A/N: I am SO sorry for how long it has taken me to update this story. Right after I finished the last chapter my husband, one of my kids, and I all came down with a horrible stomach virus. It took me a full week to get back to feeling myself and then it took many weeks to catch up on life and laundry after that. Since then it has just been a matter of getting time with the laptop when I can write. I have yet to tell my husband that I have started writing ff so any writing I do has to be done on the sly when he isn't home. For some reason my writing feels so deeply personal and I'm not ready to tell anyone in my life that I have begun writing. Maybe if I had a friend or family member who actually read ff I would share it with them, but everyone I know would think I'm crazy for reading this stuff, let alone writing it.

Also, I played the whole Jack thing just a little differently so make sure you actually read that portion so you know what is going on. If you are a fan of Jack realizing what he lost, don't worry. He will be making an appearance in later chapters.

I do not own these characters, I simply play with them.

~~Densi~~

As quickly as he could Deeks got permission from Callen to take Kensi home so she could get cleaned up and tucked into bed. Knowing how resistant Kensi can be when it comes to taking care of herself, Callen instructed Deeks to stay with her and make sure she stays hydrated and gets some rest.

The drive to Kensi's apartment was quiet. Kensi sat in the passenger seat with her eyes closed, enjoying the first bit of peace to be had all day. Deeks, wanting to let Kensi rest silently took her hand and held it for the duration of the drive.

Pulling into Kensi's parking spot Deeks put the car in park and then leaned over to give her a kiss on her temple.

"Hey sunshine, we're here. You ready to go inside?"

"Mmm…a shower does sound good."

"Okay. Stay there." Deeks said and then he hopped out of the car, ran around to the passenger side, opened the door and reached across Kensi to unbuckle her seatbelt.

"Deeks, what are you doing?"

"Taking care of my best girl" he said with a grin while he scooped her up bridal style.

Kensi rolled her eyes at Deeks' corniness and then wrapped her arms around his neck, deciding to enjoy the moment.

Deeks quickly reached the front door of Kensi's apartment and continued to hold her as she unlocked the door and swung it open. He quickly made his way through the messy living room and put her down when he reached the bathroom.

"Do you want me to run to the store and get you some ginger ale or saltines or anything?"

"No, I really do feel better. Most of my queasiness was stress and Sabatino's disgusting proposition just sent me over the edge. I just want to get cleaned up and then relax a little."

Deeks looked at Kensi and studied her for a moment trying to determine the truthfulness of her answer. Deciding that she was being honest he said "Sounds good. I'll just chill out and wait for you to finish then."

Kensi took a nice long shower, brushed her hair and teeth, and then realizing she didn't bring any clean clothes in with her wrapped her towel around herself and headed to her bedroom. When she entered her room Kensi was distracted by a very sexy looking man lying on her bed with his eyes closed and his hands folded on his chest. Kensi walked over to her side of the bed, crawled up next to Deeks and kissed him on the cheek. Deeks kept his eyes closed but put his arm out so that Kensi could lay her head on his shoulder and snuggle up to him.

"Did you enjoy your shower?"

"Mmhm"

"You less stressed?"

"A little bit. This helps." Kensi said as she gave Deeks a little squeeze. "Unfortunately, the worst part of the de-brief is yet to come. This morning we tackled the boring part. The part that has my stomach in knots was re-scheduled for tomorrow."

Deeks rolled over onto his side so that he was facing Kensi. He pulled her closer so that their bodies were touching from their chest to their pelvises and their legs were tangled together. Deeks face got very serious.

"Baby, we've been through some pretty tough missions together and some even tougher de-briefs and you have hardly broken a sweat. What is so different this time? What happened over there?"

Kensi took a couple of deep breaths. She knew the mission was classified and that she could get in some serious trouble for talking about it but she trusted Deeks and she knew talking about it would help her deal with everything that came out over there. "Can we maybe go get Monty and go for a walk on the beach? I'd like to talk to you about it, but not here. I don't want to bring that mess into my house, let alone my bed."

"Ok. That sounds good. But while I have you in bed….and very naked" Deeks smiles and wiggles his eyebrows at Kensi as he opens her towel "I can think of another way to release some endorphins and reduce your stress levels."

Three hours later Kensi, Deeks, and Monty were at the beach and enjoying the soothing sounds of the waves while they walked. Deeks held Monty's leash with one hand and Kensi's had with the other. Deeks was uncharacteristically quiet while he waited for Kensi to begin her tale.

Kensi was quiet at first because she simply didn't know where to start with the story. Then she was quiet because she did have a little bit of concern about how Deeks would react to the part of her story that involves her ex-fiancé. 'Well, I guess there's only one way to find out' she thought.

After taking a deep breath Kensi finally dives in. "Apparently Granger was contacted by an agent in the CIA named Fred Martin. Agent Martin gave Granger a file on a top secret mission called the White Ghost. Granger was asked to participate in the mission because it was believed the White Ghost was an American, possibly ex-military, working with the Taliban in Afghanistan. He was asked to bring in a sniper because the previous sniper, who happened to have been Sabatino's partner, was found dead in the afghan desert without his head. Granger showed Hetty the file, which included the identity of who they believed may be the White Ghost, and she recommended me for the job. "

"After I got to Afghanistan and was briefed by Granger, the satellite phone arrived and when I called Hetty she told me she suspected there was a mole and to keep my eye out and watch my back. After months of waiting they finally had a location on the White Ghost and I was sent to take him out. When I saw who it was….I couldn't do it. I knew something else must be going on. He would never betray his country like that!"

"Who was it Kens?"

Kensi brought her eyes up to Deeks'. "It was Jack."

"Jack? As in the Jack? Walked out on you on Christmas morning Jack?"

"Yes."

