Who: Shailee and Callum, part 2 What: Routine missions come apart at the seams Where: Sarmiento, Argentina When: This past weekend. Timelines are fuzzy. Warnings/Rating: Some minor violence, nothing serious
Night came, but the house stayed warm and lit through the fire which Callum continuously stoked. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t settle his thoughts, even though his body wanted to simply lay down and just forget. Instead, Callum settled on the couch with Shailee’s head in his lap, keeping a quiet vigil until consciousness was once again her friend. She needed him, and hell if he’d fail her then.
Consciousness came slower than the blackness had, seeping through her dreamless sleep. First came the sounds - the crackling fire, the fierce wind that slammed into the windows and made the walls rattle, the gentle breathing from somewhere above her. Then came the touch - the large bandage holding her side together, the warmth of the fire on the rest of her bare stomach, the slight give of a thigh pillowing her head, and the pain. The excruciating, spine-contorting pain that had set fire to half her body. She moaned under the pain as the full force of the pain crashed into her consciousness, too exhausted by the ordeal she had slept through to do much else. “Jesus fuck.” Curling her elbows under her, Shailee tried to push herself into a sitting position.
“Don’t,” Callum warned her as soon as she started to shift to sit, a warm hand coming to rest against her shoulder, gently easing her back down to where she had been laying before. “If you need something, ask, but I don’t want you up and about right now.” His voice was tired in ways that Shailee had likely never heard it before, and the tiredness leant itself to a softness as well. “I had to stitch your side back together, and I don’t want them breaking when you try to get up. It was hard enough the first time to do it let alone doing it again. So please.” Callum shifted slightly so that he could meet her eyes. “Please lay back down, Shailee.”
Shailee did what he asked and laid back down, but she didn’t know if it was because of the tone of his voice, the way he was looking at her, or the fact that he had just called her Shailee instead of Thakkar. “I feel like I got steamrolled by a tank,” she finally said, by way of conversation-starter. “You stitched me up? I... I can’t imagine you with a needle and thread.” The imagine made her laugh, which turned quickly into a cough and a clutch at her side. “Ow. Remind me not to laugh. Or breathe.” She looked at the upside down face that hung over hers, and noticed the tired set of his eyes, and the utter exhaustion that emanated from his every pore. “How long did everything take? Did you sleep at all?” She reached a hand up to push his hair away from his face without thinking, and found herself momentarily distracted by how soft the light strands actually were. “You look exhausted, Westerberg.”
“Don’t laugh or I won’t do it again,” Callum warned her, but there was no venom in his words, just a simple tiredness that he couldn’t shake. “So just stay still. You’ll feel better and I’ll stop worrying you’re going to bleed out on me.” He was quiet until she had settled back down, her fingers no longer clutching so desperately at her side, and his gaze was hawk-sharp on those white bandages, waiting for any tell-tale blossom of red that would spell the worst. When the attention was brought towards him, Callum gave a shake of his head. “I don’t remember how long. Few hours. It’s getting on towards morning, I think, by the look of the sky outside. And no, I haven’t slept. Not yet.” The touch to his hair made his eyes widen in surprise, the expression lasting only a moment before it settled once more and he pressed the outside of one hand against her forehead. “Are you sure you’re not running a fever, Thakkar?”
“Hmm?” Shailee blinked slowly at him, unable to comprehend what he was saying. “I don’t think so? Do you think I’m infected? I feel a lot of shit, but I don’t think I’m burning up.” Her eyes narrowed at him, a fraction of her usual sternness seeping in. “You need to sleep, Westerberg. You’ve been keeping me alive all night, and I’m still here. Get some sleep. I promise I’ll still be here when you wake up.” She was too immobilized to go anywhere on her own, and in too much pain to consider dying a plausible option. No, all Shailee Thakkar would be doing was staying still, stifling moans of pain, and trying not to freeze her ass off in the blizzard that was now in full swing.
“I’m not leaving you in here on your own,” Callum said, and his words left little room for argument as he drew his hand away from her forehead, giving her a roll of his eyes. “I’m fine right here. Just rest. Stop bitching. Let me do what I feel I need to, okay? You fucking scared me, Thakkar, so cut me some slack on what you want.”
