I don't own NCIS Los Angeles! My native language is Dutch and I'm dyslectic so sorry for any mistakes. Thank you for the reviews, alerts and favorites!

So I am back for now. I made the tests and for the important one I wasn't on the list of people who failed it, so that should mean I passed the test. This does mean I probably have to retake two exams, for which the same rules applies. So I'm not out of the woods yet. And the studying is surely not over. But first a few days off, which means time to write and to update.

I want to thank everyone for the patience and understanding! Thank you for the kind reviews. They made me feel less horrible for leaving you hanging. So without further nonsense and babbling: the next chapter!

Chapter 39

They were strangely normal, their early mornings. It had become a little like an oiled machine. Deeks and Kensi would wake up. Deeks would take a shower and Kensi would wake Narah. Then she would take a shower while Deeks would make them all breakfast. Meanwhile Narah would manage to gather herself and go to eat breakfast with Deeks. As soon as Kensi was finished, Narah would go for the shower and Kensi would eat breakfast. All so perfectly timed that they would be finished with some time to spare, ready to leave for work and school. Deeks had been the observer today and all of it amazed him. It was never like this in the apartment and only in the new house, they were this well oiled machine, ready to take on family life.

'Deeks, ten more minutes,' Kensi told him. 'Narah needs a little longer finding her algebra book. It should be somewhere in her room.'

'Alright,' Deeks said. 'I will put the plates in the dishwasher and I'm good to go.' Kensi smiled and gave him a quick kiss before walking into the bathroom. Deeks grabbed the plates and while he put them in the dishwasher, he thought about what he had observed. He didn't know whether he liked being an well oiled machine. The messy way of mornings like in the apartment was something he liked. Like this there was nothing personal about it. They hardly had time to talk about the plans for the day or whether Narah had a difficult test coming up. Footsteps on the stairs brought him out of his thought and he turned around to see Narah holding up her book.

'Found it!' she said. 'We can go!' She stuffed the book in her bag and ran to Monty to give him a cuddle. Deeks raised his eyebrows. The dog had more interaction in the morning than the three of them.

'Let's go,' Deeks said as he pushed everyone to the door, because with women it could always take an extra ten minutes in case they thought they forgot something. Agent Gomez was already standing on the driveway, next to Kensi's car, and she put her hand up as a sort of a greeting. Well oiled machine, Deeks thought as he watched Narah get in the car with the agent.

'Anything new on Wendy Lee?' Kensi asked as soon as they walked into the bullpen. Callen and Sam shook their heads and Kensi sighed. In the last couple of weeks all that they discovered was that she was reported missing. They never found her body or a link to Fratres Armis. The gang knew how to cover their tracks.

'LAPD took the case to solve,' Sam said. 'All the results will be given to us as soon as they have them.'

'So we have four murders of which we know Fratris Amris committed...and we can do nothing,' Kensi said and she sat down behind her desk. Frustration grew bigger each day. It was like the gang was untouchable. Members were well drilled and knew death was awaiting them if they talked so everyone kept their mouth shut.

'We have a case!' Eric yelled to them from the balcony and the team walked upstairs. Another case to distract them from the real case, Kensi sighed.

'LAPD responded to a call of domestic violence,' Nell started. 'When they arrived on the scene they found a body, Melissa McNoman-' A picture of the dead woman showed up on the screen. '-and when they searched the house, they found ingredients for a possible bomb and maps with possible locations. Melissa McNoman was married to Petty Officer Dean McNoman, who became a strange man according to his friends. He started to talk about the Navy and the horrible things they had done. That they needed to pay. Neighbors told LAPD that they had called before for domestic violence. They suspected that McNoman was beating his wife.'

'We tried to locate his cell but he seems to have turned it off after the murder,' Eric continued. 'His car was found dumped in someone's backyard swimming pool.'

'Any reason why he would want to bomb the Navy?' Sam asked.

'The McNomans did start to have slight money trouble and the neighbors talked about possible drug abuse,' Eric answered.

'Drugs can make you paranoid,' Kensi said. 'Maybe the reason of why he changed.'

'Okay, Kensi and Deeks, you go check out the crime scene,' Callen told them and Deeks and Kensi nodded. 'Sam and I will talk to his friends.'

