A/N': Sorry for the belated update. I fell ill again this past week, but I've managed to get this done rather than to study, hehe. Procrastination at it's best =D Thank you all for the reviews for the past chapter, and the ones before. I don't think you guys understand how much each little one means to me.
I hope you enjoy this chapter once again. Please R&R! Happy Holidays, eveyone!
Mission HQ was absolutely deserted when they arrived an hour later. Walking through the front doors and down the corridors that would eventually lead them to the main open space that was their working office, Kensi felt herself become more alert at the environment.
"This place is creepy when it's empty." She whispered, eyeing the walls and space around her as they continued to make their way.
"You should see it in the dead of the night." Callen teased, keeping his voice low to match hers and earning himself an icy glare that only made him laugh.
"How could you stay in a place like this? I know it's hidden, but it's-"Kensi stopped herself, replacing the glare with a more neutral look as she simply shook her head.
"But it's...?" He prompted her nonetheless, glancing over to see a small tug at her lips.
"I was going to say 'a huge open space', but look who I'm talking to." She admitted, waving a hand around to represent the currently isolated gym of theirs as the space that he knew she was comparing to the house that he had bought and owned, but never really lived in.
"It's less claustrophobic." Callen said with a nonchalant shrug.
"It's empty." She corrected dryly. "And you're not claustrophobic, G; you're lazy."
"I'm not lazy. I have a busy life." He tried to justify though Kensi merely scoffed at his attempt.
"So do I, but my place is still furnished." She pointed out as they turned the last corner in the seemingly never-ending maze to reach where their workstation was located. The first thing that she did was to take a quick look around. It was a reflex built in from her operative training, and she was glad of it when she spotted Nate and Hetty in the latter's office area in the otherwise empty place.
"Well, I don't need a furnished place. I have yours." Callen joked. Expecting a sarcastic reply to his words, he was surprised when instead, Kensi stayed quiet. Her steps had slowed down and when he glanced at her, there was only a subtle formation of a smile on her lips in response to what he had said. Following her eyes as they drifted back and forth from the two people that had caught her attention and ahead so not to seem like she was staring, he asked; "What?"
"They're talking about me." She informed him with an edge to her words, clearly having been able to read their lips accurately enough to know what it was about. He assumed it wasn't good.
"You're surprised?" Callen questioned anyway, reaching out to wrap a loose arm around her waist to steer her towards their bullpen when she began to drift away slightly. "It's probably a private conversation, Kens."
"They shouldn't have it in public, then." She retorted and pulled away from him to dump her bag onto her desk. Using a bit too much effort than was needed, and in the sparse room, the sound it emitted echoed, claiming the attention of both Nate and Hetty. They broke off their conversation at that, and Kensi spied their psychologist start to leave the office to approach them. "Damn. I'll be right back."
"Where're you going?" He called after her from his seat, having watched the whole thing with a smirk and a hint of confusion.
"Away." She replied just before she disappeared into the alcove behind the desk opposite to theirs. He saw her escape agilely into the hallway that led to the armoury without another sound just as Nate reached where she had been standing not a minute earlier.
"Morning, Nate." Callen greeted him.
"Morning. Was that Kensi?" He asked, pointing towards the area where she had disappeared to.
"You know it was." The agent remarked casually with his smirk still in place. "And yes, she is avoiding you."
"Ok..." Nate replied slowly. There was a pause of silence before he carried on. "Sam and Deeks are upstairs with Eric."
"So, why did you want to speak to Kensi for?" Callen asked whilst getting up and making his way towards the stairs that would lead them to the ops room. He looked over at the other man when he passed him and saw him follow.
"I didn't say-" He began before stopping short at the look of incredulity that Callen threw him over his shoulder. In the time that he had worked with the team, Nate now knew better than to try and reason out how they had started to figure out what he was going to do or say. That was supposed to be his job. "It's nothing,"
"She didn't run a mile in the other direction just because you wanted to talk to her about 'nothing'." Callen said lightly before waiting at the top of the stairs for him to catch up on the final two steps. There was a more serious demeanour to the agent now as he crossed his arms and dropped the teasing words. "Nate, if there's something wrong, or going on, that could affect her in the field, then I need to know."
