Story: "Explosions" 2 of 2, Tess, Kensi/Deeks
TITLE: "Explosions"
AUTHOR: tess_dicorsi
RATING: R A smidge of adult language and situations.
GENRE: Romance
CHARACTERS: Kensi and Deeks.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Just playing with them and promise not to break anything. Well, as much as you can promise not to break anything in a story called "Explosions" I guess.
SUMMARY: Post "Harm's Way" and before "The Job" in season two. Obviously AU based on what happened at the end of November 2013. Author's notes at the end of the story (because they're less annoying that way). Two chapter story. Complete.
2. "It was nice - in the dark and the quiet...and her eyes looking back, like there was something in me worth seeing." ― John Green, "Paper Town"
.
The tongue in his ear was sadly Monty's. Someone wanted something. He was wearing his wristwatch and nothing else. Looking at Kensi, she was identically clad - big watch, no clothes. For them, for this night, that made perfect sense. Not making perfect sense, his head didn't hurt anymore. Tylenol, it seems, has nothing on Kensi Blye.
Pulling the bed sheet over her, Deeks got up and followed their trail of clothing and Monty into his living room. As he picked their clothing up, he saw that Monty had Kensi's bra in his dog bed, proving the dog was far smarter than anyone thought. Slipping on his boxers - which landed on the bedroom doorknob - he put out some water for his dog and made his way back to Kensi.
He could see in the moonlight that they slept about two hours. As beautiful as she was in the moonlight, he wasn't interested in sharing that fact with the neighborhood. After he closed the blinds, he folded the rest of their clothes and putting them on his dresser. Just as he placed her bra on top of their clothes and far from Monty's thieving paws, Deeks heard Kensi stir.
"Hey," she said as she got her bearings.
By the dresser, he flipped on a small lamp that added a little light to the room but kept the shadows near the bed in place. "Hey," was his clever reply. He took a step to the night stand on her side of the bed. God, she had a side of the bed - another revelation for the day. He popped the stand's door open and another light turned on. "You want a beer? I want a beer."
"Sure." She pulled the sheet up with her as she sat up in his bed.
He handed her a Blue Moon and took one for himself. "I also have Coronas but I'm out of limes," he told her as he walked to what he now thought of his side of the bed, chuckling. "Sounds like a country music song," he told her, leaning back against the foot board to look at her. "There's also some Red Bull, orange juice and ice water in the real fridge."
"You have a refrigerator in the bedroom?" She turned the cap and flipped it on the night stand.
"Mini-fridge." He corrected her as he popped opened his beer and tossed the cap into the trash pail near the balcony door. Lifting his bottle in a toast to her, he explained, "One of the hidden joys of a long undercover operation as a dirt bag is lousy studio apartments with ancient refrigerators that haven't been cleaned since the Raiders were playing in the Coliseum. One assignment had me in a WeHo studio with a fridge that was louder than Times Square on New Year's Eve. I bought a hundred dollar mini-fridge, stuck it in that night stand and took it with me whenever I was in some dump."
"And now it lives here."
"Don't really stay in as many dives now that I'm liaising," Deeks smiled. "It was also helpful for ice packs after an evening in the octagon with Sam Hanna."
Kensi smiled back. "The fridge was the second surprise for me."
"Only the second?" He found the entire home portion of their evening completely surprising.
She patted the bed. "The bed was a surprise."
"You can't tell me you're stunned I sleep on a waterbed."
"Actually, no, makes sense. It's just the bed itself. I thought it would be cold. Or hard. It's neither."
"There's a heater under the mattress to keep things comfortable."
"It is. Comfortable I mean." She took a long pull on her beer.
"Are you comfortable? You OK?"
"Yeah," he thought she sounded surprised by her own answer, "I'm good."
"That you are." He took a long pull on his beer.
Kensi dipped her head, smiling. Shy Kensi was stunning and another revelation to Deeks. She looked at him and pointed to his side. "You're healing up nicely."
Deeks looked down and the small scars from the gunshot wounds he suffered. "I got some cream from a shop in Venice. They put Vitamin E, aloe, calendula with a bunch of other herbs. So far, so good." He really didn't want to talk about his scars. "Kensi, what couldn't you tell me in the truck?"
She waved her hand. "It's nothing. Forget it."
"Kensi, you said you had something to tell me. You tried to tell me twice in your front seat, then again when I was walking to the stairs. Then you come here and ...well, this. And this is awesome. Believe me, this is awesome. But what is it you can't tell me? Or maybe won't tell me." He tried not to sound hurt but hoped she'd see it as a challenge.
"No, it's just..." she started again but couldn't find the words.
"Kensi, you can tell me anything. Please, just talk." Maybe pleading would work since challenging her wasn't.
She took a deep breath and tried again. "Did you ever think you were going to die today?"
"Nope." He shook his head.
