Forty Days

Chapter 1

As always, reviews/comments are welcome. I always enjoy reading what people think. :-)

Anna was dying. Callen tore loose from the soldiers holding him and rushed to her side. He knelt down beside her, tore off his shirt and held it against the red blood that flowed from the bullet hole in her chest, a small red blossom blooming on her shirt. Volkoff's laughter echoed in the chamber, but Callen ignored it. He cradled Anna's head in one hand as he held his shirt against her chest with his other. She was slipping away and he was helpless. She looked up at him, raised her hand, and gently caressing his face, smiled.

"I knew the risks, Callen."

"You shouldn't have taken them."

"That's what you do when you love someone."

She said it. He saw her holding back the tears in her eyes and felt his own as he closed his eyes tightly to try and stop them. He couldn't. He lifted her up to him. Her fingers gently threaded through his hair, and he whispered, "Anna, Anna, stay with me. Don't leave me." She sighed and her fingers tightened, and she didn't hold back her tears anymore. He kissed them away and then he kissed her the way he had kissed her so many times before. He felt her breath leaving her as he kissed her, but that only made his kisses stronger and longer as though by kissing her he could share his breath with her and bring her back. But he couldn't, and in a moment her breathing stopped. Her fingers let loose of his hair and her hands fell to her side. Anna was gone. When he finally pulled his lips from hers, he caressed her face for a moment and then held her body against his so tightly that he almost couldn't breathe. He would never again hear her voice, see her smile, taste her lips, smell her hair, or feel her skin pressed against his, and he uttered a cry of unimaginable anguish.

And then Callen woke.

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Callen's t-shirt was drenched in sweat, his fists clenched, and his breathing ragged. His room was pitch black as he wiped the sweat off his face, threw off the top sheet, and sat up. He sat staring into the darkness until his breathing slowed and became more regular. He had left Cuba more than three weeks ago, and since then Nikita had died, Alex still wouldn't speak to him, he hadn't heard from Anna, and he hadn't slept more than 3-4 hours a night. And then almost a week ago the nightmares began, and in them, Anna always died.

He looked at his watch. 2:30. He got out of bed and went to the bathroom, stripped off his t-shirt and boxers, turned on the shower, and stepped in. In a few minutes steam filled the small room. Callen placed his palms against the tile on either side of the shower and bowed his head. When he was thoroughly soaked, he turned off the water and stood for a few minutes, water dripping off his body that ached from weariness but could find no rest. After a moment he stepped out. He dried himself off, but knew he couldn't go back to sleep, so he got dressed in shorts and a fresh t-shirt and poured himself a glass of water. He walked over to the chess board, studied it a moment, and then absently moved white's bishop into position to challenge black's remaining rook. He sat down on the floor and picked up Resistance, Rebellion, and Death: Essays by Camus, opened to his bookmark, and read a page or two before closing it. He couldn't concentrate. He stretched out on the floor and stared at the ceiling. He wasn't tired; he was exhausted, and it was both a mental and a physical exhaustion, and peace eluded him. He stood up. If he couldn't find peace sleeping in his apartment, maybe he'd find it somewhere else, doing something else. Callen put on his running shoes and in less than a minute he was on the streets of L.A. hoping to find a little peace while most of the city slept.

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When Sam arrived at work, he was met by Kensi and Deeks deep in a discussion about the value of adding a jukebox to their bar. Deeks was using all his charm to argue his position.

"There's nothing more relaxing than listening to music after a long, hard day at work, is there Kenz?"

"Like Black Sabbath?"

He paused. "Maybe. I guess it depends on the kind of day you've had."

Kensi rolled her eyes, "Really, Deeks?"

"Look," he began and then spotted Sam. "Sam dog, help me out. Do you find music relaxing after a hard day's work?"

"You mean a hard day's night?" Sam replied with a sly wink.

"Touché," Deeks grinned. "But seriously, Sam dog, don't you listen to music to relax?"

"Sure. I'll listen to a little Miles Davis or Sade if it's been a rough day. If I really need to relax, I might put on the Beastie Boys or Wu-Tang Clan."

Kensi gave Sam a look that told him he wasn't helping. Sam smiled and shrugged his shoulders as he took his seat at his desk and pulled out his laptop. He glanced up after logging in. "Where's G?"

"I guess he hasn't come in yet," Kensi said as she refilled her coffee cup.

"Maybe he's in Ops?" Deeks offered. "We haven't seen him, but we haven't been upstairs yet."

"He could be in the gym," Kensi continued as she made her way back to her desk and sat down.

The simple fact that Callen wasn't at his desk and that Sam hadn't heard from him, worried Sam. He'd been worried more than usual about Callen ever since Nikita had been returned to Russia. He'd seen the stress the recent events had put on his partner, the little things he probably thought Sam hadn't noticed but had become even more noticeable after their return from Cuba: his lack of appetite, his increased fidgeting, his momentary lack of focus at work, his feigned disinterest in any information about Anna, his obvious lack of sleep. And with Nikita's death, things had only gotten worse. "It's not like G to be late without letting me know," Sam said as he pulled out his phone. In a moment, they all heard Sam's call go straight to voicemail. Sam hung up, pushed back his chair and headed up to Ops. Kensi and Deeks followed.

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Dimitri Kuznetsov walked out of the airport and into the bright Cuban sun. He had decided to take his short holiday abroad and chose the Caribbean island after learning of Pavel Volkoff's death. Pavel had been Dimitri's superior, almost his mentor, for many years, and now, after all that Pavel had done for the FSB—and the KGB before that—no one in Moscow seemed to care that his life had been brought to a brutal end at the hands of the CIA. Instead, they were doing everything possible to distance themselves from him and bury his memory deep in the vaults of the FSB because of the disastrous events he had set in motion. Dimitri knew that Pavel's last plan had been a terrible mistake and gone horribly wrong, but Russia had recovered and no significant damage had been done to its intelligence services or international standing. If anything, Pavel's mistake had made the West more conscious of Russia's ability to wreck international havoc—a healthy weapon in and of itself. And whatever mistake Pavel might have made did not justify the agency's current dismissive attitude by those who now held power. No one had been willing to give Dimitri anything more than the most basic information about Pavel's contacts and the events surrounding his death, and he had been instructed to not act without agency sanction, but Dimitri was an intelligence officer and knew how to do gather intelligence and conduct a mission. Even if they weren't willing to avenge Pavel's death, Dimitri was.