Hunting Season

HUNTING SEASON Chapter 11

Cedar-Sinai Medical Centre

Sam opened his eyes and cursed himself for falling asleep, as he noticed his partner was no longer in the bed. He stretched himself as he stood up and searched for him in the adjoining bathroom. An injured Callen on the loose of Los Angeles was never a good thing. A nurse entered the room and raised her brows towards him as she nodded her head over to the empty bed.

"He's gone," Sam advised her. "I fell asleep. I'm sorry." They all knew of the seasoned agent's history for absconding hospitals.

The nurse sighed in response. "He needs to rest. Who knows what may happen to him with that kind of head injury? I'll give you his meds, please make sure he takes them."

Sam followed the short plump nurse to the nurses' station and waited while she took his medication out of the drugs cupboard and handed them to him. "Two every four hours. He's due for his next in an hour. Ensure he gets them."

"Yes, ma'am. I'll force them down his throat if I have too." The nurse smiled at the thought as she inspected each muscle under Sam's brown long sleeve T-shirt.

"I'm sure you'll manage. But if he has any dizzy spells, finds it hard to remember things or vomits, get him to a hospital immediately," the nurse stressed.

"Will do," Sam replied with a forced smile on his face, trying hard to keep in this nurse's good books, not knowing if he would need her help with his partner again in the near future.

Hetty's Beverly Hills home

Hetty tossed and turned in her bed as a concoction of scenarios of her agents being tortured or killed by Isaak Sidorov, rambled through her mind, as she tried hard to fall off to sleep. Her phone buzzed, snapping her mind out of the horror. "Yes?"

"Miss Lange." Hetty heard the senior nurse looking after her agents voice on the other end of the phone. "Agent Callen has disappeared again. I have released Agent Hanna in hope he will find his partner to keep an eye on him and ensure he has his medication."

"Thanks you for advising me, Doris. We knew it was only a matter of time for the morphine to leave his system to give him the strength to leave. I'll try contacting them both." Hetty searched for her glasses on her bedside table. She heard a slight movement. Not a creak, for that would have been too obvious. But more like a soft movement of her curtain that caught her attention. "You can come out of there now, Mr Callen."

Callen moved from behind her bedroom curtain as Hetty switched on the bedside lamp. "How did you know I was there?"

"You were too imperceptible to be anyone else I know." She smiled at his ability to achieve such a skill -- one which she herself had mastered. She found her petite size aided her in her achievement, but Callen had managed to mask his presence to many and move around like a ghost.

"I learnt from the best." He flattered her with words of praise.

"Hmm! I don't remember teaching you that particular skill..."

"One doesn't have to train another deliberately for a skill to be learned," he told her plainly.

"You always were a brilliant observer, Mr Callen. Even as a child you would blend in with the furniture and observe other people. A natural talent you inherited from your father..."

"Don't talk about him. He's not my father. He's nothing but a bastard." Callen had refused to accept Granger as his father, nor had he found room in his heart to forgive the stunt he had pulled on himself and Gibbs in D.C.

"It worries me that you have not forgiven Owen for his misgivings. He only had the best intentions for you and your family. He may not have gone about it the right way..."