AN: Just to quickly address a guest review question. Kensi and Deeks (having been married nearly 8 years) have talked about kids. That will come up in flashbacks and will be discussed in 'current time' probably later this season, and definitely next season.
Episode 2.03 - Borderline
Kensi bit back a smirk at her equally adorable and clueless boyfriend. He was very much out of his element, but hadn't complained (much) since they arrived at the camp grounds.
He'd been desperately confused by the poles, stakes and canvas that came out of the tent packaging, but with little explanation as to the purpose of each piece, had been able to assist her in pitching the tent.
And other than jokes about sharking sleeping bags, he hadn't complained or blinked about the slim air mattresses and rolled out sleeping bags they would be sleeping in. He hadn't exactly reacted well when she explained why she would be hanging their food supplies in a tree away from their tent, but she was pretty sure he was already over that.
And when she had sent him looking for wood for a fire, he had done so without complaint.
Of course, she returned from her own search to find him proudly standing over a tightly packed pile of wood.
"Ready to light this baby up?" He asked. "Cause I for one am ready for hot dogs and 'smores."
"Just about," she said gently. "We just need to...rearrange." She dropped her pile of wood and rocks beside his and made quick work of dismantling it.
"Hey! Do you know how long that took me to put together?"
"And it looks great," she told him. "Only it will never light."
"Why?" He asked, sounding slightly frustrated.
She motioned for him to crouch beside her as she quickly rearranged his sticks into a box. "Fire needs oxygen, so the camp fire needs to not be packed together so tightly."
He nodded along.
"Also, we need some easy to light wood to get it all started." She grabs a handful of small sticks and dried bark she had collected and waves it before sticking it inside the box she had constructed. "We call it kindling." She pulls a match book out of her pocket and hands it to him. "Want to do the honour?"
He nodded and took the match book.
She watched as he carefully lit a match and reached his hand into the box to light the kindling. A piece of bark caught fire and slowly began to burn. They watched together as the flames gradually spread to another piece of bark.
"Gotta be honest, Kens, I was expecting that to be more...dramatic."
She laughed. "It'll take time for the camp fire to get going, but it will." She pushed the rest of the wood out of the way and lifted one of the rocks she collected. She waved it and then placed it about six inches away from the campfire. "It's good to place a line of rocks around the fire, just in case it spreads out, to keep is from really spreading."
"Alright." He helped her collect additional rocks to secure a full perimeter around the fire. By the time they were done, the fire had burned through the kindling and was starting along the edge of the box of wood.
"That's kind of awesome," he said.
She tucked herself into his side and smiled. "Glad you think so."
He kissed the side of her head. "You learn this from your dad, too?"
She nodded, both missing her dad in this moment, but also glad to be able to share the memory with Deeks. "Yeah. We would go hiking and camping and tracking all the time."
"That's really nice, Kens. I'm glad you have those memories with him." He pressed a second kiss to her head. "And also that you have all these big bad Blye survival skills to keep us warm and fed, and safe from bears."
She laughed. "You seem to have a lot of faith in these so called big bag Blye survival skills."
"I have a lot of faith in you."
00
Kensi steps slowly and cautiously along the sandy path, eyes on the ground searching for clues. Behind her, Deeks is humming.
She rolls her eyes. "That is not helping."
The humming stops. "What's the not helping?"
She turns to shoot him a glare. He's standing several feet behind her, wearing jeans and a brown jacket. His hair is extra messy from the helmet he's been wearing on and off for the past several hours as they've ridden motorbikes through the desert together, following what they hope is a path that will lead them to two missing marines. Despite her irritation, he looks rugged and handsome, but because of her irritation she's not about to tell him.
He winces and then smiles. "Sorry. It's just been a couple hours and..." He waves his hands at the surrounding desert, "Well, honestly I'm a little bored. This isn't exactly my idea of a day in the office."
She raises an eyebrow. "We have one dead marine, one injured and two missing. As long as two are still missing, we have a job to do."
"That's your job."
She feels herself bristle. "You don't think this is important?"
"Hey," he says sharply, stepping forward. "Of course I think this is important. You know that." He stops right in front of her, meeting her eyes and holding her gaze. "I just don't feel like I'm doing anything to help. You're using your big bad Blye tracking skills you learned from your dad. And I'm...accompanying and observing."
Kensi sighs at his choice of words. The same choice of words Callen and Sam had used when Deeks and Kensi had been sent out to the desert near the Mexican border to view the site of the marine ambush. They had told Deeks to accompany and observe Kensi. They had told him it would be good experience for him.
They had assumed he needed the experience.
She loves her team, but she wishes they had more tact.
"You and I both know you're doing more than that."
He smiles sadly at her. "Yeah, like what? Cause, I gotta tell you, my mouth tastes like dirt, my ass is killing me from riding the bike for so long..." He pauses and smirks. "Though I haven't exactly minded following you cause the view's been pretty nice."
She glares at him again, though there's no bite behind it and they both know it.
"But," he continues, "I can't remember actually contributing anything to this team effort."
Kensi's mouth kind of tastes like dirt, too, from being in the desert so long. And she's hot and sweaty, just like she knows he is. And they're both starting to get sunburned skin and chapped lips. Despite all of this, she steps into him and presses her lips to his.
"We have different skills," she tells him when she pulls away. "That's part of being on a team." She grasps onto the fabric of his jacket, remaining close to him, despite the heat of the desert. "I might have the necessary tracking skills right now, but you have my back."
"Always," he agrees easily.
