A/N- Thanks so much for reading! Hope you enjoyed. We'll wrap up this story here, and see if I get attacked by any other plot bunnies soon. Leave a review or shoot me a hello. Until next time…..

Kensi becomes aware of her surroundings slowly. It's the most comfortable she's been in weeks, the least pain she's been in in a while. Then she remembers. He came for her. Well, they came for her, but she was in his arms, she's sure that was real. Then a hospital. She takes an accounting of her body with her eyes still closed.

She decides to take a chance.

"Deeks?"

It's quiet and filled with hope and relief, and immediately she feels hands she knows are his gripping her own. That's when she opens her eyes.

"Hey," he says though a sleepy voice that has the right amount of gentle and gravel to bring a smile to her face. All the times she imagined him finding her she never got the voice quite right in her head. Now she was sure she was safe. "Good morning, there, Princess."

He gently pushes some hair off her forehead to make room for the kiss he places there. She reaches up and lets her fingertips dance on his neck, pulling him closer so the next kiss meets her lips. Tender. Life-affirming.

She furrows her brow almost immediately, though, and the questions running through her mind for however long she's been gone come to the surface in rapid fire. His smile stays because her mind working this way is very much .. her.. and he's encouraged to see it.

"How long?"

Deeks looks at his watch. "You've been asleep for about ten hours," but she's shaking her head because he isn't understanding her.

"How long was I gone?"

"Nine days, baby. They had you nine days."

Her eyes well with tears but she fights them back. She thought it had been weeks. She tries to explain although he has no idea what she could possibly think she has to answer for.

"I couldn't keep track of time. I really….," she stops and regroups. "I thought it was a lot longer than that."

"That's ok. Anyone would have. Between the hood and no windows and the drugs and the music and no set eating schedule and maybe occasionally getting knocked out, there was no way for you to keep your reference point."

"I think they wanted me to think it was longer than it was so I would think you weren't coming."

"Hey," he says, making sure her eyes are locked on his. "I was always coming. I will always come for you."

She nods in agreement, but starts the questions again. The next one is about Kat, and Deeks is happy to be able to report that she is blissfully oblivious to the events of the last ten days. Ops determined that when Kensi was a bridesmaid for Kat the church put a wedding program online that listed her name. That is how the Patton Project connected them. Kat never sent the texts, was never in LA, and was never near the bomb.

"Bomb?"

Deeks suddenly wishes he had asked Nate about giving her information. Was there such a thing as too much, too soon? But he'd avoided Nate like the plague, afraid that if Nate saw how destroyed and desperate he was on the inside they wouldn't let him stay on the case. Now he wonders if he should have handled it differently.

She remembers the body and the men and syringe hitting her neck. She remembers the duffle bag. He just has to tell her that the duffle bag was a bomb, filled with shrapnel and fire. And that in the end sixteen people died that night.

She feels guilty, although she doesn't know why. They didn't kill those people to get to her. They just used the cover of the detonation to give them time to get away. She still feels like if she hadn't been there those people wouldn't have died.

"They were looking to pin an act of terror on a Muslim for their own purposes. You couldn't have stopped them. It was more synergistic planning on their part then cause and effect."

"How many of them did you get?" she asks.

"Five. How many were there?" Now his brow is furrowed. If any of them are still out there she isn't safe.

"Six." She closes her eyes as if she is seeing their faces. "Definitely six."

There is a soft knock on the door and Nell is there carrying breakfast, coffee, and go bags for both of them. They get Nell up to speed and she confirms the team from San Diego is still in Ops helping with data analysis. With all the tech they found the night before, she is sure data mining will have names and faces for Kensi to look at by the afternoon.

Nell brings Kensi a cell phone, and Kensi wonders at how Nell thinks of everything.

When the doctor comes in to do rounds Kensi convinces Deeks to step away for a while. Tells him he needs a shower. Tells him to bring her something delicious for an early dinner. Says that if he isn't going to break her out and take her home she wants her favorite pj's. She smiles when she says it and he gives in. He knows her. She needs him, he never doubts it, but she also needs to process.

