Written for the NCIS LA tumblr hiatus fic challenge #1: Change one thing.

As usual, all characters belong to Shane Brennan, CBS, and the gods of poor plot development.

He wasn't sure what brought him to this location. Guilt would be the logical answer, though he hadn't actually done anything wrong. He still felt the need to confess to her, and somehow his car brought him to her place without even thinking about it. It wasn't a habit, coming here, but it was comfortable and relatively safe. Though, he might not be safe showing up late at night empty-handed. He should have stopped for donuts, or ice cream, or beer.

Kensi looked confused but also relieved when she peaked through the blinds and saw his rough face and messy hair looking back at her. "Long time, no see," she bristled at him as she opened the door.

"Really? It was one day." Deeks smoothed his hair over his forehead and stepped in, shutting the door behind him. "You missed me that much?"

She flopped on the couch. "Don't flatter yourself. I had to go out in the field with Granger today. Granger. At a kink shop with blowup dolls."

"Sorry." He winced and sat next to her, but didn't get too comfortable. "Speaking of Granger. What did he tell you about where I was today?"

"He said you were testifying." She narrowed her eyes. "Why?"

"Okay," he said, blowing a puff of air out of his mouth. This was what he expected her to say, but wanted to be certain. He'd need to work out his fake details in case anyone questioned him about it. "I wasn't testifying. I was working."

"Working."

"Undercover," he clarified. "For Granger."

"He's your handler?"

Deeks nodded.

The furrow in her eyebrow deepened. "Does Hetty know?"

"No."

The expression on his partner's face was unreadable. Maybe his mind overreacted in thinking he needed to tell her about this mission. Not that it was much of a mission, really. All he had to do was implant himself as a frequent customer in a nightclub. The hardest part was the entire day he spent at LAPD, updating Max Gentry's legend so it would meet the harshest of scrutiny. It would have taken Eric an hour, but local police don't have the same resources as the feds.

"Are you not supposed to tell me about...whatever this thing is you're doing for him?" Kensi finally asked.

"Nobody knows but me and him," was his non-answer. But I've lied to you too many times and I just can't do it again, he thought. This time will be different.

Kensi stood up from the couch and walked to her kitchen, returning with two open beers a moment later. He graciously accepted one and drew a large swig. "Okay," she said, tucking a leg under her as she sat back down. "Read me in."

This literally is the dumbest assignment ever, Deeks thought as he threw back another shot of whiskey. At least he got to drink for free, though he'd consumed way more than his usual limit that night. But hell, he and Max shared one thing in common: a birthday. A shitty birthday, no less.

Coming here wasn't part of his plan that night. He fleetingly thought he would be celebrating with his partner, his best friend. Some best friend she was, actually forgetting his birthday and not even offering to change her plans when she was reminded of the fact. So here he was, getting drunk undercover on his birthday to dull the pain. Just like the good old days.

"Hey Maxy," a raspy voice purred in his ear. Maybe it was the warmth of the alcohol or the spirit of Max Gentry rising to the surface, but the hostess at the club looked really hot to him that night.

"Hi, um..." He knew her name, hell, he even had a file on her. The alcohol was taking a heavy toll on his brainpower (and possibly judgment).

"Monica," she filled in the blanks for him, resting a hand on his jean-clad thigh. It was then that he remembered it had been months since he'd so much as even seen a naked woman. The fitness model, he was pretty sure, was the last one.

"Monica," he repeated, and grinned. The smile was much more Marty than Max, so he did his best to straighten his face. Even with another woman touching him and standing so close that he could smell her shampoo, his mind went to Kensi. Power suits. Hillary. Bill. Monica. Blow job. Hmm. "Did you know that it's my birthday, Monica?"

"Really?" She tilted her head and toyed with his jeans, rubbing odd designs with her fingertips along his thigh. A flower, or a mathematical equation maybe. He doubted it though. "Got big plans tonight?"

Deeks swallowed deeply and tried to force his conscience to float to the top for air, but it was drowning in bourbon and disappointment. Besides, Max Gentry was a player and an asshole and he hadn't been doing a very good job of portraying that side of him lately. Getting closer to Monica could help him keep a better eye on Johannes Waaldt, and maybe help him finish this assignment sooner. So what was the problem with taking the hostess home and having a little fun with her? Lord knew he wasn't getting any action from anywhere else.

