It's Like Hacking

Standard Disclaimers apply: I don't own NCIS LA, or its characters.

Friday's case grew increasingly hectic. Russian internet profiteers, People's Liberation Army cyber-espionage units, American anarchists and even the interior ministry of Mozambique exchanged money, information, video files, and IED blueprints. Finally, with Deeks, Hetty, and Nell breathing down his neck and SECNAV watching via videoconference, Eric dove in to hack the third secure server in five minutes, but then watched as the trail of cyber-footprints evaporated. Someone, probably the Estonian, disabled the drive mere seconds before Eric gained access. He wilted. "They got away." With his forehead on the spacebar, he repeated, "They got away."

Frustration coloring her voice, the SECNAV signed off, "Thank you for your effort, OSP. I don't need to emphasize, time is of the essence. Keep me apprised as the case develops."

Deeks bumped Eric's shoulder, "Don't worry. We'll get 'em another way."

True to his word, the detective found the clue the team needed, and it led them to the bust.

After the rest of the team gathered in the bullpen to decompress before leaving, Eric slunk down the stairs, the bile of defeat still raw in his throat.

Deeks, who had caught just a glance of him, shouted across the room, "What happened there, a little performance anxiety, Eric?"

Eric startled. For a second, it appeared he would launch into the detective, if not physically then at least verbally, unleashing the torrent of frustration and embarrassment that Deeks had provoked. But then, he sagged and started down the tunnel, muttering as much to his stale Starbucks as to anyone in particular, "They beat me. I just couldn't keep up with a couple kids who hack with all the subtlety of shoe leather."

After Eric's form slouched into the parking lot, the team compared notes.

Sam pulled his chin. "He took it bad."

Kensi looked at the ground. "Don't forget, he's saved our butts so many times."

"Yeah, he does amazing stuff so often, it's easy for us to take his work for granted." Nell shook her head ruefully.

"Today, we just had to do it the old-fashioned way." After Kensi said it, she understood Deeks lecherous smile, so she drew back her fist to slug him.

To prevent its launch, he changed his course. "Still, we were better off than we would have been without his voodoo."

Callen put a hand on Nell's shoulder. "Keep an eye on him, Nell."

"Got it, Callen. I've got some cleaning up to do here, anyhow. I'll see you guys Monday."

Thirty minutes later, Nell had the files secured; the computer workspace organized, and even started a burn cycle for all the classified waste their day had generated, but she still hadn't heard from Eric. After some debating, she used in desperation the ops hardware to ping his cell phone and was surprised to see it at a community center near her condo: the same community center where she'd taken Eric for the Toys For Tots party two Christmases before.

Ten minutes later, she walked tentatively down its hall, following the sound of grunts and crashes. In a doorway, she stopped cold: there stood Eric with the center director, each leaning against a sledgehammer, each covered in a thick layer of plaster and concrete dust. Dusty goggles had protected their eyes and Eric's glasses from the chunks of cinder block, but they had done nothing to protect his arms and legs from their gashing flights. One piece had even hit his tattoo, revising Einstein's formula to "E =/= m c ^2"

He looked up sheepishly. "Hi, Nell."

"Eric! What's going on? Why are you here?"

The director looked at the two of them, "I'll be in my office if you need me. Thanks again, Eric."

"Well, after we came down here that Christmas, I stayed in touch, and have been volunteering a lot lately."

"Yeah, that's great, but demolitions?"

"This is a one-off, Nell. Normally I do homework help for neighborhood kids, but after I left the mission, I remembered that this weekend they start their remodeling. I figured I'd be able to work out some of my frustration after I embarrassed myself today."

"You didn't do anything embarrassing. That was some serious hacking, and those guys just had a head start on you. When I briefed SECNAV after it closed, she emphasized again how great your hacking is. 'I'm glad he's on our side,' she said."

"No, that's not it, and I realize I won't win every hacking battle. It's that I let Deeks get under my skin with that 'performance anxiety,' crack. Working over here, I realized I'm the one to blame."
"No, stop, Eric. Don't blame yourself for Deeks being a jerk."

"Oh sure. I've known for a long time what a careless ass he can be. But I set him up for it. I did. All this? It's because I've been too casual, too flippant, about something so serious."

"What are you talking about? What could bring you to this? Who have you talked too flippantly with?"

"With you, sex."

"You'll have to explain, there, Yoda."

"Yoda?" It took a few seconds for his brain to process Nell's comment. "Oh. Ohhhh, now I see. No, I wasn't thinking 'sex with you.' Well, I was, that's what gets me into trouble, but I…."

"You better slow down, there, Eric."

He paused, took two deep breaths, "Okay. Recovering. Open mouth…. Extract foot… . Thinking." Another deep breath.

"What I mean is that I've been too flippant with you about sex. It has no place in the workplace."

"Okay, now I see."

"Yeah. That 'hacking is like sex.' That's just something Ira always says. He can get away with it 'cause he's a freelancer. He wants people to think that because he's good at hacking,"

"Say no more…" her eyes turned down, "but, I've got to say this. I've wanted for a while to apologize for that bedpost joke last spring. The implications of that joke are probably even more out of line."

He put his hands on each of her shoulders. "It was just a joke. It made you as uncomfortable as it did me."

