Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Well, it was bound to happen. Predictable. Stupid. Nell Jones runs, sand under her feet, salt breeze in her face, the sound of the surf a steady accompaniment. She quickens her pace incrementally. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She fell for him. Five years of creating his aliases, backstopping his legends, learning what he already knows to best provide the intel he needs, making him second nature to stay one step ahead and keep him safe. Of course she fell for him. Or, perhaps she did all those things because she fell for him. Eric's theory. Chickens, eggs. Who cares which came first when you're already in the muck and mire and mixing your metaphors horribly, losing sleep and generally becoming obsessed.

Mess, mess, mess. He's with someone. Eric still has a crush on her. Worse, Hetty has figured it out and is, dare she think it, match making. Why else has Hetty appointed G Callen Nell's personal instructor in all matters of becoming a field agent? Kensi would have been an excellent teacher. Marty was Nell's chosen mentor. But, no. No, indeed. ‘I’ve asked Mr. Callen to begin regular training with you.’ She picks up speed incrementally. There he was at her workstation, leaned over, scheduling work out times, shooting range plans, assigning her homework, for heaven's sake. Of which running on the beach is part. She picks up speed again, now running flat out, clearing her mind for the moment.

When she absolutely can't go any further she collapses on the sand, cooling waves eddying up around her knees and wrists. She manages her air, her lungs ache with wanting to pant, keeping her breath deep and steady. When she's caught her breath she looks up, impressed with how far she's come. Well, he's right about how to build stamina. He's probably right about a lot. Damn it. She peels up from the ground, bounces on her feet for a moment, stretches a little, and starts to walk back. Keep your muscles moving unless you want to be really sore. He’s also right about that.

The morning run is the only time she allows herself to agitate about feelings for her tutor. By the time she's back at the car, toweling off, drinking water, she’s tucked it away and moved on to thinking about the new sculpture she’s working on. Adding additional training time chips into time in the workshop. She has to remedy that. Nell likes routine, she prefers order, but more than anything she wants control. It makes her good at her job. Orderly thoughts, orderly habits, and surely if she can control her heart’s rate - which she can - she can control her rebellious heart’s desires. Damn it.

It was her reaction to killing the asshole trying to kill her three weeks ago that started this whole avalanche. Everyone from Nate to Granger refocused on her and started putting in an extra effort to help her accomplish her goal of becoming a field agent. Either Callen’s relationship with his girlfriend will will fail or this wicked crush will die. It’s just a matter of time. She fires up the engine of her Mini-Cooper, pushing the button that lowers the top. She needs the sun. The extra attention reminds her how much she is loved at OSP, and that is a lovely side-effect. She'll take the affection and deal with the unwanted attention. Somehow. She taps up her morning playlist and cranks the volume up high, very loud Brahms - probably an oxymoron. Makes her laugh aloud. Morning run on the beach feels terrific.

~o~

Most all of Nell’s self-defense training is formal martial arts based both combat and non-combat related. What she’s best at is attacking, and throwing an opponent off balance. She’s tiny and below most people’s center of balance to start with and she wickedly knows how to use that to advantage. She’s deceptively strong and quite limber. Callen wants to teach her how to break a variety of holds.

“Most bad guys are gonna be much larger than you.” Callen sits cross-legged in front of her where they’ve settled on mats in the gym. Their knees are two inches apart. “And, being assholes, they're not going to think about fighting you.” She tears her focus from the enticing stretch of his t-shirt across his shoulders and chest. “They'll think they can either scare you into submission or they’ll want to pick you up. The pick you up theory is contain you as a hostage or use you as a projectile by throwing you at someone else.”

Nell nods. Last year an asshole threw her at Sam pretty effectively. Both Marty and G were on Sam’s heels with guns that time. She knows there’s never any guarantee of rescue by posse.

Callen’s eyes darken like storm clouds, his expression flickers from simple explanation to something darker and then back again. “What we want are a couple strategies.” His gaze tightens on her, really blue and really intense. “Been thinking about that. From what I’ve seen, you have a decent idea how to break holds when your feet are on the ground, right?”

She does. She nods.

“Let’s see if you're fast enough I can't get you off your feet.” He stands, so she quickly scrambles up.

He casually steps toward her and she's not sure if more instruction is coming, but she steps away, keeping the distance between them. He nods and backs up. She doesn’t follow, decides not getting caught is job one. He smiles and changes tack, coming back at her, albeit slowly. Two more steps and he's between her and door. She realizes he's herding her. Behind her is the basketball goal, a rack of basketballs, a stack of mats, a row of folding chairs. She steps backwards, admiring his predation. He sharpens in her direction, something she's seen aplenty on the plasma screen, rather than directed at her. A narrowing of focus, gaze tight, body forward. A sharp as nails contrast to his usual laconic presence. It crosses her mind to wonder what he plans to do with her if he catches her but she lets the thought drift away. She senses he is two, maybe three, steps away from lunging. Not something she’d know about anyone else.

She pivots, runs a short distance and scales the stack of mats, betting on being light enough she won’t topple the six foot stack of foam. At the top she grabs a mat and faces him again. He’s at the foot of the stack gazing up, a mix of bemused speculation in his expression. He’s thinking about pushing the stack of mats over to get to her, but faster than he can reach out, she extends the mat she’s holding and jumps. On him. They go down with a grunt, the four inch thick mat between them and general surprise keeps him from grabbing any part of her. She rolls to her feet and runs for the door.

To his credit Callen catches the back of her t-shirt her with both hands as her fingertips graze the door. They are both going forward at speed and she drops to a squat, hitting the door with a shoulder. Not a hard as he hits above her. He spreads his legs reflexively and it occurs to her she could do real damage just by standing up. Instead she scrambles from under him, the weight of his grip on her shirt heavy. Her heart thuds up to her throat, she growls, peels the shirt up and off and rolls. Gets her feet back under her, twisting away from the hand at her waist, and ending up in the hallway in her sports bra.

“Base.” She announces, the flat of her hand on the opposite wall. “Safe.” She turns a smug smile to him.

He stops his pursuit, gazing at her steadily, amused glint in his eyes. “Alright.” He accepts the rule and tosses her the shirt.

She tugs the shirt back over her head.

He waves her back into the gym. “You know there’s no safe base in life.” He grumbles.

She follows warily, throwing a quick glance at him. “Of course there is. When I get back to you. Or the team.” She adds quickly.  

When they reach the floor mats again he motions her to him. She balks. Shakes her head. No. If he wants to see how she breaks a hold, he can damn well catch her first. Unless, she assesses him, unless she can take him down. He is, after all, busy trying  to decide how to catch her this time. Baiting him she turns as if to retreat and he leans after her. Instead of running she backs into him, trips him, uses his left arm to put him on his belly and settles a knee in his back, his left arm still in her grip. She reaches for his right arm, gets his wrist, and without a sound he stands, sending her airborne. His arm comes free and slips around her waist before her feet hit the ground.

“Hmmmph.” His breath in her ear. A frisson of nerves sprints up her spine at the feel of his breath on her neck, the secure tension in his arm around her waist, her back pressed to his chest. She digs in an elbow, wriggles and goes limp. Perhaps thinking to readjust to a less awkward hold his grip around her loosens perceptibly. She wrenches away with the leverage of a foot on his thigh. And she runs. She beats him to safe base this time without losing an item of clothing. He’s only a deep breath behind though and props on the wall beside her. “Nice technique.” Appreciation in his voice causes the muscles in her stomach to bunch. “You,” he says, “should always, always run. If you can.”

“Yes.” She says. “I know.”

~o~

There is, Callen thinks, something spooky about teaching Nell to fight. She knows what he's going to do next, and is a crucial half step ahead of him. Why? Callen’s sparred both Sam and Kensi long enough they’ve learned each other. So how has Nell learned him? He has no idea what she’s going to do next and usually that particular quirk of sparring develops in tandem. No way was he expecting her to peel out of her shirt. He files the questions away for further consideration and steps out of the shower.

He’s taking dinner to Joelle’s in an hour. Now she knows he’s not a finance guy, he doesn’t have to put on a suit. Which is lovely for him. Weird for her. His cover with her was a much more buttoned down guy. She is curious about this new version of him and they’ve had one conversation about a background check and security clearance. Without it, there’s no point to a relationship, because he can’t tell her anything at all.

There was also something about buttoned up formal Gary she found attractive. She keeps looking for him and finding someone considerably edgier. Someone else. Him. The part she’s vocally unhappy about is even with security clearance to know who he is, everything about his job, including the guns, is classified. So no more lies about how was your day, just what? Silence? Can he tell her if someone’s shooting at him? Does she want to know? He has a hard time imagining Chicken Tikka Masala  smoothing over any of this. What was he thinking?

He was thinking romance is nice for a change. Hearing about third-graders is nice for a change. Pretending to be an office drone is nice for a change. Friendly bodily contact, kissing, touching, sex. All very nice. Peach scented shampoo, lingerie, music playing in the kitchen when he comes in. Quite nice. The feeling of control though, not so nice. Hiding the regular bumps and bruises, a bit tricky. Lying. Second nature, but not nice. Lying for no purpose other than to spend time with someone. Crazy. Or lazy. Or both.

Callen and Joelle go through the motions of dinner. She watches him as if he’s dangerous. He can’t argue. He fears he’s looking at her as if she’s superfluous. What else can it mean to not tell someone anything true about you? He explains his feelings are real even when he’s living a cover. But he’s not sure he believes it, why should she? She was more horrified to learn living an alias is a regular thing, there are several others. It’s all made her feel unimportant, naive and easy to deceive. He likes her a lot, which makes the situation creepy and mean. Not his intention. Still.

Driving home the thought crosses his mind he’s mentoring someone who eerily knows everything about him and sleeping with someone who doesn’t know a thing. Seems backwards somehow, but here he is. And Nell. He needs to be sure she can get away if someone has her by the neck. There are two decent approaches. What she lacks in strength and weight, she can make up for with speed and agility. Really best to make sure she’s always armed.

~o~ 

Glass shatters at Callen’s feet, a mix of resignation and regret crosses his features. He turns and leans on the emergency shutdown lever, bringing the doors shut and sealing the air vents. He can at least contain the deadly virus in this room. In response to lingering mist rising beneath him, he coughs. His hand comes away bloodied. As instantly contagious as advertised, the virus moves through his bloodstream so quickly his skin crawls. Sam stares through thick glass and Callen really doesn’t want to see the expression of profound loss on his friend’s face. Certainly not as the last thing he’s seeing. “Go.” He says. Thankfully Sam goes. There is more virus and it has to be re-captured and contained.

The tablet slips from Nell’s fingers and clatters to the workstation. Two of the three plasma screens in front of her shift to show Sam heading up to the roof, Marty and Kenzi on the way up a stairwell. A single screen remains focused on Callen. Air stops moving into her lungs. A sensation like ice water drops through her body, liquid fear. Far from rejecting what she sees, her brain catalogues every second. She’s seen him hit by a car, punched, shot, kicked… and she’s watching him die. He sinks down on his heels, back to the cabinets, looking at his hands. His shoulders convulse inward. She steps toward the plasma screen. He’s alone. He folds, curls forward, lies on the tiles, blood on his lips and the back of his hand, eyes closed. She takes her phone from her pocket and taps.

Callen fumbles his phone into view, the corner of his mouth lifts. “Hey.”

