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Kensi Blye is struck by a remembrance on the one night of the year when people bundle up the last twelve months and consign them to the vault of their past. Will her future life be adversely affected by it or could she put it behind her?
Disclaimer: The characters and sets of NCIS: LA are all owned by CBS, Donald P. Bellisario, and Shane Brennan. I only own a copy of the DVDs from season 1-6. I do get to play with everyone, but they all have to be home by curfew.
A/N: I was reading the little story "Ghosts of Christmases Past", and when the words 'Auld Lang Syne' appeared on the page, and the plot bunnies jumped up and started thumping away 'Gotta write this. Just gotta write this.' So, to keep my sanity and let those little bunnies know I love them, here is what they wanted me to say:
Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot ...
Kensi Blye drove up to Julia Feldman's home. Her mother had invited her over to have a quiet New Year's Eve dinner with her daughter. Kensi had made the big step and reached out to her mother a couple years back. The relationship was tenuous at first, but gradually it evolved into a more regular mother-daughter one. Julia regularly had Kensi over to the house now, to share a meal and catch up with how her daughter's life was progressing. Normally Deeks would have come over with her, but today was one of the times when the detective volunteered his services at the shelter to help serve a hot meal to the hungry and homeless.
When the meal was over, the young agent planned to return to her own apartment and wait for Deeks. They were going to watch the 1960 original version of "Ocean's 11," the classic with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Angie Dickenson and welcome the new year in whenever the movie ended. She had argued that the remake was a better story, but Deeks held out for the campy charm of the original. He pointed out that the heist took place on New Year's Eve, and they could join everyone on the Vegas Strip in singing "Auld Lang Syne." Since the detective gave in so often whenever she wanted to watch "Titanic," she finally relented and told him they would watch his choice. What she would not admit to him was that those classic actors were not hard on her eyes, and she enjoyed viewing their work.
Before they sat down to eat, Julia went to the small table next to the shelf where she had all her Christmas cards displayed.
"Before I forget, dear, I got this in the mail two days ago. I think it really is addressed to you." Julia said, as she shuffled through the envelopes, finally pulling one out and handing it to Kensi.
The young woman looked at the address, and then back at her mother, "Are you sure?"
"You are more likely to know someone in Croatia than I would. I have never been to eastern Europe," her mother said.
Kensi thought hard about it, then looked at Julia. "I have no idea who this could be. I have never been to Zagreb, not even passing through there. Certainly the address shows that whoever sent it doesn't know you or me very well." She looked again at the address listed on the envelope:
Kensi Blye
% Mrs. Julia Blye
KLCS – The Education Station
1061 West Temple Ave
Los Angeles, CA
There was no return address, and it appeared to be a strong male hand that wrote the words on the envelope.
"Whoever it was that sent this has had no contact with you for quite some time. This person does not know that you have remarried, and how long has it been since you have had a cooking show on PBS?"
"Are you going to open it?" her mother asked.
"Do I have time before we have to sit down to eat?" Kensi asked.
"Sure, I will just set everything to warm, and we can eat whenever you're ready."
Kensi walked over to the couch and made herself comfortable, snuggled up in its corner. She sat there for a few moments, turning the envelope over and over, a slight look of apprehension flashing over her face for a mere second. Then, biting the inside of her cheek, she turned the envelope over and slid her fingernail along the edge, slicing it open. She pulled the pages out of the envelope and turned them over to see the sender's name on the backside. There was a sharply indrawn breath from the agent. The letter was from Jack!
. . . . .
Kensi,
I don't know if this letter will ever get to you, but I felt that there were a few things that I needed to tell you and your team, that there wasn't time to say when I had to leave you at Camp Chapman.
First of all, Khatira and I have to thank you and all the members of your team, the ones that came to rescue you and the ones that were back in the States, working to bring you home. You didn't have to do everything that you did to make sure Khatira and I were safe, but you did, and for that, we are eternally grateful.
Once we left the safety of the American camp, Khatira showed me some of the back trails and so we avoided the CIA squad that was still out hunting us. We had to use one of the passes through the mountains, the one where an airstrike must have caught up with the Taliban members that held the two of us captive. I don't know how many there were originally, but I counted twenty-seven dead bodies in that area. It had to be the ones that held us because there was US money scattered all over the area. I wanted no part of it, but Khatira picked up some and said that we never knew if we might need it. Turned out that she was right.
We made our way safely into Pakistan, and I went back to the village that I had been living in before. There was nothing left for us there. Everyone who had been alive when I departed were executed, most of them with their throats cut. I knew that there was no life for us there, and we continued to travel to the west through northern Iran and into Turkey.
