Okay, so I'm a little late to the party with this one, but what the heck!
Thank you in advance to everyone who chooses to read, review and leave me kind words - it truly is appreciated.

Huge thanks, as always, go to imahistorian for all of her wonderful support and advice, but most of all for jumping off the cliff with me! :)
Please check out her story, 'Basketball, Flowers and Musical Theatre' - we'd both made tentative starts on post-Drive pieces, then made a deal to finish and post if the other one did! So, Mel, this is for you, my friend x

Marty Deeks stared down at his shoes as he shuffled them over the tarmac street, kicking a random stone away and under the van parked a few metres in front of him. Leaning back against the hood of his car he felt a cool breeze blowing around him and was grateful that he'd remembered his jacket. Even in Los Angeles winters were not exactly warm.

Staring up at the night sky it never ceased to disappoint him how in parts of the city the stars were no longer visible. Their glitter and shine almost ironic in their absence considering what the city was largely know for.

It had been the usual kind of day at NCIS, another where he and his partner had almost died but, thankfully, didn't. So just your average Tuesday in their line of work, except with the added bonus of it being his birthday. To die on the same date of your birth seemed to have a certain cosmic neatness to it, though he had to admit he was more than a little happy and relieved at having not. He had hoped for a far different type of celebration of his life, one which involved him, his partner and if push came to shove, the rest of the team, but it was not to be. Kensi had screwed up her dates and already made plans, much to his obvious disbelief and disappointment. Initially he had thought it a joke, but Kensi's face was too open and unguarded in realising her mistake, her surprise and guilt genuine, and he knew it was no joke.

In all honesty his disappointment was probably greater than even he had expected, and after quickly reigning his emotional tells back in he was quite prepared to have a few beers with the rest of the team, as they had quickly suggested, and crash at home for the night. Let this birthday pass, maybe. But Kensi had pulled him to one side of the bullpen to apologise and had become insistent that they still celebrate in some way. She couldn't cancel dinner, it wasn't in her to do it when she'd so obviously made the commitment, and he wouldn't ask her to. Kensi was his partner and his friend, but he had no type of claim on her that could justify such a request. In his mind having an undefined 'thing' with someone just didn't fall into that category. Kensi assured him that her dinner was early that evening and likely to be quick, so with just a small measure of luck she and Deeks could still spend some time together afterwards. Deeks had regained his balance by that point and smiled widely, joking that perhaps Jaime already had plans for the remainder of the evening with her. Wiggling his eyebrows suggestively to emphasise his point, Kensi had simply paled before narrowing her eyes and poking him in the ribs. Deeks had laughed but then noticed as the look on her face softened, her lip drawn in nervously between her teeth.

"Please, can I try and make it up to you?"

"Call me when you're done with dinner," he'd replied and that she had.

Twenty minutes after her call he stood leaning back against his car, watching the entrance to a nondescript Mexican restaurant, waiting for Kensi to appear. He didn't have to wait for long, no more than a few minutes once he'd settled himself on the hood, her worried gaze immediately searching for him as she stepped out into the cool evening air before a smile stretched across her face in relief at seeing him.

"I wasn't entirely sure you'd actually show up," she sheepishly admitted walking towards him.

"Well between idle curiosity, the promise of ice cream and your plea of letting you make it up to me, how could I resist?"

"Idle curiosity?" she picked out from his reasoning.

"Yeah," he confirmed with a smile. "How was your date?"

"Please don't call it that?" she asked with a roll of her eyes.

"I bet that's what Jaime is calling it," he teased, his smile not lessening despite her obvious discomfort.

"I'm not entirely sure you have the right to call it a date when you invite your mother along too."

Deeks' smile disappeared in an instant, his eyes widening. "No way!"

Kensi cringed and confirmed its truth with a reluctant nod.

"She expressed her wish for grandchildren in the first three minutes."

Deeks was fighting a loosing battle. Unable to suppress the amusement he felt, despite how far he had pulled his lips back between his teeth, his shoulders began to shake by the smallest amount, a wide grin growing slowly across his face until a rumble of laughter was released from deep within his chest. This was a story he wouldn't miss for the world.

"I'm not going to get any sympathy with this, am I?"

