Bad Karma

twenty-nine

Leilani Elrod

Episode 7. Dead Calm

"I'm fine, J, really. I am." I assured JJ for the thousandth time. While I was laid out on the couch, ice on my knee, he was trying to cater to my every need. Which, don't get me wrong, was incredibly sweet, but got over-bearing real fast when he asked if I needed anything every two minutes.

After we had calmed down and made it the Chateau, Pope accessed the damage done, which could've been a lot worse. It definitely needed stitches, but if I were to go somewhere to get them, DCS would be sure to nab me, so we did some DIY ones.

Pope cleaned the area with some antiseptic cream we had laying around and used our limited amount of gauze and bandages to band torn skin together, giving me firm instructions to change it and re-clean it if the area got wet or dirty, also letting me know that he would be doing daily checks on it and such.

As for actual damages to the knee cap, Pope concluded that it wasn't broken, but that one of the tissues, I think he called it the bursa, is very swollen and will most likely bleed and hurt for the next few weeks. Then, he thanked me for the autopsy practice and was on his way to get home before Heyward realized that he was gone, Kie leaving with him. John B and Sarah went back to their place, leaving only me and JJ at the Chateau, something I could definitely get used to.

JJ sighed and lifted my head, sitting down and running his fingers through my hair, "I told you to be careful." My head was now resting on his leg and I closed my eyes, relaxing into his touch.

"I was! But she had a really cute cat and then the switched were loud and she was looking for Leon, but obviously I'm not Leon, and she cornered me!"

"You know I'm never going to let you live it down that you lost to a blind lady, right?"

"That's not nice, JJ!" I huffed, "And to think that I was going to let you get away with leaving me out on the boat with them!"

He laughed, "Oh, come on, that was pretty good. And you and Kie made up, so, score. What were you two fighting about, anyway? What'd she say to you?"

My mood dampened when I thought about it. She had swore to me on the boat that she didn't mean it, but didn't she? I mean, I get that people say things they don't mean all the time, but she had to have gotten the idea somewhere, right? It didn't just come out of no where?

"Lee, we talked about this." JJ said after a few moments, "You have to open up to me."

"She just said some stuff after I told her about my time in the hospital after the accident. She said that she didn't mean it, but-" I paused.

"But what?"

"What if she did mean it? I mean, she had to at least be thinking it to say it, right?"

"Sometimes, Lee, people just say shit to get a reaction out of you." JJ said quietly, twirling a strand of my hair between his fingers and looking down at me, "They don't mean it and I may not know what she said to you exactly, but Kie cares about you and loves you. You know that and so do I. None of us could think badly about you, trust me."

"You really think so?"

"I know so." He began to run his finger tips around my face, "Get some rest now, okay?"

I closed my eyes, letting myself fall asleep to the patterns he was drawing over my skin.

---

We spent the next morning at JJ's house creating a plan to extract the rest of the gold and melting down the few bars that John B had snatched the previous night. After exploring many methods, Kie suggested a blowtorch, which surprisingly worked, and we were pulling up to the pawn shop.