We were lucky and managed to join a group of Syrian refugees that had been fleeing the Islamic State. It didn't matter we weren't Syrian. We spoke Arabic, a father and his daughter, whose wife and other daughter were killed in a rocket attack. Nobody had papers, so our story was accepted. We are trying to make our way to somewhere where we can find peace. I won't tell you where that is, because I have not found it yet, and telling you would open the possibility of us being found.
Don't try to trace this letter, Kensi, it will do you no good. I gave it to a relative of a friend of mine. He had a layover in Zagreb, before he flew to his final destination, and posted this letter there for me. Other than that, we have no connection with the Croatian capital.
First of all, let me apologize with the way that I left you so long ago. You deserved so much better than that. I just couldn't take all the happy, jolly, festive Christmas celebrations any longer back then. You were starting to a lot of the joy and cheerfulness of the season, and I couldn't deal with that from you either. So I just left. I shouldn't have done that, and I'm sorry for all the pain that my leaving caused you.
You once asked me what it was like when I was deployed and I told you that it was like falling through the clouds, everything so powerful and real, pure adrenaline. A person can only live off adrenaline for just so long. Then he comes crashing down to the ground. And when I hit the ground over there, I had no one to help me. I don't know how long I was out of my head until I was taken in by some people from that little nameless village that became my home. I should have stayed with you.
Now our situations are completely reversed. You are the one who is flying so high, and it is due to your skill and determination, not just pure adrenaline. In all the time that I was with you when we were captured, you didn't crash, you didn't even come close to hitting the ground. You bent, but you never were on the verge of breaking.
I imagine that you and your team fly into the hot spots, do your job and then fly out, never settling down in any one spot. Me, all I want to do is find a little spot of that ground, where I can feel safe and protected, and stay there forever, where I can raise my fourteen-year-old daughter and not have to worry about her. Maybe someday I will find someone that is willing to share that dream with me, one who is content to take on a damaged man with a kid.
Perhaps God gave me Khatira so that I could try to give her the type of life that I should have been able to give you. Whatever the reason she was entrusted to my care, she is now my daughter and I am her father, just as much as if she were born to me. Our family bonds continue to grow and I hope to keep us alive long enough to see her married off and the mother of several of my grandchildren.
I know that before I left you in Afghanistan, I told you that I would contact you again if I could. I cannot see that happening anymore. I could never ask you to meet me again because it would put all of us, you, Khatira, and me in too much danger. I do not know if the CIA will ever stop looking for me. I have to live my life as if they will not, so I will have to always live a life of pretense.
But please know that what I had with you was never fake. I have always loved you. I left you so long ago because I knew that the love I had for you was not the kind you wanted or needed at that time. I still love you, but I see that there are others that love you much more than I do, in ways that you really want, ways that you truly need. Those three men that came to bring you home displayed that love. Each of them would offer up their life in exchange for you. I especially remember that blond haired man that held you as you watched me leave Camp Chapman that day. The look on his face could only be described as heartbroken, as he saw you watching me.
You have a chance for a life with him. Kensi, do not live in the past. Bundle it with all your memories of me, and file them away as stories to tell your children and grandchildren. Do not let this opportunity slip through your fingers, as I let you slip through mine.
Have a good life, Kensi. It was so good to see you, even under the trying circumstances in which we found ourselves. If I reopened any of the old wounds that I caused you, I am so sorry. I really didn't mean to hurt you. You will always have a favored spot in my heart.
Always,
Jack
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Kensi read the letter three times, to make sure that she did not miss anything. Then she stuck it back into the envelope and placed it in her purse.
"Are you okay, dear?" Julia asked her daughter when she saw the almost lost look on Kensi's face.
Her daughter didn't answer her, but just was walking around almost mindlessly.
Julia walked over to her and reached out to take her arm. She asked her again, "Kensi, are your okay, my dear?"
She shook her head as if she was trying to come out of a daze. Looking hard at Julia, she asked, "What? Oh yeah. I guess."
"Was it the letter that had you spaced out there for a moment?"
Kensi looked like she was fighting a mental battle, should she tell her mother about it or not. She had told her mother about the time that Jack had left her and how devastated she had been, but she had not mentioned anything about her time in Afghanistan and the rescue. She knew she had to tell her mother something, so she just said 'Yeah," and hoped Julia would leave it at that.
But this was her mother, and she was concerned. It must be something extremely upsetting to cause this reaction in Kensi. She continued to press as gently as she could, "Who was it from?"
