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Retribution	By : ambrosiarush Category: M through R > NCIS: Los Angeles Views: 13277 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS:LA or any of it's characters. I do NOT make any money from writing this story.

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Delaney was a lot of things. Patient was not one of them.

Her knees kept jumping as she sat there staring blankly at the television. Had Trent asked her what the show was about, she wouldn’t have been able to answer. Kaylee had been put to bed nearly an hour ago, the door shut tightly, the room windowless. She had personally tucked the little girl in, Trent watching them from the doorway. Kaylee had hugged her tightly, as if she didn’t want to let go. ‘It’ll be okay,’ she had promised the girl in a breathy whisper. ‘I’ll figure this out.’

Sitting on the old green couch, her knees jumping with the cooped up energy, with the worry and the fear that she couldn’t hide.

“You seem on edge,” Trent said as he slowly put his arm around her shoulders.

Her legs stilled, her body tensed, her teeth clenched and her eyes shut tightly. The feel of his fingertips over her shirt made her feel ill. She didn’t answer, couldn’t, not without potentially saying something incredibly stupid. She was so angry, so desperate to escape, she didn’t want to be cooped up in the little house with a madman any longer. Had it have just been her, perhaps she would have tried for an escape earlier, but there was Kaylee to consider, she couldn’t just leave the child to fend for herself.

“Delaney, calm down,” his fingertips were firm but had a gentleness to them as his hands gripped her shoulders and turned her slightly as he adjusted himself on the couch. “Just relax,” he said softly as he dug his thumbs in to massage her tense shoulders.

Her hands on her knees curled into fists, nails biting into her palms.

Where are you Marty?

::

“Well,” Renko leaned back after Matt finished telling him the story. The scent of the ocean came through the open window of the interrogation room in the boatshed. “That’s quiet the tangled web.”

Matt stared and then laughed, though it had a slight bitter edge. “Yeah, I guess that’s one way to put it. I thought of it more as a complete clusterfuck..” He sighed heavily, there was a weight on his shoulders, a headache building, a weariness that pulled him. “Really screwed myself over this time, haven’t I?”

Renko leaned his elbows on the table, his fingers rubbing his temples. “Yeah. Yeah, you did.”

Matt went to say something, as he did he lifted his hands only to remember the handcuffs still on. He typically talked with his hands. He just folded them together and stuck them back under the table between his knees. He didn’t even want to look at the cuffs. He took a deep breath and looked across the table at his best friend, a man he considered a brother. “I thought you’d be angrier. Maybe yell a bit. Tell me what an idiot I am.”

Slowly, Renko’s green eyes met Matt’s blue ones. “Can’t,” Renko replied sitting back in his chair. “Had it have been me... I’m not sure I wouldn’t have done the same thing.” He’d been in the job long enough to see things slip through the cracks, genuine monsters get away with heinous crimes. For Matt to have lied, Renko knew that the detective must have truly believed that those men would have gotten away with the kidnapping, the rapes, the murders of those little girls. The thought alone churned his stomach and he knew what it was like to have horrific images burned into his brain, things that no man should have to ever witness.

“What am I going to do, Mike?”

The desperation in Matt’s voice, the genuine down to the bone fear shook Renko to his core. “I don’t know, yet,” he added. “Surely a jury would be sympathetic.”

“Maybe,” Matt said tipping his head back, he stared at the ceiling. “I don’t have much for ties, Mike, you know that. Before trial, they’re going to label me a flight risk.” He tore his eyes from the ceiling and forced himself to look his friend in the eye. “I’m a cop- I’ll be shanked in gen-pop before this even makes it to trial.”

“No,” Renko said sharply. “We’ll... I’ll think of something.” There was no way he was going to let his best friend end up in prison or dead because he did what the justice system would have failed to do. He might not have done it the best way, but the system wasn’t perfect, nor were those who worked for it.

“How is she?”

“Huh?” Renko snapped out of his thoughts at the sudden change of topic.

