A/N

Thanks for all the reviews!

"Kens," Kensi felt a hand on her bare shoulder. "Kens, wake up." Deeks' voice. "Kensi, I'm going surfing."

"And you felt the need to inform me of this at five in the morning?" Kensi was still half asleep.

"I wanted to know if you want to come."

"May I restate the words five in the freaking morning?"

"The surf is best in the morning."

"I'm going back to sleep."

"Your loss."

"Bring me back a Twinkie."

"For breakfast?" There was no reply. Kensi was back to sleep. He stood there for a second to look at her. He'd never seen his partner look so peaceful, so perfect.

He walked out of the hotel room to the front desk to rent a surfboard. He had hoped that he could have gotten Kensi to go surfing with him, maybe he could teach her how, but that would have to wait. 'My loss,' He thought 'not hers.'

"How long does it take to get dressed for breakfast?" Eric shouted through the door, he was getting bored in the hotel with no Wi-Fi.

"Five more minutes."

"We're just going to breakfast, it's not like you're gonna see anyone you know." Wrong. She was going to see Eric, and impressing him was important enough.

"Fine, three more minutes." Eric started pacing.

"What could possibly take so long-" She walked out of the bathroom looking stunning. Now he knew what took so long. She walked over to him in a long, flowing sun-dress, hair half curled- half pinned up, and more make-up than usual, but still just enough highlight her features.

"I was thinking we should go surfing later." Nell said. It woke Eric up to reality where he wasn't yet kissing his gorgeous partner, a reality where there are rules that prevent such things, rules he thought, should be broken.

"Umm, yeah." 'Get your thoughts back in order Eric' "You know how to surf?"

"I figured you could teach me." 'No,' He thought. ' No I can not. Because that is the one thing (lets be honest, one among many) that will run my imagination wild. Trying to teach Nell something while being totally distracted by the fact she's in a bikini? Ha! She over-estimates my mental capabilities.'

"Sure" 'Well, this should be fun.'

"Cool, let's go get breakfast, then we can rent some surfboards."

"Okay."

"Princess?" Deeks almost shouted while walking in to their room. "Are you still asleep?"

"Why do you insist on calling me that?" Kensi walked out of the bathroom wearing only a red bikini.

"What, you don't like the nickname? Fern? Hunbun? What do you want me to call you."

"I do have a name."

"Well yeah but everyone calls you Kensi."

"And you can't because?" Because that was too normal. Maybe Kensi could try and consider Deeks just a partner, but Deeks could swear there was something more. Kensi was special to him. Somehow, using a name that wasn't different just didn't feel right.

"I don't know." Kensi thought she knew. She thought she knew for certain it was because there was something special-something different between them, but she couldn't. Call it uncertainty, lack of trust, commitment issues, call it anything, but Kensi wasn't ready to believe in love just yet. "Why are you wearing a bikini?" Deeks questioned.

"I was gonna go meet you on the beach."

"To surf?"

"To tan." Deeks paused for a minute just to admire the vision he had created in his mind of Kensi glowing in the sun, wearing only a bikini. Damn that bikini for causing thoughts in his head that partners really shouldn't think.

He tried to get his thoughts back on the real world and out of his fantasies. "Come on Kens, we're in Australia, it would be a crime to pass up a chance to go surfing here."

"Deeks, we live in Los Angeles, we can go surfing when ever we want."

"It's not the same."

"I can't get wet anyway."

"Why not?"

"I have a date."

"What? With who?" Deeks was quickly stricken with jealousy.

"Jack" Kensi had to admit, it felt a little weird to say she had a date with Jack.

"You're going on a date with shrimp boy?"

"Do I sense a hint of jealousy?"

"No." He said this much too quickly, and much too loudly.

"Okay." She grabbed a book and walked out the door.

"Okay? What do you mean 'okay'?" Deeks chased after her.

"So you probably want a longer board since you're just starting out."

"Okay." Nell picked a yellow Channel Islands board just a bit longer than Eric's red Becker board.

Eric walked up to the counter to pay for the rental.

"Okay so you should probably work on your balance a little before going in the water." They walked out of the surf shop on to the beach. "Here, just lay your board down on the sand and stand on it."

Nell laid the board down and stepped on top of it.

