Kensi barreled through the front door of the house, and immediately spotted movement several yards ahead through the kitchen area. She quickly gave chase without a second's hesitation on the matter.
"Freeze!" she yelled out ahead.
She moved through the kitchen area easily avoiding obstacles like the table that jutted out from the breakfast nook, and the island at the center of the room.
As she reached the end of the room, and started into a narrow hallway that led down towards the back of the house several shots rang out from up ahead. There were three that she counted, and all of them just narrowly missed her as she quickly pulled herself backward in the nick of time.
"Damn." She swore under her breath. Now it's on!
Outside, Deeks chased after the second of the two men who had already exited the house, and was currently charging through a neighbor's backyard. Their chase involved multiple fence jumps in rapid succession, and Deeks was beginning to grow weary of the strenuous exercise.
Deeks cleared the first fence behind his suspect easily enough, but soon found that the more he exerted himself the more out of it he steadily felt.
"This guy was a hurdle jumper in high school without a doubt." Deeks said to himself as he landed roughly following his second fence line vault of the chase.
"Hey!" he yelled ahead at the fleeing man. "What part of the word STOP don't you understand!"
The man just kept on going. He didn't stop, he didn't look back, and he never once tried to reply or actually fight back—just kept on running ahead.
The LAPD Detective, now beginning to feel slightly winded, finally vaulted over a fourth fence line, and landed heavily on the other side. He had to stand, shake his head, and then give himself a second or two before taking off again.
"I must really…be out of shape." He breathed as he took off after his fleeing suspect at full speed. He felt, though, that his top speed had somehow decreased since the chase had started, and not in a normal way either.
They neared the last fence line, and Deeks made a split second decision as he watched the lightly bearded man ahead of him preparing to leap the looming structure. Deeks spotted a nearby exercise trampoline, and immediately altered his course accordingly so as to hit it at just the right moment and angle.
Here goes nothing! Deeks thought to himself as he braced both mentally and physically for the maneuver he was about to attempt.
BOOIIINNGGGGG! Deeks vaulted off the trampoline, and threw himself at the suspect who at that very same moment went airborne to clear the fence line.
"Gotcha!" Deeks exclaimed with a slight grunt as he and his suspect made physical contact with one another.
The two men slammed into each other hard, and Deeks immediately wrapped his arms around the man pulling him downward. Seconds later the two men landed hard against the ground on the other side of the fence.
Deeks quickly moved to pin his down suspect as he produced a set of handcuffs from a side strap on his belt. The man struggled all the while, screaming curses and derogatory phrases in his native tongue, as Deeks pulled his arms around behind and handcuffed them together.
"Seriously dude, I can't understand a word coming out of your mouth right now." Deeks said with a pained smirk as he struggled to regulate and calm his racing vitals. This was a task he found incredibly hard to manage with each passing second.
He flipped the guy over, and almost instantly caught spit in his face. "Oh, that was nice." He said, remarked, blinking several times against the sticky film that now dripped down parts of his face. He feigned a grin at the tan-skinned man, and then without warning slammed a fist hard into his jaw rendering his prisoner unconscious.
"Deeks, you there?" Kensi's voice came through the earwig radios they were wearing and whispered into the liaison officer's ear as he sat kneeling over his prisoner panting for air.
"Yeah, I'm here." He replied, pressing a finger to the tiny bud wedged snugly into the tiny opening in his ear.
"I've got Saaed in Custody. What's your SitRep?" Kensi's voice crackled slightly across the airwaves.
Deeks drew in a deep breath, and tried to steady himself as a sudden feeling of lightheadedness began to settle over him. He shook it off, or at least tried to before responding to his partner.
"Kareem's down…too. We're about 5 houses down, I think." He replied back over the two-way radio connection between him and his partner.
There was a brief silence and then Kensi finally spoke up following the sound of a car door slamming shut in the background. "You alright partner? You sound a little winded there—you're not gonna be too tired for that date we talked about earlier, are you-"
"K-Kensi…" Deeks interrupted his partner suddenly. "I-I think…I think you should…get over here." He panted heavily. "I-I can't-"
"Deeks, are you alright?" Kensi asked over the radio. A note of worry and concern was audible in her voice as she spoke.
