Chapter 2
I.
"Hey Nate, had a good night?", Callen chuckled, bouncing an NCIS stress ball on the tile beside him, eyes trained on the team psychologist as he came in.
Nate instinctively shifted back. There were two simple facts to Callen in the morning. The boyish smirk on his face rarely meant something good, especially if it was aimed his way.
To be honest, last night had sucked. He'd stayed up after Kensi's call semi-watching late-night TV ads for home gyms and fuzzy socks, drinking the last can of orange soda in his mini-fridge.
"Of course I had a good night. Uh, I have...stuff to do now.", he replied hastily pouring himself a cup of coffee.
"Kensi agree with that?", Sam teased, looking up from his memos with a look of pure amusement.
He glared at them.
"What, c'mon, man, I'm curious. You wanna come clean before we get called to your place of vehicular assault?", Callen added, laughter edging into his voice.
Nate turned down the hall, leaving the two agents in fits of silent laughter.
II.
He stayed in his office for a good long time, flipping through outdated Psychology Journals and reassembling his brain model between randomly checking Facebook statuses and signing off on documents that had been in his inbox for weeks.
It was comfortably mind-numbing, and kept his hands busy. Just what he needed while he tried to mentally sort out the crap going on between him and Kensi.
Maybe hanging up on her hadn't been the best idea. How had she gotten home last night? Oh my God, did she?
Nate briefly paused, his hand hovering over the signature line. He hadn't seen her that morning, or heard back from her since the call. What if...
Slowly, his brain begun to connect the dots.
Kensi usually got to the office a a half-hour at least after the guys. There were no worries there.
And at this point, even he wouldn't have called himself back.
III.
"Morning.", Kensi mumbled, tossing her bag into the team's unofficial stuff pile and collapsing into her seat. She was sore and drowsy, feeling more like she'd overdosed on Advil and caught swine flu than the poster girl for "Competent, Capable, NCIS Agent".
If Drake hadn't decided to take some stupid pill, get dead drunk and go straight for a Checkpoint, maybe last night wouldn't have been nearly as bad as it was.
She'd gotten home close to sunrise, and slept for an hour before the insanely annoying Wolverine alarm clock Nate had given her for last year's Secret Santa woke her up. She'd pulled the least filthy articles of clothing from her hamper, quickly washed her hair, and headed for the parking garage, where she'd come to the sudden realization her keys were...somewhere.
Needless to say, LA's leading cab company's (according to the phone book in her complex's lobby) stock had probably risen by a few points. Stupid...greedy...
Sam and G both regarded her with looks of concern, studying her as though she was some piece of evidence under a microscope.
"Hey, Kenz, if that piece of crap did something-", G began, obviously pumped for a confrontation, head snapped up in the direction of Nate's office.
"Ahem. Mr. Callen, perhaps it would be best if you just left her alone for now.", Hetty told him, slipping out of shadows as usual.
"Besides, boys", she said pointedly, "Eric's got a very interesting collage of gruesome crime scene photos upstairs. Perhaps we would actually like to go play CSI: Miami before your shifts end?"
"Right. Goin'. Bye, Hetty.", Sam sputtered.
IV.
"Murder in Burbank. Navy Reservist....let's see here...Johnathan Cornell, Sr. One kid, Johnny Jr., living with Mom in San Fransisco. She just ID'd the...what's left of the body a couple hours ago."
Eric's fingers flew over his touchpad, sending a series of smaller screens flying up to the display.
"Crime scene photos. Heard forensics is having a field day with this one."
"I'm not surprised.", G said soberly, sweeping over the demolished living room and shattered holiday decorations, topped off with a display he was pretty sure would make even the most sociopathic serial killers cringe.
"Okay, I'm sending up footage from the Red Light Cam across the street. See, it snapped a picture when this car sped through, but it got some of the house. Uh, Dom, make that guy beside the Camry a bit bigger. See him?"
The three agents nodded.
"I'd say he's our best lead. I mean, until forensics gets back. Maybe Vance'll call Abby in again." Eric shrugged.
"Get back to earth, Eric.", Sam chuckled.
V.
"Huh. Nice place. Isn't this just a little high-class for a reserve?"
Sam parked the Challenger beside a sign marking the end of the School Zone, eye rolling skyward as G kept on his little rant about how the hell some Petty Officer reserve could manage this.
"All right, G? The flowers in the garden as $4.95 at Wal-Mart. The cutesy gate? They sell 'em for less than a pair of jeans. And, cleaning up after yourself is free, dammit."
G cocked his head, one hand on the gate and the other tapping on the brick fence border.
"You and the wife thinking of renovating?", he asked with a cocky grin.
"Shut up or I'll renovate your face. Hey, that the guy's car in the driveway?"
G glanced at the silver G6 parked in Jonathan's terracotta brick driveway, and shook his head.