As Narah walked into the English class, the classroom was divided by groups of friends discussing their break with each other. Narah took a deep breath and she walked to the end of the class and dropped her bag next to a desk near the window. She watched the other students laugh and talk with each other. When the teacher entered, all conversations stopped immediately and everyone almost ran to their seats.

'Good morning, everyone,' the teacher said with a loud voice and he started his class. More and more Narah drifted off. Outside was much more interesting than inside, where they were talking about...something. The cars that were passing by. The trees with numerous birds in them. She could even hear their song a little. A few students were sitting in the grass, talking and laughing with each other. Narha was wondering what her friends were doing. They should be in Geography, but they probably skipped the class. Mister Swartz never paid any attention to who was in class or not and teaching wasn't something he was capable of doing.

'Miss Monero?' Narah jumped when she heard her name and she faced the teacher, who was looking at her. Everyone else was looking at her as well. Narah swallowed when the teacher crossed his hand behind his back. 'Can you please tell us about Romeo and Juliet?'

'Umm...a boy and a girl fall in love against the will of their parents because of some family feud and they all die,' Narah summed up and she heard a few of the students laugh. Quickly she turned to see who was laughing.

'Can't say it's wrong,' the teacher said as he slowly walked towards her. When he reached her desk, he dropped a book on it. 'But I suggest you read the entire book.' Narah grabbed the book while the teacher walked back. She browsed through the book and sighed. She didn't want to read Romeo and Juliet, some stupid love story. She had better things to do, like catching up with her math. She turned back to looking out of the window while the teacher continued his lecture about (apparently) Romeo and Juliet.

'So...did McNoman kill his own wife?' Deeks asked as they walked through the house, hoping to find some indication of McNoman's plan. Kensi glanced at him and shrugged.

'He could have been paranoid,' she said. 'He could have thought that his wife had turned against him and seen her as a threat. A threat that needed to be dealt with...in McNoman's case: by killing his wife.' When they walked into the garage they stood still for a moment, taking in the sight. The wall was covered in pictures, maps and plans. Kensi went over to the bench and searched through the piles of paper.

'He found the instructions for building a bomb simply on the internet,' she noted and she handed Deeks the bomb plans. He looked at them.

'Got to love the internet,' he mumbled. 'Let's make sure Narah never goes on the internet ever again.'

Aimlessly Narah walked through the school. It was lunch time but Narah didn't exactly feel like going to the cantina to eat with all those people she did not know. She had seen their looks and heard the little whispers during the classes. She knew she was behind and not as smart as the rest of the students but the looks and whispers did sting.

'Hello Miss Tough,' she heard Chris say and she turned to see him behind her. He took a little sprint to catch up with her. Narah did not look at him. 'How is your first day at school?'

'Just brilliant.' Narah tried to take a turn, to get away from Chris, but she didn't want to get lost. Chris grabbed her arm and stopped her from walking.

'You can sit with us if you want,' he told her and he gave a nod in the direction of the field where many students were sitting, enjoying the sun. 'Then you can meet my friends. Some of them are probably in your class.' Narah shrugged but from in the inside she felt kind of eager to go with Chris. Chris smiled a little and she was surprised by her own thoughts. Together they walked to one of the group of students and sat down.

'Guys, this is Narah and she is the newest student at the school,' Chris introduced her and Narah heard greeting coming from every direction. As it turned out Chris had been right and several of his friends were with her in class. Narah felt herself relaxing and was even -to her own surprise- enjoying herself.

Deeks and Kensi were on their way back to their car when Nell called them. McNoman had made another victim: Bram Laméris. Laméris had been tortured and was then dumped at the side of the road where he had died. He worked with McNoman for two years. So instead of going back to Ops, they were on their way to their new crime scene.

'Bram Laméris was found by a couple who wanted...umm...to spend some time alone,' one of the LAPD officers told them when they arrived at the scene. 'He still had his wallet, which was stuffed in his mouth, but lost his clothes.' Deeks and Kensi got their first look at the body and it didn't look good. There were several cuts on his body and bruises all over. Taking a closer look at his hands they appeared to be broken and all his fingernails were pulled out.

'Someone really wanted to get him to talk,' Deeks noted.

'But did he talk?' Kensi asked. 'And if he talked, what did he talk about? McNoman could have been paranoid so anything could have sounded as a threat to him...'

'If he was paranoid, he would have just killed Laméris, right?' Deeks replied. 'To get rid of the threat.' Kensi slowly nodded.

