Come Down
...
How do you have an episode tag to an episode that hasn't even aired yet?* You start with a promo that fires up the imagination and then wing it.
I'll be curious to see, once "Plan B" airs, whether I'm anywhere close to the target. I suspect no. Still, this was fun to write, even though it didn't come out quite as well as the scenes played out in my head.
There might be a scene or two after this one. I'm not sure yet.
(*I once wrote an episode tag to an episode that never aired, but that's another story, and another show.)
...
Home.
Kensi closed her eyes a moment, then opened them to survey the status of the living room. Mail stacked on table, check. Clean laundry piled on the sofa, check. Gym bag on the floor, needing to be unpacked, check.
All of it had been waiting for her attention since yesterday. Which, if you thought about it, meant it could keep on waiting a while longer. She walked past it into the kitchen where she pulled her last cold beer from the fridge. Her next stop was the bathroom to start the shower. Two minutes later and she was undressed, letting the hot water run over her tired, aching body while she drank her beer. And God, did it feel good. Almost perfect.
Perfect would be…what? Not thinking about this last case. It was done, over.
Not thinking about Deeks. There was no reason to. Her partner was physically fine.
No reason to think about what he'd said, either, while undercover. What he'd done.
She took another swig of beer. And focused on not thinking.
"Give him space, Kensi," Callen had said to her back in Ops, over an hour ago. "Takes a while, sometimes, to come down after deep cover." Callen, who had more deep cover experience than any of them (excepting possibly Hetty). No doubt he was right. Still.
"He can have his space. I just…"
"He'll be fine," Callen had said then, in a tone which made it clear he was done discussing it. He turned away, heading for the door where Sam was waiting for him.
"I'm not worried about him, Callen, if that's what you think," she called after him, not ready to let it go. "I just want him to check in."
Callen held up his phone. "He did."
Deeks had called Callen, and not her? "Oh," she said. Then cursed herself inwardly. Smooth, Kensi, very smooth.
Callen glanced over his shoulder at her. Kensi looked right back at him, doing her damnedest to keep her face neutral. But it was no good. Callen's skills for reading people were close to preternatural. That he knew her well made it even easier. He chuckled on the way out the door, shaking his head gently.
In the shower, Kensi tipped back the beer, finishing the last of it. The hot water was running out, so she turned it off and reached for a towel.
By the time she pulled a clean t-shirt and jeans out of the laundry and got dressed, she was starting to feel the beer. On a good day, Kensi could drink toe to toe with the best of them. But this hadn't been a good day. She could remember eating breakfast. But after that things had gone straight to hell and there hadn't been time for lunch. Or dinner. Was there still leftover Thai in the fridge? Yes. Maybe. She'd go see, as soon as she checked her phone for messages.
Just in case he'd called after all.
But there was the problem, because where had she put her phone? She checked out the table near the front door, the coffee table, scanned the kitchen counters. Found the jeans she'd been wearing and searched the pockets. Even peeked inside the fridge. Nothing. And then suddenly, a clear mental image came to mind: her phone and jacket waiting for her on the desk at Ops while she'd finished arguing with Callen. She'd never picked them up after that, just walked out the door.
She pressed her palm to her forehead. "Are you kidding me?" There was something akin to irony in her getting so distracted complaining about Deeks being out of touch that she'd forgotten her phone. Meaning she was out of touch now, too.
The guys would never let her live this down if they knew. Ever. She pulled her wet hair into a ponytail, slipped into a pair of sneakers, grabbed her keys and went.
By the time Kensi pulled up to Ops, the sun had long since set, leaving behind only a faint glow on the horizon. In that low light, she could tell there was another car parked there but not whose it was. Not unusual for one of the team to be putting in late hours, but she still slowed down as she pulled her car in. Her headlights flashed over the car and plates…
Deeks.
It said something about how this last op had gone that the first thing she felt was a flicker of wariness.
No, she told herself. You don't need to do that. He's your partner.
And he'd also been frighteningly convincing in the role he'd played, burying himself so far inside the alias that she'd had trouble seeing any sign of Deeks at all.
Kensi turned off her car. Took a deep breath in and out. Headed inside.
A single light burned on the first floor, the lamp at Deeks' desk. Instinct alone kept Kensi from calling out a greeting. Instead she approached quietly, and ended up glad for it. Deeks was leaning back in his chair, elbow on the arm rest, face partly concealed by his hand. His eyes were closed and his chest rose and fell evenly. On his desk rested a stack of paperwork, and an untouched mug of tea.
He'd gotten rid of the leather jacket, at least. Instead, he had on a well-worn t-shirt that might have once have been red.
Arms folded, Kensi watched him for a minute. Not a lot different than it had been in the hospital, when she'd spent all those hours by his bedside, waiting for him to find consciousness. For his eyes to flicker open, so that she could know for sure he was all right.
Now here she was, wondering that same thing. She wanted him to say I'm awake, Fern. So she could say Didn't look like it to me.
He didn't say anything. Didn't even move.
Maybe the best thing to do would have been to leave him in peace. But even as she was deciding to do just that, she heard herself saying his name aloud.
"Deeks?"
His body jerked into sudden wakefulness. Even before his eyes were fully open, his hand was going for the holster at the small of his back.
"Deeks! It's me. Hey!"
His blue eyes, wide and a little wild, fixed on her. Recognition came a beat later. He blinked, and his gaze tracked around the room. Remembering where he was. Or who.
Kensi could feel her heart slamming painfully in her chest. But in that moment she made the decision to act as if nothing had just happened. Like she hadn't seen him go for his gun. Hadn't seen the look in his eyes. "I forgot my phone," she said, as steadily as she could. "Saw you here, thought I'd say hello."
Deeks exhaled. Sat up. "Hi," he replied, a little flatly.
"Sorry about waking you."
No you aren't. It was what he should have said. Instead, he only nodded. Scrubbed both hands over his face.
"Listen, I'm going to grab some dinner," she began. "I'm starved, haven't eaten since this morning. Do you want to...?"
Deeks looked down at his clothes. The papers stacked in front of him. "No," he said. His voice a little rough. "You go ahead."
Takes a while, sometimes, to come down.
Fine. Kensi nodded, as if it didn't matter to her. "All right. Well, I'll let you get back to it. See you Monday." She picked up her phone and jacket and headed for the door without a backward glance.
"Wait," he said.
She stopped and turned.
He pushed himself up out of the chair and stood. "About…about how I was. What I did. I didn't mean for…" He shook his head. "I'm sorry," he finished.
"Deeks, it was a job. We do what we have to."
"But I shouldn't have…"
Shouldn't have what? No, she didn't even want him to finish that sentence. She closed the distance between them in a few long strides. "It was an alias. It wasn't you," she said, maybe more loudly than she'd intended.
"How the hell do you know that?" he fired back.
"I know," she said, slamming her fist down on his desk.
He stared back at her for a few seconds. Then slowly sank back down into his chair. "Glad one of us does," he murmured.
Kensi waited, watching his face for some sign that either he was done, or he wanted to talk. Deeks gazed straight ahead, his eyes unfocused. What seemed like almost a half hour, but was probably only a minute, ticked by on the big clock. Just as she'd begun to think she should go, he spoke.
"Kens?" He almost sounded like himself.
"Hm?" she asked softly.
"Raincheck. On dinner."
"Deal."