Sorry it took so long to get this one up, but writer's block is torture! Hopefully, the next one won't try to kill me! LoL! Anyway, enjoy and remember to review, please!
On another note, it's late, I'm tired, and I have no beta, so all mistakes are mine, unfortunately. LoL!
Also, as always, NCIS: LA is not mine, never was, and never will be... sadly...
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Kensi had never managed to figure out when Deeks was able to get ahold of her phone long enough to change the ringtone, but it didn't mean she ever stopped trying. The chorus of LMFAO's "Sexy and I Know It" blasted from her cell phone, jolting her from her random dreams. She sat up on the couch and glanced at Deeks, snoring lightly at the other end. She grabbed her phone off the coffee table and silenced the ringer. She didn't recognize the number, but the fact that they were calling at 2:47 AM made her answer anyway.
"Hello?"
"Agent Blye! Jonathan's gone! He took him! You have to find him!" The hysterical woman's words immediately sent Kensi into agent mode.
"Jessica? Where was Jonathan? Who took him?" Her voice rose with each question, quickly waking her partner. Kensi put her phone on speaker so Deeks could listen in.
"It was Michael! I don't know how, but it was him, I saw him!"
Kensi stood and began pacing between the coffee table and the TV. "Jessica, you have to slow down and breathe. Tell me where you are and what happened."
She took a shaky breath before she spoke, urgently, but slightly less frantic. "I was lying in bed and couldn't sleep, so I was reading from the Kindle app on my phone. Jonathan was asleep in his room and I had my door cracked just a bit in case he needed me." She paused and took another deep breath. "I heard a noise downstairs and it sounded like it came from the kitchen, so I got up and grabbed the bat from behind my bedroom door, and went down the back stairs. I looked around some, but I didn't see or hear anything out of the ordinary. I checked the dining room and the back door, but still nothing. I was headed for the den when the air conditioner cycled off and I heard a noise from the front of the house. I ran to the living room, but he was faster. He was coming down the front stairs and he had Jonathan in his arms. He must have come in through the front because it was already unlocked. He ran out and slammed the door before I could get to it. I opened the door and ran outside, but he was already climbing into the side door of a van in the driveway. Someone else was driving because he hadn't even finished shutting the door when they took off."
Deeks stood with his own cell phone in hand. "I'll call Eric."
Kensi nodded and returned her attention to Jessica. "Okay, are you still at the house?"
"Yeah, I screamed for him to stop, but he wouldn't! I didn't know what to do, so I called you."
"You did the right thing, Jessica. We're going to find him, just hold on, okay?"
The young mother took a deep breath and sniffled. "Okay."
Kensi took the phone off speaker and held it down by her thigh. She turned her attention to Deeks just as he began speaking to Eric.
"Eric, you gotta get to Ops, now! Jessica Leary just called Kensi and said that Michael Leary broke in and took Jonathan… Yeah, she's sure it was him… I'll put you on speaker so you can hear what she says." Deeks pushed the speaker button and held the phone out towards his partner. "Put Jessica back on speaker so Eric can hear and have her give us everything she can remember about clothes, the van, anything."
Kensi nodded and brought her phone back up, putting it back on speaker. "Jessica, what was Jonathan wearing?"
"Umm, he was wearing his blue monster truck pajama pants and a red t-shirt."
"Good, that's good. And what about Michael?"
"I didn't see very clearly, but I know they were all dark clothes. I think it was jeans, though, because the fabric was loud against itself. Oh, but his shoes were regular athletic shoes. They were white or something else really light."
Deeks glanced at his own phone. "You getting this, Eric?"
"Loud and clear. What about the van?"
Jessica heard Eric's question and answered quickly. "It was dark, either blue or black. I remember the back door slid, it didn't open out. And they hit the mailbox when they pulled out, so it might be damaged on the back… right corner! Yeah, because the right tail light was out." She paused for a moment. "I couldn't see the license plate, though. It didn't have any lights on it."
"That's okay, you gave us a lot to work with, Jessica." She watched as Deeks took his phone off speaker and walked across the room to finish talking to Eric. She switched her own phone back to handset and brought it up to her ear. "Get dressed and wait for us at home. We're gonna come get you and bring you to a safe place, okay? Can you do that for me?"
