No Ordinary Love - G.Callen NCIS L.A

Chapter 16

"Coffee anyone?" Callen threw a glance back into the bullpen.

"Oh, I thought you'd never ask." Deeks swirled around in his chair. "Only milk for me, please."

Callen shook his head and turned to look at Kensi. "What about you, Kens?"

Kensi lifted her head up and scrunched her nose. "Do you have any of your tea left? I don't think my stomach is going to handle coffee right now."

Both Callen and Deeks frowned at her. "You okay?"

Kensi waved them off. "No need to worry about me. I think it's something I ate or something. Probably just some 24-hour bug or so."

Handing Deeks his mug with coffee, Callen walked over to his desk, rummaging through a drawer. "Let me see what I got in here... Lavender, mint, rosehip... Ah, here it is." Triumphantly, he held up a tin. "This should make you feel better in no time."

A few moments later, Kensi warily eyed the mug in front of her. She sniffed. "Are you sure I can drink this? What is it?"

"Chamomile with just the right amount of ginger added in. Trust me, it's the best pick me up. It'll work faster than two Tylenol. You need to let it steep for a few minutes, though."

From the other end of the bullpen, Sam eyed his partner. "Are you studying to be a herb expert now, G?"

Callen looked up, genuinely surprised. "What? Something I did?"

Sam nodded at Kensi's mug. "Where do you get the wisdom that ginger and chamomile tea is just what Kensi needs? Maybe the Tylenol is better."

"Actually, Mr. Hanna, Mr. Callen is on to something here." Hetty, of course, appeared out of nowhere. "Mr. Callen, a word, please?"

"Yeah." Callen rolled his eyes at his partner, pushed his chair back and followed Hetty to her desk.

Hetty offered him a seat. "Don't worry, I haven't changed my mind about last Saturday. There is one thing I want to verify, and doing that in front of Deja would've been... uncomfortable, shall we say."

Having no clue what she was talking about, Callen shrugged. "What?"

"She calls you Grisha."

"Of course she does." It was out of his mouth before he had the chance to think about it. Then his eyes grew wide as he looked at Hetty. He rubbed the back of his head and took a breath. "That needs an explanation."

"I was hoping there might be one attached to that, yes."

Grisha Callen had not even registered anymore that Deja called him by his first name. At home, he was Grisha, at work, he was G or Callen. It made separating his private and professional life easier. After almost a year, he didn't think about it anymore. All the 'new' people in his life used his first name. And even though he and Deeks had grown closer since Christmas, his name was not something he'd shared yet.

"I found out my name when Sam and I were in Russia last year, for Arkady. My father was the one giving us shelter until we found transportation out of there. He told me what it was."

"I take it Sam doesn't know?"

He snorted. "Hetty, if I've managed to keep it from you for all this time, you really think that Sam knows?"

She had to give him that. "Probably not."

"Dee was the first one to use it. I couldn't really get used to it for a few weeks. Even though I'd spent more than half my life looking for it, I was so used to the G, I couldn't get it to roll of my tongue. She was the first person I introduced myself to as Grisha Callen."

"You haven't officially changed it?"

"Not yet." He'd been stalling. "If I change it, everything changes with it. My badge, my passport, everything. For some reason, I need there to be a line between professional and personal, now that I actually have a personal."

"What's it in full?" After all these years, he'd finally found out! Hetty was thrilled for him, and she could understand his reasons for not sharing. It was only by accident that she'd found out. There were no official documents confirming yet. Since Deja was the only one who'd used it, Hetty needed it confirmed from him.

Callen grinned. "Grisha Aleksandrovich Nikolaev."

"A mouthful."

"A mouthful," he agreed. "Grisha's fine. It's grown on me."

Sam was keeping a careful eye on the two of them. There had been too many changes with Callen in the past year to ignore. He was no longer drinking coffee, he wasn't sleeping at the office anymore, he came in with a packed lunchbox... Sam couldn't remember the last time Callen had actually gone with them for celebratory drinks. He seemed to be in a rush to get home these days. He hadn't even come for Christmas, opting to go to Deeks and Kensi instead. Sam felt left out. Something was going on that he wasn't aware of. Hetty was in on the circle, because she was Hetty and the Operations Manager just knew things. Even Deeks seemed to be able to yank Callen's chain from time to time, leaving the team leader with a flushed complexion every now and then.

Things had shifted. Sam was not entirely sure he liked it. Not that Callen didn't watch his back in the field, he did, maybe even more so than he'd done before. And they would still banter about nothing and everything. But where Sam could pry things out of him in the past, Callen was now completely tightlipped about his personal life. Maybe he was running a private undercover op for Hetty or Granger. No, surely Hetty would've told him. Then again, probably not.

Whatever it was, Sam didn't appreciate the drift he felt forming between him and his partner. Callen seemed fine, just doing his day-to-day things. But the not sharing things bothered Sam to no extent. Even with Joelle he had been able to get some information out of him. Now, not so much as even an acknowledgement that Callen was actually seeing someone. If he kept this up, he'd show up with a wedding ring on his finger one day and be completely surprised if they'd go ballistic on him.

No, Sam was going to have to find a way to figure out what the hell was going on with his partner.