A/N I promised a second story... this actually isn't it ;-) I got a bit stuck on the story I was writing, and one of the readers of The Air We Breathe had messaged me suggesting a follow-up, a bit more Callen-whumping, on the basis he did make a slightly unbelievably speedy recovery from the gas... So I started writing this - a lot of Callen, a fair bit of Sam, and plenty of H/C. It won't suit everyone I know, so be kind if you choose to read and review, but it's serving the purpose of keeping me writing, keeping me in the characters heads a bit, while I take my time to get the other one working.

I must apologise that I'm writing in snatches while my 5yo daughter is on her long summer break, so it's not quite as polished... And I wouldn't be surprised if the words 'Mummy can I do this/that/the other' sneak in lol.

This follows more or less directly on from my first story The Air We Breathe, so ideally you need to read that first, although it will mostly make sense as a standalone.

CHAPTER ONE

Callen lay silently with his eyes shut, trying to process the jumble of noises he was hearing over the roaring in his head. He tried to open his eyes but his eyelids felt weighed down and so instead he concentrated on his other senses. Noise. Above the roaring which sounded like rush hour traffic trapped in a small tunnel, he could hear a persistent regular beeping, and the murmur of voices. He strained to see if he recognised who was speaking. A man and a woman. Both sounded familiar but the drug-induced haze in his brain couldn't yet process any words they were saying.

He was lying half on his side, he realised. Lying on something soft, and there was something behind him stopping him from rolling flat onto his back. A pillow under his head. That horrible antiseptic smell only found in one place, the place he hated most of all. Was he in a hospital?

He shifted uncomfortably, and as if woken by his movement, all his nerves came alive and he clenched his teeth in pain. He must have made a noise, because the voices suddenly were much closer to him, and finally he was able to open his eyes and when he did he found himself almost face to face with Hetty. She was bending slightly to peer closely at him.

He blinked to clear his vision. There were bars between his face and hers. The light glinting on them hurt his eyes.

"H… Hetty?" he rasped, surprised at how that single word hurt his throat.

"It's good to see you again, Mr Callen."

Callen felt sure he'd heard her say something like that before, recently.

"Wh…?"

"You're in the hospital, Mr Callen," and seeing him immediately tense and try to shift his position, she said "Don't try to move. Everything is going to be fine. You gave us quite a scare, but you're okay. Just rest, please."

Callen mentally shook his head, confused.

"Sam?"

"Mr Hanna is fine," Hetty said reassuringly, seeing he wasn't quite firing on all cylinders yet. "Would you like me to go and get him? He is down the hall, with Marcus."

Callen knew that name. Why did he know that name?

"Marcus?" he coughed wearily.

"Try to go back to sleep," Hetty said gently. "We'll talk more when you are better rested."

Callen wanted to argue, but his eyelids were already closing, and his muddled brain wasn't cooperating. He felt the pull of sleep slowly claim him.

When he woke again, the anesthetic had worn off and he felt more alert. Still lying on something soft. A bed, with bars in front of his face. Soft pillows wedged behind him, still holding him halfway between his back and his side. Still hurting. He tried to move, and groaned uncomfortably.

"Hey there," he heard Sam's voice, and he moved his eyes in the direction it had come from. The blurry outline of his partner filled his vision through the bars.

"Am I.. in prison?" he asked, only half joking. Sam snorted.

"Depends on your point of view. Bed rail," Sam responded, resting his hands on it. "Apparently you didn't think you'd given Hetty and I enough grey hairs…"

"Hospital?" Callen confirmed despondently.

"Yeah. Scared the shit out of us. There we were thinking it was all over, and you dropped like a stone at my feet."

Callen blinked, a rush of memories assaulting him. Marcus. The fight with Henderson. Sam coming to his rescue… again. Keeping vigil at the boy's bedside, Sam with him. The boy sleeping. He'd fallen asleep too, leaning on the boy's bed. He'd woken up, walked to the window. Sam asking if he was okay…

"What happened?"

"You blacked out, collapsed. All manner of panic. They rushed you down to the ER to discover your lungs giving up on you again and blood in your chest…."

Callen remembered Henderson slamming him backwards against the wall, knocking the air out of him.

"Damn," he grunted, shifting uncomfortably. "Can I… sit up?"

"Not til the doctor has seen you," Sam explained regretfully. "They had to put in a chest drain." He saw the change in Callen's face. "Couple of days, G," he said reassuringly. "You can manage a couple of days…"

Callen wasn't so sure, but he clenched his jaw and nodded, not wanting to burden his partner with any more worry. He took further stock of his physical state. His chest was painfully sore and even he had to concede that breathing was a real struggle. The damned oxygen tube was back in his nose. There was a blood pressure cuff on his right arm, and monitors on his chest, wires snaking out under the gown. An IV catheter and a pulse meter once again adorned his right hand, and the graze on his right forearm had a new dressing covering it. He was wedged at an angle on his right side, and he could feel the drain uncomfortably in his left ribcage. His left bicep felt uncomfortably bulky with fresh bandages limiting the movement of his arm, and he was hurting a lot more than he cared to admit in the area where the bullet had damaged his rib.

"Back… where we… started," he panted roughly, trying for calm.

"Well, not quite," Sam was still trying to reassure him. "No ventilator." Callen had to agree that was a considerable plus. "What happened with Henderson?" Sam asked.

"We… fought. I tried... to grab him… from behind…. He slammed me… against… the wall..." Talking was taking its toll, again.

"Explains a lot," Sam said, and carried on when Callen raised his eyebrows. "The rib the bullet damaged before broke and caused the bleeding around your lung."

"Damn," Callen said again, with feeling.

"You could say that," Sam agreed, and then, aware of his partner's sore throat, offered, "Do you want some ice chips?"

"Rather have… a beer," Callen said grumpily, which Sam took as acknowledgement.

"You gonna stay put?" he asked, moving to lower the bed rail. Callen nodded wearily, and Sam dropped the imprisoning bars and gently spooned some ice chips into Callen's mouth. "More?" Callen swallowed and nodded gratefully. The ice was soothing on his throat, still swollen and sore from the effects of breathing in the gas and aggravated again by his recent anaesthesia.

"Thanks." He paused. "Marcus?"

"He's fine. Brave kid. He asked how you were when he woke up this morning."

"When he…. What time...?"

"About 5am when you collapsed," Sam explained. "Nearly six now. In the evening," he added, for clarity. "You were out of it a good few hours after they operated. Hetty was beside herself." Callen made a face.

"Sorry."

"Not your fault. Well, not entirely. Why did you disappear off on your own like that? Any of us would have driven you over here, if you'd only asked."

"Didn't… think," Callen admitted, and Sam knew it was the truth. It just wasn't in Callen's nature to ask for help. "Didn't want him… to wake up… alone."

"Well, he was lucky," Sam said. "A minute or two later…"

"Yeah." Callen shifted uncomfortably again, wincing as he tried to hide the pain from Sam. Unsuccessfully, of course.

"Where are you hurting?"

"Chest," Callen responded economically, short of breath.

"You know they'll give you something for it, if you ask."

"Later. Maybe." Sam rolled his eyes. Callen would never ask, would never admit to pain, except to Sam, and even that was rare. If he'd been more upfront about the fight with Henderson and the resulting pain in his chest and difficulty breathing, they might have caught the problem before he collapsed, but Sam knew it was just who Callen was, and there was no point expecting him to change.

"Get some rest," Sam instructed. "Your doctor will be here soon."