Author's Note: Thank you, thank you, thank you for the absolutely awesome feedback! I was so anxious that the twist with the mom would be too obvious or too stupid, so I'm actually glad that I caught some of you off-guard with that revelation.

Sorry for the long update-time... it just wouldn't go forward.

I know that the last chapter was a bit lengthy, but I didn't want to chop it into two chapters, or else the dynamic would have been a little lost in my opinion, though I will try to keep it at the normal length now again ;)

As always, your reviews are awesome and that is why they are ever so welcome.

Read, review, and hopefully enjoy ;)

Nate and Callen are still bound to stare at the teenager whose eyes are erratically searching for a fixed point to push the blurs out of his sight, his mouth nervously flexing between smile and cry.

Callen honestly thought that the worst case scenario was that this man would try to get Marty back, take him away from him. As it turns out, there is actually an abyss below that abyss – that someone is acting as Marty's mother, apparently, for whatever the reason, and that she along with that man is trying to get Marty back, taking him away from Callen. If G had known that this would be the outcome, he would have gotten tickets to Tahiti in no time to spare Mary this kind of hell. Because the hope was after all to spare Marty going to court, settle his stay with his older brother without judges and witnesses. And now... now it's hell warmed over.

G already means to say something as Marty breaks out in laughter again, going on with the pacing, but this time he goes on rambling, "That's... that's smart. So fuckin' smart. That I didn't think of this. Goodness sake. That is, wow, didn't see that one coming. Obviously."

He taps his index fingers against his temples.

"He's screwing with my mind! That's it! That's it! He's screwing with me! He's... right inside my head. He wants me to go insane, that must be it. Make me a nutjob after he failed to do that before. I mean, he does the same thing he did last time, but just... better! Ha! I mean, look at me now, right? I mean, I'm a nervous wreck! And it's so friggin' smart, right? Right?" he turns to G briefly, but only turns the direction without taking any notice of his brother actually being there.

"I mean, he's always been smart. That was the problem. Even as a drunkard he was smart. He is really this mean kind of smart. Evil smart, but this here... this is plainly... it's genius! Right?! Because now I go ahead and ask myself if I'm wrong. And that means I won't bother about anything else. And that means he gets to me. He gets inside my head. And that means it's... it's all over, pah! That is, wow, he should write a book about this!" Marty lets out a dry laugh, but then stops for a moment as yet another realization creeps its way into his brain, drills holes to seep through, sink in and grow tendrils to extend further.

What if...

What if that is actually not it?

What if... what if it's not him?

What if this is...

True.

"I just don't know anything anymore! Coz she looks just like her. I mean, first moment I thought it was her... it might be her! If only for her voice and that tone and that twinkle in her eyes... but I mean, people change, seemingly. As much as I wanted to believe that they don't. Maybe she's just... she just came back changed... from the dead," the teenager goes on with his rant.

Maybe Marty is just seeing things all over, right? Like the flashbacks, the dreams of obscure red and feelings he can't put into words. Maybe that was actually reality calling. Maybe this here is not real, maybe he isn't even real, or at least not real in the light Marty bathed himself in, the light of hope, the light that made him lighter, better. Maybe Marty is not whom he claims to be.

Maybe they are all right.

The judge.

The police officers.

The foster family.

His father.

His mother – whoever that is now.

Maybe they were all right: he is just a bloody little liar.

And maybe the biggest coup just started, because Marty lied so well, so persuasively that he actually started to believe it himself.

Did he lie to himself long enough to make himself believe in a false reality where his mother died, though she did not?

Where he shot his father, though it was an accident?

Where he ran away from a family he thought was out to kill him when in fact this family just wanted to fix things – and was on the way to?

Perhaps he is the only mastermind here, but got beaten in his own game.

Marty keeps pacing, his muscles no longer listening to his commands. His entire body feels numb, numb from the pain and sorrow pulling him down, numb from the sheer fear and the tendrils drilling further into his brain, making him voice what he thinks before he can even think about what Callen and Nate may make of it. Because at this moment, he just honestly doesn't care, can't care. He is no longer in charge of anything. He lost control. And he is that close to losing reality, too.

