Bloodied, a ncis: new orleans fanfic

Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS New Orleans or its characters...

Author's Note: This is sort of a sequel to Battered, but can be read completely on its own. It just sort of takes place in that universe (in which Brody and LaSalle get together and decide they want to have a baby). A future-fic with established Cherri, LaSalle whump and some fluff. Enjoy?

Pain.

He fought the instinctive urge to squirm and writhe to get away from its source. Because that wasn't an option. It would only make things worse.

He must have blacked out. How long had passed?

He tried to cry out for help, but his voice was hoarse, raspy and weak. It was dark where he lay, small rays of light sneaking into the dimly lit space through cracks in the boarded up windows above. He could feel his cell phone in the back pocket of his pants, its plastic rectangular case being crushed into his right buttock.

Getting it out was going to be problematic. He'd be in serious trouble if he didn't limit his movements as much as possible.

Gingerly, he lifted his hips, groaning in pain, trying to swallow the scream as blinding agony blossomed in his abdomen and spread outward, following a lightning-quick path to his brain. Hastily, he squeezed his fingers into the worn back pocket of his jeans and pulled the phone out, collapsing back onto the floor and breathing heavily as the pain subsided somewhat. When he raised the phone up to his face, he nearly choked on frustrated tears. Its screen was visibly cracked. It didn't respond when he tried to turn it on.

It was dead. And so was he.

Only, he couldn't die. Not today.

Not today.

Earlier that day...

Chris LaSalle spat the mouthful of blood onto the laminate floor and gave his opponent a defiant grin. Oh, he knew full well it wasn't the right move to make, to enrage the man further by refusing to go down. But he really couldn't help himself. He had good reason to fight back. Because if anyone was going to kill him on this particular day, it would be Meredith Brody.

Of course, he'd have to stay alive long enough for her to murder him. Which meant maybe he shouldn't be offering further reason for the larger man to throw another punch at his face, which he only dodged enough to take it on the shoulder instead. It hurt like a son of a bitch.

So much for one simple arrest this morning and the rest of the day off.

He staggered back a couple of feet, trying to get his bearings (and a little distance) before hunching down and plowing into the big man full force in the manner of a football tackle, sending them both flying through the flimsy screen door and over the back porch rail, crashing the few feet to the ground.

There was no time to pause and lick his wounds, however. He'd learned that lesson long ago when he was a rookie cop. The fight ain't over 'til the dirtbag is in cuffs. (And sometimes not even then.) So Chris rolled over, pushed himself up and threw himself onto the larger man, shoving him back down into the crab grass and yanking one then the other of his arms up behind him, feeling a li'l like a cowboy tryin' ta keep his seat on a bronco. He may have accidentally punched the man in the back of the neck. Police brutality was a terrible, terrible thing. And he felt immediately guilty about what Pride might say. But then he thought about his pretty baby girl whose daddy promised he'd be there for his li'l bunny's birthday party.

But no, the drug-pushing asshole couldn't just come quietly. He deserved a rap on the head and a hella lot more for all the other little girls whose daddies would never make it to another of their birthdays 'cause a him.

"C'mon," Chris snarled, yanking on the man's cuffed arms. "Ya don't wanna go playin' Dead on me, bud. Not ta-day."

There was a growl from the big man laying in the grass, accompanied by what might be some curse words, but they were too muffled to hear specifics. Not that it mattered.

"I ain't messin' around." Chris pressed the nose of his P228 to the back of the prisoner's neck. The man stiffened. "Ya can play Dead fer real fer all I care. Then I'll call someone else ta haul yer ass outta here... in a body bag."

Grumble.

"Wha'd'ya say?" Chris leaned in closer.

"Fine. I'll cooperate."

"Good. Ya jus' got yerself outta an resistin' arrest charge." Chris tugged on his cuffed arms again and helped steady the larger man as he pushed himself up onto his feet. "An' if yer a good boy, I might'n jus' drop the assaultin' a federal agent."

He mirandized the jerk while he loaded him into the back of the SUV he'd taken for the pick-up, and then hopped into the driver's seat, feeling a lot better about his day, and life in general. All he had to do was drop this punk's ass off to Pride, complete the errand list Merri had given him and then heroically sweep in for his li'l bunny's birthday party.

A Little While Later...

Chris loved New Orleans. He really, honestly did. It was an amazing place, with amazing people and a uniquely amazing culture. But right now, he wished he lived in any other city.

