THE GHOSTS OF THANKSGIVING
Summary : "I haven't celebrated Thanksgiving since my father died." She confesses into the darkness. "I don't remember ever celebrating Thanksgiving." Shrouded in darkness, Kensi and Callen find themselves spilling out all of their deepest doubts and darkest secrets. A Thanksgiving Special, despite the gloom and doom hinted at.
Disclaimer : Apparently Deeks the Human Mop is winning in the contest for Kensi's affections so no, I don't own this.
The Ghosts of Thanksgiving
One : Masked By Moonlight
"I haven't celebrated Thanksgiving since my father died." She confesses into the darkness, breaching the silence they've been safely enveloped in all night.
He shifts a bit, prompting the covers that had been level with her chest to slide down to her hips. She considers a small measure of modesty, maybe pulling the covers back up or putting something on, but it's too hot tonight anyway. So she stays where she is: in his arms, in her bed, in their little limbo where minutes tick by and truths slip out and nothing matters in the morning.
"I don't remember ever celebrating Thanksgiving." His voice is rough after prolonged silence but she can detect the wavering vulnerability under it. She's been getting better at that lately: reading him. And he reads her like a bedtime story, easily comprehensible and accurately predictable. She can't remember the last time she had known someone so well; the last time she had let someone know her this well in return.
She sighs and waits for silence to settle upon them again.
"Hetty doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving."
They have a pattern, and unspoken, easy-to-follow rules. She volunteers some painful truth, he reciprocates as a sign of solidarity and they don't bring anyone else into their little bubble. It's a pattern; it's their pattern. Except now he's speaking first and it's about Hetty and she doesn't know what to say.
"She's just like us." He muses, eyes fixed on the ceiling fan's lazy spinning. "No family, no love, nothing." She wants to tell him that of course they have family – that they are family. She wants to tell him that he's not unloved. She wants to tell him that he doesn't have everything but he has something – someone.
But just because he's breaking the rules doesn't mean she will too.
"Maybe we should bring her turkey," She offers instead and regrets the words the moment they pass her lips. There is no we. There's Kensi, and Callen and at night there's Kensi and Callen but there's no we, there's no bringing people turkey on Thanksgiving, there's no domesticity.
But then he speaks up and she loses her precarious footing on the edge of this cliff they've chosen to stand in.
"Maybe we should."
"How's it like, to love someone?"
His words drag her out of the awaiting darkness where she hopes to rest. She shakes away the last bits of sleep and focuses on keeping her features emotionless and her thoughts organized.
"It's horrible," She finally decides, shoulders loosening from their earlier tense position.
"Huh," He says in acknowledgement, and she finds herself tempted to shift and turn in his arms to face him – another thing they don't do. "I wasn't expecting that."
She pushes past her wondering – why? Why wasn't he expecting that from someone who's been repeatedly hurt by love? – and questions him instead. "Wouldn't you know?"
He's quiet for a long time and she's almost ready to give up and drift off. Then he shrugs.
"Nah. Don't think I've ever loved anyone."
He has, she knows he has, but this isn't a therapy session, this is sex and sharing and sleeping, and that's it. There's no space for solving their issues – no time, either. She can't face him so she turns to peek at the alarm clock. It's three in the morning.
Just a few more hours.
"Tell me what it's like," He urges her. Her eyes snap open and she finds herself observing the ceiling again; she's long given up on sleep but it had been nice to rest her eyes.
She knows what he's asking of her; she just doesn't know why. But she's done more based on less so she sorts through her thoughts and answers his curious question. She needs him to know how ugly it can be.
"It's like you're not yourself anymore. It's like someone's pushed their way into your heart and you can't tell if you like it, if you're happy, because you like them and you're happy for them. It's like suddenly, everything you do affects them and you have to think about everything because they're in the picture. And you don't even mind, you don't even see that you're not yourself, you don't even realize that you're being taken over."
You don't even mind that you're losing yourself.
She'd lost herself; had become a host to someone else's welfare, solely existing for the good of a loved one.
"You become someone else, and you would hate that person, you really would, but you don't even see that until it's too late because when you're that someone else, they like you and that's all that matters."
"It's horrible." She concludes, breathing hard just from the memory of being taken over by the all-encompassing sensation they call love.
"It's a parasite," She blurts out, surprising both of them. She doesn't know where it's coming from but she needs him to know how horrible it is. "It takes and takes from you until you can't give any more, until there's nothing left to give and still you find something to give. And when you're empty and hollow and all dried up, when there's really, really nothing left, that's when it ends."
The entire room is silent – the night is silent. There's the creak of the fan and the harsh sounds of her shuddering breaths, but the night is so, so quiet that it almost feels like their little bubble has expanded to include the whole world and evict everyone else, leaving only them and a vast, dark night.
"I used to think it was take and give." He says dryly in that way of his, and she can't help but laugh, even if it is a dark, mirthless laugh.
"That's a nice dream," She mutters. She'd thought it was take and give, too; had expected it to be. The whole time she was giving, giving, giving, she'd thought she was taking in return. And then one day there was nothing to give and nothing to be taken and she had been left empty.
"Is that all it is?" He presses on. "A dream?"
