"Oh you have got to be kidding me." With a bad-tempered sigh, Kensi sat back in her seat and closed her eyes. It's not like she was going anywhere anyway.
"Sorry, Kens." Eric's apologetic voice filtered through her earwig. "This one happened fast. Started out as a three car pile-up and escalated fast. You were already on the highway before it got bad, so there was no way to warn you."
"Told you." Deeks' sotto voce murmur didn't help her mood one bit.
"No, you didn't." She almost turned to punch him before remembering he wasn't in the car with her.
"I did too," insisted Deeks righteously. "I told you to follow me…"
"Your exact words were 'eat my dust'."
"That was only after your entirely improper suggestion as to where I could stick my stick shift."
"Well that was after…"
"Children, children. Am I going to have to separate you?" Callen's voice broke in.
"You already did, remember?" Kensi opened her eyes, but the brake lights in front of her hadn't moved. At all. "Which explains why I'm stuck here by myself in the middle of four lanes of parking lot instead of…"
"Why, Kensi Blye!" said Deeks, voice one of astonished delight. She thought there was a note of something deeper underneath. "Are you saying you miss me?"
She never missed a beat. "...sitting in the back of a squad car under arrest for assaulting an LAPD detective."
"Well." Deeks was struggling not to laugh—she knew just what that sounded like—and it brought a hint of a smile to her own lips. Maybe, just maybe, this would all work out after all. Maybe nothing had been ruined. Maybe, just maybe, out of the catastrophic mess her life had become, there would be something salvageable.
And maybe that something would be her relationship with Deeks.
It took almost an hour to maneuver her way to the next exit, and by the time she made it back to the boathouse she was considerably behind the rest of the team. Callen and Sam were interrogating their witness, and Deeks was sitting on the table outside, monitoring the session. The normal spark of humor was gone from his gaze, and she wasn't sure if it was because of the nature of the case or something more personal. She wasn't sure which she'd prefer.
With a tired sigh, she tossed her go-bag in a chair then slid onto the table next to Deeks. He didn't speak, and neither did she, and within moments the air in the normally large and roomy space felt thick and stale. It had been this way for days now. Publicly they were the same old Deeks-and-Kensi, sniping and arguing and teasing like nothing had happened. Even now if Callen or Sam joined them she knew that neither Callen's sharp eyes nor Sam's emotional intuitiveness would be able to detect anything different between them. But in private—the few times they'd allowed themselves to be alone, anyway—it had been awkward and uncomfortable and painful. Today apparently wasn't going to change that. Kensi tried to swallow the hard knot of regret and bitterness and grief that was all but choking her. This was exactly why she never allowed herself to get close, why she'd spent so much of her life, of her time and energy building walls to protect herself from just this sort of pain. Her mistake was in allowing Deeks in, letting him past the walls. Believing that he was somehow different. That he wouldn't leave her in the end.
Her eyes dry, she stared up at the screen, watching Callen and Sam as they circled the suspect. From now on, she'd focus on the job and forget the personal stuff. Eventually it'd be easier, wouldn't it? Eventually the pain would die down and the hurt would ease, and she'd go back to being the prodigy NCIS agent she'd been before. And if she had to sacrifice a personal life to make that happen, well, so much the better.
Because nothing was worth this.
Deeks kept his eyes trained on the screen, but he was hyperaware of every tiny movement or fidget Kensi made. She wasn't happy. Clearly she wasn't happy. But neither was he, and damned if he'd make the first move this time.
Callen and Sam exited the interrogation room at that time, and as if on cue Deeks and Kensi both moved, posture loosening a bit and features easing into friendlier lines. The problems between them were theirs and no one else's, and neither of them was comfortable discussing it with anyone else. At least, Deeks assumed that's why Kensi hadn't spilled the beans.
"Looks like he's close," Sam was saying.
"Yeah. We'll give him a couple minutes to contemplate the errors of his ways." Callen's lips quirked. "Between that and your 10 minute spiel on the likelihood of him ending up as someone's bitch in federal lock-up, he ought to be about ready to spill everything he knows."
Sam smiled smugly. "What can I say? I read him like a book."
