It takes three more days to find Angelo. He hunkered down waiting for some of the heat to die down, but it didn't. Hetty had every law enforcement agency in the country stoking the flames. She called in favors. She offered favors. She cajoled. She threatened. And all of it created a net that Angelo couldn't escape through.
It started as a team of seven men bitter at NCIS for a variety of reasons. Kensi killed three. Callen and Sam killed two. One is in custody, and small bits of information from him and the best coordinated and most technologically enabled domestic search anyone at NCIS had ever seen finally yields the desired prize.
Callen gets to cuff Angelo, and it may be his most satisfying collar.
Angelo finds himself in the boathouse in a familiar small room. His hands are cuffed behind his back, and despite his request for professional courtesy, he is told they are staying secured. He laughs a condescending laugh at Sam and Callen in the room when they say no.
"You can't really be afraid of me. It's not like I'd be able to overpower both of you."
"Not worried about you overpowering us, I promise you," Callen tells him.
"Oh no?" Angelo asks.
"No. You don't even exist anymore. Not to NCIS. Not to anyone. You just don't know it yet." Sam informs him.
Angelo assumes they're playing with him. If Hetty didn't kill him when she had the chance, he's not in any danger now, but he's willing to play the game. "So you're just going to let Hetty have her way with me?"
"No, not Hetty," Callen tells him.
"Oh, extraordinary rendition, perhaps? Break a few civil rights statutes? Send me to a black site? Turn me over to the Saudis or something? You'd risk everything on me. I'm flattered."
"I would," Callen admits, making sure Angelo sees the certainty in his stare, "but that isn't the plan either."
"Then what's the plan?" Angelo asks, his patience wearing thin.
That's when the door opens and Kensi walks in. She's the reason he's still in cuffs. Callen couldn't handle the idea of him putting his hands on her again, and Deeks wouldn't agree to the plan without the stipulation.
"Ask her," Sam says with a smile that was smug enough to rival an Angelo special.
"Agent Blye." Angelo starts and hesitates and it gives Kensi a certain amount of satisfaction that he isn't sure how to play her now. "You're looking well," Angelo finally says.
"No thanks to you," she quips with ice cold eyes.
"You won the game, Kensi. Be a gracious winner," he chides.
"I will be. When you're gone. When I know I'll never have to see your face or that stupid smile even one more time." Her words are deliberate. Measured. In control in a way that lets him know he's in trouble.
"I'll never be really gone. Put me away in some maximum security prison, but I'll never be gone. You'll always be looking for me over your shoulder. You'll hear my voice in your head forever. I'll always be there," he tells her.
Callen and Sam tense as he plays his particular brand of mind games with her. They heard the messages that he played in Kensi's head for days and know how close they came to losing her.
But Kensi is solid. She looks up at the camera in the corner knowing Deeks is on edge in the next room. She wanted to walk up on Angelo alone, didn't want to need someone next her to feel strong. She knows part of her strength comes from Deeks and his love, whether he's standing next to her or not. She winks at him, letting him know she's good, and returns to her prey.
"I'm not putting you in a cell, Angelo, and if all that's left of you is your voice I'm sure I'll be just fine."
It's the first time the smug smile starts to disappear, and she closes on him while he fidgets with his cuffs despite the fact that he knows he isn't getting out of them. Kensi reaches into her back pocket and takes out a small container. She opens it on the table giving Angelo a clear view of the loaded syringe.
"I want to play a game, Paul." He says nothing and it is the loudest silence she's ever heard. She continues. "I have a theory. Do you want to hear my theory?"
He clears his throat and searches for some bravado. "Enlighten me."
"I have a theory that you cheated at our last game. See, there was no neuro-toxin in my system, and if there was no toxin, there was no need for an antidote." Kensi breaks the seal on the syringe cap and lifts it in the air, depressing the end just enough for the first stream of liquid to shoot into the air. She flicks her finger on the side of the syringe. "Wouldn't want to end it all quickly with an air bubble when I could watch you suffer."
It's an exact replica of the 'antidote' that he gave NCIS.
"What is that?" His confidence starts to melt away in front of her and watching it happen is more medicinal than the antibiotics she's still taking.
"This?" she asks in a false, sweet voice. "You know what this is. This is the antidote you gave my team. But my theory is that maybe this isn't really an antidote at all."
He's shifting uncomfortably in his seat, and she finally sees what his face looks like without any hint of that damn smugness.
