A/N: Thanks so much to everyone who has reviewed, or added this story to follows and favorites! The response means a lot to me. I'm sorry for the delay with this chapter, but certain parts were proving harder to write than others. I'd love to know what you think. Thanks, Riptide.
P.S. Some of Callen's dialogue in this chapter is in Romani with translations at the end, but you can read and understand it just fine without knowing exactly what he's saying. I apologize in advance for any mistakes in translation. I'm only as good as Google Translate.
Minutes
"Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered for they are gone forever." - Horace Mann.
Callen's been unconscious for nearly eight hours by the time the CDC flight carrying Gamma-Grade Pharmaceuticals miracle cure arrives. Sam hasn't left the door to his partner's quarantine room in almost half that time. The doctors have been in and out of the room breathing words like intubation and ventilator and Sam's starting to go stir crazy because they still won't let him inside.
60 Hours, 17 minutes.
That's what his countdown's sitting at when the cure finally arrives. Almost twelve hours have passed since Karen Ward smashed that vial at his partner's feet, one-sixth of his time gone already, and Sam watches with a wince on Callen's behalf as the chief scientist in charge empties the syringe into his partner's arm.
58 Hours, 43 minutes.
It's been an hour and a half since his partner was given the Spiral vaccine, nearly fourteen since everything went to hell in a hand basket, when Sam's finally let back in the room. The CDC's optimistic that he's no longer contagious, but Sam's been inoculated anyway, on Hetty's orders he suspects.
Now he takes in the grey pallor of his partner's skin, the utter motionlessness that's settled around him, and sinks into the chair beside the bed. One hand reaches out to wrap around G's wrist, counting heartbeats in time with the shallow breaths he takes and the minutes that have passed. His pulse is slow and a tad unsteady. Callen might have the cure, but he's a long way from out of the woods. It's more than he had any right to expect though, and Sam's eternally gratefully for it.
51 Hours, 39 minutes.
He sits like that for the rest of the night and well into the next morning, counting heartbeats and shaky breaths to the tick of the minute hand. It's one of the CDC's in-house doctors that forces Sam to move sometime early Tuesday morning. He's taking Callen's vitals as he mentions a scant breakfast available at the nurse's station down the hall and as Sam's stomach growls in time with his words the doctor gives a rueful smile and a laugh, the first one Sam's heard since this nightmare started.
He shoots a glance at his partner's pale face and nods in the doctor's direction before creaking to his feet, muscles stiff after so long in one position. He forces himself to move out the door, shuts it softly behind him, and pushes down the guilt that threatens to make itself known again as soon as he's out of sight of his partner. He's got a bad feeling curling in the pit of his stomach like he's eaten something bad, and Sam does his best to ignore it as he hits up the bathroom and then the nurse's station to discover that breakfast around here means day old banana nut muffins and coffee that's as thick as his granny's stew.
He's half way through his muffin, exchanging 'I love you's with Michelle via text who's still up waiting for news despite it being the middle of the night in LA, and contemplating asking for a spoon for his coffee when the alarms start going off.
He doesn't have to bother asking where they're coming from, just drops his cup of caffeinated sludge and runs.
51 Hours, 31 minutes.
Nineteen hours after Callen loses consciousness in that biohazard room, he's awake again. Except the moment Sam rounds the corner and locks eyes on his partner, he knows awake isn't the right word to use. The doctor who had been checking his vitals when Sam left is on the floor, clutching his bloody nose. Callen's pressed against the wall in the far corner, cowering between the IV pole and the chair that Sam's spent the last twelve hours in. His eyes are wild and fever-bright, and he flinches away with every shriek of the heart monitor.
Sam lurches forward a step, every ounce of his being demanding that he get to his partner now. G's eyes lock on to him the instant he steps inside the door, every inch of his body going rigid with tension. His breathing's ragged, skin as pale as the hospital garb he's wearing, and Sam can barely see the blue of his irises around the black of his pupils.
