A/n An extremely old request I never got around to posting. (These chapters aren't necessarily connected.)
- Cierra
The skies in Arizona contain a thousand more stars than the ones in LA. She sits on her porch every night, a beer in her hand, watching ancient light flicker above her. She's learned constellations (Big Dipper in the Great Bear, find the Herdsman by counting down stars, bright to yellow. And then she traces to Virgo and back to the Big Dipper to find her lion. After Leo her eyes always drag to Capricorn. Habit.), retaught herself the phases of the moon, keeps track of them with the dust on the outside of her windows, which is a constant in Arizona.
Arizona is actually beautiful, and she has a back yard, a nicer house, neighbors that aren't so close she can see through their window when she looks out her own. Monty Jr. (yes, they named Monty's puppy Junior) has plenty of space to jump around, do doggy stuff. But.
She misses the waves, the sand, the craziness. The men she called brothers at one time, the girl who filled the role of her maid of honor when she married Deeks, the other friends Deeks swore were crazy. OSP. Him.
Which is ultimately why she left, because she couldn't feel the sea breeze on her face, sleep in their bed, without feeling him, catching shadows of him, thinking every blonde surfer riding waves was him. The sinking feeling when they came to shore and she realized their hair wasn't floppy enough, their smiles not wide enough, the height, the shoulders, the lips... wrong. Everything became overwhelming, the sun, the pictures, the absence of his laugh.
So the weight of her service SIG was replaced with that of a Heckler & Koch HK45C, military issued. Marine issued, to be specific.
She works with Yuma's marine base in the intelligence portion. Her job is important and uninteresting. She doesn't deploy, ever. Not that she wants to. But she'd be lying if she said she doesn't miss the field work.
Maybe her dad would like this version of his daughter better-a marine, grounded and steady and obedient, versus who she was when she was with him-somebody reckless, dangerous, crazy. Married to a man who didn't resemble her father in the slightest. Blonde, shaggy, a cop who'd been a criminal defense lawyer. Didn't take life very seriously.
Maybe. But wherever her dad is, if he has the slightest semblance of how much she loved that man, how much he loved her, the hurt she feels constantly, then Kensi knows that he approves. Did approve. Before...
She stops herself, standing up abruptly from the swinging chair on her back porch. She sets down her beer bottle on the banister, running a hand through her hair, staring at the dark grass in front of her with her hand on her waist, forcing herself to remain standing upright. She's not nearly drunk enough to start crying, and it's not late enough.
She looks at her nearly empty beer, debating. It's only her first drink, but unless she's planning on getting so hammered that she can't remember her name, much less the man her husband was, it might be best to just call it a night. It's not like she can allow herself to become completely wasted, and she hasn't since he died except for once, by accident. She woke up next to a loaded gun lying inches away from her hand and the sound of a baby crying, and she hasn't been past three drinks in a sitting since.
She heads towards the patio screen door when she senses movement from the other side of the house. Maybe an engine cutting off. She trails through the house, scampering towards the front door. It's half past ten, and she can't come up with any reason why somebody would be visiting her. Coworkers, boss, non-existent friends. But murderers don't just come knocking on front doors.
So she waits until she hears a fist tapping against the door before opening it. The figure in front of her is half concealed by poor lighting. "Can I help-"
"Kens."
She hasn't heard that nickname in close to four years. She hasn't heard that voice in just as long. It sounds choked and impossibly tired, but, God, it can only belong to him...
He steps forward, towards the light in the living room. She gasps, unable to comprehend why she's seeing his face, and why it's distorted. Have his cheek bones always been that prominent? Did he have bags like that when she used to wake up to him staring down at her? The leathery, pink scar right next to his eye definitely wasn't there before, and that means fire. His hair lands on his shoulders, and the length falls in limp waves, unparted.
She realizes she's staring, she can't move, why can't she move? And then she's crying, and when he barely touches her shoulder, when he acts like he's afraid to hug her, it makes her even more inconsolable. It's his fingers brushing her hair, ghosting over her arm, that snaps her out of her trance.
"Is it really you? Tell me it's really you."
"Marty Deeks. Cop. Hopeless romantic. Husband to the greatest woman on the planet."
She touches his face, needing to assure herself that he's tangible, that he's not going to slip away, disappear, die (again). "You're dead," she tries to explain, looking into the same eyes she dreams of every night.
"I'm not," he tells her. "I promised, didn't I?"
She wasn't even sure he remembers that night, a lifetime ago, before they'd even gone to bed together, when she made him promise not to die. She stares at him, trying to find an explanation. When she can't she realizes that right now she doesn't care because he's here, okay, alive, and she presses her lips to his, triggering thousand of shared memories, beds and weddings and ice rinks and motorcycles.
She shoves the door closed with her back, unwilling to move away from him. She wraps her arms around his neck, resting her forehead against his shoulder. She feels faint. Her knees are doing a sucky job of holding her up, so he guides her over to the couch. He holds her close to him. "It's okay, Kensi. I'm okay."
"You're okay?"
"Bout as okay as anyone else."
She shakes her head, burying it against his shirt. "I thought you were dead."