"No way. PTA bumper sticker? Pink seat covers? I'm betting on the wife. Y'know, unless you secretly live up here or something."
Sam punched G in the shoulder, producing a cry of "Hey! I'm delicate!" before they headed up the home's idyllic steps.
Muffled shouts leaked out from behind the sealed windows.
"Hey, Sam? Who else is on your PTA?"
VI.
"Well, you certainly look like a sight to be sorry for, dear.", Hetty pointed out, tapping Kensi's shoulder with her PDA.
"Take it out of my paycheck, I don't care.", she grumbled back, already irritable and tired without another one of the Ops Manager's infamous pep talks.
"Well, Miss Blye, in the interest of my job, I cannot just have two agents out in the field while one mopes about here like some...junkie. Is there perhaps a matter you might like to bring up with Mr. Getz?"
"No! Why the hell does everybody think I'm obsessed with Nate? Is this another fricken' head game?" she shouted, suddenly raging angry at the mention of his name, the memory of Nate's promise they'd get serious about the dates, the cold fury of watching him pinned to the Autopsy drawers, obviously getting serious with someone else. And the same boiling anger that had her made by an ever-charming druglord when she'd been too busy glaring angrily at young couples out on the marina.
"No, I assure you it's not. However, perhaps learning to deal with these internal conflicts in a...shall I say more productive manner would also do you some good in the field. You never know when you'll have to collaborate with someone who's
betrayed you.", Hetty said knowingly.
VII.
Sam booted down the door, brandishing his gun at a colorful arrangement of crime scene tape and blood-spattered ceramic fragments.
"NCIS! We're federal agents!", he shouted into an empty, hauntingly clean hallway.
"Clear.", G called, stepping out from behind a cluster of decorative palm trees hiding the kitchen from view.
"He likes to decorate.", G added, leading Sam into the kitchen.
"Good relationship with his wife and kid. There's what, field trip forms, pictures, newsletters, all this crap.", Sam sifted through a mess of papers on the kitchen table.
Loud footsteps interrupted the agents, causing Sam's hand to slide right to his gun.
"Whoa. We're on the same side here.", a young officer said calmly, holding out an LAPD badge.
"Officer Lucas Hamel. I'm here with the Drug Task Force. Uh, should I call my boss or what?"
VIII.
Kensi drove up the street in a rented (read: stolen from the OSP's garage) motorcycle, he breath feeling hot against the helmet's face shield.
Draining the office's coffee supply had helped a little bit, though she still wasn't really feeling up for a fight. She'd forced Eric (under threat of losing a few toes) to give her the vic's address, hoping there would be something for her to find while Sam and G followed up on the other lead.
She laughed dryly as she parked the bike beside the boys' Challenger. Okay, Kensi, Slow Day.
The house's door was conveniently missing, and she could see a little of the inside, which looked like an over-sensationalized CSI set.
"Dammit.", she muttered, jogging up the steps.
"Sam? G? Hey, guys?", she called, kicking past a collection of wooden shards.
"What are you doing here? Aaron said there wasn't anybody coming that wasn't his friends."
Kensi whirled to face the voice, bringing her face to face with a young woman, thinner and several inches shorter than she was.
"Aaron said there wasn't no girlfriends coming.", the woman whispered, the knife at her side slowly rising.
IX.
Callen kicked at a box of Crayolas on the floor.
"Wait, Drug Unit? This guy was dealing?", he asked suddenly, leaning against the table with his hands in his pockets.
"Yeah. I thought you guys would know. He was selling to the Navy, I mean.", Lucas offered, relaxing and glancing over at Sam, catching his eye before Lucas shifted back to Callen.
"Selling to the Navy? What kind of stuff we talking, here, weed?", Sam added, frowning at the officer.
"Nah. That's too easy to g- I mean, he was dealing in bigger stuff. Prescription Pills. Y'know, Oxycontin and Ritalin mostly Giving it to seamen on layover.", Lucas told them.
"Designer drugs going to a bunch of dirty sailors. What's happened to the world?", G joked, grinning at the officer.
"Is this in our jurisdiction or-", the officer began, suddenly cut off by a loud cry from outside.
X.
Sam and Callen raced for the door, guns drawn, with Lucas barely behind them.
Kensi stood with her gun pointed towards a too-small woman with disheveled hair and hollow eyes, her hands locked around a blood-stained kitchen knife.
"Look, miss, I don't want to shoot you. I really don't. So just put the knife down and I'm gonna put my gun away.", Kensi said, her voice wavering between diplomatic and utterly pissed off.
"Crap.", Sam grumbled, moving to cover Kensi's left as G slinked in behind her.
Lucas burst out of the house, frowning at the woman with both hands on his sidearm.
"Aaron?", she asked, returning the glare, "Who the hell are these people?"