"Yeah, okay. Just please hurry, Agent Blye. Jonathan's so young, he has to be scared to death. And I don't even know if he was hurt when Michael took him! He wasn't struggling or yelling or anything!"
"Jessica! You need to calm down and wait for us. If you remember anything else or if anyone contacts you before we get there, you call us!"
"Okay."
Kensi ended the call and turned to her partner. He was off the phone and was already standing at her open front door holding her keys. She walked past him out the door, giving him silent permission to drive.
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The case they had just wrapped up earlier that day had involved drug smuggling and money laundering with both former and active Marines. When checking into one of the names they had come across, Michael Leary, records had shown that he had been killed in Afghanistan four months earlier. They had checked out his ex-wife and son just in case, but had found no evidence of their involvement and nothing else out of the ordinary. However, they knew that Jessica Leary was still in contact with some of her ex-husband's former Marine buddies, so Kensi had left her card on the off chance that Jessica heard or remembered something relevant.
Unfortunately, Michael Leary had been very involved before his death. From everything the team could gather, he was apparently the instigator and ring-leader of the whole thing. Now, according to Jessica's frantic phone call, Michael was not only very much alive, but also still very much involved in a whole slew of illegal activity. It now made a lot more sense why there wasn't even a minor hiccup in the organization when Leary had supposedly been killed.
As if that wasn't enough, the Leary's had been battling over visitation and custody of Jonathan for months before Michael's "death." Now the fact that he apparently had the 6-year-old and was on the run upped the stakes significantly.
Deeks tossed his ringing cell phone to Kensi as he drove. Traffic wasn't heavy, but considering the fact that it was not too long after last-call on a Friday night, he couldn't afford the distraction of a phone conversation.
Kensi caught the phone and answered quickly. "Eric, what's up?"
Eric wasted no time. "I've notified Sam and Callen, they'll meet you at the Leary house. I've also called Hetty and Nell and they're both meeting me at Ops."
"Okay, Eric, we're about 10 min-"
Deeks grabbed the phone from his partner and put it to his own ear. "Eric, change of plans. I'm pretty sure I just saw the van, I'm gonna follow."
"I'll let the others know. I can at least lock onto your GPS until I get to Ops. Be careful, guys."
Kensi was silent as Deeks turned to follow the van. She pulled out her own cell phone and quickly texted the van's license number to Eric. The van was traveling on the faster side, but not fast enough to draw unwanted attention from police and traffic cameras.
Deeks kept the SRX reasonably close to the van without being obvious. The fact that it was the middle of the night helped immensely. He was able to follow seemingly undetected for about six minutes before the van suddenly sped up and made a sharp left turn.
Knowing they had been made, Deeks dropped all pretenses and stepped on the gas. As the tires squealed, he followed the van through the turn, thanking the powers that be that Kensi had a high performance vehicle.
Kensi leaned into the turn to keep herself from hitting the passenger door. Eric called her phone just as Deeks straightened the car and gained speed to catch up to the van.
"Let me guess, Eric, van's stolen?"
"Yep, just reported stolen from a warehouse about ten miles away from the Leary house roughly forty-five minutes ago. Did they give themselves away or something?"
"You could say that. Following has escalated to chasing now. You locked on us?"
"That I am, Kens. I'm sending Sam and Callen your way, also. Since Jessica knows who Sam and Callen are, I'll have Sam call her on the way and let her know that Nell will be picking her up instead of you guys."
"Thanks, Eric. Keep a close eye on our location, we're coming up on a lot of road and bridge construction here. No telling how many detours there are."
"You got it."
Kensi ended the call and set her cell phone in the center cup holder. She suddenly tensed as she noticed the sign and barricades at the bridge entrance in front of them.
The driver of the van apparently either didn't care or didn't see that the bridge wasn't just under construction. The other half of it wasn't even there. The driver slammed on the brakes and cut the wheel sharply to the left, but it was just travelling too fast. Luckily it only rolled onto its side instead of flipping over completely, but it was dangerously close to the edge.
Deeks quickly pulled the Cadillac to a stop behind the van, and he and Kensi both jumped out, drawing their weapons. As Kensi approached the rear doors, he made his way to the skyward-facing driver door.
