Oy. I'm so sorry that it took me so long to update. It's totally the school administration's fault for starting school, it's the teachers' faults for piling us with so much homework, and it's my fault that I decide take honors courses every year. It's been quite hectic. But anyway…

Continuing with where I'd left off with the shooting at Cyrus Krantz's birthday party, and how Cecelia got shot.

Oh, and will Rob say the three magical words in this chapter? Read and see.

Heidi

Disclaimer: Everything except the plot and unknown characters belong to Meg Cabot.

Love Without Words

By the time I got to the bureau, the ambulances were already pulling away from the building, so I followed them in my old Caddillac.

When I got to the hospital approximately three minutes after the ambulances, I went straight to the bedazzled lady at the front desk.

"Hello, how may I help you?" she asked half-heartedly.

"Hi," I said, "Four of our agents were just carried into the emergency room, correct?"

"Um," she paused, looking reluctant, "Yes, but they are currently in the surgery room so there will be no visitors allowed."

I rolled my eyes. Duh, I knew that. People who get shot usually went to the surgery room to get the bullet out of them; it's not as if I hadn't been there before. Yes, I had been shot at several times in my line my work, not that I'd been hit many times, but there were the occasional few. "Okay. Do you know where Cecelia Harp will be taken to after surgery?"

"I'm sorry, but I do not have the authority to give out patient information, sweetie," she answered, flashing an apologetic smile in my direction and started to flip through the newspaper.

I hit the counter to get her attention because I was thoroughly tired and frustrated at that point. "Look, pal. I'm with the FBI," I hissed at her, whipping out my badge and stuffed it in her face, "and I need to know."

Which was actually sort of ODing my advantages as a federal officer a tad bit, but let's forget about that, shall we?

The woman's eyes almost popped out of her head at this sudden outburst of action on my part and said meekly, "Room 217."

After apologizing to the front desk lady and then thanking her, I headed off towards the elevator to get to the second floor, where I waited for Cecelia with Gary for the next seventy minutes during which I called Rob.

"What happened to you?" he demanded after answering on the first ring. Oops. So technically I should I should have told him where I had ran off to.

"I'm sorry. I'm at the hospital," I answered, and then realizing how this might have sounded, I added, "Because Cecelia and a couple of other FBI agents were shot at Dr. Krantz's party after we left."

"Is she going to be okay?" Rob asked, sounding like he couldn't really care less, but was asking just to be polite.

"Yes," I answered, "At least I think so. One of the doctors I spoke to told me that she was only shot in the leg."

"Shot? What happened?" Rob questioned, actually sounding like he cared now.

"I think there was this shooting at the Bureau, although I don't know for sure. Gary won't tell me anything. He says that I have to wait and hear it from Dr. Krantz," I replied, shooting a glare towards Gary's direction by the door.

Just when Rob was about to say something, some hospital people wheeled a very pale and weak looking Cecelia in. This was a Cecelia that I had never seen. It sort of took me by surprise.

Only I didn't get to wallow in my state of shock for long since apparently the doctor that was in charge of Cecelia had some questions.

"Is either of you one of the patient's family members?" Dr. Long—which I read from his name tag—asked Gary and me.

"No, but I'm her boyfriend," Gary answered.

Dr. Long looked at me, and I said, "I'm her friend. How is she?"

He ignored my question. "Has any members of her family been contacted?" he asked.

I rolled my eyes at him, which I know was really disrespectful, but sometimes people get on my nerves a little bit and I just can't help it. "Judging by the fact that all of her family members live either on the other side of the country in California or on the other side of the world in France, I think it's safe to say that even if they were contacted, they wouldn't be of any help."

He looked calm, obviously having dealt with many patients' frenetic friends. "Alright. Now, there are some forms that I'm going to ask you to fill out. In the meantime, we will discuss Miss Harp's status."

So in the next what seemed like an eternity, Gary and I filled out forms for Cecelia and Dr. Long went on and on about how Cecelia was to be unconscious for the next twenty-four hours or so and that she is going to be fine but needs stay in the hospital for at least a week for further observation.

When most of the forms were completed and he ran of out things to repetitively say, he asked Gary and me if we had any questions.

