It was late that evening and Callen still was dealing with some paperwork since the other agents had left the building. Hetty previously had pointed out that he, as the team-leader, must set a good example to his co-workers and so he had decided spontaneously and delighted to fulfill her order. Time was running and when he looked up once, he wondered about some lights still burning in the upper story. He made his way upstairs and slipped through the sliding doors into ops.

It was an interesting sight that greeted him. Eric was holding Nell in his arms tight, one hand stroking through Nell's auburn hair, her head leaning on his chest. Recognizing someone had entered ops made Eric jump. Nell did not react at all. Callen stared at the couple, raising his eyebrow while his mouth was twitching into an amused smirk. At the same time he saw Eric blushing, his cheeks turning red as far as one could make out in the dim blue light of ops. But different than he had expected, Nell didn't blush as usual. Her face was extremely pale and she was not moving. Eric started stuttering "Oh, Callen, you're here… still in the office… it's, it's not what it looks like…had a stressful day… we, we still had to finish up some work…"

Callen found himself in the middle of something like a comical show, at least that's what it seemed to him. Amused and relaxed he put his hands into his pants pockets and kept Eric and Nell in suspense, gazing at them steadily. Sometimes he could be so mischievous… Well, honestly, he and the rest of the team had assumed that already, but there had been no direct proof for it, until now… There was indeed something going on between the tech and the little red-haired analyst. He had to pull himself together not to laugh out loud.

"Aha." Pause. "You two don't need to be embarrassed for, well, liking each other" he said, chuckling.

He saw Eric's jaw drop. The tech obviously felt nervous and out of place, shuffling his feet what looked a bit as if he needed to pee, and he then noticed Nell's expression that made Callen feel a bit uneasy. She looked as pale as if she was sick. It was not an expression one had that had only been busted. It was an expression of sadness; her hazel eyes gave him a blank look but were actually looking straight through him. She seemed to be mentally absent, not taking notice of what was happening around her at all. She didn't move one bit and it seemed her thoughts were anywhere but in ops. He, agent-wiseass-Callen, was perplexed. How could this be? His amusement turned into confusion and concern and he decided for now to leave it at that.

"Won't tell anyone anything, you know" he murmured completely baffled. Shaking his head he turned around and walked out of ops back to his desk. Unfortunately there was still a lot of paperwork to do. But it was hard for him to concentrate as he was distracted by the recent happening in ops. Maybe he would ask her later about this incident and her odd behavior. It was so unlike Nell. She was just a shadow of her former self. What was wrong with her?

.*.*.*.*.

Nell didn't realize how long she must have been standing in ops without moving. It was Eric snapping his fingers in front of her face that brought her back down to earth. And she remembered vaguely that someone had entered ops… 'OMG was that really Callen who had just caught me and Eric embracing?' she thought feeling a bit uncomfortable. 'Now he must be thinking very certain that not only Kensi and Deeks have a 'thing' but me and Eric have one, too' she sighed. Well, that was something the others thought about her and him anyway but in reality it was not her main problem at the moment. She had to deal with her woolly thoughts but barely was able to think clear. Honestly, at the moment she was unable to cope with the fact of being an adoptee. She would have to find out where she actually came from, where she could find her roots. Nevertheless she would need to talk to Callen later. After all he was the team leader and to her it was essential, what and how he was thinking about her and especially she wanted to avoid the gossip that could probably come up.

.*.*.*.*.

Very early the next morning Nell was sitting at her place in ops. She had slept badly, as she had dreamed some stupid nightmares, until all of a sudden she woke up crying and could not stop her tears anymore. Now she was over thinking the facts she had found out so far and how to go on. Which step would be the best to continue her personal inquiries?

For a very short moment she thought about asking Hetty. But based on several facts it was not a good idea. First, Hetty would know in a second that she had been abusing NCIS resources for private purposes. Second, Hetty would also know straightway she had been snooping around. Not only that she had been snooping around but also hacking into a top secret file – to be more specific Hetty's top secret file - with the help of Eric. Third, oh no, she would better not think about what probably would happen, if Hetty found out… Well, asking Hetty was definitely no option.

