A/N I have borrowed the actual words from the episodes, Recovery, The Frozen Lake, Spoils of War, and Three Hearts. If you recognise it, then it's not mine. I figure why not borrow from the best.
Disclaimer: As always, each and every character or place you may recognize is not owned or controlled by me. They get to come out and play with me for a short time, but have to be home by curfew.
Third Heart
"Everybody's got three hearts. The first heart, that's the one you show to strangers. The second heart, only your family gets to see that, your family and the person put on this earth to walk by your side, your soul mate. But that third heart is the thing. Never let anyone see it. There's too much truth inside, too much risk."
- NCIS Deep Cover Agent Paul Angelo
Deeks and Kensi watched NCIS Agent Paul Angelo from outside the interrogation room at the boat shed.
"He owns that room." Kensi was forced to admit.
"Yeah, he's good." Deeks responded
When they were sent in to interrogate him, an outsider could very well wonder who was interviewing whom. Angelo had a pair of handcuffs sitting in front of him on the table. One could hardly imagine that only moments before they were around his wrists.
He had been in deep cover, something that both Deeks and Kensi knew well and probably the main reason why Henrietta Lange had chosen them to do the interrogation. Angelo saw it in their eyes, and told the two of them the "three hearts" story. Neither Kensi nor Deeks wanted to admit that he got to them with his story, but both of them knew it was true.
Angelo was trying to explain to them why he got involved with Olivia. He had been under cover so long that the lines in his head and his heart had become blurred. What was the truth and what was the cover? Even Granger and Hetty were questioning his loyalties. If he could still be trusted, he would remain a valuable asset to the agency. But the question was, did Aneglo still know on what side of the line that he walked? He claimed he did, but had he been under so long, had he told Olivia so many lies, that he began to believe the story he was trying to live?
Deeks heard all the words that Angelo was speaking, and he knew he was talking directly to him. The Detective really wished that Kensi was not with him. He really wanted to interrogate Angelo, not about his involvement with the drugs and Brunson, but rather with his deep undercover work, his involvement with Olivia, and how she had managed to get to see his third heart.
Angelo looked directly at the Detective and told him, "You get stronger, just by hearing her voice." Hetty had basically told the two of them the same thing when she first partnered them together. She told Deeks about Kensi's strength of character, her female intuition being right most of the time, and her loyalty to the very few people that were near and dear to her. She told Kensi how Deeks refused to let a case go without it being solved, how deep and complete he would go to take on another persona to complete the mission, and how strong was his protection of those he cared about. They both were good apart, but together they were better, stronger, a unified force that was much stronger than the sum of its parts, as each of them drew their strength from the other.
Deeks knew that this was true for him. The thought of never seeing Kensi again was the only thing that got him through the torture he faced at the hands of Siderov. He told her so, but her walls kept coming up to keep him out, so fearful that if she would let him in she would get rejected and hurt again.
He wondered if the same thing held true for her. Was he the one who kept her going when she was held captive in Afghanistan? Or did her third heart show her that he was just a substitute for the one she truly loved, the one who left her nine years before, but had suddenly appeared, Jack, her ex-fiance. She was sent there to take out the "White Ghost". Deeks had overheard Granger tell Hetty that she had missed the shot. He knew his partner too well. She didn't "miss" the shot; she intentionally blew it. Why? The only reason he could see was because she still had feelings for Jack. She had told Deeks, hell, she probably told herself thousands of times that she was over him. But her third heart didn't lie. And looking at it through the lens of Afghanistan, could she see that her soul mate was Jack, not him? If it were true, then God, how he hated her for that, even though he so desperately loved her.
