A/N: So I saw this list of essential Densi episodes and went back and started watching the list in order. Ep 3x10, 'The Debt' struck me as one that could have ended very differently. I thought about how angry Kensi was, and how bad they all knew it could get, and my mind wandered. What if Kensi reacted very differently? And it annoyed me that they played her and then everyone was fine with it. It turned into the favor that Hetty owed her that she called in during Blye,K but it didn't sit well with me. And so I give you 'Trust'. It picks up just as 3x10 ends. If you are inclined, watch that and then read this. Follow the story for notifications when I update- this one will be a little slower then the last few, and I'd love to hear how you're liking it along the way.
And a huge thank you to the amazing, Phnxgirl (mashmaiden) for every kind of help someone can give. This story would be half-written and soon forgotten if she hadn't helped this stranger organize the thoughts I had and augment them with creativity and kindness. Grateful to her and the community over on Tumblr she introduced me to.
Beating the hell out of the heavy bag feels therapeutic. And solitary. Kensi wants to be alone. She needs them to leave - she wants them gone so bad she can barely wait. The day has taken an emotional toll she couldn't even begin to explain. She has no scale to weigh it - no point of reference for how hard it's hit her.
She's gutted. She worried so much about Deeks, actually feeling the loss of their partnership while he downplayed it and said he needed perspective. She understood the moment better now that the deceit was over, but in the moment she was nothing short of destroyed.
They played her. The whole team. They brought in people from other teams to take part in playing her. The way they all exchanged glances around her all day. Everyone was in on it, and she was the butt of the joke.
She stays in the gym and every time she recounts being lied to or misled today, she hits the bag harder.
Deeks sold how distraught he was at what he'd done.
"LAPD gave me a badge 'cause I know when not to pull the trigger, and if I've lost that edge, man I'm just another thug with a gun."
Sam acted like he'd just given up on Deeks being part of the team.
"This might be for the best."
Hetty make a show of firing Deeks right in front of her.
"LAPD has cut its ties with NCIS."
Deeks at least wouldn't let her spill her heart out over a rouse.
"I'll call you."
Then Hetty questioning her objectivity and her feelings for Deeks.
"And if it's something more maybe it's best that he's gone."
Deeks said he didn't want to go along with it. He apologized for lying to her. But then he copped out.
"I was protecting you."
Hetty said that her knowing the truth endangered the mission.
"I couldn't take any risks."
Nell didn't even apologize to her when Kensi finally saw through it. She actually apologized to Callen because Kensi figured it out.
In the end, the reality was that they didn't trust her to do the job today. They didn't trust her so much that they didn't just leave her out, they lied to her. It was a risk to trust her. They made manipulating her the plan instead of trusting her to do the job, and when she figured it out, none of them but Deeks even had the decency to say they were sorry for it.
They were sure they were right. She couldn't have sold the story.
Sure, they trust her to wear low cut tops and short skirts – that's a story they trust her to sell. They trust her to take out targets at a distance and up close, but today they brought strangers inside the story and left her in cold, and it burned like frost bite. There's a shiver up her spine when she thinks about it. The reaction is emotional, and physical. Visceral and real.
And then there's Deeks. Their thing. Or not thing, apparently, because he lied to her anyway. Thought she needed protecting. Didn't want to talk about what was really going on between them. Or wasn't going on between them.
"I don't know. You're Kensi," he'd said before she walked away tonight. Maybe she'd read him all wrong, too.
Callen pops his head in the gym. If he feels any guilt over the way the day played out he doesn't show it. His trademark confidence is on display when he calls to her.
"We're all heading to Tang Thai for dinner and some drinks. Come with us."
She stops hitting the bag and steadies it to still in front of her. She never looks at him.
"I need to get some work in here right now. Maybe later."
"You seeing the face of anyone I know on that bag?" he laughs.
He's making a joke. He knows how angry she is, how hurt she was, and he couldn't be more dismissive if he tried.
"Maybe on the late side. Shoot me a text if you go somewhere after Tang's."
"Will do," Callen chirps happily. He's just glad to have the whole thing behind them, to be done with it before it exploded in their faces. But the carnage is everywhere and he just doesn't see it.
Kensi hits the bag again, glad to know that the team will be leaving soon and she won't have to see them. She hits it until her fists literally hurt and she can barely lift her arms. Then she hits the shower thinking it will give her something else to do until she can be alone.
She approaches her desk and for a moment and her resolve wavers. Maybe the echo in the gym became an echo chamber of self-doubt. Maybe she should talk it through with someone before she makes a decision. Maybe she should give them a chance to hear her side and see if it changes how they see the day.
She pushes it down. There's only one way forward.
She grabs an empty box from the burn room and begins filling it. She destroys paper files that no one needs. She throws away trash. She puts one thing on Deeks' desk. She takes one thing off.
She scrubs her desk to shining.
Then she grabs an empty piece of paper from the printer and scribbles a short note. She puts it on the now barren desk alongside her cell phone, her badge, and her SIG, clip out and chamber empty.
She pulls out the burner cell she bought late this afternoon when the idea first started forming in her brain. She only gave herself a 50/50 chance of pulling this particular trigger when she threw the phone in her bag a few hours ago. It was hard to imagine actually going through with it, but here she is. She finds the business card in her wallet. It's black with a silver number. It doesn't say anything else. She takes a deep breath and dials.
"Go," a disoriented voice answers.
"Hey there, Bandit. It's Kensi." There's no hiding the shake in her voice and she doesn't try.
