Deeks has been under enough times to know this is normal - that there comes a point in every deep-cover when you're up to your elbows in cocaine, boxed in by crates of assault rifles, or staring at a trunk full of armor-piercing rounds and you just think... fuck.
It's not that he can't do this anymore, it's that he doesn't want to do this anymore, to be this anymore. He doesn't want to spend another second looking at the dickhead face of Emilio Ortega as he regales a throng of mindless brutes with tales of a 'bitch' he taught a lesson and the joy that it brought him. Deeks doesn't want to listen to him crow about how loud she screamed, to see the scratch marks on Ortega's arm and laugh approvingly at how she had it coming. He wants to take the asshole by the throat and slam him up against the wall; send his knee into Emilio's balls and watch him crumble to the floor, gasping for air.
That's what he wants to do.
He closes his eyes briefly and takes a deep breath, relaxing his fingers when he realizes the hold he has on the newspaper is crumbling it. He sets aside the page he's been staring blindly at for the last ten minutes and sifts through the rest of some other patron's discarded newspaper, hoping to at least give the illusion that he's actually reading.
He pauses at an unfamiliar picture, a frown creeping across his face as he sees the print below it.
"Sorry I'm late," his handler says quietly, startling him out of his trance. He hadn't heard her slip into the adjacent booth. Their backs are to each other and other than the slight jump at her greeting he makes no indication he's heard her. "I see you finished the funnies and had to resort to a little heavier material."
He grunts in response, setting the page aside and locating the sports section.
He hears the waitress arrive and take Traynor's order - a glass of orange juice and half a bagel - and then disappear with a promise to return shortly.
Deeks waits until she's out of earshot before snapping the paper open in front of him.
"We're finalising another house purchase tomorrow," he says just loud enough for Traynor to hear. "I get the impression that it won't be the last."
"That's what you expected."
"I also get the impression that they'll never feel comfortable enough to let me in on any valuable info. Emilio's still keeping me at arm's length - just far enough that I'm on the outside of anything that would actually be useful, but close enough that I'm always within sight of him."
"You'll get your break."
He takes a sip of stale, cold coffee and tries to keep the hopelessness he feels from creeping into his voice. "I'm really starting to doubt that."
A moment of silence steals between them, feeding his foul mood. The booth trembles slightly beneath him as Traynor adjusts her weight.
"There's always the shipment." She ends her sentence with a slight upward inflection, almost turning it into a question.
"Yeah," he turns a page sharply, his frustration threatening his composure, "let's just forget about the underage girls that have to be drugged and ripped out of their homes for that to happen. I'm sure they won't mind the inconvenience as long as I manage to make my case."
The text in front of him blurs into unreadable grey and he listens to the waitress deftly deposit Traynor's order, the muffled clink of ceramic on formica betraying her length of time tied up behind the apron. She glides past Deeks as she threads her way through the sparsely populated diner toward one of the tables in the back.
It's silent for a few minutes before coins clatter on the table behind him and he feels Traynor slip out of her booth. She stops before moving past his table, turning back and bending down to grab something from the floor beside his feet.
"Excuse me," she says, and he folds the page he wasn't reading, revealing her bright smile as she holds out a slip of paper. "You must have dropped this."
"Thanks." He takes the paper and watches as she walks out the door, the overhead bell jingling behind her.
Once she's out of sight, he looks down at the paper she's given him. It's her receipt for breakfast, advising that her total comes to $2.78 and she should 'have a nice day!' Bethany, the waitress, has added a smiley face at the top.
He flips it over and finds an address scrawled hastily in a familiar hand.
Five minutes later, he drains the last of his coffee and slides out of the booth. He reaches across the table and snags the page he'd set aside earlier, working it down into a tri-fold before tucking it into his back pocket and heading out the door.
Jess presses the button to buzz him in and then goes to unbolt her front door, cracking it open slightly before making her way to the kitchen. She collects two tall glasses and fills them with ice and filtered water, returning to the living room just as Marty steps inside.
His eyebrows raise in surprise as he takes in her apartment. "Reuben never had me make house calls."
She snorts in amusement and hands him one of the glasses. "There are a lot of things Reuben never did for you."
"And this is for me?"
She drops onto the sofa, motioning for him to do the same. "Yes and no."
He obliges, settling in beside her, the cushions shifting under his weight.
She sips slowly from her glass before setting it onto the glass surface in front of her. Her body shifts back into her corner of the sofa and she shifts her gaze to Marty, focusing on him fully for the first time in a long time. Too long. She's met with him five times since the operation began, but before this afternoon she hasn't had a chance to look him in the eye.
