Chapter 7: Bigger Problems for the Small Analyst
A/N: I know this update took forever and I apologize for the delay in posting this chapter - I wanted it to go in a different direction, but every time that I tried to do it that way, I felt like I was herding cats instead of plot bunnies - I finally just let them have their way and they have given me this as a Christmas gift - I now pass this gift on to you - May all the joys of whatever season that you celebrate be yours as we close off this year and enter 2015, looking forward to all the new stories that will be given to us.
A/N 2: The first half of Season 6 has already been broadcast - We have seen developments in the love lives of all the single team members and more of Sam's family history - Makes you wonder what is coming in the second half of the season - This story is going further and further AU - Some of the dialogue from previous canon episodes are used here - Parts of this story are condensed from other stories that I have already posted - Thanks again to G, my Russian thesaurus - I hope you enjoy it.
Nell was somewhat apprehensive about Callen's plan for her to impersonate Henrietta Lange. Yes, they were about the same size, but the hair was completely different, and unless there was a way to age her skin, no one would believe the masquerade that they were trying to pull off. Since Hetty was in Washington, they had to let Ernesto Innocenti, work his magic to try to accomplish the impossible. Hetty had stolen Ernesto from MGM, where he had run the wardrobe department for their film division, and where he still had ties, so that those garments that were needed for any operation that were not in their small closets, could be borrowed from the studios. That was the reason why Hetty was so adamant about the clothing coming back undamaged, and if anything did happen to it, the agents were forced to eat the cost of repairs. Ernesto was the perfect person to achieve the exact fit on the women's gowns, making the final adjustments while they were dressing. Ernesto had no interest in women, having been married these past seven years to Fergus McDermott, a huge, well muscled, redheaded Irishman, who worked in the NCIS motor pool, and was as deft with a torque wrench, as Ernesto was with a needle.
Callen had called ahead, and let Ernesto know what he needed with Nell. Ernesto laughed, shaking his head, and promised him that the job would not be impossible, and that when he was done, even Hetty could not tell the difference from the back. Nell did not think that they could pull it off, but Callen explained that they would block her face and it would work. She resigned herself to the fact that this might be their only chance to get the people that were after Hetty.
Ernesto was finally ready to work his magic. He had Nell come with him into the small dressing area just off the wardrobe section. She took off her deep blue cardigan sweater, white blouse, and navy skirt. Ernesto helped her into a sky blue colored blouse and a smartly tailored, chestnut colored pantsuit. He helped her braid her hair and used bobby pins to secure it to the top of her head. Ernesto decided that a hair cap wasn't needed, because her hair was not that long. He just took a few more bobby pins to make sure none of Nell's hair would escape from under the wig. When he finally was satisfied, he took a wig off a wig form and carefully placed it on her head. As a final touch, the wardrobe manager added a black leather purse on a shoulder strap, where she could carry her service weapon, since the jacket of her pantsuit came down over her hips and hid her waist .
She looked at herself in the mirror. All she could see is a great big target painted on her back, She was reminded of a fly fishing show she saw on the learning channel. The flies were tied to look like something that the fish wanted to devour, and when they were put into use, the craftsmen who made these intricate lures were yelling "Here fishie, fishie." She was the lure, no, change that, she was the bait. The usual outcome for the fly fishermen was that whatever fish they were trying to lure usually took the bait and swallowed it as it was being consumed. Nell had no delusions that the probable outcome of this mission would be similar, even though it was Callen and Sam that were providing her backup.
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Later that afternoon, a limousine pulled up in front of Dovecote, Hetty's home in Hollywood. Callen and Sam got out and escorted the petite person in the back seat up to the door, where she punched in the access code. Once inside, the woman turned to the two field agents and asked, "Okay, guys, where do you want me to go?" It is not Hetty, but Nell as a decoy, dressed in the wig and smart pants suit that Hetty would not have been ashamed to wear.
