Kensi begins to find out exactly what her wish that Dom had not died means... and she learns that not all changes are necessarily for the better.
A homage to the film 'It's A Wonderful Life'.
Kensi started to protest - how could things possibly be any worse than they already were, with the whole team against her? - but then she decided that this was probably pointless: clearly she had hit her head really hard when the car crashed and this was some sort of peculiar hallucination. Deeks must be alright, which would explain why he wasn't in the car. Macy was nothing more than a figment of her imagination – a very realistic figment, but nothing more. This was not real – it was not happening. So there was no need to worry. All she had to do was to simply put up with this freaky weirdness, and before long she'd wake up and everything would be just fine. Well, apart from the obvious head injury, of course.
When things started to spin around in a highly disconcerting fashion, this only seemed to confirm Kensi's suspicions. Sometimes it was best just to lie back and enjoy things, so she just closed her eyes and tried to relax. Despite her best intentions, it was still unsettling to open them again and discover herself lying in bed, with Macy perched cross-legged at the end.
"Your room is disgusting, Kensi. How do you manage to always look so perfect when you live in a pig sty?" She looked at the piles of clothes lying around, the surfaces crowded with make-up, hair products, perfume and the twenty or more pairs of shoes and boots scattered across a wide radius and shuddered.
"I have a system," Kensi said vaguely, pushing herself up onto her elbows.
"You don't bring many men back here, do you?"
"I don't bring men here: period." This was getting rather too personal for Kensi's tastes. She shoved back the covers and got up.
Macy's eyes widened. "I'm not surprised, if that's what you wear to bed. Oreos?"
"They're pandas." Kensi had lost count of the number of times she had to explain that to people today. Of course, it might explain why the pyjamas had been on sale in the first place.
"Of course they are," Macy said comfortably. "They're also passion killers. With a capital 'P' and a capital 'K'. Your virtue is safe from any nocturnal intruders, no doubt about it."
"You're different." During their time together in NCIS, Macy had always been crisply professional and slightly distant, with the result that Kensi had never felt she knew her.
"Of course I'm different. I'm dead. That's as big a life-changing event as you can get, you know."
"Am I dead?" Kensi was beginning to feel as if something bad had happened in that car crash. This had gone way beyond the normal sort of nightmare. This was too real – and too surreal at the same time.
Tilting her head to one side, Macy regarded her curiously. "Do you feel dead?"
"How would I know? I've never died before."
"It's not that bad, you know. Being dead, I mean. Well, the actual dying part was crap. Obviously. There was a whole lot of pain, and that feeling of scared out of your wits. And the moment when I knew I was definitely going to die: that was hellish. Absolutely the worst moment of my life, bar none." She stopped for a second and thought back. "Actually, it was also the last moment of my life too. Ain't that a kicker? And then it all just stopped and there I was, just floating aimlessly around in all this nothingness. For a long time there is nothing – and I mean nothing. As in the complete absence of anything. It's rather relaxing, you know."
"I'd rather not find out any time soon."
"Don't worry – you're destined for a long life. Everyone should be so lucky." Macy sounded faintly envious.
"So why are you here?" Kensi wondered if maybe she had suffered brain damage. If so, she prayed Deeks was getting help. She had this vision of him, trying to flag down passing cars, with Monty by his side. Who in their right mind would stop for a man and a dog wearing matching sweaters? The sweaters that taste forgot…
"You're thinking about him, aren't you? About your partner – Marty Deeks. Well, he's one of the reasons I'm here."
"And the other reason?"
"How about we leave that one for a while? It should come to you in a bit. At least I hope it does, or this is all going to be very awkward." Macy stood up and stretched sinuously, like a cat and then staggered briefly. "Whoops. I'd forgotten what it feels like to have legs again. These don't quite seem to belong to me just yet. I can't feel my knees at all." She flexed her leg gingerly and watched with interest as her knee bent both backwards and forwards. "Kind of freaky, huh?"
This was beginning to feel like a trip – not a bad trip, just not a very good one. Kensi knew exactly how Alice must have felt after she fell down that rabbit hole.
"It's strange, having a body again. And this was a really good body. Do you have any idea how hard I worked to get this body?" Macy took a look at Kensi and grinned in a friendly way. "What am I saying – of course you do. You work out every day, don't you? And then you hit the gym at the Mission too. Any chance to beat up Deeks and show him who's boss? Or do you just like the chance to get into some officially-sanctioned close contact with him?"