'Oh...that does not look good,' Rose's nervous voice sounded from behind them.

'Hey, Rose,' Kensi greeted the medical examiner and Rose smiled at her.

'Seems like he died from the blood lost or exhaustion,' she said while she crouched down beside the body. 'Liver temp suggests that he has been dead for maybe three hours...But I will know more once I performed an autopsy on him.'

'Okay, thanks Rose,' Deeks said and he and Kensi walked once again back to the car.

'Hey Narah, you're heading to PE as well, right?' one of Chris' friends, Hannah, asked Narah, who was standing at her locker. Narah put her books in before nodded in Hannah's direction. Hannah opened a locker close by and grabbed her stuff. Together they headed towards the gym.

'So how is the teacher?' Narah asked and Hannah smiled.

'Miss Condlleda is very nice,' she assured her. 'She is one of those PE-teachers who actually makes PE fun...or as fun as PE can be. And if I remembered correctly...you like basketball so it's your lucky day because at the moment we are playing basketball.' Narah smiled at Hannah.

'I indeed love basketball,' she said. 'I used to play with friends after school in this old gym in our neighborhood. Just playing some basketball and having some fun.'

'Sounds good,' Hannah said and she pointed towards the changing rooms. Then she looked over her shoulder. 'Is your personal bodyguard coming with us into the changing rooms?' Narah looked over her shoulder as well and agent Gomez shook her head with a smile on her face.

'Nope, she is staying outside,' Narah answered.

'Well, some of those personal bodyguards do go into the changing rooms,' Hannah told her while they walked into the room. 'Really strange and kind of inappropriate if you ask me, but their target has to stay protected.' The girls put their bags on the benches in the middle.

'Better not to call them the target,' Narah said. 'Sounds like the bodyguards are going to kill their client.' Hannah raised her eyebrow.

'Client?' she repeated. 'Client sounds really fancy..."I need to protect my client". Yes, very fancy.' Narah averted her eyes to the contents of her bag.

'Yeah...' she mumbled. They looked up when the doors opened and more girls walked into the room. Narah looked at Hannah. 'Can we talk about something else?'

'McNoman killed his wife and one of his comrades,' Callen said while looking at the file in his hands. 'Navy tested him about two months ago and he was approved. He passed the psychological tests; all of them. So something must have happened between now and two months ago. Why would a man suddenly start to kill people around him and building a bomb?'

'Maybe Laméris found out what McNoman was planning and he wanted to stop his friend,' Sam opted.

'But why would he torture Laméris?' Deeks asked. 'Why not just kill him? That would make it a lot easier. Laméris knew something that McNoman needed to know.'

'And what about the drugs?' Kensi asked. 'Could we confirm that?'

'Rose said that the wife had traces of cocaine in her blood,' Sam told them. 'So we might have been wrong in who was using the drugs.'

'Drugs are not our problem right now,' Callen said. 'McNoman killed two people and he has a bomb. We don't know where he is heading and whether he is planning to kill more people.' All four of them fell silent. All they had were bodies.

'If McNoman wasn't using drugs...how did his car end up in someone's pool?' Kensi pondered out loud. 'He should have been able to drive...or maybe he was injured in some way and lost control over the car...and why did his friends say he had become strange? That he was talking about the Navy needed to pay?'

Narah tried to suppress a yawn while agent Gomez was driving them home. Her school day had started out as a crappy one but turned into a much better one. She was happy to be playing basketball and it was one of the few things she didn't suck at in comparison with her peers. She could play and not hear the laughs. And most of the classes she had with Hannah, who turned out to be a nice girl. But the day had tired her out. She never had to be so active at school.

'Already tired?' agent Gomez asked with a smile. 'The day isn't over yet.'

'No,' Narah sighed. 'I have like five hours worth of homework.' She noticed agent Gomez slightly shaking her head while she parked her car in the drive way. Confused she watched agent Gomez talk to agent Finley - asking whether everything was secured, Narah knew - before heading out of the car when she got the nod from agent Gomez. She waited for the agent to open the door and she walked inside. She wanted to lie down for an hour or so, just to do nothing.

'I will be in my room,' she told agent Gomez, who gave her a short nod.

'I will come up later with something to drink,' she said and Narah hurried up the stairs. When she opened the door to her room, she started to scream.

TBC.