Callen walks back into the bullpen and finds Kensi at her desk, chin in hand, staring blankly at the pages in front of her.
He shoots his partner a questioning look. Sam raises his eyebrows in a silent "what're you gonna do?"
Callen shakes his head and crosses to his chair. He drops a foil covered plate of breakfast on his desk. "Still studying those profiles, Kensi?"
"She likes riding in the back of my car," Sam says. "Can't beat the view."
"Or the witty conversation."
Kensi snorts. "I could do without the smell though."
"I smell like baby powder." Sam points to Callen. "He smells like a gym towel."
"Right out of the dryer."
"Right out of the hamper."
Callen may be sleeping on the mission couch, but he's still bathing every day. He sniffs his armpits. They smell like the detergent stocked in wardrobe. Like spring or dancing rainwater or something. And maybe a little bit like bacon. Although the bacon deal might just be the proximity of his burrito. "I smell great."
Kensi's head lifts up off her hand. "You both smell fine."
"I know I do," Sam says. "That was never in dispute."
"I just," she pushes the files away, like maybe if she moves them far enough the decision will slide along with them, "I'm not ready for a new partner."
Callen looks at Sam again. This time the eyebrow raise is a "your turn." He stifles a sigh.
"Look Kens," he says as he drops into his chair, "no one wants to replace Dom - no one can replace Dom," he corrects quickly to forestall her objection, "but it's not enough to just have three of us anymore. You need a partner. We need a full team."
She huffs.
"I made the case to Hetty that you should be involved in the selection process. But Kens, if you can't make a decision soon, the decision is going to pass right over you."
"I know I'm just -" she pushes out of her chair and hesitates a moment, "I'm just going to the range for a bit."
He shakes his head as she disappears down the hall.
"Advice?"
"Sure," Sam says, picking up his pen and pointing it at Callen. "Don't eat that burrito."
Kensi fires off another round, bullets easily hitting their mark, but she doesn't feel any release. The ear coverings muffle the sounds, but they don't stop the ghost of gunshots from echoing in her head.
She doesn't want to lose another partner.
She lost Chris; she lost Dom.
She almost lost Callen. She lost her dad. Her mom left; Jack left.
She sets her weapon down and lifts her glasses, swiping angrily at an errant tear.
She feels like she's dooming whoever she selects to be the next person on her own personal chopping block. Like the only way to ensure she won't lose anyone else is to never have anyone else - to not let anyone stay long enough to ever get their footing.
It's better this way anyway. She doesn't need a partner. She's Kensi Marie Blye: the best sniper in the district, honey-trap extraordinaire, fluent in four languages, expert in forensics, and just all-around bad-ass.
Hetty steps into her peripheral vision and Kensi tries to pull herself together, removing her headgear and straightening her spine.
Yeah, that's her - Kensi Marie Blye: bad-ass who spends her time in the range weeping into her safety glasses.
"Callen already talked to me," she says, clearing her throat. "You'll have my suggestion by the end of the day."
Hetty's lips purse a moment. "I got a call this morning from LAPD. They've lost contact with Detective Deeks."
"Wait, what?" the words stumble out of her mouth, her mind trying to process the unexpected shift.
"His handler is concerned that he hasn't called in. She's reaching out to people she thought he may have contacted. Have you heard from him lately, Miss Blye?"
How would she have? She didn't even give him her number. She should have given him her number. "No."
Hetty nods and turns toward the door. "I shall let her know."
Kensi reaches out and grabs Hetty's arm, pulling back suddenly when she realizes what she's done. "What are we going to do?"
Hetty raises her eyebrows. "We?"
"We can't just leave him out there by himself."
"LAPD is looking for him."
Right, of course, LAPD. "But thats..." she finds herself licking her lips as she nervously considers her next few words. "That's not enough. We have to help."
Hetty nods, revealing the barest hint of a smile. "Your team is already in ops, waiting to be briefed."
Deeks finishes checking the safehouse and tucks his gun into his waistband. It's an unremarkable two-bedroom in an unremarkable neighborhood, but owning a home with four walls anywhere in Los Angeles is pretty remarkable in and of itself.
He wonders what kind of budget NCIS has and how many of these they maintain. This plus all that tech stuff, the fancy hacienda, the late start time, the Kensi. Maybe if he makes it out of this shitstorm alive he should reconsider that liaising thing.
He makes his way to the fridge and grabs a bottle of water, dropping into a chair beside the kitchen table. His body hurts. He should have asked Hetty if she had a secret stash of prescription painkillers somewhere in her coffers. She probably does. He adds that to the pros list.
He drains the water bottle and tosses it into the sink, his head falling into his hands as he allows himself a minute of blankness - of nothingness, just so he can breathe.
Sleep. Hetty had told him to sleep.
Not exactly the cavalry he was looking for. But hey, at least he got a bottle of water out of it.
Minute up, he pushes himself to his feet and heads to the bathroom, running the tap. He splashes cold water on his face, rubbing at the bloodied bits with a washcloth he finds in the drawer. His suit looks fine, but his shirt's a mess.
He scrubs at the blood with the washcloth. The red drops smear into a red blur. He'll have to grab a spare somewhere. Unless...
He goes to one of the bedrooms and pulls open the dresser drawer. Empty. Okay, so that was wishful thinking. He'll hit up the Ross on Broadway on his way to wherever the hell he's going.
He shuts off the water and digs Dale John Sully's cell out of his pocket, scrolling through the contacts to find the name he's looking for.
He promised Jess he'd do whatever it takes to see this thing through and that's exactly what he's going to do.
"Hey, man, it's Sully," Deeks says when the call connects. "I need you to get me a meeting with Lazik."
