Chapter 8

Callen took an hour to recover, his head throbbing painfully as he lay in his kitchen on the floor. Wincing the special agent rolled, making his way to his feet unsteadily. The dim light outside told him he had been unconscious for the majority of the night, although it felt as though he hadn't gotten an ounce of sleep. He was exhausted, pale and spent.

Stumbling forward G turned on the kitchen sink and splashed some cold water on his face. "Ugh," he moaned, blinking slowly he glanced out the window and sighed. "Nightmares." He brushed away every screaming thought telling him that what he had just suffered was not a normal dream. Something was happening to him, something bad.

Was he going insane? Callen narrowed his eyes and pushed away from the counter after switching off the water. Maybe he had sustained brain damage that the doctor hadn't picked up, maybe something was seriously wrong with him. Perhaps he should ask Hetty for more time off, to sort this all out.

The visions of his friends dying came back to him, flickering in his mind with pain burning at the back of his eyes. Groaning he leaned forward, collapsing slightly into the nearby wall. Opening his eyes G winced and attempted weakly to regain control of speeding heart and harsh breathing.

"Come on, G, your fine." The special agent scolded himself. "You're better then this. You're stronger then this!" He hissed, straightening his posture and moving, faltering only once towards his 'bedroom' to prepare for the new day.

Five minutes later he was showered, dressed and ready for the day and it's new dangers.

The headache had faded slightly by the time Sam called him, the shrill of his phone ringing causing Callen to flinch. "Yeah, Callen." G grunted into the receiver, tone a little gruffer than normal.

"G? You sound like shit." Sam's too loud voice sounded through the line, "Did you forget that nighttime is for sleeping. Again?" The other agent's voice was light and teasing and so overly awake. For a moment Callen was pretty sure he hated his partner, but the thought faded quickly. He could never hate his family, only dislike them for petty reasons when he was having a very low moment.

"What's happening, Sam." G decided to cut to through the chase, Sam knew his partner well enough to know when to continue teasing and when to back off. This was a 'back off' moment. Sure it would only increase the big man's worry, but at this point Callen was starting to believe that his partner should be concerned.

"Hetty wants us to run down some leads, Eric thinks he might have some information on the guy that got away yesterday. I'm rounding the corner to your house, meet me on the street." There was a click that told G Sam had ended to connection. With a groan the special agent wished he had a bottle of pain meds handy for his head. Slipping his phone in his pocket Callen picked up his worn duffle bag and headed outside, locking his house on the way out.

"Alright, what's wrong?" Sam asked when they headed towards the GPS coordinates Eric had sent to their phone. Callen hadn't said a word since climbing into the passenger's seat of the vehicle.

Sliding his eyes over to his partner Sam took in G's pale face and noticed the fine lines of pain that probably would be invisible to anyone else. Something was going on with his partner, Sam just wasn't sure how concerned he should be at the moment. The silence that followed the question was not in anyway comforting.

Finally, G spoke, his voice tired, "I'd tell you if I knew."

Not good at all, Sam decided letting his eyes travel back to the road in front of his car as they continued on their way. "You'll let me know if you need something, right?"

"Yeah, you'll be the first to know." G promised, offering his partner a small smirk of reassurance.

Sam debated on leaving the conversation at that, but another sideways glance at Callen sent his stomach into nervous knots, "Do you need to take it easy on the case? Go back and see the Doctor?"

Once again G hesitated, which made the knots forming in Sam's gut to tighten painfully, "Not yet." G spoke finally.

This was not good at all.

"Eric was busy last night," G commented lightly as the duo made there way up the stairs of an indoor apartment complex. "It couldn't have been easy finding a match with that print the local LEOs pulled off the fence." Callen's voice was mildly impressed.

"Yeah, now we have a name and a current place of residence to check out." Sam agreed positively.

"And of course no one will be there." Callen sighed, a bit more dramatically then needed as they arrived at the door.

"Such an optimist today," Sam shot back sarcastically, knocking on the door loudly, "NCIS, open up." He bellowed loudly.

No sound came from the room beyond the door.

"See?" Callen smirked as he pulled out his lock pick kit and set to work.

"Yeah, you're psychic, it's amazing." Sam deadpanned, although when G paled and dropped the silver picks he'd been jimmying the lock with his good humor left him. "G? You okay?"

Callen shivered, collecting himself visibly before he forced a chuckle and bent down to pick up the dropped picks. "Yeah, I guess we should stop messing around and start focusing a bit more on our jobs." He laughed dryly and made good time with the lock. The door to the suspect's apartment swung open revealing the small living space within.

Sam didn't look convinced, he didn't try to at this point. Silently he vowed to talk to Hetty when they got back to Ops, perhaps the woman could use her Jedi mind tricks on Callen and get to the bottom of this problem. It was painfully clear that G wasn't going to offer any information, at this point, to his partner any time soon. Whatever had Callen spooked was big, and Sam couldn't help but think of Dr. Freedman's words from before. Perhaps G wasn't as fully recovered as he acted.

My apologies for taking forever. Sigh. You can throw things at me any time you want an update…it actually might help if you threw things at me…lol

Reviews are loved! People are loved…I'm sorry! (drops head to cry)

(sniffle) thanks to all those who reviewed on chapter seven! You don't know how cool/epic/awesome you are! You literally rock: Dixie, Angela6257, justdreaming-83, Scotius, Skippy1967, OrangeZest100, Aqua Mage, and daughter of ewan (for the PM you sent ^^)

I didn't really look over this chapter…cuz I have a migraine…and just want to sleep. So I do apologies for any terrible misunderstandings that might have left you with…including this sentence…

Bye!