At his whispered confession, her eyes opened.
She stared up at him a long moment, as if to gauge whether he really meant what he'd just said.
But Deeks didn't backtrack on his words one little bit. He simply stared right back down at her, silently waiting for either rejection or acceptance.
Kensi's mouth opened and she softly requested, "Marry me?"
His heart actually skipped a beat. Considering recent events, he hadn't quite expected to hear those particular words spoken by Kensi Blye.
"Shouldn't that be my line?" he said.
"I wasn't sure if you'd want to say it," she answered solemnly.
"Are you sure that you want to say it?" he probed seriously. He did want her to be his wife, but he didn't want her to feel any kind of pressure so soon after they'd just reconciled their breakup.
She simply nodded. "Yes."
"Okay."
"Okay?" she echoed, almost in surprise.
"Okay," he confirmed. "As in, 'Yes, I'll marry you'."
Her eyes teared up at his answer, and Kensi blamed it on the pregnancy hormones. "I love you too, by the way."
The most adorable smile spread across Deeks' face. "Say that again."
"I love you," she repeated, her thumb stroking lightly at the short new stubble sprouting along his jaw. "I think I probably always have."
His blue eyes shined at her. "Me, too."
Leaning down, he kissed her slow and tantalizingly sweet…but his alarm clock chose that moment to blare at them and the kiss faltered.
He pulled himself away from her and silenced the offending object. Then he laid back down with a sigh, not wanting to abandon his Kensi-filled bed to go to work.
"Go on," she said reluctantly, patting his chest. "You need a shower anyway."
"I have a better idea," he answered, and reached for his cell phone instead.
As expected, Hetty was at OSP long before official work hours began.
"This is Deeks," he greeted. "Listen, uh…something came up and…Kensi and I going to be just a little bit late getting into work today."
He paused, a smile appearing on his face again as he looked at the woman in his bed. "Yeah, she's here." He listened again for several seconds. "Alright. Thanks, Hetty." And he ended the call, thinking how nice it was to have a boss who cared.
"Looks like we get to sleep in for an hour," Deeks happily said to Kensi, resetting the alarm and settling back down into the warm bed.
She snuggled up to him as much as her round belly would allow.
They laid there for the longest time, just holding each other. No talking, no kissing…only healing.
If he lived to be a hundred years old, he'd never grow tired of having her in his arms.
And Kensi was perfectly content to just lie there, absorbing his wonderful presence into every inch of her skin.
She'd gone three whole weeks without him. Without his touch…without his kiss…without his smile.
Those three terrible weeks had felt like three years.
Not doing that again, she told herself. Never again.
Eventually the alarm went off again, finally forcing them both out of bed.
Kensi went home to bathe and dress while Deeks made use of his own shower and wardrobe.
When he arrived at work, the rest of his team — minus Kensi — were sitting at their desks apparently waiting for a new case to come in.
"Late," Callen fake-coughed like an immature teenager as Deeks strode to his desk.
Deeks chuckled good-naturedly. "And good morning to you, too."
Sam observed the cheerfulness in their colleague's demeanor — a complete one-eighty from yesterday's (and the last three weeks') darkness. "Peter Pan find his happy thought?"
Deeks grinned at the other man. "Poke all you want, Sam — this bear ain't bitin'."
Kensi walked in about ten minutes later. "Good morning," she greeted the three, easing slowly into her desk chair.
The two senior agents returned the greeting casually.
"Really?" Deeks looked at Callen and Sam. "I get the fake cough, and Kensi gets a 'Good Morning'?"
Callen shrugged. "We like her better."
"Just for that, I call shotgun for the rest of the week."
"Fine," Callen played along. "We'll take my car. Sam — you don't mind the backseat, do you?"
Sam gave them both a menacing stare. "I'm not riding in the backseat of anyone's car. Understand?"
Kensi chuckled softly to herself, shaking her head at the arguing trio.
She missed being out in the field with these guys every day. She missed being able to act annoyed with their bickering while secretly being amused by it.
Most of all, she missed the thrill of chasing down bad guys with her weapon and feeling like a valuable member of her team.
Behind-the-scenes work was the pits. She didn't know how Nell and Eric could stand it, spending all day — every day — sitting in front of a keyboard.
Kensi was itching to shoot something…even if it was just a piece of paper with a target drawn on it.
Finally, she couldn't stand it any longer. She went down to the shooting range in the basement and poked around in the arsenal until she found a weapon paired with a silencer.
A gunshot couldn't disturb the baby if the baby couldn't hear it.
She set up her paper target, loaded her weapon, and took the first shot.
It was quiet, but very satisfying.
Every shell was soon spent, and she reloaded and started on a fresh target.
And that was where Deeks found her almost an hour later.
She regarded him steadily as he sauntered into the room, standing her ground and silently daring him to object.
But he merely selected a gun himself — one with a silencer, just like hers — and took the booth next to her.
