A/N: For some reason I've more inspired lately. Enjoy this next part of Alone Together!
Now that Callen thought about it, she had had more than enough time to duck when Deeks had drawn his fist back but she hadn't moved. She had let him hit her.
Deeks' three team members sprang into action as she stumbled backwards taking the chair she had been sitting on with her, blood flowing freely through her broken nose, staining her shirt. Kensi reached Deeks first, wrapping a firm hand around his bicep and pulling him sharply out of the room. As expected he struggled and so Sam wrapped a hand around the opposite arm. Together they forced him outside, into the LA sunshine.
Meanwhile, Callen, who had grabbed a towel from the pantry on his way to the room, abandoned his ice pack on the table in the interrogation room, and straightened the chair. He held out a hand for the woman. She was flat on her back, one hand coming up to cradle her injured face. She took accepted his hand with her free one allowing him to pull her up and onto the now upright chair.
"I'll be right back," he said, handing her the towel. She accepted it gratefully, refusing to look at him. Wincing, she pressed the towel to her face, attempting to ease the bleeding. He returned only a minute later another ice pack in his hand. He passed it to her and then grabbed his own, hopping up onto the table. They sat in silence for a while, icing their injuries.
"Want to tell me what just happened?"
"I guess there's no hiding it anymore is there," her voice had changed, the accent was gone. Callen sat back in a surprised silence.
"You're not Afghan," he stated obviously.
"No," she responded flatly. Callen mulled over the revelation. Perhaps she was an undercover federal agent, maybe CIA or FBI. Perhaps she had killed the men in self-defense, maybe they had made her. Before he could continue questioning her, she leaned over and touched his arm. "I'm sorry about the ribs. I was hoping to keep my identity intact," she apologized.
He looked down, feeling momentarily lost in her large brown eyes. Her exotic features were hardly symmetrical, but striking nonetheless. She had long dark lashes, and full pink lips. But it wasn't her face that made her so attractive; rather it was stunning way in which she carried herself, despite the clearly broken nose. He smiled and replied, "It's okay."
Kensi, Deeks and Sam returned then, disturbing the moment. Deeks looked significantly calmer, the brash distaste replaced with a quiet anger. The woman jumped out of her seat at their arrival and, to their surprise, broke out in a wide, albeit slightly bloody, grin.
"I can't say I didn't deserve that but you didn't have to break my nose Tintin,"
"Don't call me that," Deeks snarled. "I went to your god damn funeral Reina. Why the hell aren't you in a hole in the ground?"
The woman, whose name was clearly not Aadila but Reina, recoiled. "I'm alive, isn't that the point? It's nice to see you too," she added sarcastically.
"I watched them bury you, you asshole. I wrote your fucking eulogy. You're not allowed to waltz in here and joke about your death. It tore me apart," Deeks' callousness had returned. He sighed then, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Guys this is Dr. Reina Khan, she's CIA. Reina these are NCIS agents from the Office of Special Projects. Agent Kensi Blye, Agent Sam Hannah and Agent Callen," he introduced, pointing each member of the team out.
"It's nice to meet you all," Reina responded quietly.
"How did you get that burner phone? And how are you connected to Abid Haji and Basit Ghafar?" Kensi asked curiously, pushing the idea that Deeks may have been personally involved with this woman out of her head. But as hard as she tried, Kensi couldn't dismiss the thought. He must have been involved with Reina. She'd never seen him so worked up about anything before.
Reina opened her mouth but then shut it, pausing briefly to reconsider her next sentence. "I'd like get cleaned up and set my nose before I tell you, if you don't mind," she offered a few seconds later, her gaze fixed to the floor.
Callen nodded briskly, robbing Deeks of the chance to argue. "Kensi show Dr. Khan to the washroom, see if you can find her some clean clothes."
"I still have your old go-bag in the trunk of my car," Deeks suddenly admitted to Reina softly, his anger seemed to have evaporated as fast as it had arrived. Kensi's eyes flashed between the two. Reina's brown eyes snapped up meeting Deeks' ocean blue ones.
"You-you what?"
Deeks chuckled, "I couldn't bring myself to get rid of it."
The soft grin returned to her face at his words. She followed behind Kensi, who swiftly left the room, a strange expression of annoyance on her face. As Reina walked by Deeks, she leaned forward, slipped her hand into his and squeezed briefly. "It really is good to see you again." It was almost too much for Deeks, seeing her alive and well in front of him, hearing her voice and feeling her hand in his. His eyes stung, and blinked his tears back furiously, turning quickly so Sam and Callen wouldn't see.
He returned to the boat shed with her bag, just as Kensi and Reina returned. Reina's face was now blood free, the swelling in her nose diminishing as a result of the ice pack and her efforts to set it straight. Reina gratefully accepted the small duffel from him and headed back towards the washroom she had just emerged from.
The team settled themselves down in the chairs surrounding the table in the main area. Deeks took a seat last, feeling all eyes on him.
"Who is she?" Kensi asked with a hint of indignation in her voice.
"I told you, she's CIA."
"No I mean, who is she to you?"
"Marty and I met in college," Reina's voice filled the room as she reentered the room. Her long brown hair was no longer in the conservative braid, it was now flowing freely down her back in waves. She was no longer wearing the stained shirt and salwar but instead a pair of jeans and light pale blue cotton shirt, her sleeves rolled up. The flashy jewelry was gone, her wrists and ears were bare but a thin silver chain rested delicately across her collar bones, a slim simple band strung through in lieu of a pendant.