Nell’s never been so grateful for or terrified by videochat. A security camera in the room captures the entire space. Now his face is in her hand.

“G.” She says. His shoulders shake with the effort not to cough. “Camera in the ceiling, at your four o’clock. I see you. I’ve got you.”

He sets the phone beside him, crazily spinning her view up to the ceiling. He cradles his head with both hands. “Sick.”

“Yep.” She says. “And getting sicker. Stay with me. Okay?”

“Wish I could.” He mumbles. She reads tension in his body, coiled on the floor as if he can hold the virus at bay through sheer physical power. He shakes his head, his expression unspeakably sad. He glances up, spots the camera. Her stomach contracts.

“Rest.” She says.

He sprawls lazily on the floor and picks up the phone. She looks down. He smiles. “There you are.” He props his phone against baseboard. They look at each other again for a long moment.

He hurts and he’s scared, so Nell talks. She slips into Russian, repeating she’s here and sees him, then describing the beach as she saw it this morning, the sun rising behind her while she ran, golden light finally touching the ocean while the tide retreated. The satisfying rhythmic crunch of sand underfoot, punctuated with gulls hawking the shore, sandpipers chatting.

Every few minutes he opens his eyes, their gaze locks for three heartbeats, four. Then his eyes close. She talks about places she knows they’ve both been. The view from the bridge at Pont Neuf and how weird is it some French nobleman had the bridge built back before Paris had roads. The Danube past the Black Forest, where she is sure every fairytale she knows was true. Bedouin encampments shifting across Northern Turkey, the loveliness of door flags. She describes the one hanging in her bedroom to him. The market’s crush in Istanbul and the peace of rooftops.

His breathing gurgles. “Nell.”

“Yes.”

“I think my lungs are bleeding.”

“I think so, too.” The past thirty minutes she’s watched a steady threatening trickle of blood from his mouth meander down his neck and pool in a now considerable puddle under his shoulder. His breathing sounds increasingly wet and sloppy. Help still an hour away. “You’ve been trying not to cough.”

“Hurts.”

“I know.” She wonders if he knows he’s slipped into speaking Russian, too.

“I always thought this’d be faster.”

“Faster?”

“Dying.” His brow flexes. He shifts a hand to tap his chest.

“Stay with me, G.”

“What’s the point again?”

“Close your eyes. I haven’t described Chilia yet, and it’s gorgeous.”

His chuckle dissolves into coughing. He coughs for five minutes without being able to stop or catch his breath. His entire body clenches with effort. Every cough brings up a handful of blood. He coughs until he vomits, also blood. Her throat closes. All the fluid leaving his body is blood. She estimates he’s lost nearly ten percent of his blood volume through internal bleeding, and the room looks ridiculously like a crime scene. The coughing subsides as suddenly as it took over. Callen curls in a corner of the room. Ebola on steroids, Eric said about three hours ago. Nell calculates from the blood on the floor Callen will bleed out in about six hours. Enough time for him to be safely sedated. Perhaps infusions can keep him alive longer. The gurgle in his breathing temporarily relieved, he takes several deep breaths. “Hey, Nell?”

“Right here.”

“Listen.” His eyes drift shut, he’s curled up like a four year old. “Speed and agility. Reduce your strength training to the barest minimal and work on speed and aerobic stamina.”

“I will. Shhhhhhh. The only time I went to Romania it was winter.” She says. Nell talks, her voice thick with unshed tears. When he loses consciousness his expression slackens and something inside her shatters. She talks until the door opens to five figures in full on hazmat protection. For long moments she can’t see more than his feet, or a hand. None of him moves, no response. The medical team suits him and the last she sees of him is a glimpse of his sleeping face beneath a plastic shield.

For a long minute she stares at the empty room on the plasma screen, smears and puddles of blood, paper and plastic litter from medical equipment scattered. He’s gone. She sighs, tries to breathe some sense back into her head. He’s going to die in an isolation chamber somewhere.

“Hey?” Eric. Beside her with a glass of water. “Sit.” He pulls the chair to her. She drops into it, feeling like a bowl of jello. This won’t do. She can’t be incapacitated this way. Must gather herself. Eric taps on her hand and gives her the glass. “Drink.” She obeys, the process of swallowing reassures and calms, her nose tingles. She shakes her head, blinks. Eric’s sky blue eyes are in her face, inches away.

“Shit.” She says.

He leans back. “There is a treatment. They are in transit to the CDC, Hetty’s with him. The guys are heading back here. Are you paying attention?” He waits for her gaze to tighten on him. “Unbeknownst to our terrorists, the company also developed a treatment plan. He’s gonna be very sick for awhile.” His voice is slow and clear, hoping she grasps what he's saying. “I’m sure they got to him in time.” But his voice isn’t sure.

Eric observes his partner become a puddle in the chair with some surprise. Nell is his best friend, and possibly the strongest woman he’s ever met. Even in the face of her growing infatuation with Callen, she’s been calm as toast. It occurs to him the crush they’ve been joking about for months isn’t infatuation. The girl hurts. “Nell.” She lifts her eyes to his. “Nell, you might have to do something about that.” He expects her to fuss or refute, so when she nods slowly he’s left to swivel back to work.

Hetty sends the team update text messages every few hours on Callen’s status. Nell’s on the freeway on the way back to OSP as another comes in and she touches the cue button and asks her car to read it to her. The disembodied voice is no better than letters on her phone screen. “Mr. Callen (mis-pronounced call in) out of intensive care and off respirator. Breathing well on his own. Doctors expect full recovery. More later.” Nell tries to absorb the information, tries to imagine him in the hospital in Atlanta. She should be relieved, but feels brittle and hollow.

The team got back last night, checked in and went home, leaving paper and empty cups strewn on desks. Nell walks up to her workstation in tech ops. Seems she’s the only one here. Of course she came to work on time although no one left last night until well after midnight. She realizes now she could have slept in, lounged around the house. For all the good that would do. She tosses her bag in its drawer, booting up her systems, tapping in her insanely complex passwords along the way. Tea. Perhaps tea.

Hot cup in hand, she settles into her chair and shifts her focus to current events. She hears the rest of the team straggle in without giving anyone her full attention. So far, this looks to be a paperwork day. SecNav and Vance will give them a couple days to recoup. Even though a decent case would be like heaven. She keys up a request from DOJ asking for assistance finding an ex-employee who’s in the wind with perhaps bad intentions. Hunting is a task to absorb the whole brain and she digs in, scouring credit card records, following a trail of electronic breadcrumbs left by someone who may’ve thought they’d created an alias. A tiny smirk crooks her mouth. Go ahead. Try and hide.

When Eric’s been in for an hour and has eyes on current events, Nell slips on headphones, turns on music and essentially vanishes into the ether of the web. At noon her quarry makes a rookie mistake using a relative’s credit card and she’s got him. She fires off a series of messages to her contact at DOJ, gets back a request to keep an eye on the quarry until the FBI can put a net over him. She can do that.

In the lull of waiting and keeping an eye on the messages from Vance and SecNav, she leans back in her chair for the first time in hours. When her spine hits the cushion her brain flashes up a memory of Callen on the screen, blood on his mouth, cheek, his grimace. She jolts back up, sucks in air. She imagines that’s what it’d look like if he’d been stabbed to death.

Eric glances over. “What?”

“No. Nothing.” She blinks, looks hard at the present scene on the plasma, a security cam off the roof looks over the bay behind the building. Eric has the dossier up of the head of the IRA cell they busted up yesterday. He’s doing paperwork.

Shutting her systems down for the night, Nell notices everyone’s gone already. She sighs, picks up her bag. She’d normally work out, but doesn’t have the heart for it. She palms her phone and reviews the last two messages from Hetty. No real change. Hetty is coming back to LA. Can Sam head out to Atlanta to stay with Mr. Callen? A message from Sam simply says “On my way.” Nell can’t decide if she can quiz Hetty about Callen’s health, or if maybe Sam will be more… She rests a hand on the hood of her car. It was a warm day, heat lingers on the air, there’s a smell of grease on the wind. A burger would be good.

She wants to see him, damn it.

~o~ 

It’s after midnight when the cab stops in front of the Emory University Hospital. Following a nurse’s instructions, Nell finds a private room in the unit adjacent to intensive care, clearly still a critical care unit. A mini nurses station is situated between every two rooms with observation windows into the rooms. Indeed, Callen is scrawled in dry erase on the door. She taps, nudges the door open slowly. Two pairs of eyes look at her, one blue, one brown. She locks on Callen’s pleased gaze. The relief she craves sweeps through her bones from scalp to toes.

“Hey.” His hand lifts, really just a couple fingers rising off the sheets.

Nell grins, moves to the bedside. The rosiness of his cheeks looks like a fever and his eyes have a medicated glaze. She can’t hear him breathing, though she sees his chest rise and fall. She touches his face, her fingers gentle. She needs to be sure. Her other hand splays on his chest, measuring breaths, feeling the smooth in and out. She needs to combat the evidence of his death from yesterday. She closes her eyes and rests her head on his chest. The thump of his heart is slow and steady under her ear, she sighs. His hand is in her hair now, a caress, an invitation. He shifts over in the bed, she climbs up and curls beside him, her head on his chest, her hand entwined with his.

“I thought I lost you.” She speaks Russian, her voice very low.

“Me, too.” He answers in kind. “Thank you. For yesterday. Staying. Helped.” His voice rumbles stereoed through the air above her and his body under her. The solidness of him, around her, under her, soothes some deep rift in her. He’s warm, smells of soap. His arm curls around her ribs, hand spread on her back.

Sam watches G and Nell talk to each other in Russian increasingly feeling as if he’s intruding. Eric mentioned something earlier today about Nell talking Callen through until the CDC arrived. Callen’s reaction to Nell’s arrival and Nell tucked beside him in bed adds considerable mystery to what happened. Sam’s sure this level of intimacy between them didn’t exist yesterday morning. They hang onto each other as if someone’s life depends on it and Sam certainly can’t tell which one of them is more comforted. Instead of disentangling or normalizing the situation in any way, G and Nell fall asleep. In his sleep, G’s features relax into peace in a way Sam’s never seen. Sam closes his eyes, leans his head back and thinks trouble is coming.

Nell rouses to the singular experience of Callen’s fingers in her hair. She shifts to look at him from the vantage of his chest. “Anything I can get you?” She asks.

“Thirsty.”

“K.” She lifts her head, looks around. Sam sleeps soundly in a chair by the window. She sits on the edge of the bed. Callen’s knuckles circle at the small of her back. She rubs her eyes and rolls her neck. There’s surely a kitchen down the hall somewhere. When she looks up again, she notices the nurse in the glass cube beside the door. He makes eye contact. She mimes drinking from a glass, points at Callen and the nurse nods, making the universal signal for one minute. Well, that was easier than she thought. She hops off the bed, stopping when she feels a tug on her shirt. She turns and returns Callen’s sleepy smile. She picks up his hand, soothes her thumb across his palm.

Sam stirs without waking. He must be uncomfortable. Nell spies another chair, a smaller one, in the corner and drags it close enough to sit with her elbows on the bed. Callen’s eyes are closed and he doesn’t open them, but he reaches toward her. She rests her cheek in the palm of his hand.

