CHAPTER 9

Kensi looked up from her desk when she heard the masculine voices in the entrance. Her teammates were back from their day of hunting down suspects, pursuing justice, saving the world, and all those other tasks she wasn't allowed to do for a while yet. She sighed as they walked closer to the bullpen, knowing there was no way she could hide her current predicament.

"Did someone let a cat into the building?" Deeks asked as he looked at his partner.

"No, I know. You started picking at that little thread on the bottom of your sweater, didn't you? Kensi, you should know better than to pull loose threads. See where it gets you," Callen teased, shaking his head at her. Sam didn't say anything, but looked amused at the situation across from him. Kensi was sitting at her desk with knitting needles in her hands and purple yarn tangled all around her hands, arms, laptop, and across her desk. The ball of yarn had rolled off the edge and trailed down to the floor. A video was playing on her laptop, and words like "cast on," "purl," and "gauge" could be heard in the silence before Kensi offered an explanation.

"I wanted to make something for my daughter, something special just from me. They say knitting can be a form of stress relief. I thought if I can handle vicious criminals, foreign languages and forensics, I should be able to figure out knitting. But it's not nearly as simple as this stupid video lesson says it is. Whoever 'they' are should have these knitting needles shoved up their…"

"Uh, why don't you let me have those?" Deeks offered, sliding them quickly out of her hands. "I think your weapons collection is large enough already."

Kensi reluctantly admitted defeat and Deeks helped her get untangled. Eric sauntered over to the railing upstairs and whistled.

"Sorry to interrupt, but arts and crafts time will have to wait. Hetty wants you guys up here for a debrief of today's case," he announced. Kensi stayed downstairs since she hadn't been involved with this case. She was pretty much all caught up with her reports and paperwork, so she walked around the office for a bit before finding something else to do.

When Callen came back down the stairs after the debrief, he couldn't believe his eyes. He stopped on the bottom step and stared. Sam and Deeks had been talking as they descended, not paying attention to Callen. They nearly knocked him over, not noticing that he had stopped dead in his tracks.

"G, man, what the he…" Sam started to say. Deeks was blabbering about rudeness when his gaze found what Callen was still staring at. The jaws of all three men dropped. Several moments of silence followed before Callen found his voice first.

"What are you doing?"

"Who are you? What did you do with Kensi?" Sam added.

"Really? Here? You know they pay people to do that for us, right?" Deeks commented.

They were watching Kensi, who was going back and forth between the desks, lounge area and coffee area. In one hand was a dust rag and the other hand held a bottle of lemon scented cleaner. Near her stood a vacuum cleaner, already plugged in to an outlet. She was wiping down the counter near the coffee makers when her teammates found her. Deeks squeezed past Callen and over to Kensi.

"You should be off your feet and relaxing Kens. We actually have a cleaning service that takes care of this place. Besides, you don't clean… I mean, I assumed you didn't really know how based on the lovely lived-in feel of our home," Deeks joked. "Ow!" he exclaimed a moment later when her fist met his shoulder.

"Even her desk is neat and clean. There is not a thing out of place," Sam noticed. "That's weird."

"Deeks, is this normal for her? Should we be worried? I mean, if you need to take her to the doctor or something, just go," Callen said looking around at how clean their work area was.

"What? Can't a woman do some light cleaning once in a while? I am all caught up with my paperwork, so I thought I could help out with making our work environment a little neater. Have you guys not noticed what a pig sty we work in?" Kensi asked defending her actions.

"Hey guys!" Nell cheerily greeted the team as she entered the bullpen. "Callen, Hetty said she needs to – whoa! What happened here?" she asked as she noticed the vacuum, rags and lack of mess. "It smells really… lemony down here."

"Kensi happened, which is not usually a name you associate with cleaning supplies," Sam said. "Something's not right."

"While we were upstairs, she vacuumed, straightened up her desk, washed the coffee pots and the counter, and wiped down all the furniture. I think she might have a fever," Callen concluded. Kensi stuck her tongue out at him and made a childish face.

Nell started to understand. "Yep, I recognize this now. My sister was the same way towards the end of her pregnancy. They call it 'nesting' when the mother starts getting everything ready for baby: cleaning, cooking, laundry, you name it. I think normally it happens at one's home, but here is good, too. Great job Kensi!"