"And you believed me when Major Orley brushed me off." She feels her brow furrow as she recalls how the Major had ignored her claims as to the direction the vehicle they believed had taken the missing marines had gone.
He shrugs. "Well, Orley was a sexist jerk. And you're awesome."
She smiles at that. "You're awesome, too, Marty."
He offers her a soft smile.
She cocks her head, considering him for a moment, knowing he doesn't completely believe her. In the near month he's been working full time with the team, she's watched him struggle to settle and find a niche for himself. It had been hard for her to find a team who would accept her, but once she had, she had settled with little fanfare. Probably because she had always been working within a team construct. She hadn't realized how his years of undercover work and working alone or only temporarily with other departments between assignments would make it so difficult for him to settle with a team now. She knew Callen and Sam weren't exactly making it easy, but she also knew Marty wasn't helping the situation along either.
She stretches up and kisses him again, deciding to let it go. Hopefully he just needs more time.
"I have to find the trail," she says, turning back to the spot she had been at when he had distracted her with his humming.
"Wait, find? Are we lost?"
"No, we are not lost."
"You've said that before."
"I've said that lots of times," she responds, not allowing herself to be baited and turn back to him.
"Yes, but one particular time you were wrong."
She rolls her eyes. "We've been hiking a hundred times. We were...not where I thought we were one time."
"We were lost."
"We weren't lost."
"We were lost."
She huffs. "We just weren't where I thought we were."
"Which is the definition of being lost."
"You're very annoying," she says as she steps forward, eyes still on the path.
"I think the word you're looking for is right. And possibly also lost."
"I think the words you're looking for is about to find himself stranded in the desert."
He laughs out loud, and she allows herself a small smile at having made him laugh.
"You wouldn't."
"Keep testing me and find out."
"Wouldn't you miss me?"
She shrugs. "Meh."
He laughs again. "What would you do without me? We're looking at houses this weekend."
"Monty and I could handle the mortgage."
He scoffs. "Monty's a freeloader."
She clicks her tongue. "Don't say that about my dog."
"Your dog?"
"Yup. My dog."
"And here I was thinking he was our dog."
"Not when you're being mean and calling him a freeloader."
He laughs again. "He's a total freeloader. All he does is-"
"Aha!" She cuts him off as she spots a tire track in the sandy path. "Found the path."
He's immediately at her side and serious. "You sure?"
She nods. "SUV tracks, riding low, with a chunk out of the right rear tire."
He smiles proudly at her. "Big bad Blye tracking skills win again."
She smiles back. "Let's go."
They make their way back to their bikes, but he hesitates before getting on his.
"Don't tell me..."
He nods. "Yup, I gotta pee again."
"Marty, seriously."
"What? I hydrated for the desert," he calls over his shoulder as he walks off the path and finds himself a bush. "No peeking!" he calls jokingly.
"I can peek if I want to!" She calls back, rolling her eyes. She takes her time getting onto her bike and putting her helmet back on. When Deeks is done at the bush, he hurries back to his own bike and secures his own helmet.
"You ready?" She asks.
"Let's do this thing."
00
An hour later, they've stopped three times to pick up the trail and for Deeks to visit the bushes. The missing marines had been helping ICE and border control to secure the US-Mexican border, but the trail Kensi and Deeks are following are taking them further and further from the border.
"Where are they going?" Kensi questions.
"If we knew that, we wouldn't have to track them through the desert," Deeks points out dryly, clearly trying to inject some humour.
She sighs and meets his eyes. "What if we're not following the right trail?"
He shakes his head. "We are."
"How do you know that? You don't know how to track." She's tired and hot, and the words come out much harsher than she meant. She regrets them the moment they leave her mouth, but he responds before she can apologize.
"Because I trust you," he says simply. "You follow the trail. I follow you. Eventually, we'll both get to the missing marines."
She stares at him for a long moment. "You really believe that."
He nods. "Yup."
"You have a lot of faith in me."
This time he smiles and nods. "Yup."
She feels herself smile back. "That's nice, Marty."
"Didn't you say we all have our things on a team? You can be the tracker. I'll be the motivational speaker."
She laughs. "The motivational speaker?"
He nods. "With awesome hair."
She laughs harder and reaches up to further muss his already very mussed hair. "Well, then it's a good thing you can't see yourself right now..."
He fakes a gasp and then offers her a wry smile. "Bad?" He asks, carefully touching his hair.
"Not good."
He mock glares at her and she laughs.
"Not your usual style by pillow quality."
His eyes soften. "Well, I'll have to rectify that when we get home. I know how much you like my style by pillow hair..."
She smiles back at her husband, remembering exactly what he's remembering.
Unfortunately, the moment is interrupted by the ringing of her cell phone, reminding them of where they are and what they are doing. She glances at the caller ID and then answers on speaker phone.
"Hey Callen."
"Find anything?"
"Not yet. Still tracking. Whoever they are, they're moving the marines a long way. You find anything?"
"Nothing yet. Sam and I are going to track down a lead here. Hopefully it'll give us some information on who's behind this."
"Good luck with that."
"How's Deeks doing in the field?"
Kensi exchanges a look with her husband as they realize the team leader doesn't realize he's on speakerphone. "He pees a lot," she says.
Deeks glares at her and she sticks her tongue out at him, trying not to laugh.
"Other than that, good."
"Good. Let us know if you find anything."
"Likewise."
Kensi hangs up the phone when she realizes Callen has ended the call on his end.
"I hydrated for the desert," Deeks argues for what she's pretty sure if the ninth time.
"So did I. And how many times have I peed today compared to you?"
