Defying Reason
Summary: Theirs is not an innocent love. OneShot- Kensi, Deeks. Thirteen times.
Warning: Ummm… Just in general.
Set: Sometime in the future.
Disclaimer: Standards apply. Lyrics mentioned in the text belong to the song "Eric's Song" by Vienna Teng.
i.
"Stop looking at me like that."
"Like what?"
There is no challenge in his voice, no humor. Only dead seriousness, which makes it even worse. Because she knows the glance he is giving her, and she knows the words he isn't saying out loud, and along with the gaze that wanders over her from his eyes it is enough to make her feel small and scared. And because Kensi Blye never is afraid, she has to be angry.
"Like that."
She snaps back at him and earns a crooked grin. It is nowhere like the ones he gave her when they just started working as partners. This isn't the cocky, annoying-as-hell grin he first graced her with anymore. This is more.
Deeks looks at her as if she was the most precious thing on earth. As if there was nothing more important than her, as if the world evolved around her. As if he breathed, lived and walked just for her, as if there was nothing as wonderful as watching her. As if he needed nothing else than the sight of her, even when she was bent over her desk, her hair messy and annoyance bright in her eyes. It scares her out of her wits.
Kensi has loved before. She has felt beautiful before, once, too, she has looked at someone and believed the sun rose and set on this person. Twice has she given away her heart and both times she had to pick up the shattered remains of what had been left after she had been left. There is nothing as fragile as a heart, she knows it so very well. Therefore she guards hers nowadays, day and night. Nobody is supposed to come close enough to make her care again. Nobody is supposed to worm his way inside her heart. It is just too dangerous. Too sad, even. Sometime around the last four years with the NCIS special ops she has ceased to count the number of people she has left behind and the few she had tried to hold on to she had hurt. Had lied to them. She also has lost count of all the times she has changed her name and her identity, even her apartment, due to her job. The only time when she was who she really was – Kensi Blye – was when she was with the team, with the people she called her friends. Callen, Sam, Hetty, Eric, Nell, Nate… Sometimes she felt like all the freaks in high school had gathered together to create their own little freaky, so damn black-and-white, world. The lone wolf Callen, the computer freak Eric, the genius Nell, the outsider Sam, Nate the shrink who cared more deeply than he should and knew so. And her, of course, Kensi-the-Untouchable, and Hetty, a mystery in its own rights. Deeks didn't fit their scheme at all. His looks were fine, his humor could be charming, his loyalty was amazing. He was very much like the guy who, in high school, ran with the cool dudes. Surf. Smoke. Girls. Clever enough though not spectacularly interested in anything. But people were so very rarely what they seemed to be on first sight and she had learned to look deeper. Deeks, too, was a part of their family today.
He probably knows her best of all, despite the fact that he had known her shortest compared to all the others.
It makes it all the more difficult for her to not see the looks he casts at her. He knows her. And, of course, there is more to it. (When isn't there?) It is evident in the way he talks to her – he never loves bantering more than when he banters with her and is able to annoy her in the process. But also in the way he treats her – like an equal, absolutely and entirely, while Hetty sees her as something like a daughter and Sam, Callen and Nate as a younger sister. Deeks pushes her buttons. Deeks challenges her. Deeks doesn't let her get away with all the stuff Sam and Callen let her get away with. He brings out her ugly sides – her irritation, her ill-timed humor, her lies – but he also makes her try harder than she has ever tried before. And for a person as she is, a person who never will be able to express how much it means to her, it is more than she will ever be able to express. He saw right through her from the first moment they met. And he still loves her for all her faults. And for that she loves him, as well.
Which is the reason she feels like crying when she sees him look at her like this.
It is because she never was afraid of dying, always knew her time would be up some day. She walks into every new op with the confidence that if she is hit, it will be her time to go. There is nothing religious behind this thought, only the acceptance that death is everything life isn't. When she leaves she will do so with her head held proudly and she won't have regrets. At least, that was until he made his way into her heart and somehow found it nice enough to stay. And now his look makes her sick with fear. His blue eyes tell her she is his world. What else will be left for him once she has left?
ii.
"Don't touch me, Kensi."
He jerks away, an almost unconscious motion, and the suddenness of his movement (his reaction, really) is enough to make her heart skip a beat. Then it slams against her ribs painfully, realization of what has just happened settling in slowly. In his eyes, she can see he is realizing it, as well.
