Here we go! I'll post a second chapter after this for those who love Arkady. Sorry about the lack of updates. Enjoy!

Nate watched the man go, then looked at his watch. He was shocked to discover that almost ninety minutes had passed. The longest Callen and he had spoken ever, was about ten. Whoever this woman was, she had gotten Callen into his room and to open up. He sat and wrote up notes about the session with Callen for a while before going to find Deeks. From what Callen had said about the interaction between the two, it was like brother and sister. Maybe she had said something to him that she didn't want the others to know. He arrived in the bullpen just in time to see Callen and Yana head out.

"Case?" He asked Deeks.

"Don't know yet. Callen got a call from Arkady Kolcheck. Wanted to talk to him about something."

"That's a first." Nate said. He remembered that the only time they ever went to him was when they needed to know something and he would be the one who would. He sat on the edge of Sam's desk for a moment before Deeks asked what he was doing. "One of you is next." He said, looking at Kensi and Deeks.

Deeks huffed and said "Might as well get it over with."

Nate raised an eyebrow at the words. They were almost the same ones Callen had said earlier.

Deeks came into the room behind Nate, a little apprehensive. It was only the third time he had talked to the man in this capacity. The LAPD had their own shrinks, but he had never felt annoyed at Nate as he did with them. Maybe it was because the rest of the team trusted him, which meant that he could too. With the LAPD, if you said the wrong thing, it would find its way to the higher ups, patient confidentiality be dammed. And if Callen actually wanted to talk to the guy, he guessed he should too. The first half hour was spent talking about the usual, how was it working with NCIS, did he know if he wanted to give up being a cop and become a full time agent? How were things between him and Kensi? Then a question came up that he was expecting.

"How are you finding working with Talbot?" Nate watched his expression carefully and was rewarded with a small frown that he would have missed if he hadn't been looking for it.

"She's different to Sam."

"Just a tad."

Deeks glared at him for interrupting him and continued. "Sam bites hook line and sinker whenever I bait him. She …" he paused for a moment as he thought about the right words "she doesn't bite but spits it right back at me. But then she's like Sam when she and Callen are having a go at me."

"So she and Callen get on well together?"

"They spar every morning. When they first started, he ended up with bruises all over him. After about a week, there weren't any new ones."

"So they know each other's moves?"

"I think Callen is starting to realise just how hard he's making it for the rest of us to convince him that he's not alone. Yana is just like him, but more extreme, if you know what I'm saying."

"Callen mentioned something of the like this morning." Nate made a mention on a separate pad to one he had been using for Deeks then asked "She said anything to you?"

"About?"

"Anything, home, the job, family, what it's like for her to work in another country?" Nate leaned forward and managed to catch a small look of a memory surfacing. "What is it?"

"The first day she was here, she said that she was just there to do some reports, re-adjust to not being undercover anymore and head home. Then she said 'I hope.' It was really quiet so I don't think she knows that I heard it, but I think that at the time, she really didn't know if she could go home. Then a few days later, she finds out she can't."

"That was when Hetty asked if she wanted to hang around until Sam got back?"

"Yeah. The next morning after Hetty informed us that she was staying for a while, when Kensi and I came in, she was sitting on the couch, not Sam's desk like before. Something happened that night or the next morning that brought the tension in. It wasn't til I made a crack at her about how to use her computer that she came out of it."

"What did you say?"

So Deeks told Nate about the fairy tale references they had started to throw at each other. Not a week went by that they hadn't. "Last week it was the Princess and the Frog."

"That would have been interesting. Why do you think she responds like that?"

"I think it's her way of coping, she doesn't want to talk about what she saw, did, had to do. And I think she does it to annoy Kensi. Mainly because Kensi is always trying to shush me and she up and responds to which Kensi always bites back with a 'don't encourage him.'" Deeks grinned at the playful way his partner always managed to get Yana to smile about something.

"How do the two of them get on?"

"Three, don't forget Nell. They try and have a girls night once a week. As far as I can tell, when the next day comes around, Yana seems to have had a little lifted from her shoulders. The haunted look in her eyes isn't there as much as before and the three of them are getting together often and whispering like school girls."