Now he knew why Hetty had sent her away. Not only did it kill all chances that they could have worked it out, to openly and honestly talk to each other about their relationship, but it also brought Jack into the picture, and even if Kensi's words told him that she was over Jack, there would always be the slightest hint of doubt in his mind. It wouldn't change the depth of his love for her, but he would always be wondering, when and if Jack showed up again, would she leave him for her first love? It damn near killed him, as they were waiting in the compound for the plane to take them home, when Kensi first turned to Jack and was gathered up into his arms, as he just stood there, waiting for her and wondering if she would stay with Jack or go back with the team. After watching them whisper to each other and seeing her leave Jack's tender embrace, Deeks wrapped his arms around her, and nestled her head into his shoulder. He was glad that he was able to press her head in closer so she couldn't see the look of darkness that clouded his eyes and the hatred that filled his face, as Jack turned around for one last look at Kensi before he left the compound. All the way home, that image of Jack looking at her stayed in his mind, as he continued to keep up the personal contact and the soft whispers of how things would all work themselves out.
God, how he hated Hetty for sending Kensi to Afghanistan, knowing what she would find there, but he hated his boss even more for including him with the team to bring her back, knowing that he would come face to face with Jack, and he would have to deal with their feelings for each other. How could Hetty ever expect him to leave the LAPD and join NCIS, when he saw what she was doing with him and Kensi. The rest of them might not see how manipulative and controlling she could be, but, of course, none of them had any place they could bail if they ever wanted to leave.
Angelo drew him back to the present moment when he remarked to him, "She looks at you when you fidget with your hair". Deeks knew that this was true of Kensi, but he had no idea of how Angelo had picked up on it so quickly. Covertly, he had often seen her watching him, out of the corner of his eye, when he ran his fingers through his hair as he tried to force his mind to concentrate on the matter at hand. Most of the time she broke out in that cute smile that she reserved just for him, when she thought he was not looking at her. He loved that look so much, that sometimes he did it, just to see if he could bring that smile to her face. She always looked away quickly, or tried to turn the smile into a smirk, when she thought that he had caught her. Both of them knew that this was part of "their thing".
Ah, their thing - they had been dancing around this thing, that both of them knew existed but neither of them would admit was there, for the longest time. He would express himself in actions, like the messing with his hair. She would demand he put it into words. When he put it into words, it was usually in the form of something humorous, because she would be devastated if he spoke the truth. She always wanted him to be more serious when he was dealing with her.
The first time he came the closest to showing her his third heart was when he took her out to the candlelight dinner and honestly told her that he didn't want to be there with her, but rather take her home to his place and spend the night there with her. She left; he followed; but again it ended, not in a discussion of their relationship, although there were a lot of words used by each of them, but rather in an action, or maybe several different actions, precipitated by each of them, as they spent the night together.
Both of them knew that they were going to have to talk this through. But then Hetty, Afghanistan, and Jack all joined in to put their talk on hold. And since they gotten back, neither of them wanted to jeopardize her trying to get back to full active agent status to complicate it with any discussions about their personal relationships.
"She saw your third heart, and you know it isn't going to end well," Angelo told him. When he said that Deeks knew Angelo was only trying to get to him. Kensi had seen his second heart. She knew that one even better than anyone else did, because she was his partner, his dearest friend, his soul mate. But no one, absolutely NO one, would ever be allowed to peek into the recesses of his third heart. He didn't even allow himself to look in there, because he was afraid of what he knew he would find. He knew the truth that would be revealed there. And even he could not face it.
Being partnered with Kensi had changed him, and he could not tell whether it was more for the better or for the worse. Certainly, being with her, and the rest of the team for that matter, brought a certain sense of security. He could go out on the streets knowing that she, and every other member of the team had his back. In the LAPD there were no feelings of team, of family, like he felt here, even though he was not an agent but just a liaison officer. He looked at his past and wondered how he ever survived without Eric and Nell searching every possible bit of information that could help him out in the field, tracking down cars and people while they are on the run, and making sure that there were no surprises on stakeouts or break ins to capture suspects. Things like these would warm the cockles of any heart, first, second or third.
