To Hurt The One You Love
Chapter One : Fractured Glass
Kensi's P.O.V
Right now, we're like fractured glass.
Looking at him, that's the only thing that comes to mind. Fractured glass is pretty, enticing in a toxic way. It has the allure of something strong, something with willpower. It's got attitude, and it's proud for that, for the fact that it's still standing, fractures and cracks and all.
Our marriage? It's not pretty. It was, once upon a time, during our honeymoon. But then, our marriage became beautiful. It bloomed into something we couldn't live without. At one point, we couldn't even bear to go undercover separately. Nate had a field day with that one, analyzing our abandonment issues.
Most marriages reach an all-time high, and from then onwards, go downhill. Ours peaked and stayed on top for ages before we started sliding down. But it wasn't anything big – a few months later saw us back to our usual selves.
How unfortunate for us that glass, once fractured, will never be the same again.
He's walking towards me and I'm trapped with nowhere to go.
Ridiculous! He's my husband, for crying out loud! Why would I want an escape route? Not to mention that before this, we had been best friends, and I'd made it a point to avoid avoiding him.
He's three steps away; two; one; he's right in front of me and he's smiling the smile he knows I love and for just a split-second, a gift from the Heavens, I forget all that we've been through and I see the metaphorical glass of our marriage clear up, ridding itself of those painfully exquisite serpentine fractures, the ones that had managed to slink in unannounced in the dead of the night.
I give him my brightest smile, the one I'd worn to our wedding, and his eyes light up, but only for a while. Then reality comes crashing down and the weight of it all is too much, just too much, and those dark, twisted fractures snake their way across the once-smooth surface of our marriage.
"Hetty's doing another team night," He informs me casually, dropping a light kiss on my forehead. Instinctively, I reach up on my tip-toes so that he doesn't have to bend that much. It's a habit, one that will surely be hard to break, I catch myself thinking grimly.
Stop this! I tell myself. You won't have to break this habit – you two are doing fine. You survived through all of it and you're a little off the course right now, but you'll be back to the top soon.
"Karaoke night?" I hazard a guess, finding a temporary distraction in the unorganized pile of paperwork I'd haphazardly stacked on my desk.
"Amusement park. Or a fair. Something along those lines." He scrunches his eyebrows in concentration and years later, I still find this cute.
"Mmm-hmm…" I hum my agreement distractedly, setting the paperwork back to its previous spot, now a tall, organized stack.
"I've got a little bit more to go," He points out his own paperwork. "And Hetty wants to see me for something, so I'll get home a little later, 'kay?"
Home is a gorgeous beachfront house we'd bought shortly before the incident, happy to know that we would soon have a use for the guest room.
We wouldn't.
For months, I'd avoided the room and its cheerful buttercup walls, courtesy of one Abigail Sciuto, godmother-to-be.
Then one day, after our falling-out, I'd stormed home, driving in a rage, slamming doors behind me only to find myself in the unused room, sobbing my heart out, mourning all of my losses.
It was quite therapeutic, actually.
"Okay." I agree, letting his touch his lips to mine for a moment as I pass him on the way out. "See you later."
He nods and resumes his former task of the dreaded paperwork, leaving me to my own devices. I'm glad that we had arrived separately this morning – that way, we don't need to worry about transportation right now.
I pull out of the building, basking in the late afternoon glow of L.A. Slipping on my sunglasses, I head home, internally struggling with my contemplative mind.
So many people have left Kensi Blye…so many.
And the sad part is that she's lost track of those she's lost. Lost track of all her pain, her tears, her bouts of depression.
Her father, Dom…so many more. Not just men, but mostly. Maybe Nate would be able to make something of this, but she's really not the type to share. And the only one she does confide in...doesn't even know the whole truth.
Kensi chokes back a sob as this particular thought, accompanied by that painful truth she just can't say out loud and the usual array of emotions, enters her mind once again. Losing Dom had almost destroyed their team; it had threatened to fracture the entire thread which held them together.
Losing him…would finish the job. It would truly kill the team; it would kill Sam; it would kill Hetty; even Nate and Eric.
And most importantly, it would kill her.
Losing him is not an option, and she's fully aware of this fact. So she holds back her tears, keeps her head held high and enters his room; a dark, bleak sight on its own, now complete with his limp form, bandaged and covered, the ever-present beep of the monitor, the maddening drip of the IV…
"Hey," She says softly, aware that this greeting, and most likely anything else, will go unheard by him. She shuts the door behind her; lightly, of course - she doesn't want to risk waking him. Her emotions bubble at the surface, threatening to burst and she knows, she just knows it's now or never.
Bracing herself, she sinks into the stiff seat someone – Sam, most likely – had dragged to his bedside. She carelessly throws her handbag in the general direction of the couch a nurse had thoughtfully provided. Curling her legs under her form, she takes in his pale lips, his bandaged chest; how even in his sleep, his face is marred by worldly threats and worries.
As she takes his hand in hers, she notes how his face seems to turn peaceful. Sucking in a sharp breath, she runs through her inner monologue, too much of a coward to voice it out loud.