"Why don't you go upstairs. That's where Hetty would have gone. Sam is going to stay downstairs here and act as your bodyguard. I'm gonna leave and drop the limo and pick up the Challenger, this way if anyone has eyes on the place, maybe it will lure them out." Callen laid out their planned operation.
Nell went upstairs and looked into the library. There was a small window that overlooked the back of the house and she decided to keep watch there. Not more than ten minutes after Callen left, the new hit team made their appearance. Sam counted at least six guys that piled out of the SUV to go after their fake Hetty. He looked for a central defensive position and pulled out his gun.
Sam encouraged his partner to hurry. "We could use a hand, G."
"Two minutes out and coming in hot." he replied.
"They're not gonna wait for you. Here we go!" The big man said.
Nell gave them an update. "I count at least three coming in the front. Two more are headed around back. They all have automatic weapons."
One of the men coming in from the front poked another when he saw the interior stairway, "Upstairs," he whispered.
"Nell, one's coming up," Sam said over the com. Nell didn't reply, and Sam could only hope that she would again trust the training she received and be able to deal with him.
Downstairs, Sam shot one guy and wounded another that was climbing up the stairs to get at Nell, but he had to flee the return fire from another opponent.
Nell ran to the library and hid behind the door. She had her gun drawn and was peeking out through the partially opened door, watching as the man climbed the stairs. He silently stepped onto the landing, in front of the library door, and started walking in the opposite direction down the hallway.
Nell heard the sound of tires screeching and knew that Callen had arrived. It was confirmed when over the com she heard his voice ask, "Nell, status?"
She answered him in a barely audible whisper, "I'm holding the high ground."
Callen tried to help reassure everyone they would get through this by telling the other two, "Kensi and Deeks are five minutes out." He had come in from the back and ducked down next to Sam.
Nell continued to watch the back of the man as he walked toward the far end of the hall and checked out the other rooms, knowing he was looking for her. All of a sudden her cell phone started to buzz.
As soon as she answered it, Hetty could hear the sounds of gunfire that came from downstairs. "Nell, what's going on?" she asked
"Little busy here, Hetty. We are under attack here at Dovecote."
Hetty was surprised, "You're in my house?!"
Nell whispered into the phone, just loud enough for Hetty to hear her, "Yes, and we're outmanned and outgunned."
"Where in the house are you?" Hetty asked.
"Upstairs, in the library." the younger woman said.
"Oh, bugger. Listen carefully, Miss Jones, ..." Hetty continued to give her some specific instructions on what she needed to do.
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The guy searching for Nell heard the noise of the cell phone too, wheeled around and very slowly started to come back the way he came, toward her, a smile on his face. Nell left her position behind the partially closed door and backed into the small bathroom that was off to one side of the library. She closed the door behind her, pulled off the wig and threw it on the small vanity. Looking for some place that gave her a small sense of being able to defend herself, Nell scrunched down between the toilet and the wall. Holding her Glock 26 in both hands, she rested the butt of the gun on the toilet seat and aimed it at the door. After a short time, there was a burst of automatic fire that tore through the bathroom door and the adjoining wall, about four feet off the ground. Nell almost jumped up out of her place of hiding at the sound, but stayed scrunched down and none of the bullets hit her. The door slowly opened out, and Nell saw the nose of the attacker's MP5K-PDW submachine gun slowly enter. Nell steadied herself, waiting for the man to show himself.
He entered the bathroom, looking toward the wig that was sitting on the vanity. In the last split second, he saw Nell hunched up behind the toilet, her gun aimed at his chest. A look of surprise came over his face, whether it was because of the young face that didn't belong on the body of Hetty Lange, the person they had come to capture or kill, or the fact that Nell had already fired her Glock three times and instantaneously he felt all three shells enter his chest and end his life. He fell face down on the floor, his left hand still on the doorknob, pulling it closed and trapping the young analyst there with his dead body.
Sam looked at his partner before ducking down again as another blast of shots came from an automatic weapon. "You know, G, these guys came for Hetty at night with sedatives and syringes. Today they aren't here to kidnap anyone."