"I mean, maybe that's just it! That might be, right?! Maybe I'm just seeing things! Right, I'm just seeing things! I imagined all this shit! My dad's never beaten me! My mom didn't get the shit beaten out of her! I mean, I seemingly shot him, but that was just because I misunderstood everything! It was all an accident! I misinterpreted everything and made a huge fuss over nothing! It was me who made the family tear apart! That foster dad never had to do with my dad! And that he slapped me across the face was actually a way of showing affection! Maybe I wasn't even in the streets... or... in the ring... maybe none of this ever happened... and was just inside my head. I just saw things... I... none of it was real... none of it... I'm just... ha," Marty goes on, his chest heaving. The corners of his mouth go up and down, torn between the desperate smile and the even more desperate sadness that will allow the tears to fall.

None of it was real.

He is not real.

Everything before was just a dream, meeting G, being with G, having a new life, a better life. Its all something he bred out inside his wanton imagination. That must be it.

Callen and Nate both look at Marty, thunderstruck. That the teenager calls such a thing into question shows just how deep that wound goes, just how deeply embedded those fears are into his very soul. It runs so deep that his entire picture of reality crumbles before his eyes, so far that he throws any progress he made in therapy, any understanding, any admission of what happened to him overboard.

However, that is when Callen is simply fed up watching his little brother tearing himself to shreds before his eyes. He approaches Marty and gets into his path of pacing. The teenager only stops once he is inches from his brother, who, ever so simply, just pulls him into an embrace and holds on tight. Marty's body is rigid against that of the agent, but after a few seconds, he just sags together against G's chest, all powers leaving him.

And the tears finally come.

Because this must be real, right?

You can't imagine the sensation of an embrace in such perfection, or can you?

The warmth, the texture of the fabric, the touch of the skin, the warm breath against your scalp.

The love.

You can't dream it that perfectly, right?

Right?!

Marty screws his eyes shut even more, pulling closer. He just prays that this is not a dream he will wake up from. That this is reality, or that even if it isn't, he can dream on a while longer.

Forever, hopefully.

They stay like that for a while. The older brother gently rocks Marty in his arms, hoping that this will somehow hush the pain away, make the tears stop. At some point, Callen can feel his brother sagging further and further together, the pressure and emotions seemingly having reached the point where Marty's body just quits.

"C'mon, let's get you to the couch," G mutters as he halfway drags Marty over to the sofa. The teenager almost falls on it. His body feels so dead on the inside, on the outside. Everywhere. Nowhere. If not for G and the rest, Marty would feel just as hollow as he did when he first met them, after the Marine was shot. Marty felt so, so hollow, so empty. And the teenager hoped that he'd never have to go back to that state where he was just good for getting beaten around, doing what no child should ever do, thinking what no child should ever think, and had only a snotty mouth to keep that scaffold he was upright, to keep himself from collapsing.

If that even happened...

Ever...

Marty regains some of his composure a while later when it really sinks in for him that Callen and Nate are next to him, that they hear everything he breed out inside his drilled brain. He angrily rubs his sleeve over his eyes to push the tears back that threaten to well up again. That's what he hates about tears, once they come, they come again and again.

"Damn," he mutters, resting his forearms on his thighs so he now sits hunched over. For some reason, he finds that position exceptionally soothing. It's like his back is a cocoon engulfing him, shielding him off of the reality. Even if, deep down, he knows that it is just like not saying it out loud. It doesn't change anything about the reality, whatever that is now, but...

But it feels nice. And so damn real that it might be, right?

"Marty?" G asks tentatively, one hand still steadily on his little brother's shoulder to offer support. The teenager looks at him, and actually looks at him this time.

"You know that this happened, okay? Don't let him make you question that, ever," Callen tells him. Of course a part of him always wished for all of it to be a bloody lie. That Marty was never forced through such hells, through those tiny holes of darkness that tore parts away from him that only slowly, very slowly, made their way through those eyes of needles back to him. However, G learned that no matter how terrible it is that this happened to his brother, it's even worse to deny it and act as though it never happened. Because it happened. And for as long as you don't realize that, there is no way for you to mend this, sew the pieces back together.

