Endure and Prevail
Chapter 9

With the return to US soil - even though it was still in Europe - some of G's natural stubbornness returned. He argued against a medical check-up, but eventually bowed to Hetty's demand. The results weren't all good. The superficial wounds were mending, but both his knee and shoulder might need surgery to heal properly. Further examinations would be needed which would be carried out once they were back in L.A. On top of that, some older fractures in his lower legs that he had been practically forced to admit to having sustained during his captivity would probably have a long term impact on his movements.

G being stroppy, he refused to be kept for further observation. He was determined and no one really had the heart to force him in this regard. He wasn't in any medical danger and he had been fine the last few days with them. Confining him somewhere he didn't want to be would not be received well. They would remain on base for another day before flying out back home to L.A.

Sam watched his friend staring out of the window, his mind obviously miles away. He knocked softly when he entered the room, seeing G tense for a second before relaxing again. "Considering making a break for it?" he asked when he stepped up beside his partner.

Callen merely hummed, neither agreeing nor disagreeing and yet affirming Sam's suspicion.

"Come on, let's get out of here for a while. You've been cooped up too long." Stepping away, he waited for G to follow which his friend did only moments later. Together, they left the base accommodations they had been given, Sam catching Michelle's eyes on the way outside and tilting his head meaningfully to Callen. Her eyes followed and she gave him a single nod, a silent conversation between husband and wife to take care of their mutual friend.

Xxxxxxx

They were roaming the base aimlessly. Callen was glad for Sam's company until he wasn't anymore, bouncing between wanting solitude and wanting companionship. He felt out of sorts, wanted solitude to lick his wounds in peace and put plaster on the cracks left in his psyche. At the same time, he was desperately glad for companionship, for not being alone and being able to reach out to someone to slow the freefall he sometimes felt he was in.

The first feeling he knew well; it had always been his modus operandi. His previous stints in captivity had always ended with the feeling of wanting to have space and time to patch himself up. A few times there had been moments when he had wished for a safety net, but it had always been fleeting. This time, that desire for company was sometimes so strong he didn't know what to do with himself. He desperately didn't want to talk about what had happened to him in the last months, but having his team around somehow seemed to stabilize the wobbling world around him.

Callen sighed softly, mindful of the bruises, his head down, eyes on the ground in front of him. Sam was a solid presence at his side, pacing him easily. His friend seemed to know that he didn't want to make any conversation despite most certainly having many questions.

Callen wasn't sure if he would ever be able to answer those questions.

He barely looked up at Sam's subtle nudge towards the right, around a corner and into a small park. They slowly followed the trails for a while. Callen felt himself tiring, his gait becoming more uneven, but he refused to rest, still trying to sort out his head. Eventually, Sam interfered and nudged him over to a bench.

"Sit down. You're not doing yourself a favor," his partner told him evenly.

Callen shook his head. "I can handle it," he argued, trying to push past Sam, only to be manhandled towards the bench. Before he could decide whether or not to fight the careful hold Sam had on him, it was gone again and Sam tugged him down beside him.

"Take a break. You can continue trying to find a solution for whatever it is you're looking for in a little bit, but let's take a minute. I'm not as young as I used to be."

"What happened to your body being a temple and being eternally young?" Callen asked, without thought slipping back into the easy banter that had always been a defining aspect of their friendship. Of course he knew that Sam didn't need to rest but was instead distracting him. Still, Callen jumped at the chance of normality.

"Oh please, being partnered with you has already taken off years of my life," Sam shot back with a grin.

"No, don't pin that on me," Callen shook his head, relaxing into the banter with a slowly growing smirk.

"Well, who should I pin it on instead? Deeks? Kensi?"

Callen tilted his head to the side in mock contemplation. Shifting in his seat, he slowly leaned back into the bench, mindful of the healing wounds on his back. "I'd suggest Deeks. It's the incessant talking. Hours and hours of your life going by," Callen suggested. It was a pity that Deeks wasn't around right now. Needling their Detective was always fun and Deeks gave back as good as he got. He had grown into the team and his spirits and humor had often been a welcome counterpoint to their cases. Callen wondered if that was still the way things worked in the Office of Special Projects or if things had changed beyond recognition during his absence.

