To answer an inquiry I got in the reviews last chapter, this story does take place before Deeks and Kensi get together. I just think it's a bit more interesting and allows for more freedom when writing if they aren't together as yet.

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"So...where exactly are we going?" Alex asked again for the millionth time, poking her head in between the two men in the front seats.

"You will see eventually," Deeks breathed out to his little sister.

"You told me that fifteen minutes ago, and I have still yet to see a single thing other than...trees." Alex gestured to the window and rolled her eyes. The green brush passed by in a blur as they drove.

Deeks sighed again from the driver's seat, this time ignoring his sister and opting rather to pay attention to road ahead of him.

"Are you really gonna ignore me?" Alex glared at the side of his head. "That is beyond immature, you know that right?"

Callen's muffled chuckle from the passenger seat caught the young girl's attention. She whipped her head around to look at the agent with narrowed eyes.

"I'm not even completely sure why you're here in the first place," Alex challenged him, drawing another chuckle from his body.

"She's your sister alright," Callen joked with Deeks, choosing not to respond to the girl.

"No she's not," Deeks countered. "She's adopted."

"I am not adopted!" Alex yelled, smacking her brother's shoulder lightly.

"Yeah you are," Deeks protested. "Where do you think the green eyes came from?"

"It's a recessive allele!" Alex leaned back in her seat with a huff, grabbing her phone again before tossing it onto the chair once more. "There's no service out here, Marty! Where the hell are we going and when will we be there?"

"We'll be there when we get there, Alex!" Deeks responded, tightening his hold on the steering wheel ever so slightly.

"Wow, you're so helpful..." Alex rolled her eyes sarcastically and pulled her earphones from her pocket. It wasn't long before Alex was staring out the window as her music played loud enough for both men to hear, despite her earbuds.

Deeks glanced in the rearview mirror at Alex before shaking his head and turning to Callen. "Sorry, she can get like that at times."

"It's actually nice," Callen said, keeping his gaze on the road. "Hearing you two bicker like actual siblings...it's nice to hear what family sounds like."

"Yeah well, be thankful that you hear this part instead of the 'I'm going on a date with some random guy I barely know and you have to be nice to him' argument," Deeks cringed at the memory.

"I can imagine," Callen smiled lightly. "Can I ask you a question?"

Deeks glanced at the agent in the passenger seat tentatively before nodding.

"Alexandria Bella Brandel," Callen narrowed his eyes, gathering his thoughts. "That's what you said her name was."

Deeks nodded once more, attempting to interpret the agent's line of questioning. It had simply been a way of life for so long that Deeks barely even noticed that he and his sister had different surnames anymore. At first, it was something he was always conscious about, but somewhere along the way it just became another fact of life. Just as simple as the colour of the sky and the heat of the sun.

"Why isn't her last name 'Deeks,' like yours?" Callen asked, turning to the detective. "Did you change it to make sure no one ever found a connection between you two, or-"

"No," Deeks interrupted Callen's trail of thought. "No, she has her father's last name."

"You have different fathers?" Callen narrowed his eyes again.

"In a way, we sort of did." Deeks chuckled sadly. "His name was Gordon John Brandel. He was my father too, but he never acted like one. The man spent more time at the bar than he did with me. When he was home, he was drunk, and he tended to take out his pent up anger on my mother and I. I shot him when I was eleven and police and CPS got involved, but he was back within a year's time and it just got worse. As soon as I graduated high school, I was out of that hellhole. I tried to get my mother to come with me, but she kept going on about how much she loved him and all that crap. I got accepted into UCLA and I left without her."

"When did Alex come into the picture?" Callen asked, choosing not to touch on the obvious subject of abuse. He had never been much of a family man, but it was absurd to him that Deeks' own mother would rather allow her child to suffer than to get the hell out of that house.

"A few months after I left for college, I got a call from Ray. I had asked him to keep tabs on my mother, keep her safe if he could. He informed me that she was pregnant again." Deeks sighed, recalling the memory with the same emotions he felt when it happened. "I didn't want to go back, so I asked him to keep tabs on the baby too, whenever my mom happened to give birth. He did. I trusted Ray to protect my family, but I couldn't live with myself knowing that there was a newborn in the same house as that monster..."

"So you went back." Callen nodded in understanding.