Deeks's stomach dropped the second he heard the gunshot from inside the van. The plus side was he could still see Kensi, so he knew she hadn't been hit. Moving around to the front windshield, he announced his presence.
"LAPD!"
"NCIS!" Kensi followed suit.
The front windshield was busted out, and Deeks could see the driver hanging out of his seat, barely held in by the seatbelt. The bullet hole in the back of the man's head definitely explained the gunshot they heard. But if the driver was dead and no one was coming through the windshield, they only had one other way out… through Kensi. There were no windows in the back doors, but Kensi's yell had given away her position. It was pitch black inside the van and they had no idea what position or condition the little boy was in. They were flying blind in an already horrifying, rapidly deteriorating situation.
Deeks leaned against the front grill of the van, out of the line of fire, and began trying to talk to Michael. "Michael Leary, we know it's you. We know you have Jonathan. Is he okay? Is he hurt at all?"
Silence.
At the back of the van, Kensi heard movement and saw the door rattle, but upon closer inspection, she could see that the frame of the van had shifted when it landed, apparently jamming the door. Seeing the back was at least fairly secure on its own for now, she moved around the wheels and bottom back towards her partner.
"Don't think he can get out the back, it seems to be jammed pretty tight from the wreck," she whispered.
Deeks nodded. "Driver's dead, shot in the head."
"At least that explains the gunshot. Could you see anything through the front?"
"Nothing. It's completely dark." Deeks strained to hear anything from inside the van. Suddenly, he tensed, raising his gun slightly. "I think he's moving towards the windshield."
Kensi crouched down by her partner's legs, leaving him to take the higher attack position. "Michael, let Jonathan go! Don't let this end any worse than it already is!" Kensi attempted.
Michael Leary's only words sent chills down their backs. "You want him, go fetch!"
What seemed like slow motion to Kensi and Deeks was, in reality, only seconds. In the dark, Kensi could just barely make out the form of Jonathan's unconscious body being tossed out of the front of the van. With the van so close to the edge of the cutoff bridge, she knew there wasn't enough room for him to land safely. Dropping her gun at her partner's feet, she dove just as the boy's small body began to disappear over the edge of the concrete.
Deeks watched in horror as Jonathan vanished from sight, followed closely by his daredevil partner. Her forward motion had sent her over right after him. "Kensi!"
He couldn't see her, but hearing her was the next best thing. "Deeks, go after Leary, we're okay for now!"
Saving the sigh of relief for later, Deeks ran back around the now busted open back of the van and down the street after Michael.
Luckily, the chase was short as Leary was stopped in his tracks when Sam's Challenger skidded to a stop in front of him. The passenger window was down and Callen's gun was steadily trained on him. "Drop the gun, Leary," Callen ordered.
For a second, Deeks, Callen, and Sam all thought Michael was going to be stupid and raise his weapon, but thankfully they were wrong. He tossed his gun out to his side raised his hands. Callen stepped out of the car and put his gun back in the waistband of his jeans before pulling cuffs from his back pocket.
Sam was just making his way around the front of his Challenger when Deeks started jogging backwards, returning his gun to his pants, also.
"We've got to get Kensi and Jonathan! They're on the end of the bridge!" He yelled as he turned and took off running.
Callen nodded at Sam to follow while he handled Leary.
Sam took off after the detective. "What do you mean on the end of the bridge?" He asked as he approached the van and made his way around it. What he saw stopped him in his tracks for a moment. "Damn! I didn't know it meant THAT!"
Deeks had laid down on his stomach and was leaning dangerously far off the edge. Kensi had managed to grab Jonathan's arm as he went over, then somehow grabbed onto protruding rebar with her other hand. She still had a hold of Jonathan and the rebar, but she wouldn't last much longer.
Deeks grabbed Kensi's arm to help relieve some of the pressure on her shoulder while Sam tried to reach for Jonathan. Kensi struggled with everything she had to lift the boy closer to Sam's outstretched arms. Jonathan was still unconscious, so he was unable to help at all. However, they were thankful that he would not remember this portion of his night.
Kensi was finally able to gather enough force to raise the child enough for Sam to grab ahold of his arm right under Kensi's hand. He lifted him as quickly as he could, trying to watch out for the jagged edge of the concrete.
