All right folks. There were enough requests for a third chapter and this idea followed quickly behind. But this is really the last chapter of this story.

Thanks for reading and keep the reviews coming. Review are writer's coffee; they keep us going.

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It's been 3 days since Sam's disastrous visit to Deeks. He had held onto Michelle for most of the rest of that day. They talked about the things Deeks had said to Sam.

Michelle listened to him quietly as he once again pour his heart out to her. She loved this man but sometimes he could be a serious ass and it sounded like this time he'd been an ass to Deeks for a very long time. "Babe, you know you have to talk to him again. You know you do."

"He didn't want to talk to me. He doesn't want anything to do with me."

"You don't know that."

"You weren't there, you didn't see his face."

"No, you're right, I didn't see his face but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to see you." At the skeptical look on his face, she continued, "That," she waved her hand over her shoulder to indicate the past, "before, that was him venting. He had to let you know how he felt, how you made him feel and it sounds like you made him feel that way every single day, for years."

His face fell even farther after having his behavior once again shown to him, "How do I make it right, babe. I don't know how."

"There is no making that right. You can't unless you can go back in time and stop yourself. You can't, can you? I know you can do a lot of things, but I don't think you can do that yet."

He smirked at her attempt to lighten things up. "No." he snorted, "If anyone would be able to do that it would be Nell and Eric."

"Yea, those two are a little scary that way." She took a deep breath. "Baby, you can't make it right all you can do is move forward and I don't think you can do that without him. If Deeks will see you again, will you?" He didn't answer her right away.

After 5 minutes or so of silence, Sam turned to Michelle, "Yes. If he will see me, I'll try again."

Michelle pulled out her phone and texted "Go" to Kensi then waited.

Sam just kept looking out the window. "What do I say? How can I make up for everything?"

"Babe, you can't." She reminded him as she took his hand in hers. "You can only try to move forward."

A few minutes later there was a knock on the door. Sam turned his head to see Kensi, pushing Deeks in a wheelchair, into his room. "We thought we would come see you this time." Kensi let him know. Deeks' chair was equipped with a table for his labtop which was open and ready.

Sam looked surprised and glanced at Michelle. "You both need this." She simply told him. "We're going to get coffee."

Kensi leaned down to Deeks' ear. "You can do this. You can IM me from your computer when/if you need to and I will come get you." She placed her hand on his shoulder just before she and Michelle left the room. This time they really did head down to the coffee shop and get a coffee.

The two men sat there staring at each other's injuries and body language. Deeks saw that Sam was still hooked up to heart monitors and pulseox monitors but outwardly he looked normal. Sam noticed that the swelling around Deeks eyes was slowly going down and there was less redness around the cuts & tears. He was still bruised around all visible parts of his face.

Before either man could back out, Deeks broke the silence with his typing. "How's the heart? I heard there might be some additional damage." He turned the computer around so Sam could read it.

"Yea." He motioned to the wires he was still hooked up to. "They think, now, that some of the damage might be permanent. They don't know for sure. It might have trouble with the valves or with the how the blood flows through it or whatever." He shrugged, "They won't know for a while yet, but I hope it wouldn't affect my work or workouts too much. I might have to cut back for a while and build it back up again. How's the face?"

"Sore," Deeks typed. "Apparently I'm going to have to have a few more 'procedures' on my teeth but that can't happen until my jaw, nose & cheeks have all healed. The worst part of all this is I'm going to have to have speech therapy! Me, the king of gab has to have speech therapy."

Sam laughed at Deeks' comment, "Oh damn. That must be killing you but I bet the rest of the hospital is joyous about it," Sam joked back with a smile on his face hoping the man sitting next to him knew he was joking. They may not have had the best relationship but it felt good to get back to something they did for three years, tease Deeks; not hard or insulting but just a little. It felt like both of them were testing the waters to see where they were.

"LOL. Yea, but I got a nice computer out of the deal. Eric brought it by. He said Hetty told him to make sure I got it. When he found out I would have to have speech therapy he came back and installed voice recognition software on it so when I was ready to I could practice and then listen to myself."

"Sweet." Sam replied as the conversation died out. Not knowing what else to say to each other because neither man wanted to be the one to break the small calmness that they were exhibiting. They didn't look at each other but at everything else in the room.

Finally Sam could hear Deeks typing then it was deleted before Sam could read it and then he was typing again. Then it was deleted again. And Deeks tried again and deleted again. "Ah, Deeks! Just say it." Sam was a little exasperated at this point.

"Fine," he typed. "Tell me why you didn't trust me to have your back or Michelle's."

