A/N: So, here is the next chapter for you as my christmas present, the next is kind of halfway done. Please be patient, cause with these days coming up now, I won´t be able to write as much as I would love to, but I can tell you, that the whole story is going to be longer than expected so there is lots more of sweet fun stuff to come. In this chapter I put on a little idea that guesswhofern mentioned in one of her reviews and I hope she and all of you as well enjoy it :) As always, all mistakes are mine.

For everyone celebrating Christmas - I wish you a merry christmas and happy holidays.

Blessings
Soulia

Disclaimer: I don´t own anything of NCIS LA or the characters, but once again it was fun playing with them. Thank you :)

And then there is the black diamond ski slope

Waking up Deeks knew instantly that this was the morning of Christmas day, the day he was going to spend with Kensi and her mom, having the best time of their lives up on the hills and a snowboard tucked to their feet. Thinking about Kensi all wrapped up and standing on the snowboard made him chuckle a bit, cause he was absolutely sure that Kensi would feel slightly out of her comfort zone even with her pretending of being a black diamond shaped snowboarder. For some reason he couldn´t really see her on a snowboard in the snow and cold. But maybe she had another surprise ready for him, she had surprised him a few times in their time as partners, so with Kensi you could never tell.

By the time he had gotten out of his bed, put on some comfortable pants and a hoodie, the colour Kensi loved on him, and finally made his way down to the living room, he was surprised to see the table set for three and everything you could wish for on Christmas morning was there as well. He looked around for Kensi and her mom, but couldn´t see either one of the women and so he just went to the kitchen to get some fresh coffee ready. He was slightly smiling all the time for no obvious reason while preparing the coffee, it just felt so good to be on a short but well deserved holiday and having Kensi close by, he even started to whistle in a low way without knowing the melody. So by the time the front door opened and Kensi came in in her running gear, he turned to her with that happy smile on his lips and held a cup out to her.

"Hey there early riser. Did you make it around the whole lake?" he teased her a bit, knowing she wasn´t the best runner.

"Once? Not everyone is sleeping in as long as you Deeks. I made it around the lake twice, met some reindeers and saw Santa take off after he dropped off presents for a boy named Marty," she shot back, but with a softer tone than she would do back at OSP and around Callen and Sam.

Deeks chuckled under his breath and waited till she reached for the coffee pot in his hands. "Was Rudolph alright? Cause I think you scared him off last year," Deeks asked smiling and sipped some of his coffee.

"I scared Rudolph? Wasn´t it you sitting in front of his window the whole night last year and when you saw him you squeaked like a five year old kid?" she answered with a raised eyebrow, enjoying her coffee as well.

"Touché, you got me on that one. But hey, Rudolph is by far the coolest Reindeer ever and Monty loves him as well," he tried to defend his childlike joy, that showed up every year around the holiday season since he had something resembling a family to spend it with or at least some really good friends in contrast to his younger years, where there hasn´t really been any good thing about the holiday season. Kensi just rolled her eyes and finished her coffee before she placed the cup next to the sink.

"Have you seen my mom yet? Honestly I was slightly worried after last night and how she showed up back here," she asked Deeks looking around the basement.

"Nope, there hasn´t been the tiniest bit of sound from her room. Guess she had a great evening and good company after we left her," he said not feeling concerned at all with Julia being a grown up woman in the end.

Kensi excused herself upstairs to get showered and changed and turned down Deeks subtle offer to join her in the shower, by stating the obvious. Which made Deeks reach for his hoodie and starting to take it off, but Kensi raised her hands quickly and ran up the stairs shouting she was alright on her own.

Once again Deeks was on his own in the kitchen, so he got his presents ready for Kensi and her mom, cause in contrast to Kensi he hadn´t forgotten about it and was really excited to see what they would say to his presents. So he went to the living room and over to the beautiful tree, where he lit the candles and then placed his presents underneath in lack of any kind of stockings. Kensi´s was the shape of a flat rectangle and not really heavy, whereas Julia´s present was a small box and an envelope. After he had done that, he sat down at the table and waited for Kensi and her mom.

