December 20, 2012
He meets her during a takedown.
Well, extraction is probably a better term. Andrew Ho isn't a terrorist but he followed the clichéd path of getting involved with the 'wrong' people and now NCIS needs those connections. So, they're essentially stealing him in the middle of the night.
He and Sam split up. They're the senior agents and this is his case, their case, so they're team leaders. He doesn't normally pay attention to the rookie agents they often bring in for these, but when she sidles up behind him, he looks.
Then looks again.
"Blye," she says, ponytail swinging. "Good?"
"Yeah," he murmurs back, unsure of why his heart literally skipped a beat. He tells himself the quick once over he gives her is all business, checking if her equipment is good. And he definitely does not take notice of the figure under all of the black. He meets her eyes, then turns to the lock on the back door. Silent entry. She nods once, then pulls a kit from her pocket.
He admires women who come prepared, and he does also admire the way she makes simple work of the lock.
They slip inside soundlessly. He's impressed actually, at the fluid grace in her every movement. She's quick and efficient and doesn't once knock over a cabinet full of good china. She stays with him, a calm and steady presence at his back.
They meet Sam and his terrified-looking rookie at the staircase. He'll go up, where Andrew's probably asleep. They hadn't let him in on this little plan. It works better that way. Plus, Blye's calmer, more confident and he just feels like it'll be a simple in-and-out kind of thing with her. Less of a risk of screwing things up. Sam's jittery partner is just making him nervous.
Sure enough, that calm settles over him the minute he starts climbing the stairs with her behind. The moment they hit the top of the stairs, the feeling hits him. Something is not right. He slows. So does she. He can't hear her breathing, even though his heart is pumping and he's pretty sure hers is jack-rabbiting. He looks back. Her face is absolutely grim. He hides his grin by turning back forward. She's already damn impressive.
The first two rooms are empty. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms on the top floor, so he's not surprised. Furniture, but no people, not that their intel says Ho keeps roommates. Either way, it's good. They don't need witnesses. There's a bathroom, then the master.
And what they find in the master does not bode well.
Ho's not in good shape. He's been beaten. Badly. And there's a seriously bleeding wound in the vicinity of his kidney. Callen releases an absolutely blistering string of profanities that would make even the most seasoned sailors and agents blush. Blye merely wings an eyebrow.
"Towels." He doesn't need to ask twice. She's half way across the room by the time he turns to check, that damn ponytail swinging again. It's too bad she carries a gun.
He presses his fingers to Ho's neck, finding a pulse that's thready but there. He leans into his vest, where his mic is stashed. "Mace, we're going to need a bus."
"No you won't."
He freezes. There's a gun at the back of his head.
"So you are the cop he's been speaking to."
He stays still. Absolutely still. This should not be happening. He does not get caught off-guard. Ever. Macy's going to kill him for this. So is Sam. Just yesterday the ex-SEAL had been ranting about how hard it is to train a good partner these days. And Pretty Blye with her bouncing ponytail certainly does not need to see him summarily executed, even if she absolutely had not flinched at his sailor language.
"Ho is a traitor."
Right. Guy with gun. His mind spins with possibilities, exit strategies, even as his hands come up slowly. He's fast, sure. But that's a gun.
"He knew nothing."
"Ho?" he asks, even though he doesn't have to. It settles him to keep Gunman talking. Buy time. He can do that. He's done it before. Just until back up can come. God, he hopes Blye isn't that far and isn't clumsy enough to screw this up. He hates putting his trust in rookies.
"He cannot help you."
Yeah right.
"Though. It does not matter now. You will meet the same fate."
He hears the safety click, then a sickening crunch and a thud. His head swivels and Blye's standing over a Middle-Eastern man, her nose wrinkled. He refuses to find it adorable.
"I hate it when bad guys talk in clichés." She turns on her heel and strides out; returns with the towels two seconds later.
The next morning, she's sitting in his chair when he and Sam make it into their broom closet of an office, a grin over her face, foot bouncing away.
"Special Agent Kensi Blye," she says, her mouth stretched into a wide grin, her eyes sparkling. "Your new teammate."
He doesn't get home until late. Or early. As an insomniac, it's a moot point. It's always late and it's always early.
And his mind is always spinning.
For once, it's not about the job. It's not paranoia. He's not double-checking all the locks on his doors. He's not cleaning his gun, running over all of the plans. He's not doing research, practicing his Arabic or learning some new technique. He's not haunting OSP's gym.
Maggie Hart, he thinks, is quite the woman. He's known her under twelve hours and he can already tell she's formidable. In fact, Maggie reminds him, in less terrifying ways, of Hetty. It actually makes Kensi's decision to introduce him all the more significant.
