A/N: Rejoice! The link between FF and email has now been fixed, and I can thank everyone properly. So, thank you to Sarwah3 for adding this story to alerts, Sazzita for favoriting, and CrazyWomanLovesYou, Sarwah3, TwilightPony21, DizzyDrea, and justjunior for reviewing on the last chapter!

Chapter Six: Between Justice and Revenge

I can't believe I'm finally here.

It's been the longest week of my life, and Lord knows we've chased down an entire coalition of false leads and dead ends, but now, after seven agonizing years and an unnaturally prolonged week, we've managed to track down, locate, chase, and corner Jason Baxter in an old shoplot.

Baxter, I'm pleased to see, despite being infuriatingly certain that we wouldn't be able to touch him when we first found him, doesn't look quite so cocky now that he's staring down the barrel of my gun after we chased him into a corner.

"Now, look here…" he begins nervously.

"Do you know what you did to us?" I ask him in a quiet, deadly voice. I have no sympathy for this son of a bitch – no sympathy at all. After what he did? No way, José.

At this, Baxter's cockiness returns and he rolls his eyes. "So I killed your agent. Big deal. He had it coming for putting my brother in jail." His eyes are hard as he says this – he clearly feels no remorse whatsoever.

My hand stiffens on the gun; I wonder if he knows just how close he is to having his miserable existence ended right here and now.

Across from me, Deeks obviously notices, because he says warningly, "Kensi."

With effort, I relax the muscles of my trigger finger ever so slightly. Death is too good for a lowlife like Jason Baxter.

Of course, he's not making it easy to see that.

"You won't kill me anyway," Baxter's saying confidently.

"Oh, yeah?" Sam challenges. "Why's that?"

"Because you're federal agents. You don't break the rules. And last time I checked, those rules involve not shooting an unarmed man."

Amazing. Baxter's got enough firepower aimed at him to take out a small convoy – courtesy of an enraged CIA spy, a furious former SEAL, a pissed off LAPD officer, and a vindictive, lethal ninja lady of legendary skill (hell, even Nell's armed and dangerous, pregnant or not) – and a technological genius (Eric) watching his every move remotely, and he's still bold (or stupid, depending on how you look at it) enough to rub regulation in our faces.

"Those same rules also include getting the guy who takes one of our own, no matter what," Deeks throws in his face. "And unfortunately for you, you qualify."

Baxter scoffs. "Congratulations. You got me. And you're powerless to do anything, because of a rule. Sucks, doesn't it? – to have the guy who killed your teammate right in front of you, while you're unable to do anything to punish him. Now you know how I felt."

Oh, he's really pushing it.

"I wonder why it took you seven years to get to me, though," Baxter continues. "With the murder of someone as important as Agent Callen, you would think that you people would have come after me much sooner, wouldn't you? But, I suppose since he didn't have any family, everyone just forgot about him."

I swear, I've never been so angry, not even when I faced down Peter Clairmont for killing my father. How dare he? He might have been pushing before, but this is going way too far.

"You shut the hell up, you bastard," Sam hisses. I can tell it's taking all his restraint not to pull that trigger. "Or I promise you, I will spatter your brains across this floor."

You'd think Baxter would be smart enough to shut up after that, but I think he must have a death wish, because he's just going on.

"I guess he just wasn't that important, huh? He didn't mean enough to anyone. No one bothered to find the person who killed poor, orphaned, no-name Callen."

And that, right there, is the last straw. It's bad enough that my hands are shaking, that my eyes are seeing nothing but red, and that I'm so furious I think I can feel smoke coming out of my ears – but to hear Jason Baxter taunting us? And that statement about Callen, as if he ever knew him?

No. That I just cannot take.

Somehow, I manage to quell my fury long enough to say – reasonably calmly, I'm proud to add – "Hetty? My trigger finger may accidentally slip right now."

Baxter turns ghost pale, all his bravado and color draining away. Hetty must be angry too, but her composure is remarkably intact as she replies to me, "It doesn't matter, Kensi. Everybody makes mistakes now and then."

I nod and bore my eyes through Baxter's skull. "Any last words?"

Baxter looks like he's about to faint. "You wouldn't…" he whispers.

My eyes are hard as I respond, "Waste of last words, if you ask me, but beggars can't be choosers. Goodbye, Jason Baxter."

I don't know what came over me, I really don't. I know I would have pulled the trigger if he hadn't suddenly ducked and whipped out a gun everyone had missed until now. He's pointing it at me – directly at me.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Nell tells him, her grip on her gun never wavering.

"You're not me, sweetie," Baxter points out bluntly. "If you're gonna kill me anyway, I've got nothing to lose. And I'm not going down without taking at least one of you with me." He sneers at me, and in that moment, I know he's going to say something devastating.

"You should be thanking me," he says snidely. "I'm doing you a favor – I'm reuniting you with your dead lover."

The next few seconds are a blur, just like that day Callen died. It's a very similar situation – déjà vu. All I know is that one minute Baxter was one instant away from pulling the trigger and killing me, and the next he's crumpled on the ground bleeding out of five different gunshot wounds. Looking around, I see that everyone, myself included, managed to get in a shot at the man who killed Callen.

How's that for poetic justice?

Miraculously, though, Baxter's still alive – if only just. He certainly won't be for long.

I stride up to him and look directly down. He's quite a sorry sight – breathing shallowly and gurgling his own blood.

My final words to Jason Baxter are simple: "That's for Callen."

A/N: Justice is served! And it's been a long time coming. So, tomorrow will see the end of the story - I hope I managed to make it a sort-of happy ending, even with the tragedy and angst in this story...ah, well, we'll just have to see, won't we?