A/N: Gosh, guys! Thank you all soooo much for the favs, alert adds and the reviews! I honestly didn't expect that many, but they have gotten me on a writing marathon, lol. I hope this chapter lives up to the first one. Sorry it's shorter, but I had to cut it off here to lead onto the next on. Once again, please R&R. Feedback, good or bad, is thoroughly appreciated. Thank you, and read on!
The tech room was rarely ever quiet or lonely. However, since the last phone call close to half an hour ago, Eric was finding it very hard to keep at the task at hand. It wasn't the most riveting work he had ever done, and he had plenty of games that he could be excelling with just a few feet away from him. Thankfully, distraction came in the form of an ex-SEAL before he could even move.
"Hey, how did it go with Johnson?" He asked as Sam entered the room, turning his chair to follow him.
"G and Nate are still working on it." Sam replied, rounding the table to take a look at the both the board and the papers.
"And Deeks?"
"He's there, too." He answered distractedly before nodding to the search on the board. "You still got no hit for this guy?"
"Nada so far. Kensi said she was going to try to find something to narrow down the search, but that was like an hour ago so..." Eric told him, trailing off with a heavy suggestion and turning back to his computer.
"Where is she?" Sam asked with a small frown. He knew as well as the other man that if their junior agent said she would do something, she's get it done.
"At her desk, I think?" Eric said, turning it into a question when he realised that he wasn't entirely sure if she would be there or not.
"I didn't see her when I came in."
"She looked a bit ill earlier. Maybe she went to get some fresh air?" He suggested, twisting his chair back around towards the agent. The surprise that his words caused wasn't hard to see.
"Kensi? Ill? I don't think so." Sam laughed with a shake of the head.
"Hey, I call it as I see it." Eric said while holding his hands up. It was the universal sign for the other person to make their own conclusions on the given data, but he knew that the conclusion would be the same if the other man had seen her too.
"Nuh-uh. Kensi doesn't get ill." Sam dismissed.
"I know. But today... I dunno. She looked ill, man." He shrugged.
"Ok." Sam replied, slightly concerned before remembering why he was there in the first place. Digging out a piece of paper from his pocket he walked over to where Eric was to hand it over. "Listen, I need you to do me a favour. Run these names and see if anything comes up related to the case."
"Got it." Eric said, taking the paper and turning back to his computer to run another search. He could hear Sam leaving the room and there was no doubt in his mind where he would be heading.
...
He spotted her before he had even reached the stairs this time. As Eric had guessed, she sat at her desk, pouring over multiple sheets of paper to try and get something resembling a lead.
"How's it going?" Sam asked her casually, approaching her desk.
"It's not." Kensi sighed, looking up at him as he stopped in front of her. When she did, he could see what Eric had meant by the agent in front of him looking ill. He could almost see the exasperation as she watched him watch her. "What?" She asked, deadpan.
"You good?"
"Yeah." She replied instantly and getting up from her seat to cross over to her partner's desk.
Sam followed her movements with a silent stare, noting the other pile of papers on Deeks' desk that she riffled through. It didn't take long for her to find what she was looking for, but Sam's eyes never wavered and he saw every minuscule wince or grit of the teeth. The only time that she returned his stare was as she returned to her desk. Instead, she threw him a questioning look, and stood a couple of feet in front of him.
"What?" She asked self-consciously, brow furrowing. He simply raised an eyebrow at her, knowing that she knew what he had noticed. "It's just a headache, alright? It'll go away." She finally sighed, heading back to her seat.
"Last time I checked, people didn't go pale with 'just a headache'." Sam commented dryly.
"I'm fine." Kensi insisted, batting away the hand that came for her forehead. "Stop- Stop it!"
"Jeez, you're burning up." He exclaimed when he managed to get a feel, though it didn't last for long when she shoved him away.
"It'll pass when the Advil kicks in." She told him in a tone that told him to leave it alone before she changed the subject. "Has Johnson give anything up yet?"