Deeks was staring at the ring, and Reina hand subconsciously reached up to grasp it.
"You kept it," he whispered.
"Of course I did silly. I couldn't always wear it but I always had it on me. You?"
Instead of responding, he pulled out his badge from his back pocket, opening the flap, wiggling his fingers behind his ID card and pulling out an identical but slightly bigger ring. "I don't always wear it," he said, echoing her words, "but I've always got it on me."
"You-you two are married?" Kensi interrupted, her voice breaking slightly.
Deeks and Reina looked at Kensi and then at each other before they both broke out into loud laughter. Deeks doubled over in his chair, grasping his side, tears beginning to pool in the corner of his eyes. Across the room, Reina was bent over, her hands resting on her knees in an attempt to get her mirth under control.
"Married…to Tintin…" she gasped in between giggles, "…he's like my little brother."
Deeks let out another loud laugh, "And she's like my annoying sister."
She pulled her face a scowl, failing as the corners of her mouth rose. "Ouch that stung. But alas it's the truth," she said dramatically joining the team on the table. She resumed icing her nose, her face red from the laughter and the ice. "Fact is, you'd drive me insane."
"Only after you drove me insane first!" His sudden use of the past tense rather than the conditional intrigued the agents.
"That operation was doomed to fail from the beginning and it wasn't on you or me," she replied airily.
He grinned in agreement and then turned to Kensi, holding his ring in the palm of his hand. "We did an undercover operation as a married couple once. Needless to say, it did not end well. These are just friendship rings. It sounds silly but Reina was shipping off to Afghanistan and I was going undercover investigating Emilio Ortega. We decided to exchange something to keep us connected when we were thousands of miles apart."
"Tintin and I met when he was in law school at UCLA. I was writing my doctorate thesis at the time and we ran into each other at a party. We-"
"Stayed close throughout college and after we graduated," Deeks cut in.
Understanding that he wanted to keep their personal life out of this conversation, Reina continued, "I was working as a geneticist in the CIA's Science and Technology department but I'm also a licensed paramedic who occasionally works with the UN in the Middle East on humanitarian efforts. The US Navy requested my services, asked me to accompany a Navy Seal team on a special operation in Afghanistan. When I agreed, I was trained briefly before being put on a plane headed east." Deeks nodded, following her explanation, eager to hear the next part, the part that he was still in the dark about. "The Navy Seal team was gathering intel on a terrorist cell acting out of a small village in the middle of nowhere. I was tasked with coming into the village as a medical aid worker from the capital. I'm South Asian and I speak Pashto, so I definitely looked the part. I got involved into the cell by accident, the Afghan militants thought I would make a good addition to their group; I would help them look more legit. The-the Seals I was working with convinced me to stay. I could help them get the intel they came for. I began sneaking out at night, going to the Seal's campsite on the outskirts of the village, in order to relay information."
Reina paused, swallowing tightly. Deeks could sense her hesitation to continue. He leaned across the table, pulling her free hand into both of his own. "It's okay," he said quietly, "You can trust us."
"One night, my disappearance was noticed by one of the militants. In order to keep my cover intact, the Seals pretended they had captured me. The hope was that I wouldn't be important enough and the Afghans would simply let the Seals 'have' me. But things," she swallowed again, "things went horrendously wrong. The militants decided to line the campsite with explosives. They raided the campsite and 'rescued' me. They blew the place to bits. No one survived."
The boatshed was once again covered by the thick tense silence.
"When a team of Marines were finally dispatched, there were no remains to identify any of the Seals with. So they used DNA instead."
"Your DNA was found too," Deeks stated, realization filling his eyes.
"They figured I was blown up too. But I was still undercover with in the terrorist cell," she responded bitterly, her expression dark. "I was actually able to get a distress signal to CIA y'know but they decided to leave me in there. Said I was useful. They backstopped me, seeing my supposed death as an opportunity."
Deeks felt sick to his stomach and stared at his friend sadly. She stared back at him, her expression still dark. "I'm sorry Tintin,"
"For what? I just broke your nose, I should be the one apologizing," he responded incredulously.
"For making you think I was dead. For putting you through that," she shot back, ignoring his guilt. The agents exchanged glanced. To them, it seemed as though she wasn't the least bothered by his unnecessary punch. It seemed that their friendship was strong enough to dismiss the injury without a moment's thought.
"I've done worse to him you know," she addressed the others suddenly as though she had read their minds.
"None of it was your fault," Deeks answered, returning to the subject of her apology. "How'd you end up in LA?" he asked after a minute.
"I followed the group to Los Angeles about a week ago. They're going to sell a bomb they recently acquired to local buyer. When I found out about the bomb, I begged the CIA to bust them. But my handler refused. They want the buyer. I was supposed to be meeting the head militant, Anwar Hussain, in the café you found me in. I-I got involved with Anwar in an attempt to gain his trust. He-he left his phone in my hotel room last night. I guess he asked for the meeting to get his phone back. Anwar told me last night that suspected federal involvement in the group. He thought Abid and Basit were traitors."
She took a shaky breath. "I can't believe he killed them."
"Do you think you've been made?" Callen asked.
"No," she replied firmly, looking up at the senior agent-in-charge, her brown eyes determined.
A/N: Let me know what you think!