A/N: I´m sorry, guys, I know I promised regular updates... So, I posted this chapter to not let anyone wait any longer, but there might be some typos since I didn´t have the time to edit a lot. Thanks to everybody who reviewed!
Disclaimer: Disclaimed. Nothing belongs to me.
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You let all the girls go
Makes you feel good, don't it?
Behind your Broadway show
I heard a boy say, "Please, don't hurt me"
Would you let me see beneath your beautiful?
Would you let me see beneath your perfect?
Take it off now, girl, take it off now, girl
I wanna see inside
Would you let me see beneath your beautiful tonight?
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The next morning, Deeks woke up because he felt somewhat trapped. Opening his eyes, he couldn´t help but chuckle at the sight before him. Kensi was spread out, claiming almost all of her bed´s limited space, while her head rested on his right arm and her hands were folded on his bare chest. After feeling him underneath her, Kensi opened her eyes and met his loving gaze.
"Good morning, sunshine. Judging from your very comfortable position here, I take it that you have slept very well?"
Kensi smiled as her hands started to roam his body, "Oh yeah, that´s what you are assuming? Well, I can assure you that I have indeed rested exceptionally well. What about you?"
Matching her flirtatious tone, Deeks answered "Oh, never better, you know, I think I have developed quite a fondness of your cute little snores. Means I´m getting used to them. The only thing that bothers me is that I have to get up for work soon, while your little outburst against Callen got you a free week."
His smile told her that he was playing it nice, he obviously wanted to avoid any too serious talk in the morning, and yet he was trying to gauge her reaction, see if she was still in her meltdown-state from yesterday evening. "Don´t worry, Deeks. I´ll be fine. Sex with you always seems to bring me back down to earth." Kensi couldn´t help but to fall back into their flirty banter.
"Oh, I´m so gonna take that as a compliment! I´m the linchpin of your world, because everything else you might have implied would be downright insulting, just so you know. Because under normal circumstances, this...", Deeks´ finger pointed back and forth between the two of them, "should be downright amazing and lifting you up from earth."
"The problem is just that we normally don´t sleep with each other under normal circumstances. Just if at least one of us is freaking out or was life-threatened."
Deeks smile was still teasing her, but his eyes were getting more serious. "Maybe it´s time to change that."
"Maybe." Kensi agreed lightly, even though they could both feel her heart beating faster.
"Ok, officially getting up right now!" With his usual drama, Deeks managed to get off the bed and walk towards her bathroom. Kensi got up as well and made them breakfast. While eating, Deeks felt like he should address last night, but somehow, he just couldn´t find the right words. So he just decided to leave after giving her a deep kiss. Hell, they had always been with actions than with words. "Maybe we should go out tonight, you know, instead getting the food to us, we could go for the food this time."
"Deeks, are you asking me for a date?"
"Well, if you insist..." Deeks attempted to address her formally, but was quickly interrupted by another kiss. "No, don´t even go there... Sounds like a good idea, though."
"Ok", he beamed, "I´ll see you tonight then."
After arriving at headquarters, Deeks attempted to visit Hetty in her office, but before he even got there, Callen intervened.
"Deeks, I need to talk to you for a second." Without any further comment, he lead the way towards an empty room full of filing cabinets. Great, let´s go for the funny stuff. This is gonna be interesting. I´m taking one for you here, Kensi. Deeks thought as he obediently followed Callen.
After closing the door, Callen turned towards the Detective. "Do you know what´s going on with Kensi?" he demanded to know, cutting right to the important stuff. Deeks did not reply immediately, but rather took a moment to watch the older man.
"Ok, this is not my story to tell, but I know that you need to know and Kensi won´t tell you." Deeks took another breath before he started. "You remember her fiancé, Jack? He suffered from PTSD after a tour in Afghanistan, but they stayed together for another three months until he left on Christmas Eve. It´s just that she never was entirely honest about how he left. In fact, he didn´t just leave, but left because he had assaulted her twice before, and on Christmas Eve, he had a moment of regret which caused him to leave. She never told me what exactly happened, but from what I gathered he did rape her."
Deeks risked a short glance in Callen´s direction and wasn´t surprised to find the anger of an older brother written across his face. Nevertheless, he wasn´t yet finished.
