#clever!

Lucy doesn't even spare a glance over her shoulder and he's so damned proud of her. He knows she's scared. He's scared too. But she's doing exactly what she needs to be doing: holding off the advance of the two armed robbers with guns. All things being equal, he'd take that to the one with the bowie knife who got the drop on them.

Tim's just glad he'd been in between Crocodile Dundee and Lucy. And that Lucy was a good enough shot that he'd only been stabbed twice before she'd dropped the guy with two well-placed shots. And if Tim's ears are ringing due to the proximity of the bullets to his ear, well, he's not going to tease her for it. Buy her a drink, maybe. That seems more appropriate under the circumstances.

He hears two rapid shots and then one more. All hers. Silence underscores her tightly controlled breathing. Then, she's on him. Her hands poking at the places he's leaking from. He flinches when she presses her hand tight over his and reminds himself that the harder he presses, the better his potential because the ambulance is on the way but it doesn't matter if he's already bled out.

A scuffling sound erupts a couple of rooms away. He feels the press of her body against his as she provides literal cover and also cover fire. Her hip digs into him as he passes out.

~*~

Lucy sounds pissed, is the first thing he thinks as he comes around. He's in a hospital bed but he's alone in the room. He can see her in the brightly lit hallway, though, her hands flying around as she dresses down some kid in blue wool long sleeves that he doesn't recognize.

"Protective detail requires you to be at your post, boot," she hisses. "All the time. Not just when you don't have to pee." She sounds so disgusted when she says it, sounds so much like he knows he had when he'd dressed down boots, that it makes him smile.

Then she's next to him, her fingertips hovering over when he knows he was stabbed. "What are you smiling about? You just got skewered." Her voice is light, a little amused, and a lot affectionate. Beneath all of that, he can hear her stress, the tightness of worry.

"I like it when you go into protective mode." Shit. He must be on the good drugs.

She smiles, soft and sweet, and her jibing tone doesn't match her face. "You just like it when boots get schooled."

"That's true." He's waiting, breath bated, for her fingers to stop hovering. He can feel the electricity of the offered touch almost as surely as if it were the real thing. "Protective detail?"

She makes a frustrated, tutting sound. "The head of crew wasn't one of the guys I shot and Harper's intel says he's coming to finish what they started."

"So you're under the same protective detail, right?" Any fuzz from the drugs flushes from his brain almost immediately, knowing that she might be in danger.

She has the good graces to look guilty. "Yeah."

"So why the hell were you out there dressing down a rookie? Who's watching you?"

"The rookie." Her fingers do touch him, then. Just the gentle weight of her hand resting against him, though, threatens to be his undoing. "I told them not to bother assigning me someone because I'd just be here with you anyway."

"But then you... what?" He reaches up and tugs at the end of her hair. "What home and took a shower?"

"I went to your place and took care of Kojo."

"Oh. Thanks."

"And took a shower."

"Who was watching your back while you did that?"

"In the shower?" she asks playfully, and damn he likes it. "Between your security system, Kojo, and my backup weapon, I was covered. But nothing happened. And now I'm back here and actually under protection."

Tim tosses a glance out the door, not sure exactly what that protection is worth if the kid is willing to walk off to take a piss.

"Take it easy, Sarge," she says, her fingers gliding up his chest, over his neck, and onto his jaw, "he's been handled."

He thinks she might kiss him.

He doesn't know why he thinks that. She hasn't kissed him since the undercover operation. Since they went back to business as usual. But now he knows things... like the way she'd touch a lover — the way she's touching him now.

Instead, she brushes the dimpled place below his bottom lip with her thumb and then backs off to the recliner next to the bed.

"Still," he says, shaking off the immediate fog of lust, "I'm not sure he's qualified."

She settles herself in the chair and then raises the hem of her shirt to flash her badge and holster. "How about me? Qualified?"

"Certified," he concedes.

"Then get some rest. I've got your back."