AN: Thank you so much for your feedback! I love you guys.

Just a head's up, this story plays with time a bit in that the memories/flashbacks are out of order. Also, I took a little liberty with their backgrounds.

To the guest reviewer who wants more romance – give me some time! This will be 10 chapters, if you stick with it long enough I am pretty sure you'll be rewarded, at least I hope that's how you feel by the end.

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Nell returns to the mat when Granger waves everyone over for a demonstration. He's chosen Deeks as his volunteer (or…victim?), putting him in a hold and instructing him on how to get out of it. Deeks seems genuinely afraid of Granger and isn't doing much more than complaining that Kensi would be better suited for class demonstrations.

Nell feels slightly bad for Deeks when Granger flips him over and brings him down to the mat.

"You failed to get out of the hold," Sam takes great pleasure in stating the obvious.

"No, I got out of it," Deeks sputters, bounding back to his feet, "you know, after he threw me down. That was like getting out of it…in a way."

Callen crosses his arms and leans closer to Nell. "I think you could take Granger."

She shoots him her usual 'you-are-crazy-and-stop-talking-before-you-get-us-in-trouble' look.

"No, really," he insists, "I think you should get up there."

"Be quiet, he's going to hear us and then he will torture us. Is that you want?" She instantly regrets the question as it probably is what Callen wants.

"We gotta work on your confidence, Nell."

"Did you see what he did to Deeks?" She whispers vehemently, "I don't need that. Not today."

As they argue, Granger tells Deeks that since he's more or less useless, he needs a different volunteer – preferably one who won't whine about bruises marring his perfect skin.

Callen keeps his voice low. "I'll volunteer you, Nell. I have no doubt that –"

"Don't you dare!" She hisses. She can handle herself by now, but there's probably no way she can take Granger using any of the new techniques, not unless he deliberately lets her – and he doesn't appear to be in the mood, from the way he made Deeks try (and fail) to earn his escape. She doesn't relish the thought of being humiliated by their boss in front of everyone she respects.

Granger can't take them anymore. "Am I interrupting you two by trying to give a lesson? Maybe you'd both like to teach it?"

Callen thinks it's the best idea he's heard today. "Nice call, I think my expertise would –"

"Offer rescinded," Granger quickly shuts him down. He has to watch every damn word with these people. "Callen or Jones – one of you get up here to demonstrate with me," he demands, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Nell's already protesting when Callen claps his hands together with enthusiasm. "Actually, Nell and I were discussing it and she said she'd love to –" he glances at her, way too pleased with himself, "– watch me volunteer."

Nell breathes a sigh of relief, torn between wanting to hit him or hug him. Granger regards them suspiciously. He's not going to ask. "We're following the rules, Agent Callen. No surprises."

"No surprises," Callen promises. "Though, are you sure you don't want a handicap, sir?"

"Can you guys wait while I get my phone to record this?" Deeks asks. "I want video proof that this happened."

Granger stops him with a glare, and Callen stretches his arms behind his back. "Sorry, you'll have to rely on memory Deeks. I'm sure it's going to make a great story for us to tell." He says the last with a glance at Nell.

She recognizes his allusion to their game. After they became comfortable with one another, it wasn't uncommon for one of them to request a story about the other's life. They'd pick a mood or emotion – excitement or fear or surprise. Occasionally, on more melancholy days, they'd request something angry or sad. Callen's favorite request? Something happy.

The first time it had really become a game had been around mid-summer (session 14), and they'd been increasingly vexed by the miserable weather, an unrelenting heat wave for their city that had everyone irritable and on edge. He'd asked (slightly joking) for something cold. She told him about the time her uncle fell off the roof on Christmas Eve while pretending to be Santa, and a snowbank had saved his life. Her whole family had spent the holiday in the hospital with him as he nursed a broken leg, and they never let him live it down. Nor would they ever forget his devotion to his kids and nieces and nephews to try and ensure they kept believing in magic.

"Doesn't sound like it was a great Christmas for him," Callen pointed out, ducking away when she tried to hit him, and she stopped for a minute, breathing hard.

"To this day he says it was the best Christmas he ever had. Swears up and down the real Santa made sure the snowbank was there. In truth, my dad was lazy and that's where he put all the snow from our driveway, just pushed up near the side of the house."

"You did it, cold and still happy," his eyes held his appreciation. "Your family sounds great."

"They are, you should meet them." The words were out before she could stop them. "I mean, they're back on the East Coast, but if they ever visit…"

He didn't seem to notice her discomfort. "I'd like that." Then he'd swept her off her feet, literally, and she'd congratulated herself on feeling awkward for no reason (as usual).