“That partner of yours, Angela.” Matt had watched over her when she’d been in the hospital from a bullet wound she’d sustained while off-duty- in her own home. He liked the woman well enough, despite only having spoken to her a handful of times, most of that like probably stemmed from the bond he could see between the partners. Anyone that was looking out for Mike was okay in Matt’s books. Besides, Matt could see it, that adoration Renko had for his partner. The man was smitten but wouldn’t admit it. For that alone, Matt liked the woman, crazy as she may be.

“She’s okay.”

“It’s over?”

“Yeah,” Renko replied. When he and his team had to go handle things while she’d been in the hospital, he’d trusted Matt to watch over her in her vulnerable state. He trusted Matt not only with his life, but with those of his team.

Matt had been watching Renko carefully since he’d come in. You spend your life watching people, you can really peg when something is off with someone you’re truly close to. “You injured?”

“Huh?”

“You keep rubbing,” Matt raised his hands to point high on his own chest.

“Vest caught it,” Renko replied easily, as if he were talking about the grass being green rather than being shot.

Matt hummed in response, unsurprised. “Best laid plans.” The job was dangerous, all agents and officers were aware of it, accepted it, and lived with it.

Renko narrowed his eyes. “You insulting my methods when I’m trying to save your ass from prison?”

The corner of Matt’s lips lifted. “Maybe. Your methods have always been questionable.”

“So have yours.”

This sobered Matt quick enough. “Yeah, it’s biting me in the ass as we speak.”

::

Ava Vogel barged into Lieutenant Bate’s office while he was on a conference call.

He knew the woman well enough, smart, quick witted, the finest sketch artist at the precinct, polite- so her barging in with a expression of fury and hurt was so unlike her he stared a moment before returning to his phone call.

“I’m going to have to call you back,” he didn’t wait for a response before he hung up the phone. He went to greet her but she took the hung up phone as a cue to start talking.

“Detective Matt Bernhart was just arrested.”

“What?”

“Deeks took him. That other fed- Callen... they arrested Harrison, Brent Harrison,” she clarified since there were two Harrison’s working in the precinct. She cared little about what was going on with Brent, but she was in a fury about what was going on with Matt. She couldn’t work it out, she hadn’t been given any information. He pointed to a chair and she took it as an order to sit, she crossed the space and dropped down into the leather chair. “What the hell is going on?”

“I don’t know,” Bates responded lifting the phone again as he flipped through a Rolodex. “But I fully intend on finding out.” He stopped when he came to the card he was looking for. Lange, Henrietta.

::

Deeks stared out into the darkness. He was at the office, there was no way he could call it a night, go home, go to sleep. Not with all that was going on. Ray, under the protection of Agent Nassir was still at the hospital keeping close tabs on Jax’s condition, a condition that while stable, wasn’t getting better. Delaney was out there... somewhere, and so was Kaylee Boone, out there with a very deranged Trent Stadden. Two cops had been arrested, Bates had called Hetty and she gave him what they knew... but Deeks knew that before long things were going to get really messy at the precinct, one he, technically, was still a part of.

“Hey,” Kensi came up behind him and he turned, she extended her hand and he took the offered coffee mug.

“Thanks,” he said taking a small sampling sip. “You used your milk.”

She glowered at him. She hated how he could always tell the difference. For her, milk was milk. “There wasn’t any soy in the fridge, okay.”

“It’ll do,” he replied, ribbing out of habit, but his voice fell flat.

She stayed quiet, standing beside him as they stared out into the darkness. “How are you holding up, Marty?”

The use of his first name, and in the office of all places made their little space seem more intimate. She wasn’t talking to Deeks, she wasn’t asking for some smart-assed answer, she was talking to Marty and she was there for him.

“I have to find her. Soon. Kens...” his voice held so much pain that she shut her eyes as if it could ward it off. “I don’t know what I’ll do if... if I don’t get to her in time... this guy is... he’s just... he’s gone and... he could really hurt her Kens...” He hadn’t even been able to get over the death of Evan yet and the prospect of losing Delaney as well, by extension maybe even Jackson all in one swoop, for it to all be his fault... he had enough ghosts, he couldn’t bear living with more. “I’ve got to find her.”

::

Callen watched her, she was unaware, as she chugged back an energy drink and then dumped the empty can into the recycling bin. She stood there for a second, rubbed her eyes and then placed her hands flat on the counter at the coffee station behind the bullpen and leaned there a second. She looked tired, more- exhausted.

