A/N: Why hello! Long time no see, at least here on this site. I started writing this story in early 2020, planning to post it when Season 12 began, the season during which I hoped we would get our long-sought "Deeks, M." episode. Then the pandemic and its complications ensued, and I had to stop working on it. I got a second wind this summer and managed to get it mostly finished, pending some final editing.

A quick spoiler alert (or is it a reverse spoiler alert?): Although they were written for this story, a few flashbacks here were first shared in a one-shot called "Deciding on Destiny" for wikiDeeks' "Deeks, M." fan fic series.

This story is going to be about 14 short chapters, about 40,000 words total. It'll contain no more violence than the show except in a few chapters where there are some brief mentions of non-consensual sexual contact. The Deeks whumpage is definitely tamer than in my last story, although he does seem to be a bit accident-prone. There will be occasional bad language, not much worse than the show. The story also includes detailed depictions of several painful events from Deeks' childhood: there will be angst. And it will include answers to quite a few questions about my favorite character. I'm still holding out hope we'll get some real answers from the show, but in the meantime, I hope this keeps you entertained. Here's a quick opening chapter to get things rolling.

"Whereof what's past is prologue; what to come, in yours and my discharge."

Shakespeare, The Tempest

The early morning sun had finally risen high enough to warm Marty's back as he sat on his surfboard facing out to sea. All was right in the world on this June morning. Or as right as it was likely to get, anyway. He drew in a deep breath of salty air as his heart slowed from his last ride to shore and the paddle back out. Here, where he could gaze out toward the boundless horizon and sense his miniscule place in the universe, his problems always shrunk in proportion, losing some of their power and weight.

Today said problems were few and far between. He'd spent the night with an attractive, vivacious redhead who hadn't cared about Party Marty's reputation, or had maybe even embraced it. He'd met Frannie playing beach volleyball and they'd hit it off right away. Her carefree attitude typified the women he dated, even if his hook-ups rarely lasted long enough to count as actual dating.

And he was more than OK with that. His career had barely begun, and he had only just started to see himself as more of a grown-up. Long-term commitments would only complicate his life. As far as he could tell, monogamy and - god forbid - marriage, mostly led to misery. He could definitely wait awhile before he worried about maturing into that much of an adult.

He had to head back in soon to get to work on time, and wondered idly if Frannie would still be in his bed when he got home to shower and change. Whatever the outcome, he would spin it to himself in a way that made him happy. She was a lot of fun, sure, but she hadn't made that big an impression on him. Plenty of hot women like her filled the streets of Los Angeles, especially here in Venice.

The only thought that niggled at the back of his mind was whether she might have left because he had failed to make an impression on her. Yes, he was fit and attractive, his lanky swimmer's body and long blond curls nearly irresistible to healthy numbers of the women he encountered. He had confidence in his ability to charm the opposite sex. And, based on the enthusiastic feedback he always received, he didn't lack any skills in bed. Yet maybe the sum total of his positive attributes had failed to result in a person women would see as relationship material.

Sure, relationships didn't appear on his personal To Do list, but he still wanted women to think him worthy of their longer-term interest. His law degree was impressive, no doubt. He never tired of whipping out that little factoid when he was getting to know someone. His shaggy appearance always caused people to underestimate him, and seeing the surprise in their eyes, a shifting assessment of his abilities once they'd learned he was a practicing attorney, never failed to nudge his self-esteem a tiny bit higher.

But a second, subtler shift always followed when they found out he worked as a public defender, and their impressed expression was replaced by a slightly puzzled one that returned him to underachiever status in their eyes. Still, he had his reasons for choosing this line of work. He hadn't even worked in his job for a year yet, having started there right after he'd graduated and passed the Bar. His reasons had made sense at the time, but he had begun to worry that maybe he'd miscalculated. The job wasn't exactly turning out to be what he'd pictured.

As the wind picked up, he stifled a shiver and shook the water out of his hair, shaking his doubts away at the same time. He turned his board toward shore and picked up the next suitable wave, and savored an all too brief sense of freedom as he rode it in, back to the real world to see where his day would lead.

The old and overcrowded County Jail confines offered the starkest possible contrast to Marty's morning surf location. The structure and its infamous Twin Towers across the street made up the largest prison in the country. Most of his clients so far had been out on bail, so he hadn't yet spent much time here. The place intimidated him, and the memories and insecurities raised by visiting it tended to throw him off balance. Still, each visit got a little easier.

