Callen's wish for a peaceful night was not granted so when he woke at 8:00 a.m. Sunday morning in the boat shed, he felt like he'd been run over by a Mack truck. He noticed his right hand, which had been cradled under the pillow, began to shake and Callen swiftly clamped his left hand over it trying to stop the tremors; it didn't help. The quivering lasted less than a minute before it subsided as quickly as it had appeared. Callen glowered at his betraying hand but it remind uncommunicative.

Leveraging himself off the narrow bed, he wandered downstairs to the kitchenette where he grabbed a bottle of water from the beat-up fridge and downed a fistful of aspirin from the bottle stored in the nearby scarred cabinet. He ran a weary hand over his face then held it out for inspection. Solid as a rock. No signs of tremors. Spinning, he threw a wicked punch at the innocent wooden support pole with his right fist then held it out for inspection again. It hurt like hell and he'd broken open the scars from the previous evening but the hand remained steady. These tremors were going to drive him crazy with their unpredictability.

Frustrated and desperately needing to clear his head, Callen decided to jog back to the main building where he had left his car the other day. He went back upstairs where he had some spare clothes stashed and changed into shorts, t-shirt and sneakers. Back downstairs, he stretched a few minutes before heading out into the California sunshine to start in his run.

When he arrived at Ops, he found it mostly deserted; only the skeleton crew that ran the center on the weekends was present. He nodded to a few folks on his way to the coffee machine, where he brewed a quick cup. While he was waiting for it to finish, he examined his hands to see if they were going to start twitching but they remained unwavering. His mind kept nagging him that if he could figure out what triggered the tremors, he could deal with them.

Picking up his cup of coffee, he sipped it as he moved across to the bullpen to his desk. Carefully setting down the mug, he flipped open his screen and logged into his laptop. Time for some research; this was one topic he couldn't ask Nell to research for him.

For the next thirty minutes, he searched the internet for every piece of available data on cyanide poisoning. Each website he visited said his symptoms were very consistent with what one should expect, given the amount he ingested. All the sites also stated follow-up blood tests were highly recommend; he quickly nixed that advice. The discussions said the poisoning could lead to long-term neurological diseases; he filed that away in the disturbing folder in his mind. All the so-called experts said tremors were not uncommon and often would go away without any special treatment; nice but not informative from a timeline perspective.

The more he read, the more aggravated Callen grew because he could not find the answer to the one question he was desperate to know; how to predict and control the tremors. If he couldn't figure that out how to manage them, how could he trust himself in the field? He would be putting his team at risk every time he stepped out that door if he could not be depended upon to shot accurately. A tremor at the wrong moment could be the difference in the number of people that started a mission and the number that returned safely; Alex, perhaps, being a case in point.

Slamming his laptop shut in exasperation, Callen sprang out of his chair and headed for the firing range. If no one could provide the answers he needed, he would have to figure them out for himself. He had to do everything else in life on his own, why had he expected this to be any different?


After Sam left Hetty's house Sunday, he headed for the boat shed to see if he could find Callen. Sam knew from past experience that G, in his lone wolf mode, always led to some sort of trouble; trouble that would somehow suck Sam, and the rest of the team into its vortex. For once, Sam was determined to get in front of the situation before it spiraled out of control if, that is, he could locate his AWOL partner.

He parked the black Challenger in front of the deceptively innocent looking boat shed which, he muse, was an analogy for Callen; normal looking on the outside, incredibly complex on the inside.

Getting out of the car, he entered the building. It didn't take him long to ascertain Callen had been there but had departed. Sam decided to drive up to the main building and search for his errant partner.

Sam parked in his usual spot outside the front doors. Once inside, he could see signs that Callen had passed though the bullpen such as the unfinished coffee on his desk, but after a thorough search of the entire building, Sam concluded Callen had departed from this locale too. Sam's patience with his Houdini partner was stretching thin.

For the umpteenth time, he tried calling G's phone but it still went directly to voice mail. Swearing, he left another message for Callen to call him before hanging up. Why the damn man couldn't pick up the phone was a mystery to him.

Sam's mothering sense started warring with his common sense in a debate on whether to drive to Callen's house and find out if he was there and safe. He knew Callen would hate that he was checking up on him, but Sam would hate himself if he didn't and something was seriously wrong.

Deciding on a compromise, he drove past Callen's house to see if his car was in the driveway. When Sam spotted it was, he turned around and headed home. It would seem his partner had at least made it home safely. Still pissed, Sam decided he would give G some space today but if he didn't show up Monday morning at work, on time, Sam was going to go ballistic all over is lone wolf partner's ass.