I own nothing from NCIS: LA and make no money. No infringement is intended and no money is made. Thoughts are inside of /\\.

Partners in Time

By AnitaB

Chapter two: Making the Rounds

Kensi blinked at the light hitting her right in the face. Less than a second later, she was wondering who the hell had spent the last few hours stabbing her in the back of the neck. /Fucking ouch.\\ it was only when she tried to rub the ache that she realized something very important, and very disturbing. She couldn't move her hands because they were busy cuddling Deeks' hand against her collarbone. Strong fingers were intertwined with hers, holding on just as tight as she was. /Oh, shit.\\ Kensi sank her teeth into her lower lip and began the slow and almost painful process of pulling away from her sleeping and injured partner. She started by sitting up despite the very sharp protest of what felt like every fucking muscle in her back. /That's it, tonight I'm bringing a sleeping bag and camping out on the floor. It's got to hurt less.\\ Kensi made it upright without whimpering or waking Deeks.

The next step would be a little harder. Deeks was as stubborn as she was and he seemed very determined to keep her hand even in his sleep. His fingers had tightened already just at the chill of the air against the back of his hand. It didn't help that her cheek and neck were cold without the firm line of his forearm as her pillow. She managed to free one hand without too much trouble but now was the hard part. When Deeks squeezed her fingers, she found herself staring up at his face. He wasn't awake but he was frowning. Then she was frowning as he pulled their joined hands across the sheets and up onto his chest, dragging her half out of the chair in the process. "Kens?" Panicked eyes locked on his bandages at the sound of pain in his voice and then dragged up the still pristine white cloth to his face.

He was still out like a light even as he pulled her up against the edge of his bed to cuddle her hand closer. The frown between his eyebrows deepened and his other hand curled around her wrist. /Marty…\\ Kensi was about to fall forward against his shoulder. Catching her balance, she let her free hand stroke over those frown lines and through his hair. "Shh, Deeks, it's okay. I'm here. Go back to sleep." He quieted under her hands, relaxing back onto the pillows with a quiet sigh. But he still held her close. A few more strokes of his hair had his muscles relaxing enough to slip back into her chair without waking him. Knotting both her hands up under her chin, Kensi tried not to feel the grip of his fingers and the soft warmth of his hair, tried to tell herself she wasn't cold without his touch. "What the hell are you doing to me, Deeks?"

The door creaked and Kensi's hand was on the butt of her gun in the instant before Hetty's tiny frame appeared in the growing gap. "Permission to enter, Ms. Blye?"

"Hetty… of course. Come in." She settled back in her chair and wrapped her arms around her own ribs. "He's still asleep."

"Of course he is, as he should be." Hetty took the chair on the other side of the bed, but only after she patted his arm and checked his bandages. Deeks didn't try to pull Hetty onto the bed with him. "After all, it's only been 24 hours. Certainly not enough time to make a full recovery just yet."

"The doctors said he was healing very well… despite the reopening of his wounds." Kensi wasn't quite ready to admit to herself that the info was more for her than for Hetty. She had fucking hated the sight of his blood and really didn't ever want to see him collapse against a building looking that pale again. "They said he should be back on his feet very quickly."

"I'm sure he will be. We'll make certain of it, won't we, Ms. Blye?" Kensi looked away. For reasons she didn't really understand, the look in Hetty's eyes was too hard to meet. At her next words, Kensi was glad she had. "You do know that his shooting was not your fault, don't you? Neither was the reopening of his wounds."

"But it is my fault. They used him as bait to get me. He was shot because of me. The second set of stitches was because he hurt himself to get to me in time. If Deeks hadn't made that shot, they might have gotten me into the van. I would have been captured or killed if he hadn't saved me… again."

"I can say for certain that our young Deeks doesn't see it that way. He probably blames himself for your near kidnapping and blames himself for the shooting." Hetty smiled at the unconscious man, patting his arm again. "But that isn't the important part right now. What matters is getting both of you recovered, secure, and back to work."

Something inside Kensi panicked at the thought of leaving Deeks for more than a few minutes at a time. "Hetty, I… I can't… leave him here… not alone."

"Of course not, Kensi, I wouldn't ask you to leave him unprotected. You are his partner." There was something deeply unnerving about Hetty's smile. "Young Nell will be here to sit with him for the couple of hours I'll need you in the office today. She'll get here in about," She glanced down at her watch as if she didn't know exactly what time it was. "Thirty minutes. You've got until then to eat his jello if you want to blame her for it."

Kensi must have moved like she was going to interrupt because Hetty raised one hand calmly and kept talking. "After that time is up, you will be able to stay with your partner until dinnertime. At that point Mr. Callen and Mr. Hannah will arrive. One of them will drive you home to eat, shower and get at least two hours of sleep in a real bed, not in a hospital chair." Now the hand keeping her from talking raised up a little higher. Kensi could feel her hands tightening on the rail of Deeks' hospital bed. "The other will stay here until you get back. I've talked to the hospital staff and arranged to place a cot in this room for only two more days. Then you will leave the hospital to sleep at home until Mr. Deeks is released. Am I understood?"

Something inside Kensi started panicking even as the logical part of her brain knew Deeks wasn't in any continuing danger. The people who had hurt him looking for her were dead and in the morgue somewhere. She was actually being allowed to stay at his side more than she should be. But less than she wanted to. Kensi finally gave in to the twitching in her fingers and reclaimed his hand between both of her own. "That sounds perfect, Hetty. Thank you."

000

He'd woken up this morning with cold fingers and a new visitor. Nell was a sweet girl, but she wasn't his Kensi. Though, unless Nell was more of a thief than he'd thought, his Kensi had eaten his jello before she'd left him with his new guard. Or maybe that was new babysitter.

