A/N: Thank you, thank you, for the wonderful response you guys gave this story. Thank you to my seven reviewers, terken, SP SVU B, snookie16, ChlollieRockz, Rebel Magnus, StargateFreak33, and TwilightPony21. Thank you to montydam, Lindsay1993, and MyLifeMyLove for putting this story on alerts, and thank you to bookluver10145679 and kayden444 for putting it on favorites. Special thanks to those who did two or more of the above - you know who you are.

Now, before we get into chapter one, let me warn you that all the proper chapters for this story are quite long - none of them has a word count lower than 2,500. The average number of words per chapter is about 2,700 or 2,800. So you can't complain about having not enough to read, can you?

Enjoy.

Chapter 1: One Week Earlier

The day dawned bright and sunny in the City of Angels, causing every active-bodied young male to head for the beach to catch the magnificent waves with their surfboard.

Every unobligated male, that is.

Marty Deeks, LAPD liaison with NCIS OSP, felt the world was being totally unfair. Here it was, a glorious day that looked like it had been specially ordered from Mother Nature itself, and he was stuck in a condemned office building filing paperwork – because, quite frankly, he was terrified of his boss.

One would assume that any boss who could make a hardened undercover operative like Deeks quake in his boots would have to be tall, loud-voiced, and hot-tempered. Not so.

Henrietta Lange was neither loud-voiced nor hot-tempered; and nor could she be considered anywhere near tall. Standing at around four feet, she was a veritable dwarf. Yet she had made men twice her size fear her. It was in the way she glared at them, the way she sweetly suggested certain (oftentimes dire) consequences when her wishes weren't fulfilled, the way she imbued her polite words with promises of punishment. For the life of him Deeks couldn't figure out how she did it, but she did it. He'd seen even Sam, a highly trained agent with notable muscle power, scramble to get something done just because Hetty told him to.

And if a former Navy SEAL feared Hetty that much, what chance did a significantly scrawnier, less trained LAPD cop stand?

So yes, the world was unfair. What had he done to deserve this?

Deeks sighed as he signed sheet after sheet of his paperwork. Across the bullpen, Kensi Blye, NCIS Special Agent (and his partner), looked up from her own stack of paperwork to glare at him in annoyance.

"Deeks, I swear if you sigh again…" She left the threat hanging.

"I'm just exhaling!" he protested. "You're gonna kill me for breathing now?"

"Breathe quietly," she told him. "We've all got our own work to do, so suck it up."

How true. It wasn't just Deeks stuck inside doing paperwork on this fine day. Hetty, tired of the sky-high stacks of unfinished documents piling up on their desks, had ordered the entire team to take one day to sort through and finish all their paperwork. And by all, she meant all – and heaven help them if they left even one space unfilled.

"How did it get so bad?" Callen wondered, staring at his own stack of paper – which was, incidentally, significantly higher than any of his teammates' respective piles.

Sam snorted. "What'd you do, G – avoid any paperwork since last year?"

"I didn't think I had this much to do."

"Uh-huh." Sam clearly didn't believe him. "Bet you regret skipping out now, don't you?" His own stack was fairly small; he'd been working on it off and on.

"How was I supposed to know Hetty would make us do it all in one go?" Callen asked mournfully.

"Who can ever predict what Hetty's going to do?" Deeks pointed out.

"Can you guys all just quit complaining and do it already?" Kensi demanded irritably.

Sam and Deeks exchanged glances. For the past couple of months, Kensi had been acting a bit oddly. Her fuse was shorter than usual, and despite their frequent attempts to ask what was wrong, she never replied. All they were sure about was that it had something to do with Callen, because whenever Kensi's strange new behavior manifested itself – like now – something crossed his face, like a fleeting pang of emotion that was indiscernable because it passed so fast.

It was also evident in the way Kensi and Callen's relationship had changed. There was no longer any witty banter, any doughnut sharing – hell, Callen didn't even call Kensi by his pet name for her – Kenz – anymore. They didn't flat out ignore each other, and they were professional enough not to let it affect their work (much); but it was clear that something had happened between them.

Sam hated to admit it, but lately it felt like the team was falling apart. Kensi was increasingly short-tempered; Callen had clammed up more than usual; and the way they were working together just wasn't as smooth as it used to be. Sam couldn't understand it, and he wondered if maybe Hetty had an ulterior motive for forcing them to do paperwork. Maybe she was hoping one day cooped up together with nothing to do but tedious paperwork would force them to talk and clear the air, so they could once again become the team they used to be.

Well, what was the harm in trying?

"So…how was your weekend, G?" he asked casually.

Callen shrugged indifferently. "Same old, same old. Did a few chores, shopped for groceries, did some spring-cleaning…"

"I didn't know you had anything to clean," Kensi remarked – not quite acidly, but there was a barbed point in her tone nonetheless.