She pulls her leg up and tucks it under her as she appraises him, waiting for some confirmation whether her instinct in bringing him here was right. The darkness she finds - the tiredness and hopelessness that's smothering his usual glow - tells her it was.
"Emilio's in Mexico for a few days setting up something on that end," he informs her. "He'll be back Wednesday."
She nods. "Then take a few days for yourself. Give yourself space; clear your head. Hell, rent a board and go surfing if you have to, but get your head back in the game, Marty. You're drowning."
He shakes his head. "I'll stay afloat."
She nods, sure that he will. There's a reason Marty always gets the jobs like this - a reason he's the undercover golden boy of the precinct. He gets things done. It's a combination of skill, determination and the complete disregard for his own personal cost that ensure he'll stay with any assignment he's given until the bitter end.
On this case that's exactly what she's counting on.
"When I was twelve," she says, clearing her throat to keep her voice even, "my cousin was my favorite person on the planet."
She stands, walking over to the bookshelf beside her television. Her eyes scan the frames she has displayed there, pausing on the small photo tucked into a large, framed picture of her parents.
She returns to the couch and holds it out to him. "Christina. That's her on the right."
He points to the girl on the left. "Which makes that little Jessica."
She nods.
"You guys look happy."
"We were." She drops back onto the couch. "Like I said, I loved that girl; idolized her. She was fourteen and so charismatic."
"I bet you were too."
"Not like Christina."
He tries to hand her the picture but she waves it off. He settles it in his lap but his attention turns to her.
"One night we were walking home from the store - we'd gone to buy some ice cream sandwiches - and a van pulled up beside us. Two guys jumped out and they, uh," she clears her throat again, "they tried to grab us."
She tries not to picture it, to tell the story as a set of facts she long ago committed to memory instead of reliving it. But she can't - the sound of Christina's soda can hitting the ground, the metal rolling into the street, still echoes in her ears.
"She was wearing these, these flip-flops - I remember them exactly because I thought they were so great. They were purple with these plastic rhinestone things right at the center where the strap goes between the toes." She remembers how jealous she was, how amazing she thought it would be to wear those shoes with matching purple toenail polish and a sparkly purple top. "They weren't made for running."
Marty shifts beside her, but she doesn't let herself look at him, doesn't let herself break stride.
"I managed to get away. Adrenaline and terror and the sound of her voice. She kept yelling at me, yelling for me to run." Jess sweeps angrily at a tear. "I didn't even look back."
She never turned to see Christina's face, but she can see it in her mind anyway, just as clearly as the plastic rhinestone between her toes.
"They found her body eighteen months later down in some town near Mexico City. The FBI made a big bust on a human traffic ring. She was one of the victims they found. One of the casualties that wasn't found in time." She finally turns to face him, knowing she has to make sure he hears her, that her message hits home. "This is important, Marty."
"I know."
"I'm not going to stop until these guys are behind bars," she says, hoping that he understands what she's trying to say, even when she can't actually say it. "I'm going to do whatever it takes. No matter what."
"So will I." He meets her gaze, jaw set in determination. "I promise you that."
He crashes on her couch a few hours later, day one of his involuntary hiatus from Dale John Sully. When he leaves the next morning, she gives him the picture - partly because she wants him to have the motivation, but mostly because she knows she needs to let it go.
She's already in this case too deep. The less emotion she has pulling her down, the better her chance of coming out of this in one piece.
"You good?"
Kensi looks up to find Sam standing beside her, the crowd having thinned without her noticing.
"Yeah." She nods too quickly and she has to swipe at a tear. "I'm good."
His eyes crinkle with concern but he doesn't voice it. Instead, he nods, allowing her the courtesy of keeping up the pretense.
She knows he's been here before, and that he's suffering too. She knows he'll have something to say, some way of trying to talk her into feeling better. But she doesn't want to feel better. She can't. Not now. Not here.
Not yet.
Callen appears on the other side of Sam, his mouth set in a thin line.
Sam looks to Callen and then to Kensi. "Ready to go?"
She shakes her head. "I'm going to stay a few minutes more."
He puts his hand on her shoulder and gently squeezes. "We'll see you there."
She turns back as they walk away, footsteps silent in the thick, green grass.
She holds herself together as the last few mourners make their way back to the road, but once she's sure she's alone her silent tears become sobs, and her shoulders start to shake.
It's mysterious, this pull Kensi has on him. It's not something Deeks can explain. He saw her partner's name in the obituaries and wanted to support her, to reach out and - what, give her a hug? It's ridiculous, he realizes belatedly, because she has support. She has an entire team of it, and coworkers and probably family and people she cares about and he's just... he doesn't even know what he is. An acquaintance, maybe. A friend? Unlikely.
But he wanted to be there for her. He wanted that for him - to make sure she is okay and to see it for himself.
