Hello my dears. I would like to thank kirallie, J (Guest), honus47, Petunia3116, elsje1967, French fan (Guest) and Beststoriesever (Guest) for the wonderful reviews. I would also like to thank those of you who have followed and favoured since my last update.

So, a lot of you have asked if Callen will be waking up soon, and the answer is: I'm not sure. Originally I planned this to follow the time line of NCIS where in the episode following Legends, Gibbs says Callen is still critical. So I think I'm going to have to see how it goes.

Anyway time for a bit of Sam and Michelle I think. I hope you like this chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS: LA.


It was late when Sam finally got home, his kids had long been put to bed by his wife. But still there was a covered plate of food for him in fridge that made him smile. What had he done to get someone as good as Michelle? She was everything he needed, and she was always there for him. It was with these thoughts he pulled the food out and stuck it in the microwave to heat.

Michelle on the other hand stood in the doorway and silently watched her husband. She could feel the tension radiating off of him, but that was to be expected. His partner had been shot and was in the ICU. In fact she was surprised to see him home at all. She knew her husband, and she knew he took his role of partner seriously. He had been a SEAL after all. Leave no made behind and always have each other's backs. It was one of the things that had caused her to fall in love with him when they had worked that first mission together. His honour and commitment to those around him. So why was he here?

"How is G?" She asked as she moved into the room and pushed Sam down into a chair while she collected together cutlery for him and got him a beer.

"Stable." Sam responded with a sigh, not wanting her to know just how bad his partner was. Not wanting her to know he was worried about getting a call telling him that G had died when he wasn't there. He should be there. It should be him at his side not that surfer-bum ass whom he had never even known had existed until today. Damn it. He needed to calm down, he didn't want to tell Michelle all the shit that had gone on in the hospital room. He didn't want to burden her with messed up situation he just couldn't get his head around.

"That's good. Is Hetty with him?" Michelle asked frowning slightly at the one word response and how Sam had tensed. There was something else going on here, and she needed to find out what it was. Needed to find a way to help her husband so he could help his partner.

"Yeah." Sam replied, again with one word. Not wanting to say who else was there.

"Talk to me Sam." Michelle said gently as she placed the food in front of him and joined him at the table with a beer of her own.

But Sam did not reply, instead he turned resolutely to the food and started to shovel it into his mouth in the hopes he could use the fact it was full to not say anything more.

The two sat in silence, Michelle deciding to let him finish, no doubt he was hungry. When he was done her husband would talk, and if he didn't she would make him. Therefore when the plate was clean and Sam still didn't utter a word Michelle pulled out her stern voice, the one she used on the children and her husband with equal effect.

"Sam Hanna, don't you go hiding things from me."

At that Sam sighed. There was no way he could lie to his wife, and he knew she wouldn't stop until he told her what was worrying him. Best to get it over with. Therefore taking a deep breath he started to speak. "There was this guy…" but he found himself unable to finish the sentence, unable to tell her what that detective Deeks had said.

"Who? Did they try to harm G?" Michelle asked alarmed when Sam didn't continue. She could think of only one reason he would be resistant to telling her and that was that they had hurt G even more than he already was.

"No!" Sam responded immediately, not able to cope with his wife's worry. But when he turned and looked into her eyes he knew he was going to have to explain if he wanted to erase it all from her mind. Though maybe after he did she would have another type of worry. He sure did after all.

"He claimed to be his partner, his romantic partner. Hell he was even listed as his next of kin, but G doesn't swing that way. It has to be some kind of plot to get access to him while he's in hospital." Sam said quickly, revealing more of his thoughts than he had intended to.

At his words Michelle sat back. She had heard about G Callen long before he became her husband's partner. Heard about him when she was still with the agency. Therefore she knew more about him than her husband did, not that she ever told him or his partner that. It was one of the reasons she had been so happy when Sam had come home and told her who his new partner was. She had trusted G Callen on his reputation alone, that trust had only increased when she had actually met the guy. But for now she would continue in ignorance rather than contradicting Sam words about his sexual orientation. No, for now she decided to find out who knew what, and what she would need to do to as damage limitation.

"What did Hetty say about him being there?" She asked in a gentle yet guarded tone, glad that Sam was so worked up he didn't notice her falling into old habits of intel extraction.

"She confirmed what he was saying, but I still don't believe it. I mean maybe they tricked her somehow?" Sam replied turning to her with a begging look in his eyes. Almost as if he was hoping she would confirm his words so he could remove the other man from his partner's side and take what he considered his rightful place.

"Henrietta Lange? Tricked? Come on Sam." Michelle exclaimed. I mean she had heard some crazy theories in her time, but that one had to take the biscuit. She couldn't imagine anyone getting one over Henrietta Lange.

"But G isn't gay." Sam stated as if by saying the words it would make it true. I mean if he was, surely he would know right? G would have told him, right? You don't keep secrets like that from your partner. Sam wouldn't have cared. G could sleep with whoever he liked as long as it wasn't Michelle in his mind, so why wouldn't G tell him something that important?

"Maybe not, but from what I've seen he certainly wouldn't say no to certain men." Michelle replied with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. She knew that Callen had done ops where he had to get close to men as well as women, and she knew he really didn't care about a person's sex. But she was not going to tell that to her husband. She did not want him thinking everyone was against him.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Sam snapped. I mean this was G Callen. He had never seen any sign that he liked men, because obviously if he had this would not have come as such a shock to him would it?

