Chapter 3: August 9, 2013 – Something Hidden

Chapter Summary: **The 'Love Interest' Part of the 2013 LiveJournal's Twisted Shorts FaD** series. Missing scenes from yesterday's Betrayal ficlet.

Timeline: AU season four of BtVS; any time after Deeks joined the team for NCIS:LA. Oops, made a mistake in the order of the episodes, but it works out better for my story this way.

Challenge: for the livejournal 2013 August Fic-a-Day Challenge.

Warning: not that I can think of at the moment.

A/N: Not as conversational as I usually write. Had to get some smoochies in there somehow. Let me know if you have any ideas for fandoms that you'd like Buffy paired with (male or female).

Disclaimer: BtVS/AtS characters belong to Joss Whedon/Mutant Enemy. NCIS: LA characters belong to Shane Brennan, Shane Brennan Productions and CBS. I claim no rights to any copyrighted material. Please do not copy or take this story without my permission.

'Hush'

Streets of Sunnydale

Callen thought the Polgara demon was weird when he first came to infiltrate the Initiative so he could search for the missing body of a Marine, but these guys, with their pale skin, hooked noses, freakish eyes and the floating? Oh, and their escaped mental patient companions? Totally the stuff of horror movies! He had to text Hetty to assure her that he was okay – if unable to speak at the moment – when she heard about Sunnydale's laryngitis epidemic.

He and his team- umm, Riley's team was out looking for answers, and hopefully protecting the people. He didn't think they were doing all that great of a job on either front. Shooting those things didn't work, and neither did any other kind of weapons they tried. Even the stun guns didn't keep them down, at least not for long.

And while on the subject of the people he worked with, Callen couldn't believe they were patrolling in uniform tonight. At least Walsh had them in civvies the day before. They could get away with it on Halloween. But if they kept doing this, they'd get caught by a local who didn't ignore the obvious. When he mentioned it, though, they insisted everything was under control.

Tonight he supposed it didn't matter too much since everyone was hiding out in their homes or apartments.

The team split up to cover more ground and he was just about to cross the street when he saw movement in the town clock tower. That seemed strange to him, because like he just thought, nobody in their right mind would be out on a night like tonight.

As soon as he got inside, one of the mental patients attacked him. That one was soon joined by another, then another, and so on. Just when he was afraid that they'd overpower him, Buffy jumped in through a boarded up window. She was a lot better fighter than he thought she would be. Like Sam-level…or better. He figured that he could get some answers from her – if they survived.

A short, ferocious battle later, they ended up in the tower where the monsters had their collection of hearts. Buffy motioned at the table like she wanted him to smash something. He quickly assessed what was there, besides the hearts, he thought the ornate box was the most likely item.

After a few seconds, she started screaming at the top of her lungs. Wow, she had a lot of lung capacity. He thought she might have shattered his eardrums in addition to making the bad guys explode like really disgusting paint balls.

"Should we talk about this?" she asked after a moment of awkward silence.

Callen really wanted to, but he knew that he had to get back to the Initiative and let them know the danger was over. "Is the danger over with?" he asked, thinking somehow that she would know better than him.

"For now," she replied.

"It might be better if we both take a day or two to recover, check on our friends…then we can decide how many of our secrets we feel like sharing with each other," he suggested.

Callen's TA office

The next day…

When Buffy finished explaining what she thought she knew of what he did, Callen was surprised. She pretty much knew the whole gist of what the Initiative did, if not who all the players were.

Her comment about Gregory Laclen being his real name struck a little too close for home, but he managed to brush that off for the time being. And her crack about the euphemisms for the demons made him want to laugh; for a civilian, she had a pretty good grasp on how the military liked to replace certain words with other words or acronyms.

In exchange for confirming what she already knew – but not telling her anything she didn't – Callen found out that she was the Slayer, somebody who gave the stuff of nightmares, nightmares. She had been fighting for almost four years, and had a higher kill count than the entire Initiative put together, probably even including their captures…not that he told her that.

Callen agreed to keep her secret until she wanted to share it with the rest of the Initiative, and she agreed to wait until she caught somebody else hunting demons before she let on that she knew about the group. That way, Callen wouldn't get in trouble for spilling the beans.

'Something Blue'

A couple weeks later, something happened to make Callen wonder if it wasn't time to get out of this assignment.

The day started out like any other; he met Buffy for some tutoring and exchange knowledge concerning demon activity. The one-on-one assistance was really helping Buffy learn Russian faster than she expected.

Then they headed over to her Watcher's apartment for his demon lesson. Buffy went back to her dorm room to drop off her books, but she promised to meet him at Giles' place. He had walked her there before, so he knew his way. The good news was that on the way, he came across Hostile 17 and disposed of him for good.

However, as soon as Buffy arrived at the apartment, Callen found himself proposing to her. Then they tried to swallow each other's faces for the next couple hours. He wanted to be horrified by his actions, especially with Riley's interest in her, but he wasn't…not enough to stop anyway. As it was, he was having a hard time keeping the truth about his teammates – the ones at NCIS.

They were about five minutes away from having sex – with or without an audience – when their minds suddenly cleared.

That's when Callen learned about magic and that Willow was a practicing witch. Her spellwork left a bit to be desired, in his humble opinion.

Not that he didn't enjoy kissing Buffy; it was very pleasant. His problem was that it was against his free will. Worse, it was an accident! What kind of damage could Willow cause if she tried?

Then came the awkwardness when Buffy started officially dating Riley. She asked him not to say about their abortive engagement.

Callen wasn't sure if it was jealousy or lingering effects from the spell, but he just didn't think they were a good fit. Buffy was too independent, like Kensi, and while Riley professed to like strong women, Callen could see that when he found out the truth about Buffy being the Slayer, his competitive nature would kick in and wouldn't like coming in second place.

It shouldn't matter to him who Buffy dated. She was too young for him anyway. Besides, he'd be heading back to LA as soon as he finished his assignment.

Maybe if he kept telling himself that, he'd convince himself before too long.

A/N: This was part of what I wanted to have yesterday, but it felt right to save it for the Love Interest ficlet.