Kensi started to protest, but Macy wasn't listening. She was tottering around the bedroom, picking her way around and over the piles of clothes and shoes, and continuing to talk.
"Anyway, I was so mad when I died. I'd been training for the marathon, and all I could think about was how it was all a complete waste of effort. All that time I could have spent doing other things – like living a little. And loving a whole lot. And instead, there I was, just sort of floating around in time and space, like an amorphous amoeba."
"But you're here now – here with me. And you look exactly the same." Macy was wearing the same white shirt and tight pants that had virtually constituted her uniform.
"It wouldn't really work if I was just a skeleton, would it? I'd kind of lack that credibility factor in your eyes. Not to mention freaking you out. So they gave me back my body – but only on a temporary basis." Macy looked at her watch. "And we haven't got a moment to lose." She held out her hand, and without quite knowing why, Kensi took hold of it.
Things seemed to fade to black for an instant, and then there was a kaleidoscope of colours. When everything finally resolved into clarity, Kensi found herself standing in the Mission. It was a lot busier than it had been earlier this morning, and all the decorations had disappeared. And so had the bullpen. The whole space looked entirely different, and she didn't recognise a single person
"Our desks have gone." Kensi wandered over to the area she'd spend so many hours in and felt a pang of emptiness.
"That's because you're not here anymore. None of you are. Even Hetty's gone. Agent Hunter is in charge now."
Sure enough, Hetty's gloriously eclectic office was no longer there. All traces of her vibrant, enigmatic character had been swept away, to be replaced by bland, modern furniture, in a pale wood. There was no personality in evidence whatsoever.
"I never trusted Hunter," Kensi said darkly.
"Quite right. Never trust a woman whose face doesn't move when she smiles. Just one look at her and this shiver runs down my spine."
"You're probably right, but I just put it down to too much Botox. Deeks used to call her "Frozen Face", and make remarks about ice every opportunity he could." She smiled at the memory and then looked around for a familiar blond head. "So where is Deeks?"
Macy gave her a pitying smile. "Haven't you listened to a word I said? Kensi – you wanted to rewind time. Well, that's what happened. Dom never died, so Deeks never joined NCIS. You never worked together. Everything is different now. Hunter runs NCIS and she has decreed Christmas is a normal working day. She even banned decorations as being unprofessional."
"I never met Deeks?" That didn't seem possible. He was so much a part of Kensi's life that to trying to imagine never knowing him was inconceivable.
"I didn't say that," Macy chided. "You need to pay more attention, Kensi. I know this is confusing, but try to keep up to speed. Actually, you did meet Deeks. You met him one night in a club. And you had great sex and then you went your separate ways and never met again. But you always remembered him."
Kensi was not going to enquire any further into that. But it was good to know that her suspicion that having sex with Deeks would blow the world apart was true. "And what about Deeks? Did he always remember me?"
"This is your life, Kensi and your story. Let's just leave Deeks out of it for the time being, shall we?"
This was probably what those acid trips from the 1970s had felt like, Kensi thought. Trying desperately to make some sense out of everything, she looked around the Mission again, searching in vain for a familiar face.
"So if Dom didn't die – where is he?" Surely he should be here?
"You're getting ahead of things again. And you're not asking the right questions."
Kensi remembered that Macy had been a good deal of a control freak when she was alive. Death had clearly not had much of an effect on her rather more anal tendencies. "How about you give me a hint?"
"Aren't you at all curious about why Dom didn't die?" Macy tilted her head to one side. "Not even a little bit?"
If there was one thing that set Kensi's teeth on edge, it was someone being arch – and sickly sweet at the same time. "Why didn't Dom die?" she asked as politely as possible.
Macy wandered over to the couch and sat down. "Boy, this looks luxurious, but it feels like concrete blocks with a thin layer of wadding on top. Nice fabric though." She stroked it absently. "You do miss these sensory experiences. All these little things that make life worth living... the way a man's skin feels, that musky scent and the sound of him groaning in your ear when his arms clutch you and the taste of sweat on his brow... Now, where was I? Oh yes, Dom."