Time inevitably passed, heat of summer giving way to a cooler autumn, not that they had seasons like back East, but she appreciated the slight change. When he asked for 'colorful', she told him about going on fall leaf walks with her mother, picking the prettiest ones to make collages for her father while they waited for him to come home from work. He'd framed every last one of them, and the best ones still hung on the walls of their house.

In turn, Callen felt he owed her some happiness, and told her about some of his earliest memories involving the ocean. He'd had a good family once, for a couple months, that loved it, too. They'd gone together, like a 'real family', and he'd made sandcastles, and the boy and girl were actually nice (the couple's 'real' kids, he said offhandedly, like it meant nothing – and it didn't to him, but she had to carefully keep her heart together at the thought of an entire childhood lived as the 'other' kid, the one who didn't matter as much). His foster brother and sister had helped him gather seashells to dig the moats and decorate the towers, and the whole family would often stay the entire day at the beach until the sun went down and they were forced to pack up and go. He loved sunsets, too, not for their beauty, but because of those memories on the beach that he'd held so close to his heart for 30-something years.

It's been about more than the stories, though. It's the small things they've shared. Seeing him smile at one of her memories, or a joke she told, always lit her up inside more than when he made her smile. She liked bringing him joy; she thought he needed it more than the others. She'd catch him looking at her, sometimes, like he was grateful. On occasion, an odd look would cross his face, almost like he couldn't believe she was there. She didn't know why he'd feel that way, because while she knew what she was getting out of their training, she had a harder time figuring out what, exactly, he got out of their arrangement. Maybe he felt obligated to help her protect herself. Or, more likely, he was thrilled at the idea of passing along all his unique tricks to a willing subject.

She'd thought they were going to end things after session 100. It had been around a month ago, and Callen had taken the 'significant' number as a good milestone to let her know how far she'd come – she could hold her own with any of them, and she'd shown remarkable skill in using her size and speed to counter what she couldn't make up for in terms of strength.

Thus had started their misunderstanding: Callen had only been taking the opportunity to congratulate her on how far she'd come, and Nell thought he was telling her it was the end.

After he'd laid out every way she'd excelled in their time together, he finished up by adding, "You've far surpassed every goal I had for you from day one."

"Thanks, I worked hard." She forced herself to smile at him.

He wasn't watching her, so he missed that it hadn't reached her eyes. He pulled at the zipper on his bag – it always got stuck and he knew there was a metaphor about his life in there somewhere. "Yup," he confirmed, "you did. And you got here in only six months."

He didn't seem too broken up about the end of their sessions – she figured that was the only answer she needed to every question she'd never asked. She turned her back to him, intent on hiding her reaction. He'd see it on her face, and she didn't need to guilt him into taking pity on her. She kept her voice light, "Has it been six months already?"

"It went by much faster than I thought it would." He gave up on the zipper and wondered why she seemed off when she'd been fine during their whole session. "I guess time flies when you're learning how to hurt people."

"Right," she said, barely listening. She was trying to process what to do next. She felt like their time together had changed her – no, not just her, but her entire world that revolved around work and training and…him. It had been unexpected and enjoyable and eye-opening. She didn't know how to say goodbye to that.

In the beginning, she'd imagined how elated she'd feel on the day she accomplished her goal to the extent that Callen more or less thought her his equal in terms of their skill sets (and truth be told, she doubted she'd ever get there). Of course, he could still beat her most of the time, but even that might change with enough practice.

Nothing had prepared her for the reality of the moment – she felt like she'd been slapped in the face. All that time and he was just…done. She felt dejected at the thought, and it wasn't fair that he could easily walk away. She pretended to look through her bag with no real purpose except to avoid looking at him. "As an instructor, you exceeded my expectations. I think I should get you a gift, like a Christmas ornament. Or a mug. World's #1 teacher."

Her words said one thing, but her tone said quite another, and he knew she was upset. He'd missed the reason why. "I'm that good of a teacher?" He joked, as he tried to figure out what was going on with her.

"Obviously," she said, finally turning back to him. She wondered how he could doubt himself. "How else would I have learned so much in such a short time?"

He wanted to tell her that he'd never had anyone in his life who so quickly jumped to his defense – even when they were defending him against himself. "I figured you'd take all the credit for being an excellent student," he said, half-teasing, half-wondering what he was missing.

