A/N: Apologies once again for the long wait! I did hit a bit of a wall with this chapter, not knowing what to include and where to end. Finally, I decided to leave it as this so that, 1, I could update today, and 2, so that it's a standalone chapter just these two. Just to take a small break from all the drama =P

As always, I do hope you enjoy it. Please R&R with any comments you may have. Happy holidays!


Her apartment was the same as it had been when she had gone for that walk that afternoon. She dropped her stuff by the couch, as per usual, before going to her bedroom to shun her shoes and anything else that made her feel weighed down. It was only when she re-entered the main room did she realise how empty the place was and why. Considering that she had taken the longest route, she had to wonder where Callen had gotten to with her car.

The thought was soon pushed to the back of her mind with a mental scowl as she remembered Sam's actions. If he wouldn't let her drive home by herself, then there was no way Callen was going to let her spend the night by herself. She appreciated their concern, and fully understood where they were coming from, but it was times like these that she hated being the only female on the team. And it didn't help that she had been ill for most of the day, either.

Kensi inhaled deeply as she urged herself to let it all go for the moment. It was all out of her hands, every small bit of it, but that didn't do much to relieve the pressing feeling of apprehension in the pit of her stomach. The feeling was familiar to one that usually settled before going undercover when she considered the worst case scenario if things went wrong. That feeling had never lasted this long, though, because nerves were what would probably lead her to that scenario. Being someone else got rid of the tightness, but there was no-one else for her to be right then except for herself.

Instead, the only thing that she could rely on now would be to take her mind off of everything that had happened. The only trouble was that there wasn't really much she could either think of or be bothered to do. Wandering into the kitchen in hopes of inspiration, Kensi opened the fridge to see if she could perhaps make something to eat although she wasn't particularly hungry.

She barely had time to consider the items in the refrigerator when her attention was claimed by the familiar sound of the front door opening and shutting. It took a few more seconds before Callen reached the kitchen, but it wasn't enough for her to move.

"Hey." He greeted her when he spotted her as he made his way over to the small breakfast bar on the side of the room.

"Hey, where did yo-?" Kensi began, stopping herself when she answered her own question when she noticed the takeaway bag that he had placed onto the table.

"Thought you'd be hungry." Callen said casually and watching her carefully.

"Thanks." She replied unenthusiastically, and closed the fridge door to turn to face him.

"You ok?" He asked her, picking up on her tone and her slow movements that he could put down to tiredness if he didn't know her better. If she was tired, she would either be in bed by now or laying on the couch watching pointless late night TV instead of puttering around in the kitchen.

"Yeah." Kensi sighed in response, betraying her answer. Callen raised an eyebrow at her and she shook her head while closing the distance between them. Reaching out to lay a gentle hand on his chest, she realised exactly what she had been looking for to take her mind off of everything that had happened that day.

It didn't take anything else for him to catch on, especially when she leant in and brushed her lips against his teasingly before pulling away with a sly smile and the usual sparkle in her eyes that had been missing almost all day. Wrapping an arm around her waist, he pulled her closer to him until she was practically flush against his body.

This time it was Callen who initiated the kiss, making sure that it was a more intimate one and not one that left space for reasoning or any kind of thought otherwise. He felt her other hand rest next to the one already on him before they curled slightly into the fabric of his top as if it would somehow pull them closer.

"The food?" He asked when they broke apart to breathe, lightly resting his forehead against Kensi's before raising his other hand to softly trace her cheek when she pulled him back into a quick chaste kiss.

"It'll keep." She murmured with a smirk that mirrored his before leading them both out of the kitchen and towards her bedroom.

...

Trailing his fingers down across her back as she rolled over and shuffled closer to where he laid, Callen couldn't help but to smile when he felt her leg slide over his before she laid her head on his shoulder. The sheets rustled quietly as she got herself comfortable against him, a hand lightly flitting across his chest before resting in the middle.

Although it wasn't anything new, he watched every movement carefully. It still amazed him just how different the woman in his arms could be when she was wholly and absolutely herself. How much affection she could give, and even need. That wasn't to say that her toughness and independence were entirely lost; her determination to show that she could take care of her own was still as strong, but she had broken down her walls, slowly but surely, for him. And in turn, he had learnt to do the same for her.

With the job that they had, sometimes it became hard to remember that behind her fight to be seen as an equal and not just as a woman in a primarily men's job and underneath all his aliases and unknown past, they were still like everyone else. They both needed someone to lean on, to love and to hold close, both figuratively and literally. But taking into account her serial dating, and his general avoidance of that whole aspect of life, he had guessed long ago that this was the closest contact with another person either had experienced in many years. It wasn't easy, mixing what they did with falling in love. Both had used that excuse to live the way they had before. Now, though, both sides knew what they were getting into, how risky it could be and what it could mean in the future if either one had to suddenly disappear for an assignment. And as complicated as that sounded, it made things much more simpler for them.