He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, enjoying the rays of sunshine. The gentle banter with Sam somehow helped settle his nerves once more. He still sometimes felt closer to breaking than he had ever before, but somehow in exactly those moments, someone from his family materialized beside him and provided a lifeline. Yeah, he struggled with that companionship, not used to it and questioning it, but also desperately glad for the hold it gave him. Deciding not to question it for the moment, he allowed himself to move with the flow, allowed Sam to distract him into inane conversations and comfortable silences.

Xxxxxxxx

Returning home felt somewhat surreal, yet L.A. welcomed him with typical weather. Somehow, the air smelt like home and when Nell crashed into him right there and then on the tarmac, wrapping her arms tightly around him and whispering that he had been missed and she was glad that he was ok and that he was there, Callen couldn't do much more than return her hug and breathe in deeply.

The greeting with Eric wasn't much less emotional, but it was coming face to face with Hetty that damn near unhinged him. His mentor watched him approach, and for once, her masks were down. He could see each emotion as it crossed through her eyes and over her features, feeling humbled by the openness she so rarely displayed.

Standing to her full height, she only reached his shoulder, but her embrace encompassed his whole being somehow. "Welcome home, Grisha," she whispered into his ear as he clung to her, trembling slightly in her hold, emotions trying to shake him apart.

"Hey Hetty," he croaked back, giving himself another moment to bury his face in her neck before drawing back, seeing the same shakiness reflected in her eyes.

Xxxxxxx

With the threat of Abramov still hanging over his head, Callen had grudgingly agreed to move back in with Hetty. Her properties were well protected. He agreed with Hetty's assessment that Abramov would remain a threat to him and while he didn't know what to do or even what to feel about that, he was pretty certain that Hetty was somehow already working on it and pulling strings in the background. He didn't ask though, didn't want to touch that topic, instead trying to ignore the last months and what they had done to and with him.

The physical wounds continued healing, but scars would remain, both visible and beneath the surface. He still tried to keep his eyes from moving towards the brand on his chest, hating the hold Abramov seemed to have on him through it. It simply screamed 'property' and 'possession' to him. Sometimes the mark burned fiercely, seemingly forcing him to remember its presence.

Living with Hetty meant falling back into old habits. They had shared a living space many years ago and somehow that old connection was still there.

Logically, he had expected the investigation that was launched about his captivity. His disappearance would have been an open case and with his return it could be closed. There was some attention on it considering who his captor had been, therefore high profile investigators were included. His own security clearance and past in various agencies only added to the pressure of having to know what had transpired during his captivity, whether or not state secrets had been revealed. Knowing about it and having to answer the questions were two completely different things though.

He didn't want to be questioned by a committee about those months, would rather forget they happened in the first place and try to put them behind him. Even his vast powers of compartmentalizing had their limits and bringing all of that up again would be bad. Sadly, evading this wasn't an option. Logically, he knew that, but the rest of him wailed against having to go through it. Hell, he hadn't even talked about those months with his team, let alone an outsider or a whole investigative committee. It felt like it had so many times in his youth - having no control over what would happen, where he would be shipped, who he would face and what he would be forced to endure next. He didn't even want to contemplate that those things also applied to the last months of captivity.

He didn't remember many details of the first hearing, distinctly remembered losing his cool though. It had taken one question or just a specific wording of that question, to shatter his calm. Having been questioned why someone would hold him captive for ten months if not for classified information, a myriad of memories had rushed him all at once, his vision graying out and his breath turning shallow.

Oh, he had been asked questions by his captor, but they were more along the lines of whether or not he was "enjoying his stay" or how he was "finding the company" or even a sadistic demand to "describe what he was feeling". The questions had often been whispered into his ears like a lover's caress, often while he was still coming to terms with new pain running through him just after being inflicted. He thought he had said something along those lines to the committee, had somehow noted the speculative and worried glance Hetty had given him before she had asked for a break on his behalf. He didn't remember how she had gotten him out of that room, his mind in turmoil and yet again completely unhinged.

