No matter how much training they had both had over the years, no matter how many life or death situations that they had found themselves in, nothing, absolutely nothing, had prepared them for the experience of getting children off to school for the first day.

Since Will was starting at an elementary school a few blocks away from where they worked, they tried to get him settled first.

That didn't happen.

As soon as they had walked into his classroom, he had started crying and threw himself against the floor, beating his small fists against it in a rage that only 5 year olds seemed capable of. And no matter how much soothing, coaxing or begging that they did with him, he wouldn't calm down.

If his tantrum wasn't awkward enough for the two of them, one of the teacher's informed Will that his parents would be back for him later only for the boy to point out that they were not in fact his parents.

A rather tense and uncomfortable conversation later with the other parents, explaining everything, finally found them on their way to the daycare to drop off Isla and Elijah. Thankfully that was much easier, with both kids running off to play with other children.

"What happened to you two?" Callen asked when they walked in and flopped down in their chairs.

"Well apparently getting a 5 year old off to school is like telling him that we're sending him to hell to get ripped apart by hellhounds." Deeks sighed.

"It wasn't quiet that bad." Kensi rolled her eyes at his overdramatizing.

"Really, were you in the same room as me?" Deeks scoffed.

Kensi sighed and looked towards Callen and Sam, both of whom had amused smirks on their faces.

"Do we have anything new on the case?" She asked.

"Nell found that a large sum of money is missing from the Donovan's bank account." Callen nodded.

"So what, you think that someone was hired to kill Donovan?" Deeks asked, sitting up a bit straighter in his seat.

"It's possible." Callen shrugged.

"I still feel that the wife had something to do with this." Sam nodded to himself. "I mean she was set to get a huge sum of money after her husband's death, so paying someone to kill him wouldn't be out of the realm of possibilities."

"Yeah but he was dying anyway." Deeks pointed out. "All she would have to do was sit back and wait for it to happen."

"Not necessarily." Eric said, seemingly popping out of nowhere.

"What do you mean?" Sam asked.

"Well, it appears that Corporal Donovan was not in fact dying." Eric announced.

"Uh we saw the papers saying that he had terminal cancer." Deeks pointed out. "Only a month or two more to live."

"Yeah well it turns out the doctor was wrong." Nell said, coming up from behind Eric. "Another scan was done and it was determined that he didn't have stage four, but stage three cancer which isn't great either, but with treatment he could have lived."

"And treatment he was getting." Eric stated. "According to his doctor, the cancerous mass was shrinking and could have been eliminated with time."

"So he might not have died." Kensi said.

"Yes." Nell agreed.

"Alright, well let's go back to the theory that the wife killed him for the money." Deeks leaned back in his seat. "Why, what would cause her to hire someone to kill her own husband?"

"Greed, abuse, maybe one was having an affair…"Kensi shrugged. "We've worked enough cases to know that there isn't always a good reason to want someone dead. She could have just hated him."

"You don't normally marry someone you hate." Sam pointed out.

"True, but who knows what happened in their marriage." Kensi stated.

"Alright, Kensi and Deeks go and re-interview the wife and see if she can give you any insight in their marriage." Callen said.

The pair nodded and headed out to Kensi's car, both lost in thought about the case and about the events of that morning, both with the kids and on their own.

Kensi's mind kept going back to earlier that morning when she had woken up, wrapped in Deeks strong arms. Apparently some time during the night, they had migrated together, resulting in the tangling of limbs and her head being tucked protectively under his chin.

He hadn't been awake when she had woken up, which had been a good thing since she had mentally started freaking out and was fairly certain that she must have look like an electrocuted frog with as wide as her eyes had gotten.

She wasn't sure what she had expected when she had let him sleep in her bed, but waking up in his arms after the best night's sleep she had ever gotten, and feeling nothing but safe, secure and dare she say it, loved, was not it. It had taken her a while to calm down and to fall back asleep, still snuggled up to him.

Deeks mind was going over how amazing it had felt to finally have her in his arms, to be able to hold her close without the fear of getting punched or shot. Waking up to her curled up to him had been one of the most wonderful things he had ever experienced, and had only been further fueled by the sounds of small feet creeping into the room before the kids had climbed up onto the bed to wake them up.

He had thought about what it would be like to have a family with Kensi, and now living with her and taking care of three kids that he already felt like a father to, made him happier than he had ever been before; though it still scared the hell out of him as well.

"How do you think the kids are doing?" Deeks asked, pulling them both out of their trains of thought.

Kensi lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. "I don't know. I would think that if something was going on with them that their teachers would call."

"Yeah but Will just seemed so upset with us leaving him." Deeks sighed heavily.

"He'll be okay." Kensi tried to be reassuring while pulling up in front of the family's house where the wife was staying.

"Yeah." Deeks sighed in agreement and got out of the car.

They hadn't even reached the door when they both stopped, the front door wasn't closed all the way and a feeling of dread filled the pits of their stomachs as they crept forward.

"Mrs. Donovan?" Kensi called out and slid her gun from its holster. "Mrs. Donovan, its Agent Blye and Detective Deeks, are you here?"

She looked towards Deeks who nodded before she quickly stepped into the house, her gun held in front of her, Deeks following suit just seconds later.

What they were greeted with had them stopping short again though.

Strewn across the floor and the furniture were the family members that Mrs. Donovan had been staying with, all of them quite obviously dead. Each of them had been tied up with sturdy rope and shot several times.

"What the hell?" Deeks quietly said while they made their way through the house, going from room to room in hopes of finding something. When all the rooms where searched, they met up again in the living room and holstered their guns.

Kensi pulled out her phone and dialed Callen's number while looking around at the chaos in front of them.

"We have a problem." She said into the phone and felt Deeks step up behind her. "Mrs. Donovan isn't here and both of her parents and her sister whom she was staying with are dead."

Deeks could hear Callen curse before he instructed them to head back to OPS and see if Nell and Eric could get a hit one where Mrs. Donovan had gone.

"Okay." Kensi said and hung up.

"So, I have a strong feeling that Sam might be right about the wife after all." Deeks pointed out and got into the car.

Thoughts?