=)=)=)=)=)=)=)=)=)=)=)=)=)=)=)=)

Marty Deeks has to work out his relationships with his partners. One is the love of his life, but she is no longer available to him. The other has always been there, but can he love her enough?

Disclaimer: The characters and sets of NCIS: LA are all owned by CBS, Donald P. Bellisario, and Shane Brennan. I only own a copy of the DVDs from season 1-6. I do get to play with everyone, but they all have to be home by curfew.

A/N: I have been informed that as long as I post chapters - even at a very irregular schedule - I am not hiatusing - a word that Deeks taught me - therefore, all of my stories will be posted on a very irregular schedule until further notice. I still need to have some medical procedures taken care of. Until they have been completed I have been told to spend limited time on the computer. I have no clue when the whole process may be done, or what I will have to go through to help work things out. Until that time, I will post when I am able. When things have been successfully completed, and I am healed, I will again continue to post new chapters regularly. I am sorry if this disappoints people, but I have to take care of me so I can continue to write.

A/N 2: Thanks, Gina and Sue for being more than betas – reading, suggesting, always improving my life and the work that I post.

Do Not Speak Ill of the Dead

Chapter 21

Kensi's apartment – Torrance, CA || November 1, 2013

God, it was late morning, and Deeks woke up, desperately having to pee. The light was trying to come through his eyelids, but they hurt too much to even think of opening them. His body was slowly coming back to the land of the living. He could feel another body draped all over him. He tried so hard to remember what he had done the night before, but all that came to mind was taking a case of beer into Kensi's apartment. KENSI? Oh, shit. He pried open one of his eyes to see a bedroom that he had been in only once or twice before. Fearing what he knew he would find, he looked over and saw his partner, lying naked, sprawled all over him like a starfish. My god, he thought to himself, what the hell had he done?

Normally, he would have loved to stay there and listen to his partner snort-snore, but now all he wanted to do was figure out some way to get out from under her without waking her up. If she banged him so hard on the shoulder for his innovative comments, what would she do to him when she realized what he must have done? He tried to pull his arm out from under her, but she grabbed it and wouldn't let it go.

"Kensi, I've gotta get up," he said softly to her.

"Nnnh" she answered, and grabbed him with her other hand too.

"You don't understand, Kens. All that beer last night. I have to go and drain my kidney."

'Hnnh?" she asked him, as she wiggled trying to get more comfortable.

"It's morning. Kens. I have to get up and pee and you are laying on top of me." He couldn't tell her that if she continued to wiggle around on top of him, rubbing her naked body all over his naked body, that some other morning urges would quickly replace that one he was talking about. In fact, if that part of his body wouldn't stop growing, he would find it very hard to empty his bladder. He finally pushed her off to the side and hurried off to the bathroom.

Kensi finally opened her eyes to see Deeks' bare buns moving out of the room. She then looked down at her body and realized that she, too, was stark naked.

'DEEKS!" she shouted after him, "What the hell did you do to me?"

She heard the toilet flush and then saw the detective slowly peek his head around the open door frame.

"DEEEEKS..." she screamed, as she pulled the sheet up around her. "Don't look at me like that."

"Ahh, Kens. I think it's a little late for you to be modest," he said, a huge grin lighting up his face. "And as far as your first question, I have no memory of what I did to you, what you did to me, or what we may have done to each other."

He started to come into the room, but she yelled at him, "Stop! You better have something on your body,"

"I'd rather have what I woke up in."

"What's that?"

"You," he said, a huge grin breaking out on his face, knowing that she wouldn't get out of bed to come over and hit him.

A pillow flew through the door opening, but Deeks had already pulled his head back.

He stuck his head back in the doorway and told her, "Hey, Sunshine, I'm gonna go in the kitchen and start making us some breakfast. That will allow you the freedom to use the facilities and get yourself all pretty for me."

