"Exactly how much do you remember, Mr Deeks?" Hetty is looking at me curiously.
I think hard, pulling my mind back. We'd been working on a case involving a whole load of gang-bangers who were trying to move into arms dealing with terrorist, funding their initial investment via drugs, of course. And then they made the mistake of trying to assault some female Marines, who were out for a little R & R., which was where we stepped in and took the case over.
"Uh – not a whole lot. Kensi and I were outside the Mission. We'd been somewhere – or maybe we were going somewhere?" It's all sort of blurry, like I'm watching a film that's out of focus. I hate it when my memory plays tricks on me like this.
"We were coming back from breakfast," Kensi says quietly. "We'd pulled an all-nighter and Hetty had sent us out for a break. We went to the diner across the way. I had eggs. You had pancakes and bacon and eggs. Plus coffee – of course."
"That goes without saying." Sam looks across at me. "Sometimes I think we should just hook Deeks up to a caffeine IV."
I think of the dark purple bruising in the crook of my left arm where the last IV was and decide that I'm kind of okay just taking my caffeine orally.
Kensi heaves in a deep sigh and continues talking, but she won't look at me. "We'd just crossed the road, when the gangbangers drove past…"
It's starting to come back to me now: that moment when some sort of sixth sense made me turn around and I realised there was a gun pointing out of the car window. "I remember now." I look at Kensi and she's biting her lip and shuffling her feet awkwardly. "There wasn't anything we could do." It had all happened so fast, we just didn't have a chance.
"You didn't have to do that, Deeks." Kensi is still staring at the floor. I don't know what's wrong with her, because she would have done exactly the same thing for me.
"Of course I had to do that." What was I supposed to have done – just stood there and let her get shot? Anyway, if you want to know the honest truth, I hadn't thought – I'd just acted on instinct. You know when you're a kid and your teachers keep telling you to think first, before you go and do something? Well, they're wrong. They are completely and utterly wrong. In this job, there are loads of situations when you just have to act and not give any thought to the consequences. And one of those situations is where your partner is about to get shot in the chest.
"You saved my life." Kensi raises her head and looks me straight in the eye when she says that, and when I look at her face it is full of disgust.
"Yeah, well… you know."
Only I don't know. I'm more confused than ever and I don't know what else to say. All of a sudden it's like the clouds clear from my head and it strikes me that this is why Kensi has been acting so weird and looking after me so diligently. That's the right word, I think: 'diligently'. You see, for a while there, I'd kind of hoped it might be because Kensi cared for me as something other than her partner, but I guess I was wrong. Either that or I was deluding myself. I can see now that Kensi just feels guilty because I shoved her out of the way and managed to get myself shot in the process.
"Yeah, I know, Deeks." She's almost speaking in an undertone and I have to strain to hear her. It sounds terribly final the way she says that. All of a sudden my legs don't want to support me and my arms are shaking so much I can hardly grip onto the crutches. I discover that I want to sit down very badly.
Sam takes one look at me and practically manhandles me into a chair. "Delayed shock. Or PTSD?" I've never heard that tremor in his voice before, and I'm kind of freaked by it, if you really want to know.
When I manage to focus, Sam is kneeling down in front of me, one hand on my knee. "Sometimes it just hits you," he says, and he is looking directly into my eyes. I concentrate on his voice and on what he is saying. "The memories just burst back into your head without warning. And when that happens, it hits you like you've been slugged in the gut. There's not a lot you can do to stop it happening, but you can get through it, Deeks. You will get through it. And I'll help you."
Somehow I just know that he is speaking from personal experience. It's great advice, but it's not the memories of the shooting that have thrown me, it's the realization that by saving Kensi I've blown any chance of ever being anything more than her partner. Ironic, eh? I save her life, and discover that she feels obliged to be nice to me. There never was anything more between us. We were partners, that was all. And now I don't know if we can even be partners any more, not with the way Kensi is feeling. I don't want her to feel guilty, I don't want her to feel grateful – I just want her.
"I know the medics tend to poo-poo the very idea, but I've always found a nice cup of hot tea very soothing," Hetty says, trying to be practical. "Or perhaps it is the ritual of making the tea in the first place? One always feels that there cannot be too much wrong with the world when you have a really good cup of tea in your hand."
Unless you happen to hate tea, of course. Which I do. "I'd rather have a coffee, if it's all the same."
"The day you don't want a coffee is the day we get seriously worried about you, Deeks," Callen says and then I hear his footsteps going over to the machine. The coffee in the Mission is actually pretty rank, but it's still a lot better than tea.
