Chapter 13 - "Brilliant Achievement"

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Summary: Tumblr "#densi proposal fic challenge" and pure fluff. After "The Seventh Child", we need a little fluff.

"My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me" ― Winston S. Churchill

I.

Deeks had a plan and he believed a man with a plan was always a force. Of course, Kensi was more than a force - she was love, life and happiness personified. He knew he had to get this right.

He first spoke to Julia. While Kensi was off doing a spa day with Nell at Burke Williams after Nell was tossed around by another informant turned psychopath, Deeks took Kensi's mother to The Dudley Market for brunch. He didn't ask Julia's permission - Kensi and Julia didn't have that sort of relationship and really, asking anyone but Kensi for her permission was a bad idea. Instead, Deeks stated his intentions and hoped for the best. Julia jumped up and hugged him over his eggplant caponata - something he wasn't even close to expecting.

Deeks explained his plan, which earned an early raised eyebrow from Julia but a smile when he was done. Julia asked Deeks what sort of wedding he envisioned Kensi wanting. Honestly, he wasn't sure. A beach wedding with a few friends in Maui, a small gathering at a catering hall with a few more friends both made sense. There would be no huge event with two-hundred guests on from both sides, a seating plan and a Venetian Hour. "Well, maybe the Venetian Hour. Kensi would probably like a Venetian Hour," Deeks thought out loud. Julia offered her backyard for the wedding but wasn't pushing for it. Whatever Kensi decided, Julia would happily support.

II.

With the Julia Feldman stamp of approval, Deeks took his plan to Nell. He figured the intelligence analyst was someone who could help with a plan and keep a secret. Deeks knew Nell was taking a Krav Maga class at Copper Academy by The Grove. He arrived just in time to see her walk into the gym. After hitting Kiehls and the Nike store, he passed the time messing around with the new 5K Apple iMac at the Apple Store and buying a new lightening power cord for his home iPad. Monty never found a power cord he didn't deem delicious.

Nell was surprised to see him as she was leaving class. Offering her a wild berry smoothie from Haagan Dazs - Deeks walked her to her car and explained his plans. Despite a two-page, hand-written "to do" list which Deeks considered Nell's wedding gift if she could complete it, Nell was happy to help. She loved the plan from the start. That was the difference between Julia and Nell when it came to his plan - Julia knew the Kensi her daughter allowed her to see. Nell knew Kensi.

III.

With the basic plans made, Deeks needed Sam to add a finishing touch. He found Sam at Kam's basketball game. "Herding kittens" is what Sam called it. Adorable was Deeks's thought. Once Kam's team secured victory - 11-7 - Sam wanted to know the real reason Deeks was watching pre-teens heave up air balls.

Deeks started with "stay with me on this" and explained his plan. Sam rolled his eyes twice but admitted at the end it was an appropriate way to propose to a woman like Kensi. There was something about that line that made Deeks smile. Sam was in.

Deeks took a deep breath and asked Sam for a second favor. "Would you consider being my best man?" Deeks put his hand up. "Look, I don't want a bachelor party, I'm not looking for you to do anything but wear something nice and stand next to me during the ceremony but I'd like you to do it."

"You don't want a bachelor party?"

"Alright, Bernhart has been planning a bachelor party since I told him Kensi and I were living together."

"Oh that's going to go well."

"When his college roommate got married, the guy woke up the morning after the bachelor party on a flight to Minneapolis with a return ticket in his jacket, two-hundred dollars in his pocket and no socks or shoes."

Sam chuckled. "I can see why Bernhart is in charge of the bachelor party."

"Yeah, well, we may have a chat about his plans but I'm not looking for that in a best man."

"And you're looking for me."

"Yeah. You're living the life Kensi and I are going to be trying to live. Your wife is a major badass; you're a great husband, a great dad, a great guy."

"So you want to be me if you ever grow up?" Sam joked.

"I want to successful like you," Deeks said honestly. "I didn't grow up in the most functional home. I want someone like you standing next to me when I marry Kensi."

"If you marry Kensi. She still needs to say yes."

"Well, I may have pre-proposed a few weeks ago."

"Pre-proposed?"

"After the Zahavi case," Deeks shrugged his shoulders, "She wouldn't commit without a ring and was looking for the beach and a sunset..."

"You're not doing sunset, you're doing..."

"What she loves."

Sam shook his head. "Well, if you keep worrying about what she loves and doing it for her, you'll probably be alright."

"So is that a yes?"

"What kind of wedding do you want?"

"Whatever Kensi wants."

"Good answer. Smart answer. As long as I don't have to wear a bright Hawaiian shirt on the beach, I'm in. And I'm in on your favor too."

"Sam Hanna, the best man," Deeks said with a smile.

"And don't you forget it," he said as Kam came running over with a request that she join her teammates at Chuckie Cheese on Wilshire. Sam agreed looking at Deeks and reminded him, "This is part of living the dream."

With the childhood he had, Deeks hoped an adoring child wanting to have dinner with her daddy was the dream.

IV.

The ring was simple. When Mandy of Kat, Mindy, Mandy, Tiffany and Tiffany pantheon of crazy Kensi friends got engaged, Deeks was the group's designated driver/chauffer for their girls only engagement party celebration at Animal. And as designated driver, he sat in Canters a few doors down and waited for the call that he was driving Miss Kensi, Miss Kat, Miss Mindy, Miss Mandy, Miss Tiffany and Miss Tiffany home.

Once the final Tiffany was safely returned to her apartment in Sherman Oaks, Deeks got a full run down of the dinner on their way home, including Mandy's terrible engagement ring. The diamond, Kensi explained, was a marquise cut which a rather overserved Kensi hated. "It looked like a grain of rice. Tiffany got it caught twice in her hair while she was talking - how crazy was that?"

