Forever's a long time

Chapter 5

"Bill?"

Callen lowered the gun, not wanting or not willing to shoot him.

"G?" Sam called worried for the change in his partner.

"Take the boy Sam, get him to safety." Callen said his voice flat as he turned to Bill, "You'll let him go now won't you?"

Bill hadn't taken his eyes of G the entire time and nodded, "You can tell them can't you boy, you can tell them they were wrong."

"Go Sam," Callen said softly.

Sam grabbed the injured boy on the ground and carried him outside to his mother, looking back only once, as the door closed behind him and the lock clicked.

With every step he took away from the house Sam felt more and more helpless. "Eric, I need an ambulance, and information on Bill and Sheila Wilson, we need an address for her, and get Kensi and Deeks to pick her up."

The boy in Sam's arms started to stir.

"Mommy?" He called.

"Greg...baby. It's ok Mommy's here." Wendy called as she climbed out of the car and went to him. She looked at Sam with tears running down his face, "I didn't know I swear! He seemed like such a nice man. How could I not have seen this?"

Sam gently lay Greg down as Wendy rolled up her jacket to use as a pillow for her son's head.

"It's not your fault." Sam said, "Stay with him an ambulance is on the way."

"Is he dead? Bill I mean." She asked looking back at the house.

Sam shook his head, "Don't worry about it, Other Agents are looking for your mother in law, you just concentrate on your boys, go with the paramedics when they get here. we'll contact you later." Sam reassured her, then resolutely he turned and walked into the house.

"Mr. Hanna," Hetty's voice interrupted him as he was about to climb the stairs again. "Where is Mr. Callen, he is not replying to his com."

"He's with the suspect, he sent me out with the boy to get him medical help." Sam tried keeping the worry out of his voice but Hetty heard it nonetheless.

"You need to get him out of there as soon as possible. Do not leave him alone with the suspect any longer than you have to. Do you hear me Mr. Hanna?"

"I'm on my way back there now. But he's an old man and it's only been about three minutes he can't hurt him."

Back in ops Hetty shook her head sadly, "He already has Mr. Hanna."

She waited pulling up Nell's empty chair and sitting down as the duo busied themselves around her, not wanting to be further from her boy than needs be. She had hoped that this part of his past, the part which had warped his sense of right and wrong, in the sense of he didn't understand real love. Could have been kept where it belonged, buried in the past. She had watched from the sidelines as Callen had gone down the slippery slope towards oblivion culminating in his stint in Juvenile detention, before she had found it necessary to intercede on his behalf to save him.

She had sat many a night listening to him scream down the hall, once or twice calling Bill's name and begging for forgiveness. Not once had he opened up to her or told her about it. She had tried, she had paid for therapists to try. But on the subject of his stay with the McPherson family Callen had remained silent. When he was awake anyway. His fervent cries of apology to Sheila, his pleas and apologies, begging for Bill to come back and love him broke her heart at night.

Now she was faced with the knowledge that he was facing the man who had hurt her boy and she wasn't there.

"Bill." Callen said again as the man turned his sidearm dropping from his hand in shock as Bill looked over following Sam to the door, closing and locking it.