Her heartbeat is loud in her ears. For a few seconds they remain there, frozen in place and most probably in time, as well. Until Kensi remembers her hand is still outstretched and jerks it back in one sharp motion. When her eyes return to his, she sees he's staring at her hand as if it was a poisonous snake, and the sound of her rushing blood increases in volume even more. Time passes, minutes, hours, weeks – and still he is only looking at her like she is the reason his life is falling apart.
Which just as well might be. Only she didn't think it was doing so.
Maybe, if she said something right now – something, anything – they would be able to get over it fast. But the fact that he has jerked away from her touch is still standing between them, the proverbial pink elephant in the room, and maybe, maybe, she thinks, it is broken now beyond saving. How ironic how what tears them apart comes after they have endured so much together.
There is nothing left to say, so she turns on her heel and exits the room.
iii.
The first time they went into the field as more than just partners, he had been afraid of being unable to work together. He trusted Kensi to have his back – there was no one he would have wanted to have it other than her – but a small, tiny part of his brain still doubted. Perhaps it was only natural so. They'd been through so much and even more, to hell and back, and while some part of him recognized that there had been nothing she could have done to prevent the past, a tiny part of him remained doubting. It wasn't as much that he didn't trust her but that he feared what would happen if he did, and, even worse, if he didn't.
And then there was the more-than-just-partners part.
In his life, Marty Deeks had met many women, and some of them had left their impression on him. His mother, of course, so weak and yet so strong. The first girl he ever kissed. His best friend in the police academy, killed on a traffic patrol one night, in a routine check that should never have had such consequences. His last partner to whom he somehow had gotten close to and had regretted it in the months to come. And now her. She was one of the most amazing women he knew, probably ever would get to know before he got himself killed for real. She was full of contrasts: sharp tongue and soft skin, strength and weakness, anger and defiance. Easy to push, no matter whether with words or actions, so easy to guess and yet so hard to understand. It hadn't been hard to explain the attraction he felt towards her but it was hard to not be scared by what had been growing between them for the last years and while their experienced had changed them both, hardened her and broken him, he still felt the fear like he had on their very first day.
He loved her.
And the thought bore into him, like a sharp thorn, wedging itself between his ribs and hitting home. He loved her, and he trusted her, and he wanted her to be happy. With him, preferably, but then she had already shown that much more would be needed to take her from his side. So perhaps what he feared wasn't the thought she would leave him but that she would be taken, no matter by what, and it was the thought that sometimes made him shy away from her like being struck. And every time the hurt passed over her face, every time, even though she tried to hide it.
She should know, the rational part of his brain argued, that he did love her, and that he didn't want to hurt her. Nevertheless, the irrational part replied, she could. Because what did he have he could give her, besides himself? He had already done it, anyway. There was nothing else he had.
Because the sight of her leaving the room renders him unable to breathe, he bridges the distance in a few quick steps and wraps his arms around her shoulders. And she relents, as always, always since those weeks and months of hell they both went through. She leans back into his embrace and he feels her shoulders tremble. He holds her even tighter.
iv.
"And here I was, believing you loved me for my natural charm and good looks."
She throws him an amused smile, the edges of it tinged with warm affection.
"Which good looks are we talking about?"
"You don't deny the charm."
A snort, then a chuckle, and as she passed his chair she let her hand ghost past his cheek.
"Whatever."
v.
He watches her just a little bit too desperately.
She reaches out to touch him just a little too afraid, and together, they pass through the whirling colors of time on their way to nowhere.
They go out into the field, on their missions and special ops and everything that makes them what they are. They inquire and argue and calm and sneak and every time they return they are a little more broken.
It doesn't matter that they are, both of them, not any more. That they are shattered and disfigured beyond recognition. I wonder what Dad would think if he saw me now, Kensi sometimes wonders, and the thought is achingly sad and lonely. I wonder whether he would laugh if he saw me, Deeks thinks, and the deep hate he feels towards his father mingles with the never-leaving guilt of not having been the son his father had wanted him to be.
He never wanted to be like his father.
She sees no one else in him that himself, and she tells him so.
vi.
"Kensi."
"Hmmm?"
God knows why he's asking at all, and God knows why he's asking right now. Maybe because her eyes are wide open, despite the fact that they haven't slept for the last thirty hours, and are fixed onto the children playing in the front yard right next to their stakeout. It isn't the place they're supposed to watch but he finds he hasn't got the heart to remind her of the fact that their suspect's house is on the other side of the street.
"Do you want children?"
Her head whips around so quickly he can feel the soft breeze of the wind it stirs. He catches the faint scent, as well, sweet and vanilla-like and perfectly Kensi. For a second there is something in her eyes, a mixture of shock and surprise and longing and fear and stubborn refusal. And anger, of course, until she remembers who it is she is talking to.