He purses his lips for a moment before shaking his head. "Unlike some people, I am not obsessed with the bathroom habits of others."
"Oh, I'm obsessed, am I?"
He nods. "Yup. You're counting how many times I pee today. There was that time you were certain Monty had anxiety issues because he doesn't like to poop when you're watching him-"
"He's a dog, Marty. That shouldn't be an issue," she calls over her shoulder as she gets back onto her bike.
"I'm going to tell him you said that."
"You're the one who was calling him a freeloader earlier."
"I said that with love."
She rolls her eyes. "Sure you did."
He smirks at her. "You know what?"
"What?"
"Today kind of sucks. But I can't say I'm not enjoying spending it with you."
She smiles at him, knowing he's right. Today has sucked. It's hot and dusty and they have no idea how much longer they'll be out here. But it has been nice to have him here with her. It's been fun to banter and trade barbs with him. He's kept her spirits up better than anyone else would be able to. "Yeah, me too."
00
The landscape changes gradually as they approach the Arizona border. A little less rolling hills of sand and a little more harder and steeper cliff like hills. A little less dusty, not that it makes much of a difference at this point. They're both long since coated in a skin thick layer of sweat and dust.
Their travel slows as the terrain becomes a bit more rocky.
Kensi can hear Deeks's bike right behind her. She can see traces of the trail they've been following for hours veer off to the left, but she spots a steep hill or cliff face ahead, and waves them towards it, hoping it will give them a vantage point and hint on the next leg of their hunt.
She pulls her bike to a stop and Deeks pulls his up beside hers.
"I can't believe people do this for fun," he complains as he pulls off his helmet.
She laughs, stepping off his bike. "If it's any consolation, you look rugged." She wasn't going to tell him, but she's tired and her resolve is slipping.
He smirks at her as he joins her and they begin to walk together towards the top of the hill. "Rugged, hm?"
"Yup."
He playfully bumps her hip with his. "Is it doing things for you?"
She laughs and bumps his hip back. "Well, it would be...if it weren't for the smell."
He scoffs, and then ducks his chin down to his chest, as if he's smelling himself. "Yeah, you may have a point. Though, no offense, you're not exactly smelling your best over there."
It's her turn to scoff.
"What? You said it first."
She sighs. "I cannot wait to get back and have a shower."
"A shared shower?"
"Not if we're still at work."
"Definitely not. Especially considering Hetty has all the showers on timers. No, I say we go home and exceed our recommended shower duration...together."
She laughs, but finds herself nodding. "If we're not both completely exhausted when we get home, sure."
"And if I regain feeling in my ass," he adds. "Have I mentioned how numb my ass it from sitting on the damn bike all day?"
"Only a few dozen times," she says, rolling her eyes.
He pats his ass with his hand for emphasis on how uncomfortable he is.
She smirks and reaches out with her own hand, pinching his supposedly numb ass.
He yelps and jumps in surprise.
"You felt that," she says with a laugh.
"Inappropriate workplace behaviour, Agent Blye," he jokes, his eyes sparkling.
"That was the point, Detective Deeks."
He huffs. "There you go calling me Detective Deeks again."
"No."
"Yes."
"No, I mean, I only called you Detective Deeks because you called me Agent Blye. I thought... I was joking!" She exclaims. "I haven't called you Detective Deeks in weeks."
He shoots her a look. "That's because you haven't called me anything in weeks."
She opens her mouth and then shuts it just as quickly.
"Yeah, I caught on to that," he calls her out, eyes still sparkling with humour.
She sighs. "I... At least I wasn't calling you Detective Deeks," she says, though she knows it's a lame argument.
He brushes against her as they walk together up the hill. "You know this isn't a long term solution, right?"
"I know. It's just...hard." She's tried, several times, to call him Deeks. She opens her mouth, but the name doesn't come out. Or her sentence just doesn't end like she plans. She likes working with her husband. But he's Marty. They're the Deeks'.
"What's making it so hard?" He questions.
"I don't know, Marty," she says honestly. "I just don't want everything to change."
He stops suddenly. She stops, too. He meets her eyes. "You'd tell me if you weren't okay with me working with you and your team, right?"
"Our team now," she says. "And yes." She reaches for his hand. "I like working with you. I really do. This is just..."
"Hard," he supplies.
"Yeah."
He squeezes her hand before dropping it. "Let's get through today, go home, share our shower, have something to eat, and talk tonight, okay? Maybe we can figure out what's going on in that head of yours."
"I'd like that."
They finish their walk up the hill and spot a shed, trailer and a few vehicles on the other side. They crouch down, using desert grass for cover.
"You think anyone's there?" Deeks asks.
"Hard to tell from here," she says. "But considering how far out we are and the number of vehicles, probably."
"You think they're involved?"
"No idea." She pulls out her phone and calls in to OPs.
"Hey, Kensi," Eric answers.
"Eric, I think we may have found something. Can you pull up our coordinates?"
"Doing it now. What have you found?"
"We've got a trailer home, a shed and at least three vehicles. No signs of life that we can see so far."
"You're thirty five miles from the Mexican border," Eric relays.
"The trail brought us here. I'm going to move in for a closer look."
"No, Kensi," Deeks says, pulling her down as she tries to get up. He points down towards the trailer, and her eyes follow.
The trailer door is opening, and their missing marines are being ushered out by three men at gunpoint. Both are bloodied and limping, but alive.
"We got them," Kensi relays into her phone.
"They're both injured," Deeks adds.
"I'm connecting Callen," Eric says.
In a moment, Callen is on the line with Eric.
