AN: Okay, I know I said I wouldn't post anything else until TOXIC was finished, but I couldn't help it...this story just grabbed me and demanded to be shared with all of you, right now. I won't say much more for fear of ruining it, so just read and enjoy, and I will be posting more of TOXIC soon!

A Sucker for a Birthday

by scarlet79

"Why do you like those things so much?" Sam asked from the driver's seat.

Confused, Callen looked over at him. "What things?"

His partner gestured to the orange Tootsie Pop he was currently sucking on. "Those. You eat them all day long."

Callen smirked and switched the sucker from one side of his mouth to the other. "I do not."

"Do too."

"Do not."

Sam sighed. "Stop stalling and answer the question, G."

Callen shifted in his seat. He felt like he was back in school, being called on to answer a math problem, and his body nearly broke out in a cold sweat. As nonchalantly as he could, he replied, "They taste good."

"So? You think bacon tastes good, too, but I don't see you with it twenty-four hours a day."

"You would if they invented a bacon-flavored Tootsie Pop."

Sam huffed. "I'm being serious, G. Can't you just level with me?"

Realizing there was no way out of the conversation, Callen turned to look out his window, squinting in the bright sun. The air coming through Sam's open window was warm, just like that day...

He was seven years old, and it was his birthday. The whole family was going to the beach to celebrate, and Callen couldn't have been happier. Finally, he thought, he found a family of his own, one that would never send him away. They had even mentioned the "A" word in front of him.

Adoption.

He sat in the back of the station wagon, his feet on the tailgate, while beside him the family's ten-year-old boy, Shawn, pretended to shoot out streetlights with his pointer finger. He was always doing that - acting like a sniper - because he said when he grew up he wanted to be a cop. Callen thought it was weird to choose what you wanted to do as a grown-up when you still had ages left to decide. When they'd asked him once, he simply shrugged and said, "I just want a dog and a fast car."

Bored, he and Shawn had just switched to playing "I Spy" when Shawn's mother screamed at full volume. They didn't even have time to turn around to find out why when the car was slammed into from the right side. The force of impact sent them spinning across the highway, narrowly missing another car and then a motorcycle. It finally hit a cement divider head-on and came to a full stop, the horn blaring and the engine smoking.

In the collision, Callen - who had not been wearing a seat belt - had been thrown to the floor, and now something heavy was pinning his arm down. The tempered glass of the rear window had exploded both inward and out, showering him in tiny, deceptively sharp squares. There was something warm running down the side of his face, and when his forehead began to hurt and he realized the warm stuff was blood, he began to panic. He thrashed around wildly, trying to free his arm as he wailed in terror. His other hand brushed against something warm, like skin, and he remembered...

"Shawn," he croaked, fear making his throat tight. "Help me."

But Shawn didn't move. Now even more terrified, Callen screamed aloud for help over the sound of the horn. It seemed like hours before voices approached the back of the car.

Two of them - one male and one female - grew louder than the rest, and he heard the siren of an ambulance whining in the distance.

"It's okay," the man's voice said to him. "We're gonna get you out."

There was a loud creaking sound as someone tried to open the tailgate, but it would only move six inches before catching, so they shut it again, sending a few stray shards of glass raining down on Callen's back.

"Sorry," the man said. "We'll have to get you through the window."

"My..." He stopped, his chest suddenly tight. Had he been about to call Shawn his brother? "Shawn won't move," he called out, wincing as his arm slowly went numb. "Is...is he...?"

Now, the woman spoke. "He's alive. Just unconscious."

He sighed aloud in relief. "Take him out first."

"Honey, we should..."

Callen tried to shake his head. "No. He's hurt worse. He should go first."

There was a slight pause, and then the man replied, "All right. But let's at least move that cooler off you."

The cooler, Callen thought. That's what had been pinning him to the floor. It was packed full of ice and soda cans and snacks for them to eat on their picnic. The picnic they would never have.

