Set anytime in the series after Deeks joins the fun. Deeks has a secret.
Disclaimer: I own nothing and no one. I'm just writing them as I want to see them.
Sorry for the long delay in this post. This is a really long chapter because I couldn't find a decent place to split it up. So, Merry Christmas and I hope you enjoy it.
I've written this at the top of every chapter and it's still true: Reviews are a writer's coffee, they keep us going. So please, review.
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The next morning, after a training session with Deeks in the OSP gym, Sam decided to just ask, "Why do you have contacts in DC?"
Deeks stopped what he was doing and looked at Sam, trying to judge why he was asking. "Why do you ask?"
"I find it surprising; you with contacts in DC."
"Why is that surprising? I know people, people know me." He went back to repacking his bag.
"Ok, how do you know people in DC?" Sam redirected. He was a skilled interrogator after all and knew that if one question didn't yield answers a similar question just might.
Deeks' answer was simple and straight forward, "I worked there for a summer."
"Working there for a summer doesn't get you contacts that can ask questions about what the CIA is doing." Sam countered. "What did you do there?"
"I was working for a California Senator. I met people and kept in touch." He waited for another question and when it didn't come he looked upped and saw the surprise on Sam's face. He shook his head at Sam, "I'm going to shower," and with that Deeks disappeared into the men's locker room.
"He worked for a Senator?" Sam mumbled to himself and he finished gathering his stuff together before heading back to the bullpen.
When he arrived Kensi and Callen were sitting at their desks. Kensi was eating as usual and Callen was reading the newspaper. "Deeks worked for a Senator." Sam told them.
Callen answered first as Kensi had to swallow her food, "Yep."
Kensi swallowed, "During law school."
"You both knew? And neither of you told me?" Sam was incredulous.
"Not our story to tell." Kensi told him just before putting more food in her mouth.
Sam was getting frustrated having been told that several times about Deeks. "Well, is there more?" Sam asked while perching himself on the edge of his desk.
"You obviously talked to Deeks, why didn't you ask him yourself?" Callen wanted to know as he folded up his newspaper.
Sam picked himself off the desk and moved to sit in his chair, "Yea right. Wait, how do you two know?"
"I read his file, with his permission." Callen told him.
"Me too." Kensi added. Callen glanced at his desk mate a little surprised but glad that Deeks had shared the information with his partner.
"Why did you guys get to read it?"
"Team Leader and back up Deeks. Which I gotta say, after reading his file, I feel better about. Not that I want to be him; just sayin' and I'm not learning how to surf."
Kensi smirked at Callen before popping the last bite of her food in her mouth then answered Sam's question, "Partner."
"Oh and I don't matter? I don't need to know about him?" Sam sounded annoyed.
"Sam, let me ask you this: What does Deeks know about you?" Callen questioned his partner.
"Whatever you told him."
"Sam, I haven't told him anything."
Sam looked between Callen and Kensi with a surprised look on his face, "What do you mean?"
"Sam, if I'm not going to tell you about Deeks file, why would you think I'd tell Deeks about yours? That's a conversation you two need to have. I'm not your go between." Callen was more than done with this conversation.
Hetty stopped by the bullpen to add her two cents, "We all have secrets we keep close to the vest, Mr. Hanna. Even amongst ourselves." Hetty looked at each member of the team before leaving the area. Her look conveyed something different to each of them.
Just as Hetty was leaving, they heard Deeks whistling as he walked back to the bullpen after his shower. Sam schooled his features to cover his surprise/shock about what G had just told him. Deeks didn't know anything about him? G hadn't told Deeks anything about him? Sam wasn't sure how he felt about that. He always knew that his secrets were safe with G but he thought G would've told Deeks something about him.
"I've got a meeting at LAPD. Be gone about 3 hours. Hetty knows. Call me if you need me." Deeks said as he put his workout gear in his locker and grabbed his messenger bag from his desk.
"Have fun." Kensi smiled at him while wiping her mouth.
"Hey Kens? You missed some." Deeks let her know as he pointed to her cheek. He winked at her and walked away.
