AN: Wow. I'm really glad you liked this so much! So, this hit me at around 1 am. Yep. Again, kinda darker than my usual stuff, but this HAS to be dealt with. Please respond and let me know what you think… where you want me to go from here.

Thanks to Bamie02 (amazing as ever) who looks over my stuff for me!

Blessings,

bookdiva

Pain. Pain and bright lights and information and panic and confessions and traffic lights and a lock pick. Since she heard the news, that's all that has been swirling around her, and it's all she can do to make sense of any of it. But she has to.

Because he is counting on her.

She follows Granger, gun raised, ready to take out any bad guys that stand between her and her partner. What she doesn't expect is for the smell to hit her—the blood and the sweat and the tears and the pain—and for her stomach to roll over. Still, she pushes through, and her eyes eventually begin to adjust. First she sees Sam in a white room.

No Deeks, is her only thought. Where's Deeks.

He can't be dead. He just can't.

I'd know. He promised, and damn it, I would KNOW!

But then her eyes adjust. She almost wishes they hadn't because there he is, lifeless in front of her, strapped down to a chair.

"Deeks?" But he doesn't move. Her wrists begin to ache, her heart has practically stopped beating, and she wonders if this is what it's like to know. "Deeks—no!"

She can't stop her voice from breaking, but she doesn't care. It doesn't matter anymore. If he's gone, then she doesn't want to stay.

"Deeks? Deeks!"

It's pointless! her mind screams at her, but she just ignores it.

"Deeks!"

The gasp he lets out—filled with anguish and fear—is both the most achingly beautiful and horribly soul-wrenching sound she's ever heard in her life. Then his eyes open, and suddenly her wrists don't just hurt, they burn. Her heart doesn't practically stop, it's no longer beating. Time stands still, and Agent Blye almost flies out the proverbial damn window.

"Hey, hey. It's okay. It's okay. It's me. It's me. It's me."

She can see the moment he understands, and she hates the relief—the almost joy, if someone in that much pain can feel joy—that passes over his face as he finally recognizes her.

And she's supposed to just leave him there.

"You—you gotta get me outta here."

She does everything in her power to block out the sound of his voice—so certain that she's there to save him—from her mind. She runs her hands all over his body, searching for hidden injuries. She finds more than she ever wanted to know about, and she decides that she can't leave him there.

He wouldn't leave me! she screams in her mind. I can't leave him here.

"Kensi, the kit!" Granger's voice—from over by Sam—brings her back to the mission.

Agent Blye stands up and tosses the kit across to her boss. Kensi Marie stands there, frozen—reliving the feel of her partner's now tortured lips on hers. And Fern… she's tied up in that auto body shop, right there with her heart. All three parts in one body.

Unfortunately, she is who she is, and Agent Blye is autopilot. So she turns back and takes out another package.

"You gonna cut me loose?" His words are slurred and barely distinguishable, but she hears them. She almost wishes she hadn't.

"I don't have much time, and I—I can't." She can't hold it together, and her voice betrays her at the end. She can't look into his eyes, or she'll lose Agent Blye. She'll become Kensi—or worse, Fern—and she'll scoop him up and leave and…

"Huh?" he breathes out, pulling her focus back. "What—what's happening?"

"You have to stay here just a while longer, okay?" She looks down. She looks side to side. She looks anywhere but his pain-filled blue eyes. "I'm sorry." The last words come out in barely a whisper, but she knows he hears them.

Agent Blye takes out the kit and begins to explain in a rock hard—if slightly wavering—voice exactly what is going to happen. Kensi hates the way her partner flinches at the sight of the kit. And Fern…

"Are you that mad at me?" he slurs, and her if her heart hadn't stopped before, it does now.

"What?" Her fingers fumble and stop, and she can't keep her eyes away from his anymore. The moment she looks up, she looses the fight.

"I'm sorry…" he said, his words becoming more and more slurred. She has to strain to make them out. "I'm sorry, okay? It didn't mean anything… I didn't even sleep with her… I'm s-s-ssss…"

Oh god, he thinks… But she can't afford to even finish that thought.

"No! Oh god, no! Deeks—no! I know—I was… no! I'm not mad! I'm not. You're right. I'm not mad. You didn't—Deeks!" But she can tell she's lost him. His eyes are glazed over and he's absolutely gone. And she knows he didn't heard a word she just said.

"Let's move, Agent Blye," Granger's voice hits her, hard and strong, and it causes his eyes to clear too. He looks into her eyes like it's the last time, and she loses it. Fern takes over.

She reaches over, and her hand is headed toward the restraint when Granger's hand hits her shoulder. She's backing away from her partner before she fully realizes exactly what is happening, but she can't tear her eyes away from his. All the way to the door, he manages to keep up that eye contact.

And she sees it, the moment she steps away, that something unfixable has broken.

Granger opens the door and the flooding of light blinds her view of her partner. The fresh air surrounds her, but she feels guilty just breathing it. She can't breath it. And then she realizes that she really can't breath it, because she can't breathe at all.

Granger grabs her arm and drags her down the alley. She's too dizzy to put up a fight.

And so she sits and she waits. She watches Michelle confront Siderov. She watches them walk into the auto body shop.

And minutes later, when she hears the two gunshots that ring out from the auto body shop, it feels like they're center mass hits to her unprotected heart.

Reminder, after that depressing thought, that reviews make my day!