Callen responded, "Yeah, they're here to kill us."
Just then they hear a short burst of gunfire from upstairs, followed by shots from a pistol.
Callen yelled out, "Nell!"
The two agents ran for the stairs. The man that Sam had wounded wanted to stop them, but Callen shot him again, ending his threat to them as he died. He went up a few steps while Sam protected him and then stopped to protect Sam as he scrambled to reach the base of the stairway. Alternating between running up a few steps and protecting his partner, both agents safely reached the landing. The opposing gunfire continued to try to hit them.
Callen yelled out again, "Nell?!"
Sam looked at him and said, "Go! I got these jokers! Go! Find her!"
Leaving Sam to cover the stairway, Callen went and entered the library, preparing himself for the worst. The closed adjoining bathroom door and wall was full of bullets holes and looked like someone sprayed it with a burst from an automatic weapon. He slowly opened the door, becoming very anxious when he saw the crumpled male body lying on the floor, motionless, blood pooling around his head and chest area. "Nell, it's me." he called out again, almost afraid of what awaited him, praying that she would answer.
He peered around the corner of the door frame and slowly stuck his head into the room. Then he saw her, hunched up and tucked away on the floor in the corner, hiding behind the toilet, her gun trained on him, or whoever else might have come through the door. The young woman had a look on her face that Callen had never seen there before, fear, determination, relief.
Concerned for what happened to his young analyst, he asked, "You okay?"
She shook her head, like she was trying to wake up or come out of a trance, and finally recognized who he was. "Yeah," she told him.
He offered her his hand to help her up to a standing position. "Come on, we've got to fight our way out of here," he told her. They stepped over the dead intruder and joined Sam out in the hallway.
Nell looked up and down the hallway and then she headed off toward one end. "Guys, this way."
Sam remained where he was near the top of the stairs, trading shots with the intruders, determined to keep them from coming up and attacking them from the rear.
Nell yelled over her shoulder, "Follow me."
Gunfire continued to come from the main level. Sam pulled back behind the wall, while Callen ran to catch Nell.
"Nell, this is a dead end!" he told her.
Sam emptied his clip and took off after the other two, putting a new clip in as he ran.
Callen grabbed her and spun her around, "Nell!"
Sam reached the other two and looked around. There were no doors offering an escape into another room. There were no windows offering a way outside. All there Sam could see was the end of the hallway with a big wardrobe placed up against the wall. "Nell, that's a dead end." he told her.
"No, Hetty called and told me about this." she said as she started pulling open the wardrobe. She moved all the clothing to one side and then started to run her hand along the back. There was a small click and then one edge swung away, revealing the secret stairway behind it.
Nell led the way down the stairs and Sam brought up the rear, rearranging the clothing to look like it hadn't been disturbed and then pulling the secret door shut behind him. "Of course Hetty would have a secret passageway in her house. Why didn't I realize that. I just wish that she hadn't built it for people who were her size and not mine."
"You could go back and use the regular stairway, big guy." Callen said.
Sam just growled at him as he hit his head one more time on a beam that supported the low ceiling.
As they descend the secret passage stairway, Callen once again voiced his appreciation to his boss, "I love Hetty."
Sam just rubbed his forehead as he remembered to duck under another one of the supporting beams, "I just wish she wasn't so small."
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A few moments later they were outside. Sirens were wailing as several LAPD cruisers had arrived. A Swat team was setting up in front of the house. Helicopter blades could be heard whirring from the police copter circling the building. The two remaining bad guys were trying to escape out the back. Callen was waiting for them with his gun drawn. "Federal agents!" he yelled.
One of the men stopped immediately, throwing his hands up into the air. The other one stopped, but was still looking for some place to make his escape. Kensi and Deeks showed themselves, both with their guns trained on the two men.
Kensi shouted out a warning to the one looking to escape, "Don't even think about it. I have had a terrible day already."
Seeing that there was no way out, the second man dropped his weapon and raised his hands too.