No lecture, and no freaking-out. He just smiled at her once, prepared his target and weapon, and took aim.
Kensi smiled to herself, reloading her gun once again.
Target practice with her partner…just like old times.
Deeks couldn't blame her one bit for being down in the shooting gallery. He was surprised she'd actually lasted as long as she did without practicing her skill with a gun.
But that was his Kensi — strong and stubborn. Bending to no one…not even to him.
He knew she'd expected his disapproval at her being in the shooting range while pregnant.
But she'd been clever in going for the silencer, and since the noise of gunshots around the unborn baby was really the only thing that concerned him about her being there…honestly, what did it hurt?
Deeks did wish he had his own Beretta in his hand at the moment, rather than the unfamiliar and somewhat unwieldy silencer pistol he was currently using.
But it was okay because he wasn't there to do real target practice…he was just letting Kensi know that he supported her.
He found several subtle ways to show her that he really was trying not to suffocate or dominate.
One day she'd fallen asleep on the leather couch at OSP with a folder in her hands propped open on her lap.
He slid the folder from her hands, closed it before the contents could spill to the floor, and set it on the nearby table.
He thought about covering her with the blanket lying nearby, but he refrained from doing so.
If she wanted the blanket, she would have gotten it herself. Since she hadn't…obviously, she didn't want it.
He left her uncovered, and Kensi — not really asleep, but just sitting back with her eyes closed — internally smiled to herself.
She knew he really was trying hard not to be overbearingly attentive anymore, and she appreciated his deliberate self-restraint.
She loved him for his wanting to protect her — she just didn't need him to actually protect her.
But she did need him, and she did her best to make sure he knew that.
Don't get her wrong — she was glad that his protective nature existed because it proved to her that he would be there for his children when they needed him too.
Kensi's father had always been her hero. She was sure that her own son or daughter would see a similar hero in their father, Marty Deeks. And she wished that his father hadn't been such a completely wretched opposite of a hero while Deeks had been growing up.
"When's she due?" Callen asked as Deeks returned to his desk.
"About seven more weeks," he responded simply.
"Have you picked out a name yet?" Sam wanted to know.
"Nope. We don't even know yet if it's a boy or a girl. Kensi wants to be surprised." He paused, adding, "She tell you we're getting married?"
"No…that's great," Callen answered, genuinely happy for them. "When?"
He just shrugged. "Don't know yet."
"Hmmph. Don't know much of anything, do you?" Sam retorted.
Deeks grinned ruefully. "Not at this point in life, no."
After work another night, he stopped by her apartment before going home himself.
Kensi reclined on her couch with a pillow jammed behind her back and the TV remote in her hand.
Deeks stood before her with both hands behind his back and a playful look on his face.
"Got something up your sleeve there, partner?" she asked, eyeing him curiously.
"So to speak. Pick a hand."
"Ooh, a game, huh?" she replied. "Okay…left hand."
He drew out a handful of flowers and gave them to her.
She brought them to her nose. "Mmmm, nice."
"Pick another."
Well, unless he had three hands behind his back, there was only one more to choose.
"Right hand."
He revealed a small plate with her favorite kind of donut on it.
She looked at it, almost afraid to accept. "What's the catch?"
"No catch," he answered, knowing exactly why she hesitated. He gave a slight shrug. "Baby steps."
Kensi finally took the sugary gift and bit into it, sighing as the gooey frosting melted on her tongue. "That's so good," she mumbled happily.
She slid her bare feet back on the couch cushion to make room for him to sit. Then she set one foot in his lap and raised the other one slightly in the air.
"Am I supposed to kiss your feet?"
"You can if you want to," Kensi answered around another mouthful of donut. "But I was just hoping for a good foot rub."
He smiled. "A foot rub, I can do."
She'd missed his hands. They really were nice ones. Bigger than hers…strong. And pretty, for being a man's.
A sudden movement in her belly made her gasp, her free hand coming to rest at one spot.
Deeks tensed with her. "Kensi? What's wrong?"
She relaxed, chuckling softly as she met his concerned gaze. "The baby's kicking." She grabbed his hand and held his palm to the spot she'd clutched at. "Here — you feel that?"
He concentrated for a few seconds, and then he felt it too. "Wow," he breathed, a grin appearing. "That's awesome."
Kensi affectionately rubbed her tummy as if to reassure the baby that yes, everything was fine in the world that he or she was soon to come into.
"I think we've got a little surfer in there," Deeks joked. "He's trying to ride the waves already."
"Or she," Kensi answered evenly, finishing off her donut. "It could be a girl."
"Could be one of each in there," he suggested impishly. "I mean, you are getting kind of big."
She had to reach in order to hit his shoulder. "Thank you for reminding me of how fat I am. And you know very well that I am not carrying twins."
He rubbed his shoulder, then went back to massaging her feet. "I still say he's going to inherit your punching fist," he grumbled lightly.