Another pillow went flying through the air, but Deeks was laughing as he already started walking toward the kitchen.

Ten minutes later, Kensi had showered and dressed, and came walking into the kitchen, drawn there by the smell of the bacon and eggs that Deeks had been cooking for their breakfast.

"That really smells good, Deeks."

"Better than a donut of the jelly or powder sugar variety?" he asked her with a smirk.

"Just shut up, and finish cooking."

"You wanna help? You can make the toast," he said with a chuckle.

"Just for that, I'm gonna burn yours," she said over her shoulder, as she put the bread in the toaster.

After they had nearly finished eating, Deeks looked across the table at her and tried to get the words out he felt needed to be spoken. He took his glass of orange juice and drank it halfway down, but the words still remained as dry as dust. Finally, he looked up at her, directly in her eyes as he started to speak, "Ah...Kens...about last night. I'm so sorry for what I did. I should have just gone home and drunk myself into oblivion, instead of staying here and raping you."

"WHAT the hell are you talking about?!"

"Kensi, it wasn't love, hell, it wasn't even sex. It was an act of violent control, nothing more. I could try to justify it by saying it was all about the way the operation ended up today. But that was no reason to justify what I did to you." He hid his face behind his upheld hands, not wanting her to see the shame that covered his features.

"What happened to you up in that room? You were so sweet and kind to that one girl that we found who was still alive. Then when she died, it's almost like something snapped inside of you. If we wouldn't have been with you, I would bet that you would have torn each of those kidnappers apart with your bare hands."

He dropped his hands, and Kensi drew in a sharp breath. Never had she seen such a look on the face of her partner. His eyes went from the bright cerulean that normally brought light to his face, and darkened so much, they almost appeared to be a dark midnight blue, the same color of a police officer's uniform seen on a dark night. That alone would put fear in the heart of anyone looking at him, Kensi included. But the muscles of his face also tightened up, giving him a deathly, skeletal look.

"You're right. I would have done it." Deeks said softly, but coldly, his eyes locked directly on his partner. "I cannot tolerate these cowards who hide behind children and use them as shields for their evil activities. Far too often, what we saw today is the outcome. No matter what we do, we can't save them."

"You've encountered this before today. It is personal for you." Kensi declared softly. It wasn't a question, except maybe for him to relate some of the story behind it, and maybe, help him to bring about closure.

Deeks' mind flashed back to the story that Jess had told him, and his vow to her to go after perpetrators like this with every fiber of his being. He changed her story just a shade to make it his own. Since he had loved her so much and had been so close to his then partner, it felt as if it really did happen to him.

"One of my distant relatives, Christina, was only thirteen when she was taken by slave traffickers. My aunt and uncle held out hope for the longest time, but after six months they had received no word about her, they moved away and I lost track of them. Another year went by before they found her body outside of Reynosa, in Mexico, left there by sex traffickers that no longer wanted or needed her. She's the reason I became a cop when my lawyer abilities couldn't give these animals what they really deserve. I made a promise to her family that I would always do everything to bring animals like this real justice."

"My god, Deeks, I had no idea."

"Well, now you know. Every time something like that happens, I feel so helpless, so out of control, that I want, no, I need to do something that shows me I can still be in control. With help from the alcohol, I'm afraid that you were the one on whom I took out my aggressions. It should have never happened. You need to go to the hospital and have them do a rape assessment on you, while I go and turn myself in. I'm sorry that I blew our friendship and partnership, on something so stupid as this. I only ask one favor of you, before I leave."

"And what is that?" Kensi asked, all emotion drained from her words.

"Could you call Hetty, and let her know what happened? I just can't face her. She put her faith in me, and I let her down. I am too ashamed to face her."

"No, Deeks. I won't do that for you."

"Okay, well I guess I better start off by telling her." He pulled out his cell and started to press the button to connect with his boss.

"Put the damn phone away." Kensi said emphatically.

"But..." Deeks tried to say.

