A/N: Hello again, I hope you are all having a wonderful week and are looking forward to tomorrow night's new episode as much as I am. I thought last week's episode was great, and I enjoyed all of the Densi scenes immensely. Anyway please enjoy this chapter and I hope you all get a pretty good laugh out of it.

Oh and I don't have anything at all against lawyers, by the way, just so you know before reading something mentioned early on in this chapter.

Disclaimer: I forgot to do this on the first two chapters, but I don't own NCIS: Los Angeles or any of its characters.

Another week, another case. This was the never-ending cycle that constituted the jobs of the three NCIS agents and LAPD liaison. People were killed or a building was blown to pieces, and the team was left to clean up the mess and pin whoever was responsible. And no matter how many cases they solved, no matter how many bad guys they put away, there was always something out there seemingly worse than the last.

Sometimes Deeks wasn't sure he enjoyed such repetitiveness, but, he quickly reasoned, it could have ended up so much worse. He could have been sitting in a small office, working as some kind of know-it-all attorney at an uptight law firm in downtown LA. But instead, he was doing something so much greater—instead of ruining lives for his own benefit, he was saving them. He was working for the greater good, and for that alone, it was reason enough for him to continue on.

One thing he couldn't escape from switching careers, however, was probably the thing he despised most of all—paperwork.

One day, during a short lapse between cases, Deeks sat at his desk working on said paperwork, absolutely bored out of his mind and sorely missing the rest of the team. Sam and Callen were on stakeout, tracking suspects involved in an escalating drug war, while Kensi was testifying in court over a previous case.

After finishing his own pile, unsure of what else could be done, Deeks stole a glance over at Kensi's desk. The ever-growing, messy stacks on her desk indicated she wasn't anywhere close to being finished; in fact, it looked as though they hadn't even been touched. Deeks gave a loud sigh and, although he was about to do something nice for her, admonished himself a little for being such a pushover at times.

Not knowing where to start, he resolved on taking the largest pile he could carry from the corner of her desk. He situated the pile in his arms and turned to head back to his own workspace, but suddenly he felt something shift and fall out of the stack with a loud thud back onto Kensi's desk. Deeks automatically abandoned the pile and bent down to take a closer look at the object. It was leather-bound, a little smaller than a regular novel, and clearly well-worn. He opted to ignore it at first, knowing full well that being caught snooping could get him into trouble again, but soon his curiosity got the better of him and he opened the book and delicately started leafing through the pages.

Wow, so this is Kensi's diary he thought to himself as he scanned through each entry with unparalleled interest. Her handwriting was a neat cursive, slanting with the angle of her hand as line after line filled up each page.

He couldn't stop himself as he hungrily searched through page after page, absorbing every word she had written down. It was filled to the brim with Kensi's private thoughts and experiences. Surely there had to be something juicy in there.

Slowly but surely, however, Deeks couldn't help but feel his interest starting to fade, the initial enthrallment of his incredible discovery suddenly dissipating.

Wow, it's so… boring.

Most of the book comprised of Kensi's experiences as a teenager with her father. There had to be over a hundred stories of the times he would take her out to the woods to go camping, to teach her how to shoot, or even his attempts to convince her to speak to her mother again.

Deeks wouldn't say he entirely regretted opening the thing, though. He did enjoy learning more about her father because it gave him more insight on why Kensi was the way she was, and he did learn a few other things about her he hadn't known before. Still, he couldn't help himself as the uncanny feeling of disappointment slowly started to seep in to his core.

He wished it was for far more unselfish reasons, but he knew his disappointment stemmed from the fact that, apart from their first meeting, he wasn't mentioned even once. There were stories about Callen, Sam, her old partners, Hetty… even Eric and Nell were mentioned a few times.

If a total stranger were reading the journal it would have seemed as though Deeks was only a casual acquaintance she had briefly encountered way back when. Nothing of importance, easily forgettable. They had come so far in just a few short years, yet apparently to Kensi, they were still so far away.

Was he really not worth writing about? Did she really not think about him at all? Or did she just not care enough to even bother?

Surely he meant more to her than that.

As much as Deeks wanted to sit back and let the emptiness in his chest take over, he forced himself to push it away. He wasn't going to let himself be just a throwaway memory in Kensi's life. He had to be more than that. It was time to show Kensi the kind of person—the kind of man—he could really be.

He was going to make her remember him whether she liked it or not.


Deeks was immensely pleased with himself when Kensi had initially reacted so positively to his offer.

He could see the surprise in her features as he showed her the tickets he had purchased, her eyes lighting up like it was Christmas morning. Her enthusiasm was almost over the top, it seemed, but Deeks assumed it was just from the two cups of coffee and box of powdered donuts she had consumed on the way to work that morning.