"We should have talked about it long ago."
"Why?"
He holds her gaze.
"Because it is important."
She turns away again.
"I don't think I'd be a good mother."
"You didn't answer my question."
And she won't, he knows it. Years into their partnership and even into their relationship, there are still boundaries she won't cross. But she smiles at him – somehow, it's a sad smile – and he returns it somewhat, even if his heart makes a wrenching motion that hurts like hell.
vii.
Theirs is not an innocent love.
It is sad and desperate and frightening and breakable and sometimes they both wonder how they got themselves into this – and how long it will last. Both of them have seen people break, and, even worse for her, she has seen people leave. And she does not think she will be able to watch him leave her, as well.
Love shouldn't feel like this, he thinks, when he lies awake listening to her soft breathing. Love should feel like strawberry and vanilla, like sunshine after a week of rain, like a starry sky in the middle of a freezing winter night. Love should feel warm and tender and comforting. Love should make people want to dance on the street, in the rain, do silly things and say even sillier stuff.
To him, it feels like he is bound. Bound to her, of all people, to the one woman he thought he would certainly want but never love. It feels like he is lost somewhere on a beach he doesn't know, like he is searching for something but cannot tell for what. Like he is incomplete and yet knows he won't ever be complete again without her. Because being bound to her means they share their lives their time, their minds and hearts. Being lost doesn't matter when she's there with him to enjoy the silence and the sound of the ocean. Together they know what they have lost, remind each other of it every day. And with her he is full, full of sadness and joy and happiness and warmth.
While, all the same, he knows he might lose her every day.
They fight. It is what they do. And Kensi is a fighter, even more so than him. In some aspects, at least, and the last thing he will do is to try to change who she is when he loves her so much it hurts sometimes. They share a love that has seen a lot, has been through a lot, and if someone ever looked at him and told him their love was innocent and sweet he'd laugh right in his face. There is nothing sweet in feeling too frightened to fall asleep on nights on which she is out on a mission. They have seen people being killed for their love, have seen people betraying the one person who believed in them. Neither of them is innocent, not by the most positive interpretation of the word. Their love hasn't been born between summer and fall but rather in winter, when they were forced together in order to survive. There is nothing beautiful in holding her when she wakes from a nightmare, nothing romantic. Nothing innocent.
Their love isn't beauty or sweetness or innocence, by any means. It is something else entirely. It is what makes him able to let her go every morning, in order to go out and face the dangers of their job.
And it's what makes her return to him every time.
viii.
"Wait for me."
"I'm going in."
"I said wait."
Her voice is calm, Kensi-calm, but there is a certain underlying urgency in it. He would have felt irritated any other time, only now he's in the middle of an operation. He grips his Beretta tighter and moves for the door.
"Deeks, don't you dare walk into that rat nest without me!"
He is about to snap that he can handle it, that he is an agent in his own right, that there is nothing she has to worry about. He doesn't say any of it, though. Instead, he pushes the door open.
"Federal Agents!"
"Deeks!"
ix.
Keeping the balance is difficult when your world is twisted so much you barely are able to stand on your own.
x.
"What is that?"
"A vase."
"I can see that!"
Her face, formerly merely doubtful and questioning, is slowly falling into an expression of clear annoyance and he finds it amazing (and very, very cute) that he still is able to annoy her so much with so little effort.
"I bought a flower vase."
"And why should you do that? We don't need stuff like that!"
He throws her another smile, one, that he knows, is able to disarm her anger as fast as it has settled on her. She keeps up her scowl for pretense and he humors her.
"Maybe you didn't, but we need a bit of decoration here."
She still scowls but softens when he presents her with the flowers to put into the vase. A five-years younger Kensi Blye would have shattered the piece of porcelain over his head, and that she doesn't shows him how far they have come.
xi.
She lived like she would be leaving soon.
Her place always was bare of personal items, or, at least, there were only few of them. Most, of course, mementoes of her father, but other than those – and a few pictures – he had rarely seen anything personal in her apartment. There weren't many items of furniture, either. A bookshelf, filled with books about hunting, about weapons and history. A dresser. A table in the kitchen, a sofa, a small table. A TV. A few make up utensils on the sink. It was hard to tell because of the chaos that were her rooms, but when he spent more and more time with her, he learned to look underneath the obvious. At one point it hit him, though he wasn't quite sure how he had come to realize. Kensi's apartment was interchangeable, nothing more than a home for a certain stretch of time. She didn't keep many valuables, had only few personal items. If it came to it, he was quite sure, she would be able to leave behind the place she had spent the last years of her life within ten minutes. And while it was exactly what standard operational protocol expected of them, he found it most annoying.
