A/N: Thanks again to all the awesome people who reviewed. Don't be alarmed if you think that certain conversations are missing (i.e. Nell). They haven't been forgotten.

November 4, 2011

"Okay, I'm gonna ask this one more time - where are they?"

Deeks laughed and shrugged at his partner. "And I'm telling you one more time. I have no idea what you're talking about."

Kensi threw her bag over her shoulder and pointed her finger in her partner's chest. "Something accidentally got mixed in with my laundry. That item was never returned to me. Give them back, or I'll..."

His smile never wavered as he glanced at her finger. "Or you'll what?"

"Castration sounds good," she said, eyes flashing.

"Well that sounds a bit extreme." Deeks grabbed for his own bag and headed towards the exit. "Okay fine, I will-"

"Mr. Deeks."

Kensi and Deeks slowly turned on their heels to see their Operations Manager standing with her hands clasped. "May I have a word with you before you leave?"

"Uhhh," he stuttered, glancing between his angry partner and his terrifying boss. "Yeah, sure."

"This isn't over," Kensi growled at him as he hurried towards Hetty's desk.

"Have a seat." Pushing an empty teacup to the side, Hetty flattened her hands on her desk and settled into her chair.

"Is this about Kensi's underwear?" Deeks joked as he plopped into the rather uncomfortable chair in front of the ornate wooden desk. The comfort, or lack thereof, of the chair had to be intentional. He was sure of it. It was just another tactic that allowed Hetty to achieve the upper hand in all matters.

She squinted at him. "What about Ms. Blye's underwear?"

"Nothing," he replied quickly.

"Hmm." A manila folder seemed to magically appear in front of her then, which she opened and slid across the desk. "How much do you know about Clarence Fisk?"

"Um." He puckered his lips as he perused through the papers in the file. Some were NCIS documents, some were LAPD. There was some familiarity on his part with this case because it fell under his division's territory, but he hadn't directly contributed to the investigation since before he went undercover as Jason Wyler. "I don't know anything that's not already here. LAPD has been trying to nail him for years, but he's always been a step ahead."

"That does appear to be the problem," Hetty agreed. "But now he is stepping into new territory. Our territory."

Deeks nodded. "What's he selling this time?"

"Explosives. RDX, we believe."

"Well, that could still be LAPD jurisdiction too. He's been a major supplier to local gangs for years."

"Yes indeed." Hetty tightened her lips into a tense smile. "But we are less than satisfied with the work that LAPD has been doing when it comes to this particular individual. Some might even say we are suspicious."

Defensively, Deeks straightened his back. Maybe he wasn't on this case anymore, but at the end of the day he was still LAPD and Hetty was on the verge of insulting his colleagues and therefore, him. "Could you elaborate on the 'suspicious' part of that statement?"

She held up a hand up to him. "This is not personal, Mr. Deeks, just business. Please keep your mind open and unbiased. After all that has occurred, it would appear that Clarence Fisk has somebody on the inside of this operation. NCIS has developed a plan that with your help, I believe will eliminate both of those threats."

"A mole." A sense of dread swept through his body. He did not like where this conversation was going. Something that had worried him when he agreed to become the liaison for NCIS was rearing its ugly head again - he now served two masters. Which one was really in control? He had a feeling he was about to find out. "Do you have any ideas of who it is?"

"That's where you come in."

He assumed she meant that NCIS wanted to know the cops that were most likely to be dirty in LAPD. But really, there were some police officers he'd never even met, much less gotten to know well enough to garner such an opinion on them. Still, he racked his brain to think of the possible perpetrators. There were plenty of assholes, deadbeat dads, drunks, and plain old sloppy cops. But traitors? If he were on the outside looking in, the only person he would finger as a possible mole would be himself. Hopefully nobody else held that same suspicion. "Hetty, I don't really know who it could be."

She squinted her eyes and shook her head. "How well do you know Roger Bates?"

"Bates?" Deeks asked incredulously. "No. It's not him. He's one of the good guys."

"That's not what I asked."

"Oh." He tilted his head to think. "Um. Pretty well. Better than I know most anybody else there. He's smart, tough, maybe even ruthless, but he's always had my back. Hard to fool. I don't think a mole could work directly under him, he would see right through it. It's nearly impossible to lie to that guy."

"I see." His eyes followed her as she stood and reached for a bourbon decanter, pouring two small crystal old-fashioned glasses of what Deeks assumed was her "good" bourbon. She handed him a glass and took a sip from her own. "Can you lie to him?"

Deeks glanced at the glass in his hands. This sure as hell better be her good bourbon. He blinked, readying himself to play yet another role - unfortunately, he just didn't know what that role was yet. "I can lie to anyone," he answered coolly. "But I don't want to."

She nodded. "I understand. Sometimes we just have to do things in order to get the job done that are less than ideal."

This was definitely not new to him. Just because he'd done it too many times in the past didn't make it any easier. "Things? Plural. I gotta be honest, Hetty, this is getting less and less ideal. Who else am I lying to?"

"All of LAPD." She took another sip. "And Kensi."

His eyes grew wide and he shook his head. "I can't lie to her."

"You just told me you could lie to anyone."

"I-" He stammered. "I meant that I don't want to."

Hetty eyed him carefully while the wheels spun in his head. His and Kensi's partnership was finally in a good, trusting place. She was the best partner he'd ever had. Sure, he lied to her about little things, but they were more like lies of omission than blatant lies to her face. And lying to Bates, too? Not only was the man his boss, but he'd grown fond of the cranky bastard over the years. Lying to both would be difficult, but for very different reasons. "You want me to betray both sides? And where exactly is my loyalty supposed to lie, no pun intended, here?"

"Your loyalty should be the same as always," Hetty answered. "Clearly LAPD comes first for you. Otherwise you would have accepted my job offer several months ago. But before you commit to or deny this request - please consider the ramifications."

Once again, Deeks was stuck between a rock and a hard place. It was basically the story of his life. Every difficult choice he's had to make has helped define him, define who he is as a person. And so often it seemed his choices had less to do with what was right or what was wrong, and more to do with choosing the lesser of two evils.

This wasn't about loyalty, he realized. It was about stopping an arms dealer. It was about keeping people in the city he called home safe. In the end, he knew what had to be done. He had to betray the trust of two people that he himself trusted implicitly, even though his heart told him that his true loyalty was to Kensi and Bates and not the organizations they represented.

He hoped they would both forgive him. He hoped he could forgive himself.

May 4, 2015

Deeks stood outside the office of Lieutenant Roger Bates (printed very clearly on the door now, he noticed). It was 8:34 in the morning, so technically he was late. Not that it really mattered, seeing as how he wasn't actually at work to work that day. Really, he had no idea what was in store for him.

Over the years he's served as the LAPD Liaison to NCIS, his visits to the police headquarters have gotten less and less frequent. In fact, he was pretty sure he hadn't even spoken to Bates face to face since he offered to pick up a shift while the OSP was closed for Thanksgiving. All he had done was go through paperwork, but that was something he was good at and at that point in his life, he didn't have somebody to spend the holiday with. Life can change very quickly, though, he found out soon after that.

He pulled a hand out of his pocket and rapped his knuckles on the door before turning the knob.

"Yeah?" Bates asked, before looking up and seeing Deeks was already halfway in his office. "You're late."

"I'm in no hurry," Deeks replied, sitting down before his boss. He took in the office, feeling sentimental about the details of his boss that have never changed and those that have over time. He still had that same old coffee cup, but now he actually had a Keurig in his office. Mind-blowing. "How is everything going here?"

Bates shrugged nonchalantly. "Nothing out of the ordinary. Our numbers are down right now, but these things fluctuate a lot. What about NCIS? You stopped the world from being blown up yet this week?"

"Well, it's only Monday. Give it time." His words were light but his tone wasn't. Bates wasn't necessarily in a position to need to know the details of their current case - for example, how his own snarky comment about the Russians being behind the hacking of the Navy's audit system appeared to be true. Or that the men they killed last week after the attempted setup to lure them into a trap weren't just Russian, they were former members of the Russian Ground Forces. Whether they were acting on their own or on somebody else's orders was yet to be determined. Either way, Arkady Kolcheck's prophesy of a renewed Cold War was becoming frighteningly accurate. That was just the tip of the iceberg, though. Two days after the hacking, the NCIS evidence warehouse for the Los Angeles and San Diego branches was broken into. Agents were still scouring through old evidence to see if anything was missing, and Hetty and Granger were on a flight to Washington, DC to talk to Director Vance at that very moment. The entire Navy was on high alert, and yet he was sitting here, not doing anything to help the situation.

"Yeah yeah yeah, you and your secrets," Bates responded. "How's that partner of yours? Still putting up with you?"

"Kensi's great," Deeks said, quickly changing the subject before Bates pried too much further. The man was very perceptive, after all. Not to mention that he wasn't here to chit-chat. "So. Why am I here, exactly?"

"I wish I could tell you, but I don't know myself."

Sighing, Deeks rested his elbows on his knees. "Then why do you think I'm here? Just lay it all out there. I need to know what I'm walking in to."