Sam freezes, hands going up automatically in the universal sign of surrender, because Callen's unarmed and half-dead but he's still one of the most dangerous men Sam's ever known. He knows his partner, trusts G with his life and his family, and he knows Callen would never do anything to hurt him. But Callen's delirious and probably hallucinating and Sam's more worried about him hurting himself than one of them. "Callen," He calls softly, modulating his voice to the tone he uses with his daughter after a nightmare. He never imagined he'd have to include his partner in that category. "G, you hear me partner?"
"Sam," G mutters his voice a harsh rasp that's painfully against his ears, "Nu e în siguranță. Trebuie să plece nu e sigur…"
"I'm right here, G." Sam keeps his voice level and as steady as he can as he crouches down, trying to make himself less of a threat. He makes it a single step closer before Callen's eyes skitter away to fix on something over his shoulder. It's the chief CDC scientist and the blonde nurse that had administered Sam's dose of the Spiral vaccine standing in the doorway. He waves them in quickly, toward the doctor on the floor who's still holding his most likely broken nose. The nurse goes immediately to the injured man on the floor and Sam has to catch her wrist as the head scientist - a Dr. Freidman, whose first name he hadn't bothered to ask for or remember - tries to move past him toward Callen.
He shakes his head at her, keeping his voice the same calm, steady murmur, "I've got this. You're going to get yourself hurt if you go near him now."
She shoots a glance between them, taking in the brightness of fever in Callen's eyes and the sweat that's beading along his hairline before she nods, backing off to help the nurse get their injured colleague out into the hallway.
Sam turns his attention back to G the instant they clear the threshold, noticing that his breathing ratchets down a notch now that the extra people are out of the room. "G," He murmurs softly, waiting until his partner's eyes meet his again, "Callen, it's Sam. You're okay. You're in the hospital."
"Nu trebuia să vină, Sam, nu e în siguranță," Callen's eyes are still wild, unfocused in a way that makes Sam nervous, but at least he's talking to Sam again. "Trebuie să plece înainte de a veni înapoi..."
"English, G," Sam chides. He's been around a concussed Callen enough times to know that this is the drugs they've had him on talking, but he can't help but worry. The Spiral virus is beyond experimental and the vaccine's never even been tested. They're riding an awful lot on a wish and a prayer and Sam suddenly finds himself thinking about side effects that he doubts anyone else has yet.
"Lăsați, Sam," Callen exclaims suddenly, scooting out from the corner to wrap burning fingers around Sam's forearm and he winces to feel the heat pouring off his partner's skin. He's feverish and delusional, but there's a frantic urgency in G's eyes, an underlying fear that makes Sam sick. This is his partner, his brother. It's almost like a kick in the gut to see him like this. Callen pushes him away suddenly and there's more force in the move than Sam was expecting because it rocks him back enough that he has to catch himself on the foot of the hospital bed. "He'll kill you, Sam. Trebuie să plece înainte de a se întoarce... "
"English, partner," Sam says again, pushing himself back onto his haunches with a grunt, Callen might be smaller, but he knows how to throw his weight around and that shove was stronger than Sam expected. He inches forward getting close enough that he can catch one of G's wrists, feeling the runaway pulse fluttering under his fingertips. "Or this is going to be a very one-sided conversation."
"Sam?" Callen blinks like he's trying to focus, confusion clouding the backlit brightness of fever in his eyes, "What happened?"
Sam breathes a sigh of relief that rushes all the way down to his toes. He feels like laughing, maybe hysterically, but that seems inappropriate so he just reaches out to squeeze Callen's shoulder, frowning when he feels the heat still pouring off his partner's skin. "It's okay. You're at the-"
He knows something's wrong the instant he feels Callen go rigid under his hands. Every muscle in his body is suddenly drawn in tension, taunt like a bowstring. There's fear in the widening set of his eyes, desperation writ across his face, and when Sam squeezes his shoulder again in a way that he hopes is grounding, comforting, he's shaking, fine tremors rattling through him. "G," Sam says quietly, voice coming out in a barely there whisper, as if he's afraid to startle his partner, like he's dealing with some kind of wild animal, "What's wrong?"
