I think that this is probably the one with the least references to Halloween/autumn, and I'm sorry for that. This is also a follow up of one of my December stories from last year (We're spending the holidays where?), and You'll need to read that one for this one to make much sense. for those of you on AO3, that story is not posted there and you will need to read in on FFN, sorry. I'm also really sorry I'm so behind.

-owl


Frida Warner watched along with her husband, James, as her brother, Felix Baker walked up their front path. The wind blew leaves across the path in front of him, and he looked around suspiciously before knocking on the front door.

Their names weren't really Frida, James, and Felix. Kensi, Deeks, and Callen respectively had been undercover for nearly ten months at this point. They had gone under right before Christmas the year before, and it was now October.

Kensi opened the door to greet Callen. "Felix! We weren't expecting you here today!" she said.

Callen nodded. "I got a call from Mom. She says we need to go home and see her right away."

That was code that Hetty was calling them back from the field. But why would she want them back where there didn't seem to be a break in the case? They hadn't heard anything from her since they had gone undercover. Hetty had said that specifically to reduce contact someone could trace.

Deeks answered before Kensi could. "Did she say why? Mom knows we're really busy right now."

Callen shrugged. "She probably wants help with her computer. She said something about Gabriel having gotten in trouble"

"I thought you'd seen him just the other day?" Kensi asked. Gabriel was Sam's alias, so if he was in trouble, that couldn't be good.

"No, I haven't seen him in nearly a week."

Kensi nodded, then checked her phone. "I would have thought Mom would've called me as well, instead of sending you over," she mused.

"Not sure, sorry Frida," he said, giving her a hug. Then, after doing his and Deeks' 'bro hi-five' he left the house.

Just as they had when Callen had showed up, Kensi and Deeks watched as he walked back down the path towards his car. Along the sidewalk a pair of men walked a dog. Then, as Callen was stepping into the street to get to the driver's side, a van pulled up, and the guys walking the dog came up behind him. In the next ten seconds, Callen had been taken from the street in broad daylight.

Kensi snatched Deeks' hand, holding it tightly. "Call — Felix!" she cried out, distress heavy in her voice.

"Frida!" Deeks said loudly, gaining Kensi's attention. "We need to calm down for a second. You know his past. You know that he's been in jail. There's nothing we can do. Weren't you going to call your mother anyway?"

Kensi nodded, taking her hand from Deeks' and starting to dial Hetty's number.

Hetty picked up on the second ring. "Frida, I'm so glad you called. Has your brother told you I need you guys to come assist me with all this new tech?"

"Yeah, Mom, about that," Kensi started. "He told me, which is why I'm calling, but as he was leaving the house, a van pulled up and kidnapped him."

There was silence on the other end of the line. "I see, in that case, stay where you are for now. I don't want my other child getting kidnapped."

"OK, love you, Mom." Kensi ended the call. When she looked up from putting her phone in her pocket she saw Deeks grinning like an idiot. "What's got you smiling?" she asked.

"We were holding hands."

"Stop being such a dork about it."

"Hey, you grabbed my hand first."

"Shut up, James. Why don't you go do laundry like you've been saying all week. It's not like Mom wants us to go anywhere for now."

Deeks nodded and, after Kensi threw her hands up in the air and left the room to finish carving the pumpkins they had gotten in preparation for Halloween, he made his way to the laundry room. He had, indeed, been saying all week that he'd be doing laundry.

Twenty minutes later, after Kensi had finished her pumpkin, they got a call from Hetty. "Frida, they've found Felix. Can you meet us here? We're down by the docks."

"We'll be right there."


It took them nearly an hour to make it to the boatshed. When they got there, though, they found Callen with an icepack held against his face watching the screen showing the inside of the interrogation room. He looked up when they came in.

"We got 'em. The assignment's over. We can all go home," he said, grinning.

"What happened when you got taken?" Kensi asked.

Callen shrugged. "Typical bad guys being bad guys. They didn't want me to be able to rat them out, so they were going to beat me to death. Then Hetty stormed in alone and took them out. She's in interrogation now, talking to the one guy she let live."

Kensi and Deeks nodded. For a few minutes there was silence, all three agents watching the screen where the man across from Hetty was sweating more and more as time went on.

"How do you plan on your first night no longer undercover, Callen," Kensi asked.

"I think I'm just going to go home and start my routine of practicing Russian and not sleeping like a normal person. What about you two?"

"I want to go back to the house and get the pumpkins I carved, I'm very proud of them," Kensi said. "Then I think that I'm going to spend the next twenty-four hours by myself for a change."

Deeks laughed at Kensi's comment about the pumpkins. "I also plan on going home and taking time for myself. What does Sam plan on doing? Actually, where is he?"

The screen suddenly changed from the view of the interrogation room to a window into ops as Nell answered Deeks's question. "Sam is already home with Michelle and the kids. Hetty told him he could go home as soon as she had seen him."

"So when do we get to go home?" Deeks asked.

"When you've given me a quick debrief, Mr. Deeks." Hetty said as a L.A.P.D. officer escorted the man she had been interrogating from the boat shed.