"And what is Marty's job? The one I tell my friends," Julia said. She wanted to have a little party, introduce them to her people.
"LAPD," he said. They were having a nice Saturday night dinner with her mom at Marty's favorite super local burger place.
"And I'm a lowly clerk, administrative staff for the Navy," Kensi said.
"I know," her mom said. "I promise, that's what I've been telling them. They're all very eager to meet you."
Marty said, "So this is, like, your friends from work and, uh -"
"My second marriage?" Julia smiled easily. Kensi envied her mom's calm.
He said, "Sorry, I feel like I should have asked earlier."
Kensi said, "Or I should have told you."
"It's okay. I met Michael through my work," Julia said. "We helped his synagogue plan a celebration, he was widowed, no kids, I was divorced, we hit it off."
"You invited me to the wedding," Kensi said. "Sorry again about not coming or writing."
"I got to go to yours," she said. She really did look okay with that. "Sadly, Michael died five years ago. He wasn't feeling well for a few weeks. I made him go to the doctor. The doctor said it was pancreatic cancer, and two weeks later he was dead."
"I'm sorry," Marty said.
"It was pretty awful," Julia said. She smiled again. "And now I can introduce you two to all the people who helped me through that. So please come."
"Our pleasure," Kensi said. She looked at Marty and said, "What does she say if they ask what you do for the LAPD? I don't think undercover -"
"Undercover extraordinaire," he said. "Actually, if someone asks, technically, I think you say K9 trainer."
Kensi said, "That's what you tell people? You're a dog trainer for LAPD?"
"Yes," he said. "I would be a great dog trainer, by the way." He reached for the check. "Not that I've actually had people to tell that to."
"And how did you two meet? The administrative assistant and the dog trainer."
"At the gym," Kensi said. "It's true."
"I love that story," he said.
"And you've been dating how long?"
"That's a tough one," Kensi said.
"Technically, three weeks," Marty said. "Two weeks of which we've been married. But I guess that answer won't work."
"I thought you were dating when I met you," Julia said. "So maybe I'll use that date."
"That's sort of accurate," Kensi said. "Kind of."
Marty said, "I'm going to pay for this." He got up and walked to the counter.
"Yeah, covering that $40 check is quite the gesture," Kensi said. She looked at her mom. "I'm sorry I never met Michael, Mom."
"Me, too," she said. "But we can't change the past. Just, try to be done saving the country by 7, okay?"
"We will do our best," she said.
Then it was Wednesday and Marty was complaining. "I got beat up a lot today. I'm kinda not in the mood."
"Don't you even think about it," Kensi said. She was looking for something that said clerk. She didn't really have a lot of clothes that weren't jeans or tees or sweats and sports bras.
"I'm not really, I promise, but I am feeling really battered already. I hope the food is good," he said. "Also, it feels weird, like, playing myself." He stepped out of the bathroom and pulled on a pair of dress slacks. "And you need to change that dress. Those temporary tattoos from last week are still visible in that one. It's also a little more first date sexy than meeting Mom's friends."
She grunted and took the dress off. He said, "You could just run with the Elvish tattoos."
"I haven't read those stupid books," she said. She grabbed one of his button downs and put it on. Somewhere on the floor she found a very dark stretchy skirt and a belt. She was pretty sure the skirt was clean. "Don't roll up your sleeves, you have that burn from the bomb last week."
"Hey," he said. "Are we the assholes who didn't have your mom's party planning firm plan our wedding?"
"No," she said, grabbing a purse and shoving her keys and phone into it. "They don't do weddings, they're strictly professional conferences and company celebrations. I am the only asshole here because I'm the one who turned my back on my mom and never met my own stepfather -"
"Stop," he said. "Past is the past is the past."
She said, "Are you bringing your gun?"
He stopped at the door and said, "I was going to leave mine in the car unless you think it's going to get rowdy."
"Right, you're a cop." She pushed him out the door.
"Yes, I am," he said. "See? Weird."
She said, "Like, we're us -"
"But modified. Mostly you," he said. "I mean, I am a cop." They were in the car. He was really nice about always letting her drive. Then he said, "Oh, man, I love you dearly, Kens, but I also got punched in the stomach at least ten times today by that New Zealand guy. Can you try to, I dunno, not lurch as much?"
"He wasn't from New Zealand, I told you, his accent was from Singapore. Also, we need to be not late."
They were only five minutes late.
It was nice. Her mom was clearly thrilled to be introducing the two of them to everyone, no one called Kensi an asshole to her face and the food was good.
She had three glasses of wine and let Deeks drive on the way home. "That was nice," she said. "Weird. But good. Five people asked me if I was pregnant. Cause we got married so quickly. Which I'm not."
"I know," he said. "I bought the tampons last night."
"It was weird, though."
