"Sam has located Callen and Kensi." Erik's words rang clearly through Deeks' earpiece and he let out an audible sigh of relief, squeezing his hands together tightly and closing his eyes for a second.

"Everything okay?" The man next to him sent him a questioning glance and Deeks looked up at him, smiling humorlessly.

"Everything's great, thanks." He resumed staring out the window as the car sped down the highway to get to their destination. He just needed an hour. That was it. Get to the location, pick up the classified files, make the arrest, and go see Kensi. That was the only thing he was thinking about right now. The fact that he wasn't able to communicate openly with Erik frustrated him and the unspoken question of 'are they okay' was nearly on the tip of his tongue. But he kept his mouth shut and opted for going over scenarios of how he would get his hands on Kensi's kidnapper and personally make sure that he was never able to walk, talk, or function properly every again.

As soon as the doors shut, Callen turned to his younger agent and raked his eyes up and down her, making sure there were no injuries that he hadn't caught Mark inflicting upon her. She was visibly shaken, her face twisted into a panicked frown and her body trembling from fear and adrenaline.

"It's almost over, Sam's here now," he reminded her hurriedly, taking a step toward her when she stumbled backwards a bit. She shook her head, absentmindedly grabbing at her neck where the imprints from Mark's teeth were still visible.

"I can't do this," she stuttered. He reached out toward her, stopping her from backing away and forcing her to look at him. "I can't. Callen I can't." She grabbed him and gripped his arms tightly, despite the pain in her hand. He could feel her shaking beneath his grasp and the anxiety in her voice fueled the hatred toward their captors. "They're going to rape me." Her voice cracked at the end of the sentence and he saw panic begin to rise in her eyes.

"Hey, stay with me," he mumbled urgently, trying to get her to focus on his eyes. "Keep it together Kens." She made a valiant effort to regain control of her emotions but her hammering heart made it hard to focus on anything else besides the way her skin was burning from where Mark had touched her.

"Please Callen, please." The pleading tone took a harsh dive to animalistic desperation and her eyes welled up with tears. "Don't let them take me, please don't." The tears spilled over and suddenly she was crying, feeling the full weight of the entire situation collapse on her shoulders. Her grip tightened on Callen and she could feel his grip do the same in return. At first he was at a loss for words, staring dumbfounded at Kensi as she broke down in front of him. He'd never seen her like this, and honestly it disturbed him at how lost she looked. "Callen." Her sob broke him out of the trance and he immediately nodded.

"Yes, okay," he quickly replied, loosening his grip on her arms. "They won't touch you." He felt himself go into defensive protective mode when relief flashed in her eyes and she let out a shaky breath which ended in a sob. Callen blinked a few times, seeing her duck her head down so that he wouldn't see her cry. "Hey you're okay." He drew her into an embrace, not knowing what else to do. She didn't wrap her arms around him, but instead brought them up to hug them to her chest, pressing her face into his shoulder as she continued to cry. He wrapped his arms around her, rubbing comforting circles on her back and hushing her softly. "No one will hurt you." She nodded against him, still shaking as her body tried to dissipate the adrenaline caused by the immense feeling of fear.

He knitted his eyebrows together as he felt her lean more of her weight onto him but he stood solid as she slowly molded toward him more. Her sobs turned into ragged breathing and he could feel her clutch at his shirt tightly.

"Thank you," she breathed and he closed his eyes, hearing the sadness and guilt in her voice. She felt exposed and vulnerable. She was blaming herself for being weak. He knew that nothing he said would convince her otherwise so he just continued to hold her, waiting until her breathing rhythm matched his before slowly drawing away from her. She kept a hand on his chest, almost afraid as though he was going to change his mind if she broke contact.

The sound of the door opening caused Callen to turn around, effectively blocking Kensi. He felt her grab a hold of his lower arm with one hand. Mark and Sam appeared in the doorway, Mark looking clearly annoyed. Sam took in the scene in front of him, noting Callen's defensive stand and Kensi's position. If he wasn't mistaken, he could see something akin to fear in Kensi's facial features when she looked at Mark.

