Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS: Los Angeles or G. Callen or Sam Hanna or any of the characters in this series seeing as it's already written. Caleb however is mine, all mine. Sam-Dude, she has you twisted around her little finger. (Sam chuckles)

G.-I don't think I'm small enough for that Sam. (Smirks)

Caleb-It's just because you and I haven't officially met yet Sam. (Winks)

Me-Okay ya know what! I control what happens in the story, and I say she doesn't.

G.-See! I'm right, you're wrong Sam!

Caleb-Who says you're writing this thing. Maybe I'll just quit if my input isn't taken into account.

Sam-This is a story...

G.-You can't just quit...

Caleb-Or can I?

The New Kid In Town

Chapter 7: Manipulating Blows

Callen's POV

She actually moved before I did and was out the door before I could say anything. I headed out as fast as I could knowing that if Sam saw her without me bad things would go through his head and he may hurt her. I still didn't make it out of the interrogation room in time to stop them.

"Let me up!" Sam yelled from the ground. Caleb was perched on top of him, well she was for a bit. As strong as she may be Sam could have picked her up and thrown her a mile. It's not like she weighs a ton. But she was up and at him as soon as he had dislodged her.

"I don't want to hurt you Sam." She hissed to him as they circled each other.

"What did you do to him!" Sam yelled swinging his fist before I could stop him. Caleb parried it and took her own shot at Sam. I didn't think she'd get a shot in but when she said she had lots of martial arts training she wasn't kidding. She made contact with his chest and then jabbed him twice more. Once under his rib bone and another under his chin. He wasn't out cold but he was down.

"Sam!" I yelled as I rushed over to him.

"He's not permanently injured. I didn't hit him hard enough in the right spots for him to need more than a few hours of recovery time." She said standing farther away at the table. Sam just glared at her. I couldn't help but laugh.

"She's good Sam." I said to the glaring figure on the floor. "Possibly even better than you. Don't look at me like that. You know I'm right." I laughed again when he got up and grunted but otherwise stayed silent. "There's no shame in being beaten by her Sam. You would understand if you heard what she has done." I whispered in his ear.

"Why is she out of interrogation G.?" Sam asked accusingly to me like it was my fault he had been beaten by her. I smiled before I ansewered because I knew he wasn't going to like this if I didn't say it positively. Well, he would take it better. It doesn't mean he would approve it.

"She's working with us on this case. She's going to talk to Hetty about it." I said to him.

"Before you object Sam I've been working this case for about a week. I don't take leaving a person behind lightly and if you investigate this without me it's exactly like leaving me behind. Leaving me in the dark." She said to him. Oh boy she has his number. Sam just grumbled but didn't say anything. He did however move to grab the mic. She smiled and grabbed it for him. Then she turned the webcam on and adjusted the mike.

"Good to see you... you're not Sam." Eric said turning towards the screen.

"No, I need to speak to Hetty, Eric. I need to ask her about working as a tag team with you guys." She said winking at Eric.

"You play games online?" Eric said wide eyed.

"Yes, now can I speak to Hetty?" She asked. Boy she had everybody around her little finger.

"I'll page her for you." Eric started to but was interupted.

"I'm here Mr. Beale. What is going on... and who is this?" Hetty asked as soon as she saw Caleb.

"Ummm she wants to speak to you. About a joint investigation on our case." Eric said nervously. Hetty just looked at him. Then nodded towards the screen indicating to her that she could start.

"I would like your help with the investigation. I have the leads but I have need of Agent Callen's expertice." She said to Hetty completely professional. I could see from both sides since I was in the back of the screen that Hetty appriciated not being groveled to. She really did have everyone's number. Hetty wouldn't have appriciated had Caleb started sqealing when she heard her name or immediately whining or asking for permission to do something. Hetty liked women who thought they were powerful and used it.

"What makes you think that you will not be helping us?" Hetty asked Caleb raising her eyebrow.

"Because I need him and you want this case solved ASAP." She said matter of factly. Hetty looked at me and nodded her approval.

