It was the end of a good night. After a long two days fighting the bad guys, Nell had joined Callen, Sam, Kensi, Deeks and her partner Eric at a bar for a couple rounds of drinks and some impromptu Karaoke by Deeks and Sam. Everyone was in good spirits as Nell decided it was time to call it a night. She was too sober for singing in public and the pleas by Deeks to join in were becoming more incessant.
"Okay guys, I'm gonna call it a night." She said as she finished her bottle of water and rose to her feet. There was a chorus of protestation from Kensi and Deeks but she knew when she was done. "Eric, you want a ride home?" She asked.
"God yes." He said a bit too quickly. But he did not want to be left with Kensi and Deeks who would force him to sing (it had happened before and it was not fun), and he didn't want to be stuck in the back of a car with Callen and Sam, who even after years working together still intimiated him.
"Lets go then Beale." Nell said as she shouldered her bag and said her goodbyes to everyone. They headed out of the bar and into the dark night, following the well lit path to her car parked down the street.
After only a minute or two Callen and Sam both decided to call it too when Kensi and Deeks decided to duet. They bid them farewell and stepped outside. Callen had got parked much closer so it was only a few short steps to his car. But he and Sam had barely taken two steps when they heard a rapid succession of gunshots. Callen whipped his head around to look at Sam and they simultaneously drew their own weapons and started running towards the sound.
As he ran Callen's mind was racing. They were in a good part of town, not the area where gangs tended to hang out and shoot at each other. And Nell and Eric had left only minutes ago, he knew she was armed. His spidey senses told him this situation involved their own.
Running down the street the two agents looked around for signs of where the gunshots had come from. Callen glanced into the alley to his left and his heart jumped into his throat. Crumpled on the ground in front of a dumpster was Nell, her head hung down and she wasn't moving. Eric was nowhere to be seen.
Callen ran up the alley and slid to the ground beside her.
"Nell?" He said breathlessly. "Nell?"
Nell heard her name through the haze and pain and slowly lifted her head. Every move made her head throb more and it hurt to even open her eyes but she forced them open enough to see Callen staring at her, his eyes wide with concern.
"They took Eric." She told Callen.
Callen took in her bloody and bruised face and a steeley look came across his face. She'd taken a beating, that much was clear. She had a cut on her cheek, a swollen eye, her lip was bleeding and when he looked her over she was clasping her wrist to her chest.
"Who took Eric?" Callen asked, trying to get more linformation while Sam, with his gun still drawn, searched the alley.
"Three men." She said before her eyes drifted closed.
"Nell, you gotta stay awake okay." Callen told her. "Tell me what happened."
"Black van, GTL 4" she recalled only a partial plate.
"You're going to be okay Nell. We'll find Eric." He said as Sam approached.
"I've called it in. An ambulance is on the way, Kensi and Deeks are heading here now." Sam said.
"Hear that Nell. The cavalry is coming." Callen said gently, but he wasn't sure she could hear him. Her eyes were closed again. "Nell!" He said firmly. "Stay awake for me."
Nell winced. She'd never been in pain like this before in her life. Everything hurt. But what hurt most was her head. She felt like it had been split open and everything she ever knew had spilled out. Nothing made sense, the world was spinning, and all she could hear and comprehend was his voice saying her name.
"Nell, can you tell me anything else?" Callen asked. "Who were they, did you recognise them?" He asked, desperate for any further detail that could help. Nell sucked in a deep breath and tried to tell them everything she could. But to both Callen and Sam it was gibberish.
"This is bad Sam." Callen said gravely.
xxxx
Callen, Sam and Deeks arrived at Ops after Nell had been taken to hospital and they'd done a cursory investigation of the alley. Kensi had gone with Nell, Hetty was meeting them there. One of the other tech operators had managed to find footage from a security camera across the street that somehow captured the entire scene.
