Author's Note: Well, I did warn you last chapter that I tend struggle to write in the summer. Mix in some craziness at the office, and well you end up with really long delays. That said, here you go. The end is quite near now. This piece WILL be concluded before the S3 premiere. Thanks for all of the kind words, and I hope you continue to enjoy the journey. It's been a painful one for our heroes. Ahead, violence and some minor sexual references. Again, thank you.
The video has gone completely dark. Eric claims that the camera on Deeks' shirt is still transmitting, but it appears that Deeks is lying on it, causing the camera to see nothing but the blackness of the ground beneath him.
Then again, that's probably all Deeks is seeing as well. Assuming he's conscious, which no one assumes he is.
No one says a word. No one has to. They all know the stakes; they all know how easily this plan could end up destroying them all.
They all now how very close to the edge each one of them really is.
Still, that doesn't stop either of the men from glancing at her repeatedly. And they're not at all subtle about it. She can feel their gazes on her, their eyes drifting over her.
She can feel their worry.
And that burns at her.
Kensi Blye is no fucking damsel in distress.
Even if this case – this awful horrible case – begs to differ.
Sure, she's turned into a bit of a mental case. Sure, she's spent a good amount of time questioning her sanity and wondering if there's a light at the end of this hellish tunnel, but still – still – she's no victim.
Not now. Not ever.
No matter what Nate thinks.
No matter what anyone thinks.
She tries to focus her mind, tries to think of the plan.
Tries not to think about her partner lying – most likely unconscious - in the van just ahead of them on the road, his life once again in terrible jeopardy.
"Sam," she says softly, suddenly realizing with a small jolt of shock just how close to the van they are. Too close, she thinks, panic racing through her blood like hot lava. "Maybe we should…maybe, you know…"
"Don't worry," he tells her, his voice gentle. "He doesn't see me."
She nods, a hand reaching out to absently rub at her wounded shoulder. The scratch that the bullet graze had left on her is healing up, but she can still feel the injury if she moves her arm too quickly. "Right," she murmurs. She should have known better than to even think to question Sam on this; he's run a tail more than a few dozen times. He knows how to do it, and how to do it well. Assuming otherwise is simply an insult to him.
Thankfully, right now, Sam isn't about to hold that against her.
He knows where her mind is at the moment. At least he thinks he does. Pretty much the same place his mind would be if that were Callen in the van ahead.
Well, perhaps not exactly the same place.
Throughout the course of the case, the relationship between Kensi and Deeks had clearly shifted and changed, going from a platonic friendship to a sexual well…something. It had moved from a well functioning partnership (even if they hadn't realized it) to something far deeper and more intense in nature.
There's a reason why romantic entanglements are discouraged (though not forbidden, curiously enough), Sam muses as he shifts the Charger just a bit, angling it so as to not be immediately visible should Cavanaugh glance in his rearview mirrors. When feelings get involved, well-intentioned and considered rulebooks tend to get thrown out the window. When that happens, sense and logic have a nasty habit of becoming just empty buzz words.
It becomes all about emotion, and the moment that occurs, things tend to get very dangerous and out of control in a hurry.
Still, what's done is done.
And it's hardly as if the two of them had just jumped into bed together because of raw lust and silly youthful passion. No, they'd pretty much been forced into each other's arms thanks to the hideous and cruel actions of a sociopathic maniac.
He's brought away from his darkening thoughts by the sound of Callen's voice, low and worried. "Kensi?" the blonde team leader asks, glancing into the backseat. Callen doesn't bother following up with the obvious "are you okay?" question – it's pretty much assumed.
"I'm fine," she murmurs, no real confidence behind the words. She glances out the window, stares at the passing road.
"We're not going to lose him," Callen assures her, touching her lightly on the arm. She reacts to that, glancing down at his hand. She smiles ever so slightly at the contact, then turns back to look out the window.
"I know," she answers finally.
He almost asks her if she's ready for this – ready to face Kassel and bring him to justice (such a stupid phrase, Callen thinks – there are some things for which there is no justice and no proper repayment or compensation) – but at the last moment, he stops himself. Maybe because he doesn't completely want to know the answer. Maybe because he knows that they're not exactly on the same page.
The furious and angry part of Callen wants only one thing; Christopher Kassel in a body bag, his body riddled with bullets. The logical part of him wants Kassel in cuffs, behind bars, nothing but another lowlife serving out his days with three squares and a cot.
He knows which one Kensi wants. He wonders how far she's willing to go to make that happen. Is she willing to cross lines?
Are there lines left to cross?
Callen knows a bit about her past – not much, but a bit. He knows about her murdered father and her traumatized ex fiancée. He knows that she's lost more than she's ever gained. He knows that the world pretty much owes her a few breaks. It owes her a few wins, but seems reluctant to let her have them.
And he knows that right now, Kensi Blye is sick of losing.
And sick of hurting.
The last seven months have been hellish for her. The nightmares have been horrific, but worse than that has been the guilt and the feeling of not being herself. A shrink would probably tell her that her inability to fire her gun with the same phenomenal aim as before is at least somewhat related to her guilt.
In fact, Callen is fairly certain that Kensi's NCIS assigned shrink Doctor Crosby has told her this a time or two. At least.
Knowing the whys doesn't always change things, though.
And telling someone that they're not to blame rarely makes a bit of difference.
Especially to a woman like Kensi, who is so very good at shouldering the weight of the world.
"Hey, guys," they hear Eric say over their earpieces. Callen sees Sam lift a hand up to his ear. It's a nervous and anxious tick, a sign that the big former SEAL is sick of sitting around. He wants to do some damage of his own right about now.
"What's up, Eric?" Callen asks, his blue eyes swinging to the road ahead of them. The white unmarked van that Cavanaugh is transporting Deeks in is several long car lengths ahead, turning around a wind in the road.
"I think I know where Cavanaugh is going," Eric answers. Before anyone can ask the obvious question, the blonde tech continues. "There's a cabin up at the top of the road you're on. In fact, the road empties out into it. It's overlooking the bluffs."
"Why are they headed there?" Sam asks, his fingers tightening on the steering wheel, nails biting into the thick leather.
"The cabin is owned by a man named Alex Ruiz-Lopez," Eric tells them.
"Who we believe is an alias for a man named Alejandro Ruiz," another voice – this one belonging to Nate – says. "We wanted to run the ID by Lieutenant Sanchez, but that's no longer a possibility."
"Why?" Sam asks, exchanging a look with Callen.
"Lieutenant Sanchez is dead," Hetty tells them, reminding everyone the little Ops Manager is never far from the scene. She might be quiet and in the background, but she's always somewhere involved. "He committed suicide this morning. Seems a guard forgot to properly check him after he returned from dinner. He slit his wrists with a sharpened utensil he stole from the meal hall."
"Only downside is we can't use him to testify against Kassel," Callen notes. He's not about to shed any tears for Paul Sanchez, a little monster in his right. Sanchez had violated the oath he had taken when he had become a soldier. He'd done things that no good man could ever comprehend. And he done them for no other real reason than money and pride.
"True," Hetty notes. "But I suspect we'll have more than enough without him."
"Eric, do you have a picture of Alex Ruiz-Lopez?" Kensi cuts in suddenly. She doesn't really care about Sanchez anymore. He'd been nothing but a low man on the totem pole, an angry little thug running drugs and hurting as many people as he could along the way. Now dead, she refuses to waste another thought on him. His replacement is the one she wants now – Alejandro.
