Some time back Nell Jones had made a resolution to go off grid at the weekends. She spent every waking moment attached to technology – her earpiece in ops, her work cell, her personal cell, her secret Hetty cell, the tablet, her laptop and all the tech within the Ops centre. She spent so much time focused on screens and words and data that it was enough to make anyone's head spin. So she had decided to unplug at weekends - no internet, no cell phones, no computers. She'd have a pager which only Hetty had the number to, should she need to be contacted in an emergency. She should have known the resolution wouldn't last long. It's not like terrorists and criminals stopped mid attack on a Friday at 5pm and waited for Monday morning to roll around.

But things were quiet at the moment. No big cases had hit their desks in a couple weeks which was both a relief and a little unsettling, Nell was used to the light speed pace at which OSP ran. So she'd chosen that weekend to return to her resolution and go off grid. It was a beautiful Saturday morning and she'd woken up, turned off every piece of technology she owned and made a plan. Pulling on a worn pair of blue jeans, an old grey hooded sweater and a pair of sneakers, she shoved the pager to the bottom of her bag, grabbed her keys and headed out.

xxxxx

Special Agent G Callen was bored. It had been quiet for a few weeks now and it made him antsy, on edge. He couldn't help but wonder what plot was being devised in a grimy bunker somewhere. He didn't have the luxury of believing the world was a safe place. He knew too much, he'd stopped attacks too many times that the public were just never aware of. He'd normally spend a free weekend tinkering with something in his house, reading, brushing up on an old skill or learning something new. But today he decided to go out, get some air, take a walk, generally brush the cobwebs away. He'd driven his car down to the beach and after grabbing a coffee from a stall by the parking lot, he'd taken a walk along the row of shops lining the street. He wasn't looking for anything, just taking in the scene, subconsciously analysing the faces of the people he saw. It was a habit he'd never break, in his line of work you could never be too careful.

He was peering inside the large window of a bookshop café as he strolled past when he paused and did a double take. He had to look twice to make sure he was seeing what he was seeing. She looked so unlike herself he genuinely wasn't sure. Sitting cross legged in an oversized armchair inside the bookshop café with a book in her hands, wearing jeans, a hooded sweater, and sipping on a ridiculously large coffee was Nell Jones, in the wild. Her hair was far from the straight pulled together look she had at work, her auburn locks tousled and almost messy, being held down by over ear headphones. And wait…was that a portable CD player on the table beside her? No-one had used those since like 2003. He stared for another moment or two, watching as she was lost in whatever book she was reading and listening to whatever she had playing on what most would consider vintage technology. With a little laugh to himself, Callen pulled open the door to the shop and stepped inside.

xxxx

Nell wasn't a full field agent, at least not yet. But she had been developing her skills and one of those skills was being aware of her surroundings at all times. She might be off-grid for the weekend but she wasn't completely switched off. She sensed someone watching her, but it was the shadow cast on the floor just to the side of her that lingered a little too long to be someone just browsing that confirmed it. She hit pause on the old CD player, pulled her headphones off and turned her head to identify the mystery watcher. She couldn't hide her surprise when she saw it was Agent Callen.

"Hey Nell." He smiled. "Don't look so surprised, I do actually have a life outside of work you know." He laughed as he moved from behind her to drop down into the empty armchair opposite her, resting his coffee cup on his leg as he mindlessly tapped at the lid. Nell unfurled her legs from beneath her and set her coffee cup on the small table beside her.

"I'm not surprised, I'm just, well it's…" she fumbled for words, genuinely caught off guard at his presence. "I just didn't expect to run into anyone I know down here." She said, pulling herself together.

"I was bored. Came for walk." He shrugged. "Then I saw you listening to that thing and I got curious." He shifted his weight and leaned forward. "I didn't know you could still get those." He looked over at the CD player.

"You can." She smiled. "But this is an old one, still working after twenty years" she laughed a little.

"Why the CD player?" he asked. "Feeling nostalgic for your teenage years?"

"No." she smiled again. "I'm uh…I'm off grid this weekend. No modern technology, no phones bleeping at me every five seconds with calls or texts or notifications." She admitted, then she saw his face tense up a little. "Don't worry, I have a pager if Hetty needs me."she assured him.

Callen didn't respond immediately, he needed to figure out how to say this without sounding all doom and gloom.

"What?" she asked, cocking her head to the side as she studied his expression, was it concern, or worry, or something else.

"So Hetty can reach you, but what if you need to reach…her." He said with a little nod.

"I have a landline at home." She replied quickly.

"And if you're not at home?"

"There are payphones." She shrugged, understanding what he was getting at. "Look, I get it. Safety first, always have a plan B, or C. But I'm not an..." she glanced around her and lowered her voice "...agent." She whispered. "The risks are different."

Callen couldn't argue with her. She was, in theory, at much less risk than field agents like he and Sam, Deeks and Kensi. But not at no risk at all.

"Alright, alright." He laughed, this was probably a bigger conversation for another day and he didn't want to ruin her weekend by being so serious. "But maybe next time you go off grid you do it with someone who isn't." Callen reached across to a close by bookshelf and grabbed the first book he could reach, bringing it in front of him and opening it up.

"What are you doing?" Nell asked.

"Reading." He replied nonchalantly. Nell watched as he settled into the chair, crossing his legs so his ankle was balanced on his knee, his eyes glancing over the first page of the book. It was then she realised what he was doing.

"I don't need a babysitter." She said firmly.

"I know. I'm just enjoying a fine Saturday morning with a new book." He smirked as he flipped the page over, keeping his eyes down focused on the pages. Nell rolled her eyes and resigned to the fact that Callen was going to sit there for as long as she did.

"Fine." She muttered with a little smile, as she picked her headphones back up, slipped them over her ears and pushed the play button on her CD player. She returned to her book, momentarily glancing up at him and catching his piercing blue eyes for just a second before she darted them back to the page open in front of her. This wasn't quite how she'd planned to spend her morning but it looked like she didn't have a choice. So she focused on her book, trying to ignore the man she could feel staring at her.

Callen settled back into the armchair, realising that the book he had plucked at random actually looked quite interesting. He glanced up subtly at Nell again, she was lost in her book and music and seemed to either just be ignoring his presence or she had forgotten he was there. Sure, this isn't how he planned to spend his morning but it was far from the worst way he could.