Thank you for all of the reviews- I've just hit 200! WOW! I hope you all enjoy this chapter, and please review as always:)
-Hazel
She didn't know what to think, or what to do, or how to breathe. All she knew was that Deeks had been shot.
Kensi clearly watched as Sam moved towards her partner who was lying on the ground, his gun discarded to the floor beside him. Sam ran to hover over him, and Kensi desperately wanted to close her eyes as she got a full view of Deeks from the button camera.
Still- she couldn't turn away as she saw not one, but two bullet holes that had pierced through his vest. His eyes were still open though, and that was the only thing that kept her from completely collapsing to the ground.
One hand flew to rest on her baby bump, almost instinctively. She could feel her heart rate rise as the panic set in, her mismatched brown eyes laced with terror as she stared at Deeks' face through the non-grainy image on the screen.
The video feed was clear; almost too clear for her own good. Deeks' forehead was furrowed into a crease, beads of perspiration caused by the mounting pain building up around his hairline.
"Callen- our suspect is getting away! Go!" Sam yelled, one arm pointing away towards the front door.
"Ow…" Deeks moaned, eyes fluttering open and closed as he struggled to keep with them.
Kensi felt a deep, gut wrenching pain that seemed to travel up her spine and make her entire body quake and shiver.
"Sam," she whispered, her voice shaking. Those few words were the only ones she could muster. "Talk to me."
"Dammit!" Sam exclaimed as he remained knelt over Deeks, gingerly but still hurriedly ripping off his bulletproof vest. "Nell, Eric- get us an ambulance right now!"
They both turned around and grabbed their phones, leaving a frantic yet helpless Kensi standing in the center of the room.
"Sam! Why isn't he getting up? He was wearing a vest so why the hell isn't he getting up?" The shock and quietness in her voice had faded away in one fleeting moment, panic and fear moving in to take its place.
As the vest was fully removed off of Deeks' chest though, she quickly received an answer to her own question.
"A third shot missed the vest – hit him in the shoulder!" Sam yelled, his tone becoming frantic to match Kensi's as he pulled off his own vest and jacket, pressing the fabric against the bullet hole in an attempt to apply pressure to the wound, immediately causing Deeks to yelp in pain.
One hand shot up to cover her mouth, tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. A haze of dread surrounded her, overriding everything else. She could hardly stand to hear him in pain, to hear him yell, to hear him hurt, as it had a rather similar effect on her as it did on him: it was agonizing.
Her partner, her husband, was lying on the floor of some house, bleeding out, and she couldn't do a single thing about it. Sure he'd been shot in the shoulder, and things could've been far worse, but he'd still been shot. Three times.
"Medics are on their way," Nell said merely as a statement, not speaking to anybody in particular as she spun around to take in Kensi's condition.
Kensi usually wasn't the type of person who allowed her emotions to bubble up towards the surface, but being a pregnant woman whose husband had just been shot changed the situation dramatically.
Silent tears were streaming down her cheeks, outwardly visible to both Nell and Eric- but she didn't even care. All she cared about was Deeks.
Nell hurriedly glanced over to Eric. "Shut it down," she muttered, gesturing to the monitor. They were speaking to Sam over their earpieces, and there was no real need for Kensi to watch her husband continue to writhe in pain.
Kensi stared down at the floor, her head spinning as a million thoughts flashed through her mind, each traveling a mile a minute.
"I, um… I need to go to that house," Kensi said, swallowing hard as her misty eyes finally left the floor and she looked up to meet Nell's gaze. Everyone was so quiet, so stunned- she couldn't help but react the exact same way.
"They'll be gone by the time you get there, Kens," Eric said, chiming in for the first time, his tone melancholy.
"I have to see him."
She said the statement weakly, certain that it would provoke some sort of an answer from Eric and Nell: but there was only silence, so she had to speak again.
"I... I need to go to the hospital then," Kensi added as she discreetly wiped at her eyes, silently willing the tears to go away.
Nell didn't know what she could say or do in that moment that might possibly make her friend feel better, so she just took two steps forward, one hand extended in the air.
"Kens..."
She trailed off as Kensi looked up to meet her gaze, eyes watery with tears. There was nothing more that Nell could say; Kensi already knew how poorly she felt- how sorry she was for not doing something more to prevent this from happening in the first place.
Kensi just nodded frailly at her; a verbal apology or term of remorse was unnecessary.
"What hospital are they taking him to?"
"Pacific Beach Medical," Nell muttered, her voice lowered as to not give away the fact that she was close to waterworks herself.
Kensi nodded feebly, her gaunt figure spinning around in one fluid motion and swiftly walking out the automatic doors. She was still in shock, and had no idea how to react to her newfound situation. There was this strange feeling in her chest, as if it was merely her body that was moving along- like she'd just left her mind up in ops.
It seemed like it should have all been one bad dream, one that she'd be able to wake up from and realize that it wasn't true, and that she'd just imagined it all. Sadly though, that wasn't the case. This was all real, and her partner really had been shot once again.
The fear of loss was creeping back into her psyche, slowly but surely taking over once more. She wasn't allowing it to encapsulate her brain per say- it was just happening. And she had absolutely no control over that side of her emotions. It was as if the entirety of her happiness resided with Deeks, and when he was hurt she could always feel it, deep down inside.
The minute she began walking down the staircase Kensi could already tell that the rest of the office had gotten word of Deeks' three gunshot wounds to the chest. She immediately singled out Hetty in her peripheral vision, who stood up from her desk chair as soon as she saw Kensi descending down towards the lower level.
