Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS: LA.
AN: Some Kensi/Deeks for you that we'll probably never see in the show. This one hit me as I was chopping onions. Not entirely sure what the link was, considering that there are no onions in this story, but whatever.
Warning: The 's' word features once, but that's all, and it's warranted.
...
Someday
...
"You know, they'll split us up if they find out," Deeks says, his arms warm around her and his breath tickling her ear. "Put us on different teams. We're a conflict of interest now. They'll say we can't be partners."
Kensi leans back further into his embrace, her eyes closed contentedly.
"Well then let's make sure they don't find out," she says simply, and turns her head slightly to kiss his throat gently, and whatever it was that he was going to say slips from his mind.
...
They manage it fairly well.
The whole 'keep it secret' thing.
Sam and Callen don't seem to pick up on anything between them being different, at least, and Hetty hasn't been looking at them suspiciously, so they're all fairly good signs that no one knows.
They keep up their usual flirty back-and-forth banter, and for the most part nothing changes. Honestly, they both figure that no one will notice if Kensi allows his arm to rest around her shoulders longer than she usually would or if Deeks has to learn not to jump in surprise when her foot brushes up against his under their desk, and it doesn't seem that anyone does.
The guys do notice, though, when Deeks' flirting with any-and-all-members-of-the-opposite-sex tapers off until it's practically nonexistent.
"Ok, what's up with you?" Callen asks him one day, after a perfectly professional interview between the blonde cop and a pretty young brunette, who ordinarily would have been the recipient of at least one less-than-strictly-appropriate grin from the surfer.
"Um... nothing?" he says, and raises his eyebrow questioningly at the agent.
"You work with three agents who specialise in noticing things, Deeks, don't tell me you thought we wouldn't pick it."
"...What are you talking about?" he asks, completely clueless (he knows they aren't talking about him and Kensi, because this isn't how the conversation would go, but that leaves him with absolutely no idea of what the agent is referring to).
"The girl in there," Callen says, his tone suggesting that those four words should explain it all. At Deeks' blank look, however, he elaborates. "Come on – normally you'd be all over that kind of woman; winking, grinning – the works. In there, just now – you were downright professional."
Deeks throws him an insulted expression.
"What – you're saying I'm not usually professional?" he asks, to a chorus of snorting from both Sam and Callen.
"I'm wounded," he says, walking away. "Really. I'll never recover."
They both chuckle at his dramatics, and neither of them fail to notice that he left without answering the question.
They decide to try Kensi next, to see if she knows anything.
"So who's Deeks' girlfriend, do you know?"
Kensi looks up, intrigued confusion on her face.
"Deeks has a girlfriend?" she asks, playing the innocence card perfectly.
"We figure he must," Sam says. "Why else would he have stopped flirting with any and all females on two legs?"
Kensi thinks about it for a moment.
"Maybe," she concedes. "Or maybe Hetty told him to stop flirting with all our witnesses."
As if that would stop him.
That's enough to appease the guys for now, but Kensi knows they're going to be observing Deeks more closely than usual for the next little while, so they're extra cautious for the next few weeks.
She suggests to him that he should start flirting with random girls again, just to make sure no one picks that there's something different with him.
He doesn't even have to think about his answer.
He says no.
...
They have very similar tastes in movies, they find. She loves anything with cars and guns in it, and is around about just as willing as he is to sit through a cheesy chick-flick (read: not at all). It works well, and they spend many nights just curled up together under a blanket with a bowl of some kind of junk food (M&Ms, popcorn, chocolate-chip cookies... it varies), laughing with each other at the misrepresentations of Law Enforcement in the films.
They fall asleep there and when they wake in the mornings they've both got cricks in their necks, and yet they've both slept soundly.
They make sure that they arrive separately at work every day. It would be more than a red flag to the others if they arrived together – they might as well just print out a colour banner and hang it from the rafters as they inform the whole of NCIS of their relationship.
Deeks' place is the one closer to work, so most nights they end up at his place instead of Kensi's, and in the mornings she'll leave first and he'll follow ten minutes later.
It works, for a while.
...
"D'you guys leave your apartments on a timer or somethin'?" Sam asks one day, as Deeks walks in and dumps his bag at his desk.
He and Kensi look at each other for a moment with matching expressions of bewilderment and turn back to Sam, eyebrows quirked.
"Every day for the last three months it's been the same," Sam says, the frustration in his voice making it clear that he's been wanting to ask them about this for a while now. "Deeks gets in at 7.19, and then – like clockwork – Kensi waltzes in at 7.29 on the dot. What do you do, call each other as you're leavin' to make sure you time it right?"