"IA wants to clean house, get rid of all the so-called dirty cops. They've been paranoid since Quinn was outed as Clarence Fisk's mole. One of their own being a rat right under their nose and all," Bates said. "The liaisons are easy targets for her. You have access to our information without being under their watchful eye."

"Are you under investigation?" Deeks asked, hoping for some reassurance. His career has been tied so closely with Bates' for over eight years now. If one was going down, wouldn't the other one follow?

"Not as far as I know," Bates answered, and Deeks believed him.

There had been a case lingering on his mind lately, though, something that shouldn't even be associated with him according to LAPD records. But he knew that half of the job they did was piecing together evidence to make a case, whether the pieces fit or not. "Is there a chance this has anything to do with the cartel bust in 2007?"

"You had nothing to do with that case," Bates reassured him. "And there is probably nothing to this investigation, either."

Deeks wasn't entirely convinced, but didn't want to pry into the tougher questions either. What if they called his morals into question? What if they asked how he managed to make it from Vice to Detective in just six months time? Sure, Bates had told him that he didn't play favorites and was honestly impressed with the work he was doing. But other people in the force certainly didn't see it that way. Shaking his head, he instead chose an easier question to ask. "What do you know about Rivera?"

Bates made a dissatisfied look. "She's a pit bull."

"Pit bulls can be lovable creatures," Deeks attempted to joke.

"Not this one," Bates said, shaking his head.

"Right." Anxiously, Deeks ran a hand through the mop on his head and realized Bates hadn't commented on his ridiculously long hair at the moment. That couldn't be a good sign. "So, besides the usual spiel of 'he doesn't fit in', what did you tell her? You're my rating supervisor, she had to have followed the proper channels before calling me in."

Bates cleared his throat and glanced around the room before meeting Deeks eye to eye. "I said you're a good cop. One of the best men I've ever worked with."

Maybe it was because he didn't have a strong father figure growing up, or because he was still an insecure person underneath his cocky exterior, but those words of affirmation from Bates made his throat swell up. Not knowing how to respond to that, he nodded his appreciation and stood up to leave.

"Third floor, Interrogation Room 4," Bates said gruffly. "Good luck."

Deeks was halfway out the door when he turned around to ask one more question. "What if you're wrong, and it's not nothing?"

"Then," Bates shook his head, like he knew he didn't have the right answer. "Maybe it's just time for you to reinvent yourself again."

Picturing a small woman that may have the power to determine the course of one's career as a literal puppy probably wasn't a good idea, but Deeks couldn't help it. At first it helped him relax a bit, seeing as how she was extremely uptight and just a little bit rude. He realized he'd gone too far when he started picking out collars for her in his mind. Why couldn't Bates have called her a poodle? Poodles were way worse than pit bulls.

The interrogation (though she kept insisting it be called an interview) started off as expected. They introduced themselves, Deeks tried to be charming, Rivera didn't crack a smile, and they were off. But she took her time with things, a tactic he was very aware of because he'd used it himself plenty of times. The longer a suspect had to wait, the more anxious they would get. The more anxious they got, the more likely it would be that they'd slip up and say something to incriminate themselves.

But why was he a suspect?

They covered some of his undercover cases, including his months long run as Max Gentry. She questioned his using a friend as an informant, but he just told her that if it wasn't him, it would have been somebody else. What cop wouldn't want an informant that they trusted? Surprisingly, she agreed and dropped the subject.

"So are we done?" Deeks asked, leaning back in his chair. He really didn't like being on the wrong side of the table in a room like this, but needed to give her the impression that he was perfectly calm about the situation. They at least needed a small break from the overly general questions - plus, he felt his phone vibrate a few minutes ago, and he still had a ton of work going on at NCIS. This was the first time he honestly realized he was putting NCIS first in his life.

Detective Rivera raised an eyebrow. "We've barely even gotten started."

"Really?" He looked at his watch. "We've been here a while already. Do we get a lunch break, or are we working straight through today?"

She sighed and looked at her own watch so quickly that there was no way she could have read the time. "What about coffee?"

"Sure, why not?" Deeks said with a shrug. "I haven't drank motor oil in a while."

"Funny guy." She stood up. "Do you have a joke for everything?"

"Take me seriously and maybe I won't." Meeting her eyes with a defiant stare, he thought he got his point across. No more bullshit, get down to business.

He was fairly certain he heard her grunt on her way out the door, which he considered a victory point in his favor. As he pulled his phone out he noticed that the message wasn't from Ops, but from Kensi.