"What, Eric? So I'm allowed to joke about sex, but you're not? Does that seem fair?" "Nell, what you say and do is up to you, but for me, I shouldn't be joking about sex." "Oh, lighten up. If we can't laugh about it, where would be the fun, Beale?" she asked, pursing her lips for the "B" in "Beale."

"Sure, I hope it would be nice and fun… but romantic, and magical too. For me sex would be far too serious to joke about. I mean, I would hope that it would be nice and fun… romantic, magical even. But I would hope that the sex would be just a part of a magical, wondrous relation, where I bring you flowers, and chicken soup when you're sick, and we do things like go to the Rocky Horror Show and I make a total fool of myself, and we go hiking, and together we search high and low for the restaurant with the best borscht in all of Los Angeles."

Confusion streaked across Nell's face. "Borscht? Why borscht?"

"Borscht, goulash, biscochitos, I've no preference. Whatever we choose, just think of the fun we'd have on a search like that. It's not the goal, it's the journey."

Nell craned her neck in toward Eric. "Even if it's for lutefisk?"

He recoiled in horror and held his nose. "Lutefisk? Yeah, okay. For you, I'd try lutefisk." His eyes narrowed as he leaned in. "But understand, I know a place that flies in Rocky Mountain oysters when they're in season!"

After her shock wore off, Nell smirked. "So, are they the secret to great hacking?"

"Hacking? Nell, what are you talking about?" He shook his head in amazement. "Your brain works in weird ways."

"Well, I just figured that if hacking is like sex, and Rocky Mountain oysters have all the strengths they say they do, well, then, a hacker on Rocky Mountain oysters must be the Superman of the internet or something."

"I wouldn't know, actually. I doubt there's three hackers in the country who could look at them with a straight face, much less eat some. Myself, I tried 'em when I was a teenager in Oklahoma, but haven't thought much about 'em since."

Nell looked at him skeptically. "Just enough to track down a restaurant that serves 'em so you can impress your girlfriend."

"No, I didn't track it down. I just read about it someplace. The idea boiled up as revenge for your threatening me with lutefisk."

"Oh, good! So you're not dragging me out for fried cattle nads on our first date."

"Nah. They're out of season." He smirked, so it earned him a slug on the bicep.

"Hey, careful! You got Einstein on the nose, there."

"Well, I better kiss it and make it better."

She drew in and pursed her lips, but Eric interrupted. "Oh great! Our first kiss that's not mistletoe-assisted, and it's Einstein that gets it, not me."

Nell smiled. "Change in plans, then." Her lips diverted from their simple glide-path to his arm, drifted past his sweat-soaked shirt, hovered over his collarbone as she pulled on his neck to bring his face to her level, and then resumed their final approach toward his lips.

For two years, almost, Eric had thought about that kiss under the mistletoe, planning what he'd do if he had more warning. He would give to Nell the attention she deserved, pouring out all the emotion that had built up since he'd met her. Tonight, forewarned and forearmed, he could follow through on that fantasy. He tilted his head to the side so his nose was out of the way, caught a breath before it started, capturing with it that strange mix of scents that made up Nell: her shampoo, her light perfume, a little Oreo, and—was it—a little sweat.

A minute into it, he paused to tear the goggles from his forehead and the glasses from his eyes and, setting them aside, returned for yet another kiss, yet another dose of the sweetest, enthralling-est wonder-drug he could ever imagine.

After another minute, Eric started moaning through the kiss, so Nell reached for his back to pull him closer. Eric resisted. "The dust."

"That's okay. The dress is washable."

"But not your sweater."

Her eyes guided his in a survey of the destruction. "Is there anyplace better to set it?"

"True enough." His resistance faltered. "I'll get it dry-cleaned for you."

"Deal, Beale." This time when she pulled, he allowed himself to be, and soon her body conformed to dusty his, and the kiss continued, unabated, unabashed.

Kiss-filled minutes later the director poked his head around the corner, retreated, froze, then cleared his throat loudly. Eric looked up and pulled Nell to his side. "I need to start heading out, Eric."

The guys looked at Nell, then Eric broke the silence. "Oh, Tom, this is Nell. Nell, Tom."

"Pleased to meet you Nell. So you're the woman to thank for Eric's burst of energy today!" Nell's eyes narrowed at Eric, but Tom interrupted her. "No, Eric didn't say anything. I've got a Masters in Social Work, so when Eric, of all people, showed up here and wanted to swing a sledgehammer, I figured there was a woman involved. I'm glad it worked out." With a laugh, he walked back to his office.

As they walked alone through the parking lot, Nell bumped her hip against Eric's. "Now, before we go, there's one question I've got to ask. Suppose there's some guy who can break the internet in under twenty seconds and can pull Ira's scrawny butt out of the fire with that GLONASS flaw,"

"Shots firing everywhere," Eric interrupted.

"just in time to save San Francisco from a fire the likes of which it hasn't seen since the 1906 earthquake. If hacking is like sex, then that guy must be the last great Casanova of the Western World, right?"

Eric thought for a second. "No, all that implies is that the guy would be quick."

"Well, then, I better hope that either Casanova is only quick when he needs to be, or that hacking isn't actually like sex."

Eyes wide like saucers, Eric could only confirm, "Me, too."

"C'mon. Let's get you cleaned up, Casanova. I'm dying to try this restaurant with great dolmades that's not far from my place."

He gave her a quick kiss, and then smiled. "Dolmades it is. And the adventure begins."