"Just an old, old friend, one I can't talk about. It's all part of my work. You know, it's just like some of the work that dad used to do." Kensi knew that this was a sore spot with Julia. Even after the divorce, she tried at least once to get back together with Donald. But he was gone for weeks at a time, and when she asked where he was and what he was doing, all he would tell her was that it was government business. Kensi now knew that he had been doing 'wet work' for the CIA in a special operations unit named "Oscar-Sierra". He had been bound by the same laws of confidentiality as the NCIS agent was.
. . . . .
"Okay, let's just go and eat, before everything dries out," Julia said, ushering her over to the table.
Kensi knew that the butterflies that constantly flitting around in her stomach would not let her enjoy the meal. She put only a little bit of food on her plate, just picked at it a little bit. Finally, Julia just saw that she was pushing the food around on her plate, instead of just eating it.
"Is there something wrong with the food," Julia asked, "or are you just not hungry?"
Again Kensi looked at her with that glazed expression on her face. Julia could tell that her mind was a million miles away at that moment. "Are you really okay, dear," she asked once more.
"I'm sorry, mom," she answered, "That letter was just a little upsetting. It brought back some old memories for me, that I'm not really sure that I want to visit. Would you mind if I just went home? I'm sorry about the meal. Maybe we could do this another time?"
"Sure. That would be no problem. Maybe Martin would be able to join us then."
When her mother mentioned Deeks, Kensi's eyes opened wide as if she was in shock. Julia wondered if the two of them were having relationship problems. "You are going to see him tonight, aren't you?" she asked hesitatingly.
"What? Yeah, sure. I guess," was the answer she received.
Julia's worries increased when she heard those words, but she was not going to push it. She walked her daughter to her front door, helped her on with her jacket, and watched as she climbed into her car. Then she shut her door, leaned against it, and offered up a prayer, requesting that her daughter would find some sort of peace and happiness in the coming year.
. . . . .
On the way home, Kensi thought about what she was gonna do. Part of her wanted just to put the letter away, and after quitting NCIS, secretly try to go to Europe to find Jack and help him one more time. But when she further thought about it, she saw that she would be doing the exact thing to Deeks that Jack had done to her. And there was no way that she could ever put someone else through that hell, all the same pain and heartache that she went through after Jack left. She knew that the detective would not let it rest if she played it out like that. He would quit his job too, and follow her to hell and back to make sure she continued to be safe in her searching.
The other part of her wanted to show the letter to Deeks and tell him it is the closure that she needed. She was tired of waiting for Jack to come back and find her and help her deal with her emotional wounds, the way she sacrificed everything for him. She knew that he would read through the whole letter if she would give it to him. When he reached the part where Jack said he looked broken-hearted, she knew that she is so sorry for breaking his heart that day that they left and beg his forgiveness.
She still had not decided what to do when she parked her car in the lot next to the detective's truck. She sat there for at least five minutes, mentally debating her options, and then finally got out and walked into her apartment.
. . . . .
She closed the door behind her and took off her jacket and hung it up.
Deeks looked at her and asked, "How was your dinner with Julia?"
Kensi looked over at him but didn't say a word. Setting her purse on the hallway table, she took out the envelope and walked down the short hallway to the bedroom, where she left her weapon and cell phone.
When she returned to the front room, Deeks stared at her, seeing an expression on her face that he had never seen there before. "Everything okay between you and your mom?" he asked, trying to find out the cause of that look.
She looked up at him, and muttered, "Yeah, I guess."
Damn, he thought to himself, now what did I do or didn't do that has her upset with me? The last day of the year and I hurt her again.
"Kens, whatever it is, I'm sorry."
"What? Oh, no. It's not you." She held up the envelope. "I need for you to read this."
Deeks immediately became even more worried. Kensi Blye, needing something? That just did not happen. Never, ever. She was 'Wonder Woman'. She never needed any help and even if she did, she would never, ever ask someone for their help.
She sat down on the other end of the couch and handed the envelope to him, "Just please read it. It might explain a lot of things."
"You're sure about this?" he asked as he took the envelope from her.
"Yes," she whispered hesitantly.
Deeks looked at the address on the front and raised one eyebrow in query. Then he took the pages out of the envelope and turned the pages over to see who the sender was. His face darkened when he saw who it was from, and there was a small shutter that went up Kensi's spine.
He turned the letter over and started reading it. She could tell when he got to the part where Jack was describing the look on his face as he left Camp Chapman. His hand dropped into his lap and his face again had a strange look, part hurt, part questioning. He looked like he was about to say something, but Kensi shook her head, and just whispered again, "Please, just read it to the end."