The nurse comes with water, medication, a review of monitors and the suggestion Callen get up. Drowsy and weak, Callen sits on the edge of the bed. He stands, only slightly wobbly. He wasn’t injured, per se, Nell wonders what kind of killer medication they have him on. The nurse stays at his elbow straight into the bathroom.

“Oh man.” Sam.

“Mmmm.” Nell makes a noise of general agreement.

“Time’s it?” The question is rhetorical as Sam pulls his phone free of a pocket. “7.30, six hours in a chair.” He stands and stretches his bulky frame. “Good morning.”

“Hi.”

“Are you staying?”

Nell shrugs. “Don’t know. Hadn’t thought much further than putting eyes on him. I can, I guess. You?”

Sam nods. “I think so. He’ll be here a couple weeks before we can get him back to LA.”

It occurs to Nell Sam is Callen’s next of kin and probably has information from a doctor. “Is he… going to be okay?”

“Seems like.” Sam shakes his head, unconsciously negating his words. “I don’t think they know. Nobody’s ever had this. Theoretically, yes. He’ll recover.”

“What’re they giving him?”

“Some kind of kick ass antiviral medication you can only get here. Prophylactic antibiotics, also powerful. Sounded like he’ll hardly have a living thing in him when they’re done.” Sam’s disapproval, concern maybe, tinges his voice. “Fourteen days of all that, he’ll be lucky to have a working immune system.”

Nell has no answer. She’ll get the names of the meds and do some research. Choose your poison. Callen’s on his way back to bed, looking like his own shadow. Seems incredibly senseless. Manufactured illness, poison antidote, all for no good reason. Deep down she’s furious. Something must’ve shown on her face because Sam’s assessing her anew. She shrugs. “Pisses me off.” She says.

Sam nods. He’s never seen Nell angry, annoyed, sure, but the anger flickering in her eyes just now is something entirely different. Something he’s actually only ever seen in Michelle’s eyes. Nell loves G. A complication none of them need. Oh, he knows Nell and G have been attracted to each other for a long while. It was, in fact, that very attraction that prompted he and Mitch to set G up with Joelle. Until four or five seconds ago it’d been his commonsense assumption Nell’s too young for G, G needs to get out more and dating would help with that. Common sense, but clearly wrong. Trouble. G’s breakfast arrives. Sam offers to go fetch food for he and Nell and saunters off to the cafeteria.

Because Nell stays and Sam’s sorely in need of a bed Sam makes a hotel reservation. Nell, who didn’t bring anything but her laptop, goes to the store. The result is Nell coming out of the bathroom in G’s room after dinner in plaid flannel pajama bottoms and a t-shirt. He grins.

“Don’t say it.” She cautions.

“What?”

“I’m not cute.” She says this with cool seriousness. Exceptionally cute. She’s procured extra pillows and stacked them at the foot of the bed where she settles in facing him, socked feet tucking under his ribs. How or why she found a Viktor Pelevin novel in Russian baffles him, but she has and she’s reading it aloud. Her voice is rest, familiar, easy. He reads a lot of fiction in Russian and speaks it occasionally on the job. He rarely ever hears his language of origin and can’t recall the last time he heard a woman’s voice wrapped around the familiar sounds. He sinks into the sounds, the story, and drifts away from exhaustion, nausea and fuzzy thoughts.

For two weeks Sam and Nell share the hotel room, with Sam sleeping there at night and Nell working there during the day. Sam and G catch up on every conceivable sport on television, Nell returns to have dinner with them. Then she reads to him until they fall asleep in his bed. Sam heads to the hotel for a few hours checking in with OSP and his family before bed. No one discusses the weird close limbo they’ve made. G improves daily, measured by rafts of blood tests, lung capacity tests, urine samples and the like. By the end of a week G is ambulatory and they add long walks to the routine.

Nell brings sweatpants and a couple t-shirts so G can ditch the hospital gowns. The second week G is itchy to get out and away from the medical staff. At the close of fourteen days medication, the doctor says he’s recovered enough to return to LA, on a medical flight with a nurse, and check into the hospital there for further monitoring. His digestion was destroyed by the virus, he’s shedding pounds like water. His lungs remain vulnerable to infection.

All three of them look forward to going home. G knows there’s more hospital coming, but it will be nice to see everyone. Sam looks forward to grabbing his daughters, long conversations with Michelle and work. He also looks forward to spreading hospital visit duty among their friends. Entertaining G is hard work. Michelle made it clear to both Sam and G on the phone last night, she expects G to stay in the hospital until discharge and then directly to the Hanna house for rehabilitation.

Nell knows she could leave in the morning. She’s been able to keep up with work, such as it is. There’s no substitute for being there, but giving Eric remote support works well. Sam and G watch basketball highlights while she emails. How will they ever go back to before? When she gets off the plane she’ll step back into life where she’s trying to qualify for a field agent position she’s not sure she wants anymore, where G has a girlfriend. She guesses it’ll be like none of this happened. Eventually. They eat dinner and discuss the Cavaliers’ shot at a playoff berth. Sam takes off for the hotel. Nell settles in the larger chair, crosses her legs under her and reads the Atlantic Monthly. When G turns off the tv she reads articles aloud.

“I’m going to head home tonight.” She says. Callen’s brow furrows. She cannot spend another night in his bed. She rubs a hand up his leg. Another gesture she won’t be free to use tomorrow. “You guys fly out in the morning. I’ll come by Cedars- Sinai tomorrow… afternoon.” As the words leave her mouth she knows she won’t. Why would she? Why would they? They wouldn’t. Won’t.

~o~ 

“I need to talk to you.”

Nell’s a bit startled to find Sam at her elbow, hunkered down on his heels beside her chair. She glances around, realizes everyone’s left for the day. “What’s going on?” She’s pretty sure she’s never seen him with his eyes below hers. She blinks back some of the surprise and smiles.

“It’s G.” Sam says. “He’s in a bad way. He’s not leaving the house, won’t take my calls. Or Michelle’s.”

Nell’s brows climb. She glances around the room again, evading Sam’s pleading expression, fearing what’s coming next.

“I wonder… I hope you’ll go see him. Make sure he’s okay.”

There it is. Nell shakes her head. “Oh, Sam, no, I don’t think…”

Sam’s hand on her arm interrupts. “Look, I saw him when you came to Atlanta. You were there for him.”

“Yes, of course, but that was different.” Nell hasn’t seen or heard from Callen since leaving the hospital in Atlanta. Over the past six weeks she’s done her damnedest to live her life and keep out of the way.

“I’m already sorry for this.” Sam says, his large hand tightening on her arm. Nell tries to retreat further into her chair as he continues. “Last year, G mentioned something to me about you that made me think he was interested. I thought you’re too young for him, but if he’s interested and lord knows he needs to get out more, well… Michelle and I introduced him to Joelle. Which seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe it was. I don’t know. What I do know is when he essentially died on that floor you were with him somehow. Now, the only thing he’ll say about it is he still hears your voice.” Too much information, a bit of an avalanche. Nell’s mouth hangs open for a second, then clamps shut, lips purse. So many thoughts crash up she’s speechless. Sam winces under her gaze. “You can kick my ass later.” He says.

She shakes her head, puts a hand up. “I… can’t, Sam. I don’t understand. Why not Joelle, I mean this isn’t classified or…”

“No. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. He’s not with Joelle. Hasn’t been for months. He never really was. He’s a mess, isolating himself, which is no good. But, if you’d please just go. I’m sure he’ll see you. It’s been over a week. Nate’s going to break the door down if no one sees him soon.” Sam presses a key into her hand.

Nell grips the key. “Nate thinks he’s hurt himself or left?”

“I don’t know what Nate thinks. We’re just worried.” Sam looks up at her imploring. “At least think about it?”

Nell stands, forcing Sam to stand also, putting a couple of feet between them, something more normal. She folds her lips and searches her thoughts for some other option. She flashes on the image of him bleeding out on tile, telling her to rely on speed and agility. She sighs. Sam sees her surrenders as she feels it, his stance relaxing. She nods. “Okay.” She pockets the key. “Okay. Fine. I’ll stop by on my way home. If I need you, I’ll call you. Otherwise…” She glares up.

Sam lifts his hands and takes a step back. “Otherwise I’ll wait.”

The house is dark, the Mercedes is in the driveway. On her way toward the door she checks the mailbox, relieved to find it emptied. Even Callen must get junk mail. At his door she presses the bell, hears it chime in the distance. When there’s no response, she knocks. No response. She doesn’t feel comfortable using the key no matter what Sam or Nate think. She slides her phone from her pocket and taps out a text. ‘please open the door?’

Several long minutes pass. The door opens. “Sam sent you.” Callen’s tone is flat, his expression wary.

“Sam doesn’t believe I can be sent places.” Nell shakes her head. “No. He spoke with me. I’ve come. Let me look at you.”

The muscles in his jaw bunch. “It’s okay.”

“Back up and let me look at you.”

“Everything’s alright.”

“Back the fuck up and let me see you.” She ducks under his arm and brushes past into the house, grabs the hem of his t-shirt and pulls him back with her. He smells impressively rank, she wonders when the last shower was. She hears the door close and faces him. The curtains are closed, the lights are off. The house feels stale, as if no one’s there. The bed pallet in the living room is a rumpled, jumbled mess. “Sit. Let me see you.”

Callen sits in the recliner and she steps to him, her skirt brushing the knees of his sweatpants. She takes him in, hair uncut for weeks now longer than she’s ever seen it, dark smudges under his eyes, he’s lean, hungry looking. Their gazes meet, lock. Sky blue eyes, red rimmed and slightly glazed, he looks back studiously blank, defiant. For a bit, their eyes bounce back and forth. As the seconds and minutes tick by, she looks into his eyes, lets herself dissolve into his gaze, steady, warm. His pupils dilate a little, barely perceptible, then they blow wide. She leans, puts both hands on his face, kisses him between the brows. “Okay.” She sighs.

She slips her hand in his and tows him further into the house. “You know, you’re gonna have to tell me what happened. What started this.” She says. Through the master bedroom to the master bath. She runs hot water in the shower. Turning to him, she peels up his shirt. “Come on, make yourself useful.” She leans into the shower and adjusts the water temperature. He’s out of his shirt when she turns and she unceremoniously drags his sweatpants down over his hips, taking his jockeys down with them. “Step out. Here.” Her hands at his sides turning him, nudging him forward. She watches him step into the hot water, he flinches as the water hits him, she knows it’s not hot or cold, so suspects it’s been awhile. Then he leans into the water, hands coming up to rub over his face. She figures he’ll scrub off and closes the shower door.

She picks up his filthy clothes and walks them to the laundry room and the washer. He seems to keep his wardrobe on the utility shelves. She grabs a towel, jeans, jockeys, socks, t-shirt. She comes back to the bathroom and perches on the toilet.

There ought to be something really sexy about Callen in the shower, but apparently not if he’s dysfunctional. The bathroom steams up, she watches his blurry form through the fogged glass. The water goes off and she opens the door, hands the towel in. He leaves the shower stall with the towel wrapped around his hips. She gestures at his clothes.

He unfurls his clean t-shirt and nods. He slips the shirt over his head and meets her eyes. “I’m okay.” He says.

“You are a mess.” She says. “Get dressed. Can’t leave you here. Come on.” She gathers his toothbrush, deodorant and comb, heads toward the front of the house. Dressing, he follows. She shoves clothes in the duffle he uses as a go bag when he’s working.