"The way he looks at an attractive man as they pass him when we go out drinking, it's the same as you do when an attractive woman walks past." Michelle explained with a humorous smile on her lips. She just knew how Sam was going too responded to that sentence.

"I do not." Sam grumbled yet not being able to meet her eyes. He hated that she had caught him out.

"Please. You can't fool me agent Hanna, I'm former CIA." She responded with a good natured roll of her eyes. She knew nothing would ever come of the looks, I mean when a hot guy walked past her she wasn't above checking out his ass. It didn't mean anything.

"but G-" Sam started to say, trying to think of a convincing argument that would declare G as straight, but he was interrupted before he could go any further.

"Is open to both sexes, trust me." Michelle stated with complete certainty. She was surprised that Sam hadn't worked that out for himself, I mean he was an observant man, he had to be in his line of work.

"But Deeks is so…" Sam replied spitting out the name as if he was talking about the devil himself. He really did not like that damn guy.

"What? What's wrong with this guy that has you so pissed Sam? or is it that G didn't tell you about him?" Michelle asked without preamble cutting right to the heart of the issue her husband was having. Sam was all about trust. It was the most important thing to him. He needed to have complete trust in his partner for it to work. Yet here he was, finding out about a side of G he had never known. It was bound to cause worry and doubts in his mind, which would always manifest themselves as anger in her husband.

"He looks like a surfer bum, even if he claims to be a cop. I don't care. There is no way-" Sam argued refusing to even consider what his wife was saying could be the reason behind his discontent. No it was all that damn detectives fault.

"If Hetty says its true, and he is G's next of kin, don't you think you should consider the possibility that it's real?" Michelle interrupted in an exasperated tone. She loved Sam, she really did. But that did not mean he didn't irritate the hell out of her on occasion. This was become such a time.

"But…" Sam tried again, but looking into his wife's eyes he thought better of it. He would prefer not being made to sleep on the couch that night because of this. Though it would just be another thing he could level against Detective Martin Deeks.

"You don't want G to be pissed at you when he wakes because you haven't accepted his partner do you?" Michelle asked changing direction swiftly. Trying to find a way so that when he next visited G he would be at least polite to his lover. She did not want Sam have to cope with how G would respond if he woke up from his coma and found out his partner had behaved in any way other than cordial.

"What? Of course not." Sam replied with a frown, wondering what it was she was getting at. I mean how could G be pissed at? They were partners.

"Then…" Michelle responded hoping he would see where she was coming from. Hoping he would think how he would responded if he was G and he woke to find his partner hadn't accepted his wife just because he had never told him about her. Though of course that was the major problem. Sam would never not tell G about her. It wasn't in him to lie to the one who had his back like that.

"I just… I can't believe he didn't tell me. I mean he knows about you and the kids, yet I find out he has a whole secret life. That he has someone he loves and he didn't trust me enough to tell me about him." Sam replied in a defeated tone, vocalizing her point. Sam found it very hard to understand G, even she did and she had been in the same line of work.

"Oh Sam. This is G Callen we're talking about. The tribe of one. He is the definition of secretive." Michelle answered in a gentle tone, hoping to help him see it from his partner's point of view.

"Well I suppose at least I know I'm not the only one kept in the dark." Sam sighed. Okay he had always known G was secretive. It was one of the things which irritated him the most about the man, but he had come to accept it. Or at least he thought he had, until this latest revelation.

"What do you mean?" Michelle asked frowning now. He had said that Hetty had known, so who else was G keeping in the dark? Or more to the point, who was close enough to him that Sam was feeling they were the equivalent of him not knowing.

"It seems he never told the love of his life what he did for a living. Deeks believed he was a securities trader, can you believe that? They're together for four years, yet G doesn't find the time to tell him the truth. I mean that alone makes me think that he doesn't love him as much as Deeks claims he does." Sam replied with renewed thoughts that maybe it wasn't as serious Deeks made it out to be. Maybe G didn't love the guy any more. It happened after all right? People fell out of love all the time. Maybe he had just stayed with him because it was a convenient cover story?

"Maybe he just didn't want to worry him, or maybe he was scared that if he told him the truth he would lose the person he loved." Michelle snapped back without missing a beat. Because she was sure if G Callen was in an actual relationship there was no way he didn't love the person he was with. And it really did not surprise her that he hadn't told the other man what it was he did for a living. The life of a spy was dark and murky, who didn't want something clean and normal to come home to?

Sam tried to think of something to say to counter that argument, but he couldn't help but think that that sounded just like something his partner would do. That he would worry about losing the person he loved if he ever found out the truth, especially now he knew how they got together. But if he believed that then he was going to have to believe that Deeks and G were together. That he had been in the wrong earlier, and he wasn't completely sure he was ready to do that. He wasn't sure he was ready to give up his place at G's side to the punk ass kid detective who knew nothing about what his partner had gone through.

Michelle saw the look on her husband's face, and knew he was at least now starting to think about what she said. It was the best she could hope for and therefore decided to change the subject to normal family things. Though she did hope that she would get a chance to meet the man who had captured G Callen's heart. Because she was pretty sure he was going to be something very special, even if her husband couldn't see it yet. She was sure he would, eventually. And at least she hoped he would be civil to the guy, she really didn't want him to make G choose sides when he woke. Because she knew exactly which side he would take. The side of the one he loved, and she didn't want Sam to lose the man he considered a brother.