Callen sighed. "Kensi…"

Kensi looked down, avoiding his gaze, signing her name harder than necessary on her current paper. "Just forget it," she mumbled.

Callen, however, was not to be deterred. "We need to talk," he said.

"Yeah, we do," Kensi agreed, finally meeting his eyes.

Something passed between them; like an unknown recognition neither Sam nor Deeks could make head or tails of. But then, Callen and Kensi often talked through their eyes. It seemed that whatever had happened between them, they hadn't lost that.

Callen broke away first. "All right," he relented. He turned back to his paperwork.

Kensi observed him for just a few seconds before she discarded her sheet and picked up the rest of her undone pile.

"Where are you going?" Deeks wanted to know.

"Someplace quiet," Kensi replied, walking away with her paperwork.

Sam and Deeks stared after her, then turned to study Callen. Neither said anything, though both were dying to know what was going on. After a few seconds, they returned to their paperwork.

Callen was aware of their scrutiny, and he also knew that they deserved the truth. He knew they would find out soon, but he was trying to put off the revelation because…well, because he himself had no idea how something that had started so wonderfully had ended up in such a tangled mess.

It had been a particularly difficult day. The drug trafficking case was closed, but it had opened old wounds. The fact that Talbot had turned out to be a cold-blooded murderer with fake PTSD didn't help any.

Callen had noticed the toll this case had taken on Kensi. First, the moment when she had to reveal her engagement to Jack – it couldn't have been easy bringing down her walls and laying all her pain bare like that – then, her fight with Talbot that left her unconscious with a swollen bump on her head. And throughout the case there was always that sadness in her eyes, the underlying layer of hurt that was difficult to hide when the case struck so close to home.

She'd seemed fine when she left with Deeks to join him in whatever he did on Christmas Eve, but Callen knew better. He'd seen her still-defensive posture, heard the slight restraint in her words. He knew she wasn't fine.

So, he resolved to stop by her house later to see how she was doing.

He wasn't sure how long her thing with Deeks would take, so it was almost midnight by the time he knocked on her door.

"Callen?" Kensi was clearly surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"Just wanted to make sure you're okay," he replied. And just like that, he could see her walls go up.

"I'm fine," she said, almost convincingly.

"Kenz, you're talking to a guy who says that even more than you do," he told her. "I know that when people say 'fine', they don't really mean it."

"Callen," she began.

"Come on," he coaxed. He held up a paper bag. "I brought doughnuts."

Kensi quirked her eyebrow at his grin, then relented and stood by to let him come in.

"So what'd you do with Deeks?" he asked conversationally after they had settled on the couch with a doughnut each. The TV was switched on to some random channel – National Geographic – that they weren't paying attention to.

"He took me to a soup kitchen," Kensi replied, biting into her doughnut.

"Really?" Callen asked. "Huh. Who would've thought?"

"Mm-hm." She was holding back, and he knew it. She put up a good front, but she was definitely not fine. He knew better than to push her, though, so he settled back to watch the show until she was ready to talk. The program was surprisingly interesting.

Kensi realized Callen wasn't going to leave. She nibbled on her doughnut while she tried to figure out whether she wanted to tell him the story he was waiting for.

"I usually leave."

Callen turned to her, sensing a coming onslaught of painful backstory. "What?"

"At Christmas. I usually leave." Kensi pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them.

"Because of Jack?" he asked gently. She nodded.

"I can't stand to be around anything familiar, because it reminds me – of him – so I usually run somewhere unfamiliar and stay there till Christmas is over."

"Why didn't you this year?"

"I guess I wanted to see if I could stick it out. I can't have him haunting me forever." She snorted. "Clearly, we saw how well that worked out."

"Kenz, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Callen said.

She gave him a small smile. "It's okay. Maybe it'll help to get it off my chest."

Callen nodded and waited expectantly.

"I thought Jack was the one," Kensi said softly. "The night he proposed, I was so happy – everything was perfect. Then he was deployed, and I was so scared he wouldn't come back – but when he did, he wasn't my Jack anymore. He was always panicking, jumping at every little noise, muttering about the war – sometimes he didn't even recognize me. So I guess, in a way, he didn't come back.

"It killed me that I couldn't do anything to help – to bring back my Jack. I tried everything – but no matter what I did, it wasn't enough." She inhaled deeply, blinking away nonexistent tears. "And then, that morning when I woke up and he was gone, I was hurt – but I was also relieved, because the stranger who had taken over Jack's body wasn't there anymore." She looked at Callen. "Does that make me a terrible person?"

"'Course not, Kenz," he assured her.

"I just…I was glad I didn't have to deal with him anymore, but at the same time I kept wishing for him to come back…" There were real tears now; they leaked out of her eyes as she relived that Christmas morning.

On impulse, Callen reached out and held her in his arms. "Shh, Kenz…it's okay."

He held her until she sniffled and pulled away.

