The new aisle turned out to be mostly the dreaded ready meals that Sam seemed to have something against. Okay, yes, Callen would never admit that they were healthy but they were still useful. Especially for safe houses. Which was the whole point of this trip in the first place.

There really was quite a range he observed. Not like when he was a kid and it was just some sort of soggy potato (maybe) and meat in some sort of sauce. No, now there were gourmet ready meals. Ones that claimed to have all these fancy ingredients and sponsored by Michelin star chefs. Hmpf. They were all the same. Unhealthy, salt heavy and you just bunged them in the microwave for fifteen minutes. Nothing revolutionary or amazing about that.

Still, Callen grabbed a couple of packets from the shelves and put them in the cart. They were useful and people did like them. Knowing better than to just trust his teammates willy nilly, Sam unfortunately felt that he had to check them. This was not going to go over well; Callen just knew it.

"No." he said abruptly, bring the cart to a standstill and put them back on the shelf.

Callen took them off again and waved them in the air.

"No?" Callen repeated in amusement.

"We aren't putting ready meals in the safe house. I told you."

"I don't see why not. That way the safe house will have actual meals ready to go. No mess, no fuss."

Sam eyed the packets with poorly disguised disgust and shook his head resolutely. "Those things aren't meals. And we're not getting them."

"Not everything in the safe house has to be healthy."

That comment, of course, garnered Deeks' attention.

"It at least shouldn't make their insides turn to liquid," he argued, spying the recent additions to the cart.

"Just because you have a delicate stomach-"

"Excuse me, just because I can't eat garbage-"

And there they went again. Honestly, Callen didn't want to know what percentage of their time Deeks and Kensi spent arguing. It was probably a terrifying amount.

Sam ignored their bickering and folded his arms at his partner. "I literally just said before this aisle that ready meals are perfect for giving you a heart attack."

"If you eat, like, seventy of them. We're not getting seventy. We're getting a few."

"We are getting none."

"You aren't going to be the one eating them!"

There was absolutely no reason as to why his partner felt so strongly about this. Except for the fact that he was a health nut. An extremely serious health nut.

"It doesn't mean that I can just condone other people eating them! Do you know how much salt can be in those things?"

"Can be," Callen replied. "Which means some have very little."

Sam gave him yet another unimpressed look. He really should be keeping count of those.

"Look, if it makes you feel better, you can check the salt levels on each one," Callen offered.

That got him a snort. He should probably start counting those too. "It's not just the salt levels I'm concerned about. Seriously, there's nothing nutritious in those at all."

"Oh, look at all the options!" Deeks suddenly said, getting side-tracked. "There's vegetarian, vegan, gluten free, oh, there's even dairy free!" he got more excited as he listed them, pulling the packets off the shelves.

"None of us here are any if those things," Kensi said with an eye roll.

"But other people using the safe house could be and sometimes the vegetarian option has more flavour."

"It's because the variety of the vegetables that gets used," Sam agreed and then realised what he had said. "That doesn't mean we're getting them."

"Hey, they even have halal and kosher. Cool!"

Trust Deeks to get excited about the diversity in ready meals.

"I would be suspicious of that halal certification."

"Let's get one of each," Callen said, grabbing a few. "That way our shopping is done."

"Did you not hear me when I said that we weren't getting anything?" Sam said.

"We did. We're just choosing to ignore it."

Deeks and Kensi looked at each other, like they were debating on who to listen to. Or, more likely, who was less likely to make their lives unpleasant.

"I'm team lead," he told them, trying to 'help' them make a decision.

"Yeah, but Sam's scarier," Deeks replied.

That was true. As scary as he could be, Callen knew he couldn't measure up to the sheer amount of intimidation that Sam gave off. It was all those bulging muscles. No one's bravery could stand up to those.

"It means we get out of here quicker," he tried instead.

Because seriously, for all of their goofing around, none of them liked being in here any longer than necessary. Did anyone really enjoy grocery shopping? Especially for stuff you weren't going to even use?

"Well get out of here quicker by arguing less," Sam said.

"You are the one arguing."

Well, they all were but Sam was definitely the most vocal! And he couldn't even deny it. Neither Kensi or Deeks seemed to care about this.

"They aren't even cost effective!" Sam said triumphantly, trying a different tact. "I did the math. Separate, basic, ingredients are far cheaper."

Callen glared at him. That was the one argument that was actually viable. Of course, Hetty wanted them to get the best deals - saving the budget and all that. And, yes, ready meals weren't exactly the best deals.

"These ones are on a deal," Kensi said, pointing a shelf.

Callen gave his partner a triumphant look. He won!

"No."

8Kensi looked at Deeks and immediately regretted it as she got the urge to laugh. He looked away, having the same problem. It was just... there was something so amusing about Sam grumbling. Especially about ready meals. The argument that Callen won, by the way. Sort of. They got the three for the 'three for one' deal they had going on. Because even Sam couldn't argue about that.

"They are going to be the nastiest meals," Sam complained, evidently still not over it. "Why else would the shop want to get rid of them?"