"Not a chance," he answered with perhaps just a little too much mirth. "Come on, get in," he instructed, making his way round to the driver's door. "You can tell me the rest over ice cream."

Settled into a window booth at their favourite diner a short while later, steam gently rising between them from two cups of freshly poured coffee, Kensi looked across the table at her partner for a moment before dropping her gaze once more.

"What?" Deeks asked, a small tilt of his head accentuating his curiosity. They had chatted a little in the car, but since sitting down and ordering dessert a silence had descended over them. It wasn't uncomfortable or filled with any measure of expectation, but there was something. Something buzzing softly around them like an unidentifiable white noise, perhaps coming from words and sentiments yet to be voiced.

"Are you mad at me?" she asked looking back up at him.

Deeks' eyes narrowed. "For what?"

"For forgetting your birthday and then going out to dinner with another man."

"I'm sorry, but when did we start dating?" he enquired seriously, the smile that followed the only clear indication of the humour laced within the innocent tone he had used. "And more importantly, how the hell did I miss it? Was there like a memo or something?"

Colour rose in Kensi's face as she smiled sheepishly and dropped her elbow firmly onto the table, resting her cheek into her palm.

"There was no memo," she told him, fully aware of the mocking she was receiving.

"Text message or Tweet?"

"No."

"Huh," he frowned. "So we're not dating?"

Kensi rolled her eyes and sighed. "No, Deeks we are not dating."

"Then I'm pretty sure I don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to the men you choose to dine with."

Kensi continued to rest her head against her hand, her gaze becoming more measured as she struggled to gage the response she was getting. Deeks using humour as a deflection tactic was a well established fact between them, and Kensi could clearly see the roadblock he was attempting to construct to avoid travel down a particular conversational path.

At that moment their waitress arrived with their ice cream sundaes and Kensi was pleased to witness the surprise on her partner's face at seeing the gently flickering candles that had been placed on top.

"Happy Birthday," she told him softly.

"Thank you."

"You going to make a wish?"

Pausing for just a moment, his eyes shut tight, Deeks quickly smiled, opened his eyes again, and with a single breath blew out the few candles in front of him. The childlike delight from such a simple task obvious in his grin. Removing the candles from his dessert, he picked up his spoon and promptly scooped and devoured a large mouthful, his smile only widening at the wonderful taste of the strawberry ice cream.

"Okay, Partner, time to fess up," he began, shaking his spoon at her in mild accusation.

"What?" she asked warily, her own spoon paused halfway to her mouth.

"I want to hear about the rest of your date."

Kensi rolled her eyes once more. "It wasn't a date," she attempted, battling her words around the spoonful of ice cream she had just placed in her mouth.

"Whatever," he dismissed with another wave of his spoon before reaching over and swiping a taste from Kensi's dish. "I want to hear it all."

Half an hour passed and the ice cream was shared along with the story of Kensi's dinner. Deeks had begun to laugh after only a minute and Kensi had slowly succumbed to the ridiculous nature of the situation and soon joined him.

"I swear, by the time I left she was about five minutes away from pulling out a tape and measuring me for a wedding dress. It was awful."

"Just go on a second date, they'll soon change their minds."

Kensi's eyes widened, her jaw falling open just a little.

"How would you know?" she shot back.

"We've been partners for over two years, Kens. Believe me, I know," he told her confidently, taking a sip of his recently refilled coffee.

Lifting a shoulder in a half-hearted shrug, Kensi sipped at her own cup before speaking.

"Well in this instance I think I'll just walk away and accept what karma has served up."

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe it was just punishment for forgetting your birthday," she suggested matter of factly.

Deeks paused to consider the possibility momentarily. "I'm not sure I've ever had the cosmos work so swiftly on my behalf."

Kensi shrugged once more and took another sip of her coffee, looking over at her partner who's thoughts seemed to have wondered. A serious, almost contemplative expression had settled over his handsome features and as his brow drew together creating a single crease between his eyes, his gaze returned to hers.

"You really thought my birthday was the eighteenth?" he murmured curiously, scratching absently at a spot on his jaw.

"I really did," she confirmed and Deeks nodded, seeming to accept her reply, though Kensi wasn't entirely convinced.

"You know you never actually answered my question from earlier," she added carefully.