"Oh. Right." She tried to smile, though she wasn't in the mood to joke around. "No, you were great." She picked up her bag and started to head for the showers.

Callen shrugged off her odd behavior. Everyone was entitled to their moods. "See you Thursday morning? Or is another time better?"

She stopped walking and slowly turned around. "You want to keep training?"

"You don't?" Confusion flooded him, and he rewound their conversation in his mind, trying to figure it out.

"I do, but everything you were saying before…I thought you didn't."

"Like I'm going to let up on you and allow you to fall back to where you were? You only keep up your skills through regular practice," he argued. Her expression of surprise had him rethinking his offer, though. She could have been looking for a way out; she had to know how good she was, that she didn't need him anymore. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel like he expected her to keep training with him. He knew it'd become their regular thing, but there was a difference between that and a regular…indefinite thing.

He almost stopped himself from saying his next words, before deciding that was too selfish. Even for him. "Nell, you can tell me if you want to make other arrangements, or take a break altogether. It's fine if you do."

She'd nearly tripped over herself reassuring him that yes, she wanted to keep training and no, she didn't want to go to a gym or work with anyone else. She neglected to mention how her heart had dropped somewhere around her feet when she thought about it, not so much the idea of training with another person, but if she did that, when would she ever see Callen? Aside from every day at work, her mind whispered. It wasn't the same, though. They couldn't talk at work, not the way they did alone. They couldn't just be with each other.

So they laughed about the misunderstanding and went on as they had before, and she began to wonder how it was possible to be that happy just spending time with someone. A part of her (that she kept safely hidden) was growing increasingly uneasy at their arrangement. It had to be too good to last. She couldn't realistically expect him to devote free mornings and afternoons and weekends to her forever. She teased him about his lack of a personal life, but she knew he did things outside of work. Well, presumably. She hadn't seen many signs of it aside from drinks some nights with the team or the occasional blind date Sam would set him up on, supposedly at 'Michelle's insistence'. Although, she realized, Sam hadn't set him up in months.

The thought wouldn't leave her alone once she'd had it, and so last week, the week before Granger's training session (and she could hardly admit to herself she still counted, but it was their 114th session), she'd asked him if he'd been on any dates recently.

"How can I," he'd laughed, after only the slightest hesitation, "when I spend all my time with you?" He had a point, it was past 8 on a Friday night and they were in the gym, probably the only two left in the building (Hetty had informed them they had to lock up, and told them not to stay too late, that they should get home and enjoy their weekend – and if it seemed there was more the older woman wanted to say, Nell figured that was her imagination).

Nell didn't actually know how to answer Callen's (perhaps rhetorical) question. Did he mean he wanted to date and couldn't? Or that he didn't want to because he preferred training with her instead? She settled for saying nothing.

Callen picked up on her unusual silence after a few minutes. She moved to hit him and wasn't even trying to connect. He decided to turn the tables on her. "What about you?"

"Nah, like you said, I spend most of my time here with you."

He wondered if it was his imagination that she sounded slightly wistful. He began to think he'd been monopolizing her and it wasn't fair, not when she should be going out and meeting people, maybe people she could – he stopped the train of thought before it could get too far.

He thought carefully about his next words. "I told Sam to stop," he offered, by way of explanation, since they both knew he'd gotten most of his dates (under protest) through Sam.

"He never listened to you before," she pointed out, as he grabbed her arm and trapped her against him. She twisted to look up at him, not attempting to escape, and he instantly let her go.

It was true. Sam and Michelle had steadfastly ignored him for years, tricking him into dates with any woman they thought might be halfway suitable for him. Repeated protests from him were routinely ignored, and yeah, he'd dated some of the women, even cared for a few, but none had become serious. He didn't know if he was capable of 'serious' with anyone. It had occurred to him more than once throughout his life that maybe he didn't want to be.

And then Nell had walked up to his desk seven months ago with a question. She'd changed his world without his consent – without him noticing, for the most part, until it was done. "You're the longest I've spent with one woman in nearly a decade," he said, as if it had just occurred to him.

She was surprised into a short burst of laughter. "That's a really sad commentary on your love life, Agent Callen." She went to get her water. They were hardly fighting anyway.

"Hmm, or maybe it says something extraordinary about you." His words were light humor, and her heart still skipped a beat.

She turned back to him, sipping her water and eyeing him curiously. They didn't avoid many things, but if there was one, it was talking about their relationship, especially in a context that could move it past friendship. She'd decided some time ago to force herself to think of them strictly as friends. As for what he thought? She had no clue. They'd occasionally tease each other playfully, and that was the extent of it.