The bluntness in his voice struck home, and the realization of just how afraid he must have been made her breath hitch in her throat. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, looking directly at him, “but on the plus side I kept you awake through your concussion?” An idea came to her, one that was probably crazy, but perhaps the only answer to their conundrum. “Listen, you need to sleep, and I can’t go anywhere. If you can help me up, we can move to the bedroom, and you can stretch out.” Shailee couldn’t believe she was actually suggesting sharing a bed with an asset, but under the circumstances, it wasn’t as though anything could actually go amiss.
Callum didn’t say anything for a long while, his gaze slightly narrowed through the exhaustion that plagued him, but eventually, he nodded his assent, brushing his fingers through her hair in a gesture that was wrought more with concern than affection. “Let me get a fire started in the other room. You stay here,” Callum instructed her softly, and he didn’t meet her gaze then, something within him withdrawing, shutting down, a sign of how tired he really was. He slipped out from beneath her carefully, replacing his lap with a wadded up coat, moving away stiffly to gather some of the wood he had brought inside and taking it into the bedroom to start the fireplace up.
Shailee watched him move quietly through the rooms, taking note of every soft word, every kind gesture. The man who had spent the night keeping her alive wasn’t a man she had met before, despite the myriad of facades she had seen in the time she had known him. She didn’t quite know what to think about it, and any attempt to analyze how she felt about it left her with a headache angry enough to make the holes in her side look like paper cuts. This was something she needed to think through when she was in full health, and had no less than three drinks in her. For now, she would focus on ignoring the pain and making sure Callum’s concussion had no lasting impact.
By the time the fire was crackling in the small bedroom, Callum was moving on autopilot. Over 36 hours since he had last slept, and a concussion on top of it, it was surprising he was moving at all, but he did. Making his way back to the couch, he gave Shailee a long look as she lay there on the cushions before making some silent decision of his own. Crouching, he gently worked an arm beneath her knees, another under her shoulders, and ignoring any protests she might have made, he lifted her up and into his arms, stilling for a moment as he waited for his balance to catch up with him, and then he carried her with stoic silence towards the bedroom.
The bedroom was dark, the curtains pulled against the brightness of the blizzard outside the window now that day had dawned, the fire crackling in the fireplace, warming the room through. The covers were already pulled back, and even though they were dusty, smelling faintly of must and closed up rooms, they were warm, something against the elements. The blizzard continued to war outside, the snow falling heavily, but it was ignored as Callum lowered Shailee to the mattress with surprising gentleness, though the tremor in his limbs was harder to ignore.
Shailee did in fact protest as Callum scooped her up, but she knew the words were futile before they even left her mouth. She forced herself to relax in his arms as he carried her into the bedroom, trying to make the transition as easy for him as she could. The tremor in his hands didn’t go unnoticed, and Shailee caught his hand before he could move away. “You. Bed. Now.” She hesitated for a moment, swallowing hard through a brief internal debate. “But first is there something else in the closet I could wear? I don’t want to get blood on the sheets.”
Callum looked down at their joined hands for a long moment, as though they were some alien thing, his thoughts moving sluggishly as he tried to power through the minutes until sleep. Now that he was fairly assured that Shailee was fine, would not die, the adrenaline had eased and he found himself dragging. “I’ll take a look,” he said quietly, giving her fingers a squeeze as he crossed the room to the closet, pulling the doors open and peering through the motley collection of items that had been left there by other agents and, presumably, the agency itself. He found a t-shirt, probably a little large on her, but it was better than the other things he found, so it was that which he returned with, offering out to her before he moved around to the other side of the bed to crawl in. Thoughts on whether or not she could get out of her clothing right then were so far beyond him, but if asked, he would help.
Shailee took the t-shirt with a grateful smile, excited by the idea of being out of her sticky thermals. She rolled the edge of her shirt back from where Callum had rolled it up to get to her wounds, tugging at the freed edge with her right hand before realizing she couldn’t get the shirt over her shoulders without moving the left side of her body. “Westerberg, hey.” She shot him a sympathetic look, hating herself for keeping a bone-tired man awake. “Can you help me out?”
