It took an army of Federal Law Enforcement officers at the hospital to give Deeks enough peace to step away in the morning. Kensi told him to go. She was going to be with her medical team and was on pace to be released that afternoon. She had a few hours before she would be able to leave. He left her with her SIG and her badge.
They waited for him Ops to go over what they knew. No one wanted to be the one to tell him alone, and no one wanted to have to hear it or say it more than once.
"It looks like they made multiple incisions in her back to make it impossible for her to know where they inserted devices if she figured out they were there. There were two. One was a heart monitor and one was a GPS tracker. They were both micro-transmitters that sent information to the laptop. Angelo used it to keep track of her location and heartrate. The rules are coded into the program. It used her location and her heartrate to automatically generate messages to remind her of the rules of the game.
"What kind of messages?" Deeks asks.
"They were reminders to her not to speak to us. Things like that."
"Do you have them?" Deeks follows up, and when Eric nodded, Deeks continues. "Play them."
Eric looks to Hetty and she nods her approval. Angelo's voice fills the room.
If you let them help you, boom. You know the rules. Time to get going, Agent Blye. I expect you to be a moving target. If you stay in one place that doesn't give them a fighting chance to find you. If they touch you, boom. If you cheat, boom. Don't forget the consequences of failure. For you and the team you love. Well at least you're trying. Good Girl. It won't save them if you get caught though.
Deeks blinks when the messages stop, not actually having words to respond or comment. He just thinks about Kensi's last three days. Angelo's voice in her ear, and a coded app shocking her if she slept too long or stayed in one place. Walking around wired to explode at the whim of a crazy person. What she was willing to do to protect him and the team.
Deeks wants to kill Angelo. Tear him apart. Pound a fist into his face. Wipe that stupid smile away.
"She's been listening to that for three days?" Sam asked. Nell nodded. "Well then going back to listening to Deeks all day will be a treat." The joke wasn't hysterical, but it was funny enough, normal enough to bring Deeks out of his thoughts and back into the moment.
"Touché."
Callen clapped Deeks on the back, a show of brotherhood and support.
"We're going to find him. He'll pay for what he did. But none of us can concentrate on that unless we know you're with Kensi and she's safe."
"Copy that," Deeks told him. "Text me with updates. I'm heading back to Kensi."
He stepped out of Ops, Hetty just steps behind him.
"A word, Mr. Deeks."
()()()()()()()()
"Where are we going?" Kensi asked as Deeks drove them to a house in Malibu.
"Someplace quiet and safe," he says mysteriously. When she pouts he relents. "I don't really know. I got an address from Hetty and instructions for us to go and stay until we hear otherwise."
That's all the answer she needs. If Hetty told them to disappear the house would be nice and the location would be secure. Both are true. The house is impressive and it has a security detail and a great view. It isn't an NCIS safehouse. It's private property that belongs to their Operations Manager. They tour the house, tentatively at first because everyone is careful with Hetty's things if they know what's good for them, but then start to make themselves comfortable.
"Want to go for a walk on the beach?" Kensi asks him.
"You are supposed to be resting. We snuck you out of the hospital, and I was an enthusiastic accomplice," he says, kissing her in the break in his words. "But you still need rest. You need to recover and heal."
"I don't want to get sleep. I want to get Angelo," she tells him, committed to having a say in how he goes down.
"I know. And no one deserves it more. But right now you can't be kicking in doors. You're just going to have to trust the team to do it for you."
She laces her fingers into his. "Sometimes I have trust issues," she says.
"Yeah? I never knew that." She knows he's kidding, but she appreciates his response anyway.
He convinces her to take a late afternoon nap. She decides to do it on the back deck in the sunshine. He helps her lay the lounge chair flat and she grabs a pillow and arranges herself half on her side and half on her stomach. It isn't long until she falls asleep, and he sits with his feet up and his gaze alternating between the ocean and the woman he loves. He can see the security team from his vantage point, too, and while he isn't ceding her protection to someone else, he relaxes a little knowing there is ample backup.
When he's sure she's asleep he kisses her on the head. He gets the attention of one of the security guys and makes hand motions that tell them he's going inside and they need to keep an extra eye out. He gets the thumbs up and heads into the kitchen. The refrigerator is stocked with everything he suggested when Nell asked him, and then some. He decides on a menu and starts pulling things out on the counter. He chops and trims and sautés, all the while keeping one eye on Kensi on the deck.
His meal is cooking, coming together nicely, when he sees her start to stir. He takes a bottle of white wine and pours them each a glass knowing that it's contraband with her current medication, but thinking she will love it anyway. She slides the glass door opens and inhales, immediately letting out a moan that is an approval of whatever delicious thing he is bringing to life.
It was exactly the reaction he hoped for, and he can't help but smile. He walks to her, handing her a glass of wine and wrapping his arm around her lower back, careful not to disturb her wounds.
"Just the one glass tonight, ok?"
She nods and takes a sip, loitering in his arms an extra minute before she pulls up a stool at the island in the center of the kitchen and watches him stir and check and do cooking things she doesn't know the names of.
"I can't think about facing my apartment. It has to be a disaster," she says, bits of reality breaking through the Malibu beach house vibe.
"Well then I have some good news and some bad news," he tells her as he begins to plate the food. "The good news is that the apartment is clean. Like completely clean. Like empty clean."
"What?" It's clicking in her mind although she hadn't thought about it before.
"The apartment was compromised. You couldn't stay there. Nell packed a bag of what she considers essentials and had everything else packed and moved to an offsite location until you decide on a new place. The bedding and the mattress are a total loss. I offered to pack your essentials, but Nell said she had a better handle on it."
"You'd have packed lingerie, bikinis and guns."
"All pretty essential, I think," he says in his defense as he puts plates on the island and pulls up a stool deciding to eat with a view of the ocean.
"She did the same with my place," he offers. "My place was likely compromised, too. That's probably where they got to Monty. So we're both homeless."
"Not a bad place to be homeless," she comments as her eyes wander around the beautiful house. "But it can't last forever."
"And you wouldn't want it to. Bad ass Blye is going to want to be out chasing bad guys and not cooped up in paradise as soon as she can, right?"
"Damn straight."
He loves the response. It's full of spark and fire and determination, and there's no better measure of how she's doing mentally and emotionally.
"So I was thinking….," he starts.
"Oooh, dangerous," she jokes.
"That maybe if you are looking for a new place, and I'm looking for a new place, that maybe we should think about looking at an 'our place'."
She stops mid-bite and looks at him with surprise. A little like a deer in the headlights.
"Or not," he says, instantly retreating. "I get it if it's too soon. It was just an idea, before we get locked in to leases or whatever and…" He tries to throw away the idea but his heart won't let him. He locks his eyes with hers. "I just love being with you. Doing nothing with you. Doing everything with you. Waking up with you. I just love you, Kensi Marie Blye."
"I love you, too, but this isn't because of what happened, right? About me being alone in my apartment when they came for me?"
"No, no," he assures her, taking her hand in his. "I mean, it killed me that I wasn't there to help you when it happened, I hated that you were alone, but this isn't about being worried about bad things happening. This is about knowing that good things happen when we're together. I'll be there for the bad things, absolutely, but this is about wanting to be with you for all the good things."
It sounds dumb now that he's said it out loud. He thinks maybe it should have been a bigger event at a better moment, and he curses himself on the inside that he did it wrong. Kensi doesn't think it was wrong, though. Her eyes get glassy from the emotion, and she reaches for his face, pulling him into a kiss.
"I want to be there for all the good things, too."
"Is that a yes?"
"Yes."