Kensi and Deeks slowly advanced toward the two. "Down on the ground!" Kensi ordered the two men.
"All the way." Deeks ordered, when they didn't move as fast as he would like.
The two men complied and were taken into custody. Kensi kneeled into the back of each of them as she pulled their hands behind them and zip tied them together. They then pulled them to their feet and put them into two separate police cruisers, as they helped the others process the crime scene.
Callen, Sam, and Nell went back into the house to survey the damage. "How are we ever gonna explain this to Hetty?" Callen asked as he shook his head and started to think of how much would be deducted from his next check to pay for all the repairs.
Sam looked at him with a huge smile on his face, "What do you mean, we, G? We are not gonna have to say anything, but I'm sure that you will think of something."
Callen grabbed his arm and looked him straight in the face as he said, "Oh, I get it. You get to have the lovely artful talks with her about flowers and butterflies, while I have to deliver all the bad news?"
Sam pulled out his camera and took a picture of one of the dead men's faces. Looking at his partner, he said, "That works for me."
Callen just grunted, "Uh-huh."
Neither of the men noticed that Nell did not participate in any of this banter. She was just walking through the rooms with a blank expression on her face.
When they had exited the house and saw that reinforcements had arrived, Nell's adrenaline level again started to return back to normal and her brain switched over to automatic pilot mode. She knew what she was supposed to do, but she had no memory of ever doing it. She walked around the first floor of Hetty's home, watching the two senior agents process the scene before the cleanup crew would come in and do their work. Sam and Callen went up the stairs to check out the man that Nell had killed, but she could not go with them. Nell just sat down on the first step, her head bowed and arms wrapped around her, and waited for them to come back down.
Having done all they could at the scene, they climbed into the Challenger and Sam dropped Nell and Callen of at the limo. Callen took out the keys and told her to get in so he could drive it back to the motor pool. She got in, but just looked out the side window with a vacant stare as Callen drove off, successfully navigating the LA traffic, and pulling into the underground garage. She waited as he dropped off the keys and signed in the vehicle, gladly checking the box that said it was not involved in an accident or fire fight.
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The two of them entered the Mission. Granger looked up from Hetty's desk and saw the blank expression on Nell's face. He called Callen over and asked, "Is she okay?"
Callen sort of shrugged his shoulders, expressing his uncertainty, "She's spent time in the field, but she has never killed anyone before."
The Assistant Director scribbled down a few notes on a pad, "I would imagine that it was either him or her."
Callen nodded his head as he watched Nell go down the hallway, "Yeah, it was. But it doesn't make it any easier."
Granger truly surprised Callen as he seemed to express his concern about what this will mean for Nell to continue to work at OSP, "Keep an eye on her. Let me know if there's a problem."
Still not knowing what to make of that remark, Callen looked at him and insisted, "She'll be okay."
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Nell was still in automatic mode. She entered the mission and went over to the women's locker room. There she took her regular clothes from her cubicle and changed from the garments that made her appear to be Hetty. Then she took the vestments over to wardrobe and logged all of that in, being careful to hang up the pants suit on the wooden hangers they were on when she first received it. She saw the empty wig form, as she brushed out her hair with her fingers, remembering that she had left the wig in the upstairs bathroom of Dovecote. Nell wrote a little note where to find the wig and pinned it to the empty wig form. She looked at everything she had done here and tried to think of anything else that she forgot.
She started walking to the door to start the drive home when her mind switched from analyst mode to that of agent. Turning around, she went over into the armory. She pulled out her Glock 26 and removed the clip, which she put in the reload bin. She then pulled out two more 10 shot clips and signed the sheet, indicating that she was the one that took them.
She stopped at the door to the car park, turned, and looked around one final time in agent mode, trying to think if there was anything else she needed to do here. After a brief pause, she opened the door and went out to her car. She found Callen waiting there for her. He drove her over to the boat shed, and then had Deeks drive her home with Kensi following behind to bring him back again.
