Out of Control

By: wheelies

Rating: T

Summary: With a vigilante loose on LA's criminal population, the team has to work fast as the holidays approach.

Characters/Pairings: Kensi/Nate

Warnings: Swearing, and otherwise Nothing worse than you would see on the actual show

Spoilers: Nothing yet

Notes: This is just the set up/intro Chapter. I promise to actually get to the action in the next chap.

I.

He was angry as all hell and so was she. They'd left the OSP without so much as look in each other's general direction, quiet rage in Nate's eyes and a furious, cutting, edge to Kensi's purposeful stride as the oak doors slammed shut on them.

By now, there was nothing left to say or do but make their way to their respective cars in the back parking garage, fuming as rage did away with all reason.

Park-to-go cards were swiped viciously through the terminal, and the growling engines of the freshly-washed vehicles served as the perfect soundtrack for them to go off into the clear, humid, night, side-by-side, yet worlds apart.

II.

Kensi toyed with the hem of her dress, slightly looser than she'd been when she and Drake, the absolutely gorgeous pool boy from her apartment complex had hit the town for a night of booze and good beats.

She hadn't drunk too much (Kensi had kept a strict one-drink rule since the incident at Fort Worth in Junior Year), yet something about the pumping, indie-rock/punk/whatever else it was and the intoxicating smell of alcohol mixed with perfume and sweat, not to mention the feel of Drake's million-dollar body against hers, had her spiked, and just now, when they'd retired from the night of club-hopping, was the high beginning to wear off.

It was probably only spare hours until sunrise, and she'd be due to work soon, but for now, Kensi was content to lie in the backseat, and old beach towel thrown over her as Drake- with his shirt off, showing off smooth olive skin- navigated LA's late night roads.

She was sleepier than was probably very good, and everything was coming off far blurrier than she remembered. It was either a glint of a beer bottle in the front seat cupholder or a star high above the skyline that she noticed right before she drifted off.

III.

"Miss? Excuse me, Miss?"

Kensi shifted in her makeshift backseat bed, her eyes exploding with neon reds and blues, a blurry dark figure standing above her.

"Huh?", she grunted, blinking at the lights and willing her eyes to focus. She was stiff and sore and felt like she'd been beaten up and left in an alley or something to that effect.

"Miss? You're going to need to get out of the car."

There was a badge in her face, LAPD with beefy fingers surrounding the cover, blocking her from seeing his face.

"What'd I do?", she asked haplessly, forcing herself up and tossing the towel on the passenger seat.

"Let's figure that out.", he replied, still a voice swimming in exploding colors and lights.

The cop held something to her face, small and dark, and waited, before chuckling to himself.

"Hey, Valdez, she's fine. Guess one of our lovebirds wised up before goin' out.", the voice called.

Kensi blinked, bringing her world into into blunt, obvious lines. Cop cars surrounded what looked like a checkpoint station, swarming with officers who had their windows rolled down and their guns hanging carelessly, as though they had only responded to the call out of boredom. She thought she saw Drake in the back of one of the cruisers, his mouth moving with words she couldn't understand.

IV.

The precinct was brightly lit, decorated with a fluorescent wall of green and pink paper advertising family picnics and days when the shooting range was free beside a wall of old, yellowed "Wanted" posters from the Bureau. The officers were mostly younger, fresh out of the Academy, Kensi would guess, more of them clothed in American Eagle rather than Sears, tossing paper balls into the recycling rather than filling out case reports.

Officer Valdez, the cop who'd given her a ride back, the chauvinistic pig he was, had tossed Kensi her purse on his way to In N Out Burger, muttering something about how women never got no smarter in his Alabama drawl. Sure pal, Kensi though to herself, digging for her phone in the mess of receipts and wrappers.

She hit 3 on speed dial, probably not quite yet thinking straight as she listened to Nate's cell ring.

V.

Shrill rings brought Nate out of a fitful sleep, the sheets clutched between his fists while a soft breeze whistled through his bedroom windows.

He felt for his phone on the shelf beside his bed, effectively knocking a row of cheap Greatest Hits albums and Meditation tapes off the rack.

Absently, he pushed talk, too groggy to consider caller ID, and pissed at whoever might have found it funny to call at four in the morning.

"What?"

"Nate? Um...It's Kensi...and I-"

"No."

Nate sighed. If anything, he told himself, Kensi needed to realize that a cavalry wasn't going to come running every time her impulsive stupidity had her cornered.

VI.

"Damn it!"

A resounding thwack signaled the end to Kensi's (technically, part of Hetty's grab bag) phone, which shattered to pieces inches from where an officer was sipping at a cream soda big gulp, oblivious to his surroundings.

"Hey, what the hell, lady?", he snapped, aiming her a "Chill Out" look.