"Miss Jones?"

She was interrupted in her thoughts and jumped a bit when all of a sudden somebody stood directly next to her. It was Hetty! Her heartbeat quickened and she was thinking about, if she might have said something aloud what she had been thinking about the minute before. It was a mystery to her how Hetty always managed to come out of nowhere. Well, not only this was a mystery to Nell, Hetty herself was a complete mystery.

Hetty was eying her "We've got a new case. I need to urge you to check into these two men." She put down a document on Nell's desk. "They are suspected of having murdered a young woman in Venice. To be exact the woman was the youngest daughter of Vice Admiral Jeffrey H. Cumming. Eric is already checking the LAPD reports and newscasts about this villainous deed. As soon as you two are ready, call the team for the briefing."

.*.*.*.*.

Several days later the agents went back to the OSP. They even had been working the whole weekend without a break. It had taken some time to trace the two suspects and when they eventually had located their current hideout the team had almost been blown up. One of the suspects had been killed in a shooting directly after the explosion and the other one had been caught and arrested by Kensi once he had tried to escape. Being grilled by Sam and Callen at the boatshed he at last admitted the murder. They had blackmailed Vice Admiral Cumming to hand highly sensitive data over to them. As the Vice Admiral tried to negotiate with the kidnappers, they lost their patience extremely fast and without missing a beat they brutally killed the young woman.

As the agents entered the bullpen they all looked like they had been beaten-up: all dirty and partly tattered clothes, bruises nearly everywhere. It was a sight Hetty was very shocked about but tried hard not to show how concerned she actually was.

"Today I would like to say thank you for a job well done, although even in the end there is no real winners" she started. "I see you all had to endure a lot and I instantly want you all, including Miss Jones and Mr. Beale, to take some days off for recovery. I need a fully operational team back next Monday.

.*.*.*.*.

It was silent in the bullpen when Nell ran down the stairs quickly. She was in a hurry, as given four work-days off by Hetty offered her a big chance to go on a trip to Nevada to ask for the inspection of her records in Carson City's adoption office. Everyone of the whole team, including Hetty, had already left. Everyone, except Callen, who was still doing some paperwork.

"Bye Callen" she called out to him and headed straight to the exit.

"Nell?!" she heard Callen "Got a minute?"

Nell froze in her movements. 'He wants to talk about the incident with me and Eric' she thought and blushed a bit as she turned around to face Callen who was now standing not far behind her.

"Yeah" she replied slowly. "If it's about the situation in ops with me and Eric, you see, I don't…"

Callen lifted his hands in defense and smiled "No. If there's something between you and Eric or not it's not my business, Nell."

"So… what is it you wanna talk about?" Nell asked in relief but curious, raising an eyebrow and stepping a bit towards Callen.

"You seemed to be distracted the last couple of days. Something is worrying you and I'm not sure if the team is safe when you can't keep it out of work - whatever it is" Callen said. And for the second time within two days he recognized Nell's face turning very pale, again.

She felt sick. She hadn't realized that her private thoughts and actions could have been so obvious to somebody else. She thought she had had it all under control. As she tried to find a logical explanation he continued with a lower voice trying to placate her "Nell, you did a great job without a mistake during the last operation. But I noticed that something bothers you and I don't know if we, if I, can trust you when there is a chance that you are unfocused at work."

Callen stood in front of Nell. His gaze was directed at her and he patiently waited for an answer. She was tensed and started to chew on her lower lip as if she was considering something very carefully looking down to her feet.

Nell knew she needed to talk to Callen. After all he was the team leader and he deserved to get an answer. But what should she tell him? She knew Callen was a foster child. Maybe he would understand her? He had made a lot of experiences in the 'system'. If he did not understand, who else would? And so she decided to involve him and hoped instantly he would not blame her for having made her own inquiries that had taken up a lot of her time and which maybe had made him and the rest of the team feel uneasy.

