Things start to improve for Callen now... he needed to get worse in order for this chapter to work, but he'll be through the worst of it by the time you get to the end of this :-)


CHAPTER EIGHT

"Ted, NO!" Callen screamed into the darkness. "Marcus… Ted, no…!"

Sam leapt from his chair as if he'd been shot, crossing in one quick stride to the bed where Callen was twisting and thrashing violently in his sheets, in danger of ripping the chest drain and the IV out. He pulled the light cord, and grabbed hold of Callen's shoulders, trying to gently restrain him and prevent him from hurting himself any more.

"G!" he said, urgently. "G, buddy, wake up." Callen was boiling to the touch, his fever at its peak. Sam pressed the call button, and stripped the covers down to Callen's hips, trying to keep the tubing of the chest drain in place as Callen struggled against the demons in his dreams. "Callen!" he all but shouted. Whether he was getting through to Callen's fever-wracked brain, or his hand on the site of the chest drain caused him pain, Callen finally stopped struggling and opened glazed confused eyes. The night shift doctor opened the door and hurried in, looking enquiringly at Sam who still had one hand on Callen's shoulder and the other on the chest drain.

"Problem?" he asked economically. Sam kept looking at Callen, though he directed his answer to the doctor.

"He was having a nightmare. Pretty bad. Thrashing… I don't know if he's pulled this thing out."

"Let me check," the doctor said, standing on the other side of the bed from Sam and moving the pillows so Callen could lie flat on his back. "Agent Callen," he said. "I need to have a look at your chest drain. Can you lie still please so I can lift your gown?" Sam wasn't sure how conscious Callen was, so he was relieved when he saw him nod consent.

"You got this, G," he said reassuringly, knowing that with Callen not fully aware of his surroundings the presence of a different doctor touching him could well send him over the edge. "We're gonna try not to hurt you, but we just need to check the drain." Sam wasn't sure if his words were making any difference at all but he kept talking anyway as he helped Callen move onto his back. The doctor gently lifted Callen's gown, and peeled back the dressing covering the tube inserted between his ribs.

"It's still in place," he said with relief. "I'll ask a nurse to come in and re-dress it. I'll get him some more Motrin too; he's due and it'll help the fever. Is he going to stay calm? I can give him a sedative if he's going to panic again. We can't risk his adrenaline going up that high."

"Thanks, but I've got it," Sam said. "You'll make him worse if you sedate him, believe me. I'll keep him calm." Sam kept talking to Callen quietly when the nurse arrived and gently but efficiently sorted his dressing out. Callen seemed still drowsy, but he obediently swallowed the offered tablets with a glass of water held by Sam. The doctor was reassured that Sam had his patient under control, and left with the nurse.

"You with me, G?" Sam asked once they were alone.

"I… Sam?"

"I'm here."

"Shit." Callen winced as he moved.

"You okay?" Callen nodded, and Sam was relieved to see lucidity in his face again after the haze that had been present when he first woke up. "Pretty intense dreams, huh?"

"I guess so."

"You want to tell me about it?" Sam asked, moving the chair next to Callen and sitting down.

"I…" Callen baulked.

"I'm not gonna judge, G. If you don't want to share, that's cool. But something's obviously bugging you. To do with Marcus? Who is Ted?"

Callen was silent a long time, weighing things up while Sam waited patiently next to him. He felt like he was at a massive crossroads – did he trust Sam enough to break down some of the barriers he had built around himself? Could he bear the thought of anyone, even Sam, knowing just a little of what he went through as a child? Would they see him differently, see him as a victim? He wasn't sure, although he was almost certain Hetty knew what his nightmare had been about, at least the gist of it, so why not Sam too. He trusted Sam as much as Hetty, as much as he trusted anyone, didn't he? He felt like his relationship with Sam would subtly change, and not for the better, if he shut down and refused to talk, and so in the end, and with some reluctance, he began to share.

He was seven. About to move into his sixth foster home. He didn't understand why the previous people hadn't wanted him to stay. He had done nothing wrong, at least, he thought he had done nothing wrong. They all had so many different rules. He would do better to stick to the rules this time, keep his head down, keep out of trouble. Live quietly on the outside of things, like a ghost.

His social worker pulled the car up outside a middle sized house in a smart looking street. Lots of neat little front yards, dogs yapping behind fences, children playing on immaculate green lawns. Idyllic family suburbia. But Callen, even at the tender age of seven, felt hardened to it. Five foster homes in less than two years. Already the wariness and distrust of others that would shape his adult life had started to form. He walked up the front path behind the social worker, clutching his small bag that contained everything he owned.

He was greeted by a friendly looking woman who had two other children clinging to her, and he still clearly remembered that tiny flickering of hope, that this home might be different. He might have a future here, be looked after.

He was shown to his room, which he was to share with one other boy, a nine year old called Ted. They each had a bed, and a small table and chair, and shared a chest of drawers for their clothes. It wasn't a big room, but comfortable. The window overlooked the back yard, and Callen remembered the excitement of looking out and seeing the large wooden play structure, shaped like a boat, with a swing and a slide, and a small den up the top.

This was the home that taught him never again to get his hopes up, ever. It started slowly, a negative word here, a reprimand there. A feeling of always being on edge and having to watch his back. His foster father's behaviour was often erratic, and Callen quickly learnt to keep out of his way. His foster mother, though pleasant, seemed to spend very little time at the house, leaving the three young boys to fend for themselves. He was the youngest, then Ted, and the oldest, a ten year old called Alex, took charge. Their foster father would often end up on the rampage, for anything from the house being a mess to the boys making a noise as they played. Callen took to hiding quietly in the den at the top of the wooden climbing frame in the garden.

One day, he heard his foster father yelling and crashing about in the house, throwing furniture around and shouting, cursing. Callen realised the man was looking for him, and he pressed himself into the darkest corner of the climbing frame den, hoping he would remain undiscovered.

It was Ted who gave him up. Their foster father gave the boy a crack across his jaw that knocked the boy sideways, demanding to know where Callen was, and sobbing, desperately trying to run away, Ted blurted out how Callen liked to hide in the den.

Callen wasn't quick enough to sneak out and find a new place to hide. Just as he was squeezing out of the doorway of the little hidey hole at the top of the frame, ready to climb down the ladder, his foster father grabbed him, and flung him to the ground. He heard the bone in his leg snap, and he screamed in agony, and blacked out.

He didn't remember anything after that, until he woke up in the hospital, alone.

"My leg was in traction for six weeks," Callen told Sam quietly. "I was stuck in that bed… in that room… for six weeks. No visitors. And when I got out… I was moved to a new home again."

Sam didn't know what to say. He couldn't understand how anyone could treat a kid that way. He knew Callen's childhood hadn't been easy, had suspected there'd been abuse along the way; there had to have been, with all those changes of homes on his file. But it was something Callen never talked about, and so he had blocked it from his mind. Callen was Callen, his past shaped him but wasn't who he was, and Sam took him as the man in front of him, a top class agent and loyal to a fault to those very special few he invited in to his carefully built walls. Sam spent a lot of time only hoping he was worthy of such loyalty, and doing his best to return it.

"I'm sorry, G," he said eventually.

"It was a long… time ago," Callen said dismissively, but his shaky sigh told Sam more than his words.

"You were the same age as Marcus," Sam observed gently.

"I guess I was."

"Get some rest, G."