Double Take
Disclaimer: NCISLA characters belong to Shane Brennan. All original characters and this story are mine.
Chapter 28
Los Angeles — one month on
Detective Marty Deeks walked into the mission and wondered where everyone was. Even Hetty's desk was vacant. He placed his bag on his desk and noticed Sam and Kensi weren't in. He walked up the stairs thinking if anyone was around, Eric and Nell would be in. It had been six weeks since he had seen their Technical Operator and Intelligence Analyst.
"Hey Deeks, good to see you." Eric greeted him as he walked through the sliding doors.
"Hey Eric, me man. Good to be back. How are you? Anything interesting happen while we were away?"
Eric shook his head. He knew something very interesting had happened while Deeks had been overseas, but it wasn't his news to tell. He really didn't want Kensi angry at him for telling Deeks either. It had to come from her.
"You're hiding something from me, Eric."
Eric responded with a blank face.
"Ok, if you're going to play it like that, perhaps then you can tell me where Kensi is?"
"She's out," was all Eric would tell him.
"Out where?" He wasn't going to give in that quickly. "Look, it may be three in the afternoon, but I've just been cleared to return for work from the doc, so I thought I would come in, but if you're not going to tell me..."
"Welcome back, Mr Deeks," Hetty said as she walked into Ops. "I hear you've been cleared for duty."
"Hi Hetty. Yes I have. I was just wondering where Kensi was." Then he noticed Nell was also missing. "Where's Nell? This place is like a ghost town."
"I agree with you, Mr Deeks, the place has been fairly quiet in your absence." She smiled at the Detective. "Miss Jones is visiting her family in Ohio until George is released from the hospital in D.C." Callen and Jackson had been transferred a week earlier to D.C., where they could be closer to home. Their injuries had been so bad, even Callen had to admit he needed to stay in hospital after a month since their rescue. "Here is the address where you will find your partner. Sam is spending time with his family after being away for so long."
Deeks took the piece of paper from their Operations Manager and raised his eyebrows as he was puzzled by the address written on it. "A swimming pool?"
"Yes, Mr Deeks. If you hurry, you will catch her there." Deeks quickly turned and left the Ops Centre, grabbing his keys on his way out the door.
Thirty minutes later he pulled in next to Kensi's SUV. He walked into the complex and found his partner sitting up in one of the stands watching some children swim up and down the fifty metre pool. As he approached Kensi, she spotted him. A large smile appeared on her face.
"Deeks, your home." She stood and hugged him. It feels so good to hold him again, she thought to herself. She stood back and studied him. She had heard how he had been shot in the arm but she still looked for any evidence of any other injuries.
"I'm fine, Fern. You can stop worrying about me," he replied. "It's so good to see you again." He smiled at her, as he watched the tension leave her face and body. "I've been been cleared for duty again."
"Good."
She seemed distracted, he followed her eyes to where her attention had been taken from him to. He saw a young girl wave to her and noticed Kensi returned the wave. The girl ran over to them shivering as she was wet from swimming.
"Hi Kensi, Mom said you were picking me up today." Piper turned and looked at Deeks. "Hi, you must be Marty. Kensi talks about you all the time. She's missed you. I'm Piper."
"Hi Piper, pleased to meet you. Kensi's not mentioned you to me, I'm sorry." He felt awkward that this girl knew all about him, but he had no idea who she was. He was surprised that Kensi was there with this girl because Kensi had always shied away from children, telling him she was useless with them.
"That's because you've been away," Piper replied.
Deeks was surprised at her response.
"You look like Jack, although his hair is dark, and his eyes are green, like mine." She smiled. Kensi remained quiet as Piper spoke to Deeks.
"Who's Jack?" Deeks was confused.
"My real Dad," Piper replied. She smiled at Kensi. "I need to get changed. I'll be right back. Are we going for ice-cream?"
"Yes, we are." Kensi answered her with a smile.
"Is Marty coming too?" She wanted to see more of her real mom's partner.
"If he wants to." Both of them looked at Deeks.
"Sure, I'd love to," Deeks answered them. He wanted to get to the bottom of who Piper was.
"Great!"
He watched Piper grab her bag from the seat in front of Kensi and run off to the change rooms.
"She's a sweet girl. Who is she?" He turned and watched Kensi's reaction. He noticed she was uncomfortable. "Kensi?"
"Piper is my daughter, Marty." she told him.
Marty had shock written all over his face. "Whoa! You have a daughter? An eight year old, I'm guessing?"
Kensi nodded. "She turned eight last week."
Then it hit him. Piper had told him Jack was her real dad, and Deeks knew Kensi had been engaged to a Jack. "You had a child with Jack!" It was more of a statement than a question.