Deeks didn't say anything, just lifted up the letter again and continued reading. When he got to the end, he folded it up and placed it back into the envelope and gave it to her.
After a few moments of silence, as the two of them just looked at each other, he rubbed his hand through his hair, then asked her, "So, why do you think he sent you this letter?"
She looked down at the hands in her lap holding the envelope and shook her head. "I don't know. To tell me he's still out there? To tell me he's still waiting for me? To tell me it's finally over? I just don't know anymore."
"So I won't wake up tomorrow morning and find that you are gone, off looking for him, leaving me here..." He was going to add the words "all alone by myself," but he could see the words he already said to her hurt, like bullets slamming into her chest, and did not want to add to her pain.
Her head came up instantly, as she looked with a pained expression, "I could never do that to you, Deeks. I couldn't put you through that pain. Besides, I know you would just chase after me, until you found out if I ever found him, and if I could be happy with him."
Deeks looked at a spot about a foot above her head, as he swallowed the lump in his throat trying to get his next words out, "Do...you...love...him?"
Tears started to form in her eyes as she started to flounder in giving him the answer, "Yessss. Noooo. I don't know. I did. Maybe I still do. I mean, I still love my dad. Do I love Jack that way? I don't know. What I do know is that I am not in love with him."
Deeks looked surprised when she said this. Did that mean what he hoped it meant? He was not going to push her by asking, but just waited until she continued.
"I spent all these years waiting for Jack to come back and find me, and help me deal with my emotional wounds, like I struggled to help him. I'm tired of waiting, Deeks. I'm tired of making all the sacrifices and giving up my life to support the life of someone else."
"I never asked you to give up anything for me," Deeks said.
"Oh, but you did, Deeks. You and you continue to do it," she responded, as she grabbed his hand.
"When did I ask you to give up anything for me?" he demanded.
"You never asked me in words, but you worked your way into my life to get me to give up my fears. They still aren't completely gone. I am still afraid of waking up and finding that you're gone."
"You know that when that happens it is not my fault?"
"I know it happens occasionally when you go undercover for the LAPD, and you try to let me know ahead of time. I also know that you go out of your way to leave me a little something on my desk or post a message on my phone when you are working those covert missions to let me know that you are still alive and still love me."
"I promised you, princess, that I would never leave you. I will always have your back. You have my guarantee on it because Marty Deeks will always keep his promise to you." Deeks took his other hand and placed it over hers, trapping it between both of his as he said this.
"I know. It's not you. It's me and my fears. It is something that I have to fight, each and every day. I don't think I could survive anyone else disappearing from my life. I couldn't take it one more time. My life would be completely over and I would die."
He sat up and almost pulled his hands away from hers. A brief look of anger clouded his face. "What will it take to convince you that I am not Jack. I never will be Jack, and I would never treat you the way he did?" he asked sharply.
Her eyes started to mist up as she looked at him and begged him, "Be patient with me. Wait for me join you wherever you are. Love me."
He didn't say a word to her, just flashed her his best million-dollar smile. Taking his hand off the top of hers, he put it around her shoulder and pulled her into a hug, her head resting on his chest. They just stayed there like that for several minutes, she listening to his heart beating in his chest, he with his arms encircling her, protecting her.
. . . . .
"So tell me," he finally asked, pointing to the letter, "why did you decide to let me read this?"
"Because it's New Year's Eve, Deeks. We need to take the past year..."
He looked at her and then back at the letter, his eyebrow going up in a questioning quirk.
"Or maybe the past several years, and bundle them up, and say goodbye to them. The good friends and memories we will cherish forever," as a smile graced her face and a twinkle came to her eye. "All the others we can forget. Tonight, at the stroke of midnight, we will be given a brand new precious year, like a little newborn baby, and it is going to be our job to raise it to have the life that we want."
"A baby?" Deeks said nervously.
"The year, silly, not me." she said to him as she punched him in the arm.
"A brand new year," she continued, "where we can be bold together, going places we have never gone before, trying things that are new for us..."
"So, does that mean that we can just go down the road to Disney..." Deeks asked expectantly.
"Before he could finish the word, she stopped him, "New Year, Deeks. Baby steps. I want us to be bold together, just not in 'Mouse City' yet."
. . . . .
And with those words, they heard a nearby church bell start to toll the midnight hour, as they gazed intently in each other's eyes.
"I love you, Kensi Marie Blye. Happy New Year," he whispered to her.
"I love you too, Marty Deeks. It certainly will be," she returned, as their lips joined a kiss of celebration.
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A/N 2: May all past unhappy remembrances in your lives be forgotten, and may the new year bring you nothing but peace and happiness
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