Pivotal Moments.

Chapter 7

Hetty looked at the box on her desk. It had taken a while for her to arrange for Child Services to release the box. It was not as much as she would have expected, but it was Callen's life, his childhood such as it had been. Plus, a few reports that his outgoing, social worker had thought would be of benefit for Hetty, to read before she contacted Callen.

The first thing she pulled out was a faded drawing, and she gasped as she realized its significance. It was a large house, sad faces in the many windows and a man as large as the house standing next to it, with an angry expression. Away from the house alone, was a small stick figure with a large bag with a G written on it. In childlike handwriting, there was a name and a title at the bottom, it said 'My family. By G Callen age 5'.

Hetty stared at the sad figure for a moment. Then, as she looked through the rest of the paperwork, one thing became clear, this was a little boy who could only remember being alone. This little boy held on dearly to the few possessions he owned, even to the point of arguing with his social worker, who wanted to change his bag for a new one. He had found Callen patching his old bag up with duct tape. Callen had argued tooth and nail to keep the bag he had been found with.

Hetty then read the police report of the five year old boy who did not know his own name, who had been found wandering LAX with a bag with his name on such as it was. The boy did not talk, and in the end, all they could do was put him into the system. It was only after some therapy, that the strange little boy with the sad blue eyes had started to talk. Not once had he been able to say his name; the therapists had concluded that the boy had been through a traumatic event and had lost his memory.

It had also been noted that the boy had a slight accent, although no one had been able to place the accent. A new therapist had said that the boy might have been Russian, due to a tattered copy of Masha and the bear written in Cyrillic in his bag, but Callen did not understand the words, nor did he understand when the therapist had talked to him in Russian. So it was concluded that he might have picked up the book from a lost traveler while wandering the LAX terminal.

However, when anyone tried to take the book from him, he would fight to keep it.

He had been fostered out to various homes over the years, never seeming to settle in any of them. Mind you, some of the homes had been dubious to say the least. Callen had been described as a loner, not engaging with others. In his reports from school, they had described a child who was sullen and combative. Other reports saying about bruising that appeared, maybe as the result of fights with other children. However, Hetty suspected that some of this may have been abuse from Foster parents, as these reports coincided with Callen running away from those homes. Missing for a few hours, to a few days...occasionally a few months.

Hetty found herself empathizing with the boy he could have been, if he had never had this start in life. This was why she had tried to be there when she had heard that he had stolen a car in the first place. She needed to meet her friend's son, get to know him as a person. She needed to repay the debt she had accrued, when she had failed to save him and his mother all those years ago.

Callen paced up and down his cell. For the first time in his life, he felt guilty for his actions. He had acted on instinct, which as he already knew, had always been his undoing. Grant had not stolen his letter. He, Callen, had left it behind, and Grant had intended to bring it back to him.

The idea that someone would give him something back that belonged to him, was such a foreign concept to Callen, that he was still confused by his cell mate's actions. Grant had been nice to him, and had helped him write the letter. Then the man had gone missing, with not only the letter that Hetty had sent him, but his replies too. The feeling that Grant was just like everyone else had hurt, and Callen had reacted out of instinct, but he now regretted stabbing the man, and wished he could take it back. He had spent the last week regretting his actions, and he did not like being in solitary at all.