Author's Note: Hey all! I've been binge watching NCIS LA and had a few dozen inspirations.

All characters are the property of CBS, not me. Yadda yadda yadda please don't sue me.


He heard the impact before he felt it. Right in the chest, taking the air from his lungs when it hit. His gasp made Nell spin around, and when she saw what had happened the blood left her face entirely.

"Nell I…" He started before falling to his knees. It was impossible not to look down at the point of impact on his chest - right where his heart ought to be. "I'm sorry."

"No. No, no no, don't be sorry. You're going to be alright." She urged him, closing the distance between them and holding him upright.

He looked up at her, seeing the waver in her beady hazel eyes hit him harder than the impact to his chest a moment ago. "I'll just slow you down. Go. Get out of here."

"I'm not leaving without you, Wolfram."

"You have to!" He lifted his arms from his sides and grabbed her forearms, pushing her hands off him. "Did you see the shooter? 'Cause I didn't. If you don't get out of here right now they'll get you too."

Without her support, Eric let himself fall to the ground. He fought the sleepy haze instilled by the soft grass soothing his aching muscles, urging himself to keep an eye on her while she got away. They had been on the run for half an hour, smoked out of their hiding place by a barrage of shots only missing them by a few inches. Ever since they had been running, ducking, crawling and hiding, trying to get away from the shooters. Try as he might he found himself drifting off, unable to hold his eyes open.

The next thing he knew he felt a tug on his arm and when he looked up and saw her trying to drag him. He wanted to pull his arm from her grasp but, he couldn't, instead he tried to convince her to leave him. "Nell. I can't move. Even if I could they would just get me again. You've got to go on without me, I'll be fine."

"Fine?" She replied, bewildered by his attempts at self-sacrifice. "I don't care if I have to carry you out, I won't be fine unless you're right here with me. You're not giving up on me. Not now, not ever."

"I'll never give up on you. But just this once I need you to listen to me." He tried to make his weak, raspy voice sound like an order. "Go. Get out of here, Rockstar. I'll see you on the other side."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

He turned his head to the source of a rustle in the bushes just in time to see Deeks and Kensi jump out from behind a tree, paintball guns trained on Nell. She shrieked and jumped into the bushes but, it was already too late, in a barrage of paint filled pellets she was down and they had lost for the third time in a row.

"God, you two are dramatic." Kensi remarked, wrinkling her nose.

Eric rolled over and got to his feet, then turned away from the pair and found his partner in the bushes. He held out an arm for her and she gripped his wrist forcefully. When he pulled her up they looked at each other a moment before bursting out laughing.

"The breathless 'I'll see you on the other side' was a great touch." She remarked, lifting the visor on her helmet and wiping her eyes with her forearm. If she wasn't such a great intelligence analyst he would have said her true calling was acting.

"You sold the 'you're not giving up on me' line very well."

"That was totally serious! I can't believe you let me get shot down by those two while you laid there like an idiot."

"Those are the rules! One hit and you're down."

"So you'll let your bestest friend get gunned down because you're afraid of the consequences of breaking a rule?"

"First, Deeks is my best friend, right Deeks?" Eric turned to see Deeks and Kensi were already walking away.

She gave him a pat on the shoulder and leaned against him. "I'm your best friend and you know it."

"Hmph. Second, it was your idea to cut through ambush city," he said, gesturing to the dense shrubbery around them. "This was entirely your fault."

"What, you'd rather just sit in that hollowed out motor home playing tic tac toe?"

"Yes. If you hadn't bragged so loud about winning we would still be there."

"How do you even lose at tic tac toe? At any given time there is less than eight things I can do."

"Only you would be competitive at tic tac toe. Congratulations, you won, your congratulatory basket of fruit is in the mail."


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