the day it all fell apart

Chap 1

Note: Not to really toot my own horn, but this just might be my best Whumptober fic yet! :)

As much as Hetty wished she could walk into work and see her old partner waiting for her, she knew it wasn't possible. Instead she had to make working with this woman work.

It was noticablely tricky, as she appeared more abrasive towards her and to her team then Granger ever was. But she thought she could make it work.

Until Shay wanted to use her team to get her son back from her ex.

Hetty said to her that if that were to happen, she would have to trust the team to do what they do best. And that trust would end up being horribly violated.

In a fit of violent rage, Shay tortured a suspect, lashed out at the team, fired Deeks, and more or less forced the whole team into going to Mexico.

Hetty wanted to stop her as she was out of control and the mission looked very dangerous, but then Shay told her that if she didn't let the mission go on, she would have everyone sent to jail on dirt that she had uncovered on everyone!

In that terrible moment, Hetty knew that this was someone she could no longer trust, or work with. As hard as it was to send her team into harm's way every day, she, or even Owen, would never do so in such a cruel manner.

All she could do was go back to her office, sip her Scotch, and pray that they would all survive to the end.

After some fighting, it looked like the mission would succeed. But then, just when they were heading home, the worst possible thing happened: They were ambushed and hit with an RPG.

The betrayal of trust, had turned into an even bigger betrayal. Something that Hetty thought she would never see from her years of working together with Granger.

Knowing what she had to do, she immediately called for backup, and requested an emergency flight to Mexico.

The flight itself was grueling. She had to explain to the troops and Keane what had happened, but she was barely holding back tears as she described the details.

Had she really witnessed the very people she had considered to be her family possibly die in front of her?!

It was a bloody miracle that they even survived, as she had found out. It was now a race against the clock to save them, and they were currently scattered across the desert and injured.

That night was the most grueling of her life, and that said a lot given the 3 months of hell she spent in captivity earlier that year!

'I feel like I can't think straight, Harris. It feels like this whole thing was set up to fail, and that that bitch was really willing to kill my whole team just to get her son back!' She cried. 'How could this happen?! How could she do this?! Was this her plan all along?! Get my team to trust her and then send them out on a suicide mission to prove how much she didn't like them at all?!'

Harris hugged her while she cried.

'They're my family! I can't lose them like this! Not after everything that has happened in the past year!'

She barely slept that night and was mostly running on adrenaline the next day.

By the grace of God and teamwork, they all made it to the hospital where Hetty could have them airlifted home.

'I honestly feel so relieved and drained, I can barely stand! The actions of 1 person did this to them, my partner of all people! (wry laugh). If only Owen was still alive.' She said, weary.

'Well, you can tell all this to Congress. I mean, you will definitely have to speak to someone up top about this. Maybe someone in DC can help you get justice.' Keane replied.

'Maybe. Or I'll just be blamed for not stopping the mission when I could've. I don't have a good history with politicians as you can imagine. They could very well have my whole team disbanded and even brought up on criminal charges for this! And I could've stopped all this with 1 phone call to the Feds.'

'You can't blame yourself for this, Hetty! What she did was her own fault. You can fight back against her now.'

'I'm going to explore this country for a while, clear my head. And then I'll decide what my next move will be.' Hetty concluded.

In the end, she never went to DC, and went off the grid for the rest of the year.

She had been hurt deeper then she ever felt possible, and she didn't feel like this was something she could get over at home, or with everyone's love and support.

And the harsher truth: She couldn't stop blaming herself for not stopping the mission from going forward and considered herself to be a failure at being the leader her team needed.

How long would it be for her to get herself together and return home? No one really knew.

But what she did know, is that she could never trust herself to work with another partner again.

Endnote: How many prompts did I use on this? 13! Yeah, 13! I've never used that many before on 1 single fic.