Post-ep for 7x09, Defectors.
"I love you.
Deeks knew whatever he said to her in that moment had to count - they would likely be the last words he spoke for hours. Kensi wanted an explanation, a promise, or just anything to make her feel better, and for once he could give her nothing. He was on the clock now, their clock, and he wasn't going to do a damn thing to help their case.
Instead of thinking about her face and broken voice, he stared at the two cops in the front seat (that he didn't even know). They were making small talk, chatting about ridiculously irrelevant subjects. Holiday schedules, kid's Christmas lists, the accident on PCH that morning - anything but the obvious. They had arrested one of their own.
He should have told Kensi a long time ago that this could happen, but silence seemed like the best option then as well. Maybe she would have had answers. Maybe she would know what to do now instead of just staring in broken disbelief.
Though miles away now, he could still feel her eyes piercing the back of his skull. Shaking his head, he clenched his jaw and pushed that feeling away. He thought of Sam's optimism and loyalty. He thought of Callen's defiance. Granger's take-no-shit attitude. Hetty's ability to make nothing out of something and something disappear into thin air as if it never existed.
"I don't like this," the bald officer said to the detective, but really Deeks thought it was pointed towards him. He could have been talking about the traffic for all he knew, but probably not.
The suit scowled at the officer but didn't comment, and so they rode quietly the rest of the way to the station. His station, where he had his first interrogation, got his first undercover assignment, arrested his first petty thief, and took down his first dirty cop. Where they drilled Miranda rights into every officer's brain until it just became instinctive to spit out the words the minute their hands touched metal cuffs.
He had the right to remain silent. Silence was his savior.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to remember her smile and her laugh, her cold feet under the sheets, and how her hair tickling his nose woke him every morning. That felt like a million years ago now, and he prayed that he'd be able to live in that world again. The everlasting image of confusion and hurt on her face remained with him, though, a much stronger memory than the others.
Silence was also his executioner.