His feet slap against the pavement as he runs, not really caring where he's going. He hadn't been able to stay at home. He doesn't like being unsettled. The significance and then the nerves in Kensi on their drive back to her place. She'd been shakey, jittery. She'd jumped when he'd rested his hand on her arm and his question around a cup of coffee had died in his throat. Instead, he'd said a shockingly awkward goodnight and fled.
And now he cannot settle.
It's different to not sleeping, he thinks, trying to let the pattern of his footfalls soothe him. This is discomfort, like something that he's used to having isn't there. It itches under his skin almost as bad as the Chameleon had, all those months ago.
He doesn't like Kensi unsettled.
He'd sensed for a while that he and Kensi have been headed towards making some more life-changing decisions. It's an interesting place to be, he thinks. The last twenty days have turned everything he knows with an about Kensi on the head. It's surreal.
He's admired Kensi for years. He's always liked her too, treated her with warmth and respect. Hazed her, sure, but looked out for her. He'd never though it was any different than, for example, Reinko. Okay, yeah, he's hugged her more in the past year than anyone in his whole life – these full-bodied things where he can definitely feel her fingers digging into his back – but it's Kensi. She's different.
Apparently, he never realized how different.
He wonders if maybe it's just that they've never spent time alone together. They've never tried. In fact, he's pretty sure they've avoided it. Maybe not deliberately but he's never really felt like he could invite himself along like he does with Sam. Sure, he'd never do it with Nell either, but it just feels different.
Now that they're spending time together, things are surfacing. He touches her now, little brushes here and there. Nothing overt. Everything's little. Except, of course, the kissing. They haven't done more, which surprises him. Kensi's always said she's a first date kind of girl, not that he's making an assumption. It's just that they've definitely been on more than one 'date' now, and he's not expecting anything, he just knows that it's out of the ordinary for her.
It makes him stop dead in the middle of the road. They've been dating. Going on dates. Since the Mistletoe Kiss. At least by traditional definition, he thinks. Their thing includes dates and kissing and he is actually surprised to realize that he does not want it to change. At all.
It's a scary thought for such a nomadic man. He's thinking about permanence, about always having her there. Except, Kensi's different. She has roots in LA: things, people, favourite coffee shops and stretches of California beach. But she's an undercover agent. He wonders if it's enough to satisfy her wanderlust. And if it could be enough for him too.
He huffs a little, hands pausing on his hips before he shakes his head and starts running again. It's a huff of realization, really, that maybe he's been fighting it so long that he's forgotten it's even possible. Possible to satisfy his constant need for movement, but with a necessity for a place and a person to call home. Which shouldn't come as the shock it does. He owns a house. He has roots.
And he's shared with Kensi. A lot. About his foster homes, the Christmases he remembers. Recipes and skills he holds near and dear to his heart. She's already wormed her way in and considering how often she's now on his mind, it certainly seems like she's carved herself a comfortable place in there too. He's comfortable with her and maybe, he thinks, that's why their hours at the shelter had just felt easy.
The urge to go back to her hits him hard and he almost loses his footing in the pattern of his run. He wants to make sure she's okay, he realizes, that they're okay. He wants her to know that he understands the significance of everything and he likes it; he wants it.
Except he doesn't know how to say it.
The thought haunts him the whole run home and bounces in his skull as he showers. He tosses and turns as he brainstorms ideas before he drags himself from bed.
It doesn't hit him until he's waiting in line for his first caffeine fix and his hurricane mind lands on Kensi's face the day they'd gone hunting for a Christmas tree. And the pleased shock that had slid over her face when she realized he'd brought one for her too.
"Actually," he speaks up. "Make that two."
. . . . .
"Man, it's an atrocity."
"It's tradition."
"In Hawaii maybe."
Kensi rolls her eyes as Sam and Deeks bicker over her head. She actually likes the Christmas palm that dominates the center of the hacienda. She likes it a lot.
"It's our tradition, right Kensi?"
She hums her agreement, reaching out to straighten one of the gifts at the bottom. They're fake, but 'tis the season, after all. It makes her smile, despite the unease that still churns her stomach.
She had not slept well. She'd tossed and turned and barely dozed. She's pretty sure she knows why. She's not entirely sure Callen recognized the significance of bringing him to the shelter and introducing him to Maggie. He certainly hadn't said anything and seemed anxious to leave her apartment after he'd followed her back.
It made her nervous.
Thankfully, Sam and Deeks are much too busy debating the potential blasphemy of a Christmas palm to notice her discomfort.
