Basically this sprang up in my head when I saw it was Densi Day yesterday. I planned on posting it yesterday as well, but I just got back from vacation and wanted to give this time to edit. Hopefully this lives up to the standards of the Densi-lovers. Please don't kill me.
Note: All words are Latvian, but you don't need a translator. The English is right after it (it's a somewhat-modified technique of what I've seen other writers use in their books).
The phone rang in the living room. "Sveicināti?" I said, picking up the receiver. "Hello?"
"Hey," said a familiar voice on the other end.
"Marty! How are you? It's been a while since you've called." I grinned, happy to hear from him after three months of no contact at all: no emails, no facebook messages, no phone calls.
"Yeah, well, been keeping busy."
"New cases?"
"That and a few other things." I could tell he was teasing me, begging for me to ask the million dollar question.
I decided to humor him. "All right, I'll bite. What 'other things'?"
"Good old reliable you. Well, you know how Kensi and I have been dating for a while?"
"For a while? You were in a relationship long before you decided to call it 'official'. I'd say that you were dating for at least two years before you grew a pair."
"Hey, it was a delicate operation. Do you want to hear my news or not? Am I going to have to deal with abuse?"
"All right, all right. I'll behave. What were you going to say?" I surrendered.
"Well, as you said, I finally 'grew a pair' and asked her to marry me."
"Wow, you have surpassed all expectations of mine. At the rate you were going I expected Kensi to ask you since it's obvious who wears the pants in the relationship."
"Abuse?"
"Right, sorry," I apologized. "So tell me how it went. I'm female, I like details of proposals."
"Well, I had this nice evening planned. I was going all out, even planning on getting us out of work early to take her surfing, since she's actually grown to like it. I was alone in the bullpen when Hetty came in and I asked her for any last words of wisdom. She had a few and then Kensi walked in. Well, obviously she asked me what was up and I wasn't quick enough with an answer. That's when the rest of the team came in."
"Callen and Sam?" I asked.
"And Nell and Eric and even Nate, who was back on business for God-knows-what."
"Impressive," I said.
"So Callen, who knew what was up as soon as he saw my face, decided to make the situation worse and told me 'why not ask her right now'. Of course Kensi wanted to know exactly what was going on. Me being my eloquent self, I had no idea what to say. Sam went with it too and eventually everyone was telling me to just do it and eventually I just… well I popped the question."
"I'm not saying anything."
"I can hear your snickering."
"Shut up."
"Did you tell her how you threw the ring box at me?" a voice asked.
"Hey Kensi," I said. "I'm going to ignore that last part for Marty's sake. How's it going with you? Keeping him in line?"
"For the most part." This time her voice came in clear, which meant that they were either on speakerphone or she had picked up her own receiver.
"Glad to hear it. So when's the wedding?"
"Well… erm…" Marty mumbled.
"Did you really get hitched and didn't even tell me?" I was rather put out. "Martin Jonathan Deeks! Hang my ban, I'm coming over to give you a good slap on the head –"
"Calm down, don't get yourself arrested. I would not like seeing Hetty's hard work put to waste. We didn't quite know that we were getting married until about an hour before the ceremony."
"Attaisnojums mani?" I spluttered. "Excuse me?"
"Well, see, we went to Vegas for a case and once we finished up Kensi and I went to the bar to celebrate a job well done."
"Well I can see where this is going. Please tell me you remember the night." I would have been worried if I hadn't known them as well as I did. If their relationship hadn't gone back as far as it had, I would have pegged the hasty marriage as a goner from the start.
"We weren't that drunk," Marty protested. "However, after a few drinks I told Kensi that we should 'screw the rules and just get married now and save time, money, and stress. She agreed and an hour later we ended up at the Chapel of Love."
"God, you're a sap," I said, then remembered my promise (of course, that never stopped me, but I wanted to hear the end). "But anyway, Chapel of Love…"
"It was the standard 'kiss the bride' ceremony, we rented the honeymoon suite, and woke up to rather spectacular hangovers in the morning."
"Thought you hadn't been drinking that much," I retorted.
"I said we weren't that drunk, as in we had no memory. However, we were fairly close to it," Marty argued.
"Did you take pictures?" I sighed, resigned to the fact that they had been rash idiots, but they hadn't killed each other yet.
"Sent them by email five minutes ago. You should receive the hard copies in a few days."
I opened up my computer and clicked on Google. I sifted through the spam and saw the bold letters. Clicking through the pictures, I noticed what was odd fairly quickly. "You seem rather sober for drunkards. And where did you manage to get that wedding dress in an hour?"
