Project 'C'.

chapter 4

Sam walked up to the coffee shop that both he and G had picked out as their second rendezvous spot brought a coffee and sat on a park bench a little away from the shop where he could get a good look at the crowd. He sat down avoiding the homeless man crouched on the floor with his back to him, he looked roughed up and dirty.

"Sam." The homeless man said getting up and sitting on the bench a good distance from him.

"G?" Sam looked horrified, it had only been 48 hours and Callen looked like hell.

His clothes, the same ones he had been in last time they saw him looked torn and grubby, his bag was strapped tightly to his body protecting the contents. Worse were his face and eyes, they looked lost and haunted, and worse even while talking to Sam he was skittish and wary of his surroundings even to the point of jumping as a car backfired.

"G, you need to come back with us…Michelle wants to help, to keep you safe." He pleaded.

"They lied to me Sam, they lied for so long and I worked for them, they could have told me…Het…Hetty knew and she didn't tell me, Amy died because of this, Mom…maybe mom died because of this and…he's right…I'm a freak…" Callen broke off and turned as a woman walked by them on her mobile phone; he did a quick trace in his head and relaxed as he traced her call to a local dentist.

He turned his attention back to Sam who had stopped and was watching him.

"What you doing?" he asked concerned at the way G had blanked out, the only other time's he'd seen this sort of behavior was when Eric was talking in his ear.

"Nothing." Callen snapped, "Just checking, its ok she was talking to her dentist." He said softly.

"Who was talking to a dentist?" Sam was worried that Callen was maybe injured.

But G shook his head, "The woman with the stroller who just walked past on her phone."

Sam looked amazed, "And you can do that? I mean in your head like that I always thought you asked Eric." He said and Callen cocked his head at him and gave a small smirk.

"Never have before." He admitted. "I figured you could all see them."

"Them?" Sam asked again.

"The waves and signals from electrical things, hers, its blue, that's a local call, if it were long distance it would be orange and if it were a secure government line, well they're red." He explained he still didn't understand how they couldn't see them, but he had learned long ago not to push people on what he thought they could see.

Sam shook his head and looked at Callen, "Come back, please…Hetty wants to help you, Michelle wants to help as well, she's stalling the CIA as long as possible, she doesn't want my daughter to lose her favorite uncle."

Callen looked sad, more than anything he wanted to trust him and Sam hadn't let him down in the past.

"I didn't ask for this Sam, I didn't even know…I bet they all think I'm a freak now. I just want my life back…but my sister died because of this and maybe my mother, I need to find Daniel before he dies too, no one else is gonna die because of this Sam, not even me…especially not me." Callen gave Sam a full on smile.

"You gonna come back? I've got your back and I promise you'll be safe, at least come back and talk to Hetty…and maybe take a shower?" Sam grinned back at his partner.

Callen stood up and walked away for a moment, leaving his bag beside Sam in a small gesture of trust.

"OK…Ok Sam, but…if anything happens I'm out of here for good, the only reason I'm doing this now is that Hetty is actively blocking all my searches."