Thanks to years of experience and training, I drop to the floor on my stomach and take cover. I grab my Sig and contemplate on how I'm gonna do this. I realized that there weren't any more shots and there wasn't any movement. I looked up and saw shoes in front of me. I looked even higher up and saw Deeks smirking at me.

"Deeks! Get down we don't know where the shots are coming from."

"Kens, sweetie, clearly you missed the fact that there was only one shot. And the fact that there was a huge rattlesnake right by your food that I just so happened to see."

I was still on the ground and looked to my left. About 2 feet away I saw a huge blackish gray snake, and when I say huge, I mean huge, bleeding from a shot near its right lung. I know my snakes and it looked like a Southern Pacific rattlesnake. Those are pretty poisonous too.

I sighed and got up from the ground, brushing the dirt of off my clothes. "Well that's embarrassing."

"You almost got bit to death and all you think is how embarrassing that is? How about a thank you!? I just saved your butt from being Kensi chow."

I rolled my eyes and smiled. "Thank you Deeks. How about burgers and a movie at my place tonight? My treat."

I walked past him and continued towards the car now that the snake issue was taken care off.

"Good idea, I hope it won't be Titanic, because I've seen that movie at least a 100 times by now."

"Come on Deeks please?" I turned around and walked backward while giving him my best puppy dog eyes.

"Ugh fine. But I swear next time I'm picking the movie."

I smiled at him and just as I was about to turn around to walk straight. I trip over a rock. Today is just not my day. I fall straight on my butt. I could feel the heat rising to my cheeks. What am I? A 16 year old in high school? Deeks on the hand was laughing his butt off.

"It's not that funny." I grumbled

"Uh yeah it is. This is hilarious. You should've seen your face, it was all-"he decided to do a very bad imitation of my face that looked like a clown who didn't know how to act like a clown if that makes sense.

"Whatever."

I started to get up when Deeks said "Here let me help Fern."

"I got it."

"No, let me help!" he said reaching for me hand

"I got it Deeks!"

I got up and brushed the dirt off of my clothes for the second time. I turned around on my heel and marched to the car with the dead guys.

"Uh, Fern?"

"What Deeks?"

"You have a little…never mind."

"What? Tell me."

"Well you got dirt on your ass."

"Oh. Well why did you just say so?" I brushed the back of my pants and bent over to look into the car.

"You still have some left, here let me-"

"Don't even think about it."

"But…"

"Deeks" I warned him. If anyone was touching anyone's ass it would be me touching his. And I mean that in the most professional manner possible. Oh who am I kidding there's no way that could ever be professional. I just enjoy messing with him.

I looked into the car and pulled out two ID's. "José Reyes and David Rodriguez."

"So what are we looking at? Drug cartel? Arms dealers?"

I sighed, just another day at work. "I don't know send pictures to Eric while I call Sam."

"Not complaining there."

"That's a first."

I pulled out my phone and dialed Sam's number. When he picked up, I filled him in on the car chase and shoot out. I left out the part about the snake and the tripping, not my finest moment.

I hung up and started to wonder out loud "Why would they be following us?"

I started pacing back and forth thinking out loud "What if, our dead petty officer was selling drugs or weapons and when he didn't deliver they killed him. And they thought we knew where it was."

I paused for a second and shook my head, "No that wouldn't make sense; they wouldn't kill him without knowing the information, although he was tortured. Maybe he gave them the wrong information. But why would he do that? If he was gonna sell them the goods then it would make sense to just give it to them and get the money."

I bumped into something rock hard and solid. I looked up and saw Deeks' sea blue eyes staring at me. "Kensi, calm down, once we figure out who these guys were we can piece it all together."

Instead of answering him like I was supposed to, I just stared into his eyes, it was so hard to pull away and from sentence, I don't know what's gotten into me lately. Oh my God what am I doing?

I step away and look at the ground "Right, so uh let's get going to the parents' house."

I rush back to the car, Sam and Callen were going to call 911 and get the crime scene set up. I get in the car and so does Deeks.

"You wanna talk about it?"

"No."

"You sure?"

"Mhmm, nothing to talk about here."

Deeks chuckles, "Alright Kens."

I sighed internally; I start back to our original route. I was gonna grab Nell and go get drunk, again. I needed to forget about these stupid feelings.

"Hey Deeks, do you think we could do our movie night tomorrow?"

"Why? Don't we usually hang out Friday nights anyway?"

"Yeah but I forgot, Nell and I have plans."

"Really?"

I bit my lip "Yup"

"Oh, well, yeah I guess that's ok." He said "Just be careful ok?"

I feel he could peer into my soul and know exactly what I was planning on doing. Getting so drunk I wouldn't be able to remember my own name let alone his name.

We finally reached the parents' house and didn't learn anything useful. Just some stuff about his childhood. He had a great family and a good upbringing. Why was he mixed up in this?

We went back to Ops, and shared the news with the team the rest of the day with Deeks was uneventful, we were sitting at the desks filling out paperwork when Nell crossed by.

"Hey Nell!" said Deeks. Oh no.

"Hey! What's up guys?"

"Oh nothing, just paperwork. So, where you and Kensi going tonight?"

"What do you mean?" Nell said mildly confused. I put my head in my hands, I forgot to tell Nell about our new plans when we came back, great.

"You and Kensi, aren't you guys hanging out tonight?" Deeks said. I looked over to Deeks and saw his eyebrows crinkle in confusion.

I looked over to Nell and saw that she was looking straight at me.