"It creates demand? Isn't that a sales tactic?" Callen suggested.

That got another disgruntled sigh from Sam.

"Don't talk to me about sales tactics," he said darkly.

"What's wrong with sales tactics?" Kensi couldn't help but ask.

Callen sniggered as Sam gave him a dark look. This just made Kensi even more intrigued. Deeks too, though that really wasn't hard.

"Was this a super-secret Op?" he asked, looking between the two of them. "It sounds like a super-secret Op."

"It wasn't a secret Op," Sam groaned, rubbing a hand over his face. "Just an Op that happened before you and Kensi joined the team."

"An extensive one," Callen felt the need to add. "This is the one that involved the Libyan pirates."

"What?"

Did Kensi just hear that right? That was a famous Op. Or a famous result of an Op (no one really knew the details there).

"That wasn't anything to do with the Op," Sam scolded him. "We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"We looked like official Americans that dealt with money. It kind of had something to do with the Op."

"They just took am opportunity and ran with it," Sam dismissed.

"Are we ever going to find out what happened with the Libyan Pirates?" Deeks asked loudly.

"No." Both older agents said at the same time.

Well, that was shut down without much consideration. Rather unfair if you asked her.

"Not even a little?" she tried because, hey, she was curious as well.

"No."

"Oh, come on, man!"

"No."

"There's bound to be a report somewhere," Kensi mused.

"No."

Eric and Nell could probably find it. She would have to ask them. There probably wasn't anything too bad in it because Callen was trying very, very hard not to smile. Something embarrassing must have happened.

"Can we get back to the sales tactics?" Sam asked in an irritated tone.

He really had to be desperate for them not to find out about the pirates if he actually wanted to talk about sales tactics. Had to be something embarrassing then, Kensi determined. Which always made for a good story.

"Depends," Deeks said. "Are we really not going to hear about the pirates?"

"No."

"Fine. Carry on."

"Gladly," Sam retorted but then decided not to elaborate.

"Sam here basically had to get a degree in sales and marketing," Callen said with a smirk.

Sam shuddered at that but objected to the analogy, "It wasn't nearly as bad as a degree. I didn't have to write any papers or do any tests."

"Pretty sure all the quizzing you made me do for you counts as several tests and didn't Hetty basically make you write essays on it?"

"Writing things out makes you remember it better," Sam retorted. "Engages different parts of the brain."

Callen just raised an eyebrow and he sighed.

"Yes, Hetty made me write essays on certain strategies and sales projections."

"See, basically a degree."

"Probably worse," opined Deeks. "I'm sure Hetty's a harsher marker than any examiner."

"Definitely," Sam agreed. "Even the Navy wasn't as harsh for my SEAL training."

"Um, hi," Kensi waved her hand in the air to get all of their attention. "Can we get back to why you don't like sales tactics?"

"Because they're disgusting and no good and purposefully created to not benefit the customer," Sam answered immediately. "They're just designed to look like they do."

"Well, yeah," said Deeks. "That's basically what capitalism means."

"No, it really isn't."

"It kind of is."

"No, it-" Sam stopped himself and took a deep breath. Smart move. "Anyway, except for the fact that they are immoral, the other reason why I don't like them is because of that Op."

"The one with the pirates," Deeks said with a straight face.

"Yes. The one with the pirates," he said through gritted teeth.

"The Libyan ones."

Kensi elbowed her partner to shut him up. He really didn't know when to stop when it came to Sam sometimes.

"I had to literally memorise three textbooks and marketing strategies for the previous seven years and then... nothing! I had to use nothing."

"Really?" Kensi asked sceptically.

When you had to prep that much for an Op you were pretty much guaranteed to need a fair bit of what you researched. Even if it was used indirectly.

"You got to use some of it," Callen corrected him.

"Yes, the failures in the marketing," Sam complained. "Nothing about all those sales strategies. Do you even know how many of those there are?"

"A lot?" Deeks guessed.

"Too many."

"And he got to use none of them," Callen reiterated needlessly.

Sam sent him a dark look.

"I really studied those," he complained. "Knew all the ins and outs. Could even say it all in Arabic!"

None of them knew what to say that. Yeah, it sucked but that's how Ops went sometimes. It was always better to be overprepared than underprepared.

"And all this means is that you have to grumble about things on offer?" Deeks asked in a teasing tone.

"Exactly," Sam answered quite seriously.

"Well, they were still a good deal."

Thankfully Sam decided not to get into yet another argument about the ready meals again and instead tool inventory of their cart. There really couldn't be anything else to get, could there? It felt like they had been in here for hours already.

"I guess there's only one thing left to get," Sam said, looking up from their cart.

"Toilet paper!" Deeks exclaimed far too enthusiastically, doing the dangerous thing and snatching the cart off Sam and steering it to the appropriate aisle.

Or, well, he tried to as Sam grabbed it back.

"You don't get the cart."

"Aw, come on! I'm the only one who hasn't yet!"