Julia was just getting up, the evening had been absolutely great and she was looking forward to see the nice guy, his name was Sean, again sometime today and to find out if they had more in common than just spending the Christmas holiday at Lake Tahoe and loving to dance. She dressed herself in some comfy clothes as well, knowing that Deeks had planned for all of them to go snowboarding today after they had their Christmas breakfast together …. Nearly like a small family would spend this time of the year and she had to admit, that she loved this holiday much more than any of the previous ones. Deeks was a nice addition and a person she just had to like and was more than willing to add to her family. He made Kensi laugh and open up in ways she had never seen before and she was so grateful for that. Her daughter needed to laugh more often and she also needed someone to crash her walls and catch her afterwards, which she knew Deeks would do.

When she came down the stairs she could see Deeks sitting at the table, his focus on the scenery outside and a soft smile on his lips.

"Good Morning Marty", she said as she came closer and sat next to him, knowing that Kensi would want to sit opposite of Deeks to be able to watch him, like she thought, discretely.

"Good Morning Julia, did you sleep well? It seemed as if you had a good evening and really nice company?" he said smiling at her, not his smile that was just for Kensi, but nevertheless it was a warm and open smile, that made Julia smile in response.

"Oh, my evening was wonderful and Sean was a great company and a great dancer with quite some stamina, I fell asleep the moment my head touched the pillow. How about you?" her look told Deeks that she was well aware she stumbled into something when she came home last night.

"That´s good to hear and thank you, my night was great as well. After you went upstairs we got into our rooms just a few minutes later as well and Kensi watched Elf with me falling asleep in the middle of it as well," he winked at Julia not able to stop himself, he just felt so good at the moment. When Julia placed her hand on his and gave him a more than knowing smile, he could feel his cheeks blush and he had to try to get out of this moment with a funny remark.

"Even though it´s still a mystery to me how Kensi´s able to sleep snoring that loud." Julia had to laugh at this and let go of his hand just a moment before Kensi came down the stairs and joined them at the table.

"Deeks, what kind of lies are you telling my mom?" she inquired, throwing Deeks an angry look before turning to her mom and shaking her head. "Don´t listen to anything he´s telling you, those are all lies. I don´t snore, no way."

Julia chuckled and this time she placed her hand on Kensi´s arm and squeezing it slightly, looking at her daughter with all the happiness she felt about being here with her right now and spending Christmas. "It´s okay Kensi, Marty was just telling me about the film you watched last night and I told him about Sean, my nice company for the evening."

Kensi huffed a tiny bit and then relaxed under her mom´s touch, looking at Deeks and rolling her eyes at him. But before any of them could say some more, Julia got up and reached under the tree to grab some of the presents and hand it to Deeks and Kensi. "These are for you and I hope I got it right."

Deeks looked at Julia with a thankful look, it´s been quite some time since his last proper Christmas morning with real presents and some kind of family around, so he tore into the paper and beat Kensi to it by just a few seconds. They both had some kind of card in their hands, which they opened and then read the lines Julia had written. Deeks felt some tears prick at his eyes and he took some deep breaths, before looking up at Julia. "Thank you Julia. This really means a lot to me", he half rose from his chair and gave her a quick hug. After that he finally looked at the smaller card placed inside the bigger one and as soon as he realized what it was, he shot Kensi a wide smile and waved at her with the card, a ticket to see Stomp in LA.

Kensi had been reading her Mum´s card in silence as well and reached for Julia´s hand to squeeze it tightly, letting her know how much she loved her. "Thanks Mom", and as she saw Deeks waving at her with some kind of ticket, she looked closer at hers and let out a sigh, softened by a huge grin, cause she had the same ticket in her card.

"Mom, that´s really kind of you, but it wouldn´t have been necessary," Kensi said to her mom but getting really excited about this event.

"Oh, I saw the advert for Stomp and had to think of Marty and I thought he couldn´t go on his own. I hope it´s okay for you Marty, that Kensi is joining you?" she looked at him with a sweet smile, knowing Deeks wouldn't say no.

"Julia, honestly it´s such a nice idea. I´m sure Kensi will love the evening in my company listening to something else than her favourite techno music," flashing Kensi a huge grin but feeling her foot connecting with his shine under the table, he tried hard to hide the pain shooting up his leg.

Julia just laughed about the two lovebirds dancing around each other in such a beautiful way, obviously not entirely aware of what they were doing.

Next up were Deeks presents for the women and he handed Kensi hers and Julia the envelope and the smaller box, both looked at the presents with childish grins and Kensi exchanged another look with Deeks, before opening the box and raising an eyebrow.