It took a handful of moments for Callum to even think of stirring, but eventually, he managed to pry one eye open to look over at her, her shirt half pulled up, and it didn’t take a brain surgeon to realise what it was she needed. Hauling himself up, those same gentle hands helped ease her out of the shirt, working one sleeve off, up over her head, and then down the other arm, keeping her as still as he possibly could even in his exhaustion. “Sorry. Should have thought about this to begin with,” he said softly, letting a tired hand run over the now bare arm, meeting her gaze. “Glad you’re okay, Shailee,” Callum murmured thickly before he took the t-shirt from her, drawing his gaze away as he shook out the worn cotton shirt.
Shailee let the impossibly gentle hands ease her out of the shirt, amazed at how bearable the pain was when he helped her out. “So am I,” she said to the man who was fighting to keep his eyes open, fully aware that she’d be up a shit creek, if not dead were it not for him. As she sat there on the bed next to Callum, wearing nothing more than jeans and a bra, his hand on her bare arm, something in her stomach did a serious flip, and Shailee knew it had absolutely nothing to do with the bandage on her side. She watched him as he helped her into the oversized t-shirt, pulling her hair free before sliding back down onto the bed. A few minutes of silence passed before she spoke out again. “Callum?” Her voice called out gently, not wanting to make the man if he was already asleep, “Thank you.”
As soon as Shailee was in the shirt and back laying down, Callum had pulled his limbs back to his side of the mattress and laid back down, tugging the blanket up over his shoulders, and then, as a side thought, he reached over to tug it up over her as well. Eyes fell closed and his breathing evened out, laying on his stomach one one arm curled beneath his head. Shailee’s words fell upon deaf ears, the man already asleep.
It was hard to tell how many hours had passed when the veil of sleep lifted, though he had no inclination to get up out of the warmth of the blankets piled atop him. The fire had died overnight, leaving the room ice cold against their faces, and in those fuzzy moments between sleep and full wakefulness, it was hard to remember what had happened. Callum had curled up against the other warm body in the bed, an arm thrown around their midsection, nose pressed against a shoulder, and as the cold made itself more known to the waking man, he grumbled and curled in closer before settling back down.
Shailee’s night had been far less peaceful. She slept fitfully, waking up every hour when an attempt to move caused her stitches to stretch and fire to shoot down her side. Peace came long after the fire died down, when the arm snaked over her hips, pulling her to warmth and comfort and keeping her moving any more. It was in that position that she managed a few hours of real rest, until a grumble by her chin pulled her towards consciousness and the cold.
Bitter, freezing fucking cold.
Not really one to spoon even after a roll in the hay, Shailee was surprised when she realized the warmth against her side came from another body pulled in close. It was bizarrely comfortable, lying there like this, them and a pile of blankets against the god damn apocalypse. Sorry, Sam. This is definitely not a hot fuck in the hotel room bathroom. What this was was cute. And sweet. And all the other aww-inducing emotions that Callum’s behavior from the previous night would elicit from a 16 year-old girl.
Head trauma made men act in strange ways.
Staying absolutely still for another ten minutes, Shailee waited for the sounds of heavy, steady breathing before gently extricating herself from the bed. Fuck, it was cold. Padding gently out into the living room - a useless courtesy, as the howling wind outside would have masked the sounds of a small explosion - she grabbed the bottle of vodka that was still on the coffee table and some painkillers before heading to the bathroom for what she had dubbed in her head as ‘the exploded woman’s breakfast.’ Sam would be so proud.
It was the loss of warmth at his side that drew Callum from the peacefulness of sleep, and when eyes opened and he tried to piece the last day or so together, it took a long while for him to even remember where they were and why. And then the fact that Shailee was gone and her side of the bed still warm. That was what got him up, pressing a hand to the mattress and seeing no blood, which was a relief in and of itself, but there was still this ribbon of concern running through him. He was quiet as he slipped out of the bed, his head pounding, still fogged with sleep and still dressed in the clothes from the explosion, but that was hardly his concern right then.
The house was small enough that it didn’t take long to find her in the bathroom, and Callum was quiet as he approached the half-open door. It was strange, seeing her like this, just in her bra and pants from the night before, the t-shirt he had found for her obviously discarded. This woman was a contrast against the agent in his thoughts, distant even from the woman he had known in Prague, and Callum just wasn’t sure what to do with all of those thoughts and comparisons. He watched as she knocked back Advil with a swallow of vodka, the way her eyes moved to the stark white bandages that covered her left side. For a moment, he was sure he was intruding, but her stillness, her quiet, that had him convinced this was where he was supposed to be.
“If you want me to get the stuff, I’ll check those for you,” Callum said quietly as he placed himself in the doorway, pushing the bathroom door open the rest of the way, his shoulder butted up against the frame. “You can give a critique to my work if you’d like. Obviously, I passed, but I’d still like the expert’s opinion.” His voice was softer than it was normally, eyes bloodshot and skin a hair paler than normal. There was no chance he was at 100% that morning, but he made a good show at it.
Shailee didn’t start at the voice behind her, instead staying absolutely still, hands gripping the edge of the sink. Her eyes flicked to his in the mirror, the only indication that she had heard him at all. “I’m already working under the assumption that your embroidered your name on my side, so pretty much anything would be an improvement.” It was an attempt to lighten the mood, to make the charred individuals in the mirror a little more comical. Unfortunately, her voice was dry and hoarse, and the delivery fell far short of its mark. She cleared her throat, attempting to push away the fiery aftertaste of the vodka. “How’s your head? You look like someone tried to explode you. Coming from the girl with the grand canyon in her side, that’s saying something.”
“You mean you didn’t order that with your stitches? Shit.” Callum managed a small grin in return, though it lasted for only a moment as a general tiredness gripped him, holding his hand out for the bottle of vodka. “Worst headache I’ve had in my life. Give me the vodka, please,” Callum said in a polite demand, waiting until the bottle was in hand before he took a pull from it, eyes closed and grimacing at the burn that slid its way down and into his stomach, chasing away some of the cold that had crept in since the fires had died out. “But I’ll survive it.” Putting the bottle back down on the edge of the sink, Callum touched her arm briefly. “I’m gonna go grab the kit. Stay there.”
He disappeared for only a moment before returning with the first aid kit from the night before, taking a seat on the toilet and opening it up on his lap. “You scared the shit outta me, I’ll have you know,” Callum said as he drew her just close enough that fingers could work at the tape holding the bandage to her skin, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she stood there in little more than her bra and pants, focused as he was on the task at hand.
“You better.” Callum wasn’t the only one giving the other worried glances, even though Shailee knew the danger to him had mostly passed. What he really needed was some rest, which depending on the turn the blizzard took, would either be all he could do or completely impossible. As his handler, it was her job to make sure he was in working order, and once she was feeling a little less like ass, she would get right to it. Shailee wasn’t bothered by the fact that Callum was the one tending to her; she was too busy being grateful he kept her alive for her pride to get in the way.
Shailee moved wordlessly towards Callum when he drew her near, a part of her amused at the strange synchronicity that had developed between them in the last 24 hours. This wasn’t like the circling they did around each other in Prague, or the loud fights or tangible tension from Vegas. This was entirely different. It was a level of comfort that came only with trust, an unspoken rapport that usually took years to develop between partners in the field. And that was it, really. Trust. Callum had openly admitted to her that his only training had been in first aid for a brief period in DC, yet Shailee trusted the hands peeling the bandages away from her side completely. “I’m sorry,” she finally said, minutes after the appropriate time for a response had passed. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m supposed to be looking out for you here, not the other way around.”
Callum glanced up towards her when she spoke, lifting eyebrows at her apology, and when she went further to explain her apology, Callum snorted, giving a shake of his head, pulling the last bit of the bandage away and tossing it in the garbage can beside the sink. “You couldn’t really help it,” he said quietly, dropping his gaze back to the dark stitches that he had put into her side, his lips pressing together in a thin line as he shook his head. “I should be apologising,” Callum said softly, leaning back, his gaze fixed on that line of stitches. “You’re going to scar. I just- Fuck.” Callum got up to his feet, pushing one hand through his hair as he moved around behind her, coming up on her other side and taking hold of that bottle of vodka, swaying for a moment before he took a long drink.
Shailee forced herself to look down at the stitches she had been reluctant to see the entire time she had been in front of the mirror, pressing down on her ribs to survey the damage. A long line of dark stitches extended down the side of her body, from just below her ribs along the curve of her waist. They weren’t the neat little stitches the CIA doctor had given her just above her right elbow; they were jagged and dark, angry marks fighting to hold her together. “A scar’s a fair price to pay for being alive,” she said, turning to take the bottle away from him. She laid a hand on his wrist, with enough pressure to keep the bottle down without being demanding. “You’ve kept me alive, Westerberg. You’ve got nothing to feel sorry for. So can we please save the shitty booze for the pain? You shouldn’t be drinking with that concussion anyway.”
He wanted to reach for the bottle back, to snap at her that he was grown and he was capable of knowing when enough was enough, but the words died before they even started to grow, and he let her take the bottle from his hand, his brows creasing together. “I’m just pissed that you got hurt, Shailee,” Callum said, and the hand that had been resting on the bottle moved to rest just overtop the stitches, hovering, barely touching. “I’m pissed that the fact that I was just above incompetent is what kept you alive.” It was a matter of control, of knowing what a situation was going to deal to him, of handling it and moving on, and here, in the bottom of the continent, all those wants and desires were thrown out the window. There was no control here, there was just her and him, in this safe house, with the world coming down around them as the blizzard raged and the snow cocooned their shelter.
Callum moved a step closer, head dropping forward so that their foreheads met, and standing there, he was quiet.
“You couldn’t have stopped it. None of us knew those men would show up and open fire. I did what I had to do, Callum. And if I had to, I would do it again.” She moved her gaze away from his face, afraid of the intensity of that moment, of his hand hovering near her bare skin, of the pulse in her ears that had nothing to do with the vodka she had mainlined. Her fingers caught at the collar of his thermal, tugging loose the fabric that had curled in on itself while he slept. “I will spend the rest of my life being grateful for you being just above incompetent,” she continued, her voice dying down to a hoarse whisper. Control went out the window the way of the howling winds when Callum moved closer to Shailee, her breath catching as the heat of his chest warmed the air around her.
The world focused to a fine point, a momentary pinprick where sight, sound, and touch collided with a cresting wave of everything she had ever felt about this man. This man, who had worked through the night, scared half to death that she’d die on him, and not given up. This man, who instead of patting himself on the back for a job well done, felt remorse for the fact that she would carry a scar for the rest of her life, felt angry that she had been hurt at all. This man, who had turned her life upside down every time he had entered it, making her forget who and where she was, and why she was there in the first place.
When she looked back on it, Shailee knew it wasn’t lust that made her cover the last few inches between them and cover his lips with her own. It was an overwhelming need to show him that she was going to be forever in his debt, that he had nothing to beat himself over, that this was why she was glad to still be standing. It was a tame kiss, painfully soft, saying everything she needed him to know, and demanding nothing in return.
He wanted to protest against her words, to tell her every reason why he believed himself to be right, but as her voice quieted and those fingers caught in the hem of his shirt, every word he wanted to say escaped him. The world was a silent thing, narrowed down to a pinprick of existence where it was just her, him, the wind that roared outside. The fingers that had been afraid to touch settled elsewhere where stitches didn’t hold her together, and as her lips met his in that single, silent kiss, Callum let his eyes close, the world stopping on a point. The moment was a fragile thing that he was afraid of shattering, but everything that needed to be said was whispered in that kiss.
Callum brought a hand up to touch her cheek, his touch light, almost afraid to settle down, and as their lips parted, eyes opened to look down at her, something soft in them that hadn’t been there before. Strange things brought people closer, catastrophes, near-death situations, but no matter what it was, it was a thing that could not be replicated or shared with anyone else. It was them against the world right then, and no one else, no matter how many explanations were given, debriefs were performed, it would never be understood by anyone else. “Shailee...” Callum murmured, his hand sweeping back, drawing hair away from her face in a touch so tender.