Deeks spent the next few hours trying not to miss his partner, or at least trying not to be too obvious about missing his partner. Then Nell's phone rang somewhere in the middle of the third hour. He tried really, really hard not to jump. He tried even harder not to snatch the phone clean out of her hands and talk to his partner himself. He knew it was Kensi by only the rhythm of the muffled voice on the other end. "Yes, I'll get on that with Eric as soon as I get back to the office." Kensi's voice was too soft to really hear, but whatever she said made Nell smile and glance at him out of the corner of her eyes. "Yes, he has… well, except for the jello of course." Another round of muffled speech and another smile. "Hold on and I'll ask." Nell turned to look at him straight on, the phone he was itching to take held away from her ear. "Kensi's on her way back and wants to know if there's anything she can sneak in for you, foodwise and the like."

He bit back the sudden urge to say all he needed was her. But he couldn't say that now could he. "Some real coffee would be great and those tacos we like for stakeouts." Deeks knew his hands were clenched in the blanket across his lap, but Nell wasn't either Sam or Callen. She wouldn't notice as quickly, if at all.

"Got all that, Kens?" Nell smiled and nodded. "Alright, then. See you in thirty minutes? Oh, yes, I'm sure he will be. Bye, Kensi." Nell hung up before he could either reach out for the phone or get his nerves to calm down.

"You're sure I'll be what?" He knew he sounded suspicious, but he was… so what?

Nell's smile got even wider. He'd never seen so many of her teeth before. "Sure you'll be happy to see her." She rested one hand on his shoulder and shrugged her own. "Don't worry, Deeks, I'm not offended or anything. But you really have been looking at that door about every…. Hmm… three minutes the whole time I've been here. Maybe five. Sometimes only two."

"No… no I'm not." If Nell could read him like that, Kensi was going to eat him alive when she got here. "My back's stiff… and the door is right in front of the bed."

"Sure, that's it." Nell rolled her eyes and gave a low little chuckle. "It's nothing to do with the woman who hasn't left your side in over 24 hours. It has nothing to do with your partner who had to be ordered from your bedside just to do a couple of hours of work at the office. The one who wouldn't leave you alone despite the LAPD still hanging out downstairs." Her head angled and the smile on her lips turned a little evil. "Of course it's just a stiff back from the hospital bed."

"I don't know what you're talking about." He'd never heard himself lie so badly in his life. Deeks was an undercover expert, but that… that was just pathetic. "We're just partners."

"I know what a crush looks like, feels like. I didn't grow up inside a computer and I don't live in one now."

Deeks found himself reaching out a hand to catch hers. "Has Eric noticed that torch you're carrying around? Or is he still living inside his computers?"

Her eyes dropped but her hand tightened on his. "I don't know, but damn I hope not." Nell forced a weak smile and tried to pull back. Deeks wasn't letting go just yet. "Has Kensi noticed your torch yet?"

He should deny it, deny everything. But just the thought of telling someone, anyone, made the weight of that torch just a little easier to bear. Besides mutually assured blackmail was as solid as he was probably going to get. "I thought she might have a couple of times, but no. Kensi hasn't noticed me yet. And this hasn't helped."

"This hasn't helped? Deeks, you got shot for her and then you saved her life in the hospital parking lot within hours of your surgery. How could that hurt?" Nell's voice was as close to yelling as someone could be when whispering. They were both whispering, as if Kensi and Eric had bugged the hospital room.

"I got shot because I was too stupid to do what all of you have done for years. That makes me the dumb city cop that endangers the real agents. Taking that shot in the parking lot doesn't balance it out." Deeks rubbed his free hand over the bandages on his chest, right over his heart. "Besides, I don't want her gratitude." He swallowed and let the words climb his throat to his lips. "I just want her."

"I know what you mean." Nell leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. "Torches suck, don't they."

"Yeah, yeah they do." He was settling back into the pillows after pressing a kiss to her cheek when the door opened and they both jumped.

"And how are you feeling, Mr. Deeks?" The doctor didn't look up from the file in his hands in time, missing the almost guilty looks on two faces. "Any pain around your wounds?"

Deeks knew he let out a sigh of relief. It would have been just his luck for Kensi to get back just in time to hear him spilling emotions all over the sheets. She would have twisted something running so fast. "No, no pain. They're a little itchy though."

"That's actually a good sign. It means the skin is starting to heal. When your bandages get changed, ask the nurses for some skin cream." The doctor glanced down at the file in his hands before looking back up with a smile that somehow managed to be just a little mean. "That being the case… I guess I can let in your visitor, but no more coffee after the one she's bringing you now. I want you getting your rest tonight."

He nearly had a heart attack, his pulse changed so fast. /Kensi is here.\\ Deeks knew he was smiling, could see the smile on Nell's face. "I guess that's final call for me." Nell stood as Kensi came in with a to-go bag and cup carrier.

"And a coffee for your babysitting duty." Something inside his chest unwound for the first time in hours at just the sound of her voice and the sight of her smile. She was here, almost close enough to… Deeks fought to keep the swirl of feelings off his face, but he knew he didn't have a chance in hell of wiping off the smile. "So how bad a patient was he?"

He felt better than he had in hours, simply because she was reclaiming her chair at his bedside and reaching out for his hand with a smile. Kensi was here. He was the best damn patient in the hospital. "I'm fine, Kens, I'm feeling better."

The doctor just nodded and turned for the door, a smiling Nell just a step behind him. A little wave and a blown kiss almost distracted him from his partner. Almost.

"Hey there, Deeks."

"Hey there."

000