She glared back at him, fuming over Nate's superhuman ability to screw nearly every plausible situation over. Couldn't he just get the hell over himself and man up?

"Excuse me, Miss, we can't let you behave in a destructive manner in the station. You're gonna have to wait outside", a young woman with her sun-kissed beach girl hair tied back into a loose bun interrupted Kensi's mental lashing at the entire male race.

The officer motioned towards the glass doors to the empty parking lot sparkling with bits of broken beer bottles that had been smashed over a parking meter.

Kensi groaned inwardly. There were some battles you just didn't fight.

VII.

She figured she was clear on the other side of town, miles from her apartment and whole districts from the OSP office, no car, no phone, and probably looking like some overpriced hooker, standing on the corner of a police precinct.

A quick sweep revealed a small row of boutiques and specialty shops across the street, with a 7/11 hiding behind a six-foot fence holding in a tiny school building and a playground that had "safety violation" written all over it. There were dingy apartments to the left of the station, fenced with weather-battered graffiti murals, and an equally dirty YMCA hall to the right.

"Location, Location.", Kensi sing-songed, chuckling sarcastically as she took in the depth of the insane mess she was in. It was pretty fair to say a second date was completely out of the question for dear old Drake.

"Yeah. I mean, LAPD wants to make a dent on crime where it festers, according to the bureaucrats.", a masculine, honey-on-gravel voice replied.

"What-oh."

VIII.

Kensi's initial fright subsided into a slight relief as she realized the voice simply belonged to a uniformed officer, thumbs hooked in his belt loops as he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. She turned to face him, surprised to find he was nothing like the Slurpee-sloshed college frat boys inside.

"Hi."

He was six two or three, dark hair cut into a professional yet rebellious style that left stray strands of regulation length dirty blond locks hanging in piercing hazel eyes. This wasn't exactly what she'd had in mind for LAPD. More like Abercrombie model, really.

"Officer Lucas Hamel, can I help you with something, Miss?"

"What makes you think I need help?", she replied, almost reflexively.

"Miss, you're dressed like some high-school prom queen in the middle of the crappiest neighborhood on the west coast. So either, you're here 'cause you don't want to be, or you're here because you're not exactly in John Law's good books. So, do I arrest you or what?", Lucas told her,a tiny grin cracking on his tanned face.

"Or What?"

IX.

She knew she was flirting, yet the desire to do so clearly won over rationale, and she let herself carefully toe the line between a seventh-grader in line for New Moon's premiere and the kickass agent she was.

Besides, just like in the Sheryl Crow song that she'd been forced to listen to in the back of Officer Valdez's cruiser, there was nowhere but up to go from here.

"Well, do you need a ride to a bus stop or a coffee or somethin'? I know it's LA and all, but its kinda cold out here.", Lucas said, kicking at an empty cup of cheap coffee that was lying crumpled at his feet.

Kensi shrugged. On any other day, she would have let the banter go on, just played a little more, but today, she wasn't in the mood for it. All she wanted was a hot shower and a pitcher of coffee, and the familiar weight of her gun at her side. Forget Drake, Nate, and the biological mistakes called the male race, she reminded herself.

Kensi vaugely wondered how long Drake had been on the job as she let him lead her to an inconspicuous silver car in the middle price range that was both clean enough not to attract rats, yet dirty enough to show signs of life.

If it had been any other day, she would have wondered why a cop had parked beside a meter across the street under a broken neon bookshop sign, clear out of sight of the up-to-date cameras circling the precinct like vultures.

X.

Lucas and Kensi stayed in the small-talk zone for the ride back to her apartment, sharing small anecdotes about the weather and roads. She let herself loosen up, genuinely chuckling at some of his jokes. Comparatively, they really weren't all that bad.

He turned on to her street, lined with cutesy little shops and their miniature parking lots, where tiny lights and inflatable Santas were beginning to take over.

"Know what I never got? Why the hell they never put up a giant blow-up menorah in some car dealer's lot. I mean, imagine the notice that would get.", he chuckled, pulling over to the curb beside a closed up little hot dog shack.

"All over the news. Listen, thank you, Officer Hamel.", Kensi replied, unclipping her seatbelt and giving Lucas the customary law enforcement "Job well Done" head bob.

Suddenly, a radio scanner buried in Lucas' backseat sputtered to life, bringing a static "all hands on deck" call to a suspicious death in Burbank.

"You're very welcome. Guess I'll have to get your name some other time, Miss. Duty calls."

Kensi nodded and headed for the door, where her ever-sour doorman regarded her with a "My job is hard enough already" glare.

If it had been any other day, Kensi might have asked why a cop had a scanner in the back, yet the warm lobby lights melted all of her questions away.

A/N- Continue? Drop it? TELL ME AND REVIEW!