"Kens…I can…I can't…Bre-Breathe." Deeks clutched his arms across his chest as he slumped sideways to the ground, his eyes rolling back a little ways into his skull.
Kensi stepped away from her SRX with a finger pressed ever so gently against her earpiece. The wheezing, gasping sound that she heard through the static of the radio signal sent a chill down the female federal agent's spine.
"Deeks?" she swallowed a lump that had begun to form in her throat as she listened intensely for her partner to respond once more. "Deeks, are you there! Please answer me." She pleaded quietly over the two-way radio.
Next she heard a coughing, sputtering type of sound, and it made her blood run cold as ice as she immediately took off down the street in the direction in which Deeks had indicated to her earlier.
"Deeks, hang on!" Kensi cried into her earpiece as her feet pounded against the pavement beneath them as she ran along to aid her partner. "I'm on my way!"
A few short minutes later, Kensi vaulted over a fence line into the backyard where Deeks had made his grand mid-air tackle only minutes before. She spotted the unconscious suspect first, and then her eyes landed on the body of her partner.
She dashed forward, and quickly dropped down by his side. His chest was heaving rapidly and he was gasping for air uncontrollably when she reached him.
"Deeks! Deeks!" she shook him once, but wasn't sure exactly why. "Deeks, stay with me!" she told her partner insistently.
"Eric, you still with us?" Kensi pressed a finger to her earpiece as she gave Deeks a quick once over with her eyes.
"Like the tiny voice that is your conscience. Always in the back of you-" Eric's voice suddenly became audible in her ear.
"Now's not the time for jokes." Kensi snapped.
"Sorry. Guess I just-"
"Eric, listen. Something's wrong with Deeks—I need a bus out here now!" she said whilst tearing open the long-sleeve button down that Deeks was wearing. "Hurry!" she added fiercely.
"On it. Sending paramedics to you right now. ETA is 10 minutes." Eric told her from his place back at OSP.
…Several, Several Minutes Later…
Kensi trotted alongside the stretcher that the two EMTs had loaded Deeks onto, as they headed for the ambulance parked just a few yards away from the yard.
The two EMTS had managed to somewhat stabilize the liaison officer before attempting to move him. His shirt hung open, and he had an oxygen masked strapped around his mouth and nose. He also had a portable IV running from his wrist to a bag that was being held over his head by one of the two EMTS.
Behind them, the family whose yard they were all rushing out of, had caught wind of the commotion earlier and had gathered out side on their porch to watch.
"It's okay partner. You're gonna be okay." Kensi said soothingly as she smoothed a patch of matted hair away from Deeks' face. "Just keep fighting alright."
Deeks managed a weak look at his partner, and that one look betrayed the slightest bit of fear that had begun to settle over the LAPD Detective. "K-Kensi…" He gasped from underneath the oxygen mask that he was being forced to wear.
Kensi read the look on her partner's face, and tried to ease her features into something calmer and more reassuring than what they currently were.
"Hey, don't worry. I'll be right behind you. I promise." She said softly, as she watched the two EMTs load the Detective into the back of the ambulance. One of the EMTS then turned around, and pulled the doors shut.
Kensi watched as the ambulance pulled away from the curb, and then picked up speed and sped off towards the nearest hospital. Then she turned and quickly walked back towards her waiting SRX, which now held the two suspects she and Deeks had apprehended earlier.
"Hetty," Kensi said into her earpiece. "I should be going with him. He is my partner."
The tiny Operations Manager had been called into the Ops Centre and apprised of the situation with Deeks just several minutes earlier by Eric and Nell.
"Understood, Ms. Blye." Hetty replied over the radio. "And you will be permitted to see him…after you bring Saaed and Kareem to the boatshed—not before."
Kensi shook her head and scowled disappointedly as she yanked open the driver's side door of her car, and quickly slid in behind the wheel.
"Is that understood?" Hetty asked sternly.
"Yeah. I understand." Kensi replied as she revved up the engine of her car, and then peeled out away from the little subdivision.
Hetty's voice softened after that. "Ms. Blye?" she said softly.
"Yes!" Kensi half-snapped, unintentionally of course, at her Ops Manager, and immediately felt very sorry for her accidental rudeness.
"Sorry, Hetty." Kensi apologized quietly.
