We're still seeing things through the mirror of Kensi's recollection...

Kensi waited for a moment but only silence greeted her, so she contented herself by raising Deeks' hand up to her lips, dropping a kiss in the palm and then folding his fingers over it.

"You're a great partner, Deeks. You make me laugh and you make me have fun, despite myself. And I know that you are always there for me. Do you know that you are the one person in the whole world that I trust implicitly? No, of course you don't, because I've never told you, have I? Well, I'm telling you now. You are a great partner, Deeks. And you're a pretty amazing person too. You might try to hide it, but I can see what a big heart you have, maybe too big. You might think you can fool everyone else, but you can't fool me. You see, I know you too well. You try to pretend that you are fine, that you've got everything you could possibly want from life, but that's not the truth, is it? You're just as broken inside as I am."

She'd never admitted that to anyone before and most of the time Kensi even tried to deny it to herself, but it was true: she was so screwed up inside that there were some days when nothing seemed to make any sort of sense at all. And now, having finally acknowledged her wounds, she found that her eyes were full of tears, so many that her vision was becoming hazy. Kensi gently laid Deeks' arm back down on the bed and reached for a tissue.

"See what you've done, Deeks? You've made me cry. You stupid, selfish man. I don't cry. I never cry. So don't do this to me, please? Just wake up. I need you, Deeks. I need you to help me make sense of things. I need you to be looking out for me, and I need you to come round with burgers and beer when I've had a crappy day. I just need you, period. Remember when Hunter switched the whole team around and how wrong it felt? Working with Callen was like putting on a pair of shoes that belonged to someone else. And it's a hundred times worse with you lying in that bed, completely out of it. If you knew how much I needed you, then you wouldn't be doing this to me."

But it was no good. No matter what she said, it didn't make any difference. Kensi knew that, she had always known that, it was just that the nurses had said that sometimes patients in a coma could still hear what was being said to them. She had seized onto that message, certain that if anyone could bring Deeks back, then it would be her. Only she was wrong. Nothing she had said had made the slightest bit of difference.

"Come on, Marty. Come back to me. See what I did there? I called you Marty. And I don't do that. I don't do begging either, but I'm going to make an exception here, because you are worth it. You are so worth it. And do you want to know why? Well actually I don't care if you want to know or not, because for once I've got a captive audience and you can't talk back. So that's one good thing that's come out of this, right? I get to talk and you get to listen without interrupting.

You are worth me crying and begging and basically doing whatever the hell I have to do to bring you back. I am not going to give up on you, Marty – because I need you. It's as simple as that. I need you in my life. Don't make a big thing out of that though, okay? It's not like I'm in love with you, or anything like that. Although I might be. I just need you, because I've just discovered that there's big hole appeared in my life right now, and you are the only one who can fill it and make things right again.

You just get to me, Marty Deeks. You get to me in so many ways and I just can't help myself. I tried so hard not to give in, but in the end I guess I didn't try hard enough, because look at me – I'm a wreck. I've not slept since you were shot, my eyes are swollen so much I look like a pig, my nose is running and my hair looks like a bird's nest. You want to know why? Because I don't dare leave you, in case you do something stupid when I'm gone. Like dying or something. That is exactly the sort of thing you would do, isn't it? Just to show me. Hard luck, Marty – because I'm here and I'm not going anywhere until you finally wake up. Okay? So just give in now. You might think you are stubborn, but you don't know anything. I wrote the book on stubborn – only I call it strong-willed. It sounds better that way.

Come on. I can't take much more of this. You're killing me here, Marty. Little bit by little bit. I need you. I need you so much. You just complete me. Come back to me – please come back to me. You've even got me calling you Marty, and I never do that. Not ever. You name me one time when I have called you Marty? See – you can't. Do you want to know why? It's simple. Deeks is my partner, the man I work with on a professional basis. And Marty is the man I'd like to have in my personal life.

So know you know. Finally I've said it. I've got a thing for you. I guess I always have had, right from the start. It might even be love. And there's only one way you can find out – and that's by waking up. Oh Marty, if you just wake up I'm going to take such good care of you, I promise."

It was no good. Nothing she said made any difference, because he just lay there. Kensi was aware that she had finally revealed all her secrets, had exposed the very core of her being and yet it had not made any difference at all. Having put all her cards down on the table and backed them up with everything she owned, it was only to find her hand was royally trumped. She wasn't used to being this helpless, to finding herself in a situation where nothing she said or did made any difference at all.

Kensi's voice falters and she starts over again. "Well, I sat there, and I was holding your hand… and I told you that I'd kill you if you died on me, which was kind of stupid, seeing how I was convinced you were either going to die or stay in a coma forever. And I told you to start making an effort and stop being so lazy, because there was no way I was going to adopt Monty just so you could lie in bed and look gorgeous for your adoring fans."

That doesn't sound right. In fact, I'm pretty sure that wasn't the way it went down, because I do have these vague, disturbing memories of hearing Kensi's voice, and how I kept trying to drift away, like floating in a boat going downstream, only she kept yanking me back. The way I remember it, she kept telling me how great I was and how she needed me. But it's probably just an illusion, my mind keeps playing these tricks on me. Kensi doesn't need anybody – she never has and she never will. This is Kensi, who is so independent that she won't even let our closest friends know we're going away for the weekend together. But if that's the way she wants to play it, then fine.

"You would have taken Monty?" I ask. "Really?"

"What – you think I would have put him into a shelter? As if. Who would adopt Monty? Apart from you." The car stops and she puts her hand on my knee. "We're here now. And about Monty? Just so you know, if I'd had to, then I would have taken him willingly and I would have loved him just as much as I could. Because you loved him. You saw past everything else and you loved him. So I would have loved him, because that way I could still keep on loving you."