She lifted her head up at Callen and looked him directly in the eyes when she tentatively answered in a very low voice "I assure you, that you and all the others can trust me in what I do and how. But yes, there is indeed something that literally rushed me off my feet."

Callen was examining Nell. Her skin was always pale but he couldn't remember of having seen her as colorless as she looked at this moment with dark circles under her eyes. It was zombie-like. She was visibly exhausted and since she was a confident woman full of humor and energy she now appeared to be so small and vulnerable to him. He was afraid she could collapse right in front of him and he felt the urge to hold her but resisted.

"Nell, you're good?" he asked.

She was shaking her head. "To be honest… No." she replied while she was wringing her hands nervously.

Callen had a feeling she was fighting an inner battle and he wanted to encourage her to talk to him. So he pointed to the old leather couch in the office "Sit down there. I've got a lot of time and maybe I can help you in some way." He bent down a bit and placed his hands gently on her shoulders, what made her to glance up at him. "All I want you to know is that you can confide in me" he said and Nell nodded slightly.

Doing what she had been told she sat down and waited for Callen. She knew he was very reliable and it was worth a try. Maybe he could really help her. When Callen returned he placed two mugs of tea on the coffee table and leaned back on the sofa. He didn't know what to expect but he was sure it would take some time.

And so Nell began and let Callen in on her story. She told him what had induced her to start her inquiries and that she accidentally had found out that her twin brothers had been adopted. And that she then was curious of course what was up with her. She was surprised about Callen who listened to her without interrupting her, retaining the information she gave him and when she looked at him he seemed to - care?

"It was rather difficult to find something out about me, you know. Not even my birth certificate was in my file and I could not explain it to myself. It couldn't have been a mistake as Hetty would never make a mistake of that kind." Nell paused and swallowed hard before she continued "And some day I discovered an encrypted file and with Eric's help we could decrypt a very small part of it. It was a document that confirms that I must be an adoptee as well. And nobody else than our certain Ops Manager is responsible for the encryption of that confident file and - you know - I wonder what this means. I can hardly ask Hetty about that but I'm curious about how and why she is involved into the whole thing."

Callen had silently listened to Nell's telling but after she had mentioned that Hetty was implicated in this case and that there was an encrypted file which even Eric wasn't able to decrypt at all he was alarmed. The last time Hetty had encrypted some data was 'Operation Comescu' and this case had been a disaster – in particular for him, as he was personally involved and for Hetty as she had been severely injured. A very bad feeling took possession of him.

Callen was now a bit distracted by his thoughts, rubbing his left thumb against his index and middle finger, until he heard Nell say "…and luckily Hetty gave us some days off, so I will go on a trip to Carson City to ask for the inspection of my records at the adoption office."

When these words entered his mind, he jumped a bit and suddenly he heard himself say "No!"

Nell looked at Callen with confusion in her gaze. "What?" she paused. "Why? You're going to prohibit me from driving to Nevada?" she asked a bit angry. "Please don't treat me like a little child, Callen! I can take care of myself!"

Realizing how strange and rough his reaction must have come across to Nell, he started for further explanation "I know. And that's not what I actually mean."

"So, what is it what you mean?" she questioned in a challenging way, regarding him intently.

"It's about the encrypted file and Hetty. I've got a bad feeling about this all and it reminds me a lot about the Comescu-case, you know?" he replied and hoped she would understand without further clarifications.

"I see" she answered slowly, perking her eyebrows up, "but what shall I do instead? I've got no other idea so you won't stop me from going on my little trip. Maybe I could get to know my biological parents and ask them about the whys and wherefores. I really thought, you of all people would understand…" she stopped at once when she became aware of what she just had said and covered her mouth with one hand, her eyes wide open. But Callen apparently ignored her last words that had slipped out of her mouth so rashly.

Callen could see the determination in her facial expression. And her body language showed him as well that he would never be able to convince her of the contrary. So he spontaneously made a decision "Well, if I can't stop you going, you won't stop me from accompanying you."