Humid night air blows on G through the windows, some sort of classical music plays. Being clean feels raw. He braces for arrival at the Hanna’s house where the family will smother him with kind interest. Nell does at least seem real and recently very little has. He’s died and come back to nothing much. Or he wasn’t really here in the first place. He’s never found his father. His mother and sister are long dead. No one in a foster home or shelter would have any idea, he’s been gone from that part of life so long and so completely. Ex-wife, ex-girlfriends, each part of one cover or another, never knew him. Nell sees him. Might mean he’s here. A tap on his leg, he turns his head.

Nell’s eyes are forward out the windshield. “Don’t get lost in your head like that. Stay here.” She ventures a glance, meets his eyes, looks back to the road.

She sees him. He straightens up, feels the hum of the engine, the wrap of the leather seats. Here.

They leave the residential area he lives in and at the crest of the hill a view of LA sprawls like spilled gemstones glittering in the night. Traffic is dense and noisy under the orchestra in the sound system. They leave the highway, turn into a warren a smaller streets in what was an industrial area now gentrifying to upscale shops and cafes. Not going to the Hanna house. His senses sharpen. Another turn and the garage door of a small warehouse lifts. Nell tucks the Mini Cooper in the parking stall and the door drops slowly behind them.

Nell leads him through a door, disarms an intricate security system and flips on a light. He’s in a workshop. He glances at the orderly shelves and work surfaces, which only look like Nell in that they’re well maintained and organized. If this is all hers, she’s a stone mason, sculptor, artist with promise. He looks up the metal spiral stairs, climbs slowly behind her, arriving in a spacious loft. Nell’s brought him home with her. He leans back on the rail of the stairs and absorbs what he sees.

The loft is beautiful, quirky, reminiscent of East Coast luxuries. Low couches and chairs around a liver-shaped blue glass table serve as a living room. Four intricately carved and painted wooden doors hang from the ceiling between the living room and dining kitchen area.  A long table made from sheet metal and copper holds a large bright blue ceramic bowl of river rocks. Jewel colored velvet cushions adorn the benches. The kitchen runs along the wall, galley style. Open front shelving houses a colorful mix of dishes and glasswares. Nell clearly favors the autumn colors of brown, pumpkin, gold and green. For all its oddness, the space is inviting, comfortable.

A suspended wall of sixteen windows with shiny white enameled wood frames divides the living area from the bedroom. A queen-sized bed on a platform, thick inviting duvet, lots of pillows. Bathroom out of a spa, walk in closet the size of another bedroom. A very customized space. The photographs on the bathroom walls are interesting. He spends a long time looking at each. Though the subject matter is nature, the pictures all taken outside, they’re not landscapes. They are studies of intimate imaginary rooms out of doors, random pieces of furniture. A rocking chair in a coy pond, water lilies brushing up against its rungs. A streamlet, running over rocks, pebbles and a porcelain sink. The photos are charming, quiet, invitations. He suspects she is the photographer.

Nell sets his duffle on the foot of her bed and kicks off her shoes while Callen wanders her loft as if she’s not there. As if it’s a museum. For him it’s probably a museum of her. She wonders what he’s learned. At least he’s up and moving, paying attention. He’d zoned out in the car so far she’d needed to prod him back. Whatever he’s thinking at the moment, though, she’s starving. It’s late. She heads to the kitchen. She gets out her phone and sends a text to Sam ‘I got him.’ She cues up a current favorite playlist. Blue-toothed into her home sound system, cheerful pop music fills the space and she pulls out the oatmeal to cook. She pours a glass of milk and slides it to Callen, who’s settled on a stool at the bar. While the oats cook she changes into jeans and slippers, then comes back and chops dried cranberries, walnuts, an apple. She drops the cranberries into hot water to reconstitute.

With ten more minutes left on the oats she wipes her hands and comes to sit beside Callen. He drank the milk, which she takes as a good sign. She swivels her chair to face his. “You have to tell me. I can’t guess.” She says. “What happened?”

He looks at his hands. They’re shaking. He takes a deep breath, focusing on staying in his body. Objectively he recognizes something inside him broke. It’s happened before. He’s put himself back together, over and over. Now he doesn’t have the energy and there’s no point. Has he done some decent work, sure. But, if he hadn’t someone would’ve. In fact, should he stop, someone would step into OSP and carry on without a hiccup. Within a year, it’d be like he’d never existed. 150 minutes of dying neatly framed 42 years of living with nothing to show for it.

He’s never wanted to die and doesn’t want to now. He can’t think of what he’ll do for another 40 years. Tonight he can have another dinner, read another book. Tomorrow he can run, talk to Nate, keep working to get back to working. He swallows. “I...um… when I lost consciousness I thought that was it. Full of regret, but resigned, accepted it. Then, I woke up. Came back to not much. I don’t know what to do with those regrets. Just feels…” He lifts a shoulder. “I can still hear your voice, though.” His eyes bounce away and back. She nods encouragement. “Trying to find my way back.” He says.

“What do you mean, came back to not much? I don’t understand. Everything is still here.”

He shakes his head. “No. I mean, yes, I know. But, no. Not like that. I don’t leave much of a trace, you know? I’ve made a career out of being invisible and succeeded. It doesn’t matter if I come or go, which is how it ought to be. Right now it just feels… lonely. And sad.” Like an empty body made it back without the previous tenant.

“Oh.” She ponders him for a moment. There’s an eerie stillness around him. She’s never seen this sadness. She certainly thought it possible, given his life. “You were alone and I couldn’t get to you. Neither of us knew you’d live through…Something like that… bound to change things.”

She finishes preparing their meal and gestures for him to bring his bowl into the living room. She picks up a remote and aims, bringing down the screen with the news. She curls into a corner of the sofa and blows on the oatmeal in her bowl. Callen sits at the other end of the sofa and tries to focus on the news. At the first commercial Nell’s feet slide toward him and tuck under his thigh. Reminds him he’s here.

After the news, dishes rinsed and left in the sink, Nell comes back to the sofa and resumes her seat. “For three hours and thirty-seven minutes you were dying, had died. I hated you were alone. I missed you. I regretted we were never together, I’d never kiss you, tell you you’re beautiful. My heart broke.” She says. His eyes flash to hers. It’s hard not to look away. “None of us leave much of a trace anywhere. Just with those who love us as long as they live, then nothing at all.”

“Yeah. People love me on the periphery of their lives. By happenstance.” He scrubs his head, sighs. There’s a hitch in his sigh. He looks up, looks incredibly sad. “You left.” The question is in his eyes.

She looks down, sees her hands, the fingers tightly knotted. She spreads them, rubs her palms against her pants legs. She struggles for words. “I… uh… you were with someone. You were going home with Sam. Seemed like I should… go back to my place.” She lifts and hugs him, kissing his forehead. “S’okay.” She whispers. His hands grip her ribs, tight. She soothes her fingers through his hair. “Come on.”

He follows her while she putters around putting things away, turning things off. In the bedroom, she runs into him twice before gripping the front of his t-shirt and basically parking him on the bed. Him out of her way, she undresses and unpacks his bag simultaneously, back and forth between the bedroom and the bathroom.

She’s unselfconscious about her body, her habits. He watches her from beneath hooded lids. Her movements are quick, precise and delicate. Each time she returns from the bathroom, she’s wearing less. Now she’s naked and objectively exquisite, normally he’d struggle against arousal. She climbs into the plaid flannel pajama pants he recalls from the hospital, slides into a cotton tank top. She focuses on him, small smile on her lips. “You. Jockeys or sweats?”

He gets up, strips to his jockeys and goes into the bathroom to brush his teeth. She brushes hers beside him. Her bedside table is a low bookcase, she lights the lamp. “I don’t have much Dostoyevsky. Nothing in Russian. How are you with French? Camu?” She pulls out a battered paperback, her question more rhetorical than real. She climbs under the covers and gestures to invite him in beside her.

He eases into the bed, queen sized, Egyptian cotton sheets, down quilt, soft pillows. Lots of soft pillows, smelling of the white pepper, musk and amber of her cologne.  As he sinks into the bedding, shifts around to burrow in, she begins to read aloud. He didn’t want to die, has never wanted to die and then he died. Closed his eyes for the last time, missing everything so dearly it hurt his chest, lungs bleeding hurt, and finally there was only her voice giving him a vision of Romania, then nothing. Her voice wrapped around the mellifluous sound of French consonants soothes every nerve inside him. Missing everything so dearly though he will not be missed. He physically recoils from thoughts, retreats into the pillows. His forehead meets her shoulder. He’s here. She jostles to his touch, actually moving closer, and tendrils of gratitude unwrap in his belly.

There are a million reasons why Nell loves L’Estranger, and several why it’s an odd choice given the situation. As she reads about Meursault’s discovery of his mother’s death via telegraph and his seeming indifference she sinks into the her own conviction Meursault’s detachment is not lack of feeling as often analyzed, rather the ultimate form of protection from a cruel world. Camu’s world takes on its weight in her imagination, flaring to life. It’s effort to read in French, good practice. Callen falls asleep beside her, breath deepening and slowing. She finishes the chapter aloud anyway, just in case, then reads in earnest, falling asleep mid sentence several chapters later, the book slipping from her fingers into the covers.

Nell rouses when Callen’s arm slides over her ribs and his leg snugs between hers. She’s spooned against him, the curve of his chest cradles her. The light’s on, she reaches to turn it off. Darkness envelopes the room and Callen’s body follows hers, cozying against her. This didn’t happen in the hospital. He’s warm and heavy. She wriggles further into his embrace and slips back to sleep.

The next time she wakes, the smell of bacon pervades the loft. She extends an arm to where Callen slept and pulls a pillow close, enjoying the smell of him, the idea of him. There’s a lot about him she predicts, cooking wasn’t on the list. She puts her feet on the floor.

“Didn’t know you cooked.”

He looks up at her, lifts a shoulder. “Wouldn’t call eggs and bacon cooking. But, yes. I cook.”

Nell pads barefooted to the bar and climbs onto a stool. “You slept.”

He nods. “Yes. Thank you. Did you?”

“Yeah, I did.” She rubs her eyes. She’d love to know if his body has echoes of being wound around her the way hers remembers him. If he’s even thought about it.

He serves apple juice and tea with breakfast. They eat at the bar. While Nell showers, Callen cleans up in the kitchen. She emerges dressed for work. “Help yourself to whatever’s here. Text me every hour.” She scoops keys from a bowl he hadn’t noticed on a bookcase beside the stairs.

“What if I’m asleep?”

“Then, I guess you’ll need to set an alarm.” Nell glances over, meets his eyes feeling as if he simply wants her to look back at him, which is silly wishful thinking. All in all, orneriness is doubtless a good sign. Still. “I'll be back before five.” She jogs down the stairs, quick steps reverberating on metal treads.

It feels strangely immobilizing being in Nell’s home, on her couch, staring up at her skylights. Light streams straight down, lending a naturalness to the space, as if the rooms are all outside somehow. He ponders the relationship between this light and her photographs. Should someone be stuck at his house, they’d leave knowing very little about him. The opposite is true here. Nell’s home is a series of doors swinging open.

