A/N: 1. Urban Dictionary- Pulchritudinous - It is an adjective used to describe a person beyond beautiful, the next level above gorgeous, someone that even Aphrodite would envy.

A/N: 2. *Distractionist- Keviana Elliot gets credit for coining this term for Callen - I'm just borrowing it.

Chapter 12 - No Regrets


Katie's eyes widened despite the heaviness of sleep building behind them as Callen leaned back in the chair and tipped the bottle to his lips. Thankful he had put his pants and shirt on, Katie fidgeted with her ring, twisting it in circles on her finger. Callen remained silent but the thud of the beer bottle on the table brought Katie out of her reverie.

"Right now I'm feeling scared - for you. I understand where the colourful language came from but not the unseen evil comment. Does it have anything to do with what happened last week?"

He stood and turned to face his memory box. Callen was starting to feel the pressure of the challenge to know where to draw the line on what he wanted and needed to share with Katie and what his boss, the United States Government, would allow him to. If he wanted to put memories of his life with Katie in that box, he would have to find a balance that kept her content and his boss happy. "Yes it does."

"But you can't tell me, right?" she asked as she shifted her weight off the crossed leg.

He shook his head slightly, "It's important you understand that it isn't my choice not to tell you certain things, but that it's part of an agreement I have with my boss, who just happens to be the Federal Government of the United States. If we are going to be in a relationship, I need to know that you are accepting of that," he said as he joined Katie on the floor.

"I'm trying but it isn't easy when you have outbursts like you did. If it was scary for me, you must have been terrified."

Callen's short chuckle perplexed Katie until he spoke, "The only easy thing in life, is yesterday. You tell me the reason for your behaviour and why you basically called me a loser, and I will tell you what I can about why I had the anxiety attack."

G. Callen was usually successful at getting what he wanted and needed to accomplish with words he often literally pulled from the air and empty promises. He was surprised he hadn't lost track of what was truth and what was neatly wrapped in a blanket of lies. He could count on one hand the people who had been privy to his truthful admissions. Katie Mitchell filled that hand.

Katie was still playing with her ring as she felt her apprehension increase about telling him the reason she was such a bitch earlier. "Promise you won't get mad?" She knew there was a pleading, almost pathetic, look on her face.

Callen's eyes widened despite the late hour, "Mad was several hours ago in the restaurant. Hurt took over after our mostly one-sided conversation on the phone."

Despite literally feeling the pit of her stomach tighten at the sound of his words, she remained focused.

As Katie started to recall what led to the events earlier that night, Callen couldn't shake the niggling feeling that maybe being G. Callen (in a relationship) was not in his destiny despite his inner most desire to be in one. Perhaps if Kathryn Mitchell weren't such an astute woman, things would be going a lot smoother. Who the hell was he kidding? She could be the dullest pencil in the drawer, he and is life would still find a way to make things complicated.

"What did you just say?" Callen asked as the unusual word caught him by surprise.

"Pulchritudinous. From the Urban Dictionary. It means great physical appeal." She continued with a slight hesitation as she watched his eyes flicker and mouth gape open, no sound emitting from it. "So when I told them about you, our eight-year old pact was to be honoured."

"Let me get this straight." He shifted his position to where one hand was supporting his body and the other was used to help convey his astonishment. "You're sixteen, make a pact with two friends that the first one to get", he used his free hand to make quotations in the air, "a guy with great physical appeal" was to be shared with the other two friends?" He literally rolled his eyes at the absurdness of the conversation and didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted.

"Yeah, that's the reason," Katie replied as she inserted a little distance between them, truly embarrassed at how ridiculous it sounded when he reiterated her words.

"And the phone call?" The first incident was just a crazy thing amongst a bunch of teenage girls –and he would have to look up that word in the morning to see for himself the true meaning. He couldn't believe he was having this conversation but would let it go. However, Katie's hurtful words on the phone were deliberate; make that malicious, as he recalled them, and those of a grown woman.

The phone call and deliberate intention to have Callen not want to see her again had an intimate reason behind it and Katie dreaded having to share it. But the now softening sea-blue eyes still intently focused on her were a reminder that he hadn't asked her leave.

