Author's Note: I know you all would prefer longer chapters, but that just doesn't seem to be my style for this fic. I wish I could promise that shorter ones mean more frequent updates, but we've seen how that's been working thus far. Hopefully, though I'll have the time to waste on my Nell/Callen writing obsession in the near future, however. :-)

PART ONE: CALLEN

Chapter Thirteen: Out of the Rabbit Hole…

Her elbows and knees were sharp and painful when they hit previously bruised portions of Callen's body as she wriggled to escape. He could grab hold of her, but Nell Jones was no longer in control of her own body, he could tell, and she would doubtless fight him. He didn't want to waste his energy, or hers, on a physical struggle between them.

It would be best to wait it out longer, to be sure, but considering any logical search pattern with such limited manpower, it was more than just a little unlikely that another person would cover the same ground as the man who'd just passed by. Unless he back-tracked. Which he might do, if the searcher heard the two agents scuffling, because when Callen attempted to restrain her, Nell would doubtless lash out, with her fists and her voice. He'd have to get a hand over her mouth right off, and that suffocating sensation would only send her into a worse panic.

No, best to let her -ow! he definitely had a bruised rib. Instead of pulling her down and grappling her into stillness, he found himself placing a hand on her ass to help force her petite body out of the even smaller mouth of their den, turning his body to the side as much as humanly possible, to place his sensitive bits out of the way of her clambering knees and then feet as she shimmied free.

He heard her gasp for air as if she'd been drowning, sputtering and coughing lightly. As soon as she'd started to desperately squirm up the length of him, he'd shoved the items that he'd been keeping close to his head out of her way, so he was now clear to reach up and grab a root arching over the small opening in order to pull himself out of the rabbit hole. Alice never had so much fun... He sort of dove back into the dark void head first, scrabbled about a bit, found his emergency pack and pulled it free.

Nell was still on hands and knees, breathing heavily. And when, even after he'd put all the items back into the pack (except for the SIG Sauer P229, which he holstered and tucked into the back of his jeans for easy access), the young agent had not yet recovered, Callen kneeled down before her. She looked up at him, big eyes glowing in the moonlight, which was illuminating the now dark forest in stark contrasts of black and white hues. He gently brushed the hair away from her face, wincing internally as the action revealed a dark mark made all the more harshly visible in the unforgiving light that rendered her pale skin as white as porcelain, and just as fragile looking.

"Are you okay?" He used the same barely audible whisper that he'd employed in the small earthen cave, trying to make it gentle rather than the rasping noise he feared it would be. For whispering too much strained the vocal chords as much as shouting did.

Her breathing seemed to have calmed when he'd... well, when he'd touched her, perhaps bringing her out of whatever terror her mind had been entertaining. And she whispered clearly back to him.

"Yes." She chewed her lip. "I'm sorry, Callen. I just couldn't breathe in there anymore."

"It's alright, Nell." He squeezed her arm. "We can head out now. As long as we take our time, be quiet and careful, we won't have any problems."

Nell nodded, and he helped her to her feet.

"Just so you know," she said quietly, as he shrugged into the small backpack full of supplies. "I'm not good at the whole wilderness survival thing."

Callen had to bite the inside of his lip so as not to laugh. Oh, cruel irony. He would've been able to make it out a lot more easily and quickly on his own. But without Nell, he would've never known it was time to do a runner before it was too late (in which case, he most certainly would've been dead).

"You made a pretty good 'bird girl'," he said. And it was true. She had found the little troupe of psychopaths, by hiking through the woods under the guise of being a bird watcher. She'd be fine. It was just her nerves. But just in case... "Follow behind me. Step where I step."

That should at least minimize the noise of dry twigs cracking underfoot, an inevitable occurrence for anyone with little bushwhacking experience, for it was a skill developed with time.

Callen conferred with Nell, checking the compass that was stashed amongst the odds and ends in his jacket pockets, and then clicking off the flashlight and waiting for his night vision to adjust before heading off in the same basic direction as the searcher who had unknowingly passed them by. He kept his ears alert to nearly-straining level, as he tread slowly over the terrain, constantly aware of Nell's small presence at his back.

We'll get out of this. Everything will be fine.

He kept repeating the phrases in his head like a mantra, with every step he took.

Step. We'll get out of this.

Step. Everything will be fine.

Step. We'll get out of this.

Ste-crunch! oh shit, twig.

Step. Nobody could hear that, anyway.

Step. Everything will be fine.

Step. We'll get out of this.

Step. Everything will be fine...

A/N: Really, Callen? Is that what you think?

A/N 2: I'm just playing with you. We are actually almost out of the woods (ha! pun intended) with this fic. Get ready for PART TWO. Oh, and possibly separately posted romanticized ficlets/missing scenes... still haven't decided on this yet (but admittedly, there is always a smutty variation for any of my Nell & Callen stories, that is, if they aren't openly smut already).