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“A gunman on the loose in the middle of a marathon weekend,” Ellie muttered, weaving through the masses of people on the street. “What a nightmare.”
“Could be worse,” Nick piped up, his voice crackly with comm static.
“How could it possibly be worse?”
“Car bomber. Terrorist.”
Ellie made a noise of disgust. “I hate it when you’re right.”
Nick hummed a self-satisfied laugh. “It happens so often, I thought you would be used to it by now.”
She tipped her head back and rolled her eyes.
“I saw that,” Nick said.
Ellie turned, scanning the crowd, until she spotted him on the other side of the street. She stuck her tongue out at him.
“Real mature, B,” Nick replied.
“Anybody got eyes on the shooter?” Gibbs said, cutting through the chatter with impatience.
Silence descended over the comms but Ellie couldn’t resist casting a quick glance over at Nick as if to say, I win.
“I see him,” McGee said. “Brown hoodie. Jeans. Blue baseball cap.”
Ellie scoured the street but she saw nothing out of place. There were a thousand blue baseball caps bobbing along. Twice as many brown hoodies, t-shirts, jackets. She turned around, searching the array of people behind her.
Nick barely spotted him in time. The gunman had stopped dead in his tracks, staring at Ellie like a cat with a trapped mouse, locked onto its kill. She was turned away from him, her back exposed, oblivious to the fact that a glock was trained on her.
Only one thought flashed in Nick’s head.
Ellie.
He bolted for her, forging through the crowd as fast as he could. The crack of a gunshot exploded like fireworks just as Nick hooked an arm around Ellie’s shoulders. He pulled her into his chest, curving his body around her as a shield. Nick’s momentum carried them both to the ground, hitting the pavement in a tangled heap of limbs.
Ellie felt the bullet hit Nick as his body jerked from the violence of the impact. Her back struck the ground first, with Nick’s weight falling on top of her, heavy and limp.
Not moving.
For a split second, Ellie’s heart pounded with the certainty that he was dead. Then she shoved at him, adrenaline coursing through her veins like fire and igniting her to action.
“Nick?!” she said, high-pitched and tight with fear.
He groaned and shifted, rolling onto his side. Ellie caught his wrist, fingertips barely touching his arm as she looked him over. Her gaze landed on the blooming red stain on his shoulder, just outside his protective vest, the neat, bullet hole torn through shirt and flesh.
Nick grimaced and let his head drop back to the sidewalk. “Just a scratch,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Shit, Nick,” Ellie breathed, blood seeping through her fingers. “This is not a scratch.”
“I’m okay,” he croaked.
“Stop saying that.”
He managed a hoarse laugh then winced and fell silent, closing his eyes. His fingers drifted up and curved around Ellie’s elbow but he pressed his lips tight and didn’t say anything more.
***
Ellie crossed her arms as she stood at the foot of Nick’s hospital bed. He was sitting up, his arm tucked in a sling, bandages wrapped from shoulder to elbow. She waited, hanging back to talk to Nick alone, as McGee, Gibbs, Abby, and Ducky filed out.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Let me have it.”
Ellie tilted her head in question. “What do you mean?”
“You’re pissed.”
“You could have just warned me, Nick.”
He waved her off. “Didn’t have time for that.”
Ellie glanced down at the toes of her boots, nudging at a scuff mark on the floor. When she closed her eyes, she could still feel the way Nick’s dead weight had crushed her. She had become so accustomed to his constant motion, his ready sarcasm and quips, that his silent stillness had made her cold all over.
Nick cleared his throat to get Ellie’s attention. She glanced up. He tapped his shoulder.
“You know what they say,” he said. “Kiss it better.”
Ellie frowned. “Could you be serious about this for two seconds?”
“Pretty sure I was serious when I took that bullet.”
She clenched her teeth, one hip cocked at annoyed angle. He dipped his chin, casting her a puppy-eyed look.
Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t even dream of humoring him. But he had protected her, thrown his own body in front of a bullet in order to keep her from getting hurt.
Ellie shook her head and stepped up to his bedside. She placed her hand on his pillow and leaned over him, brushing a kiss to his shoulder. She could feel his body heat through the bandage and the thin fabric of his hospital gown, a reminder that he was alive and well, just as stubborn and obnoxious as always.
When she pulled away, she glanced up at Nick. He was looking at her, searching her face as if he never wanted to look anywhere else but her for as long as he lived.
Ellie reached out, trailing her fingertips along his jawline, stubble as rough and stinging as sandpaper. She reveled in that burn, soaking up the heat of him. Nick lifted his chin a fraction of an inch, bumping his nose against hers, his breath fanning across her lips.
Ellie’s hand settled against Nick’s cheek. She drifted closer, touching her forehead to his. Nick’s fingers curved around her waist, pin points of pressure gentle against her lower back for support. Ellie placed her other hand on Nick’s chest, his heart a steady, even rhythm beneath her palm.
“You scared me,” she whispered.
“I’m not sorry, babe,” he replied. “I’d do it again if I had the chance.”
She released a heavy exhale. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
But she climbed onto the hospital bed anyway, her knees bracketing Nick’s hips. She pressed his mouth open with her lips, sliding her tongue across his, drowning herself in the taste of him. She never wanted his blood on her hands again.
She only wanted him like this, warm, soft, drawing a moan out of him that sounded so desperate and touch-starved and good.
Nick’s fingers skimmed up her back, threading through her hair. Ellie wrapped her arms around his neck, her chest pressed flush to his as she sighed into his mouth at the full-body contact.
The heart rate monitors went wild, chattering in frantic beeps as Nick’s pulse skyrocketed.