"Which one was that?" he replied, hoping she wasn't heading where he thought she was.

"Are you mad at me?"

She was. Deeks looked away, unsure as to whether this was really a path he wanted to travel right then. But then maybe this was just the opening to offer them the honesty they both needed to either say or hear.

"Yes." Pause. "No." Pause. "A little," he admitted, a sigh and gentle head shake quickly following.

"I really am sorry, you know?"

"I know."

"Are we going to be okay?"

Eyebrows raised in surprise that she would even consider such a question, let alone feel it necessary to ask out loud, Deeks couldn't stop the brief chuckle which rose out of him.

"It's never simple with you and me, is it?" he asked with a rueful shake of his blond hair. Kensi remained quiet, noting the rhetorical nature of the question, and watched as his ocean blue eyes shifted between the chocolate brown of hers and the rich black of the sky outside. "Why does what you say and do matter more to me than anyone else? It shouldn't, yet somehow..."

The sentence began to drift away, the words fading towards a dark nothing.

"It always does." Kensi finished quietly, catching the remaining words and giving them a voice. "And not just because you're my partner."

"It matters to me that you forgot my birthday." Deeks told her, reaching across the table and running the tips of his fingers over her wrist, bringing her uncertain gaze back to his. "But it matters more that you're here now." Pause. "We're okay."

The next few days passed in the usual fashion. Work on active cases continued, interviews were conducted, information was gathered, reports were written.

5pm on Friday arrived quicker than expected and came with the added pleasure of a weekend not on call. After checking earlier in the day that Deeks had nothing planned for the evening, Kensi had promptly invited him to dinner. His choice, her treat, the birthday dinner they should have shared.

Deeks agreed without thought - turning down dinner with his partner was rarely within his ability - but when he'd stopped and actually looked at her he could have sworn she'd seemed nervous.

Picking up his bag and looping the strap across his body, Deeks looked over to Kensi who was doing similar in her preparation to leave the office.

"You ready?"

"Almost," she answered, searching for her keys amongst the jumble atop her desk. "You heading to the beach?"

"Nah, I just checked the surf report and there's nothing worth getting that kind of cold for," he told her. "There was an awesome swell this morning too," he added wistfully.

"Chasing down bad guys at 7am kind of scuppered that for you, huh?"

"Absolutely! You think we could maybe have it added to the charges?" he asked, watching as Kensi finally located her keys under a couple of notebooks.

"Sure. Suggest it to Hetty, I'm sure she'll be all for it."

Deeks tilted his head to one side as he considered this likelihood.

"Then again," he conceded. "Anyway, you want to meet at the restaurant later, or should I swing by and pick you up?"

"Could you pick me up?"

Deeks simply nodded, his eyes fixed on the smile now playing teasingly over his partner's lips as she turned to make her way out of the office. "And can you come over a bit early?"

"Uhh, sure," he agreed, and as Kensi's smile broadened it seemed to keep him from asking the most obvious question as they walked out to the car park.

Stepping through the door at Kensi's place a couple of hours later, Deeks couldn't miss but notice how her earlier nervousness had returned. He was about to suggest that she'd inadvertently backed the SRX into Hetty's Jaguar, when she took the initiative and spoke.

"I have something for you," she began, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. "A birthday present."

"Seriously?" he asked, the surprise clear in his voice as his eyebrows disappeared up under his messy fringe.

Kensi nodded her confirmation and watched his smile grow before standing behind him and covering his eyes with her hands.

"Okay, now I'm intrigued." Deeks told her as she began to shuffle him across the living room. "You know, if we're heading for your bedroom I have seen the mess before."

"We're not heading for my bedroom, Deeks."

"Well that was a waste of a candle wish," he muttered dryly.

"Just keep walking, Shaggy."

Amazed at having not stumbled over anything on their path through the house, Deeks' curiosity was peaked further when Kensi didn't immediately remove her hands from his eyes.

"Is the surprise that you cleaned? Because I haven't tripped over a single thing and that's definitely surprising."

Studiously ignoring the comment, Kensi stopped them just a few feet from the dining room table upon which Deeks' present lay.

"Tell me again why you didn't go surfing today," she demanded gently.

