I really thought this would be finished by now. It should just be one more chapter after this one. Thanks so much to those of you who have been reading and reviewing. As always, it is very much appreciated. :)

xxxxx

"Good morning, Kensi," Nell called out softly as she came in through the front door. Kensi had called her cell phone a short while ago and told her to just come in and not ring the doorbell.

"Hi Nell," Kensi said from her seat on the couch as she smiled at the other woman. "Come in and sit down. Wow, I'm not used to seeing you dressed so casually during the week." Nell was wearing jeans and a loose-fitting plaid shirt with her hair pulled back into a ponytail.

"I didn't really think I needed to dress up for this," Nell said, smiling as she took a seat on the couch next to Kensi. So, Callen's still sleeping?"

Kensi nodded. "His sleep is all screwed up. He fell asleep during our America's Next Top Model marathon yesterday and I heard him up half the night because of it...or maybe he doesn't sleep at night. I don't know. He definitely slept during America's Next Top Model though."

Nell giggled. "That doesn't really surprise you, Kens, does it?"

Kensi smiled and shrugged. "I don't know. Deeks manages to stay awake for it."

"Because he's head over heels in love with you," Nell said. "I don't think Deeks and the boys would gather together for a Sunday afternoon of beer, pizza and America's Next Top Model."

Kensi shook her head. "Well, if there was a good NFL game on a Sunday afternoon, I wouldn't be watching it either. In any case, I'd just let Callen sleep. I'm going to head out now. I'm picking up Deeks so we can go into work together. You going to be okay here?"

"Of course," Nell said with a smile. "I brought my laptop to do a bit of work and I baked Callen some chocolate chip cookies."

"Well, he'll definitely like those," Kensi said. "I didn't bake him anything, but he probably appreciated that. In any case, I'll see you at work tomorrow. Have a good day."

"You too." Nell then settled herself on the sofa and pulled her laptop out of its case so she could get a little bit of work done before Callen awoke.

xxxxx

Callen sat on the table in the examination room as he waited for his doctor. After a few minutes, the orthopedist came in carrying Callen's x-rays. "How's it going, Doc?" Callen asked, grinning at the doctor.

"Good morning, Agent Callen," the doctor said looking at him solemnly. "I'm fine, thank you."

"So, am I healing up well?" Callen asked. "I know you said 8-12 weeks before I'm fully healed, but I'm hoping it's closer to 8 than 12."

The doctor sighed and was silent. Finally, Callen took note of this. "Ummm...is something wrong?"

"I'm afraid your leg isn't healing as we expected. As a matter of fact, this x-ray shows us that it's much worse than I originally thought…"

"So...what exactly are we talking, Doc?" Callen asked. "I'm guessing it's going to be 12 weeks and not 8?"

The doctor said nothing.

"More than 12?" Callen asked nervously.

"There's no easy way to say this," the doctor said. "Your leg is never going to properly heal. You'll be able to get around quite well with a cane or crutch, but you won't be able to run and you certainly won't be able to return to active field duty."

Callen shook his head, shocked by this revelation. "I...I won't even be able to walk normally? I...I can't go back to the field? Not ever? Can't you do more surgery to fix it? There's got to be something you can do."

"I'm sorry. There really isn't any surgery that can help your condition. A desk job will be fine for you," the doctor said. "Or, if you don't want a desk job, you have the option of retiring. I'm sure NCIS will be able to accomodate you nicely. After all, you were wounded on the job.

"Retirement?" Callen stammered. "I...I can't retire now…"

Don't worry, Agent Callen. You'll be able to work this out. This could have been much worse. You were very lucky. You easily could have been killed."

xxxxx

Nell cocked her head as she heard Callen calling out and sounding distressed from his room. She went over to the door and knocked. "Callen? Callen are you okay?" There was no answer and she cautiously edged the door open and saw Callen flailing about on the bed.

"Callen?" She went over to his bedside and called him again, louder this time. "CALLEN!"

Startled out of his disturbing dream, Callen opened his eyes and stared at her in confusion. "Nell? Where's…" He looked around the room wildly until he finally realized that he was home in his bedroom. He took some deep breaths, trying to slow his pounding heartbeat.