Having met Mandy, Deeks thought there was nothing about her that wasn't crazy...in the best way possible. Mostly drunk Kensi explained that she wanted an emerald cut ring. They looked nicer. "Eleganter," Kensi explained but the smoked turkey leg, wine and cheesecake had Kensi snoring by the time they got home.

While a little blue box may mean something great to most women, Jack bought Kensi's engagement ring from Tiffany's so he was planning something different. An old high school girlfriend had a mother who was a jewelry designer at the California Jewelry Mart. Becca was a happily married speech therapist who found true love with orthodontist Jeffrey so her mom Carol was happy to see him. Bringing the wedding ring Kensi wore as housesitting niece Melissa, Carol had the proper ring size and the wish for an "eleganter" emerald cut diamond.

Two days later, Deeks saw Carol's design and loved it. For an extra hundred bucks, Carol even designed a special box for the big day. No blue box, a lucite clear box shaped like an emerald diamond. "Eleganter," indeed.

V.

Not simple – telling his Mom. She was in town for a real estate seminar and wanted to have dinner with him and with Kensi. Deeks made reservations at Redbird, which was fine until Roberta saw $25 barbecue smoked tofu on the menu and thought the whole place was a rip off. Deeks was able to calm his mother but she wasn't happy with expensive fish, ridiculously expensive glass of wine and "no, it's not worth that, I can find a Ben and Jerry's for dessert." "Do you two eat like this all the time?" she asked, worried about her son's finances. Dinner wrapped with Deeks walking his mother to her hotel room while Kensi ordered an Uber. "You really shouldn't get into cars with strange people," Roberta warned. Deeks reminded his mother that he was a detective and Kensi was a highly trained federal agent – they'd likely survive.

The following morning, Deeks made a detour to the Doubletree to find his mother enjoying the omelet bar. "You're having trouble with Kensi," was Roberta's reaction when he told her they needed to talk. Deciding not to let his mother in on the grand plan, he told her he was going to ask Kensi to marry him in the very near future and he wanted to tell her first, knowing by first he was really telling her about fifth. Sixth if Sam told Michelle, which he probably did and seventh if Nell told Eric – fifty/fifty on that one.

Roberta cried. Not the crying he was use to when he was a child. No, this was the misty look she had when he graduated college and law school. "That girl loves you," Roberta said, suddenly paying a lot of attention to her breakfast.

"I know."

"She fought for you."

"I know."

"And you love her."

"I do."

Looking up, Roberta smiled at her son. "Remember that, you'll need it for the ceremony."

With everyone who mattered but Kensi in the loop, he needed to put his plan in action.

x-x-x

On June 1st, Kensi received notification her status as team sniper would expire June 15th. After missing her sniper recertification exercise while the team was dealing with Tahir Khaled in early May, Kensi was ordered to Camp Pendleton on June 3rd for her recertification starting at zero-four-hundred hours on June 4th.

With Hetty in D.C. for the confirmation hearings of Retired Admiral Hollace Kilbride as he joined the Joint Chiefs, Kensi started making plans to spend the weekend in San Diego. Deeks found the timing and the start time especially appalling but Kensi understood. She missed two opportunities to recertify - the early May date was a make-good for a scheduled session in late January. Jack's return had her push things back and now she was paying the price. She was told if she missed the June 3rd session, her final chance would be June 12th at the Marine Corps. Mountain Training Center in Pickels Mountain - nearly 400 miles away. If she missed that exercise, she's have to reapply for sniper status, which included a return to FLETC and NCIS's Quantico office for six weeks of training.

Deeks offered to go with her to San Diego but Kensi planned to drive down early Friday morning and get a good night sleep before Saturday's exercise. She stayed at a deployed childhood friend's apartment just off-base after signing in at lunchtime. She had an early bird dinner with friends of her father, a recently retired Marine and his wife enjoying their senior years with regular visits from six grandchildren.

Kensi set her phone, a travel alarm clock, her iPad and the bedroom's clock radio all for 3AM. She was on the base by 3:45AM, setting up on the firing range just before 4AM. The exercise was run by Master Sergeant Davis Fuller who wanted to know if she was any relation to Don Blye. When Kensi answered she was his daughter, Sgt. Fuller told Kensi that Don Blye taught him to shoot when he got to Camp Lejune in 1980 as an 18-year old. He spent his career as a Marine sniper. Smiling, Kensi told Sgt. Fuller that Don Blye taught her to shoot as well and she was there to prove it.

Kensi made quick work of the firing range targets, moving to a sniper's nest and easily earning Sgt. Fuller's approval. When the exercise was over, Sgt. Fuller gave Kensi an envelope with instructions to finish her recertification process. She was to follow the provided compass to the exercise's final location.

She parked her SUV outside San Onofre Beach. With her rifle and the compass, she made her way to the location given in the instructions just as the sun started to rise over the cliffs near the beach. With a flag in the ground reading "Agent Blye, turn around," Kensi did as she was ordered.

Deeks was behind her, Monty along his side. A confused Kensi was a lot less confused when Deeks went to one knee. "You asked me once what I thought you smelled like. I told you as you were leaving you smelled like sunshine and gunpowder...my two favorite things. So here as the sun greets the day, wearing my favorite perfume, Kensi Blye, will you marry me?"

She said yes, confirming Deeks's belief that a man with a plan really can do anything.

-30-

Annoying author's note: All unkind words about specific diamond cuts are mine and mine alone - I expect other people's mileage to vary. The bachelor party story - well, that's kinda true.