Never Going Back Again: Chapter Twenty-one
"There: that's the last suture removed. The wound's healing very nicely, Detective Deeks. Want to take a look?"
Deeks was notoriously squeamish about stitches and had resolutely refused to even glance at any wound until every last suture had been safely removed. It was not logical, but something about seeing his flesh pierced by a foreign object, and knowing that the thread was literally holding his skin together just turned his stomach. Luckily, Kensi was made of sterner stuff and had no such phobias, so she had taken care of changing the dressings every day.
"It looks good, Marty," she said after a careful inspection. "It'll hardly leave a trace, once it's fully healed." At the moment, the scar was a slender line of red edging through his tanned skin, but she could see that it would fade over time. She ran her fingers down his thigh, smiling as she noticed how they'd shaved the hair around the wound and that now it was growing back in, short and stubbly.
Marty decided it was safe to risk a look. He hopped off the bed and craned his neck around to inspect the damage. "Not very impressive, is it?" A long, almost perfectly straight incision, that started just below his butt and then curving around his thigh.
"That took twenty five external stitches to close," the nurse informed him tartly. "And a couple of dozen internal, dissolving sutures into the bargain. Mr Davies took a great deal of care with that wound, you know. It's a fine piece of surgery." She sounded personally offended.
"I was kind of hoping it would look more like a shark bite," he confessed. "That would have been cool." I could have really impressed everyone back home with that.
"You're not likely to come across many sharks in the Firth of Forth, son," he was informed briskly. "You might come across the odd haddock, but they've not got very big mouths. And no teeth. So you'll have to keep your tall tales to yourself. And you can put your trousers back on now."
Kensi felt like apologising, but the nurse gave the distinct impression she would not be very receptive to anything less than wholesale grovelling. Obviously she'd been absent the day they discussed the merits of a sympathetic bedside manner. In the end, she settled for just saying "He's done a beautiful job" and took the leaflet on after-care the nurse handed her. Skimming quickly through it, she saw that regular massage with oil was recommended to minimise the chances of scarring. Well, that wouldn't exactly be a hardship. Maybe after that bath Marty kept harping on about? Come to think about it, it might even give her a chance to model the certain something she had kept carefully hidden at the back of wardrobe in a smart carrier bag, swathed in reams of tissue-paper – even if he didn't exactly deserve such a treat, after that shark remark.
"We're making a detour," she announced on the drive back. By now, Kensi was getting the hang not only of driving on the wrong side of the road, but also of the road layout of the city, which was eccentric in the extreme.
"Why?" Marty asked, instantly suspicious of the light tone of her voice.
"It's a surprise."
"A good surprise or a bad surprise?"
"A bad surprise is commonly called a shock, Marty. Surprises are good by definition."
"Not always," he muttered darkly. "Falling through that staircase was a surprise. So was getting blown up on the freeway, not to mention… "
"Don't go through all the times you've been wounded, or I'll be grey-haired be the time we get there," she begged. "This is a good surprise, okay? You'll love it."
"We'll see." He slumped down in the seat and folded his arms. That nurse had been an unsympathetic old bag.
By some miracle, Kensi not only found a parking spot in Chambers Street, but discovered there were still ten minutes left on the meter. "This way." She grabbed hold of his arm and propelled him forward at a great rate of knots. "There. Isn't that great?"
Marty stood and surveyed the statue with a dopey grin of pure pleasure on his face. "Oh wow. Kensi, this is incredible. It's exactly like Bobby!" he exclaimed happily and reached out to caress the little dog sitting on top of a pillar. "It's Bobby to the life."
"I told you it was a nice surprise. Isn't he cute?"
"That's Greyfriar's Bobby," a lady with informed him. "A wee dog who loved his master so much, he stayed faithfully by his grave for years after the old man died. You can see the grave in the Greyfriar's kirk-yard just over there. Everybody in Edinburgh loves Bobby."
"Really? That's a true story?" Vaguely, Marty could remember watching a Disney film about a little dog when he was very small, and crying so much that he'd crawled into his Dad's lap and peeked out from the safety of his arms. He'd forgotten all about that until now – unless it had stayed in his subconscious all these years? He pulled out his cell phone. "Could you take a photo of us? You see, your Greyfriar's Bobby looks just like my dog in LA. He's called Bobby too." He pulled Kensi into a kiss and the woman indulgently took a series of photographs.
"Are you on your honeymoon?" the woman asked as she handed the phone back.
"Not yet," Marty said, as he draped his arm around Kensi's shoulders. "But we soon will be."
That was the clincher, as far as Kensi was concerned: the corset was definitely going to get its first outing and sooner rather than later.
The sound of the gunshot reverberated loudly in the cool night air. While the industrial hinterlands of LA appeared deserted at this time of night, there was a real risk someone would be on the phone, calling to report a disturbance. In the back of the car, Leon Vance lay sprawled across the seat, a large damp patch seeping slowly across the groin of his pants. His driver let out a whimper of terror and tugged ineffectually against the handcuffs that tethered him to the steering wheel and then looked fearfully at the three people who stood impassively just yards away. Clearly, they were even less bothered by rules and regulations than his late boss. He bowed his head and let it rest against his hands, wondering how long it would be before they shot him too. There was no way they would leave any witnesses to this shooting
DiNozzo took a cursory look inside the car. "Leon's peed himself," he announced scornfully. "Use a silencer next time, boss."
"Disturbs the aim," Gibbs responded laconically.
"Yeah, like you could miss at that range." Having realised what he'd just said, DiNozzo frantically tried to make amends. "Like you could miss at any range, I mean."
Hetty was otherwise occupied, trying frantically to get hold of her agent. "Mr Hannah's not answering his cell. Of course, he might just have forgotten to switch it back on after the flight." She knew that was not even a remote possibility – Sam was too professional to do such a thing. God alone knew what had happened to him. "Jethro – I'm worried."
Jethro Gibbs was not a man who let his emotions play out across his face, but even he could not prevent a look of concern when Hetty said that. In all their long years of acquaintance, he'd never heard he admit to being worried. Hetty was one of life's copers, someone who simply got on with whatever situation presented itself, without complaining. He nodded across at DiNozzo, who reached into the car and dragged Leon's limp body out and dumped it unceremoniously on the ground.
"Let's see what you can tell us, Leon." Kneeling down and silently bemoaning the damage the dirt would do to the knees of his suit, DiNozzo reached inside Leon's jacket. Inside the car, the driver cringed as Gibbs approached him, with a blank, totally unreadable expression on his face.
Yes - coming soon, by popular demand, the long-awaited corset scene!