Here we go again! Have some more Sam!

Just so you know, this one is a little lighter than the previous stories, which you should read before reading this if you haven't already - starting with "Dark Horse".

Thanks for reading and enjoy!


It was late. The city street was empty and quiet apart from the distant sound of cars driving a few blocks away.

Two girls rounded the corner, running flat out. Their hair streamed out behind them – one, a dark brunette, the other golden blonde. They ran at top speed down the sidewalk, some distance ahead of their pursuers – four men, all armed.

Their breathing was labored, and the blonde clutched at a cramp in her side. She slowed, but the brunette grabbed her hand. "Come on, Courtney, just a little further." She tugged her along, and they ran hand in hand across the street, onto the next deserted block, flashing in and out of sight as they moved under the streetlights.

"Around the next corner," a voice said in the ear of the brunette.

"What took him so long?" she asked, her voice jerking as her feet pounded the pavement.

"He was held up by her family members."

She risked a glance behind them. Two of the men had just rounded the corner they'd left behind. She smiled. At least they were faster runners.

"Four guys for one teenage girl is a little overkill," she said out loud.

"Some people like to be thorough," the voice reasoned.

The woman with dark hair slowed and pulled Courtney into a shallow stairwell along the sidewalk.

"Where's the key?" she asked.

"In my pocket. Why?" Courtney looked scared, her face coated in a sheen of sweat.

"Give it to me."

"Sam," Courtney said uncertainly. "What are you going to do with it?"

"Trust me, Courtney. You'll get it back," Sam smiled as Courtney handed a silver key over to her.

Sam kept it in her hand and listened. The footfalls of the guns for hire were closing.

"Let's go," she tugged on Courtney's arm again and they ran.

The men saw them and shouted, but the girls didn't stop. Sam and Courtney skirted the corner, their pursuers not far behind now.

Sam squinted down the street and saw a tall figure walking casually along the sidewalk. He didn't seem to be in a hurry, and he didn't have to be.

"Just down to the corner," Sam said to Courtney.

Courtney nodded and grunted with the effort to keep up her speed. Sam held out her hand, the tall figure did the same. When they met Sam slapped the key into his palm and continued running.

"Who was that?" Courtney said, looking anxiously over her shoulder.

"He's a friend, don't worry." Sam slowed and stopped at the corner.

She peered around it as Courtney bent over, her hands on her knees, breathing heavily.

"You'll want to see this," Sam said, grinning. She wiped her face and watched as her tall friend intercepted the four gunmen.

"Are you looking for this?" Sam heard him through her earpiece, and saw him hold up the key in his hand. The gunmen turned their focus on him.

Courtney stood next to Sam and watched as he clotheslined the first of the group with his outstretched arm. He landed hard on the sidewalk and didn't get up right away.

"There are four of them, though," Courtney said in disbelief.

"Yeah, but he's got this," Sam replied.

They stayed at the corner and waited while he fulfilled Sam's prediction. Two other men went down, shot in the legs. The last one suffered a punch to the face, kidneys, and the face again. The first one had gotten back up and fired his weapon.

"Crap," Sam muttered and pulled her gun from underneath her jacket. She started forward, but stopped as she watched. The shot knocked him off balance, but he charged and the gunman went down quickly after that.

Sam's friend straightened the suit jacket he wore, turned, and walked back the direction he came. Her breathing had slowed. She leaned against the wall of the corner building and sighed.

"That's it?" Courtney asked, bewildered.

"He's pretty efficient," Sam said. "But that's not all of it."

John stepped around the corner, under a streetlight.

"Oh jeez," Sam moved forward and focused on the blood coming from his upper arm. "Don't you get sick of having holes put in your shirts?" She asked as she tugged his jacket off of him.

"I don't put them there myself," he pulled his arm out of her grip. "We can take care of that later." He looked at Courtney. "Hello, Courtney. I think this is yours," he took her hand and placed the key in it.

"John, you are bleeding – there is blood from inside your body going down the outside of your arm," Sam tried to put more emphasis on the importance of his injury. She took the knife that was in John's jacket pocket and made a cut in the jacket itself. She tore the fabric, making a narrow strip, and tied it tightly around John's arm.

"Feel better?"

"Yes, I do, thank you," Sam said, handing the knife to him. He pocketed it, took Courtney by the arm, and started down the street again.

"Who are you people?" she asked.

"We're the people who found out about your family's plot to change your father's will. But, as he left mostly everything to you, and made you the executor, you were in their way." John explained as they moved quickly down the street.

"They hired those men to kill you," Sam continued. "That lock box key is the only thing that was keeping them from replacing the real will with a forged one." She kept her gun out, holding in her hand as she kept pace with them.

"But Dad's lawyer would never let that happen," Courtney protested innocently.

John forced out a laugh. "I'd hire an attorney of my own if I were you. Someone not already connected with your family."

"Courtney, it was Mr. Dodson, your Dad's lawyer, who helped the family forge a fake will. He thought he was getting shafted too," Sam explained.

