#niwan

"Pull him in! Now!" Jim screamed, stifling a grunt as he pushed Awan into the car. Mahoney and another of Saxton's men lay on the mouth of the garage, lifeless. Nina had forgotten how to breathe. Her trembling, blood-stained hands pulled at her partner's legs with all the strength she could muster. Her brown eyes were wide and glistening with tears. She hadn't heard Jim slam the door shut nor climb into the driver's seat to twist the engine to life. 

"Jim-" she stuttered.

She felt the car accelerate.

"Jim!" she cried - "Hold it shut!" he ordered, panic and agitation cracking his voice.

Her hands pressed into his upper abdomen. The hot blood made her hands slip and slide across his turquoise shirt. She felt as though she was losing her mind.

"Jim drive!" a sob escaped her.

"N-Nina," her eyes darted around in panic as though she could not really believe that she heard him speak. Her eyes found his. His breathing was becoming irregular.

"Awan- Awan." she exhaled a shuddered breath "we-we're gonna get you to a hospital-" she stuttered trough stifled cries. "Hold on - please hold on!"

Tears burned in her eyes. He was still looking at her. Only at her.

"Nina." his hands, dark with his own dried blood, travelled to his wound and moulded around her hands.

"A...ayóó.."

"D-Don't speak! Just breathe, just-breathe!"

"...ín...íshní..." the words escaped him in a feeble breath. The pressure of his fingers against her skin increased in that moment, ever so lightly. Had she not staring into his glistening eyes, she would not have noticed.

Her quivering lips parted as she tried to understand, tried to hear his words clearly. But the sound of his voice battled the deafening throb of her own heartbeat in her ears. His touch almost shattered her into pieces. He was bleeding so much. Too much.

"Jim he won't stop bleeding please Jim-" Nina called over her shoulder as she watched her partner's head fall back against the seat.

"Nina..." he repeated out loud as a tear trailed from his eye and ran down his temple. He was beginning to not hear her, or anything else, anymore. As all began to drift out of focus, his eyes remained on her. All he could think about was that she was with him.

and that she was alright.

That she was safe.

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Jim watched her, tense and silent in her seat. They were the only people in the waiting room. Her vacant gaze trailed low to the ground. Traces of blood still clung onto her hands, though she had seemingly spent an hour in the washing room trying to rid herself of them. 

She reminded him of himself.

when Joey had died.

"Baltimore," he said as gently as he could in that moment. She did not react.

"Nina."

Jim watched a tear trail down her cheek.

"He's gonna pull through."

"He's hurt." she countered, sternly, unforgivingly, before she could look at him.

"Because of me. He's hurt because of me, Jim. Because I wasn't careful."

Jim sighed, not wanting to anger her any further, though he knew that this was far from the truth. She was careful. They'd been most careful. 

Saxton had just been two steps ahead of them. It now seemed he'd always been.

Jim stared at her. The liveliness in her eyes immediately faded away, as though she drifted to another, invisible place. 

Nina returned to the quicksands of her thoughts. So many emotions, too many to count stirred inside her chest and still robbed her lungs of breath. Too many thoughts burdened her mind. How had he found her? Why had he come for her? She'd told him to never do so, to be her eyes and ears in the office. She'd decided from the very beginning that she would never put him at risk. She was the careless of the two of them. Not Awan.

"Come on, I can do it."

"No, Awan." she laughed out loud, "No."

"I'll be inconspicuous." he assured her. She loved the way his eyes sparkled even when he was being dead serious.

"A translator doesn't need a bodyguard."

"Yes, they do!" he insisted.

"You told me you didn't even know how to shoot!" - "Well-" he started, "I lied. I can shoot."

"Oh, you can?" a tickling grin tugged at the corner of her lips and her eyes softened with affection. Awan noticed it, thought that she probably didn't even notice it herself. He felt a heat come alive in his chest. It was his racing, trembling heart. He hoped that it didn't show in his eyes.

"...Yeah" he said, diverting his eyes and smiled to hide the sudden overwhelm he felt. "I'll shoot." he assured her,

"You just duck and cover."

What was it that he'd said to her? What had meant the words he'd choked up through the blood that had pooled in his mouth? Her not knowing felt like fingernails grazing upon her mind like they would against a chalkboard. Not knowing tortured her, and she feared that if he didn't pull through, they would haunt her forever. 

She did not notice the hot tears streaming down her cheeks. Absent, almost frozen, she stared ahead of herself into seeming nothingness. Jim felt his stomach twist and his throat itch with words. He couldn't stomach seeing the usually fearless, cool-headed agent like this. His hands reached out and took hold of hers. 