Traffic was at a standstill. The shortest, quickest path back to HQ was cut off by a funeral procession... And man, those could go on for what seemed days. And Chris fully agreed with the sentiment of celebrating your way out of life, as well as in, and every day you were lucky enough to be alive. But when he'd tried to backtrack and find another route, there was a jam. He wasn't sure exactly why, but it had already been 27 minutes without moving a single inch.

The Tahoe was in park. His leg was jittering. And his fingers were absently drumming on the steering wheel. He felt more anxious than the slowest turkey in the flock the day before Thanksgiving. There was so much he still had to do before he could go home to his family, celebrate their simple but wonderful life and his Lulu's birthday. Three years old today. The time had gone by too quickly. And he knew it would only seem to go faster as the years passed.

King gave him that warning on a regular basis, told him that he should be careful to savor it all, because it would seem like he'd only blinked and his little girl would be going off to college, bringing her boyfriend home for holidays, making plans with her estranged grandfather behind her father's back, surprising him by wanting to change majors mid-semester and announcing her recent engagement. It sounded complicated and troublesome and wonderful. If he could do half-as-good by his own daughter as Dwayne Pride had his, then Chris would consider the whole parenting-thing a success. Laurel was a good girl. And god, Lulu loved her 'auntie' to pieces.

The toddler was spoiled rotten, in Merri's opinion, by their not-so-little NOLA family. Emily-Louise LaSalle had the benefit of being the only baby amongst a loving group of adults, and received more fawning and entertaining than she deserved. Okay, in Chris' opinion, his li'l bunny deserved all of it and more. He was well aware that he was the pushover out of the little girl's parents. Maybe he could've been more strict with her if she hadn't inherited her mother's eyes.

Eyes that would be filled with tears if he didn't make it home in time. Or worse yet, in his opinion, his baby girl wouldn't even notice he wasn't there.

That thought made his heart ache. Which only made him more anxious.

Bored and antsy, he checked the state of his face in the mirror. Split lip. He worried it with his tongue, tasting the metallic tinge of blood. Oh, great. Mere was gonna be pissed. Good thing she was already on leave. Otherwise, the thug in the backseat would be looking forward to a very unpleasant interrogation with the irate wife of the agent he'd roughed up.

He rolled down the window and stuck his head out, trying to see down the street to determine the cause of the jam. There was a large delivery truck several cars ahead that was blocking his view. He sighed. Glanced back at the prisoner sitting with his hands cuffed behind him belted into the backseat. The man looked unhappy but subdued. Could he leave him there? Just for a minute. He couldn't open the doors from the backseat. Even if he could get his hands uncuffed, which he couldn't. It should be fine. Just a minute. Thirty seconds really. Chris just needed to get out and walk a few feet to see around the pastry delivery truck.

"Stay." He said, his tone as threatening as when he had a gun pressed to the back of the man's head. (Just for good measure.) The prisoner glared back, but didn't move, just looked out the tinted window.

It would have to do.

Chris got out of the SUV, but left the door open and pocketed the keys. Just in case. Also, because that annoying alarm that sounded when you left the keys in the ignition and the driver's door open. He walked towards the sidewalk, trying to see around the delivery truck. There were police lights flashing a few blocks down the street. There even seemed to be a cordon with barricades as well as tape. Uniformed officers were not only manning the barriers but spread out amongst the crowd that had gathered. He recognized the pattern from his NOPD days. They appeared to be performing a search. Unfortunately the nearest officer was a block away. And the crowd was becoming thick around the incident scene.

He may have other roles now, such as husband and father, but Chris LaSalle was still a lawman. It used to be the primary part of his identity. He'd thought it always would be. And even after marrying his beloved Merri, it still had been how he defined who he was. In his defense, it was also how his wife defined herself, too. Federal Agent. Oh, yeah, I'm married to a wonderful person, too. But when Lulu was born... Everything had changed. For the better. He hadn't become less, hadn't loved Merri or his job less. He'd become more. And he still was a cop, when it came down to it. With an instinct to help out wherever and whenever he could.