Courtney blinked and her mouth opened in shock as she tried to wrap her brain around what they were saying. "Where are we going?"

"We're taking you somewhere safe. In the morning, you can hire your own lawyer and sort out this mess."

A car pulled around the corner and the police lights flashed at them. Sam dropped back in the shadow of a building as John and Courtney approached the police car.

Lionel and Carter stepped out of the car. Sam listened as John explained the rest of the situation to them and said goodbye to Courtney. Courtney, realizing Sam was no longer there, looked around the dark street, but didn't see her first rescuer as Carter helped her into the back seat of the car.

"That poor thing will have to watch her back for the rest of her life," Sam said, falling into step with John as he walked by.

"I know the feeling," John muttered.

"But she can at least hire some security guards." Sam checked his arm. Her makeshift bandage was nearly soaked through.

"Well done, you two," Finch said over their phones. "I tend to get more satisfaction out of the cleaner cases we deal with."

"Clean? Harold, John is bleeding to death and won't admit it," Sam tattled.


"Just do it," John said irritably.

Sam held the small pair of pliers in her hands and stared at John's left arm as if she were about to wrestle it. She'd cut through the sleeve of his shirt, cleaned up the blood and they both examined the damage. The bullet was still inside.

"I'll do it," he reached for the pliers, but Sam held them out of his reach.

"You're left handed. You'll poke your eye out."

"I've done it before, Sam," John said testily.

Sam took a breath. "I can do it. I just have to… psych myself up first."

She stood in the middle of the floor of the office John and Harold lovingly referred to as HQ. Finch sat at the desk, pretending not to hear what was going on as Sam placed her hand on John's arm, next to the wound. She adjusted the head of a desk lamp that shown on John's injury. She just barely made out the glint of metal inside the wound.

Sam took the pliers, and went for it. John inhaled sharply through his teeth as she worked. But after only a few seconds, Sam pulled the pliers away. They held a tiny, crumpled piece of metal that still had flecks of blood on it.

"Suck on that, nursing school that I never would have gone to because people's innards nauseate me!" Sam said triumphantly.

She tossed the bullet into the garbage can and cleaned the rest of the wound before she put a thick wrap of gauze around it. She topped it off with some medical tape, and stood back to admire her work as John got to his feet, the shreds of his shirt sleeve draped limply around his arm. He stepped past her and disappeared in between the book shelves for a moment.

Sam sat down in the chair John had just left and rested her head back against the wall. It was early morning, at the beginning of another a New York summer. She closed her eyes for a moment and listened to Finch's nonstop typing on the keyboard just a few feet away.

"You can go home and get some rest if you want, Sam," he said.

Sam opened her eyes and found his. Harold swiveled around in his chair to look at her. John reentered the room, buttoning up a fresh shirt.

"You can as well, Mr. Reese," Finch said, glancing up at John. "We've done all there is to do tonight." He turned back around and focused on the computer monitors. Sam honestly believed that Finch was able to tune them out when he wanted to, and therefore, if one of them protested, he wouldn't have heard it anyway.

She stretched as she got to her feet. "Good night, Harold," she said.

Finch didn't respond, as expected.

Sam followed John down the stairs and onto the barren street. She checked the time on her phone. It was 2:33am. "When was the last full night's sleep you had?" she asked.

John seriously considered her question as they walked together. "Probably that time I nearly drowned in the Hudson," he said.

Sam nodded. She remembered that night very well. Sometimes the memories would surface in her dreams. She'd see John floating aimlessly in the water, but in the dream, she wouldn't be able to pull him back up to the surface, as though he had weights tied to him.

He was right, though, he'd had a full night's sleep and then some. And that was about three or four months ago now.

To Sam, time didn't carry the importance that it once did. People kept appointments, people set alarms and had lunch hours. Sam used to be that way too, but for several weeks now, she was awake when she had to be awake; she slept when she slept; and she treated bullet wounds when they needed to be treated. Time didn't matter when you worked with John Reese.

If this was affecting her the way it was, John's internal clock was most likely shot all to hell by now. He probably adjusted to travel better than most people, though.

"I really hope she'll be okay," Sam said, referring to Courtney. "She had no idea. She didn't even suspect anything when I dragged her out of her apartment."

"You had to drag her?"

"Not literally, exactly. She was convinced when we were standing on the fire escape and she watched those guys with guns burst into her room."

John smiled a little. "That would do it. She'll be fine, Sam. Carter will take care of her."

"What about her family?" Sam asked. She'd been dying to ask since she ran past him on the street, but never had the chance. Sam was supposed to get Courtney out of danger, while John was supposed to prevent said danger from even happening by confronting the family members responsible for hiring the muscle.

John shook his head and rubbed his hand over his face. "It was her extended family. They'd already sent the dogs after her by the time I got there. But… I don't think they'll try it again."

Sam laughed, and rubbed the tired out of her eyes.