But there was also a downside of being with her, too. And it had manifested itself twice already, in extremely ugly and dangerous ways. He passed up one shot that he would normally have taken, because he was afraid of the possibility of hitting Kensi. He knew that his hesitation could have gotten Kensi, or any other members of his team killed or severely injured. He didn't care if he was the one that would have taken the bullet, but there was no way in the world that he could guarantee that it would have been him, and not one of the others that would have had to pay the price of his concern for her. He couldn't call it love yet, because true love was a mutually shared emotion, and he wasn't sure when Kensi's barriers would come down enough for her to admit her feelings.
But the second time was so much worse. It was not something that he refused to do. No, it was something that he actually made a conscious decision to do. When he and Sergeant Makar were ordered to check out the houses and Deeks discovered the blind Iman, he still had his morals. He had the Sergeant translate his simple request to the scholar, "I have someone I care about very much. And I'm here looking for information regarding her." But he got no answer and began to get more and more frustrated in asking the same thing, over and over again. He knew that questioning the stoic Iman was nothing more than an exercise in futility; the blind cleric would never divulge any information,
But when Deeks found out that the others discovered a picture of Kensi lying dead, her throat slashed and blood pooling around her head, he demanded that Hetty send him the photo. That was the moment he completely lost it. He turned his back on his morals, and began to conduct his own water boarding torture of the Iman. It didn't matter one bit that he could still remember how it felt to experience torture himself. It didn't matter at all that this was a holy man, and a blind one at that. Nor did it matter that the picture might have been faked and she could still be alive. All he cared about was that Kensi could be dead, and he wanted to lash out with anything and everything at his disposal to find out which way they were going to bring her back, in the seat of the plane with him watching over and caring for his partner, or in the cargo hold, wrapped up in a body bag.
His second heart told him that he could not accept the evidence of a photograph. He had seen Nell and Eric work their magic far too often to know that this could have been staged. The only way that he would ever accept her death here was if he picked her body up and held it in his arms. Until that time, morals be damned. Granger had told him that "This mission is dark. As in 'black as night'." and "We're on our own out here." No one would know. No one would care. Whatever it took, he would get the information that he needed. Kensi was his partner, the one he cared so very much about; that was all the justification that he needed.
But like the heart within his body, his third heart was divided. Black as it allowed him to become, it would not let him complete the deed. His morals called him back from the brink. He removed the wet towel, apologized profusely for the torture he initiated, made sure the Iman could breathe, took off the restraints, and gave him something to eat.
"In the end the question of war and torture is not what it does to our enemies, but what it does to ourselves." Sergeant Makar told him. Deep down in his third heart he knew the truth of that statement. And he realized how close he had come. And he feared that the next time, he wouldn't turn back. Every day of his life he was involved in the war of good and evil. And it was tearing him apart emotionally. He knew what he was capable of doing. It was in his blood. He was only eleven when he damn near shot his father to protect his mother. Whenever he allowed anyone to get too close, he began to think with his heart, and that road always lead straight to disaster. And it was so hard to think logically when he was emotionally involved.
One final time Angelo called him back from his thoughts. "Tread lightly with each other" he warned them as they were leaving the interrogation room. These words struck a nerve in Deeks, but he didn't know if it was in his brain or in his heart. At the very least, they started him to rethink his relationship with Kensi. Would he have to drop the "with privileges" part of their partnership, that he so desperately wanted to develop, just to save his soul, or would he have to back away even farther and become another one in the long line of men who deserted her?
As soon as she closed the interrogation room door, Kensi looked at her partner and could see that Angelo's words had gotten to Deeks. She knew her partner had gone under deep cover a lot more than she had, and she wanted, almost needed, to assure him that she would be there for him, always. She thought he was worried about being turned, or becoming so involved in the cover that he couldn't find the person he was originally. Kensi tried to assure him that what happened between Angelo and Olivia would never happen to him. "I would never let that happen to you," she told him.
But Deeks knew better. He had lived in Angelo's world far too long. He knew what was in his third heart. He had seen it mirrored in what Angelo had disclosed to them, and he couldn't help but see himself in Angelo's position. He knew he couldn't explain it fully to her, so he told her, almost cryptically, "There is just one problem with that, You would be the reason it happened in the first place."
