A/N: Hello my wonderful readers. I'm blown away by your amazing response to this story. I would like to thank each and every one of you for reading, following and reviewing. Special thanks to Quen who is responsible for 'The Piano Man' and who is also my beta.

I hope that you guys stick around for the rest of this fic. This was supposed to be posted last week but my laptop was acting crazy and deleted the whole chapter so I had to rewrite it. I write as I go so I'm afraid the updates aren't going to be very frequent but I'll try.

Now I'm off to do my math homework.

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I don't own NCIS LOS ANGELES or it's characters. What I do own is my mistakes which are plenty as English is neither my first nor my second language.

Enjoy!


8 Days Earlier

Deeks jams his surf board on the sand and grabs his towel to dry the salty water off of his body and scans the people crowding Venice Beach in search of Kensi.

It has become a little routine of theirs. He goes surfing, she picks him up, they drive to his place so that he can shower and change and after they grab some breakfast, they head to work.

They never agreed to any of this. It just happened like many other things between them did. Things that they never talk about or even acknowledge. Things that consume his dreams during the night and his thoughts during the day.

He stops himself from wandering further into dangerous territory such as the image of him teaching surfing to a little boy with blue eyes and brown curls while Kensi watches them from the shore alongside to Monty.

He glances down at his wristwatch for what might be the 10th time. She's 15 minutes late, something that doesn't happen often as she always like to be on time even if she's meeting him or the team.

He decides to get an ice cream to pass the time, all the while checking his surroundings as if Kensi will suddenly appear and yell at him for eating without sharing his food with her. 10 minutes later she's nowhere to be seen, he calls her number but it goes straight to voice mail.

Weird, he thinks.

The cop in him starts going through all the worst case scenarios and various images pop in his head: Kensi tied to a chair and being tortured for information, her SRX turned into a ball of metal after an accident, her bloodied, broken body laying in a ditch on the side of the road.

Every unanswered phone call and text message is like a punch to the gut. "Now is probably a good time to start panicking, Marty", he mutters to himself as he calls Callen to come and pick him up.

When the team leader arrives, he almost crashes into Deeks.

"Shit, Deeks. I almost ran you over. What's wrong with you?"

"Not me, Kensi. She hasn't showed up like we planned and she isn't picking up her phone."

"Maybe she doesn't want to see your face first thing in the morning anymore."

"I'm being serious here Callen."

"Ok, how about you call OPS and have Eric look for her."


"Eric, what do you have?"

"Her cell is turned off at the moment but I managed to pinpoint her last location 10 miles away from Venice Beach."

"That's impossible. We would have seen her." Callen says.

"You didn't see her because she didn't take the freeway like you guys."

"What about traffic cams?"

"Lost her 4 miles before her last known location." Nell replied.

"What you're telling me is that you have nothing. That you can find the hideout of a terrorist but not Kensi."

"Deeks you need to calm down man." Sam says.

"Calm down? How can I calm down when my partner is missing and God knows what's happened to her?", he shouts, hopelessness and fear taking over him.

"Mr Deeks, Miss Jones and Mr Beale have done everything they could possibly do. Now, I'm afraid we'll have to wait."

"Or not." Nell says.

"What do you mean?" Deeks asks her.

"I can't believe that I didn't think of this before."

"What is it Nell?" Callen asks, trying to make sense of what she's saying.

"I can track her car's GPS."

"This doesn't make sense", they hear her say after a couple of minutes of typing on her tablet.

"What now?" Deeks asks.

"The GPS shows that her car is parked outside the Mission."

Deeks is pushing through the automatic doors and sprinting down the stairs when he sees Kensi putting her bag on her desk.

Kensi barely has time to greet him before she is embraced by his strong arms. She's so taken aback from his action that she trips over her feet but Deeks steadies her by crashing her to his chest.

"You're ok." he whispers in her hair, over and over again. Kensi not being one for public displays of affection, tries to pull away from his embrace but he only tightens the grip that he has on her waist.

After a few seconds he moves back and Kensi expects him to fully pull himself away but he just changes the position of his hands from circling her waist to cradling her face.

"Please, don't ever scare me like that Kens. Never. Promise me."

"I would if I knew what you're talking about."

"For disappearing on me like that and not picking up your phone. I thought that something had happened to you."

"I'm a big girl, Deeks. I can take care of myself."

"I know that but it doesn't stop me from worrying about you. I can't lose you."