He double checks that there are two NCIS agents at her door and two in the waiting room looking like family. It gives him enough peace of mind to get him moving to the car.

He sits in the Audi for a few minutes deciding what to do when he gets a text from her that says: "I'm fine. Really. Take a few hours. I'll see you for dinner."

He laughs at how well she knows him. Touché, he says to the empty car, and drives to their place. He hasn't been back since the night she was taken, but someone has. He assumes it was Nell. The house is clean and the refrigerator is stocked and there are flowers waiting for Kensi's return. A note on the table says "Let us know when she's released and we'll get Monty home. He's fine at the mission."

LAPD was a struggle to feel like he belonged. NCIS is family, and it's hard to know how he ever got by without them, without this bond, without this support. He wouldn't trade it for anything.

By the time he returns with dinner that evening she is in exponentially better shape than when he left. She is showered and has convinced the medical staff to put her in scrubs instead of a gown. Whether it's because she is law enforcement, or the traumatic nature of her visit, or because she threatened them he'll never know. Nell is packing up, having already let Ops know that Kensi has identified the sixth man.

Deeks phone rings and he steps out in the hall to take it while Kensi and Nell wrap up. It's Callen. Ops has a lead on number six and they are going to check it out. They know Deeks wants in, and they know he doesn't want to leave Kensi. Callen tells him to stay where he is and let him and Sam close it out. Deeks looks at her through the window from the hallway and tells them to be careful.

They eat together on the couch in her room. Her legs are criss-crossed and her food is in cartons on her lap. He takes every opportunity to touch her, to watch her, to encourage her but it isn't easy. She's as far away as she can be on a couch that small, and it worries him.

"Doc says one more night. They say they'll discharge me mid-day tomorrow."

He's already spoken to the medical team, but he smiles like its new news.

"I can't wait to have you home."

She doesn't respond. She gets tense as the evening goes on. News from Callen and Sam that number six is in custody bring a smile that doesn't meet her eyes, and she moves from the couch to the chair to the bed until he is almost dizzy. The night nurse tells her she needs her rest, but she doesn't settle.

"I don't want to sleep," she tells Deeks when the nurse is gone.

"I know, baby, but you need your rest."

"You'll be here in the morning right?" She looks at the floor and her voice gets quiet. "I won't wake up back in that room. In the dark." She's rubbing her hands together like when he found her back at camp in Afghanistan three years ago. A million things have changed since then, but the look in her eyes is the same, and his heart breaks.

He reaches behind her and turns on a gentle light in the darkening room. He fights his need to hold her. He gives her space despite how it leaves a cavernous hole in his chest. Pulling back the sheets on the bed he holds out a hand and leads her to it, pulling the sheets up over her. He moves the chair to the side of the bed and sits, squeezing her foot.

"The light will be on all night, and I'll be right here."

"Right there?" She almost sounds hopeful.

"Well, unless I have to pee."

"Which is pretty likely," she points out.

"Or I need to go clubbing," he adds for levity.

"Well, Party Marty does need to get his groove on," she jokes.

"In which case this guy," he starts as he grabs a stuffed animal from a flower arrangement someone sent her, "will be here in my place."

He gets the first of her real smiles he's seen in ten days.

"And there she is." It's barely more than a whisper under the weight of what it means to him. It's everything.

Neither of them really sleep, but she's safe and they're together and tonight that's enough.

The morning is a whirlwind of visits and coffee and every breakfast food she ever told anyone she enjoyed. It passes the time until the afternoon. She gets a visit from Nate that she isn't ready for. He can tell. She keeps it friendly and he keeps it light and tells her he'll talk to her later. After a final round of discharge instruction that focus on rest and nutrition, Deeks drives them home.

The first evening is awkward. She's uncomfortable too close and too far from him, and he doesn't know where to be. He orders delivery when usually they run out and grab something together because she doesn't want to go anywhere and he doesn't want to leave her. At different points in the night he turns on music and the TV, but she turns them off each time, and although he doesn't understand it, he rolls with it.

They walk Monty around the block, but she's tense the whole time.