Gary and I had one question in common.

I had the honor of asking it—really, some honor—since Gary apparently wasn't going to judging by the fact that he didn't speak after two minutes of a pause in which I waited for him to ask it. "Was Cecelia pregnant at the time that she was shot?"

Dr. Long looked uncomfortable for a second and managed to squeak out a useless, "We will get back to you on that," and then reporting that he had another patient to be with and that he'd be back in a moment, he left.

Only seconds after Dr. Long left, Dr. Krantz came into the picture. Really, high degrees much?

"Jessica, may I speak to you for one moment?" he said, poking his head into the room.

I got up off the chair and stalked behind him into the hallway.

"What do you want?" I snapped, not realizing how tired I was—after all, I had stayed in that room for over an hour waiting and filled out forms for about an hour and a half with no intermission in between since "In life, there are no intermissions!"—until then.

He overlooked my testiness and said, "We found out who the mystery shooter was. Apparently, he's very famous in Indiana, where you grew up. He goes by the name Mini SSass but no one knows his real name. Here," Dr. Krantz stuffed a file in my hands, "we decided to put you on the case."

I nodded. "Okay."

And with that, I walked home. Cecelia was safe here in the hospital with Gary, but I needed to make sure that I found this man as soon as possible so that everyone else I love would be, too.


I didn't bring the file to work the next day because the people at work are somewhat nosey—they are FBI agents after all—and I didn't want people questioning me about it so I left it home in my bedroom where I thought it would keep me away from mental and emotional duress.

I found out how utterly wrong I was the moment I stepped into my room and saw Rob bent over the file, brows furrowed.

At first, I was feeling a bit guilty for not telling him about this assassin—aSSASSin, Mini SSass, I get it—but after a few seconds of contemplation of this currently situation, I felt fury building up inside me.

I cleared my throat to get his attention.

Rob looked up at me, startled. "Jess."

"What's up?" I said, attempting to shield my anger that he's poking his nose in my business, leaning on my doorframe.

He looked kind of nervous. "Jess, I was just—"

But I never gave him a chance to explain because at that moment, I couldn't hold in my anger over him always snooping around and wanting to know what I'm up to. I know he only does this because he wants to protect me, but he's got to let it and comprehend the fact that I can take care of myself. "I don't care. You aren't supposed to be in my room for any reason, okay? I need my privacy; what I don't need is for someone to always be on my case. I had enough of that when I was sixteen what with the FBI always stalking me. You should know that better than anyone else. And besides, I'm a federal officer now. There are some things that I have in this room that isn't supposed to be for someone like you to see. You shouldn't look at stuff that I have on my desk and you don't have the authority to."

He narrowed his eyes at me and asked bitterly, "Someone like me?"

Me, being the idiot of the moment, didn't get what he was trying to get across and said, "Yes, someone like you! Some of the stuff that I keep here are confidential and supposedly to only viewed by authorized personnel, so why you felt that you had to go look around in my room and open up my folders are beyond me."

Rob nodded. "That's now you feel, now is it?"

"Yes," I answered, still not understanding the message that he was trying to say.

He nodded again and strolled out of my room and out of the door, but not before saying words that made me know what an awful person I was.

"Mastriani, I don't know about you, but I felt that you had had a tough time lately so I was trying to do a nice thing for you and clean your apartment so you'd feel better, but little did I know that that is an impossible thing to do."

And then, he shut the door on his way out. That is the moment when the world chose to collapse on top of my tousled heart and put it through a shredder.


The rest of the day, I spent very productively. Mainly, I wallowed through my own ugliness of heart by sitting on my bed reading books about people unlike me. Or more specifically, normal people who have healthy relationships. As in relationships where the two people can get along without fighting every other second.

Oh, and also throughout the three hours that Rob was gone, I thought about how he was probably out with some girl that was less of a pain than me…and maybe hooking up with her, which lead me to my next thoughtful topic: How I hadn't had any sex in the last seven years and how utterly unhealthy that is. Okay, actually that isn't completely true, I might have had sex about once throughout these seven years of a dry period, but that time didn't count because I hardly knew that it was happening and the sex sort of ended before it could even begin.