"Did she say there was?" Nate deflected, taking a few steps towards the balcony of the upper landing and leaning against it. The question was almost rhetorical because he knew that he wasn't going to get an answer to it. At least not a worded one. "It's just the normal, general stuff. You know, after something like yesterday happens."
"The shooting 'something' or the getting ill 'something'?" Callen asked sceptically.
"Both." He replied with a slight hesitation, watching as the other man raised an eyebrow in unadulterated concern. Nate sighed. Somehow, he always ended up boxed into a corner with no way of getting out except for saying what needed to be heard. "Hetty said that as long as Kensi and I have a little conversation, it should be fine. That is, if I think she's fine. And I think she'll be fine. She's good at what she does."
"Kensi get you that nervous, huh? I won't tell her if you tell me something..." Callen joked, reverting back to his normal good-natured ribbing as he picked up on the psychologist's babbling. When Nate shook his head and opened his mouth to argue, he rolled his eyes and began towards the ops room once again. "Alright, alright, I get it. Doctor/patient confidentiality."
Callen heard the sigh of relief that the psychologist let out when he passed him by to enter the room where the others were gathered. He was surprised when Nate didn't follow him, instead carrying on down the hallway towards the bench that sat there, but shrugged it off when Sam spoke to him.
"Perfect timing, G. Eric was just about to run the print through the database." He told him from where he currently stood in the centre of the room, looking as intimidating as always, even in the early hours of the morning.
"It might take a while, though. We don't even know if he'll be in it." The tech operator added, carrying on with the search that he was composing using almost every print collection that Callen could think of, and then some. They weren't cutting corners on this case.
"Worth a shot." Deeks muttered. Throwing him a quick glance, Callen smirked the yawning officer almost falling asleep in the chair that he occupied on the far side of the room. His attention, however, was still guided. "Where's Kensi?"
"She's-"He managed to begin before he got cut off by the woman in question.
"-here." She finished plainly, coming to stand next to him and leaning back against the table to take in what Eric was displaying on the monitor in front of them. "So it worked?"
"They said that it's not 100%, and wouldn't hold up in court but yeah." He repeated what he had been told by the forensic team who had sent the print to him that morning. "That's if we get any hits."
"Did they find anything else?" Kensi asked even though she was fairly certain what the answer to that would be.
"Nope ."
"It all lies on this print." Sam said roughly, pointing out the obvious fact that they were all thinking but didn't want to say. Because if this print led them to nowhere, the only other way they were going to find this guy was if he acted once again.
Nobody said anything else as the search carried on in front of them. They watched the rapid flash of numerous prints that were quickly discarded without a match with a growing eagerness for something to come up. It ran through several databases at a time for efficiency, and it was probably why the screen suddenly froze after only 3 minutes with a little ping.
"What was that?" Deeks asked, practically jumping at the sharp sound. Another rectangular box appeared, telling them exactly what they had wanted to see. Match found.
"I thought you said 'it might take a while'?" Callen questioned Eric in a mix of amusement and shock.
"I did. Guess I was wrong." He answered with a sheepish smile, pushing up his glasses as he pulled up the details about their supposed shooter. In addition to the print, Eric found his details, driver's licence and a photo depicting him as a dark haired, light eyed, Caucasian man who looked no older than 35. "Tommy Jenkins. Just got out of prison, which explains why we got a hit so quick. He got parole from a 4 year sentence for possession and distribution of illegal arms."
"Surprise surprise." Sam remarked sarcastically.
"Only been out a couple of months." Deeks commented indifferently, reading off the screen what he deemed to be an important piece of information.
"Do you know him?" Callen turned his head to look at the junior agent to his left, who shook her head without another thought.
"No." Kensi frowned, not happy with the result. Of course, getting a hit was better than nothing, but she had at least hoped to know the reasoning behind why he had gone after her before they went to find him.
"What else do we have on him?" He asked Eric with a new found determination.
"Nothing really. No wife, no kids." The apologetic reply wasn't what any of them were hoping to hear. However, if they didn't have firsthand knowledge about Jenkins, then they needed to get it some other way, if it was possible.
