title from "hummingbird" by never shout never.
pov swap on "what they could be" on ao3. you should probably read it first for the full effect.
He meets a beautiful girl on the sixteenth of January. He's fresh out of MIT and she has the most beautiful smile, and they're on a beach. She's new in town, staying with her cousin (he loves her, but he has to work a lot because he's the best at his job, she tells him) and she really wants to find something productive to do with her time but right now she's celebrating being two decades old. She loves Los Angeles more than she loved Nebraska and more than she loved Pasadena, and he's not good with new people but he likes her. A lot.
She drinks the beer he buys for her even though she's only twenty, because he won't tell if she won't, and it's not like he's never bought beer for a girl before but he's never bought beer for a girl like her. And he'll probably never see her again but it's her birthday and she's alone in Los Angeles, and it's nice to spend his time with someone, even if she's a total stranger.
They talk until the stars come out, about movies (she loves Back to the Future as much as he does) and games (he agrees to play Call of Duty with her some day) and life (neither of them grew up here but it already feels more like home) and then they talk some more, and it's almost sunrise when they finally stop talking and go their separate ways.
They forget to exchange numbers.
(Her name is Nell and he might be in love with her, and it makes him sad that there are ten million people in Los Angeles because he'll never see her again.)
He spends the same day next January working, and when the case is over he buys a beer at the Santa Monica pier because he's tired but he doesn't want to go home. He doesn't think about the girl on the beach, except he does, and he wonders what would've happened if he had gotten her number.
(He doesn't connect the girl that Nate talks about with the girl from the beach until years later, after he is definitely in love with her and she's starting to run, and he knows he's in love with a woman named Nell Jones but he can't bring himself to admit it out loud.)
It's September, and January was a while ago but the new year is still far enough away to not think about it. He's at a party that Nate invited him to because he said it would be fun, and Eric thinks he's just trying to get him to socialize with people outside of work even though he hasn't actually said it out loud. (Nate isn't the only one who can understand people.)
The team has been going non-stop for the past two weeks and he's been overworked since the first four days but that's okay because he really loves his job (he doesn't have to carry a gun and he still gets to help people and solve problems) and he'd rather do it all on his own than with someone who sucks at solving problems.
The beach encounter two Januarys ago is a foggy memory now, but when Nate introduces him to his friend Nell, there's something so familiar about her that he just knows he's met her before, and he tries not to stare but he can't quite place her, and she reminds him of the crash of the ocean against the shore, but he doesn't know why.
She's looking at him like she can't quite place him either, but they can't spend all night staring at each other (not without getting strange looks from everyone else), so he covers up whatever out-of-place-ness he's feeling and introduces himself, and she lets him buy her a beer from the bar.
They talk until the party's over, about movies (they debate the proper viewing order of the Star Wars series) and games (they both agree that Reach is the best Halo game yet and they make a date to play together some time) and life (Nate's a good guy, and a great friend, even if he sometimes gets into their heads a little too much.)
They forget to exchange numbers, and Eric leaves with the strangest feeling of déjà vu.
(He tells himself he'll get her number from Nate, but then Nate's gone off to some Middle Eastern country and he promises he'll take care of himself but he can't promise to come back, and Eric promises to look after the team for him.)
Later that night, he remembers the girl on the beach and he never thought that the two girls were related until he did, because it's always just been one girl and her name is Nell.
He meets Nell Jones, officially, at work on the first day of October. It's her first day, and he didn't even know that NCIS was hiring Intelligence Analysts but apparently they were. She's following Hetty when she takes her first steps into Ops, and her face looks a lot like what his must have looked like the first time he saw this room.
He's just sitting in his chair working and she's there and he wasn't expecting this but he's been thinking about her since the party and Hetty is introducing them (her last name is Jones and maybe he'll finally remember to get her number) and Nell is shaking his hand and he looks at how her eyes are this weird shade of greenish brown and how her fingers are tap tap tapping against her palms and he definitely (maybe) doesn't think about how they would feel against his scalp because he's a professional and it's her first day.
She looks nervous as hell, like she's trying to figure out how to prove herself around here (which she's going to have to do, everybody does), how to act and what to say to make everybody like her, to make everybody want to be her friend.
But what she actually says is, "So there's no dress code, then?" and he knows she probably doesn't mean it like that because she's wearing a pencil skirt that she probably hates (last time he saw her she was wearing a floral dress and stockings and boots, and she was smiling), but it still stings a bit because he wasn't expecting that one. Hetty smirks as she leaves Ops, because she probably was.
The rest of the team comes in and she's introducing herself as he finds her an extra headset, and an extra tablet, and an extra everything; and he can tell that the team acknowledges her but they don't accept her quite yet, and she's quiet because it's a lot to take in. He knows, he remembers his first day. He thinks she's handling it well.