He checked on his prisoner again, whom had -thankfully- seemed to have dozed off out of boredom. Remembering the laws about leaving an animal or baby unintended, Chris figured prisoner probably fell into one of those categories, and left the window cracked even though he locked the SUV, before making his way up towards the police barricade. He couldn't really offer a helping hand, not when he had the large, slumbering suspect in his custody. But maybe he could at least explain his situation and that he needed to get to the local NCIS HQ, and they might be able to clear a path for him, or call up a car to transport his prisoner.

Unfortunately, the sergeant in charge was new and frazzled. She seemed to be harassed by his presence, as if he were just a Fed trying to bully his way in. So much for local rapport. He decided not to make a big deal of it when his charm failed. At least he'd have an example next time Merri accused him of using his charm to get whatever he wanted. It didn't always work. Okay, so she would still have material to tease him. Because he had tried to sway the sergeant with a smile and compliment over her leadership skills. But it hadn't been enough to sway her to get traffic moving right off. He would just have to wait like everyone else until the traffic cops arrived. The rest of the force out on the street were too busy tracking down the perp who had just robbed a jewelry store, stabbing the clerk and a patron in the process. He'd fled on foot and-

Holy shit. That was him, wasn't it?

The sergeant had given him a description, just in case. Or she was simply in 'disseminating information to all LEOs' mode and Chris had not only introduced himself as an NCIS agent but talked to her like a cop... For all the good it had done him. She'd still sent him on his way, but with the description of the 6'2" White Male wearing a dark green hoodie, jeans and a pair of sunglasses. With bright-blue dyed hair. One of the stabbing victims had pulled the hood down in the struggle, revealing the highly-identifiable trait.

The man was currently wearing a ball cap in an attempt to disguise his hair, apparently opting for the 'blending into the crowd' rather than the 'get the hell out of dodge as fast as possible' method of authority avoidance. It wasn't as unwise as it sounded. The police would expect him to run and act accordingly with their sweeps and their road blocks. Even the uniforms still in the area were more focused on crowd control than scanning it for their suspect. So blending in was working for the man.

Well, it had been working for the man until Chris LaSalle happened to catch a flash of electric blue out of the corner of his eye as he made his way back to the blocked in SUV. The hint of bright hair color showed when the suspect had adjusted the black baseball cap on his head. Chris whipped around, saw the tallish man walking away from him. He was no longer wearing a green hoodie but had swapped it out for a black windbreaker.

Special Agent LaSalle only hesitated for a fraction of a second before he pushed into the throng and began to follow the man, slowly gaining on him as the crowd thinned. It wasn't the easiest thing to keep tabs on the suspect as well as keep an eye out for a uniform he could grab and brief about the situation. And unfortunately, the perp had been casing the area, watching the cops' search pattern. There was no law enforcement to be seen as he turned down an alley. Well, except for Chris, who drew his SIG from its holster at the small of his back prior to entering the dubious back alley running between old brick buildings. One was an antiquities shop, apparently closed for the day. The other was boarded up with scaffolding out front and signs indicating it was under construction. The shaded alleyway promised to be sketchy as hell. And this may be a slightly fool-hardy thing to do, but Chris LaSalle wasn't a complete idiot.

Besides, the suspect only had a knife. And everyone knew what happened to a person who brought a knife to a gun fight.

Still, he was careful when he rounded the corner into the alley, not wanting to get jumped and slashed. But the man with the blue hair hadn't yet noticed he was being followed by a plain clothes federal agent, his back to Chris as he headed casually down the alley... that terminated in a tall brick wall. Where was he going?

"Federal Agent!" Chris shouted. "Stay where you are."

Naturally, this is when the Blue-Haired Man decided to run. They always ran. Did they really think it was going to end well?

The man only had a knife, posed no immediate threat to the agent's person, so there was no cause to shoot the bastard. It's not like Chris would ever shoot a man in the back. Not lethally, anyway. Maybe wing him in the leg, slow him down a little bit, make him thing twice about initiating a tedious chase. Because, damn, he must have bruised a rib a little bit with that flying tackle earlier. He was feeling quite winded as the perp ran up the metal fire escape.

And running upstairs? No one ever had a helicopter landing on the top of the building or tossing them down a rope ladder to facilitate their escape. Every horror fan knew, when you ran upstairs you were doomed. You limited your options. So he basically had the guy, didn't he?