"Just a few names." Sam answered after a slight pause; giving in and heading to his own desk. "Didn't want to specify which one we really needed. You know, to make our lives just that bit easier."
"Hey, at least you have names. I have a dead-end." Kensi retorted with a scoff. "I'm starting to think this guy's not involved at all."
"Well, until we get a hit, or Johnson tells us the right name, I guess we just got to keep on looking."
...
Kensi bit her bottom lip to stop herself from cursing at the laptop in front of her, or even worse, hitting it. After finally getting a small lead, she had taken to the technical side of it to try and cross search anything that would give them a plausible reason to go after any one of the handful of names that she, with the help of Eric, had managed to narrow it down to.
The search, however, was once again taking longer than she liked. And the brightness of the screen wasn't doing anything to help her headache either. She wasn't quite sure how, considering that she had taken up to the maximum amount of painkillers that she could, but the pain had increased steadily.
A beep from her laptop claimed her attention, only for her to find that it indicated that there was nothing to be found. Exhaling deeply to keep a bay her anger at the difficulty to get a straight answer for the case, she typed in the next name on the list and pressed enter to start the search.
With the rest of the team currently on other methods to do the same as her, find a real lead, the bullpen was eerily quiet. Not even Hetty seemed to linger, nor the odd agent. Taking a look around to make sure that that hadn't changed in the last few minutes, Kensi pushed the laptop further away on her desk before folding her arms in the space to lay her head down upon. Although she had intended on simply taking the strain off her eyes, she was pretty sure it was longer than she thought when a voice in her ear brought her back to reality.
"Sleeping on the job can get you fired." He whispered, almost making her jump. Lifting her head up slowly, she threw Callen a dirty look as he took his seat next to her and turned back to her laptop.
"Not sleeping." She muttered, rubbing the back of her neck to ease the ache that she was sure she should have felt earlier, making her wonder if she had indeed fallen asleep.
"Let me guess. Just resting your eyes?" He laughed knowingly. Kensi could feel his eyes burn into the side of her head no matter how hard she tried to ignore it. "Or is it your head? That headache must be a full-blown migraine by now. No matter how many Advils you take."
"I hate it when you two gossip about me." She sighed in annoyance, resetting the search when the previous one had gotten her no results once again.
"It's called caring. You should try it one day." Callen suggested heavily, though keeping his tone light. She would have taken offence if she didn't know he meant about caring about herself. Instead of replying, she did what she had been doing best all day and deflected.
"Did you get anything?" Kensi asked, leaning back in her seat and turning slightly to face him. The light-heartedness had vanished from his being at her words, and she watched him watch her, just as she had done with Sam. And like then, she waited, returning his stare until he backed down with a small mirthless smile.
"Got a top three." He shrugged before nodding towards the laptop. "Johnson refused to cooperate more than that. How about you?"
"A few names. Any match yours?" She informed him while picking up a piece paper with the information and handing to him. His eyes raked over the short list quickly before placing it back down onto the desk.
"Two."
"Almost there." She simply said, casting her eyes downwards momentarily to ease the strain it cause. When she looked back up, though, she wasn't entirely surprised to see Callen watching her once again.
"Go home, Kens." He told her softly. "There's nothing else left to do but go see these two if we can't narrow it down. We can handle it."
"I'm fine. It'll go away in a bit." Kensi brushed off like she had been doing and went to turn back to her work, only to be stopped by one of his legs blocking her own ones from turning the chair any further. The tactic earned him an unimpressed look.
"Any doctor would take one look at you and put you on bed rest. That's how fine you look." Callen pointed out to her straightforwardly. "And I don't think you can take any more Advils without OD'ing."
"Didn't Eric say he had some information that might help?" She tried to change the subject once again, finally managing to get back to her work, or at least pretend to.
