'I've got no time for haunting
The ones I've held so dear,
So I'll carve the crudest message now
Before I disappear.'

"Laying Down to Perish" ~ Alan Doyle

~OL~

'We are not youth any longer. We don't want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life.'

The words are a flittering compass needle that cannot find direction, spasmodic in its haste to one side, then the other, shivering all the while. But Callen knows them like he knows air. Like he knows Sam.

When did the two of them start thinking they were invincible, that they could do this job forever? When did he stop wanting what was offered so freely? Why didn't he just let what they have be enough?

Getting old, losing its hold, forcing himself into a white picket mold, digging for gratuitous gold—

Sweet dreams…ah, sweet dreams…

And G Callen is alone.

~OL~

Callen finds out why Deeks wasn't making any noise earlier.

He immediately wishes he hadn't.

He's aware of exactly two things upon first waking, one being the ache in his hip, from too much time spent on a frigid surface, and the other—

"I think he's coming around for good this time."

"You're no better off."

"Thanks, Dr. Blye."

"I'm just saying, Sam, you need to sit down. Now. That broken rib might have punctured something, not to mention your matching set concussions."

Callen manages to wrestle his eyes open, puzzled by black denim under his cheek. Strange fingers trace along his scalp in soothing patterns. Strange not because the touch is unfamiliar, but because they're not the right shape to match the other sensory clues—peach soap, skinny legs, gunpowder residue.

Dark hair tumbling over his cheek when a face bends into his line of sight.

"K'si?"

"There he is." Kensi grins, alight with relief. It exposes dried blood framing each tooth like pictures at a gallery. "You've been incoherent the last few times."

With the dim interior of their eight-by-eight cement cell, the same he was in before, Callen almost thinks it's night time, that he missed an entire day. But then he hears the splash of rain outside, an afternoon tropical storm. A wicked one too—Sam's pate is wet from free climbing hand holds in the wall to reach the window twelve feet above. It's only the width of his arm, but that doesn't stop Sam from weaseling out any possible tactical advantages.

They were all put together this round. Callen didn't expect that.

"H'w long?" he rasps.

Kensi's brow divots, though her warm ministrations across his skin don't stop where she has his head cradled on her stretched-out knees. She consults with Sam using a look. "Just a few hours, meaning we've been captured for almost a whole day. We turned you onto your side when the bleeding…got worse."

Only now does Callen feel Kensi's other hand pressed just below his shoulder blades, holding his liquid where it's supposed to be. Distantly, he thinks it should hurt more.

Callen inhales a careful breath and winces. It works, though, in that pain zips the world into better focus. "Did blood loss make me pass out? Or was it the gun butt?"

Another quick look between Sam and Kensi.

Callen squints at his partner. "Sam?"

Sam jumps down from the window and kneels beside Callen. It looks like it takes effort, and there are new bruises on his face and chest that weren't there when Callen apparently lost time. A stem and floret design is reverse-frieze imprinted in patterned cuts along Sam's temple, the irritated skin pulvinated by Torales' engraved gun. Callen imagines he's got a matching one where his forehead prickles.

"You don't remember?" Sam asks, quiet.

Callen gives a weak shake of his chin.

Kensi deflates in relief, pressing cool lips to Callen's cheek. "Oh, thank God."

A second time, Callen notices that Kensi's hand on his scalp doesn't feel quite right. It's…too big, like it belongs to Deeks rather than her slender, deadly fingers. It catches in places too, not quite so smooth or dexterous. As if she's wearing a tight glove or umpire mitt. The feather light touch lifts instead of dragging across his scalp.

Callen reaches up, barely brushing the skin of her hand—

Kensi snatches it back with a hiss that Callen can hear as well as feel in the diaphragm pressed to his crown. He gasps. "Kens—"

"It's fine," she gets out, clipped.

But it's not.

After clutching the hand against her chest for a minute, Kensi lowers it slowly back down to Callen's line of sight. Though she begins to rub the back of his wrist, he keeps it perfectly still to avoid any abrupt motion that might cause the inflamed limb pain:

The fingers are swollen to twice their normal size, segmented in an unnatural way. Magenta, amoeba-shaped blotches puff under the skin, every single knuckle broken or shattered by Torales' boot. It's one giant bruise, mangled to the point that even Callen, no doctor, can tell she may never use the hand properly again. She breathes evenly, but a rhythmic catch mars her exhales.

"They came while I was out," Callen guesses.

"We had our turn at Torture by Torales." Kensi tries to make it a joke, like Deeks would, but it falls flat. And Callen is assaulted by a stupid kind of guilt, that he wasn't awake to protect them. Then it hits Callen—Torales is doing this just to spite him. "That's why you're out."