"Yes." Tears welled up in Kensi's eyes. He was hurt she hadn't told him about having a kid. "I'm so sorry, Marty, that I never told you. I never got to tell Jack either, until the other week when he showed up during a case we had while you were away."
"He what? Jack is back?" Deeks' heart pounded heavily in his chest at hearing that Kensi's former fiancé had returned, while he was away. He was having a load of bad luck in trying to have more than this partnership with Kensi.
"Charlie and Granger had him in the boat shed and were interrogating him about a dead marine. He was innocent, and demanded to see me, when he realised they knew who I was. He's better now, Marty. He got the help he needed. I saw him right after I met Piper and her parents."
"Hang on, I'm missing something here." Deeks was confused by what she had just told him.
"Jack left me on Christmas Day, eight and a half years ago. I was going to surprise him with the news I was pregnant. I never got to tell him. Hetty found a good family to adopt her. I never saw Piper again after she was born till the other week. She met Jack soon after." Both were silent for a few minutes. "You remind me a lot of Jack, I realised it when I saw him again. It's why I kept you at arms length. I'm sorry, Marty. You didn't deserve for me to treat you that way. I was afraid you'd leave me like he did." Tears welled up in Kensi's eyes and fell down her cheeks.
Deeks didn't know what to say or do. He was in shock.
Kensi wiped her tears from off her face. "I told Jack about you, Marty. He knows we can't go back to where we were. I know he was sick, but he has realised he's hurt me too much."
Relief washed over Deeks body as she said her last words. He had worried she had taken him back. But now she was telling him she couldn't. He cupped her face with his hands and kissed her like there was no tomorrow. It was what went through his mind the whole time they were apart. He knew she was hurt from Kevin, but he needed to show her that he would never treat her like Kevin had. He was surprised when she responded to his kiss and kissed him back. They were so focused on each other, they didn't realise Piper had returned, until they heard her giggles. They quickly parted and looked embarrassed to be caught out kissing in front of her.
"Sorry, Piper," Kensi began. But Piper continued to giggle. "Let's get some ice-cream."
Now that Piper had changed out of her swimming gear Deeks could see she was a mini Kensi, but with green eyes. Jack's eyes. "Now I see the likeness."
Both girls turned and smiled at Deeks.
Piper grabbed Kensi's hand and led them out to her car.
"I'll follow in my car," Deeks told them.
"Okay," Kensi replied. Piper chatted all the way to the ice-cream parlour, which kept Kensi distracted from what had just happened between her and Deeks.
When they pulled into the car park of the ice-cream parlour, Piper quickly jumped out of the SUV, she was so excited. She grabbed Kensi's hand and then Marty's, dragging them inside. She scanned the flavours of ice-cream and spied the chocolates she was going to have wrapped in her ice-cream. She always preferred chocolate ice-cream in a cup as she wasn't fussed too fussed over the cone. She eventually chose malteasers to go inside her ice-cream. She waited patiently for Kensi and Marty to choose their ice-cream as well.
Deeks gave Kensi a look of surprise when he saw her choice in ice-cream: triple chocolate cookie dough and mango sorbet with peanut butter cups inside her ice-cream. Deeks thought the mango sorbet with her cookie dough and peanut butter cups was an odd combination.
"What!" Kensi asked him. She had loved this combination when she was pregnant with Piper.
"Nothing, Fern, nothing at all." He smiled as he knew it was because she was pregnant.
Piper looked at Deeks oddly. "Why do you call Kensi, Fern, Marty?"
Deeks smiled at Piper. "It's my pet name for her. She pretends she hates me calling her that, but I think she likes it really. What do you think?"
Piper pondered Marty's question by studying her mom's face. "I agree."
"Hey!" Kensi felt she was being ganged up on. "You're supposed to be on my side, remember?"
"I am," Piper replied with a very chocolate grin on her face.
Kensi threw over a napkin for her to wipe the dripping chocolate off her chin.
"Thanks." Piper appreciated Kensi helping her out.
The three of them wandered off down the boardwalk after they had eaten their ice-creams and enjoyed all the people watching, as they approached the beach.
"Man, I've missed the beach," Deeks told them. He hadn't been surfing in some time. Actually not since his holiday, and he was having withdrawals. "Now if I knew I would end up here with your two lovely ladies this afternoon, I would have brought my board with me."
"You surf?" Piper asked excitedly. She had been pestering her dad to take her for some time. "Can you teach me how to surf please, Marty? My dad hasn't had the time to take me yet."
"How about I ask them if it's alright first?" Kensi asked her.
Piper nodded her head. "Yes, please."
Deeks was honoured that Piper wanted him to teach her. "If it's okay, maybe one day over the weekend, if I'm not working?"
"Awesome. This is going to be so cool."
Both Kensi and Deeks laughed at Piper's enthusiasm to learn to surf.