However, now to see Marty pulling on those strings, tearing them back open like old wounds reopening, makes Callen sick to the stomach, and beyond. One instance, one thought is enough for Marty's entire world to crush and crumble, all the way to putting reality into question, all the way to where he didn't talk about anything or simply said something else to avoid the truth. Because they came such a long way already, and it angers and saddens the older brother that their father and Marty's suddenly back to life mother can undo all the patches he was able to apply.

"But what if he's right?" Marty asks. "What if I'm wrong?"

What if his father's reality is real while Marty's reality is no more than a dream?

"He is not right, okay? Why on earth would you run away if this was all just a bunch of accidents?" Callen argues vehemently, at some point unable but stare, because he never thought he would be in the position where he would have to... point that out... as a reassurance.

This is just all so wrong.

The teenager shrugs his shoulders, "Misunderstandings happen."

"That was no misunderstanding," G shakes his head.

"How would you know?" Marty replies, his voice teary. "You weren't there."

No, because there is no one other than him and his parents who were part of this. They are the only witnesses, so how could G say with clarity that what Marty said before is true, while this is wrong? How can his older brother actually say that with so much clarity in his eyes when Marty just sees red fog and mist before his own?

"Right, I wasn't there when it happened, but I was there when you told me about it," Callen argues.

"What if I lied?" Marty huffs, another tear escaping his eyes.

"You didn't," G replies simply.

"How do you know?!" Marty demands, now in a louder voice. How does G know when Marty can't even tell anymore?! How can he claim this as reality when he might just as well be a figure of Marty's imagination?!

"Because I know you," his brother tells him in a strong voice. "I live with you. I know that this is real. I know that our meeting was and is real. I know that you were in that ring. We have seen the proof for it, sadly. Because those scars are there for a reason. As sad as it is, even that damn catalog you talked about exists as proof. This is not just something you made up. It is, sadly, reality."

And again, how can that be a reassurance?! How can this godforsaken picture, this catalog, all the scars and wounds Marty suffered at the hands of these men suddenly be a reassurance? Why does that have to serve as proof for a life that should contain so much more, and actually did when Marty was with the team, with him? Why can't that serve as proof? Why is that seemingly not enough?

"So what? The rest might be made up. Maybe I just ran away for no real reason after all and then ended up in the ring by mere chance," Marty retorts.

Fine, one bit of reality is real. Painful or not. Then the ring was real. Then maybe what happened after it was real, but what happened between his parents and him is on a different page, right?

"Marty, now look at me," the older brother demands. The teenager slowly searches G's eyes.

"I know you. And that's all I have to know to believe you," Callen says with determination. "You are right, I was not there when it happened, but I see you now in front of me, I got to know you, and Marty, you're many things, but not a liar."

"I kept things to myself. I kept things from you. I did lie before," Marty mutters. As much as he wants to believe in G's words, absorb his determination into himself, he can't. Because he isn't innocent. Marty did things, said things, didn't do things, didn't do things.

"Everyone lies," Callen shrugs. "I lie, too. Even Nate lies, but that doesn't mean we are liars. And I know that you don't lie when you show just how much you care about people close to you. That is not an act, that is you. You cared about your mother, and that is why you didn't run at first, you said. If there was no reason, you never would have run away, Marty. You care too much to just leave someone behind. The only way I see that you make a run for it is that you really saw no other way, because you feared for your life, because there was just no way out anymore. And that is something I know with absolute certainty."

Marty lets out a shaky breath. Is it possible that someone who didn't witness it... can still be right? Can G be right in his predictions, in his evaluation? He is an agent after all, right? G can read people like no one else. G read him when they first met. He knew that Marty didn't kill the Marine. If he is that damn good at reading people... then maybe Marty can trust his words after all?

"But what about her?" Marty grimaces. Because that is the one thing he can't move past. Then perhaps G is right and this happened, but how can all of it be true and still be wrong? Marty knows from logic that it's impossible for something to be the case while at the same time not being the case. It's either or. Either Marty just imagined or misinterpreted everything and this woman is indeed his mother. Or Marty didn't just imagine this and she is not his mother. She can't be both at the same time, just as he can't be right and wrong at the same time.

But what is it now?

Is she or is she not? Is he or is he not?

"... I honestly can't say, Marty. I believe you when you say that this is not your mother, but I obviously can't tell just by the looks," G argues. No, he can say with clarity that he believes Marty, he can say that this happened, because he knows his little brother, but he can't say that this woman is someone else because G doesn't know the original.