"Yup," Eric answers. "Already on its way to your cell phone now, Kens." There's gentleness in his tone, too. It's just about too much for her. They're all treating her like fine china being held over the ground. Like if they take one wrong step, and "drop" her, she'll shatter into a thousand little irreparable broken shards.
She wonders if they're right. She's beginning to think they are.
"Thanks," she mutters, pulling her phone out of her pocket. Almost immediately, there's a beep. She looks down and sees a text on her screen. She clicks on it and brings the picture up.
"Is that Alejandro?" Callen asks, peering over the top of the phone.
"Yes," she whispers.
Indeed, Alex Ruiz-Lopez is absolutely Alejandro. It's a face she'll never forget.
Seven months earlier, she had been convinced that Alejandro had murdered Deeks. She had been sure that on Kassel's orders, the big burly thug had shot Deeks twice, killing him almost immediately (or so at the time, she had prayed – the less pain, the better, for everyone).
The memory of the sound of those bullets had woken her up from a fitful sleep on more than a few occasions.
In fact, they'd woken her up almost every night.
She comes awake with a silent open-mouthed cry of anguish, unshed tears stinging in her eyes. She's breathing hard – painfully hard. She can feel the tightening of her chest as her heart slams forcefully against her ribcage.
Panic streaking through her, she reaches out blindly, one hand desperately turning on the light in the room, while the other gropes around the bed looking for something else.
No, not her gun.
Him.
Monty.
Deeks' mangy mutt.
She winds her fingers into his short curly fur, and inhales sharply; calm finally winding it's way through her. Air seems to seep into her lung. She exhales.
She can still remember every scene of her nightmare vividly. No shock really, considering she has this same exact dream every night. Or at least some very close variation of it.
Two shots.
Bang. Bang.
She always does exactly what she had done in reality – she calls for him.
And then Kassel always says exactly what he'd said, "I think we can both agree now that actions have consequences, Agent Blye."
That's where the dream always changes and twists. Sometimes, the next thing she sees is Kassel atop her, and even though it's a dream, she can always feel his touch and his invasion. She can always taste the blood he draws when he bites her lip as he shoves his tongue into her mouth.
Most of the time, though, it's all about Deeks. How he's hurt. How he dies.
Tonight, Sam and Callen had shown up.
Callen had reminded her that she hadn't been ready. Sam had simply shaken his head and said, "We never leave a man behind, Kensi. Never."
Only she had.
She'd been rescued, Deeks hadn't.
She'd left him behind.
Monty whines and curls into her side. After a moment, when she doesn't respond to him, he leans up and licks her face. And then he does it again.
It's enough to make her smile, just a bit.
"Stop," she says, pushing him slightly away. That, of course, just makes him redouble his efforts.
How like his master.
The thought – and the bitter understanding of just how much she misses her partner and her friend - hits her hard, making her audibly gasp for air.
She slides a hand over her heart, feels the pounding of it. She inhales, exhales, fighting desperately to fights back the panic attack that is once again beginning to form. "Just a dream," she reminds herself shakily, not believing her own words.
Because Deeks being dead, well that's not just a dream. It's a fucking nightmare for sure, but it's also reality. And there's nothing she can do about it.
Her heart pounds faster. She sucks in a deep breath, tries again to calm herself.
And then Month whines again.
He can feel her anxiety, sense her pain. He rolls on his back and presents his belly to her, and then whimpers again. He paws at her, forces her to look at him.
"You are persistent," she mutters as she sees the dog rolled on his back, his tongue out. Then, with a small smile, she reaches down and scratches his belly.
He wags his tail, and huffs his approval.
In spite of herself, she laughs.
She doesn't dream again that night.
But then, she never returns to sleep either.
Three hours will have to be enough.
Three hours eventually become all she'll get on most nights.
After three hours, the nightmares always wake her.
Marty Deeks wakes up in the back of another fucking van.
This time, he's only pretending to be unconscious. He hurts, but for now, he pushes all of that back. For now, he focuses on only the rage and self-hatred that are running through his veins like poison, destroying everything in its path.
Everything good and right and sane.
If he were right in his head, right in his soul, he'd know that allowing the rage and self-hatred to fester can only to lead to damnation. Right now, he just doesn't care. So he lets those twin feelings drive him forward. He lets them control him.
Rage for all that was taken from him. And from Kensi.
Self-hatred at what he has become.
A pathetic shell of a man who has only two things on his mind right now.
Kill Kassel and find a way to get some heroin back into his bloodstream.
He prays to a god that he's no longer sure exists that his teammates – that Kensi - can keep him from at least one of those things. Preferably, the latter.
After all, he can't imagine the world mourning the death of a piece of shit like Christopher Kassel.
He hears a phone sing out a merry ringtone. In the passenger seat a few feet in front of him, he sees Kassel's son, Justin Cavanaugh, answer his cell. "Hey, Pops. Yeah. No, he's out cold. Uh uh, he's jonesing for a hit like you wouldn't believe." He glances down at the mirror on the side of the van, and then shakes his head in the negative even though Kassel most likely can't see him. "Nope, no one is following us. Yeah, I'm sure. Right. Five minutes, Pops."
Cavanaugh glances back behind him, smirks at Deeks' form and then shakes his head in disgust. Like he can't quite stand the sight of the fallen cop.
Deeks doesn't quite blame him – at least not for that. Right now, he looks just like every other junkie – too thin, too pale and too weak. Just barely a shell of a man.
Still, he has a purpose, and that means something. Absent anything else to really hold onto (as much as it might seem easy to do so, he can't imagine burdening Kensi with the disgusting mess of a man that he has become – she deserves better, he owes her more), he clings frantically to the idea of vengeance.
So he holds on to his rage. It fuels him, gives him what he needs to at the very least, see this case through. To see Kassel taken down one way or another.
Once Cavanaugh slides his attention back to the road, Deeks turns his body slowly, remembering the camera inside of his shirt. He hopes it's still transmitting a video signal. He hopes that the others are still back there.
He hopes that he's not about to feel the needle break through his skin again.
He hopes that he is.
In the sane and sensible part of him – that part that remains Detective Marty Deeks - he knows that everything he's going through is typical for addicts – especially ones that have just gone through detox. No matter what the brochures say, there's no such thing as a detox that leaves the patient absent his addiction. The best-case scenario is that he's clear of the actual physical chemical need (which Deeks is pretty sure that he is). The mental addiction remains.
And right now, that mental addiction is screaming at him to find a way to get the Prince Charming back into his system however he can. "Everything feels better when it's in there", the Voice of the addiction tells him. "You feel better."
The Voice is right, of course. When the drug enters his system, he always feels better, but that's all he feels. Nothing else. No passion, no joy, no hope. Nothing. Any part of him that is Marty Deeks always disappears, buried deep beneath the violent waves of the chemicals soaring through his system. Worse than that, though, is the realization that when he's under the thrall of the heroin, he just doesn't care about anyone or anything.
He knows that if he can get through this, find a way to get back home again (wherever that be), he can seek help. At this point, he doesn't care who he has to ask, he'll ask anyone if they can help control the addictive urges.
That will have to wait for later. Until after Kassel has been dealt with.
It's hard, though. It's so damned hard to think about anything beyond the peace and the quiet that he knows the Prince Charming will give him.