"Just as the Kensi we know, she buried everything inside her and never really dealt with it. Until a few months ago." For a second, Deeks was unable to continue. He couldn´t have done anything to change her past with Jack, that was way before their time. But what he was about to tell Callen was an incident that had happened during their time as partners. You should have been there. You should have had her back. This nagging voice in the back of his head would probably never disappear again.
"What happened Deeks?" To his great surprise, Callen´s voice sounded hesitant, almost afraid, and Deeks suddenly realised that as their leader, Callen would probably also feel guilty very soon.
"Do you remember Lt. Bride? We arrested him for the assault of several women as well as burglary."
"Right. He incapacitated them before raping them and stealing their jewelry. But Kensi claimed that when she was undercover, all that happened was that he intended to rape her, but she took him out before he could do anything."
Deeks sighed. I´m sorry, Kensi. He thought before telling her Senior Field Agent that she had lied to all of them. "The moment he started to get to her, she had a flashback to Jack. She told me it was the first time something like this had happenend, but it was still enough for Lt. Bride to get the upper hand. As far as I know, she was able defend herself before it got really bad. Still, she had a couple of nice bruises and was pretty shaken. She couldn´t tell you, though. She didn´t want to appear helpless or as if she couldn´t do the job."
Callen´s face had turned more and more serious, as he watched Deeks telling him his partner´s story. He couldn´t believe how much he actually had missed. Not only that his junior agent had almost been raped by a suspect, but also how close the two of them had become. Deeks knowing this whole story and, at the same time feeling confident enough to share it with him made Callen wonder how close exactly they were. Yet, he decided to address the easier topic first.
"I know that Kensi is capable of doing her job. But that doesn´t make it okay to keep something so important secret. We need to be more careful concerning her undercover work. Any job that could lead to another flashback needs to be avoided! Do you even realize how dangerous it was not to tell me or Hetty what had actually happened?"
Deeks wanted to say something, but was interrupted by Callen, "I will have to discuss that with Hetty and Kensi herself. This is nothing you need to be involved in."
His legs had become tired from the long standing, but Deeks did not move. This was too important and also long overdue. He said, "I understand, Callen, believe me, I do. I know that she is having more problems than she shows. I also have no idea why she reacted the way she did in that alley. From all she told me... My best guess would be that she was startled as you appeared to her like a real threat and no longer as an agent."
Callen chose not to reply to that comment. He needed to talk to her about that in person. She was his friend, after all. Right now, there was one last thing he wanted to know.
"So, let´s leave this whole story aside for a moment. Why exactly do you know all of this? Last time I checked, Kensi was still the badass, secretive agent we all know. What has changed between the two of you?"
Deeks sighed. He hated those kinds of talks. But he also knew that Callen hated them as well. He must be really curious to ask such a personal question. The only problem was really that Deeks was pretty sure Callen wouldn´t like the answer. So, he tried one last time to get out of here, "You really want to ask that? Because for all you know, we could be Mr. and Mrs. Smith by night, or, even better, Bonnie and Clyde. And you know Kensi, we could totally do that, right? Oh, I can imagine that all to clearly, the two of us, all alone in the woods, chased by the bad guys... Although, no, not the woods. Maybe Mr. and Mrs. Smith would be the better choice here..."
But one word from Callen was enough to stop his feeble attempt of avoiding a real answer. "Deeks!"
"Oh really, why do I have to do all of the hard stuff? Okay, don´t kill me, yeah? Kensi and I... Listen, I am sleeping with her. But it´s no big deal, you know? We are not going to marry next weekend! For all I know, we are not eve a real couple."
Callen was glad that years as an agent had trained him to avoid showing any emotion. Otherwise, he´d be rapidly switching between anger and astonishment now. Instead of freaking out, he turned their not so little conversation in the storage room into an interrogation: "So what? She´s just another girl for you? Sorry, but I don´t believe that."
But he hadn´t expect Deeks to thwart his plans like this.
"No, she´s not. She is important to me and I won´t give her up. But we need time, we need time to figure things out before we´ll do the whole romantic-sunset-dinner thing."
Callen obviously wanted to say more, but he was atopped by his ringning cell phone. "Yeah, Eric, what´s up?"
"Hetty wants to see you in OPS, ASAP. Also Deeks, if he´s still alive, of course." Without answering, Callen hung up and rolled his eyes. "Hetty thinks we spent enough time locked into one room. Let´s go."