Considering moving back to the chair to gain an advantage, as so he could look down figuratively and literally at her, his thoughts were interrupted as she started to speak. Callen was relieved he hadn't moved to the chair as Katie's soft, tanned face blushed - her forehead, cheeks and the tip of her cute, softly freckled nose. As if that wasn't enough, the cruelty of her words played back through her mind and made her feel queasy.

"The last time I was with a guy was in my first year of university."

Callen's eyebrows darted upward. She nodded as his eyes conveyed that he had done a quick calculation in his head.

She couldn't look Callen in the eyes after that as she was too embarrassed but appreciated his silence and knew that if she wanted him to tell her things that were difficult to communicate, she would have to do the same.

Callen listen attentively as Katie talked; her eyes still focused on the gold ban she continued to turn it on her finger. His heart sank a little upon hearing that both of the guys she had been with were only self-interested when it came to intimacy. He didn't understand how any man couldn't envision the wonderment they would feel in pleasuring her. He vividly remembered how her body had been receptive to his attentiveness as she silently begged him for more after he plunged his fingers into her. Well, her moan and groans coupled with the thrusting of her hips weren't exactly silent. Foregoing his own need for sexual pleasure and release in favour of watching and hearing her surrender to his ministrations, was a very conscious decision on his part. And one he wouldn't hesitate to make again.

"I had heard older men are more attentive. I thought we would have amazing sex, have a good time." She paused and although she still couldn't look him in the eye, she continued, "The physical intimacy we shared was incredible, but it's the other things I'm not fairing well with. Your high risk job, not knowing your first name, a house with no furniture, not hearing from you for five days, your chequered past. The anxiety attack."

Callen shifted his position on the stupid, uncomfortable (for sitting) air mattress. Still optimistic his new bed would be all that his house would need for a while; a couch would also most certainly be utilized.

Callen's voice prompted Katie to lift her head and meet his gaze. "The last woman I was with betrayed me and she took what little trust I still had with her." He reached out and placed his fingers under her chin and tilted it up so he could look her in the eye, "I was finding that trust again."

Hearing the undertone in his voice she tried to reassure him, "You can trust me."

"Can I trust that what we tell each other will stay between us? I know women like to share things with each other."

His eyes glimmered with a slight hint of mocking so Katie knew she was forgiven, but the furrowed eyebrows that followed were enough for her understand he wanted to hear her say it.

"Callen?"

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry."

Brushing a stray piece of hair off her cheek, he placed a soft kiss on it. "Apology accepted."

In time Callen would share with Katie portions of his past with women. Not the intimate details but how the outcomes of the relationships coupled with his undercover work led him to living a life of aloofness. Forgiving Katie wasn't as easy as he let on but truth be told, the blame didn't fall entirely on her. He does live a complicated life and on more than one occasion, he too had wanted to leave it.

G. Callen wasn't a vain man by any means, however, he was aware that his physical attributes were appealing to many women – and even some men. And hopefully, using his skills as a distractionist*, have Katie – at least temporarily - forget about the explanation he owed her with his other skills known only to a (small) select group of women. "Just so we are clear, the only person I want on my lap and touching me is you."

Katie was taken by surprise when Callen's strong arms lifted her onto his lap. They caressed her hips, thighs and slowly made their way to her scrumptious ass. His alluring mouth left a moist path of goose bumps from her mouth to her neck as it went on an exploration and found new sensitive spots.

"You say something?" Callen queried teasingly as his fingers caressed her bra-less breasts through her shirt, tweaking nipples as they erected into his fingers. Her moans and words to have him continue, fluttered through the air, echoing in the emptiness of the room, as they embraced the now familiar warmth of each other. His discarded shirt and her sweater lay beside them as they had been removed the moment he laid them horizontally and their mouths met, tongues teasing - gentle at first then somewhat rough which Katie was eager to participate in as all thoughts but one escaped from her mind -surrendering to the intense arousal he was imparting on her.

"Are you using physical ... ah yes! ... contact ... that feels so good! ... as a way to avoid ... OMG! ... telling me why you ... oh fuck yeah! ..." His hand had gradually made its way under the bottom of her shorts and onto her ... no underwear! Before he could slide his fingers into the place that he knew would have her regretting the statement that she wouldn't make out with him on the floor, Katie leapt up in one smooth motion leaving Callen on his back, shirtless and clearly disappointed. Nope, that wasn't the look on his face. It was defeat.