He walked over and placed his hands on her shoulders and she jumped. “Just me,” he whispered and she all but melted under his gentle touch. “You okay?”

She nodded her hair caressing his skin, she’d never worn it so long, at least not in the time he’d known her. He gave it a bit of a tug and she smiled over her shoulder at him. “Got to get it cut. Pretty soon I’ll take the scissors to it myself if I can’t make time for an appointment.”

He gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek. “You or Eric get anything yet?”

She frowned. “We have the car that picked up Delaney running through Kaleidoscope. We’ve tapped everything that is in Trent Stadden’s name, but there is nothing.”

Eric chose that moment to whistle from the balcony. “Not sure if it is anything, but I maybe have something.”

Callen looked around. Sam, he knew, was still in the boatshed with Harrison but he didn’t see any of his other teammates. “I’ll find Kensi and Deeks. Be up in a minute.” He watched Nell go up the stairs as he searched around the main area. “Hey, Cooper?”

Ryan Cooper turned around. “Yeah?”

“Have you seen Kensi or Deeks?”

Cooper ran a hand through his unruly dark waves as he thought it over. “Maybe about twenty minutes ago,” he said with a bit of a shrug from his broad shoulders. “Front of the big window between the main filing room and the broom closet.”

“Thanks,” Callen replied as he started walking to where Cooper had indicated. He found them still there, standing side by side, coffee’s in hand, staring out the window, a cool silence between them... and yet... he watched as Kensi turned her head just slightly to look over at Deeks, to watch over him. She was worried, it was written through her body language, the way she leaned oh-so-subtly towards him. “Marty, Kens,” he said catching their attention, they both jumped and he decided that was an action he didn’t want to read into. “Eric said he... ‘maybe, sorta’ has something... whatever that means. Ops. Now.”

Both gave him a nod and turned to follow. Callen mulled it over. Something was going on between the two of them... but he wasn’t going to look into it.

::

“Clever,” Nell said with a smile just as Callen came in, Kensi and Deeks right behind him.

“Eric, what do you got?”

Eric stood. “Might not be anything, but... remember when you had me look into Harrison’s family?”

“Yeah,” Callen replied.

“Yeah, so I looked into Trent Stadden’s family, figured maybe I’d find something there. I dug real deep. Fifth cousins he probably doesn’t even know he has kind of deep.”

“And you found something,” Callen urged the younger man along.

“Maybe,” Eric replied picking up his tablet and sending some information to the big screen. “While for the most part, Stadden’s family completely abandoned him after his daughter’s murder. They had stuck by him through the trial, unable to believe his guilt... until the falsified DNA evidence at least. His family spoke against him in the news.”

“Long story short, Eric,” Deeks interrupted, his patience wearing thin.

“He has a brother, who didn’t publicly speak out against him. Mostly he stayed completely out of it. Now, he is the only relative who ever visited Stadden in prison, so I looked into him deeper. It’s his place of employment that got me thinking.”

“Which is where, Eric?” Kensi snapped, she could practically feel the tension coming off of her partner as if it was tangible.

“He works in the filing room at 24th Precinct, processing of evidence and crime scene photos.”

“So?” Kensi asked impatiently, crossing her arms over her chest.

“So that’s how Stadden found out how to stage my old house,” Deeks said quickly putting the pieces together. “His brother gave him the crime scene photos.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Eric replied. “There’s more. Gary Stadden, he owns two houses. His family home, and another that is a little off the map, just outside of city limits.” He pulled up a satellite image. “Small home.”

“Lots of land, no close neighbours,” Callen said with a nod. “Kind of place you’d use if you were going to hold two people against their will.”

Eric wasn’t sure, he didn’t want to get everyone’s hopes up only to have them dashed. He gave a little non-committal shrug. “I figured it was worth checking out.”

Deeks clasped Eric on the shoulder. “Thank you,” there was such painful sincerity in his voice that all the young technician could do was nod.

“Let’s go,” Callen said. He looked over at Nell gave her a slight nod and the three agents left the room.

::

Thanks for reading :)
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