He allows his mind to drift for a moment, to think about just how he could manage to score himself another hit. It really wouldn't be so hard, right?
He closes his eyes against the waves of pain that seem to be coursing through him. He knows that the physical dependency is gone; this is all in his mind.
He wants to cry. This isn't the man he wants to be – an addict in desperate need of a fix. He doesn't want to be weak.
He doesn't want to be his father.
A man, who even in his best moments, was hopelessly shattered by the time Deeks was old enough to really know him. A man, whose love for his son, had been buried beneath his need for relief from his pain and fury.
It's well over a hundred degrees outside, perhaps even hotter on the black asphalt of the East Los Angeles basketball court. Today is something of a rarity for the Brandel men – today is a day where Gordon is feeling well enough to actually act like a father for a few minutes. Better yet, he's in a great mood.
An unusually happy mood.
Jillian Brandel watches from the sidelines as Gordon dribbles the ball around his seven-year-old son. She watches Gordon drive and laugh as he nails his shot.
"Swish!" Gordon laughs, and then as he passes his son, he ruffles Marty's unruly blonde hair. "Think you can do that, Little Man?"
"I can do that," Marty says defiantly.
"Well then you're going to have to get the ball from me, aren't ya, kiddo?"
Jillian smiles sadly as she watches. In a perfect world, this would be a wonderful childhood memory for Marty. One of thousands.
She knows better, and she's pretty much stopped believing in a perfect world. She knows what this is - a sweet moment, but just a moment. Nothing more.
"Come on, Marty," Gordon laughs. "Stop me."
Marty tries valiantly, but Gordon when he's right (and he so very rarely is these days) is as graceful an athlete as there has ever been. Marty tries several times to strip the ball – even lunging at his fathers' knees – but Gordon evades him with an ease that is about far more than just age and skill.
It's about keen intelligence. Something that has been sorely missing in Gordon ever since the accident. Ever since the painkillers had pretty much overtaken his life, and more importantly, his mind.
"Gotta do better than that, Marty," Gordon says as he puts up another shot. It's a bit off the mark, though – intentionally so, Jillian thinks to herself – which causes it to bounce back. Into Marty's hands.
Her little boy squeals with excitement and then races for the hoop. Halfway there, Gordon makes a cursory effort to get in the way.
That's when it all goes bad.
Again.
Gordon slides into the way, not meaning to actually stop Marty, but rather trying to convince Marty that he's doing this on his own. When he does, though, his ankle catches, and his back hitches. Immediately, Gordon collapses to the hot pavement, his body practically shaking with pain.
The game is over then. Just as quickly as it started. And Gordon's good mood? Nothing but a puff of smoke rising up towards the heavens, darkening as it goes.
When Marty rushes to his father's side, Gordon roughly swats him away, his rage bleeding out. He yells at his son, says words that a dad should never say to his son. Marty, always hopelessly persistent, tries again to help his fallen dad, and receives a hard slap to the face for his efforts.
Quietly, Jillian tells her confused and frightened little blonde boy to go home. She assures him that she'll take care of daddy. Marty doesn't understand, all he knows – and it's something that no seven year old boy should ever know – is that he's somehow responsible for why his father is hurt. He apologizes repeatedly.
Marty doesn't sleep much that night. Instead, he stays up, listening to the fighting. He hears doors slamming and cursing. Even curled beneath his blankets, he can feel the white-hot anger that seems to bleed down the walls of the apartment – he can practically taste the hatred between his parents.
Around midnight, it occurs to him that he hears nothing at all.
When he crawls out of bed late and makes his way to the front room, he sees his father sleeping on the couch, head lolled to the side, a blanket over his knees.
Stoned out of his fucking mind.
But quiet. Not angry. Not in pain.
Not much of a father, though.
And certainly not much of a man.
Not anymore anyway.
Kensi stares down at the iPad, her mismatched eyes burning holes into the reflective touchscreen panel. On it is video of the inside of the van that Deeks is being transported in. Every now and again, when the vehicle hits a bump, the camera allows a glance of Deeks' body, but mostly it shows Cavanaugh and his driver. They're chatting back and forth, looking so casual that they might as well be talking about the score of the last Dodger game.
Suddenly, a hand slides in front of the camera. It's cut up and in bad shape, the cuticles badly damaged from obsessive chewing. Seven months ago, there's no way that this hand would have belonged to Deeks – a man who has always been neurotic about keeping his nails clean and neat.
When the fingers move to form a letter, though, Kensi's certain that it is him.
"Help me," she translates out loud, watching him sign the letters over and over.
"Is he in immediate danger?" Sam asks, hands tightening on the wheel again.
"Doesn't appear so," Callen notes, glancing down at the screen. "Seems like they're ignoring him."
"I think he's afraid we'll let him get taken again," Kensi says suddenly, her voice thick with emotion. She nearly chokes the words out.
"We won't," Sam assures her. "Eric, how much longer?"
"You're not far out now, Sam. The cabin is right up at the top of the hill. If I were you, I'd ditch the Charger and hike the rest of the way up. There's no way you guys don't get seen if you drive in."
"Which means there's no way they don't shoot Deeks before we can get to him," Callen notes grimly. "Eric, can you get us any kind of imagery on how many guys we're dealing with?"
"Sorry, no, too much foliage in the way. All the satellites are pulling is the top of the cabin and some of the surrounding area. Too many pockets, though."
"Great," Callen sighs, watching as Kensi checks her gun, ensuring that her clip is fully loaded. "Okay, have LAPD on its way to provide back-up. One way or another, Kassel isn't leaving this place a free man."
"They've already been alerted. Detective Bernhart is leading them up," Nate tells them. "And Renko is on his way to you as well. He's about twenty minutes out."
"This will be over in ten," Kensi says softly, clicking her clip back into place.
"I'll tell them to get a move on then," Eric comments.
"Is Hetty still there?" Callen queries.
"I'm here, Mr. Callen," the Ops Manager says, her voice crisp.
"Any mission directives?" he asks. His intent is clear; he asking whether or not the team should be doing whatever they can to bring Kassel in alive.
"End this," she says simply. "Bring Mr. Deeks home. Those are your directives. Everything else is up to your judgment."
"So notes." He turns to face Kensi. "You ready?"
She says nothing.
She doesn't need to.
She's twenty-four years old, and about to go on her first mission. She's hardly alone, of course. There's Lara Macy, the cool as a cucumber team leader. There's G. Callen, the mysterious field captain. There's Sam Hanna, the muscle (and G's partner) and there's Mike Renko, the deep cover specialist.
They're her team now.
"You ready?" Callen asks as she exits the dressing room, wearing Kevlar and multiple holsters. This first job is a raid of a warehouse believed to be being used to traffic large amounts of cocaine between Afghanistan and the United States. For the last several weeks, Renko has been working undercover. Now it's time to strike and finish the job.
"Course," she says. Her eyes flicker across the room, to where Macy is standing. The blonde woman is watching her with a small frown.
"What?" Kensi asks.
"Callen," Macy says simply.
"Right." He steps in front of her, and adjusts the straps on her Kevlar, then lowers one of her holsters. It's ridiculously really – rookie mistakes – but she blushes. Because she doesn't make mistakes. You don't get on to a team like this if you're a moron who can't figure out how to properly work Velcro straps.
And yet.
