Altered Fraction of Truth
Disclaimer: NCISLA characters belong to Shane Brennan. All original characters and this story are mine.
Chapter 7
Ops CentreNell entered Ops and sat down at her station to continue on with the work that she had been doing, prior to the disaster that unfolded since. Eric shuffled in his seat, swivelling it sideways, before he turned properly and looked over to her. "Are you okay?"
Nell continued to focus on her screen and shook her head. She wiped an escaped tear and turned to look over to her partner. There was no judgement from Eric, just concern and she appreciated his thoughtfulness.
"Why didn't you say anything?" He gently approached the subject. "I mean, I thought I had met your family on Skype. I had no idea that Granger was…"
"My father?" Nell raised her brow at him. "Would it have made you behave differently around me if you had known?"
Eric shrugged. "I don't know. I mean, he scares me some of the time. But you never scare me, Nell, except for your very loud voice just before. You were amazing though, standing up to them like that. I'm proud of you. That took guts and a lot of it."
Nell gave Eric a small smile. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Eric."
"That's what partners are for." He returned her smile and hugged her, knowing that she really needed it.
She pulled back and took in a ragged breath. "To be honest, Eric, it's been a real long time since he's played the role of father to me. I was only ten when Mom died and our mother's cousin, Sharon and her husband Grant, took me in. I became one of the Joneses then, and they loved me like their own. But I missed my big sisters. I lost touch with them, but when I turned eighteen and I was pressured to go to FLETC, I demanded to know their new identities and where I could find them. I reconnected with them and we've been close ever since. Now, it's like I have two families, whereas Savannah only had Amanda. And I never realised before today, just how hard it had been for her."
"Whose Amanda?" Eric inquired, never hearing this name before.
"Our big sister. She's older than Sav. She helps her with Milly and Archie." When she saw more confusion on Eric's face, she realised that she had a lot to fill him in on about her family. "Savannah's children."
Eric mentally head slapped himself, of course, he remembered now, the images of the children up on the screen, when Callen had asked him only the day before to find out what he could on Savannah. "So when you went to Callen's house yesterday pretending to be his sister, you were playing Callen?"
Nell grinned. "Yeah, we were. Savannah had gone on and on about this guy who she kept meeting at the beach every morning, since she moved here. I thought at first she might be annoyed, but I think there was more there than she let on. There's so much more to Savannah than I realised. She's quite a complicated person. Anyway, I didn't put two and two together until yesterday, when Callen asked me to ring her and meet her at his house. So we decided to play Callen's game.
Eric nodded his head. "Cool."
Bull Pen"Looks like you found your match there, Callen." Deeks looked over to their team leader and caught his attention, after Callen watched Savannah climb the stairs. "Quite a spitfire too. A real fighter, unlike Kensi here who continues to fight like a girl."
"You're on tender hooks there, Deeks." Kensi chided over to him. "Watch it, or I won't be so kind the next time and show you what damage I can really do to you. You'll be in too much pain to get out of bed for a week."
"I was holding back," Callen glared at him.
"Not from where I was standing." Callen rose to deal with the detective, but Sam caught his attention.
"I think there's been enough battles in the mission today." Sam shook his head as he looked over at the detective. "I did warn you."
"Not about that." Deeks felt the heat from the glares the team gave him. "All I'm saying, is that she's a fine girl that you found there, Callen."
Callen held in the anger that surged through him. It wasn't Deeks' fault, but he really didn't need to listen to his input into an already heated situation. "I'm ready for round two, if you want, Deeks. I won't hold back this time."
Deeks raised his two hands in surrender. "Oh, I'm good. Thanks, but no thanks."
Nate's OfficeSavannah paused outside of Nate's office, before knocking. "Come in." The familiar voice of Nate's should have soothed her, but she was far from being soothed with all the demons that haunted her, running around her head like it was halloween.
"Sav, come on in." Nate hugged her before sitting back down in his chair.
"Nate…" She looked around the room and found her father looking her way. She quickly averted his gaze. "I've come at a bad time. I'll come back when you're free."
Nate moved swiftly to prevent her from running. He recognised the signs of her need to flee, but he knew that it was the last thing that she needed right then. She needed to face this head on and deal with it before it got any worse. As if it could, after today's events. "Savannah, you haven't come at a bad time. Please, stay." He signalled for her to take the seat next to her father.
Holding the icepack on her hand she hesitantly took the seat next to him. Her guilt from her behaviour was evident in her eyes.
"Charlotte, I'm sorry." Savannah's head shot up at her father's apology and furrowed her brow.
