Chapter 14
Callen looked around his room, Gibbs lifted his coffee mug, packaging for the new mattress on the floor.
"Well it's in…" Gibbs said with a small laugh.
Callen looked at his father, "I must admit, at one point there I didn't think we'd get it up the stairs." He responded.
"Ok son, I'll get the trash then I'm heading into the office for a few hours, you can finish your room. Don't forget it's Friday, the team are coming over for dinner and your grandpa is going home tomorrow." Gibbs said as he grabbed the packaging and headed down the stairs.
After 30 minutes the room was all squared away, the bed made and Callen had laid on it to test it out, it was surprisingly comfortable. Smelling something cooking he headed down the stairs. He knew that Gibbs was at work and he had the whole afternoon to spend with his grandpa.
"Something smells good." Callen said walking into the kitchen.
"It's not much, just grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, hope that's ok with you son." Jackson said with a smile, putting the plate of grilled cheese sandwiches on the table and ladling out the soup into bowls, "Your fathers is having the team over for his famous 'cowboy' steaks tonight, so I thought we'd have something light."
Callen smiled, "Thanks I'm hungry, my…my rooms' all done."
"That's good." Jackson put the food down on the table, they ate in a comfortable silence, but Callen kept shooting his grandpa a look that Jack caught once or twice.
Clearing the plates and bowls away Jackson looked at his grandson, "Do you have something you wanna tell me son?" he asked.
"I…I wanna…"Callen shrugged, it had been eating him for a few days, but he didn't know how to bring it up. He walked up to the refrigerator and grabbed a beer.
Jackson put the last few things away as he heard Callen run upstairs and a few moments later come back down and walk into the living room, from his spot in the kitchen he watched as Callen placed a box gently down on the coffee table.
Jackson grabbed himself a coffee and walked into the room sitting on the chair directly opposite his grandson.
"You want to…?" He prodded.
"When we first met, you asked how mama died; did you ever meet her?" Callen asked.
Jack shook his head, "Your father was a teenager when he went to Romania and met your mother, and He told me she was a local Roma girl, He loved her, but I was told their marriage was illegal. He told me your mother had died, he never told me about any children, the authorities deported him and he was sad when he came home but never talked about it."
Shakily Callen opened the box; Jackson could see there wasn't much in there.
"What's that son?" He asked.
Callen gave him a sad smile, "My life…" he sighed, "It is all I have of my past, I'm kinda hoping, the blanks get filled in now." He handed Jackson a picture, "it's my mama, her name was Clara."
Jackson carefully took the picture, looking at the smile on the young woman's face he could tell whoever she was looking at she was totally in love with.
"Who took the picture?" Jack asked.
"Dad, Mom had just told him she was pregnant with me." He could see what looked like the handle of a child's stroller in the bottom right hand corner, "And your sister was in the stroller?"
Callen nodded. "According to dad."
Gibbs opened the door quietly as he had seen his father and son deep in conversation. Listening to his son tell his father all about his first wife and showing him the few artifacts he had about his family, Gibbs walked to the hall closet and grabbed a small envelope he had put in there this morning.
"Hey dad!" Callen smiled as his father walked in. Gibbs looked at the picture of Clara that Jackson was holding.
"I love that picture,"
Callen opened the rest of the box, "I don't have any more pictures of her I'm afraid."
Gibbs reached in and lifted out a picture of a teenage boy holding a small girl above his head. "Who's that?" he asked.
"Me with Alina Rostov, Malinki sistra." He smiled at the memory.
"Mel-linky c-es-tra?" Jackson asked
"Little sister." Gibbs replied.
Jackson nodded remembering that they had said they had both worked in Russia. "So, they were one of your foster families?" he asked.
"Yeah, the good one." Callen said off-handedly, not seeing the look that Gibbs and Jackson shot each other.
"I have something for you son." Gibbs said and handed him the envelope.
Callen opened it and looked at his dad confused, "Who?"
"Your sister Kelly and your stepmother Shannon, my second wife." Gibbs said pulling out the first picture.
Callen looked at it, the smiling red headed woman and the auburn haired happy little girl.
"They looked happy." He said quietly and picked up the next picture, "That's you!" he said to Jackson and showed him the picture of a very young Jackson Gibbs and a beautiful woman standing beside him and holding his arm.
Jackson smiled, he hadn't seen this picture in years, he didn't know Leroy had kept it, "That's your grandmother, Anne." He told his grandson, "She died of cancer when Leroy was young."
"I'm sorry," Callen said looking at her for signs of himself in their faces.
Then Gibbs gave him a picture of himself as a teenager holding a small blonde haired girl. "Mea mare Sora…." Callen whispered stroking her face.
Gibbs nodded his Romanian had never been very good but he knew what he was thinking. "Yes that's Amelia."
"She's small… I mean she has always been so big in my mind." He admitted.
Gibbs shrugged, "For me she was always small."
"It's a matter of perspective I guess." Jackson told his boys.
The door knocked and Tony and McGee walked in, "Hey guys, you started already?" Tony asked.