"How many shooters, Kensi?" Callen asks.
"I see three. But there are a lot of places we can't see, so there could be more."
"They're taking them to the truck," Deeks points out.
Kensi nods her agreement. "They're moving them out. We have to act now."
"Do what you can," Callen says. "We're on our way."
Kensi hangs up her phone and stows it back in her pocket.
"We need a plan," Kensi says, watching the three bad guys slowly push the two injured marines across the property below towards a truck.
"There's two of us, at least three of them and they have two hostages who are injured and don't look able to fight."
She nods along. "If we go straight at them, the most likely scenario will be the shooters killing the marines."
He nods. "Agreed. We need to separate the shooters to give this the best chance of working."
"How do you want to do that?"
"I ride in there on my bike, make sure they see me, at least one or two will give chase. You sneak down the hill in the confusion, take out the one or two that stay, and secure the marines. I'll lose or take out the one or two chasing me and loop back here."
She sighs and stares at him. "I don't like it."
"I don't either. The last thing I want to do is get back on that bike. I just got feeling back in my ass."
She huffs a laugh. "You know what I meant."
He turns serious. "I can handle the terrain and getting away from those guys. And of the two of us, you're the best shooter, and that's what those marines need right now. And they're running out of time."
"Marty..."
"This is the job, right?"
She finds herself nodding. "Okay."
He turns to head back down the hill, but she catches his arm.
He turns back and she stretches up to kiss him. "Please be safe."
He kisses her back. "I'll see you soon."
Kensi doesn't allow herself to dwell on her husband's part in this rescue mission as she begins to make her way along the edge of the hill top, looking for the best and fastest way down, knowing she'll need to make good time when he makes the distraction. She turns on her earwig, opening the line of communication between them.
"Can you hear me?"
There's a pause, and then she hears him, slightly out of breath. "Just got to the bike. I'll be a minute or two to get around the hill. You ready?"
She presses her comm again. "Ready when you are."
"Let's do this thing."
She crouches low, waiting. After a minutes, she begins to hear the motor of the bike in the distance. Clearly, the bad guys do, too. They stop moving the marines and stare around. The bike gets closer and then drives right onto the property.
Kensi holds her breath as Deeks drives closer than she would have liked, but she understands what he's doing. He's causing the best distraction he can for her. So, keeping her eyes on the scene, she begins to hurry down the hill.
It's steep and rough. She slips and slides and cringes as she twists her ankle particularly hard half way down. When she's nearing the bottom, Deeks has turned and is disappearing up the path she can now see that leads into the flat area that holds the trailer, shed and vehicles. When she reaches the bottom and makes her way towards cover behind a small tractor, she hears the humming of two ATV engines that are on their way after her husband.
Focusing on the task at hand, she forces thoughts of her husband's safety out of her mind.
She keeps her cover, waiting to see if anyone else will show themselves now that two of the three visible men have gone after Deeks.
No one else appears.
The one man left with the marines begins to force them towards a truck at gunpoint, clearly wanting them secure. She creeps up behind him and hits him in the back with the butt of her rifle. He falls to his knees. She hits him again and he hits the ground, knocked out cold.
"Who are you?" One of the marines, asks. Kensi remembers her name as Hastings.
"I'm NCIS. You guys okay?"
"Yeah," the other marine, Walker, says.
"We're okay," Hastings says.
Kensi hears another engine and swears as she realizes it's a car on its way into the compound. "Someone's coming. Come on, we gotta move."
She ushers them towards a tractor, grabbing the rifle from the unconscious gunman on her way by. Having spent the day traipsing through the desert, she's not exactly well armed.
The marines hunker down, and Kensi is at least grateful they are trained and know how to stay out of sight. She passes the spare rifle to Hastings, noting she's in slightly better shape than Walker.
The car drives by them, with at least two people in it, and she knows she's screwed. She's got two injured marines with her, only two weapons between the three of them, and they're taking cover behind a tractor. They can't get to the outskirts, and even if they could, the desert plants don't allow for adequate cover. Adding to that is the fact that the marines are clearly in no shape to make a run for it.
She takes a calming breath and presses her earwig. "Marty," she calls.
She waits a beat, but there is no answer.
"Marty," she says again, desperate.
Again, no answer.
She swallows hard, refusing to allow herself to speculate as to why her husband is not responding. If he's still trying to lose the guys chasing him, it could be that he can't take the time to respond.
Which means she's on her own.
And if it's another reason...well, she's not thinking that.
She motions for the marines to stay quiet. They listen together as the newest bad guys to join the party find their unconscious counterpart and wake him up. They listen as he tells them he'd been hit from behind.
Kensi forces herself to control her breathing, trying to remain calm and focussed, knowing she will need to do everything right to get out of this alive.
She hears a motor in the distance, and then peeks around the corner of the tractor when it gets closer. Her heart clenches at the sight of one of the ATVs that had gone after Deeks returning.
She presses her earwig with a slightly shaky hand. "Marty?" She says again.
Silence.
She closes her eyes for an extended moment and feels her chest heave. And then she takes a deep breath, reminding herself that he said he would see her soon.
The bad guys seem to be organized now that their apparent leader is back. They spread out, searching the grounds for their missing hostages.
"Wait until the last possible moment to take your shot," Kensi warns Hastings. "And then take down whoever you can."
Hastings nods.
With the bad guys spreading out, they are spotted within moments.
Hastings takes shots from her side of the tractor and Kensi from hers, both focused on the gunfire in front of the them. Right now, they're holding them off, but Kensi knows it's just a matter of time before she runs out of ammunition.
