Disclaimer: I do not own anything that has anything to with my favourite T.V Show, which is best known as NCIS: Los Angeles. Which is a pity because I would love to have some fun with either Callen or Deeks. They're my favourite characters by the way and not too mention that they are both rather hot.

A/N: I would like to ask you all for your forgiveness. I had realised to myself that I had made a booboo when I had posted the last two chapters for Between the Shadows. For you see I had multiple versions for the story so far and I went back and realised that this is the version I was meant to post. I am leaving the other one to simmer away where it is and to have this one up and running as well. So if I don't update Between the Shadows you now know why. Please do not hesitate to tell me what you all think of my stupidity. Don't worry I have already smacked myself more than once for posting the wrong thing for all to read.

Summery: Callen is missing and the team will do anything they can to get him back, some secrets from Callen's past will be revealed, and some other secrets will come out to play. Same thing as Between the Shadows, except for a few changes. There will be some CaKe as well.

~ Nothing Else Matters ~

Chapter 1 ~

To see faces from ones distorted past amongst a huge crowd is bound to cause a person to turn and run, but Callen does not do either of those two. He just continues to walk onwards. Daring himself to stare into the frightening dark eyes of his estranged partner. Many years have passed since Callen had last seen Alistair Parker and the years have not been kind.

They were partners back when Callen was with the CIA. Alistair Parker was one of Callen's many string of partners and one Callen had never wanted to see ever again. Especially with what had happened between them when they'd last seen each other.

Their partnership did not end well.

It never really was a great partnership to begin with.

Feeling the pain of old wounds throb as Callen tries not to remember the events that had unfolded. That had all happened before Hetty and Callen had crossed paths, in fact if Callen remembered correctly. Hetty had even met up with him not long after Callen was discharged from the hospital.

Even till this very day no one at the CIA had ever believed Callen when he had explained to them, about the truth behind his wounds and how he had received them. No one wanted to believe the poor orphan boy, even though he was appraised by many as one of the best undercover operatives in the entire agency that was the CIA, story, they just wanted to believe that Parker had not turned his back on the mission.

Alistair Parker was the Golden Boy amongst the agency, Thomas Parker, Alistair's father, was once a former CIA agency and once was considered one of the best, that was until Thomas had met his unfortunate end in the line of duty.

There was only one person who had believe Callen's story and that single person wasn't even part of the CIA. She was part of a different kind of agency, but not even Henrietta Lange could make them all see that Parker had blinded them with lies.

And it was all because of Alistair's traitorous finger, which had pulled the trigger that, had brought Callen to become an NCIS Special Agent in the first place. He had accepted the full risks of being part a secret unit that specializes in undercover work and among other things. After all being undercover, to pretend to be someone else, is what Callen loves to do best, as well as to help others to find their missing chapters in life and to allow them to have closure.

It was Callen's mistake of losing himself in the past in the first place for not seeing, nor even hearing, everything that was happening around him. How could he have been so foolish? His instincts was jumping and screaming at him to run and make for cover. But still he does not run. He just continues on walking, unlocking his gaze from Parker's smug face to take in the sight of a black van moving slowly towards him.

He was trapped; he had nowhere else to run too. He couldn't risk the innocent civilians to be harmed because of him. There were just too many uncalculated risks that Callen may need to make soon, hopefully before that van's passengers pluck him from the crowd.

But it was all too late for Callen to hide away amongst the crowd.

He didn't feel or even remember anyone shoving a bag to cover his face, nor did he remember blacking out.

One thing that Callen did know for sure is that Sam is going, with a little help from Kensi, who'll be aided by Deeks, to do nasty things to him if Sam were ever to find out about this.

~#~#~#~

Detective Marty Deeks was walking alongside Kensi Blye, his partner, teasing her as much as he can, enjoying the way she teases him back, although he'd never tell that or he may get kicked in a very sensitive spot. And it was a glorious morning in the City of Angels as well, which was a double bonus and hopefully there won't be anyone creating new ways on how to commit a crime.

But that could just be Deeks' wishful thinking getting the better of him.

Of course there'll be at someone, or someone's significant other, trying to commit a crime somewhere in this city, that'll leave cops to second guess themselves if they have found the right clue or not.

That would be a rarity.

