AAAAHHHH! So sorry! It's been crazy! Now you get to see what happened to Deeks!


He floated in the darkness, a swaying movement similar to the waves that would rock his board on a good surfing day and swing him into the calm his soul so desperately needed but so rarely felt. Fragments, pieces of memory flashed past his eyes as if a movie screen was playing right in his lids.

Kensi sitting on the boathouse dock, one foot stirring the water as she tried to forget the pain of her difficult case…

Her grin as they sparred, knowing that he was going to lose, no matter what the circumstances…

Her broad smile as she played a game of Fetch with Monty, petting his scruffy head every time he returned the ragged Frisbee to her…

Her laugh- one of the rare times that she actually laughed- an open, gentle, warm laugh that always seemed to fill the whole room…

Suddenly, his memories were violently torn asunder by a heart-tearing vision. Kensi was lying prone on a filth-covered mattress, her naked body just barely concealed by a rough rag of a blanket. Her body had been reduced to skin and bone, and it seemed to him that every exposed inch was covered in a bruise, laceration or burn. Her mismatched eyes shone with unshed tears as she looked directly at him. She raised her shaking hand to him, as if begging for him to save her. He reached down and scooped Kensi into the safety of his muscular arms. He began to run and run, as far as he could from the hell she had been kept in. As he ran, her voice started to softly call his name, over and over…

Deeks, Deeks, Deeks…

"DEEKS!"

The shout rousted him out of the dream with the suddenness of splashing into ice-cold water. He tried to sit upright, but something around his wrists held him back. The light was too bright, his head was too sore and his arms too tightly bound. Panicked, he thrashed and screamed curses until a pair of hands pinned him back to the bed frame by his shoulders and a familiarly deep voice barked, "Deeks, stop it!"

Marty turned his head to see Sam's face mere inches from his own. The former SEAL's entire body was practically lying on top of Marty's and still Sam's arms twitched with the effort of holding the struggling detective down. It was this sight that convinced Marty to take several deep breaths. He struggled to calm himself, but he couldn't cease his thoughts of Kensi's desperate face, her reaching hand, and her pained eyes. Her eyes were what finished him- the thought was just too much.

Before he could stop himself, he resumed his thrashing, fighting once more to free himself from his restraints. There was a sudden cacophony of sound in response to his screaming and fighting, and something sharp was jabbed into his arm. Within seconds, a fuzzy, drowsy feeling overtook him and he fell limply to the bed.

Despite the sedative, Marty remained somewhat aware of his surroundings, although everything, from the white of the walls to the low buzz of voices, had taken on a transcendent, dream-like quality. Through bleary eyes, he idly followed a diminutive figure stroll in and walk up to Callen, whose familiar face kept sliding in and out of focus. It took Marty several long seconds to realize that the figure was Hetty. She spoke softly, and her voice came out distorted and warped as if he was hearing it with water in his ears.

"What happened, Mr. Callen?"

Callen grunted, his voice just as strange- sounding. "He woke about five minutes ago, fighting like a madman. He started to calm down when Sam grabbed him, but then for some reason he started thrashing around again and the doctor had him sedated."

When Hetty responded, her voice was even more distorted than Callen's was, and Marty sluggishly realized that he was drifting off to sleep. It was a struggle to stay awake just long enough to hear Hetty's response.

"Why did this happen Mr. Callen? Why would Mr. Deeks do this to himself?" Callen opened his mouth to speak, but Marty, spurned on the relaxing effects of the sedative beat him to it. In the back of his mind a voice warned him not to say what he was going to say, but the drug spurred him on to speak.

"I…love…her. I…can't…give…up. I…love…her." Unable to fight the exhaustion any longer, he let his eyes drift shut, missing the astonished stares of his co-worker and his boss.

…..

The second time Marty woke, his thoughts were no longer possessed by Kensi's tortured image and he was able to keep calm enough to turn his thoughts to assessing where he was rather than panicking. He was already aware that he was in some hospital, but where he was or how he got there, he had no clue.

His wrists were still bound, and when he looked down his body, he could see that they tightly wrapped in restraints made of some sort of fabric. His feet were likewise bound.

What the hell? he thought. Why was he restrained like this? He gave both his wrists and ankles an experimental tug, but none of the straps gave even the slightest bit. As he gave one more pull on the restraints and as his hands moved towards him, Marty noticed that both of his hands were heavily wrapped and three of his fingers were encased in braces. He stared at the damage, not really able to comprehend what he was seeing.

"You bashed up all the knuckles in both hands, broke three fingers an' sprained both wrists, not to mention God knows how many stitches it took to sew the skin on your hands back together. Always knew you was an idiot, Deeks, but hell, I never thought you'd go an' do this!" Deeks turned his head, and sitting next to the hospital bed, dwarfing the flimsy-looking folding chair he sat on was Sam. In response to his lecture, Marty merely smiled grimly to his co-worker.

"Ah hell, Sam, I've done much worse. Believe me." Marty flinched as Sam abruptly stood, knocking the chair over in his rage. The former SEAL's fists clenched and his breath came in short, sharp intervals.