Shailee looked up at him as his fingers brushed past her face, her large eyes dark in the grey filtered light. She pulled her own fingers loose from his hair, where they had been wound tight for that one moment. “Callum,” she whispered, just as soft, until she noticed that the hand she had pulled back hadn’t come cleanly. It was coated in dirt and sweat and something darker, something that made her eyes grow wide and panic rise. “Callum,” she said again, her voice regaining its assertiveness in an instant. “You’re bleeding.”
The moment shattered into a thousand shards, replaced by the urgency of a crisis, and the immediate formation of a course of action. It was Shailee’s ability to keep her head straight during an emergency that made her so good at what she did, and now that she had seen the blood on her hands, she immediately started noticing the other cuts and scrapes she had been blind to in her own pain-filled haze. “Jesus Christ,” she muttered, tugging at his side until he was by the toilet once again. “Sit. I can’t believe you’ve been cut up this whole time and neither of us noticed.”
Things changed so quickly that he had a hard time following. One moment, it was this quiet closeness, and then he was being pushed towards the toilet to sit, and maybe it was testament to the concussion that he was as slow to pick up on it as he was. “Shailee, I’m fine,” he tried to insist, “I’m sure it’s just a scrape. Nothing to get worked up over.” But even as he said that, he lifted his hand to touch at that sore spot at the back of his head, his eyes fluttering for a moment at the wetness in his hair, and when he drew his hand back, the sight of fresh blood on his fingers had him paling. “Shit. I had- I had no idea. I didn’t even notice.” But the night had been a numb thing where his focus was on her and nothing else, so perhaps it wasn’t that strange.
“Idiot” was all Shailee muttered, but her voice lacked any edge to it. Turning Callum to face the shower, she worked at the wound with alcohol and gauze, trying to get the grime away from his scalp and get a better look. “This one looks shallow, but you’re covered in shit.” They both were. In fact, Shailee had a distinct feeling that she smelled like l’eau de singed, and anyone who hadn’t been in the explosion would have called her out on it long ago. “Why don’t you take a shower? Be careful with your head, obviously. It’ll be a lot easier to patch you up if I’m not scraping 6 inches of dirt off of you first.”
There was a wince as she worked at the wound, but he didn’t say a word or make a sound, one hand fisting in the fabric of his pants, the only real sign of discomfort that he allowed himself to make. At the mention of a shower, Callum twisted towards her, looking up to her with an expression that bordered on amused. “Going to join me?” he asked, but the joke was tired, just like he was, and carried no real amusement. Instead, Callum gave her a short nod and turned back away from her, pulling at the edge of his thermal without waiting for privacy, tugging it up and over his head.
Callum was well-muscled, but not overly so, just the physique of a man who kept himself in shape. But that day saw his back a mass of bruises that were still blossoming with intensity, his shoulders dark where they had taken the brunt of the collision with the wall. “Do you mind finding the towels?” he asked as he got up to his feet, head down, fingers already working at the fastenings of his pants, holding absolutely no embarrassment at undressing with her still there.
Shailee answered the suggestion with an eyeroll, taking a step back once he stood up. She didn’t exactly feel uncomfortable about Callum taking his shirt off - after all, that was a sight she had seen before - but she was certainly aware that she had possibly just acted as a fantastically successful cockblock against herself. Not wanting to give herself time to dwell on it, she nodded and turned towards the door, but not before giving the bruises on Callum’s back a once over. She doubted he was the only one black and blue from the explosion, and suddenly felt conscious about the fact that she was still wearing just a bra, which meant Callum had probably spent the better part of the night being forced to look at her own bruises and be pissed over them.
