THURSDAY
The first steps into the house are awkward. Kensi opens the door and Deeks holds the carrier with one arm, way out wide of his body to make sure he doesn't accidentally kick it with his knee and wake her. Gia fell asleep on the way home. They drove around a little extra, both not entirely confident in their ability to move the child from the car to the house without disrupting her, and god did she look beautiful sleeping.
They think about putting her in her crib, but decide that leaving her in the carrier on the coffee table is fine. But then they worry about the carrier falling off the coffee table. So they move it to the floor. Kensi and Deeks sit on the rug with their backs leaning on the couch. Kensi puts her head down on Deeks's shoulder, and they just sit and watch her sleep. They never close their eyes. They silently take in how incredibly different their lives are and let the feelings of gratitude wash over them.
At the first sign of movement, they are balls of nervous energy. They talk to her, not in baby talk, "Welcome home, Gia. This is your new home. Remember us, we met you a little while ago. We're your mom and dad," Deeks says, letting his voice be a comfort to her as Kensi unhooks the carrier. "We're going to get you out of your seat and maybe freshened up a little and then how about some delicious formula?"
Kensi is all smiles as she stands. She moves the carrier to the table and then reaches in to lift the little girl to her chest. She rubs their noses together, and Gia giggles, and Kensi feels like queen of the world. Deeks sneaks up alongside of them, grabbing his phone and taking the first picture of their family- a selfie of three lives changed forever. When he looks at it, he can barely believe it's his life. He texts it to the team, introducing them to G Marie Deeks, and listens as his phone erupts to jokes about the dangers of naming a kid after Callen.
Kensi shakes her head at him, knowing it was funny, but that he knew what would happen when he sent that test. She follows up with the baby's whole name, and invites them all over on Saturday to meet her.
"Good," he says. "That'll give us a little time to get settled," he tells Kensi.
"And, um, maybe tell our moms that they are grandparents."
Deeks freezes. In the drama of the last week, he's kept the moms at a distance, not believing their presence would help Kensi at the hospital, and then not wanting to bring them into the story about the baby until he understood what happened. And once adopting her became a possibility he didn't want to tell them until they were sure it was happening. He didn't want to get them excited and invested on a false alarm.
Then once they were sure it was happening, they had so much to do to get ready. The end result was that they hadn't told Roberta or Julia yet.
"Maybe we just invite them over for lunch tomorrow," he suggests.
"And be like – hi, here's a club sandwich and by the way you're grandmothers?" Kensi asks.
"Yeah, lets invite them both over for lunch and just show them." Deeks seems really into the surprise attack approach.
"If we tell them today, they'll just show up," Kensi reasons.
"And I wouldn't mind getting so spend a day alone with my girls," Deeks beams.
"Yeah. Let's invite them over tomorrow. Let's let today just be us."
At some point in the afternoon there is a knock on the door, and Deeks is surprised to see Kilbride's imposing presence at the door. He opens it wide to reluctantly invite their boss inside, but Kilbride shakes his head no.
"It's an important day for your family, Mr. Deeks. I don't want to intrude." His expressions clearly reflects that he knows he's already intruded. "I brought something," he says and pushes a small giftbag with no tissue paper or fanfare at Deeks, still standing in the doorway. He doesn't wait for Deeks to open it. "It's those things you put in the outlets to keep their little fingers out," he says.
"Thank you, sir," Deeks tells him.
Then he pulls out an manilla envelope. "And here. This is all the benefit information that you need. