Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS: LA or any of it's characters.

Chapter 3

DEEKS' POV

'Zzzzzzzzz, Zzzzzzzzz...Zzzzzzzzz, Zzzzzzzzz'

"Who the hell is calling me at..." he looks over at the clock on his nightstand "...1:23 in the morning!" He looks at his phone, and reads 'HER' on his screen, with a picture of Mike from 'Monsters, Inc.' below it.

What could she possibly want at this god awful time?

Regardless of his desire to simply put his phone on silent and go back to sleep, he groggily answers, "This is Marty."

"Deeks, can we talk?" Kensi said, and he could hear the sadness in her voice.

"You do realize that its 1:24 in the morning right now, right?" was his response, and he was rather irritated that she had woken him up from his much needed sleep to 'talk', especially when she never wants to talk when its light out.

"Yeah, sorry if I woke you, its just, I can't sleep. I can't stop thinking about some of the things that happened today, and everything that didn't happen, and I..."

Deeks cut her off with a sigh, "Look, I get it that you miss me paying for your Twinkie addiction, but I don't think that is a good reason to wake up someone from a peaceful, much needed sleep. Get some sleep, Kensi."

As he went to hang up and get some more rest, he heard her shout, "No wait, its not the Twinkie supply that I missed - well, okay, maybe I do - but that's not what I wanted to talk about...Deeks, are you still there? Hello?"

"Yeah."

"Like I said, its not the Twinkie supply I want to talk about, its more what that meant, what that symbolized."

"What exactly did it symbolize to you, then?" He asked her, hoping that maybe she had finally gotten some insight into what she felt, while also hoping that maybe it would stump her, so that he would have a reason to hang up on her and go back to sleep.

"Our 'thing', thats what it meant to me." Was her reply, after just the slightest hesitation. "It represented our friendship, our partnership, all the bantering we used to do, the good natured jokes and jabs, the small pranks, the trust and confidence in one another."

"What about it?" He still didn't really want to have this conversation at this time, in this way, and while he didn't want to be an ass, he thought maybe it would let him put off the conversation for another time.

"I-, Is it still there?" she asked, and he could hear how much she was struggling to even say this much. "Do you still feel anything? ...Do you still care about me...at all?"

"Do you?" he asked back, rather harshly, letting some of the emotions that have built up since that kiss out into the open at this time. "Because I am having a really hard time believing that someone who does would not be trying to have this conversation over the phone at 1:30 in the morning. If you really cared, you would have come to my place, you would have knocked on my door, and you would have demanded that we talk about this."

After a couple seconds, after what Deeks had said sank in, Kensi replied with a little bite of her own, "Because you definitely would have opened your door and let me in, even if I came at a more reasonable time?"

"Honestly, no, I wouldn't have. But you know what, if you really cared, you just would have kept knocking. You would have fought for this, you would have stood your ground, you wouldn't have run away!" He had raised his voice, and was letting the anger come out over top of everything else. But then, his voice dropped, as the hurt, the dissapointment, and the sadness took over, "You would have fought for us, for me..."

"Are we still talking about what I should have done, well, yesterday, or are we talking about that day, now?" Kensi asked hesitantly, being caught off guard by the sudden turn in the conversation, by his sudden outburst, by his sudden revelation.

"I don't know, both maybe, but now, neither. I'll see you around," and Deeks hung up, turned his phone to silent, and shut his eyes once more, although he doubted he would be getting much more sleep that night.

KENSI'S POV

"Are we still talking about what I should have done, well, yesterday, or are we talking about that day, now?" She had asked him.

His reply left a whole lot to be desired. "I don't know, both maybe, but now, neither. I'll see you around." 'Click'

She lay in her bed, with one of his t-shirts on, a grey one with 'LAPD' across the front in bold black letters. She had stolen while they were undercover as the married couple, Justin and Melissa, and had worn this shirt nearly every night since that day, since she had thought she had lost him, lost her chance to tell him how she felt, and lost her chance to ever have with him the life they both desired. It had long ago lost his scent, but it was still his, so she was able to imagine.

Little did she realize when she saw him, tied to the chair, with that aweful metal contraption on his head, blood covering his entire body, that she really might have lost all of that. She thought she had gotten a second chance, but as each new day came and passed after they had been rescued, a little more hope was drained out of her body, because with each passing day, he pulled further and further away...

She knew she wouldn't get much sleep that night, all she could hear was those four simple words, wondering what they could mean. "I'll see you around." Was he leaving NCIS? Was he going back to the LAPD, even though most everyone there openly hated him, and many of the others secretly hated him, all for one reason or another. The sad thing was, many of the reasons the other cops hated him were the same reasons he would hate himself, from time to time. His girlfriend, handler, and friend Jess Traynor being blown up because of his op was the most recent, but most were from before he ever came to NCIS. Things that he had done in previous ops as one of his many aliae to gain the trust of criminals, to get into criminal organizations, et cetera. He had to really commit crimes against innocent civilians, to really destroy innocent live, all 'for the greater good'. But, in reality, for him, it was hard to see the greater good, when all he could see was what he had done. Because there was always another criminal, to take down, he would question whether or not it really mattered if he took down one bad guy, when another would fill his spot the very next day. He had revealed all this to her back when they were living the domestic life as Justin and Melissa, and she wondered if perhaps being tortured by Sidarov had tipped him over the edge, if he had possibly given up on enforcing the law.

Stop! Don't even think that about Deeks! He's a great man, he would never let the bad in the world go free. He always puts others before himself! But perhaps that is the true danger, that he will stop valuing his life entirely, and that he will become reckless, and just throw his life away on some op 'for the greater good'. But even that is a horrible thing to think! Deeks loves the law and he loves life, maybe he just needs to remember that, maybe thats the problem. He hasn't found a way to enjoy living since he was captured, and so he isn't even trying to live his life, he's rather letting his life live him, if that makes any sense. Why can't Deeks, the old Deeks, come back! I miss that smile, the bright blue eyes, the good-natured verbal sparring with the team, relieving tension through humor, loving to make others happy before he worries about his own happiness...and the late nights drinking beer, watching TV shows or movies, the breakfast he would make for me if one of us fell asleep at the other's place the night before. I miss the flirting, his little innuendoes, his suggestions, the way he would step in front of me if anyone, a suspect, a witness, some random bystander was ever rude, protecting me - although I will never admit to that one out loud - and the small touches, not really anything big or special, but small touches, bumps, et cetera that told me he was still there, he still had my back.

By now, it was nearly 5 am, and both people knew that there was by now no chance they got any more sleep before they had to be up in the morning. They both dreaded what they would have to face that day, in just a few hours, and neither was ready just yet to face each other after the conversation they had had in the wee hours of the morning.

Kensi was scared that Deeks was leaving NCIS, leaving her entirely, and that she had blown any chance she might have still had when she decided to call him to have that conversation, instead of talking to him face-to-face.

Deeks wasn't sure why he was so worried. Afterall, Kensi did just admit a little while before that she had feelings for him, that she wanted to fix things, that she missed their 'thing'. And yet, for some reason, he had a feeling that what this day had in store for him was going to be all sorts of hard, and he didn't know if he was ready for that.

Little did either of them know what had transpired yesterday evening, how their day-to-day work life would change. They had no idea what Nate and Hetty decided to do to the Bullpen, and, in truth, Nate has been second-guessing himself since he finished, silently wondering if the partnerships, most specificially Deeks' and Kensi's, would be able to survive.