It was when I was in this wave of thought that I heard someone open the door. Somehow, my first instinct was that it was Cecelia, but I was obviously wrong since she was in the hospital. It was Rob. Of course if was him. Who else had the keys to my apartment and would choose to come into it unannounced at…seven thirty? I have a very sad social life.

Just when I started thinking of my social life—or lack thereof—I remembered Rob and his entrance.

His six foot figure stood in the frame of my door.

"Hey. Can I come in?" Rob asked softly.

Although I was done being mad at him long ago and wanted him to talk to me more than anything else in the world right now, I still didn't want to seem to needy or clingy, so I said, shrugging my shoulders, "Sure."

He came in and sat down on my desk chair, making it seem as if he came any closer, I'd bite him or something.

I motioned for him to sit by my on my bed.

After a moment of silence, I asked, "So, what'd you do today?"

He looked down at his feet, "I took a walk around the city."

"Sounds fun," I commented.

He looked up, looked at me, and noticing that I had my gaze glued on my filing cabinet, he touched my chin tentatively and steered my face towards him. "Look, Jess, I didn't come to you for small talk, I want to apologize for before. You were right; I shouldn't have been looking at your papers."

I shook my head. "No, Rob. It was me," I said, my voice wobbling a little, "I should have listened to you explain. I shouldn't have just jumped to conclusions and started yelling."

"But if I hadn't done anything wrong, then you wouldn't have anything to jump with in the first place," he said looking deep into my eyes, "And I just want you to know that I did what I did only because I wanted to protect you. I know that you said you could take care of yourself and I trust you to, but sometimes I…I'm afraid," he paused. "I'm afraid that I'm going to lose you. You're the most important person to me in the world to me. I don't know what I would do if something happened to you, especially if I knew I could have done something to prevent it."

I smiled a watery smile. I had never heard such sweet words said in such a sincere and honest way. "You have no idea how much it means to me that you care so much about me."

And with that, I kissed him. It was a soft, but loving kiss, and he responded with the same love and care.

It was a kiss that went on for hours and hours and hours. Although we didn't have sex or anything, but somehow I think it was more intimate that sex. For us that night, it was soft caresses and loving kisses that were not restricted to the lips. I think the part that made it so special was that we looked each other in the eyes the whole time.

It was knowing what the other had to say without saying it.

It was love without words.


Last night, just before we fell asleep together, I told him that I love him. This morning, I knew where Mini SSass is, only in my dream, his name was John Strauss, but I know he's the same guy.

Although I wasn't about to alert Rob of that fact when only minutes after I opened my eyes, he rolled over and blinked open his as well.

"Good morning," he greeted, his voice sounding as smooth and silky as ever.

"Good morning to you, too," I said, my voice sounded rough and squeaky. Life is very unfair. "How'd you sleep last night?"

"Great," he murmured into my neck nibbling it affectionately, "How can I not sleep well with you beside me? And with the knowledge of last night…"

I smiled at him. Only if I had slept half as well. Damn those psychos and my "gift." I mean, the night after a loving round of kisses should have been better spent than dreaming about some guy trying to kill me, right? I think so.

"How about you?" he asked, transferring his nibbling to my earlobe.

I nodded my head, making it hard on him, the guy who's trying to nibble my ear, do so. "I slept…fine."

Apparently I was not very convincing since he lifted his head from my ear, looked me in the eye and asked worriedly, "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing," I replied, averting my gaze from his blue eyes that were so pale it almost seemed like the color of fog.

He took my chin in his calloused fingers like he had just the night before and said, "No, it's not nothing. Tell me, what's the matter?" After a pause, he asked, looking suspicious, "Did you have a vision about the guy who shot your friend?"

I pushed my head up off my pillow with my elbows and propped my head up to look at him. "Yes, I did."

His brows furrowed and studied my face. "So," he said, "What are you going to do?"

I shrugged. "What can I do?" I said, playing with some of the hairs on his chest since, during last night's activities, he had lost his shirt and frankly, so had I, "I have to stop this guy or else someone else is going to get hurt."