He signaled to the bartender for another shot, then placed his hands on her hips, tugging her closer. Her eyebrows shot up but she didn't fight him. Sucking his bottom lip between his teeth, Deeks put on his best Max face and let his alter ego do the talking. "I guess that depends on what you're doing when you get off."

"I'm worried," Deeks declared, breaking the silence in the Cadillac.

Kensi continued to stare out the window, something apparently on her mind. "About Callen?"

"About my fish," he said, like the answer should have been obvious.

"I'll buy you a new one when this one dies."

"When this one dies?"

"It's a goldfish, Deeks. I'll even flush it down the toilet for you to spare you the trauma." She rolled her eyes and turned to face him. "But now that you've brought it up...I've been meaning to ask you something."

"What, how do I know that your fish likes my fish? It's so obvious."

Ignoring him, she continued with her thoughts. "Last night when I asked if you wanted to grab a bite, you said that you had to do some work for this Granger op. But this morning, you told the guys you were on a date. And you have the aquatic proof to back that up. So, why did you lie to me?"

Deeks puckered his lips. Technically neither count of the previous evening was a lie. He had been on a date...with Monica, so that was related to the op. He was already regretting his drunken birthday decision to bed the bubbly, brazen hostess. Was it worth it that night? Yes. But now he had to keep up his ruse with her to maintain his cover. Max Gentry wasn't a goldfish guy. Marty Deeks was a goldfish guy. He hated when the two started to blend together.

Realization hit his partner when he failed to respond to her question. "Oh my God. You're doing it again. I cannot believe-"

"Don't you dare judge me," he snapped, glaring at her. "You have done the same thing plenty of times. Hell, I've had to pick you up from guy's apartments before. We do what we have to do for the job."

Deeks expected her to lash out at him, but she didn't. Instead she searched his eyes, trying to read him and understand his angry outburst. He hoped his eyes told her what he was unable to - that he blamed her. If she hadn't planned a date on his birthday and dejected him so badly, this never would have happened. He knew it was wrong to feel that way. It's not like they had plans and she broke them. She owed him nothing, but that didn't mean he didn't still want something, anything he could get from her.

"There's a difference between us, Deeks," she finally spoke.

He sighed. "Yeah, what's that?"

Spotting the Chechen they had been watching out for, Kensi turned her face away and opened the door. "I don't let them fall in love with me."

He wondered for a second why she looked sad. It was probably just all in his head.

They didn't talk much about his assignment. It was as if he were dating any other girl, except that Kensi had grown to know way more about Monica than any of the other women in Deeks' life before her. If Deeks asked her about after work plans, she knew he was "off work" for the night. If he walked out of the Mission with Sam and Callen, she knew how he'd be spending his evening. His nights with Kensi grew fewer and fewer, but they were fine. Really. She even took him out for dinner on January 18th to make up for getting his birthday wrong. Their partnership was almost as good as it had been before he began this mission. Almost.

They still had this sort of weird, indescribable tension between them. Before Monica, he'd felt their sexual tension brewing to the point he thought it was about to boil over. Now, it wasn't sexual. Or, it wasn't just sexual. If Kensi was jealous of Monica in any way, she didn't voice it. She had begun taking a more active interest in his life, though. She invited him to a sniper course, which shocked and flattered him. He almost peaked at her diary to find out something she would like, if he were to decide to invite her somewhere, but thought better of it. Monica was still around, and Kensi would probably punch him in the balls for snooping through her private materials anyway.

Things between them got even more complicated when Isaak Sidorov came back to town, and NCIS and the CIA were still unable to resolve the stolen nuclear weapon situation. With Sidorov feeling the pressure of needing to sell his nukes, Deeks knew he had to keep as close of an eye on Waaldt as possible. Sidorov would be looking for buyers, and Waaldt was a good one. It was harder to remain focused on the task at hand when Kensi kept pushing the boundaries of their partnership, though.

Sunshine and Gunpowder. She'd starting asking him questions from that stupid bridal magazine, and no amount of joking on his part could make him forget about it. Her. Them. She never heard his answer to the question about how she smelled. It was a creepy thing to ask somebody, anyway. He shouldn't know what she smelled like, he shouldn't love how she smelled, and he shouldn't be imagining what every single inch of her body smelled like while he was lying in another woman's bed.

"Tell me about your boss," he said, rolling onto his side.

"He's an asshole," Monica responded with a smirk. "But a fucking rich asshole."

"Yeah? Is he dirty?"

She shrugged. "Who knows. Probably. There are some shady dudes that come in the club to see him."

