I'm reuploading this because this plotline took on a life of its own and it is much longer than I anticipated. No changes to this chapter except for the opening a/n.
Update: I had to re-reupload this chapter because I was a dummy and used an older revision from my Dropbox account rather than exporting the existing chapter from my oneshot mish-mosh thingamajig. l owe SilverSentinal21 a giant cookie.
Disclaimer: Blah, blah, I don't own NCIS: LA, blah blah…blah.
It was a typical Tuesday morning complete with pleasant coffee aroma clouds wafting through the air and mingling with the general buzz of the Mission and the agents. Eric was up in OPs click-clacking away on his computer, Nell was off modifying a motherboard, Callen and Sam were discussing their cars, and Kensi and Deeks were arguing. But for probably the first time in the team's six year history, they weren't arguing with each other.
"This isn't fair!" Deeks protested.
"I agree," said Kensi as she crossed her arms angrily. "And we never agree. On anything."
"Ever."
"Hetty, is this really necessary?"
"I'm afraid it is, Miss Blye," Hetty said sadly. "Assistant Director Granger insists that these orders be completed by next Monday. I don't like it just as much as you two, but this comes from higher up in the chain of command."
"Is it Director Vance?" Kensi and Deeks asked in unison.
"No, it is not. SecNav gave the order to Director Vance who gave it to Assistant Director Granger who gave it to me. Now, Director Vance managed to buy more time for you two."
"And how's that?" Deeks asked, slouching down in the chair.
"The Secretary of the Navy originally gave you until tomorrow morning." Hetty folded her hands on her desk and sighed. "Please try to understand that changes, most of the time unwanted and unnecessary, come with new administration." The three of them sat in Hetty's office in complete silence for a few minutes, hoping the buzz of the Mission would drown out their thoughts.
"Hetty, you know I don't like new people," Kensi sighed. "Why did it have to be us?"
"It probably has something to do with me being LAPD and not NCIS," Deeks offered. "New Sec Nav probably thinks I'm beneath all of you."
"That most certainly is not the reason, Mr. Deeks," Hetty said rather sharply. "And you certainly are not beneath any of us. You're just as good as anyone here, even better than some."
In spite of this major compliment from Hetty, Deeks just huffed and sunk further into his chair. "It's just for a few weeks, right?" he asked.
"From what I'm told, yes, but it's not set in stone."
"I guess we can hack it for a while. What do you think?"
"I guess," Kensi huffed.
"Thank you," Hetty sighed. "Here is the new agent's file. He comes highly recommended by many." Hetty shooed the pair of them out of her office and began to make several angry phone calls.
"Think this new agent will be anywhere as good as me?" Deeks said playfully. "I mean, I know training a rookie agent can be hard but I must have been the fastest learner and I'm not even an agent."
"And your ego has now doubled in size once again," Kensi laughed. "Think there will be enough room in your tiny squad car for it and your new partner?"
"She'll get used to it."
"She? What makes you so sure your new partner is a woman?"
"Because I'm just that good," he said in a semi-sultry voice. This earned him and elbow to the gut.
...
Three weeks passed at an annoyingly slow pace and Kensi had spent the last few days sitting at her desk twirling her pens around in her hand. Her new partner, an Alexander Lancaster, was annoying and uninteresting with a pedantic air about him. Thanks to some discrete digging done by Nell and Eric, they learned that all of this was due to the fact that he was the nephew of the new SecNav. He tried everyday to order Kensi around but she stood her ground and gave it right back to him despite his situation. One day she lost it completely and started to shout at him in the middle of the bullpen.
"I wouldn't give a rat's ass if you were the freaking Pope. You can get off your ass and get yourself some coffee and make your own copies and get your shit from the printer. I outrank you, Alex, and you best respect me or I swear on all that is holy that I will drop kick your ass from here to Sydney without giving it a second thought." She stomped off to the gym but not before knocking down the pile of files that sat in Alex's inbox and shoving his feet off of the desk. Without changing her clothes, Kensi gloved up and began to pummel the sandbag that hung from the ceiling.
It had been a while since Kensi had gotten that angry at anybody. Sam supposed she'd been keeping it all in while Callen was just glad Kensi exploded when she did. If she hadn't, Callen would have shot Alex from his desk without blinking an eye. That certainly would have brightened everyone's day.
Hetty cautiously approached Kensi as she threw punch after punch at the sandbag. She didn't want to tell her this but it was better to tell her while she was engaged in anger release than in an office. "Miss Blye," Hetty called.
"I'm sorry, Hetty, but this really isn't a good time."
"On the contrary, I think this is the perfect time."
"What is it?" Kensi said without stopping her punches.
"I regret to inform you that you will be with Alex for much longer than you anticipated."
Kensi stopped and turned around to face Hetty. "Are you serious?"
"I'm afraid so. And," Hetty said holding up her hand to keep Kensi from protesting, "I am very much aware of that simpleton's situation. It's quite an abuse of power in my opinion." Hetty stepped closer and lowered her voice to a barely audible whisper. "I've already taken it up with the Director and Legal to see if there is any literature that is against this sort of thing." She cleared her throat and motioned for Kensi to continue beating the sandbag.