"It's okay," Callen tells her. "Sam's first mission out, he tried to put his vest on backwards." It's an obvious lie – Sam was a NAVY SEAL, someone well acquainted with proper protective gear usage – but it makes her smile just the same, which was really the point.
"Good," Macy nods. "All right, people, in and out. Let's do this quick and clean. And uh, try not to get Renko shot again. I'm sick of filling out paperwork for him."
Kensi lifts an eyebrow, and looks at Sam and Callen.
"That was a joke," Callen confirms. "You can laugh."
"Gotcha."
They exit together, the three of them. On the way out, she sees Hetty, the so-called office manager, watching her. In Kensi's short time with the team (just over three weeks now, most of it spent watch and listening), she's come to realize that, though, Macy and Callen may have official leadership titles, Hetty is the puppet-master. And everyone knows it, and accepts it as such.
"A moment, gentlemen," she says to Sam and Callen.
Callen's eyebrow lifts, but a firm look from Hetty makes him back down. "Sure, we'll be out by the car, Kensi."
She nods. She watches the men exit the building – an inconspicuous and utterly personality-less warehouse in the middle of Santa Monica - and then turns to face Hetty. "Something wrong?"
"Not at all, Ms. Blye. I simply wanted to say good luck." Before Kensi can reply, Hetty reaches out and touches her arm. "And I wanted to remind you of the reason that you were brought onto this team."
"I'm guessing it's not my ability to put on a Kevlar vest."
Hetty chuckles. "No, but if it makes you feel better, even Mr. Callen has had his nervous moments from time to time. Being nervous is never a bad thing. Letting your nerves control your actions, that's where the problems come in."
"So what you're saying is…"
"What I'm saying is, you were brought onto this team because we believed that you have unique skills that will better this team. And we believed that you could own your nerves. We still believe that now. We believe in your talents and abilities, Ms. Blye. I urge you to do the same."
"Okay."
"Good. That will be all."
"Right." Kensi starts to leave, then stops and looks back.
"You're quite welcome, my Dear. Now, I believe they're waiting for you."
Kensi smiles in response, then turns, and follows after the guys.
Deeks doesn't even bother to pretend to be unconscious when the van stops in front of the picturesque cabin. Instead, he continues lying on the floor of the vehicle, looking up, his exhausted blue eyes locked on Cavanaugh, who is suddenly standing over him, a pistol aimed directly at his face. He shifts slightly, just to make sure the camera is fully on Cavanaugh's ugly mug.
"Jimmy," he says with a grin. "You're awake. That's good, brother. And, hey, look where we are, my man. We're home." He reaches out then and grabs Deeks by the collar of his shirt, hefting the too skinny cop to his feet. "Home sweet home."
"Home?" Deeks repeats, his mouth suddenly dry. For a moment, the Voice of the Addiction overtakes him, and he loses all touch with reality. He's confused and uncertain, unaware of what's going on or even why he's where he is.
All he knows is that he hurts.
And he doesn't want to.
"Yeah, you remember. You should anyway, you've been hanging here for awhile," Cavanaugh chuckles as he shoves Deeks out of the van.
Immediately, his senses returning to him, Deeks realizes that Cavanaugh is right.
Yes, he's been here before.
And yes, he knows this place well.
Entirely too well.
It's where, for the last six months of his life, he'd been held captive – a prisoner of a sadistic monster who had wanted more than just to destroy his body. No, Kassel had also wanted to shatter his soul.
Completely.
And he'd almost succeeded.
Amateurs think that breaking someone is all about the shattering of bone, and the rending of flesh. Christopher Kassel has always seen it a quite a bit differently than that. For him, destroying a man entirely is about the little moments just as much as the big ones.
Sure, there are crucial checkpoints – so to speak – such as the first broken bone and the first time the victim doesn't plead for mercy, but to really do the job well, you have to make every second of the victims' "life" a living hell.
Kassel has gone to great lengths to make the LAPD Detective formerly known as Marty Deeks' life exactly that – hell on earth. Deeks now believes that his name really is Jimmy Reese, and that's just the beginning of it all.
There's so much further to go.
It starts with control.
He owns every movement that Deeks makes, from rolling over in his sleep to stumbling to the bathroom to pee. He makes sure that Deeks knows that he is always being watched, always being controlled. He smiles each time he sees humiliation wash over the blonde haired cop.
And then Kassel turns up the temperature, and makes it about humiliation and guilt and remorse and pain.
He brings in a hooker and demands that Deeks have sex with her. When the cop refuses to do so, he's beaten for it and left alone in his room for two days, fever once again raging through his broken body as he goes through painful withdrawals from the heroin. The second time Deeks declines the invitation; the woman is murdered in front of him.
Deeks doesn't dare to refuse a third time.
Then Kassel forces Deeks to assist Alejandro in the interrogation of a small-time Prince Charming dealer who had been stupid enough to try to rip him off. Kassel stands by and lets Deeks almost snuff the kids' life out. In fact, he would have let him do it, but the cop stops himself at the last moment, babbling out some lame excuse about not killing a company asset.
He nods to Deeks, and then orders Alejandro to kill the boy. Deeks watches in horror as Alejandro places a gun to the kids' forehead and fires a bullet into his brain, ending his life instantly.
Deeks is beaten mercilessly for his failure to do as ordered. The only thing that ends the assault is him saying over and over that his name is Jimmy Reese.
The next time, he makes Deeks be the one to fire the gun. When Deeks crumbles to the ground in horror, his reward is to be left in his room, once again absent the drug that will make all of the nightmares fade away.
The time after that, Deeks introduces himself to the soon to be victim as Jimmy Reese, and it only takes a little bit of pressure and persuasion from Alejandro to make Deeks pull the trigger. There are no tears afterwards, just chemical peace.
There's a point to all of this, of course. It's about more than torture and about more than breaking Deeks – though, it's certainly about both of those things as well. No, no, it's about getting him ready to kill a certain mark.
Kensi Blye.
Yeah, it's all about her.
Because killing her will kill him. Even if he doesn't realize it at the time.
The plan is simple; break Deeks, make him think – no, make him believe - that he's Jimmy Reese, then have him murder Agent Blye. After she's dead, her blood splattered all over him, force him to recognize the truth of what he's done. Once that's done, all you have to do is hand him a loaded gun, show him how to put it to his temple, and his guilt, grief and self-hatred will do the rest.
Simple. Not terribly eloquent. Bloody as hell.
Beautiful.
His sadistic plan – which had eventually (and somewhat inexplicably) been foiled by a dog and a kiss - had almost worked.
Almost.
"He can't do this," Callen says quietly. The three of them are crouched behind bushes, watching as Cavanaugh pushes Deeks out the door of the van. They see Deeks look around, eyes wide with fear and horror.
And then they seem him fall to the ground. He's shaking, coming apart.
"We have to get to him," Kensi says, starting to rise. She takes several long steps towards her partner, needing to get to him almost more than she needs air.
"Kensi," Sam cautions, reaching out and grabbing her by the collar of her vest. He pulls her back down, using almost all of his strength to still her struggles.
"Sam, if Kassel is in there, going in now won't change that."
"We should wait for back-up," he tells her, but he's pulling his gun out.
"If we wait, Cavanaugh could kill him."
"He won't," Callen tells her. "Kassel would want to be the one to do that."
"Callen, please. He can't take any more," she pleads. "Please."
