College is going very well tbh, and it looks like I'm gonna have a lot more time to write fic these days! I appreciate y'all's reviews a lot, they really make me feel super appreciated and inclined to write more/faster.
The Art Of Lost Causes
Dark Blue 'Verse – Part Two – The Boiling Point
Fail-safe trigger, lock-down call
Wipe the dry clean-slate, quick
Sound the alarm
No escape from the truth
And the weight of it all
I am caught in the web of a lie
- All Time Low, 'A Love Like War'
After Deeks and G's end of the conversation goes silent, Sam and Kensi remain sitting in Sam's car for a while longer, staring at the phone still in Kensi's hand.
"He took that better than I expected him to," Kensi says after a while. She is referring, of course, to G's lack of a major outburst upon hearing that not only is one of his oldest friends investigating Hetty, but Sam is deeply involved as well. Had Sam not immediately focused his efforts on defusing the conversation and at least postponing any anger or betrayal from G, that conversation might have gone very, very differently.
It's not like she would've blamed G for reacting like that. She can't imagine any of this is easy for him, and if her assumptions are correct, it's only about to get worse. Most of all, though, aside from worrying about both G and Deeks separately, she is deeply concerned about them in tandem. On the best of days, both can be complicated, difficult people to work with, and today far from counts as one of those.
"Do you think they're gonna be alright?" Kensi finds herself asking Sam, a not of anxiety creeping into her words. "You heard how they sounded, something's bound to go wrong, knowing them. Deeks doesn't exactly... Just, I don't think the way he responds to stress is something G is going to react to very well."
Thinking that over, Sam makes a face. He's got to admit she has a point there. Over the years he's gotten used to the idiosyncrasies of G when there's something bothering him, but despite how long he's been there, Deeks is still the new guy, familiarity wise. Kensi's partner knows her well, but G is a whole other story. Deeks means well. Sam knows he does. But he also knows that, aside from how little G believes in the concept of 'good intentions', intentions overall are going to mean very little to G right now. And once the two of them get going, it won't end well.
"It could be good for them to spend time together," is what Sam says, as opposed to the eight hundred concerns now floating around his head. "I think they could be good for each other."
Kensi snorts, raising her eyebrows at him.
"And so now happens to be the worst time for that." Sam shrugs, trying to be positive. "I don't they'll actually kill each other."
Which, really, is the best either of them can say for the situation. An alarming reality, if you ask Kensi. Just as she is thinking this, her phone goes off with a text from Deeks.
"Speak of the devil," she mutters, reading it and feeling her face fall impossibly further.
[if i dnt make it back from this trip, callen killed me. srs tho, i'm worried abt him. smthn rly big def wrong. gonna see if i can find out what.]
"What, who is it?"
Wordlessly, Kensi hands her phone to Sam. The look on his face when he reads Deeks's message would be funny under any other circumstances.
"I take it back. They might actually kill each other."
Seconds later, Kensi and Sam's phones both go off, one after the other, with a text from Nell.
[Hetty wants you both back here. Now.]
Exchanging a look, Sam and Kensi get out of the car and head inside. Hetty is waiting for them by their desks, looking less than pleased with them. Her arms are folded across her chest and her lips are pursed in a familiar 'you're about to get what's coming to you' sort of way.
"Mr Hanna, Ms Blye," Hetty greet stiffly. "I trust you had some truly pressingly important emergency to contend with? After all, you did leave for an extended period of time during an investigation, and immediately after I assigned it to you at that."
"We just called Deeks and G to touch base with them before we got started. I wasn't getting a good signal so we went outside," Sam lies smoothly, face completely impassive.
"Well I admire your foresight, however I'm sure that Mr Deeks and Mr Callen are more than capable of conducting an investigation without your guidance, and it's time for the two of you to notify Admiral Gallagher of his son's death." Hetty turns to go, walking back away towards her office.