Kensi looked down. "When the second one landed next to your foot..."
"Hit my foot."
Kensi shook her head. "Even better," she said more to herself than to him. "When it hit your foot, there wasn't a plan and I couldn't see how we'd survive."
"We did and Kensi, I'll tell you what I told Sam and what I would have told Callen if he cornered me instead of you: catch the bad guys, go home alive. That's my plan every day."
"You didn't think we..."
"Nope," he interrupted. "I don't know how you had time to think about that since we were both too busy working on keeping ourselves alive."
"Have you ever thought you were going to die? I mean, other times."
"When Santo Perez stood over me with his .22, I didn't like my chances. Same when Radovan Lazik called me 'Detective Deeks' in that abandoned power plant with nobody knowing where I was. Like today, I got to go home alive both times. Well, eventually with Perez."
Kensi nodded and took a long pull on her beer. "Before that?"
"There were cases where things went wrong in a hurry, I had one suspect I was sure wanted me, well, he had bad intentions but no, Radovan Lazik and his Boris and Natasha bad guy voice was the first time I really thought I was done." He looked her right in the eye. "Did you really think we were going to die today?"
She sighed. "When the grenade hit your foot, to quote you, I thought we were done."
"That what you wanted to say in the truck?"
"No," she shook her head as she spoke.
"Please Kensi, just tell me."
"I trust you," Kensi started.
"Good." Good that she trusted him, good that she was speaking.
"Not just as my partner or having my back. I know you'd do all that. But I trust you'll be around."
"OK."
"And I think that even if the liaison program was ended, you and I are tight. We're friends."
"I hope so."
"So when you got shot….."
"In my defense, I really didn't volunteer for that," Deeks told her before drinking a bit of his beer.
"No, you didn't." Kensi shifted, almost steeling herself. "It scared me," she whispered.
"If it makes you feel better, getting shot scared me, too."
She smiled but it didn't quite make it to her eyes. "It's funny. I didn't think you could scare me."
"Funny, I didn't think you got scared."
"I didn't either. But I was and that scared me too. When I was waiting for you to wake up, I tried to start figuring out why I was scared."
"And..."
She took a deep breath. "Am I important to you?"
"You have to know that you are. If you don't, I'll make it clear: you matter a great deal to me, Kensi."
She looked surprised. "When did you know that? Did something happen? Did you always know or did it just sneak up on you?"
"I probably knew it for a while before but November 23rd last year, around one in the afternoon cemented it."
Kensi's eyebrow lifted and she smiled. "You have an exact date and time?"
"Well, not an exact time, more an estimation."
"After we survived the Russians and their laser triggers," Kensi nodded her head, seemingly figuring things out.
"No," he told her. "Just before that." He swallowed a little more of his beer before putting the bottle on the floor next to his bed. Looking at her, Deeks started, "When I walked into the room and you had me turn off the light, I was terrified for you. I was ready to call the bomb squad to get you out of there."
"But you didn't."
"Couldn't, you asked me not to. You told me you wanted to get out of there and while I knew it was the wrong thing to do and we could have gotten killed, we almost got killed," Deeks took a deep breath. "You wanted me to get you out of there. You trusted me to get you out of there and I couldn't say no."
Kensi nodded her head. "So that's when you knew. When you wanted to say no but you didn't..."
"No, couldn't. I chose my words carefully, Kensi. Couldn't." He ran his hand through his hair. "I know everyone thinks my problems with LAPD are from me being a screw-up. They aren't. I'm by the book. I'm a pain in the ass that way. I may not do it the way everyone expects but I know the rules and I follow them. It's the only way I can balance what I've had to do as part of my undercover work with trying to be a good cop."
"Okay."
"Every bit of training I've ever had, everything I know as a cop, as the liaison officer or whatever the hell I'm doing in your office told me to get out of that room to call the bomb squad in a safe place so I don't trigger the bomb with my cellphone and get the professionals to get you out. I know what to do."
"But you didn't."
"No, couldn't. You had faith in me, in what we could do as a team and I couldn't say no. I couldn't leave you. So when you want to know when you became more than just my partner, or more than just..." Deeks waved his hand just as Kensi did earlier, "when you became something more. Right there and right then." Deeks took a deep breath. "So yeah, I know."
"I didn't think we'd die that day. You had a plan and I wasn't going to let the Russians win. We're good when we work together."
"We are. Do you know when I started to matter to you?" Deeks asked. "If I matter to you," he added hastily.
"You matter, Deeks, you matter. You're not going to like my answer, though. It's morbid."
"We spent part of the day in a place where two CSU techs were picking up little bits of people and putting them in unused rubber gloves. Can't get a whole lot more morbid than that."
Kensi nodded. "Stick with me on this."
"I'm the one doing the asking."
"I always thought if you'd leave, it would be because LAPD would want you back."
"LAPD doesn't want me back."