"Play it." Callen ordered as soon as he walked through the doors. The large screen before them played a scene, Nell and Eric walking down the street and being jumped by three large burley men at the alley. Two had grabbed Eric and started dragging him up the alley to a black van, he was resisting but suddenly went limp, Callen figured they quickly drugged him. His attention was drawn to Nell's image. As she got jumped, she reacted quickly but not quickly enough. Before his eyes the analyst was thrown backwards into the dumpster, her head hitting the hard metal edge, and she slumped to the ground. But she wasn't done. She staggered to her feet and managed get a few good punches in giving her just enough space to draw her weapon, but before she could get a shot off, the much larger assailant grabbed her arm and slammed it into the dumpster so her gun fell out her grasp. Then, as she was off balance and clearly in pain, he punched her in the face three times before she dropped. Callen looked down and turned his head away. He wasn't afraid of the gory sights they saw, he'd seen much worse, but this was different. She was one of them, she was his friend, she was his...Nell, and she was hurt. But she still wasn't out. He continued watching through gritted teeth as the assilant ran up the alley to the van and Nell fumbled about the ground, grabbed her gun and fired five shots at the van as it sped away.
"Thats enough " Callen said, and the tech turned off the footage.
"She did good G." Sam told him. "The best she could against someone that size."
"Yeah, and she may have given us a lead. I think she winged him with one of her shots. You and Deeks get back to the alley. If she hit him there might be blood, maybe some clues we missed, and follow up on the van. I'll go to the hospital and see if Nell can tell us anything else. I'll have Kensi meet up with you." Callen had barely finished the sentence before he was walking out the door. Deeks looked a little stunned and turned to Sam.
"Should he be alone?" Deeks asked. "He looks like he's about to go postal on someones ass."
"Callen doesn't take someone hurting his family lightly." Sam responded.
Xxx
Callen arrived at the hospital and relieved Kensi, sending her off to join the others. Hetty was sitting quietly on a chair near the door to the room Nell was in.
"How is she?" He asked quietly.
"Ms Jones will be alright. She has a concussion, a broken arm and some minor cuts and bruises." Hetty explained. "She's tough."
"Yeah, she is." Callen agreed. "She put up one hell of a fight." He added, glancing over to the older woman. "You'd have been proud." Hetty smiled in response.
"Is she awake? I need to see if she remembers anything that can help us."
"Of course Mr Callen." Hetty nodded. "She was asleep a little while ago, but you should go see what she knows. We need to find Mr Beale. And I need to go find a decent cup of tea." She added as she rose.
Callen stepped towards the door and tentatively pushed it open. Nell was in a bed with a blanket over her, an IV drip in one arm, a cast on the other, stitches on her cheek and several very angry bruises showing up across her face.
"Nell?" He asked quietly as he approached the bed. Her eyes fluttered open and she squinted in the light of the room.
"Hey." She replied hoarsely.
"How are you feeling?" He asked.
"I've been better." She groaned. "My head hurts like a bitch."
"I'm not surprised." Callen smiled. "Listen, I know you might not be feeling up to it but I need to ask you about what happened, anything you remember might help us find Eric."
Nell closed her eyes for a moment then turned to him.
"Is Hetty still here?" She asked. Callen was a bit surprised but told her yes, but she'd gone to find some tea.
"Great." Nell said with a bit more gusto than Callen had been expecting. And he certainly wasn't expecting her to sit up, throw off the blanket and pull away the hospital gown to reveal she was wearing her own clothes underneath. He was wondering how that happened, hospitals always swapped patients into gowns and clothes went in bags under beds. Did this mean she'd put her clothes back on?
"Nell, what are you doing?" He asked in confusion.
"Don't just stand there, I need my boots." She said as she swung her legs over the edge of bed. "And I need a bandaid." she added as she grimaced and pulled the IV out her arm.
If this weren't such a serious situation with their friend missing he might have found this comical, but in that moment he was just concerned. A mere two hours ago she'd been clocked so hard it practically knocked her out and here she was attempting to get up and leave.
"Nell, what are you doing?" He asked again.
"What does it look like?" She asked as she looked about and finally located her boots, and slid off the bed. She braced against the edge as a wave of dizzieness passed over her, then she slipped her feet into her boots and stood up straight.
"It looks like you're breaking out of hospital." Callen replied. "You can't leave, Nell."
"If it was Sam missing, would you be lying in a hospital bed doing nothing?" She asked, her eyebrows raised.
Callen had nothing to say. He knew if he were in this situation he wouldn't be lying about waiting for someone else to help.
"You have a point." He said, crossing to the small window in the room that looked out into the hall. There was no sign of Hetty.
"It's clear." He said, then he quickly rummaged in a supply trolley left near the door and found a piece of gauze and tape. Nell took a few unsteady steps across the room to reach him, where he quickly wrapped the gauze around her arm where the IV had been and stuck it down with tape.
