"She wasn't."

"She was."

"No, she wasn't."

Callen looks up from his laptop as Kensi and Deeks enter the mission, argument in full-swing. From the tension in Kensi's shoulders and the depth of her frown, he'd guess that this particular bout of bickering has been going on for a good five minutes.

She rolls her eyes.

Okay, Callen thinks. Probably ten.

"She was," Deeks insists, clearly just as frustrated as Kensi. "I know she was. I have a sense about these things." He stops at the entrance to the bullpen and looks to Sam. "I'm right, right?"

Sam leans back in his chair and shakes his head. "You have very little sense at all. No common sense." He gestures to the plaid button-up Deeks is wearing. "No fashion sense."

"This from the guy who owns one shirt in eight colors."

Callen snorts.

"And that cologne you wear clearly indicates you don't have a sense of smell," Sam continues, ignoring both Deeks' remark and Callen's reaction. "I'm siding with Kensi on this one."

"Come on." Deeks turns to Callen. "Back me up here, man."

Callen shrugs. "It is a little strong. Coconut?"

Kensi laughs and sets her bag on her desk.

"I don't wear cologne," Deeks defends, removing his own bag and dropping it on the floor beside his chair. "It's sunscreen. I put on sunscreen when I surf in the mornings."

"At seven."

Deeks spares Kensi a glance. "Just because you can't feel the sun, doesn't mean its rays can't hit you."

Sam scrunches his nose. "You should risk skin cancer."

"Thanks." Deeks drops into his chair. "I'm touched."

"Just not by the barista," Kensi says with a grin.

Callen looks at her. "Starbucks girl not hitting on Deeks again?"

"Not even a little."

"She was!"

Sam shakes his head, but turns his attention back to his computer. "She wasn't."

Deeks throws up his hands. "You weren't even there."

"I don't need to be there to know she wasn't hitting on you."

"That doesn't even make sense."

"Deeks, I've seen your game while you've been undercover."

"Okay," Deeks says, pointing a finger at Sam, "that's not even fair. I intentionally have bad game when I'm undercover. It puts the perps at ease because then they don't worry I might actually take one of their girlfriends home. Your problem is that you've never seen the real Deeks in action. She was definitely responding in a positive manner to real Deeks."

"She wasn't," Eric interjects from the stair landing.

Four heads swivel his direction.

"And how would you know?" Deeks asks.

Eric just smiles. "Trust me. I know."

Deeks groans.

"We've got a case."

"Private First Class Marco Perez," Nell begins, once everyone's in the room. "Thirty-nine years old. Never married, father of five. Works in the administration office at Camp Pendleton."

"A paper pusher," Sam supplies.

Nell nods. "PFC Perez did two tours in Iraq, but came back before his second was finished, following a leg injury that left him effectively disabled. He's been working on base for the last six years.

The image of the driver's license that had been taking up the big screen slides away and another photo appears. It's a crime-scene shot, revealing what appears to be a very dead Perez.

Deeks cringes. "Well, at least he doesn't have to worry about any more paper cuts."

Kensi rolls her eyes.

"What? I'm just trying to look at the bright side."

"Foul play?" Callen asks, folding his arms as he examines the photo.

"It doesn't appear so," Eric answers, pushing up out of his chair and typing something on his tablet as he crosses closer to the screen. "He was found with heroin in his system." He pulls up another photo and points with his stylus. "The needle was still in his arm."

Deeks looks away from the screen. Ugh, needles.

"Looking a little white there, partner," Kensi says from beside him. "You going to be okay?"

He puts his hands on the table to steady himself. "I'm great."

He doesn't have to look at her to know she's grinning.

"So why are we on this?" Sam asks. "OD's aren't a crime that needs solving."

"True," Eric agrees. "But this is."

After a few taps on his tablet, another picture mercifully comes on the screen.

Callen whistles. "That's a lot of heroin."

"So he was a dealer?"

"That's what you're going to find out, Ms. Blye," Hetty answers as she walks into the room, the doors having apparently agreed to open silently to facilitate her stealthy entrance. "A stash of this size in the house of a Marine is most certainly something we need to be concerned about."

"What about the kids?" Deeks asks Nell. "He has five?"

She nods and scans her tablet. "Looks like they youngest is nineteen, the oldest is twenty-three. They're all currently enrolled in college."

"Fertile guy."

"Where are they going to school?" Callen asks.

Nell's lips purse as she reads the information. "All different, all in Southern California. The closest is at Corman College in Lincoln Heights."

"Well, it looks like we're going back to school, Sam."

"Perfect."

"You two check out Perez' apartment." Callen looks at Deeks. "Try not to get hit-on on your way there."

Sam smirks. "Won't have to try."