He didn't see her grab a mirror and check where he indicated only to find it clear of food particles. "Jerk" she mumbled with an eye roll and a smile as she put her mirror back in her desk drawer. Sam and Callen were smiling at her as Callen moved his newspaper out of the way of his work and Sam opened the training journal he kept on Deeks aka Jason Wyler to make notes about this morning training session.
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Every day for the last five weeks passed in a similar fashion for Deeks: Wake up, train with Sam at OSP, tease Kensi, laugh with the team, work on cases, train with Demarco Williams at the gym, eat a flavorless dinner of boiled chicken & steamed veggies, then fall into bed. It was monotonous and dull for the normally carefree detective. He occasionally had an even movie night with Kensi, but it wasn't as frequently as he would have liked. But with less than a week left, "It's almost over! It's almost over!" became his mantra.
Five days before the fight Wyler and Williams were working out in the gym when a voice boomed over to them, "WYLER! WHAT THE HELL KIND OF MOVE WAS THAT?"
This stopped Wyler and Williams as they looked at the loud mouthed know it all who yelled at them. They were both surprised to see Neil Polson standing about 30 feet from them. Smiling as he walked toward them. He was not moving overly fast and was using a cane, but he was walking.
When Wyler saw the man walking he smiled but it was DeMarco Williams that answered him, "Careful there Polson or I'll serve you up for Sunday Supper like I did Wyler here." The bag man smirked and moved forward to clasp Polson's hand. "Good to see you up and moving."
Wyler gave Williams a scathing glance before turning his head back to Polson.
"It's good to be up." Polson answered back.
Wyler just looked at Polson like he grew another head. "What the hell? I thought you were still in rehab?" Wyler asked him.
"I was. I am actually but I had to get out of there for a while." Polson pointed over his shoulder at a young well-built man standing about 5 feet behind him, pushing a wheelchair. "A condition of release. But I wanted to walk in here."
"That's amazing man. Congratulations!" Wyler said.
Polson eyed Wyler up and down, "You look like you're ready. I take it Deeks couldn't get you out of the fight."
"No. It looks like it's going to happen." Wyler looked at Williams and then back at Polson, "but I'm ready for it."
Polson was just standing there as the silence stretched out, making everyone just a little uncomfortable until Williams came to the rescue, "You sticking around? See what the kid can do?"
"You don't mind?"
"Not at all. His training log is over there. Help yourself. Let's go, Wyler. We have work to do." Williams turned back to focus on Wyler as Wyler got back to work.
When the work out was done, Polson said, "Damn Jason, you are really ready for this fight as well as your next fight and the one after that. If you're alright with it, Williams, I'm going to continue to use some of the things you've done here to his future training and fights. There's some really good stuff here." He indicated the training journal.
"Sure. Use what you can. He's a good fighter; use whatever you need." Williams let him know.
"Um…" Wyler paused for several seconds, he was going to tell them that he wasn't going to continue fighting after this fight but decided to wait until later. "Um…yea, I'm going hit the showers. I'll see you all later. Neil it's great to see you up and moving." Wyler smiled at him as he retreated to the showers.
Neil was watching Wyler leave and then turned to Williams, "Really, how's he doing? Is he ready for this fight? Do you think it's going to a good fight?"
"Relax, he's ready. I've never seen him so ready for a fight." Williams told him. "He's focused and determined."
"Excellent. Any chance I can be there for the fight?"
Williams chuckled and smirked at him, "Yea, we'll have your name on the list for his corner. Just don't get in my way."
"Awesome! Thanks man and I'll behave." Neil shook Williams' hand and then tried to turn to leave. He stepped wrong started to fall down. Fortunately he was close enough to Williams that Williams was able to stop the fall and help Polson into the wheelchair that his attendant moved to be behind him. "Thanks man." He turned to attendant, "Home, Jeeves." He joked to the young man.
The young man looked at Williams, "Any way to make that two tickets? I would love to see the fight." He caught Williams' eye and nodded toward Polson. He wanted to make sure that Polson had help during the fight if he needed it.
Williams got the message and answered that it wouldn't be a problem to have both men there. He watched the men leave and then went into the locker room to talk with Deeks.
He waited for Deeks to finish his shower and get changed before talking to him, "You were holding something back out there. What's up?"
Deeks looked at him like he had grown a second head. "What?"