Kensi really wasn't in the mood to stop and chat, so she rapidly rounded the corner and made her way towards her desk, pretending not to see the alarmed look in Hetty's eyes. All she wanted was some space, a bit of room to breathe before she really went crazy; Kensi already felt like she was teetering on the brink of insanity.
In a matter of five seconds she was out the front door, throwing her backpack over her shoulder and picking up speed as she exited OSP.
She just had to be close to him, even if that meant sitting out in a waiting room for hours on end. No matter what, Kensi wanted to be the first person he saw when he awoke in the hospital.
Kensi drove to the hospital mindlessly, her brain not yet ready to acknowledge the ache that was slowly consuming her entire body, superseding every other thought with it's unadulterated persistence. Life seemed to move in slow motion. Just the mere possibility of losing him was too much to handle, and his absence made everything seem drearier.
More than anything else though, Kensi was just confused. The world around her didn't seem real; everything was fuzzy and unclear through the filter of her damaged intellect. Nothing held any true meaning or appeal, and she couldn't decide which part was worse: the pain she felt from Deeks' absence, or the pain she felt from her own somewhat broken mind.
She was sure Deeks would survive- he had to. Either way, Kensi knew one thing: the feeling she had experienced when his face popped up on that flatscreen had been exceedingly painful. It was the potential of grave loss that forced her to keep driving and not stop though, even as the tears flooded into her eyes at a rapid rate, clouding her already fuzzy vision.
Parking and walking into the hospital- now that part wasn't blurred or diluted whatsoever. From the moment she entered those two front doors, Kensi was a woman on a mission.
She knew exactly where to go, as sadly she had been to that hospital many times before, and for similar reasons. The only difference was that this time around, the stakes were much, much higher than they'd ever been before.
"Excuse me," Kensi asked, her tone sounding almost calm as she approached a woman at the front desk. "My partner- er, my husband was admitted here today."
"Last name?" The woman asked emotionlessly, not bothering to look up from her computer screen.
Her inattentiveness was undoubtedly aggravating Kensi, who was already on edge. "Last name is Deeks. Martin Deeks."
She typed a few letters into her keyboard and hit enter, eyes widening immediately as she read something on her screen.
"Oh... he had the three GSW's to the chest," she said, her tone easily alluding to the fact that Deeks' condition wasn't something they saw on a daily basis.
She turned to face Kensi, eyes immediately dropping down to state at her protruding stomach. "The cop, right?"
Kensi wasn't in the mood for small talk, so her response was short and frank.
"Yeah. LAPD."
"His badge was turned into the front desk, and I can hand it over to you if you'll confirm the number-"
"8523," Kensi said bluntly, cutting her off mid-sentence. She knew it by heart.
"Right."
The woman nodded and handed the badge over to Kensi, pushing it across the counter towards her.
Kensi took it and clutched it tightly to her chest. "Where is he?"
"Second floor, but you'll have to wait out in the hall. It looks like he's still in surgery."
"Surgery?" Kensi asked, her voice immediately rising to a nearly hysterical level.
"One bullet missed the vest."
She shook her head, promptly remembering that she already knew that unfortunate information- she'd witnessed the incident firsthand.
"Oh... Right. Thanks."
Kensi spun around and walked swiftly towards the staircase, avoiding the elevators completely. She needed to keep moving- she couldn't stand still, or Kensi was certain that she'd break down completely.
She had slowly moved past the stage of sadness and grief, easily allowing anger to move in and take it's place when she rounded the corner on the second floor to see Sam and Callen standing in the middle of an otherwise empty hallway.
They saw Kensi and stopped speaking immediately, turning around to face her at a leisurely pace while she just picked up speed.
Sam was the first to acknowledge her presence, a pleading look in his eyes. "Kens, I-"
"Oh, save it!" She exclaimed instantly, raising one finger up to his face. "Do you realize what happened back there? Do you even have the slightest clue as to what you just caused? How much you've put him through today- not to mention how much you've put me through? You made Deeks clear the lower floor by himself, so as far as I'm concerned this one is on you, Sam. I told you repeatedly not to leave him alone, and what did you do? Oh, right! You left him alone. He didn't have a partner- nobody was there to have his back! So he got shot Sam. A bullet is currently being removed from my husband's chest because you guys had to 'move quickly. Was it worth it? Was it really that important to-"
"Kensi!" Callen exclaimed, cutting her off as she continued to ramble.
Sam easily and willingly took the beating; he did deserve it after all. Callen wasn't quite as willing to allow Kensi's blood pressure to spike though, and he just had to interject when he could visibly see a vein throbbing in her forehead.
He lowered his tone when she stopped speaking, calmingly placing one hand on her shoulder. "Are you alright? You should… sit down, or something."
Kensi swallowed hard, suddenly intensely grateful for the fact that nobody else was around to see her antics. She despised the new social attribute that she had acquired as a result of being pregnant: people were always far too concerned for her wellbeing.
She had always been just fine in tough situations, but now everyone was acting as if she was some fragile little girl, like she was going to somehow randomly combust just because her emotions had gotten the best of her.
It was frustrating, and she didn't want to deal with it. Sure, she understood their overly expressed concern- but that didn't mean she wanted to oblige to it.
"I'm fine," Kensi replied, her voice lowered while her tone remained strong and candid. "I'm gonna… take a walk."
Kensi turned around and instinctively began to move briskly, placing one foot in front of the other until she reached the end of the hall. She was just about to put step onto the first stair, but was quickly stopped as she heard an unfamiliar voice calling out to her.
"Mrs. Deeks?"