"As your boss, I could technically demand you to go home." He informed her. Kensi sighed and gave up the pretence of being interested in the nothing that her search was currently getting her. Instead, she looked over at him once again.
"But you won't." She smirked when he raised an eyebrow in surprise. There wasn't much that could surprise him, so when something did, it impressed, as well as amused, her.
"Cos I know you would only go against it." Callen reciprocated the smirk, though it was to a lesser extent than hers. Letting out a breath, he sat up straighter before getting up. "Fine. I'm going see Eric."
Kensi simple nodded, smiling subtly as he squeezed her shoulder when he passed behind her to head upstairs. Though she was glad that he had let it go, a part of her wished he had pushed a bit harder. That thought was shoved to the back of her mind as soon as it had came forth. She knew that with the right persuasion she could have given in, but she didn't want to. Being ill wasn't something that she was use to, and being ruled by it was a weakness in her books and that was not something that she fancied given in to nor showing. Though the latter she seemed to be doing a horrible job at as she rubbed her temples once again.
"I find lavender tea is the best to relieve a headache. Much better than any medicines." This time, Kensi did jump. Looking over her shoulder, she smiled tightly as Hetty approached her, tsk-ing and shaking her head as she stopped at the far end of the entranceway of the bullpen. "Mr. Callen is right. You should go home."
"There's still things to be done." Kensi replied, pursing her lips and pointing to her laptop, which had yet still to come up with anything useful.
"Eric can carry on the search." She countered coolly.
"We haven't even caught the perp yet."
"There's a whole team of agents available to help out." Hetty argued in the smooth manner that she always seemed to use to manage things around the place. Kensi opened her mouth to give her another excuse, but unfortunately for her that day, she couldn't think quick enough to lie. "Anything else, Ms. Blye?"
"I don't need to go home." She ended up saying, knowing that she sounded more like a petulant child than a top agent.
"Yes, you do." The operations manager simply stated.
"Fine." Kensi sighed, giving up before she even started on trying to convince the woman otherwise. It was a fight lost even before it began, and she knew it. Once Hetty had her mind set on getting something done, it would get done, and not even she could stop it. Kensi wasn't sure there was anyone who could win against the great Hetty Lange.
"Goody. Now, I don't want to see you again until you're all better. You understand me? I can't risk you getting the rest of the team ill, too." She instructed her strictly, bringing out a small smile on the junior agent's face.
"Thanks, Hetty." Her reply was only half sarcastic as she nodded to the words.
"Take care. Don't forget about the tea!" Hetty reminded her before walking away back to her own office.
Kensi waited for a while for the current search running on her laptop to finish before shutting it down and picking up her stuff to leave. Holding her bag in her hand, she made her way through the building until she got to the exit. As always, it was pretty sunny in the early LA afternoon and she was forced to dig out her shades to both see and help ease her eyes. Only once had she put them on did she look up properly and realise that there was someone already waiting by her car.
"Deeks, what are you doing?" She asked him carefully, meeting him where he leant casually against the driver's side of her car.
"I'm driving you home." He told her, smiling his typical bright smile at her that only made her want to punch him. Anyone who could be happy when she was in pain needed a punch, especially if it was her partner.
"No, you're not." Kensi stated with a dry laugh.
"Hetty's orders." Deeks informed her as he pulled out his own sunglasses and slipping them on before holding out a hand to her. "Keys."
"I can drive myself, thank you very much." She scoffed.
"Even with that headache?" He asked her sceptically.
"Probably still better than you and your fruity arm." Kensi shot back, causing his eyebrows to raise up.
"Fruity arm... I see what you did there. Funny. Real mature, too." He muttered, before getting back to the point of their conversation. "Now come on. More you argue, more time you have to stand here."
"More time I have to spend with you." She added with a deep sigh, finally handing over the keys and walking around the front of the car towards the passenger side. "Alright, let's go."
"Ouch." Deeks exclaimed dramatically as he got into the car too. "And I thought we were just starting to get along, too."
...