Come midday and we're sitting in a small restaurant, with brightly coloured Mexican tiles on the white-painted walls, slowly working our way through a platter of incredible food. The place is busy, but not over-crowded, and the quiet buzz of conversation fills the air. This is the ideal way to spend a relaxing Saturday – good food, great company and a pretty decent bottle of the first time in a long, long time, I feel like a normal person once again – only better. Now I'm one half of a couple, and I realise that makes me feel whole, complete in a way that I'd never felt before. We could be in a different world, rather than just a few miles drive away from LA. In Carmel we can just be ourselves and nobody cares. We're just another couple – even if Kensi is the most beautiful woman in town. Most of all, we don't have to be on guard the whole time, always looking over our shoulders, just in case we might be spotted.
"So you're happy?" I ask.
Kensi nods, her eyes bright and sparkling. "Oh yes."
"Happy enough to share it with the world?"
"Happy enough to share it with the rest of OSP, you mean?" she asks shrewdly. "Yes, I think I am." She picks up her wineglass and runs her finger around the rim. "I owe you an explanation, don't I?"
"You don't owe me anything. But I'd like to know – if you want to talk about it." And some people say I can't be tactful? I can be the soul of discretion, if I have to be.
"I need to talk about it. I should have talked about it a long time ago, only I couldn't. There was always something holding me back. And then it seemed like too much had passed between us, and it was just too difficult. But for a long time, I was just too frightened to let myself love again. Love was a threat, you see. Love tore my parents apart."
Her eyes are distant, as if she is looking back across the years. "That's what I thought. Only it turns out that I was wrong. I spent all these years loathing my mother, believing she'd fallen in love with another man and ruined my father's life, only to find out it was all a lie. Nothing's really so black and white, is it? I learnt that my mother was trying to protect me – her only child. And how did I repay that love? By running straight back to my father and then refusing to have anything more to do with her." She shakes her head in disbelief.
"You never stopped loving her, did you?" I can tell from the way she speaks, from the anger that Kensi is driving in on herself, so I reach out across the table and take hold of her free hand. "You never stopped loving her and she never stopped loving you."
"But I hurt her so much!" Kensi cries fiercely. "And when I went to her house, she had all these photos of me – right from when I was a baby. Only they stopped after a certain date, so that I'm forever this little girl. When she thinks of me, I bet she sees this hateful brat who is screaming at her: I hate you, I don't love you. I don't want you – I want my daddy. And now I know why she took me away – because she was trying to protect me. Because she loved me. How could I have said these things?"
"Because you were only a little girl – a frightened, angry little girl who was hurting so much. And she knew that." Kensi doesn't know how lucky she is to have had two parents who loved her so much, who both wanted to protect her. Except that sometimes love hurts, you see. I don't think there was a single member of the Blye family who emerged unscathed. With Kensi, I always knew not to push too hard, because I could tell that the hurt was so deep, so integral that she could never speak about it. Until now, that is.
"And then when I found out that she was alive, and that she was in danger, I suddenly realised that I didn't hate her after all. And that I needed her in my life. So I asked the one person I could trust to make sure she was okay. You."
"Me," I agree. At the time, I hadn't known what to think, except that Kensi needed me and that I wasn't going to let her down. But right enough – she trusted me to make sure her mother was alright. She put her mother's life in my hands. That makes me feel kind of humble.
"And you just did what I needed you to do. No questions asked."
I think back to how Kensi was that day: wound up so tight that just one tiny bit of additional pressure would make her snap. So brittle and so vulnerable, so tense - it was a side of Kensi I'd never seen before. Sure, there was a whole big part of me that wanted to protect her, to take her into my arms and hold her, tell her that everything would be okay – but that would have been counterproductive. That wasn't what Kensi needed right then. She needed to know her mother would be safe and she'd entrusted me with that responsibility. And then she needed to be able to go and do what she needed to do with no outside distractions.
"Can I ask a question now?" It's been bugging me for ages, because Kensi has never spoken about her mother since that one brief conversation.
"Why not?" She takes a large swallow of wine, perhaps for some Dutch courage.
"How are things between you now? I mean, I talked to your mom: she seemed like a nice lady."
"She liked you too. She told me I'd be a fool to let you get away."
"Really?"
"Really. My mom's a pretty smart lady. And she's a nice lady too. She thought you were sweet. And hot."
"I liked her too." I might even send her some flowers when we get back to LA.
"But there's a lot of time between us. We've got a lot of things to catch up on. And it's never going to be the same again – not like the way it was." There's a lot of resigned sadness in Kensi's voice. "I'm not her little girl any more, you see."
"I'm guessing you'll always be her little girl, sweetheart."
"Do you think so?" There's a catch in her voice when she says that, and she grips onto my hand so tightly I can almost feel the bones grind against one another.
"I know so." I'd seen the love shine out of her eyes, you see, when I mentioned Kensi.