"You're going to keep saying that, aren't you?"
"I might be a little tipsy. How are you doing?"
He sighed. "Weird."
"Ha."
"Like, it's great how much how all those people love your mom. And I really didn't mind the four people who wanted me to fix their parking tickets. But this couple asked me about my family and I was like, right, what's my cover story? Oh, right, I'm me. The actual answer is my dad's an abusive drunk who's dead and thank God for that, since it's not like I'd ever want him to meet anyone I cared about, especially my wife. Mom's dead. I could say that."
"Did you?"
"I said my family's dead. And they reacted like perfectly normal people and were afraid they'd been rude, and then they said nice things about how now I have family with you and Julia. You know, they weren't probing or trying to find our real identities, just, like, people."
"I know," she said. "But we're people, too. I liked seeing my mom so happy."
"Me, too," he said.
XXXX
Deeks never wore his wedding ring on ops. He'd carefully remove it and put in the box on his desk. She did the same but mostly because her engagement ring, while very very pretty, was also very memorable. "If it was just a diamond, no one would remember it," she said. "People remember art deco design with rubies."
"You didn't seem like the diamond type," he said. "Also, I didn't want to hear Eric's four hour lecture about blood diamonds again."
"I love my ring," she said.
They had an op where they played married for three hours. Marty asked for fake rings because he said their real rings were for them. Hetty nodded and said, "I agree."
But then they were called in to fix something the NSA had screwed up. Deeks got the nod to be the one in the bar. She was outside in the car with Sam. Callen came over the com saying, "Maybe this would work better if you took off your wedding ring, Deeks."
"Shit," he said. "It's off, in my pocket."
Callen said, "If you blew this -" He paused. "And that's her, right next to you."
Then they heard the irritating sibilants of the Prone To Cheating Girlfriend of the Arms Dealer the NSA had lost track of. PTCG said, "Where's your wife tonight?"
"Working the pole," Marty said. Sam smirked at her. "Which I am fine with. That's how we met. She makes a ton of money up there. What I mind is that she's fucking the bouncer and thinks I don't know."
"I hear that," the skank said.
It only took twenty minutes for Deeks to get her back to the bathroom. Kensi looked over at Sam and removed her earwig. "Let me know when I need to start listening again," she said.
Sam nodded.
They waited another half hour before Sam said, "Callen and I are going in now."
She put her earwig back in but she didn't hear anything until Sam and Callen were busting in to arrest them. She drove to the boatshed as they'd planned when it was clear they didn't need back up.
The wrap up took longer than she'd thought. When she got home, it was like walking into a steam bath. "How long have you been showering?"
"A while," he said. "Lots of exfoliating." She found him sitting on the bedroom floor, brushing Monty's teeth.
"I'm okay, if you were wondering," she said. "With tonight."
"Good," he said. "It is our job." He finished with Monty's teeth. Then he was patting the dog's head and hugging Monty close, their nightly ritual. He said, "You've done something like this four times just since we got married a mere seven weeks ago."
"Right," she said. "And you're good and I'm good. You don't need to, you know, exfoliate. Though I know you love your body scrubs."
"Yeah, you didn't actually get anywhere near Shania, did you? I was scrubbing her perfume off. Wow, she wore it strong. I don't even know what that was. I think it's still all over my clothes."
He always left his dirty clothes in the hamper so she walked over to sniff. "Oh my god, you're right," she said. "Can we do laundry right now? Please, tell me you got your ring out before that smell got on there."
He waved his hand at her so she could see his wedding ring. "I think it's that Justin Bieber stuff."
"Then I am not a Belieber," she said. "Please, please do the laundry."
XXXX
She did enjoy coming home to him, or being there when he got home, depending on who had the better route from the Mission. She liked watching TV with him, and the way he'd get so obsessed with the commercials promoting other shows. He liked to repeat lines that he found faintly ridiculous. "I'm after the truth so get out of my way and let me find it," he said, forty times a day. Monty started barking every time he got the first two words out.
"I agree with Monty," she said. "Please stop." But it was adorable.
"You don't have newlywed glow, it's Stockholm Syndrome," Sam said. "Living with him."
"Ha," Marty said. "If anyone has Stockholm Syndrome, it's me, not her."
She said, "Really?"
"Really. I've come around, you've convinced me, the best use of the floor is storage. We should put everything on there - clothes, plates, books, vital medicine for Monty."
Kensi said, "I think Monty's over-prescribed. Does he really need doggie Xanax and doggie Klonopin?"
Marty said, "That's a discussion we could have but I actually meant that you put his bag of pills somewhere in the bedroom and when I asked where they were you said 'I think it's the pile by the bed.' I don't think you were protesting Big Doggie Pharma there, sweetiebuns."