"How do you even decorate it? There's nowhere to hang ornaments," Deeks argues.
"It is decorated," Sam retorts. "You blind? Shaggy hair getting in your eyes again? It's a wonder you see anything."
"Decorated? No way. You can't slap a bunch of lights on some foliage and declare it decorated for Christmas."
She just hopes that she's not supposed to keep pretending that nothing significant is going on here. She's pretty sure, at least before yesterday, that they'd moved past the 'thing' and their light, flexible 'moving forward'. At least, that's what Kensi had assumed had been Callen's symbolic gesture when he'd hung his advent calendar ornament on the tree in her apartment. The tree he picked out. The tree she considers theirs.
She's not looking for declarations. They're not his style and realistically, they're not hers either. It's why she's read so much into his – admittedly very deliberate – hanging of his ornament. A gesture.
And he hasn't freaked out when he'd open the time capsule box of gifts.
"Fake gifts? How are we supposed to tell them apart from the real ones?" Deeks needles.
"It doesn't matter. We recycle here. Bertha here's three years old."
"We're even recycling the Christmas palm? You have a fake one at home too, don't you. Your daughter decorates a fake Christmas tree every year."
"She's allergic to pines."
God, it's annoying. She'd gone into this thing with Callen with the intent of letting it all move easy. Nothing complicated. Christmas traditions, new and renewed.
But she hasn't spent a lot of time with Callen before this. Just Callen. She's always had a soft spot for him. She does know she's always been more attuned to him. She anticipates his needs before he needs to verbalize them and ensures she trains hard enough that he can rely on her completely.
So maybe it's self-preservation that's kept her from inviting him out with her. Just her. And now, now that they are spending time alone, the soft spot has intensified grown. Now, they're kissing, and cuddling and sharing personal things she's told no one since Jack. Now she cares about the fact that he'd rushed out on her and he's still not in.
She's going to give herself an ulcer.
"How can you even say she gets a real Christmas?"
"Deeks, we celebrate three different holidays in December. Christmas is just another blip on her radar."
"Wasn't it last year that Eric had to save your ass finding you that pony she wanted?"
"How long have they been at it?"
Kensi jumps at Callen's voice in her ear. The gift she's been absently fiddling with crashes to the floor. "Um. A while."
She curses the stutter and the nerves, her eyes dancing away. When they return he cocks his head back towards their desks. She chews her lip as she follows him. God, at this rate he's going to be responsible for bringing all of her tells back to the surface.
He slides into his seat and she follows his lead. She completely misses the two cups on his blotter until he reaches over and hands one to her. Like the cup he'd given her the day they're found their Christmas tree, it's doctored perfectly. She takes her first sip, letting her eyes flutter closed.
When they open again, they meet his. "You brought me coffee."
His gaze flickers to check on Deeks and Sam, still bickering and oblivious to them. "Maggie told me about how you met."
Kensi swallows. Not the best time in her life.
"Kens," he says, eyes serious. "I get it. I have nothing of that caliber to give back, but I get it. And I appreciate it. Immensely."
She is stunned. It's the opposite of what she expected, if she's honest. "I wanted you to stay," she blurts in her surprise. "After."
"I wanted to stay," he admits with a low chuckle.
Her mouth opens, then snaps closed as the sheer magnitude of the miscommunication hits her. "Oh."
"Yeah"
She takes another leap when she says. "I almost called."
"I almost ran to your place."
Everything, all the nerves and worries settle as the grin stretches across her face. They are on the same page.
"Should we try again?"
Now he's grinning too. "Tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow."
HA! I didn't get to my Criminal Minds chapter, but I managed to get three Tis chapters done! God, I haven't written this much in AGES and I don't have words for how good it feels.
And, in that vein, I actually like this chapter. Which is markedly different than the last bunch of chapters that I have not been the biggest fan of. Which sucks. But I Like this one! I feel like it does exactly what I wanted it to do in exactly the way I wanted to do it. Even Callen cooperated by not being annoying and saying exactly what I needed him to say and the gesture and YAY!
Now. I still need some ideas of things that Callen and Kensi would give each other for Christmas. The traditional doesn't apply here, neither does the sentimental, because I don't actually think either of them is that kind of person. Kensi would do it for Deeks, but not for Callen. It wouldn't mean the same because Callen doesn't strike me as near as much of a sap Deeks is (and I'm not insulting Deeks by saying that, as in I don't mean to).
AS ALWAYS mistakes are mine. All mine. I'm responsible for them not being fixed the same way I'm responsible for making them. Good talk.
