A/N - Thanks again for the support on this story. As promised, some Callen/Kensi moments!

Disclaimer in Chapter 1

Chapter 14

He'd been watching the news on the TV and there was a story about someone being gunned down outside their home. Abruptly, he turned it off, throwing the remote on the table, not caring that it bounced off, and put his head back on the couch. Memories of that day and the days, weeks and months that followed Alex's death washed over him.

That's where Kensi found him when she got home. He was so lost in his memories that he didn't even hear her come in, or have time to wipe away the tears that had fallen.

"Callen?" Kensi called out to him, getting his attention. He looked up at her, blinking away the tears. She sat down next to him. "What is it?" she asked.

He looked at her, unable to answer. He saw the concern and the care in her eyes and heard it in her voice. He thought back to the last time they'd spoken about Alex. She'd listened, she'd helped just by doing that. He took a deep breath and started.

"I lost everything when she died, Kenz ... I lost my mind."

"How bad?" Kensi asked as she settled back on the couch.

"You don't want to know," he advised her.

"I asked. I wouldn't have if I didn't want to know."

He looked at her, took a breath and said, "I don't know if I can." He also didn't know if he wanted to tell her. He didn't want her touched by the darkness that had surrounded him back then.

"I'm here Callen, if you want to try." She didn't push. It reminded him of Alex. He smiled slightly and decided to continue.

"All I could think about was getting whoever it was who did it. Who took away my life but left me living." He got up and started pacing. "I hunted them down, barely slept. It took three weeks to find them. To find the assassin and the one who gave the order."

"Assassin?" Kensi asked with a frown.

He'd started, might as well continue. "Yeah. She was killed because they wanted to get to me." He went and sat back down. Moving about wasn't really doing anything for him. He wanted to be near her. It was comforting, reassuring even.

"I'm sorry," Kensi said softly as he put his head back against the couch and stared at the ceiling.

"They were going to go after everyone I cared about. They started with her. It ended with her." He was sure Kensi would hear the pain in his voice, pain and anger.

"They paid the price, Callen. You caught them and they paid the price."

He looked at her. He needed to see her reaction for what he was about to say.

"I killed them Kenz." He saw the shock in her eyes at his admission, closely followed by concern. "They were the only times I 'enjoyed' killing someone."

It wasn't exactly that he had enjoyed it as such, but it wasn't reluctant, in self defense or anything. Sure, they'd been firing at them to start with, but he knew what he was going to do before they went in. It was going to be him or them.

"We could have brought them in. But they'd have walked," he continued.

"We?" Kensi asked.

"Her partner, Nathan, from the LAPD was with me. She was like a sister to him. He wanted them almost as badly as I did."

"Why would they have walked?"

"Our methods hadn't exactly been by the book." Kensi raised her eyebrows. He shook his head and continued. "You really don't want to know." It had been hard enough letting Kensi know about killing them, let alone the rest of how he'd found who was responsible.

"Killing them was the only way to stop them. At least that was what I told myself. In reality, killing them was purely revenge. They took her life, I'd take theirs." That much he'd admit. "Hetty wasn't too happy with me. She suspended me and told me to deal with it or she would fire me and make sure I never worked again."

"Seriously?" Kensi asked. He nodded. Hetty hadn't said the words but he knew what she would do. It had taken him by surprise too, at how far Hetty was willing to go.

"Yeah. I wasn't gonna to stop."

"What do you mean?"

"There were others that had connections to them, to other murders and assassins. If we had a case where there was the slightest hint that they were connected, I'd push that one over others. I was even tempted to go after them myself, without having a case. They were the bad guys and it was like it was my sole mission to stop them anyway I could."

"What about her partner?"

"Nathan was satisfied enough having got the ones responsible for Alex. He went back to work, completed their cases, then transferred out of state. Fresh start. They'd been partners five years, but known each other about ten."

"So what happened after Hetty suspended you?" Kensi asked. This part, he could do. It was bad, but not the kind of bad where he'd worry that Kensi would run screaming from the room.

"I got drunk, for about three weeks." Three weeks that he couldn't remember much of. Just that the more he drank, the less it hurt and every time he slowed down or tried to sober up, the pain came back, stronger than before.

"Then?" Kensi prompted. This next part he did remember. Not something anyone would forget happening.

"Hetty showed up and threw me in the shower." He smiled finally.

"Hetty threw you in the shower?" Kensi raised her eyebrows. He could tell she wasn't quite sure whether to believe that part of the story. But it was true.

"Never underestimate what that little woman can do," he said to her with a bit of a grin. "Then she made me eat and read the letter from Alex." He hadn't been able to open it. Just seeing her writing on the front had almost been too much.

"What did it say?"

He remembered finally reading it, the tears that had fallen as he had. How Hetty had sat next to him, waiting, just in case he needed her. How her words and Hetty's support had stopped him from destroying himself.

"That she loved me and didn't want me to stop being the man she fell in love. Begged me to live. To keep doing what was right. She'd written it when I took the job with OSP. She knew what I was really doing, how she might end up a target."

"You told her?"

"Yeah. Hetty did a thorough background check, probably deeper than even the president and then told me to tell her before I officially took the job. We'd been together for two and a half years by then." Hetty knew how difficult the job he would be in would be, and had wanted him to make sure it was the right decision for both of them. Not just him.

"Thanks Kenz. For listening." He talked more about Alex in the last week with her and Sam than he had in a very long time. He didn't really think he was up to anymore right now.

"You can talk to me anytime. I can understand a little. I know what it's like to lose someone you love deeply."

He looked at Kensi. He could see the pain in her eyes. Not the same as his, but it was there, amongst the concern and the care.

"Your father?" he asked.

Kensi shook her head. He frowned, wondering who.

"No. My fiancée, James. He was killed in action three years ago."

"Kenz, I'm sorry."

"Just remember I'm here."

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Inside Kensi's head

One night since she'd come home to find him in tears.

One night since he'd let her in again.

One night since he'd told her about his darkest times.

She didn't know what she could do for him. What Callen had been through, had been so much worse than when James had been killed. Not that what she went through wasn't bad, but Alex had been murdered and died in his arms. At least she hadn't had to watch James die.

She'd told him about James, just so he would know she could understand, at least a little. She didn't know when she would tell him more. She'd talked to Nate occasionally about James, but even he didn't know it all.

You really didn't want to tell the man who could effectively end your career if he thought you were mentally unstable, that for the first few months after your fiancee was killed, you saw him in your dreams or even when you closed your eyes and thought about him, he was there. Really there, not just a memory. At least that had been how it felt. A discussion like that would be a one way ticket to a desk job at NCIS, if she was lucky, or being fired, especially if she admitted that when times were really bad, it still occasionally happened.

She wasn't ready to talk to Callen about James, not because she didn't want to, but because right now, this was about him. About helping him get through this time, both physically and emotionally. Not about her. She was further on that track to recovery than he was.

One night since she'd reached out to him.

One night since she'd admitted that she could understand, at least a little.

One night since she'd first mentioned James to him.