Like myself, Deeks thought. Or at least, his alter ego. "So, he's a cash only kinda guy, huh?"

"Oh, God no. Cash is too limiting for someone like Jojo."

Deeks raised an eyebrow, and for once he felt like he was finally getting somewhere with her. "Gold?"

Her eyes twinkled. "Diamonds."

"Deeks?"

"Hey," he whispered into his phone, hiding in the bathroom of his cover house. "I know it's early, but do you think you could meet me close to N'Kosi this morning? Monica wants me to take her to get her check, but she's acting really hinky."

He could almost see her brow furrowing in his head. "Elaborate on hinky."

"Excited, antsy. I've been asking a lot of questions about Waaldt and his associates, and his money, and asked her to snoop around a little bit in his office. I don't know if she is suspicious, or what's going on with her."

Deeks heard a rustling through the phone. "Okay. Give me 30 minutes."

The minutes ticked by at an unbearably slow pace as he sat in his, well, Max's Camaro around the corner from the afrobeat club he'd been spending so much time at lately. Thankfully he spotted Kensi's car across the street when he parked, and saw her sipping a cup of coffee at a small outdoor table nearby. Since they hadn't gone in to work first, they didn't have the luxury of earwigs. The silence made time seem to move even slower.

When Monica finally exited the club, she had a huge smile on her face and a pep in her step. Deeks sighed in relief. He was probably just getting paranoid. Maintaining two lives for longer than a week or two had a tendency of doing that to him. Shifting into first gear, he inched his car closer to the main road to pick her up. It wasn't until he heard the first gunshot that he realized his relief was beyond premature.

"Shit," he hissed, hightailing it up the street as another shot rang out. He nearly ran Monica over as she crossed the street, but she just grinned at him. Pulling over to the side of the road, he glared at her and pointed to the car while he climbed out, looking for Kensi. "Get in the car, and stay down."

"Come on, Max, we need to get out of here," she urged, kissing him excitedly.

"What did you do?" His eyes finally found Kensi. She was on the ground about a block up, with someone pinned below her knee. She was already staring in his direction, a deep frown covering her face as she roughly zip-tied the shooter. He pulled his gun from his waistband and gave Monica another stern look. "Nevermind. I don't want to know right now. Just...stay."

"Did you not just see-"

"Shut up and get in the car," he growled.

By the time he reached Kensi, she was dragging the man to his feet and heading to her Cadillac. "That's Pieter Smit," he told her, surprised by the quivering in his voice. "He works for Waaldt."

"Well, now he's headed to the boat shed." Kensi forced a small smile. "She okay?"

"Fine. You good?"

She nodded and opened the backseat, shoving Pieter in. "I'm good. About to call Hetty, Callen, and Sam to meet us. I'll try to brief them as best as I can. You call Granger?"

"Yeah. Soon." Deeks frowned, turning his back eyes towards Monica sitting in the Camaro. He had a feeling that she'd done something really stupid this time. Whatever it was, it was enough for Pieter to want to kill her. He needed to find out what it was and repair the damage before everything he'd been working on these past few months was ruined. He could see that she was fidgeting, anxious to get away, and probably wondering why the hell he was standing in the street instead of beating the shit out of Pieter. Depending on what she'd done, he might have to tell her the truth. She had no idea that her world was probably about to be turned upside down.

God, he hated this part.

Deeks didn't have a chance to meet back up with the team until much later in the evening. As soon as he found out why Monica was running, he texted Kensi to help turn Pieter's questioning in the right direction - what was Waaldt going to buy with millions of dollars worth of diamonds? He had a pretty good idea, and hoped Sam and Callen could get him to spill the truth.

A nuclear weapon was the right answer, of course. That was the whole reason Granger sent him undercover in the first place, and it looked like his hunch was correct. A weapons deal was in the works right under their noses. Unfortunately, a very naive woman got caught in middle of the proverbial crossfire.

It was dark by the time Deeks made it to the boat shed. Pieter had just finally caved under the pressure, and fingered Sidorov as a recent business associate of Waaldt's. Kensi was sitting alone, watching as everything Deeks suspected unfolded on the LCD screen in front of her.

She didn't turn to look at him as he joined her at the table. "Have you been caught up? Or did you know all along?" she asked.

He clenched his jaw. "Not all along, but I soon figured it out. Needed more evidence before we took action, though. Now we have it."

Kensi nodded in understanding. She was aware of the basics of the case but he had no reason to fill her in on every detail. "You talked to Hetty and Granger I guess. Did they say where we go from here?"

