Not sure what's up with my recent stories about Sabatino, but this is a little midnight insomnia...

Callen was halfway taking through the toaster for the third time, around 2 30 am, LA time. He knew sleep would not be coming to him tonight. He had already gone through Sam's preferred method of taking frustration out- the heavy bag and now he was turning to his old tricks. It had been a rough few days. Kensi and Deeks were in the middle of an all out war with one another and the tension was so thick. Callen knew that Kensi was crashing in Nell's spare room for the moment. It got even worse when Deeks left suddenly after work, after getting a text message. It was Hetty who had to tell Kensi that Deeks had left to take an undercover op for LAPD and Kensi was even more pissed at Deeks than before and at the situation. All Callen kept thinking the whole day was Gibbs' Rule 12- never date a coworker.

He didn't know the op that Roger Bates had sent Deeks on and Callen was about thirty seconds from asking Nell to hack into the LAPD's records on going cases earlier at work today but resisted the urge. It wasn't necessarily that he was mad at Deeks for up and leaving- he got that, Deeks was still employed by LAPD and answered to them. He was just worried that Deeks may not have adequate backup. From the few years of working with the Detective, Callen learned that Deeks had some pretty unsavoury aliases and was pretty good and playing a criminal and a natural and being an undercover detective but he wasn't surrounded by a team when undercover and Deeks had a tendency of pissing people off.

He was just about to put the toaster all together when there was a knock at the door. He half expected Deeks or Kensi to be at his doorstep so he got the gun out from his back and slowly made his way to the door. There was another knock, so Callen slowly opened the door, gun drawn. It wasn't Kensi or Deeks on his doorstep. It was Viktor Sabatino and he was bleeding pretty badly.

Callen looked around the dark neighbourhood before ushering him inside. "You know there's a hospital about 15 blocks from here."

"Yeah, well, tell that to the guys who want me and you dead," Sabatino muttered.

Callen raised his eyebrows as he got a towel and pressed it to Sabatino's shoulder. "Dragging me into your messes now, Sabatino?"

Sabatino looked up from Callen putting pressure on the bullet hole wound. "Got a first aid kit handy?"

Callen chuckled a little. "You want me to stitch this up?"

"Well if I had my first choice, I'd be showing up on Super SEAL's doorstep but I think Michelle would kick my ass to the moon and back for showing up at 2 am."

"And I'm the next best option?" Callen retorted.

The blood wasn't slowing down at all. "Are you going to stitch this up?"

"Hell no," Callen replied. "I'm calling a doctor."

Sabatino shook his head. "You can't do that."

"Relax. She's a Navy doc who was attached to a Marine Recon unit once and a couple other deployments. Stitched me up good once in Afghanistan."

He looked at Callen. "And she's now on your speed dial and knows where you live?"

Callen spent all of about 2 minutes on the phone and looked at Sabatino. "Yep, but she's the one saving your life. Who shot you anyways?" He went to the bathroom and got more towels and spent about three minutes looking in the mirror, thinking he was a sucker for getting involved in whatever Sabatino was involved in. And he was calling in favour's with this doctor, which never ended well for him.

"Am I going to get an interrogation while we're waiting?"

Callen shrugged. "Seems rather appropriate, considering you're in my house, bleeding everywhere."

Sabatino shrugged. "Russians."

"Real specific, Sabatino. Try narrowing that gap a little."

Sabatino raised his eyebrows. "You're not going to like the answer. "Sasha Chirkoff."

Callen just about dropped the bloody towel he had in his hand. "Sasha Chirkoff?"

"I know that you, Arkady and the senior field agent in Washington, Gibbs? Go way back."

Callen pressed a new towel to Sabatino's wound. "Yeah, you can say that." Sasha Chirkoff was one crazy son of a bitch who Callen thought was long dead. Apparently not.

"Well he wants me dead."

"So you show up at my house."

"It's the last place he'd look. Plus Hetty buried the title under like 5 different shell corporations."

"So how did you know what my address is?" Callen retorted.

"I am CIA."

There was a knock at the door, and Callen opened it and a leggy dark brown and very tanned bombshell walked in the front door. "You got here fast."

"I was in the area."

"I'm guessing clubbing at Zero by how you're dressed, or may I say not so dressed?" Callen asked. "You beat a new record for LA traffic by the way."

She smiled cheekily and turned her attention to Sabatino. "Brooke Avery."

"Sabatino," he offered. The pain was getting pretty bad.

Callen had gone to the kitchen and pulled out the only bottle of alcohol he had besides beer, which was vodka. It would maybe numb some of the pain of getting sutured up without any drugs. Funny because it was a bottle that Arkady had given to him at one point. He handed the bottle to Sabatino. "Shall we toast to mutual friends?"

Sabatino almost choked on the vodka and looked at Brooke and then Callen. "You sure she is Navy? She doesn't even look old enough to be a co-ed."

"Lieutenant Brooke Avery," Callen replied. He handed over the suture kit to her while she was examining the bullet wound.

"Tweezers," she asked and Callen handed them over. "The bullet is still embedded in your shoulder. It is just missing the scapula, I think. I'm an trauma doctor, not an orthopaedic doctor."

Sabatino was trying pretty hard not to move. "Can you stitch it up?"

"Well, yeah. I can stitch anything up and make it look beautiful," Brooke replied, confidently.

Sabatino was sitting on Callen's only chair so Brooke got on her knees so she could get a better look at it. Callen almost had to look away because Brooke was wearing a very short sequined mini skirt. Brooke removed the bullet and handed it to Callen who put it in a cup, and silently reminded himself to give that to LAPD or Nell and see if there was a match to the bullet. He didn't completely trust Sabatino's story.

Brooke was starting to suture Sabatino and thankfully he sat there like a rock, considering the wound was deep. She had already cleaned it before suturing with the supplies that Callen had given her. "Dr. Cunningham says that you owe him an appointment at Balboa by the way," Brooke joked with Callen.

"Making a habit talking about me?" Callen smiled.

She rolled her eyes. "He just thinks that I come to see you every time I come to Los Angeles."

Sabatino found that piece of information amusing. "Are you sure you guys met in Afghanistan?"

"Oh yeah, want to hear about that story?" Brooke asked Sabatino. "Half way done with the suturing." The rest of the time it took her, she recounted the story of how she had met Special Agent G. Callen in Afghanistan. It involved the Taliban and a couple of bullet wounds and almost dying before the Marines got him back to the base.

She was just closing it up when the door slowly creaked open. Sabatino with his bad arm, drew his weapon, so did Callen and Brooke held her own gun to the door. "You don't need to shoot me, gentlemen," Hetty said as she slowly came in. She got a glimpse of Brooke. "That goes for you too, Miss Avery."

Callen was torn wondering where Brooke hid that 9mm or the fact that Hetty was walking through his door, closer to 3 am. He certainly didn't call her and he doubted Sabatino did either. "Well, this is a first," he commented to Hetty. She had shown up many times at his house, but never around 3 in the morning. When Hetty did suddenly appear like that, it never usually was a good thing.

Brooke had put her gun beside her as she finished off the wound. Hetty looked at all three of them before closing the door to the warm LA night. "Well, this is not a first that you have gotten involved in some dangerous stuff."

Callen shrugged. "Not me you should be looking at. He's the one that showed up, bleeding."

"Yes, Mr. Callen. But, he did save your life tonight," Hetty said. "There's been a bounty placed on your head."