Callen bundles Scarli into the backseat of the Challenger and Sam looks at Kensi, silently asking how she wants to proceed.
"Go ahead," she tells him, waving him toward his car. "I'll get a ride back with Deeks."
Sam glances over at the direction Deeks disappeared moments before, clearly wondering if she's making the right choice.
She's wondering that too. "I'm good, Sam. Go."
He gives her a nod and heads back to the car, sliding behind the wheel and pulling out of the lot.
Once she's alone, Kensi leans back against the bricks and takes a few moments to breathe.
Seeing Deeks just now was something she hadn't been prepared for. She hadn't been ready for the look of wild anger in his eyes, or the rage she heard pouring out through every ragged cry, or the certainty with which he drew his fist back each time it found its target, muscles coiling in anticipation of the next strike.
She realized in those moments that she doesn't really know him at all. She doesn't know exactly what he went through, what he's gone through, but more than that, she doesn't know how he reacts. She doesn't know how he handles the crazy, the painful, the intense situations. She doesn't really know how he handles any situations.
He rounds the corner, clearly startled to find her waiting for him. She pushes off the wall and steps out into his path.
"Walked it off?"
"Yeah." His eyes don't meet hers. "Sorry."
"Ready to get out of here?"
"They stick you on babysitting duty? I'm a big boy you know."
She shrugs, trying to convey a casualness she isn't really feeling. "I just thought you might want some company."
"Not really."
Okay, she wasn't prepared for that.
She squares her shoulders. "Well, you've got some."
"I'll drop you at your car."
She wants to protest, to tell him that she's here. To tell him they don't have to talk. They don't have to acknowledge each other, but she's going to keep him company. She wants to tell him she's going to be with him because he shouldn't be alone. Not after what he's been through. To tell him that no, she probably doesn't understand, but she'd like to. She wants to try.
But she's known him for a grand total of five days and she's not an expert on people, much less an expert on this person. So she stays silent.
Ten minutes and exactly zero words later, he drops her at her car.
Deeks crouches down, picking up the wilted bouquet and replacing it with a fresh one. The colors splash bright and cheery against the cold, sterile grey of the granite. It seems wrong, insensitive somehow - like he's intruding into the darkness with a light that doesn't belong.
But then, that's what you're supposed to do, right? Let the light in? Let a new day dawn?
He needs to stop listening to self-help tapes.
Deeks puts his hands on his knees and pushes himself up, keeping his eyes on the letters in front of him as he addresses his new companion.
"We've got to stop meeting like this."
He glances over then and finds Kensi frowning slightly. He smiles a little at her frustration.
"Your scent," he explains.
"My scent?"
"It's like sunshine." He thinks for a moment. No, that's not quite right. "Sunshine and gunpowder." Better.
She's still frowning. "So not, like, lavender or vanilla or something?"
"Hey, it's better than sweat and dirt."
"Is it? What exactly does sunshine smell like?"
He purses his lips as he thinks. "Indefinable."
"And yet identifiable, apparently."
He shrugs. "You smell like something bright and cheerful and, I don't know - powerful."
"Powerful smelling. Excellent compliment. I think my sixth grade boyfriend tried that one on me about 15 seconds before I clocked him."
"Lucky for me you've grown docile in your old age."
"Lucky for you I'm choosing to ignore your inept flirtation out of pity."
He shakes his head. "For someone so quick with the self-praise, you don't actually receive compliments very well."
"Well I - wait, what? Self-praise?"
He smirks.
She glares.
"So, what's up? You loitering in cemeteries these days?"
"I hear a rumor you'd be here."
"Stalking me, Agent Blye?"
"No."
He raises his eyebrows.
"I was just - you know, checking on you." She shifts a little, uncomfortable. "I uh, I wanted to make sure that you were okay after..." she trails off, but he doesn't need her to complete the sentence to know what she was referring to.
"I'm okay."
She nods. "Okay."
They stand there for a few minutes, engulfed in a sort of peace. He's surprised to see her - surprised she came. He was pretty clear the last time he saw her that he wanted to be on his own. She'd made a gesture - offered to support him and he'd refused, too caught up in his own chaos, too busy trying to stay afloat to accept or acknowledge that she was just trying to be a friend. He's not sure what convinced her to follow through now, but he's really glad she has. It's been a rough few weeks, and he thinks maybe it wouldn't have been quite so rough if he'd let her in.
"I'm sorry about how I handled things," he says, his voice cutting through the silence. "You were trying to help and I -"
"It's okay," she shakes her head, "I get it."
"And thanks, for, you know."
"Rescuing your stupid ass?"
"That's one way of phrasing it."
"Seriously, Deeks. Why didn't you stay in the safehouse? What on earth possessed you to -"
She trails off as he nods toward the headstone: Jessica Angela Traynor.
She's silent for a moment before asking, "She meant something to you?"
"She was my handler," he answers without looking up. But handler doesn't seem like enough. She was more than that. "She was the closest thing to a partner I'd had in a while. She was a good person, Kensi, and it isn't right."
"No," she agrees, "it isn't."
He shakes his head. "Sorry, that's maudlin."
"Well, we are in a cemetery."
"True." And he really doesn't want to be here anymore. "Want to get out of here? Grab some food, maybe?"
It isn't until the words are out of his mouth that his brain kicks in. It's four o'clock. Too late for lunch, too early for dinner. Definitely not the time you should be asking people out to eat.
He's about to apologize when she answers.
"So, this may seem like a really stupid thing, but there's this movie out and I've been -"
"I'd love to."
She smiles, a bright one that spreads out her cheeks and lights up her eyes and he feels less like an idiot for not even letting her finish the question.
"Okay." She nods.
"Okay."