As she leaves, Kensi watches Sam's expression melt from neutral into deep mistrust and a note of resentment.
Thinking about this interaction, going back and thinking about previous ones, about Marty Deeks and G Callen, Kensi suddenly feels sick. It's so obvious. It's like all this time, Hetty has been walking around, a wolf not even bothering with sheep's clothing, and Kensi has just nodded obediently and followed her right over the edge of a cliff.
"How did I miss it?" she whispers to herself, voice little more than a breath. "How didn't I see it?"
Now, Sam's face is creased with empathy and regret. He shakes his head, stuffing his hands deep into his pockets.
"She's good, Kensi. She's the best," he says, looking evenly at his friend and teammate. "Don't get down on yourself about it. She had all of us fooled, we all believed it. Believed her, believed in her. This isn't your fault."
"You saw it. You're doing something about it." Kensi's voice contains small threads of awe, maybe even jealously. "I don't know if I could've done what you did."
With a heavy breath, Sam sits down at his desk, looking at the folder on it not out of any particular interest in the folder itself but more because it happens to be the option preferable to eye contact.
"Honestly, if it weren't for Michelle, I would've thought it was all in my head. She's the one who told me that doing something about it was the right choice to make." Sam flicks the file folder with his thumb. "I don't know how this was allowed to happen in the first place."
"Dangerous people are put in positions of power every day," says Kensi, sitting heavily down on her chair and resting her forehead on her arms, crossed on her desk. "This is such a huge mess..." She can't help but think about Deeks's text, the trouble he's having with G. "Deeks sounded weird on the phone." Her voice is muffled by her sleeves.
"Yeah, G too." All of a sudden Sam finds that this course of discussion is getting them a whole lot of nowhere fast, and is more somber than is useful right now. "So, Admiral Gallagher?"
"Right," mumbles Kensi, picking her head up and opening the folder.
Admiral James Gallagher Sr is not a kind looking man. His appearance is average enough, but there's something in the set of his jaw, the look in his eyes, that sends a chill up Kensi's spine. If there was is father above all others whose son's death she does not want to inform him of, this is the one.
"Phone call or in person?" she asks, already knowing the answer.
"In person. This isn't the kind of thing you say on the phone, not if you can help it."
She has to give him that one.
Kensi and Sam stand outside the Gallagher home for several minutes before kicking up the courage to knock. James Sr answers the door, and from the moment they make eye contact, Sam dislikes him. There's an air of hardness about him, an edge that Sam has only ever felt around a certain kind of person, the kind of person around whom he can see G get nervous, much as he may try to hide it.
In a move ingrained into him from his navy days, an automatic instinct to protect his team, Sam straightens to his full height and squares his shoulders, stepping marginally closer to Kensi.
"Admiral Gallagher," he says, trying to keep his face and voice neutral. "I'm Agent Hanna, this is Agent Blye, we're with NCIS."
"This is about my son, isn't it?" Gallagher asks, sounding almost bored. His face has taken on the twist of a sneer, contemptuous derision dripping from every pore. "Well, what has James gone and done now? Must be pretty serious if NCIS is involved, huh? Sell secrets, did he?"
At this, Sam is unable to keep his face blank, sending a surprised look at Kensi, who meets his eyes with the same expression on hers. Admiral Gallagher is a piece of work.
"No, sir, James hasn't done anything wrong. I'm afraid we have some bad news about your son. May we come inside? It might be better to have this conversation sitting down."
Gallagher folds his arms across his broad chest, frowning first at Kensi, then at Sam. "Just say it."
"We're sorry to inform you of this, but James has been killed."
There's a beat of silence, then Gallagher gives one sharp nod.
"I see," he says in blunt, clipped words. "Well. I appreciate the notification. When can I expect to be able to claim the body? The sooner I can arrange the funeral, the better."