"You're good at your job."
"And they're happy I'm doing it with you. I'm where I need to be."
"That you are." Kensi mimicked Deeks's cryptic comments to her earlier. She tilted back her head and drank some of her beer. Putting on the night stand/mini-fridge, she continued. "When Hetty said you were shot, part of me started thinking 'it's happening again.'"
"Dom?"
"Men always figure out a way to leave me."
"Not going anywhere, Kensi."
"That's where you're wrong. Dom didn't think he was going anywhere."
"But he also didn't figure out a way to leave. That was taken from him. I have no intention of having it taken from me. Especially after getting shot."
"You don't always get to decide. When I got to the hospital, they gave me your badge and your watch and for the longest time, I worked hard not to think about anything. Not to think bad things, not to be hopeful."
"Kensi..."
"When Jack left," she cut him off, "I knew he wasn't coming back. I packed up his things, sent them to his Dad. I told the landlord at our old place where to call me if Jack returned but I moved out a month later. I knew he wasn't coming back to me so I never hoped he would. And he didn't. That's the real reason I never looked for him. One rejection was more than enough." Deeks started to say something but Kensi put her hand up. "I found the room where they were holding Dom; one of the rooms, anyway. Then Eric saw him on a security camera and for a couple of minutes, I was happy. We found him. I knew he was going to be saved. And then he was killed."
"I am sorry."
"So after they gave me your badge and your watch," she pointed to his watch, "I worked hard not to be too sure things would work out and not to get too hopeful so that I wouldn't put the whammy on you."
He chuckled at "the whammy" statement. "I'd only be concerned about putting the whammy on Dr. DePaul. She did all the hard work, I was so exhausted from my morning run, the fight at the cash register and the whole getting shot nonsense that I slept through it all."
"How do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Turn it into a joke."
"I'm here and I'm fine. Better than fine right now. Since I can't change what happened, I don't worry about things like that."
"I do."
"Waste of time."
"You know what I did after Dr. DePaul said you'd be OK?"
"Relaxed, I hope."
"No. I sat there and looked at you and tried to figure out when you became this person who mattered to me. Who really mattered."
"I wore you down," Deeks said with a smile and a touch of pride. "I do that to people. Six, seven years from now, Sam will like me. I'm calling it now."
Kensi shook her head. "It was more than that. I liked Dom. I was so happy for the few minutes I thought we rescued him and so sad when we didn't. I cried in front of Callen and Sam. I don't do that."
No she doesn't, Deeks thought to himself. "Kensi..."
She put her hand up, wanting to finish. "If we saved him, he'd have been behind a desk, probably at the Navy Yard once he was healthy again. And that would have been great. He was good with computers, probably could have done what Nell does for the Navy Yard's anti-terrorism team or be the Eric of the Cyber Crimes Unit."
"OK." Deeks had no idea where Kensi was going with this conversation but was grateful she was still speaking.
"But we didn't. He took a bullet for Sam and bled out. He died a hero. He was a hero, really. Dom died after losing months of a too short life as a pawn in a terrorist plan." Kensi took a deep breath. "After they took you back into surgery to redo all your stitches I thought about Dom again. You were bleeding pretty good when the nurses and orderlies got to you. And you did that for me. You could have died because you were a means to an end and I was that end. You got shot, you got hurt again and it was my fault," she blurted out.
"Is that what you think? Is that what you think I think?" Deeks sighed. "I got shot because Vakar wanted to see his son and was willing to kill you, me or anyone else who got in his way. You had nothing to do with that. I went running after you because I figured out too late what was going on. You're my partner and it's on me to make sure you don't go out there and get yourself kidnapped or killed. Someone took you away once. It wasn't happening again if I had a say in it."
"You shouldn't have been in that position in the first place."
"No, and that's mostly on Vakar. I was lazy about my security so a little of that is on me but almost all of it is on the two guns for hire and Vakar. And two of the three of them are dead, making the world a better place."
"I spent days afterwards convinced you'd leave. Go back to LAPD. You wouldn't have to worry about your own security, you wouldn't be in danger."
"Kensi, that wasn't my first trip to the hospital because of work. Wasn't even my first overnight stay. And while I know you guys don't think much of police work, there's a bit of danger involved in that."
"I didn't mean it that way."
"I know what you meant. Here's something you need to know. I'm not Dom. I'm not going anywhere."
"But you see, it was different. I would have been happy Dom left for Washington or moved up to Ops with Eric. You...I would have been...upset if you left."
It starts becoming clearer to Deeks. "And that scares you too."
"I've gotten used to being alone..."
"Kensi, you're not alone, you've got an office full of people who care about you. Callen and Sam watch over you like big brothers. You and Eric are tight, you and Nell have become fast friends. Hetty adores you."
"She does not."
"Oh, she does. They all do." He wondered if she understood how important she was to the team.
