This is, so far, a one-shot fanfiction. I need to thank a lot, but really a lot to my friend Ana Sofia for giving me basically everything for this to be here. She forced-uhm, sorry, encouraged me to write a one-shot story, gave me the title and the summary, read this and spotted mistakes...Oh, well, she's everything a writer wants around! If you enjoy this as much as she did, you just made my day!

Kensi and Deeks were chasing a suspect on a storage house. They entered sneakily and faced shelves that overpass their height four or five times. The storage seemed endless with rows and rows of shelves littered with boxes filled with important and classified documents inside. The poor light made visible dust hovering, dancing in the air because of the big fan in the ceiling and the powder shone when near the big lamps. They were walking side by side, holding the guns in hands, until they decided to split up to cover more area.

Deeks walked forward while Kensi stood around that same place. He hadn't walked that much when he heard noise that made him run back. Kensi was fighting the man. He disarmed her and knocked her on the head. She fell on the ground and her gun rolled to underneath the shelves, coming to meet Deeks. Kensi was on the floor, head hurting and helpless, with the gun pointed to her face when Deeks showed up.

"Gun down! Now!" He pressed angrily his gun against the suspect's neck. He walked, looking at the guy sideways, and stopped facing his face while pressing the gun against his chest. "Put it down before I make your life shorter."

While Deeks was threatening the man, Kensi got up, holding to the shelf. But the man didn't drop the gun. Instead, he pulled the hammer back and Kensi cringed, waiting for the bullet impact.

Deeks crossed her way and she only heard a dry shot bursting into an echo.

She saw the gunpowder coming out the gun's barrel, but she didn't feel a thing. She only heard Deeks' sob.

She then felt her partner's body beating on hers. She held him by the waist, trying to not let him hit the ground, yelling his name.

The guy started running to get away. Kensi knelt on the floor and while pressing Deeks' wound, she took the gun out of hand and shot the guy in cold blood. Execution style: a shot to the head that he didn't even saw coming because he was back turned to her. He fell, dead. He had pulled out of Kensi the coldest and ruthless feeling on her. She was instinctive, cold. She shot a man coldly, like a merciless killer. But it didn't affect her now that she lowered her eyes to Deeks, seeing his thick blood escaping through her fingers.

"Hell of a shot, Kens." He mumbled.

"Shut up, Deeks. If you shut up, you hang on, jackass!"

"I took a shot for-"

She didn't let him finish. "I didn't ask you to step in the way of the bullet. Now, hang on!"

Deeks expelled blood out of the mouth on a cough. Kensi took the hands of the wound to finally realize where he had been shot. The bullet entered him through his chest, on its right side. It ripped his ribs and lodged on his lung.

He was not going to make it, she thought.

Hearing him gasping for air was distressing because he couldn't breathe and Kensi couldn't help him. She groped herself, looking for the phone, staining her white sweater with his blood. She called Eric for help and just kept hoping it would come on time. The next few minutes were agonizing for her to just try to keep him awake and conscious.

"Kensi!" Sam and Callen were shouting, entering the storage house.

"In here! Fast!"

The medical team rushed to them both, followed by Sam and Callen who kicked the gun of the dead guy's hand and stood watching by distance Kensi suffering.

Deeks' heart stopped. His eyes blinked and closed. He stopped breathing.

"No!" She started performing CPR. "Come on, Deeks, don't you die on me." A tear rushed down Kensi's cheek. She was feeling scared.

She wanted to help her partner so much that the paramedic had to pull her away from him so they could do their work. Kensi looked her hands, her stained sweater and Deeks, motionless on the floor. Weak heartbeats brought hope to Kensi. Those little beats were enough to take him to the ambulance and rush to the hospital. His life was hanging on thread and Kensi got engraved on her mind a horrible memory. Deeks was losing too much blood, but mostly chocking on it. The paramedic sedated him and then grabbed a scalpel, cut him below the throat and fit in there a tube.

Kensi looked away, breathing hardly. She'd never forget what she just saw, but at least he was getting some air. She was feeling bad with herself for being breathing while he was barely alive, fighting for his life. But worst came next when they said something about his lung collapsing and that it was flooding with blood. He grabbed another tube and stuck into the wound. Blood gushed to the floor and he started getting paler. Luckily, they were at the hospital already.

Kensi was stopped on the entrance of the OR where Deeks would be submitted to an opened chest surgery in order to save him. She walked to the bathroom and stared at her own image on the mirror. She was shaking, terrified, wheezing. Her hands trembled as she was washing away his blood out of them. She splashed some water on the face, held the edges of the washbasin and looked at the mirror again. She cried. No one would distinguish the tears from the water dripping down her face. She wasn't ready to lose him. She'd never be ready to lose him. But if the day had to come, she just wished it wouldn't be like that: he stepping in front of her, dying to save her life.

She took her time to breathe, to settle her heart and to come to her mind. She'd be sitting on the waiting room for the next hours and she needed to be alright and positive. Kensi zipped up her black leather jacket zipper, covering the stained sweater and sat on a chair all alone. People entered and left, got up and sat, shouted and cried and she just stood there in silence. The team gave her a call, asking to keep them posted in and she promised that. The hours passed, one by one, and she was still on the same chair, on the same position, with the same attitude. She had her head sank on her hands and elbows were over her knees as she tried her best to breath second after second.

After seven hours, a doctor showed up in the room.

"Family or next-of-kin of Martin Deeks?" He shouted loudly.

"I'm his partner." Kensi got up in a jump and both took a walk along the hallway.

"The surgery was well succeeded. We were able to inflate the lung again. He's breathing now with the help of a respirator that will be used to assist his breathing until the wound healed sufficiently to allow him to breathe unaided. The surgery was, yet delicate, as it is in these cases, and for precaution we put him into an induced coma. But, it's not a reason to be worried about; it's just to ensure he recovers sooner. He'll be out of bed in the next days and if he does everything strictly, he'll be fully recovered within three months."

"Thanks, doc." She smiled. "Can I go see him?"

"Sure. I'll ask a nurse to show you the way."

Kensi entered the room and took a seat next to the bed. She stopped herself from crying again and grabbed his hand on hers. She played with his fingers, intertwined them on hers and then gained the courage to look at him in the face.

Kensi's voice came out, mumbled and she spoke almost whispering. "You are so idiot, you know? Nobody asked you to take that bullet…You just like to be the center of attentions, don't you?" She gave a weak smile. "You gotta be strong…I need you around, Deeks. I need you to be a pain in the ass every single morning." She paused for a while and took her hand to his hair and stroked it. "I need you, Deeks…so much. It pains me knowing that you'd do anything for me, knowing that you're willing of anything to keep me good…I want to keep you with me, I can't lose you…"

Kensi only needed to gather the courage and tell him exactly that…when he could listen to her.

So, here's the deal: if you want more than one-shot, review...