"Can I see it go down?" Again there is one of those ominous silences. "Come on, I'm not stupid. I was shot right outside the Mission and it has to be on tape, right? I bet you've all seen it."
"I'm not sure that's such a good idea," Nell says, almost timidly for her.
Hetty interrupts, speaking in that crisp, no-nonsense voice of hers. "Nonsense. There is nothing worse than not knowing and imagining." She sounds as if she is speaking from experience. "You are sure about this, Mr Deeks?"
I've got both hands wrapped around the coffee cup, because all of a sudden I am freezing cold and trying not to shiver, but I manage to nod and then take a sip of blissfully hot coffee. By some miracle my chattering teeth don't bite a chunk out of the mug. I already know the worst, so what's the big deal about seeing myself getting shot on some surveillance video? I got shot saving Kensi and she feels guilty, which is why she's been hanging around me, looking after me so tenderly. My problem is that I thought it meant something more. And it's my problem, not Kensi's.
"I don't think it's a good idea." Kensi's voice is still low, but it is resolute.
"I need to know, Kensi. I have to see what happened." Hetty is right: tehre is nothing worse than not knowing. I think. Then again, I was quite happy deluding myself that maybe I had a chance with Kensi.
"Fine. Just don't expect me to watch it with you. Living through it was bad enough, thank you very much. I don't need to see it again, because I'm never going to forget a single moment."
I want to tell her that I need her to be there with me when I see it unfold on-screen, because we've already been through the worst together, but before I can say anything she's walking away with that staccato stride that tells me she's mad. I should have known the 'new, improved' Kensi, the soft and caring Kensi wouldn't last long. And I know I've managed to screw up all over again.
"Go after her, Sam." He looks at me in astonishment. "Go on. She's mad and she's hurting and if I know Kensi she needs to hit somebody or something. And you're the biggest one here. So take her into the gym and let her get rid of all that anger."
Because I'm scared for Kensi right now. I'm as scared for her as I was that moment when I saw the gun barrel sticking out of the car, or when I heard the first shot, the one that went whistling past my left ear as I made this desperate lunge towards her. And it strikes me that I just want Kensi to be alright, more than anything. That almost knocks me for six (not that it would take a whole lot to knock me down right now) because I can't ever remember feeling like this about anyone, not ever. Generally, I'm a selfish bastard, if you want to know the truth, but somehow Kensi has managed to change that. More than anything, I just want Kensi to be alright. She's hurting right now and I can't stand the thought of that.
"You're sure? Because if you need me…?"
Sam's got a huge heart, it's just that he hides it underneath this thick veneer of gruffness most of the time. I know he's there for me and somehow just knowing that makes it easier to do this, because it would be good to have Sam's solid, reassuring presence beside me when I watch the tape.
"I think Kensi needs you more than I do right now." The fact that I need her is utterly irrelevant. I'll manage. I've managed to go for years by myself and I guess I can do it a while longer. That's just the way things are in my life. My family could have been featured on a poster kids for dysfunctional living, after all.
Callen steps forward. "You go, Sam. I'll be here." He turns to me. "I've been down this road too."
He has, of course. Callen knows about being shot and about finding out the woman you love doesn't love you. His actions that sum up this team in one word: solidarity. I don't know where I would be or even who I would be without them and I hope I don't have to find out. Only I don't know if I'm going to be able to stay here much longer, what with Kensi feeling the way she does.
Once I've finished my coffee I manage to stagger up to Ops, with Callen strategically positioned behind me, just in case I fall back down again. That's what I mean about how we all look out for each other, because sometimes it's the small things that say the most. That's one of the reasons I love this job so much, because I never had that sense of back-up or brotherhood in LAPD. Plus the really cool gadgets we get are kind of great. And then there is Kensi, of course. It always comes back to Kensi in the end.
God help me, because I think I'm in love with Kensi. And I know I don't stand a chance with her. How many times has she told me that, or made it clear that we will never be anything but partners? How many times does she have to tell me that we're like brother and sister? I have to respect the way she feels. I can't say anything or do anything to let her know how I feel, because that would ruin everything. So here's the rub: do I suffer in silence and try to deny how I feel, or do I just walk away right now? I'm honestly not sure I can hide things much longer.
Okay: here are the facts. I've got to look at this objectively. Kensi only stayed over at my apartment out of a sense of duty. Nothing else. She feels guilty because I got shot and she didn't. She's fond of me, because I'm her partner and we spend a lot of time together. She loves me like she'd love a brother.