"You're more," Kensi's voice was barely a whisper but the look she gave him showed the strength behind the statement.
"Good to hear," he said with a smile. "Very good to hear."
"Can I ask you something?"
"Not like there's a ton of secrets between us right now."
"No, I guess not," she sat up a little straighter. "Why were you so annoyed at Callen? He was just..."
"Making sure the idiot cop didn't get you killed. Sam was doing that same."
"That's not true."
"The idiot cop nearly got you kidnapped or killed six weeks ago."
"You know that's not true."'
"The idiot cop who lost you to the Russians."
"That's not on you either. And stop with the idiot stuff, you idiot," Kensi's smile lit the room.
"I got Sam checking out my daily routine. I got Hetty signing me up for classes. Now I have Callen hassling you about what we did today, what we survived."
"It's not like that."
"It's not?"
"That's what we do, how we do things. What were we talking about when you were writing your reports?"
"How much you liked that brownie?"
She shot him a faux-withering look but the smile returned. "No, your reports to LAPD are bare-bones, just the facts. Hetty, Sam, Callen - they all what to drill down to what you were thinking, why you did what you did. It is part of your professional growth."
"I did what I did so they'd stop throwing grenades at us."
"You can lose your hand throwing a live grenade."
"So I should have let it sit there..."
"No. They're trying to figure out what to do the next time that happens."
"It's going to happen again? Geez, Hetty never hand grenades mentioned that when she signed me up." Deeks was only half-joking.
"Everything can happen again, you know that.
"And tell me Sam wouldn't pick up a grenade and throw it back if Callen was blocked in like you were? Or vice versa."
"I think that's why they spoke to us separately."
"So, what, Callen just got a run down from you of our awesome afternoon."
"Something like that."
Deeks lifted an eyebrow. "You want to try that again, Kens?"
"What did you do with Sam?"
"Oh, we made some Jiffy-Pop popcorn, gave Nell some too and watched Deeks and Kens's excellent adventure."
"There's no eating in Ops." It was Kensi's turn to lift an eyebrow. "Now do you want to try that again?"
"He asked questions, I answered them. Some seriously, some less so. I was annoyed. I'll be happy to learn from their past experiences when they tell me what I should have done. Everyone's very comfortable telling me what could have gone wrong if the damn thing exploded in my hand. I still haven't heard from anyone what was the alternative to throwing it back. You'd be in big trouble and so would I if I just left it there."
"They don't have an answer. Just fears."
"Cop rules - catch the bad guys, go home alive. Two for two today. Now, what was your 'something like that' conversation with Callen."
"I may have been..." she started waving her hand again.
"Yes?"
"Vocal in my defense of you."
Deeks's smile was bright was he batted his eyes at her. "You defended my honor."
"Like you, I wanted to know what you, what we were supposed to do differently."
"And?"
"Like Sam, Callen didn't have an answer."
"And?"
"And I told him that we could have died and all he was looking for was what we did wrong. I told him that we did the best we could and until he had an answer for what you, we, should have done differently, I was fine with us surviving the day."
"You did defend my honor."
"Defended our honor. Or professionalism. Or whatever. You and I can save the day from time to time."
"And we did."
"And we're going to keep saving the day. We're good at this. We're a good team and while I think you and I can make each other crazy every now and again, we work."
"We do," Deeks picked up his beer and took the final swig. "And I wouldn't mind making you crazy right now," he told her with a big smile.
"You think you're up that?" she teased as he put the empty bottle on the floor.
Deeks started making his way up the bed to Kensi. "I'm up to that and a whole lot more," he told her before kissing her.
"How do we handle this at work?" Kensi asked, a little breathless from the kiss.
"We won't be doing this at work," Deeks told her as he started placing gentle kisses on her jaw.
"I'm serious," Kensi put her hand along his cheek and pushed him away from her.
"Oh, so am I. I don't need another Sam debrief on how you and I, well, on you and I. Especially if Nell is going to be there running video on the big screen in Ops."
"Deeks," Kensi warned.
"What we do is our business. Not Sam's, not Callen's, not Hetty's," Deeks said, perfectly serious.
"What happens if it doesn't work?"
"What happens if it does?"
"You don't know that."
"And neither do you," Deeks sat back. "Don't assume this won't work. We're a good together. We could be spectacular. You certainly are."
Kensi's smile was spectacular. "You think you're up to it."
"I'm up for any challenge," he slid his boxers off and dropped them by his side of the bed. It was official, he had a side of the bed. And he had it with her.
-30-
Annoying author's notes:
During NaWriNoMo, I decided to take all the half-written stories I had and try to salvage some of them. This is one survivor (there weren't many in that ocean of bad ideas). Since I've tended to write them as an established couple before "The Frozen Lake" happened, this was always my "head canon" on how they became a couple. Kensi and Deeks were different in "The Job" than they were in any prior episode so I ran with that.
