Not at all true speculation for 7x09, Internal Affairs.

He was tired.

Tired of sleeping in shitty motel rooms. Tired of living a double life. Tired of pretending to like getting high so he wouldn't stand out among the gun and drug runners he had to associate with every day. Tired of this undercover assignment taking so fucking long that he was starting to lose sight of who he was and why he was here.

Most of all, he was tired of the constant reminders of what his life could have been if he hadn't straightened himself out. This assignment and cover came too easily to him. Max Gentry was supposed to be nothing like Marty Deeks. The bloodshot eyes that stared back at him from cracked mirrors every morning couldn't see the difference.

It was cold that night but he didn't know it. Somehow he'd managed to find his way back to the no-tell-motel he'd been living in for a few weeks now. He was so fucking high and he hated it. He hated that he liked it, too, but most nights it helped to cover the loveless grunts that resonated through the thin walls of his room. Some cop he was, he thought. He was no better than the assholes he was trying to put behind bars.

There were no grunts tonight, only screams. For a second he thought it was all in his head, a flashback to the screams and shouts that used to keep him awake at night as a child. Someone was crying. Pleading. He tried to ignore the sounds like always, but he couldn't. They just grew louder and louder the closer he got to his room. It wasn't his room, though.

The shouting and pleading ceased, replaced by a boom. Boom boom boom. Four booms. Gunshots. Semi-automatic, not revolver. The Marty inside knew that, and he fought to break through the clouds pushing him down. Max would mind his own business. Marty would help. Somehow the light broke through and the next thing he knew, he was standing in the room with the screams and the shots and now, the silence.

He shook his head in disbelief, staring at the dead body on the bed. He knew him. He knew her maybe, the woman holding the gun and shaking uncontrollably. It looked like his gun, but it couldn't be. His gun was holstered behind his back.

Focus, he thought. Get your head together. "Did you fuck him?" He asked her coldly.

She shook her head, but her state of undress told a different story.

"Hot water, soap," he said. "Clean him up, anywhere you touched him."

She nodded, and he pulled every towel from the bathroom, wiping down all the hard surfaces in the room. This was wrong, but his conscience thought it was right. His view of the world was skewed, but this woman didn't deserve what would come to her if he didn't help. Killing a cop was no joke, even one that deserved it.

When everything was clean, he took all of the towels to his room to go in his laundry and left her to her own devices. As he sat on his own lumpy bed, his high finally wearing off, the events still didn't quite make sense to him. Not knowing was probably for the best anyway. He stripped his jacket and clothes off, turning on the shower and staring at himself in the mirror.

Maybe Max Gentry wasn't such a bad guy after all.

Kensi stared at him, her hands tight behind her back. Cold metal bars separated them, and he never realized how lucky he had been to have her within arms reach every night for the last year. Deeks reached for her but she refused, everything but her eyes remaining stoic.

The truth is what she'd asked for when walked she through these doors, and the truth is what he tried to give her. Many of his undercover memories were such a mixture of half truths that he preferred to tell her nothing at all every time she had inquired. He tried to open up a few times, only to panic and change the subject. There was nowhere to run now, and they were fresh out of new topics.

"Was it worth it?" Kensi asked sadly. "All the lying?"

"I didn't lie to you," Deeks defended. "I really don't know what happened."

"Not to me." She bit her lip. It was obvious that she was barely holding on to her composure. "Yourself."

Blinking back tears, she stepped away from the bars. Her lips mouthed a silent "I love you" before she slipped away, leaving him alone with his thoughts again. It was hard to admit to himself, but Kensi was right. He did know the shooter.

Maybe Marty Deeks wasn't such a good guy after all.