"Anyway, I've been to see my mom a few times, and we're getting there. But it's strange – almost like we're two strangers, with only the past in common. And I spent so long trying to find my dad's killer, that 'd almost forgotten about Mom. And then once it was all over, I felt sort of empty. My weekends were my own again, but I didn't know what to say to my mother. And then, when you got shot, and there was that whole time we thought we might lose you." She shudders at the memory. "And that just made everything a whole lot worse. There was a lot of time to think for a couple of days, just sitting and hoping you'd wake up – and that was when I realised that all along I thought I'd been looking for revenge, only I hadn't. That wasn't the point at all."
"You needed justice, didn't you? For your father. Not revenge."
"How did you know that?" Her eyes are wide with surprise
Well, that's kind of easy. You see, that's why I went into law school in the first place, because I'd seen how the system can fail people, and I thought that was the way I could make a difference. And that was the reason I joined the police, because I discovered that I couldn't make enough of a difference with the law – the damage is already been done by the time lawyers got involved. And I wanted to try to stop the pain and the hurt. But this isn't about me: it's about Kensi. She's had so many years of hurt that she's bottled up inside herself and now she's finally letting go. This isn't the time for my story. I'm not sure that there will ever be the right time to tell my story.
"Because I love you? And because I know you, Kensi." Sometimes I think I know her better than I know myself. "Maybe we can try to make sense of all this together?"
"Maybe we can. Maybe we can put the past behind us and just concentrate on the present - and even the future?"
Finally, she's able to let go and that means we can go forward. "Baby girl – we can do anything." I've never been more sure of anything in my entire life. And the only thing that feels better than this is when you catch a wave at just exactly the right moment and start soaring upwards, like you're never going to stop.
"There's just one thing. And it's a big thing. I'm going to have to ask a big favour of you." She's chewing her bottom lip, which is always a bad sign with Kensi. Of course, it gets to me right away.
"Anything." Do I sound desperate? Actually, I don't care if I do or not. Whatever it takes, that's what I'll do. No questions asked.
"Great. In that case, you can tell them. Back at the Mission, I mean. When I'm nowhere around." And she's grinning now, grinning from ear to ear.
"You got me there." And do you know what? I don't care. If that means facing down Sam, and Callen and Hetty – plus Eric and Nell, then that's fine. Actually, I'm kind of looking forward to it. What – you think I don't know they all talk about us behind our backs? That they talk about 'Densi', for crying out loud, like we're no longer separate entities. Nobody is going to be surprised. Except possibly Kensi, who'll be surprised at the lack of surprise, if that makes sense.
"Oh, I've got you, Deeks. I've got you and I'm never letting you go."
Do you know what? That sounds just fine with me. You see, when it comes right down to it, I was smitten with her, but Kensi was stuck on me.
We spend the afternoon walking around the town, just like normal people do. Normal people who don't go around carrying guns and generally saving the world on what seems like a daily basis. It feels so amazing to be strolling along and holding Kensi's hand. Everywhere we go, there are loads of dogs and I feel kind of sad that Monty's not here.
"Next time, we'll bring Monty." Kensi squeezes my hand. "He'll love it."
"Next time? You mean we're coming back?"
"Definitely. We've got to do more things like this, don't you think?"
Making time to be together? What is there to argue about that? "I think."
We're walking past this shop, selling all sorts of toys for big boys with large bank balances. You know the sort of thing I'm talking about: paragliding supplies, bungee ropes, kite surfing paraphenalia – equipment for people who love the rush of adrenalin in the morning. Something for the man who lives dangerously. And of course I'm standing there, with my tongue practically hanging out.
"No. I'm not ready for that sort of thing yet. And neither are you."
Kensi grabs hold of my belt and tugs, but I'm not moving. Not until I'm good and ready. Or she snogs me. It's good to be flexible, I've found.
I wonder if anyone ever told Kensi that when she gets all masterful she is almost impossible to resist? "I will be – soon." And I give her a meaningful look. She's certainly had no complaints about my performance so far, has she?
"Soon is not the same as now." She puts her hand under my chin and turns my head so that I've got no alternative but to look at her. "I'm not joking, Deeks. You've got to give yourself some time."
See, I can cope with her being masterful, mainly because it turns me on, but it is definitely underhand of her to start being reasonable. That's below the belt. "How about you give me some time instead?"
"That could be arranged. If you're good. Or we could go inside and have a look around?"
Okay, now I am officially confused. And I didn't even have that much to drink at lunchtime. "We could?" How come women can change their minds so quickly? Do they just do to keep us on our toes, wondering what's going to happen next? The more I think about that, the more it makes sense.
"Oh yes. You never know what we might find."
My mind is officially going into over drive. One thing about life with Kensi? It's never dull. Which is good. No, actually it's great. I wouldn't change one single thing.