"No, Dad. You don't need to apologise. I had no idea. I saw your name and just assumed that you ordered Mark to go and I blamed you for his death, like I did with Mom's." Savannah took in a ragged breath, as tears threatened to spill again. Her emotions were shot and they were all over the place. She trembled in the chair and her hands shook. She really was a mess. "Look what I've done to you?" She turned and faced him, square in the eyes and assessed the damage to his jaw. She moved the ice away that he was holding to his face to take a closer look. "I'm so sorry, Dad. Please forgive me."
Owen placed his hands over hers, gently stroking her injured left hand, bringing it up to his lips and kissed it. Savannah let out a sob. He was too kind to her and she didn't deserve him to be like this with her. "Charlotte, I forgive you. I love you, like I have always loved you." He lifted her chin up for her to look him in the eyes. "I'm sorry that I wasn't there to protect your mother or you and your sisters. I'm sorry that I wasn't able to remove Mark from the unit on that last mission. Please don't punish yourself like this. I can't stand to see you like this anymore." He pulled her in and wrapped his arms around her as her body shook and she cried. She was safe at last in her father's arms.
After she had calmed down, she sat back up and pulled away from him. "Thanks." Her voice was but a whisper, with her emotions still raw.
"I'll leave the two of you to talk," Owen stood up and nodded over to Nate. "Make the most of Nate being in town, Charlotte. We're not always able to have him here whenever it suits us."
Savannah nodded and waited for them to be alone. She watched Nate shuffle his papers on his desk before he looked over at her. "That was some outburst, Sav. It took twenty years, but it came." He crossed his arms over his chest and mulled over things. "But that's the most progress you've made with your father that I've seen yet. However, next time, use the sand bag and some gloves. We can't have you and your father battered and bruised, let alone the damage you've done to Callen." He leaned forward, resting his head on his hands. "By the way, how do you know Callen?"
Savannah's eyes widened. "Why does everyone think that we know each other?" It had been good to have kept whatever it was to themselves. She wasn't ready to share anything, not until she understood what it was herself. In truth, they were still very much strangers.
"Okay." Nate sat back and tried another approach. "How did you end up in the gym fighting Callen?"
Savannah looked to where her father had just left before turning her attention back to Nate. "Dad called me in to brief me on another operation he wanted me to do. I told him I wasn't interested. But he ordered me to come in immediately." Savannah tensed over the memory of earlier. "So when I arrived, I confronted him downstairs and told him that I didn't want to do this anymore." Her right hand fisted as she retold him of the drama over her outburst in front of everyone and how Hetty had suggested that she and Nell dispel some of the anger in sparring. "I was keeping myself under control sparring with Nell, but Callen, he had to come in and replace her and…" Her voice rose high in pitch as her emotions got the better of her.
"And what, Sav?" Nate calmly asked her.
"He told me to think of him as Brian Jackson." Her eyes misted over as she looked Nate straight into his eyes. "I completely lost it after that." She shook her head at the memory of her fighting Callen like she had. It continued to haunt her. "I didn't want to fight him, but he's one stubborn…"
"As stubborn as you and your father," Nate added for her.
"Yes," she heaved out a sigh.
"You know officially, there is no trace of us being cousins, so technically I can be your psychologist on this. However, due to my work commitments out in the field these days, it might be better if you see someone who you can depend on staying around for the long haul."
"What? wait! You're working out in the field?" Her eyes widened in disbelief. "Please tell me only as a psychologist, Nate."
Nate knew how she would react to this news and in the past, he had managed to hide it from her. He heaved out a sigh. "Sav, I know what you think about being an agent, but I enjoy what I do. I get to help people."
"You already help people, Nate. You don't need to be an agent to do that." She rubbed her hand through her hair, as concern for her cousin and best friend grew within her. "Exactly what is it that you do?" Her voice was deflated as she spoke. She was tired from the earlier events and she had no energy left to fight Nate on this one.
"It's classified. I would have to kill you, if I told you." He had always wanted to say that to her after all the years she'd joked about it with him.
"I'm not amused, Nate." She bit on her lower lip, as she thought over what else she wanted to ask him. "Do you carry a gun?"
Nate pulled his SIG out from the small of his back and showed her.
"Now I am very scared. What's the world come to when you of all people are required to protect our country?" Growing up, Nate was always the peacekeeper, never the soldier. "Next thing you will tell me is that Nell is working out in the field too."
Nate's absence of response snapped her attention back to him and the muscles in her body tensed.
