Notes: Title and opening quote from Kimberly Southwick's poem exercises in breathing. Not mine, no profit garnered. Thanks to the jam for beta. All mistakes mine. _
the sea gives back in fish. the sea tells you: this
is what your voice sounds like. the sea reminds you to breathe.
When Deeks is off the clock, he complains about how being an agent is basically the worst because suddenly he's always out of Los Angeles and sometimes he never even sees water except in a bathtub or a sink. "This is where we are," Kensi says.
They broke up OSP and now they are scattered, two sets of partners, one analyst, one floating agent, out in the world. Kensi and Deeks report to Granger and go where they're sent. Sam and Callen do the same, but they almost never get sent to the same places. Of course, they spend a lot more time in Los Angeles. "I should get you pregnant," Deeks says. "Then I'd surf more."
"You don't get me pregnant, that's something that we decide to do together," Kensi says. "And I don't miss the ocean. Give it a year."
They're undercover in Wales and Deeks sticks out like a bright American thumb. He embraces it mostly, lays on the Iowa, as he calls it, and does excellent work winning over the very bad people they are gathering information on. He comes home to their shit flat where Kensi is a bad girl from Portugal. "I'm a bad American, I'm supposed to smoke," Deeks says, taking a drag on his cigarette while sitting in the open window.
"It's a disgusting habit," Kensi says. She is standing in their tiny kitchen, smoking as well. "I smoked after my dad died."
"I also smoked as a teenage juvenile delinquent. I actually started in juvie," he says. "This is fun, hanging out, telling stories. All that time trying to break into the mystery of Kensi Blye, all I had to do was become an agent and get sent to foreign countries, meet fascinating people, and get them killed."
She smiles. She stubs out her cigarette in a chipped mug. "I did tell you to be patient." He laughs and flicks his cigarette into the street two floors below. He pretends to fall out the window but bounces right back into the flat. He closes the window.
"But I'm really tired," he says. He's already in the kitchen with her after two fast steps. "I want the stories, but for now, can we just go to bed and then go to sleep." She kisses him and they are asleep 30 minutes later.
xx
After Wales, they go to Chile and then they are in Dayton, Ohio. Deeks has quit smoking and she has as well. They run together in the morning in sweats they bought at Walmart. She teaches him languages she knows. She always starts with swear words and then moves on to sex talk. They have an apartment together for two months. Deeks decorates from Craiglist, "like the celebrities do," but their apartment just looks junky.
She wakes up with a pain in her shoulder from their cheap mattress and says, "When do we get vacation?"
Deeks mumbles. He shifts in the bed, pokes her with his elbow and then pulls her close. He says, "You get to ask Granger."
Two nights later they shoot three gun runners and arrest three Marines. Deeks takes a bullet in his calf and Kensi gets punched in the kidneys. Kensi is released and goes to Deeks's hospital room. Granger is there, he smells like an airport. Kensi says, "Did he ask you about our vacation?"
Granger grimaces. "He says it can't include his recuperation time."
"Still alive," Deeks says. "Not even on that much pain medication."
"Actually," Granger says. "Your injury is perfect timing."
xx
In week five of Deeks's stay at a rehabilitation center as Michael Pitcher, Kensi gives up. She is supposed to be Maddie Pitcher, playing married to her own husband in cheap wedding bands. She is supposed to be presenting herself as an easy target to the bad guys. She honestly doesn't remember which bad guys it is this time, white supremacists, foreign plants, militia, people Granger just doesn't like.
She walks slowly out of the center until she hears someone saying "Maddie." Deeks is leaning on a crutch, he holds out a cigarette. "Come on, baby.' She takes it from him.
"Are you a bad American?"
"Today I am." he says. He smiles at her and lights the cigarette.
She takes a deep breath. It's disgusting. "You are," he says, "always bad at smoking."
"You know my opinion," she says. She hears a catch in her voice. Funny, she doesn't feel it. "I need a vacation."
"Me, too," he says. She stares at him while they smoke and waits for him to make a joke, to make her feel better. The longer she waits, the more she starts to thinking he must be more miserable than her and maybe this time it is her job to make him feel better. Not her job, but her responsibility.
She proposed. She said, "Now that you're becoming an agent, we should get married. It'll make it easier to get assigned together."
He said, "I do, I do, I do a million times!" He kissed her and twirled her around like she weighed nothing at all and she could not stop laughing. They got married at a courthouse, their wedding rings are in a safe deposit box in a bank in Carmel.
She says, "We should go back to Carmel." He smiles at that.
xx
Another day, another airport. This chair was probably comfortable 100 asses on it ago. Deeks said that one time, a year ago when they started this. Eighteen months ago, she thinks. Deeks sits down next to her. "When did we start this," she says.
"I think it was the moment we met, sweetness," he says.
She rolls her eyes. "I mean this. This mission."
"Oh, sure. We're technically, finally, not on mission right now. We're between missions. But we started doing all this 22 months ago. And we've had three weeks of vacation total," he says.
She says, "When did you make that joke about 100 asses ago?"
"I don't remember, but it's darling that you remember all my fantastic jokes." He takes her hand and slumps in the chair. "My jokes are pretty great, though, I get it."
Granger sits down across from them. She is so out of it, so focused on Deeks and her petty things, she was completely unaware he was near them. Deeks holds her hand tighter. He can read minds. He can read hers. \
"Sir," she says.
"I have your next mission," he says. She hears Deeks mutter fuck. Granger ignores him.
Granger says, "Which is two months off. You'll need to keep in touch with me daily in case something comes up, but you're mostly off rotation. Try not to do anything that would get you killed." He stands up and hands Kensi a folder. "Don't worry, I'll take your thank yous as implicit." Then he walks away. Inside the folder is ID for both of them, cards, and two plane tickets.
Deeks grabs those and actually fully smiles. He says, "New fucking Zealand. New Zealand, thank you, Granger, thank you."
"He even made hotel reservations," Kensi says. She laughs. "I still hate him, but -"
"It's the very least he can do," Deeks says. "The bare minimum."
The next time she wakes up she can only smell the ocean. Deeks is already out of bed, standing on the balcony, breathing deeply.