"Oh really? Cause I could have sworn you wanted to start off with the Geiger effect." Sam grinned, and Kensi snorted beside him, and Deeks realized this was yet another reference to which he wasn't privy. It didn't hurt the way it had in the beginning—they'd all been through too much together for that—but given the strain and tension between him and his partner, it stung more than it should. "Wasn't that your suggestion, Dr. Geiger?"
"Doesn't matter now, does it?" Sam rolled his shoulders, preparing to go back in. "Cause what I did say worked liked a charm."
"Let's go, Mr. Charm." Callen started towards the interrogation room. "I'd say he's stewed long enough." Sam followed, and they both paused near the door, out of sight of the other two. Callen nodded his head towards where Deeks and Kensi still sat, silent. "So. Still not worked it out?"
"Doesn't look like it." Sam rolled his eyes. "You think it's time to step in?"
Callen contemplated it for a long moment, then smiled ruefully. "I'm not ready to step into the middle of that yet. You remember what happened the last time someone tried to get in between them? Let's give it a few days, see what plays out."
Sam winced in memory. "Yeah. Poor Eric." He shook his head. "Bet he won't ever look at duct tape in the same way."
Callen shuddered a little in sympathy at the memory. "Bet he won't ever forget to lock the door to the john again." He shook it off. "Come on." He opened the door to the interrogation room, then followed his partner in.
Kensi took a deep breath after the other two agents left, letting it out slowly. This was hard, maybe harder than anything else she was dealing with right now. The aching void that had blossomed into existence after her dad's unexplained death had become increasingly difficult to dismiss, and she'd found herself knocking on doors and asking questions for the first time in 15 years. Granger, the new assistant director, had it in for her and had made it more than plain that her efforts to investigate her father's murder were going to get her in hot water if she persisted. And yet that wasn't what was keeping her up at night, or causing the almost painful tension in her body right now.
No, that was the fight between her and Deeks. The fight that she had started and that she had escalated, and the fight within which she had said some truly unforgivable things to Deeks, causing him to reply with some equally brutal and wholly unforgettable truths of his own.
And she didn't think they were ever going to recover.
She'd just come back from her latest fruitless trip to Hawaii. Granger had been waiting for her at the entrance to the mission, and he'd trailed her all the way in to the bullpen, voice calm as he proceeded to rip her a new one. She'd managed to escape to the firing range, only to find out that her gun had inexplicably jammed. And her last attempt at an escape had been foiled when Deeks had been using the punching bag in the gym. She'd taken a bad-tempered swipe at the bag, and it had rebounded right into Deeks' unprotected face. His hands had gone to his nose, which had begun to bleed.
"What the hell, Kensi?"
The guilt she felt had only added fuel to the flame. "Move it, Deeks. Let one of the real agents get some bag time."
Hurt had flashed across his features, and then his eyes had narrowed. "What is that supposed to mean?"
Somehow even though she'd known how unfair it was, how wrong and how mean, she'd been unable to stop the words from tumbling out. "You know exactly what I mean. You're just in here wasting time, taking up space that an agent could be using. I don't even know why you bother. It's not like you're going to be doing any of the heavy lifting."
"Oh really?" he sneered, taking a step towards her. Behind him, the room began to clear, agents and personnel eyeing the two of them as they sidled out the doors. "Seems to me I've saved your ass a few times. Or don't you consider that heavy lifting? Because you may be skinny but carrying you gets pretty damned old."
"Saved me? How do you figure that?" She wanted to scream, wanted to staple her own lips together, but her mouth just kept going. "I take care of myself. I don't need anybody else's help. I especially don't need yours."
"So, for example, I guess you were going to get yourself out of those lasers?" His own voice was raised now, temper prodded right past smoldering and into spontaneous combustion.
"I would never have gotten caught in the first place if I'd been driving." She took a step forward now. "And then I had to worry about you getting yourself shot. Again. So that was all your fault, not mine." Logic and truth had no place in this fight.
He took a deep, sharp breath, as if she'd hit him physically. Slapped him across the face. In his eyes, she saw shame burning there, and acknowledgement. And she realized then that he believed what she'd just said.
And to her everlasting shame, it just spurred her on.
"It's all been your fault. From the beginning, from when we started. Having you for a partner is like having a rookie, only one with no training and no skills. I've had to carry you like a sack over my shoulder for the last two years, and frankly I'm just sick of it"
And finally, having said something really unforgivable, her ire died down and her words dried up.