"We are to proceed with heightened awareness," he responded in his best Hetty voice. "Based off of the picture I took, she doesn't think those diamonds will buy three nuclear bombs, but one or two? Definitely. Surveillance on Waaldt will pick up until he makes contact with Sidorov again. Hopefully we can let the deal go down so he'll lead us to the bombs, and we can put all of this behind us."

"And Monica?"

Deeks looked down at his hands. "I helped her sneak the diamonds back in to Waaldt's office. With Pieter in custody, he'll probably never know they were gone. She left a resignation letter, saying that she and Pieter had been sleeping together and that he tried to kill her when she ended it. Now she's on her way to stay with some family in Arizona for a little while, just to be safe."

Kensi's mouth fell open. "She's a known con-artist who stole tens of millions of dollars worth of diamonds, and you just gave her a pat on the back and sent her on her way?"

"She did everything I asked, even after...I mean, don't I at least owe her that..." His voice trailed off, remembering the look on Monica's face when he finally dropped the Max Gentry act altogether. She may not have been his choice for a girlfriend, but he'd still spent months of his life with her. He'd slept with her, listened to her talk about her childhood and all the crazy things she'd done in her life. He didn't love her, not even a little bit, but it still hurt something deep inside of him to break her. Her rage towards him was deserved and he chose to accept it. His only defense was the same one he always gave - he was just doing his job.

Kensi frowned, finally tearing her eyes away from the TV. "Was she upset?"

"What do you think?" He met her eyes and blinked several times, hoping it would hide the guilt that he felt.

"I think you liked her," she answered softly.

Deeks shook his head and laughed dismissively. "It wasn't like that."

"You were sleeping with her," she accused.

"Yes, that usually happens in relationships," he snapped. "Not that this one was...I don't know."

"Real?" Her eyes narrowed, and he felt like he should be in one of the interrogation rooms. "Did she ask you if it was?"

Of course Monica had asked if any of it was real. They always do. But now Kensi was pushing him, and he didn't like it. Based on the look in her eyes, it seemed like she had been waiting all day to pin him down and question him. "I don't see how that's relevant to the case."

"It's not relevant to the case, it's relevant to my partner's state of mind," she argued. "You're obviously upset about this."

"There's a difference between feeling sad and feeling guilty, Kens."

"So you can put this behind you?"

"Yes."

Kensi crossed her arms over her chest. "You told her no."

His shoulders slumped. "You always tell them no. It's better that she just hates me and moves on with her life." Glancing up, he saw that she was listening intently. Feelings of conflict pounded in his chest and he wondered what it was she actually wanted to hear from him. She was far too interested in his account of the relationship, and he was far too worried about her opinion of him would be after this. Only a real asshole could do this to someone, he thought. And he'd done it more than once.

"Are you good?" Kensi smiled for a second, a sad little smile that he couldn't quite read. Surely she had to see what he saw, that this partnership between them was too personal now.

Deeks didn't know how to answer. They asked each other this question so often, but it felt much more loaded this time. He shrugged. "I mean…I'm good if you're good."

She frowned, and then shrugged back at him. "I'm good."

"Great," he responded quickly. God, he wanted to kick himself. This time he was going to do things differently, he remembered thinking the night he read her in on his assignment. But now, things were different but certainly not better. It was yet to be seen whether his honesty did more harm than good, but it sure felt like it did right then.

To his surprise, she stood up from the wooden table. "The guys have this handled. Since you were gone, I talked to LAPD earlier and coordinated a pickup for Smit. I'll be in early tomorrow to start tackling my part of this report and get surveillance information on Waaldt. So…good night."

Deeks blinked in confusion and opened his mouth to speak, but was at a loss for words. He missed the days when she would offer to buy him a beer after work, or tell him there was a new reality show on television that was so awful that he absolutely had to watch it with her. He missed her, and wanted things to be the way they used to be, but better. He wanted more. And maybe he needed just a little bit of time to forget how to be Max Gentry again, and to forget about the poor choices he made when he was walking the fine line between Max and Marty. He had to start somewhere, though.

"Kens?" He heard himself say, like he was having some sort of out of body experience.

She stopped and inhaled so deeply that he almost felt like she had stolen his own breath away. "Yeah?"

"I'm fine, really," he said softly. Different. More. The truth. "Monica, she…she's not who I want."

Her shoulders relaxed as she exhaled, and a true smile spread across her face. "Good."