very evil actions had wrought intense harm, and I went, as you put it, straight. And I am telling you because you are the first not asshole who's asked."

"You don't talk to Kensi very much about work," Marty said, laughing.

"Legally, I am not allowed to talk to Kensi about her work. It was a specific condition of her employment," Casey said. He smirked. "Whatever she says to you, she likes bad boys. I think she did even before Jack abandoned her."

"I do know about Jack," Marty said. "She'd probably be pretty mad if you and I were talking about her."

"Probably?" Casey smiled and Marty heard the tiny ping.

"Get down," Marty hissed. He already had his gun ready. Casey tried to reach for his gun.

No one called out anything before the shots started. So, not from Granger. Marty shot back twice, didn't hit anything, ducked down behind the sofa again. Marty grabbed Casey's laptop and threw it across the floor, listening as it drew fire.

"That was worth a lot of money," Casey said. He had finally found his gun. He held it like he was not really comfortable with it. It was not incredibly heartening.

"What do you mean by a lot of the money?"

"Last offer I had to build a computer was over half a million," Casey said. "Should I be shooting back?"

"No, please. Thanks, for the offer." Marty was pretty sure there were four of them coming from the one door. There was no other entrance, no windows. Pluses and minuses to that, Marty thought.

He listened for a hot minute, then grabbed Casey's gun and did a shoot with two guns, what Casey would call a John Woo thing that was unbelievably stupid. He even added in a "Yippee-kai-yay!" He was hoping the sheer stupid would surprise Clairmont's trained mercenaries who would be expecting some kind of professional protecting the rich genius.

He managed to take down three of them, spotted the fourth by the door, and only got winged in three places. He sank down and enjoyed the moment when the adrenaline was covered the pain.

"That looked badass and seemed really stupid," Casey said.

"One to go," Marty said. He passed back Casey's gun and braced himself. He popped up and took two more shots towards the door. No one there.

He did a check of the whole room. Then he sank down on the couch. "Okay, you go over to the guys who are down and take their guns."

Casey did it, badly, but accomplished it. "They're all breathing," he said. "I take it we should head out and call an ambulance from elsewhere."

"Works for me," Marty said. "Take whatever you need." He'd already found the tiny first aid kit Kensi had brought (always the girl scout) and stopped the bleeding. It probably wouldn't even scar.

They went down two floors with Marty clearing each landing. Casey had a certain level of natural ability when it came to not being shot and was definitely smarter than the average villain, not that that was particularly hard since the average villain was a teenager hopped up drugs and hormones. Marty thought idly that he had not quite adjusted to viewing Casey as a former Mr. Evil given the pictures he'd seen before this encounter had been a grinning besotted father.

When they got to the parking lot, they saw one SUV. Marty said, "Looks like they came in two cars and that last guy decided to run."

"Or head back to Clairmont for whomever they're attacking now," Casey said. "What's his plan? The man is not the greatest planner."

"He didn't know I'd be there to protect you," Marty said. "He probably thought he could kill you, make it look like suicide."

"With my body riddled with bullets?"

"Four against one, man, they wouldn't need to shoot you that much," Marty said. "Plus, then they set everything on fire."

"No one would believe that," Casey said. "I'm not at all suicidal." He shook his head. "No one would care. Sorry, it takes a few minutes, apparently, to snap back ."

"Snap back into breaking into this car," Marty said.

"Or I could just use the key I took from him when I moved his weapon," Casey said. The car beeped and Marty got into the driver's seat.

Casey took out a phone from somewhere, sent a text and then broke the phone with the butt of the gun he found on the seat. "Who leaves a gun in plain sight?"

"A guy pulling into a deserted parking lot in a deserted building in a warehouse part of LA with no foot traffic," Marty said. "Where's your car?"

"I stole one and wrecked it 3 blocks from here," he said, nonchalantly.

"People like their cars, man," Marty said.

"No one liked that car," Casey said. "Looks like that is where Clairmont is holed up." He pointed at the GPS. "Are we headed there?"

"God, no," Marty said. "We're going to the Mission to regroup and get me some painkillers and sympathy. Lots of sympathy."

"You could be less subtle about wanting to bang my ex," Casey said.

"You were just telling me she would like me," Marty said.

"I'm a complex man," Casey said. "I take it back, go for it. You were in the right shooting your dad, you're a good guy."

"That's -, geez, thanks," Marty said. "You broke into -"

"The personnel files of someone who has met my daughter and she talks about all the time? Yes, I have."

"But you get upset when someone does it to you," Marty said.

"Like you don't have something you're hypocritical about," Casey said.

"Touche," Marty said.