He could hear Sam Hanna, ex-Navy SEAL, conversing with someone else within the bullpen that did not sound like Agent G Callen, Sam's elusive partner. There were actually two lots of voices flowing from the bullpen; one sounded a lot like Nate Getz, the Operational Psychologist for NCIS, and a team player. Deeks may not have been around Nate that much in the past, but he sure does remember that voice of Mr Getz.

The other voice belongs to a man whom Deeks doesn't seem to remember to have had the pleasure of meeting, until now

"Mike Renko!" Kensi Blye yells out the name to the dark haired stranger, who now just happens to be named Mike Renko, a name Deeks recalls hearing every now and then within the unit.

Deeks also recalls a rumour that he had heard whispering within the headquarters, that Mike Renko was being considered into joining Callen's team. Just as Renko originally was when the team was originally being formed under the careful gaze of Hetty.

There was also odd about the scene unfolding before his eyes, it must be the way Kensi was interacting animatedly with Renko and Nate, the way Kensi's face just lit up when a smile graced her beautiful face when either Nate or Renko had said something funny. And strangely Deeks wasn't affected by it. True he did feel somewhat attracted towards his attractive partner, who is also one of the strongest people he has had the pleasure of working alongside with, but now days that attraction has died down.

Kensi has become the sister he never had and that is all that he had ever wants from Kensi now. He just hopes that Kensi feels the same way about their partnership, which has also become one of Deeks' latest anchorages in life to hold on to with a firm grasp.

Deeks dumps his bag beside his desk, which is conjoined with Sam's desk, with a thump. Causing Kensi, Sam, Renko and Nate to look at him as though he had committed some horrendous crime.

"What?" He says to all four of them with what is hopefully an innocent mask on his face.

"So you must be Deeks?" Renko quips in with a knowing smirk on his scraggy face.

"And you must be Mike Renko?" Deeks says back with a smirk of his own. "What brings you both here?"

Deeks' curiosity as to why both Nate and Mike Renko are here is getting the better of him. And in some ways the same applies to both Sam and Kensi, they clearly mustn't know why they have both turn up to be in the bullpen. It may not be some crime to have undercover agents, even though Nate is technically not an agent, not that Deeks is aware of anyways.

"We're tracking a former CIA Operative, who also just happens to have landed right here in LA and we've both been tracking him since Dubai," Nate says to his former team, who won't be so former after he has finished this mission. "I had met up with Renko when I had gathered some Intel that this former Operative, whose name is still unknown to us by the –but what we do know is that this guy has come to LA, of all places, to kill someone. Both Renko and I just hope that we find out who this target is before this guy kills him in cold blood. The reasons behind this have left us both reeling with a thousand questions, with so little answers for-"

"Has anyone heard from Callen?" Kensi cuts Nate of from his report.

It was then that Deeks too had begun to take in notice of the absence of their team leader. The one person whom Deeks has come to both respect and admire a great deal during the past year. Even though Deeks is still yet to fully understand just what it is that makes a man like G Callen tick, and it would appear that it may just take Deeks a lifetime to understand Callen's line of thinking. Because it would also appear that it is taking that long for even Sam Hanna, who knows Callen better then Deeks, but may not know Callen like Hetty does, to fully understand Callen's line of thoughts.

G Callen is a mystery to them all; even to those closest to him, and from what Deeks has come to understand is that the man becomes an enigma the moment the man's past comes to haunt his heels. And yet everyone is fiercely loyal to their enigmatic team leader, who'll even sacrifice his own life just to make sure that his team, and even the civilians with no names, are safe from harm. Deeks had witnessed that loyalty when he had followed the others to Prague and then into Romania.

Deeks would have handed in his badge if he could, to Vance on during that night that had changed them all, well if not everyone, but it did change Deeks. It had also aided Deeks belief that Callen is truly a man worthy of any man's loyalty, even if the man doesn't truly trust others fully in return, but that is another story to be told another time.

For right now Deeks is fully aware that everyone else has come to notice Callen's absence and from what Deeks has learnt from his team, from earlier on when he first became a liaison attached to the team, is that everyone will drop almost anything to find a co-worker. They'd all risk sacrificing their sleep just so they could find the absentee.

Especially when it is G Callen who just happens to be the one missing.

~#~#~#~

Will be continued . . . . .

A/N: Please forgive me?