Chris followed the Blue-Haired Stab-Happy Bank Robber in through the third story window, ducking slightly and blinking in the sudden lack of light. Which wasn't good. The man had a few second lead on the agent, and here Chris was waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. He blinked more rapidly, surveying the poorly lit surroundings. The space felt big, filled with deep shadows. And when he went to take a step forward, Chris realized why, a sudden bolt of terror striking through him, paralyzing him.

The building had been gutted down to its brick shell and support rods. There were no floors... Just some narrow wood planking around the interior, balanced on scaffolding, and down... down was a dark hole. Okay, he could sort of see the ground floor in the hazy sparse light sneaking in through the window slats, three stories below, covered in construction materials and demolition debris.

His phobia had only about half a second to rear its ugly head before his arms were knocked aside, his gun flying out of his grasp into the depths of the dark house.

Shit!

He didn't have time ponder where it had landed, because he was already jumping back out of the way of the blade slashing at his stomach. Not a good day to be without his Kevlar. It might've saved him that bruised rib earlier. It might have saved him from this precarious knife-fight perched on some narrow walkway built of a couple of warped pine 1x12s. If he wasn't concerned about getting eviscerated, Chris would've just rushed the man, got in close and punched him repeatedly in the side of the head or something. As it were he was taking another step backward, realizing he was running out of space.

God, so high up!

Shit! Knife!

He grabbed for the man's wrist as the Blue-Haired Stab-Happy Robber lunged at him again. There hadn't been much else to do. But that didn't make it a good option. Or even a viable one because tugging on the man's arm only added to his forward momentum, translating into backward momentum for Chris and-

They fell.

The impact didn't knock Chris out. Which was rather unfortunate. He screamed. Maybe he would've been concerned that it was unmanly if there were anyone there to hear it. But if they were there to hear it, they certainly would've seen why and sympathized. So, however you looked at it, he had the right to cry out in pain. And freak out a little. Okay, he was practically hyperventilating when he saw the six inch piece of rebar sticking out of his stomach.

And that's when the world went black.

Some time later...

Pain.

He fought the instinctive urge to squirm and writhe to get away from its source. Because that wasn't an option. It would only make things worse.

He must have blacked out. How long had passed?

Getting it out was going to be problematic. He'd be in serious trouble if he didn't limit his movements as much as possible.

It was dead. And so was he.

Only, he couldn't die. Not today.

Not today.

Maybe Blue-Hair had a phone on him. But he was out of reach, had landed about five feet off to Chris' right, due to their both flailing as they went over the edge, separating as they fell.

What the hell was he gonna do?

He tried yelling for help some more, but his voice only seemed to grow weaker, his throat becoming painfully dry. He carefully fingered his stomach around the intrusive, unyielding, disturbingly cold rebar impaling him. His shirt was damp and sticky and warm several inches around the wound. But he couldn't have been bleeding that badly, or else he wouldn't have woken up, right? And it must have missed vital things, like major arteries and his liver... Where was a person's liver located, anyway? He should pay more attention to Loretta during autopsy briefings, because it certainly wasn't the part of biology class he'd paid attention to.

There were a lot of things he hadn't done, should've done, wanted to do. He couldn't give up now. For one, Merri would never forgive him if he didn't fight to live. And he couldn't die on his daughter's birthday. It would be bad enough that he wouldn't be there for her in all the years ahead, but to have his loss marring her birthday? No.

He would not do that to Lulu. God, they'd never thought they'd be calling her that when they'd named her Emily-Louise Brody LaSalle. But it was quite the mouthful. Even calling a baby 'Emily-Louise' had seemed to much. Especially, when a doting parent was going all silly in the head with goo-goo baby talk. 'Em' had been Merri's sister's nickname and she wasn't keen on calling her daughter that. She'd been honored, burst into hormonal-fueled tears when he'd suggested the name 'Emily' for their unborn baby girl. But Emily had been and would always be his wife's sister. So they'd settled on 'Emily-Louise' for her beloved twin and his dearly departed grandmother. And if calling her 'Em' was too much for Merri, then why not call her 'Lou'? They had. It'd transformed into Lulu. And then when Sebastian heard it, he'd commented on how it meant 'rabbit' in some unnamed Native American culture. (The random facts that man retained!) Ever since, Chris had always thought of his baby girl as his li'l bunny... With the way she twitched her nose at him, the precursor to innocent baby giggles... It had seemed prefect.

She still did it.

What would he give to see Lulu wriggle her little button nose one more time? What would he do to know whether their unborn son would have the same little nose-twitching quirk?

