"Hetty. What a surprise," Marty said flatly, while Kensi stood there, wondering if she should make a grab for her skirt or just pretend it was perfectly normal to be wearing nothing but a blouse, a pair of panties and high heels. "We weren't expecting you – were we?"

"I suddenly remembered about your mother's wedding dress," Hetty said, and gestured to the material swathed in her arms. "I was almost sure it was still up in the attic here and I just wanted to make sure." It sounded particularly pathetic, she realised.

"Sure. I can see why that couldn't wait."

Kensi decided that she must look ridiculous and hastily pulled her skirt back up. "I didn't realise you still had your Mom's wedding dress, Marty."

"It wasn't something that came up in day to day conversation." I was still just a kid when she died. Not many teenage boys are interested in their parents' wedding. "I don't think I knew it was up there."

Hetty held out the dress. "I thought you might want to wear it, Kensi."

There wasn't a whole lot you could say to something like that, not when the last wearer's aunt and son were both standing there, looking at you, but Kensi gave it her best shot. "That's an interesting idea." She was sure the dress had been lovely – at the time. Which was forty years ago. It was just that Kensi wanted her own dress to be unique. And given the way Jack and Maryanne Brandel's marriage had played out, she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to chance her luck quite that far.

"It was just an idea. A rather sentimental idea. I can see that now." Hetty cleared her throat. "I do have something else I wanted to speak to you about. Away from the office."

"Come on down. We may as well do this comfortably. And over a drink." Marty certainly felt like he could do with one. Or several. He took another look at the dress. "Mom sure was slim, wasn't she?" Vaguely, he could recall photographs that used to stand on the mantelpiece and on the piano, probably in silver frames, now he came to think about it, showing his parents on their wedding day. He'd have to look them out sometime, rekindle the past and maybe get some ideas about his own wedding.

"She was indeed. About Kensi's size, in fact. That's what made me think… But it was probably just a silly idea. I find I'm getting rather sentimental these days. But then, this will be the first wedding in our NCIS family."

And that was all it took to make Kensi feel about six inches high. It seemed that Hetty had a vested interest in this wedding too. It wasn't often that Hetty let her feelings be known, but this was certainly one of those times. So, it looked like her wedding dress was going to be oyster coloured silk. Well that wasn't so bad. She could live with that. It just remained to be seen if her Mom could.

"It's a great idea, Hetty. Like Marty said, let's sit down and talk about things over a glass of wine. We got nowhere with the record search over at the office It could take days, judging by the amount of paper work and computer files they have." Kensi lead the older woman out onto the terrace and sat down with a sigh. "I just realised why I never went into an office job."

"Keeping up to date with your reports has always been a weakness of yours. Not that I'm criticising, just observing."

Kensi sat up straight. "Okay, now I know there's something wrong. You come over with this excuse about wedding dresses, and now you basically tell me it's alright to file my reports in late. Hetty – I lost a baby. I didn't lose my mind at the same time. So stop treating me like I'm made out of glass. I'm fine. Really, I am." She was glad to hear footsteps behind her, because she really didn't want to talk about this any more – not now, and certainly not with Hetty.

"Look who I found lurking around the rhododendron bushes," Marty announced. "I've put another bottle of wine to chill, by the way. I've got a feeling we're going to need it."

Nate stepped forward with a sheepish smile on his face and folded his long length into a chair.

"Why do I get a bad feeling about this? Not that I'm not pleased to see you, Nate- because I am. But Hetty's making much too big a deal about all this. I'm fine. Marty's fine – we're both fine. Why won't anyone believe me?"

"Because I'm here about something else. Just hear me out, will you? I've travelled halfway around the world and right now my brain is telling me it's time for breakfast. Not that I'm going to refuse a drink, of course."

Marty opened the wine and poured it, and as Nate began talking, kensi watched the glass frost over with condensation, partially obscuring the clear golden liquid. She could hear everything that was being said, but it didn't seem to make sense.

"Jack was involved in Operation Frankenstein? My Jack?" she was so focused on Nate that she didn't even notice how Marty winced at her unfortunate choice of words.

"He was the original test subject," Nate confirmed. "It all started with Jack. He absorbed all the indoctrination and programming, and we all know what happened."

"Then that explains everything. It wasn't him – it was them." Kensi slammed her hand down on the table with such violence that her glass overturned and the wine splashed down onto her skirt. "I should have known it. I always knew there had to be reason."

"Kensi – this doesn't alter anything. Jack was chosen because of his personality – the inherent violence within him. You know what we found out – the long history of abuse, the mutilation of all those animals when he was a child. He was always a sadist. All that happened was that he was given free rein to indulge himself, with official sanction." He spoke in a quiet voice, but Nate put as much forceful reason as he could into his words."

"No." She shook her head. "It wasn't like that. You didn't know him – I did. And he changed."

"Maybe he would have changed anyway?" Marty suggested. "It's hard to make a man go against his personality, against what he knows to be right. And Jack didn't have any problem with hurting people gratuitously. You know that, Kensi. You ought to know that better than anyone. He beat you up enough times, after all."

