A/N: This story takes place during and after "Tidings We Bring." Just exploring the idea of Kensi's sudden baking abilities and her apparent anxiety about being at the party. Enjoy!
You sure about tonight?
The text stared up at her from her phone. Three little dots pulsed in the bottom corner of the screen. Deeks was still typing.
I can come pick you up. Everyone wants to see you.
She sighed. They had discussed the NCIS Staff Holiday Party for at least a week, and Deeks had made a valiant attempt to persuade her to go. She'd wanted to, badly. His disappointment had been nearly enough to push her into saying yes. But in the end she'd decided to stay home. She just didn't think she could stand the pitying looks, the sympathetic smiles, or the heartfelt, but essentially useless, words of encouragement.
Most of all she didn't think she could stomach seeing how life had continued without her. It was one thing to hear about it from Deeks, another to have it paraded in front of her face. In her mind she wanted to believe that the team couldn't go on without Kensi Blye. It was easier to preserve that fantasy here at home.
Her phone buzzed again.
If you change your mind call me.
She set it next to her on the couch, her heart stinging with an equal mix of longing and relief as she turned on the TV flipping morosely through the channels. "Soap operas or daytime talk shows, what a choice," she muttered.
Viagra commercial. Injury lawyer. Walk in bathtub and shower installation. Another Viagra commercial. Life alert pendant. She had them all memorized at this point. Was this what her life was going to be from now on? Sitting at home watching television meant for 80-somethings? The thought was unsettling and she found herself turning it off, suddenly anxious for something, anything to do other than sit around like a lump. She walked into the kitchen, her eyes wandering the room, unsure exactly what she thought she was going to find there to relieve her sudden need for activity.
Her eyes landed on a recipe book Deeks had received from his mom three Christmases ago. Her fingers flipped through the pages and she suddenly realized, she was going to bake. She was going to bake cookies and go to that party and prove to everyone that she was still capable. That Badass Blye was alive and well and ready to come back any day now. Hell, maybe she'd even manage to prove it to herself.
A little voice in her mind whispered that she'd never baked anything before, but Kensi had no problem ignoring it. Chocolate chip cookies couldn't be too difficult. Definitely not more difficult than learning to walk again!
"Okay, sugar, butter, flour, eggs…" she began to compile the ingredients, setting them out in a row on the counter. Monty perked up from where he'd been napping by the windows and padded over to stare up at her.
"We've got this, right boy?" she asked him. "Cookies are easy. We can handle it."
She threw the butter, sugar, and vanilla into a bowl and turned on the mixer, frowning when the butter refused to combine and instead stayed in solid chunks. Cranking up the speed, she turned away and began to measure out the flour and baking soda.
When she couldn't find a teaspoon she decided just to eyeball the salt. Cooking was all about that right? People were always throwing in a dash of this and a little of that.
She returned to the mixer and found the butter still on the lumpy side. "What the heck?" she muttered, checking the recipe again.
She'd forgotten the eggs. That must be the problem. She held one in her hand and frowned. Did you put in the whole egg? Just the whites? The yolk? The recipe didn't specify so she cracked the shells and threw both white and yolk into the mix.
They helped to soften the butter a little and Kensi shrugged. It would just melt in the oven anyway, right?
Turning she grabbed the flour bowl and dumped its contents in with the rest. The second it hit the mixer white powder exploded into the air. "Oh god!" she coughed and reached blindly to slow the whirling beaters.
The movement was too fast and her weakened left hand cramped painfully. "Ow! Damn it!"
She finally got the beaters to stop and growled in frustration when she realized nearly a third of the flour had escaped the bowl and settled all over the counters and floor. Reaching for the flour container she haphazardly measured out more and threw it in.
Deciding the mixer was clearly faulty she grabbed a spoon and awkwardly balanced the bowl with her cramping fingers, stirring until the flour was mostly invisible. She grabbed several handfuls of chocolate chips and added them to the dough before scooping out mounds of it onto a baking sheet.
Pushing the tray into the oven she set the timer and looked at Monty who was leaving paw prints in the flour on the floor and had a streak of it across his nose. "See? Easy."
Fourteen minutes later the house smelled of cookies and Kensi proudly reached into the oven when the buzzer sang out. What she found wiped the smile right off her face.
Half of the cookies were puffed up the size of biscuits and the other half had spread out thin and brittle across the pan. Many of them had merged together and when she tried to pull them off they stuck firmly to the sheet's surface and broke into pieces as she forced the spatula underneath them.
"No, no, no!" she moaned.
There was no way she could take these cookies to the Mission. They had to be perfect. Or at least edible.
Three more attempts gave her cookies that were raw in the center, a batch that were burnt on the bottom, and one that was so salty it sent her running for a glass of water.