"Maybe you can tell us what happened to her, though?" Nate suggests. "I know that you bypassed talking about her because it hurt you, but..."

"But it becomes kinda necessary now, doesn't it?" Marty sighs, letting out a shuddered breath. Callen goes on rubbing circles on the teenager's back to relieve some of the tension.

That just seems to be it, right? He has to come clean, say it, make it reality, and maybe saying it will fix it as such? Maybe it really works, for once?

"Sadly... it kinda does," Nate admits. He doesn't like to just open this box and let everything spill out uncontrollably. The psychologist knows how much of a struggle it was for Marty to even come clean to both him and Callen about the beat-up. His mother was a completely different story. Given that he thought she was dead, it stands ever the more to reason. After all, that means Marty was and probably still is in grief over his mother's loss, which made it impossible for the teenager to talk about this until now. And now to have her back in the flesh, or rather, have someone act like her, if it really is the case, is by far worse. However, Nate sees that regardless of the trauma, they have to think about the steps now to take, and figuring out the mystery behind that woman surely will be a great part of this. That means they may have to rush a few things he normally would have broken down into smaller segments, more bearable fragments. Nate doesn't want to lie to Marty. That is the last bastion. Marty trusts the psychologist not to lie to him, just as he trust Callen not to lie to him. That is the stone they have to build on, because that is the one stone they can set deeply into the ground – that is nothing anyone can take from them, not even such revelations, because it is something solely they can affect. And that is the only thing stable, at least at this point.

"What makes you think that this is not her?" Callen asks.

"... I don't know, she sounded differently. The voice, it's... mom's tone was softer and... the gestures are... I don't know. It's just tiny details, but she has the same hair color, she even smells like her, but... but that is not my mom," Marty shakes his head.

"She knew a lot about you," Nate argues.

"That doesn't mean anything," Callen replies. "Four years is a long time. If this woman is supposed to act like Marty's mom, then this is enough time to teach her everything... I mean, if she isn't..."

"If she isn't my mom after all," Marty nods.

"So back to your mom. You said you thought she was dead," Nate turns to the teenager.

"For all I knew she was," Marty nods.

"How did she die?" Callen questions.

"As far as I know... brain damage... she was in coma for some time...," Marty explains.

"As far as you know?" G can't help but grimace.

"I never saw her body. I... after I ran away, I kept a distance at first... from him, from her, this life, but... I wanted to get into contact with her after the first year, hoping that things had calmed down a bit... but I found out she was still with him, so... I broke it off before it even started. I wasn't willing to get back to him – or to have my mother lecturing me about how it'd be for the best if I came back and apologized to daddy...," Marty explains, nervously licking his lips. "I tried another time half a year later... I heard from a guy who owed me a favor for getting... uhm... his little brother out of a tough spot... that she had left him... and lived on her own now... so I wanted to contact her, but it took me some time to get an address... coz she tried to cover up for herself also, that smart she was by the time, seemingly. And for me as a homeless kid it was difficult to get information anyways, but... I did find the address, calling in a few favors and so on... I contacted her by phone and told her that I wanted to see her. She wanted to, too... It's just that it had to wait because I really wanted to be sure that this was not just one of dad's schemes to get to me, so I investigated. Once I had my confirmation that she lived there alone... I wanted to come to her and all... for a moment I really thought that we two could pull through, you know…? Like Ray and his mom did... But by then she was already in hospital with brain trauma, comatose... I sneaked into the hospital one day... one of the nurses knew me and... she was nice... so she told me about her status, without letting dad know... and that she'd most likely never wake up again... and guess who was the cause for that and got away with it..."

Marty grits his teeth, his knuckles turning white. It has to be him. It has to. If it happened the way he remembers, it must be his father who did this to her. Who else would, right? He did it before, he would do again, at least Marty believes that under the premise that this is real.

"So she was comatose," Nate nods. "But that doesn't mean someone is dead, right?"

"No, but I came by another time and that is when the nurse told me that she's passed away a few days back," Marty argues. "I mean, who lies about that, right? The nurse liked me. It's not like... why would she tell me my mom's dead, just for the fun of it? No one does that."