*Everything is going to be fine*

It made him smile, just like she would have wanted. *Thanks*

*Unless you stole somebody's donut*

*Then you're probably fired*

That literally made him laugh out loud. Before he could write back and congratulate her for actually making a funny joke, Detective Rivera walked back into the interrogation room with two styrofoam cups of coffee. Deeks shut his phone off completely and stuffed it into his back pocket, not wanting anymore distractions.

"Thank you," he nodded, taking a cup from her. "Maybe."

"It must be hard," she said, sliding into her chair. "Having to answer to so many people. LAPD. NCIS. Your partner. Yourself. God even, maybe."

Deeks narrowed his eyes and took a sip of coffee. Yup, still tasted like shit. "It's not so bad when you're good at following orders. I'm used to it."

"I see. So, you've been a liaison to a federal agency for..." Rivera paused, doing the math in her head. "Five years now. What made you decide to accept that position?"

"Why not take it?" He smiled. "Super hero by day, but still grounded in the city that's home to me. It's the best of all worlds. Except that they get Christmas bonuses and we don't. You should look into that travesty next."

Rivera rolled her eyes and sighed. He was still making jokes, but they were just words. His smile didn't reach his eyes and he looked deadly serious, like he was daring her to challenge him. "I'll make a note of it."

"Excellent."

"So why not join NCIS full time? What is keeping you here?"

That was actually a good question, but one he didn't really know the answer to. He shrugged. "There's just something about the way detective rolls off the tongue. De-tect-ive. It's good, right?"

"You said you're good at following orders," Detective Rivera changed the subject. Leaning her elbows onto the table, she eyed him in such a way that let him know she wasn't going to be rattled by his responses. "Do you follow orders from anyone else?"

"No," he stated simply.

"Do you remember John Quinn?" She asked next. Finally, she was going somewhere, but he wasn't quite sure of her final destination.

"You already know the answer to that question," Deeks said, tapping a finger on a folder on the table. "It's in my file that I was a part of the team that outed him as a mole 3 years ago."

"Right. Of course." She smiled. "You two were also in the Academy together. Achieved high praise, and both climbed in the ranks at break-neck speed. Your backgrounds are even similar - intelligent, highly educated, and without a penny of student loans to your name."

"You forgot that nobody likes either one of us very much. Although," he held a finger up, "I'll cut Quinn some slack on that one. Nobody likes Internal Affairs."

"You're very cocky," Rivera said, tilting her head.

"Confident," Deeks corrected, though it was a stretch of the truth. Honestly, he was a little bit worried about the direction of the interview, but he had to conceal that concern. "I've done nothing wrong."

"Back to John Quinn." Opening her file of papers, she leafed through them until she found the one she was looking for. "It was determined, or I should say, you helped determine that he was working as an insider for an arms dealer, Clarence Fisk. Fisk bought him through education."

"You're not telling me anything I don't already know."

"You also had a very good education. UCLA undergrad, Pepperdine Law. All paid in full," she stated.

"Paid in full by me," he emphasized. "That being the difference."

"Sort of." She spread out some papers, old papers that he recognized from many years ago, on the table. "You were the beneficiary for your mother's life insurance policy, correct?"

"Correct," he answered, clenching his jaw.

"A pretty new policy, actually."

"Yes," he said tersely. "She had just started a new job that offered good benefits. But I fail to see where you are going with this, unless you're just trying to piss me off. If that's the goal, it's gonna take a lot more than that to get to me."

"Okay, then." She touched a finger to one of the pieces of paper. "She and a second passenger were killed in a car accident in March of 1998. The driver of the other vehicle, Cesar Serrano, was also killed. The passenger of that car, his brother David, was the only survivor. You later defended him in court, am I correct?"

Scowling, he crossed his arms. This was the case he'd definitely worried would come back to haunt him, but he wasn't even employed by LAPD at the time. Technically he never broke the law by giving Bates as much information as possible about that son of a bitch. And that same information later helped LAPD snag one of their biggest busts ever against the Molina cartel. Was she just questioning his morals? And he still didn't know what all of that had to do with John Quinn. "Yes. I was assigned to be his lawyer, and in hindsight, I probably should have asked to be taken off of his case. What's your point?"

Rivera stared him down, observing his reaction. The level of agitation in his voice was getting higher with each question. "A runner for the Molina cartel kills your mother. Now you're suddenly hundreds of thousands of dollars richer. You go to school, become a lawyer that defends people like David Serrano. Then LAPD starts getting an upper hand on the cartel's business in this city, you have a change of heart, join LAPD, and they've been one step ahead of us since."

Oh shit. The pieces were finally starting to come together in his head, but wow, that was one fucked up puzzle. "You're not serious. Tell me that that you did not just imply that I…" He couldn't even utter the words. She had the facts straight, but her interpretation was so distorted that he couldn't even make sense of it.