Figuring it was safer if only one of them was half-naked at any given moment, Shailee slipped out of the bathroom before Callum could get out of his pants, moving gingerly despite the booze towards the bedroom closet. She found the requested towels on the top of a shelf, which required more tricky maneuvers, but she managed to get them... eventually. By the time she walked back into the bathroom with the stack of towels, Callum was already in the shower. “I got the towels. How hot is that water?” Shailee figured Callum had probably started up the water heater at some point in the night to boil water, but was curious how effective it was in this blizzard. “Oh and if you finish all the hot water,” she stepped closer to the shower curtain, so that there was no way he could miss her words, “I’ll have to kill you. Life-saving surgery be damned.”
The spray of water was warm against his back, and as he stood there, the aches and pains started to make themselves more apparent, the tension melting from his shoulders, his back, reminding him of everything that had happened in the past days. It took Shailee’s voice to break him out of the reverie he had found himself in, grabbing for the old bar of soap that sat on the soap tray, working himself into a quick lather. Her threat didn’t hold any water to his ears, leaving Callum to simply smile to himself as he ducked back under the spray. “I told you to join me,” he said, ducking his head out the side of the curtain, sandy hair plastered to his head from the water. “You were the one who didn’t do so. So don’t blame me for a lack of hot water.” Not that the water was hot, but the spray was warm enough to do the job.
Shailee stepped away as Callum’s head peeked around the end of the curtain, careful not to get wet. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Alas, alack, ain’t gonna happen. Now hurry up.” Leaving him to enjoy the rest of his shower in peace, she shrugged on a thick jacket over the t-shirt she had slept in - walking around in a bra made sense when bandages were being changed, but it was highly impractical clothing when it was negative 20 degrees outside - and focused on what needed to be done to get them back to the civilized world. By the time she heard the faucets turn off, she was settled in on the couch in the living room, setting up the laptop and comm systems she had pulled out from under a floorboard. Shailee knew that the blizzard was still too thick for them to be able to contact the surveillance team, but she wanted to be ready for any lulls in the storm.
The shower was not the sort that Callum wanted to linger under, especially when thoughts of what the world was like around them filtered back into his mind. He was out minutes later, grabbing one of the towels that she had retrieved from the closet, and winding one around his waist and knotting it there, another was tossed around his shoulders, and that was how he exited the bathroom for the living room. Rubbing the towel over his cropped hair, and then his shoulders, he watched Shailee for a moment as she worked at the equipment she had dug out of some hidden place in the cabin. It was tempting to stay as he was, comfortable with just the towel, but he disappeared moments later with a bag in hand, returning only when he was dressed in old jeans and a tshirt, padding over towards the couch to sit beside her, feet left bare. “That thing work?” he asked, giving a nod to the laptop she was working on, rubbing his hair and wincing in response, an audible thing that had him going still, head cocked to the side. “Shit.”
“Nope, not yet” Shailee responded flatly, turning to look at whatever had made him curse. “I still need to look at your head. Stay here.” She tried to push herself to her feet, but sat back down almost immediately as she felt the stitches pull. “Alright, plan b then,” she muttered under her breath, sliding down the couch to the end table where some medical supplies from the night before still sat. “I’m going to have to clean the cuts. Given the amount of shit you just washed out of your hair, it isn’t going to be pleasant. Try to sit still.” Placing a hand on his cheek, she drew Callum’s head forward until she could examine it in the light without extending herself. “Jesus Christ, Westerberg. You look like you were trying to go ginger and sucked at it.”
He made a small face at her words, but Callum didn’t argue because as much as getting hurt sucked, it would suck more to end up with some infection festering in the wound. His gaze narrowed slightly at her muttering, brows raising in question, but he didn’t ask. If there was a problem that needed to be addressed, he hoped she would say something. Instead, Callum let her fingers guide him to where he needed to be, letting out a long breath as he closed his eyes, trying to relax despite the situation. “Yeah, well, you try going red with the help of blood only,” he muttered, and then he shifted, reaching out to grasp her wrist lightly with one hand. “You go shower. My head’ll wait until you get yourself cleaned up, Thakkar,” Callum said lightly, even if it was an effort to put the pain off until later.