"I'm thinking this was your fall back plan, right – if they made it to me and I survived, this was how you were going to make sure you won either way, right?"
"Kensi, I…" he begins, but she talks right over him.
"You were hoping it was Deeks, weren't you? That if we did manage to stop you from blowing me into a million pieces and taking someone on the team with me, that Deeks and I would have a moment of reunion, of relief, and then he'd give me the antidote he thought I needed only to find out that this was the toxin all along. He'd save me only to lose me."
"You don't have it in you," he says.
Sam laughs, Callen smiles, and Deeks appears behind her in the doorway.
"I learned from Hetty, and I think if you asked her what she wishes she'd done the night she sent you packing, that after the events of the last week she'd say she wished she'd ended you. We won't make the same mistake twice."
She comes closer to him. He flinches. She smiles.
He looks over her shoulder at Deeks.
"You're the one who wants me dead. You going to let her do your dirty work for you."
Deeks doesn't know if Angelo has an actual point or is just trying to buy time, but he doesn't care. He comes up alongside Kensi, putting his hand in her hair and kissing her. Then he leans down to Angelo's eye level.
"Which one of your hearts do you think will stop first? Wait. Don't answer. I don't care." Then he stands beside Kensi. He leans in and kisses her shoulder. "All you, ladybird."
She hides her smile as she leans down into Angelo's ear. "If you cheat, boom," she says, reminding him of the messages he played in her ear. "If my theory is right, and you cheated, then this is goodbye." She sinks the syringe into his neck, giving him the sedative they had loaded into the duplicate syringe and staying locked on his eyes as the effects started to hold. "Some things really do mate for life, you know."
He blinks, feeling the effects strengthen, and gives her one last look. This time he's scared, and even if it doesn't say anything good about her humanity, it satisfies her spirit.
As he passes out Kensi lays his head gently on the table and Hetty appears in the doorway.
"The van is outside for the transfer of custody. He'll be behind bars for rest of his life."
Deeks' arm snakes around Kensi's waste bringing her body right against his. "Let's get you home," he tells her. She leans her head on her shoulder letting the fatigue of the last week and the strain of healing show through.
"That sounds amazing," she tells him.
He makes eye contact with the men in the room. With their eyes they give their support, their approval, and Deeks leads Kensi to the main room.
"A moment, Ms. Blye," they hear as they head for the car, and they turn around to see Hetty in the large open space. She's holding an envelope that she holds out, and Kensi comes back and takes it from her. She holds it up and questions Hetty with an expression.
"It's my understanding that you are in need of a place to live," Hetty says, matter-of-factly.
"Yeah," Kensi confirms in mild exasperation. Finding a place in LA can be a full time gig.
"Well, I know someone who is about to put this house up for rent. I thought maybe before you head back to Malibu this evening you might take a look. It's in good condition, in a great neighborhood, and certainly spacious enough for a …. roommate …. if you were so inclined." Hetty's eyes briefly dart to Deeks, who is looking uncomfortable but standing his ground by her side.
"The number is on the listing. I told them you'd be calling this afternoon. They're waiting to hear from you."
"Thank you, Hetty." Kensi says, trying to hide the tired. She and Deeks go to the car and decide to make the call. Whether they like it or not neither of them want to tell Hetty that she called in a favor for them but they couldn't be bothered to see the place.
The agent acts the same way anyone on Hetty's good side does when her name is dropped. Attentive and eager. They meet up at the house, and Kensi is already shaking her head.
"There has to be a mistake on the price."
The house has three bedrooms, and a little den off the breakfast nook in the kitchen. It has room for all their things. It has room for both of them to have an office/ mancave/ she-shed area if they need their own space. It has a fenced back yard for Monty and a back deck perfect for grilling and drinking margaritas.
And the rent is the same as the little apartment she was renting ten days ago.
Deeks loves it. Kensi can see it on his face. A great kitchen to cook in and lots of sunlight. She knows it would make him happy. So she puts her hands in front of her, palms up, in a universally understood gesture that says, 'what do you think?' When the smile spreads across his face she looks at the agent.
"We'll take it."
A/N - Almost home, my friends. So happy that people have followed the story and are looking forward to updates. You guys are great. I got myself set up over on tumblr to connect and see what you all do over there. I'm KalliopeKoreKind if you want a follow or to say hi. Not posting different content, mostly just a lurker there now, but happy to connect. Be Safe, Be Kind, Be Fierce. -Kalli.