Nina flinched as their sudden firmness and warmth. She came back from wherever she had gone. He watched life return into her eyes as they focused on him.

"Don't...worry." he said. "He would not want you to worry."

She did not say a word, only stared into the blue eyes opposite of her own. Their warmth was as genuine as the grasp of the hands that held hers.

"Ms. Hayes?" the voice that suddenly spoke up surprised the both of them. Jim, knelt in front of Nina, turned to look over his shoulder as the FBI Agent's as shot up at the nurse which stood in front of them.

"Mr. Ellis?" she said, looking at him.

"He's awake."

Awan's eyes snapped up at Chad's sudden movement out of the corner of his eye. Jessica, finger still searching the names of the list of recorded calls, froze at the agent's sudden alertness. Silent, his eyes fixated his reviled colleague as the same hung up on a phone call he'd picked up as though he hadn't wanted anyone to witness. His dubious blue eyes scanned dover the office before he rose from his chair. 

Agent Bitsui didn't trust it one bit.

"What is it?" Jessica whispered, her voice tainted by curiosity and anxiety.

Awan swallowed.

"Trust no one." he bit the words out through a tensing jaw. "Especially not him."

Taken aback, she watched her friend pick up his hat and place it one as though another side of him had suddenly come forth. The shadow it threw over his face obscured his eyes, but his intent was clear as day. 

Without hesitation he followed Grant out of the door, though as he passed the reception desk, he caught sight of the closing elevator. He took the stairs and was in his car, twisting the car key in and the motor roared to life. His mind, just as his heart, was racing uncontrollably. Jim had said that she was in danger. Now Jim himself was no longer answering the phone. The situation was far worse than he first though, he was now certain. If Jim wasn't going to save Nina, if Nina couldn't save herself...

... he would have to. 

An amalgamation of worry and fear governed the thumping of his heart and the tightness of his lungs. He'd never done this before. He'd never intercepted a hostile situation, never extracted a hostage. As his hands closed around the stirring wheel, he felt how clammy they'd become. Could he do it? Could he come back alive from this?

"It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter," he exhaled, trying to keep his breathing from rushing.

"It doesn't matter," he repeated, gripping the wheel and barreling out of the parking lot, his eyes latched on Grant's accelerating car two vehicles ahead of him. 

"I love her." he muttered as he put his foot to the pedal, feeling the words he'd uttered strengthen his spine.

He loved h-

"Awan." 

His heavy eyes fluttered open at the sound of her voice. But before they had opened completely, he felt a small, warm hand wrap around his. His eyes wandered towards the voice, he found her.

"... Nina." her name grazed against his dry throat. He watched a tear fall from her eye. He smiled lazily and squeezed her hand.

"Why are you crying?" he whispered. 

"... Because I'm happy to see you." she laughed as another tear parted from her big brown eyes. Awan blinked slowly, before he let his thumb feather across her knuckles.

"I told you I'd protect you, didn't I?" he said, winking at her.

"You did." she answered, "but don't do it again." it was her turn to caringly caress his hand. "Promise me you won't do it again."

Awan gazed into her tearful eyes, moved by her worry for him and once again relieved to see her safe and sound.

"We're partners." he said, "I can't promise what you know I'm here to do."

Nina fell silent at his words, unwanting of the words he'd spoken though she knew they were true. "... Then, at least... you'll wear a vest." she uttered, wiping a tear dry.

He nodded gently before he turned his eyes to the window and the bright cloudy sky beyond it. 

"That I can do." He hoped that she'd smiled. Nina followed his gaze out of the window. She stared, finally breathed, now unable to believe the day she'd had... both of them had had. It was then that she remembered the question that had lingered on her mind during those seemingly endless, agonizing hours in the waiting room.

"...Awan?" she started.

"Yeah?"

"In...the car." Nina said, feeling her eyes lower, "you- you were telling me something," 

Awan turned his head her way.

"What was it?" 

He looked into her eyes. He remembered

his hands, slick with his own blood, enveloped around hers as he thought it was the only and last chance to voice what he'd felt ever since their conversation in Joey's abandoned van that night. He said over and over again, feeling his lips move yet uncertain or whether she heard them.

 Ayóó anííníshní.

I love you. 

His lips parted, Nina saw them do so, and quietly she waited, anticipating the words as she felt her heart begin to beat faster. 

"I... don't remember." he lied, feeling his own heart crack. But he still looked at her, only her. It wasn't a good time, the right moment. 

He wished, somewhere knew as he held her hand in his, that he'd get another chance.

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