"Hey -"

Kensi grabs Deeks by the elbow and yanks him toward the door. "We're on it."

Sam pulls the Challenger up to the curb and cuts the engine. On the opposite side of a small quad sit three two-story brick buildings, distinguishable from each other only by the names engraved on the metal placards beside the entrances.

Callen looks down at the campus map they took from the admissions office and then up at the buildings. He points to the middle one. "Looks like this is it. The Atkinson Building. Javier should be in there for about," he looks at his watch, "two more minutes."

Sam brings up the kid's picture on his phone so he'll be able to identify him. He's about 5'11", short dark hair, dark eyes. No distinguishing features.

Callen unbuckles his seatbelt and turns to his partner. "You know he's right, right?"

Sam looks up from his phone, brow furrowed. "What?"

"Deeks," Callen clarifies. "He's right."

"Deeks is never right."

Callen raises his eyebrows.

"Okay," Sam concedes with a sigh, "he's been right once or twice."

The look on Callen's face clearly says bullshit. "Well, he's right about this."

"The barista?"

"Yeah. We went in there on Monday. Blond hair, blue eyes." He points to his lips. "Drool forming in the corner of her mouth when he smiled at her."

"Maybe she was drooling at you."

Callen tilts his head. "Something you want to tell me, big guy?"

"Yeah, I find you attractive." Sam unbuckles his seatbelt and opens his door. "Want to meet me at the roller rink on Friday night? My mom's out of town."

Callen laughs as he steps out of the car. "Roller rink? You're really dating yourself."

Sam shuts his door and walks around to join his partner. "Oh and you're an expert? When's the last time you took a woman out, old man? Was there still a Czechoslovakia?"

"I think I see Javier."

Sam smirks. "Yeah, sure you do."

"No," he points to a set of double doors. "I do."

They make their way across the grass and catch up to Javier as he's stepping onto the sidewalk.

"Javier Ortiz?" Sam says as he approaches the kid and flashes his badge. "N-C-I-"

"Shit," Callen mouths as Javier takes off.

Javier pushes his way through a pack of students heading the other direction. Sam follows in Javier's wake, only a few steps behind. He can see out of the corner of his eye that Callen is taking a parallel course, cutting off any possibility that Javier will return to the building he had just left. Sam's eyes are locked on Javier's black hoodie as he weaves further through the crowd. Without warning, Javier changes course, taking him away from Callen and toward the open, grassy quad. Sam steps out of the wake and takes an angle that will put him a few steps closer to his target.

Sam should be nearly on top of Javier by now. He would be, except that Javier backtracks and instead of coming out of the crowd of students, he goes back in it.

Sam shoulders his way back in the mass, knowing it will only be a matter of time before Javier gets caught between him and Callen.

"Ooof." The sound of air being pushed out of lungs barely registers on Sam's radar. He's dimly aware that he has bowled over a preppy-looking kid about half his size.

"Sorry," Sam utters as he pushes forward, except the only part doing any pushing is his upper body. His legs are momentarily of no use, somehow getting tangled up in the straps of the messenger bag that had flown out of the preppy kid's hands when Sam ran into her.

Sam rolls to his feet, barely losing momentum, but he can see the few seconds have cost him. Javier's ducked back out of the crowd and is sprinting across the quad away from Callen, who by now has given up any attempt at containment and is focused solely on pursuit. Sam can see from his more distant vantage point that both bodies are moving toward a large building that looks like a dormitory. Javier is obviously going to get there first, but Callen isn't that far behind and by the time Javier stops to get the door open, it should close the gap and put Callen within a few steps of the kid.

Sam thunders across the grassy expanse, catching up to Callen, but not quickly enough to be of any real assistance. He can see Javier reach the door, pulling on a lanyard that had been hanging out of his pants pocket. Javier pauses briefly at the door before wrenching it open. Callen is close. Just on the other side of the door, Javier reaches for the door, straining to close it faster than the hydraulic spring will go on its own.

"Sam!" Callen yells over his shoulder, as his hand reaches for the handle. "You go around the back, I'll cut him off from this -"

Callen's words cut off as his hand closes over the door handle. Sam can see the muscles in Callen's back straining to pull it open, but it won't move. Javier's standing just a few steps back from the door, breathing hard, eyeing the door warily. A taunting smile appears on his lips as he sees Callen is unable to access the building.

"Restricted access," says Sam, as Javier pulls his lanyard up into view, a Student ID card attached to the end of it. "Doors only open if you've got an access card."

"Smart kid," Callen says, begrudgingly.

Javier retreats inside the building, turning a corner and moving out of sight.

"By the time we get this thing opened, he's going to be long gone. It's a residence hall; I'll bet there are at least five or six ways out. No way we can cover all of them while we wait for backup."