…
It seemed that Kensi's little outburst lit a fire, granted the smallest of fires, under Alex's ass. He was ordering Kensi and the others around a lot less but his attitude didn't change and he still went out of his way to make everyone miserable. Hetty found nothing so far from her secret team-up with Vance and his legal team but it'd only been a few days; the amount of documents that had to be read was overwhelming and all the confusing and roundabout legal jargon didn't help one bit. The team often heard her cursing in French when they didn't hear Lancaster bragging about anything and everything. Kensi was significantly less tense but now she devoted the time she wasn't working on a case to skulking about the Mission and curling up on the couch and sleeping. She gradually stopped smiling and it became more and more difficult for Callen and Sam to get even a smirk to cross her face. Eventually they stopped trying.
"Hey," Callen said one day. "We miss him, too."
"Yeah," Kensi said glumly as she rolled her pencil back and forth across her desk. "I know."
"Want to go a round on the mats? I promise I won't hold back."
"No, thanks," she replied glumly.
Not wanting to push it, Callen shrugged and walked back to his desk. "I'll be here if you change your mind." He went back to flipping through a file but would glance up at Kensi once in a while to assess her.
The last time G saw her this depressed was after Dom died and she did bounce back from it but she wasn't completely herself. She was a bit more jaded and had a more cynical outlook on everything. When Deeks joined the team, G saw the old Kensi come back. She was happy to have something to do even if it was essentially babysitting the world's greatest pain in the ass. Deeks was a different kind of partner than Dom. While Dom was still young, he knew exactly when he needed to buckle down and work whereas Deeks took a little bit longer than most to focus. Kensi often thought he was more like a young teenage boy than a grown man. He could easily be distracted by a pretty girl and he was always antsy when he had to sit still for an extended period of time like a stakeout but, she could always bring him back with a flick of the ear or a punch to the arm. These boyish traits were what endeared Deeks to Kensi and now that he was gone, she was thoroughly miserable. She already yelled her lungs out at Lancaster more times than she could count and she actually ripped a hole in the sandbag in the gym from the amount of time she spent beating the crap out of it. In short, Kensi was grieving and, at present, she was undeniably stuck in the fourth stage.
Believe it or not, "depressed Kensi" was far more terrifying than "angry Kensi". If you didn't handle her carefully she could blow up in your face like a firecracker you didn't throw away fast enough. Nobody liked seeing her this withdrawn more than Nell so as the second month without Deeks drew to a close, she took the initiative and scheduled her own intervention. On Saturday morning, she strapped in her two year old son, Scott, into his car seat and drove across town to Kensi's house. She rang the doorbell several times and called out for Kensi to answer the door but all of this was in vain so finally she convinced her son to bang on the door.
"AUNT KENSI! AUNT KENSI! AUNT KENSI!" he shouted as he pounded on the door with his little fists. "Let me in!"
Kensi couldn't ignore Scott, not her sweet and adorable godson, so she rolled out of bed and opened the door. "How do you ask?" she asked from behind the screen.
"Please?" Scott asked sweetly. Kensi unlatched the screen and opened it out for Scott who jumped through the threshold and hopped up and down with his arms in the arm for Kensi to pick him up. "Kisses?" he asked. Kensi obliged, picked him up, and planted a kiss on his cheek. "My turn," he said brightly. He leaned forward, kissed Kensi's nose, and for the first time in two months she smiled.
"You play dirty, Nell," Kensi said putting Scott down.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Nell said as she helped Scott take off his racecar backpack. He happily dragged it across the living room to the small coffee table and pulled out his crayons and coloring book. "Alright," Nell said, sitting herself down on the couch. "Don't tell me you're fine because I know and you know that you are far from it."
Kensi remained silent and watched Scott as he growled like a dinosaur and colored in a t-rex with a bright purple crayon. Like Barney, she thought to herself and she flashed back two years to the time she accidentally turned Deeks' shirts purple. "I looked like Barney the dinosaur," he had complained to Eric. Her mind flashed forward a bit to the night she kissed him at that psych couple's house. For weeks she told herself she did it for the sake of the op, to make him shut up, and she eventually forgot about it but now she wasn't so sure.
"I miss him," Kensi mumbled.
"We all miss him, Kensi," Nell said.
"Yeah, but when do I ever miss him? He's a constant pain in the butt and he never shuts up about anything. Remember the picture of him on a camel?"
Nell laughed and nodded. "Well it's been a few weeks. Absence does make the heart grow fonder, even in this case." Kensi raised an eyebrow at this. "What I mean is you used to see him everyday and now you haven't seen him or talked to him for a while. Your routine is off."
"That makes sense," Kensi said folding her arms and sitting back into the couch.
"Plus, Lancaster's a giant jackass," Nell whispered. "How about this?" she asked in her normal voice. "Why don't you call him and ask him to meet up for coffee or something? You guys can catch up and you can start smiling again." Nell's phone suddenly chimed. "Oh, geez," she sighed as she saw the text message.
"Did Eric break another server?"
"Worse. My sister showed up a day early." Nell sighed and told Scott to pack up his things. "Seriously, Kensi," Nell said as she zipped up Scott's backpack. "Call Deeks."
So she did.
Oh, Sandy, you silly hurricane. You took my power and cable and left me with nothing but wonderful books to read. I read Pride and Prejudice for the umpteenth time and then this little chapter came out. I know Kensi seems a little more emotional than she will probably ever be but I like writing Kensi as vulnerable. It's different. Let me know what you think.
Hey, hey! It's Keelan! If you can guess my age, I will shower you with the candy of your choice and rainicorns! And give you a cookie! A virtual one that is c: Hint: I am six years younger than AJ! Don't miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! Heh c; ~Keelan