Chris LaSalle thought he probably would've sold his soul for that, had the devil been there to make a deal. But as it was, all he had was the likely dead man lying five feet away. And the price to pay would be blinding pain and potentially bleeding to death. It was no certain thing. But it seemed like his only other option would be to lay there and wait to die.

And he would not die on his li'l bunny's birthday, damn it.

Okay. It was going to be nasty as soon as the rebar wasn't there to keep pressure against his insides, veins and capillaries. He tugged at the sleeves of his long-sleeved Henley, removing one and then the other, wincing against the jolts of pain the movement caused. (It was going to be a whole lot worse very soon.)

Oh, god. Was he really going to do this? It seemed like such a bad idea. But it was the only idea he had. Besides the option of laying there waiting to die... on his daughter's birthday!

She was waiting for him. Merri probably had tried to put her in a pretty, frilly dress. Knowing Lulu, this did not go over well. Didn't he want to know if mommy won out, or if she caved, since it was Lulu's day, after all. Would she be wearing purple zebra stripe leggings clashing with the University of Alabama toddler sized t-shirt... meant for boys, but Cade knew his niece (as well as her father)?

He wanted to see her smile, twitch her nose and giggle. He wanted a great big sticky-faced kiss on his cheek. He wanted to hold his little girl in his arms and kiss his wife, put his hand on her round belly and feel his son growing inside of her.

He took a couple deep breaths in, held them, released them, setting his jaw. Okay. Now or never. He pushed himself up, the unyielding metal sliding inside of his stomach and -fuck- how it hurt!

Don'tstopdon'tstopdon'tstopdon'tstop.

Free of the rebar that was sticking up like a spike in a pit, covered in blood that flowed down over the chunk of concrete beneath, Chris collapsed onto his stomach. He fought the wave of dizzy nausea and the blackness that closed in at the edges of his vision, threatening to claim him. He couldn't let it. If he blacked out now, he'd bleed to death. Instead he took the fabric of his torn sleeves and crammed it into the hole in his stomach. He felt around blindly, did the same to the wound in his back, making sharp whimpers of pain that weren't screams only because he didn't have the energy.

And then he crawled over to the Blue-Haired Bandit -ha! Why hadn't he thought of that earlier?

The very dead Blue-Haired Bandit. Whereas the piece of rebar had impaled Chris, his shoulders and head had landed in a pile of sawdust. This unfortunate bastard's skull had connected with a piece of broken brick. There was a very large pool of blood that Chris instinctively circumnavigated before pushing himself up onto his hands and knees and beginning to search the man's pockets. He had to have a cell phone, right? Who didn't have a cell phone?

It was just a prepaid flip phone, what the criminal element commonly referred to as 'burners', tossable phones, used for short durations so that they couldn't be traced back to their owners. Thankfully, Chris knew the number he dialed by heart. Luckily. Most people didn't remember phone numbers anymore. Just entered them into their contacts list and promptly forgot them. But there were three LaSalle kept locked into his memory. The landline still installed in his childhood home, his wife's cell number and that of Dwayne Cassius Pride.

He wasn't sure why exactly he didn't call Merri, even though he wanted to hear her voice, wanted it to be the last thing he ever heard in this world. But maybe that was why... It gave him something to continue to fight for. He couldn't die without hearing her voice again. Also, he was afraid that upsetting her with the drama of his lying there dying in a gutted building might send her into premature labor, dangerous for both mother and baby given Merri's troubled 'late-in-life' pregnancy. The last thing Lulu needed was to lose her father, mother and baby brother all on the same day... her goddang birthday.

Hello? Thank god Pride answered the call from the unrecognizable number.

"S'Chris." His voice sounded terrible. Weak and breathy and filled with pain that had actually become sort of a background roar.

/Christopher? Is that you? What's goin' on? NOPD called, sayin' they found the SUV abandoned with Richter cuffed inside./ Pride sounded concerned and seemed to instinctively know it was him even with the unrecognizable, barely audible pronouncement.

Chris licked his dry lips and tried to get his message across. "M'hurt. Need help."

His words were slurring together and his old friend seemed to know how difficult it was for Chris to communicate, remained silent, waiting for him to finish.

"Bill-in under cons'ruction. Scaffol'in out front."