"Deeks talks way too much, Kensi is a mess, the end," Callen said. "I was hoping you'd two find a different theme."
Deeks said, "Way too much?"
Sam said, "Way too much. I don't know, G, I don't need a new motif."
"You're afraid it will involve their sex life," Callen said.
"God, yes," Sam said.
"Our sex life is fantastic," Marty said.
"Really have to agree with that one," Kensi said.
"And that's enough, thank you for letting us know," Sam said.
XXXX
"Happy three month anniversary," he said when she woke up.
"You, too," she said, snuggling closer. "Hey, have you noticed Hetty has yet to talk about the work part of us being married? I am almost positive there are rules about that sort of thing."
"I'm sure of it," he said. "I actually read those rules, we should not be on the same team. Definitely should not be partners. But somehow we are."
"Isn't there an exception since you're not NCIS?"
He shrugged. "Nope. Hetty's just, I don't even know. I guess NCIS is just letting her have this one."
"We're a great team," she said. "Maybe they won't notice until we screw up."
"You're so adorably cheerful in the morning," he said. "Can we have anniversary sex now?"
"Is it sad we celebrate our month anniversaries? Should we stop?"
He smiled and grabbed her ass. "How about when we hit 100?"
XXXX
They teetered into the hotel room, her mostly pretending to be drunk and high, him pretending less. She stepped out of her heels and pushed him against the wall, so they were visible through the window. Callen and Sam should have swept the room for bugs so they could talk all they wanted. "Thank you," she said.
He closed his eyes and breathed in and out very slowly. Then he said, "Thanks for what?"
"You know," she said. They were supposed to be a Eurotrash hard partying married couple who dabbled in arms dealing and other nefarious activities to finance their travels. Three retired French operatives were running a scam where they pretended to be DEA or NCIS and fake-arrested arms dealers, robbing them and taking over the deals they'd set up. They'd spent the last two days establishing themselves as perfect targets.
"Man, tonight sucked," he said. He rubbed his nose and slid down to the floor. "Come down here with me, Honeymuffin."
"Okay," she said. She sat down, kneeling in front of him. "You're going to be fine."
"Absolutely," he said. "Not my first time at the rodeo."
"So thank you for doing all that debauchery so I could do less." She unbuttoned his shirt. She touched his neck and felt his pulse racing.
"You did much less. Significantly less. Damn good thing for you that I love you. A lot."
"In order to maintain our cover, we should keep up, you know, the public sex." She undid his belt. She kind of liked it when he looked so tired and worn down. It was the wrong thing to be turned on by. On the other hand, she was happily married and turned on by her husband so, ergo, okay.
"This isn't really public," he said. He wiggled out of his pants. Then he sat forward and pushed her dress up to her hips. She wasn't wearing any underwear. "I do have to love any op where Hetty's telling us to make out all the time. And have sex. Even though we know there's at least four people watching us. I hope they're all appreciating my wife's gorgeous ass."
She said, "You love saying that." He loved handjobs, too.
"Hmm," he said. "That is true. Ass ass ass ass ass."
She kissed him as he pulled her forward. "Wife," she said. He gripped her waist and lifted her up. She lowered herself onto him. "You love saying wife." She loved having sex with him.
"I love my wife, that is true."
When they got into the bed, she felt under the pillow. There was her gun. "Thank you, Sam."
"And Callen," Marty said. "They got us our guns for when we get arrested tonight."
"I hope it's tonight," she said. "I miss Monty. Do you think my mom is giving him his milk?"
"Yes," he said. "She's completely up to date on his many anxiety reducing medicines."
Three hours later, she woke up from a very light sleep as the silent alarm tripped. "Wake up, Muffin," she said.
"If you're going to call me a pastry based nickname, you have to add something to it," he whispered. "I'm not just a muffin, I'm sweet or frosty or chipotle flavored or -"
"I should call you Chipotle flavor Muffin," she said.
"No, please never do that," he whispered. The scammers were still in the outer room. "But don't just call me muffin."
"The things you have rules about blow my mind," she whispered.
Then the scammers burst in, shouting "Hands up! Federal Agents!"
'What What What, OH MY GOD, who are you, what is going ON?" Marty went right into his very loud and very talkative persona. She clutched at the bedspread to cover herself and joined in the hysteria.
"Why would you arrest us, OH MY GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING?" The French idiots took two minutes to quiet them and therefore didn't have time to search the bed before Sam and Callen came in. Between the four of them, they killed two, wounded the third, while not giving away she and Deeks were undercover. While not under any covers.
Sam said, "And now, please, can you two put on some clothes?"
"Aren't you arresting us so we can keep these aliases alive?" Deeks sat back on the bed.
Sam closed his eyes. "Yes, we are but I am not perp walking you past that one guy until you put on some drawers."