"Deeks, what …. There´s nothing in here," she looked slightly irritated by now and Julia had to chuckle again, while opening the envelope and reading the card completely written in Deeks handwriting, but she wasn´t surprised at all to see that Deeks had covered for Kensi in this matter as well. Deeks and Kensi were still bantering about the box and what it meant and by the time Kensi got it, her blushing wasn´t something Deeks or Julia could ignore, but it was just adorable, Deeks thought.

Julia cleared her throat to get the attention of Kensi and Deeks and waved with the envelope, a happy and grateful smile on her lips. "Well, this is something I hadn´t been expecting but I´m up for the challenge, Marty. And I´m sure with both of you as teachers there is a good chance that I will actually manage to accomplish something out there on the water. Thank you to both of you," she gave Deeks´ arm a light squeeze and raised her eyebrow, letting him know, that she knew about Kensi forgetting about presents at all. When Kensi was about to ask and reveal that she had no idea what Julia was talking about, Deeks just jumped in, saying what great fun they all would have together while surfing at a nice beach in LA which made Kensi nearly choke on her coffee. They all ended up laughing.

With Kensi having forgotten any presents at all they just went on enjoying their lovely breakfast, before discussing the plan for the day. They all agreed on getting ready after breakfast and walk up to the main building to get all the stuff for the snowboarding. Neither one of them had any gear, so they had to lend all the needed things.

After an hour of delving into all the nice things on the table, they got up to get everything they would need and made it over to the main building.

Just a few minutes later they were all set up with the equipment and a lift pass so they could get up the mountain and get going. Deeks was humming with excitement to get on the snowboard and in the snow. Kensi was fidgeting with her gloves and glancing around showing Deeks how nervous she was about getting on the snowboard after telling Deeks that she was more than okay with going down the slopes. But honestly it´s been quite a while since she´s been out for some practicing.

Julia just sat with them in the ski lift and looking around, taking in the beautiful view from up there and thought about her plans for Kensi and Deeks. She was confident to start with her interference today and up the hill, so she just needed a good opportunity to get it started. So by the time the made it up the mountain, Julia was so lost in her thoughts that she nearly missed the right moment to get off and just thanks to Deeks she made it without falling to her knees.

"Wow, somebody is far away with her thoughts," Deeks commented with a bright grin and letting go of Julia after she was standing safe and sound on her feet again. She had decided to go with ski instead of a snowboard, cause there was no way for her to understand how that exactly worked and she felt too old to learn it in just a few days. So she got on her ski, put on her helmet, gloves and got her poles ready, before looking up and nodding at Kensi and Deeks.

"Have fun you two and I will see you down the hill for a little après ski," and with those words she just took off and left Kensi and Deeks where they were preparing everything to get ready as well.

After they had recovered from being left behind in some way, they both got going as well, but it took them longer to get down to the cabin, cause after just a few minutes Deeks was absolutely certain, that Kensi had lied just a tiny bit about her ability to snowboard and so he ended up helping her up what felt like every five seconds and Kensi got more and more frustrated about it, with Deeks standing up on his board as confident as if he was surfing back home in LA. She nearly couldn´t stand the happy look on his face anymore, but he was so patient with her, teasing her just a tiny bit and in the end she gave in and held on to his hands, while there were going down the slope which worked pretty good. Kensi smiled to herself, cause obviously they were better with the whole partner thing than they probably expected to, Deeks holding Kensi´s hand all the way down to the cabin, where Julia was waiting for them a steaming cup of Hot Chocolate already in her hands.

"Just a bit longer and I would have called for a Search and Rescue Team to find you. What happened? Did you get lost?" Julia asked with a happy expression on her face, cause it hadn´t escaped her view that Kensi and Deeks came down the hill holding hands, for whatever reason. But she thought this was a step closer to her own goal of getting them together.

"Kensi here just needed a bit of time to get the groove back and then she wouldn´t let go of my hands, so it was quite a ride down here," Deeks said, holding up their still interlaced hands, the response from Kensi was a sweet blush and a soft puff. But if she withdrew her hand right now she would give Deeks exactly what he was waiting for. So instead, she just squeezed his fingers and shot him an over the top smile.

