Title : Cure for the soul.
By : GirlOfSpring
Pairing : Nell/Callen
Summary: It all started with a certain intelligence analyst who needed her music and a certain special agent who was disturbed by the noise. A Nallen story
Disclaimer : Don't own anything. Except for Natalie Holden, the poor thing.
Note: I have this bad feeling that after a while, my updates won't be this frequent anymore, but for now I will try to keep it up. Except for maybe this weekend, as I might be going on a roadtrip with some friends. If it doesn't get cancelled. Anyways, this is my go at something a bit more serious and a bit darker to give them also something to actually work on. And I tried the planning you know, but it's impossible to predict the atmosphere after a chapter and what can feel right for the next one, so I am just going to go with the flow.
And thanks for all the lovely reviews! I also prefer the slow burn of feelings, so I hope in the end that everything will be logical. And thank you folks for adding the story to their favorites or putting an alert on it, or doing everything. You people make my day!
~~~|G|O|S|~~~
A few days had gone by and once again, Nell was at work. They were in the middle of an intensive investigation involving the 15 year old daughter of a high-ranked Marine. The case had the whole team working none-stop, trying to close the case, but they barely had any clues. The girl had been kidnapped from her home after which the father had received a single e-mail with pictures and a video. They had found the body exactly 5 hours later, still without clues that would lead to her killer.
It was intensive and frustrating and created a certain tension in the team. Sam was quiet, obviously thinking about his own daughter. She was younger than this girl, but being a father it still hit home. Deeks, for once, didn't make any jokes, feeling that nobody was in the mood for it and just did his work. He kept glancing over to the desk of his partner, that had been abandoned a few minutes ago.
Kensi had left for the firing range to shoot at stuff. She herself had been the 15 year old daughter of a Marine and had connected with the girl, only to be the one that found the body and having to live with the fact that she hadn't been in time to save her.
She hadn't seen Callen since they had come back in from the job. He wouldn't have left the building, so she imagined him in the gym where he would probably be training.
Nell was sitting in her chair, looking at the screen in front of her. She had got the job to compose the file with all the information they had already gathered up until this point. It was a harrowing job. Without the pressure of having to find a young girl who was terrified at exactly the same time, her mind had taken the liberty of blaming itself. She should have worked harder, should have been faster in making connections of thinking of something, anything, that could have made a difference.
Now, instead of having to solve a kidnapping, they had to solve a murder. And it didn't look good, it didn't look good at all. Taking a deep breath, Nell started at the beginning. She shut out all the background noises, including Eric who was typing intensively on the keyboard at the other side of the room with a hollow look in his eyes.
The girl's name had been Natalie Holden, 15 years old. This morning had started out as every other day. She woke up, had breakfast, said goodbye to her dad and then left for school. It was a 15 minute walk and about halfway she would meet up with two friends to walk the rest together. Only, this morning, she had never shown. Her friends had tried calling her on her cellphone, without an answer, before calling to her house. Her father had searched for her, before making a few calls. When he came home, the pictures had been waiting for him. All of this happened in the span of about half an hour.
Then, the hunt had started. Trying to follow up the few clues they had, they had started working. Eric was tracing the e-mail, only to discover that it had been sent from a university server. This did tell them that they had two people working together, because the origin of the e-mail was too far away from where the girl was taken for it to be possible to do all of this in less than half an hour, while holding a girl.
Nell reopened the pictures from the e-mail, looking at the face of young Natalie Holden. She had been very small for her age with big, brown eyes that were spread wide in terror. She had a few pink streaks in her normally blond her, which made Nell wonder if it was an act of rebellion against the strict navy routine she must have lived in. She bit her lip and shook slightly her head. A bruise had started to take shape on the left side of her face, lighted up clearly by the flash of the camera. Her t-shirt had also been ripped, showing a few drops of blood. They must have used brute force on her to make sure she wouldn't fight them.
Nell swallowed against the lump that was starting to form in her throat. It must have been terrible, all of it. She couldn't imagine how she must have felt like.
A noise behind her startled her and Nell turned around to see what had happened.
Eric had jumped up from his chair, a set expression on his face while he pressed a few buttons.
"Found something" he murmured, before looking up to her.
"I had Natalie's father give me a list of all the people that have been in the house in the past weeks and cross-checking these with the actual people. Three and a half weeks ago, there should have been a guy for the electricity who has never been sent by the company. I am going to tell the others."
Nell watched as Eric disappeared through the doors before turning back to her computer. The pictures were still staring at her and she filed them away with a few clicks. There still was the video and she moved the mouse over the icon, hesitating for a moment before opening it. A small window appeared on her screen and again she saw the terrified face of Natalie Holden. She was sitting on a chair, the background to dark and unclear to see where she was.
"Hi daddy" She said softly, shaking and her eyes turned away slightly from the camera. She was reading something that was held up by the person behind the camera.
"I hope you have enjoyed your work, because you always seem to have found it more important than me. You never listened to what I would tell you about school or what I wanted, you never paid any attention. But that doesn't matter anymore, because-" The girl started crying when she realized the meaning of the next part of the text and from behind the camera some muffled sounds could be heard. Nell watched for tenth time that day how Natalie Holden, bound to a chair in a dark room, taken and beaten by strangers, was forced to say goodbye to her father.