Why she seemed so excited for a "financial freedom" seminar was completely beyond him, but all he knew was that if it made her happy, he would endure through it and force himself to be happy as well.

He also knew it was kind of a lame attempt at his plan to make Kensi like him more, but at least it was a start. The insert he had found in her diary about not feeling financially prepared for her and her future family had stuck out at him like a sore thumb.

It had thrown him at first, mostly out of shock at her even mentioning that she might want a family someday. When he thought about it more, though, it did make sense. She was engaged once, after all.

He didn't like to linger on this fact for too long, though. Kensi Blye, happily married, a kid on the way…he just couldn't picture it. She probably never would have become an NCIS agent, either. He couldn't imagine what his life would have been like if he and Kensi had never met.

Still, he would do whatever it took to make her happy. If she wanted to prepare for a future that may never come for her, he would help her be ready for it anyway. And when he did some research and found out about the seminar, it was like everything was falling into place. Plus, he figured, if she was so ecstatic about going with him to something like this, maybe she wouldn't be completely opposed to doing other things with him in the future.

As the day went on, however, and a new case came up involving a friend from Sam's past, Deeks couldn't help but become a little weary at Kensi's attitude.

He noticed that her enthusiasm from earlier that morning slowly seemed to fade as the day progressed. In fact, it was almost as if, instead of being excited about the seminar, she had almost become resigned to it.


"Since when did you become so financially responsible?" she asked him as they searched Amir's house, the kidnapped nephew of the man Sam was acquainted with. She almost sounded suspicious when she said it.

He played along with her as best he could, trying to sound convincing in his usual nonchalant tone of voice. "It's always been there, you're just starting to see the diamond underneath the rugged exterior." Wow, that came out a little more arrogant than he intended, but still he hoped that that response would suffice without setting off the alarms in her head.

Even though his back was turned to her, he could practically feel her rolling her eyes at him. "Why do I even bother?" she muttered mostly to herself, but still loud enough so he could hear.

For some reason, Deeks didn't like the way this conversation was starting out. He knew if he didn't fix it soon they could be going down another road headed for trouble, and he hated the thought of that. They had just started talking to each other again, after all.

He tried to think of something to say that would please her, but all he could think about for the past two days was that stupid journal. For some reason he was having the strange feeling that that couldn't have been everything she liked to write about. Besides her ex-fiancé, she hadn't written about past boyfriends, one night stands, anything... Surely women wrote about their love lives in their personal diaries. He almost hated himself for bringing it up but he had to know if there was something more. Plus, if he got her to admit something about her he didn't know, then maybe he would return the favor and, for once, open up to her with some secrets of his own.

"When are you going to accept the fact that we don't know everything about each other?" he asked. "That's part of the fun of getting to know your partner."

"If you say so…" she replied, clearly unconvinced. She wasn't going to tell him anything. Besides, he already knew way more about her than she did about him. If anyone was going to be spilling secrets, it was going to be him.

"Tell me something about you that I don't know. C'mon, spill it. Anything."

A refusal was just on the tip of her tongue, but when she turned around from her position on the floor and spotted him in the doorway, bright blue eyes filled with curiosity, she just couldn't help herself.

Damn him for being so cute.

She gave a loud sigh and stood up from the floor where she had been searching under the bed. "Okay. Well…before I joined NCIS… I actually considered becoming a bounty hunter." She chuckled at herself. Saying it out loud just made it sound all the more ridiculous.

"I already knew that. Give me something else" Deeks responded automatically, the words slipping out before he had the chance to stop them.

She frowned. "What do you mean you already knew that?" she asked, her eyes narrowing in ever-growing suspicion.

Oh, shit he cursed himself, suddenly remembered where he obtained the information from. Suddenly he had the feeling he would be regretting opening that journal for a very long time to come.

"I mean that you…I don't know…you must've already told me on a stakeout or something" he tried to backtrack. Suddenly feeling the heat in the room, he quickly turned around from the guest bedroom and headed to Amir's room. "Just give me something else" he said quickly, trying desperately to make her forget what he just said.

However she followed right on his heels, determined to not let him get away. "No, no, no. I never told anyone that. Nobody knew that. Unless…"

Panic bubbled up inside her as she realized what was going on.

"You read my memoir!?" She didn't even need to see his reaction; she knew her words rang true the moment they left her lips.

"What? Okay, you're overreacting. I wouldn't really call it a memoir; it's more of a diary."

"Why did you do that?"

Kensi knew she normally would've reacted with fewer words and more actions—painful actions—but at the moment she was lost in thought, imagining all the different ways she could murder Deeks right on the spot.

"Cause it was sitting on your desk…I-I thought it was evidence" he stammered lamely.