AUTHOR: tess_dicorsi
RATING: R A smidge of adult language and situations.
GENRE: Romance
CHARACTERS: Kensi and Deeks.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Just playing with them and promise not to break anything. Well, as much as you can promise not to break anything in a story called "Explosions" I guess.
SUMMARY: Post "Harm's Way" and before "The Job" in season two. Obviously AU based on what happened at the end of November 2013. Author's notes at the end of the story (because they're less annoying that way). Two chapter story. Complete.
2. "It was nice - in the dark and the quiet...and her eyes looking back, like there was something in me worth seeing." ― John Green, "Paper Town"
.
The tongue in his ear was sadly Monty's. Someone wanted something. He was wearing his wristwatch and nothing else. Looking at Kensi, she was identically clad - big watch, no clothes. For them, for this night, that made perfect sense. Not making perfect sense, his head didn't hurt anymore. Tylenol, it seems, has nothing on Kensi Blye.
Pulling the bed sheet over her, Deeks got up and followed their trail of clothing and Monty into his living room. As he picked their clothing up, he saw that Monty had Kensi's bra in his dog bed, proving the dog was far smarter than anyone thought. Slipping on his boxers - which landed on the bedroom doorknob - he put out some water for his dog and made his way back to Kensi.
He could see in the moonlight that they slept about two hours. As beautiful as she was in the moonlight, he wasn't interested in sharing that fact with the neighborhood. After he closed the blinds, he folded the rest of their clothes and putting them on his dresser. Just as he placed her bra on top of their clothes and far from Monty's thieving paws, Deeks heard Kensi stir.
"Hey," she said as she got her bearings.
By the dresser, he flipped on a small lamp that added a little light to the room but kept the shadows near the bed in place. "Hey," was his clever reply. He took a step to the night stand on her side of the bed. God, she had a side of the bed - another revelation for the day. He popped the stand's door open and another light turned on. "You want a beer? I want a beer."
"Sure." She pulled the sheet up with her as she sat up in his bed.
He handed her a Blue Moon and took one for himself. "I also have Coronas but I'm out of limes," he told her as he walked to what he now thought of his side of the bed, chuckling. "Sounds like a country music song," he told her, leaning back against the foot board to look at her. "There's also some Red Bull, orange juice and ice water in the real fridge."
"You have a refrigerator in the bedroom?" She turned the cap and flipped it on the night stand.
"Mini-fridge." He corrected her as he popped opened his beer and tossed the cap into the trash pail near the balcony door. Lifting his bottle in a toast to her, he explained, "One of the hidden joys of a long undercover operation as a dirt bag is lousy studio apartments with ancient refrigerators that haven't been cleaned since the Raiders were playing in the Coliseum. One assignment had me in a WeHo studio with a fridge that was louder than Times Square on New Year's Eve. I bought a hundred dollar mini-fridge, stuck it in that night stand and took it with me whenever I was in some dump."
"And now it lives here."
"Don't really stay in as many dives now that I'm liaising," Deeks smiled. "It was also helpful for ice packs after an evening in the octagon with Sam Hanna."
Kensi smiled back. "The fridge was the second surprise for me."
"Only the second?" He found the entire home portion of their evening completely surprising.
She patted the bed. "The bed was a surprise."
"You can't tell me you're stunned I sleep on a waterbed."
"Actually, no, makes sense. It's just the bed itself. I thought it would be cold. Or hard. It's neither."
"There's a heater under the mattress to keep things comfortable."
"It is. Comfortable I mean." She took a long pull on her beer.
"Are you comfortable? You OK?"
"Yeah," he thought she sounded surprised by her own answer, "I'm good."
"That you are." He took a long pull on his beer.
Kensi dipped her head, smiling. Shy Kensi was stunning and another revelation to Deeks. She looked at him and pointed to his side. "You're healing up nicely."
Deeks looked down and the small scars from the gunshot wounds he suffered. "I got some cream from a shop in Venice. They put Vitamin E, aloe, calendula with a bunch of other herbs. So far, so good." He really didn't want to talk about his scars. "Kensi, what couldn't you tell me in the truck?"
She waved her hand. "It's nothing. Forget it."
"Kensi, you said you had something to tell me. You tried to tell me twice in your front seat, then again when I was walking to the stairs. Then you come here and ...well, this. And this is awesome. Believe me, this is awesome. But what is it you can't tell me? Or maybe won't tell me." He tried not to sound hurt but hoped she'd see it as a challenge.
"No, it's just..." she started again but couldn't find the words.
"Kensi, you can tell me anything. Please, just talk." Maybe pleading would work since challenging her wasn't.
She took a deep breath and tried again. "Did you ever think you were going to die today?"
"Nope." He shook his head.
Kensi looked down. "When the second one landed next to your foot..."
