No Ordinary Love - G.Callen NCIS L.A

Chapter 31

Hetty eyed Deja from across the room. The girl had been awfully silent since Callen and Sam had gone to the hospital to interview witnesses. It was a long shot, but worth pursuing anyway.

She hadn't moved in a while. Her eyes were serious; staring at a point on the wall Hetty couldn't see. The corners of her lips, which were usually turned up in a smile, were set. She'd been chewing on the inside of her cheek, twirling her bracelet around her wrist as she had been doing most of the day.

Although Callen had said that she'd taken the news of his job fairly well, this was not something she was prepared for. To lose her life's work, her friends... As accepting as she might have been of his job, this asked for acceptance, tolerance, on a whole new level. Hetty had no doubt that she would, but it would take time and it was going to cause tension between them. Hetty knew they'd come out of this stronger, but she was apprehensive at finding out at what cost.

Quietly, Hetty approached Deja; a new pot of hot water in her hands. "Would you like some more tea, dear?"

Startled, Deja pulled her eyes away from the wall. "Yes, Hetty, thank you." She accepted the cup and saucer from the older woman.

Hetty took the seat next to her. "How are you doing? Really?"

It was quiet for longer than she'd anticipated. "I'm not sure what to tell you." A lone tear slipped down Deja's cheek, which she angrily wiped away. "So many things have happened in a little more than half a day... The café is gone. Lindy is... Lindy is gone. Jess and Jay are both in the hospital. Keira is probably not who she says she is. There's a threat out there, which is why I'm here and Grisha is out there trying to find who-ever it is that did this. And I worry. On a normal day, I worry, but this feels like it's suffocating me. I don't know how you do this every day."

Hetty patted her hand. "It's why I'm the operations manager and you're his girlfriend."

"Yeah, but you're his mother, too."

Then there was that. "Well, that is something you and I know, but the rest of this office not that much. But you're right. I'm relieved to see they're all safe at the end of the day, too."

"Yet you let them go."

"I do." She chose her next words very carefully. "Deja, if I don't let them go every time there's a threat to national security... A whole lot more people would die. And I would have so much more to worry about than just them. So I choose to worry about them. I choose to trust their training, and their ability to do everything they can to make this world a little safer."

Deja nodded absentmindedly. "Yeah."

Again, silence settled over them. "You met Gibbs."

"I have." Deja put her cup back on its saucer. "He and Grisha try to Skype once every six weeks or so. Somebody taught Jethro so he could stay in touch. I walked in on a conversation they were having, so Grisha had to introduce me." The corners of her lips pulled up in a wry smile. "The man doesn't use much words, but I've learned to read his expressions over the months. He's a good friend to Grisha." She paused, biting her lower lip. "Does this happen often?"

"What? The bombing of a café?"

"The past coming back to haunt him?"

Hetty thought about it for a moment. "The past has a way of catching up with us, no matter what we do."

"But in his line of work? Does this happen often?"

"Not often. But sometimes the things we've done come back to bite us in the butt. It's not with every case or everything we do." Hetty studied the younger women beside her. "I don't think that is what you're really worried about right now."

"It's not." Deja took a breath, pushing her hair out of her face. "I don't want to blame him, Hetty, I really don't. It's not his fault..." She halted.

"But something makes you feel that he's to blame?"

"Am I being terrible for thinking that?"

Weighing her words, Hetty shook her head. "I don't think you're terrible for thinking that. Not at all. And as horrible as losing your café and your best friend is, I do think that you should look at the bigger picture. Because if he hadn't killed that arms dealer, a whole lot more people would've been killed."

"I know that." Briskly, Deja stood up and walked over to the window.

Hetty followed her. "But that is not how it feels."

Shaking her head, Deja wiped more tears away. "It's not. And the more time I take to think about it, the more I hear this voice in the back of my head saying that if I hadn't met him, if I didn't love him the way I do, none of this would've happened."

"True as that might be, my dear, it would also mean that you wouldn't have with him what you have right now."

"Mmm." Still no committed answer.

"Besides, have you thought about how much Grisha will beat himself up over this?"

"He's not, now." It came out as a frustrated spat.

"It may look like that, but trust me, he is. More than he shows. The reason that he's running throughout LA right now, is to make sure that you're not going to get hurt more than you already are. And he blames himself for it. He'll doubt loving you more than you're doubting loving him in this very moment. Because to him it feels as if this is his fault. He's allowed himself to open up to you, to get under his skin, to love you, and in the process of healing himself, he put you in danger."

Deja narrowed her eyes. "He couldn't have known they'd come after me."

The corners of Hetty's mouth pulled up. Finally, she was getting somewhere. "He couldn't have. But to him it will feel like he should've paid better attention. He's trained to pay attention, Deja. And in this life he's created with you, he slipped up, putting you and everything you love, in danger."

Pensive, Deja wrapped her arms around herself and stared out of the window. Silence, again, stretched between them. Then she took a breath. "I love him, Hetty. I love him more than I've ever loved anyone. And I've promised him that I would never leave him because of his job, and I want to keep that promise... God knows I want to keep that promise." She shivered. "And much as I don't want him to blame himself for all of this happening, deep down, something tells me that he is to blame for this. And it's going to be a hurdle and cause us both a lot, if we want to overcome this."

"You'll be stronger together when you do."

"That's confident."

Hetty shrugged. "Well, what can I say? I've seen the two of you together. You make each other better. But you are going to have to talk about this. Work it out. Once everything has settled down a bit. If you do it now, it'll be a mess and you'll do more hurt that it'll do you good."

"Yeah." She went back to staring out of the window, and Hetty left her there.

This was one mountain they had to climb together. She could only hope they would.