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Callen didn’t like to think he had a soulmate.
The idea that he was bonded to someone for life unnerved him. The fact that someone could hold such an influence on his life, and vice versa, never did sit right. He was a lone wolf by nature, even when he worked within a team dynamic.
The mark above his heart taunted him for years, challenging his very nature. Eventually, he tried to convince himself that he didn’t have a soulmate, but then he met her.
Special Agent (Y/N) (L/N). Expert in Black Ops and matters of extreme prejudice. She had been working on some assignment out of Baghdad before she had been assigned to the office in Los Angeles. It had taken a few days before her and Callen had crossed paths, but the burning above his heart revealed all he needed to know about her.
For the first time, Callen fell in love, and he fell hard. Seemingly everything had clicked in his life. The days were brighter and the evenings brought comfort. His restless nights all but ceased. She had brought him the clarity he had longed after.
It all fell apart again the day she died.
It was his fault, or at least that is what he had told himself. He was meant to be on her six. He was until he heard a noise in the corner of the room. That split second distraction allowed time for their suspect to launch four bullets into her. Three were caught in her bullet proof vest. The last of the four landed in the back of her neck. She died almost instantly.
Nobody on his team had said anything when he returned to the office alone but he could feel their eyes on him. Hetty had demanded he take some time off, to heal and grieve. He knew that the team would apprehend her murderer, he knew that he had to step back.
The house was quiet when he returned home. Callen was had been used to having a quiet home. He had had one for most of his life. But now he would have to familiarise himself with it once again; he would have to get used to being the one who survived, the one left behind.