"What's his current address?" Sam asked, not being able to spot it in the current details that they could see. It didn't take long for Eric to find it and throw it up.
"Apparently hasn't moved since before he went to prison." He said, reading the comments from the parole forms that he had found the information from.
"That's got to be a lie." Deeks scoffed, to which the other 4 people in the room all looked over at him with confusion, silently asking him to elaborate on his theory. "You wouldn't go back to the same place when you get parole. Never know which former associate will get twitchy in fear of having been grassed out."
The looks of confusion simultaneously changed into ones of scepticism, only Eric hid it by pretending to be more interested with the computer tablet in his hands, Kensi rolled her eyes and the other two simply smirked. Deeks, in response, cleared his throat and swivelled his chair back around to face the huge monitor.
"What about his parole officer?" He asked, acting as nonchalance as he could to get the rest of them back onto the case at hand. Being the newbie, he learnt, never got old, no matter how long it had been.
"Michael Bishop. State level parole officer." Eric informed them, showing them the details for Bishop next to Jenkins'.
"He'll know for sure." Callen stated. He ran through the facts that they had just found out, coming to the only conclusion that he could think of to get this case moving once again. "Kensi, you and Deeks go check out Jenkins' place. We'll take Bishop's."
"Alright." She replied, trying not to let the surprise that she felt show in her words or anything else. The small nod that he offered her told her exactly that she wanted; that he was treating her like he would if it were any other one of them in her position. It was enough for her to feel more buzzed and optimistic suddenly as she left the room, expecting her partner to follow.
"You sure that's wise?" Deeks spoke up once she was effectively out of sight, though he still sat in his seat. At their team leader's questioning look, he carried on, albeit wryly. "I mean, what if we find him and she wants to, I dunno, repay the favour?"
"Thought you said he wouldn't be there." Callen joked as Deeks glared, unimpressed. "Kensi's not stupid. She'll keep her cool."
"And if he wants to finish the job?" He asked, jerking his head towards the screen to show who he meant by 'he' exactly.
"Well, that's why you're there." Sam replied this time. Although his words were light and good-natured, there was the still the underlying stiffness in his posture that suggested that he wasn't as comfortable as Callen was in sending Kensi out in the field.
The words made him a bit nervous. He knew how close the team was before he got there, and how protective they were of each other. Losing a teammate only a little while before he had came in had strengthened that and Deeks was sure that if anything would happen to him, they would have his back too. In addition with the information he had found out the day before, he nodded and let out a heavy breath. There was no way he would make it to see another day if he failed at his duties.
"No pressure." He muttered, mostly to himself, before pushing himself out of the chair just as Kensi reappeared in the doorway, looking more anxious than angry at having to wait.
"You coming, Deeks?" She asked, almost sarcastically.
"Right behind you." He replied in his usual loud manner, making her shake her head exasperatedly and turn away once again to leave the room. An annoyed Kensi, not to his doing either, was certainly not the best way to start the day.
...
Kensi began making her way back towards the stairs. Her movements were cautious; the last time she had left the room, which was only a moment before, Nate had been waiting on the bench down the hallway for her. She had managed to get away by going back for her partner, and in that time, it had seemed like the operational psychologist had disappeared.
However, she knew that the key word there was seemed. Nate had the ugly habit of being able to sneak up on people; appear in places when they were sure they were alone. And as she carried on to the stairs that would lead her downstairs and finally outside, Kensi kept an eye out for the man. Unfortunately for her, keeping an eye out for him meant that he also knew when she spotted him, such as when she reached the corner of the upper landing and saw him coming towards her from the other direction.
Cursing under her breath, she swiftly turned on her heel, hoping to escape in the opposite direction. Unluckily, she wasn't quick enough.
"Kensi, wait up!" Nate called out and there was nothing else she could do but freeze. Closing her eyes, she let out a deep breath before opening them to see Deeks who had followed her out of the ops room. His boyish smile shone on his face, no doubt knowing exactly what she was running from. Sending him a cold glare, she turned back to Nate with the most innocent look that she could muster.
"I've got to-" She began, faltering when an unconvinced look passed Nate's face. There weren't enough excuses in the world for her to escape this talk anymore.