"Admiral," Kensi says slowly, shooting another look over at her temporary partner. "I think maybe I was unclear before. James Gallagher Jr was murdered. Our colleagues are in Pendleton right now to carry out the investigation."
"Murdered?" Gallagher asks, eyebrows going up. "Over what?"
"We don't know yet." Kensi is speaking delicately, as if she is afraid that if she says the wrong thing in the wrong way, it will set the man in front of her off. "That's what our other Agents are doing in Pendleton."
"I knew that boy was never cut out for this," Gallagher mutters under his breath.
"Excuse me?" asks Sam, completely taken aback by this man's reaction to the news that his child has been killed. If it were Sam getting this news about his son... He can't even imagine it, but he knows that this is not what his reaction would be. There is no uniform, normal reaction to this kind of news, but he knows that his first words would not be to degrade his son's memory.
"Navy work, Agent Hanna. My son was..." The look on Gallagher's face is one as if he is tasting something sour. "He was always less than the man I raised him to be. In every way he failed to live up to my expectations, and it only makes sense that he would fail theirs as well." His next words are softer, a directionless mutter coming alongside the first hint of real sadness or grief. "What a waste."
There is an odd compulsion in Sam, a sudden urge to come to the dead boy's defense, but something tells him that pissing off Admiral Gallagher is not a useful course of action for him to take right now. The words that leapt immediately to his tongue, James Gallagher Jr's impeccable record, the fact that they have no idea if his job actually had anything to do with his murder, they will have to be bitten down to silence, in the name of finding the young man's killer.
A period of highly uncomfortable, heavy silence lays over the porch like a thick, suffocating blanket. After what feels like ages, Kensi shifts, forces the sickened look off her face, and addresses Gallagher with all the politeness she can muster. In her experience, men like this respond best when they believe they are being treated like the highly respected, important people they believe they are.
"Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt your son?"
"No," the Admiral snaps, glaring at her. "Why are you asking me? Does it look like I knew every detail of James's life?" His voice lowers to a bitter, wounded mutter. "Boy would hardly have anything to do with me, the ungrateful, no good..."
As the words trickle off to silence, Sam bites his tongue to keep his opinion of 'I've known you for five minutes and I already don't blame him' to himself.
"Now, if you'll excuse me," Gallagher says, straightening his spine and holding his head high, putting him at a height advantage to literally look down on both of them. He must be six foot four at least. "I have a funeral to arrange." With a step back, one heavy hand closes the door, slamming it in Sam and Kensi's faces.
The walk back to Sam's car is silent and stunned as they both try to process what has just happened.
"So he's a suspect, right?" Kensi asks from the passenger's seat as Sam starts the car.
"Definitely."
About three quarters of the way back to the office, Kensi suddenly speaks again.
"I want to help."
Sam spares a quick look at her. "What do you mean?"
"The investigation into Hetty." Her voice starts out a little shaky but swiftly grows convicted. "I want to help. Whatever I can do. For Callen and for Deeks and for you and me and all of us. I want to help." She meets his eyes as they pull up to a stoplight. "Just tell me what I can do."
For a second, Sam's hand hovers over Kensi's then squeezes it tightly for a brief moment. Since the beginning, this process, trying to finally see consequences for Hetty's actions, has been a long and lonely road. Aside from Jethro Gibbs, Sam has been completely alone in this. To know Kensi has his back, that she's willing to do this dangerous, hard thing with him... It means more than he can say.
Moments like these, he thinks, you find out who your real friends are, and Kensi Blye is one of the truest friends a person could have. He only hopes that G will learn the same thing about Deeks. This assignment, this reordering of dynamics, during the worst of times and with the steepest of stakes, Sam knows that this will be what will make or break G and Deeks.
They either walk away from this as family, or it puts a chasm between them too deep and too wide for any hope of repair.
Sam hopes for the former, but he knows G, and though in a different way, he knows Deeks too. And in knowing them, he knows what could happen here. He knows they have good reason to be worried.
