Sucker for a Hard Luck Case:

The Bird

It was only couple days later when Hetty sent them out to investigate a Chechen widow that Kensi got a second surprise. She had lost the game of rock, paper, scissors, and they were taking Deeks' car to the suspect's house. That wasn't the surprising part. Kensi was pretty sure he had cheated. But he refused to arm wrestle or play bloody knuckles for the choice.

Deeks opened the passenger door for Kensi with an exaggerated bow, and then hopped out of reach when she tried to elbow him in the gut.

"What was that for?" he whined. "I was being a gentleman."

Kensi slipped into the car and dropped her bag at her feet. "That wasn't 'being a gentleman'. That was making fun of me."

"How would you know? You have no sense of humour, Fern."

"Don't call me that."

"Why not?"

"Because."

Deeks clambered into the driver's seat beside her. "Because what?"

"Because I said so." Kensi wriggled. Something was poking her in the hip. "What am I sitting on? It better not be leftover fast food."

"Aware of your surroundings you should be."

"Really?" Kensi stared at him, digging underneath her with one hand. "You're quoting Yoda at me? He never even said that, anyways."

Deeks shrugged. "Something like that."

She yanked the offending object out from under her leg and stared at it. The small folded envelope of paper was from the Los Angeles Bird Rescue Centre. Below the organization's logo was a case number, species bracket and local phone number.

"Are you adopting a bird?"

Deeks laughed, looking over his shoulder to pull the car out onto the road. "No, no. That's the case file for a bird I just dropped off this morning. He smacked into my neighbour's window, so I took him to the Bird Rescue Centre on the way to work."

Kensi peered at the folder incredulously. "And they gave you a file on him, and everything?"

"So you can check in later and find out how the critter's doing." Deeks explained. "This little guy broke a wing, but I don't have time with work right now to splint it and keep an eye on him."

"You can do that?"

Throwing a glance at her, Deeks frowned. "Of course, haven't you?"

"No."

Deeks looked completely flummoxed. "Well what do you do if you find an injured bird somewhere?"

"Uh. Nothing?" Kensi could feel heat crawling up her cheeks as she tried to defend her answer. "Some other animal will get to eat it for supper. It's survival of the fittest, and all that. Besides, you can probably catch rabies from touching sick birds."

This was apparently one of the few ways to render Deeks speechless.

That was when Kensi decided that conversation regarding small birds was to be avoided at all cost. Seeing her generally peppy partner walk around in a shocked daze for half an hour was a little too creepy to repeat. Apparently birds were his soft spot or something. Birds and spiders.

When Deeks proudly informed the entire team a couple weeks later that 'li'l flyin' Fred' had made a full recovery and was back in the air, Kensi led the team in a synchronised smile-and-nod and figured that was that.

Except it wasn't.