Gibbs glared at Tony and walked to the fireplace and lit the prebuilt fire. "Not yet DiNozzo."
"Not the steaks boss, the…the 'other' thing." Tony hinted.
Both Callen and Jackson looked up confused.
"Well…" Tony explained looking out the window to see Ziva and Abby, Jimmy and Ducky walking up the sidewalk to the house. "You see, we know you are going home tomorrow Jack and that Callen is going home at the end of next week, and…well….Gibbs told us about your box." Tony said nodding to the box on the table.
Instinctively Callen put the photo back in the box and closed the lid. As the others walked in he held the box protectively on his lap.
Tony put a picture of him on the table, "Your big brother." He said and walked off leaving a confused Jackson as he stood next to Gibbs by the fire.
Tim watching took the hint, "Your little brother." He said and left a photo of him on the table.
"What?" Callen said
Ziva walked in and hugged him giving him a small gold necklace and a photo of her as a child. "Your little sister."
Abby followed her with a small key-ring sized version of Bert and a picture of herself in her lab coat "Your other sister." She said and hugged him. "Put them in your box."
Callen looked at the team and the Jimmy came up and handed him a photo of him and Breena. "Your cousins, there will be more, we are planning on adopting." He said
"If you will allow?" Ducky said handing him a recent photo, "Your uncle Ducky." He said.
Callen looked at them all standing near the fireplace all looking at him. He suddenly felt uncomfortable but Jackson put his hand on his grandsons shoulder.
Callen swallowed a few times, "W...Why?"
Abby smiled, "It's well known around NCIS that we are Gibbs' kids, you really are Gibbs' son, therefore you are our brother, Sam and Gibbs told us about your box of memories that you carry photo's of your family in, as well as memento's of your past. We know you are going home soon, but we didn't want you to go without a full family get together, and you needed pictures of the rest of your family to go in the box." She told him.
Callen looked at her like she was crazy, "Don't worry Bro, you'll get used to her." Tony joked.
As Gibbs cooked the steaks and the girls made salad and potatoes in the kitchen Callen leaned against the wall and watched his new family.
He liked the way they interacted with each other and the way they seemed comfortable with each other. He watched as his father laughed a something Tony said, ruffling his hair and handing him a fresh beer.
Jackson looked up seeing his grandson standing at the edge of the gathering, watching but not really participating. He wanted to pull him into the circle of warmth and family, but instead he watched his new grandson to see if he could find out if something was actually wrong with him.
Callen smiled, he was pleased his father had another family and he wouldn't be alone after he went back to LA. As Ziva and Abby came in with the salad, Callen used the diversion to slip out the back. He sat down on the back steps and let out a quiet sigh.
"You ok son?" Gibbs asked. He'd seen his son standing on the periphery of the gathering and had watched as he slipped out the back.
Callen shrugged, "Sure I'm fine."
Gibbs let out a small laugh, "I don't believe Tony when he says that, and I know you're not."
"I'm glad for you that you'll have family around after I go back." The, to L.A. alone part was left unsaid; But Gibbs being Gibbs caught it anyway.
"Nic, when Amy wasn't with you, was she any less your sister?" Gibbs asked.
"NO!" Callen looked up shocked he'd asked the question.
"When you go back to Los Angeles will I be any less your father or Jack your grandpa?"
"No?!" Callen wasn't sure where this was leading.
"Then why do you think you'll be any less my son or any less a part of this family when you go back to L.A?" Gibbs asked sitting next to his son.
Again Callen looked across the back yard, unwilling to answer, he knew what was eating him was irrational, he was a federal agent , he could cope with this…he just needed time to work through it and stuff it in a box.
"Nico?"
Callen sighed, "I guess I just thought…." He got up and paced along the porch, annoyed more with himself than with anyone else. "I thought, like the others you'd just forget when I was gone."
"Forget?"
"Me…I'm forgettable," Callen laughed, "It's part of my job description that I be forgettable, been doing it my whole life, but …"
Gibbs stood up and walked behind Callen putting a hand on his shoulder.
Callen jumped, "Sorry," he said instantly.
"You are not forgettable to me, when I had to leave you and I thought you were all dead, you were not forgotten, there wasn't a day that went by that I didn't try to find out what happened to your mom and your sister, I didn't know if you had been born, if you were a boy or a girl, but I still tried to find out. But never were you forgotten. Yes my team is my family, but you are my blood. I know your scared son."
Callen let out a small laugh and moved away, but Gibbs continued, "Yes you are scared, I can understand it, you are finally a part of a family, a large family that loves you and cares about you, because you deserve to be cared about. Just as your team is your family,"
Callen smiled as he remembered Sam, hovering over him when he came back from being shot and Hetty and her motherly attitude towards him. "I suppose you're right."
"There's no supposing about it son." Gibbs said, "Come back inside, eat with your brothers and sisters make some new memories to tell your LA family about." He said.
Callen smiled, he took one last look up at the sky and smiled at the four stars he could see, "I have a family mama," he whispered and turned to walk inside, to be with his family.
He opened the door, Abby's laughter floating through it, and walked inside smiling…