Arriving at her apartment, Nell closed and locked the door, put her service weapon into the lock box that was built into the small table. She went into her small bathroom and barely got the toilet seat up before she puked up her guts. It seemed all her courage and adrenalin drained out of her with the contents of her stomach, She had no strength to get up and go to the sink to wipe her face, so she just crawled over to the bathtub, wet the washcloth that had been draped over the side of the tub, wiped the spittle that remained around her mouth, and just collapsed onto the floor. Unfortunately, her exhaustion did not keep the nightmares away.
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The two junior agents had taken their two prisoners and delivered them to the boat shed, placing each one in a separate interrogation room. Sam had sent the pictures of the four dead intruders in to Eric so he could run them through all of his facial recognition programs. From their questioning of their prisoners and the information that Eric was able to procure by working his computer magic, it was discovered that five of the gunmen were just local muscle, probably hired just for this one job. But the sixth member of the hit team, the one that Nell had killed, was Russian, and was reportedly a member of the Iskorenit cartel. When Callen, heard that, he slammed both his fists down on the interrogation table, got up and walked out the door. Sam put his hand on Callen's shoulder, but he just shook it off. Not saying a word to anyone, he left the boat shed, got into his car and drove off.
Sam immediately called Eric. "Keep Callen under GPS surveillance, Eric. I'm afraid he is gonna go off the reservation."
"Sorry to tell you this, Sam, but he has already disabled the GPS tracker on his car and his phone. Callen has gone "lone wolf" on us again.
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When Callen decided what he was going to do, he knew he needed help from Nell. He tried calling her personal cell, but it just went over to voice mail, "This is Nell, leave a message." Every fifteen minutes he placed another call, and every time it went over to voice mail.
He swung by her apartment to see if she was there. Her car was in the parking lot so he went to her door and asked. "Nell, are you there?" as he knocked, but silence was all that greeted him. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, Callen once again dialed her number. He could hear the phone ringing inside her apartment, but again it went to voice mail. "I know that you're in there, Nell. It's me, Callen. Won't you please let me in?" but she still would not answer. After another five minutes of waiting there with no response from her, Callen went back to his car and made his way back to the boat shed. Since he could not get Nell to help him, he knew that he would have to contact Eric for help and come back onto the reservation.
On his way back, he put in a call to ops, but got Kirstin Chambers instead of Eric.
"Hi, Kirstin, it's Callen. I take it that Nell called in sick that you are filling in for her?"
"I don't know, Callen. Assistant Director Granger has had me over on this side today, but he didn't say where Nell was or what she was doing." The young woman had cleared one of her screens and had typed this message, "Callen's on the line." and pointed it toward Eric as she threw a pencil at him to gain his attention. "I can switch you over to Eric, if you want."
"I suppose he is really upset with me, for what I did today, but, yeah, let me talk to him."
"Callen," the senior tech was almost shouting over the phone, "where are you? Are you all right? We all have been worried about you."
"Eric, calm down. I'm on my way back to the boat shed. I haven't been hurt, so you can tell Sam he doesn't have to worry about me. What's going on with Nell? I am really worried about her, now."
"I don't know, Callen. She rode in the limo back here when you checked it in. Then she just left here, without saying a word to anyone and got a ride home with Kensi. I have tried to contact her several times, but she just lets her phone go over to voice mail without picking up at all. Her GPS trackers on her car and phone say that she is over at her apartment, but beyond that, I have no idea."
Callen knew that was not a good sign. "She had a rough day today, Eric. One of those hit men made it all the way upstairs, and found Nell in the bathroom off of the library. I don't know if he hesitated because he saw Hetty's clothes on a much younger woman, or what, but Nell was able to trust her training again and shoot him. He fell down dead in front of her, and ended up blocking the door."
"Shit," Eric exclaimed. "This is her first kill, isn't it."