"So did I, for a little while there," he says, frowning. His hand brushes his scar subconsciously.
"It's been four years."
"And now you're a marine, living in Arizona." She feels him laugh against her. The sound is amazing.
"Oorah," she jokes weakly, grinning despite herself. The resulting chuckle from him makes her eyes sting with tears all over again.
"Kens, are we still...us? Are you-is there anybody else?"
She pulls away from him slightly, so she can look him in the eyes. She stretches her fingers against his, closing them over his knuckles. He looks at their intertwined hands, and runs his thumb over the ring still sitting on her left hand. "I never took it off."
He smiles, but it falters when he notices something in her expression shift. "Kensi, if something changed, I understand-"
She shakes her head, interrupting him. "I need to show you something." With their hands still intertwined, Kensi leads him down the hallway, and he follows, silent. She opens the door adjacent to the master bedroom, flipping on the hallway light so they can make out more than shadows. She hears a woosh of breath leave his lungs, and she follows him, unable to stop tears from forming behind her eyes when he crouches next to the miniature bed. The only thing either of them can make out is a slick of blonde hair, relatively straight but thick, peeking from under the blankets. She places her hand against his shoulder.
When they step out of the bedroom, they both have tears sparkling in their eyes. Deeks asks, "Really?"
Kensi nods, feeling lighter than she has in a long, long time.
"A boy?" When she nods in confirmation again, he grins. "Please tell me you didn't name him Martin."
"Jacob. Jake." She decides not to admit that his middle name is Martin.
His eyes are alight with wonder when he repeats back to her, "Jake." He places his hands on her waist, resting his forehead against hers. "What do we tell him?"
It's still so surreal that Deeks is with her. Trying to explain to her three year old the concept of having a daddy, his own daddy, is probably going to be a challenge. But she can't force herself to focus on it. The last half decade seems to be rushing back at her full force, the pregnancy, the day she had him, the innocence in her baby's clear eyes when he would look up at her, like why are you sad, mommy? Long hours spent next to a grave that wasn't even his. Moving away from the echo of her partner with a six week old.
If this is a dream, she doesn't ever want to wake up. He brushes a piece of her hair behind her ear, stroking the stray hairs just above her temple. He starts to say her name when she cuts him off, pressing her lips against his. The sex is something she hasn't allowed herself to need, because it could lead to her going down an even more destructive path, but it makes her feel so good, so alive and aware that he's with her, she doesn't understand how she made it so long without him.
He's sleeping, and the man that he is unconscious reminds her of the man that she fell in love with. She's able to place the other things that were off about him besides the obvious (being the hair, the skinniness, the scar on his face). He carries tension around like a weight, making his shoulders stiff, like they'll crumple with the weight of whatever invisible thing they're carrying if he doesn't walk with them squared. His face is drawn, exhausted, the bags more like dark scars. He's not just skinny; even lying on his stomach, she can count his ribs. On his midsection is a huge scar, healed now, but without a doubt serious at one time. And looking at him is looking at a stranger.
But it's still him. His eyes, the jokes, the love. She starts to place things she missed that she didn't even realized were absent, the way his thumb draws patterns on her waist, the crinkles located at the corners of his eyes, the gap between two of his otherwise perfectly straight teeth. Everything is so plenty, so exhilarating, it makes her feel like she's drowning all over again.
She doesn't sleep, too afraid that if she closes her eyes, when she opens them he'll be gone. So she fishes around for a shirt and underwear, sits with her back against her pillow, and listens to him breathe.
It's probably five in the morning when she hears tiny feet pad their way into the bedroom. Her son is so drowsy that he doesn't even notice the form laying next to her, concealed by a mountain of blankets. He says, "Momma," climbs into her arms, and almost immediately falls asleep again, blonde hair sticking straight up against her chest.
It's indescribable, going from having an incomplete family to having a unit that's not quite whole, but all of the pieces are present, ready to be connected. She wouldn't have made it without Jake. After Deeks was announced dead, she nearly lost herself, and the only thing that kept her from doing so was the bump she noticed in the mirror one day, and the jeans that wouldn't button. The team helped her a tremendous amount during the pregnancy, which made it harder to leave them.
Her baby is three and a half, blue-eyed, loves dirt and his dog. He runs around the house with her marine cover on his light hair, shading his eyes, hunting death cats and sabertooths and anything else his imagination can grab hold of. He's tough, tough enough not to cry when he runs into corners and stubs his toes, but anytime she's sad (which is often), so is he.
She rubs his back, looking over his hair at Deeks, who's still sleeping. She listens to the little sounds her son and her husband make while they sleep, counts her baby's fingers and toes, keeps track of every time she sees the comforter rise and fall above Deeks's torso.
It's eight thirty when Jake opens his eyes, sitting up against her and looking around the room, still half asleep. But his eyes narrow and his little body tenses as his bleary gaze lands on Deeks. "Mommy," he says, pointing next to her at Deeks's form.