Which is what brought him here to the cemetery where he lurks in the shadows like some sort of stalker, watching as a woman he barely knows breaks down in front of him, thinking she's completely alone.
As if she's reached the end of some pre-determined period of time, she straightens her spine, swiping at her cheeks to dry them as she pulls herself back into the picture she wants to present. He feels helpless watching it, feels like he doesn't have anything to offer, but something he can't identify compels him to at least try, drowning out the voice in his head instructing him to back away slowly and pretend he was never here.
She doesn't turn around when he steps up beside her, her gaze straight ahead when she speaks.
"Sam, I promise I'm fine."
"Well then my work here is done."
Kensi looks up, startled. Her wide eyes meet his. "Deeks."
"Hey, Fern."
She glares, but the streaks of makeup tracking down her face take away the weight of it. "I hate that name."
"Pretty sure you don't."
She swipes her fingers under her eyes. "It's the mascara."
He bites back a smile and scrunches his nose. "Maybe a little."
She sighs and shakes her head, returning her eyes forward. He follows her gaze and waits silently. It's a few minutes before she speaks.
"How was the op?"
"Still going. It's on pause for a few days while the target's out of town."
She spares him a glance. "And you thought you'd use your temporary reprieve to take in a funeral for a guy you never knew?"
"I saw his name," he says. "I wanted to pay my respects."
"You didn't know him." She repeats herself, as if he hadn't heard the first time.
"I know you." It's not enough of an explanation, probably, but it's all he can give her. It's all he has.
She's quiet for a moment before turning to face him. "Take me somewhere."
Anywhere, he thinks, but he doesn't say it. "You want me to drop you at the reception?"
She shakes her head.
"Somewhere else."
Deeks grabs the towel that's clutched under his arm, but Kensi drops onto the sand before he has a chance to spread it out.
He abandons the towel, tossing it aside before easing down next to her. She knows she looks ridiculous - her black dress crinkled, hair falling from her knot, shoes tossed aside and makeup smeared across her face. She thinks maybe she should care, but can't bring herself to do it.
When she glances at Deeks he's staring at the waves, a deep frown creasing his brow.
"You're thinking pretty hard over there," she says softly.
The crease disappears as he smiles. "It's been known to happen on occasion."
"Not very often, I imagine."
"Not very often," he agrees easily. "But probably more than you'd care to give me credit for."
She digs her toes into the sand, watching as the specks of white smother the dark black of her nails. "Is it a tough op?"
"Are there ever any easy ones?"
She flexes her toes and the sand falls away. "Some are easier than others."
"Then this would fall under the 'others' category."
A gentle wind blows loose hair across her face and she tucks it behind her ear. She's oddly comfortable with him, comfortable with silence between them, with his presence - which doesn't even make sense because he's Deeks. If he isn't a stranger, he's an annoying, frustrating acquaintance and certainly not someone she should be spending moments like this with. But she likes him here and she's inexplicably glad that he is.
"I saw him again before he died" she says, the words pushing their way out of her mouth like they've been waiting to escape. Maybe they have. "He thought he was rescued. He was -" She looks up at the horizon, like it's possible that if she tips her head at the right angle her tears won't spill over. "He was almost rescued. We were there, Deeks. We were right there."
"Then he wasn't alone."
"That doesn't matter."
"It does," he insists, looking at her, something more than understanding in his eyes. "Of course it does."
She wants so badly to believe that's true.
They sit there for the better part of an hour, silently watching the waves come in. Something - the rhythm, the monotony, maybe even his company - lulls her into a sort of muddled peace. She's not okay, but with each new breath she takes she's more convinced she will be.
Her stomach growls to remind her of the passage of time and she knows her phone will probably show several missed calls when she gets back to her car. Sam and Callen will be worried.
"I should get back."
He nods and takes a deep breath, like it's one that will have to hold him a while. "Me too."
She grabs her shoes and he's there above her, hand outstretched. She takes it.
"Thank you," she says as he pulls her to her feet, "for this, for today. For coming."
He releases her. "You're welcome. Thanks for the company."
She watches as he collects his shoes and towel. She looks at him, really looks at him, for the first time today.
"You going to be okay, Deeks? You're going to make it to the other side of this, right?"
He smiles, but his eyes aren't in it. "You're worried about me?"
"You were worried about me first!"
"True." He starts toward the parking lot and she falls into step. "I was worried. But you shouldn't be. I'm going to be just fine."
She thinks about offering to give him her number - in case he finds himself in need of some tech experts or an ex-Navy SEAL, but she thinks it's possibly insulting and maybe too forward and probably a silly thing to do.
After all, she's seen him in the field. He's right, she's sure.
He's going to be just fine.