"Surely not," Nate agrees. "So... she was dead."

"She was dead, I grieved, and I was probably the only one. Because my mom was... she was alone," Marty tells them, his voice breaking with the last words. Because he left her alone in the end. He was the one who made that step out the door and left her, to death, pretty much. And even though he knows that he was not the one who did this to her, Marty still feels guilty. After all, he held on before, even through the worst of beat-ups. However, after he shot his dad, something simply broke inside of him, something that all the love he felt for her and he knew she felt for him couldn't mend or piece back together. Something was lost. With every time she did not leave her husband, with every beat-up she let happen to herself and to him, Marty, so he sees now, loved her a little less, like a part peeled away from the soul. And after so many beat-ups and so many false promises, Marty's love had shrunk far enough to make him cross the threshold and not look back, at least for a while. After all, Marty later saw that no matter how much hatred he felt for her, no matter how badly it burned beneath his skin, even that tiny bit of love for her was enough to make him continue to love her. But it seemingly wasn't enough to make her survive.

It wasn't enough to keep her safe.

"What do you mean with that?" Callen asks. "Alone. Didn't she get help from someone?"

"She had no one other than me, well, and dad before he revealed his true self. No one's bothered about her ever since she married my dad. Mom had no living relatives. She once told me that she used to live somewhere in the North before she moved to L.A. So when she came here, she knew no one and... she soon got to know my dad and fell in love with him. After that, he seemingly did anything to keep her small. She barely went out of the house, only to get the groceries and stuff. She was never over at neighbor's houses or at barbecues. She didn't even talk to some of the women when they told her to come over. Dad had her that much under control, at least as far as I got to know. Mom always said that it was just us three, or us two. And that was so," Marty explains. "And that's why no one... missed her, other than me. That is the only way I can understand this. I mean..."

"Do you know if she died in the hospital?" Callen asks tentatively.

"I don't know. Why?" Marty frowns.

"Well, if he really replaced this woman with your real mother, then it will be harder to do that in hospital. There is a bunch of paperwork and lots of witnesses. You think your dad may have had her moved back to his home?"

"Sure, why not? No one knew what was going on with them... and even though mom moved out, it doesn't mean she divorced him immediately. Then this would all look differently," Marty shrugs.

"Surely would," G nods.

"At least that's what I... believe. I mean, she... that is not her. I mean...," Marty stops, pursing his lips. The more he thinks about it, the more he starts to tell those two women apart. Because he can remember his mother. He remembers his time in the streets and how he tried to get back to her. He remembers how deeply he cared about her. So maybe G really is right. If he can remember all that, can remember it so well that he can feel the sensations as though they happened right now, can smell the same scents from back then... can his mind really be that full of imagination to create such clear pictures? Such a full reality? Because Marty can't help but think that remembering a dream feels differently from remembering reality itself.

"I mean... people change after a coma, I heard about that, but this is not about mood swings, it's... it's another person. I know my mom," Marty insists – because that is what he should. He should know his mom, right? The woman who bathed him, the woman who cooked for him, whose blood was smeared over his face more often than he'd like to admit, whose hand he held when she just broke down in the kitchen crying, whose kisses seemingly managed to hush some of the terror away, whose voice was his soothing lullaby, whose smile made the sun shine a little brighter. He knows what her skin feels like, how her shampoo smelled like, knows her perfume and how it scents once it comes into contact with her skin, creating a unique smell that made her inherently, well, her. That doesn't just wash away, not even the time in the ring erased those memories from his mind. Marty can still tell them all apart, can dissect them, call them to mind as though they happen at this very moment. However, when that woman embraced him, it didn't trigger any of those memories to come back to the surface. Nothing. There was just nothing. Faint specters of light, maybe, but no memories, no sense of familiarity. No sense of family. Just coldness and a distance that can only be felt when people hold you too close – because they are not close to you in any other way.

And maybe that is... proof? Maybe that is enough to make it reality for him?

"Of course you do," Nate assures him.

"He is right," Callen agrees. "You know her better than anyone else. She had only you and you had only her for a time. You know her."