Kensi's Apartment
Deeks had arranged with Kensi to meet up with her for dinner after she had dropped Piper home. After being away for six weeks, they both had missed each other more than they thought they would. Marty had arranged to pick Kensi up and take her out for a real date. He suggested she dressed up a little, and booked a table in the corner of a tiny restaurant near the beach he liked. It had restaurant character and the food melted in your mouth.
It was almost six when Marty pulled up outside Kensi's apartment. He knocked on the door and when she opened it, he presented her with bright yellow and orange gerberas.
Kensi was surprised by the flowers, as Deeks had never given her any before. "They're beautiful, Marty. Thanks." She took them from him and noticed him smile a smile that reached his eyes.
"Just like you, Fern. Sunshine and gunpowder." She laughed and led him in through to the kitchen where she found a vase and filled it up with tempered water. She deliberately chose a different vase to the ones Kevin's roses had been placed in seven weeks earlier. As she reached for the vase, Marty noticed a small bump. He smiled, knowing she was going to be even more beautiful as she got bigger. He looked forward to looking after her during the pregnancy. He wanted to show her how much she means to him, to show her how safe and well looked after she will be with him. He had spent a third of his life watching his mother being abused by his father, whose alcoholic violence extended towards him, when he wasn't satisfied with only hitting his mother. He learned from an early age that was not the way to treat a woman or a child. It was the reason he had become a lawyer and then later on a Detective. He wanted, no he needed to do good in the world, to make it a better place. Which is why he found what Kevin had done to Kensi when they barged into the house down in Dallas, so damn heartbreaking. It nearly killed him. What had kept him going was her. He had missed the smell of her and her smile. He was pleased to see her smile had returned, and he believed it had someone to do with Piper and seeing Jack again. She seemed content, something he had never really seen with Kensi before.
"Marty?" Kensi interrupted his thoughts. "Are you good to go?"
He refocused again on her. "Yes. Almost."
Kensi raised her brow in question.
He smiled again and drew her closer to him. He gently brushed his hand over her jaw and cupped her face in his hands. She stood still and watched him as he leaned in to kiss her. It was more gentle this time, soft and warm. She parted her lips to let him in, and he deepened the kiss. His hand moved down her arms to her belly and brushed over it gently feeling the bump he had seen moments earlier.
Kensi pulled away.
"I'm sorry Kensi if I've gone too far. I didn't mean to..."
"It's okay, Deeks. I just need some more time, that's all. I'm starting to get used to being pregnant, but under the circumstances I feel like..."
Deeks watched her as she stumbled over her words. He understood where she was trying to go with her words. The baby was not his, she felt uncomfortable with him touching her there, as if it was his. He wanted to pretend it was. He wanted to play happy families with her and to her baby. Although it enraged him just thinking about Kevin, but he was willing to try for Kensi. He so badly wished the baby was theirs.
"Kensi, I want you to trust me with you and your baby. I want to make you feel good about your body again, and about who you are as a person." She saw how serious he was.
"I know, Marty, you are a good man. It's just I can 't love this baby like it deserves. Every time I see it I will think of..." She couldn't say his name.
Deeks stood back from her. "What are you saying, Kensi?" It killed him to see her in so much pain.
"Hetty suggested the Wilkins adopt this baby. They've done a fantastic job with Piper..."
"Stop, please." He needed to get his head around what she was saying. "You're going to give your baby to Piper's parents?"
Kensi nodded. "I need you to support me on this, please, Marty. I can't have 'his' baby. They will love this baby like it was their very own. They don't know any details other than the father was killed. That's what Hetty told them, so we've kept that story in place. The baby will be safe with them. If 'he' ever comes back, which I'm sure he will one day, I need to know he cannot find the baby. I never told him about Piper, they will all be safe with he Wilkins. It will be a closed adoption, no one else will know.
He mulled over her words. It made perfect sense, but it meant his dream of playing happy families with Kensi would never happen. His shoulders sank and she noticed.
"Marty, look at me please."
He saw tears glisten in her eyes.
"I trust you whole heartedly. One day we can have a family of our own. Children who will have bits of you and bits of me muddle up together. Not like this, okay?"
Deeks nodded. He pulled her in closer and held her tight. He realised her trauma from Kevin wouldn't be over until after she recovered from this pregnancy, if ever. He agreed to support her and be there for her. He felt better that she still wanted to have a family with him though. "Okay."
She smiled at him and kissed him gently on the lips. "You're my best friend Marty," she whispered.
He held her once more before picking her up and carried her out to the car. She laughed because she felt ridiculous, but it was what they both needed. And she could always count on Marty to brighten up her life. "You're my sunshine, Fern. And my best friend too." She had become his best friend ever since he had to say goodbye to Ray, when he went into witness protection.