"Yeah," Callen confirmed. "She must be going through a hell of a time right now, and the worst part about it is that she is trying to do it all on her own. He ordered Eric in the most authoritarian voice he could dream up, "Get ahold of Nate Getz. I don't care who you have to call or what favors you have to call in, Eric. Tell him the circumstances of the shoot, and ask him, for me, if he will come back and work with Nell. I know they have some history between them. She is part of the team, and we need to do everything we can to help her. I don't want to lose Nell from the team over something like this."
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Two days later Nate was knocking at Nell's door. "I know you're home, Nell, and I'm not going away. I will stay here knocking on your door until you finally answer. After about ten minutes of this, Nate finally heard the lock being opened and the door swung back. He entered, told her to get dressed because he wanted to go somewhere to talk.
Nate drove the two of them back out to Dockweiler State Beach. He pulled into the parking lot and parked near the spot they were in not so long ago. The psychologist reached into the back seat of his rented Escolade and grabbed a folded up blanket. He got out, went around to the other side, opened her door, and led her out onto the beach. When they got near the water, he spread out the blanket and invited her to sit down next to him.
Nate looked at her and said, "I decided to come back here with you because you told me last time how calming just sitting and watching the ocean can be, how you feel that you can imagine the water taking away all your problems, dragging them out to sea, and leaving you new and clean. That is what I hope we can accomplish. I know it will not happen today, but I hope we can find a way to start the process."
"I just don't know anymore, Nate. I don't know if I can work for NCIS any more."
"And why is that? You haven't done anything wrong, have you?"
"Nate, every once in a while, they call me 'Kid' and I wonder if that's how they really see me, or if that's what I really am."
"What do you mean by that, Nell?"
"Sometimes I wonder if I still am a kid. You know how kids are, always playing cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers. I've modernized it a little bit so now it is spies and government agents."
"Do you think you're playing a game, Nell?'
"It's so easy to let it fall into something like that when you're up in ops. You see what's happening play out on the screens, hear the gunfire and explosions over the coms, and when you want it to be done, you can turn it all off. Then you can take a bathroom break, grab a cup of tea, or even pack up and go home. Then one day, something like this happens, and it all becomes too real."
"But you know that is what is really happening, all the time, don't you."
"I understand it. Mentally, I comprehend what is going on. I see that the members of the team have to shoot people. I recognize that a lot of the time it is a situation where they have to shoot first, before the person they are after does the same thing to them..."
Nate, "But...?"
"Yeah, there's always a 'but', isn't there?" Nell dropped her head and emotionally appeared to curl up upon herself, trying to get to a fetal position. "But, when you have to go out into the field, and experience it for yourself, it is no longer seeing and recognizing someone is shot and killed. It becomes a knowing that you have pulled the trigger and ended someone's life. You begin to realize what exactly you have done. And that's when all understanding just leaves."
"What kind of understanding are you talking about? You know that the man coming after you was trying to abduct you or kill you, because he thought you were Hetty?"
"That's exactly what I am talking about, Nate. I know that up here," and she raised the fingertips of her right hand to touch her forehead. "I can go through all of the reasons why I was up in Hetty's bathroom, my weapon in my hand, and that man was laying there on the floor, blood coming from those fatal wounds. They are all logical. They go from A to B to C, all in the proper order. I just don't know that, if I am faced with the same situation ever again, the outcome will be the same."
"Nell, none of us can predict the future. The circumstances will never be exactly the same as they were for you."
Nell turned to him and grabed his hands. "You still don't understand, Nate. If I were faced with a situation that was the same, and I realize that it wouldn't be identical, but if it were the same, where it would be either him or me, I don't know if... I... could... take... the... shot... again."
"Why would you say that? Especially if it was a situation where he would do it to you in an instant."
"Because up until now, I've known it all here," again she touched her forehead. "But not down here," as she pointed to her heart. Some woman had her son growing there for nine months, near her heart all that time, giving him the love he needed to survive, and I ended that life. Now, I also realize what has happened here," as she laid both her hands over her heart, and then suddenly broke out crying.