"That's why I think dad's really that much of a sick bastard that he goes so far to exchange her for her," Marty admits. He honestly thinks that he is capable of that. Marty saw the bad in all those men's eyes who sold him and bought him. He saw the darkness in their irises. Because eyes are a way to look into one's soul. At least he sees it like that. And that is the same kind of darkness Marty got to know very early on, long before he called the streets his home and slept with only the sky as his blanket.

"What do you think, Callen?" Nate turns to the agent.

"As your brother, I believe you. As an agent, it's not impossible," G tells Marty, hoping that this actually helps in some way. Marty likes to look at things rather analytically at times. And that is what he sees in being an agent, so Callen hopes that by also speaking as an agent, Marty will understand that no one is trying to prove him a liar.

"Well, but that you believe me... doesn't prove anything, to a judge, or whatever," Marty snorts, because that is the other side of the coin. What is reality to him does not necessarily make it reality to anyone else. He learned that lesson long ago.

"Marty, there are ways to prove that, okay?" Callen argues.

"How do we prove that she is not whom she claims to be, huh?" Marty huffs, shaking his head.

"A DNA test," Callen shrugs.

"Those can be faked," Marty argues. Almost anything can be faked: prescriptions, death, bills, youth, beauty, smiles. You just have to find the right potion, the right mask to cover the deficiency or problem until you have a lump of clay you can form anew. You can even fake another woman's life, as it seems. All it takes is... what? The same hairdo, the same eyes, the same dress, and suddenly, it is her. Because that is what most people look at to tell a person apart from others, the looks. That's why we have ID's. You compare the picture to the person in front of you, and if it's close enough, that person is approved of her or his identity. As it seems, others decide who you are. They tell you apart from the rest by looking at the way you dress, the way you wear your make-up, how you do your hair. If that fits, the character doesn't matter anymore. Because the majority of people only knows you by the looks, and majority decides that this makes you you - because it's enough, right? Because no one goes that far to get a new identity. That's just nuts and so outrageous that it is surely out of the movies. You look like that person in the photograph and that makes you that person. And so, this suddenly makes this woman Marty's mother.

Just that Marty is not the majority, sadly, and knows that other side of his mother, the side that you can't capture in a photograph or in the texture of a dress' fabric. He knows his mother's character, and that is what always made her her in his opinion.

So this woman is not his real mother, he is sure now. She is fake.

But perhaps good enough a fake to pass as the original.

Because blurred photographs and faint memories do not count as valid evidence, cannot wash off that make-up, that masquerade, for the majority to see.

"We will do anything to make sure that they are not, but that's not the matter now, Marty. What matters is that we're not alone with this. We got the team behind us, we have Hetty. We will do anything to prove you right," Callen assures him. Because that is now the other priority besides making sure that Marty stays with him and kicking that man's ass – to finally give Marty the chance to prove his story, raise his voice and finally speak the truth that he was forced to keep quiet about for way too long already. Marty didn't want to put up charges to keep his father out of his life, but now the man is back, so that means the game is changed.

"I wouldn't give a damn if people still didn't believe my story," Marty brings out, his voice croaked.

"What do you mean?" G grimaces. After all, he remembers how Marty told him that it hurt him so, so much that no one would listen to him, that no one heard his voice.

"I couldn't care less if anyone in a courtroom believed my life story, but... but if those stupid people in a courtroom don't believe my life story... they will take me away from you and back to him," Marty brings out, pulling on his locks as hard as he can. "I don't wanna go back, G."

"I won't let him have you, okay?" Callen tells him with great resolution. There simply is no way that he can allow for Marty to be forced back into this man's hands, and taken away from his own.

"I just wanna stay here," Marty whimpers. All questions of reality shall be damned! Marty wants surfing, goofing around, having homeschooling with Hetty, folding origami cranes, beat Nell in that zombie video game, work out with Sam in the gym, run tracks with G early in the morning, when the sun is just about to rise and paints everything a warm shade of orange. He wants to go to sessions with Nate, even if they were all about his worst nightmares. He wants to babysit the girls, get glue one his hands to fix the diorama, and tell them stupid stories he just makes up to see them smile. Have movie nights with Kensi, go over comic books, drink ginger ale and learn how to throw knives. Have breakfast with G. What the telenovela with G. Tell him good morning and good night. Visit their sister's grave. Go shopping. Have a coffee. Sit at the beach and watch the sun disappear into the ocean. Get groceries. Fuss over yet another dinner his brother managed to burn beyond the recognizable. Crack a joke. Fall asleep next to G on the couch and feel his brother wrapping a blanket over him so that he doesn't freeze. Marty wants all of it. Because that is his life. And that life he finds good, that life he loves, so deeply, so dearly, so much that it tears him into tatters and shreds that this might be over. Marty just wants to live.