"Kensi?" The voice sounds like she woke him.
"Dav-ey" she greets him back, saying his name the way they all did in sniper school. "You asleep?"
"I'm in a … very different time zone," he says, enigmatically. "To what do I owe the pleasure, Pirate?" He gives her a minute. This isn't his personal cell phone she's called. It took four approvals to even give her this number. He never thought she'd use it. Not in a million years.
"You said if I ever thought I needed a change…."
That's all she needs to say.
"When can you start?" he answers confidently. He doesn't want to give her a minute to change her mind or second guess.
"What if I needed to disappear, like, now?"
"Are you in trouble?" There might be a hint of worry in his voice.
"No – nothing like that. I swear. Just need whatever is next to start right now."
"Ok," he settles and thinks for ten seconds. That's all it takes for a plan. Truth be told in what he does that ten seconds is actually a luxury.
"I'll have an SUV at your house two hours from right .. now." She can almost hear him start a stop watch in his head and he continues. "There will be two men. One will come knock on your door. I'll text you his name. Safeword is Bounty. Leave your car. Leave your phone. No tech. They'll take you to Julie and you can lay low. I'm back in 48 hours and we'll figure it out."
"Two hours," she repeats as confirmation.
"I'm sure it's a hell of a story, Pirate. First round is on me." Just like that it's done.
Her exhale is slow and deliberate. She looks at her watch. One hour and fifty eight minutes.
The team is drinking and eating at Tang's, laughing at how it all turned out, but she can't shake the feeling they're laughing at her. They can laugh all they want. By morning she'll be a ghost.
Back at her place she's in constant motion. She grabs two duffle bags and fills them. One is workout clothes and gear, the other is her wardrobe and any other essentials. She has a few personal weapons she's put in the bag. Her dad's sniper rifle is in its case. She carries it to the front door and puts it by her gear. She doesn't know when she'll be back and she isn't prepared to be without for any length of time.
She goes room to room and takes it all in.
It's a tall guy with an athletic build who looks ex-military if anyone ever did that knocks on her door. He gives her the safeword and his name. He introduces himself as Tyson and grabs one of her bags, lifting it like it was empty. They put the bags in the back. He offers her the front seat, but she declines, preferring to be in the back alone. Tyson secures the door and just like that they're gone.
()()()()()()
Callen, Sam and Deeks all arrive at work the next morning around the same time, by chance meeting as they enter the mission. They're laughing at the exploits from the night before. People drank a lot and they all seem to remember funny things others did but be surprised at stories about themselves. Deeks carries Kensi's favorite coffee, figuring there is still some groveling to do.
They turn the corner to the desks in the bullpen and are first drawn to the woman at Kensi's desk. It isn't Kensi. Nell is sitting there and her eyes are glassy and her face is red. Then they see the desk - empty, devoid of the particular combination of personal knick-knacks and mess that made everyone laugh and feel at home. Now it's just a shiny surface in which they can see the reflection of the overhead lights. All that remains is a piece of paper with very few handwritten words, and right below it her phone, her badge, and her gun, with the clip and a lone bullet. Callen reads the note out loud.
If you don't trust my ability to do the job, then this isn't the place for me.
"Wait, what?" Deeks asks with an unmistakable hint of panic rising in his voice.
Eric and Hetty join the group as Sam shakes his head.
"I told you this was going to get ugly," Callen says.
"It was the only way," Sam assures him.
"Was it, though?" Deeks asked, the first one to feel the guilt of the current situation.
"Deeks, go talk to her," Callen instructs.
"I wouldn't bother, Mr. Deeks," Hetty offers before he gets two steps away. "I sent agents to her home first thing this morning. She isn't there."
"GPS places her car at her apartment, and they confirmed it was there," Eric informs them.
"Her phone has been here all night, and she didn't pick up the text telling her we went from Tang's to Brick Alley," Nell added.
"No credit card or app usage, no tech to ping. She's just gone," Eric tells them.
"And this is Kensi. If she doesn't want to be found, we aren't going to find her," Sam says stating the obvious.
"She's over-reacting," Callen reasons. "She's unhappy about how yesterday went. I get that, none of us liked it. Maybe she's a little embarrassed that she didn't see it sooner, but she's a first class agent and when she gets some perspective she'll be back."
"You think so? This," Deeks says gesturing around the bullpen, "this is the only family that Kensi has, and yesterday we didn't just run an op and keep her in the dark. We ran an op on her."
"I thought she and I had come to an understanding about it last night. I fear I misread her," Hetty admits in a rare moment of fallibility.
"Damn it," Deeks shouts and tosses his cross shoulder bag on to his desk. It hits something that bounces across the floor, and it draws his attention.
They'd gone out for drinks one night in Venice Beach. A lot of tourists, which she hates, but a strikingly clear day where you felt like you could see forever. The gimmick for the bar was these little plastic figures they sank in their extra-large margaritas. Kensi and Deeks ordered the big ones and drained them to the bottom. In hers there was a little two inch tall chimpanzee, and in his there was a two inch long jungle cat of some kind, maybe a panther or a cheetah. They were all one color with sketchy level of detail, so they weren't sure.
She begged him for it. She said he was the chimp and she was the cheetah. He laughed and said fate said otherwise. And there on the floor is her plastic chimpanzee. And then he realized the plastic jungle cat was gone.
She left something that reminded him of her. She took something that reminded her of him.
Maybe it was hope.