"Uh, yeah. We're gonna hang. I have to get back to Eric." With that Nell practically ran from the bull pen and up the stairs.

I slowly turned my head to look at Deeks with a sheepish smile on my face. He raised his eyebrows and looked at me with an intense stare.

"I-" I started.

"It's ok Princess, I understand." He said with a sad smile

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at the stupid nicknames, besides he couldn't really understand why I wanted to hang out with Nell tonight "You do?"

"Yeah, everyone needs a little female bonding once in a while." He said with his usual cockiness.

I scrunched up my nose in disgust as I realized what he meant. "Ew so did not want to think about that Deeks, you're just gross."

"What? In fact I'm gonna do a little female bonding myself."

"As if you could pick someone up, besides don't you have that date with Veronica?"

"Vanessa, and yeah that's tonight" he said and then he muttered under his breath "Completely forgot."

I narrowed my eyes, does this Veronica actually exist?

The rest of the day went without a hitch, well kinda. Callen, Sam, Deeks, and I went around tracking leads to just get a dead end. By the end of the day, everyone was tired and ready to go home. But I had other plans.

"Nell!" I said. "You busy tonight?"

She shook her head in response. "Nope, I've been meaning to ask you about that. What was Deeks talking about?"

"Oh, that. Well I canceled out movie night so I could spend some quality girl bonding time."

She just gave me a look. I knew she wouldn't believe that. "Alright, fine, I just need to get Deeks off of my mind. Get drunk as hell and just…forget."

"Well why didn't you just say so?"

"Oh great! Just swing by my place, you can borrow one of my dresses and spend the night."

"Uh, Kensi? I'm like a foot shorter than you; I don't think I'll fit in one of your dresses.

"Oh sure you will come on, I'll just work my magic."

"Alright fine, I have a go-bag in my trunk. Let me just say good night to Eric…and Callen."

I smirked as she walked to the bull pen. Callen and her were great together. Even if they kept it out of work, you could see the chemistry and love between them. They weren't serious yet, but eventually they will.

She came back and I told her to just meet me at my place. I said my good byes to the team and drove home with Nell following me the whole way.

I unlocked the front door and went inside to do some speed cleaning. Nell had got caught in a red light which should give me enough time to somewhat tidy up. I picked up all the trash and some stray clothes and threw them in the shoe closet.

Nell came in and we got right to work. We went into my room and I pulled out a silky LBD with a cutout in the back for Nell. "Hey it actually fits! We just gotta hem it now." She said.

"See? I told you!" we both laughed and I helped her hem the dress a little more. The miracle of safety pins. She went ahead and did her hair and makeup done.

"So I realized I still had my emergency heels in my go bag so I don't have to worry about shoes." She said as she pulled out nude pumps from her bag.

I laughed "Who keeps emergency heel?"

"You never know Kensi, its times like these where it's important to keep heels handy."

I laughed and pulled out my dress from the closet. It was a red one shoulder dress with a slit going across the top to show just enough skin, which ended mid-thigh.

I pulled out my nude pumps as well and did my hair in its usual curls and smoked out my eyes. Nell and I looked in the mirror. We looked hot. It was a little past 7. Perfect timing.

We went into the kitchen to grab something quick to eat. Then we went to my car and drove out to a club called Boulevard 3, it was a cool popular club, but I still had an active alias I could use to get into the club. We were in car sitting in comfortable silence. When Nell asked me something I wished to avoid. "Kensi, why do you wanna forget about Deeks?"

I sighed, might as well get it out before we go have some fun. "I can't love him Nell. It'll get messy and stuff."

"Kensi, just take a chance. He loves you everyone knows that."

"He's dating chick named Veronica."

"Vanessa, and it's not like it's serious, besides you're the one who started the whole Ross thing." When we were getting ready I filled her in on the Ross-Veronica situation.

We reached the club and we got out so the guys could go park the car. I went up to the usher and slipped into an alias I had gotten used to using when trying to get into high-end clubs.

"Hi, Maya Evans" as soon as I said that, he let Nell and I through. Oh the perks of being an NCIS agent.

"How'd you manage that one?"

"You don't wanna know."

Nell laughed as we headed toward the bar. Immediately we got the bartenders attention. Thank you short dress!

"What can I get you two beautiful ladies tonight?"

"Chilled Tequila shot make it a double." I said "Nell?"

"Mojito please."

We got our drinks and sat at the bar. I swung the shot down and felt the cold burning sensation down my throat. I looked for the bartender and asked for another and told him to keep them coming.

After my third one, things got a little hazy. Nell was on her second Mojito.

We went to the dance floor and started dancing with each other for a while until I felt a strong arm grab my waist. Nell had already left me to dance with someone else. I started to grind with the guy behind me, both of his hands were on my waist and I held them in place. I turned around to look at him. He had startling chocolate brown eyes and his blonde hair flopped just the right way.

I leaned into him and whispered in his ear "You have beautiful eyes."

He gripped my waist and pulled me closer and whispered in my ear "You're beautiful. What's your name?"

I smiled at his compliment and continued to sway to the music "Kensi, what about you mystery man?"

"Ross Leighton."

I froze in place. No. F*cking. Way.

It's a long chapter! I'm on break for a couple days so I wrote a nice big one. I may actually upload a second chapter by the end of the weekend. I hope you guys like it! I do read all the reviews and I love hearing the positive feedback. So please keep reviewing guys! I know the whole Ross thing might have been predictable and stuff but hey its good! At least I think so…Thanks guys!