Second Chance

For Yuletide 2012, recipient: peroxidepest17. Pretend there was more time between Split Decision and Shock Wave than there actually was. Remember that Nate often dives into things quickly. Also, goes AU in Shock Wave because I'm a sucker for h/c and happy endings, neither of which I could beat out of this fic had I not AU'd it up. I'm normally more of a Mike/Jesse fan and this was a bit of a challenge after that, so I hope it works okay? I'm a little out of touch with Nate episodes, but I watched a few before I started writing. I hope you like it! Happy Holidays! (Also, characters aren't mine!)

It's been a long day and all Jesse really wants to do now that they seem to be nearing the end of it is arrest Anson, send him off with Pearce and her crew to some CIA hole that he'll never get out of, go get Fiona out of jail, maybe have a beer and then go home and sleep.

It's a solid plan, he thinks, especially if he can talk Nate into coming over, too. They've gotten a lot closer since that bitch-fest of a road trip to go interrogate that ex-con. The trip up had been hell, but the six-hour ride home had somehow morphed into friendly conversation and the start of something more. And, well, he's still working on getting Nate to appreciate the merits of great music, but things have gone surprisingly well. Kind of fast, but well.

They're only just pulling up to the casino where Nate has Anson waiting for them, and they're all in a rush to get out and get this done. They're right outside of the place and Nate is looking at least seven different kinds of proud and victorious because he's the one who has Anson tied up at gunpoint and not any of the trained spies, CIA grunts or Navy SEALs.

"We got him," Sam says, a cell phone already in hand. "I'll call Fi's lawyers; tell them to start the paperwork." He hangs back with Pearce and some of her guys while she gets them organized.

"We got him," Jesse echoes, clapping Michael on the back as they approach.

A sigh, and "It's about time."

And that's when they hear it.

The shot is surprisingly loud for how far off it must come from and even with their training, it takes them both a second to realize what that sound is and what it means and then they're both rushing forward.

Anson is already down, a bullet to the head that pretty much labels him as officially dead.

But... but Nate.

Jesse gets there first. He's not sure how because he doesn't remember getting ahead of Michael and there are logical things he should be doing that do not involve rushing into the line of fire with no cover to speak of - things like looking for the sniper or helping Pearce's team or calling an ambulance or...

"Nate!" Michael's shouting. He's right next to him, on Nate's other side, and he looks just as panicky as Jesse feels. "Nate, stay with us."

"Nate, fuck, come on," Jesse adds, and it's only then that he realizes that his hands are the ones covering the bullet would on Nate's chest. There's blood everywhere, which is so so so not good, but he presses as hard as he can.

"It looks a little off from his heart," Jesse says, hoping that he's right. "Maybe punctured a lung." That's a thought that's verified when Nate starts gasping for air and coughing up blood and Jesse feels dizzy watching it trail off his lips and down his jaw and neck to the pavement below.

"Paramedics are two minutes out," Pearce tells them, but she's mostly just a bodiless voice relaying the information. "No sign of the sniper."

Nate's choking on his own blood, but his hand comes up and curls around Jesse's wrist and that makes him feel a little less panicky about how bad this is - he can't even think about how bad it could've been had the bullet been just a little more to the left. He brings his other hand up and cover's Nate's.

"You'll be okay," he promises.

The medics are there a minute later, trying to get them both out of the way, but Nate stubbornly refuses to release his vice-like grip on Jesse's hand. So, he doesn't get pushed too far away (only far enough to get his hand off the wound so they can look it over and put pressure on it themselves) and when the time comes, when they get him stable enough to move, Jesse ends up being the one who gets to ride along amidst a jungle of IVs.

"I'm his brother," Michael protests, glaring at Jesse.

"Dude, I can't feel my hand anymore. He's not letting me go."

He does have to, though, but only at the last possible minute. A nurse literally pries Nate's hand off of him before they take him back into the depths of the hospital to do what they do best.

Which leaves him alone in the ER entrance, bloody and scared.

Michael, Sam, and Pearce appear just a few minutes later. They must've come with lights and sirens, themselves. Michael is all but fuming, but someone shows up with scrubs for the two of them to change into (because their bloody clothes are disconcerting the other waiting patients) and sends them off to a bathroom to change.

"What the hell was that?" Michael snaps at him.

"You saw him, he wouldn't let go," Jesse defends, pointedly avoiding the question Michael was actually asking him.

"Jesse."

"Okay," he sighs. "Alright, surprise, we're..." he's not sure how to end the statement, though. Because 'dating' doesn't seem to fit - it's not like they're going out to dinners or to movies or anything - and 'fucking' doesn't seem right either cause it's a little more personal than that. "We're together, I guess."

And, well, this seems to confuse Michael more than anything. Fair enough - Nate has an ex-wife and a kid, Jesse had a crush on Fiona that was, well, badly concealed, it's not like they've offered many clues here. Michael shakes his head and asks, "when did this happen?"

"Ugh," Jesse stammers, rubbing absently at the back of his neck. "Ugh, just, like, a couple weeks ago?" He swallows, avoids eye contact. "You know, that road trip thing we went on to get the intel on the guy going after Rebecca's brother? Yeah, then."

There's an eyebrow raised in his direction because a relationship that's less than a month old should not overrule siblings on emergency ambulance rides.

"It's, well, it's moved kinda fast, I guess. Nate just kinda... dives into things sometimes."

Which he's sure Michael knows because he's Nate's brother and maybe that'll help explain things a little.

"And, okay, yeah, this is kinda weird for you, I know. It's kind of weird for me - I haven't... not since college and Nate just... Just don't worry."

Michael's absorbing all of this slowly, blinking at Jesse like he's in shock. "Uh. I'm not exactly happy about this," he says, voice calm and measured. "But I imagine I will be slightly more okay with it once we find out Nate's okay." And, okay, Jesse thinks that's a good deal.