"Mr. Callen I expect a report and to be kept in the loop about everything. Nothing is to be left out." Hetty told me sternly. Eyeing me to make sure I would obey her command. Then the screen cut out leaving Caleb, Sam and me alone together. Sam looked about ready to kill someone. Caleb was looking over files now. I went towards Caleb because she looked the least menacing.

"You could help Sam instead of glaring at me." Caleb said not looking up from her file. Sam started to lumber over.

"What's going on? What are we doing that we need files?" I asked.

"Why do you need G.'s expertice?" Sam asked putting emphasis on expertice. Caleb just laughed before anserwering.

"He has expertice I need indeed Sam. Unless you can just disappear as fast as Callen can in which case you can come along." She said with a wink. I could almost see the blush on Sam's cheeks.

"No, but I am a SEAL and I'm sure that I could be of some use. I'm a crack shot." Sam added hopefully.

"Not to mention Sam is always good backup." I added trying to get him along because I knew Sam would have a fit if I didn't at least try to help him.

"No. You and I could easily infiltrate but they would be wary of Sam because he's big and he looks like a SEAL. You and I can infiltrate easily enough without them being overly suspisious." She said. I shot an apologetic look over to Sam. He shot me a glare.

"When do we leave?" I asked wondering if I could help Nell and Eric try to find out more about her. She looked at me in suprise.

"Leave? We're leaving now. I'll follow you to your house where you will get your essentials and then we go. I see no point in wasting time unnessicarily." She sounded suprised that I was asking for time before the operation. "Perhaps you were not the best choice." She said looking me over, again. That was something I couldn't take.

"I'm the best there is. There's a bike out back. You can try to follow us through the streets on that." I said peeved that she could get that reponse out of me and irritated that she thought I was less. "Sam, I'm driving." I said at the last minute.

Turning on the car we heard a bike roar up out behind the boatshed. So I rolled out. I cut streets and timed red lights but the bike was always behind me. I couldn't lose her. But I often didn't spot her and I knew what to look for. She was as good if not better than she said she was. Finally we got to my current apartment. It was my apartment of 4 months and I was going to move soon anyway. This was just a bit sooner than I had planned. So I grabbed my knapsack and bedroll and deposited them in the car. Then Caleb revved her motor and I jumped into the car just as she was pulling out.

"Good thing I already warmed up the car." Sam said to me from the drivers seat.

"Just follow her." I said not wanting to deal with his criticism. So we did. It was hard and twice we had thought we had lost her in the city and on the limits. But she always seemed to reappear just when we hit a spot that we didn't know where to go. I wondered if she knew that we had lost her if she knew we still had her in our sights. Suddenly Sam's cell rang. I picked it up and read the caller ID. It was me. I must be butt dialing, so I reached into my pocket and it wasn't there. I looked at Sam worriedly.

"Answer it!" Sam hissed realizing I didn't have my phone.

"Hello?" I said into the phone looking around the challenger for anyone on a cellphone that was looking at our car. There was no one.

"Stop looking Callen. I'm right in front of you." Caleb's voice came throught the speakers on the phone. I rolled my eyes. "I hope you guys are ready to go off roading. I need you to follow me exactly. There are some places that you can't go with a car and I'm going to lead you thorugh that. So follow me exactly." Then she hung up and I watched the figure in front of me tap something in front of her.

"Did she just say what I think she said?" Sam said nervously next to me.

"What makes you nervous Sam?" I asked deciding to toy with him alittle before I would reassure him.

"Off roading isn't good for vehicles that were meant for the road." Sam said glaring at me indicating the dirt on the side of the road. "It messes up the shock absorbers and stuff gets stuck in the axels. Not to mention some cars get stuck between trees or run into mud and then they get stuck when they spin their tires." Sam gave a great explanation. So I called Caleb back on my phone.

"What now? We're near a sharp turn off." Caleb said into the phone.

"How do you know we won't get stuck? And is it really necessary to go off roading?" I asked her hoping to allay Sam's fears.