"Hit my foot."
Kensi shook her head. "Even better," she said more to herself than to him. "When it hit your foot, there wasn't a plan and I couldn't see how we'd survive."
"We did and Kensi, I'll tell you what I told Sam and what I would have told Callen if he cornered me instead of you: catch the bad guys, go home alive. That's my plan every day."
"You didn't think we..."
"Nope," he interrupted. "I don't know how you had time to think about that since we were both too busy working on keeping ourselves alive."
"Have you ever thought you were going to die? I mean, other times."
"When Santo Perez stood over me with his .22, I didn't like my chances. Same when Radovan Lazik called me 'Detective Deeks' in that abandoned power plant with nobody knowing where I was. Like today, I got to go home alive both times. Well, eventually with Perez."
Kensi nodded and took a long pull on her beer. "Before that?"
"There were cases where things went wrong in a hurry, I had one suspect I was sure wanted me, well, he had bad intentions but no, Radovan Lazik and his Boris and Natasha bad guy voice was the first time I really thought I was done." He looked her right in the eye. "Did you really think we were going to die today?"
She sighed. "When the grenade hit your foot, to quote you, I thought we were done."
"That what you wanted to say in the truck?"
"No," she shook her head as she spoke.
"Please Kensi, just tell me."
"I trust you," Kensi started.
"Good." Good that she trusted him, good that she was speaking.
"Not just as my partner or having my back. I know you'd do all that. But I trust you'll be around."
"OK."
"And I think that even if the liaison program was ended, you and I are tight. We're friends."
"I hope so."
"So when you got shot….."
"In my defense, I really didn't volunteer for that," Deeks told her before drinking a bit of his beer.
"No, you didn't." Kensi shifted, almost steeling herself. "It scared me," she whispered.
"If it makes you feel better, getting shot scared me, too."
She smiled but it didn't quite make it to her eyes. "It's funny. I didn't think you could scare me."
"Funny, I didn't think you got scared."
"I didn't either. But I was and that scared me too. When I was waiting for you to wake up, I tried to start figuring out why I was scared."
"And..."
She took a deep breath. "Am I important to you?"
"You have to know that you are. If you don't, I'll make it clear: you matter a great deal to me, Kensi."
She looked surprised. "When did you know that? Did something happen? Did you always know or did it just sneak up on you?"
"I probably knew it for a while before but November 23rd last year, around one in the afternoon cemented it."
Kensi's eyebrow lifted and she smiled. "You have an exact date and time?"
"Well, not an exact time, more an estimation."
"After we survived the Russians and their laser triggers," Kensi nodded her head, seemingly figuring things out.
"No," he told her. "Just before that." He swallowed a little more of his beer before putting the bottle on the floor next to his bed. Looking at her, Deeks started, "When I walked into the room and you had me turn off the light, I was terrified for you. I was ready to call the bomb squad to get you out of there."
"But you didn't."
"Couldn't, you asked me not to. You told me you wanted to get out of there and while I knew it was the wrong thing to do and we could have gotten killed, we almost got killed," Deeks took a deep breath. "You wanted me to get you out of there. You trusted me to get you out of there and I couldn't say no."
Kensi nodded her head. "So that's when you knew. When you wanted to say no but you didn't..."
"No, couldn't. I chose my words carefully, Kensi. Couldn't." He ran his hand through his hair. "I know everyone thinks my problems with LAPD are from me being a screw-up. They aren't. I'm by the book. I'm a pain in the ass that way. I may not do it the way everyone expects but I know the rules and I follow them. It's the only way I can balance what I've had to do as part of my undercover work with trying to be a good cop."
"Okay."
"Every bit of training I've ever had, everything I know as a cop, as the liaison officer or whatever the hell I'm doing in your office told me to get out of that room to call the bomb squad in a safe place so I don't trigger the bomb with my cellphone and get the professionals to get you out. I know what to do."
"But you didn't."
"No, couldn't. You had faith in me, in what we could do as a team and I couldn't say no. I couldn't leave you. So when you want to know when you became more than just my partner, or more than just..." Deeks waved his hand just as Kensi did earlier, "when you became something more. Right there and right then." Deeks took a deep breath. "So yeah, I know."
"I didn't think we'd die that day. You had a plan and I wasn't going to let the Russians win. We're good when we work together."
"We are. Do you know when I started to matter to you?" Deeks asked. "If I matter to you," he added hastily.
"You matter, Deeks, you matter. You're not going to like my answer, though. It's morbid."
"We spent part of the day in a place where two CSU techs were picking up little bits of people and putting them in unused rubber gloves. Can't get a whole lot more morbid than that."
Kensi nodded. "Stick with me on this."
"I'm the one doing the asking."
"I always thought if you'd leave, it would be because LAPD would want you back."
"LAPD doesn't want me back."
"You're good at your job."