She leans around the edge of the tractor and takes three shots, before leaning back behind the cover. She glances to her left, making sure it's clear.
It doesn't occur to her to look behind her.
But Walker, injured and propped against the tractor to stay somewhat upright, is watching. "Behind you," he yells.
She turns, but it's too late to take a shot. The bad guy who has snuck up behind her and the marines has his rifle cocked and aimed.
Before she can begin to swing her rifle around, he's shot from behind and hits the ground.
Kensi blinks in surprise, and then feels a wave of relief as her husband, covered in more dirt than before and clutching to his own rifle, sprints towards them from the edge of the hill.
"I told you I'd see you soon," he cheeks as he reaches the side the tractor and settles beside her.
"Where have you been?" She demands.
"They killed my bike," he explains. "Shot it right out from under me, and right when I was starting to like it."
She huffs at him.
He offers a sheepish smile. "Lost my earwig in the fall. Didn't realize until I was halfway here, hearing gunfire and trying to call you."
"You're here now."
"I am." He reaches down for his ankle holster and pulls his handgun. He reaches across her to Walker. "Marine."
Walker takes the gun with a nod.
Kensi nods at him, grateful that at least they're all armed now. "You cover. I'm going to call in and see how far out our back up is."
Eric picks up quickly.
"Eric, they've got us pinned down."
"Copy that. Help is on the way."
"How soon?"
"Ten minutes or less."
"We don't have ten minutes."
"Callen and Sam are in a marine helicopter. They're moving as fast as they can."
"Tell them to move faster." She hangs up the phone.
"Any big bad Blye idea how to get us out of here?" Deeks asks after a particularly hard rain of bullets hits the tractor.
"I'm thinking."
"Why do I keep seeing the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?"
She ignores his attempt at a joke.
There's another few seconds of gunfire and then it stops. A few moments go by and still nothing.
Kensi and Deeks exchange a look.
Deeks turns and very cautiously peeks his head up. There is no resulting gunfire. He takes a long look and then settles back down beside her. "What do you think they're waiting for?"
"I don't know," she responds. She takes her turns peeking up to see what she can see going on across the yard. She catches sight of a man running across the yard with a... She narrows her eyes just to make sure.
She settles back down and swears. "They have a grenade launcher," she announces.
"A what? People actually use grenade launchers?"
She nods. "Apparently."
"That's so much worse than the end of Butch and Sundance."
"We need to move now."
He nods.
She motions to a stationary SUV twenty feet from them. "That SUV might be our only chance."
"And if there's no keys?"
She turns her gaze back to him and gives him an exasperated look.
"Right, you can hotwire an airplane. An old SUV will be no problem."
"If you would just let me teach you-"
"I'm a cop. We stop people from hotwiring cars."
She huffs. "Fine."
"I'll draw their fire. You make a run for the SUV."
Kensi nods. She turns to the marines. "Marines, you ready?"
They both nod.
Kensi starts shooting. The bad guys start shooting back. Deeks starts shooting and running the opposite direction of the SUV, towards the trailer. Some of the gunfire is drawn towards him. Hastings joins her in shooting towards the bad guys, so she makes her move, running towards the SUV. The gunfire follows her, but not fast enough. She manages to make it to the SUV and into the front seats without much issue.
She keeps her head low and pulls out the wires from under the steering column, hoping the engine will turn over easily.
An explosion outside the car startles her and draws her attention. She glances up, hoping not to see the tractor giving the marines cover having been hit by a grenade. Instead the trailer's been hit.
The trailer that was in the direction Deeks had run.
"Marty," she whispers. But she doesn't get to dwell long, because the bad guys turn their attention on her. Bullets pierce the windows, shattering glass down on top of her. She winces at the stinging, and briefly debates continuing to hotwire the vehicle or abandon the plan, knowing time is ticking down and a grenade could be launched her direction any moment. Before she can decide, she hears the whirring of helicopter blades.
Gunfire from above sounds, and she knows it's their backup finally having arrived.
She backs out of the SUV, prepared to help.
But the helicopter lands, and Callen and Sam get out with a small group of marines. They make quick and efficient work of taking out the remaining bad guys and securing the scene.
Kensi turns from them, her attention towards the smoldering trailer, her heart suddenly in her throat. She knows if her husband was in there, there's no way he's still alive. Her eyes travel across the ground around the trailer, searching for hints, knowing that was the direction he ran to give her time and cover.
And suddenly, there he is. Still covered in dirt, and still clutching to his rifle, he stands from his perch behind an old truck in front of the trailer. She meets his eyes and breathes a sigh of relief. He cocks his head and offers her a crooked smile. She smiles back. Her once-upon-a-time-law-student husband looks anything but now. She wasn't lying earlier when she told him he looked rugged. But now he looks like an action star or something, unkempt and dirty, clutching his rifle, with the smoldering trailer behind him. She half wishes she had a camera.
When her team calls out to see if she's okay, she answers without thinking, heading for her husband.
"I'm good, too," he calls with an eye roll. "Just in case anybody cares."
She reaches him and hesitates, wanting to reach out for him.
He nods, his expression telling her just how much he understands. "We're both going home."
She nods. "Yeah."
"Let's go check on our marines," he says. "And I need to get my gun back."
She allows herself a laugh, feeling some tension leaving her chest. "Okay."
They make their way to the two injured marines, who look much worse now that the adrenaline rush is no longer needed.
"Thank you," Hastings says, her hand clutched to her abdomen.
Kensi lays her hand on the other woman's and squeezes. "Any time."