"This will do for now." He said as he pulled open the door and peeked outside. With no Hetty in sight, he took Nell's good arm to keep her steady and the pair slipped out and snuck down the hall to the elevator and freedom.
Hetty returned just a few minutes later and knocked on the door. With no answer, she pushed it open and found an empty room with an empty bed.
"Oh buggar." She sighed.
Xxxx
Nell was exhausted and still in a lot of pain when she reached the ops centre with Callen. He swiftly ordered everyone out while Nell grabbed her chair and dropped into it. She picked up her earpiece and slipped it in as she logged onto the system and started tapping away with one hand. She kept her broken and casted arm close to her chest, trying to ignore the throbbing in her head.
"What are you looking for?" Callen asked as he stood close, one hand braced on the back of her chair, the other on the desk beside her.
"I'm checking Eric's email, he mentioned something about a strange email the other day." She said quietly. "He gets all sorts of weird emails all the time, from people wanting him to use his hacker skills for nefarious reasons, obviously they don't know who he really works for. I'm thinking maybe whoever took him did so because he didn't help them. I don't think its because of our work or they would have taken me too." She explained logically.
"Makes sense." Callen nodded. He hated to admit it but Nell would be a higher value target. She had access to a lot of information Eric didn't and she was as close to Hetty as you could get, entrusted with many of Hetty's secrets.
"Here it is." She said. "I just need to backtrace the IP...and here, look. It came from a computer at this building." She pulled up the information as quickly as she could with one hand. "And the company leasing the space has a van matching the partial plate I remember, registered to them."
Callen pulled out his cell and quickly called Sam, detailing where he needed the three of them to go. When Sam asked how he found it out so quickly, Callen simply replied
"Its complicated."
Xxx
Nell sat on edge of her chair as she listened in to the comms from Sam, Deeks and Kensi. It was probably the concussion but she was having a hard time following what was happening. Callen rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder. He wished he was there with the team but he didn't want to leave Nell alone, feeling responsible for her since he letnher leave the hospital. And he trusted his team to get the lay of the land, formulate a plan, and execute it. And he was right. Through the noise and commotion he heard it clearly.
"We've got Eric" it was Sam's voice. "He's okay."
"You hear that Nell?" Callen asked, glancing down at the young analyst. "They've got him and he's fine." He smiled a little and Nell let herself relax.
"Thats great." She sighed quietly. "Do you think you can take me back to the hospital now?"
Callen looked at her again and realised she looked like she was going to pass out or throw up, maybe both. So he quickly helped her to her feet and with an arm around her waist for support he walked her back to his car to drive her right back to the hospital. He'd deal with Hetty's wrath later. She couldn't be that mad anyway, without Nell it would have taken a lot longer to find Eric and things may have turned out differently.
Xxxx
An hour or so later Nell was back in a hospital bed, hooked back up to a much needed IV of fluids and morphine, and finally resting. Callen sat in the chair by her bed, just watching. He was amazed by her. Her resillience in such painful circumstances was extraordinary but he knew she'd suffer for it with a longer hospital stay. Though he knew as long as she knew Eric was okay she wouldn't mind.
Suddenly there was a quiet chap at the door. Callen lifted himself up and walked over to pull the door open.
"Eric." He smiled and gave the younger man's shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "You good?" He asked. Eric looked okay, a couple bruises on his face but otherwise in one piece.
"Um yeah, I'm okay Callen." He replied. "Is she?" He asked, peering around the agent to look at his partner.
"She'll be fine. She's tough." Callen smiled and looked over at Nell.
"She sure is." Eric nodded.
"Listen, you wait here with her, I need to go explain to Hetty why I broke Nell out of hospital." He chuckled a little to himself, with the seriousness of the situation over he was able to find the humour in it.
"You what?" Eric asked.
"Long story for another day Eric." Callen patted his back. "You've got one hell of a partner there." He added as he stepped out.
Looking across the room he could feel Hetty's glare on him. He took one last glance at Nell as the door slowly closed behind Eric. She'd amazed him tonight. She kept fighting no matter what, and she not only survived but saved her partner too. There would be time to analyse what happened and why later, for now Callen was just glad she was okay. He couldn't imagine his life without her in it.