Prompt: Kensi dyes her hair red.
It was time for a change.
No matter how long it had been, Deeks still continued to look at her in ways that made her want to rip off his stupid hoodies and straddle him against her car (or throw him on her desk, or handcuff him to his chair...) and do any manner of inappropriate workplace activities to him.
It was her own fault, really, for letting him in and opening up her heart in the first place. He may have been the one to finally say that he wanted to be with her, but it was her idea to fuck in the backseat of her car. He at least wanted to wait until they got back to his place. They both got their way that night.
They had broken the rules, rules they didn't even realize existed until after they'd been shattered. So now they were paying the price of almost loving the wrong (right) person. But he needed to quit looking as if nothing had changed, as if a year hadn't passed since their night together. Her body and her mind couldn't handle it anymore.
She stopped wearing make-up, save for a small bit of powder on her nose, to work. He still stared at her and smiled every morning before handing her a cup of coffee.
Her clothes became looser and frumpier as she became thinner (she was slowly losing her appetite altogether). For some reason he didn't treat her like she looked different at all and never hesitated to give her a rough shoulder bump as they walked out to their cars each night, alone.
It was no secret that Deeks loved brunettes. So one weekend she dyed her hair, as bright a red as she could manage over her dark locks. This would do it, she thought. This would be enough to make him finally turn his nose up at her.
For some reason it wasn't enough to turn him away. That Monday morning he walked in and his eyes lit up when he saw her. "Your hair," he said, placing a cup of coffee on her desk.
"Yup."
"I love it." Deeks gently grasped a strand of her hair and twisted it in his fingers.
When he touched her she felt like she was so alive and slowly dying all at the same time. All of her personal modifications couldn't change him and the way he looked at her. Maybe it wasn't her face, or her body, or her hair that he smiled at everyday; it was just her.
It was time for a change, a real change.
"Quit," she told him softly.
A look of sadness briefly crossed his face, and he dropped her hair. "Oh. Sorry."
"No." She shook her head. "Here. Quit here." He tilted his head in confusion. "If you don't, I will."
The sadness in his face disappeared, replaced by a ray of sunshine that only his smile could produce. "Does this mean what I think it means?"
Kensi nods and smiles the happiest smile since before she was so rudely whisked away to the desert over a year before. "I choose you."
Not all change was a good thing, but one change was the best thing ever.