“You know damn well that if it came to it, I’d be able to pull it off. With swagger too.” She kept her tone light, applying the alcohol and gauze as she went, pausing to look for more cuts and make sure he wasn’t going to jump away in pain. “No, the shower will have to wait. I’m not risking an infection. If you think I smell ripe, well, you’re just going to have to suck it up.” It took her about ten more minutes to clean and cover the wounds she saw, a large part of it spent on the large gash that had bled on her earlier. Nothing seemed to be too deep, and Shailee exhaled with relief now that she could be sure that he would be okay. “There, all done. Now, I shower. Can you help me up?”
Callum kept still throughout the entire process, not entirely a testament to how well he handled pain, but to how much he simply wanted to get this done and over with. He was quiet as she worked, letting out hard breaths when things hurt, but overall he was a quiet patient until she declared things clean and done. Reaching back, he felt at back of his head with the tips of his fingers, eyes closing for a moment before he simply shook his head and got up to his feet. “Of course I can. Least I can do for the person who saved my life,” Callum said with all sincerity, extending a hand down to her, those slate gray eyes of his steady and calm even with the storm that pounded outside.
Shailee took the hand and allowed herself to be pulled up, her free hand automatically going to clutch her side in an effort to minimize movement. “Thanks. And you’re going to have to get over that,” she patted his chest, right next to his shoulder. “Keeping you alive was my job. You, on the other hand, are the one who deserves gratitude.” Stepping around the coffee table towards the door of the bedroom, Shailee stopped short suddenly, remember what she had been doing before Callum had come outside. “The comms are set up, but the blizzard has us in a blackout. Just watch that light,” she pointed at the tiny bulb attached to the corner of a button-laden panel. “It’ll go green when we have signal again, and then we can turn the volume back up and try to get the hell out of here.”
His expression was something almost soft in response to her words, and he simply nodded his head at her mention of gratitude, releasing her fingers as she moved towards the bedroom. “Go get cleaned up. I can watch a light just fine on my own. I do this kind of shit for a living, remember?” He made a gesture at her for her to ‘shoo’ before he dropped back down to sit, back jammed in the corner of the couch and one leg kicked up on the coffee table. It wasn’t the most exciting of jobs that he had ever done, but it gave him time to decompress, to let things settle. Peace in the eye of the storm. It was needed.
It didn’t take Shailee long in the shower, but when she finally emerged, clad in a fresh t-shirt and pants that were a few sizes too big, Callum looked like he was on the verge of sleep. Pulling a blanket over with her, she sank gently onto the couch next to him, moving this way and that until she finally found a position that didn’t stress her side. “Good to see you’ve been so vigilant. Unfortunately for both us, staring at that light is pretty much the only thing we can do until this storm passes.” Damp strands of hair clung to her neck and arms as she twisted a few dials. “I hope you’re good at stakeouts, Westerberg.”
When she dropped down to sit near him, Callum straightened, pulling himself out of the half-sleep he had fallen into during her absence and the quiet that had ensued. “I was awake,” he grumbled at her, pushing a hand back through his hair with a sigh, giving a glance to the light for a moment before looking over towards her. “I’ll just have to learn to be good at them quickly, won’t I?” There was a hint of amusement in his words as he got up halfway, reaching over to tuck the blanket around her where she sat. “Get some rest. I’ll keep an eye on things. I know you got to be hurting worse than I am.” This was said with the full knowledge that he was just as tired. The light would change when it wanted, and staring at it wouldn’t make it happen any faster.
“Yeah, sure. It’s alright if you need to sleep. You did get knocked on your head. I’ll be fine. A little pain never killed anyone. Besides, Scott’s going to be barging in here the second the blizzard lets up even if we do miss the light change.” She pulled the blanket in close around her and lay back against the couch cushions, watching the light in the silence that was underscored by the blizzard outside. Her eyes grew heavy as she stared at the unwavering light, and eventually she gave up fighting to stay awake and curled in against the warm body next to her.
Shailee would stay in that position on the couch for a majority of the day until well into the evening, when the raging storm finally came to a halt. The sounds of the howling wind were replaced by low chatter on the comms, and then the ever-welcome sound of running engines and moving vehicles. It was all very dramatic as far as CIA missions went, but Shailee had a nagging feeling that Callum was going to be bringing a lot more turmoil and chaos into her life before everything was said and done.