Is that really asked too much?

Is that bit of happiness really asked too much after all he went through?

When does whatever power it is that is turning and twisting his future the way it pleases fed up with him and moves to the next poor devil to screw up his or her life instead?

Why can't Marty have at least the ten good things he writes in his journal to counter the bad?

"We'll do anything to make sure that you can," Callen tells his younger brother, his voice quivering. G would love to firmly state that they will, it's all too tempting, it really is, but... but at this moment, this fear is shaking Callen so deeply, too, that promising such a thing would be more of a lie than a genuine reassurance. So he fights this urge and hopes that somehow this is worth the inner tremor. G would love to promise Marty the world, but all he can offer is... that they try.

And that is just so, so , so small.

Callen pulls his brother closer again, hoping that this will be bigger than the words of reassurance he can offer without lying to Marty. It just seems to be the only thing he can do, the only thing he has left at this moment to give to his brother. It was and still is Callen's last resort. Just hold Marty close and don't let go.

However, the questions are nagging at him already:

For how long do you think will that work?

How long do you think you'll hold him, huh?

What happens when you let go?

What will happen once you make one mistake that changes everything, so that they get to him?

How will you fix that mess? Or can you even?

What will become of you if he is gone?

Once he is gone?

The taunting voices inside Callen's head make him pull Marty even tighter to him. G usually never feels scared. Not for himself. He never does on the job. Neither did he back at the CIA. By now he knows that he is scared for Marty's sake, for the sake of his well-being, but this kind of fear is even new to him. It reaches so much deeper into the soul, because for the first time in felt eternities, Callen honestly feels like there is nothing set anymore. Everything just shifted into a maze he can't set foot upon without having to fear to fall into the abyss below.

Even when there was that ambush on Sam's house and Callen got the info that Marty had been in that fight, almost getting killed, it was a different kind of fear, because hearing Marty's voice and seeing him could easily fix it, serve as a remedy, but here he sits and has his brother next to him, and it doesn't fix it.

When it is about injuries, G can still tell himself that there are doctors to fix it.

If it is about security management, he can fix it by getting a better alarm system.

If Marty has a panic attack, he can fix it by calling up Nate and help him fix it.

But here? Fine, they can call in lawyers, they will call in lawyers, but G doesn't have the feeling that they will miraculously fix everything for him. Or that they help him fix everything. Looking at Marty's story, it's just so awfully obvious that even a representative of the law, of the rules that bind all, can make the wrong decision, can... not care enough.

So yes, this is fear. And yes, this fear runs deeper than anything G has ever known, because it is... existential. He can't imagine his life, his existence, without Marty anymore. The mere possibility of that part missing, suddenly, bores tiny needles into his heart, over and over.

And Callen can just hope, or pray, even, that he will be proven wrong.

God, does he want to be proven wrong.

After a while, Marty's body makes the call for him – and he falls asleep on the couch, rolled up into a ball to protect himself from the outside world with his limbs, seemingly. His head rests on G's lap. It doesn't really come as a great surprise, though. After all, Marty just went through one hell after the other. At some point G was honestly surprised that Marty didn't just collapse while the two were still in that room. However, even in his sleep, Marty looks restless. It's as though all the stress, all the fears he was able to overcome since he came to stay with them here at the NCIS, swept back into his face, leaving marks which shouldn't be there, opened wounds that they all had carefully tended to, patched up, and healed.

Callen absently runs his hand over the teenager's head.

"This is officially the worst day of my life," G mutters in a hushed voice. Nate, who took a seat next to Marty, but leaving enough space for the brothers to have their bit of privacy, nods his head sadly.

"You don't come to have a fancy trick to fix all that, do you?" Callen sighs, even though he knows the answer already.

"I wish I did, I really do," Nate exhales.

"Do you think we could have prevented that in any way?" G questions.