Do you know something? If I died right now, then I'd die a happy man. Because I know exactly what she is saying. There will be other times when we can talk about things properly, and maybe even talk about love and commitment, but right now, Kensi has said everything I need to know. It's just that I wish she hadn't said it right at this particular moment when my head is killing me, because the proper response to that sort of thing is definitely not opening the car door and throwing up all over the hospital parking lot. Poor Kensi – what the hell has she got herself into with me?

"Sam needs to speak to you. I've told him the doctor said there was nothing to worry about, but he needs to hear it from you. Despite the fact you are supposed to be resting. Which I told him too."

Judging from the tone of Kensi's voice, and the way her lips are drawn into a thin, straight line, it is a good thing for the sake of Sam's continued health and well-being that he is not here right now.

"I'm fine, Sam. Just a killer headache, which is starting to go now." It's too much of a strain to keep my eyes open, so I just let them drift shut again. I was almost asleep when Kensi came in and now I'm fighting to stay awake.

"That's all? No blood clot or anything like that? You're absolutely sure?" Sam sounds like he's been climbing up the walls with anxiety. You've got to love the big guy and his even bigger heart.

"You've been researching on the internet again, haven't you?"

"Maybe."

I sigh. "Sam – I am fine. Apart from the headache. Which is going now, thanks to the meds. They scanned me again, and there's no blood clot – nothing abnormal. I've just got to take things easy. Like doing three or four hours at work, not a full day, for a bit."

Against all my objections, Kensi had stuck me in this wheelchair and belted along to the ER as hapless passers-by had scattered out of our way. I was feeling so ill that I just sat there, with my head in my hands, because it honestly felt as if it might explode, while Kensi took charge and basically told the medical personnel exactly what they were going to do. Maybe it was the way she said that, or perhaps it had something to do with the gun sticking out of the back of her jeans, or even the fact I threw up again, but I was rushed into this room, and all the poking and proding started all over again And then they made me pee into a cup. Why do doctors always want you to pee into a cup? I was kind of unsteady on my feet, and for one awful moment I thought Kensi was going to insist on helping me, but thankfully she restrained herself.

Anyway, it turns out that killer headaches are nothing unusual after a traumatic head injury. Which is what I'd had. And here I thought I'd just been knocked out. Traumatic head injury sounds a whole lot worse. It sounds like the sort of thing you die from. Or even the sort of thing that makes the people that care about you think you are going to die from. And Kensi kept looking at me like I was made out of glass and might just shatter at any second. But basically, it's all my own fault. This headache, I mean. The doctor had looked at me like I was mad when I'd told him I'd been doing full shifts. It just hadn't struck me that sitting at desk reading could be so tiring, both mentally and physically. So I'm under strict instructions to do no more than four hours and to gradually build my hours back up. For once in my life, I'm going to do as I'm told. I'd pretty much do anything if it means I'm not going to get another headache like this. It felt as if my head was going to explode with the pain.

The good thing is that I've got some new, super-powerful pain pills, the sort that make you feel like you've had three or four shots of tequila and some really good weed. It's the pharmaceutical equivalent of lying in new-mown grass on a hot summer's day and staring up at the sky, trying to vaporize clouds with your mind. What do you mean, you've never done that? You really need to get out and enjoy yourself a bit more. Open yourself up to all the possibilities that are out there – and there's a lot of them, believe me. The even better news is that I think I know where Kensi and I are going. The road ahead might still have a few twists and turns in it, but we can work that out.

Kensi grabs the phone back. "Happy now? Deeks is supposed to be resting, Sam. Not talking to you." She ends the call abruptly. "I told them all this back at the hospital, you know."

"He was just worried."

"Sam was worried? What about me?" And she sounds like she's almost at the end of her tether. I don't blame her. I try to think what I would have been like if the situation was reversed, and I can't begin to imagine it.

"I drove you half crazy, didn't I? Again?"

"More like three quarters crazy. And more of this and they're going to be measuring me for one of those wrap-around cardigans with the extra-long sleeves that tie behind your back. But it's not your fault. And I don't mind. Not really. It wasn't your fault you got shot." The bed dips as Kensi lies down beside me. "I don't mind at all, as long as you're here and you're fine. And you're mine. Nothing else matters."

"I'm yours." My arms reach out blindly for her, and she is right there, just like I knew she would be. "And I'm not going anywhere."

"Except to Carmel tomorrow afternoon. I asked the doctor, and he thought a change of scenery and some complete relaxation would do you a world of good." She sounds strangely smug about that. "And I will take such good care of you, okay?"

The meds are really starting to kick in now, and I can feel myself starting to drift away, with Kensi's arms around me, holding me safe, her fingers running gently through my hair and her lips gently kissing my forehead.

"I will take such good care of you, Marty. I promise. I'm going to love like nobody's loved you."

Maybe I did die when I was shot, because this seems awfully like heaven to me.

"Stay here?" I can't fight the medication any longer: it is pulling me down into velvet-tinged oblivion.

"I'll not going anywhere," she soothes. "I'm just going to lie here beside you, and tell you how much I love you. Because you walked into my life and everything changed. You wrapped my heart around your little finger just with your smile. I've got no defences against you, none at all. I just look at you, and there I go – head over heels in love with you all over again."

There I go too – right down into unconsciousness. Our timing sucks, big time. Kensi's saying all this, she's saying everything I've wanted to hear and I'm virtually passing out. But hey – she said she loved me. For the third time, I think. Maybe next time I might just be able to tell her how much I love her too? With just a little luck. I think I'm owed that much at least – aren't I?

Awww! Slushy plot bunny wins. And now they've got Carmel to look forward to.