"And they're happy I'm doing it with you. I'm where I need to be."
"That you are." Kensi mimicked Deeks's cryptic comments to her earlier. She tilted back her head and drank some of her beer. Putting on the night stand/mini-fridge, she continued. "When Hetty said you were shot, part of me started thinking 'it's happening again.'"
"Dom?"
"Men always figure out a way to leave me."
"Not going anywhere, Kensi."
"That's where you're wrong. Dom didn't think he was going anywhere."
"But he also didn't figure out a way to leave. That was taken from him. I have no intention of having it taken from me. Especially after getting shot."
"You don't always get to decide. When I got to the hospital, they gave me your badge and your watch and for the longest time, I worked hard not to think about anything. Not to think bad things, not to be hopeful."
"Kensi..."
"When Jack left," she cut him off, "I knew he wasn't coming back. I packed up his things, sent them to his Dad. I told the landlord at our old place where to call me if Jack returned but I moved out a month later. I knew he wasn't coming back to me so I never hoped he would. And he didn't. That's the real reason I never looked for him. One rejection was more than enough." Deeks started to say something but Kensi put her hand up. "I found the room where they were holding Dom; one of the rooms, anyway. Then Eric saw him on a security camera and for a couple of minutes, I was happy. We found him. I knew he was going to be saved. And then he was killed."
"I am sorry."
"So after they gave me your badge and your watch," she pointed to his watch, "I worked hard not to be too sure things would work out and not to get too hopeful so that I wouldn't put the whammy on you."
He chuckled at "the whammy" statement. "I'd only be concerned about putting the whammy on Dr. DePaul. She did all the hard work, I was so exhausted from my morning run, the fight at the cash register and the whole getting shot nonsense that I slept through it all."
"How do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Turn it into a joke."
"I'm here and I'm fine. Better than fine right now. Since I can't change what happened, I don't worry about things like that."
"I do."
"Waste of time."
"You know what I did after Dr. DePaul said you'd be OK?"
"Relaxed, I hope."
"No. I sat there and looked at you and tried to figure out when you became this person who mattered to me. Who really mattered."
"I wore you down," Deeks said with a smile and a touch of pride. "I do that to people. Six, seven years from now, Sam will like me. I'm calling it now."
Kensi shook her head. "It was more than that. I liked Dom. I was so happy for the few minutes I thought we rescued him and so sad when we didn't. I cried in front of Callen and Sam. I don't do that."
No she doesn't, Deeks thought to himself. "Kensi..."
She put her hand up, wanting to finish. "If we saved him, he'd have been behind a desk, probably at the Navy Yard once he was healthy again. And that would have been great. He was good with computers, probably could have done what Nell does for the Navy Yard's anti-terrorism team or be the Eric of the Cyber Crimes Unit."
"OK." Deeks had no idea where Kensi was going with this conversation but was grateful she was still speaking.
"But we didn't. He took a bullet for Sam and bled out. He died a hero. He was a hero, really. Dom died after losing months of a too short life as a pawn in a terrorist plan." Kensi took a deep breath. "After they took you back into surgery to redo all your stitches I thought about Dom again. You were bleeding pretty good when the nurses and orderlies got to you. And you did that for me. You could have died because you were a means to an end and I was that end. You got shot, you got hurt again and it was my fault," she blurted out.
"Is that what you think? Is that what you think I think?" Deeks sighed. "I got shot because Vakar wanted to see his son and was willing to kill you, me or anyone else who got in his way. You had nothing to do with that. I went running after you because I figured out too late what was going on. You're my partner and it's on me to make sure you don't go out there and get yourself kidnapped or killed. Someone took you away once. It wasn't happening again if I had a say in it."
"You shouldn't have been in that position in the first place."
"No, and that's mostly on Vakar. I was lazy about my security so a little of that is on me but almost all of it is on the two guns for hire and Vakar. And two of the three of them are dead, making the world a better place."
"I spent days afterwards convinced you'd leave. Go back to LAPD. You wouldn't have to worry about your own security, you wouldn't be in danger."
"Kensi, that wasn't my first trip to the hospital because of work. Wasn't even my first overnight stay. And while I know you guys don't think much of police work, there's a bit of danger involved in that."
"I didn't mean it that way."
"I know what you meant. Here's something you need to know. I'm not Dom. I'm not going anywhere."
"But you see, it was different. I would have been happy Dom left for Washington or moved up to Ops with Eric. You...I would have been...upset if you left."
It starts becoming clearer to Deeks. "And that scares you too."
"I've gotten used to being alone..."
"Kensi, you're not alone, you've got an office full of people who care about you. Callen and Sam watch over you like big brothers. You and Eric are tight, you and Nell have become fast friends. Hetty adores you."
"She does not."
"Oh, she does. They all do." He wondered if she understood how important she was to the team.