"Come on, Deeks. I could tell you wanted to say something out there and didn't. What's going on?"
After a prolonged silence from Deeks, "Yea, ok. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to keep fighting after this. I can't go back to amateur after turning pro. I want to keep fighting but not as a pro. That was never part of why I fought." Deeks had been repacking his equipment while they talked and now sat down next to Sam.
"That's a tough decision to make." He waited a beat, "Why did you start fighting?" Sam asked him.
"You know Hetty asked me that and so did Kensi and I wasn't able to give them a reason why I didn't tell you guys."
"Deeks, I didn't ask you why you didn't tell us, I asked why you're fighting." Sam raised an eyebrow at the younger man.
Deeks smiled and chuckled without sound. "Wow. Freud anybody?"
"Since you brought it up…" Sam prodded.
Deeks sidestepped the implied question and instead answered the original question, "Yea. Ok. I started fighting because of the Zuna op but I kept training because I liked it. When I came to work with NCIS I wanted the training." Deep breath. "I'm not used to having a partner every day. Not while undercover. I'm used to a handler but not a partner or team. I realized that my partner's life and the teams' life is in my hands. It's my job to make sure you all come back home."
Another deep breath. "I didn't want to train at NCIS because it seems…restrictive. You know, one kind of training." He lowered his voice and put a drill sergeant inflection into it, "Train this way only; if you have to take down a suspect, do it this way, no other way." He returned his voice to normal, "by training MMA I've trained in 6 different martial arts, I've trained as a sprinter to be faster; I've trained in arm locks, wrist locks, take downs and how to get out of them and so many other things and ways of fighting I can't even tell you. If I want to try this type of fighting or that technique, I can. No one to tell me no or that's stupid or why did you do it that way? It's my choice. I can see what works for me and what doesn't. Do it on my schedule and on my time."
"You can train anyway you want to, any technique you want to."
"Without getting a load of shit from everyone especially our resident Badass Navy SEAL?" He looked at Sam with skepticism and doubt.
"Kensi, Callen & Eric said something about that. Are we really that…" He paused for just a moment before conceding Deeks' point, "Yea, I guess you would've gotten some comments about it but that's just because it's what we do. Never meant to make you feel like..."
Deeks cut him off, "A temp?"
"Yea." Sam remembered the day he called Deeks that and why he was so angry that day. "You know what happened to the guy you replaced?"
"Only that he died." Deeks replied.
"Dom was young. Went straight from FLETC to LA. Didn't even stop at home for his stuff; had his parents send it to him. He was so eager, so hopeful. Shortly after he arrived I started to help him with additional training. More self-defense, more situational awareness training. But it didn't do much good because within months he had been kidnapped. By the time we found him, he had been beaten and nearly starved. During our rescue of him, he sacrificed his life to save mine."
Deeks was quiet, knowing Sam would continue, which he did. "When you were shot during the Vakar situation, the only thing that kept going through my head was 'we don't need another Dom situation'. That's why I've been so…whatever you want to call it…towards you."
"I call it disparaging and derogatory. Actually it's not so bad when it's one on one, but when one of you start in, the others join in. It can get pretty annoying after a while, like being back in high school. Maybe that's why I didn't tell you. It was my shield against all the comments and attitude you all threw my way. Your opinion of me was irrelevant because I knew I could handle most situations without help."
"I'll tell you want, I'll work on it, but, um…I'm not promising anything; sometimes Deeks you just set yourself up so well. Mmm it's hard not to make comments."
Deeks nodded his head accepting Sam at his word. They both stood up and grabbed their gear bags, "Were you doing an imitation of me earlier?" Sam asked.
"Don't know what you're talking about." Deeks neither confirmed nor denied it as he smiled at the large man.
Sam pushed him through the locker room door. "Get out of here. Put some ice on your shoulders to bring the swelling down and keep the stiffness out and drink at least 24oz of water over the next two hours."
"You say the same thing every night, you realize that right?"
"That's not true. Sometimes I tell you to ice your knees." Sam laughed at him.
They split up in the lot and headed to their cars, ready to head home for the night. "Hey, Williams?" Sam looked up at Deeks, "Thanks." Sam nodded at him, got in his car and drove away. Deeks watched him leave before he got in his own car and headed home himself.