"You're not denying any of this," she stated.

"I'm denying the implication that I'm a dirty cop," he said, and was surprised to hear a faint tremble in his voice. He cleared his throat before speaking again. "I'm denying that I have ever been bought, especially by the people who's horrible actions are the very reason I joined this profession in the first place. All you have is your interpretation of facts. You have no evidence of wrong-doing on my part. If you actually manage to find some, I'll be more than happy to come back and defend myself to you again. But for now, I have more important things to concern myself with."

Pushing his chair back, Deeks stood up defiantly. Detective Rivera looked at him, and for a second he thought he saw a flash of sympathy in her cold dark eyes. "I'm sorry, Deeks."

"Yeah, you should be," he growled in return.

"No." She rose from the table, placing herself in between him and the door. Her short stature was no match for him, but clearly she wasn't going to back down. "I've already turned my findings in to my Sergeant. He thinks it's enough to warrant us looking deeper, into your aliases and all of their old bank accounts, and any other potential avenues for payment."

Deeks couldn't stop himself from laughing nervously as he looked around the room in confusion. "This is ridiculous. Why isn't my word, as a fellow cop, good enough?"

"Because," she said, "You're a liar. It's what they pay you to do. Knowing this, how can we trust what you say?"

He rested his hands on his hips. "So, why did you bring me here today, if you didn't want to hear what I have to say?"

"You deserve to know the accusations against you." She held her hands in front of, still standing firm in her position. "And because you're officially suspended until the investigation is finished."

"Susp-what?" The weight of her last words came crashing down on him hard, and he felt himself losing what he had thought was a tight grip on his emotional control. His conscience told him to get the hell out of there before he said or did anything he might later regret. At this point his words were futile anyway. He looked at Detective Rivera's hardened face and petite hands in disbelief as he pulled his gun and badge from his jeans. In a final show of defiance, he placed the items that he held dear to his heart on the table beside them instead of in her hands.

She glanced at his badge and gun and sighed. For a second he felt like maybe this wasn't easy for her, either. He had no sympathy, however. Stepping aside, she opened the path to the doorway for him to leave. "We'll be in touch, Detective."

"Yeah," he replied bitterly and walked away without another look.

The further he got from in the interrogation room, the cloudier things seemed in his mind. To assign a single word for what he was feeling would be grossly inadequate. Unprepared. Angry. Confused. Or maybe there was so much going on that he was starting to become numb. So numb in fact that he was standing outside on the steps of LAPD headquarters for God knows how long before a uniformed police officer bumped into him and almost knocked him down the stone stairs.

"Sorry, man," the cop called back as he rushed down the stairs.

"Yeah, no, you're good," Deeks said softly. The subtle shove brought him back to reality momentarily. It was then that he noticed the chaos surrounding him - it was as if every officer in the city had converged into one central area. Some were running, some were on their phones, others were huddled in groups talking. He shook his head and blinked his eyes to try to refocus, searching the crowd for someone he knew. Apparently he didn't make enough trips back "home" because he hardly recognized anyone.

"Hey." Deeks grabbed a young cop by the arm as he walked by. "What's going on?"

"An explosion," the cop, whose name badge read Collins, answered. "Maybe two, I don't really know. Lots of people have been dispatched."

All the blood that had been flaming his cheeks red with anger rushed out of his face. "Where?"

"All I know is it's in an old part of town," Collins said with a shrug. "I'm not a responder, sorry."

"Yeah, thanks man." Deeks clapped him on the back and hurried down the stairs towards his car. He couldn't believe nobody had called him - but of course nobody called him, he realized. He'd turned his phone off earlier. Taking a leap off of the fifth step up, he landed on the tips of his feet and started sprinting towards the car while turning his phone back on. He barely even gave it a chance to acquire signal again before dialing Kensi's number.

"Come on, come on..."

It rang five times in his ear and went to voicemail. Then the text messages started coming through.

*call ops* - Nell

*call ASAP* - Eric

*Alert - Agent in Distress. Code 6945G* - That was Callen's code.

By the time he got to his car, Deeks was shaking - not from fear, but worry of the unknown trouble his friends were in. Whether he was technically an active duty officer or not, he was still part of this team. He unlocked the car and jumped in, throwing it into reverse and nearly slamming into a cruiser on his way out of the parking lot. There were plenty of people he needed to call, but he had to try the most important person one more time first.

The sense of dread in the pit of his belly grew worse and worse as he counted every ring. 1...2...3...4...5...

"Kensi Blye, sorry I missed your call. Leave a message and I'll get back to you."