"She's right, G," Sam nods, indicating toward Deeks, who is on the ground, head in his hands, unable to stop the tremors rushing through his body. "He's done."
"All right," Callen says. He touches his ear, "Eric, tell Renko and Detective Bernhart that we're heading in now. Tell them we're probably going to need a few ambulances and a couple coroners by the time we're done."
"What else is new?" Eric replies, his voice dry.
Her first kill just about guts her. It'd happened at the end of the Renko Warehouse Mission, just as it seemed like there would be no action at all. One of the dealers had found a rifle, fired it (badly) and then he had blasted off a few more stray rounds. It'd been enough to start up one hell of a firefight.
She'd mostly been returning fire until she'd seen a guy slide up behind Renko, gun aimed at his head. Almost without thinking, she'd changed guns, switching from a rifle to her Sig. And then she'd fired three shots. She'd only needed one; Kirby Davis had been dead the moment her bullet had torn through his skull.
In the end, it'd been a good shoot, and there's not a doubt that the world is a better place without Kirby Davis, but still, sitting at her desk, her fingers trembling over the keyboard of her laptop as she tries to type up her report, Kensi Blye finds that she's more troubled by what she's done than she cares to admit.
"How's the report coming along?" Macy asks as she enters the small office area that the team has turned into a bullpen. Not for the first – or last time – she glances around and thinks that this building is all wrong for the team. Hetty says she's working on something better, but who knows when that will develop.
For now, this is home. Cold and emotionless though it be.
"Slowly," Kensi admits, raking her fingers through her hair. She glances around, relieved to see that Macy is absent the guys – Callen, Sam, Renko and Nate. What she's feeling right now is crazy enough, she doesn't need them adding to it.
Not that they would do intentionally, but Sam, Callen and Renko would try to understand and Nate would try to talk, and really, she's in the mood for neither.
Her mood and what she wants doesn't deter Macy in the least.
"How you holding up?" she asks.
"I'm fine," Kensi replies quickly, the very idea of showing weakness to this woman abhorrent to her. She's put in so much work to be good at this job, gone through so much. She doesn't want Macy wondering why she's here.
She thinks back to Hetty's words from earlier – about why she'd been chosen. She tells herself that she did the job that she'd been hired to do. She tells herself to stop acting like a silly little girl. She tells herself to toughen up. Get strong.
"If you were fine, I'd be worried," Macy chuckles, sitting on the edge of the desk. "Your first kill isn't supposed to feel good. It's not supposed to feel right."
"No, really..."
"Kensi…"
She blows out air between her teeth. It's clear that Macy has no intention of just letting this drop. Finally, she grits out, "He was a terrible man."
"That's putting it lightly. Kirby Davis was a real son of a bitch. Or as Nate put it, he was a sociopathic loon bag."
"Loon bag?"
"Okay, you got me. Those may actually be my words not his. He babbled some other technical term. I try to block him out as often as possible," Macy replies. She's smirking slightly, an amused glint in her eyes. It's fairly well know around the OSP that Macy and Nate have almost daily sparring matches.
"So why do I care that he's dead?"
"Good guys and bad guys, Kensi. It's how we feel and how we act that tells who we are. We kill because we have to, not because we want to."
Kensi simply nods.
"Great, now that that's out of the way, how about we get the hell out of this drafty building and go find a place to knock back a few beers? I have a pretty good watering hole for exactly this kind of thing."
It's a surprising offer, and for a moment, Kensi is stunned by it. That feeling fades quickly, though as she realizes that yeah, that sounds like a hell of an idea right about now. "Yeah, sure," Kensi replies. She's still a bit anxious around this woman, but the invitation calms her considerably.
When they get to the bar, Macy orders two shots of Vodka and two beers. She hands Kensi a shot glass, and then holds up one of her own. "To your first field mission, Agent Blye. And to a job well done."
"Is it okay to celebrate death?" Kensi asks, feeling very young.
"We're not celebrating death, Kensi," Macy tells her. "We're celebrating our victories. Tonight, you made it so Kirby Davis can never hurt another person. Tonight, you gave his victims justice. And peace. I think we can drink to that."
Cavanaugh smirks at he gazes down at Deeks, lying in the dirt, head in his hands, trembling fiercely. Cavanaugh assumes that the cops' freak-out is from withdrawal and the desperate need for a hit. He's only partially right; it's also about the horror of what happened to him inside the little cabin.
So much.
Too much.
Deeks has no idea how to come back from all of this.
At this moment in time, his body and mind weakened, he's not sure if he even wants to. All he cares about is finding a way to get peace.
Even in his state, though, he knows that there is no peace as long as Kassel lives. Which means that this only ends one way.
With someone in a body bag.
His first kill happens almost a year into the job.
He's just a simple beat cop at the time, working Hollywood Boulevard. He's got the night shift so he routinely gets the fun of arresting hookers and pimps and breaking up drug deals. It's messy, and ugly, but he's good at it. He knows how to work the streets, and how to turn small-timers into confidential informants. And he knows how to get everything done without ever having to draw his gun.
All of that changes one night when a normal enough seeming domestic disturbance call turns into something far more violent.
He and his partner – a kid named Harrison - are called to a dinky three hundred square foot apartment thanks to complaints of screaming and yelling.
When they get to the apartment, and steps over mounds of debris (garbage and clothing) they meet the wife – a timid woman named Gloria James. Problem is, she's the one waving a butcher knife around, threatening to kill her husband. When they try to talk her down, she tells them that this only ends one way – with the son of a bitch who has been beating on her for years in a body bag.
She's clearly not lying. Her face and body are covered with bruises. The husband – a nasty brute of a man named Tommy - snarls at her that she's deserved every hit he's ever given her. He's either too drunk or too high to know better, but he tells his wife right in front of the cops that she'll pay dearly for this. He tells her that when this is over, he'll "fucking kill her".
Deeks and Harrison stick with the playbook for issues like this. They talk calmly and rationally, they urge taking a step back. They promise that this can be resolved if she'll just put the knife down. They tell her that she'll be protected.
It seems like it's working.
It is working.
They get both Tommy and Gloria outside. Deeks moves off to the side to talk with the wife in semi-private, while Harrison handles the husband. Harrison's job is to arrest Tommy James for domestic violence. Everything else – including the fact that Tommy is drunk out of his mind – will be dealt with down at the station.
Everything is going just fine until twenty-two year old Harrison fucks up badly.
Something makes him look to his side, God only knows what. A moment later, a gunshot rings out, and there's Harrison lying on the ground, bleeding out. Tommy is above him, holding Harrison's service piece in his hand, waving it around.
It's out of a bad Lifetime movie what the husband says next. "You're not leaving me," he tells Gloria. "You're never leaving me." He aims the gun he stole from Deeks' partner at his wife, and squeezes the trigger.
Deeks never hesitates. He throws the wife to the ground, rolls (he'll tell everyone later that he learned that move on TJ Hooker) and fires twice. Tommy goes down, two bullets lodged in his chest. He dies on the way to the hospital.
Gloria is heartbroken. And relieved. And a thousand other complicated things.
After checking on his wounded – but recovering – partner (who will resign from the LAPD after he's released from the hospital three weeks later), Deeks spends his night sitting on a surfboard in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, wondering about the quality of human life, trying desperately to figure out how a man does what that man had done to his wife. He thinks about why he became a cop.