Just as Deeks got started.
"You know what, Special Agent Kensi Blye? Being your partner isn't exactly all kittens and lollipops either. You're so damned hard on yourself that it makes you hard on anyone who has the misfortune to be stuck with you, which has been my lot in life the last two years. You are too impulsive for your own good, and that's what gets you into trouble. If you'd waited two more minutes before jumping into the car with the Russians, Callen and Sam would have been there, and maybe you wouldn't have had to have been rescued from the lasers. Something I did without questions or complaint, by the way." He looked down his nose at her. "Something I always do without question or complaint. And maybe, just maybe, I'm sick of that. Maybe it's time I start watching my own back, because God knows there isn't anyone else around here that's going to do it. And watching yours is just plain exhausting."
Kensi had replayed the argument in her head a thousand times since, hearing the horrible awful things she'd said, the painfully truthful things he'd said, and the only conclusion she could come to is that Deeks had been right. And that perhaps the two of them weren't really a good combination. They weren't good as partners.
She wasn't a good partner.
It was hard for her to admit that, harder still to understand that there was a reason she'd never had a long-term partnership that was successful. Hard to force herself to realize that she had been the weak link. She was surprised Deeks hadn't already asked for a new partner. He certainly deserved one.
Just then, Deeks sighed unhappily, and with a muffled sob, she turned and fled the room.
Deeks sat there, watching as Callen and Sam wrapped up the interview. They'd gotten their confession and a full admission of guilt, but Deeks had heard little of it. His focus had been on his partner, even though he'd studiously looking at her or speaking to her or even acknowledging her presence. He was still pretty angry at her, for the things she'd said and the way she'd acted and, if he was honest, the undeserved punch to the nose. But he also regretted deeply the things he'd said in response. He'd known how tightly wound she was, and he'd known the stress she'd been dealing with as she begun delving into her father's case. It was certain that having Granger ride her so hard wasn't helping. He wished he'd held on to his temper.
But none of that explained why he hadn't spoken to her in ten days outside of team communication. It didn't have anything to do with why he hadn't been to her house or she to his. Why the two of them hadn't gone out for burgers or beers or crashed on one of the sofas in the mission to relax together. Why he wasn't able to move past this stupid brutal argument.
No, that was all due to the terrible fear niggling at the back of Deeks' subconscious that maybe, just maybe, she'd been right.
Oh, he knew that he'd saved her life when she'd been stuck behind the lasers in a room set to blow up. Her muscles had been close to collapse by the time he'd arrived, and he'd seen in her eyes just how very fragile and tenuous her stance had been by the time she'd put her hands in his. She couldn't have lasted much longer, and if he hadn't gotten there to turn the light off, deflect the triggers, and then finally yank her to safety she would have died there in that room.
But what if it was his fault she'd been stuck there in the first place?
He knew he didn't have the training the other agents did. He'd never done the DOD courses that they had, or the weapons training, or even the defensive and offensive maneuvering skills they had both behind the wheel and on the street. He was a fine cop, a very good cop, but LAPD just didn't have the resources or the arsenal comparable to what was available at NCIS. What if he weakened Kensi? What if worrying about him getting shot again was what had prompted her to put herself in the Russians' hands?
And why shouldn't it be? He'd been shot before and used to lure her out, her life in danger because of him.
He couldn't quite dismiss the idea that he was the weak link. He was a danger to Kensi, and that she deserved better than him. He didn't know why she hadn't already asked Hetty for a better partner. She certainly deserved one.
And knowing that, he didn't want to start a conversation with Kensi that was going to end at that one inescapable conclusion.
But the silent treatment wasn't going to work either. He had to admit that. In their line of work with their lives on the line, they had to have minimal lines of communication open. Deeks sighed heavily, then opened his mouth to say something, anything to her.
Only before he could, she made a single unhappy whimper and hurried out of the room.
Deeks sighed again, deliberated for a very long moment, and then turned his attention back to the screen. Callen and Sam were coming out, and if both he and Kensi were gone it would be hard to explain. And if there was a hint of avoidance in that rationalization, then Deeks told himself it was for the good of the case.
But deep down, he knew he had to talk to his partner, and soon. And probably soon after that, he'd be finding a new one.