"I'll wait by the car." Deeks told her without sacrificing the smile, passing by her and Nate, to whom he stage-whispered. "Good luck."
"You can't avoid me." Nate told her once Deeks had left the two of them be. Kensi raised an eyebrow at his words.
"Avoid? I'm not avoiding you." She lied without any effort.
"Hetty suggested that we have a little chat before you head back out again." He said, ignoring her words and taking a few steps back to lean against the window ledge.
"I'm assuming you mean in the field, and it's only been a day. Less, actually. I think I'll be fine." She brushed off, matching his stance by crossing her arms also and leaning back against the balcony edge for some distance, from both him and the upcoming conversation.
"You remember that chat we had yesterday?" Kensi tilted her head to the side slightly at his question, pretending to think about it.
"Vaguely."
"Let's talk some more." Nate replied, once again ignoring her ways of ending or changing the subject. At his words, the neutral look on her face changed into one of annoyance. "I know you don't want to, but unless I say so, you are effectively benched."
"For?" She asked, standing up straight in outrage.
"Trauma. Too involved. Not feeling 100%. I can suggest any and it would stick right now." He shrugged, eyes shifting uncomfortable from hers to the side and back again at the intensity of her stare.
"You would lie, Nate? I never thought you had it in you." Kensi said wryly, relaxing slightly and closing the gap between them by half. Unfolding her arms, she ticked off the list on her fingers as she spoke. "I'm not traumatized, I'm not too involved, and I'm definitely not under par."
"This man tried to kill you." He stated matter-of-factly.
"That, I do remember." She replied dryly, coming to stand against the wall next to where he was perched without breaking eye contact. As soon as she did, she knew that he would use it as an in. Kensi had experienced it a few too many times over the years.
"And he killed another man in the process." Nate carried on, to which she nodded.
"When I said I knew it wasn't my fault, I meant it." She told him before he could make the point himself. "I didn't aim the gun, I didn't pull the trigger; I didn't kill him."
"Are you telling me, or yourself?" He asked with a tone that she could only relate to a psychiatrist's. But then again, that was what Nate was, if the term was taken loosely. Either way, it didn't deter her from emphasising her views and feelings. Letting out a sigh, she took a seat next to him before speaking in a soft, controlled tone that let go of her reluctance to speak to him proper and instead do it her way.
"These things happen. I learnt that long ago. The only thing I can do about it now is to get justice for him. Ok, it wasn't my fault, and yeah, I might still feel guilty about it, but that's life." Kensi ended with a shrug and a small frown marring her features as she turned her eyes towards the wooden floor beneath her feet.
"Guilt's a hard emotion, and just because you're an operative it doesn't mean you can switch it off. Especially when confronted by the cause of that guilt." Nate stated with a heavy hint that she was sure not even the dimmest of them could even not pick up on. She knew what he was worried about; she had heard the horror stories about OSP agents having a mental breakdown just because the emotions became too hard to suppress. Or because they had suppressed them so much, there was nothing left to be expressed in the form of a conscience.
"Look, no-one wants this guy in custody, alive by the way, more than me. I'm not going to do anything stupid, alright? Don't worry. I have three... idiots watching my every move as it is." Kensi said with a scoff. Seeing the man next to her open his mouth to reply, she continued, beating him to it. "And don't say sarcasm is a mechanism for deflection. Because, for starters, that wasn't sarcasm."
"How did you-?" He began in confusion, to which she laughed.
"Nate, you might be able to get into our heads, but you forget, you do this a lot."
"It would make life easier if you kept out of trouble." Nate commented factually.
"Now, does that sound like us?" Kensi smirked and patted his leg before standing up. She had taken a couple of steps away when she turned back and asked him something that she needed to know if she wanted some kind of peace of mind for the rest of the day. The last thing that she needed was to be looking over her shoulder for him, too. "Am I free to go?"
"Yeah." He nodded after a short pause. She threw him a brief smile before disappearing down the stairs opposite to him quicker than he could ever fathom, hoping that he was right in letting her go. He could never be sure when it came to this team of undercover agents, at least never until it was too late.
...