The last sentence is barely above a whisper but their faces are so close to each other that their breaths mingle together so she hears it loud and clear. In true Kensi fashion, she ignores his statement and the emotions that accompany it and places her own hands on top of his and after giving them a little squeeze, she removes them from her face.

"Everything's fine Deeks."

"Is it?" She sees the challenge in his eyes, daring her to respond, something that she doesn't-she's not ready for the changes that it would bring. But she does understand the implication of those two simple words. He's referring to the "thing" between them: the one that they've been dancing around for years, pretending that it doesn't exist.

Fortunately or unfortunately-she's not sure which one is more correct- Hetty chooses that exact moment to talk.

"Miss Blye, it's good to have you back, safe and sound."

"It's good to be back, I guess."

"Deeks fill you in yet?" Callen questions from where he's standing next to Hetty.

"Yeah, apparently I've been missing."

"You gave us quite a scare this morning." the team leader replies.

"It wasn't my intention really."

"What happened?" Sam asks her.

"I got a flat tire."

"Seriously?" he asks again, in disbelief.

"Yes, and when I tried to change it I found out that the spare one was riddled with bullet holes from our last case. And as if that wasn't enough, because I had forgotten to charge my phone the night before, the battery was dead so I had to walk half a mile to a fast food joint to call road service and then I had to wait for them to come."

"That's an unfortunate series of events and we would all like to hear more but I'm afraid that we have a new case in our hands. If you may follow me?"

One by one the agents and detective began to walk up the stairs. Kensi could feel Deeks's eyes on her, boring holes on the back of her head but she didn't dare turn around to face him.


"Three days ago someone hacked into DoD and retrieved information regarding the strategic positions of our military troops in the Pacific. Yesterday, we heard a rumour that a woman named Roxanne Morrison is in possession of this intel, and is also willing to sell it to the highest bidder."

"Could do a lot of damage to our government if it fell in the wrong hands. What do we know about her?" Callens asks.

"Roxanne Kayla Morrison, 26, parents deceased, grew up in the foster system. At the age of 16 she ran away from her foster home to join a gang lead by the Italian Mob."

"Now", Nell continues, "She's the manager of the famous Italian restaurant 'Monza', which is also suspected of doing the Mob's money laundering."

"So probably the deal between her and the buyer will go down at the restaurant." Sam said.

"And it so happens that one of the waitresses and the music entertainer called in sick today, giving us the opportunity to infiltrate their business, so to speak."

"I guess it's time for me to brush up my people serving skills."

"That won't be necessary Mr Deeks."

"You want me to go under as the entertainer then." the detective says.

"Deeks please, you can't define the sounds that come out of your mouth combined with melody as singing."

Easy banter and teasing, she can easily do, but talking about her feelings for a certain blonde LAPD detective, with said detective is not her forte.

"Do you think that you're better than me?"

"Me? No. Sam on the other hand is."

"I've dined in that restaurant. It's high class and one of the top ten places to eat if you consider yourself as someone important. I don't think that they'll appreciate Sam's skills at rap. Plus, I play the violin."

"You're both right which is why Mr Beale will go undercover as the music entertainer."

"What?" They all exclaimed in unison.

"Don't look so surprised. You've all heard him sing and he does play the piano." Hetty replied smiling at the dear-caught-in-headlights look they all supported.

"You do?" Nell asked him.

His 'yes' sounded more like an animalistic sound than his voice. Who could blame him though; learning that you're going undercover at a restaurant managed by the Italian Mob are one of those situations where losing your voice is justified.

"I guess it's you and me Eric." Kensi says after a few seconds of silence.

"Not so fast Miss Blye. It's Miss Jones who will accompany Mr Beale in this mission."

It was Nell's turn to lose her voice.

"Are you sure about this Hetty? No offense to neither of you guys, but this is an important and dangerous mission and they don't have enough field experience. There are plenty of other agents with music talent who can do this mission." Callen says.

"I believe that both Miss Jones and Mr Beale are capable of handling any situation and they've proven themselves many times already. Like you said, this is a high risk mission as it involves the Italian Mob but they're less likely to be made by them than any of you."

"If you're sure."

"I am Mr Callen. Now", she looked at Eric and Nell, "you have an hour to make your fake ID'S and backgrounds before your presence is required down in wardrobe."

With that said, she walked away leaving two very confused tech experts to figure out what just happened.


What do you guys think? Love it? Hate it? I know that most of you expected to see what happens to Eric but you'll have to wait a couple more chapters for that. Patience.

Share your opinion. Any constructive criticism is welcomed as long as it doesn't insult me or my work.

Until next time

~F