"They look like crap," he said out loud, adding a hint of amusement in his voice in order to keep his act up.

"They're tough bastards," Mark mused, eyeing Kensi. "You take one and I'll take the other." Sam cast a sideway glance at Mark.

"I'd prefer to interrogate them together," he said firmly. Mark gave a humorless laugh.

"You can do that as soon as I'm done with the pretty girl."

"I don't think tha-"

"You let me have my fun, and then you can have her." Mark's voice dropped to a threatening tone, obviously signaling that it wasn't a decision that was up for discussion. Sam pressed his mouth into a thin line, dragging his gaze back to his teammates. Callen had his eyes fixated up on Mark, narrowing them into slits. "Come here, let's go," Mark called, addressing Kensi. She didn't move. "Go get her for me," Mark asked, looking at Sam. The bigger man hesitated for a moment, trying to catch Callen's eyes. "Go." Sam took a step toward his friends, but Callen held up a hand toward him.

"It's a shame that I don't like carnivals," Callen said rather nonchalantly, guarded eyes trained on Sam's. Sam paused mid-step, recognizing their distress phrase. He was confused as to why G was using it now. It was obvious that he was in distress. "Like wow, I really hate carnivals." Sam slid his eyes away from Callen to look at Kensi who was staring at Mark with a hunted expression on her face. He noted the way Kensi was gripping onto Callen like her life depended on it and how he was positioned protectively in front of her. Callen saw the moment that Sam understood that this needed to stop now.

"Agent Hanna, Mr. Deeks needs more time," Hetty crackled in Sam's ear, but the Navy seal was already striding over to Mark. Within two seconds he had connected his fist with Mark's face. It was quick enough that the smaller man had no time to react or cry out in alarm. He hit the ground unconscious. The instant Sam was sure that Mark was down properly, he turned to his teammates.

"Are you guys okay?" He made his way over to both of them, eyes darting between the two bruised faces.

"We need to get out of here," Callen muttered, feeling Kensi's hand still clutching at his arm. It was clear to Sam that Kensi was worse off between the two of them and he turned his full attention to her.

"Kens," he began, but the way she looked reminded him of a scared animal and he stopped his sentence short. He saw her retreat into herself as she turned her attention to Mark and he quickly looked back at Callen, worry clearly reflected in his eyes.

"We need to get her out of here," Callen clarified, carefully extracting his arm from her grip.

"Can you fight?" Sam asked him. Callen reluctantly shook his head no, feeling exhaustion drag his muscles down.

"Hetty we need to extract them now," Sam said briskly, once again glancing at Kensi's trembling form.

"Deeks has not made it to the pickup location yet," Erik responded quickly. Sam grumbled in annoyance.

"I'll keep the rest of them occupied while Deeks completes the mission. Sit tight, I'll come get you when it's time." Callen nodded, watching as Sam gave them one last fleeting look before exiting the cell, leaving them with the unconscious body of Mark. Callen had a feeling that if Kensi had a gun, she'd be depositing her entire clip into Mark's head. He turned to her again.

"I'm sorry," she stuttered quietly, not taking her eyes off of Mark.

"For what?" Callen's eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"For not being able to handle the situation." He picked up on the shame in her voice.

"Let's just focus on getting out of here first, and then we'll talk, okay?" He made sure to file this promise in the back of his mind as she nodded slowly.

"Okay." The way her hand somehow found its way back onto his forearm worried him and the hollow look in her eyes sent a pang of sadness through his mind when he realized that this was not going to be something that Kensi could easily move past. But he knew that he wouldn't be able to deal with her trauma unless he first made sure that they both made it out of here alive.

A/N: Torture and rape (attempted assault in this situation) are very serious subjects, and although I feel like Callen would definitely be affected by such an experience, I am betting that he'll be okay compared to Kensi. The thing I dislike about the latest episodes of NCIS: LA is that they're completely brushing aside Deeks' PTSD and going back to him being the comic relief of the show. That's not okay, there should have been way more character development there. So for this story, expect to see some consequences when it comes to Kensi and the shit she's had to go through in the past few chapters. Let me know if you have any suggestions, and as always, thank you so much for reading!