"Sorry," she apologized.

"Don't be," he told her. She smiled wanly at him.

"Anyway, that's when I started my no-second-date rule," she continued. "Jack left me alone, and I didn't want that to happen with anyone else. I didn't want to deal with the pain again. It's more hurt than it's worth. So I've stuck to that rule. There can't be hurt if there's no commitment."

Callen could understand that well enough. But he also needed Kensi to understand something. He didn't want her thinking she couldn't depend on anyone.

"Kenz, look at me," he said, lifting her chin. "I know you've had a bad experience before, but that doesn't mean you can't trust anyone."

She stared at him, her brown eyes boring into his face, as if daring him to continue that train of thought when he himself was such a lone wolf.

"Okay, maybe you can't," he amended. "But I know at least six people you can count on."

She smiled, knowing exactly which people he was talking about.

"I'll never leave, Kenz," Callen continued seriously. "Sam and Deeks and Eric and Nell – and Hetty – they won't leave either. You're stuck with us." He smiled as he leaned closer.

What he didn't expect was for her to lean forward too; the distance between them closed rapidly, and their lips met.

The touch was like fire, igniting a hidden spark of unknown emotions within them and fanning flames across their bodies.

When they broke the kiss they stared at each other, feeling the boundary line between work and personal life dissolve into nothing.

"We shouldn't do this," Kensi whispered, breathing hard.

"No," Callen agreed. "We shouldn't."

Yet somehow, they ended up on Kensi's bed that night.

"Miss Blye?"

Kensi looked up from the papers she'd been filling out on the floor of the balcony to see Hetty gazing kindly at her.

"Oh, hi, Hetty. I hope you don't mind that I'm doing my paperwork up here. It's just…"

"I know, Miss Blye," Hetty said understandingly. Kensi nodded.

Though they had done their utmost to keep their 'relationship' a secret from everyone at work, both Callen and Kensi knew they weren't fooling Hetty. That woman had a way of knowing when she was being lied to, and though she never actually said anything, both knew that she knew.

They'd both expected her to put a stop to it once she found out, but she surprised them by not saying a word. They knew she knew that they knew she knew (if that even made any sense) – but both were astonished when she made no move to prevent their seeing each other. They'd discussed it privately among themselves – why didn't she stop them? Did she know as much as they thought she did? Or (unlikely) had they actually managed to keep it from her?

Either way, neither Callen nor Kensi brought up the topic with Hetty, and Hetty herself certainly didn't. It was like an odd, three-way understanding between them: don't ask, don't tell – or rather, it was like Hetty had an unspoken rule that they understood somehow without her saying anything about it: keep it to yourselves, don't let it affect your work, and I won't say anything.

Lately, though, that had gone out the window. Hetty could not possibly be oblivious to the current tension between Callen and Kensi. They all still hadn't actually said it out loud, but Hetty knew things were going badly, even if she didn't exactly know why. Kensi was quite confident only she and Callen knew why their 'thing' wasn't working out.

But Hetty was surprisingly understanding for an outsider. Kensi knew she could trust her. Hetty was here on the balcony as a friend, not as her boss. So the young agent, quite unexpectedly, found herself pouring out her troubles to the motherly woman.

"Hetty, I don't know what to do," she confessed. "I don't even know what's going on anymore between Callen and me. It was great at first, but then we started going downhill. I just…I want so much more than what he can give me."

"You want a real relationship," Hetty surmised.

Kensi nodded. "And he can't give it to me, because of his past."

"Yes," Hetty agreed. "His past haunts him, even now. But I'm sure even you can see he doesn't want to lose you."

"I think we're at that stage, Hetty," Kensi confided. "That part of a relationship that makes or breaks it – when we can only either move on or break up. Hetty, I want to move on, but I don't think he does. What do I do?"

Hetty sighed. Who could have guessed Callen and Kensi would ever have started a relationship? The fact that they were both emotionally damaged made it a near impossibility – and it also made things very complicated.

"I can't tell you that, Miss Blye," Hetty said. "But I do have some advice. If, as you say, you are in that determining period of a relationship, then perhaps it would be best for you to ride it out and see what happens. No one can say what the future will bring, after all."

"And if the relationship breaks?" Kensi asked, hoping Hetty had the answer she sought. "Then what? We just go back to normal, like we were three months ago?"

"Miss Blye, I am not going to discuss 'if's with you. What will be, will be – come what may, we will decide what to do as things happen." Hetty turned to go, businesslike once more. "I still want that paperwork on my desk by the end of the evening, Miss Blye."

A/N: Each chapter will have a flashback scene (or two) to explain what happened between Callen and Kensi. So, in effect, you'll be reading two stories. Hope that doesn't get you too confused. Also, this fic is much heavier on the romance and angst that What We Do, so I hope I wrote it well enough that the characters aren't too OOC.

Till tomorrow, people!