They glance at each other for a moment, and then Deeks leads the bluff.
"Yeah, that's pretty much it," he says lightly. "See, Kensi reckons she's a faster driver than me, so we race here each morning." His voice drops to a stage whisper as he leans across to Sam. "She hasn't worked out yet that, since my house is closer, I've got the advantage."
Sam rolls his eyes exasperatedly and Kensi slugs Deeks on the arm and tells him in a mock-irritated tone to shut up, and then Sam moves away and the partners share a glance.
They got out of that one, but that should never have even come up.
They wait a week and a half to avoid arousing suspicion, and then Kensi leaves the house first and Deeks arrives to work ten minutes after she does.
They make sure to keep their arrival times appropriately varied from then on.
...
"Hey, uh, Deeks?" Kensi says one morning, looking pale and nervous, and he's instantly alert.
"What?" he asks, concern in his tone. "What is it?"
"I'm... uh..." she says, and Deeks doesn't think he's ever heard her this hesitant. "I'm late..."
He stares at her incomprehensively for a long moment.
"Late?" he asks, wary and confused. "What do you m– – wait, late? As in... late?"
She bites her lip worriedly and nods.
"Um... by uh... by how much?" he asks, trying to work out if this means what he thinks it might mean.
"A week and a bit," she says, her arms folded across her torso protectively.
"So..." he says, and swallows. "So are you...?"
"I don't know," she says. "I'll pick up a test today, and then we'll know for certain."
"Ok," he says, and swallows. "Ok. Well, uh, let's just... let's just get to work and... well – I guess we'll see what it says, right?"
She nods, and they set about getting ready and don't speak any further word of it for the time being.
...
There aren't any pharmacies open at that time of the morning, so they're both still extremely quiet and reserved when they get to work. Sam and Callen pick pretty quickly that there's something up with them today, and finally Callen corners Deeks and asks what the matter is.
"It's fine," Deeks says with a smile that isn't even half the wattage that it usually would be. "Just a little, uh... don't worry about it. It's – it's fine."
He's talking to himself just as much as to Callen because, yeah, he's always wanted to be a Dad; wants the wife and the kids and the dog and the white picket fence to boot. But he wants that someday – not today. He doesn't know if he's ready for it to be today. He knows Kensi isn't ready, and he really doesn't know what they'll do if it turns out that she is pregnant.
They both suffer in the kind of silent agony borne of not knowing for a few hours until Kensi disappears silently for her lunch-break, and when she finally returns the relaxed set of her shoulders and the relieved smile on her face is answer enough.
"Checked three times," she says, being purposely vague just in case anyone else is within hearing distance. "All clear."
He grins up at her in return, relieved, and she takes her seat at her desk and they continue on through the rest of the day as normal.
Someday, definitely, he thinks to himself.
Just not today.
...
They don't talk about it for a week or so, not because they're avoiding it but just because there's nothing to be talked about.
It was a false alarm. It's not like they've been careless, but now they'll be even more careful in the future so that they don't get that kind of a scare again, but for now it's nothing to be worried about.
It's just the two of them and they're driving to a witness' house with Deeks at the wheel when he finally decides to bring the topic up.
"Hey Kens," he says casually, but she picks the hint of something else in his voice and looks over curiously. "I know that right now is the wrong timing – for all sorts of reasons – but would you want to, some day?"
She blinks blankly.
"Um... feel free to give me a clue as to what you're talking about," she says, quirking her brow at him. "Then I might be able to give you an answer."
"Have kids," he blurts out, before he can think it through enough that he talks himself out of it. She's wary of commitment, he knows, and he doesn't want to scare her off with talk of starting a family, but he needs to know. "Would you want to have kids some day?"
The question startles her and she's silent for a long moment until he looks over at her, worried that he's freaked her out with plans for the future, but she looks pensive.
"I guess... someday. Yeah. It's not something I've thought about a lot, but... yeah. I think so."
He grins happily, bolstered by her answer.
"Me too," he says simply, and she throws a smile at him.
"Have you thought about it much?" she asks after a long while, curious.
His tongue flashes out to wet his lips, slightly embarrassed.
"Yeah. I've thought about it," he says, smiling softly and keeping his eyes on the road. "Maybe... I don't know – maybe it's because of how I was brought up, but I've always wanted a proper family. You know – one that never changes, they're always there for you no matter what. Your own flesh and blood. It's always been something I've wanted. Real house, a dog and a yard, three kids running around... You know. The whole deal."
"Just three kids?" she asks, a hint of playfulness to her tone. "Not four? I've always heard that uneven numbers are bad, 'cause one always gets left out."
He scoffs.