Deeks raised his eyebrows and turned to look out at the ocean in an attempt to get his anger under control. He hated that man for what he did to Kensi.

Kensi, concerned that Deeks was thinking she still harbored feelings for Jack, forged on with her story. "As hurt by him as I was, I knew he could never do what they were accusing him of doing. I went back to the base and told Granger that I knew the man that they were accusing of being the White Ghost. It took a while, but I finally convinced him that something wasn't right between Sabatino's disappearance and the identity of the man the CIA was accusing of being the White Ghost. After some digging we discovered that Jack was in fact CIA and working with Sabatino. When confronted Sabatino admitted that he, Jack, and agent Martin put together the whole charade in order to flush out a mole in the CIA. Jack was wearing a vest and apparently I ruined months of work by not shooting Jack and allowing him to fake his death."

"Hetty, not knowing the truth behind my mission purposely sent me because she didn't believe Jack was capable of the crimes he was accused of and knew I wouldn't take him out."

"The team is still not aware of my connection to Jack and that was the one who sent Granger on a mission to discover the truth that brought down the entire mission. That is what has my stomach in knots. Tomorrow I have to lay my private life out for all to see and take a large portion of the responsibility for wasting months of everyone's time. Of course if Granger hadn't gone charging into the base announcing Jack's true identity and yelling at everyone about being misled the mission probably could have been salvaged."

Deeks reached out to Kensi and pulled her into a hug. "I'm sorry you've had such a hard time."

Kensi hugged Deeks back and relaxed into his embrace.

"And how is Jack? Did you get a chance to talk to him?"

"He's alright I guess. I saw him briefly. Long enough to find out that when he left me he entered into a rehab facility that specialized in PTSD. After that he had a buddy in the CIA that asked for his help and he's been with them ever since."

"And how do you feel about that?"

"It hurts, of course, to know that after he left he never gave me another thought. However, he seems happy with his new life and I am happy with mine." Kensi looked up into Deeks' eyes so that he could see the sincerity in hers, and then raised herself up onto her toes to give him a kiss. It was a sweet kiss in the beginning, but then just as it started to become passionate Monty jumped up onto Deeks' legs and barked, letting him know that he wanted to walk some more. Kensi and Deeks broke their kiss and continued their trek down the beach.

After walking another mile, they decided to turn around and head back. When they got back to the parking lot Deeks began smelling the food trucks and his stomach began rumbling.

"You hungry Sugar Plum, because I could really go for some fish tacos."

"I am starting to feel kind of hungry but I think I'll pass on the tacos and just grab something a little milder when we get back. You go get your tacos though. I don't mind waiting."

"O.K. Here, can you hold Monty for me?"

"Sure."

After a quick kiss Deeks ran over to the food truck and got in line. He looked over his shoulder and saw Kensi squatting down petting Monty and trying to avoid the many kisses Monty was trying to bestow on her. Deeks couldn't help but smile. He loved seeing Kensi happy and enjoying life. Enjoying life with him. That was what she had said and it definitely did his heart and his ego good to hear it. When he turned around he realized it was his turn and quickly made his order. He then scooched down to the pick-up window to get his order. When he turned around to head back to Kensi he saw a familiar face in the line.

"Hi Talia! Howa are you doing?"

Agent Talia DelCampo had seen Deeks in line. Or at least she thought she had. She had really enjoyed her time with Detective Marty Deeks and had been so hopeful of seeing him again that she had mistaken more than one man as him. The most embarrassing had been the time when she grabbed some poor man's arm from behind at the grocery store thinking for sure it was him. Of course since she had purposefully gone to the grocery store closest to Marty's house hoping to run into him she thought for sure it had to be him. But now, after weeks of hoping to see Marty outside of work, it had finally happened and she had to make the most of it.

"Hi! I'm doing really well. How about you?"

"I'm good." Deeks broke out in a big, goofy smile, thinking about how good things had been the last couple of days with Kensi home. "Really good."

Talia, thinking that smile was for her, broke out in a big grin herself. "I'm glad. I'm actually really glad I ran into you. I actually ended up getting a promotion after that case we worked and I was thinking I kind of owe that in part to you and your team so I definitely owe you a round of drinks." There, she thought. That was pretty smooth and not too forward.

Deeks, who had been rather distracted by watching Kensi bend over to pick up some trash in the sand and sticking her delicious ass in the air in the process, quickly looked down at Talia. "That sounds good. We'll do that sometime." Then he quickly put his free hand on Talia's arm saying "Good running into you, but I have to run. I've got someone waiting on me." And with a quick grin he dashed off to Kensi.

"Make a new friend over there?"

"Oh, her?" Deeks quickly turned around and gestured to Agent DelCampo, seeing that she was still watching him. "That's Talia DelCampo, DEA. We worked a case with her while you were gone. Did you want to meet her?"

"No."

"Oh, I see. You're jealous. Boy it doesn't take much for that green eyed monster to come out to play, does it?"

Kensi didn't respond but simply glared at him.

"Oh my God! You did it on purpose didn't you!?"

"Did what on purpose?"

"The bending over, putting your ass in the air. You totally did it on purpose to get my attention! Well, good job. It totally worked. Plus I now have plans for when I get you home."

Kensi was planning on denying her little stunt but with his admit ion of how well it worked and the thought of what his plans may be she was having a hard time keeping a straight face so she simple rolled her eyes at him and walked off toward the car with Monty in tow. She made it about four steps away when she heard Deeks burst out laughing and the sound of his footsteps following behind her.

~~Densi~~

A/N: I am considering writing an "M" rated companion to this chapter that tells the story of what exactly Deeks does with Kensi when he gets her home. Let me know if this is something you want. If I do it the M rated chapter will be posted separate from this story so that it won't affect the rating of this story.