"It's quite alright." Hetty replied with a quiet half-chuckle. "He'll get through this, Ms. Blye. Mr. Deeks is a fighter, and a damn good one at that." Hetty said reassuringly. "Just hang in there. Whatever's going on inside his body right now—he will beat it, be assured of that."
"I hope you're right Hetty." Kensi replied in a quiet voice. I really do. She thought to herself as she drove on.
Later that afternoon at L.A. General Hospital Kensi sat in the waiting area just out in the hallway. Her bench was situated just a short ways down the hall from the room that Deeks had been taken into earlier.
A million and one different worst-case scenarios played out in her head all at once while she waited anxiously for the doctor to reemerge from within the room down the hall. She held her head in her hands, and prayed that when the doctor finally did tell her something, it would be good news and not bad.
"Kensi!" Callen called from down the opposite end of the hall.
Callen, Sam, Hetty, Eric, and Nell all made their way down to where Kensi sat awaiting news about her partner's condition.
"Callen, Sam." Kensi said as she stood up to greet her teammates. "Hetty."
Before Kensi knew it a barrage of questions from each of the team members pummeled her into a dizzied state.
"Where is he?" Sam asked once he reached the female federal agents' side.
"Better question is how is he?" Callen remarked from Kensi's left side.
Nell and Eric were close behind with similar questions, and Kensi soon felt the need to lean against the nearby wall for support against the weight of all those questions.
"All of you…Hush." Hetty said from behind everyone else. Her voice has loud, but not too loud and commanded the attention of everyone who heard it—well, at least everyone who happened to be a member of her team.
Everyone fell silent as Hetty stepped through to face Kensi directly. As she passed through she made sure to give each person there a look of disappointment.
"Now, Ms. Blye, about Mr. Deeks' current condition—what do you know?" Hetty asked quietly. Her eyes pierced through Kensi's, and seemed to have a bit of a calming effect on the female federal agent.
Kensi shook her head at the Ops Manager. "I-I don't know. They haven't told me anything other than he's stable." Kensi explained in a quiet voice.
"That's alright." Hetty replied with an understanding look.
A door opened then, a little ways down the hall, and a middle-aged man in green scrubs stepped out. He looked for a second, and then upon spotting Kensi made his way down to where she sat on the bench.
"Ms. Blye." He said her name as if to make sure he was addressing the right person.
"Yes." Kensi stood up, and faced the man in green scrubs.
"I'm Doctor Craigen. I believe we spoke briefly, earlier. Who are they?" the doctor asked, carefully eying the people standing behind Kensi.
"Oh, sorry. They're friends." She explained.
"Oh, well, the more the merrier I guess." He said with a shrug. "Anyway, about your friend-"
"Is he okay? Will he pull through?" she asked quickly. She did not realize that she was saying anything until the words were almost completely out of her mouth.
"Um, that's the thing." Doctor Craigen replied, scratching his slightly balding head lightly. "He's stable for now, but we're still trying to figure out what it is that's causing all his symptoms—if we knew that we could treat him more accurately." The good doctor explained in a low voice that only Kensi and the other team members could hear.
Hetty stepped forward at that point, and addressed the doctor directly. "Doctor, if I may, can you in anyway tell us what it is exactly that Mr. Deeks is up against—in your honest, professional opinion that is."
"Well like I said, we're still running several broad spectrum tests, but from what I've seen whatever it is seems to be gradually depriving his entire system of oxygen." The good doctor explained to Hetty and the others.
"You mean kind of like cyanide poisoning?" Callen offered, while thinking to himself.
"Well, kind of, but this is different—slower, more deliberate almost." Doctor Craigen replied. "Whereas cyanide poisoning is usually quick, and nearly painless. Whatever your friend has—it's pushing his body to its extreme physical limits."
"His body began to kick into overdrive just before he was brought here. That's what caused his initial coughing, like Ms. Blye mentioned earlier, and then later his breathing difficulties—and now his elevated, feverish body temperature among other things. His body's doing everything it can to keep the brain supplied with enough oxygen to survive." Doctor Craigen continued.
"So do you think he'll get better?" Nell asked from off to one side of the group.