"What!?"

"It didn't have a label! I just started flipping through to see what case it was and I couldn't stop. It was like a really sad handwritten novel."

"How much did you read?" She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Maybe she could be a little caustic with Deeks sometimes, but him invading her privacy like that? And he did it not only once with the box, but now twice? It just wasn't right.

"Just a couple pages" he said innocently, still trying to defend himself.

But when she threw him the look he knew all too well, he started to cave. "Chapter."

Nope, she still wasn't buying it. "Chapters…" he finally admitted as she started walking toward him slowly. He almost trembled in fear under her malicious gaze, but then there came that strange feeling of awe and pure fascination as the lethal, magnificent woman approached him. It kept him rooted right to the spot.

She didn't say anything as she seemed to be sizing him up.

"Listen, you have surprisingly beautiful prose" he tried one more time as he gently laid a hand on her shoulder. He didn't even care what he knew was inevitably coming; he just needed to touch her and feel that wonderful electricity from her anger course through his own body.

He wasn't the least bit surprised when she grabbed his arm and threw him to the ground in a split second, planting his face mercilessly into the hard carpet below.

"Ahhh, well played! Well played…" he groaned as that marvelous pain shot through him. He would willingly let her take him to the ground anytime she felt like it.

It was incredible at the moment, but after leaving Amir's house, and seeing the way Kensi looked at him as if he were some kind of traitor, he knew he was in deep.

Wow, nice one Deeks he thought to himself angrily. Now she hates you even more than before.


"You were a stripper!?"

Oh God, did he seriously just tell her that?

His most guarded secret, the most embarrassing period in his life, was now in the hands of his tormenting partner.

It was something he was ashamed to admit even to himself. But he was a lot more naïve back then, and, he tried to reason with himself, desperate times called for desperate measures. And he was certainly desperate. Law school could be quite expensive with no scholarships, no parents to help out, and no other sources of income. So, he figured, that had been his best option to make the most money possible in the least amount of time. If only he'd known back then how much it would come back to bite him in the butt later.

Deeks tried not to crack a smile at Kensi's reaction. If he thought she was excited about going to the financial freedom seminar, then the Kensi he was looking at right now was absolutely out of this world.

"Best. Day. EVER!" she exclaimed as she marveled over her unbelievable new fortune.

He could see the fire blazing in her eyes, already musing over forms of grief and torture she would no doubt be able to hold over him later on.

It was his turn to roll his eyes when she started taunting him with the one dollar bills she found in her pocket. And when she proceeded to stuff them into his jeans' pocket and slap him on the butt as he walked past… well, now she was just being cruel.

But he knew he wouldn't be able to win back Kensi's trust with anything less personal. It was so embarrassing and humiliating for him to admit, but he knew he had made the right decision. He made her feel vulnerable by digging through her secrets, and now, the favor was justly returned.

And so, despite his now heightened self-consciousness, he gave an inward sigh of relief, knowing that, by the ecstatic look on his partner's face, his crimes had been forgiven.

Kensi absolutely couldn't believe it. Well, in a way she could; it certainly answered some of the questions that had been left unanswered over the past few years. She had always wondered how Deeks seemed to know so much about the way clubs worked. She had resolved to assume that it was simply because he enjoyed going for pleasure, but there were certain things he had let slip that left Kensi suspicious of something more.

And now, as it was confirmed straight from the source, she could honestly say she hadn't felt more thrilled over something in years.

Deeks was a stripper. A stripper. She nearly cringed at the thought as mental images inevitably started popping into her brain. She could just picture a more youthful-looking Deeks in some sketchy second-rate club, swaying his hips provocatively to the music as he bent, half-clothed, over some poor bride-to-be whose friends had forced her to endure one last night out as a single woman.

She gave him one last slap on the butt as he walked away just to let him know this day would never be forgotten.


Later that night Kensi curled up on her couch with her favorite beer, mulling sleepily over the day's events. She was so relieved that Sam was safe from almost being murdered by Ambassador Habib and his terrorist friends. Sure, Sam owed his friend Yusef a debt for saving his life as a SEAL, but Sam really needed to stop trying to fix things by himself.

A few minutes later Kensi felt her eyelids droop as her body started shutting down for the night. Before drifting off completely, though, the last memory she had in her mind was the wonderful new discovery she had made about Deeks's past.

She smiled to herself one last time, thinking of all the wonderful new material she would have to put in her more…intimate diary she kept well-hidden underneath her bed.

A/N: So what do you guys think? Does Kensi have a sex journal…possibly featuring Deeks? I personally think she might, because if it was written in the diary Deeks found he surely would have mentioned it. I'm interested to know what you guys think, so please leave a comment and let me know!