It was really hard on her, when he started watching cartoons and reading books and going to daycare with kids who had two parents, a mom, a dad. He asked her why he didn't have a daddy, and she told him he did, he just wasn't with them. And as he grew he became more curious, and he asked where he was. And she told him he was with her daddy, somewhere far away. She couldn't bring herself to tell him his father was in heaven, dead, would never be a part of his life. So she took the easy way out, told him Deeks was gone, nothing more.
When he was a toddler, an infant, a gurgling, wordless child, she'd show him pictures, point Deeks out. She wanted him to know who his dad was. But the questions made everything that much more painful, and she couldn't bear the confused expression on his face when she told him that a stranger in a picture, absent and unfamiliar, was his dad.
She watches him carefully. "That's your daddy." She gauges his reaction. She expected confusion, but it's too much for his little brain to even try to comprehend. He looks at her, then at Deeks.
Again, his next move is unexpected. He shoves Deeks's arm, and Deeks hmmms as his eyes open, immediately zeroing in on the tiny face that's peering down at his larger one. He finds Kensi behind his son, and she looks apologetic, but he smiles at her, looking back at the toddler in front of him. He doesn't expect his voice to break, but it does when he says, "Hi."
"Are you my dad?" Jake's face is intent, his blue eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Kensi pulls Jake into her lap. Deeks sits up against the pillows. "Yeah, I guess I am."
"Are you sure?"
Deeks nods. "I'm sure."
Jake doesn't look convinced. Kensi seems determined to assure him. She rubs his fine hair, thick like tool on a dress, swaying slightly as she bends her head to look at his face. "Jakey, look. You have the same hair."
Deeks shakes his head back and forth, his long hair swaying in demonstration. Jake turns his face against his mom's collarbone, suddenly shy, which isn't normal for him. If Kensi had to describe her son in two words, it would be bold and extroverted. "Jake, hey..."
He pulls away from Kensi, looking at his two parents. He announces that he's going to go watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. He fixes his gaze carefully on Deeks. "You can watch with me."
He scurries off of the bed, both of his parent's eyes following him. Then Kensi looks at Deeks, noticing for the first time that his eyes are bright with tears. He rubs his eyes roughly, looking back at Kensi when he feels her hand on his arm.
"Deeks..."
"I'm sorry you had to do it by yourself." Her hand finds his shoulder blade, and she thumbs the skin that's pulled taut over his bones. "I wish I could've been-God, four years. And we have a kid."
Even after the years that have passed, she still can't stand seeing him upset. Her throat constricts and her words come out quiet as she fights for composure. "I'm so sorry, Deeks."
He hears her start to cry, and he pulls her against his chest. They hold each other for what seems like a lifetime, and time freezes. The sound of the television in the living room fades away, even the sound of each other crying for time lost. Deeks smooths her hair before trailing a finger under her chin, angling her face to look at him. "You did an amazing job. You know that."
It's exactly what she needs to hear. She always felt like she made the wrong decisions with Jake, especially right after she had him. Even things as stupid as brand of diapers.
"I mean it, Kens. He's awesome."
She smiles. Jake is pretty awesome, she just never thought it had anything to do with her. "He looks just like you."
"He was bound to be cute. Look at us."
Kensi grins, but it fades. She can't help thinking about what opportunities they missed out on as a couple, as parents. Her eyes wander to the scar on his face. She tucks her knees underneath her, facing him. Her fingers reach out, ghosting over the angry red mark branding his face. "What happened to you?"
He tells her a story about an explosion (the one that she thought killed him), a super secret undercover op the CIA passively aggressively recruited him for, some weird coastal town in Crimea, sadistic arms dealers, another explosion. A six week long coma. A struggle to get home. A struggle to find her. "I kept begging my handler to let you know I was okay, to let me write you a letter, something."
To think that Deeks was out there the whole time trying to get in touch with her is incomprehensible. She forces the thought away, opting to ask if the CIA knows where he is.
"It doesn't matter. The major players are dead. They probably figure I am too. Not that they care."
"You're back now," she says, and she kisses him, a confirmation.
"And I'm not leaving."
"Promise?"
He nods. "Never."
He knows it's his turn to ask questions, and he has a million of them. Why she left LA. Why she's a marine. Jake's birthday, favorite color, first word, middle name. But before he can ask any of them, they hear the pattering sound of little feet against hardwood. The owner of the little feet halts at the threshold, arms crossed. "You coming or what?"
Kensi tries to stop from grinning and fails. "Well?"
Deeks smiles back at her. "Absolutely."
Jake darts away again, calling, "Hurrrrrry upppp," down the hallway.
"You heard the man, hurry up," Kensi says.
Deeks stumbles into his jeans, and she fishes around for an LAPD shirt that she could never bring herself to part with. He feels her swat his butt with the shirt before tossing it to him. "I missed that a lot more than I should have."
Kensi shrugs, the glint in her eye mischievous, familiar. He pulls the top over his head, following Kensi to the living room, where a little boy sits against the arm of a couch, legs sprawled out so that he takes up two cushions. Deeks sits on the floor in front of his feet. "What did I miss?"
"Not too much."
Deeks rubs the beard on his chin. He says, "That's good." He looks at Kensi, who's already watching him. He smiles at her. "Really good."
