Chapter 10

In the dark of the late evening the two techs still lay on the blanket, looking at the few stars at the horizon as a fallen star came by the two looked at it for quite a while and Nell secretly making a whish while doing it. "What whish did you make?" Eric asked being totally curious like he always was, Nell looked at him with a big smile on her face and replied: "It won't come true if I tell you my wish, don't you know that silly?" She playfully hit him in his side, Eric making weird grimaces pretending that that had hurt him really much and so he started to tickle her a little bit in "revenge". Nell couldn't stop laughing for quite a while, trying as hard as she could to get out of his reach but he just kept coming at her with his famous "tickle attacks" because he knew where her weak spot was and loved to capitalize on it. They looked at the stars for quite a while, until Nell started to yawn a little later, he packed up the blanket again and the two made their way back to Nell's apartment.

"I really had a great day; we should do this again soon." Nell said as they were inside the apartment, sitting on the couch in the living room. Eric was glad that she had liked it, her whole personality was one of the many things that he loved so much about her and he probably hadn't felt the same way for a girl ever before. Surely he had some relationships where he also had been happy with his girlfriend, but with Nell it was totally different because they had a special connection from the very first time they met and they even had gotten to know each other so well that they understood the other one even without words. At first he thought that Nell was a little bit annoying, because in the first weeks he was working with her, she kept finishing his sentences but he got used to it by coordinating this thing with her. Later the two lay in her bed together, Nell tightly cuddled to Eric's body and as always it felt very comfortable to rest her head on his stomach, certainly she always wanted to be as close to him as possible because she felt so safe in his strong arms. Eric certainly could be her knight in shining armor if she wasn't able to defend herself and that could be the case anytime soon again, if she was even able to accept a field assignment again in the near future.

In the night Nell kept tossing and turning in bed, not sleeping so well because of the nightmares that kept haunting her after she had to fear for her life out in the field. A lot of sweat cascaded down her forehead and as Nell screamed loudly and got into an upright position again, Eric was wide awake immediately, held her in his arms and soothingly whispered into her ear: "it's okay Nell, I'm here for you, it was just a bad dream and I'll make sure that no one hurts you." She kept sobbing on Eric's shoulder for quite a while; he softly kept stroking her back with one hand and really hadn't expected that the events of their latest field trip would take such an emotional toll on his partner. Without saying a word Eric knew what was happening with Nell, just because the two had that very deep emotional connection that he probably didn't have with anyone in his life ever before and right now he just wished, that he was a magician who could take all the pain away at once. She finally stopped crying, then two just looked each other deep in the eyes shortly, Eric wiped away some last tears from her now red eyes and said: "We will get through this together Rockstar, I promise." Nell smiled weakly at him and replied: "Thank you …for everything; I really wouldn't know what I would do without you Eric." He was happy to see her smile again after all the crying she did this night, kissed her softly on her cheeked and answered: "You know that I would do anything for you Rockstar and you want to go back to sleep now?" Nell just nodded, yawned a little bit because all that crying had really exhausted her and then she cuddled herself again near to Eric and side by side the two techs finally go back to sleep.

AN: I hope you like this chapter, please read and review.