He has his reasons. Some involve how he grew up. Most involve being a better man than his father. But it's still more than that. It's about tipping the scales – ensuring that there is more good in the world than bad.
He looks at his hands, then dunks them into the ocean. They stay there until he paddles in. He doesn't want to see the blood on them.
A few weeks later, in a special ceremony, he's given a medal for heroism. He throws it in a drawer and never looks at it again.
Nine months later, he's assigned to a special task force on the LAPD Robbery Division. It's fun and interesting work, but he never feels like he's making a difference – he never feels like he's tipping the scales like he needs to.
When an opening in an Undercover Narcotics Unit becomes available, Deeks grabs at it greedily. Here, he thinks, he can make a difference. He can stop the bad guys from hurting young kids who are too stupid to know how very easily their lives can be destroyed by the poison these monsters are peddling.
Here, he knows he can tip the scales.
Tipping the scales is one of the main reasons (though not the only one) that he signs on to be the liaison for the NCIS OSP team a few years later.
He never forgets Tommy and Gloria James.
The trio of NCIS agents stop in their tracks when they see Kassel exit the cabin, Alejandro trailing just a few steps behind him. Kassel's dressed unusually for him, wearing jeans and a quarter-zip fleece instead of his typical finely tailored suit. Alejandro is in jeans and a blood splattered tee-shirt.
"Kensi, Sam, around the side of the cabin. I'll take the point."
"No," she says. "I got point."
"You sure?"
"I'm sure," she replies coldly, icy determination in her dark eyes. Her tone leaves no room for argument. To put it as simply as possible: Kassel is hers.
"Okay." Callen motions Sam around to the left, then slides around to the right.
Kassel, oblivious to all of this, approaches Deeks, a predatory smile on his face.
"Jimmy, I was starting to get worried about you, son."
"My name is Deeks," Marty says, looking up at him. Even going through the mental struggle he is, defiance wins out.
"Oh, look who thinks he knows who he is again? Are we going to need to start from the beginning? You know, I think I think I'd kind of like that. What about you, Alejandro? You think you could go a few more rounds with 'Detective Deeks'?"
"Sounds like fun," Alejandro smirks.
"Go to hell," Deeks growls.
The men surrounding him – Kassel, Alejandro, and Cavanaugh – all laugh.
"Awfully brave for a man we both know would gladly sell his soul back to me for one hit of the Prince Charming," Kassel chuckles. "So what do you say, Deeks? How about we just get to that? How about I have Alejandro here get you a needle and we skip all of the torture? What do you say, boy?"
Kensi doesn't give Deeks a chance to reply. She steps forward, gun out and yells, "NCIS, hands up. Everyone."
"Oh, look, you brought friends," Kassel says, his eyes flickering towards Cavanaugh. "You said there was no one following you, son."
"He's an idiot, Kassel. Like all of your men." She smiles tightly at Alejandro, and then gestures her gun at him, indicating that he should put his hands up.
"Apparently so. Agent Blye, it's so good to see you again."
"Feeling isn't mutual, Kassel. Now put your hands up or I will empty this entire clip into your face."
"Such violence. I didn't know you were capable of it."
"You have no idea what I'm capable of."
"Oh my dear, you forget, I do know what you can do. I know exactly what you can do." He leers at her then, allowing his eyes to sweep over her body.
It takes everything she has not to shiver in reaction.
"This is your last warning," she says, her eyes scanning for Sam and Callen. She sees them behind the cabin, slowly slipping out of hiding long enough to take out the armed guards who are nearby.
"I see," he says. "Well then, I think we have a problem."
"Not from where I stand."
"Oh, but we do, my dear girl. You see, my son there – and I'm sure you've figured out who he is," Kassel's eyes glide back over Cavanaugh, his gaze cold and furious. "My son has a gun pointed right at your pathetic partner. So unless you want to watch him die, you'll put down your own weapon."
"That's not how this is going," she tells him.
"Really. So you're prepared to lose him. Again?"
Kensi swallows hard.
The truth is, she's not.
She can't lose anyone else.
She simply can't.
The rest of her life begins with the sun peaking in through her window.
It's an unassuming beginning to the day, and at first, she thinks nothing of it. Until she realizes two things: first, it's Christmas morning, and second, she's lying alone in the bed that she usually shares with her fiancée.
Most people wouldn't be worried by these things. Most would simply assume that he's out front, messing with the tree, compulsively arranging and rearranging the gifts beneath it as he has been for the last several days.
Kensi Blye isn't most people. Even at the amazingly young age of twenty-one.
Immediately, she senses that something is wrong. She rolls over in the bed, and looks at the alarm clock next to the bed. It's early, but not too early for a former Marine to be up and at it. She tells herself that that's all this is.
She knows better.
She climbs from the bed and pulls a bathrobe around her naked frame. She steps into the hallway (many years later, she'll do almost exactly this same walk looking for her partner – her instincts will have been right then as well).
"Jack?" she calls out.
Silence greets her.
She tries again. "Jack, baby? Where are you?"
She steps into the Living Room. It's empty. She checks the whole apartment even though she knows that there's no really point in doing so.
He's gone.
Throughout the day, she tries to convince herself otherwise. She tells herself that he's just out for a run, or a walk or maybe he went to see an old friend or…
Or maybe he really had left her on Christmas morning.
It's just about six at night when that realization crashes down on her. The night previous, they'd made love and he'd held her in a way that he hadn't since his return from the Middle East. He'd kissed her hair, and trailed his fingers over her. He'd told her over and over how much he loved her, and how beautiful she was.
She should have known, should have seen the signs.
But she'd been just so happy to have him back in her arms.
Now, that happiness has turned to hurt. And loss.
She's so fucking sick and tired of losing everyone she loves.
Her mother, her father, so many friends along the way, and now Jack.
She allows herself a cry – a short and painful one – and then like the well brought up daughter of a Marine that she is, she pulls herself together and faces the reality of the situation.
Kind of.
She spends the night calling around to every hospital and every police station in the city. She's tireless and persistent.
She's wasting her time, and deep down, she knows it.
She's not quite ready to accept that. It hurts too much.
She makes her way over to the Christmas tree, sits down in front of it, and sifts through the presents, searching for a note. She unwraps every gift from him, looking for a clue. She finds jewelry and clothing and chocolates and other desired things, but nothing telling her where he is. She re-wraps every present, wanting the tree to look just as he'd left it, in case he comes back.
She plans for them to still have their Christmas.
Her plans never come to fruition because Jack never comes back. Unable to look at the gifts any longer, she eventually donates almost all of them to a nearby homeless shelter. She keeps only a teddy bear dressed in military fatigues.
Come the morning after Christmas, she files a police report. She answers a lot of uncomfortable questions, and receives a ton of skeptical looks. Everyone she talks to thinks that she's just struggling with a painful breakup.
She wants to tell them that they're not completely wrong, but they're far from right as well. This, well, this isn't supposed to be happening.
She's supposed to have been strong enough to hold on to Jack. Strong enough to save him from his demons.
She hadn't been, and now, he's gone.
The first several weeks after he leaves pass in a blur of anxious expectation. Every time she hears a car pull up in front of the apartment, she thinks that it's Jack coming home. When she's walking the streets of San Diego, and she happens to see a tall broad shouldered man up ahead, she's certain it's him. She's even followed after the men a time or two. They're never him, though.