Jesse nods. "Okay," he says.

They've both long since changed through the awkwardness of this conversation, so they head back to the waiting room, hoping for good news.

But there's no news.

Madeline shows up, and Sam drags Michael off to go get Fiona. Pearce is off on the hunt for the sniper. And a lot of that is stuff that Jesse should probably be involved in, but all he can do is endlessly pace the length of the room they've all been left in. They've gotten one update, just a nurse popping in to say that Nate's stable and has been taken for surgery and that was two hours ago. He drags a hand over his face and sits for a minute, but the anxiousnervoustensedesperate energy boils back up after a minute and he's up and pacing again.

At least before he'd had Michael to pace with. He'd been equally unable to sit still and they'd crossed paths every so often on their opposite pacing routes.

Now he might as well be alone.

"Would you sit down already? You're making me dizzy," Madeline snaps. "Just like Michael. Can't be still."

"Sorry," he bites out and sits down by her. "Shouldn't we hear something soon?"

Her eyes flick over him, probably taking in his overly concerned (really, he's known Nate for so much less time than all the rest of them) expression and she's no doubt filing it away to question him about later. "Doctors are in no hurry to tell anybody anything."

Usually it's Michael here, not Nate, and Michael is just as impatient as he is when it comes to stuff like this, so he's always up and about as soon as possible no matter the doctor's orders. He can tell them - show them - he's fine before the doctors ever have a chance. But Nate's not like them.

Jesse sighs and starts drumming his fingers against his thigh.

"Jesse. Either stop that or I'll stop them for you."

"Sorry," he says again.

Luckily, he's spared from the challenge of sitting still when Sam returns with Mike and Fiona. There are hugs exchanged and he tells Michael that they haven't heard anything and then they're all anxiously sitting, waiting.

It's not long after that before they actually do get some news. The surgeon who operated on Nate comes in to update them. He says that Nate's in recovery and should be put in a room shortly and then they can visit, but only for a little while. He says that they stopped the bleeding, but it took a while. He says that they had to remove a small part of Nate's lung, it was beyond saving, but once he's healed up, it shouldn't affect him. There's a chest tube in place, to keep his lung from collapsing. If everything goes well, he adds, Nate should be able to go home in a few days.

And, well, it's good news, but it's still makes something in Jesse's chest tighten painfully to hear all of that.

There are relieved sighs all around once the doctor leaves and everyone looks a little less serious now that they've had the update, but Jesse can't bring himself to join in on the conversations going on around him. He just feels tense and like that feeling won't go away until he can see Nate.

When a nurse comes to fetch them, once Nate is settled in his room, Madeline and Mike go first.

It feels like they're gone for forever, even though it's more like fifteen minutes. Jesse goes back to pacing, since Maddie isn't there to threaten him anymore. Sam and Fi look just as perplexed as Michael had by his anxiousness but neither of them says anything as they watch him cross the room for what has to be something like the hundredth time.

He doesn't have anything better to do, so he starts counting from there. He's up to lap 132 when Mike appears, heading back to Fiona who reaches out a hand for him.

"Well?"

"He's asking for you," Michael says quietly as he passes by. "He's okay. Awake, a little out of it, but awake."

And Jesse makes for the hallway before Fiona and Sam can beat him to it. He finds the room easily enough. Madeline is still sitting by Nate's side, holding one of his hands in both of hers. The feeling in his chest loosens and he can finally breathe again.

"Something you wanna tell me?" She asks Jesse when she spots him hovering in the doorway.

Nate's blearily awake, eyes half closed and looking like hell. He's got tubes and wires everywhere and an obscene amount of beeping machinery monitoring him, but he manages to focus on Jesse and mumbles something that sounds almost sort of like his name, a garbled, delirious noise that makes Jesse wonder if he's been mumbling anything else that would account for Madeline's suspicious gaze.

"Ugh..."

There's an expectant look sent in his direction and now Jesse knows that Michael totally got that look from his mother and he still has no answer, but Nate solves that for him, muttering something that sounds alarmingly like "I love you," and since it follows his name by seconds, it's not hard to connect the dots.

And then there's shock because it has only been less than a month since they started this thing and Nate is diving into it even faster than Jesse thought he was and he honestly doesn't know how he's to respond to that.

"Do I need to point out that sometimes Nate talks in his sleep or have you already discovered that for yourself?"

"I... I might've caught onto that," he says, carefully not looking at her as he answers her question because he's answering so much more than that.

"At least that explains your sudden inability to sit still," she comments, sounding almost amused.

"So... how is he?" He derails any further questions, crossing the room to sit on Nate's other side.

She gives him a look that suggests she's not done with him yet. "Drifting in and out. Lots of mumbling."

"Jess?"

Speaking of mumbling, there's some of it, though this is a little more understandable than the other garbled words he's heard thus far in his visit. There's a hand reaching blindly in his direction, too, and Jesse lets him catch hold of his hand as soon as he realizes that's what he wants.

"Right here," he answers.

"You g'na stay?"

He casts a glance at Madeline because he doesn't want to intrude anymore than he already has with commandeering the ride-along and cutting in front of Sam and Fiona. But, she releases her hold on Nate's other hand and stands. "I'll go tell Sam and Fi they can see him later," she says, excusing herself and leaving the two of them alone.

"Yeah," he agrees quietly, squeezing lightly against Nate's grip on his hand, scooting his chair in closer. "'M not going anywhere."

And it isn't 'I love you,' but it's enough of a promise to lull Nate back to sleep without concerning him over where Jesse stands. Jesse's not quite up to Nate-speed yet, but that doesn't mean it won't be something he can say in the near future.

They'll just have to wait and see. Thankfully, they'll have the chance.