"Why do they always run?" Sam asks, breaths coming at slightly longer intervals as he recovers from the chase across campus.

"Because you're intimidating?"

"It's my size, isn't it? Big muscles?"

"No, because you scowl."

"I do not scowl."

"Yes, you do."

"I'll have you know, I'm a very happy individual."

"Well, you could smile more."

"Javier was smiling through that door. Maybe you could spend a little more time with him. I mean, if you can catch him next time."

"I was moving into position to assist with your takedown. I just didn't count on you taking yourself down."

A smile plays out across Sam's face.

"Just what I thought, much less intimidating."

"Yuck it up, bub. Let's see if Hetty's smiling when we get back to Ops."

If Kensi rolls her eyes one more time, she's afraid they'll roll right out of her head. "Why are we still having this conversation?"

"Because you're still wrong."

"I'm not." She picks another bundle of papers up off the kitchen table and flips through them. Bills, bills, junk, junk.

"Why can't you just admit that she likes me?" Deeks asks, opening another cupboard and scanning the contents. "I don't see what the big deal is."

"The big deal is that she doesn't."

"Listen, just because you're jealous -"

She drops the mail back onto the table. "I'm not jealous."

Deeks puts up his hands. "I'm not judging."

"I'm not jealous!"

"You're sabotaging my chances with Amy -"

"Andi."

"Whatever. She could be my future wife."

"Except that she hasn't given you the time of day."

"That's not true. Just last week I asked her and she told me it was quarter-after eleven. It was a real moment for us."

She scoffs and makes her way into the living room. "I bet."

It's a small room with one large picture window in the front. On one wall is a mid-sized flat-screen tv, with an old, worn recliner positioned in front of it. No couch, no extra seating. He may have had five kids, but he certainly lived alone and never entertained. In the corner by the window is a desk with more papers and -

"Is that an easel?"

Deeks comes into the room and steps up behind her. "Huh. Doesn't strike me as the artsy type, but I guess a guy's got to find some way to relieve the stress."

"Besides the heroin."

"Besides that."

She crosses to the easel and examines the painting. She's not a great art patron, but it's pretty clear this guy has some amount of talent. It's abstract, colorful, unfinished. There's a palette with globs of paint sitting on the desk beside it and a few open jars of colored water. She touches a bit of the green. Still tacky. He must have been working on it not long before he overdosed.

Deeks is at the table beside her, flipping through a collection of paintings. "He was actually pretty -"

The window in front of them shatters, the sound of bullets mixing with the echoes of breaking glass. The full weight of her partner sends her flying into the easel and crashing into the floor, water and paint splashing all around her as shards of the window fall on top of her.

Gunfire fades as both Deeks and Kensi pop their heads up, sidearms trained on the black Suburban as it continues down the street, window rolling up and an automatic weapon retreating back inside as it speeds out of sight.

"You okay?" Deeks asks, breathlessly, his eyes running up and down the length of her.

"Yeah," she answers automatically. "You?"

"I'm good."

Deeks calls in the license plate to Eric and turns his attention back to Kensi. His fingers brush her forearm and come away red. "You're bleeding."

She looks down at herself and finds not just red, but a virtual rainbow of colors. Crap. "Those are oils, aren't they?"

Deeks makes a face. "Maybe?"

Kensi groans and pushes herself up off the floor. "You had to tackle me into the paints? You couldn't have just said, 'Get down' or something?"

"Hey, I saved your life. You shouldn't criticize my methods."

She looks at her jeans. Her favorite jeans. "Your methods ruined my shirt."

"It's not that bad," he says, entirely unconvincingly. "Didn't people used to splatter their clothes with paint? That's a style, right?"

"Yeah, in the nineties."

"I hated the nineties."

"Neon was not a great idea."

Deeks nods. "Come on, Picasso. Let's get your go-bag."

Kensi groans.

"What?"

"Remember last week with Corporal Hunt's niece?"

"You mean the time you got vomited on?" He grins. "Vaguely."

"I never repacked."

"So you don't have a change of clothes?"

"I do, just no shirt."

He shrugs. "Well, you can just wear that shirt. We'll play Boyz II Men in the car. If you're lucky I'll mix in some New Kids on the Block. It'll be like a time-warp."

It's Kensi's turn to grin. "I have a better idea."

"Plates are registered to Angela Carter," Nell says, before hitting a few more keys. "Looks like she lives in Silverlake."

Beside her, Eric's doing some typing of his own. He lifts his hands off the keyboard and points at the screen. "Reported stolen six months ago."

"Great." Nell sighs. "So we've got nothing."

Eric nods. "We've got nothing."