Sam's eyes darken where he still crouches by Callen's stomach. He adjusts his partner's arm bandage and eyes Kensi's hand, his own shaking with arcane, icy rage.

He nods to answer the silent question. "Torales shoved the bullet in deeper, G. That bastard…"

Sam runs a hand down his face, top to bottom, and his breaths come fast now. "You were still out when they came to ask us again about Hetty. I refused and he just laughed and laughed. Taunting us with the upper hand. Then he took a pen and…"

Again, Sam can't finish.

Callen tests his lungs and sure enough, the bullet feels different, like a blazing white needle instead of the dead lump of ember coal. He doesn't know whether to be grateful or cross that he didn't wake up for this personal beat down.

"We couldn't stop him," Kensi whispers.

"Oh," is all Callen says to this new revelation, oddly numb to his own suffering. "We were set up, huh? Are you guys okay?"

Though it's a dumb, obvious question, he's not talking about their physical injuries. He's asking about the haunted glaze in Kensi's eyes and Sam's agitated motions, void of his usual zen, and the odd silence where a fourth voice should be.

"They didn't shoot us in the hallway," Kensi assures him. A deliberate gloss over the real question. "Once we saw you go down, we surrendered."

Callen's lips harden. "You shouldn't have."

"Oh yes we should have." Kensi's tone is so cast iron, irascible, that Callen doesn't even open his mouth.

Sam is already back up on his feet and doesn't contribute to Kensi's authoritative declaration, save a nod. "I'm looking for an escape route, G. Don't worry. They need us alive and if we hold out, we'll survive until exfil comes to rescue us. Assuming we aren't already out by then."

Callen's gut tugs again, but he looks up at Kensi this time. It's an automatic move, seamless because he knows it like a heartbeat.

Kensi meets his eyes in a completion of the usual ritual. And finally Callen notices the most important thing, what he should have from the moment of waking:

Deeks, sprawled on the floor under the window—Sam's been standing guard over him this whole time, always between Deeks and the door.

He's on his side too, face a mess and one eye so bloated by cobalt bruising that without the shaggy hair, Callen might have to do a double take before identifying him. Blood leaks out of his left nostril. They've carefully positioned him so he's within arm's reach for all three of them, even Callen in his ungainly slump across Kensi's lap.

She murmurs around a harsh swallow. "He won't wake up."

"Head wound?"

"He fought when…when Torales crushed my hand, and things got…"

"Ugly," Callen finishes, soft, stroking her wrist well away from the wound.

Kensi nods. "I think the sinusoidal bone jammed into his nasal airways. He's breathing, but it's not good."

Not good is a horrid underestimation, from what Callen can see. Marty's chest barely moves and yet there's a whistle in his throat; not the high pitched, cartoonish kind, but low and bi-tonal, as if air is passing through a narrow pipe.

Callen's eyes dart again to Kensi. She doesn't glance at her husband, but in the quick span of Callen looking away and back, her eyes have filled with tears. Unshed, controlled, but oh so conclusive. Callen reads it all in her eyes, one fell blow.

His heart goes blank too.

"We're just having a rough night out on the town."

Kensi laughs. "Oh yeah? Just shooting the breeze?"

"That's right." Callen smiles too. Glad he could lift her spirits even for this one microcosm of a moment. "Piece of cake—this feels exactly like that time we all got drunk after Owen died and fell asleep in a pile under Hetty's desk."

"You and I have very different memories of that."

Callen plays along, scoffing. "That's because I don't have any memories after we finished the bottle of scotch at all."

"I miss him," she says quietly, and she's not talking about Granger.

Callen reaches up for Kensi's face, just a pass of dirty fingertips on her cheek. Kensi leans into it anyway. Her hair strokes across his scraped knuckles, falling free from its braid and crusty with her own blood. The fact she hasn't fixed it feels odd, like a knickknack sitting out of its own dust ring—but Callen know what it means. He inanely wishes he could reach up and fix her hair, loop it back in those complicated hair twists he's never quite understood how she pulls off.

"Sam won't admit it, in denial," Kensi whispers. "There's no way to escape. We've searched this room corner to corner. And Torales doesn't care who he has to kill to get Hetty's attention. We're the bait, Callen, and he can't possibly need all four of us for that to work."

"There's no way to barter, stall for time?"

"I don't think so…" Kensi shakes her hair, inadvertently fanning Callen's cheek. "We tried that and, well, you're the evidence of how poorly it went. I even tried picking the locks, then the door hinges…we're caged, G."

Callen's mouth sets in a grim smile, because he and Kensi have always been the realists, compared to the polemic optimism of Sam and Marty. Sam doesn't hear her admission, a small mercy, and so Callen is free to soak up this sight of his family, of someone who's snatched him from the fire more times than he can recount.