"Thanks for everything," Walker tells Deeks, passing him back his handgun.
Deeks takes the gun and returns it to his ankle holster. "No problem, man. You just focus on getting better, you hear me?"
Walker nods.
The marine rescue team quickly load the injured marines into the helicopter and take off.
"There's another helicopter coming for us with a forensics team," Callen announces. "We need to secure the scene as best we can before they get here."
Kensi nods.
"Is this it?"
"There's another body about half a mile from here," Deeks adds, pointing over the hill. "I can lead the forensics team there when they get here."
"Why so far away?"
"We had to get some of the bad guys away from the marines," Deeks explains. "I was the distraction."
Callen nods with a smirk. "Got the drop on him that far out?"
Deeks shrugs. "Sort of. He killed my bike. I played dead until he got close. Then I took him out. Ran back here as fast as I could."
Callen nods again. So does Sam.
Kensi bites back a smile, happy to see that her husband is slowly proving himself to the team.
"Walk us through the rest," Sam says.
Kensi nods and together she and Deeks explain their day tracking the marines, finding the location, the plan and the execution.
"You two did good," Callen says.
Sam nods. "The best you could considering the circumstances."
They spread out to secure what they can with the two marines who have stayed behind with them to help. Half an hour later, two helicopters arrive with a forensics team and supplies.
Deeks heads out with two of the forensics experts to secure the dead body and dead bike left out in the desert.
Kensi stays back with the team. After ten minutes, the forensics team has taken over, and she wanders over to the closest helicopter to sit on the edge, taking a much needed break. She pulls her water bottle from her pocket and takes a sip it's warm and doesn't taste great, but it soothes her parched throat and helps her mouth taste a little less like dirt.
After a few minutes, Callen wanders over to join her.
She shuffles over, making room for him to sit beside her.
"You look like crap."
She laughs and elbows him. "Always know what to say to make a girl feel special, Callen."
He smirks. "I feel honesty is the best policy."
"And that's why you're still single," she says without thinking.
"And so are you."
She feels herself frown slightly.
Callen clearly interprets her frown as regret for being single and not regret for not sharing her life with her team. "You did good today," he offers.
"Thanks."
"And Deeks did good today."
"He did." She pauses for a moment. "You should tell him."
"I will." He pauses. "He seems to be fitting in."
She feels herself nod. "I think so."
"This was a big test. I wouldn't have sent the two of you alone if I had known it would result in this. But he had your back."
She nods again. "He's good about that."
"And your focus was on him, when the scene was secure."
She swallows hard, eyes on Callen, suddenly wondering how much he was aware of.
"I thought he might have been in the trailer," she explains.
"I'm not saying you did anything wrong," Callen says.
She swallows again, recalling the panic swelling in her heart at the realization that he may have been in the trailer when it exploded from the grenade. And she suddenly recalls Nate's words from weeks earlier, about how her team couldn't support her in Deeks's disappearance because they didn't know who he was to her. She knows she wanted to wait until Deeks could make an unbiased impression, but had it been enough time?
"I'm actually glad to see it," Callen continues, surprising her.
"Glad?" She echoes.
He nods. "If it were me and Sam, I would have done the same thing."
She blinks. "That's not exactly the same thing..."
"Not yet."
Kensi chokes back a laugh, knowing Callen has no way of knowing what he's saying. "Not yet?"
"Not yet," he confirms. "But if I thought my partner could be injured or worse, that's where my focus would be before the rest of the team. It's a good sign that you're starting to do that already."
All hints of humour fall away from her. "Partner?"
Callen gives her an odd look and nods. "Partner," he confirms.
Kensi moves her gaze away from her team leader and stares across the yard in front of them, past the working forensic team and up the hill, needing a moment to organize her thoughts.
She's enjoyed working with her husband. And she's looked forward to working with him in the future; having him be part of the team. And she's always known he's damn good at his job. But she just didn't realize that meant...
"I didn't realize..."
"That Hetty meant for you two to be partners?" Callen surmises.
She nods.
"Is that a problem?"
Is it a problem? She's not sure.
Before she can begin to formulate an answer, Sam wanders over and the moment is gone.
"Hell of a day."
Kensi nods. "Yeah."
"Glad you and Deeks are okay, though. I'm sorry we cut it so close."
She shrugs. "We almost had it covered. If it wasn't for the grenade launcher, we would have had no problem."
Sam laughs and Callen joins him. And then the long time partners get into a debate as to how they would have dealt with the grenade launcher - and, of course, don't agree on what they would have done.
00
It's another three hours before the team finally finds themselves back at the office.
It's late and she's exhausted, but Kensi's mind is still running a mile a minute at Callen's earlier words. She's heard Nate's returned from his extended assignment to 'the People's Republic of None of Your Damn Business.' The psychologist has asked to speak with each of them, and she doesn't like the sound of that, but she's happy to wait and do so, wanting to take a few minutes to speak with one of the only people who know who Deeks really is to her after today.
Sam heads for Nate's office first, and she knows from experience that Callen will be next.
She heads for her locker and pulls out a bag of extra clothes. "I'm just going to grab a quick shower," she announces.
Callen doesn't even acknowledge her words.
Deeks shoots her a concerned look.
She knows they had plans to shower together. And that could still happen, but right now she just needs a few minutes to think. She tries to convey as many words as she can to him in a look as she walks by, but she can barely understand her own thoughts, so she doubts he can.
She showers and dresses in clean clothes. She doesn't feel like her thoughts are any less jumbled, but she feels better for being clean.