"You're good G. Callen but you owe me an explanation before those hands and mouth touch this body again," Katie said, still slightly panting from the arousal he had so easily escalated in her, as she put her sweatshirt on and positioned herself in the chair.

Katie's reminder that he had said he was a man of his word fuelled his response. "It was a really horrible week," he sat up and put his shirt on, "I was confronted by a nemesis that found a new way to seek revenge on me." He stood and made his way to the kitchen for a fresh beer. "You want a beer?" he asked from the kitchen.

"No thank you."

"Good because I may need the other three to get through this," he mumbled under his breath before heading back to the living room with a kitchen chair in one hand, cold beer in the other.

Straddling the chair, arms dangling over the back, he gathered up the words he had tucked in the back of his mind. "I'm the reason Sam and Deeks are in the hospital." After a long chug of the beer, Callen continued. "I let my guard down. Never should have happened." He swallowed hard and clenched his free hand, "I'm a better Agent than that."

"Oh, Callen ..." She went to get out of the chair and make her way the few feet to where he was sitting. Shaking his head, Katie sat back down but kept her eyes on his face, wishing she could make the obvious despair on it disappear.

He interrupted her, "Please, do not say it wasn't my fault. As team leader, the rest of the team trusts that I will get them through the day safely. I accept that it is human to make mistakes but what happened wasn't a mistake. If I'm trained to seek out evil and missed it, how can someone who hasn't had any formal training be capable of it?"

"You mean me." She hadn't forgotten his earlier words; "You have no clue what evil awaits you out there."

He nodded. "I need you to be safe".

That was all he was prepared to tell her, because honestly he wasn't in the mood to talk about Marcel Janvier at one-thirty in the morning and because really, how was he supposed to tell the woman he was falling in love with and potentially saw himself sharing the rest of his life with, that his nemesis lived only to inflict pain and suffering on Special Agent, G. Callen. He couldn't. He wouldn't.

Katie wanted to comment but given the look of tiredness that filled his face, she relented knowing it was her and her comments to the young men they encountered when playing pool after dinner, that he was referring to. She didn't live a sheltered world given her work with children who had endured some of the most evilness known to mankind and she knew without doubt that the children of Kenya were often the targets of man and Mother Nature's wrath of fury.

He stood, placed the bottle on the seat of the chair and knelt before her, "I'll deal with this when I go back to work. Right now and for the next six days, I need to let it go or it will drive me crazy. My focus has to be on Sam and Deeks' recovery and you." Callen felt the pit of his stomach tighten but it wasn't from fear or anxiety. The intensity of it reminded him of the only other woman who had truly captured his heart –the mother of his son. But this time it was G. Callen who was feeling it. No running off hiding behind an alias and ten years of back stopping. Gesturing to his now pathetic looking bed with a messed up duvet, he trusted Katie was a woman of her word, "It's all I have until Friday."

He removed his jeans and shirt while Katie slid under the blanket with the clothes she arrived in, minus her socks. It was a tight fit with the two of them trying to get comfortable but Katie decided to wait until Callen was settled and then positioned her back to his chest, allowing her curves to mesh into his. It was an advantage that they were both similar heights, Callen being an inch taller, as their bodies fit effortlessly together.

Callen was thankful Katie had come over, as he wasn't certain he would have found it within him to confront her. Life would have gone on and he might have tried again to be with a woman with minimal lies but there would always be what-ifs where Kathryn Mitchell was concerned. The two regrets he would have dreaded living with would have been, not making love to her and not being able to eventually tell her that he loved her. He had swallowed the pride he was choking on when she showed up at his front door. In the past, regret had followed the times he had not forsaken that pride. Determination (and a whole lot of luck some would say) had taken him to thirty-seven years of age. That determination would keep him focused on making things work in their relationship and not having any regrets.

"I am safe. With you." He couldn't remember ever feeling truly safe with anyone (except Sam) let alone anyone saying those words to him.

His reply was equally genuine, "And I'm safe with you." Katie wouldn't be dodging bullets with him but she certainly was making him feel safe enough to allow him to let pieces of the walls he had built around him to be removed. Even if it was one small piece at a time. He closed his eyes, and with an arm wrapped around her waist, drifted off to sleep.