He appeared to be deliberating over what he said next. "You're extraordinary in that you are incredibly patient in ways very few people are. Why else would you put up with me? Or want to stick around with me this long? I mean that in a non-romantic way, of course. This is not workplace harassment."

"And here I thought everything you did to me was harassment," she said dryly, smile edging at the corners of her mouth. If he didn't want to play, she decided she may as well harass him. "Have I not been meeting your emotional needs, Agent Callen? I could set up some candles in here. Strew some flower petals around the gym for the next time we –"

She absolutely didn't yell in a high-pitched, girly way when he dove at her and they struggled. He wasn't playing and he wasn't going to let her win. She was too caught off-guard (laughing too much) to put up a fight. He pinned her down as payback for her comment and waited for her to acknowledge his win (it took longer than usual because it took her a minute to speak), then released her so they could take a breather before regrouping.

The gym had a completely different atmosphere that late in the evening. It was one of the nights where Callen only turned on the light at the far end. That meant the mat they were on was shrouded in darkness from one end of the room and bathed with light from the other. They sat right in the middle, where the darkness met the light. It turned their sparring area into a foggy kind of dimness that Callen called 'twilight'. He liked to practice in it to simulate more 'real world conditions'. Honestly, she wondered if he didn't look those things up online – or better still, make them up completely – because she'd never heard of Sam and Callen practicing in 'twilight' conditions or seen any other agents do it, for that matter.

(He'd tried to have them practice in pitch blackness once. He insisted it was good to learn how to move in the dark in case she ever got into a fight with someone at night. She'd argued pitch black wasn't 'night' but he'd switched off every light in the gym, and any hallways that could provide the slightest source of illumination. It was nighttime, and no light came in from the windows. It…hadn't gone well. Something about complete darkness had brought out a visceral fear she'd been unaware was left over from early childhood. She hadn't moved an inch between Callen switching off the lights and grabbing her. She knew it was him, she felt it was him – she would have known him anywhere, by then, after months of training with him – but she couldn't fight him, she couldn't move, not even to open her mouth and put an end to it. He knew, the moment he touched her arm, the way she'd been frozen, that something was wrong. Instead of fighting her, he'd instantly switched gears to pull her into his arms. He whispered into her hair that he was sorry, so sorry, before pulling her with him to turn the lights back on – and she'd only been able to walk because the alternative of waiting alone had been unthinkable. Later, she told him there was no trauma, no anything to explain her reaction. They'd accepted it as an irrational fear they might never understand, and never attempted to practice that way again.)

"I like it here at night," she told him absently. "No people, no one upstairs that could interrupt, no pressing sense that a real world tragedy could happen that will require our attention at a moment's notice, even though I know it could. I like the quiet. No one else. Just us." She knew she might be rambling.

He echoed her all the same. "Just us."

"What changed?" She asked again, feeling like pushing it for some reason. "With Sam. The dates. You've told him to stop before and he never listened."

He leaned back, stretching his legs out before him. He'd forgotten he hadn't answered her question, or maybe he'd been hoping she'd forget. "This time was different."

"Why?"

He glanced over, eyes tracing the line of her neck, down to her collarbone. The light from the other end of the room highlighted the edges of her, and he couldn't look away. "I meant it this time."

She waved her hand, silently encouraging him to elaborate. It was another silent 'why?' and he didn't think he could adequately explain. He'd do the best he could.

"I hate even the idea of it," he said. "Going out and finding someone, a random, faceless woman to try and be with? To try and make a life with? Because that's the goal, you know? But it feels wrong in a way it never did before. Back then I'd protest and go through with the dates anyways and follow up with the women I had a vague connection with." He swallowed and made himself keep going. "The thought of doing that now, of being with a stranger who doesn't know me…it makes me feel sick." And it did, he couldn't imagine it.

"Really?" She knew he had no idea that he could have been explaining her own personal experiences with dating. She wanted to say more, ask more, and the words wouldn't make their way past her throat.

"It's like one day I woke up and realized I couldn't do it anymore." He hated that he sounded slightly frustrated, and lost. "I can't do it now," he repeated. It was the best explanation he could give her, right then.

He watched her nod slowly, the light following the lines of her body as she pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her head on them, staring at the mat, apparently deep in thought. He figured she was done with their conversation until she said, quietly, "It's a good reason."

He'd already been stretched out; it wasn't hard to shift his foot over to tap her leg. He waited until she met his eyes. "Yeah, it is."

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