He only became aware of his surroundings once more much later. When he did, he was sitting in Hetty's kitchen, his fingers curled around a - by now cold - mug of tea, a blanket over his shoulders and Hetty watching him from over her own cup of tea. She didn't remark on the tear tracks or the way he was shaking. Instead, she slowly reached out to him, her fingers carefully making contact with his forearm. With the memories still so close to the surface, Callen wasn't sure if he could stand any physical contact, but once it was established, he felt the tension in him slowly fade. His eyes fell closed and he bowed his head down.

Already in his youth, he had often wondered if Hetty had some kind of magical touch. She could be fighting like the fiercest of dragons, could be as unyielding as steel or she could be like a gentle and soothing river, depending on what the situation required. Once he had gotten over his skittishness around the small lady after she had first taken him in, he had often felt her presence sooth his very being. Sometimes just being in the same room as her had calmed his troubled mind. He was glad to find that it still applied.

The last fifteen days since his escape had done a roller coaster on him. Or rather the last few weeks on top of the months before had done a roller coaster on him. He couldn't remember ever struggling this much before with being in captivity, but then again, the physical and psychological violations he had endured had never been this intense or prolonged before.

His walls were still down, torn and shattered, but he didn't try to pull them up right then and there. Hetty was one of the few persons on this earth he felt comfortable with being there to witness his fall. She had seen him through many a scrape during his youth and his adult years and while they often remained at a distance from each other, they did have some kind of warped mother-son relationship. They had had their differences and Hetty had withheld information from him, shaking his belief in her for some time, but at the core of it all, he still trusted her. He could allow himself to break and even ask for her help to put himself back together without it ever impacting on the respect she had for him.

The minutes ticked by as he felt the wrecking of emotions tumbling through him. Through it all, Hetty's hand remained firmly where it was on his forearm, a quiet presence anchoring him. He didn't know how long they had sat like that, without speaking, before Hetty broke the silence. "What did that monster do to you, Grisha?" she asked very gently, her voice barely breaking the quiet.

Callen shuddered, shaking his head and barely looking up at his mentor through his lashes, his vision blurring. "Don't Hetty…" he whispered, his voice breaking over the few syllables.

"Oh, Grisha," she murmured, "as is common for you, you've carried this on your own shoulders, trying to stay afloat. You're hurting yourself. Running away from this is a race you can't win. Tell me." The command was gentle, barely a whisper, and he knew he could ignore it, and yet, maybe she was right.

He had never been one to rehash things of the past, to dwell on it and to share it with others. He'd always done the bare minimum in sharing to get himself reinstated and make the shrinks sign his papers, had done what needed to be done to write reports or get through mission debriefs. His pain was his own. It was personal and intimate, nothing to be handed to other people to safeguard, belittle or throw around. Yet, Hetty was asking him to do exactly that. And for once in his life, it felt like he could give in and come out better for it.

And so he talked.

He told her about the months and months of seemingly endless captivity, of the violence against his body and soul. He talked about the pain and the desperation, about foiled escape attempts and their repercussions. He talked about fighting against losing hope, of fearing he wouldn't be able to hold on and keep going. He also told her about knowing that no one would be coming for him, told her about Abramov bragging that there hadn't been a shred of a lead left for anyone searching for him. He told her about the mind-games and the way he barely trusted his own thoughts at times with all that his captor had thrown at him and twisted around in his head. He told her about his escape, the fear of recapture and the hope of staying one step ahead of his tormentor. He talked through tears of pain and anger, talked through emotions clogging his throat and exhaustion pulling at him. And through it all, Hetty didn't interrupt, knowing that if she did he wouldn't ever start again.

It was dark outside when his voice faded away, long past midnight.