When this case was finally over, all the bad guys and gals were dealt with by being sent to jail or the morgue, the paperwork for the operation filled out and filed, and the Mission had gone into the hushed, overnight mode, Kensi and Deeks found themselves alone in the bullpen.
The Detective ran his hand through his hair, gathering his thoughts. This time, however, it did not bring a smile to Kensi's face. She looked so serious, as if she expected he had regrets about their night together, had orders from Hetty to call it off, had doubts if she was really over Jack, some reason why he was going to turn away from her and leave her to live her life alone, like all the others had done.
"Kens, about our "thing", I've thought a lot about it, but I have no idea what to do with it now" he told her.
"What does your third heart tell you to do, Deeks?" she asked, almost afraid of what his answer was going to be.
He took her father's knife, the one she had given him before she went to Afghanistan, snapped it back into its sheath, and pushed it across the table to her, and then looked at her and said, "Contrary to hundreds of years of scientific evidence, I believe that raccoons do mate for life."
She didn't understand what the message was that he was trying to get across. Was he saying that they will be linked together for life? And why did he return the knife she had given to him?
She had given it him so he wouldn't have to go in unarmed to meet with Talita, when he was looking for a thumb drive containing a plan for seizing the Pakistani nuclear arsenal. Her father had given it to her as a reminder that there would always be a part of himself continuously watching over and protecting her. She gave it to Deeks in much the same way, but would die before she would admit it.
Deeks had asked her when he first received it, "Does giving me this mean that we are official?"
"Sometimes a knife is just a knife." Kensi had responded. She wondered why he was returning it to her now. Was he telling her that he no longer needed her to watch over and protect him? She knew that he had found out the history of the knife, so this could be a very real possibility. Was he saying a word of welcome with this, that having her in person meant he no longer needed the knife to protect him? Was he returning it, removing all traces of her from his life? She couldn't tell, and all he said to her was "Sometimes a knife is just a knife," echoing the words she used when she gave it to him, another non answer.
As she looked up from the knife, she spotted the box that she had given him earlier in the year that contained "everything that his heart could ever desire". Maybe she could use that to force him to give her some clue about where their thing was going. She took it down from the shelf, and with the knife he had just returned to her, slit open the top of the box and walked away.
Deeks was left in a quandary. One part of him wanted to seal the box back up and put it back on the shelf. The other part of him wanted to open it up and find out what Kensi felt was the desire of his heart. Of course, curiosity won out. He opened the flaps and pulled out the contents, another sealed box. As he disposed of the outer shell, he placed the new box on his desk. He slung his bag over his shoulder, looked one last time at the new box and told her "Touché," even though she was long gone. He walked slowly to the main door, wondering how much sleep he was going to get tonight and how many dreams were going to plague him. He knew he cannot win in this personal relationship with Kensi. If he bonded with her, his third heart would eventually cause him to do something that would destroy him, her, or the team; if he severed the personal relationship, he would abandon her, like everyone else in her life had already done and leave her devastated. He felt caught between the proverbial rock and the hard place. And it was going to take many sleepless nights and numerous bottles of aspirin before he could even begin to think up any possible, workable solution.
He didn't see either Granger or Hetty standing in her office, overlooking these last few moments. Hetty had informed Granger that Kensi had given Deeks the box earlier in the year and told him it contained "the thing that he wanted the most".
When Granger saw that it was just another box, he assumed that Deeks would begin to realize that Kensi was just playing with him, and just maybe, this had finally become, as he said to Hetty, "The beginning of the end?"
Hetty read something different into the gift. She knew how defensive Kensi had always been. The message that she saw being conveyed to Deeks was that Kensi was beginning to let him in, she had torn down one wall of protection that had been surrounding her heart. That's why she turned to Granger and offered her differing opinion, "The end of the beginning."
But the biggest question still remained unanswered by the man who just walked out the door: What did the third heart of Detective Marty Deeks tell him about this gift and the partner who gave it to him?