Nate wraped his arms around her, trying to comfort her. "It's all right, Nell. It's okay. I'm here with you."
She started blubbering to Nate. "But it's not okay, and I don't know why."
"Why...?"
"Why am I here, and he is not? What makes me so special, that it was decided that I should live? Am I that good that I deserve it? I don't think so. Was he that bad, that he deserved to die? I can't imagine that either. So tell me, Nate, why him and not me? Why did he die, and I live? Maybe if you can come up with a good enough reason, I can believe it too."
"Nell, you know that I don't have the answers about life and death. I'm a psychologist; I'm not God. I don't have the power to decide who lives or who dies. I don't know why it happens, at least most of the time. All I know is that it does happen."
"Both he and I started life out the same way, Both of us were conceived, both were carried and nourished in the womb by our mothers, both of us were loved, living there for nine months, listening to our mothers' hearts, as they beat to give us life. I don't know if he had a family that loved him while he was growing up, or if he found someone to love and started a family with them. No matter what happened in his past life, I ended it. I killed him, Nate. I KILLED him." With those words, she buried her head into his shoulder and started crying all over again.
Nate let her cry for a while, then pulled her away from his shoulder as he went into his analyst tone as he said to her, "Nell, look at me." and waited until she complied.
"Nell, we have talked about some of this already. Part of what you are feeling right now is because of your control issues. You know how much they can affect you. Most of the time you can usually keep these under control. But this issue is far too big, and too important for you, for you to try to solve it for yourself."
"What do you mean?"
"Your mind has convinced you that there is a certain way that things are supposed to work for things to be right, at least in your way of thinking. If something does not go the way you want it to go, some way different than the way you want to control it, you see it as something wrong. Nell, you cannot control everything in this world. It would be nice if each of us could do that, but we just can't."
"So how is that part of my control issues?"
"Who controlled the fact that the man who would have killed you has possible ties to the Iskorenit cartel, you or him?"
"He did, I guess."
"Who controlled the fact that he came to Los Angeles looking to abduct or kill Hetty, you or him?"
"He did." Nell's voice was starting to get softer and softer.
"If he wasn't part of the Iskorenit cartel, and he didn't come to Los Angeles to make the attempt on Hetty, would he still be alive?"
"I guess." her voice was just above a whisper.
"So, is it his fault or yours that he broke in and tried to kill you?"
"But I pulled the trigger, Nate. If I didn't, he would still be alive." It almost seemed like she was shouting out these words to everyone, that the whole world should know what she had done.
Nate softened his voice to try to calm her down. "But, Nell, if you wouldn't have pulled the trigger, we wouldn't be here having this conversation. You probably would be dead. He wouldn't have let you live when he found out that you were not Hetty."
"I could have shot him in the arm or someplace else to wound him. I didn't have to kill him."
"Are you sure you are that good a shot that you could have hit him there, and are you sure that would have stopped him?"
Nell didn't say anything. She just bowed her head a little bit and shook it, giving him a negative answer.
"Would he have done the same to you, Nell?"
"I don't know. Maybe."
"Nell..."
"Okay, maybe he wouldn't."
They continued to talk through the afternoon. Nate knew that he was not going to be able to "fix" her in just one session. Nor would he be able to do it alone. It was going to take the combined efforts of all the members of her family, her team, to help soothe and heal her emotional wounds. They all needed to make her aware that even in the situations in which she found that she had absolutely no control, her training, her values, everything that made her the person she was, would come through for her. Only then could she see that her life still has meaning and a purpose instead of her feelings of being out of control. Then only could she exchange her grief for joy, substitute peace for depression, swap darkness with light and to replace her despair with hope.
Nell knew what she needed to say to Nate, that he could clear her psychologically so that she could return to work. But she knew that she just couldn't say them to him, because he knew that she knew all the right words, but he also knew that she would just be going through the motions and mouthing meaningless words and phrases to him. Until she can get her mind around this situation, one way or another, she doubted if Nate, or anyone else for that matter, could help her.