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Ever since their meeting on the beach, Deeks had been on-edge worrying about Kensi. He was quiet at work, throwing himself into paperwork as a distraction.
*Flashback - two and a half months ago*
Kensi continued visiting Deeks in the hospital despite how awkward things had become after their near kiss.
They made small talk most days, skirting around the important issues.
Finally Deeks couldn't take it any longer.
"Look Kens, can we talk about the kiss..." He said softly.
"Deeks, I promise, when you're feeling better, we'll talk, okay?" Kensi replied.
"Okay." He sighed, it was better than nothing.
*end flashback*
Despite Kensi's promise that conversation had still yet to happen. They had only been back at work a couple of weeks but something had definitely changed between them. Deeks noticed it immediately, she was acting distant, no longer hanging out with him outside of work hours. He thought that she was giving him the cold shoulder but now he knew the truth. She was with Jack.
"Yo Deeks." Sam called out for the third time trying to get the detective's attention by waving his hand in front of his face.
"Huh? Wha? Sorry." Deeks finally snapped out of his thoughts directing his attention to Sam.
"You were a million miles away, everything okay?" Sam asked cautiously.
"Yeah, of course..." Deeks exaggerated his reply, trying to sound happy.
"Okay..." Sam replied, clearly skeptical of the detective's response.
"I'm gonna go to the gym." Deeks announced, leaving his seat quickly, trying to avoid further questioning.
Deeks entered the gym, walking over to the punching bag. He quickly put on the boxing gloves and began beating the hell out of the bag.
"You sure you don't wanna talk?" Sam asked, steadying the punching bag as Deeks continued to pound it.
"Nope." Deeks replied, concentrating on hitting the bag as hard as he could.
"Alright then, you wanna spar?" Sam offered, hoping that it would get Deeks to open up.
"Sure." Deeks agreed, wiping the sweat off his forehead with a towel before they headed over to the mat.
"Okay, let's make a deal, I win you talk, you win, I'll leave you alone." Sam cut straight to the chase knowing that Deeks was in no mood for a therapy session, he was in the mood for a fight.
"Okay." Deeks agreed, shaking Sam's hand before the battle.
Deeks put up a good fight against his much larger opponent catching Sam with a series of punches. However, once the emotion started to kick in, Sam quickly started to get the upper hand. Deeks' downfall was brought on by a series of wild punches thrown out of anger and frustration. They missed their mark by a long shot allowing Sam to catch his arm and twist it behind his back.
"Stop." Sam cautioned, this was starting to get out of hand very quickly.
Deeks continued to struggle to free himself leaving Sam with no other option but to send Deeks careening down onto the mat. Sam dug his knee into his back, twisting Deeks' arm again for good measure.
"Talk to me Deeks." Sam released his grip on the detective allowing him to stand up.
The two men walked over to the bench in the corner of the room.
"I feel so helpless..." Deeks confessed, looking up at Sam as he continued "I hate it."
"I know what you mean, I hate it too but there's nothing we can do, we just gotta sit back and be there for her as best we can." Sam was being honest, he hated the situation as much as Deeks.
"What if she's still in love with him Sam?" Deeks asked.
Sam could see the pain on Deeks' face, it was etched in the frown plastered across his forehead. "We don't deal in what-ifs Deeks, you know that..."
Deeks sighed. "I do, it's just..."
"Look, I'm going to say this to you real slow so you understand okay? No matter what happens Deeks, Kensi's still going to love you." Sam said, watching as confusion flushed across the detective's face.
"Wah... What?" Deeks stuttered, unable to believe what he was hearing.
"You heard." Sam repeated, staunch in his disposition as he simply folded his arms across his chest.
"Are you just saying that to make me feel better?" Deeks questioned, skeptically raising an eyebrow at the older man.
"When have I ever said anything to make you feel better?" Sam replied.
Deeks chuckled slightly, Sam never was one for exchanging pleasantries.
"It's true. I knew the minute she found you Deeks that you were more than just her partner." Sam confessed.
*Flashback*
Sam cringed as he heard the loud crack of Sidorov's fist connecting with Deeks' cheek bone.
Even after all of the pain and torture Deeks still hadn't broken.
As Sidorov splashed a cold bucket of water over Deeks in order to wake him up, Sam watched on helplessly, trying to free himself from his bindings.
Sam watched as Sidorov asked the same questions over and over again, stabbing a knife forcefully into Deeks' stomach as he didn't reply.