He felt empty, completely drained, beyond his endurance once more. Callen looked up at Hetty, silently asking for direction and help. Hetty met his gaze evenly. Standing slowly, she came around the table and brushed a gentle hand through his hair, his eyes falling shut upon the gesture. Drawing his head against her shoulder, she embraced him carefully. "And yet you prevailed. Against all odds, you survived and came back home," she murmured gently, "thank you for trusting me with this. I am so very proud of you, Grisha."

He took a shuddering breath, allowing himself to lean against Hetty, to let her soothe his soul and hold him up for a little while.

Xxxxxxx

He had endured three more rounds of questioning with the investigative committee before it was suddenly over. It wouldn't have ended there, but the investigation was prematurely closed when Abramov's body was found back in his mansion in St. Petersburg. News spread fast, political upheaval in Russia always something the American intelligence community had an eye on.

Cause of death was determined as a heart attack.

He wondered.

Hetty had been very calm about the news. Callen had looked at her when the message had come in. Despite the uproar of feelings within him, he distinctly remembered the satisfied gleam in her eyes. The US government may not condone assassinations, but…

Yeah, there was a 'but' there. He didn't feel like poking that sleeping bear though, instead left the bullpen and locked himself in the armory, first fighting to keep himself from shaking apart and later emptying one magazine after the other and shredding the stack of paper targets that had been conveniently restocked just that morning.

Xxxxxxx

The package had been delivered before they arrived in the morning. After Abramov's death several weeks prior, things had quieted down. G had moved out of Hetty's place and returned to his house where Sam picked him up in the mornings. G was still on restricted and light duty, but he was there, slowly slipping back into his role as team leader and often directing them from Ops when they went out.

With no active case, Sam powered up his computer to start on some paperwork, ignoring Deeks' chatter about some new food truck or other. Kensi was munching on a doughnut. Eric and Nell were upstairs. Basically, everything was business as usual. The last weeks had healed some of the cracks within the team. Their orbit had re-stabilized itself and while things wouldn't be going back to how they had been before, they at least felt more 'normal' than they had in a long time.

The dynamics of their group had shifted, in most areas it was a subtle shift, but a shift nonetheless and everyone needed time to adapt. At the same time, a lot of things remained the same and just slid back into place when Callen returned, which in turn reassured them all and allowed them to find their footing more easily and not worry about adapting too much.

The cracks visible in Callen were slowly healing as well. He hid them well, but Sam could still see them. He had seen what the initial questioning from the investigation committee had done to his friend, had helped Hetty guide a barely coherent Callen away. Sam doubted that G remembered his presence on the drive to Hetty's place before Hetty had asked him to stand down. The following days, he had watched over his partner and had subtly let him know he could depend on him. Callen hadn't taken him up on the offer, but Sam was sure he knew it was there. While the first hearing had completely unhinged his partner, it was somehow also the first day of a distinct shift in his partner's progress. He didn't know what Callen had shared with Hetty, but it seemed to have helped him a lot.

Sam shook his head to focus back on the report on his computer screen, only for his head to snap up when a clatter came from G's desk. His partner stood, chair scratching on the ground as he stumbled backwards and away from the desk. He was pale; all color having drained from his face. Turning, G headed for the restrooms with quick strides. Sam glanced first at Kensi and then Deeks who both frowned back at him. Standing as well, he debated on what action to take - follow his partner or see what had evoked this reaction.

Soundlessly, Hetty appeared at his side. "Mr. Hanna?" she asked, startling him briefly. "What happened?"

Sam shrugged and then stepped over to G's desk. The package that had been left on G's desk was open. It appeared that only two items and a note had been inside. A pair of golden cuff links lay on the table. Picking up the note, Sam felt a sense of foreboding when it was written in Cyrillic. Reaching for the cufflinks, he took in the sigil displayed, a family crest he had seen before - in form of a brand on his partner's chest. He swore, glancing up to where G had gone.

Hetty took the note from Sam. She just uttered a single word upon reading it, "bugger."

There in the note was evidence of Callen's tormentor reaching for him from beyond the grave, a 'to-be-opened-upon-my-death-package', a final note of cruelty, of playing the mind-games Callen had described to Hetty.

Wear them for me, as I have no more use for them.