He takes her invitation to whatever’s here quite seriously. The books in her bedroom are a combination of classics in a variety of languages, alongside a large collection of poetry and plays. The Shakespeare, Austen, Keats, Dickens are all to be expected. The contemporary philosophy is interesting and he may have to borrow something from her. The mythology, Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Ashanti and Dinka aren’t surprising. He wouldn’t have guessed at the children’s books, including a collection of first edition Bobbsey Twins mysteries worth a fortune, a couple of which he’s familiar with from one of his foster parent’s book collections. He’d have thought she read more contemporary fiction and eventually sees a kindle reader tucked in on the shelf directly beside the bed.

There’s no trace of another person in Nell’s home. No family pictures, vacation snapshots, or other indication of belonging to a group. She frequently mentions going home, which he’s taken to mean to her family. He looks around for some trace of friends, realizing he’d thought she was more social than she is. Even at his empty house there are pictures of Sam’s girls on the fridge, along with cards they’ve made for him. Nothing like that here. The entire space is also immaculate, so clean it speaks of a bit of compulsion which makes him smile. Indeed, her drawers and closets are carefully organized.

The studio downstairs is intriguing. There’s a large chunk of tree trunk and a decent sized piece of granite against the far wall. Another wall hold shelves of materials ranging from rocks, twigs, and stones to plaster maquettes and jars of paint brushes. A tall piece of twisted aluminum mesh hangs from the ceiling. G walks over to the shelves and picks up a small maquette of a reclining figure. He puts it down and runs a hand over three stones leaned against each other. Another wall holds a variety of sketches and photographs and he steps closer looking carefully at the images one by one. Various figure drawings, others more abstract. The still life drawings are detailed and really good.

Back on the couch he texts her a line from Hamlet. ‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so’ and gets back ‘Act2 Scene2. What a piece of work is a man.’ He grins, stretches out full length, closes his eyes, wonders if she knew or looked it up. He could get lost in the sense memory of holding her, buried in the bedclothes, gentle rise and fall of her… mmm, yeah. He must’ve been way gone yesterday that her undressing him didn’t turn into sex. Dirty, crazy, immobilized is apparently only sexy in the movies. He fears if he ever falls for her he’ll never recover. Diffused sunlight streams through frosted glass skylights above, bathing the entire space in clean white light. It could be too late already, but sex will absolutely cinch it. Not that he doubts sex being in the near future. He rolls onto his side and tucks an arm under his head feeling aroused and sleepy, two sensations much closer to sane than he was this time yesterday.

~o~ 

Sam taps on his desk and looks at last night’s text message from Nell again. ‘I got him.’ Seems she could give G a run for the money on cryptic.

“Mr. Hanna.” Hetty materializes beside him. “Mr. Getz expresses concern about Mr. Callen. He’s not answering his phone. Have you seen him recently? Do you have any information about his well-being I should know about?”

“I haven’t seen him, but I think Nell saw him last night.” Sam says.

As if on cue, Nell walks through the door.

“Ah, Miss Jones.” Hetty says. “Did you see Mr. Callen last night? Is he well?”

Nell flashes on Callen’s chest against her nose, the weight of his arm. “I… yes. I saw him last night, and he’s… he’s really sad. But, yes, he’s well.”

“Excellent news. Mr. Getz called with concerns. I’ll go alleviate them.” Hetty pivots, vanishing into her office.

Sam cocks his head at Nell, brows up. After a moment’s consideration she decides Callen not talking to anyone last week wasn’t personal, he simply couldn’t. She lowers her voice. “Alright, not well. But, what do you want me to say? He’s miserable. But, he’s not injured or starving.”

“He let you in? You talked?” There’s a funny mix of hope and skepticism in Sam’s voice.

“Not exactly. I went in, we got him a shower, I took him to my house, fed him some oatmeal, read, slept.” She purses her lips. “Not much talking. I will… keep an eye on him for a bit.”

As Nell itemizes, Sam’s brows climb. Before Sam can ask for specifics, Marty bangs in to OSP, Monty at his heels. “Nell Bell, Sam. What’s shaking?”

Monty trots up to Nell and nuzzles her hand. “Hello, dog friend.” She says, digging into the ruff of Monty’s neck. She takes advantage of Marty’s arrival to escape Sam’s curiosity and heads up the stairs to tech ops, Monty following. She settles at her workstation and boots up her systems. Monty, per usual, curls up under her station at her feet with a huff. She kicks off her shoes and slips her feet into the warm fur under him.

Callen’s next text is a photo of his socked feet propped on the armrest of her sofa with the caption, ‘can’t stop thinking.’ She replies ‘me either. go figure’ and gets back ‘what are you thinking?’ She chuckles. ‘That I’d rather be there than here’ she sends. ‘I’d rather you were here, too’ she reads. ‘bored?’ she asks. He replies ‘yep.’ She glances up at a message coming in from SecNav that’s going to turn into work. ‘go downstairs and carve something’ she taps.

After two hours of activity the team takes off for LAX. While Eric monitors their progress and Nell gathers intel on the person of interest they’re after, she has plenty of brain space for Callen curiosity. She stoically refuses to dwell on what he might be doing in her house. Or in her studio, for that matter. What is she going to do with him? It feels like he’s untethered from his life somehow. She can certainly do nothing and see what happens. Though, keeping him clean and fed seems wise. She can ask Sam and Nate to do some kind of intervention. Jolt him back to life. The thought makes her grin. It’d be funny, but might not be helpful. Helpful. What might be helpful?

Granger decides instead of arresting said person of interest at LAX, Kensi and Marty will board his next flight undercover and see what they can see. Nell shifts into high gear making travel reservations using a married couple legend they used a couple years back. She gets ID documents on the way to the airport, and then digs in to update the backstops on the legends. Time flies. Kensi and Marty are on the plane heading for Las Vegas. Nell and Eric hand over surveillance to the night shift. Done for the day well before five, Nell’s tired from sitting at her desk chair for hours. She takes Monty, who stays with her whenever Marty’s in the field, and heads out. She’ll stop by the house, make sure Callen and her belongings are all still in one piece, change clothes, then run over to Marty’s for dog food and a romp on the beach.

~o~ 

It’s easy to live with Callen. He takes up little space, typically lying on the couch or bed, reading. Nell blends him into her rhythms and he acquiesces. Early morning run, back for breakfast and showers, she takes off for work. Dinner when she gets home, he either orders out or cooks. After dinner she works in her studio, carving stone. Callen wanders two buildings over and finds an armchair he buys and hauls to the studio, where he sits and reads while she works. They don’t talk much, both used to living alone.

When they shop at Whole Foods, Callen insists on paying for the groceries. Unwilling to argue with him at the cash register, Nell waits until they’re in the car to confront him. He listens to her patiently, then explains he’ll pay for what he can while he stays with her. They sit in silence for a long moment then. Her brain freezes up with questions, what are they doing? how long is he staying? why is he…? She sighs, nods, starts the car.

At night she reads aloud and he falls asleep, an arm resting over her hips, his face pressed to her side. His gaze is slate blue, the irises edged in dark grey. Thick brown lashes, close enough to count, curved slightly. His touch is vulnerable and tender, as if she holds him in place. Echoing what happened when he died with him safe in her bed eases her nightmares and his. Regular meals and sleep do wonders to improve his appearance and mood. Over the weekend they go to a photography exhibit at the LA County Modern. She can’t tell if he’s engaged in the art work, or simply interested because she’s interested.

Sunday evening she hands him a large leather bound blank book. “I think you ought to write.” He narrows his eyes, looks between her and the book. She plows on. “I’ve had this sitting on a shelf for a couple years. And, I think you should write something. Anything. Clear your head. Put some order around everything.”

His mouth twitches at the Nell-ness of putting order around the mess of loss. He doesn’t feel a need for order and he’s about to hand the book back when he thinks he might be able to simply purge by writing. The leather warms in his hand. His exploration of her living spaces turned up more journals than he’s ever seen in one place short of a bookstore. Filled with her neat square handwriting, sketches, photos, scraps of paper, the books come in all sizes from sketch pad to pocket book. He hasn’t read any past a glance, but he’s fascinated. He nods, tucks the book into the chair beside him.

Days later he mentions needing to meet Nate, asks if he can drop her at work and use her car. She expects him to tell her he’s going home when he picks her up at the end of the day. If anything, a day out in the world makes him more solemn. He drives them to her place without an exchange of words. Follows her up the stairs and lies on the bed with his arm over his head while she changes out of her work clothes into sweats and a t-shirt. She climbs onto the bed next to him and tugs his arm away.

“Hey.” She meets his eyes, tries to read his mind. He’s closed off a bit, serious. If they were in a novel, she’d say he’s brooding. Glowering. She purses her lips. He narrows his eyes. “Lost in your head again. I’m not so sure that’s good for you.” She keeps her tone even, matter of fact. “Might help if you say whatever it is you’re thinking.”

“Might not.” A glint of defiance flashes in his eyes.

“Mmmm. On the other hand talking can be quite dangerous.” She says. “Those pesky feelings could sneak out. Would you rather hit something?”

He glares. “Nate wanted me to tell him what about being here with you makes me better, and I couldn’t.”

“Because you don’t know or because you didn’t want to?”

He pins her with a steely blue gaze. “I know.”

“And I know. Same reason I let you stay. So, you didn’t want to tell him.”

“Seemed like bad form to tell him without telling you.”

She lifts a shoulder. “I wasn’t asking.”

“No. No, you weren’t.”

She knows he’s here because she loves him. At least that’s part of why. She lets him stay because he loves her. She doubts she would share the truth with anyone today, either. She doesn’t want him to doubt. She soothes a hand across his chest. “I do love you, you know.”

He absorbs the words, gaze fixed on hers. “Love you, too.”

“Yes.” She curls, tucks under his arm.

“Seems like there’s nothing but time stretching out in front of you, then you die without doing the things you wanted to do that really matter.” He says. She feels him unwind. “Sounds so obvious, until something happens and you realize you had no idea what everyone was talking about. I don’t want to die without being with you.”

“Me either.” She says, warmth cascading up from her belly. “At the moment, though…” she says slowly, “we’re still at risk.”

His smile begins in his eyes. “Not for long.”

“No, I don't expect so. What else? Your father?”

“I’ve tried, but, yeah.”

“We can try again.”

“What about you. Field agent?”

“Yes and no. I'm not sure about killing people or all the lying.”

“Kind of one and two on the job description." He chuckles, lacing fingers through her hair. “But, we can get you there.”

“I’d like to take on a piece of granite. I want to have a kid sooner rather than later.”

“I figured that wasn't going to happen for me, but a kid would be great.”

The wistful note in his voice plucks a deep string in her chest. She kisses the back of his hand. “So…” She draws the syllable out. “Next steps. I hack into some FSB servers to find old Kremlin files. And, you kiss me.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He rolls a bit, brings his face close, eyes searching. Until that moment there’d been nothing romantic about their conversation. He leans until his mouth touches hers, lightly, then more. Her eyes drift shut. His tongue touches her bottom lip, her head tilts slightly and his mouth fits to hers. His hand comes to the side of her face as her mouth opens to him. The kiss deepens, he tastes of coffee and desire, the contact electric. Everything dissolves, spins. Thoughts flee, leaving her lost in closeness. His mouth is an entire world of sensuous, warm, firm, tenderness. Her hands wind around his neck, enjoying the press of him, the weight of his arms holding her closer yet. Needing air they ease out of the kiss, she opens her eyes. The darkness of his gaze, the blue nearly gone, beckons. This is why it’s called falling in, she thinks, feeling as if she’ll tip into him and vanish. He growls, the rumble a vibration against her belly. “I need you to be sure.” He says. His hands tighten on her hips, he eases slightly away.

