One more update...the one before the last...

(Day 9)

"Hetty," Kensi said walking into her office. "can I leave for a couple of hours?" She understood she had to develop her reasons because Hetty was looking at her, clueless. "I just got a call from the hospital. Deeks awoke up." She couldn't disguise the smile that lit up her face after she announced it.

"I think Mr. Deeks will appreciate seeing a familiar face."

"Thank you." Kensi left her office back walking, bowing at her boss.

Kensi stopped outside his room and breathed. For the first time in days, she was going to knock on that door and someone would actually answer back. Her smile was so big that her cheeks even hurt when she heard him saying. "Come in."

"Hey."

"Hi." Deeks was lying down on bed, his head was leaning to his right side and he sounded tired. But when he saw her by the door, it was like if everything had changed. He sat on bed, his eyes filled up with the same bright and vivid blue they used to have and a broad grin glowed up his face.

"How are you?" Her voice came out in a breath as she walked to sit on the chair.

"Not quite sure. The nurses came in doing these weird tests and questions. They checked if I could see and feel, they stung me with needles and asked me if I knew my name, if I remembered what had happened. It was just weird…" He looked at Kensi who was looking away. He realized she knew what was going on. "Something happened? How long has it passed since the shooting?"

"Nine days…" She looked into his eyes and found him clueless. "The doctors induced you into a coma and three days ago they tried to take from you a machine that was helping you breathing, but, uh…you had a, uh, cardiac arrest because you stopped breathing…and you were…dead for a while."

"And…the guy who shot me, was he the guy we were looking for…?"

"Yeah, he was the one. I shot him with just cause."

"I know…"

Kensi was not feeling okay. She was still seeing Deeks dying before her eyes over and over again and those thoughts were scaring her. Kensi's breath was going to start being troubled, her eyes were going to be flooded with tears, her heart was going to beat uncontrollably, she was going to lose control of herself again. "Well, since you're alright, I'm going to work." She said, getting up from the chair and stopping her impulse to lean over him and put on him a kiss. And she wanted to do it so badly...

Kensi just wanted to hold on tight to his chest and tell him not to do that stupidity ever again. She just wanted to, for once, let herself feel weak, be embraced and feel protected. Deeks had saved her life and she wanted to hold to him and feel like as long as she was on his arms, she'd be safe. She wanted to let herself cry without feeling weak and vulnerable. She wanted to let her mouth say "I need you, stay with me. Hold me...help me show you a side of me you never saw.", but she couldn't.

"Now that I'm awake, you'll be leaving?"

"I have to, Deeks. You'll be fine with all the nurses."

"Do I detect some jealously in that statement?"

"Shut up!" She mumbled by the door, letting it close behind her.

Deeks knew she had to work because that was who she was. But Deeks wouldn't go. If something ever happened to Kensi, he wouldn't leave her side not even for a second. But first than that, he would not even let anything happen to his girl. Not under his watch, under his protection. Every morning Deeks awakes up and has three goals: do a good job, make Kensi smile and laugh and protect her. He already proved to be willing of any effort to keep her safe. If he hadn't step in the way of the bullet, she would be the one on the hospital bed and he'd be there, day and night, martyring himself with guilt.

Kensi hadn't even took the hand of the doorknob and she was already regretting being outside the room. She opened the door and they stared at each other. She couldn't explain what made her walk back and he didn't even know what to say. Kensi couldn't even explain what was making her walk to him. She took the hands to his jawbones, closed her eyes and locked her lips on his. They made it last for a while until she broke it apart. His heart monitor made the moment more awkward because his heartbeats increased. To help the moment a nurse walked in the room.

"Let's change the bandages?"

"Uhm, sure, I guess." He answered, confused with the entire situation.

"Miss, can you wait outside, please?"

Kensi didn't say anything. She just nodded and closed the door. What the hell had just happened? Neither of them couldn't explain it. Kensi's heart had taken control over her mind and she just did what it told her to do. It had been nine difficult days, full of feelings and emotions, but now that he was okay, she needed to be the same Kensi she was nine days ago. Her shield needed to come up again and they needed to forget whatever that meant. When the nurse finished doing her job, Deeks asked her to call Kensi inside. He wanted to continue doing it. He wanted her.

"She's not here." The nurse told him.

"Of course not." He said disappointed. She had walked away…

Deeks spent the whole afternoon alone. Like Kensi told him, the nurses were his company. They dressed him up in other hospital clothes and helped him getting off bed. His legs were weak; they had been inactive for nine days. He was holding to everything tightly, gaining gradually strengths to walk. The team showed up to visit by the end of the day. Hetty had her usual posture, showed up before everyone and left in the same way. Sam, Callen, Nell and Eric visited him a bit later. The only woman among them showed concern about Deeks, because only she knew how much and how badly it had affected Kensi. Eric was the only one who was somehow scared. The field work always put on him some fear and seeing what happened to the detective only made him more apprehensive about it. Sam and Callen were also worried but couldn't tell him that he had been an idiot. Everyone else but Deeks and Kensi seems to see how much he's willing to sacrifice to protect her. Everyone also knows that she's tough, but she needs someone to protect her, and Deeks is the one to do it.

That seemed to be Kensi's main problem: protection. She wants to keep her tough and kick-ass attitude, but inside she does want to be protected, she wants to feel helpless and have someone holding her. She's the kind of flirty woman who threatens to do all the crazy and wild stuff but in the end can't do a single one…if she cares about the guy enough, which was her partner's case. She has a million ways to tease him, but she'd never do any of those. She'd just lose herself, get lost on him; even let him take full control. Because she trusts him that much and because, and without realizing it, she had crossed to the next level where the emotions count over the act. And that was exactly what she was thinking about, sitting on her couch. What she had done that day it wasn't an impulse…it was something that came from her heart and she was just denying it. But not anymore. She stood next to him for nine days that seemed endless, that were painful. She held his hand, she told him everything she felt for him for now to just walk away? No…

Emotional and messy cliffhang! Just to keep you coming for the last chapter...it's gonna be all cute, I promise!