"Nate, that was a joke. Please don't tell me…"
Nate shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest. "I know nothing. I know nothing." He grinned over to her, remembering how much they loved watching Hogan's Heroes as kids.
"You are no Shultz, Nate. It doesn't have the same effect with your poor German accent."
Nate mocked an injured look. "I'm offended." His face returned to a grin. "I've missed us."
"Me too. Remind me again how we both ended up living so far apart from each other?"
"Work?"
"That's right, you were moved to work in some secret location with Macey of all people." Savannah's visage darkened. "Another good person lost." When Gibbs had told her about Macey, she'd cried for a week. Life just didn't seem fair sometimes. Good was always suppose to win over evil, but the reality was, life wasn't like fairytales. Just like the television show, Once Upon A Time. Someone finally had the sense to write the fairytale characters in a more realistic light, where they can't reach their happy ever after.
"I know. You two were good friends back in FLETC." Nate remembered his first meeting of the younger Lara Macey through Savannah. Macey had transferred from the navy to become an agent and although there was a seven year difference, the two had become good friends. Nate had clicked with Macey as well, so he wasn't surprised when she got the lead post in Los Angeles and asked for him to join the team.
"There are too many of them, Nate. I don't know if I can go through losing someone else."
"Is that why you've pushed your father away for all of these years?" Nate tested the waters with her on her father again. There had been many questions he'd been keen to ask her over the years but had remained tight lip until now.
Savannah swallowed the hard lump that had formed in her throat. "How did you…"
"It's my job to know these things, Sav. You need to tell him."
"I don't know if I can." She furrowed her brows and held her chest with her uninjured hand. "It hurts too much. It's easier and safer to keep people at a distance."
"Yet you've kept the rest of the family close to you and you're beginning to let Callen in too." Nate pushed and noticed her shift uneasily in her chair.
"That's different," Savannah stood up and paced the room.
"How is it different, Sav. Tell me." Nate watched her with concern and knew that there were multiple layers to the pain inside of his cousin. It wasn't just as simple as her blaming her father for her mother's death and then her husband's. There was the fear of loss and the pain that she felt was deep.
"He's my daddy. I can't lose him too," she whispered and sunk into the corner of the room.
Nate walked over and crouched his tall six foot, five figure down beside her. "I know, Sav. I know." He wrapped his arms around her and held her until she had calmed down. "I think you should see this colleague of mine, Sandra Pearson. She's the best in grief counselling."
Savannah nodded. "Thanks, Nate."
"I think you need to go home and rest. Especially rest that hand of yours. Come, I'll drive you," Nate pulled her up to standing.
"I have my car here. I can drive myself." Savannah was used to being independent and never made much fuss over her injuries in the past.
"I'll ask Nell to bring me back, so you can have your car, but," he pointed his finger at her, "no driving for the rest of the day."
"Yes, boss." He led her out of his office to Ops and found Nell in the middle of briefing the team on a new case. All the agents turned and looked their way when they entered. Nate kept her close by his side and she noted Callen's confusion over it. When Nell finished, Callen fired questions to her and Eric, and made decisions on the next step that the team would take. Savannah felt like an intruder, watching them at work in the Ops Centre. She was used to working alone with her father being her only point of contact on any operation he had her working on. At no point had her identity as Savannah Hall, the Interior Designer been burned, nor had anyone connected her to Owen Granger. But there were times when her life had been in danger and she had to fight to the death to protect herself. It was her skill in that department that had her working on her own without a partner. This team work was new to her and she watched them closely as they interacted smoothly amongst themselves. She noticed that Callen appeared to be in charge and the rest of them had complete faith in him and respected him in the decision making. Her father stood back with Hetty as they made their plan for proceeding.
They stood to the side as Callen and the other agents left the Ops Centre, with Callen looking their way as he left. He stared longer than usual at Nate's arm wrapped over her shoulders and she was certain she saw jealousy fire in his eyes. She knew that she would have to explain their relationship to him later, although in truth, she owed him no explanation. She knitted her brows together as she analysed why she even thought that she would need to explain anything to him. It wasn't like there was anything really going on between them. Or was there? She still hadn't figured it out yet. She knew Nate wanted to know more about them, but she had deflected him earlier when he had approached her about it.
"Nell, do you have a moment to pick me up from Sav's later? I'm taking her home in her car, but I'll need a ride back." Nate approached his petite cousin, ignoring Hetty and Granger in the far corner.
Nell looked over at Eric who nodded. "I can, in about an hour, is that okay?"
"Yeah, thanks." Nate and Savannah left, leaving a confused Callen brooding in the challenger, as Sam drove them to the crime scene.
