Callen placed his hand briefly on her arm as he passed by. Nell's face was as easy to read as an open book. "Good to see you again, Marty. You're looking a better than the last time I saw you." That had been in Pacific West Hospital, after the second surgery, and Deeks had looked like the living dead. He still didn't look brilliant but it was one hell of an improvement.

"I feel better. Getting there, you know?"

Yes, Callen knew. He knew all about recovering from a shooting. He knew exactly what it felt like to have been shot in the chest: he knew all about it. And he didn't ever want to go there again.

"Thanks for all the gifts. Even if Caroline confiscated the bourbon."

Sam snorted. "Sounds a lot like my mom. Makes you drink a lot of milk, does she?"

"And how! Pint after pint of it, till I feel like it's coming out of my ears. I tried to persuade her to heat the stuff up and stick a shot of bourbon in, but she was having none of it. Joe let slip where she's hiding it though and I've not given up all hope."

Kensi started to scrabble around in her purse. "That reminds me, my mom sent this over. Said it helps with the healing and boosts your immune system." Her fingers finally located a small bottle and she produced it with a flourish. "Echinacea drops. Mom swears by them. Says she hasn't had a single cold since 1998."

Deeks looked genuinely pleased. "That's really kind of her. Let me have her address and I'll write to say thank you." His mother had always been insistent on good manners and there was still a stack of headed note-paper still in the top right-hand drawer of her desk. She would have made him write, if she'd been here. Kensi must have told her mother about him. Was that good or bad? What had she said? Had she called him her partner, or her friend? Pulling his wits together, he was relieved when Caroline came in with a tray of coffee.

"No milk?" he asked with a cheeky grin.

"I thought that, seeing you have been very good today, I would allow you one cup of coffee," Caroline replied tartly, but softened her words with a smile. Marty was the nearest thing she had to a son and she was determined to make sure he got better, whether he liked it or not.

"You'd get on really well with my mom," Sam chortled. "She could always keep all eight of us kids in control with just one look." He rarely gave away anything about his private life but this had just slipped out somehow. The Hannahs had not been wealthy and their small house sometimes seemed as if would burst at the seams, especially as they'd all grown older and brought friends around. Eight kids plus eight friends made for a big crowd, and a noisy one too. But everyone had always been welcome and the evening meals could be stretched to feed a few more hungry mouths, as long as nobody minded filling up on crusty home-made bread. To this day, the smell of fresh bread always made Sam think of home.

"I didn't know you were one of eight. Where about do you come in the family?"

"I'm the eldest." And that meant taking on responsibility at an early age: Looking after the little ones, helping his Dad do outside shores, getting a job after school. As he'd grown older, Sam had seen how tight money was and he'd been determined to help out. His parents were good people; they'd brought up their children to act, not sit around and complain. If something was wrong, you fixed it. It was as simple as that. So it just seemed natural that two weeks after graduating from high school Sam had enlisted in the Navy. It was a family tradition – his old man had done a couple of tours in the sixties, before he'd got married - and it meant that Sam was earning a decent salary and learning stuff at the same time. At first, he'd thought he might train as a mechanic, have a good trade to go into when his term was up. But the Navy had other plans for Sam Hannah and he'd found himself drafted into the SEALs. And eventually, he'd moved onto NCIS. His career hadn't been exactly what he'd planned, but Sam had no complaints.

"Youngest," Deeks said. Chris had been dead for fifteen years, but he would always be his big brother. Memories of Chris were all around the room, throughout the house. It didn't seem possible that he was now older than Chris had been when that bomb blew him up in Iraq. He still felt like Chris was looking after him, looking out for him. It was hard to realise that Chris was dead. Marty still missed him, missed being a little brother, and missed having someone to look up to. Maybe things would have been different if Chris had lived, but when there is an eight year gap between brothers, it was hard not to hero-worship your older sibling.

"Same here." It didn't matter that Callen could not remember his sister, the very fact that he had once had a sister was enough. It gave him some sort of background, some sort of feeling of belonging. They shouldn't have been separated: they should have been kept together. He tried not to think about how different things might have been. If only – and those were the saddest words in the world.

"Middle child – older sister, younger brother," Nell added. She'd heard people say that the middle child often got overlooked, but if anything it was the reverse in her family. She was the child who never caused her parents any worry, the child in the accelerated learning programme. While she envied her sister's gift for making friends easily and her brother's skill at athletics, they had wished that they could absorb facts and concepts as readily as Nell, so things evened out. They all looked at Kensi expectantly.

"Only child," she admitted. That had always made her feel special – there were no other siblings to compete for her parent's attention. And living on Marine bases meant she'd always had plenty of other kids around for company. Camp Pendleton still felt like home and she went back as regularly as she could. She might drop hints about wild parties but, three weekends out of four, Kensi went home to her Mom and just enjoyed spending time with her, helping in the garden, going for walks. Her Mom was the most important person in her life, she always had been, but their bond had tightened after her father died.

"I've persuaded my doctor to let me come back to work day after tomorrow. Desk duties only, but it'll be a start. I'm going stir crazy sitting around here, doing nothing all day."

"We still need to have that conversation about security," Sam said. "Seriously. Got to make sure you're up to speed. We take care of our own and we can't have you letting down the good reputation of the team." Three weeks ago, he would have said it differently. Three weeks ago Deeks would have taken it all differently. But they had all moved on from. They were starting to know one another properly and that could only help. Finally, they were a team.

Deeks tried to look resigned, but his eyes were sparkling. "If we must. I read that survival manual you sent and I'm pretty sure I've got the whole "skinning a squirrel" bit down pat. Which came in pretty handy yesterday afternoon when Bobby here had one cornered on the terrace, actually." The dog picked up his ears at the mention of his name.

"You didn't!" Nell gasped. She'd being toying with the idea of becoming a vegetarian. "You couldn't do something like that?" She sounded genuinely upset and Deeks rushed to reassure her.

"No, Nell – the squirrel was just fine. Bobby just wanted to be friends with it and was highly disappointed when it ran up a tree."

Sam decided to bring the conversation back on track. "Tomorrow morning then? We don't want to give Callen any more gray hairs worrying about you."

"Whereas you just shave your head so we can't see any incriminating evidence?" Kensi asked sweetly. Two days! Just two days and he'd be back at work, back sitting beside her, back where he belonged.

Deeks laughed and then put his arm around Nell's shoulders. "It's good to see you guys. It's good to be back."