Marty Deeks entered the bullpen with a disquieting feeling in his stomach. And as soon as he heard his partners voice he knew it wasn't about to get better anytime soon.
"You should have seen the look on his face," Kensi's voice was low and someone who didn't know her would think of it as calm, almost solemn. But Deeks knew her better than that. She wasn't calm at all. Something was bothering her. And he knew what it was. When she realized there was someone entering she stopped speaking, looked up and met his eyes for a brief second. Then she looked down, awkwardly, and turned away again to Nell Jones whom she was talking to before.
The two women stood in a little corner in the hallway and while Kensi turned her face away from him Nell tried to look as neutral as possible. Deeks opened his mouth to say something but all he could bring out was a "Hey!"
Nell smiled a half-warm smile and Deeks was about to walk to his desk, not expecting a reaction from Kensi. When it came it made him stop and turn towards them again.
"Hey"
Kensi had never been good with words when it came to expressing her feelings so he wasn't surprised that she simply echoed his greeting. What made him stop was the tone of it. Kensi had a hot temper and usually, when something was bothering her it was more likely she'd be getting angry or making cutting remarks about it. But there was neither anger nor cynicism in her voice. It was sadness. Her voice was even lower than before and barely audible but he could hear it as clearly as if she had yelled right into his ear. Nell, obviously surprised too, had turned towards Kensi as well and now they were both staring at her, surprised that the at work usually self-controlled Kensi Blye had lost her cool this one time.
A whistle sounded from inside the bullpen and the voice of Eric Beale could be heard from upstairs.
"Gentlemen, we have a case... do you know where Kensi and Deeks are?"
"Kensi must be somewhere around here, no idea about Deeks...,"
Even Callen was already around so Deeks figured he better hurry up before Hetty would notice him being late. After one last look at Kensi he turned around again and hurried to the bullpen.
"Hey, have you seen Kensi? She...," before Callen could continue Deeks cut him off.
"Yeah, yeah... she and Nell are right behind me," Callen raised an eyebrow, realizing that there was something odd about his colleague this morning. Sam Hanna, the fourth member of the operative team, had been typing away on his laptop doing the obligatory paperwork. He looked up, but said nothing, only exchanged looks with his partner Callen.
"Ahem... when everybody's here... could you come up please then...? Hetty's waiting...," Eric sounded uncomfortable. There were only few things he hated more than being alone with his boss. Like making her wait.
Callen was already at the stairs and Sam got up as well. Deeks stowed his bag under his desk, saw from the corner of his eye that Nell and Kensi appeared from the hallway and headed to the stairs as well, carefully ignoring him.