A/N: Missing scenes from 1x05 "Judgment". Still AU, in case anyone is wondering. Disclaimer still applies, too. Oh, and thank you everyone who read, reviewed, favourited and still follows my little story!
Not Bulletproof
Cursing inwardly at the searing pain in his shoulder, John forced himself off the ground. Funny how he always seemed to forget that GSWs hurt like a b***. He angled his head to glance at the wound but gave up quickly as the pain flared up white-hot like a blowtorch. For a moment he considered his options – call Finch and let him figure out the logistics, or catch a cab to go back to the library and call Finch on the way.
He was just about to touch his earpiece when a wave of dizziness hit. Stumbling slightly sideways, he landed against a low wall, and it was all he could do to keep his knees locked. Bracing himself with his good hand against the brickwork, he closed his eyes and tried to breathe through the nauseating feeling.
"Sir? Do you need any help, sir?" A soft voice from behind him penetrated the ringing in his ears, and he felt a gentle hand being placed between his shoulder blades. "Sir, can you hear me?," the voice insisted, now stronger and louder. Then: "John? John, what happened?"
He lifted his head slightly and cracked one eye open. "Hannah?," he croaked piteously. "What ... how ...?"
"Visiting a friend a few blocks from here. I was on my way to the subway when I heard a car speed away and thought there might have been an accident," Hannah explained, partly in order to distract him while she sat him down on the front steps of the house closest to them – Judge Gates' house, incidentally. "Care to elaborate on what happened to you? Because this looks an awful lot like a gunshot wound."
"Can't tell you," John bit out and hissed when Hannah pressed a gauze pad against the wound – a gauze pad that she had miraculously produced from a first-aid kit in the depths of her backpack. How she had managed to put on gloves and sneak her hand along with the gauze under his dress shirt and onto his broken skin without him noticing was completely beyond him.
"Looks like a straight through-and-through," Hannah shrugged, "but it's bleeding quite a bit. I need to make sure there is no major vascular damage."
"No time," John refused with a shake of his head. "There's a life at stake."
"I'll go out on a limb and assume you're not talking about your own life here," Hannah replied drily.
A quick grin flashed across John's face, but before he could produce an appropriate response, his phone beeped. "Mr Reese, there's a car en route to take you and Dr. Silverstein to her clinic," Finch's slightly nasal, and right now slightly annoyed voice came over the line. "Please let her take care of your injuries. In the meantime I'll try to find any leads on Judge Gates' son."
"Understood", John conceded meekly. "Thanks, Finch."
Having watched her brother's face during the short, rather one-sided conversation, Hannah knew better than to ask questions when a plain black car arrived to pick them up. To her delight it contained a fully equipped EMS trauma kit, so she was done with a basic examination by the time they reached the street where the clinic was. "Please turn right at the next corner and pull up to the third building on the left, so we can get in through the back entrance," she told the driver, who just nodded and did as instructed.
"Aren't you required to report GSWs to the police?," John asked when she had deposited him in her office and started cleaning the painful hole in his shoulder.
Hannah shrugged. "Theoretically, yes. But paperwork gets misplaced so easily." She donned fresh gloves and injected a local anaesthetic around the wound.
"Are you sure? Because I don't want you to risk your licence over this." The genuinely concerned look on his face touched her and she smiled.
"I guess it's a little too late to worry about that, so don't. It'll be all right."
*POI*POI*POI*POI*POI*
"Care to elaborate on how you know Dr. Silverstein?," Finch asked while John shrugged out of his ruined shirt and dug for a new one in the stack he kept next to his gun-cleaning kit.
"That seems to be the question of the day ... care to elaborate." John hissed at a wrong move of his injured shoulder. Hannah had done a great job with the local anaesthetic, but she had also warned him that the muscle damage might be quite painful for a few days.
"So?," Finch pressed, eyebrows raised and arms crossed over his chest.
John took a deep breath to stop himself from snapping at his boss. "You're not the only very private person here, Finch. And I value my privacy just as much as you do, even if you seem to have a fairly one-sided understanding of the concept."
Appropriately chastised, Harold Finch loosened his demanding stance and returned to his work station, leaving an exasperated John to wrestle with his shirt.
*POI*POI*POI*POI*POI*
"You look like Bouncer after that spectacular rabbit chase," Hannah grinned and held the back door of the clinic open so her sopping wet brother could slip in. "I hope your boss pays you really well for what he puts you through", she added as she settled him in her office with a bunch of towels and poured him a cup of hot coffee from her own thermos.
"You're comparing me to our Rottweiler? I'm flattered ... I guess," John replied with a smirk, accepting the cup and trying to suppress a shiver.
"C'mon, get out of that soggy stuff. I think I've got a few clothes about your size somewhere to tide you over." Opening the locker in the corner of her office, she produced a nondescript sports bag. "Here. You can change behind the screen, but leave the shirt off for the moment. I'd like to take a second look at that hole in your shoulder, make sure there's no infection."
"You always keep a change of men's clothes in your locker?," John inquired from behind the screen with a slightly amused tone.
"You always this nosy?," Hannah retorted.
Stepping around the screen, John opened his mouth to reply something along the lines that being nosy came with the job, but caught himself at the very last second. She was safer if she didn't know what he was doing.
"Sit," Hannah ordered, apparently not expecting an answer. She then proceeded to take off the bandages, cleaning and examining the wound. "Looks good so far. No signs of infection. How does it feel?"
"All right, I guess. A little sore." He wondered why he even admitted that, but her fingers were so gentle as she applied fresh antiseptic cream and bandaged the wound, and her voice was so soft and caring ...
His eyes closed of their own accord and he leaned into her touch, just a little, but enough for her to notice. She draped a soft sweat jacket around his shoulders and carefully embraced him. "I can see that this is not your first gunshot wound," she said quietly, her features softening when she felt him returning the gentle hug. "But next time, can you please at least try to stay out of the line of fire? You might be my superhero big brother, but you're not bulletproof."
A/N 2: Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave a review!