/Help's on the way, Chris. Just hang on, son. You only gotta hang on for a few.../

King was trying to keep him alert and aware, but consciousness was too much of a burden for Chris to bear. He blacked out again.

Much later that day…

"Daddy!"

The shriek cut through the twilight sleep of lingering anesthesia. If it had been the high-pitched scream of any other child, he would've had an instant headache. Well, he already had a headache. It rushed in before he could even force his eyes open.

He blinked, was already smiling before he even saw her cherubic little face, her brown eyes so big and round, she made her gorgeous mother look like a squinty-eyed mole. King was holding the just-turned-three-year-old by the waist as she frantically leaned toward her bed-ridden father. And if he knew Lulu, she'd probably nearly jumped out of Papa Pride's arms upon seeing her daddy. Thankfully, the old agent's reflexes were as good as ever, and he'd prevented the 33 pounds of exuberant toddler from landing on Chris' freshly stitched stomach.

Well, that answered a bunch of questions. They must have found him, got him to the hospital, and he'd made it out of surgery. The extent of the damage he'd get from the doctor later. He didn't think it would be bad, though. He felt pretty intact. Just sore and groggy from anesthesia. And so goddang happy to be alive.

"S'okay, King," Chris said, holding out his arms to accept his daughter.

"Careful, Emily-Louise." Merri's tone had all the warning and worry he'd expect from his dear wife. He exchanged a look with her on par with the one they'd shared while saying their vows on their wedding day. It said absolutely everything that needed to be said. I love you. I can't live without you. I'm glad you're alive, in my life, mine. You are my life.

And then he noticed that she was holding a balloon in one hand. Floating above her head it looked a little pathetic. Her large, round belly dwarfed the Happy Birthday balloon. She was only 27 weeks along, but she'd shown early and significantly, was carrying their son so low she wore her 'Prego Girdle' (as she called the pregnancy back support belt thing) nearly constantly, and had been forced to go on maternity leave at six months by the doctor, Pride and Chris. It had taken all three of them arguing with her to get her to agree.

His wife was a control freak. Chris had long ago accepted this. But it was driving her crazy to be absent from work. Eventually, she'd simply focused on controlling every domestic aspect of their lives. Doubtless, she had organized this change of venue for their daughter's birthday party, too. Loretta had a cake box in her hands. Sebastian was wearing a party hat and carrying a pile of paper plates and plastic forks. Patton had a stack of pink-wrapped presents in his lap. Cade and Laurel likewise were holding bundles of gifts. And Chris had to admit, perhaps Lulu was quite spoiled.

But he could care less.

"This looks like a party," he said, looking from his helplessly giggling daughter (due to tickles) to his wife who was obviously not happy about being relegated to balloon-holding duty. (No heavy lifting- try explaining that to a toddler who loved her mama and be picked up for cuddles, amongst all the other things Merri wasn't permitted to do.)

"I told you that you weren't going to miss our baby girl's birthday." She moved to his bedside, placing an affectionate hand on Lulu's head of dark hair and leaning over the little girl to kiss him on the cheek. He turned into it, because it wasn't going to be enough, capturing her lips instead. When she finally managed to break his (perhaps a little too long to be publicly decent) kiss and straightened, she was grinning as broadly as he was.

"I thought that was some kind of threat for me to get my backside home on time," he said, still grinning despite how she hated when he portrayed her as some sort of nagging housewife.

"It wasn't a threat. It was a promise, that I wouldn't let anything happen to make you miss it." She stroked his cheek, her eyes looking rather wet with valiantly restrained tears. And then Lulu was begging for her attention, tugging at the sleeve of her sweater and Merri went from being his frightened, relieved and enamored wife to the mother of his daughter. She leaned down kissed their little girl's plump cheeks making her squirm as if she didn't like it (but they all knew she did). "And here it is. Lulu's birthday!"

The crowd they'd somehow convinced the hospital staff to allow into Chris' (ooh, private... nice) room cheered and began to sing to her. Lulu laughed and clapped her hands, bouncing on the hospital cot beside her stupid-proud daddy.

When they finished singing to her, she was in fits of hysterical good humor. (His momma said that he'd been just the same when he was that little.) He pulled her into a hug, kissing her temple.

"Love ya, baby girl."

He may have come through the day a bit bloodied. But he was there. And that was all that mattered.

END

A/N: Well, that was almost too sappy for me to handle. Hope no one got diabetes from that ending. :-P