All the way home.

Chapter 29

Callen stood up and walked towards the door.

"Mr. Callen...Wait...please?" Hetty asked.

Callen turned and regarded her with indifference. "What Hetty, what on earth do you think you can say that will erase what you have done to me...to Jake?"

"Nothing Mr. Callen," Hetty hung her head, "But at least allow me the courtesy of trying to explain my reasoning." She requested.

Callen gave a curt nod, turned and sat back down in the chair.

"I have known you all your life." Hetty said.

Callen's head shot up in interest.

"Please allow me to tell you this and then you may walk away if you wish."

Saying nothing Callen nodded.

"I have known about you since Clara called and told me she was expecting her second child." Hetty waited as a flash of anger crossed his face.

"I have known your mother since she was a child, I will explain why I neglected to tell you later. When you were separated from your mother and sister I went frantic trying to find you both. I was devastated by your mother's death, but she knew she was in danger and had already made plans to get you and your sister out of Romania in into America." She took a breath and continued.

"I found Amy, a week before she died. I made plans to have her transferred to my care, but then she slipped out with Miss Lawson," Hetty stopped closing her eyes in pain at the memory.

"I then focused all my attention on finding you."

"You took a while." Callen couldn't help blurting out and Hetty nodded sadly.

"I found you when you entered the juvenile court system, I was there at your incarceration."

Nate looked up curiously at that and Callen mouthed 'later' he knew this was a part of his life he hadn't told Nate about.

Hetty continued, "I arranged for your record to be expunged and for you to be fostered with me upon your release....then you left."

"It was hell Hetty, I wasn't staying or going back there." Callen snapped, he had hated his three weeks in the Juvenile Detention Center and he had never talked about it.

Hetty nodded, although he hadn't talked to her she had sat up nights listening to his screams the first few weeks he came to live with her and gathered that although not all his nightmares where from his three week detention, the worst seemed to be.

"It was then though that when things were at there worst you stopped trusting people wasn't it?" Hetty asked.

Callen crossed his arms refusing to meet her eyes.

"I noticed as you grew up that this was a trend, you are a lot like..." she paused and shook her head with a wry smile, he was not ready to know that yet, but he was incredibly a lot like his father.

"A lot like who?" Callen asked noticing the slip as Hetty mentally cursed.

"Later," She promised. "However Since knowing you when things were at their worst, you would go off alone. You don't think when you are worried you react. How many Comescu did you kill when trying to save Reinhardt, you didn't think then did you. You just reacted and you killed them. You need a partner, like Sam to temper...your temper."

Callen sighed he was volatile he knew it, but it wasn't his fault...was it?

"I know how much you love Jake, I knew it from the moment you told me you would take him that you would die to protect him. I couldn't let that happen."