"You're more," Kensi's voice was barely a whisper but the look she gave him showed the strength behind the statement.
"Good to hear," he said with a smile. "Very good to hear."
"Can I ask you something?"
"Not like there's a ton of secrets between us right now."
"No, I guess not," she sat up a little straighter. "Why were you so annoyed at Callen? He was just..."
"Making sure the idiot cop didn't get you killed. Sam was doing that same."
"That's not true."
"The idiot cop nearly got you kidnapped or killed six weeks ago."
"You know that's not true."'
"The idiot cop who lost you to the Russians."
"That's not on you either. And stop with the idiot stuff, you idiot," Kensi's smile lit the room.
"I got Sam checking out my daily routine. I got Hetty signing me up for classes. Now I have Callen hassling you about what we did today, what we survived."
"It's not like that."
"It's not?"
"That's what we do, how we do things. What were we talking about when you were writing your reports?"
"How much you liked that brownie?"
She shot him a faux-withering look but the smile returned. "No, your reports to LAPD are bare-bones, just the facts. Hetty, Sam, Callen - they all what to drill down to what you were thinking, why you did what you did. It is part of your professional growth."
"I did what I did so they'd stop throwing grenades at us."
"You can lose your hand throwing a live grenade."
"So I should have let it sit there..."
"No. They're trying to figure out what to do the next time that happens."
"It's going to happen again? Geez, Hetty never hand grenades mentioned that when she signed me up." Deeks was only half-joking.
"Everything can happen again, you know that.
"And tell me Sam wouldn't pick up a grenade and throw it back if Callen was blocked in like you were? Or vice versa."
"I think that's why they spoke to us separately."
"So, what, Callen just got a run down from you of our awesome afternoon."
"Something like that."
Deeks lifted an eyebrow. "You want to try that again, Kens?"
"What did you do with Sam?"
"Oh, we made some Jiffy-Pop popcorn, gave Nell some too and watched Deeks and Kens's excellent adventure."
"There's no eating in Ops." It was Kensi's turn to lift an eyebrow. "Now do you want to try that again?"
"He asked questions, I answered them. Some seriously, some less so. I was annoyed. I'll be happy to learn from their past experiences when they tell me what I should have done. Everyone's very comfortable telling me what could have gone wrong if the damn thing exploded in my hand. I still haven't heard from anyone what was the alternative to throwing it back. You'd be in big trouble and so would I if I just left it there."
"They don't have an answer. Just fears."
"Cop rules - catch the bad guys, go home alive. Two for two today. Now, what was your 'something like that' conversation with Callen."
"I may have been..." she started waving her hand again.
"Yes?"
"Vocal in my defense of you."
Deeks's smile was bright was he batted his eyes at her. "You defended my honor."
"Like you, I wanted to know what you, what we were supposed to do differently."
"And?"
"Like Sam, Callen didn't have an answer."
"And?"
"And I told him that we could have died and all he was looking for was what we did wrong. I told him that we did the best we could and until he had an answer for what you, we, should have done differently, I was fine with us surviving the day."
"You did defend my honor."
"Defended our honor. Or professionalism. Or whatever. You and I can save the day from time to time."
"And we did."
"And we're going to keep saving the day. We're good at this. We're a good team and while I think you and I can make each other crazy every now and again, we work."
"We do," Deeks picked up his beer and took the final swig. "And I wouldn't mind making you crazy right now," he told her with a big smile.
"You think you're up that?" she teased as he put the empty bottle on the floor.
Deeks started making his way up the bed to Kensi. "I'm up to that and a whole lot more," he told her before kissing her.
"How do we handle this at work?" Kensi asked, a little breathless from the kiss.
"We won't be doing this at work," Deeks told her as he started placing gentle kisses on her jaw.
"I'm serious," Kensi put her hand along his cheek and pushed him away from her.
"Oh, so am I. I don't need another Sam debrief on how you and I, well, on you and I. Especially if Nell is going to be there running video on the big screen in Ops."
"Deeks," Kensi warned.
"What we do is our business. Not Sam's, not Callen's, not Hetty's," Deeks said, perfectly serious.
"What happens if it doesn't work?"
"What happens if it does?"
"You don't know that."
"And neither do you," Deeks sat back. "Don't assume this won't work. We're a good together. We could be spectacular. You certainly are."
Kensi's smile was spectacular. "You think you're up to it."
"I'm up for any challenge," he slid his boxers off and dropped them by his side of the bed. It was official, he had a side of the bed. And he had it with her.
-30-
Annoying author's notes:
During NaWriNoMo, I decided to take all the half-written stories I had and try to salvage some of them. This is one survivor (there weren't many in that ocean of bad ideas). Since I've tended to write them as an established couple before "The Frozen Lake" happened, this was always my "head canon" on how they became a couple. Kensi and Deeks were different in "The Job" than they were in any prior episode so I ran with that.