"Because I am not coming back. You will never see me again." For a moment that seemed to be the end of the message, but then..
"I'm sorry dad, I love you" This time, the girl looked straight in the camera, not reading anything and with the look in her eyes saying more than her words ever could. Then the video stopped and the screen went black.
Nell kept asking herself why the kidnappers hadn't cut the last part out, it clearly hadn't been scripted. But then she thought that the whole intention of this was to hurt the girl's father and not the girl herself. A last act of strength, even while the girl was terrified, would maybe give him pride about his daughter and an even stronger feeling of loss now she was dead.
Nell hadn't moved since the ending of the video, just staring at the screen, until she felt a warm hand on her shoulder.
She jumped up, pushing back the chair and turning around in the same motion to see who had snuck up on her. Looking up, she found the blue eyes of Callen, a glance of worry directed to her.
"You okay?" He asked softly. She didn't answer directly but kept staring. Only then she noticed how her legs were shaking, how her entire body was trembling and even the familiar burn of distant tears in her eyes. She didn't know how to respond, what words would make sense.
"I don't know" was her honest response.
"But I will be" She had to be. She could allow herself a minute of this, allow herself to be a normal person who was in absolute shock by the horrors a young girl had to live through.
Callen stayed silent for another moment, searching her hazel eyes. She didn't turn away from him, but locked into his gaze.
They stayed still for a few seconds, before Callen nodded slightly.
"It isn't a bad thing to be upset. It shows that you are human, that you still care. When you don't feel anything, it might be time to get out"
Nell nodded slightly. It made sense, it felt true somehow, but thinking about it yourself and actually having a person telling you this were two very different things.
"Are you okay?" She asked instead. She watched his face, his eyes, as the mask he always wore broke for a second and she could read the confusion in his eyes. She wondered when it had been the last time in a situation like this that somebody had asked him that question.
He slightly squeezed her shoulder with the hand that was still on her shoulder before letting her go.
"We are going to work to catch these monsters and make them pay. Then, I will also be okay" Nell smiled sadly at his words. She doubted this, to be honest. There would be another case he would work for, without thinking of himself.
Taking a risk, she stepped forward into his personal space and slid her arms around his waist to hug him. She felt him stiffen in surprise and for the first time that day, she laughed softly.
"This isn't an attack, you don't have to take me down or anything" she said, almost whispering. Because Callen was a lot bigger than she was, she could easily rest her head against his chest. She didn't see his face, but felt the hesitation go through him while he slowly lifted his arms and put them around her.
He grumbled something she didn't understand and she slightly twisted her head, but still couldn't see his face.
"What?"
"I wouldn't take you down" He repeated his words, even if there was again a bit of hesitation in his words. She laughed again and for a last moment she leaned in closer before letting to again and stepping back. She had stopped trembling and took a deep breath before straightening herself again.
"I have to go back to work" she said, suddenly noticing the slight warmth that had crept to her face. Damn her and her schoolgirl-reaction.
Callen nodded. They both had to get back to work.
"We have a murderer to catch" he said, before turning around and leaving the room. Eric came back and the two men walked through the door at the same time, Eric stopping Callen for a quick moment before giving him the short version of what he had found. The agent nodded in thanks and looked back at Nell for a moment before exiting.
Eric stood still for a moment, before turning to the female tech with a slight frown on his face.
"What was he doing here?" Hazel met green when Nell looked at him, before shrugging slightly.
"Checking in on a friend"
Yeah, a friend.
~~~|G|O|S|~~~
Callen was sorting through the information he had gotten from Eric while walking down the stairs, deciding on a plan. Downstairs, he sent Kensi and Deeks to the electricity company to check on the information while he and Sam went back to the house.
While walking to the car, his thoughts went back to Nell.
He had been on his way to the bullpen when passing the command centre where the doors had just been closing. Nell had been staring at a screen, clearly upset, and he had just felt the need to go in and check on her. They had been brought in on the case because of the possibility that the kidnappers would want information in return for the daughter, but everything had turned out differently.
He couldn't stop thinking about her, what she had gone through. Natalie had been a girl, a teenager, and the closest she had ever got to something like this was a move or something on TV. The thing that for him was the most difficult, was that she kept reminding him of someone. He couldn't really put his finger on it, but he felt incredibly angry and sad for what had happened.
And then there had been Nell, who had hugged him. Of all things she could have done. It was a strange choice. People normally didn't really hug him. Actually, it happened more often that he got shot at, so what did that say about him?
But the petite analyst had just stepped into him and he had held her. She had felt so small in his arms, as if she could be swept away any moment. She had felt fragile, even when he knew that this wasn't true. Nell was a though woman, even if it was in a different way than Kensi.
And now, next to all the other feelings that had been going through him involving Nell, he felt the sudden urge to protect her and to keep her safe from what was out there.
~~~|G|O|S|~~~
Thanks for reading!