"Hey...are you okay?" Nell took a seat on the edge of his bed and gently rubbed his shoulder.

"Yeah…yeah, I'm fine Nell. Sorry," Callen said with a sheepish look. "Good morning, by the way."

"Good morning to you and don't have anything to be sorry about," Nell said softly. "Everyone has bad dreams sometimes."

"Yeah...yeah, I guess…"

"You feel like talking about it?" Nell asked. "You know I'm a good listener."

Callen shook his head. "No thanks, Nell. I...I don't even remember what it was about really."

"I see," Nell said gazing at him skeptically.

Callen could tell she didn't believe him, but he didn't elaborate any further.

"How about some breakfast then? I'm a pretty good cook if I do say so myself." Nell said with a smile.

"Sure...breakfast sounds great. Thanks."

"Okay. Any special requests?"

Callen shrugged. "No...make whatever you'd like, Nell. Don't go to a lot of trouble."

"Okay...let me know if you need help with anything." Nell got up from the bed and with one last look at Callen, left the room and headed out to the kitchen. Callen watched as she left and immediately his mind went back to the dream, wondering if there could possibly be any truth to it.

xxxxx

"What smells so good?" Callen asked with a smile as he crutched his way out into the kitchen.

"I thought I'd make some blueberry pancakes," Nell said, returning his smile. "Hetty mentioned that there were fresh blueberries in your refrigerator and she also said they were one of your favorites. Sit down. They're almost ready."

Callen did as she requested and took a seat at the table. There were two place settings along with two cups of tea and orange juice by each one. "This looks really nice. You didn't have to go to so much trouble though."

"It's really no trouble at all. I enjoy cooking." Nell came over with a plate stacked full of pancakes which she placed in the center of the table. "Help yourself. Do you have any syrup?"

"It's in the cabinet over near the refrigerator."

Nell went over to the cabinet and by standing on her tiptoes managed to reach the syrup. She then got some butter from the refrigerator and brought the items to the table.

"Sorry," Callen said, grinning at her. "I should have gotten the syrup."

"No worries," said Nell. "When you're my height, you learn how to accommodate for most things."

"You're definitely good at that," Callen said as he poured a generous amount of syrup on his stack of pancakes and put a forkful into his mouth. "And you're a really good cook too."

"Thank you," Nell said, looking pleased. "But if you think these are good, wait until you taste my homemade chocolate chip cookies later on."

"Really?" Callen asked, his eyes brightening. "I'm getting positively spoiled this week."

"Well, everyone deserves to be spoiled once in a while," Nell said, smiling. She knew quite a bit about his childhood years and was pretty sure he'd rarely been spoiled then, if at all. It made her happy if she could do anything to make his life a little bit easier now.

The two finished their breakfast, with Nell chatting about the goings on at the office and Callen mostly just listening. He was still preoccupied with the dream he'd had and even though part of him thought it was ridiculous to even be thinking about such a thing, the other part of him wondered if it was some kind of an ominous sign of things to come.

xxxxx

"So, what would you like to do today?" Nell asked after she had finished cleaning up the breakfast dishes.

Callen was sitting on the couch flicking through the channels on the t.v. set. "I don't know," he said. "Do you have any suggestions?"

"We could watch a movie I guess," Nell said. "I promise, no America's Next Top Model."

"You heard about that?" Callen asked with a smile. "Yeah...not my favorite show for sure."

"Well, what would you like to watch? You can choose. I'm not picky."

"What kind of movies do you like?" Callen asked. He didn't want Nell to get stuck watching something she hated.

"It really doesn't matter to me."

Callen went to the movies on demand channel and started scrolling through the choices. "Shout out if you see something you'd like."

The two watched as the seemingly endless choices went by, but neither of them were particularly inspired by any of them. Finally, Callen turned the t.v. off. "I have Eric's game system here if you want to play."

"Is that what you want to do?" Nell asked. She felt like she was failing in her mission to entertain him. She could tell he was bored out of his mind.