He sat in a stark, windowless interview room with a battered stainless steel table, two matching chairs, and walls that might not have seen new paint since the building opened in 1963. He sported his usual, confining suit and tie, which combined with his long but wrestled into semi-submission hair to lend a fair degree of professionalism to his appearance. As he pulled his case file out from his messenger bag, the room's metal door clanked open. He stifled his surprise and looked up to see an orange jumpsuit-clad Nikolai Petrov, his latest client, being escorted in. The guard sat him down across from Marty and wordlessly turned and left, banging the door shut behind him.

Nineteen-year-old Nikolai had closely cropped black hair and cold, grey eyes. His lanky frame communicated a lack of tension as he slunk down in the chair, his arms cuffed in front of him and dropping under the table.

"Good morning, Nikolai," Marty greeted the young man calmly, working to project a confidence he didn't fully feel.

"Hello," Nikolai returned, his face expressionless. Marty had first met him about a month earlier when he'd been assigned his case, the first big case as an Assistant Public Defender he'd been allowed to work on his own without a more experienced APD accompanying him. He'd reached this level of autonomy quicker than most, thanks in part to his work ethic, always striving to do the best he could for his clients whether or not they were probably guilty.

He told Nikolai, "We're in what we call the discovery phase of this process, during which I get access to information the prosecution has for their case, and I wanted to talk about some of that information, OK?"

"Sure," Nikolai replied. He sounded bored, as if Marty were discussing someone else's case.

Marty continued, telling him, "They have two eyewitnesses to the kidnapping attempt, one in particular who seems problematic. Now, eyewitnesses in general are not always reliable, and I can try to introduce doubt about this witness's memory or reliability-"

"What witness is it?" His speech revealed no signs of a Russian accent. He'd been born there but had come to the U.S. when he was an infant.

"I can't tell you that," Marty explained. It was a fairly common question from a defendant. "I-"

"What do you mean?" Nikolai pressed.

"I mean, I'm required by law to protect the identity of any witnesses. I get to read their statements but I can't share with you who they are."

"Is it the blonde?"

Marty sighed inwardly. He didn't want to ask for clarification, but did anyway. "What do you mean, the blonde?"

"There was a blonde woman, she got a good look at me," Nikolai revealed.

Now Marty couldn't help but sigh audibly. Defendants were perfectly within their rights to tell him about their crimes, and it couldn't change a thing about the effort he put into defending them, but sometimes it sure would be easier if he could just ask them to stop talking. The country's adversarial system of justice worked pretty well overall, but some days the idea of continuing to play his chosen role in it dampened his enthusiasm to leave the waves and come into work.

He attempted to explain to his client, stating, "Like I said, I can't tell you anything about the witnesses. I would like to talk about any thoughts you have for-"

"It's OK. It's not gonna be a problem."

Alarm bells sounded in Marty's head, and his eyebrows rose as his mouth fell open. What exactly did he just hear? "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Nothing. Just, you don't need to worry about any witnesses."

Yep, he'd heard right. That sounded like a problem. A big one. He was required to keep everything a client told him a secret no matter what, but there were a few small but important exceptions. "Nikolai, are you threatening witnesses?"

"Nah, of course not. Forget I said anything." Nikolai appeared unconcerned, his body language remaining relaxed.

"Nikolai, it's my duty to tell you that you can't-"

"Come on, man. I told you, forget I said anything. You're reading too much into a random comment… What else do you wanna talk about?"

Marty stifled a frustrated groan. His job was meaningful. He helped those accused of crimes who, even if they were guilty, deserved a second chance. But some clients stretched his patience. Exactly what kind of justice was he working toward in representing someone like Nikolai, who had practically confessed to the crime and showed no remorse? And what the hell was he supposed to do with the new information Nikolai had just shared with him? Whatever he did, his gut told him it would lead to nothing but trouble.

A/N: Yep, I'm gonna call him Marty throughout the story, since that's the name I think he used at the time. You will get an idea of where and when that changed, though, but you'll have to wait a few chapters to find out.

Also, I did research the legal details but was never able to confer with an actual attorney, so please forgive any errors.

Updates should come weekly, unless by some miracle we hear that "Deeks, M." is coming soon, in which case I may speed things up.