(He tells himself to ignore any form of attraction to her because she's so far off limits that he doesn't want to be able to risk it. And he tries, but he finds himself looking at her when she's not looking back, and he hates himself for not listening.)
He realizes three days in that things will be a lot easier if he tries to get along with her. He wants to hate her, because she's new and he's not really that good with sharing his toys (or his sentences), but the team looks at her like they're judging her every move and Hetty looks at her like she's going to be very important one day. Whenever she gets back from wherever she went, maybe he'll tell her that the team will warm up to her and that none of them are very good with new people, and she'll understand, won't she? Nell returns looking like she's just made a mistake but something went wrong, and he tries to talk to her but the words get stuck in his throat so he doesn't.
He emails Nate because he's not allowed to call him, and Nate calls him in response because he's allowed to do that. He tells him that he really wants to like her but she's a lot to handle, and Nate tells him that she just needs time to adjust and she's more than qualified for the job, he promises. Then he tells him that the Eric he knows doesn't have it in him to spend too much time not getting along with anybody and he sighs, because Nate knows him way too well and he's right. The conversation is short because Nate has another important call to make and he promises that not working alone will get much, much easier and Eric makes him promise to stay safe and when he hangs up, he decides to stop being a jerk and just talk to her.
(He knows why Nell finishes his sentences and she's so much lighter when he tells her that she doesn't have to stop, and he can't help but to notice how attractive she is when his words fall out of her mouth and her eyes light up, and he tells himself that he doesn't have feelings for her but he's lying.)
He sleeps with Nell one night in November. It's not the best idea, and it's never going to be the best idea, but she turns the whole world to sunshine and no one has ever been able to make him so happy and he wants to explore that.
Kensi invites her to drinks with the team, and he knows she's surprised, even though the team has finally started warming up to her (and he warmed up to her a long time ago but he can't tell her that he's burning no matter how hot it gets). No one drinks too much but they all drink enough that Callen has to fulfill his promise to be the designated driver and Eric and Nell stay after he takes the other three home because they're still the youngest two on the team, and it's acceptable as long as they have each others' backs.
They end up in a cab together and he's got enough of a buzz to ignore the voice inside his head screaming that this is a bad idea.
He's not sure who makes the first move but they're on the stairs that lead up to his apartment and her mouth is on his and his fingers leave burns across her waist and her shoulders are bare but he doesn't remember how they got that way. He'd be amazed that he can unlock the door with her fingers in his hair but he's too busy trying to memorize the way she kisses him to even notice her hands.
They end up in his bed and he wouldn't be able to tell you how they got there if he tried but there are hands everywhere and he doesn't know where his shirt went and she's making noises that he shouldn't be hearing and he hasn't felt this good in a long time (and tomorrow he'll realize what a mistake it was but right now he just needs her.)
He wakes up in the morning and she's not there and they don't talk about it. They act normal at work because they have to, because they can't afford not to. She doesn't look at him like she's terrified of what this means for them even though she is, and he doesn't look at her like he wants to say he's sorry even though he does.
(And if he doesn't notice the way Nell looks at him when she thinks he's not looking, then he can't feel so bad about using her.)
He calls her first on Christmas morning, and she calls him last on New Year's Eve. He's still in Los Angeles and she's back in Nebraska and when he asks her if she'd be his New Year's kiss, provided they were in the same state, he pretends that he's had too much champagne because he's with Kensi and Deeks and she laughs it off as she promises that yes, she would, provided they were in the same state.
(He texts her an x at midnight, and she texts one back, and he tries to remind himself that she knows he doesn't like champagne.)
They manage not to talk about November until April, and then he almost dies. They send him undercover and it was her idea, or at least partially, but he barely hesitated to go along with it and he can't hate her for that (he can't hate her at all, but he's not getting into that right now). He almost dies and she's not there but Sam and Callen get to him in time and he comes back alive (she doesn't even look shaken but he can't read her and that scares him.)
He shows up at her apartment in the middle of the night and she almost looks relieved but she also looks like she hasn't slept in a week. And there's something in her eyes that's changed, and he probably looks more raw than he did back in Ops because that's the way he feels (he finally realized that he almost died), and he doesn't know why but she kisses him, and then it gets out of control.
He doesn't stop her because she needs this (needs to know that he's alive and breathing and that his heart is still beating and it doesn't even have to be seventy two beats per minute as long as it's beating) and he needs this (needs to know that he's alive and he doesn't have to go undercover again and she saved him and he can't thank her enough), and he has her out of her shirt and against a wall before she pulls her mouth away to ask, "Again?"