She showers, happy to be surrounded by her own things, and after a cup of tea they try to get some sleep. He is lying on his side when she comes back from the bathroom, and she inches up against his back. Her hands are tucked together between them, and her cheek rests on his shoulder blade. He feels her breathing on his back and he lets himself get lost in it until he's drifted to sleep.

He wakes in the night instantly aware of her absence from their bed. He hears nothing in the house and the bathroom is empty, so he throws on a shirt and seeks her out. He doesn't have to go far.

She's sitting on the floor in the living room. The coffee table has been cleared to the far wall, and a glass hurricane with a blue candle she said matched his eyes when she bought it are on the floor in front of her giving off a dim flickering light. Her legs are crossed as she rocks with undirected energy, just looking at the flame in the silence. He's afraid to startle her.

He just watches her for a moment.

"I'm ok, really," she says to relieve his worry, but her façade does nothing but make him worry more because she thinks she needs to put on a brave face. Not for him, he wants to tell her. Never for him. He just stands his ground, not retreating to the bedroom and leaving her alone, not advancing on the room and imposing on whatever physical space she's created to give her brain time to work through whatever she is working through. He just stands and waits. It takes a while. Finally he sits on the floor just outside room, his eyes never leaving her, hers never meeting his.

"I never felt them coming." She clears her throat and it takes two tries to get the sentence out, and he feels like he's jumped to the middle of a conversation and missed where it started.

"It was always so dark and so loud." She still isn't looking at him. She's transfixed by the flame. "The music was blaring and the hood was on unless it was time to feed me or … hurt me. They would come in as quiet as they could and grab me. If I was startled or gasped they'd laugh and laugh." Her hands reach out to the sides as if to demonstrate where they were. As if she's remembering the fear. "They were right there and I didn't know."

And then he sees it – her uncertainty. She feels betrayed by her senses and it's left her ungrounded like a live wire brimming with electricity looking for something to strike. Like she can't trust herself. He's drawn to her, an overwhelming need to protect and support. He moves into the room, still on the floor, just trying to close the distance.

"You're safe, Kensi," he says softly.

She nods. "I know. I know it. I do. And then I relax and I close my eyes and I'm just waiting for them." Her voice trails off and her rocking gets a little faster.

He takes a chance. "Close your eyes, baby," he instructs so gently, and then adds a "please," for encouragement. He's almost surprised that she does. He stands and approaches her, circling her and then no louder than a whisper her asks her a question. "Where am I?"

Her hand goes immediately to the location, and she finds his leg. He kneels down, kisses the hand tenderly and returns it to her lap. He moves again.

"Where am I?"

She reaches to the location of his gravelly voice, finding him again in an instant. He hopes he is building her confidence. He hopes she feels that he is all around her. He hopes she knows she's safe. He comes and sits by her side, one leg straight behind her and one bent at the knee to let him bring his body right up against her.

"Where am I?"

Her hand comes up to his face, her eyes still closed but their connection giving her vision. Her fingers dance on his cheek and his arms go around her. She melts into his strength, and for the first time in eleven days she lets herself cry.

He's not even sure the words make sense as he whispers them. He unloads his whole heart into her ear – how much he loves her, how strong she is, how safe she is. Monty joins the couple on the floor, and sensing her anxiety and fear as only he can he lays down on the opposite side of her, enveloping her in love and hope and comfort.

Eventually Deeks runs out of words. Her rocking has stopped and she is now holding on to the arm that holds her to him with more strength than she knew she had right now. Stronger together. Always stronger together. When they blow out the candle and make their way back to the bed they share she curls up against him again, this time with an arm wrapped around him holding them together.

As he drifts to sleep he knows they'll be alright.

When they wake in the morning their positions are reversed. The exhaustion kept them sleeping, and their desperate love and gratitude kept them close. But instead of her arm over his body holding him close, now it is Deeks who is behind her. Kensi feels the sunlight across her eyelids and she doesn't need to open them to know that the feeling surrounding her, enveloping her, is love. She knows there will be harder nights, but this feeling – so completely safe in his arms – this is the feeling that kept her sane, the feeling she fought to come home to.

And as she opens her eyes she knows that no matter how long it takes, they will be alright.

THE END