"What happened?"
"Were you not paying attention on the op? Liam made a dumbass move that almost got me killed, Callen!"
"Are you sure that it wasn't you who made the mistake? I heard on the coms that she made a quick decision and you were slow to react."
"You're serious? You are actually blaming me for a mistake someone you don't even know made?"
When Tara Liam saunters into Deeks' hospital room, Callen looks up from his reflection on the anti-tank/ anti-air weapons case and feels incredibly pissed with himself than Liam.
Liam carelessly drops a stuffed duffel bag onto the over-bed table near the door and scoffs at the scowl on Callen's face. Sam shakes his head at the agent's arrogance with Deeks lying unconscious in a bed merely inches away. There's also the very large fact that Liam hasn't acknowledged or possibly even noticed Kensi sitting in vigilance by her partner's bed side across from Callen and Sam.
"So this idiot passes out in the middle of OPS and Hetty shuts down the entire center. All for a cop," Liam says. She cocks her head slightly to the right and Callen takes it as a challenge. Callen stands up and crosses his arms at Liam who is in the middle of a rant, "I can't believe that the OPS center didn't nearly burn to the ground years ago with this rag-tag team of idiots running the place."
"No one is keeping you here," Callen growls. Sam holds up a finger and then places his hand down. He'd rather Kensi take her anger out on Liam, but if Callen curses her out first, he'd be ok with it. " Thank you for the supplies we asked for. You can go."
"Uhm, please. Police officer dopey over there," Liam takes a few lazy steps towards the bed and places a hand on the rail while keeping a gaze on Callen and Sam, " will be done for soon and I'm pretty sure his partner will come back, dump his ass and then move on and then-"
"Is this her?" Kensi rises from her chair and takes in the sight of Liam. The lanky, arrogant agent is a poor replica of herself, a replica that she can't believe that her teammates let walk around Deeks for weeks. Five weeks of looking at a 'twin' of her- no wonder Deeks is barely alive and emotionally scarred.
Liam laughs and stares Kensi up and down. She steps around the edge of the bed and barks, "Sweetie, here's some advice, get yourself a new partner who isn't some dumbass wuss-"
Just as Callen and Sam had expected, Kensi reacts quickly and violently- she grabs Liam's wrist and twists it hard enough to twist her arm as well. Kensi follows up with a kick to the back of the knees and Liam's head snaps back, causing her to yelp out in pain.
With Liam hissing as Kensi pulls her head back, the NCIS agent whispers in Liam's ear, " When I am finished talking, you will without a word walk out of the room, pack up everything you've brought to Los Angeles and leave. You will never speak of coming here and you will never-never- saying Marty Deeks' name ever again. He is one of the best, bravest man out in the world. He has danced with devil in ways that most people like yourself would die under. You are done. Now go."
"You heard the woman," Sam says. Kensi releases Liam's hand and watches the lanky woman crawl and limp her way back to the door, and disappear into the hallway. The brunette agent takes in a deep breath and then gives Callen and Sam a hard glare.
"You did nothing to stop her, did you?" Kensi states. After Callen looks to the floor and Sam grimaces, Kensi shakes her head and returns to her seat. She looks up to Deeks and brushes away a strand of Deeks' blonde hair from over his forehead. Without the sedatives in Deeks' system, his purely pained expression has become a twisted mix of fear and pain with every passing minute. "Please give me some time alone with Deeks."
"Of course," Callen replies. He rises and walks with Sam towards the door. Both men hesitate and then exit the room without a word. There's nothing more than can be said .
"By the looks of it, Mr. Deeks should be awake within the hour."
The minute Kensi hears Hetty's voice from the doorway, her blood begins to boils. She had been laying her head against the arm rail of the bed and watching her partner for the second his eyes begin to flutter- waiting so patiently and impatiently at the same time for her partner to come back to her when Hetty had strolled into the room as if she hadn't had disappeared for the last three days.
"What are you doing here?" Kensi growls without bothering to look at Hetty. If she looks, she'll be just as pissed or more than she was with Liam an hour earlier.
"I came to see two people I care very much about-"
"Care?! Are you freaking kidding me? Caring is for people who you don't send off to Afghanistan off all places to kill a man who once tortured Deeks. Caring is not running around town without letting anyone know where you're off to!" Kensi stands up and cries out, "Caring is not forcing Deeks to work with some bitch and caring is not tearing away the one thing he has in this world without an inch of guilt!"
Hetty slowly nods and breathes in deeply. "I was out looking for a woman named Ruthya Luther, who I will update you and Mr. Callen and Mr. Hanna when you are finished. There's hell brewing in Afghanistan and I think you need this moment before you dive back into this." As Hetty is known for, the woman turns on her heels and walks back through the open door rather quickly.
Kensi shakes her head and mutters breathlessly, "Finished? What does she mean-"
The sudden sound of a whimper behind her takes a breath away. When she turns around and sees the two blue eyes that she's been dying to see for nearly two months, everything makes sense.
Deeks is awake.