Especially, Callen noted, at times like these. Working together and doing what they did meant that they didn't have to keep things from each other either when they left the workplace; not just because they already knew about it, but because they could talk about it.

He pulled her closer with the hand on her back and placed the other one on the hand of hers that was gently stroking one of the five scars on his bare torso. It was a subconscious habit that he had discovered she had, and he wasn't entirely sure if he liked the attention being drawn to it. A thought that had left his mind for the past hour or so came back at full force at the reminder of the bullet wounds. She stopped when his hand covered hers and let out a near inaudible sigh.

"Feeling better?" Callen murmured, pressing his lips to the top of her head.

"Yeah, actually." Kensi replied in the same low tone, and though he couldn't see it, he could clearly hear the smile in the words.

"And about everything else?" He prompted carefully.

"What about it? I can't really do anything right now." She shrugged against him, the smile dying down with the dismissive words. It was an obvious sign to drop the subject, but he knew better that to let it be when it was bugging her, no matter how much she tried to keep it from showing. Even if he hadn't known better, he wouldn't have left it be. She wasn't the only one thinking about it constantly.

"Wanna head back to mine?" Callen asked her casually, almost teasingly if the choice of his words were anything to go by; something that she picked up on. He knew that she wouldn't be too excited with the proposal considering that they hadn't yet spent a night at the place, mostly due to her strict rules, or so he thought, about having at least some furniture before she even thought about thinking about it.

"No way." She exclaimed, laughing lightly before tilting her head up to look at him when she realised that he wasn't kidding. Lifting herself up with an elbow on the pillow next to them, she gave him a sceptical look that he simply stared down, making her groan. "G, c'mon, you cannot be serious. I'm not running scared and letting some jerk chase me out of my own place for no good reason."

"I'd say what happened today is a good reason." He rebuked coolly without taking his eyes away from hers.

"Look, he tried to get me in a park, not here. If anything, this place is safer." Kensi argued calmly, propping her head up with a hand so that she could keep on holding his stare. "Anyways, we don't even know that he's after me, specifically. What if he's after the team?"

"The team that includes you?" Callen asked, a wry smile tugging as his lips to which she met with a raised eyebrow.

"And, shockingly, you." She countered in sarcastic surprise before dropping her head back to rest back on his shoulder. They were silent for a moment before she broke it with a small exasperated murmur. "You're doing it again."

"Doing what?" He asked in a tone that was genuinely curious, moving his hand from her back up to push back her hair when it fell across her eyes.

"The one thing I told you not to do before we started this relationship." At his failure to reply, Kensi looked up to see his blank look before turning away onto her back to lay and stare up at the ceiling. "Treating me differently, and mixing work with personal."

"That's two things, actually." Callen corrected her in amusement, earning himself an unimpressed glare as she averted her eyes momentarily to his before training them back onto the ceiling. Sighing, he pushed himself up slightly to sit against the headboard of the bed and carried on seriously. "And it's not true. I'm just worried, like I would be if it had been anyone else on the team."

"Then stop worrying. It's not the first time someone's tried to get me." Kensi lied flippantly, sitting up and leaning over the edge of the bed to reach for the discarded shirt that she could just about remember throwing on the floor.

"Actually, it is." He replied, seeing right through her words. The hesitant pause in her actions of slipping on the item of clothing made him smirk at the fact that he had caught her in surprise. "What, you don't think I know that?"

Kensi decided not to reply to that. Instead, she focused her attention on buttoning up the shirt as quickly as she could before sliding to the side of the bed and getting up. The sheets made a hollow whooshing sound as she threw the half she had been using back onto the mattress with a bit more force than was needed. There was no denying or hiding it now; she was bothered by the events of that day. But he wasn't sure whether she was more angry right then because of him pushing her, or because him making her remember it.

"Oh, and next time," She broke him out of his thoughts as he followed her around the room with his eyes, watching as she picked up the mess from the floor onto to dump it all on any other higher flat surface. She didn't stop nor look at him as she spoke. "Don't get Sam to do your dirty work for you. He sucks at it"

"What dirty work?" Callen questioned, finding her frustration slightly entertaining, something that he didn't try hard to hide.

"You know what I'm talking about." Kensi scoffed, throwing a pillow from the floor at him with a perfect aim that if he hadn't been so aware, it would have hit him square in the face.

"Really don't." He shrugged half-heartedly, twirling the item that he had just caught in his lap.

"Sam tailing me home?" She said, words dripping with cynicism as she twirled around to face him and crossing her arms loosely to match the distrust in her voice.