"Because the flight I have us on is going to be leaving soon and I want to shave some time off so that if our mark has spies on us even this early. It will be easier not to have to explain why we got into the airport and didn't go through security." She said and paused before continueing. "Now anymore questions? And be ready to turn off soon." She said and almost immediately she swerved and stood up and onto a dirt road that led inot the jungle. Sam cursed as he spun the challenger quick trying ot keep control and stay close behind her. I was thrown to the side of the car and as soon as we had regained control I spoke again.

"Was that really necessary?" I asked.

"Yes. Anything else or are we done?" Caleb, as I was discovering wasn't very patient sometimes, and had a stubborn streak to rival that of a bull's.

"Yes, as a matter of fact there is something else. We aren't going through airport security?" I asked becuase I had been geninely curious how we were going to do that. Even on army bases as a cop I had to go through security and it was always a hassle to get weapons through and that was just my gun. I didn't even want to think about how many weapons she carried on her at all times.

"Simple. We just don't go through security. I've never had the time to go through the protocol plus I would never make it through so I don't go through airport security. There are always more than one way around airports. This just happens to be one of them." She siad. Suddenly I had a really bad feeling about this. Sam looked at me too.

"And that would entail?" Sam asked nervously.

"Just keep following me." She siad with a laugh. "My help is getting scared. It's so hard to find good help these days. With that she hung up. Sam and I were legit scared now. It was probably something illegal and Hetty wouldn't be happy. We wondered where she was going because the nearest airport was at least ten or more miles away.

"It's not like she can just drive into a random airport." Sam said to me. But I was focussed on something else that she had said.

"Did you notice she said our flight was already booked?" I said to Sam completely ignoring what he had just said to me. "When would she have had time to do that? It's not like we gave her access to the internet or anything."

"G.I don't think that's the most important thing." Sam said to me abesntmindedly. He was still thinking about the most important thing meaning what she was talking about when she said to just keep following her. "Turn here!" Sam yelled and I swerved going off the road with Caleb until we were in the swampy area of LA.

"Where the heck is she taking us?" I asked Sam because she was following a backroad that we didn't even know existed.

"I would have to be in her head to know. And you know as well as I do that she's in our heads not the other way around G." Sam said to me miffed. I couldn't understand what was to be gained by traveleing through underbrush and many things that we probably didn't know about.

"Be careful G. I don't know if we can get by that tree or not." Sam said as we came up to a part of the path that the bike breezed through no trouble but the car would have some trouble with it. I was worried but we kept going through slowly and Caleb waited for us and we got through. Then she breezed ahead even faster. So I called her on my phone.

"Why are you going so fast? We were going at a good pace earlier." I said slightly aggrivated that I had to be explaining this as I drove on the backroad. It was swerving all over the place and chevron signs wouldn't have been able to handle this road. They just needed a giant swerving sign.

"Because we need to make up some time. We're running behind because I didn't expect to be held up quite that long at your apartment." She said comtempt in her voice that we could hear through the phone. Suddenlly she swerved and it took all my skill to avoid a full on colision with a tree.

"You couldn't have warned me about that?" I yelled. But she hung up on me before she swerved again leaving me trying to handle the fishtailing car. It was slightly irritating. Then she started slowing down. Finally she got to a fence and stopped. Good thing I was paying attention because otherwise I think I would have completely run her off the road. Well, the dirt trail.

"Come on. We have to cross here. Sam, take the vehicles back and have them here for us. I need to go get my bike from storage then." She took charge again and there wasn't anything I could do about it.

"And while Sam is driving us back leaving us stranded here without any way of getting back and around the fence what exactly are we doing?" I asked with as much sarcasm as I dared.

"Fencehopping." She said it like it was the most natural thing in the world which clearly it wasn't especially since there was a security system on the other side that prevented us from getting to do that. I'm sure more people than us had tried.

"And what do you plan on doing about the security system?" I asked wondering if she really thought we could get through without being caught.

"I've got it covered. You just have to follow my lead." Reaching into her back pocket she pulled out a map. And then she waved it in my face. "See this is why we won't have any problems. Becuase airports are cheep and don't like to keep their systems running full time. It's great isn't it?" She laughed. This just kept gettin gmore interesting.