"Yeah, I did. I was prepared to take them both to court; my father for domestic abuse and my mother for child neglect. I prepared a speech and everything. I even practiced throwing a punch so I could take Brandel down if he tried anything. When I got to the house...he was sitting right there. He was on the porch, laughing and smiling with her as he fed her baby formula. He looked like an actual father..." Deeks furrowed his eyebrows as if still trying to understand what he had witnessed that day.

"I spent a week in that house and not once did he even raise his voice. He was calm and collected, almost as if he had turned his whole life around. I saw him with Alex and he loved her to death. He would sing to her before bed and watch Sesame Street in the mornings... It was the weirdest thing I ever saw. He was a completely different person. I didn't buy it for a second though. I just couldn't believe that the same man who had given me bruises all over my face for eighteen years was now giving his daughter kisses and tucking her in at night. I mean, the guy even got a job for her! In the years that I lived in that house, I never once saw him bring home an actual paycheck, and the second she was born, he had a job...?" Deeks was rambling as if he was simply speaking to himself now, Callen sat forgotten in the passenger seat.

"I went back to UCLA, but Ray was still keeping an eye on them to make sure it wasn't some fake persona he put on to fool me. I didn't go back for years...until I heard that Gordon had gotten into a car accident. He didn't make it. I returned home to help my mom plan a funeral, but she wasn't there." Deeks stared into the distance, recalling the memory. "I found Alex sitting in the kitchen crying. She told me that mom had gone out to buy groceries...three days before I arrived. The police never found her; not even a body."

"I'm sorry, Deeks." Callen said softly to the younger man, taking in the story that the detective had just shared. It was heartbreaking, a far cry from the easy, laid back joker they had all grown used to over the past few years. It was a wonder that Deeks was able to stay positive and raise an orphaned teenage girl, despite the horrific past he had endured.

"You can't tell Alex," Deeks breathed out shakily.

Callen glanced at the man with confusion. He wasn't planning to mention it to her anyway, but now he was curious.

"She doesn't know about what Gordon used to be like. I never told her," Deeks clarified. "To her, he was the perfect father. He actually loved her. I won't tarnish her memory of the man she thinks is a hero. I-I can't do that to her."

"You wouldn't be tarnishing her memory, Deeks...you'd be telling her the truth,"

Callen argued softly.

"It would be selfish."

"She would want to know, Deeks."

"She doesn't need to know."

"But she deserves to know."

"She deserves the world," Deeks said, facing the agent beside him briefly. "She deserves so much that I could never give her. Sometimes I wonder if she would've been better off if Gordon had survived..."

"Deeks, that's ridiculous." Callen stated, leaving no room for argument. After what the detective had just revealed to him, he wouldn't allow him to second guess his ability to care for Alex when opposed to a drunk who would abuse his wife and child for little to no reason.

"Callen, you don't understand. He loved her. He was different with her. Gordon could've done so much more for her than I'll ever be able to do. He was her father in every way that I'm not."

"That doesn't matter, Deeks. She loves you, and I highly doubt she'd give you up for a man like Gordon."

"That's because she doesn't know what she's missing," Deeks smiled sadly as tears began to form. "Either way, you cannot tell her."

Callen opened his mouth to convince Deeks again, but was interrupted before he could do so.

"Tell me what?" Alex said, pushing her head between them once more. "What can't you guys tell me?"

Callen panicked for a moment and turned to Deeks for an appropriate response.

"Where we're going," Deeks supplied quickly with a teasing smile into the rearview mirror.

"Tell me! Tell me, please?" Alex whined.

Callen smiled, shaking his head. Deeks had given up so much, sacrificed so much, just so his younger sister could live the life of a normal teenage girl. He had finished law school, become a police officer, and kept her a secret from his colleagues so she could go to school, text her friends, have crushes on guys, visit the cinemas, fall in love with actors, cry over the latest plot twist in her favourite book, or the unexpected character death in that TV show she loves. He did everything he didn't want to so she could do everything he didn't get to.

And as much of a wonderful kid Alex was, she barely even noticed.

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Heyyo! I just wanted to let you all know real quick that I and a friend of mine have started a new tumblr page called "Reading Therapy." My username is "antisocialbutterfly4." The main purpose of this page is create a sort of community that allows people to share the books they've read and get out of their reading slump with suggestions from other users. I personally know that it's really hard to find a good book that I enjoy, so I think it would be fun to have people from different walks of life share what books they think would be right for me based on which genres I like and vice versa. Writers can also exchange ideas or prompts if they'd like. Anyway, it would mean a lot if a few people followed the page or shared it with some friends. Thanks!

Review, review, review!