Disclaimer: as always, I own none of the characters or other familiar places, ideas, etc. My writing is purely for enjoyment, not profit.

Author's note: okay folks, chapter 4 is finally here! There were a couple directions I was considering going with this story, but I finally made a decision and finished the chapter. Thanks to anyone who has been sticking with this story despite my slow updates!

And now, without further ado, I give you: Chapter 4!

Nell always liked waking up with Callen. This morning she snuggled in more closely into his side, burying her face into his ribcage. Callen's hand was covering her own where it rested on his chest and she smiled when she felt him give it a gentle squeeze.

He always did something like that when he noticed her waking up. And he always noticed her waking up, because he was almost always already awake because of his odd sleep habits and in the rare case that he was still asleep, he was such a light sleeper that Nell's waking movements always woke him right away. Sometimes he'd press a light kiss to her shoulder or top of her head. Other times he'd shift positions to hold her more completely if he wasn't already. Or sometimes he'd bring his hand to rest on her arm or her waist.

It had annoyed her the first few times. She thought he was doing it to try to get her attention, probably for early morning sex. Not that she had anything against morning sex, but these little touches were usually just as she had barely stirred.

And then one morning she woke up and felt a kiss on the back of her neck, right where it curved to meet her shoulder. She never could resist a kiss on that spot, but when she rolled over to face him she found Callen lying in bed reading an old paperback she'd left on the nightstand. She'd scooted up against him, tangling her legs with his and kissing his chest, but all Callen did in reply was wrap one arm loosely around her, say "good morning" and continue reading. She made a few other subtle attempts, but it wasn't until she was straddling him that he seemed to realize she was after more than cuddling that morning and he seemed genuinely surprised by it.

So now Nell knew that those little touches and kisses were just Callen's way of saying good morning; of letting her know he knew she was awake. And of course now that she knew that, she just thought it was incredibly sweet and not at all annoying.

This morning was a little different though, as they were in nearly the exact position they'd fallen asleep in. They almost always fell asleep like this (though usually with Nell lying on her other side), but Callen didn't actually sleep through the night most nights. So when he woke in the early morning he usually either sat up to read in bed, or sometimes in the small accent chair in her bedroom if they were at her place. On those days he'd read until he noticed her stirring, and if he wasn't already in bed, he'd climb back in with her then. Other nights he might be out in the kitchen or the living room, practicing some new language or maybe tinkering with a small appliance. On those mornings he usually slipped back into bed with her before she woke, curling up together so they were spooning. It wasn't a secret that he got up in the middle of the night, and it didn't bother her. It's just how it was. And she liked that she could guess how he'd spent the night but how that woke up together.

Not that she didn't like it, but she didn't think they'd ever actually woken up like this, and the change was a little disconcerting.

She pressed a light kiss against his chest and twisted her hand that rested on his chest to entwine their fingers. "Morning," she greeted him.

"Hey," he replied softly, "how're you feeling?"

She tilted her head to look up at him. "A little like I got hit by a truck, but I'm okay." She moved around a little experimentally, stretching her arm up above them, straightening out her leg and rolling onto her back, testing out her hip. "My head feels fine. I'm just sore."

He turned onto his side, propping up on one arm to lean over her, brushing her hair aside and examining the cut on her forehead. "This looks okay… no swelling or extra redness. The cut just needs to heal."

Nell nodded, "think I can take the bandage off? The EMTs weren't even sure I needed it."

"Maybe. Wouldn't be a bad idea to leave it just in case." He ran a hand gently over the bruises on her side, checking for any signs of worse injuries that might've been missed.

"G, I just… I don't wanna draw attention to it, you know? Don't want anybody making a fuss."

Callen sighed. "And I assume just taking the day off is out of the question?" He didn't need to wait for her to reply to know her answer. He brought his hands to cup her face and kissed her before pulling back slowly to hover just inches above her face. "Let's just get you some ibuprofen before we decide about the bandage, hmm?"

Nell nodded, "fair enough."

Callen gave her one more quick kiss and then sat up, "I'll be right back."

Nell glanced at the clock as Callen disappeared through the doorway. Her alarm was set to go off in a couple minutes so she scooted across the bed and leaned up to disable it. No point in listening to that obnoxious buzzing if she was already up. She sat up slowly on the edge of the bed, wincing slightly at the pain in her hip as she did so. Normally she'd lie in bed a few minutes after her alarm went off, but she had a feeling she'd be moving slowly this morning and needed all the time she had to get ready for the day. She picked up her phone from the nightstand and quickly checked for any urgent messages. There was a text from Eric an hour ago, which seemed a little early for him, but it was just a meme about video game "health points" telling her to feel better soon.

Callen returned, setting a glass of water on the nightstand and handing her a bowl of apple slices and peanut butter. "Figured you should probably eat something before you take any pain meds."

"G, I need to get ready for work. It's probably going to take me a little longer than usual today."

"Which is why I brought you an apple instead of a plate of bacon and eggs."