I don't want to be her brother: I want to be her lover. I know that. I guess I've always known that since the moment we first met, only then I wasn't thinking so much about love but more about sex. Raw, unbridled sex, which is what she represented to me back then. But now I want to love her and to be loved by her and I want to make love to her for the rest of my life. Only I know that if I give in to my impulses then I could ruin everything, I could take what has pulled us together and I could tear it apart into a hundred thousand tiny pieces that would scatter to the winds and be lost forever. If I did that, then I'd lose her. Because now Kensi means everything to me.
Can I keep on pretending? Or can I walk away and never see her again? Do I really have a choice? What would I do without Kensi? I try to tell myself that I don't have to think about this right now, I don't have to make any decisions, all I have to do is concentrate on watching the tapes and filling in the blanks in my memory. There is the vaguest chance things might start to make sense then. Just like there's a chance I might wake up tomorrow and find my leg is completely healed. So I reckon that I'll watch the tape and then I'll go home, get that bottle of rum I've been keeping for some special occasion and drink myself stupid. I might even put on a Johnny Cash CD and howl along as Johnny suffers for us all. I hurt myself today… ain't that the truth? And I think I hurt Kensi too. Why else would she go storming off like that? Some partner I am.
So I limp slowly into Ops, where Eric has got all the tapes cued up, and I sit down and start to watch. It's kind of disconcerting, watching yourself wandering along the street, chatting to Kensi and all the time you can see the car coming closer and closer and you just know what is going to happen. The only blessing is that there is no sound. I'm not sure I wouldn't leap right out of my chair if I actually heard the gunshots.
It seems my memory was playing tricks on me. I hadn't remembered the car slowing down for just long enough to let the gunman out, but there it is, all happening in front of me, and he has his gun leveled at Kensi. That's when I lunge towards her, shoving her out of the way, so that she goes sprawling, and at the same time I'm reaching for my gun.
"Too slow," I say critically. "Too damned slow."
"Not bad, under the circumstances," Callen says. "If you'd pulled your gun instead of pushing Kensi down, then she'd have been dead. You made the right choice."
"Undoubtedly," Hetty says. "I always knew you had good instincts."
I realise that they have already watched the tape, that they know exactly what is happening and what is going to happen because they have seen it a dozen times or more. I wonder if Kensi has watched it too?
It's hard to sit still and not react when I see the bullet explode through my leg. One instant, I'm swinging around, getting myself into position to fire off a round, the next thing the leg of my jeans is covered in blood and I'm falling down onto the ground. And as I do so, Kensi rolls over and fires this incredible shot that gets the shooter right in the head. It's as if she's shooting at a paper target, that's how cool she is.
"That's my girl!" I can't help myself and everyone bursts out laughing as Eric zooms in and then freezes the tape, so that Kensi's face fills the screen. She looks like a beautiful avenging angel. I've never seen such a look of concentrated fury and purpose on her face before and I'll never forget it.
"Bulls-Eye Blye - nobody shoots my partner and lives to tell the tale!" Callen jokes and then turns serious. "There's more, but you don't have to see it, not if you don't want to."
The thing is that I really don't want to, but I kind of know I have to. If I'm ever going to try to make some coherent sense out of all this, then I need to know exactly what happened. I just wish that Kensi was here too. She was there for me then, when I was lying on the sidewalk thinking I was going to bleed to death and I just wish she was here now. I look over to the doors and if sheer willpower could make them open, then any second now I'm going to hear that familiar subdued 'whoosh' and Kensi will come walking in. I stare a bit harder, and wish just a little bit more fervently, but nothing happens. And I realise that I've had a thing for her for so long, and that everyone must have known, up to and including Kensi. If she'd felt the same way, she would have said something, or done something. Or even come back, so that I wasn't sitting here by myself, like this island in the middle of the room, as everyone else stands around and looks at me expectantly.
"I want to see it. Play the tape, Eric."
How bad can it be?
Do you really want me to answer that?
Poor Deeks, he's in a bad place right now... and poor Kensi isn't much better. Will what he's about to see change his mind? Will Sam manage to talk some sense into Kensi? Will Hetty lock our star-crossed lovers into a room and make them both face up to their feelings once and for all?
Obviously, I don't want to give too much away, but I will say that slushy plot bunny is standing waiting in the wings and he's hopping agitatedly from foot to foot. Or should that be paw to paw? No matter, because I reckon he's going to be making an entrance any time now. It's either that or he's desperate for the loo...