WARNING: THIS STORY DEALS WITH A CHARACTER'S SUICIDE. You have been warned!
Author's note: It doesn't happen often, but every once in a while I wrestle with the decision to post a story. That is true for this one more than any other I've ever written. I wrote it before Season 5 started airing and the idea came to me while watching a promo for the new season. I think that author's need to step out of their comfort zones sometimes and put things out there that are a bit unsettling if only to remind ourselves that we are human and fragile and sometimes writing something out can be therapeutic even though its difficult. With that, I humbly submit this story. I am in no way affiliated with NCIS: Los Angeles and the characters are the property of CBS.
She's pulled from her dreams with a name in her throat. It's clawed its way up and it's all she can do to swallow it down and not let it escape again. The raw, scraped feel of her throat testifies to the screams made in sleep that her traitorous subconscious did not quiet. She hopes she hasn't awoken the neighbors.
She relaxes back into the pillows and waits for the images of her dreams to recede... or for the LAPD to come banging on her door. Neither happens and she scrubs her palms across her eyes, her hands coming away wet. The echo of his name in her brain drags her from her bed and the visions of her dreams playing on in grotesque looping laps follow her out into the hall.
Kensi, you gotta get me out of here
She's not sure what compels her to pull a jacket over her pajamas and head out to the car but the keys are digging into her palm and she's half way there before her brain suggests that maybe this is not the best of ideas. She's not welcome there. A breeze off the ocean lifts her hair and nudges her slightly forward and it's all the hint she needs.
It's a quick trip to his apartment and she knows she's trespassing past a boundary recently constructed. The thought is enough to keep her in the car, engine idling as she stares out over the façade of his home. Pre-dawn light paints the building almost unrecognizable but she knows it's still his. His presence lingers. He's in the air, propped against the wall beside his surf board, getting ready for a morning run. Her eyes are closed and the visions of these mundane tasks briefly chase away the visages of her dreams. Briefly.
You just have to stay a little longer, okay?
Chirst, the look he gave her when she said those words. It was his last look her way, really. She hasn't been able to capture his eyes again since, not like she did in that moment. Now his gaze shifts about her face, never making the contact she wants. His eyes used to burn, used to leave hot trails along her skin, but now they dart and race and won't be pinned down and made to stay. She's losing him.
She squares her shoulders and lets determination envelop her and chase apprehension away. She's half way up the stairs before she smells it and takes the last half of the staircase three stairs at a time. Particle board gives way easily under her boot as if she weakened it with her earlier unproductive pounding; pieces shooting out from under her heal like a bomb has gone off.
She finds him in the living room in a pool of his own blood. What would be bright red in afternoon sun is black beneath his body as if the ground itself had opened up and he lay suspended above a hole straight to hell.
Deeks? No..no..no..no
She finds towels in the kitchen just inside the door and the blood makes quick work of the knees of her jeans. She calls 9-1-1 then waits for the sounds of sirens to fill the silence.
He's done it right. Not across the wrist like in the movies, but the right way like they've seen more times than she can count. A crimson slash is painted from wrist to elbow and if she peeks she can see the glint of white bone through the blood. He's done it right.
They find her beside him in the pool and maneuver her away even though she can tell him what they'll find. No pulse. No hope.
Untie me, Kens
She put him here. She left him in that place and these are the consequences for her actions. It all ends in a tiny apartment she helped him find in the building on the street with the surf shop in the neighborhood he couldn't stop going on about in this town called L.A. She put him there.