"I've got him, Kens, you have to let go of his arm," Sam instructed. The sirens of the approaching ambulance grew louder as they drove onto the bridge.
"Get him to the ambulance, Sam. I don't know what he knocked him out with," Kensi said as she released his arm for Sam to take him. "Go, Sam, I'm okay," she ordered when Sam started to hesitate. She finally let out the breath she was holding when he stepped away from the edge and out of her sight.
Deeks continued to hold onto his partner's wrist as she let her other arm fall to her side. "Come on, Princess, I know you're tired, but you've gotta help me just a little bit here."
Kensi glanced down at the ground far below her. "Deeks…" She took a couple of deep breaths before returning her gaze to him.
"Fern, just get your other arm up close enough for me to grab it. You can do it," he coached breathlessly, but gently.
Summoning all the strength she had left, Kensi swung her other arm up and grabbed onto another piece of rebar. Deeks quickly evened out his grip and began to slowly pull her up. He scooted his body back awkwardly on the rough concrete, but he was finally able to get her high enough for her to swing one of her legs up. Using her now available lower body strength, she pulled herself the rest of the way up and rolled over onto her back next to her panting partner.
"I told you, you could do it." Deeks grinned over at her.
Before she could respond, Sam appeared quickly next to her, dropping to his knees. "Come on, baby girl, let's get you checked out, too," he said, helping her sit up.
Deeks raised himself to a sitting position and stopped Kensi before she could protest. "Don't even think about arguing, Kensi. After watching you basically jump off the edge of that bridge to save that little boy, I'm not letting you out of my sight until I have the official medical word that you are okay."
Kensi nodded silently and allowed Sam to help her up as her partner stood. They flanked her closely as she slowly walked over to the second ambulance that had just pulled up.
Sam turned to Deeks as one of the paramedics led Kensi a few feet away to sit in the back of the ambulance. "I'm going to call in and report to Hetty. We'll have Nell take Jessica to the hospital to be with Jonathan. Looks like he was probably just chloroformed, but not physically hurt. Callen and I will take Michael to the boatshed."
Deeks nodded. "I'll stay with Kensi until she gets the all-clear, then we'll meet you there."
Sam shook his head. "No, when she's done here, you take her home. Trust me, Hetty will just tell you the same thing if you talk to her. And don't let Kensi try to talk you out of it."
The detective glanced at his partner as she was checked over by the EMT. "Yeah, I'm sure she'll try. But I have a feeling I can milk the guilt for at least a little while." Deeks grinned evilly. "I'll just keep mentioning how she owes me for scaring me to death."
Sam knew Deeks's tone was meant to be joking, but he could tell the other man was honestly freaked out by how close he'd come to losing his partner. However, he also knew that Deeks dealt with things differently than the rest of the team. Humor was his go-to, but Sam wasn't going to call him on it when they were all so physically and emotionally drained. He nodded at Deeks, then headed off to his car to meet Callen. With Leary sitting quietly in the backseat, they sped off to the boatshed for the official statement and arrest.
Deeks stared off at the disappearing taillights of the Challenger until he felt a hand on his arm. He turned to find his partner looking at him curiously.
"What's up? You okay?"
Deeks chuckled. "Asks the woman who nearly jumped to her death." He watched her grin slightly before he turned more serious. "Are you okay? Did you get the all-clear?"
"He said my arms and shoulders will be sore for a few days, but I should be good. We headed to the boatshed now?"
"Nope, I'm taking you home," Deeks stated matter-of-factly as he pulled her keys from his pocket and began walking to her Cadillac.
She began following him. "But, Deeks—"
"Jumped off a bridge, partner, off a bridge," he interrupted her without even turning around. He opened the driver door and stopped to look at her, not even trying to hide the slight smile on his face.
She glared at him as she stalked over to the passenger side. "You can't play that card forever, Shaggy," she insisted as she climbed in and slammed the door.
His smile grew as he got in and started the car. "Maybe not forever, but I think this one's going to have a fairly decent shelf-life."
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This one didn't come to me as easily as the first two, but I think it turned out fairly decent, at least. Hope you enjoyed! More coming soon if my muse will cooperate!