A sister in all but blood.

"Tell Sam I love him." Kensi sniffs, not that it does much good. "He wouldn't listen to me earlier."

An assertive heat rushes through Callen's body, from the hairs on his head to his ankle bones, his body comprehending with a mixture of pride and devastation what this means before his conscious mind can.

Pride, because he's come so far that he, of all people, doesn't recognize these words at first. Devastation, because he knows Kensi has every good reason to say them.

There are few people better at goodbyes than G Callen used to be. Childhood G Callen got passed around to such an absurd number of foster homes and schools that he felt like the birthday boy, blindfolded, spun around, hitting the pinata. He still has that metaphorical baseball bat in his heart's hand—it's just used to defend rather than lash out now.

So now he's clumsy at them, at these farewells without name. Once you start naming yourself, he's learned, naming the absence of good things becomes insurmountable.

He is Grisha, born to a family he barely remembers.

He is son.

He is uncle, a title held close while watching these young lives grow up into the competent people Sam's kids are today.

He is brother.

He is friend, but this one falls flat suddenly. Friend is such a small word, only six letters, not able to hold the acres of love he's harvested over a decade with this team. You can't spell friend without end, and this is something so blasphemous that he has, foolishly, stopped thinking about it.

He is condemned and dying and forgiven, but only one of these really matters, no matter how urgent the other two might seem.

Looking at Sam, there is a single word for his identity left, one he was christened with long ago: G Callen is chosen.

Kensi Blye is the wisest of them all—she sees how this is going to end, even before they do.

"I love you, Kens."

Kensi grins again, impossibly. "Love you too."

"You're really the best of us, you know that?"

"If only Marty was awake to hear that." Kensi loses the battle with two tears. Just two. They're small, tiny beads that catch chain lightning buffeting the outside walls, but they hit Callen's temple and he thinks whoever invented that phrase—blood is thicker than water—has never met their team. These tears are like tar, thicker than the blood tangled in Kensi's dimples. "I'd never let him live it down."

Callen catches the second tear on his thumb before his arm drops, too tired to stay upright. Kensi kisses him again, on the stubbly part of his cheek near his ear. He senses that this time it's more for her comfort than his. Her lips are hotter now, and she smells like sweat, but it might as well be a lullaby for how grounded it makes Callen feel.

"Kens?" he asks, to get her attention. "Can you…? I wanna be near him for a bit."

"Okay." Kensi doesn't argue, which is the biggest neon sign anyone could flash at Callen that they're dangerously close to game over. There's no fussing over wounds or telling him to take it easy—Kensi gently lifts Callen by his shoulders and drags him over to Deeks.

Corpse like and oh so still, Marty doesn't move when Callen curls up beside him, close enough that his breath ruffles Deeks' hair.

"Grisha?"

Callen starts at the sound of his own name from Kensi's cracked lips. She's never said it before. "Yeah?"

"If they…" Kensi has to stop, her hand tight on Callen's shoulder. And even though he can't see her face now, he knows what it would look like, based on that distinct tone he's only heard a handful of times. "If they take us separately, that is, if it's my…turn…first and Deeks wakes up while I'm gone, you let him know…"

Callen contorts behind him for her good hand, soaked in his blood as it is. "He already knows, sestra."

She holds on for a long moment, then squeezes their hands in a nauseating squelch and lets go.

After that, there is no more talking, from any of them. Sam continues his endless sweep of the room while trying to make a weapon out of the metal in his dog tags and Kensi sets up a self appointed watch by the door.

Callen focuses everything on Deeks, just because he wants to. Marty is never still, never silent. To see him like this is a compass pointing south, everything contrary to what it's supposed to be.

"I'm sorry," Callen breathes. It's addressed to all three of his teammates.

Callen palms at Deeks' face too. It's affectionate and reverent and on any other day Callen would feel embarrassed. But today is not any other day and Marty is too still. He is never not tapping his toes or clicking his fingers or strutting verbal plumage that makes them feel human.

Deeks doesn't stir at the caress. Callen is careful to avoid his swollen eye, faintly scruffing the matted hair and marvelling at the gold caught in his fingernails. In pushing it back, he sees a nasty gash along Deeks' temple too, as if someone clocked him with a steel toed boot.

Callen extracts his hand from the Rumpelstiltskin cloud with tender caution and counts each breath in the detective's lungs.