She gathers the scattered pieces of herself back to center, focuses. She traces fingers across his brow. His expression is solemn, intent. She looks her question.

He swallows. “Don’t want you to have a shadow of a doubt I love you.”

She wants to say she is sure, make love with him until neither of them can stand up. She is sure of some things. Sure there is love. Not sure the connection will outlast his recovery. His wanting may not outlive needing her. A pang of anticipatory loss shoots like quicksilver down her spine. “You may feel differently when you’re better.” She says softly, her gaze drops from his eyes to his mouth.

His stomach clenches at the uncertainty in her face. His jaw tenses. Her eyes come back to his. He’s torn between the desire to taste her again, so sweet and hot, and the need to say something. “First time I saw you. Five years ago, you were straight out of Quantico. All big eyes and cuteness. I wanted to scoop you up and take a bite.” He chuckles at the memory. “Then you started talking. Scary. I was the best analyst in the building and you left me in the dust. So smart, so young, so pretty. Sam was gonna slap me upside the head. You know you look like a teenager.”

Her lips twitch. “It’s a curse.”

“And I’m not a young guy. Then about the time I figured it would be okay to ask… well, I met Joelle. Dating, which was nice. Hetty gave me hell for not training you. It’s my job to mentor younger agents, I wasn’t doing my job, I didn’t even think about why not. Just asking you for training time felt like jumping in the deep end of something. When you landed on me the first time, christ.” He shakes his head, remembering the weight, the surprise of her motion towards him. “This. Me. You. S’not new.” His words slow, halt, his lips ghost over hers briefly. “You talked me home ‘cause we both thought I was dying and the only way you’d’ve known exactly what to do was if you felt something more. Broke my heart, dying in the face of knowing.” His voice breaks.

“Stop.” She crushes her mouth to his, kissing him hard. Making sure he’s there. “Don’t.” She says.

He closes his eyes. “Can I stay?”

“Of course.” She frowns, brushing the pad of her thumb over his lips. “Stay. Show me.” Her voice drops away, to a whisper. Then he kisses her again, drowning her in a flood of affection and want.

Permission given and received, Nell and G cannot stop touching. Fingers framing his face. His hand sliding under her shirt to skate up her ribs. His mouth presses her sternum, the top of her breast. She arches into the pleasure of smelling him, silken scruff of beard on her skin. Wide strong hands splay across her back, pressing her close, closer. She noses up under his jaw, leaving a trail of open mouth kisses up his neck to behind his ear. His fingers slip beneath the lace of her bra, strumming the soft curve of her breast. She licks the shell of his ear, her leg coming up over his hip, tugging his pelvis to her. He groans at her press against his erection, his grip tightens on her ribs, scooting her to face him. He kisses her nose, lips, chin, lips. Dark hazel eyes sparkle with love, laced by fire. She reaches to press a kiss between his brows.

“You’re gonna think I’m nuts.” She says, her thumbs smoothing along the line of his jaw possessively. “But I kinda don’t want the first time to involve latex. Want to be with you, just you.”

The words hit his gut, stoking his scoop up and bite reflex. He grins.

“Which means we wait? Until we’re sure you’re clean and I’m not fertile?”

“Makes sense. Just for the record, I’m clean and I don’t care.” Her eyes narrow. He chuffs a breath. “Cross my heart, no unprotected sex ever.”

“G.” Nell so rarely says his name it feels like a caress. “Never? Oh god.” She kisses his chin. “You’re gonna really like it.” She kisses the corner of his mouth, wanting to take him in, rock him, feel him fill her. Her legs clench around him.

“Temptress.” He hisses. “If you’d like to wait, there are many, many things we can do until then.”

“I’m clean, too, by the way. Have you ever had sex with someone you trusted?” Her curiosity is out of control.

He blinks, the question and her intensity slicing through his thoughts. “I haven’t. Not exactly. I’ve had sex with some friends, which is fun. But, what you’re asking, no. Like Sam and Michelle, no, nothing like that. Never been with anyone who had any idea who I am.”

Nell’s idea of G as a lover shifts scope. She presses her forehead to his. “I’m not super concerned about babies coming or not, but I don’t want to be distracted by it. I ovulated yesterday. Three days is probably safe, but four or five is better.”

            Their habitual sleeping arrangement begins easily enough while Nell reads aloud and they drift off. In his sleep Callen holds her more tightly. In her sleep she turns to face him. He wakes with an erection throbbing and her face on his chest. He turns over and tucks a pillow under his head and arm. Then her arm slips around his waist, her leg comes over his bringing the hot center of her flush against his butt with a bit of a grind. Damn. He turns over, thoughts a muddle of desire. The moan rumbles up before he can check it. She rouses, snuggles, kisses his neck, murmurs something indistinct and he kisses her mouth.

Nell wakes from dreaming him to tasting him. She runs a hand up his shoulder and neck into his hair, curves her fingers around his ear, coaxes him closer still. If she wasn’t soaking her panties, his erection would be amusing. As it is, she simply wants him in her and knows it’s not a good idea, but isn’t sure why not. She wakes further, frustration bubbling around her gut, slips a hand between them and gloves him with her fingers. He thrusts into her palm, groans. “If you want to wait, you have to stop that.”

“You started it.” She grumbles.

He chuckles, shifts until the comforter slides between them. He curls around her, the layer of satin covered down as his barrier. “Go back to sleep.” He kisses the nape of her neck.

In the morning they dress quickly, exchanging glances lingering on body parts and decide to get breakfast out. Callen comes into the office with her, planning to work out before heading back. But, it’s a paperwork day, and it’s also his first time in the office in nearly two months. He spends more time than he planned catching up with the team. After his work out, Marty and Sam insist on lunch. After lunch he agrees to meet Nate on Venice Beach for a walk and talk. By the time they head home he’s exhausted.

After dinner Nell looks back and forth from G dozing on the couch to the top of the stairs. She’d normally spend a few hours in the studio. If she does, no doubt G will nap until she comes back up. Instead she sits on the edge of the couch. G opens his eyes, offers her a half smile. She rests a hand on his arm. “You okay?”

“Good. Yeah.” He weaves his fingers between hers. “Tired.”

“Long day.” She nudges his legs over and settles onto the cushions. “Were you okay being back at OSP? The guys were really glad to see you.”

He shrugs. “Not sure. Seemed strange.”

She raises her brows.

“Distant. Strange.” He closes his eyes. “But nice. Yeah, nice.”

“Come back tomorrow?”

“Not sure what I’d do.” He rests his hands behind his head and looks up at the ceiling. “It’ll be a while before anyone clears me to work.”

“Maybe we could get you clear to do research.” She thinks aloud. “We really need more first hand analysis on ISIL, the situation in Syria. I’ve been scraping bits together, but if you put some dedicated time on it. Could really help.”

“I’m trying to decide if you’re the bossiest person I’ve ever known.” He muses. “Probably still Hetty. But…”

“Come on, I don’t hold a candle to Granger.”

“I don’t know.”

“Or Sam.” She adds.

“Still.”

Callen comes back to work the next day, meets with Hetty and gets released to research. Nell sets up a workstation for him at his desk with two more monitors, access to the Library of Congress holdings and a database she’s designed for research, citations, articles, web clippings, and media sources. He hasn’t seen the database in several years and it’s far more organized and easier to navigate than he recalls. When in the hell does she do this work? He gets the hang of the set-up quickly and shoos her off. After she’s safely up in tech ops he digs into her staff background file.

He knew she has a PhD and thought she was younger. Turns out she’s thirty and her PhD topic was about the ineffectiveness of law enforcement on the dark web. Before OSP she trained at Quantico. He knows she’s got mad analyst skills, but seeing her credentials is still impressive. Her file holds letters of commendation for special projects for the CIA, the White House, the UN in Geneva, etc… most of them accrued while she worked at OSP. He had no idea she was engaged on high level intel analysis for anyone other than the team. She can either do three things at the same time or she has no life. Or both. She graduated high school at sixteen, the little genius. Went to Stanford and picked up her bachelors degree in computer engineering, as well as a masters of public affairs and a masters of philosophy, there’s a two year break before she starts the PhD program and it’s redacted from her portfolio. As is anything about her extra-curricular work projects. He could probably get clearance to see it. He could ask her. Or it doesn’t matter. She got her PhD, did a year of field training and then he met her.

He slots this additional information into what he knows about her from living with her. Is he living with her? What are they doing? She’s keeping him in one piece. He turns his attention to searching the library, getting lost in following his curiosity through endless resources, news and scholarship. He doesn’t usually use his brain this way and it’s refreshing, if far too stationary. He sets his phone to chime at him every 90 minutes, when he gets up and takes a lap around the property, grabs tea or water, checks in with Nell. The team works around him, occasionally interrupting with some arcane observation about the criminal intents of their targets. At the end of the day, he’s stiff, with the surreal hangover he gets when he spends too much time out in the theoretical world. But the day passes swiftly, which is something. Better than aimless puttering about Nell’s or the beach.

He finishes out the week going to ‘work.’ Three days’ work yields interesting background information about the crises in the Middle East and G puts together three briefing papers for the staff. Somehow having finished something feels really good. The strangeness of being there, of hanging out with the team, dissipates. No doubt part of Nell’s plans. Used to Hetty’s plans, as well as Sam’s plans, G is content to drift in the wake of Nell’s attempts to reconnect him to ordinary life. It’s usually a bit like being in case management when he was a kid. All the well meaning women shuffling activities, trying to latch him onto something, anything. He’s adept at avoidance that looks exactly like compliance or at least cooperation, at least for a short time. With Nell it’s different because she loves him. No, other people also love him. She’s in love with him and that makes it different. Of course, if he hurts her, Sam will throw him off a bridge. G thought he’d been in love before, but apparently he hasn’t. His feelings for Nell are of another magnitude. If he hurts her, he’ll gladly jump off the bridge.

~o~

Nell comes upstairs from several hours in the studio. She’s covered in a fine grit of pulverized stone.

“Done or break?” G lies on the sofa, thick book resting on his chest.

“Done. Shower.”

He lifts the book. She purses her lips, looking at him a moment longer before heading to the bathroom. She strips and rinses off, enjoying the spray of hot water of well used muscles. Hopping out of the shower, she towels off and begins slathering shea butter into her skin from her toes. It’s been a slow pleasant Saturday, work forgotten, errands done, hours lost in carving. Her hands on her thighs and belly feel nice, and thoughts drift to the man on her couch. She could have his hands traveling over her. She tilts her head at her reflection in the mirror. A smile curves her lips.

Padding naked into the living room has exactly the intended effect. Though he’s had several glimpses of her, none had the clinical clarity of this moment with bright lights and shiny skin. She’s slender and curvy, daylight glistens on her shoulders and large dark nipples accent the roundness of small breasts. Her ribs narrow to her waist, the flare at her hips frames a flat belly button in a flat stomach above a soft crescent of dark downy hair where her legs meet. She stalks toward him, every inch of her begging to be touched, where to begin… she reaches him as he rises. He rests both hands on her hips, looks up into amused golden brown eyes.

