"So, let me get this straight," Callen said, staring at the screen in Ops. "Petty Officer Wilkinson was blown up by fireworks."

"Yep."

"It's a bit early in the month for that, isn't it?" Eric asked out loud.

He was ignored in favour of everyone staring disbelievingly at the screen.

"In a friend's shed."

"Yep."

"Who was nowhere near said shed at the time of it blowing up."

"Yep," Nell nodded her head for a third time, feeling rather like a bobble head.

"And we're investigating this, why?" Kensi asked, frowning at the rather gruesome crime scene photos in front of them.

In some places it looked like the guy's skin had melted off. There was bubbling. Bubbling. It was pretty gross even by their standards.

"Because Petty Officer Wilkinson found himself in the possession of sensitive documents." Hetty said to them.

"Like he accidentally got them or he stole them?" Deeks asked.

"That is for you to find out, Mr Deeks."

"He did report some documents to his superior three hours before his death," Eric said helpfully.

"So, he either got them by accident or he stole them and got cold feet," Kensi surmised.

"That doesn't explain why he literally went up in smoke," Sam pointed out.

"Why do we get all the weird ones?" Deeks asked, voice bordering on a whine.

"It's the nature of our work, Mr Deeks."

"I thought our work was espionage and anti-terrorism," he said cheekily.

Something Hetty did not appreciate if the disapproving look she was giving him was anything to go by.

"Does this mean we get our phones back?" Sam asked, deciding to save Deeks from himself.

"Ha!" Deeks crowed. "Couldn't live without it, could you?"

Sam gave him an unimpressed look.

"More like we won't be able to communicate without them."

Deeks deflated at that, his opportunity for teasing Sam shrinking to nothing.

"Ah, yes," Hetty said, like it had just occurred to her. "Mr Beale?"

Nell winced in sympathy for her "partner". She knew what he was going to have to tell them all and she suspected that the results weren't going to be pretty.

He nervously adjusted his glasses and tried to explain, "There, um, well, there was an issue with the update and, um-"

Nell couldn't stand it anymore and decided to rip the bandaid off.

"They crashed. All of them," she finished quickly. "We're going to need to rebuild them."

"Mr Beale is going to rebuild them," Hetty corrected.

Nell winced again. Hetty really wasn't pleased with him. Even if it wasn't exactly his fault.

"Then, um, what do we use?" Deeks asked hesitantly.

Hetty produced a box from somewhere, flipping open the lid. They all crowded around to peer in and Nell had to bite back a snort when she saw what was in there.

"Flip phones?" Sam asked in dismay, pulling one out. "Really, Hetty?"

'Click. Click'

"Stop it," Kensi hissed at her partner as the now widowed Mrs Wilkinson busied herself with making herself coffee.

She needed the break from their interview. One that Deeks was spending flipping his phone open and closed.

"But it's so... flippy."

"It is a flip phone."

"I still can't believe Hetty has these things."

Before Kensi could think of a good rebuttal, Mrs Wilkinson returned to the table, hands shaking around her mug.

"So, your husband liked fireworks?" Kensi asked the tear stained grieving widow in front of them.

At least that question got a smile and a single laugh out of her.

"Liked them? Pete loved them. Used them for anything you could possibly celebrate. Hallowe'en, Christmas, birthdays, job promotions, Easter."

"Nothing like celebrating the Big Guy's resurrection with lot of bright colours and bangs," Deeks said, trying to maintain a straight face.

Mrs Wilkinson looked like she was trying to do the same.

"Exactly," she answered with a strangled sounding laugh.

"So, something went wrong at his friend's house?" Kensi continued, hoping for something that they could go on.

Which apparently wasn't anywhere as Mrs Wilkinson shook her head.

"He knew how to handle them," she insisted. "He took courses on it."

"Accidents still do happen, Mrs Wilkinson," Deeks said quietly.

"Not to Peter. He was always careful. Refused to do something stupid. Said he put his life at risk enough in the Middle East and he didn't need to do it at home as well."

His love of fireworks didn't exactly fit in with that mindset, though Kensi decided that it was prudent not to point that out.

"He wouldn't make a mistake like that," Mrs Wilkinson continued. "Someone had to have done something to him!"

"Now, ma'am, there's nothing to-"

'BANG! WHOOSH!'

They all jumped as the shed outside exploded into a literal fireball - flames leaping higher than the first story almost immediately. Then it died down almost immediately to nothing. Just a smouldering pike of wood. Kensi was already asking Eric to send the LAFD.

"Now do you believe me?" Mrs Wilkinson asked.

"So, our people-exploder had stolen the outlines of that new type of explosives the Navy was working on but got them mixed up in our Petty Officer's paperwork?" Deeks asked, trying to get all the pieces of the case straight in my head.

"People exploder?" Callen repeated in amusement.

"I don't think there's an actual legal term for that."

"Murderer," Sam supplied.

"Whatever," Deeks dismissed. "Either way stolen papers got mixed up in Wilkinson's paperwork."

"Then he brought them home," Nell said with a nod. "And realised what they were and reported them."

"Which made our people-exploder, Petty Officer Gordon, panic and well, do the people exploding."

"It would have looked accidental," Callen said.

"Because of his love of fireworks." Kensi stated.

"Exactly," Callen nodded. "But our culprit was a little bit too enthusiastic about getting rid of him."

Sam snorted. "Enthusiastic. Yeah. If that's what you want to call using the very explosives you were trying to steal the plans of to blow Wilkinson up."

"Would you have preferred thorough?"

"Idiotic is a better word," Sam retorted.