"So this is supposed to happen at home as well? That would be awesome," Deeks smiled. "I can't wait for the home edition of 'Extreme Kensi Makeover' to begin." Kensi rolled her eyes and moved to put the vacuum cleaner away.

That night after work…

"Would you sit down for like 3 seconds? Please? You're making me almost feel bad for not helping," Deeks called out to Kensi. She held out a roll of paper towels to him. "I said almost, Fern. Almost."

Since they had gotten home from work, Kensi had been in non-stop motion in the apartment. Windows had gotten washed, dishes loaded in the dishwasher, dirty laundry picked up off the floor and clean laundry put away. She set a laundry basket of clean baby clothes down next to Deeks that needed to be folded. Kensi was about to go mop the kitchen floor when he forced her to sit down, put her feet up and drink some water.

"Deeks, have you ever looked around this place and noticed how messy it really is?" she asked between sips of water.

"When was the first time I ever came over here? Oh yeah, I think I've been noticing that for about three years now," he answered her with his trademark grin, the one that reached all the way up to his sparkling blue eyes. The same blue eyes that didn't see the throw pillow hurdling across the room at him until it was too late. Kensi grinned back at him before getting up.

"Those floors won't mop themselves. Oh, tomorrow we need to go to the grocery store. There is so much junk food around here; we need some more fruits and veggies. I also want you to teach me how to cook," she said as she pointed her finger at Deeks, who was still lying on the couch.

"I can teach you how to cook, but I think we better add one more thing to the list for tomorrow then: call our agent and increase our renters' insurance policy," Deeks dead-panned. "You really want to learn how to cook? Like real food? Healthy food?"

"You've been working a lot of hours lately, and I will be home for a few weeks once the baby is born. I need to be able to make something edible for us, especially since you took wildebeest off the menu," Kensi smirked.

"Touché!" Deeks called after her. He wondered if this nesting thing was a permanent change or just temporary. He kind of liked it.


About a week later the nesting instinct had died down, much to Deeks' dismay. Kensi was too tired to do much of anything, and dishes and laundry piled up again. It was getting harder for her to move around. Back aches and joint aches were becoming her new normal, and every day she repeated how happy she was that the end was near. Many days she wanted to just stay in bed and wait for labor to start, even though she had three weeks until her due date.

"Rise and shine, Fern. Time to get up and get ready for work," Deeks said, way too happily in Kensi's opinion. She frowned and tried to ignore him.

"Kensalina, you know you want to get up. There's a thrilling day of desk work ahead of you. Nothing better than stacks of reports to be completed and filed. Ooh, if you're lucky maybe you'll get a cold case to research," he teased her.

"Go away. I'm still tired and you're too happy," she mumbled.

"Well, I'm making buttermilk pancakes from scratch for breakfast, and you can top them with anything you want if you get out of bed."

"You play dirty, detective." She was lying on her back, and tried to roll over on her side to get up. She couldn't. She tried again, pushing herself up with one arm. Still no luck. She lifted one shoulder and then the other in an attempt to rock her body to gain momentum and flip her to her side. Nothing was working.

"Deeks? Um, I need some help. I'm kind of, uh, stuck." Kensi couldn't believe she had just uttered those words. The end was definitely near, in more ways than one.

"What was that?" he asked smiling. It was very rare that Ms. Kensi Blye asked for help, especially from him.

"You heard me. A hand, please?" she asked, holding out her hand. He started to applaud. She gave him a very disgusted look.

"Oh, sorry. Not what you were looking for? What was it again that you needed?" he asked innocently.

She sighed. He was definitely taking pleasure in her misery. He would pay for that – as soon as she could get out of bed. "I can't get up out of bed by myself. It's the mattress; it's too soft and I sank in. Can you please come help me?"

Deeks started laughing. It started as just a quick chuckle but turned into a hearty, belly shaking laugh, complete with tears in his eyes.

"You better shut it Shaggy. It's not funny." Kensi turned her head to the side and glared at him. It had no effect on Deeks.

He wiped the tears away and caught his breath. "I'm sorry, darling, but it is. It really is." He reached out and helped pull her up to a sitting position on the edge of the bed. And then he ran.


One more chapter to go - the birth!