Nell lets her hand fall from his chin to his sternum and trail to his cock. G groans, his eyes drifting closed. “I need to explore you.” She murmurs, a hand on his hip. She advances, pulling his shirt over his head, nudging him with her body, lovely contact of her shoulder to his ribs, nipples brushing his belly. Nimble fingers at his waistband, she divests him of pants. He takes a swift breath. “Sit.” The sofa behind his calves, he sits.

Now those lovely breasts are in his face, whether she intends that or not, and he cups under one breast, rubbing a thumb over the dark rose colored nipple looking far too delicious to be ignored. It pebbles under his touch and he leans the few inches to take it in his mouth. Nell purrs approval, arching into him, hand coming to the back of his head. She frames his face and smiles down at him, moving very slightly back out of reach. “Be still, you.” She says, laying a finger on his lips.

She kneels between his knees. “Let me look at you.” Her voice is contemplative and pleased. She kisses between his belly button and the wiry hair at the base of his cock. Her hands are small, tracing over his skin, her fingers sure, if curious. Her attention is close and intent. She examines the pattern of hair from the center of his chest to his groin, following her fingers with her lips, looking, touching, licking. The blush blossoms at the hollow of his neck, she watches it spread as if she’d poured syrup on him. She meets his eyes. “You okay?” Her smile is as pleased as a kitten’s in cream. She’s measuring the weight and dimensions of his cock with both hands, her eyes not leaving his until he nods. Then she turns her focus back to the business at hand, kissing, running her tongue up the underside of his straining cock. She rubs her thumb over the tip, spreading pre-cum over the head and earning a gasp.

He closes his eyes and his head drops back. “Fuck.” She takes the tip of his cock in her mouth and sucks gently, fingers cupping his balls. Her tongue curls around him and his hips jerk. “Wait.” There’s a distinct whine in his voice. “Fuck. Nell, wait.” The combination of sensations wrenches a groan from him. “I’m not…” She chuckles, the vibration of it quivering around him. She takes him in her mouth slowly, testing, easing, the tip of his cock hits the back of her throat. She sucks, is humming and squeezing. His thighs tense under her arms in his final effort to last.  Her mouth insists and then he’s coming undone, spilling into her, she’s swallowing, sucking him out and he’s doubling over with the power of release, shuddering.

He ends up on the floor, Nell sitting beside him contentedly stroking his arm. She kisses him, tastes of him, a mix of salt and sweet. “You.” She says. “Are absolutely gorgeous.”

He sprawls and she straddles his hips, grinning down at him. “You.” He says. “Are absolutely dangerous.” She rocks with pleasure, chuckling. “You might warn a guy.”

“Oh, now where’s the fun in that?” She says.

He gathers her and stands, using the couch for leverage. She weighs nothing. He laughs. “That was phenomenal, thank you.”

She grips him with her legs. “You’re welcome.” She kisses his nose.

G's hands are everywhere, his mouth scalding across her skin, his eyes tracing her minutely. His undivided, undistracted attention shines around her like high beams. She's hyper aroused, in part from seeing and tasting him, the echoing pleasure of taking him apart zings from the tip of her toes to the top of her head. He is gorgeous, she trails her fingers over star shaped scars on his chest. He lost thirty pounds while ill and his ribs show, muscles visible between the arc of hipbones. He dwarfs her, cradles her head in a hand bringing her to him, crushing his mouth to hers. Thought scatters, her awareness tunneling in on the dance of his tongue to hers. They pull apart, needing air, his eyes are dark, the pupils blown wide. He sets her feet on the carpet. He’s got eight inches on her, leaving her eyes at his collarbones, her head fitting perfectly under his chin.

She has known and loved every man she’s ever been with. Not a long list, but a good one. She puts a hand to his chest, stares up. “G.”

“Hmmm?”

“God, you’re beautiful.” She cups his jaw, stills him with her gaze. “You’re…” Like earlier, he blushes, color rising from his chest. He bends, touching his forehead to hers. She swallows. “Promise me…” how does she ask this? “I want to be with you. Just you. Promise me, you won’t pretend. You never have to be someone else. Promise me you’ll… stay.” That’s not exactly right, close, but she doesn’t know precisely what to ask.

She sees him. He’s here. If he’s not here, she’ll know. He swallows. “I don’t know… don’t always control… can’t always…”

“I know.” She says, voice soft. “That’s fine. Just, if we’re going to do this, this first time, I want you with me. You. I like your legends.” Her smile lights her eyes. “I ought to, huh?” Her thumb caresses his lips. “I’ll like being with them, too, I’m sure. But, tonight, tonight I want you inside me. Would that be okay?”

“I, personally, have never been with anyone, as you pointed out last week.” His face is still warm. “If it helps, I don’t think I can hide from you. I don’t want to. Want to be here.”

Her smile widens. “Want you here.” He catches her mouth in a searching kiss and she answers, rising up on her toes, pressing up to him, wanting to climb inside him. Instead she climbs him, using her arms around his neck to lift into his embrace, wrapping her legs around his hips.  It takes him two steps to get her back against the wall and thrust up into the slick warmth of her. Fire crests up with the sweet friction of him and she spins apart on a cry of surrender.

Nothing has ever felt like this. The slick slip of skin against skin, the ripple of her around him, the thread of thought trying to savor every sensation unravels into bliss. So good, wet, warm, tight, raw, so close. The sensation of falling, losing any track of spacial awareness, sinking into sheer euphoric pleasure wraps through him. After a moment of utterly abandoned thrill he gathers in the desire to drive and finds a rhythm, arcs with it, with her, up, up. She comes again, shuddering in his arms, her voice a guttural purr vibrating in his chest. He chases her over, his own orgasm cresting, spilling, sparking apart. She’s clasped around him, trembling, short harsh breath in his ear. Legs shaking, he turns until his back is on the wall and slides down until they’re sitting safely on the floor, tangled together, quivering, panting, petting. He comes back to awareness, her hands in his hair, forearms cutting into his collarbones. He glances at her, in his lap she’s level with him. Rich brown and gold hazel eyes brimming with delight and something akin to reverence, stripping him to the quick.

She tugs on his hair, slips her hands down his neck, across his shoulders. Mine. She smiles. If anyone had any idea how territorial she is. She tries to relax, feels like she’s been electrocuted. She leans to him, licks his lips, kisses his chin, rests her teeth lightly on his neck. A content chuckle escapes. He chuffs a happy sound onto her shoulder. She folds, curls, tucks up against him, a sort of hug, wishing she could get closer. She nuzzles up under his jaw. Wants to be in him, under his skin. She sighs.

He wraps the restless woman in his arms, tries to hold her tight without hurting her, though it feels as if she’s trying to climb through him. He laughs. “Where’re you going?”

“Dunno.” She admits, “God, that was good.” She says on a groan.

“Good call on the blow job. No way I’d’ve lasted even two seconds otherwise. Christ.” He laughs. He’s starting to feel like a puddle, muscles discharging the last dregs of energy.

She scoots off his lap and stands from a squat. “Glass of water?” She’s thirsty and sleepy, combined with the adrenaline shakes it’s an odd feeling. He nods, clambers to his feet.

They meander to the kitchen. Nell grabs a cup and fills it with water. She drains it, fills it again and hands it to him. He drinks a few sips, takes a breath. She puts her hand on his chest. “You’re really good at that.”

“You’re a wonder.” He says. “Also a good call on waiting and no latex. Worth it. So good.”

Heat flashes to her cheeks. She shrugs, color splashing her face, glances up at him through thick lashes. It’s the first time he’s seen her flirt. Her gaze scorches, fills him with something very close to possession as if her eyes brand him. Something else new. He watches her pad back to the bedroom, finishes up the water and follows.

There’s no reading tonight. The room is dark and when G climbs between the sheets Nell curls around him. He breathes in the perfume of her, her hair is damp and sticky on his shoulder and chest. Sense memory of being in her generates a warm buzz under his skin. He thinks about turning her or brushing the hair over. While he’s thinking about it, sleep takes him under.

~o~

Nell’s stare, over a coffee cup from across the table, singes G’s senses causing him to look up from the newspaper. “What?” He asks, glancing around at the late morning crowd in the cafe.

She shakes her head. “Nothing. Just thinking.”

“Thinking really loudly. About me. You don’t have to gist me. Just ask.”

She laughs, her gaze softening to affection. “I wasn’t gisting you, exactly.” She sips. He waits, brows rising. She shakes her head again. “You haven’t been home or to Sam’s in weeks.” He folds the paper, his expression wary. She fingers the rim of the cup. “I was just thinking about what a mess we’ve made.” She waves her hand between them.

“What mess?”

“Us. You.”

G calculates the possible purposes for cryptic, decides he’s better off not pursuing her. “Okay. Well, let me know what you come up with.” He opens the paper, this time flat on the table. “I’m enjoying us and you. Be sure and factor that in.” He returns to the book reviews.

Nell continues contemplating him. She likes looking at him. She does worry about what to tell Hetty. Eventually they have to tell her they’re together. Dating? Having sex? Something along those lines is required because they work together. She also worries about his desertion of the life he was living before the virus accident. He’s opaque on this matter, although he’s willing to answer direct questions, without knowing what to ask, she’s woefully under informed about his recovery. He seems recovered, yet he’s not qualifying for work, nor is he hanging out with the OSP team. She reaches across the table and lays her fingers on his hand. “Hey. Let’s go back and start looking at old KGB files.”

Nell hasn’t been out on the dark web often in a couple of years. Not much need for it when she’s got the reach of the federal government at her fingertips. No use for it when she’s not hacking. She stopped hacking three years ago, about the time the idea of becoming a federal agent really sank in. Unless she’s tracking illegal exchanges, she stays off. She’s not going to find out what happened to G’s father in the legitimate world, though. She’s also not going to use her federal resources to hack the FSB.

“Hey. D’you want Hetty to know you’re looking for Reznikov again?”

G glances up from his book. Frowns.

“I’m trying to figure out if we try to do this through official channels, which takes permissions, or if we’re off the reservation.”

He puts the book down and moves to stand behind her. “I think the official channels, and some others, have been pretty well exhausted.” His hands drop to her shoulders. The newly open invitation to touch her irresistible.

She hums skeptically. She’s pretty sure she’d turn up considerably more intel than he could. There are maybe four or five hackers or staffers in the world as good as she is. G Callen certainly isn’t one of them. “Still.” She prompts. “Here’s the problem. If I ask for permission, it will make it harder to go dark if that doesn’t work. On the other hand, once I start breaking laws, the consequences suck if I get caught. Which I won’t. But. Deliberation and planning are central to not getting caught.” 

Nell’s computer set-up is in the corner of the studio. Three 27 inch screens side by side create a huge workspace Nell has currently filled with Callen’s open personal file on a field of stars. She’s highlighted a few lines from the placement form when he arrived in the US at Child Protective Services in DC. While he watches, Hetty’s personnel file opens up, which he’s not even sure how Nell accessed. He looks from the screen to Nell, brows up. She shrugs. “Don’t ask. What do you want Hetty to know about this?”

