Chapter 5

It was the last day of the case, and Kensi didn't know what the hell to do with herself. She should have stayed and helped plan the raid, but she couldn't. She had slapped (and a few other things) her best friend and run away from her problems.

If she went back to the bullpen, they would ask questions. All of them. Sam would make a crack about getting on her bad side, Callen would nod knowingly in that way that only he can, and she just couldn't face it. So she ran. Out of the office, off the block, down the street, towards the boardwalk.

She didn't know why. It was like something was pulling her there. She kept running, in her sensible shoes and flouncy top, completely out of place with the hard-core runners that kept popping up left and right. She kept running until she saw the ocean.

It's not that far from the office to the ocean, actually. It always seems like a densely wooded area, but the trees back off real quick when the ocean's near, and the ocean comes fast in this area.

She hit the boardwalk and reveled in the hollow sound it makes when you slam your feet against its worn boards. She just kept running. There was salty wind in her ponytail and cacophonous drumming from the guys with buckets down the way. As her shoes hit sand, she started to slow. She slowed enough to take off her shoes, one by one, tilting to either side to shuck them into the sand. She slowed more to let her toes sink into the soft, white beach of southern California, bright and shiny and perfect. And she slowed finally to a stop right at the water's edge, clamoring down the hill to where the tides stopped. Finally she was still.

Kensi looked around. It was Thursday morning, so it wasn't very busy on the boardwalk, and there were few people spread out on blankets or under umbrellas. It was too early for the lunch crowd to start lining up around the food trucks in the parking lot, bros in business suits completely out of sync with the ocean-scape around them. But it wasn't to early for the surfers.

It took her a moment to realize it. But the only real people up at this hour on the beach were people with boards. Not the little boogies, or ones paired with a long oar. It was too rough for that. This was the golden hour, when the classic surfers came out. And they were all around her. With each breath another came from over her shoulder, running with their board and hollering to their friends as they hit the water. They dove and paddled like a strange school of fish, chasing the same waves.

Kensi sat right at the water's edge for a long time. It may have only been minutes, but it felt like hours. She felt herself get invested in each surfer's attempt to catch a wave; excited when they did and upset when they plummeted from its heights.

It could have been forever. Who could tell? Only that one surfer began to catch her eye consistently. He was shiny and bronzed, golden and handsome and good. It was hundreds of yards away but she could tell. He was handsome and good. He caught waves the rest couldn't. He scored tricks in the tunnels others wouldn't dare. And he always had a big grin on his face. Kensi could see it from the beach.

As time passed and the morning hour waned, the waves became less, in anticipation of the mid-day tide. As they grew less, more and more surfers glided in. They picked up their boards, grabbed the shoulders of their friends and siblings, talking about this wave and that pass and did you see them when they hit the tunnel? All shuffling off with boards in tow, off to their day jobs or whatever they do when they aren't riding the sea.

But not him. Kensi watched as he took wave after wave. Even the smaller ones, ones you wouldn't even give the time of day during the golden hour, but became palatable once the good time was gone. He kept diving towards the waves, riding up and over the bouncing surf over and over.

Kensi watched, transfixed. It was as if he was surfing away from something. But that was ridiculous. If anything, surfing was a tangential sport. You never surfed away or toward anything, only against it. Right next to it. But still he tried.

He tried over and over again, until an impossible moment happened. It was magic, as if he felt defeat by the waves. That there were no more good waves to be ridden this morning. In truth, it was probably an alarm on his waterproof watch, or a look at the clock tower down the Bay, but in that moment, when he suddenly turned from chasing waves to letting them take him back to land, to Kensi it felt like magic.

It felt more like magic as he continued to ride the swell in, getting closer and closer. Soon her mysterious handsome surfer became a defined person, one she knew well. As he came closer, the disheveled sun-streaked blonde became familiar, the quirk of his eyebrows and dopey grin becoming recognizable. By the time his feet hit the sand, carrying his beloved board with copper wings painted on the fin end, Kensi knew it was him.

"Kensi, what are you doing here?"

She didn't even know how to begin to answer that question. To explain that she had to run, something she never did, to explain that when all is said and done, people leave her. Everyone she loves has left her at one time or another, but now she knows better. Now she leaves first. She couldn't find the words to explain it. She settled for this:

"I didn't know you still surfed."

That made him laugh. Big hyena cackles that she teases him about when things aren't so hard.

"Kensi, I'm always surfing," Deeks answered, smile still stretched across his face. "Since I left NCIS, I've been able to surf every day. I've missed a few weeks because of the undercover op, but I never stopped surfing."

Kensi nodded, as if this was sage advice, the key to the universe. He took notice of her silence and dropped his board, scooping her up in the tightest hug she could imagine. His arms, toned from undercover and the waves, made bands of pressure around her waist and her ribcage, and he pressed so closely to her that she could still smell the algae stink of the sea and feel his heartbeat through his chest.

Deeks still said nothing. They just stood there, clasped tightly together, unable to let the other go.

Kensi broke the silence first.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?" he asked, and she could hear his furrowed brow in his voice.

"Before I met you, before you transferred to NCIS, Nate and I were… I don't know, dating I guess."

"I kinda figured based on his sunny reception."

"No, Deeks," she felt him stiffen at his last name, "—Marty, we were together. I was in love with him."

Kensi paused, waiting for some kind of reaction. She waited a long time, as she could feel him thinking as they swayed, feet ankle deep in the California sand.

"Sure."

His reaction startled her. It was so calm, so simple.

"Sure?"

"Yeah, sure," he repeated. "You were in love with someone before you met me? That's what almost always happens."

She pulled away at that.

"You don't understand," Kensi insisted. "I was in love with him. Very much. And I think part of me still is."

"What do you want me to say, Kens?" he asked, hesitating just before saying the nickname. "You can't possibly love anyone else in the world? Only me? There are lots of different kinds of love. You and your dad? Deep, paternal love. Sam and Callen? That inexplicable brotherly love of chosen family. Nate? He's the one who you loved who left. Who left a hole in your heart that you've mostly filled over, but still has a little hole, right down deep. Don't expect me to fill that hole. It's always going to be there. But I can cover it over sometimes. Wrap you in my arms just like this and tell you it's all okay. Because it is."

Deeks reached out and pulled Kensi in again, cradling the back of her head in his big, dumb hands and starting to sway again.

"You are not my first love, Kensi Blye. I know I'm not yours either. But you're going to be my last love. I promise you that. Forever."

At that moment, everything that had happened since Nate returned seemed to dissipate, leaving just Kensi and Marty and the California sunshine and the waves. And at that moment, finally feeling like herself again, Kensi started to cry.

(A/N): Okay, so I know it's been ages. Literal ages. I started this fic when I was a wee high schooler, and now I'm out of college. But I feel terrible about unfinished things, so here's another chapter. It should be finished with one more.

Thank you all for sticking with it, favoriting it and commenting. And if you're still with this damn thing, you deserve a cookie.