"I think we shouldn't ask ourselves that question," Nate replies actually confidently. "In the retrospective it's always easy to say that this or that may have prevented bigger harm. That this sole event may have turned everything a different way. Maybe we could have bypassed this exact situation by seeking the adoption and not the legal guardianship. At the same time, this may have just as well resulted in that man coming back even sooner. We don't know. We won't ever. This happened, sadly, the way it did. Our task now is to prevent this situation to further develop."

"What do you think of the two?" Callen asks in a hushed voice. "Do you think they lie, as a psychologist?"

"I'm no walking lie detector. They were very confident in what they did. They didn't hesitate, you see," Nate shrugs. "And until Marty asked that certain question, I had no clue that this would be the outcome."

No, with all his years of experience, he never came across such a situation, that much is for sure.

"So you can't tell?" G grimaces.

"Oh, I know for sure that they are full of shit," Nate snorts, which actually brings Callen to smirk faintly. "I mean, the more I go over this situation, now in the light of what Marty told us... there were some hints, maybe. In the way they acted. But they were so faint that this wouldn't ever hold in court or so."

"Then how do you know they are full of shit?" G frowns.

"I already said it. I trust Marty's words. He is my patient. And I'm always on my patient's side. Plus... even if Marty tends to have a wanton imagination, I cannot even think that far to say that he just made this up. That's what I build on. That's what I have faith in. The rest... we just have to find proof for," Nate explains. Callen nods, it's nice to know that he is not the only one.

"Inside my head I had it all figured out, you know?" G sighs with a sad smirk tugging at his lips as he tousles the teenager's hair. "We finally wrapped up my last will... and even though I know that I wasn't supposed to plan too far ahead, I imagined it, you see? I wanted to get a bigger place for us, maybe a house or something. We even talked about driving lessons and that I'd pay his first car... he insisted that he pays for the driver's ed with his pocket money he saved up, and what he gets for babysitting and working as Hetty's assistant. I even looked for cars already, with Sam. I already looked at colleges and all those things... Inside my head... I had that future planned for us... and I tell you, it looked pretty damn good, but it seems so far away now."

"As your friend I would love to tell you that everything is surely going to be fine, but as your psychologist... I can only say that it will be a tough fight... one that may or may not end on a positive note," Nate tells him with a grimace.

"I just thought that if I try to make his life the best I can, by working my ass off to secure a future for him... I'd actually secure it, you know? I really thought that living by it, living this happy life... it'd make a difference, but then reality just comes and smacks you across the face," the agent exhales. "And I just can't help myself but think that Marty really had enough of all of that. I mean, just how much is he supposed to go through to get a shot at... life?"

"Honestly, Callen, it's simply... unfair," Nate shrugs. And that is plainly the truth.

It's unfair.

Simply unfair.

No more words needed.

"I just have to find a way to fix this," Callen grits his teeth, balling his free fist. He just has to find a way to make these mocking voices inside his head shut up. He has to make Marty stay.

"Then you should do that," Nate replies suddenly.

"What now?" the agent frowns, to which the psychologist gives a shrug of the shoulders, "Callen, I know you. The only way for you to gain hope is to work on this, treat it like a case, and win it. So you should go ahead and do anything... to fix it."

"But what about Marty?" Callen argues.

"I will watch over him. Once he's slept, we might come back to the office, if he wants that. Look, unless you think this is helping you in any way, this here won't solve the problem. The only way that we find a solution is... by searching for one. And I think that if someone is capable of finding the evidence we need to solve this... then it's you, right?" Nate tells him.

"I guess you're right," Callen sighs. Of course he would rather stay with Marty, and cherish every second of it – while not trying to think that taunting mock again, that sinister laughter:

Because it might be over soon.

It might be the last time.

"Okay... I'll... go... then," G grimaces as he gingerly takes Marty's head and lowers it back down on a pillow to make sure he is comfortable. Gladly, the teenager doesn't wake, but instead goes on with this halfway peaceful slumber. G carefully gets up, his eyes not leaving Marty just once. Callen stands like that for a few seconds before he tears his eyes away from his younger brother and turns to the door.

Nate is right. He can't linger in that moment forever.

He has work to do.

He has a future to put back in place.