He enjoys a moment of pleasure at her lawlessness, something he hadn’t known about until now. “Who are you?” She grins like a shark. He concedes and says, “I’d just as soon not do this officially. If we can find something new to tell her, to justify…”

“Okay.” She returns to her keyboards, fingers flying. What he recognizes as a web browser is gone and it seems as if she’s programming. He resists asking, settles back to watch. While he’s not entirely sure how she’s doing it, he gathers from the information and documents flashing on the screens that she’s looking for news from the day his father was arrested. She finds it, minimizes it to the bottom of a screen and begins searching for information within the FSB firewall. Not anywhere he’s looked. His attention sharpens and within moments they are looking at microfiche. Nell sighs.

“What?”

“So much from the 70’s and 80’s looks like this. It’s hard to read under the best circumstances. This is pictures of microfiche and look at the poor back lighting they used. I can enhance but… urgh.” Her scrolling slows to a legible pace. “Wish they’d done this alphabetically. So. My working hypothesis is Reznikov was arrested and there are records of the disposition. Find out what prison he was sent to, try to narrow it down to a couple of years to see what happened to him. If he’s still in prison, you’d’ve found him. If he was released or escaped - not as rare during the time as you’d think - he would’ve gone to look for his family - can’t imagine he’d take anyone’s word for it that you were all dead or gone unless he’d seen for himself. So, looking for any trail along those lines.”

She seems to be talking to herself as much as anything. G’s impressed with how quickly she’s boiled down what she’s looking for, another reminder she gists for a living and isn’t emotionally compromised by the search. He should have asked her years ago. She open’s a dialogue box and chats with someone about accessibility to thirty year old KGB documents. Some of which are simply paper and lost. Some have been found in decaying boxes in abandoned buildings, inaccessible. Most of which is microfiche files recently uploaded to servers in Moscow, under the auspices of FSB. He can’t tell if it’s anticipation or nerves that has his stomach jumping with tension.

Another window opens on a map of Romania in 1976 and red dots begin appearing. “You said your grandfather visited you father in prison the day after he was arrested?” She sucks on her lower lip. “So, this is a prison within walking distance, here’s the driving radius. Here are the train stations. Perhaps we can find…” While G watches information flash across the screens, Nell identifies what she thinks are the most likely prisons, comparing the locations with the data on microfiche until she’s isolated the names of the prisons.

G’s mind sifts memories, hearing his grandfather and mother arguing. “He wanted her to go with him, but she didn’t because it was going to take two days.”

Nell clears everything within a day’s travel.

The next time G saw his grandfather his mother was dead. He recalls trying to explain what happened on the beach, how he hadn’t been able to stop… a hand on his face. He looks up.

Nell’s concerned gaze meets his. She shakes her head. “No. Not your fault.” Did he say something aloud? He blinks. Her thumbs caress his cheeks. “Let’s get tea. We’ve been at this for an hour.” Is he crying? She smoothes his brow, her eyes locked to his. He gets his breathing evened out, swallows hard. Comes back to present, to her. He nods. Needs to get out of this chair.

He’s on his feet, still holding her hand, not sure how that happened. Her fingers tighten, pulling his attention around to her. She holds his gaze, unwavering, unsmiling. The panic and inadequacy rolls off his shoulders, puddles in his stomach, loosens its grip, fades. She rests a hand on his chest. “It seems as if the expiration date on keeping that all bottled up has passed.” She says. “Why do all your files say you don’t remember?” His memory of his parents, grandparents and sister are obviously crystal clear, if largely unexamined.

“S’the last I have.” He starts. Stops. Swallows. Loss flickers through his eyes. Then, he gets a hold of his emotions, his mouth firms. “Thirty seven years, all I had was memories. Kept ‘em close. Didn’t want anyone tryin’ to fix ‘em.”

She smiles at the note of stubbornness under his words and in his eyes, steely determination, so familiar. “Mmmm. They seem kinda restless.”

He nods, rubs a hand over his head. “Since…”

“I figured…”

“Can’t get it back…”

“You want to?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

The corner of her mouth tucks. “Let’s go up.”

He fixes tea, the motions normalizing, grounding. Nell curls on the sofa. He brings her a mug and sits, pulls her feet into his lap, rubs the arch of a foot. “Sorry about the…”

She nudges him with the foot. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“When Batya was arrested, a unit of soldiers, not the police, came, went through the house. It was chaos. Mum kept us on the back porch. When the shouting was over, Batya called out he would be back. My grandfather was furious. He blamed my mother, said it was her fault, they were looking for her, not my father.” G watches the middle ground, remembering. “I just realized that’s why he wanted her to go to the prison with him, to confess.” He shakes his head. “The next afternoon we were on the beach, and…” She knows this part.

Nell sips her tea. “How long before you were in the states?”

“Six days.” He refocuses on the room, traces a finger up her ankle.

“You know, Hetty would still do anything in her power to keep you safe.”

“Oh, if she hadn’t hired me, I’d be inclined to agree with you.” There’s a laugh in his voice and something else.

“She hired you away from the CIA. I’d wager she thinks she can keep you safer here.”

“There is that.”

“Did you know your mom was a CIA asset?”

“Not until a few years ago.”

Nell is the first and only person in her family to work for the federal government in any capacity, let alone in classified law enforcement. Her father researches and analyzes social policies at the Brooking Institute in DC. Her mother teaches law at Georgetown. They were stunned when her older brother, now a Lieutenant in the Navy, went to Annapolis, and then again when she applied for the training fellowship at Quantico after Stanford.

She takes G’s mug from him and sets it on the table, climbing into his lap. From this vantage they are face to face. “I need your memories to find your father.” She says. “It doesn’t make any sense they were looking for your mother and instead took your father. Your mother was there. D’you have any idea what your grandfather was talking about?”

G considers this. He shakes his head, but not no. “I don’t, but the only way it makes sense is if they thought he was giving information to the Americans and my grandfather thought my mother did.”

“The only way your mother had useful intel to give anyone was from your father, right?”

He nods.

“So it was both of them.”

“Had to be.”

“Okay.” Nell files this fact away for later consideration. There are moments Nell questions Hetty’s methods through the years. If Hetty had never come into any of their lives, would anything be better now? The Comescu clan would’ve still tried to kill Clara and her children. Hetty tried to protect all of them. She succeeded in protecting G. Nell shakes the speculation out of her head. She kisses G’s chin. “Want to leave it for now?”

He shrugs.

“Not much of an answer, friend.” She kisses his lips, frames his face with her hands, enjoying the feel of whiskers under her fingers. Four or five days’ scruff is perfect, past prickly, not a full on beard. Handsome. Although, at the moment, not looking ready to be pounced upon. She wonders fleetingly when he will take back the reins of his life. Needs to happen soon. Something she needs from him and at the same time fears.

“Don’t worry.” He reads her expression, if not her mind. “We’re good.”

She nods, climb off him and retrieves her mug. She settles into the cushions to drink tea. She watches him.

Nell is right. He hasn’t been home or over to hang with the Hanna’s in a few weeks. In fact has begun to think of her house as home. Not much other than her house and her self feel true or real. He feels as if he’s been living an imaginary life for thirty-five years. Too long. Imaginary lives. For an undercover cop, no matter the significance of the agency, the super power to not exist is really useful. He’s confident he’s used his super power for good, all things being equal. The only problem now is the day he died in the lab, he wanted to live. He wanted to be. He’s not sure he knows how. But, when he’s with Nell he exists. She sees him. And that’s got to be a start.

~o~

G takes the stairs up to tech ops two at a time. The general hubbub of a mission sounds like it’s deteriorating into disaster. Hetty is already there, lurking behind Nell and Eric. G takes in the the scene unfolding across the plasma screens. He tunes out the voices of Sam, Kensi, Eric and Nell, and tries to make sense of what he sees. Marty and two LAPD officers are down, all three leaking blood in ways G doesn’t like, though Sam’s bent over Deeks purposefully enough. Nell is rolling two ambulances. G can hear Marty, “Where is she?”

“Not sure yet.” Eric mutters, juggles traffic cam feeds. “Best guess is in that van.”

“Mr. Hanna, I need your sit rep.” Hetty barks.

“He took two in the shoulder.” Sam answers through the coms link. Sam peels off his shirt and ties it around Marty’s shoulder.

With a grimace Marty sits up, lies back down, presses against his shoulder. “Sam, you gotta get Kensi. You gotta get her. I’m fine.” The edge under Marty’s voice could be pain, could be fear. Probably both.

G hears additional LAPD back up rolling through Nell’s feed. He looks at Hetty. “Let us go.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Callen.” Hetty shakes her head. “I can’t risk…”

“Too late.” G interrupts. “We need to get out there.” He turns to Eric. “Get Sophia over here to back you up.” His gaze meets Nell’s. “Bring your gun.” He pauses the fraction of a second it would take Hetty to refuse him. Instead she nods. He pivots to go down to the armory. Nell is on his heels. As he straps on a handgun, she hands him an earwig. “I want you two feet off my four o’clock unless I say otherwise. Agreed?” She nods and they grab Sam’s go bag as they leave.

For three hours Callen works the domino-ing problems without flinching. They meet Sam on the street. Sam and Callen work together with the precision they’ve honed over the years. Nell is their voice, working ops from the field, quietly funneling intel and decisions while shadowing Callen. The team tracks both the vying groups of arms dealers, locates Kensi, makes arrests and turns the entire operation over to the FBI. Before dark Kensi curls in chair beside Deeks in the hospital, Sam is on his way home to Michelle and the kids. Callen ignores Hetty’s request to return to OSP and points the car resolutely west, home. With Callen characteristically silent, Nell sinks into the exhaustion from having done two jobs in parallel and falls asleep in the car.

Nell wakes with a start when G taps her knee. “What?” They’re in the garage. He’s kneeling beside her open door.

“I’d carry you up, but the spiral stairs look dangerous with a body and I’m exhausted. You okay?” He casts a critical gaze over her.

She takes his extended hand, scrambles up, stretches. “Sorry.” She rubs her face. “Really tired. Weird.”

“Nah. Normal.” He is bone weary. “Close one. Thanks for the back-up.”

She meets his eyes. The garage overhead light doesn’t offer much illumination. His face is in shadow. She squeezes his hand. “Of course. You okay?”

He shrugs. “Let’s go up, get something to eat.”

They warm up left over pizza and carry it back through to the bedroom, eating while they swap damp dirty clothes for sweats and t-shirts. G sprawls across the bed and Nell nudges him over until she can stretch out beside him. He ruffles her hair. “I don’t ever want to do that again.”

She opens one eye and peers at him. “What are you talking about?”

He mulls over the thought, not one he’s had before. “Don’t want to do that again.” He repeats. As much to hear it again himself. He rolls onto his side, props his head in a hand.

“You’re serious.” Nell faces him.

“Maybe.”

“G.”

He thoughtfully strokes her cheek. “If I quit, quit everything. No more law enforcement, no more undercover, no more searching for my past, no more any of it, would you come make the future with me?” Earnest blue eyes, stormy with intensity.

“Yes. Of course.” She doesn’t hesitate.

He grins, trails his fingers along her jaw. “I’m serious.”

Her mouth twitches with amusement. “I know.”

“You said yes.”

“I did. I do.” She lies back. “Where’re we going?”

“Doesn’t matter. Just want to be myself.” He burrows closer, his face in her side, an arm wrapping her hips.

“Okay.” She shifts, slides a hand behind his head. “Sounds good.” She kisses him. “Sounds fine.”