G Callen, she calls to him in her thoughts. Back in the day, I really didn't like you. Not one bit. You seemed to be harder on me than Sam; you had less trust than anyone I'd ever met. You were bossy and insensitive and had a twisted sense of humor. You were devilishly good-looking.
Which of the above doesn't fit? She silently asks him, smiling to herself.
ButI couldn't have hated you even if I had wanted to – you were too damn attractive for me to even dislike you. Maybe, if I had really tried, in time, I could have grown to despise you; to truly and wholly hate you with every single fiber of my being.
But I didn't want to; not then and most definitely not now. I don't want to hate you, Callen, because I feel the exact opposite for you. Because when I see you healthy and happy, these damn woodland fairies take residence in my heart and sing a heavenly chorus and I don't even want to hit them. Because when you smile, I feel like I've swallowed a thousand butterflies and I don't care if they're poisonous and a health hazard, I just want to keep feeling this way, provided you keep smiling. And when you laugh, I feel like doing somersaults and all that crap, sore bones and muscles be damned.
And when you look at me like you sometimes do; when we go undercover as lovers and I catch a glimpse of your eyes…I feel like a high-school freshman all over again, and the shitty part of it is that I don't even mind.
You see, Callen, I don't want to hate you. And I'm pretty sure I can't. But if you die…
If you abandon me, if you leave me like everyone else has…so help me God, I will hate you.
Because if you leave me, then you'll never know what I feel, and I'll never know if you feel the same way, and that would drive me mad. Literally and metaphorically and whatever-ly.
So, G Callen, I'm just gonna come out and say this right now, and pray to God that you wake up and live, even if it's not for me. Because no matter what, you need to live. I need to know that somewhere, somehow, you're living and breathing and smiling and laughing…because…
"Because I love you." She sighs, the relief of finally stating this fact out loud over-powering her. So what if her entire speech had remained within her mind? All that she had needed to voice out were those three little words, words she hadn't spoken, sincerely, in so long.
And so, happy to have this truth floating around somewhere in the atmosphere, Kensi Blye leans her head near G Callen's still form, content in the knowledge that someday, these words will reach the man next to her.
And she had been convinced he hadn't heard her, just as he's convinced she won't hear his next words, small words which would change their lives forever.
"I love you too."
They fall asleep with joy clearly written across their features, both convinced that after so much pain, surely they couldn't be asked to endure any more.
Something along the lines of an amusement park or a fair turns out to be a flea market, run by various traders of different backgrounds, beliefs and ethnicities. The crisp night air has him wrapping his arms protectively around my waist, huddling me close for body warmth, once again more of a habit than a conscious action.
Hetty is leading us forward, stopping at random stalls, reminiscing of her colorful past. Nate is quickly drawn to three consecutive stalls filled with old tomes, and so we leave him behind as Eric whines about the lack of technology and Sam contemplates the thought of picking up a few things for his wife.
We're simply content to be in this moment, surrounded by our team and this playful banter that has a way of transporting us back to a time before all this pain, a time when we had been so utterly in love with each other, even the thought of problems such as ours would have been waved away by a disbelieving hand.
Somehow, the universe has this twisted way of proving you wrong, time after time. All those troubles you now find impossible? Give it some time, honey and it'll be right in your face. How naïve of anyone to believe that anything isn't possible.
Reality is, unfortunately, all of our worst nightmares come to life. The problem is, you never realize what your worst nightmares are until you're living in them.
Eric's shrill whistle breaks my reverie and just like that, we huddle around Hetty to let her regale us with yet another whimsical tale as I drive a bargain with myself.
Just tonight. Just give us tonight and then you can get back to your nightmare. Just dream, for tonight.
Glass isn't all that sturdy to begin with.
Your life? My life? We're all our own, individual piece of glass. At the end of our journey, we can trace back every single crack, every hairline fracture to a single event, some of which helped us grow into the person we had been destined to be, some of which forced us to give up.
I'm at a forked path right now; just like the one you will encounter sooner or later. I've caused a fracture, and now I need to choose: do I push harder, run the risk of shattering this glass and eventually, with some luck, re-direct this fracture to form a beautiful wave? Or do I give up, and just leave this fracture as it is, an ugly scar which I will carry forever for all to see?
Glass isn't all that sturdy to begin with.
But when you're messing with fractured glass, somehow, you have a shot at reinforcing it, a chance to gather your strength and mold your piece of glass into a strong warrior, one that will excel at the challenge we call life.
But what if your fractured glass shatters?
And there we have it, Chapter 1 of To Hurt The One You Love.
In case you haven't noticed, there's a loose pattern to this chapter, which will apply to all other chapters : musing on chapter title, part 1 of chapter, flashback, part 2 of chapter, significance of chapter title. Also, P. will alternate between Kensi and Callen. The epilogue, however, will either be Hetty's P.O.V or third-person.
Hope you guys like this so far, and guys, please take care of yourselves and your love ones – with all that's going on right now, I'm really hoping everyone's going to be okay.
Feel free to review or PM me if you'd like.
E Salvatore,
March 2011.