"Gregorio."

Gregorio groaned internally as she dropped a bag of tea into her mug.

"Gregorio." LaSalle's voice was louder, more insistent this time.

"What?" she snapped, watching the color from the teabag bleed into the hot water as she dunked it again. He came to a halt behind her and she reached for creamer she never used as an excuse to fully turn her back.

"You wanna tell me what's goin' on with you?"

Gregorio kept her voice casual. "Nothing's going on with me."

"Uh-huh. Come on, you've been avoiding me all day—yesterday, too."

"You're imagining things, LaSalle."

"Gregorio. Come on, this is ridiculous. Did I say something? If I've offended you somehow, I'd like to know about it so I can make it right."

A lump burned its way up her throat and she clenched her jaw. Not now. She swallowed hard before she replied, schooling her voice to remain steady and light. "What's the matter, you got a guilty conscience or something?"

Suddenly, his hand was on her arm, spinning her around to face him. The frustrated determination in his eyes was buried in a flood of concern when he saw the tears in hers. "Gregorio! What's wrong?"

Her chin trembled. Dang it. "Listen, I know what this looks like, but I'm okay."

"Gregorio…"

"Leave it alone, LaSalle," she growled, shoving him back a step.

He released her arm, but his eyes never left hers. "What's going on?"

She shook her head and looked away, furiously attempting to blink back the confounded wetness trying to escape her eyes.

"Gregorio—"

She held up a hand to silence him. "Shush. I'm gonna tell you, I just—mm." If I talk now I'm gonna be crying all over you in about half a second. She studied her feet, chewing the inside of her cheek.

He waited.

When she finally trusted herself enough to speak, her voice was low and shaky, still far to close to tears for her comfort. "I thought we'd lost you." There was a scuff on her boot. She hadn't noticed it before.

She knelt on the rough cement floor, the toes of her boots scraping against the pavement as she dropped to her knees and joined Pride at LaSalle's side.

"The other day...when we found you, and you didn't have a pulse? I thought you were gone." She wrestled her eyes up to look at his face.

His frown deepened in confusion, an incredulous smile starting to tug at his lips. "Gregorio, I'm fine—"

Anger flared in her gut and she cut him off. "Four minutes."

"What?"

"You were gone for four minutes, LaSalle. That we know of." There was no telling how long it had been between their finding him and Chloe leaving him for dead. She crossed her arms, her voice rising. "I gave you CPR! You wouldn't move, wouldn't wake up, wouldn't breathe."

She almost hadn't believed Percy before, but now Pride was doing chest compressions and pleading with LaSalle to wake up and Percy was speaking frantically into her phone and LaSalle just lay there, still, too still to be the animated man she knew and far too still to be yet among the living.

LaSalle was silent. She was glad.

"Pride...I know it messed him up, but I think somehow he knew. He knew you were gonna be okay, that we would get you back. But I—" her voice cracked, "—there was this lead in my gut, you know?" She scrubbed a hand under her eyes, the tears scalding her skin. "I didn't know four minutes could take so long."

Her hands on his chest, pumping—One. Two. Three. Four—trying to do the work his heart should be doing as bone and cartilage ground and popped beneath her palm—Seven. Eight. Nine—Percy pacing in the background—Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen—his head lolling in time with her efforts—Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty...

She ran a hand over her mouth and looked LaSalle in the eye for the first time since he'd walked into the room. "So, yeah. To answer your questions, I'm a little messed up right now. I'm mad. I'm mad at Chloe for almost taking my friend away. I'm mad at myself for giving up on you so easily." She scoffed. "I'm even mad at you for scaring me like that." She wasn't sure when her voice had gotten this loud, or when she had stopped fighting the stream of tears that was now flowing freely down her face. A sob bubbled free. "You were dead, LaSalle."

She didn't fight his grip on her arm this time, as he pulled her into a hug and held her tight. Another sob escaped as she returned his embrace, drinking in the heartbeat that thumped firm and steady beneath her ear.

His eyes flew open and he shot upright and then everyone was talking at once, touching him, watching his face twist with fear and confusion and pain and life. Pride's arms were suddenly wound around his shoulders, keeping him upright as Percy grabbed for his flailing hands and Gregorio thrust her hand against his chest, over his heart. The beat was too fast, erratic and thready, but it was there.

"But I'm not dead. Thanks in large part to you, I'm right here and I'm just fine."

They stood that way for a while, Gregorio's sobs fading to hiccups and the tears beginning to dry. LaSalle squeezed her a little tighter. "I owe you one, Tammy."

She snuffled and pulled away, giving his chest a brisk pat as her crusty exoskeleton slipped back into place. "Yeah, you do. And you can repay me by making sure I never have to do that again."

His amused smirk faded to gravity as he looked at her. "You know I can't promise that any more than you can."

"Yeah, well...do your best, yeah?"

"You got it." He folded her back into his embrace and she returned it tightly.

"Oh—and LaSalle?" Her voice was muffled in his shirt.

"Yeah?"

"You tell anyone about this, I'm gonna take you out and finish what Chloe started, you got me?"

A laugh rumbled beneath her ear. "Copy that."