His lips part in a wordless cry and it's a sound that Sam never, ever wants to hear again. There's a kind of unspeakable pain in that sound, desperation, panic giving way to undiluted, clear cut rage in a way that Sam didn't think his partner capable of because he's a good man at heart, once you got past the ready violence and layers of distrust.
"G," He says again and it's like his voice shatters the spell because Callen's fighting him all of a sudden which shouldn't be possible considering he was unconscious and fighting for his life a few hours ago, except apparently no one bothered to tell him that.
The Callen that Sam knows fights like some people play chess and he's always two steps ahead, but this isn't that Callen. This is probably the most disorganized that Sam's ever seen his partner. He's kicking out, blunt fingers digging into Sam's shoulders in an attempt to push him away, putting every ounce of his strength into trying to get past him. There's a desperate edge in the way he throws himself at Sam, panic shining clear in his eyes like it's going to kill him if he doesn't get away right this second, and maybe in his fever addled brain it is but Sam's got to stop this because he's going to hurt himself if he keeps this up.
Sam catches first one of G's wrists and then the other as he reaches over to claw at Sam's fingers. He shifts in an awkward half-crouch that he knows his back isn't going to thank him for later, pulling his struggling partner closer. G's still fighting, too damn stubborn to give up even with Sam holding both his wrists, and Sam's forced to pin him, wrapping his arms around Callen's shaking form to pull him back, his partner's back flush against Sam's chest, forcing his arms down and crossing his fisted hands in front of them.
Callen's still thrashing and he throws his head back in the hopes of catching Sam in the face, but the height difference between them means that he only succeeds in ramming the back of his head into Sam's collarbone. He starts shouting again then, cursing and screaming in the same language from earlier that Sam understands exactly none of, before his voice falls to helpless pleading. It twists something in Sam, the same something that came out after watching his partner almost bleed out on that street in Venice Beach five years ago, because he can hear his own name mixed into the pleading at regular intervals.
Sam starts up a steady litany of mindless words, still holding his struggling partner even though G's thrashing has turned half-hearted, and Sam matches Callen's pleading, maybe adds a little of his own, because it's the only thing he can think of to get through to G. Eventually it seems to work because Callen just kind of crumples, the fight bleeding out of his muscles and Sam holds his limp partner in his arms as the doctors flood back in.
46 Hours, 37 minutes.
Its five hours later when he leaves Callen's side long enough to update the rest of the team, twenty-four hours since his partner collapsed in Gamma-Grade Pharmaceutical's research lab back in L.A. One full day, one-third of his time's gone already. It's just after six in the morning back on the west coast and Hetty's the only one in the office. Maybe that's why he bothers to ask, because it's been eating at him for the last five hours. He sends a copy of his partner's fever induced hallucination back to Hetty, courtesy of the cameras and audio the CDC keeps in all their rooms to monitor patients, to see if she can translate. He's expecting a text back, nothing more, but when his phone rings on his way back to Callen's room and Hetty's caller id appears on the screen he answers on the second ring.
"It's Romani," Hetty says instead of 'hello' and her tone makes something twist in Sam's gut. "He was seeing you in enemy hands, Sam. Mr. Callen believes he watched you die."
…
Nu e în siguranță. Trebuie să plece nu e sigur. = It's not safe. You need to leave it is not safe.
Nu trebuia să vină, Sam, nu e în siguranță = You should not have come, Sam, it's not safe.
Trebuie să plece înainte de a veni înapoi = You need to leave before they come back.
Lăsați = Leave.
Trebuie să plece înainte de a se întoarce = You have to go before he comes back.