The dreams are the worst of it. For the first couple of months, she dreams about him every night. Sometimes he's holding her, sometimes he's being kept from her, and sometimes, he's asking her why she couldn't be stronger for him.
She wonders the same thing.
Weeks turn into months and with nothing else to do and no one else to turn to, she finally returns to school. Her heart has been hopelessly shattered, and she's alone – absent friends and family - but she's still alive and she's not a weak woman. She's not going to just sit in her apartment and cry about her losses.
She moves on with her life.
God, she misses them. Her father. Jack. So many people.
She enrolls in as many criminal justice classes as she can – focusing specifically on forensics. Her professors adore her. It's no surprise really; she's their star student - the top of her grade. She never comes close to failing a single class.
Just him.
Her father had shown her how to fire many different kinds of guns, but she takes it a step further and enrolls in classes that teach her how to hit every mark put in front of her. She learns how to drill targets from obscene distances. She excels.
When the recruiters from NCIS come knocking, they're far from alone.
She chooses NCIS for two reasons – first, it offers her the chance to maybe one day bring the men who had murdered her father to justice. Second, the person who comes to see her – a tiny woman named Henrietta Lange – intrigues her.
The woman says all the right things, and yet Kensi never feels for a moment as if she's being bullshitted. Still, it's what Hetty does more than what she says that convinces Kensi to sign on the dotted line for NCIS. It's a leap of faith that Hetty takes in her, really. It's something she does that no one else in the world would have done for her; first, she stops Kensi from following a man out of a bar. A man (not Jack) whose life is forever merged with her own. Second, after preventing the then furiously angry young woman from doing something that would have certainly ended horrifically, Hetty promises her that the time for all of that will come later. For now, Hetty pleads with her, focus on you.
"Make your father proud."
And so she had.
As she immerses herself in the NCIS training courses, she tries not to think about Jack. She tries to pretend that he had never existed. She tries to pretend that she had never let anyone hurt her as badly as he had hurt her.
And above all else, she tries to pretend that she had never failed anyone as horribly as she had failed him.
That only works if she can pretend that Jack never existed. Luckily, her new life with NCIS affords her the ability to become someone else – to disappear and to pretend that she has no real past. She moves apartments and removes every sign of him from her life. She never ever speaks of him.
Not until a sociopath named Talbot forces all of the feelings back to the surface. She over-relates to him and to his situation, and it makes her blind and stupid.
It almost costs Kensi her life.
She tells herself that she can't allow her feelings and emotions to make her vulnerable. Never again.
That idea works in theory, though not in practice.
Very few things ever do.
Deeks looks up from his position on the ground. He can see Cavanaugh's gun pointed right at his face, too close to miss. If Cavanaugh fires, Deeks is a dead man and everyone on the scene knows it.
"Shoot him," he tells Kensi, his tired blue eyes flickering up to meet her furious mismatched ones.
"Who are you kidding, boy?" Kassel chuckles. "We both know she doesn't have the guts to risk your life. She's just a silly little woman."
Kensi tightens her fingers on her gun. "Maybe so, but trust me when I say, this 'silly little woman' has killed men much worse than you."
Kassel just smiles back at her, like he sees right through her bravado.
And then he says, "Kill him, Justin."
Unburdened with feelings such as remorse and guilt, Justin Cavanaugh never hesitates. In the space of a fraction of a second, he aims the gun at Deeks' head, and pulls the trigger on his gun.
A moment later, the sound of multiple gunshots cut through the air.
And then, there's nothing but smoke and confusion everywhere.
He watches her at the range, envious and in awe. She's amazing, staring down the targets, firing bullet after bullet into them. And he's not too bad himself.
"Deeks," she says, without turning. She fires three more bullets, burying them into the heart of the paper man.
"Bad date?" he asks with a grin. He walks around her, checking her neck for hickeys that he knows he'll never find. Mostly, he's just trying to annoy her.
It's clearly working by the tension in her jaw. "Nope. Great date." She fires again.
"Bad night then?"
"Not talking about that with you."
"Really? Come on, we're adults. I think we can talk about sex."
"Nope."
"Nope you didn't have a bad night or nope…"
"Nope, I'm not talking about this with you."
"Okay." He comes around to the stall next to hers, slides on his protective glasses, move his own target into place, and then fires two shots. "But," he continues, "If you did want to, that's what partners are for."
"Really?" she asks, turning towards him. "That's what partners are for?"
"Yup. Really. You know, to talk things over with."
"Okay. How was your night?"
"Fine."
"Just fine?"
"Good. I had a good night," he says, suddenly wishing he hadn't started this conversation.
"Fantastic. So did I. Now can we move on from Sex and the City or would you like to talk about your nails as well."
"That's…really mean. And kind of hurtful. And…and just for the record, my nails are fine. In great shape."
She snorts, and turns back to the target. Two more shots and the target is pretty much obliterated.
"You really are good," he tells her.
"We have to be," she says simply.
"Okay, something's bothering you, and it's not your usually abysmal love life."
"My love life is not abysmal."
"Whatever you say, Ms. St. James."
She rolls her eyes.
"But seriously, what is it?" he presses again.
She sighs, but doesn't answer.
"Kensi…"
"Just…dreams," she finally admits, her voice thick with emotion. He watches as she brings the target in and replaces it with a new one. "But they're no big deal." She hits a button, and the target returns to the back of the range.
"I'm sure they're not, but just for kicks, what were the dreams about?"
She shrugs.
"Not an answer."
"Fine, Deeks, you want to know?" she asks, turning to face him.
"Yeah."
"People I've shot and killed. I dreamed about a whole bunch of them last night."
"Oh."
"See. I told you it was no big deal."
"Are you okay?" he asks her.
"I'm fine."
"You've never shot someone who didn't deserve it," he tells her.
"I know."
"And guilt is normal."
"I know."
"I know you do."
"I'm glad we're on the same page," she says, turning back to the target.
"I've had that dream, too," he says suddenly, making her turn towards him again.
"You have?"
"Sure. A couple dozen times. It sucks, but I think it means we're human. We don't want to be killers. I don't want to be one."
She opens her mouth as if to say something, but then thinks better of it. Finally, she nods and simply says, "Sometimes, you don't annoy me, Deeks."
"Thanks. I think. Now, back to the date."
"Deeks."
"I'll tell you about mine if you tell me about yours."
"First, I really don't want to know about whatever dim-witted big-chested monosyllabic floozy you took back to your place last night."
"Ouch. Unnecessary foul."
"And second, we still aren't in an episode of Sex and the City."
"Which means what?"
"I don't kiss and tell," she smirks.
"I don't either, but maybe I can educate you."
"Yeah, right."
"Fine. Then I guess I'll just have to educate you here instead."
"On the gun range?"
"Yup."
"Deeks, did you hit your head on the headboard last night?"
"That sounds like kissing and telling," he grins. "But no, I didn't. Though…"
"Stop. Please?"
"As you wish."
"Thank you." Then, "You know you can't beat me in here, right?"
"No one can," he admits. "But that doesn't mean I don't want to try."
"All right. Try away."
"Okay. See the trick is, you have to be the bullet."
"Be the bullet?" she laughs.
"Be the bullet," he nods. "And watch it fly."
Cavanaugh hits the ground, a bullet between his eyes, his blood splattering all over Deeks' face. And all at once, the sound of a dozen guns being fired can be heard. Alejandro is behind a an old Jeep, using it to provide cover as he pops off multiple rounds from a semi-automatic that he's somehow gotten his hands on.