"When you're standing, you're gonna want to have your feet about shoulder length apart." She moved her feet apart a little. "And um, move your hips, so they're parallel to the edge of the board." She slightly shifted her hips, one movement that had way too much effect on Eric's mental stability.

"Like this?"

"Um," He lightly laid his hands on her hips and changed their direction. "Like that."

"Okay." It had never been so hard to pronounce that one, short word, but having Eric's hands on the bare skin of her hips quickly turned her brain to mush and sent a burning feeling to the pit of her stomach. She wasn't quite sure she could get through an entire surfing lesson like this.

"So when you're out there, you're gonna start out laying down," 'Duh,' Eric thought, he didn't know where he was going with this, he could barely compose a sentence at the moment. "When you see a wave coming, start to push up, then jump up to a standing position as soon as it's right in front of you." Eric was sure there was more to surfing, but really all he could think about was the feeling of Nell's soft, silky skin on his fingertips.

"Okay, so you wanna get out there?"

"Sure." Absolutely. Maybe the waves could take his mind off of all the fantasies he was currently having about his partner.

Nell picked up her board and walked with Eric to the edge of the water until they had to get on their boards and start paddling. After five crashes, three mostly successful attempts at riding a wave, and an hour of Eric surfing and Nell laying on the beach watching, they decided it was time for lunch.

Deeks sat in their rental car uncertain what to do without his partner by his side. If his estimates were correct Kensi had already gotten to the restaurant in a taxi by now and she's probably already having a beer with "Jack" by now and things are probably already going perfectly as they do when some cute foreign boy comes and sweeps you off your feet.

Deeks wondered if the two-date-rule applies to this one, but it probably doesn't since their on vacation or because he likes him more than most guys she dates or he's just different somehow.

No, Deeks knew why he was different, he had an accent, and a charming smile, and a crazy tan that you can only get when you live somewhere where it's sunny all the time, and you surf every minute of your life. He was playing an unfair game. "Jack" was holding all the cards.

The sad thing was, though, Deeks wasn't just playing a game. Kensi isn't just another girl to him. If jealousy did one good thing for him, it was making that clear to him. He couldn't stand seeing Kensi with someone else, because he couldn't stand Kensi not knowing that these random dates were just games that they play, Kensi and Deeks, they could last forever.

Forever. That one word had the power to make him re-think everything that he had just thought. Forever meant commitment. Forever meant trust. Forever meant putting their hearts on the line for something worth a lot more then their games but something a lot harder to come by. Forever was not an easy word for a commitment-phobe with trust issues who's had his heart broken too many times already. Forever seemed like too much to ask of Kensi when it meant she would be spending forever with him, a broken, lost, jaded, hard- to- love cop who put his life on the line everyday. Forever wouldn't come without a fight.

But above all of that, forever could be worth it.

Kensi sat in a small Italian restaurant with some wine and bread on the table in front of her trying to make up reasons why Jack was forty minutes late.

'Maybe his car broke down. No, he would have called. Maybe he got stuck at work. Or did he say he was self employed? Maybe he had some sort of medical emergency. But how likely is that?

'Maybe he just decided I was too ugly, or too odd, or too American? Maybe he has a thing about American girls! No, that's weird. Maybe he's gay? But why would he ask me out?

'Maybe there's someone else? Maybe his ex came back to him? Maybe-'

"Do you need a check?" A waiter walked up to her.

"Um, no, actually I'm just waiting for a date." A date that's never coming.

"Well, if you don't mind waiting at the bar, we need the table." Even the waiter had given up on Kensi's date coming.

"Yeah, sure." What if he was coming? She wouldn't want him to think she didn't show.

She sat at the bar watching football for an hour and a half before she finally decided he wasn't coming. Just as she was walking out the door she saw Deeks drive up in their rental car.

"What are you doing here?" She asked him.

"I had a feeling." He replied

"You had a feeling my date wouldn't show?"

"Um, no actually you butt-dialed me and I didn't hear you talking to anyone so I put two and two together."

"Whatever."

"You wanna go surfing now?"

"Deeks it's 10:30."

"So tomorrow then."

"Yeah, sure, whatever."

A/N II

Hello there! I'd love to hear your feedback even if you're telling me "That's not how you surf" or "You spelt yeah wrong" (how does one spell 'yeah' wrong?) so review and umm, yeah.

Anyway thanks for reading.

~A