"Yeah. I guess." She sighs helplessly. "I don't know. Why do you keep asking, anyway?"
He's pushed her too far; she can't keep thinking about all of this anymore. She hopes that's enough; that her outburst will just keep him off her back until the sun rises and they go about their own lives.
"Because I don't want to just take from you."
She pulls a pillow over her head even as she moves closer to his side.
"Do you think Hetty's a casserole person?"
She pushes the pillow off her face and blows stray curls off her face. "I don't know. She's a tea person. Does anyone eat casserole with tea?"
He barks out a quick burst of laughter, as if taken by surprise. "We should bring her turkey." He decides, and she can almost feel his grin.
"It's Thanksgiving Day. There isn't a turkey left in all of L.A." She retorts logically.
"We should take some from Sam. He's got a huge turkey." He persists, seemingly set on them bringing their elderly superior turkey on Thanksgiving, together.
"He's going to need all of it." She argues and turns on her side so that she's facing the wall, hoping to send a clear signal that they're done. To her surprise, she feels the mattress dip as he moves to mirror her position.
One hand rests on her hip, fingers splayed across bare skin. She closes her eyes and concentrates on breathing evenly. It doesn't help her block out the feeling of his warm hand on her hypersensitive skin, or the way her entire body is on alert, pressed against his.
She starts talking, starts telling him everything with no filter and no edits and it's a nightmare.
"You can't just wake up one day and decide you want normal. You can't just wake up and decide that you want normal with me. It was good and it was fun and it was even nice, but I can't be your midlife crisis when you decide that hey, you might want to give this whole love thing a shot, maybe with your fuck buddy, and see where it-"
She is cut off by his sudden movement. One second she's on her side and the next she's on her back, his hand gripping her arm as he hovers above her.
"You are not just fun." He seethes. "You are not my midlife crisis. And you are not," He's almost growling as his eyes flash in anger, "my fuck buddy."
Two seconds.
That's all it takes for her to process his outburst and come up with one of her own. She pushes herself up and frees her arm from his grasp to use both hands to push him off her.
"You sure? Because it sure as hell feels that way! Two years of you slipping into my house, my bed when you're upset or angry or strung out, so that you can use me as a sounding board and then leave me to wake up alone in a cold bed every single morning after. What the hell, Callen?!"
She pushes herself out of bed, grabs a shirt from the floor and storms out of the room, slamming the door behind her. He's hot on her heels and out of the bedroom by the time she's snatching up a pair of discarded jeans on the floor.
"What is wrong with you?" He demands, snatching her keys out of her other hand while she single-handedly pulls up her pants.
"Me? How about you, mister-360? How the hell does someone go from lone wolf to talking about love in four days? And how is it that your miraculous change of mind just happens to take place the exact week we investigate a middle-aged agent who died all alone in the world?"
He hasn't made the connection – hadn't, until she had thrown it in his face. Frozen in spot, his pause gives her enough time to get decent, get her keys and get to the door.
"Kensi, wait-" He goes after her, catching her right before she walks out. She turns around, eyes shining and shoulders dropped. It's as if all the fight has left her.
"I can't just go along with you, Callen. I can't just let you use me."
And just as suddenly as this whole storm had started, it's over.
The door swings shut behind her.
She drives, and drives, and drives.
She is so angry at him right now. Angry at him for taking her home from her – that's where she always goes to hide and now the entire place is so him. Angry at him for making her feel this way – two years of suppressing her feelings and having the equivalent of one-night-stands and now he chooses to bring this up. Angry at him for not even knowing what he was doing – it would have been so much easier to paint him as the villain if he'd just used her.
She's angry at herself too, of course. She promised herself she'd never be used; promised herself she'd never love again; promised herself she'd never be weak.
The sun is rising and the streets are deserted; inside tightly shut houses, families are sitting down and counting their blessings and sharing turkey.
So she drives to the only family she knows.
"Miss Blye. I must say, I was not expecting you today."
She stands on the porch, fidgeting with her hands and shifting her weight from leg to leg. Her heart is racing and her head is pounding but this is where she should be.
"Happy Thanksgiving, Hetty. Sorry I didn't bring anything; no turkeys left, you know?" And I wasn't the one all psyched up about bringing you turkey in the first place.
"Ah, the annual grocery sell-out. It is ever so unfortunate to be on a last-minute turkey hunt. Come in, dearie." The older woman opens her door widely and ushers her agent in, certain that she's in store for quite the morning.
Oh, well, it had been shaping up to be a boring morning anyway.
Hello, CaKe people! How have you been? Where have you been? Who have you been? Well, let's start with me, yeah? I've been okay. Not the best, not the worst. The long CaKe hiatus wasn't fun, but at least I'm back. I've been all over the place, a little of this, a little of that. I've been me and a worse me and a better me and a crazy me. That about sums up my life in the year that I've been absent from this fandom. Your turn!
Okay, now leave a review to tell me about your Thanksgiving and I'll keep writing about Kensi's. This was supposed to be a cute one-shot that would end somewhere around the 3K word mark with Kensi and Callen bringing Hetty turkey, but evidently the characters took my angst and ran with it. I'll try to fix things, I promise.
E Salvatore,
November 2012.
