AN: Hey guys! An update of Hey Baby is coming later tonight, PROMISE, but I saw this sneak peek, and I just couldn't help myself. You can find it on YouTube under NCIS: Los Angeles Mind Readers. I'm freaking out, and this helped calm me down. Enjoy!

Blessings,

bookdiva

"What was that?" Sam asked as he and Callen interrupted Deeks's moment of quiet contemplation in the armory—what he liked to think of as her place.

"What was—what was what?" he asked, looking back and forth between his two teammates in annoyed confusion.

"Out there," Callen interjected. "Why'd you go?"

"Why did I… go?" he asked, needing clarification that he'd heard them correctly.

Are they for real? he couldn't help but wonder. Looking at their serious expressions, however, he concluded that they were, in fact, completely serious.

"Two reasons," Deeks explained, completely confused. "One, there was an F-150—filled with explosives—barreling down at us, and two, you said 'go, go, go'…?"

"He didn't mean go," Sam said, as if it had been obvious.

"I said 'go' so that they'd show their hand," Callen explained.

"Yeah, but that's not what you said," Deeks protested, moving from confused to annoyed rather quickly.

"It's what he didn't say."

Oh my god! It's not just me and Kensi. This whole damn team has communication issues.

"Why didn't you just say, 'I need more time'?" Deeks asked.

"Because then the bad guys would know the plan."

Okay, Sam was really starting to get on his nerves.

"But shouldn't I know the plan?" Deeks wondered aloud, no longer sure of the answer.

"Yeah, you should know the plan," Callen exclaimed, shrugging his shoulders slightly in exaggerated exasperation.

"And you should know that sometimes the plan changes," Sam said. Dread suddenly washed over Deeks as he read the look on Sam's face. It was his standard 'I-know-something-that-you-don't' that Deeks was more than used to seeing, but something about it was different. There was almost… compassion in the big man's face. And that terrified Deeks more than even Siderov.

"Okay…" he cleared his throat, shaking away those thoughts. "Here's the deal. We won, okay? We should be feasting on the enemy's finest meats and cheeses. What is the problem here?"

"We need to know you're on the same page," Sam said, emphasizing each word.

"We need to know you can read our intent," agreed with exaggerated hand motions.

"You mean your minds. Okay, listen… I do recognize that you guys have developed some kind of mutant telepathic connection here, but I—"

"Did you hear that, Sam?" Callen asked.

"Oh yeah. That was cute." Sam's response was immediate, and it threw Deeks off.

What the…?

"What was cute?"

"He misses her," Sam said.

"Oh my god. Right. You're gathering that from what I just said."

"Yeah," Callen said, shaking his head.

"Well, your intent was pretty clear to me," Sam said, giving Deeks that knowing look that Deeks had always hated.

"Look, it's not what you're saying…"

"It's what you're not saying," Sam finished.

"Exactly," Callen agreed.

"You know what?" Deeks said, finally throwing up his hands in frustration. "I've always wondered what it would be like to have two older brothers… that I hated. Now I know."

"And yet we know that's not true," Sam said with a smirk. Deeks just felt even more confused. "Just like you'll know what it means when we don't tell you…"

"When you don't tell me… what, exactly?" Deeks asked after a silence that neither of the senior agents filled.

"Oh my god. For once, could somebody just say what they damn well mean?!" Deeks finally exploded.

The humor suddenly vanished from the room, and a tense silence was left in it's wake.

"You'll understand what we mean when we don't tell you that we're not going to Afghanistan," Callen said. "And that you are not allowed to go with us."

To Deeks, it seemed like the world stopped in that moment. He just looked back and forth between the two senior agents. After a long moment, Sam and Callen shared a look, turned, and strode out of the room.

So Deeks read their intent, and it didn't matter that the whole mind-reading thing was still slightly fuzzy. He didn't follow them out of OSP, completely silent. He didn't sneak onto base and smuggle himself onto a C-130. He didn't spend the flight learning about classified information that he did not have the security clearance for.

But one thing wasn't the slightest bit fuzzy. He prepared to do whatever was demanded of him, because he most certainly would never let his partner down.