When she makes her way back to her desk, Callen is gone and Sam is sitting at his desk.
"Callen in with Nate?"
He nods.
"What does he want?"
"I'll let him tell you."
"Not going to give me a hint?"
"Nope."
She sighs and motions to the empty desk next to him. "Where's...Deeks?" She feels weird for asking, but thinks she manages to not outwardly flinch for calling him Deeks. She actually feels a little proud of herself and wishes he was there to witness it.
"Shower. Honestly, you both smelled pretty ripe."
She glares at him. "You try spending the day in the desert, in the dust and the heat, and then try coming in smelling like a freaking flower."
He smiles at that. "No thanks."
Callen returns from Nate's office with a slight scowl on his face.
Kensi frowns. "Okay, I don't like the look of that. What is going on?"
Sam waves her off. "That's just how his face looks." He motions towards Nate's office. "Just go and hear him out."
"This is not how my face looks," she hears Callen argue as she hurries towards Nate's office.
Nate ushers her into his office when she knocks. She stops dead the moment she steps in.
Because his desk is clear and there's a box of his things on the floor.
"Nate..."
He smiles sadly at her and motions to the chair opposite his desk. "Will you sit?"
"Why are you leaving?" She asks, all thoughts of her own problems gone in this moment.
Nate says nothing, but motions to the chair.
She ignores him. "Where are you going?"
"Kensi, please sit."
She practically collapses onto the chair, staring at the clear desk.
Nate sits in his chair and stays silent, waiting her out.
She eventually looks up at him. "Why?"
He offers her a sad smile. "Because I want to help people."
"You're helping people here."
He shakes his head. "I can help in other ways. And this is my chance."
She runs a hand through her damp hair. "Will we see you again?"
"Of course. This is still my home. I'll visit. And if you or the team needs me, I'll be here. I just won't be here every day anymore."
She feels her eyes well, despite herself, and blinks against the stinging of tears. "I'm sorry, Nate. It's been a long day and I'm making this about me. I'm happy for you, I am."
"Thank you," he says, giving her time to regain control of her emotions.
"Doing what you really want to do is important. If you need to leave to do that, I get it."
He smiles at her. "That means a lot, Kensi."
"I know I may have fought against you a bit at times, but I do appreciate everything you've done for me."
"A bit?" He echoes, making a joke. "You were one of my toughest cases. And I don't mean here. I mean ever."
She laughs.
"And I still never figured you out on my own. Happily married and all that."
"You don't think you would have gotten there on your own?"
He shakes his head. "No. But I do wonder what would have happened if you didn't tell me and I got to see you and Deeks working together. I wonder if I would have been able to tell."
"I wonder, too. Callen and Sam are oblivious, though. Today Callen compared me and Marty to him and Sam."
Nate laughs out loud. "I wish I'd seen that."
"Oh, it'll be up here forever," she says, tapping the side of her head.
Nate continues to smile, but becomes more serious. "I am glad you're happy, Kensi. Deeks seems like a really good guy."
"He is."
"Although Hetty tells me she hasn't heard you call him Deeks once since he's started. She says you've made a concerted effort to not call him anything at all while at work."
She huffs at having been caught by her husband and her boss. "First of all, why is that such a big deal to everyone today? And second, I just called him Deeks to Sam, right before I came in here."
"For the first time?"
She hesitates before nodding, knowing there's no point in lying. "Yes, for the first time."
"Why is it such a struggle for you?"
"Because his name is Marty."
Nate huffs a laugh. "Okay, so you know him as Marty. But everyone else calls him Deeks here. Why is it so difficult to call him Deeks here?"
"Because I'm Deeks, too."
Nate looks slightly surprised before covering for it. "Outside of work?"
She nods. "I've been Kensi Deeks for just about eight years. It's weird."
He considers her for a long moment. "I can see how that may be weird, but I feel like there's something more."
She shakes her head and looks away from him, eyes back towards the empty desk.
"Me leaving means we really don't have time for you to avoid answering my questions," he presses.
"I don't... I don't know, Nate," she admits. "I don't understand what I'm feeling."
"Do you want him working here?"
"Yes," she says immediately. "I like working with him. A lot, actually."
"And you're okay with him joining the team?"
"Yes," she says again, quickly.
Too quickly.
Nate raises an eyebrow.
Kensi sighs and sits back in her chair. "I want him to be part of the team," she says less defensively.
"But..."
"But then Callen said something today, that...threw me. He said Hetty brought Marty on to the team to be my partner."
Nate stares at her and says nothing, waiting for her to continue.
"And I guess in retrospect that's pretty obvious, but I didn't get it. I didn't realize. And now... I don't know how I feel about that."
"Are you afraid you won't be able to be good partners?"
She thinks back to the day's events and to earlier cases they have worked together. "No. We work well together."
"Are you afraid being partners will change your relationship at home?"
She sighs and runs her fingers through her hair. "Maybe?"
"Do you want to expand on that?"
"He was all I had for a long time, Nate. My marriage is the most important thing in my life. And it was always separate from...this. And I love having him here, working with me. But it was always separate before and it worked. It's very...confusing."
"It's two conflicting thoughts," he summarises. "Having your work life and home life separate, versus having your husband at work. Especially in this type of work."
She nods. "We work as husband and wife. We work well. But... If we're supposed to be partners... What if that changes things? What if that becomes our main relationship and our marriage becomes secondary?"
Nate nods. "Why do you think your marriage works so well?"