He's selfish as he moves his lips away from hers, not to respond (he isn't quite sure what she wants him to say), but to kiss his way down her neck; and she's quiet and she's slipping his hoodie over his head and the silence says more than words ever could.
It occurs to him (when it's too late to stop and his legs are too tangled in the unfamiliar sheets to run away and her mouth is devastatingly gentle against his and he wouldn't stop this for anything) that he should've waited for her to come to him, because she would've, and he's the kind to still be next to her in the morning and leaving her alone just might kill him.
(She's sleeping when he drags himself out of her bed, and he tries to not remember waking up without her but he fails ; he looks at her face, all gentle curves and shadows, and he thinks that maybe she's afraid to talk about it because she's selfish too.)
And for a second, he's watching her sleep and he might see her. The girl from the beach. She's younger, just a bit, she's so much less afraid. She was fearless then - when he was just a guy who was learning to surf, when he was just a friend of a friend at a party neither of them wanted to go to; but now he's a guy who loves to surf, who taught her, now he's her best friend. Now, she's terrified.
There is absolutely no reason for him to be miserable, because he has no claim to Nell. She's his friend, and his partner (more than just his partner), but that's it. She can do other work for Hetty if she wants to, and Hetty needs her right now, more than he does. But that doesn't mean that they had to bring in another woman (Patricia?) to be her "replacement."
She's not going to be gone long, he tells himself. He can't miss her yet. But how could he not miss her when he's trapped with someone so much less competent than her, so much less... Nell.
(He feels a bit smug when Nell shows the other woman up, because she's looking at him like she knows their partnership is better than any other partnership either of them could ever have; and he doesn't need to miss her anymore because she'll be back with him soon.)
He wants to ignore the look on her face when she tells him the flowers are from herself. He tries not to notice how relieved he sounds when he tells her that it's great. But he stopped lying to himself a long time ago, and he can't stop smiling - he took a flower from Hetty's desk because of her (because of someone who doesn't even exist, and he's really not the jealous type but maybe he is) and she's got this light in her eyes, like she's just figured something out and it's something that she didn't even know she wanted until now.
(He thinks she's getting close now, and she might not be ready to act on it just yet, but it's nice knowing that when she finally is, she won't have to be afraid.)
He stays in Los Angeles for the holidays that year because he wants to. His sister's holed up in some cabin with her girlfriend and honestly, he's never going to be ready to deal with seeing his brother. He's been deflecting texts and calls about "that one time" and if he's nowhere near him, then it's easier to forget that most of his family is dead, or close enough. (He'd much rather hang out with Nell, anyway.)
They spend New Year's together at his apartment, and he kisses her at midnight because he finally has someone he can kiss at midnight and they're in the same state this year. She reminds him that she promised him a kiss, provided they were in the same state, and he's surprised because he doesn't remember and he always remembers.
Maybe he really did have too much champagne.
She kisses him and for just a moment he lets himself pretend, act like this is normal - kissing her in his apartment at midnight. He knows he could kiss her whenever he wanted if she'd just come around to her feelings, but he's still waiting for her and he'll keep waiting for her and he'll be there when she's finally ready.
(She kisses him again four days later and it's no special occasion, but it's her way of apologizing for anything she's ever done to hurt him, and he never needed any apologies but he'll never deny a kiss from her. Especially not one like this.)
And he thinks, as her lips smile against his, that she might've been ready sooner than he ever knew.
He spends the sixteenth of January with a beautiful girl. She's twenty four and she still has the most beautiful smile and they're on a beach. Neither of them are new to town, and some days they need a break from their job (they saved the city today, but they have all the time in the world right now) and they'll go back tomorrow but right now he's teaching her to surf. They both love Los Angeles more than anyplace else, and neither of them are good with new people but they don't have to worry about that anymore.
He buys her a cake, because she's twenty four and they need to celebrate and she kisses him because she can and because she's finally ready to face her feelings. He kisses her back because he's been ready for years and he doesn't have to worry about waiting anymore. He can't imagine life without her anymore because she knows him better than he knows himself and she's the only one he can talk to for hours and it's almost sunrise when they leave together to get breakfast.
They watch the sun rise on the shore, and it's bleeding through his bedroom curtains as he pins her down against his sheets, and she's smiling. That same smile. "I love you," she whispers, and it's hours and hours before they speak another word - the room swirls with gentle sighs and shifting springs and muted screams - and he spends every night afterwards breathing "I love you back," against her skin.
There's no need to exchange numbers, because he never plans to part from her again.
(Her name is Nell and he's in love with her and he's glad, because out of the ten million people in Los Angeles, she's in love with him too.)