"But what about you, Jess?" He shooed my hands away and grasped my bare shoulders. "Don't you ever think about what's going to happen with you? What if you get hurt? These people are not normal. They're out of their mind. It's very likely that you're going to get hurt dealing with them."

I shook my head. "In my line of work, I can't think about the safety of myself too much. What I need to ask myself is not 'Would I get hurt?' In stead, I always need to ask myself 'If I don't do this and make it happen quick, who would be involved?' 'Who else would get hurt?' 'How many families would I put in grief for that one selfish moment?'"

Rob sat up. "What about the people you would put in grief if you got hurt? Do you know how many people care about you in this world? Your parents, your siblings, your friends, me…"

I ran a hand through my tousled hair to buy myself time. "It's just what I do, Rob. You have to understand."

"I don't," he replied, hopped off of the bed and started to pull on his pants.

I shook my head. I can't let us go into another fight so easily. I just couldn't.

I stood up on my bed and wrapped my arms around his neck from behind. "Come on, Rob," I whispered into his ears, "Try to understand what I have to do."

He turned around and looked at me for a second before replying, "You don't have to do anything."

And on comes the fire inside me. Honestly, I need anger management help.

"Why are you always like this?" I demanded, starting to hook my bra back on. "I mean, ever since I was sixteen, you had always been this same way, it was always your way or no way. Can't you open up your brain the tiniest crack to let in the fact that I have a career that I care about and because of that career I need to do certain things that you may not approve of," I continued, slipping on my pants, "When had you turned into this controlling neurotic person?"

Rob turned around and looked at me, his features having dramatically softened. "Jess, I—"

"No, listen to me. I need you to stop this thing that you have going on with always trying to talk me out of what I need to do. It was why we got into that huge fight yesterday. You need to try to understand. Why can't you understand that I am a big girl now? I'm different from when I was sixteen. I know what I'm doing. I'm a professional and I work for the FBI for Christ's sake! So why don't you just leave me alone and let me do what I have to—"

"Because I love you."

"Well, you can just—Wait, what?" I asked, totally taken by surprise. Had he said what I thought he had said? Had he said those three words that I had been waiting for all these years?

"I love you," he repeated, confirming that I was not going nuts.

I closed my eyes, my anger dissolving away due to the sweetness of his words and the way he said them, like they had actually meant something.

"I love you, too. More than anything or anyone in the world," I said, walking around to the other side of the bed. I went on the tip of my toes to give him a gentle kiss on the lips. "But this is just something that I have to do."

He looked straight into my eyes and I looked into his, and as he said his next words, I swear I saw fear in them, "I know you do."

"Thank you."

"But if you are going to do this, I'm going with you," he said, pulling away.

"Okay," I agreed, shocking him and myself simultaneously.


Twenty minutes later, we set out to go to the FBI building to report the location of Mini SSass, a.k.a. John Strauss.

"I cannot believe that I'm letting you come along with me," I said to Rob as our feet hit the sidewalk outside of my apartment.

I heard Rob snort behind me.

"No, seriously. Usually I do this type of stuff by myself. I mean, a person helping me usually just slows me down because the people that I usually get partnered up with are for the most part completely useless people and they're just luggage that I have to carry around. But this time it's you, you know? I mean, you may cause a distraction for me or something." I paused there because I expected a mocking joke to come right there from Rob. Except there wasn't one. Not a sound was made from him.

So I turned around to make sure that he was okay…

But what I found when I looked back was nothing. No one at all behind me. The only thing there was Rob's leather jacket.


Okay, so technically I lied. This chapter was sort of a Jess/Rob fluff chapter, too, but I just couldn't help it. It's very tempting to someone like me to add a fluffy chapter. But I can assure you, next chapter will DEFINITELY be a serious action one, which I'm sure you can tell judging by the way how this chapter ended.

Also, I will start writing the next chapter as soon as someone tells me what television show and season the quote "In life, there are no intermissions!" came from, otherwise I may have to take my time. . .which could end up taking a while for me to update again.

Either that, or review. Please, please, please, please, please. Five reviews or more, I'll start writing the eighth chapter.

Muhahahahaha. Ahem.

Heidi