She pauses, the question having caught her off guard, but it refocuses her. "We've been through a lot together. We love each other. We trust each other. We've always had similar goals, and supported each other." Nate nods, pushing her to keep going. "He knows how to make me laugh when I'm having a bad day. He knows when to push and when to back off, as do I with him. We have the same dreams."
Nate nods. "And what do you think makes a good partnership?"
Kensi bites her lip as she considers the question. The closest she's come to a partnership was Dom, but that was so short lived, she can't draw much from it. She thinks about Callen and Sam. "Trust is important. Working together and accepting each other."
Nate nods along. "And working towards the same goals. Reading each other; knowing when to push and when to back off. Humour, maybe? To get through the bad days."
She frowns as she realizes what he's doing.
Nate smiles. "You have more than the basis for a strong partnership, Kensi. And I think you're strong enough to have a marriage and a partnership. And you already recognize those are two different relationships. You will need to balance both, but not necessarily keep them completely separate." He pauses for a moment to allow that to sink in. "If you're afraid you can't balance both, you need to talk to Deeks about it."
She nods, already feeling a bit better. This talk has helped her to organize and understand her thoughts. And she'll definitely talk to her husband about what she's feeling now that she can put her thoughts into words.
"I want you to say it."
"Say...what?"
"That you'll talk to Deeks about it."
"Fine. I'll talk to him about it."
"That's not what I want you to say."
She narrows her eyes at him for a long moment before realization hits. She takes a breath and bites back a smile. "Fine. I'll talk to Deeks about it."
Nate smiles. "There you go. Despite this block you have on the name, it's just a name. Calling him Deeks at work won't change who he is to you at home. And it won't change who you are."
00
By the time Kensi gets home, she's exhausted.
Seeing as they still drive into work in tandem, they both have to drive home.
Deeks pulls into his parking space and she pulls into hers next to him.
It's late and dark and all she wants to do is crawl into bed next to her husband and sleep. But she knows they need to talk first. He's concerned about her and she wants to set his mind at ease.
He meets her on the sidewalk, his gaze soft and worried, even if he's trying not to show it. She smiles and reaches for his hand. They walk silently together up to their apartment.
It's dark and quiet when they open the front door. She had called her mother hours earlier to come and pick up Monty for the night.
The moment the door is shut behind them, Kensi reaches for her husband and wraps her arms around his middle.
"I love you," she tells him.
"Mmm, you, too," he murmurs into her hair.
Kensi settles against his chest, the side of her head pressed to his shoulder, warm and safe and loved in his strong arms. This is her favourite place in the world to be.
He holds her close and absently runs his palm up and down her spine. "I didn't like leaving you alone today," he whispers.
"I didn't like letting you go be the distraction when you left me alone," she whispers back. "Or when I thought you may have gotten blown up."
He stills his hand and hugs her a little closer.
"But we did what we had to," she adds.
"And we looked good doing it."
She snorts a laugh and pulls back just far enough to meet his eyes.
He smiles down at her and reaches to brush a few stray hairs back from her face. "You doing okay?"
She nods. "Nate helped me...figure some things out. And I want to talk to you about it."
"Of course. You can tell me anything."
She tugs him towards the couch and they curl up together. "We work really well together," she starts.
"We do," he agrees.
Kensi nods absently, trying to organize her thoughts to make to most sense to him.
He chuckles and nudges her playfully. "Is that a problem?"
She huffs and leans into him. "Not exactly. I didn't realize... Callen pointed out today that we're supposed to be partners."
Deeks takes a slow breath as the news sinks in to him. "I guess that makes sense if we're always working cases together."
"Yeah. And we're clearly good partners."
"Agreed," he says, threading their fingers together.
"So, I guess it worried me that we'd...fall into being good partners, but that we'd lose...this."
He squeezes her hand. "Our marriage?"
"Yeah." She leans in and presses her forehead to his chin. "This is the best part of my life, Marty. The most important part of my life."
He tilts his head down to press a kiss to her head, but makes no move to dislodge her. "Me too, Kens. And I promise you, if this job begins to interfere with us, I'm out. Of the job, I mean. I'll quit. Nothing is important enough to risk losing you."
She lifts her head to meet his eyes. "That's really big of you, but you need to know you're somewhere permanently. You deserve to put down roots."
"I'm here permanently," he says, squeezing her hand.
"And you deserve to be with a team, too," she insists. "And after talking with Nate, I think we can make it work. We're married at home and partners at work. We need to keep the relationships defined separately, but we can allow them to overlap."
"Married at home, partners at work," he echoes. "We can do that." He pauses. "Does that mean we're never telling the team about us?"
"No, I think it's important that they know one day. But I think we need to be able to be partners first."
"We need to figure that out first," he summarises.
She nods.
He ducks his head to kiss her. "Okay."
"And I need to get better at calling you Deeks."
He laughs. "Get better? You mean start calling me Deeks at all."
"I'll have you know I called you Deeks twice today. You just weren't around to hear it."
He kisses her again. "Progress."
"I'll get better."
"I have no doubt." He kisses her a third time. "Are you hungry?"
"Starving," she tells him.
He stands and playfully tugs her off the couch with him. "Let's see what we can scrounge from the fridge for dinner."
"Or we can order in," she suggests. "And while we're waiting for it to be delivered, I really need a shower."
He eyes her suspiciously. "You showered at work."
"But the showers at work are time restricted and so short. After our day in the desert, I really need a longer shower. Possibly with company..."
He smirks. "You know, I was just thinking the same thing..."
"Partners in sync."
"Partners," he agrees. And then he kisses her again. "But let's go be married right now."
She laughs as she allows him to tug her playfully towards the shower. "Agreed."
