A.N.: apologize dearly for the long wait. It really wasn't my intention to let you wait this long. I hope you are still interested in this.

Enjoy! And sorry once again.

Disclaimer: i don't own ncis:la and its characters.


Sam and Callen drove onto the grounds of the mission and saw Deeks leave the building and quickly get into his car. But although he'd gotten into the car, he hadn't drove off yet, confusing them both. Why the hell wasn't he driving away? Theylooked at each other and confirmed that they were thinking the same; getting out of the challenger they slowly made their way over to Deeks' car. Just as they were about twenty feet away his car came to life and he drove off. They concluded that either he'd noticed them or whatever had got him stuck for that while was overcome now. Once his car was out of sight they shrugged off the detectives' behavior and strolled into the mission, heading to their desk. In the bullpen there was no trace of Kensi or Hannah, though their two boy were playing with Nate.

"Hey Nate… have you seen Hannah or Kensi?" Callen asked.

"As far as I know Hetty asked for Hannah and Kensi headed up to Eric and Nell around 2pm, right after Deeks arrived."

"Anything else?" Sam asked, sensing there was more than just what the psych just told them.

"Well Nell came down and asked if Deeks had already left, but he hadn't because he went off with Kensi for a while." Nate shrugged. "After some time he came down and left, Kensi hasn't returned yet," he told the two, who glanced at each other before heading up to OPS.

"Sam, Callen, what can we do for you?" Nell smiled at them.

"Kensi?" Callen asked and Nells face fell a little.

"She talked to Deeks."

"We already know that."

"Well I kind of hoped that they would fix things, you know? Maybe not being friends right away, but that they accept each other and don't want to rip each others' heads off. I don't know what happened, but Hetty asked me to burn some files and as I walked out Deeks burst out of one of the old offices and I heard Kensi saying that they still need to talk. So I assume that it went-"

"Hi Kensi," Eric interrupted loudly and the other three whipped around suddenly. Nell glanced at the woman and noticed the change immediately; she had been crying. No matter how hard she had tried to hide that fact, and she had, Nell was another woman after all and they just knew those things.

"You okay?" she asked her softly.

"I'm fine," Kensi answered. "Can I talk to you later for a sec?"

"Always," Nell replied, Kensi needed a friend so therefore she would be there for here.

"Alright. So guys, you got anything?" Kensi cleared her throat, changing the topic not so subtly.

"Oh yeah, the possible guys Mount and Deeks named all have alibis, but there seems to be something suspicious. At least 2 of the 5 named have a not so bulletproof alibi; the others check out okay and can be checked by Eric over traffic and security cams. Seeing as two of them were in the mall and the other one was at a truck stop. Our suspect list right now exists of Carl Jensens and Pete Berol. Their alibis are both just another one of their own gang members," Callen said.

"What's suspicious about Jensens is that his so called alibi has a family, and speaking as a father myself I would rather spend my Friday nights with my family and not someone from my gang. We'll check Jensens out later today and check out Berol's tomorrow. First we need you two to run a background checks on both of them," Sam directed his request to Eric and Nell.

"You okay Kens?" Callen asked.

"Of course, why wouldn't I?" she asked, not waiting for their answer and heading back down to the bullpen. She needed to be close to Josh right now, she didn't know why but it had become an instinct for her. She remembered when her mom and her had had a fight, it was nothing major but she was so caught up in her feelings that she didn't know what to do. So she spent the whole night in Josh's room, just being close to him and watching him sleep had calmed her down. That was the secret behind getting Kensi calm. So here she found herself sitting on the couch, watching Josh and Ethan play. Her son being one mischievous little guy, pushing Ethan's block tower so all the blocks tumbled down, before he laughed loudly at his doing. Kensi was about to tell Josh that it was wrong to do so, when she saw Ethan laugh too and high-five her son.

"Joshua is one joker." She turned around and saw Nate standing there.

"Are you doing a profile of my son?" Kensi asked skeptically, eyebrow raised.

"I can't help it, I do it for a living. But I'm just building a good one of course." He gave her a smile.

"Of course," Kensi mocked.

"No seriously. It's nice to finally see something so innocent and carefree," Nate said, while he came over and sat beside her on the couch.

"Innocent? Haven't you seen the little devil?" Kensi laughed to herself. "He's anything but innocent. He's my little trouble maker. I don't know how often Miss Kelly has called, telling me once again that he did something he shouldn't have. And then of course that cute little pout gets him out of everything," she sighed.

"Oh, that's how it works. I need to try that one with Hetty," Nate joked and Kensi couldn't help the spluttering laugh that escaped her.

"Oh I want to see that one. Maybe have Eric and Nell can record it so we can re-watch it in slow motion," she teased.

"You're just jealous because I could get through with it."

"You couldn't," she just smirked.

"Alright, I couldn't. But I knew someone who could," Nate suggested.

"I'm all ears."

"Josh."

"That's nothing new. He and Ethan managed to get Hetty to leave just to go to a donut store and get them something sweet," Kensi smiled. Josh had definitely gotten her love for sweet things, especially donuts.

"Now I definitely know that he is your son." Nate laughed and got swatted in the arm by Kensi. But she froze just after she hit him. This was wrong. It wasn't Nate she should be joking with. It wasn't Nate she should hit because of stupid and teasing jokes. It shouldn't be Nate she was talking to about her son. It should be Deeks. She should be joking with Deeks. She should be hitting Deeks for stupid and teasing jokes. She should tell Deeks about her son.

But Deeks wasn't here. And she doubted he would want to do all this. Even if he said he was over it, Kensi still felt guilty.

"Nate?" she whispered, looking up to him.

"What is it, Kensi?"

"Deeks was going to marry me," she breathed out, and saying it out aloud made it real. She had thrown away something that meant so much to her.

"I know," Nate answered, and that shocked her the most.

"WHAT?!"


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