"Oh," Kensi interjected. "Hetty made us 'do something right' and had me put on a wedding dress so that we could pose for pictures. She told us if we weren't going to have a real ceremony, at least we could pretend that we did. She added that we'd thank her in twenty years when we needed to remind ourselves that it really happened."
"Well at least Hetty is fairly certain you guys will make it to twenty years."
"She also said that if we didn't make it, we could burn the evidence."
"Good old Hetty. So you got engaged and married all within three months. You guys move fast."
"What happened was that I proposed a few days after I talked to you last and then we were kept busy with a case. I planned on calling you to tell you, but we were always held over by some crazy suspect or it was too late to call. I thought it was too important to tell via email, otherwise you would have known a lot sooner. Oh, that reminds me: there's one more thing you need to know…"
"What?" I asked, guessing the answer.
"I'm pregnant," Kensi blurted out.
There was a very long pause. My mouth was open and moving, but no sound was coming out.
"Tante?" My little niece came through the door. "Kāpēc jums izskatīties kā zivs? Why do you look like a fish?"
I quickly closed my mouth. "A fish? Don't be silly, Vita."
"Well, come out soon, ok? I want to play bocce and no one else is willing to play."
"I'll be there soon. Ask Viktor to play while I finish up, all right?" I returned to the phone. "Sorry about that."
"It's all right. I had a similar reaction when Kensi told me a week ago," Marty said.
"Yes, well, I certainly wish you all the best of luck. I have plenty of faith in you."
"Oh, I'm going to be late for yoga. I'll talk to you later. Bye!" I said my goodbyes to Kensi before I heard a small click, signaling she had ended her line. I guessed that yoga was only the excuse and something was up with Marty.
"So how are you doing?" I asked him.
"I'm… fine," he said hesitantly.
"I'm not buying. What's up?"
"It's nothing."
"It's definitely something, Martin," I said firmly. Then I realized what might be bothering him. "Is it because of Brandel?"
"No!" he said forcefully. I knew I had hit the money.
"Marty…"
"Maybe."
"I thought so. So care to clarify why Brandel is somehow related to this?"
"What if I turn out to be like him? What if I'm a terrible father like he was?"
"You won't be."
"But–"
"Look, Brandel was a screwed up piece of work that was never all the way there. You're many things, Martin Deeks, many things and that is not one of them. You are not him and you will never be like him. Not as long as Kensi and the team are there to help you out. Sure, you'll probably screw up more than a few times, but I have no doubt that you will be a great father regardless. And you know I would tell you if I thought you were definitely not father material."
"You really think I can do this?"
"You sort of don't get much of a choice, buddy. You're now signed up for fatherhood whether you think you're ready or not. Just take it one step at a time and you'll survive."
"How have you figured this out?"
"I have four brothers. Three of them have kids and the other one has a wife that's ready to pop any second now. I have a bit of experience dealing with babies and even more dealing with stressed out fathers. You're not the only father-to-be that thinks you're a major screw-up that can't do this. Hell, Oskar nearly dropped his firstborn when he got to hold her for the first time. He wouldn't change her for months because he was afraid that he would hurt her. Trust me, you're not the first. And you definitely won't be the last. Just calm down, pay attention during classes, and try not to stress out too much."
"Any more advice?"
"This: you are not your father and – if I have anything to do about it – you never will have to worry about it."
"All right. I'll try to keep that in mind."
"Do that. Now, I've got to run. My niece, Vita, wants to go play bocce. She's rather impatient and I don't know if her brother will be nice and let her win this time."
"Ok, I'll let you go then."
"I'll talk to you soon. You are definitely not ignoring me for another three months."
"It wasn't entirely my fault."
"I know, but you're the easiest one to blame."
"Bye."
"Atā." I sighed as I put down the receiver. I was sad, knowing that I would (most likely) never see his son or daughter. I was half a world away and it wasn't likely Marty would ever visit me. We kept our relationship distant, since I knew that he hadn't completely forgiven me for everything, though we were getting there. I let him make the contact, never pushing, but always willing to receive.
"Tante!" Vita squealed. "Come help me! Viktor is winning right now."
I walked away from the telephone and opened up the door to the porch. "I'm coming!" I grabbed my shoes and slipped them on as I jogged outside. I shoved aside my sad feelings and put on a happy smile for my family. "Now let's play some bocce!"
If you're wondering who the "I" was in this story, it will eventually be answered in one of my upcoming stories. Currently I'm in Writer's Block Avenue with it, but I'm working out the kinks. Hopefully it'll be posted during the summer.
I hope you liked this little Densi one-shot and feel free to leave a review at the bottom. Happy belated Densi day!
