Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS: Los Angeles or Alice in Wonderland (which is briefly referenced).
A week before the world falls apart he tells her that he loves her. She's watering the plants on her windowsill (he probably should have known he was dreaming at this point) and laughs softly but does not respond. There is no rejection in silence, Deeks knows this better than anyone, the curl of her lips and the brush of her hand across his cheek as she passes him by is answer enough.
He wonders if he should tell her that she's the best friend that he's ever had, but somehow this is more difficult than proclaiming his undying affection. So he keeps quiet. Because they have each loved before, however fleeting it was, however tragically it ended. Friendship however, has eluded each of them so spectacularly that he sometimes wonders if he will ever truly be wanted.
She asks him how he feels about Chinese food and he washes the dishes even though they don't use them. He knows that when she breaks his heart he will not cry. When one marches themselves to the gallows it is difficult to blame the executioner when heads finally start rolling.
His mother used to read him fairytales with the lights turned off because it hid her bruises and he realizes this too late to make a difference in either of their lives. But when the drill is discarded and he is drowning in his own blood he remembers a white rabbit and an evil queen and wishes that he could disappear. He imagines Kensi pushing his hair back from his face and he knows that this might break her. The two of them have locked away everything they should have said, should have done, in a vault that's burning from the inside out. He kissed her and then she left him and now he think he might be dying and it's only four in the afternoon.
The end of the world is supposed to be an event with a capital E but it turns out that the world ends slowly, painfully. He feels like he's been crying out for hours but maybe it's been years and no one is around to tell him to stop.
They've beaten and bruised him all over but it's his heart that hurts the most.
When he wakes up, he's in a hospital and Kensi asleep in the chair next to him.
When he really wakes up, four months have gone by and Kensi is leaving.
Her desk is cleared off and her things have all been put into storage because "I'm not sure how long this mission will last." Granger is standing by the door and Hetty is watching from her office and it's only now you realize that it is not your heart that has been broken after all. It's hers instead. You've spent the last four months in silence but you suddenly have so much you need to say to her but she's already crossed the bullpen and is giving you the softest hug she can manage because you've been so fragile as of late. You can't breathe and you can't look away from her empty desk even after the door shuts.
She does not call and he does not write. But he washes her windows and gets her mail and learns how to laugh despite her absence, despite his own nightmares. Things fall apart so suddenly sometimes, without proper warning and he discovers that this does not make him weak any more than pulling a trigger and ending a life makes him strong.
When her plane lands early on a January morning, he is waiting at the gate.
End