"Deeks?" Kensi says, from where she's dropped down next to him. When the first shot had been fired – from far behind them (from either Sam or Callen's gun), she had leapt towards her partner, and pushed him under her. "You okay?"
"Feeling very masculine at the moment," he admits.
"Sorry, but I'm not losing you again. Try to get behind the van and stay down."
"Where are you going?" he asks.
"After Kassel. He used the distraction of his son's shooting to take off down the road. That little coward is running as fast as he can. I'm not letting him get away," she tells him. She presses Cavanaugh's gun into his hands.
"Kensi…"
"Stay here. Don't move."
"I'm going with you," Deeks says, moving to his feet.
"No way."
He reaches out and grabs her arm. "Listen to me for once, Kensi. This is as much about me as you. Maybe even more about me."
"Deeks, you're not strong enough," she snaps back, the sound of gunshots almost drowning her words out. Behind them, Sam and Callen are engaged in a gunfight with several of Kassel's men – including Alejandro.
"I'm strong enough for this," he says.
She's about to protest again when Callen drops down next to her, hunkering down behind the van. "Where's Kassel?"
"Down the road," she says. "I'm going after him."
"Good. Take Deeks."
"What?"
"Finish this. Both of you. We got these guys. Renko is coming up the road, and Detective Bernhart and his boys just arrived on the other side of the cabin. By the time you're done, so will we be."
She nods slowly. "You stay behind me," she tells her partner.
"Don't I always," he chuckles, pushing his weakened body up. He's exhausted and tired, but somehow also amazingly energized. He realizes then that he hadn't lied to Kensi; he really does have enough strength for this.
"Kensi," Callen calls out. She turns to face him. "Stay within the law. If he fires at you, take him out, but if he drops his weapon, and surrenders, you take him alive. Don't cross that line. Don't let him win."
She wants to assure the blonde team leader that she won't, but the words catch in her throat. She offers him a weak smile instead, and then, hunkered low, she leads Deeks back towards the opening to the road.
"He can't have gotten too far," she tells Deeks, her hand rested gently on his forearm. "Head up top, and let's trap him in the middle."
They're two months into their partnership when Hetty asks Deeks to take Kensi into a Murder House with him. It's basically a big old nasty funhouse courtesy of the LAPD. Only in this funhouse, there are other cops dressed as drug dealers, rapists and serial killers. They're armed with paintball guns. The rules are simple; get through the house without suffering a debilitating hit. A shot to the arm is allowed, but anything else and the player automatically fails.
Deeks has passed the house a handful of times, but never with a partner. They both think it'll be fun. Hetty knows better. For a single cop going through, it can be very difficult, a test of hand-eye coordination, target recognition and agility. For partners, it's all of those as well a test of cooperation and teamwork.
They don't last five minutes.
Afterwards, Hetty reminds them that partnership is about more than just working the same beat and having the same end goals. It has to be about mutual respect and caring. There has to be trust. And in the best of partnerships, friendship.
Two months later, just after the events with the Russians, she lets them go into the Murder House again. There are a few tense moments, but in the end, the partners come through with flying colors.
It's because of this that Hetty allows them to go undercover together as Jimmy Reese and Kara Barstow.
It's because of this that they are forced to deal with a man named Christopher Kassel.
In his life, Kassel has never felt this kind of fear. Of course, he's never been this kind of hunted before. Still, he has no intention of going down without a fight. He pulls his gun from the inside of his jacket, and waves it around.
"Where are you, Agent Blye?"
"I'm right here," she says, coming out of the trees. Her feet crackle against fallen branches, twigs snapping beneath her heavy boots. "Why don't you just make this easy on everyone and just drop your weapon."
"We both know that's not going to happen, sweetheart."
"Funny how happy I am to hear you say that. Now drop your weapon, and put your hands up or I will fire."
"Then fire. Kill me. But don't think for a moment that doing so will change everything. You'll still feel me on you. In you. Tell me, can you still feel my hands touching you every time you close your eyes. Can you still taste me?"
"No," she grits out, though they both know that she's lying.
He laughs. "And what about Deeks. Do you really think that killing me will make him better? Nothing will ever make him better. He'll never be who he was. You have no idea the things I had done to him. The things I did to him. He's damaged goods now, sweetheart, nothing but a broken shell of a man."
"You're wrong."
"Am I? Then tell me, Agent Blye, where is he now? Not here with you."
She doesn't need to look around to know that what Kassel is saying appears to be correct; Deeks is nowhere to be seen. At least not with the naked eye. Behind Kassel, she can see charging up the road, but no Deeks.
"I'll tell you where he is, you stupid silly bitch. He's lying on the ground somewhere, curled in a ball, wishing like hell that he could get another hit of heroin. That's all he wants. Nothing is more important to him right now. Not even you" And then he smiles at her, showing all teeth. "And you know what? I did that to him. That's my work. And no matter what happens today, he will always carry the scars of that. He will always be an addict and you will always be my –"
Kassel never finishes the sentence before a bullet tears through his abdomen. With a short pained cry, he falls forward, hunched over. He coughs up blood as he gasps for air that he suddenly can't get to. At the very least, it appears that one of his lungs has been punctured.
Still somewhat shocked, Kensi looks up and sees Deeks standing a few feet away, atop a muddied slope. He has Cavanaugh's still smoking gun in his shaking right hand. He meets her eyes, and she thinks she sees tears there.
"Deeks," she whispers.
"He was going to shoot you," he tells her. "He was."
She simply nods her agreement.
She has no idea if Kassel really had been about to fire. She also doesn't care.
"Kensi!" she hears suddenly, a sharp cry, this one coming from Renko as he races towards her, still too far away to be able to get off a perfect shot. She snaps around, has enough time to realize that Kassel has righted himself to aim his gun at her, and then she unloads hers, pulling the trigger repeatedly.
Deeks does the same.
For about twenty seconds, all there is the sounds of bullets in the air. It merges with the gunfire still coming from the area around the cabin.
And then there's silence.
"Kensi," Renko says, coming to her side. He touches her face, repeats her name, but she's not looking at him. She's looking down.
At Kassel.
"He's dead," Renko tells her, taking her gun from her hand. And then he looks up at Deeks, and repeats himself. "He's dead."
Deeks comes down the hill slowly, steps above Kassel and looks down at the bullet-shredded corpse. "It was so quick," he says, his voice emotionless. "He didn't even suffer. That doesn't seem fair."
"No, it doesn't," Kensi agrees, reaching out to touch his arm "But it doesn't matter anymore. Renko's right; he's dead, Marty."
"Marty," Deeks repeats softly, more to himself than the others. He holds out his gun, and then suddenly, his hands start to shake. The gun falls to the soft ground. A moment later, Deeks crumbles to his knees.
For the second time in just a few days, Kensi drops down beside him, reaches for him, and pulls him close, holding him as tight as she can. She whispers into his ear, says nothing at all, tells him everything he needs to know.
Mostly, she just says repeatedly, "It's over. It's over. We're okay."
As Renko watches them cling to each other, it occurs to him that the gunfire up at the cabin has pretty much stopped. In his ear, he hears Sam and Callen talking, telling each other that they're clear. He hears Bernhart confirming the same.
The rest of battle, it seems, has ended as well.
Now all that remains is the healing.
TBC…