"I never told him to do that, I swear." Callen insisted, dropping the pillow and holding up his hands in a sign of surrender. It was technically the truth, but the smirk that he just couldn't manage to keep off his face was probably what gave her the wrong idea.

"You're lying." She said matter-of-factly.

"Would I do that?" He asked in a mix of disbelief and defiance.

"Yes." Kensi stated dryly, quickly moving out of the way when the pillow that she had thrown at him came in her direction, only for it to hit the wall and fall back onto the floor. She rolled her eyes at his actions, but smiled reluctantly nonetheless and he was glad to see her previous mood had began to disperse. That was until she started to make her way to the door.

"Where're you going?" He questioned her as she turned the handle and opened the door.

"I'm hungry." She simply told him before leaving the room without another look back and him alone in the room.

Considering that he wasn't one to stay in bed even when he had company, Callen slid out and pulled on a pair of jeans with the intention of having a post-midnight snack-slash-meal too. He contemplated whether it was worth another try to get her to talk more about what had happened that day. There was more to it than just getting shot at, particularly when someone else died because of it.

But he knew that there was no way to get to that point in the discussion without pissing her off first right then. Maybe not even then. The only thing he could think of in a way of helping out would be to do what she had intended on doing in the first place; take her mind off of it all. And that, he smiled to himself as he left the room and followed her to the kitchen, was something that he was good at.

...

It was the sound of a ringing cell phone that woke her up this time. Except, Kensi realised a moment later as she rolled over onto the empty space in the bed, it wasn't hers. She rubbed her eyes, thinking about answering it when the owner of the phone appeared in her doorway having heard the sound too. He was over by the side of the bed, picking up the cell and answering it in a few calm steps. She, however, wasn't too calm as the memories of the previous day flooded back.

"Callen." He greeted in his usual manner, taking a seat on the edge of the bed as she sat up. She waited silently as he ended the call after a few seconds. "Alright, we'll be there soon. Thanks."

"What is it?" She asked, not being able to pick anything up from his side of the call or his tone.

"Eric says that the forensics people have almost got a viable print. About another hour or so before it'll be good enough to run." Kensi nodded at his words, both shocked and impressed at how quickly the time had seemed to fly since they had left Ops the night before. But then again, as she glance at the phone in Callen's hand, she saw that it was just past 6am and the night had been filled with a few time-passing activities to get her mind off it all. It had obviously worked.

"Ok. So we should get up." She murmured distractedly, running a hand through her hair to push it back. Only when she saw his raised eyebrow mixed with a smirk did she realise what she had said. With a roll of her eyes, she corrected herself. "I should get up."

Throwing off the covers, she curled her legs to the side so that she could squeeze off the bed in the space left between the headboard and where Callen sat. She had only gotten to the edge when he placed a hand on her bare thigh; stopping her in the process and making her look up at him in curiosity. There was a darker shade of seriousness in his eyes that dampened the light-hearted look on his face that was still there with the smaller smirk.

"How you feeling today?" He asked her gently.

"Good. Like every other day." She told him with a soft smile that kicked up on one side when she carried on. "Almost like every other day."

"Yeah?" Callen made sure, knowing that she was playing things down in her usual manner.

"Yeah." Nodding, she placed a hand on the one currently resting on her leg to curl her fingers around it and squeezed lightly.

"Look, I know you don't like it right now, but we take care of each other on this team. You know that, right?" He began in a way that told her that she wasn't going to like where this was heading.

"Yeah." Kensi repeated nonetheless, her forehead creasing as her eyebrows drew together in confusion. Callen smiled in response, and she relaxed a bit at the sight of it.

"Good. So when I say- very nicely might I add - please don't go out anywhere alone or unnecessarily until we catch this guy, you won't put up a fight, yeah?" He asked her, and she could easily guess that if she said no, she would just make things harder for herself. But that didn't mean that she said yes either; instead sighing deeply and wondering if there was a way to discuss it without getting into an argument. "I'd be saying and doing the same to anyone else if it were them who had gotten shot at yesterday. And so would you."

Kensi had to admit that he was right with the last statement, but she wasn't going to give him that satisfaction. Her silence, however, seemed to be enough for him as he leant in to kiss her softly. When he pulled back, the smile was back on his face, and she had to debate whether it was because he thought he had won her over with the kiss, or simply because of the kiss itself. Either way, she decided, it didn't matter because it hadn't changed her mind from what she would have said before his brief display of affection.

"Ok." She told him, matching his smile with a subtler version of someone who hadn't been up for the past 3 hours already. With the hand on his, she lifted it off her leg as she got up and rooted around her room to being her typical morning ritual. "But let's get going, then. The sooner we catch this bastard, the better. You worry me when you start being polite."

...