"I'm so sorry." Callen latches onto Marty's limp hand even as voices march ever closer to their cell. "I'm so sorry, I'm sorry…"

~OL~

Callen's eyes have crusted shut at some point in the night, from the salt water sprayed onto him by their mammoth visitor. Sam wipes it free. Not that Callen slept, but keeping them open is becoming a concerted effort. He blinks a few times at pink flutters on the horizon that have replaced the stars.

Sunrise.

Red skies by morning…

"Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"I didn't mean for it to go like this."

Sam snorts. "Once a fool, always a fool—G, I'm the one who forced your hand."

Callen shakes his head. "This mission was pear shaped from the start because we were set up from the start. I should have followed my gut instinct that something wasn't right."

"If this is supposed to be a pick-me-up speech, it's not working."

"Sam…" Callen tries to grab Sam's hand but he pulls away, mouth tight. "Sam, I need you to…I don't want to go alone."

"You won't." Sam's eyes brighten. "Because I'm right here. We're going to be rescued off this yellow death trap and make it home together, alright?"

They aren't, but Callen doesn't have the energy to argue anymore.

~OL~

It turns out adrenaline can achieve wild things when the moment is right.

Callen wakes to the unmistakable sound of keys. His whole body aches, even in sleep, so it doesn't bother him to be woken out of the fitful doze.

Sam makes a disgusted sound. "Here we go again. Third try's the charm, right?"

Kensi doesn't answer, already awake. She glances at her husband, kept safe by Sam's presence beside him. Callen catches her eye and she nods.

Torales and his men again.

The warlord marches in and his eyes do a circuit around the quartet of agents. He points at Kensi. "Her."

One of his goons raises a rifle straight to Kensi's temple, faster than Callen can draw breath to protest.

Thunder crashes outside the window while Callen and Torales lock eyes, each refusing to blink and give the other the satisfaction.

"Tell me how to contact Henrietta Lange or I will shoot your friend." Torales doesn't blink and Callen hates him a little more for it, for torturing his team with zero remorse. Sam reaches for Callen and tugs him to his feet.

"Why would you need to know?" Callen asks, hoping Kensi is wrong and he can stretch their time. Exfil has surely noticed the plan didn't succeed. "Why do you want to bring Hetty here?"

"She needs to right a wrong," is all Torales says, eyes burning but voice composed.

"We can work something out." Callen leans a bit more on Sam, desperate not to sway and appear weak. Guards surround them on all sides in this cell confrontation, not that Callen would try something with the gun bare inches from Kensi's forehead. "If you let them go, I'll stay as bartering chip."

"G!" Sam's voice is harsh. "You wouldn't dare."

Torales doesn't grin this time…but he does bow his head, as if in admission of defeat. His eyes are final.

So is his voice—"Kill her and the unconscious one."

"No." Callen barely gets the word out before the guards grasp Deeks and Kensi by their hair. They are yanked away with absolutely no fanfare. "No!"

Kensi has devolved past the use of words altogether. Her face is a hurricane and she snarls an animalistic note of pure fury upon seeing Deeks skid past her. Injured as she is, she still manages to fight off her guard with a knee hooked up and around his neck.

Sam knees one guard in the groin before bringing his elbow down on the back of his neck—all one handed, the other making sure Callen doesn't keel over. Callen kicks one, mostly to feel that he's not dead weight here.

Torales simply takes out his own pistol, aiming it at Deeks.

WHA-BANG!

All three agents freeze. Their chests heave at the exertion demanded of already wounded, exhausted bodies. Adrenaline sings through their veins.

Outside, another crash of thunder peals louder, right over top of them, a cruel ring in Callen's ears. They are waiting…waiting…watching for the mushroom cloud of red and grey brain matter to come gushing from Deeks' curls.

Breathing. Shaking. Panicking.

But there is no blood, and for a moment Callen can't figure out why.

Then he sees the bullet embedded in the wall—not two inches to the left of Marty's ear. It's even ruffled his hair, carving a path, but Torales' eyes are all for Callen.

Marty's eyelashes flutter and for a moment slivers of cloudy blue glimmer. One by one, Deeks' eyes alight on each of them. His face tightens, not coherent enough to speak or move and not asleep enough to hide from the pain.

"I'll tell you," Callen pants, out of sheer horror at what almost happened. "I'll call Hetty to bring her here."

"Perhaps later. You didn't submit fast enough and for that you need to be taught a lesson." The dictator sneers. "Take them away. You know the spot."

Kensi and Deeks are dragged around the corner, their heels scraping in a putrid sound that shakes Callen down to the atoms of his soul. Deeks wails a groan of agony and distress Callen will take to his grave.

And his last sight of them is Kensi grappling with the hand in her hair. There's a terrible ringing that he belatedly realizes is Sam, hollering and slamming the bars for all he's worth.

Callen's last sound of them are gunshots, exactly two.