She glared at him but picked up an apple slice and took a very aggressive bite. "There. I ate." She held out her hand for the ibuprofen.

Callen rolled his eyes and handed her the pill bottle. "Fine. It's your stomach, your liver. But you should eat. I'll stay and help you get ready, we've got time."

Nell took another bite of the apple, this time dipping into the peanut butter, but still glaring at him. She knew he was right; her stomach always felt awful if she took anything on an empty stomach. And an apple with peanut butter actually was one of her go-to quick breakfast foods. She usually ate a little more along with it, but it was fine when she was in a rush.

Callen had turned to open her closet and started rifling through the hangers.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm helping you get ready."

Nell glanced at the clock. "You need to leave in 5 minutes if you want enough time to go home before the gym." Having a go bag was nice, because it meant they both always had at least one or two changes of clothes available. But Callen having a partner as observant as Sam meant he couldn't get away with wearing his "go bag clothes" without some questions.

"I'll skip the gym. I told Hetty I would stop by to check on you this morning. I've got plenty of time. And I'm supposed to try to talk you into taking the day off, but we all know that isn't happening."

"Callen!"

"It'll be fine. We all check in on each other after something like this. Deeks was here last night, right?" He turned from the closet to face her. "I'm just checking in on my injured team member. Which I couldn't do last night, because I was out on a blind date, which at least half the team already knows about."

Nell nodded. "You're right. No one will think anything of it this morning." She sighed. "But G, we can't just break the rules every time one of us gets a little banged up."

Callen winced, his eyes darting to her injuries again.

"I'm fine." Nell said, keeping her voice calm but assertive. "I appreciate you being here and a little help is going to make this morning a lot easier, but this is nothing I can't handle."

"I know that, but…" Callen trailed off.

"G, we agreed to keep this between us for a while. And the rules are supposed to help keep the team from finding out."

"If you wanted me to leave last night you should've said so."

"No, that's not what I'm saying." She set the bowl and the medicine on the nightstand and reached out to take his hands in hers. "We both agreed last night for you to come over and to stay. We both broke the rules. But now this morning… texting Hetty, skipping the gym. Disappearing into a corner together at work yesterday. We can't do this stuff over every little thing. From Deeks' comment last night we're already maybe not as subtle as we thought."

"This isn't just a little thing Nell, I left you alone in a room with a killer. With a fucking psychopath."

"And I'm fine. It all worked out."

"I know you're fine, but maybe I'm not!" He was borderline yelling now, and he took a step back and dropped her hands, taking a few deep breaths.

"C'mere." Nell reached out to him again. "G, c'mon, you were right, we've got some time." She waited patiently until he finally clasped one of her outstretched hands in his. She tugged him over to sit beside her on the bed.

"Nell, I -"

"Shh" she cut him off gently, nudging him back toward the headboard.

He followed her lead, scooting back and bringing his legs back up onto the bed, leaning back against the headboard. "What are you doing?"

Nell crawled up to sit across his lap, curling up against him, and he instinctively wrapped his arms around her. "You're going to sit with me while I finish my breakfast in bed." She reached over to pick up the bowl again and took a bite.

He nodded, resting his chin atop her head and gently squeezing his arms around her, mindful of her injuries. They sat quietly for another minute or two before he finally spoke. "I thought you were dead. When I said I was scared… sure, I was imagining all sorts of scenarios, but some part of me thought that you were already dead. I'd just heard how that bastard had already killed a bunch of women for no reason. And I'd left you there alone with him. You were the only thing stopping him from escaping and he had no reason not to kill you."

Nell brought her hand up to brush her fingers soothingly over his chest and he dipped his head to press a kiss into the top of her head, breathing her in.

"And then we were at the boat shed and Sam was through the door and you were alive. Brown had hold of you, but then he didn't and you were alive… you were dead, but then you were alive and it just took a minute for my brain to catch up to everything."

Nell nodded, leaning forward to set the empty bowl on the nightstand and picking up the medicine and the glass of water, taking two pills before responding. "Is that why you didn't get out of bed last night?"

"Mhmm. That's why I stayed in the first place… I just needed to be sure. At first I worried I'd imagined it… that's why I came to find you outside Ops last night. And then later I kept thinking maybe the EMTs missed something and had a brain injury or internal bleeding or something."

"I knew you were upset but I didn't realize… Did you even sleep last night?"

"A bit."

"How much is a bit."

"A few hours at least, so not too much worse than normal. It helped having you close. I could see you were here and you were okay. Knew if something went wrong I was here."

"And now?"

"Now?"

"Are you still worried?"

Callen took a beat to think before answering. "Not like before. I know he didn't kill you. And at this point if you had some other injury I think there'd be some sign of it."

"I don't think I even got hit anywhere that could've done something else. Honestly."

"Alright, come on." Callen stood up abruptly scooping her from his lap into his arms and walking toward the bathroom before setting her down. "Let's see about getting this bandage off."