"My fingers are just freezing cold and for some reason, Deeks has really hot hands …. I mean, his hand is really warm," and she was blushing again, must be the Kensi-is-flushing-the-whole-time day. Instead of being annoyed about Deeks effect on her, she just let go of his hand and went to get them both a hot chocolate with a shot of some nice booze in there. She held the cup out to Deeks and the clinked cups before taking a few sips from the sweet hot stuff. They all smiled nearly at the same time and had to laugh again, like this morning at the breakfast table and Deeks felt so happy he just had to wrap an arm around Kensi´s shoulder and to his surprise not earning a punch to the shoulder or an elbow in the stomach but just a short glance from her.

After they´ve been standing on the small patio of the cabin for a while, enjoying the view and their company, Deeks was hit in the back of his head by a snowball, some kids were having a proper snowball fight just a few feet away and hadn´t paid that much attention of their surroundings. But Deeks just laughed and waved at the kids, thumbs up and told them to go on.

Kensi was just talking to her mom about the evening before and asked her about Sean, when she was hit by a snowball as well, but when she turned around to look for the kids, she couldn´t see them anymore and so her gaze landed on Deeks and as soon as she saw his mischievous grin, she knew that this ball had come from him. Her cup handed to her mom, she crouched down and got some snow as well and aimed for Deeks hitting him square in the chest.

"Yeah, you should´ve really thought about this Deeks, getting into a snowball fight with a Blye woman – not the best idea you ever had," and with that she started to throw snowball after snowball at him, getting away from the patio cause she was well aware of the other people around them. Deeks tried to hit Kensi at least one more time, but she was just too good dodging all of his snowballs. In the end, he surrendered standing between the first fir trees, which encircled the ski slopes up here, and held his hands up. Kensi stopped throwing snowballs at him and came closer and closer with her hands behind her back and a devilish grin on her lips. The moment Kensi was close enough Deeks just pulled on one of the branches of the fir tree above them and the next second Kensi was covered from head to toe in nice powdery snow and her face was the best reward Deeks could have gotten. She stood there for a split second, trying to comprehend what just happened, recovering fast she made one more step towards Deeks, raising her arms and looping them around his neck, which earned her a startled look from Deeks. Revenge was so sweet and so before Deeks could say anything or ask Kensi what was going on he had a hand of snow pushed down the back of his hoodie and was screeching like a girl.

"Kens… ahhhhhh, that´s fucking cold!" he exclaimed and tried to breath evenly but without any success, so he just grabbed Kensi and threw her in the snow placing himself on top of her and covering her hair with snow before rolling in the snow and pulling Kensi along. Of course she tried to get away, but Deeks held her tight a bright smile on his face after a few moments to recover from the snow touching his warm skin.

"Deeks! Let me go!" Kensi punched him on his chest, but he could feel that she was holding back and a few moments later a smile crept up at the corners of her mouth and in the end they were both lying in the snow laughing really hard not bothering at all with the glances from people passing by after coming down the ski slopes. Neither one of them noticed any of the glances or stares, they were just enjoying themselves and the time they were spending together.

While they were slowly trying to get untangled Julia came over her face glowing with happiness and laughter, looking down and shaking her head slightly. "Are the children done playing?" she asked and waited for them to get up. Deeks pulled Kensi up and tousling her hair to get all the snow out, he felt like snow and slowly water was running down his back and front and everywhere else and Kensi looked uncomfortable as well, shifting from one foot to the other and rubbing her clothes. But still she stood close to Deeks so she obviously wasn´t too mad at him and that made him happier than anything else.

"Thanks Mom, but yes the kids are done playing and I have to admit, that was the most fun I had in a while, but I think we should get back and changed, otherwise the rest of our short vacation will end with a nice cold for the two of us," she looked apologetic at her mom and grabbed Deeks hand once again, which surprised him probably more than her mom. Deeks was really sorry for Julia as well, but she assured the two, that Sean was on his way to meet her at the cabin and so she wouldn´t be on her own for too long. With that she waved them off and smiled to herself, cause even without her doing much they were going to spend the afternoon together and she hoped the thing with them holding hands was a good sign. Sean showed up half an hour later and they enjoyed the time together, having a nice late lunch and afterwards sat outside on the patio and talked about their lives and how lucky they were having great families and friends.

Please leave a review, it would mean the world to me and I am happy with those as a present for me ;)