At last she looked around the kitchen in defeat. There was no time left for another attempt. If she was going to get there on time she had to leave soon.
Maybe she wouldn't go after all. So often these days it just seemed easier to give into defeat and apparently today she was going to let it win. Collapsing into a kitchen chair she grabbed her laptop, scrolling mindlessly through various websites and emails. It was just a party. No one would even miss her. She hadn't wanted to go anyway.
She opened an article on submarine warfare but in the middle of reading an ad flickered in the sidebar, catching her eye. She clicked the link and an idea began to form. Maybe it didn't matter if she was a good baker, as long as everyone else thought she was.
"Where did you get the cookies?"
The whispered question pulled her from sleep, but she pretended to ignore it.
"I know you can hear me, Fern." Deeks' breath tickled her ear and she flung out an arm to push him away. He caught it and pinned the limb playfully above her head. "Tell me where you got the cookies and you can go back to sleep," he promised.
She opened one eye to glare at him. "I told you. I made them. You saw the mess in the kitchen."
"Oh, I saw and cleaned the mess. But not once in your life have you baked anything. There's no way you made cookies that perfect on your first try."
"Beginner's luck."
"Uh huh, no way. Now tell the truth."
"Go away, Deeks," she grumbled. "You're just jealous of my baking genius."
"Oh, really? I'm jealous? How can I be jealous of a skill you don't actually have?"
"Don't you have to go to work?" she moaned, trying to roll away from him.
He held her steady. "Not yet. I woke you up extra early for this very special interrogation."
"You're wasting your time. I'm telling the truth."
"That you think you can convince me of your honesty is adorable," he told her. "But you forget," he leaned very close, "I know all your weak spots."
A shiver went down her spine as he pressed a kiss to her neck and then another to her shoulder. "You'll never break me, Detective," she managed.
He grinned. "That's what they all say."
"I'm home!" Deeks called from the front foyer.
"Upstairs!" she yelled back from her position on the floor of the master closet.
She heard him tromp up the stairs as she threw yet another pile of magazines into a garbage bag. Why did she have so many freaking magazines? She'd been cleaning for hours and had six bags of junk including two that were completely full of nothing but magazines.
"What are you doing?" Deeks asked as he appeared in the doorway.
"Cleaning," Kensi told him. "Why do we have so much junk?"
"Um…we?" Deeks raised his eyebrows.
"Yes, we. You and me are a package deal now. Why did you let me keep all this when we moved in here?"
"I'm just, I'm not going to touch that one," Deeks said around a mouthful of something.
Kensi frowned at him. "What are you eating? Did you start dinner without me?"
"Just a cookie." He shrugged nonchalantly.
Too nonchalantly. "A cookie?" Kensi asked suspiciously.
"Yeah, chocolate chip. They're from this great little bakery called 'Grandma's Kitchen.' Only about ten minutes from here. Taste homemade. You want one?"
His eyes had that all-too-innocent look and she sighed in defeat. "How did you know?"
"I'm a detective. I detected." He took another bite.
She rose and followed him into the bedroom. "But I was so careful! I threw the container away in a random dumpster. I turned my phone off so you couldn't track it. I paid in cash. How did you figure it out?"
"Well, when my interrogation tactics failed this morning, I did the next best thing."
"You went to Eric and Nell. Traitors."
"They did some computer triangulation thingy thing and came up with three places. Then it was just a matter of checking to see which one had sold cookies to a beautiful brunette with a weird eye."
"Ugh!" Kensi flopped back on the bed. "I tried so hard. They were all terrible. I just wanted to…do something. I'm so useless right now."
"Hey, you are not useless."
"Yes, I am. I can't work and apparently I can't even stay home right."
"You being a terrible baker doesn't make you useless. It just means you belong at NCIS."
"And if I can never go back?"
"Kensi, there are about a million options for you that don't include baking or being anywhere near a kitchen. If you can't go back, and I do mean if, then we will look until we find a new place for you, I promise." He looked at her tenderly. "One place you'll always belong is with me. I hope that means something to you."
She reached for his hand. "It does."
"Good," he kissed her gently, and then again.
"But," she said softly, finally pushing him away, "because you couldn't let me have my cookie moment in peace, you have to eat the next batch of cookies that I make."
His eyes widened. "Nooo! It's not nice to poison people!"
"Oh, you'll eat 'em and like 'em." She pressed her lips to his once more. "Now you'd better hope my legs are still too weak to beat you down the stairs."
"Really? Why?"
"Because if I get there first, all of Grandma's cookies are going to be mine."
She off him in a flash, laughing as she hit the stairs. "Wait, no!" he yelled, scrambling after her. "Save some for me!"