Spiral

"A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults." – Charles Kingsley.

Seventy-two is the natural number following seventy-one and preceding seventy-three. It's half a gross, six times twelve, and the sum of either four or six consecutive primes. It's a pronic number, the product of eight and nine. It's the smallest number whose fifth power is the sum of five smaller fifth powers. Sam knows all this. He's a mathlete after all, junior math Olympian, damn it. But Sam knows something else too…

Because seventy-two is also the number of hours that Callen has left to live.

Sam sinks to his knees his gun still in one hand the other reaching out to clutch the silver case of vials that have caused so much trouble. There are two dead Irish militants laying in front of him that still need to be cleared and the idling helicopter that has to be checked yet, but Sam's blocking out all of it. He can hear Kensi and Deeks coming up behind him, even footfalls and unchecked worry as Deeks asks where Callen is. He remembers the redhead's spiteful glare as she smashed that vial at Jimmy's feet, remembers the realization on Kensi face as he told her to call in a CDC team. Most of all he remembers latent panic, the fear in his partner's eyes as he ordered Sam to leave him. Finish it.

71 Hours, 53 minutes.

And then Sam runs. He's down four flights of stairs in less than two minutes, but it's still too long. He collapses in front of the biohazard door, hands on his knees and ragged panting as he tries to get his breath back. When he looks back up Callen's watching him, blue eyes bright with fever and a sliver of well hidden panic. His gun's still clutched in his other hand even as he sways on his feet and a tinge of red appears on his fingers as he divulges into a coughing spell that leaves him shaky and leaning on the wall for support.

Something twists in Sam's gut, something that makes him want to shoot Dr. Karen Ward all over again, but he swallows it down and steps closer instead, knocking lightly on the glass to get his partner's attention. "G," He calls even though Callen probably can't hear him through five inches of safety glass, "You ok?"

And then he realizes what an absolutely stupid question that is because his partner's as good as the walking dead and they both know it. Think Ebola on steroids. Fatal in seventy-two hours…

There's no good way out of this, no terrorist to fight or ransom to make. There's no one to interrogate and the only one to blame is already lying dead. Except for himself of course, he can blame himself as much as he wants because he should have been there. He never should have stepped out into the hallway to take that sat phone call. He never should have left his partner alone in the same room as an unknown and a fatal virus. This is all on him.

Except Callen's nodding, even as the "I'm fine" that's bubbling up on his lips gets cut off into another coughing fit that leaves even more of a red stain smeared across his fingers. By the time it's done, he's on his knees, leaning heavily against the wall and Sam imagines he can hear the rattle of breath in and out of his partner's lungs even through almost half a foot of specially sealed door.

It brings out almost the same thing Sam feels when his daughter's sick or hurting, the urge to take G home and bundle him up on the couch until everything's better. That's not an option this time though, not unless he wants to expose over a hundred people to a deadly virus. He knows he probably shouldn't be this close, the damn thing's air borne and this entire hallway could be exposed but there's no way he's leaving, not again.

Callen's saying something, a dry rasp that's too distorted by insulated glass for Sam to make out and it takes two more tries before his partner resorts to convoluted sign language to get his point across. "Did you get her?"

"Yeah," Sam nods, speaking slow and clear so G can read his lips if nothing else, "Spiral's secure. Listen, there's a CDC team on the way for decontamination. We'll get you out of there."

But Callen's shaking his head instantly, his words slow off of red tinted lips, "It's too late for that. You heard what Eric said."

"No," Sam snaps loudly, too harshly for a situation like this, "Eric can be wrong. You'll be -"

The word fine dries up in his throat as Callen coughs again, a wet choking sound that he really can hear through five inches of glass. This time the blood on his hands is undeniable and the weak grin G gives him is gruesome, "He's not wrong, Sam."

His hands shake slightly as he says those words, the sliver of panic more defined in his eyes, and Sam gets the sudden sense that he's holding it together for him. Sam remembers telling G, years before, that his greatest fear was being forced to watch his partner die. His fear of clowns doesn't even come close and it occurs to him that G knows this, knows exactly what this must be doing to him, and the stubborn, selfless, bastard must be trying to protect him. It's so patently G that Sam's surprised he didn't see it sooner.

He wants to reach out and shake him, to tell him that he doesn't need protecting right now. He just needs his partner to be okay. He wants to wrap G up and prove to himself that his partner's not dying, that this is something they can overcome. But he knows better than that. There's finality in Callen's eyes, buried underneath the fear and doubt and guilt. So he nods and tries not to make this any harder. His quiet, "I know," sounds like a betrayal and it's bitter across his tongue. He's done the right thing though; he knows it as soon as the guilt in his partner's eyes eases into steady relief.

"Sam," Callen presses a shaky hand against the glass, blood smearing off his palm, and Sam lifts his own to lay it opposite. He refuses to imagine the effort this must be taking because Callen's as pale as the whitewashed walls of the bio lab behind him. "It's not your fault."

70 Hours, 18 minutes.

It takes an hour and a half for the CDC team to get there. An hour and a half that Sam spends rooted to the spot, one hand pressed against the glass long after Callen's falls away. His partner's not dead, not yet, and Sam counts every one of his stuttering, uneven breaths the same way he counts the minutes that have passed.

It's the CDC team that finally forces him to move and even then they have to resort to having Deeks bodily drag him away. They work fast, whispering words like experimental and isolation and heaven help them if they think that he's going to let them turn his partner into some kind of experiment. His temper's frayed and when the CDC scientist in charge asks him for Callen's medical history he nearly takes her head off.

69 Hours, 42 minutes.

Hetty shows up half an hour after the CDC, two hours since that crazy Irishwoman sealed his partner's death warrant. If it was anyone else, he'd ask what took so long, but Hetty comes in like a whirlwind. She might claim not to play favorites but everyone knows that she'll move mountains for Clara Callen's son. She goes to bat with the chief scientist on site, arranges a transfer to CDC headquarters in Druid Hills, Georgia, and when she finally comes back over to where the team's waiting it's with a surprising air of relief.

"He didn't even think twice about locking himself inside." He's in shock; Sam thinks to himself, this has to be shock because the world's dimmed around him. He doesn't hear Hetty's quiet footsteps behind him, doesn't hear her response, or feel the small hand she lays against his arm. "I didn't think it would end like this."

That hand on his arm squeezes slightly and once again he's struck by the lack of… something in her features. Hetty's a legend in every way imaginable, but even she's a little too unaffected. "I've seen the end, Sam. This is not the end."