"Excuse me?" he replied, and Kensi could feel beneath her fingers a slight frown of confusion forming on his brow. "Didn't we have this conversation like two hours ago?"

"Humour me, please?"

"Okay," he submitted. "We were at work early and then by the time we left the surf had pretty much crapped out."

"Well you told me that almost all waves can be ridden no matter what their size; that surfing isn't just about mastering one skill set on one type of board. And what you've wanted for ages now is a..." She paused hoping Deeks would fill in the blank.

"Long..." he began as Kensi chose that moment to release his eyes from her hands, and Deeks couldn't keep his jaw from falling open just a little. "...board," he finished, turning his head away from the lengthy, grey board bag resting on the table in front of him, and looking directly at his partner.

"You got me a longboard?" he asked, his tone undeniably that of amazement.

"Kind of," she answered with nod and Deeks couldn't quite understand the flush of colour that was rising up her neck as she spoke. "A few months back we were crashed at your place one evening and tired of my, I quote, 'bad taste in television,' you put on this twenty year old movie about two guys who'd decided to chase the sun and the surf around the world, searching for an endless summer."

Deeks smiled, the memory of that evening flowing back to him.

"Well you talked through most of the movie," she continued to explain. "Mostly about all the places you wanted to surf, but also about the board one of the guys had and about the man who'd made it."

"Robert August and the board he made for Wingnut," he murmured as comprehension began to dawn.

Looking back over to the board bag, Deeks took a couple of hesitant steps towards it before reaching out and tugging open the zip.

Gleaming red stripes greeted his tentative gaze, the smooth shine of the fibreglass reflecting back at him as he took in the sight of his very own 'Wingnut' longboard.

Kensi watched closely as a broad smile briefly stretched across his lips before he turned back around to her, his blue eyes piercing.

"I can't believe you remembered that," he told her, his voice barely above a whisper, the astonishment in his words only increasing with the emotion he felt.

"I remember some things," she murmured quietly.

"Where did you even get it?" he asked a hint of awe now clear in his tone. "This is a custom board, Kens. There's usually like a 4-5 week wait for these things."

"Eight actually, if you want it shaped by Robert August himself."

Deeks didn't know how to respond and found his mouth opening and closing without words actually being formed. Clearing his throat he found his voice once more as he finished working out the maths.

"You ordered my birthday present eight weeks ago? In November?"

Kensi nodded. "And yet I still managed to get the damned date wrong."

Studying his partner carefully, her eyes neither avoiding nor seeking his, her hands placed firmly into the back pocket of her jeans, Deeks took a step towards her.

"It doesn't matter," he murmured.

"Yeah, it does," she corrected him.

Deeks couldn't help but smile, then on instinct he reached out and wrapped his arms firmly around Kensi's body, pulling her against him.

"Maybe," he began, feeling Kensi's hands settle at his waist, sending a light shiver across his back. "But this matters more. And I wouldn't trade it for anything."

Breathing in deeply, the familiar scent of him filling her nose, Kensi considered his words and wrapped her arms around his lower back before releasing a long sigh.

"Good," she responded. "You want a beer?"

"Thought you'd never ask."

Turning back towards the table as Kensi headed to the kitchen, Deeks carefully pulled his new longboard from it's bag, a grin fixed in place as he did so. Turning it over he traced a finger along the centre line, soon coming across the signature he knew he would find confirming that Robert August had indeed shaped the board. But just a few inches further along there was a short grouping of words he hadn't expected to see, especially as he recognised the handwriting. Rubbing his hand over the area he could feel that it wasn't a sticker added after production, but something that had been layered in along with the fibreglass and resin making it a part of the board. Just further proof of the planning that had gone into this particular gift.

Hearing Kensi returning from the kitchen he touched the words, 'Happy Birthday, love Kensi' one last time before looking up and taking the beer she offered. Watching as her eyes flickered between him and the board, Deeks simply smiled, but any sign of embarrassment he might have expected to witness failed to materialise. Instead, Kensi smiled back widely, her arm slipping around his waist as she pressed a light kiss to his cheek.

"Happy Birthday, Partner."

No, this he definitely wouldn't trade for anything. This was what truly mattered.

The End

For anyone who might not know, the film I refer to here is Endless Summer II - a favourite in our house :)