Nate looked at her quizzically. "It wasn't your fault. It wasn't anything you did, Kensi. You do know that, don't you?"

"But I should have known! Why couldn't I see what he was like? Why did I keep on believing all those things he said? And why did I stay with him and make excuses for him, even when he was hurting me?"

"Because you loved him, sweetheart. And you wanted to believe the best in him. And he didn't deserve your love. Because Jack Patterson was a sadistic bastard who used you and abused you." Marty stood up. "I think I'd better leave you to talk about this by yourselves."

Kensi watched as he walked back into the house. "Would he have been like that anyway – without the Frankenstein programming?"

"Possibly. Probably. Jack was a sick man, Kensi. He derived his pleasure out of hurting people. And it gave him a sense of power. Again, Operation Frankenstein just indulged his latent defects." The more Nate learned about Jack Patterson, the more he detested the man.

"And what does it say about me – that I let myself be taken in by him?" Kensi piled her hair on top of her head and sighed.

"That you're human. That you wanted to help him. That you stuck by him, hoping you could make a difference and that you could make your relationship work. And that you took all the blame on yourself, rather than putting it where it belonged. It takes two people to make a relationship work, but it only takes one person to break it. You did nothing wrong."

"Except stay with him. What's the term for that, Nate? Tacitly condoning his actions? Maybe if I'd done something, said something… Oh, I don't know." She let her hair fall forward, so that it partially obscured her face. "All these years – all that waste of time. All those tears. And he's still here, haunting me."

"Only if you let him, my dear." Hetty leaned forward and took hold of Kensi's hand. "You have a choice – you can condone his actions towards you and blame it all on unseen circumstances, or you can acknowledge that you made a mistake and that you have moved on. You are not responsible for Jack Patterson – and you never were. You were loyal, but you were misguided."

"I was a fool with lousy taste in men."

Nate sipped his drink appreciatively. "You've got good taste in wine though. And you seem to have learned your lesson this time around."

"Marty?" Kensi smiled. "Oh, Marty's nothing like Jack. Nothing like him at all. I've never doubted how much he loves me – not for one second. And he makes me feel so happy, like I'm complete. But with Jack I never ever felt I was quite good enough. Not even at the beginning. But he could be so charming and persuasive, when he wanted to be. And he was a Marine, just like Dad, and my Mom liked him… at first."

"You seem to have done alright this time around. Even if Marty's not a Marine. And even if your Mom doesn't like him." Nate took another long sip of wine. "This really is quite excellent. The perils of working in a country where alcohol is forbidden."

"Where exactly did you say you were?"

"I didn't. And that's called changing the subject."

"What was the subject exactly? My past relationship or my current one? Or my Mom? Did Hetty really get you to come all this way to give me marriage counselling?"

"I came because I was asked to help on a number of fronts. And because I miss you all. And because I heard Deeks had this really great wine cellar." Nate finished his wine and eyed the bottle speculatively. "But seeing you brought up the subject, how about we talk about your Mom? Did she breastfeed you? Did you have separation anxieties when you went to school?" His eyes twinkled as Kensi tried to process this. "Relax, Kensi. I was only joking. If you want my help, then you only have to ask. As a friend, nothing official. Otherwise, I'll stay the hell away from your personal business."

"I love you as a friend, Nate – but I hate when you get inside my head. Nothing personal, you know?"

"I know. So, asking purely as a friend, can go inside and get some more of this excellent wine?"

"Go ahead. Make yourself at home – pretty much everyone does anyway. It's open house here in Malibu." Kensi waited until Nate gone inside and had shut the French doors behind him. "Why do I feel we've both been set up here? Me and Marty both?"

"Your grammar is horrible. I don't know what they teach in schools these days."

"You're not going to answer, are you?"

Hetty smiled. "Suffice to say, I worry. About all my team. But perhaps I worry about some of you a little more than others."

"Callen took the death of his partner hard. He'll need a friend too."

"And Dr Getz will be there for him. But Mr Callen has other things in his life that will help to balance out this current distress."

"We will too. One day." Kensi turned her engagement ring around on her finger nervously. "Everything will be fine, Hetty. Jack was my past – and a bad part of my past. But I've moved on, I'm a different person now and maybe I'll even learn to stop making excuses for him and just acknowledge that I made a bad mistake there. Boy, did I ever have bad judgement where he was concerned."

"I'm glad you put that in the past tense. I was beginning to get worried for a while there." Kensi turned around to see Marty standing behind her, holding a bottle of champagne and four flutes. "So how about we drink to Nate's safe return?"

"I'll drink to that. And to the future – to our future."

Nate stood leaning against the sun-warmed wall of the house, his arms folded and a contented smile on his face. It had been worth it – all those long hours of travelling. Because sometimes, just being there, helping to coax out the realisations made all the difference, and allowed people travel forward on the path to their destiny without fear or recrimination. He looked at the couple on the terrace and how they were together and wished everyone could be as happy. It was on days like these, when he had really made a difference and to people he genuinely cared about, that Nate thought he had the best job in the world.