"You know, I'm beginning to wonder how good a lawyer you were. You're so-so as a detective. Maybe you just sucked as a lawyer."

"Wh...what?" he asked incredulously.

"In order for you to admit to Hetty or the police that you are a rapist, doesn't it have to mean that a rape actually occurred?"

"Well, yeah. That's what happened last night, I forced you to have sex."

"It might help if you ask the lady who was there with you. THERE WAS NO RAPE."

"But,..."

"God, how dense can you be? I invited you into my bedroom. I led you down the hallway. I was ripping off your clothes. If anyone raped another person in this apartment, it was me who raped you."

"I don't understand, how can you say that?"

"God, Deeks, do you think that you were the only one affected by what happened there with those girls? I wanted to get it out of my mind just as much as you wanted it out of yours. Hetty saw it too when she sent us home, that's why she wanted me to keep an eye on you last night. She was worried about both of us, and figured that each of us could help out the other."

"But I should not have forced you..."

"Deeks. You did not force me. I wanted it to happen last night just as much as you did. I'm not saying that I want it to become a regular thing, at least not at this time. But I am not complaining. I enjoyed what we did. It felt good, and I think we both needed it."

"So, we can still be partners?" he asked in a very quiet voice.

"As long as you want, I will have your back."

"Just not the other parts?" he said with a smirk.

"God, Deeks, does your mind ever come out of the gutter?" Her thoughts belied her words as she was glad to see his eyes lighten up and a small hint of her closest friend reappear.

. . . . .

Kensi was beginning to understand why Hetty had paired her with the detective. She thought back to the last time that Jack was home with her as he battled his PTSD. Even though Deeks had never served in the military, she could see the same signs that she had learned so well to recognize in her partner. This must be one of the urban forms that it took, and the way that the LAPD had kept sending him undercover, most of the time with just a wing and a prayer, must have laid scar on top of scar upon his soul.

This must have been what Hetty was talking about when she when she informed Kensi that, "Mr. Deeks has his own demons to battle when it comes to abducted girls." And the female agent, far better than most people, knew how much of a battle it constantly was. Her life with Jack had taught her that, because she had educated herself as much as she could about the disease. She had vowed to be by her Marine's side as she helped him fight his demons, and she was there, as much as his doctors would allow. But with Jack it was not enough; the demons overwhelmed the both of them, and she lost Jack to them. She made a vow to herself that she would not let that happen with Deeks.

Kensi didn't think that Deeks was on the mood-altering drugs that Jack had been on; he couldn't and still keep his job. Maybe they could stop it before it became too great a problem. She knew that he was seeing a psychologist, someone different than Nate. But she didn't know who it was, or how much previous experience the doctor had with those who had suffered from PTSD. Perhaps she should have a long talk with Hetty, and let her know some of the things she had seen taking place in the life of the detective. But then again, the young woman did not want him pulled from the team and from being her partner. Besides, Hetty was Hetty. She probably knew all about this already.

No. Kensi would let it go and just keep a close eye on her partner, especially if they were to get another case involving young girls. If he seemed to lose it again, then she would tell Hetty what she had seen, just to help the young man.

Both of them would have loved to continue this conversation, but they realized that they needed to get ready to go in to work. Hetty had given them the morning off, but she would not be pleased if they tried to extend that gift into the afternoon. Besides, the sooner they completed their after mission reports on the case, the sooner both of them could put it behind them.

Kensi got her stuff together and the two of them left her apartment. She drove Deeks to his place and dropped him off so he could change his clothes and ride in with her. He needed to check in with Lieutenant Bates and give him a condensed version of the case they had just completed. He also dreaded the possibility of the LAPD needing his services for an undercover operation of their own, without his partner, without any backup, all on his own. Deeks had started to become used to having his partner with him and did not look forward to going undercover without her.

=)=)=)=)=)=)=)=)=)=)=)=)=)=)=)=)