"What in the hell is wrong with you Deeks?!" Sam's voice didn't rise above a low conversational volume, but his threatening tone scared Marty more than any amount of shouting could- when Sam got that tone, bad things were going to happen. He fought the urge to shrink back as far into his bed as he possibly could. Sam's eyes burned with a barely contained fury as he continued.

"You're in a hospital, restrained, and you think it's all a fu- a joke?! I had to knock you out to stop you from destroying your own damned hands! What would drive you to do this? How could you be so thick-hea…"

"What if it was Michelle in Kensi's position?"

At this, Sam stopped in mid-speech, his mouthing hanging wide open. For a few seconds it remained this way, then he closed it with an audible snap. Sam turned his head away from Marty, the big man's teeth grinding audibly. There was a long, pregnant pause, and then Sam said something that Marty couldn't hear.

"What?"

"I'd do the same damn thing, alright. I get it, you love Kensi." The silence was long as the two men thought about the seriousness of these words, and then Sam sighed and continued. "That doesn't change the fact that you're tied up here."

"No, it doesn't, and I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that Hetty isn't going to be letting me back on the case anytime soon."

"No shit, Sherlock." Sam growled.

Marty ignored Sam's sardonic comment. "First of all, can you at least take these restraints off of me? I promise I won't go apeshit or anything." Marty gave Sam a twisted smile, to which Sam merely snorted.

"I'll just knock you back on you ass again." he scoffed. The former SEAL hesitated for a moment, and then, somewhat reluctantly, he reached forward, and quickly undid the straps, making Marty wince at the sudden pins and needles in his wrists and ankles. Rubbing his wrists, he looked back to Sam.

"Where are you on the case?" he asked.

"Not very far. Soon as we dumped you at the hospital, Eric had security footage for us. Kensi was behind the boathouse like you said she would be. She didn't have a chance- Nikolai struck her from behind and got a needle in her neck before she-"

"You're sure it was Nikolai?"

"Oh yeah." Sam's eyes darkened in anger. "That bastard must have looked straight into the cameras and grinned while he dragged Kensi to his car." Marty swallowed back revulsion at the statement. He knew now that Nikolai wanted them to know that it was him- that he had captured Kensi. Marty pushed the thought aside- he was quickly learning that he needed to keep a complete hold on his emotions or he would never be able to help Kensi get back home. Instead he focused on bringing his investigative skills to the forefront.

"Did Eric track the car then?"

"Yeah, but it didn't do us much good. Nikolai went into a neighborhood with no surveillance cameras and we're pretty sure he swapped cars from there. LAPD found the first car, but it was empty. When they canvased the neighborhood, they found that all the houses are currently occupied by residents that have lived there for at least three years or more- long before we met Nikolai. There was also a pair of tire tracks near the car- someone was burnin' rubber to get out of there."

"So we're at a dead end right now."

"Maybe not. Several people saw a dark blue SUV take off from where the car was parked. Even got two letters off the license plate from a witness. Eric's on Kaleidoscope right now trying to track the car down." When Marty looked away, trying to hide his lack of conviction, Sam's heavy hand dropped onto his shoulder. His voice dropped to a soft tone.

"Marty, we'll get her back, I promise." The use of his first name made the detective look up. Sam's brown eyes mirrored his own pain and sorrow. "I've got to go help G, but I'll do what I can to keep you in the loop. I swear, I'll do everything that I can to get Kensi back." He clapped Marty's shoulder once more and then left the room.

Under his breath, Marty muttered, "If she's alive."

…..

Later that night, after the nurses had unhooked Marty from the tubes and monitors, he walked out, ignoring the protests from the nurses and doctors, walked gratefully from the hospital, ignoring the pain from his agonized hands. Marty moved with leaden steps to his car and threw his heavy bag into the passenger seat with a grunt. He carefully made his way to the driver's seat and sank into it with a heavy groan and sank his head into his hands and began to softly sob.

He was tired, oh so tired, both physically and emotionally. He didn't want to continue- he just wanted to go home and sleep until Callen and Sam had brought Kensi home safe and sound, but he knew that he couldn't do that- Kensi needed him. She needed her partner and he knew what she needed to do to save her. He needed to find the dirtbags and lowlife scum that populated the Los Angeles underworld and go where NCIS couldn't. It would mean becoming a person he hated impersonating, but now he had no choice.

Pulling down his car's sun visor, he checked his face in the mirror, noting his bloodshot eyes, mussed-up hair and dirty face. With a change of clothes and a few less-than-legal weapons, he would be ready to go undercover. He shoved the sun visor up and started the car.

"I'm coming Kens."


Again, so sorry for the wait! I'm on summer break, so hopefully I'll be able to update more often!

Okay, time to freak out- who else was internally (or maybe externally) cheering when Deeks kissed Kensi!? Finally! Who else can't wait for season 5?!

Anyway, please review!

Yeah, sure, you becha!