"You said he didn't die." Kensi had never quite been able to shift the guilt she felt about Dom. Everyone had told her that it wasn't her fault, but she still wondered that if she'd been a better mentor, then he might not have made the fatal mistake of not varying his routine. And Deeks had nearly died, because he'd done the same thing. Nobody had pointed their finger at Kensi, but she had still felt accountable. Two partners caught out by the same mistake was clearly a pattern – and she was the one common denominator.
"No, Dom didn't die. For the very good reason that he was never kidnapped in the first place." Macy sat up very straight, her feet flat on the ground and her hands clasped neatly in her lap.
"That's great." Kensi felt like turning a cartwheel out of sheer joy. "That is absolutely brilliant."
"Yes. For Dom. But it wasn't quite so great for everyone else."
Macy's words fell like stones into a still pond and she sat watching their ripples spread out into Kensi's consciousness as realisation dawned.
"You mean someone else was taken instead?"
"That's right. There's only so much that can be changed. The timeline still has to continue. You can't change everything – just the components. Minor amendments are fine, but in order for Dom to live, someone else had to die. Those are the rules."
"Who?" Kensi sat down beside Macy and took hold of her hand, noticing that it felt neither warm nor cold: – it just didn't feel alive. "Who died, Macy?"
"They took Callen instead of Dom."
"Callen died?" Kensi could feel tears welling up in her eyes and brushed them away angrily. "How could Callen die? It's not possible – the man's a living legend."
"He was a legend, Kensi. Past tense. He's dead now. And Callen was also human, he wasn't infallible or invincible, no matter how much he gave that impression. Callen was made of flesh and blood, just like I once was. And like everyone, he had his limits. Which turned out to be a bullet in the brain."
Kensi dropped Macy's hand from suddenly nerveless fingers and tried to process this; to make some sense out of this madness. Callen was dead? How could that be? Callen was the core of NCIS – how could they possibly continue without him?
Macy turned deep, fathomless eyes on her. "I told you that not everything could change, didn't I. For every death that is averted, there is a new death that must take its place. Dom lived – and Callen died."
"Callen died because I wished that Dom was still alive?"
"Pretty much." Macy had always been rather too blunt for comfort, Kensi recalled. "And that had further implications. That one change caused a tidal wave of difference."
"I feel terrible." It felt as if the bottom had dropped out of Kensi's world and she was tumbling down through a maelstrom of disaster
"If you feel bad about Callen, imagine how I feel. We were lovers for two years, after all." Macy's face grew much softer. "Even if I didn't know his real name. Nobody did, of course. His tombstone looks kind of strange with just 'G Callen' on it, but what else could they do?"
She tried to smile, but the gesture sat oddly on her face and went nowhere near her eyes. Even after all this time, Macy still missed him; missed the solid, reassuring presence of his body beside hers and the memory of how he just had to look at her and she would go weak at the knees. All the subterfuge they had to employ to keep their affair a secret had only added an extra layer of excitement. Those stolen moments, the loaded glances across a crowded room, the way her heart would beat just a little bit faster when he 'accidentally' brushed past her… they had never thought of the future and had lived only in the moment. Each wonderful, glorious, impermanent moment. If they had known they were both going to die, then perhaps things might have been different. But at the time, they had thought they were doing the right thing.
Kensi looked at her in astonishment, and then blinked several times as she tried to process this information. "I never knew."
"That's because it was none of your business." Macy decided that she didn't want to talk about it anymore, because it seemed like a betrayal. Some things should remain a private and special, even if they were only memories now.
"And Callen never said anything," Kensi wondered aloud, as she tried to come to terms with this new information. "Not one word. Not when you left, not even when we got heard that you were dead. He didn't say anything."
"Do I have to repeat myself? What went on between us was none of your business – not when I was alive and certainly not when I died. Why would Callen say anything to you? He did his grieving in private."
"I never knew. I never even guessed."
Macy gave her a searching look "Maybe you don't know quite as much about your co-workers as you think you do, Kensi? You never knew that Sam had a family until very recently, did you? And that brings us to Sam. Poor Sam." There was genuine regret in Macy's voice.
"What about Sam?" Kensi wasn't sure that she wanted to hear this. "Please tell me Sam's alright?" She could hear the begging tint to her voice, but she didn't care.
And things get worse, as Kensi finds out what other changes have taken place in this alternate world. Wow - evil plot bunny really is a nasty little piece of work, isn't he?
That reference to Kensi and Deeks meeting in a club and having great sex might just be a reference to my story Like A Hurricane, if you squint.