Hetty's time with Callen... I'm darting around with the timeline a little here as it's all Hetty's thoughts and flashbacks. I hope it's not confusing. I am trying to keep this story as close to the arc of the show as possible, weaving some fiction in with the facts :-)
CHAPTER THREE
Hetty was having a hard time maintaining her focus. She had sent Admiral Kilbride to oversee the shambles left of her office in LA while she tried to track down Mosely so that they could both deal with the aftermath of the Mexico mission in Washington together. Quite why she had expected that task to be easy, she couldn't imagine. Washington were baying for blood; an entire elite unit of the Service incapacitated and requiring treatment at the naval hospital as well as on-going recuperation, a young agent dead, and a question mark over the legal killing of Spencer Williams on Mexican soil. They wanted to hold someone accountable.
She had kept in touch with things via the Admiral as well as her own sources. Kensi and Deeks had returned home first, though she knew Deeks would require further monitoring and scans. Sam had been moved from the ICU to a regular room after a couple of days. His leg would need proper rest this time, but with the help of a blood transfusion he was well on the way to recovery, though he had stayed in Balboa until Callen was also well enough to move out of the ICU. All of them were tentatively due to return to work within the next week or two, but Callen still had a long way to go.
As much as she tried to close her mind to it, thoughts of Callen troubled her. She had spent as much time with him as she could in the hospital, though she wished it could have been more. How very close they had all come to losing him, she thought with a shudder. She replayed her words to Mosely before they had all left for Mexico in her head. "Agent Callen is as close to a son as I've ever had." It wasn't anything she hadn't thought before, but that she had voiced such a declaration so openly, and to the Assistant Director of all people, still astonished her. Mosely had looked surprised too, but dismissed it with a quick flick of her head, her thoughts on one mission and one mission only, that of Callen recovering her son. She had been blinded by everything else.
Hetty had hoped once she knew Callen was out of hospital and back in LA she'd be able to focus. Her own career was in jeopardy along with Mosely's, and whilst that didn't concern her as much as maybe it should have done, she found herself worrying that her recovering team would also come under fire. She would do whatever it took to protect them. But even though Callen was now safely back home, she found herself still distracted by how he'd been when she last saw him. It had been a hard couple of weeks. She was relieved to have been at his side when he first woke up, disorientated and confused and in a lot of pain. She'd held his hand and spoken gently to him, using her voice to gently reassure him and bring him back to the present.
As soon as he recognised her, he had tried to hide the pain he was clearly in.
"Sshhh, now," she said, resisting the urge to wipe the beads of sweat off his forehead. Even her hand on his felt like an invasion of his personal space, so rarely did he allow anyone to touch him. But she kept it there, using the physical connection to ground him. "A nurse will top up your painkillers soon." She had pressed the call button as soon as she noticed his eyelids start to move. He nodded, clenching his jaw tight.
"Sam… Kens?" he started to ask, and Hetty put her finger to her lips.
"They're all okay," she said gently. "Sam is next door, and Kensi is with Deeks down the corridor. They're all here, and they're all fine." She realised in the moment of quiet closeness between them she had dropped her usual formality. Callen didn't seem to notice. He looked reassured at the news of his team, and when the nurse arrived to inject more painkillers into his IV he had already drifted back to sleep – but his hand had closed around her fingers and she treasured the feel of it there. A mother comforting her son. It felt right.
Unsurprisingly the next two weeks hadn't passed smoothly. Callen had been shocked and angered by the extent of his injuries, wanting to get up and return to LA with the others. The hospital had needed to sedate him to keep him quiet and allow his body to rest. Although she knew it was the best thing for him, she found his dazed drug-induced conversations hard to handle. It was so unlike her clear thinking, quick witted lead agent. Her brightest and best. He'd asked, repeatedly, about the well-being of his team and it was clear that although he remembered in detail everything that had happened in Mexico up until the rocket and their resultant walk through the desert, he didn't have a clear recollection of the time he'd spent in the Mexican hospital, or the helicopter extraction to Balboa. Every time he woke, he'd needed reassuring again that Sam and the others were okay, and even Sam's presence himself, visiting as soon as he had been able to leave his bed, had made little difference in those drug-hazed days.
Towards the end of the two weeks, weaned off the sedatives, he had started to push them all away, to shut down, as was his way. Driven by frustration, embarrassment, not liking to show weakness in front of any of them. She understood him well, maybe better than he understood himself, but that hadn't made it any easier for her to say her goodbyes to him, knowing she needed to leave and start to deal with the flak from Washington. Sam had been discharged a few days earlier, which wasn't helping Callen's mood, though loyal as ever he stayed in Balboa for a couple of nights to support his partner regardless of Callen trying to shun him. Eventually Hetty had managed to convince Sam that a few days on his own might given Callen the space he needed; she knew Callen would be happier to see his partner again once he was back in LA. Sam had reluctantly flown home, and now Hetty too was leaving.
Callen was just returning from one of his PT sessions when she arrived, and he was tired, which didn't get them off to the best start. He glared at her as she sat quietly in the chair next to his bed waiting for his return, and she respectfully stepped out of the room while his physical therapist helped him back into his bed. When she re-entered his room, the hardened stare was still in place, fixed on a point on the wall opposite him.
"I don't know why you're still here," he eventually said, when she sat in the chair and said nothing. "I don't need you to check up on me. I'm not a child."
Hetty refrained from saying he was behaving like one.
"Oh Mr Callen, I am not here to check up on you!" she exclaimed instead. "I'm here to say goodbye." That shook him. But still he struggled to express his pent-up emotions. He took a deep breath and turned to look squarely at her and she nodded, a curt, short little nod, and somehow in that meeting of their eyes more was said than any number of words could express. She stood, slowly, and reached tentatively to put her hand on his, giving it a squeeze. He gave her a tight smile, rubbing his other hand over the bridge of his nose to try and conceal his emotions.
"Stay safe, Mr Callen. Rest. Allow yourself time to heal. I will see you back at home." She didn't say when. She didn't know. For both of them, the repercussions of the unsanctioned mission might last a while yet.