"Actually...I think I'm going to go rest for a while, if you don't mind," Callen said. His leg was throbbing pretty badly and he just wanted to lie down for a while.

"Of course I don't mind. Can I get you anything? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Nell," Callen said, forcing a smile. "I just didn't sleep very well last night."

"Okay...you know where I am if you need anything."

"I do," Callen said. "Thanks for everything. I'll see you a little later."

xxxxx

A short while after Callen had gone into his room, Nell took her cell phone out to the back of the house and called Hetty.

"Why hello, Ms. Jones," Hetty greeted her cheerfully on the other end of the line. "I didn't expect to hear from you today. How are things going with you and Mr. Callen?"

"Not so good, I'm afraid, Hetty," Nell said, taking care to speak softly. "Callen is so bored with me being here that he went back to bed."

"Oh, Nell, this has nothing at all to do with you," Hetty said. "I'm actually surprised it took him this long. He's cooped up and he's probably getting caught up inside his own head. He doesn't do well in this type of situation. Just do the best you can and know that you have nothing to do with whatever his mood or state of mind might be today."

"Alright...if you're sure," Nell said. She had thought it would be a lot easier than this and that she might be able to cheer Callen up. Unfortunately, she had been mistaken.

"Quite sure, dear," Hetty said. "Don't worry yourself about it and try to have a nice day in spite of this."

"Okay...I'll try," Nell said. "Thank you, Hetty."

"You're welcome."

xxxxx

After Hetty hung up the phone, she looked thoughtfully over at the bullpen where Kensi, Deeks and Sam were sitting at their desks and and laughing over something which had most likely been said by Mr. Deeks. She walked over to them. "Are we all working hard?" she asked.

"Very hard, Hetty," Sam replied, giving her his most charming smile.

"I just received a call from Ms. Jones," Hetty said.

Sam immediately turned serious. "Is G okay? Should I go over there?"

"Please calm down, Mr. Hanna," Hetty said. "I didn't say that anything was wrong. Your partner just isn't in the best of moods today." She turned her attention to Deeks. "Mr. Deeks, it's your turn to stay with him tomorrow. I think if you could take him out for a bit, that would help. Just take him for a drive, maybe go to lunch. Some fresh air and sunshine definitely couldn't hurt. I would have had Nell do it, but I'd rather someone physically stronger be with him, just in case…"

"Sure, Hetty, whatever you say," Deeks said. Any traces of the laughing he'd been doing just a couple of minutes ago were gone. Deeks still felt guilty over what had happened to Callen and now, knowing he wasn't doing well, it just made everything that much worse. As much as he wanted to help Callen, he couldn't say he was looking forward to the next day at all.

xxxxx

Callen dozed off for a bit, but when he awoke, he still stayed in his room. He knew he was being kind of a jerk to Nell, but he wasn't in the mood for socializing. He knew he had to get out there sooner or later though. It would be unspeakably rude if he didn't. Finally, he forced himself to get up out of bed, grabbed his crutches and made his way out into the living room. "Hey Nell." He smiled at her and sat down on the couch.

"Hi, Callen. Did you get some sleep?" Nell asked.

Callen nodded. "I did. Sorry about that. I'm feeling better now."

"You don't have anything to be sorry about. It's understandable that you'd be tired though. It's not even a week yet since your surgery."

"So, are you getting some work done?" he asked, his eyes on her laptop.

"I've just been helping Eric with a few things. Nothing too major."

"Will it disturb you if I turn on the t.v.?

"Not at all," Nell said, shaking her head.

Callen turned on the television and began scanning through the channels, stopping when he saw the Shawshank Redemption which was just beginning. "Have you seen this before?"

"I love this movie," Nell said.

"Me too."

"Would you like some lunch?" Nell asked.

"I think I'm still kind of full from breakfast. I ate a lot of those delicious pancakes you made. I wouldn't mind some of those cookies you mentioned earlier though," Callen said, smiling at her.

"I think that can definitely be arranged," Nell said, returning his smile. She then got up to go and get the cookies. When she returned, they settled down and spent the next couple of hours, munching on cookies and watching the movie, both of them much more at ease than they had been earlier.