Sorry for the wait! Thank you for your support!
Disclaimer: CBS owns everything.
The rain is oddly fitting, synchronized traffic lights and car horns that are not theirs. A cell phone is attached to Callen's ear as he steers, and Sam whispers to Hetty from his own.
Voicemail.
"Shit." He drops it into his lap. And thinks how very wrong this is.
Somewhere between an empty warehouse and false promises of information. Divide and conquer, and they have taken a wrong turn somewhere along the path. This is not how they thought this would happen.
"We've been set up G," Sam closes the phone and Callen's grip tightens as he swerves because this is something he already knew. "Somehow," he continues, sighing as he speaks. "Somehow they knew we'd send her to the pier."
It is days like this where Callen wants to kill Deeks, wants to fight and yell, because he has sent an agent of his off alone with men he does not trust, and now she is gone. As if the liaison could prevent from going undercover. As if, in all honesty, he believed in that man any more than the others.
"What happened to the LAPD guys that were with her?" His voice is rough and Sam's eyes flash back out to the road in front of them as the water nears.
"Four wounded, two dead. One was conscious, but he's out now."
You imagine her in the back of another dark van. Sticky California heat and black and blue all over. Falling asleep to wasted heartbeats and no second chances.
She must be calling your name, wherever she is, because her voice haunts you now.
You call her again with the same result.
They leave the car running when they get to the beach, men in official looking costumes stream up and down the white sand. They glance at the two absently, but do not stop what they are already doing.
The last of the ambulances pulls away with the wailing of sirens. Sam breaks into a jog at the sight of crimson on the wooden floor of the pier. Tire tracks on the sidewalk.
Somewhere, someone is dying. And oh how it feels like them.
"What's going on?" the question is half-shouted, and does not mean exactly what it initially implies. An officer, hat almost covering his eyes, mouth set in a frown, turns to greet them.
"What's going on in here!" this is louder, and the man nearly jumps. Callen pushes past them both and enters the room.
Scarlet letters are nothing when compared to the dusty white ghosts that hover just over your shoulder.
The walls are dented and wet. Blood and bullets, and this was an ambush and this was planned so very well.
"Sam." His voice is weaker now, a little less steady, because this usually happens to him, and he does not know how to handle the loss as they do. Sam is silent behind him, having been briefed already. The two have long since fallen into a pattern of silent shortcomings and last-minute agreements. Callen has never given much thought to last words, but now seems as good a time as any and he shivers at the possibilities of what she might have said.
What she might be saying now.
Footprints line the floor before them. All with measured distances between the feet, all official and okay. The intruders have left them with nothing more than casings and a sense of unease they will not shake for a long time coming.
Sam speaks first.
"Let's get back to Hetty and Eric, they might be having more luck on their end."
If Kensi were here, she might have volunteered to work the scene herself. And she might have found something, because it is her job and she does it well. And she did not mean to be taken in the rush of hastily made decisions.
You wonder if anything ever turns out the way you originally intend for it to.
You hit every red light on the way home.
xxx
The contents of a story have always mattered more than the outcome, and the young girl shivers beneath her bed sheets late at night because the walls close in around her when she sleeps.
She is unsure of the time. There are no windows and there are no clocks.
It is possible that there is more to her world than heartbreak, but she grows slightly and doubts it.
The old woman leaves one morning and does not come back.
The footfall from beyond her door increases.
The whole world seems to darken, and she is alone.
xxx
"Guys," Eric calls to the two agents as they enter the building, "you might want to see this."
And there are five men in a black van, and it is Kensi's apartment. Hetty's shoulders slump and Nate's grip on the table tightens. And they know where to look now, and are not at all confident on what they might find.
Once, not too many months ago, Callen promised to bring back a friend and could not.
Once, only years ago, Sam was a Navy SEAL and killed a father and saved his son.
They have done this dance before.
xxx
She wakes up to the sound of keys, hands bound and eyes bright. Someone sits in the shadows and watches her blink, but does not move.
"Kensi Blye."
And it is a name, and it is hers. So she holds her head up high and they laugh.
The door swings shut.
There has never been another way for this to end.
But it has only begun.
xxx
You watch her from the corner of the cell. Bound and restless, she notices your presence but does not look in your direction. Emilio will come for her soon, and then she will play his game.
If only because she has no choice.
"Kensi Blye."
She almost flinches at the sound of your voice. The roughness of your tone startles you as well. Silence stretches on, and you are not sure what comes next.
The door to the small room swings open, and the man you might have warned her of, but knew you wouldn't all the same, enters. Glances at you with confusion that does not last as you lean back in your chair to watch, and he moves so he is in front of her kneeling frame.
"You will talk."
Of explosions and of scars, lost information and last ditch-efforts.
Her dark brown eyes show her confusion at the statement, and you fear that this will go nowhere good.
That you will be asking the same questions forever.
He reaches down and grabs her matted hair, pulls her up slightly so that their faces nearly touch.
"You are far from home," he drops her here, and drags a wooden chair out so that he can sit in next to the door and watch her breathe deeply. "Far from your friends.
You have seen her friends, the two men that travel with her, watching her back and keeping her in sight. Almost as if, they too, knew she was not safe.
"I won't be here for long." She spits the words out at his feet, yanking against her restraints as she speaks.
Emilio does not answer her.
The silence pulls at your skin, chips away at your heart.
You wonder exactly when your spirit broke.
You wonder when hers will as well.
Emilio stands suddenly, giving you a nod as he strides out of the room.
"Take care of our guest." His grin is hidden behind the opening of the door, and he leaves in a cloud of dust. The woman before you will not meet your eyes, for the second time. You do not mind.
You know all too well of your own regretful eyes that gaze sadly back at you in your bedroom mirror. This life has become dependent on the memories of a girl who lost them so very long ago.
xxx
He must have been about four years old the first time he heard of her. Rumors about a daughter, hidden away within the walls of their crumbling hideout. He only knew that he could hear someone crying when he listened hard enough, and that he'd lost his own father to the tainted smoke that surrounded the business.
He knows now that the transporting of illegal drugs is a highly risky one.
But he was young, and he could only run down the damp hallways, hoping that one day he'd be allowed outside and that maybe one day the crying would stop.
The building collapses in the heat of an explosions that leaves them stranded in a desert, ashy and bruised. They are children and they are scared, and so they run.
He only carries an envelope. One that his father stuffed in his hands right before he disappeared out the door for the last time. Right before the only home he'd ever known was lost.
Right before the search for a revenge that was not his to take began.
xxx