She lived as if she wouldn't stay with them, and it made him angry. Like she wasn't planning on staying around for long enough. Like she was afraid to gather personal items because they'd weight her down, tie her to the place. Everything she didn't need only was additional baggage on a flight, something she could easily go without. Even her wardrobe seemed empty compared to his: shirts, jeans, sweaters, a few pairs of shoes.
There was some kind of twisted logic behind it, of course.
She expected having to move at any point in her life. Kensi always lived with the expectation of having to run, of needing to leave behind the place she lived in because of her work. How many times had it already happened, he wondered sometimes, but somehow that was a question he never asked. How many times have you moved? How many times have you changed your cover? It was a question that threatened everything she was, because her real name was the one she barely used at all. But since his stuff had started to accumulate in her apartment, as well, it became harder and harder for her to laugh at the future. This, the thing they had, was slowly getting something permanent, and perhaps the idea of not being on the run anymore was making her antsy enough to snap at him like that. On the other hand, his Kensi rarely not snapped at him, so he was fine with it.
He'd show her there was no need to run anymore.
xii.
"Do you have any idea where you're going?"
"Of course I have!"
Indignation written all over his face, he throws her a glance from the driver's seat.
"It's right here, around the corner…"
Shooting him a rather acerbic look in reply, Kensi leans back.
"I told you I should have been driving."
"Hmpf."
"We already passed these shops twice."
"I know where I'm heading!"
"Okay, you go on. I'll call Sam."
She flips her phone open before he can protest. Groaning, he stops the car in front of a red traffic-light and puts his head on the steering wheel.
"He's never going to let me live this down."
After a short conversation, Kensi flips her mobile shut again and smiles at him sweetly.
"Turn left at the railroad crossing, then continue on to the roundabout. Go straight there, not left."
He follows her directions, grumpily mumbling into his beard. Kensi smiles at his childish expression but her sarcasm isn't far behind.
"Okay, so we're only one hour late."
"Good thing the ceremony won't be until the evening."
She chuckles, a sound he loves because it is so incredibly her. Watching her in the back mirror, Deeks takes in her picture and swallows. That dress…
"I did tell you you look beautiful today, did I?"
"No, you didn't. Must have forgotten it."
He catches the smile in her voice and smiles, too. Ten years – and she still is as beautiful as she had been the day they had first met. Her eyes wander out of the car window and he watches her watch the passing landscape fly by as they approach their destination. Her hands are playing with the strap of her purse absentmindedly. They pass golden and green fields and little houses and pretty front-yards until a sign tells him they'll be there in less than five minutes. Sometime later, after parking the car, he leans back and watches her closely. She comes back only slowly, suddenly feeling his gaze on her and turning to face him. Something is in her eyes, somehow too much to bear, but he reads it anyway.
"We're there."
For some reason it seems like he is referring to something much larger, much more important, than their arrival to their destination, Kensi thinks.
"I know."
He kisses her carefully.
xiii.
They have reached a place none of them every dared to think of to be able to ever see, and both are equally reluctant to claim it for themselves. But they grow into it. Or it grows onto them. With every passing day the colors become brighter, and the darkness less oppressing. Perhaps, one day, she thinks, one day they'll get there. One day she'll wake up and think it perfectly normal to find him next to her. Maybe, one day, she'll reach the state of mind everyone always talked about, the things everyone refers to when talking about love. Happiness, comfort. Familiarity. Closeness. All of those are concepts she never allowed herself to have, not after her Dad, not after Jack. Never again, she had promised herself. But as days pass and months stretch into years she realizes the place she has been looking for is right here, that she has passed the boundaries long ago. She is there, and she is bound, without any way back. And she finds she does not want to go back to the way it was before. It is strange, and new, and frightening. But it is warmth and laughter and closeness, so much closeness she feels like she cannot breathe. Cannot breathe when he's not there. She isn't sure whether he feels the same. But he looks at her with a tenderness in his eyes that makes her heart swell with love so strong she feels invincible. With him, she can do anything, can fight anyone, can go anywhere.
She's right there, where she wants to be, and he's there with her.
They never believed there was something like this for people like them but they found it in each other. Strange how certain the journey. The words of the song drift across the garden. Kensi feels Deek's arm around her waist, heavy and familiar and warm, and she knows they are there.