"Okay," he agreed.

The big plastic cooler was shifted, then moved the other way, and after a few readjustments it was pulled through the window. Free at last, Callen tried to sit up, but a hand on his back stopped him.

"Lay still," the woman said. "We don't know how bad you're hurt, yet."

From the sounds around him, he got the impression of the man's head and torso reaching through the window and taking hold of Shawn's limp body, then slowly easing back out and into the waiting arms of the paramedics. Restless, Callen shifted again. His eye was stuck shut with blood and he was beginning to get a killer headache. He just wanted to get out.

"What's your name, honey?" The woman asked.

"G. Callen."

"I'm Holly."

"Hi," he said.

"Hi."

"I'm scared."

Her hand rubbed small circles on his back. "I know." He could hear the rustling of a plastic bag as she said, "I think I might have something that'll help."

The back bumper dipped a little as she climbed up, and her free hand reached down and pressed something into his. Peeling open his unbloodied eye, he saw a cherry Tootsie Pop laying on his palm, and he smiled.

"Thanks," he said.

"I've got a whole bag full of those," she told him. "If you promise to lie still and listen carefully to what we tell you to do, they're all yours."

Already pulling off the sucker's wrapper, Callen nodded vigorously. "Promise."

At last, the man returned. Holly's hand lifted from his back, though she still spoke to him to let him know she was nearby. The man, who she called Jason, told him to slowly sit up and he obeyed. Jason's strong arms circled Callen's slight frame, and after Holly draped a towel over the empty window to keep any leftover glass from cutting them, he pulled the boy out of the back seat and set him on a waiting stretcher. A paramedic took over from there, bandaging the cut on his head, which looked worse than it really was, and cleaning the dried blood from his eye. All the while, Callen sat sucking on his Tootsie Pop, listening to the jumble of sounds and trying not to burst into tears. His foster parents had both died on impact. The two kids in the middle seat - 14 year old Sharon and 12 year old Ben - were hurt but expected to be okay soon, and Shawn had a concussion and broken ribs from the flying cooler, but he too would survive.

"What's wrong, honey?" Holly asked him as the tears began to fall.

"What's gonna happen to me now? My parents..." he pulled the sticky sucker from his mouth. "My foster parents..."

Holly, a pretty blond woman in her 30s, smiled and patted his hand. "Don't worry about that right now. I'm sure that'll all get straightened out soon enough." She handed him a plastic bag. "Your reward, as promised."

He glanced inside it. There must have been close to fifty Tootsie Pops in the bag, in every flavor they made. His blue eyes grew wide.

"Thank you," he whispered, and she gently ruffled his light brown hair.

"You're welcome, G."

"Earth to G," Sam's voice suddenly filtered through his memories, and he turned to look at his partner.

"Huh?"

"You were gonna say something but then just...blanked out."

"Oh. Right." He looked at his sucker and bit it, breaking the orange candy so he could get to the Tootsie Roll center. Chewing thoughtfully, he finally said, "They're therapeutic. My version of a stress ball or something."

"That's it," Sam said rather than asked, and Callen nodded.

Maybe someday he'd tell Sam about the lady named Holly, the one who had kept him calm that day and then ended up fostering him until she was diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer.

Someday, but not today.

"I'm a simple guy, Sam."

Sam eyed him suspiciously, but then sat back and sighed in defeat.

Reaching into his bag, Callen rooted around and pulled out another sucker. By some chance, it was cherry, and he smiled sadly as he pulled the wrapper off and stuck the candy in his mouth. He closed his eyes as the sweet-sour flavor filled his mouth, bringing Holly's face into his memory. The breeze drifted across the top of his head, like ghostly fingers ruffling his hair, and his chest tightened. He didn't know for sure, but he liked to think Holly would have been proud of the man he'd become.

"Hey, Sam," he said then, "I ever tell you about the first time I met Hetty...?"