A/N: Post "Uncaged" fic. I'm just...really sad right now. If you're not ready for sad, I wouldn't read this. Ugh.
Kensi dropped her bag on the floor by the front door and put her hands on her hips, her eyes staring blankly down the hall.
"I'm going to go let Monty out," Deeks said quietly.
She turned to him and smiled. "Okay. I'll order dinner?"
"Sounds good."
They were going through the motions, poorly, but they were doing it. As if the horror of the day hadn't affected them. As if they hadn't spent the entire car ride home in silence, numb disbelief filling the air in the vehicle. They were pretending that the grief wasn't coming, that it wasn't going to bury them in agonizing guilt and crushing heartache. They were trying to hold it at bay just a little bit longer. Because as soon as that first wave crashed over them it meant the world would never be the same.
Somehow she ended up sitting on the couch, the remote frozen in her hand. She heard Deeks return, felt him sink down beside her. "Did you order dinner?" he asked.
"Oh," she frowned, trying to remember. "No. I didn't."
"Okay."
Quiet filled the air again, all thoughts of food or a normal evening long forgotten. Neither of them was hungry. Neither of them was anything except slowly shattering into a thousand, bereaved pieces.
"We were there this morning." She stared straight ahead when she finally spoke aloud the words they were both thinking. "She was there. Behind that wall. We walked right past it."
His hand reached blindly for hers, but she barely felt it. Not even his hand in hers seemed real right now. Nothing did.
"This is our fault," she whispered, angry tears stinging her eyes. "She was right there, and we left her." She turned and looked at him beseechingly, as if willing him to tell her that this had all been some sort of misunderstanding. "How could we have left her?"
Deeks' jaw was clenched; he shook his head. "We didn't know," he told her hoarsely. "We couldn't have known."
She pulled away from him, standing, too agitated now to stay still. "We did this. We should have suspected when the owner didn't answer the phone," she shook her head, mentally replaying the day over and over in rapid succession, searching for their fatal mistake. "I should have noticed the phones."
"Baby…"
"Or if we had just, taken the place when we first got there tonight, if we hadn't gone back to the car…we should have gone in hot from the beginning."
"Kens." Deeks rose, walking toward her.
"If we had been a few minutes earlier—"
Tears were falling for both of them now. It was real, this nightmare from which they couldn't wake. "She was already gone," Deeks rasped out. "She was gone before we got there. There was nothing else we could have done."
"Yes there was!" Kensi yelled. "We made a mistake. We could have…we should have helped her."
"Baby, she was gone before we left the mission. She was just gone."
The fight drained from her and she covered her mouth with her hands, shaking her head as the last dregs of denial dissolved. Deeks pulled her into his arms and it was her undoing, hysterical sobs bursting forth. "We could have saved her," she gasped. "We could have saved her."
Deeks buried his face in her hair, grief pouring over both of them. "I know." The whispered words were the terrible truth. They had failed this time, and there was nothing they could do to fix it.