The meeting is a few blocks away at Venice Pier.

Deeks pulls up into the parking lot, gives Monty a treat and an order to "guard the car" and then treks down to the end of the pier where he sees Sam, Kensi, and much to the detective's distaste, Granger. Deeks slows his pace when he's a few meters away; he tries to be quiet, but fails when he accidently hits his foot on a nearby bench. He tries to play it off as nothing, but Granger just rolls his eyes at him.

The assistant director is wearing a light brown jacket and jeans. It's an odd sight to Deeks to see the man who's usually uptight and miserable to be in such casual clothing. Deeks is pulled away from Granger's appearance when Sam asks Granger, "You finally planning on telling us why we're here?"

"Ok. We all know that the CIA, DOD- pretty much everyone is putting us under the microscope because of Agent Callen's actions," Granger starts off. He pauses, which makes Deeks flinch. The detective doesn't like Granger's tone; to him, it's like the Assistant Director is enjoying that everything is going to hell.

"You breaking us up?" Sam asks in a quick, harsh tone. Deeks reminds himself to thank the ex-SEAL for his attitude later.

"No, I'm not," Granger snaps with a scowl, "Believe it or not, Agent Hanna, I like this team. You guys get the job done. Unfortunately, the Director doesn't care about the results, he cares about what happened yesterday-"

"You mean the exchange that you set up? Really? You're blaming us for that?" Kensi exclaims. Deeks puts a hand in front of his partner to prevent her for lunging after Granger. "And on top of that, your stupid plan failed!"

"I made a decision- an executive decision. Agent Callen shouldn't have gotten so damn trigger happy."

"Well, he did lose two allies in one day," Kensi snapped at Granger, "and the man was going to walk off scott free where he probably would have killed again and again." Deeks smiles at his partner's tenacity; however, his thoughts quickly travel back to his possible resignation and it hits him that he wouldn't want to miss a single day without Kensi's wit.

"Enough!" Granger roars and it silences the team. Deeks quiets only because he has an impending yawn coming and he doesn't want it to come out at the wrong timing.

"As I was saying," Granger pauses in annoyance when the detective does let out a loud yawn. He glares at Deeks and then continues, "LAPD also doesn't like how they were kept out of the loop for most of yesterday." Kensi and Sam turn to Deeks, who has froze, eyes wide open.

"I only alert LAPD on cooperative missions. We had this under control," Deeks replies. A sudden ping of annoyance hits him. It's the feeling of….annoyance? irritability? that comes when he actually has to 'liaison' between LAPD and NCIS. The detective momentarily forgets that he's at the pier and realizes that he truly hates being that part of his job- he's sick of it.

But is that enough for him to quit? Of Course.

But if he doesn't quit and NCIS denies him, then what?

Granger walks over to the bench and sits. "Director Vance is pissed. Even though he knows what kind of liaison this team has, he still doesn't like how things were handled. So this office is to be evaluated, effective immediately. Each member of this team will sit down with me and Director Vance next week and discuss his or her impact for this office. In the meanwhile, all operations will be done on a cooperative basis with LAPD's best."

Deeks scowls at Granger. The detective is pretty positive that half of that was being directed towards him. It also shakes his confidence- Deeks is behind Sam, Callen, and Kensi in areas on navy intelligence, international affairs- basically, everything that an office would want in an agent, he doesn't have.

Right now. If he quits and trains in DC, he'll be only…..somewhat behind.

"So we're being baby sat?" Deeks asks when he turns his attention back to the conversation. When Sam raises an eyebrow at him, the detective's pretty sure that he's missed something important when he had spaced out, but doesn't really give a damn.

"Not in those words, I'd say. Think of it as being monitored," Granger replies.

"Yes, because that sounds so much better," Kensi replies sarcastically to his comment. A breeze blows by, causing her bun to fall forward and cover her eyes. "So what happens if as a team we don't pass this 'evaluation'?" The brunette does air quotes around the word evaluation.

Granger crosses his arms. "Then this office will be shut down until further notice. Agent Blye, you would be transferred down to San Diego or have an opportunity to work in the CIA. Agent Hanna, you would have the opportunity to train SEALS at Camp Pendleton."

"And me?" Deeks asks with a raised hand.

Granger shrugs his shoulders and gives the detective a confused look. "You'd go back to LAPD, of course."

Deeks has no reason to treat this as an insult, but he does. The detective steps back and lets out a staggered breath. He's down to very little options- if he stays on and the team fails, he'll be sent back to LAPD.

If he fails the individual evaluation, he's off the team and will be sent back to LAPD.

If he passes both the evaluation and the full team evaluation and he pisses of Granger to the point of being fired, he's off the team and will be sent back to LAPD. All three options end in him returning back to LAPD, pretty much under duress.

"Damn it," he gasps. He should have said yes when Hetty asked him to join because now, with everything going on, he may not have the chance to. In a panic, Deeks turns and leaves the group, ignoring his name being called out by Kensi, Sam, and a very annoyed Granger. He's down the steps of the pier and to his car; anxious to talk to the one person he could help him out.

Twenty minutes later, Deeks walks up the steps towards the front door of a large house. To the detective, this person is the only person that can shed some light on what he should do. It's early in the morning and he knows she'll probably yell at him for the early call, but he doesn't care.

This is urgent.

He wraps his knuckles against the door and shivers. A minute or two passes and Hetty opens up the door. The detective can see boxes near the stairwell and in the living room. He has the desire to crack some kind of 'cheeky' comment as Hetty would call it, but it passes almost immediately after it comes.

"Mr. Deeks, why are you here?"

With his hands in his pocket and his body trembling, the detective says, "I need your help."