A few seconds later gunfire began ringing out throughout the warehouse. Before he knew what was happening Sam watched as Callen, Kensi and Michelle entered the room, shooting Sidorov and his lackey. Michelle ran over to him, untying his hands from the bindings of the chair asking if he was okay. Yet Sam couldn't respond, his eyes were firmly locked on Deeks who was still lying motionless. All he could hear were Kensi's desperate pleas for a response. Sam watched as Kensi placed her hands over Deeks' stomach trying to stem the bleeding.
*end flashback*
Sam shuddered as he remembered the image in his mind. "I thought you were dead because she was screaming, I've never seen her like that before. She couldn't find your pulse Deeks, she was distraught." Sam said. That image had haunted him, thinking that Deeks had died in order to protect his wife. Especially after what Sam had said to him earlier in the day.
"I may have questioned your character Deeks, but you proved yourself to me that day and everyday since. You are one hell of a man Deeks and I trust you with my life. I trust you with her life. I know you always have her best interests at heart." Sam confessed.
"I guess what I'm saying is... if you feel the same way about her, you've got me and Callen's blessing to go ahead with it." Sam patted Deeks on the shoulder leaving him sitting there in shock.
Later in the afternoon Deeks was sitting with Kensi outside a warehouse where another meeting was taking place. This was a meeting she hadn't been invited to, a much more secretive event that Kensi had only found out about by reading Jack's cellphone. Kensi had planted an audio recording device in Jack's bag, allowing everyone to listen in to the discussions.
"Kens, are you okay?" Deeks asked, noticing the way she was looking outside the car window. Her eyes were flicking around nervously, she was clearly on edge about something.
"I'm fine." Kensi replied, not even bothering to look at him.
"Yeah and I'm Mother Theresa, come on Kens..." Deeks pleaded.
"Look Deeks, I just have a bad feeling about this meeting, Jack's been acting really weird and distant with me, something's up." Kensi replied.
Deeks was about to reply but was interrupted by Eric who informed them that the meeting was about to start.
"6,500 former military personnel killed themselves last year..." It was Ames addressing the men gathered together. Ames' tone changed as he delivered the next line,"That's 6,500 too many." There was a loud thud as he banged his hand down on the podium causing it to shake slightly from side to side.
"We need to draw attention to what is happening in this country, the media don't give a shit about covering the important issues unless we force them to." Ames yelled.
"This government only cares about you if you can carry a gun... once you hang up that gun you're alone, they don't give a shit, you've served your purpose." Ames continued, directly addressing the former military personnel at the meeting.
"This is all about waking America up to what is going on in this country... While people are starving, homeless and jobless we're spending trillions of dollars on fighting unjust wars overseas. Human life is no longer sacred to this government. They label the death of civilians 'collateral damage' like their life doesn't even matter."
"What's the plan?" One of the men yelled out, clearly getting angsty.
"We're making sure that this government and those that came before it can't ignore the consequences of their foreign policy." Ames replied as he detailed his plan. "Those son of a bitches who send us to fight unjust wars are going to pay for their actions... We're going to blow those bastards to pieces." Ames stated.
Deeks watched as Kensi cringed in the seat beside him. She shut her eyes tightly trying to fight back the pain after hearing what Jack was involved in.
Deeks contemplated reaching over and squeezing her hand yet decided not to, knowing that this was already hard enough for her to deal with. The last thing Kensi needed was his advances.
A few minutes later they heard Jack being approached by Ames.
"Jackie boy, hang on a minute." Ames called out, running over to him as he was about to leave.
"No, man this is insane." Jack replied, wanting to get the hell out of there.
"It's the only way Jack, you and I both know that." Ames replied.
"No way, I'm out." Jack turned to leave, but was stopped by Ames grabbing his arm.
"You're out? Just like that, after everything we've been through?" Ames questioned, speaking in a hushed tone.
"I'm not helping you with this." Jack replied, shaking his arm off him as he turned once again to leave the warehouse.
"What if I'd said that about you Jack? Huh? What if I hadn't helped you?" Ames asked, watching as Jack stopped. "All you gotta do is help me rig the bombs up, everything else is taken care of, no one will ever know that you helped."
Deeks could see that Kensi was uncomfortable as she listened to the conversation.
"He won't actually go through with it will he?" Deeks asked.
"I don't know..." Kensi replied sadly, trying desperately not to cry.