Deeks seemed pretty calm asking the question. Sam couldn't feel the same amount of tense rolling off Deeks that he could the last time they talked. Sam looked to Deeks' face for any clues it might hold, but it was still so bruised he couldn't tell anything. He looked Deeks straight in the eyes, "I did and do trust you to have my back." He paused to gather his thoughts. "It was Michelle I was worried about. Can you imagine what he would've done to her if he found out she betrayed him? I was terrified for her. I was terrified for me. I was scared how useless my life would become without her. You have always been an easy target. I'm sorry for that. I just…" He trailed off.

Deeks took up the conversation for him, "you just weren't thinking about how you were treating the people, all the people around you. But especially me.

"Deeks, I don't know for sure but I think I would have lashed out at anyone who was there."

"You're going to sit there and try and convince me that if it had been Callen or Kensi or Hetty or Nell, you would have treated them the same as you treated me? I don't think so and neither do you, really. You're right, I've always been the easy target. Because I'm just a cop and I've never let you know how it really made me feel. I thought it would seem like I couldn't take the ribbing, showing weakness. I'm not some special agent badass ninja SEAL. But there should have been some simple human respect."

Sam read what was typed, "Yea. You're right. We probably wouldn't have let up on you. That's just the way I've always been." Sam took a deep breath, "Deeks let's clear this up; you are a good man, a good cop and a good agent. You seem to be able get to people or something. In 3 years, I have never seen you not be able to add to a case. You have people skills. I really undervalued that."

Deeks looked at Sam skeptically or at least what Sam thought was skeptically, it was so hard to tell with all the damage. "You undervalued that, now come one finish the sentence."

Sam looked at like Deeks like he was losing his mind. "I don't get it, 'now come one finish the sentence'? What does that mean?"

Deeks looked at what he typed and tried to shake his head but the neck brace stopped the motion not to mention the pain in his neck, "Fine, point out the typos. Finish the sentence, you know you want to." Sam still didn't understand and looked the question at Deeks. "You really undervalued that…according to Michelle? Or was it Hetty or Nate?"

Sam scowled at him because in his mind he could hear Deeks mocking voice. "Keep it up Shaggy," automatically using his nickname for Deeks. After a short pause, "Fine it was Michelle and Callen. I didn't know that's what I was doing. People skills apparently aren't my best thing."

"No shit! And still with the 'Shaggy'?"

"Yep, that's not going to change," he said with a huge smile. "And hey! I got Michelle didn't I? I do have game after all. And I still have her, thanks to you." He looked Deeks straight in the eye, "Thank you again."

"I'm smiling under all these bandages. I'll settle for a promise of a little trust and a lot less insulting comments."

Sam surprised Deeks with his next comment. "That's a pie-crust promise; easily made, easily broken. But I will do my best."

"I'm astonished. You actually quoted Mary Poppins!"

"I have a daughter Deeks. I don't even want to go into how many times I've had to sit through it. When she saw Mary Poppins for the first time she tried every umbrella she could find to see which one would let her fly. I just hope she never hears of or sees The Sound of Music. I really don't like that movie."

"ROFL! And you claimed you had never seen the movie! Wait until Eric finds this out."

"Hey, I haven't seen the whole movie; just a part of it. After all it was about a Navy guy. What is rolf?" Sam asked.

"You need to get into the texting age. ROLF stands for Rolling on Floor Laughing."

"Alright, alright. Enough."

Sam's nurse came in followed by Michelle and Kensi, "Mr. Hanna, you have therapy now." Sam groaned and by the way Deeks was acting he was trying not to laugh.

When Michelle entered she could feel the tension in the room had dropped a lot. She was happy that Sam had remained calm. He wasn't suppose to get excited due to his current heart condition. She smiled at Kensi and Kensi smiled back. Relief was reflected in both women's eyes.

"Does anyone have a piece of paper and pen?" Deeks typed.

Michelle reached into the night stand next to Sam's bed and pulled out a pad and pen. She handed them to Deeks. He quickly wrote something, tore it off, folded and handed it to Sam.

Before Sam could read it, Kensi had whisked Deeks out the door.

After the nurse had Sam settled in his wheelchair, Sam unfolded the paper and read it. He smiled and handed it to Michelle. She read it and tears sprang to her eyes. Simply written, "I forgive you." Sam was relieved that Deeks' natural compassion was still in tact. Sam just hoped that one day he could forgive himself. He knew in reality, they both had a long road ahead of them and that no one would ever understand what they went through; they needed each other. This was what they both needed to start down that road.