War wounds

Chap 1

Note: With it looking like there will be a 2 part finale again, I more or less started thinking about what it could look like if another surprise guest showed up in the finale. And well, I obviously started thinking of Hetty.

War is never easy. The things you witness, the things you do. It's no wonder so many soldiers come home haunted by what they experienced.

And despite already been through war, the wounds of it was not able to escape Hetty.

For 3 years, she had been stationed in Syria. At first it was just to negotiate the release of 2 American journalists, which then went south in a very bad way. Which, after only being able to go home for a short time, prompted her to return to Syria to fix what was broken.

Which then led to 2 very long and demanding years of fighting for survival, nothing being what it seemed, and being presumed dead twice by the military and her team.

The worst of it all: She was unable to talk to her team back home and give an update on her condition (except 1 time with a voice scrambler), nd she had to miss the man who was the closest she had to a son's wedding.

After fleeing to Morocco, her former techie had arranged a team to find her. After a harrowing search, she was found and brought home.

After a couple of days in the hospital, that's when the bad dreams started. And they were different from after Vietnam, much different.

After a lot of sessions with Nate, she returned to her office and resumed her position as Operations Manager.

Even after trying to get back into a normal sounding routine, things still didn't feel right. The agents she had known for so long were out more then they were in, and that bossy Admiral was hanging around to annoy her as he didn't trust her leadership.

After hearing enough updates from Sam on how he was doing in Hawaii, she realized she needed a change of scenery.

1 day, she left a note on her desk saying that while she was so grateful in being home again and to her team for making it happen, she just couldn't go back to a full time desk job. She also said that while she would continue to be their boss, she would have a limited presence in her office, and also expected to stay in the loop on the cases.

And then she went to her yacht, the Lady H, and rode off to Hawaii.

After a while, the tropical atmosphere started to help. The bad dreams lessened, and she started to feel more at peace.

Sam checked in her every so often, and Callen was even talking about taking time off to vacation in Hawaii with Anna. And Deeks and Kensi agreed to let her babysit their new child when he or she was born.

In early 2024, things started to feel more normal for Hetty. She had started to have a good balance between dividing her time between LA and Hawaii, and that pesky admiral had stopped bothering her for the time being. And she was seemingly starting to make peace with what had happened to her for 3 years.

But the scars, the flashbacks, and the memories still remained and still had their ways of showing up at bad times.

'Some days are easier, and some are pure hell. That's what life is like when you remember a hellish experience. It can either beat you into submission, or you can tell it to go to hell. I prefer option number 2.' She wrote in a letter to Nate.