"Nah, not with my kids," he says confidently. "They'll be the closest set of siblings ever born. Two boys and a girl, two or three years between each."
Kensi laughs out loud.
"You've really thought this through, haven't you?" she laughs, and he grins.
"What, and you've got a better plan?"
"No," she says, smiling. "I quite like yours. The boys first, and then a girl, and then she'll have a pair of brothers to look out for her. She'll hate it, of course, but they'll always dote on her and be ridiculously overprotective."
"What about names?" he asks playfully. "What would they be called?"
"I've always liked Adam," she says thoughtfully.
"James," he adds, pulling up at a red light.
"Hannah," she says, and he snorts.
"Hannah?" he repeats. "What, and have Sam thinking we named our daughter after him? Not on my watch."
He doesn't even realise that he's slipped – before, they were talking purely hypothetically about their individual future kids, with no reference as to who the second parent might be, but just now he's said "our daughter," and if Kensi notices then she doesn't pull him up on it.
"Ok," she says, laughing. "Not Hannah then. What about –"
She doesn't get the chance to speak her suggestion, because at that moment their light goes green and he drives forwards into the intersection, and then there's a sudden screeching of brakes and he looks up sharply through Kensi's window to see a dark-blue car attempting to swerve away from them, but it's all happening too fast and there's not enough time to do anything other than shout Kensi's name in warning before the car hits them and then all he's aware of is screaming metal and bursts of pain and tumbling, tumbling, tumbling, and then darkness.
...
It's the steady beep... beep... beep that wakes him, and he blinks his eyes open slowly to stare at the white ceiling in confusion.
"Deeks?" someone says, concerned and relieved all at the same time, and he tries to turn and look at them but pain explodes behind his eyes.
"Deeks, stop - try not to move," the person says, and through the haze of pain he recognises it as Callen's voice. "You hit your head pretty bad – just take it easy, ok?"
"What happened?" Deeks croaks, his voice hoarse, and he turns his head more slowly this time and spots Callen, tense and concerned, hovering by his side.
"Car crash," the agent says shortly. "The other car ran a red light, slammed into you. Jerk was speeding too – flipped your car clean over. You've got a concussion."
A car crash? Huh, he thinks he might remember... bits of it. Maybe. It was a blue car, he thinks? Yes. And it came spinning out of nowhere. Caught him entirely by surprise. What had he been doing before it happened? He'd been on his way... to a witnesses' house. Yes – that was it. And he'd been talking to someone just before-hand. Talking... about names? Talking to...
"Kensi!" he yelps, jerking wildly upwards, and Callen has to react quickly to keep him from leaping straight out of bed.
His head is throbbing wildly and he feels dizzy, but he's able to completely ignore that because Kensi – oh, shit, Kensi – she was in the passenger seat, and that's the side that the blue car hit, and if he was hurt bad enough in the crash that he's woken up in a hospital, what state must she be in, having been on the side that would have sustained the most damage?
Callen is talking to him urgently, wrestling with him to keep him from getting out of the bed, but Deeks is barely aware of the other man because he's gotta get to Kensi, gotta make sure she's alright, gotta –
"Deeks, stop!" Callen hollers at him, pinning him down so that he can't move and finally managing to make himself heard through the haze of panic that's swirling around the cop's head.
"Where's Kensi?" Deeks demands immediately, his voice loud and panicked. "Where is she – is she ok? Is she ok?"
"I don't know," Callen says, in a voice that's supposed to be calming but that only serves to freak Deeks out even more.
"You don't know?" he cries, struggling to get up again. "How can you not know how she is – haven't you been to see her? I need to know how she is!"
"Deeks, calm down, Sam's with her – she's here, in the same hospital as you," Callen says, again with the calming tone that's really not doing it's job. "I haven't seen her – I came straight in here when I arrived and Sam went straight to her, so I don't know how she is – but I'm sure she's fine," he tacks on swiftly at the end, as Deeks makes to get up again.
"Fine? Callen – she was sitting on the side that got hit! I've gotta see her – where is she?"
Callen's shaking his head before he's even done talking.
"You aren't going anywhere, Deeks; you've just been in a car crash, you were knocked unconscious and you've got a concussion, and the doctor hasn't even had a chance to come in and see you since you've woken up."
To hell with that.
"I'm not just gonna lie here not knowing how she is!" Deeks yells, struggling again against Callen's restrictive hold. "I need to see her, G, please!"
Something in his voice this time alerts Callen to the level of his desperation, and the agent draws away from him a little so that he can search his face questioningly.