After Callen helped her remove the butterfly bandage on her forehead and replace it with a liquid bandage to keep it protected, they both finished getting ready quickly. Nell managed to get her hair presentable while Callen showered and got dressed in the same clothes from his go bag as last night. In the interest of time, Nell agreed to let Callen help her get dressed which was both sweet and a little arousing and had Nell briefly considering the suggestion to stay home for the day if she could somehow convince Callen to do the same. But responsibility won out in the end and after a few more minutes gathering her things they headed for the door.

When they reached the parking lot, Nell headed straight for Callen's car, simply saying "we're carpooling."

Callen shook his head in exasperation as she climbed into the passenger seat. "So much for the rules."

"Hey, this just makes sense given everything we're already telling people. You still need to stop at home right? And if you stopped by to check on me this morning there's no reason it would make sense for me to get to work first. And if you're already at my place why shouldn't we carpool? It's environmentally conscious after all. And you and Sam carpool all the time."

Callen just smiled and shook his head again, pulling out of the parking spot.

Callen's house really wasn't too far from her apartment, so it didn't take long to get there. While Callen went inside to change, Nell stayed in the car, flipping down the visor to get a look at herself in the mirror. She adjusted her bangs to better hide the cut and then pulled her eyeliner and mascara out of her purse. Callen sat back in the driver's seat just as she was finishing applying her eye make-up.

"This is weird."

"What's weird?" She tucked the make-up back into her purse.

He gestured between the two of them in the car. "This. It's all so… normal. Domestic."

Nell gave him a small smile. "Yeah, it is weird. But it's kinda nice too."

"It is." He gave her hand a quick squeeze before pulling out of the driveway.

"We just spent a whole morning together before work. And now we're carpooling. And it's not even going to raise any red flags."

"Yeah, because I had a blind date last night and you got beat up yesterday."

"Yeah, maybe we should do that more often."

"Don't joke about that, Nell."

"Fine. Next time I'll go on the date and you can get beat up."

"What, so then I'll be jealous and wounded? Somehow that doesn't seem fair."

Nell rolled her eyes, "it's not like it would be a real date. But I'd rather not have either of us need to get beat up to be able to spend more time together."

"Agreed."

"Maybe we need to revisit the whole rules thing," Nell suggested hesitantly.

"Didn't you just say how important the rules are and we shouldn't break them?"

"I'm not saying we should break them. Just that maybe we should rethink our strategy. See if there's another way to keep everyone off our backs. Maybe we change the rules."

"Not that I'm against the idea of spending more time with you, but the rules have seemed to be working."

"Until last night." Nell responded. "And we both agreed to break the rules. We both got a good night's sleep and we were able to talk through everything this morning. It was the right call."

"But we almost didn't because of the rules."

"Right."

"So what do you suggest?"

"Dating."

Callen turned slightly to look at her before turning back to pay attention to the road. "Aren't we already doing that?"

"No, I mean other people. You said yourself, no one is going to think anything of this today since the whole team knows you were out with Joelle. Or they'll know soon enough anyway."

Callen turned to look at her again, confused. "You think we should start dating other people so we can see each other more?"

"Yes, exactly. I mean, no. Not actually seeing other people. Just letting the team think so. It would give a reason why you have to say no when Sam asks you to do something after work. We can stop making up random excuses."

"Won't that seem weird? Neither of us date much the whole time we work here and then we both suddenly have mystery relationships with someone they never see?"

"True. Maybe it should just be one of us."

Callen hesitated before speaking up. "You know, Joelle seemed like she was a little irritated with the whole set-up thing too last night. We already agreed to sort of drag out giving the news to Sam and Michelle that we aren't going out again."

"That's perfect! Sam already thinks you'd like her right? Honestly if you turned her down and then suddenly started seeing someone else he'd probably suspect it's fake. But if… do you think Joelle would go along with it? Can we trust her?"

Callen gave her a look.

"Okay, I mean, I know we can't trust her with specifics, but just in general?"

"I'm not sure. I mean, she did sort of suggest we could turn this around as a joke on Sam and Michelle, so she might go along with it at least to some extent."

"So it might work?"

"Maybe," Callen said, reaching over to take her hand briefly before letting go as he turned into the OSP parking lot. "We'll figure things out this weekend."

Nell nodded. "So, before we go in. You stopped by to check on me this morning. It's not a secret but not something to bring up unless something relevant comes up, right? And if it does, we're late because it took me a while to get ready and I wanted help with the bandage."

Callen nodded and they each reached for their respective door handles, ready to face the team.

Author's note: Thanks to all still reading! Your reviews are always appreciated and help keep me writing. As you can start to see in this chapter, this is officially evolving into a story with a plot beyond just a few missing moments or cute little interactions. This is my first time attempting something longer with more complexity, so any support and patience you can spare is appreciated!

I was hesitant to post this without building out more of the plot in some sort of outline, but honestly I often find my stories end up with a mind of their own anyway. That said, I do have a good chunk of a draft of chapter 5 complete and a general idea of where this is headed. I know it's been ages since my last update, so I decided to go ahead and put this out there in the hopes there are still folks interested in reading.