"I noticed that she came in with Nell this morning, that happen often?" Nate added more notes.

"Yeah, the place she's renting is between Kensi and Nell, so they take turns picking her up. Kensi usually manages to get me to pick both of them up."

"What about team outings? How is she then?"

"We had one a couple of weeks ago and she seemed ok, so long as one of us was with her." Deeks remembered the night well.

"What happened when one of you weren't?" Nate had picked up on the slight pause.

"Yana went to get the next round of drinks and a drunk guy grabbed her to have a dance with him." Deeks' normally jovial voice had turned dull. "She lashed out and broke his jaw. Before he was on the ground, she had cracked several ribs and broke a knee, the guy is still in hospital. It took us over an hour to calm her down."

"What did you tell the police?" this was the first time he was hearing this. Callen hadn't mentioned it.

"That she had just come out of an abusive relationship and that she was taking self-defence classes. She had taught herself to hit first and ask later." A little magic from Eric and Nell and it was all there in black and white.

"So crowds are a bit of a problem."

"Depends on the crowd I think. I'll tell you this though; she is someone I would like to have watching my back, not shooting at it."

"So you trust her?"

"Just as much everyone else here. When she's in the field watching our backs, there is something in her voice, the way she looks at you that you can tell she will do whatever it takes to keep you safe."

"Thanks, Deeks. I think that covers it." Nate stood and shook Deeks hand.

"Thanks man. Sometimes I don't know how much I need to talk about all this until you come home. You're going to try and talk to Yana right?" He could tell that Yana needed to talk and he had been trying, but maybe it was to the type of person that couldn't tell others, someone like Nate.

"That's the plan, but maybe she'll be like Callen and skirt around the topic. We'll see. Could you ask Kensi to come in?"

"Sure."

Kensi came in several minutes after Deeks had left and Nate asked her the same questions as Deeks. He hadn't asked Callen because he knew that he would never receive an answer to them. As before he asked her about Yana.

"She's like a little kid when we go out for girl's nights. Her mood totally changes, she becomes someone else. Or maybe she becomes herself. Here she's either teasing Deeks with Callen or playing word games with him. If something reminds either of them of a fairy tale, it sets the stage for a whole slew jokes, ribs and digs at everyone else's expense." Kensi took a breath and continued "When it's just us three girls, it's like she's never been around other women her age before. She gets really into whatever we're doing. Shopping, manicures and pedicures, facials."

"Why do you think that is?" Nate's notes on what everyone thought Yana had been through was starting to point to the same thing.

"She went under for a very long time and never got to do any of these things."

Nate asked Kensi the same questions about how she felt about working with her and if she trusted her.

"Without a doubt. She pulled Callen back from that shoot out that first time and she watched my back the next day without blinking. I don't think twice when she's got my back. She may not tell us what happened to her either she doesn't want to or she can't; but then do any of us talk about that sort of stuff with anyone other than you?"

"I guess not. Thanks Kensi. I'll try and talk to her when she and Callen get back." He shook her hand as she left and started to sort out all the notes he had written down about the team's thoughts on the young woman. He was in the middle of writing down things he would touch with her when his phone went off. The caller ID said it was Callen.

"Callen, what's up?" The man never called him.

"In the garage just as you walk in to the left, there is a large first aid kit. Can you bring it to the boat shed please?" Callen sounded edgy.

"Are you ok?" Last he knew, Callen and Yana had headed off to see Arkdy, and that had been a couple of hours ago. He got up and headed to the garage.

"I'm fine, but Yana's been beaten and the med kit here is too small. Don't tell the others. She doesn't want them to know and she wants to talk to you."

"Callen, they're going to ask where I'm going." He paused as he was about to enter the main part of the building.

"Say you're going for lunch. I need you here Nate."

Callen sounded shaken and Nate couldn't remember the last time he sounded like that, much less saying that he needed him. "I'm on my way." As he went through the bull pen, he noticed that the others weren't there and sighed in relief at dodging that bullet. He grabbed the kit and headed to the boat shed.