The doctor lowered his head at that moment, and it was all Kensi could do not to completely lose it right there in the middle of that hospital hallway. "I want to be completely honest with you all," Doctor Craigen said in a somber tone. "Unless we can find some way to treat him more accurately within the next few hours…I honestly don't see him making it through the night."
Everyone turned their attention then to Kensi. Kensi stood silently staring off into the distance, apparently lost in her own thoughts. After a brief moment she finally responded to Callen's quiet prodding.
"Kens." Callen repeated her name quietly.
"Huh, what?" She turned back to face everyone.
"Kensi, what do you want to do?" Sam asked her softly. "He's your partner."
Kensi looked back towards Doctor Craigen. "Can I…Can I see him?" she asked the Doctor quietly.
"We're still running some tests on him, and we have him sedated for the time being so his body won't over-stress itself to quickly. I really shouldn't do this, because we really don't need anyone in the way while we work on him. I guess I could, however, allow one visitor for just a few minutes." He told her.
Kensi nodded slowly. "Thank you." She whispered quietly. At that point she was just stretched so thin with trying to keep her emotions reigned-in that a whisper was all she could really manage for the time being.
She started out towards the room the doctor had indicated. Then Doctor Craigen stopped her.
"Ms. Blye, I think it would be best if you…if you prepared for the worst." Doctor Craigen told her in a quiet voice. "We're doing all we can, you understand; but if I'm being honest—the outlook at this point isn't good."
Kensi only nodded, and then resumed her course for Deeks' room.
She entered the small room alone, and stood in the doorway staring in at the man lying in the bed. There were so many wires running from different parts of his body, to the various monitors scattered around the head of the bed. It was hard to discern the man from the machine in all the clutter and chaos.
Slowly she drew in a breath, and then let it out again. She stilled herself before approaching the bedside. Her eyes wandered over him from his head all the way down to his toes. A part of her did not want to believe that it was really Deeks she was looking at then, but she knew it was.
The entire length of time she'd spent waiting out in the hallway, she had asked herself over and over—how could this have happened? Why did it happen, and why now? Now as she reached out to touch her partner's hand she suddenly realized that the answer was right there staring her in the face. She wrapped her hand around his and gave it a light squeeze.
"I was told I should be ready to say goodbye, but I'm not. And I won't." Kensi said quietly. "In the past every time I got close to someone…they just ended up leaving—My Dad, Jack, Dom. I've always felt like maybe I didn't do enough, like I should've done more then maybe they'd all still be-". She choked on her words at the last.
She silently let go of Deeks' hand, and then reached down and dug her cell phone out of her pants pocket. She held it up in front of her face for a long moment before opening it up.
"I can't lose you partner. I never thought I'd actually say this, especially not about you of all people, but this last year has me convinced—I need you."
With that she searched her cell phone's call log for the private number that had disturbed her so earlier that morning. She pushed send, and then held the receiver to her ear and listened for an answer.
"Hello?" came the familiar creepy voice from that morning. "May I ask who's-" the voice began.
Kensi turned away from the bed, and spoke in a low voice into her cell phone. "Cut the bullshit. You know exactly who this is." She said quietly, but very vehemently.
"Yes. I suppose you are right." The voice replied with a slight air of amusement. "What can I do for you my dear?"
Kensi wiped a few stray tears from her face with the back of her free hand. "My partner's dying. I know you're responsible." She continued. "You said I would come to you…willingly."
"Yes. I did say that." The voice replied with an almost audible nod.
"That tells me you know something I don't-like how to save him." Kensi closed her eyes as she thought about the next words that would soon roll across her tongue. "What do I have to do for you?" she said at last in a rather weak voice.
The creepy voice seemed to chuckle delightedly at Kensi's apparent plea for help. "Let me ask you this, Agent Blye. How far are you willing to go for your…partner?"
Kensi did not even have to think about her answer to the creepy voices' question. It just came out without a second's hesitation. "How far will it take?"
The creepy voice chuckled again. "Good. That's just what I wanted to hear."
…TBC…
Author's Note: Okay, so I just wanted to point out that there is a certain 'part' of this chapter where Kensi gives a sort of monologue-type thing, and when I was writing all of this I kept thinking over all of the ways that I could write that particular piece. The way I ended up doing it I chose because in my mind it just seemed to fit with who Kensi Blye is personality-wise.
Enjoy, and as always HAPPY READING!