"Deeks," he says gently, trying again to talk some sense into the bed-ridden man. "You really shouldn't be moving around so soon after you've woken up – you could –"
"Callen, either you get me a friggin' wheelchair and take me to Kensi now, or I swear I will walk all over this damn hospital and find her myself, concussion or no concussion."
It's very clear he's not bluffing, and Callen knows when he's lost a fight.
"Ok, ok," the agent says quickly, holding his hands out placatingly. "I'll get you a chair. Stay put for a minute. The nurses are gonna kill me, but I'll get you a chair."
...
Kensi's room is four away from Deeks', and the blonde cop with a bloodied bandage wrapped around his head is practically beside himself with worry by the time it takes Callen to get a hold of a wheelchair and start the journey down the hall.
Sam comes out of the room just a second before they get there, and he looks at the two of them with surprise.
"I was just coming to see you," he says, but Deeks is hardly aware of the words, focussed intently on getting to Kensi's side. "Shouldn't he still be in bed?"
"Couldn't keep him there," Callen answers, and stops pushing the wheelchair, and that just won't do. "He was freaking out – I figured it'd hurt him less to bring him here rather than have him try to get here on his own – hey, Deeks!"
Unwilling to wait for Callen to finish talking about whatever meaningless thing he's discussing with Sam, Deeks gathers his energy and launches out of the chair, trusting to propulsion and physics to get him where his feet aren't quite capable of just now.
He falls strategically against the closed door and presses the handle down, using his weight to swing it open before lurching almost drunkenly into the room. He's dizzy as hell though, and he would have fallen were it not for Callen's lightning reflexes; the agent catches him just inside the door and hefts him up, stilling him, a stream of disciplinary words falling from his lips as he reprimands Deeks about such a stupid act.
Deeks doesn't hear him though – is barely aware of Callen's presence, really – because Kensi is lying on the hospital bed in front of him and Deeks stares at her and feels like he might cry.
She's still, and pale except for the many bruises he can see littering her skin and the set of scratches gracing her cheek where the glass from her broken window must have caught her, and the patch of white bandaging on her head that must be covering up a bigger wound.
"She got lucky," Sam says quietly, moving to stand by Deeks and looking down at Kensi. "She'll have some spectacular bruising and she needed a couple of stitches in her hand where some glass got her, and aside from that the worst she got was a nasty bump to the head, but the Doc says that'll heal up fine."
Deeks says nothing, leaning heavily against Callen and struggling to breathe properly while he stares wide eyed at the woman he's been secretly dating for months now. The woman he wants to marry someday. The woman with whom – was it only hours ago? – he was discussing possible baby names with for their future children.
"She'll be ok, Deeks," Sam says, looking at him in concern and putting a comforting hand on his shoulder.
And that's exactly what he needed to hear.
Deeks' breath leaves him in a whoosh and he lurches forwards again, making both agents either side of him lunge to steady him, but he doesn't need their help. He braces himself against Kensi's bed and reaches out tentatively to brush some hair off her face.
"Kens?" he asks, and he can feel Sam and Callen hovering awkwardly in the background, but he couldn't care less about their presence.
"Kens, babe, it's me. Come on, wake up for me, Kensi."
His thumb stokes gently over the grazes on her cheek and he wishes he could just will them away. They don't belong there. None of these bruises belong there.
"Deeks," Sam says, hesitant and awkward sounding, like he's not entirely sure how to react in the face of such a raw display of public affection. "The Doc said she's not likely to wake up for a while yet..."
But whether it's just a matter of good timing or whether she's reacting to his voice, Kensi stirs softly.
"Hey," Deeks says warmly, smiling for what feels like the first time in days as her eyes flutter softly open. "There you are, beautiful. You really scared me."
She blinks slowly, adjusting to the light and cataloguing the level of pain scattered throughout her body as she focuses blearily on Deeks' face, and her lips curl up in a soft smile.
"Sarah," she says on a whisper, and Deeks quirks his head at her.
"Huh?" he asks, wondering if he should be worried.
"Not Hannah," Kensi says. "Sarah."
It takes him half a second to work out what it is she's talking about, and then he grins hugely.
"Adam, James and Sarah. Yeah. I like that."
And then, full of relief and still recovering from his scare and not worrying in the slightest about the two agents who are still behind him listening to every word spoken and who they're supposed to be keeping this hidden from, Deeks takes Kensi's face gently in his hands, leans in, and kisses her.
...end...
AN: Thank you all so much for your lovely reviews for 'Not For Nothing' – it was a very warm welcome into this fandom. I hope you enjoyed this one too – please let me know what you thought. This is the most romance-y thing I've ever written, so I'd really appreciate any feedback you give me. :)
Bundi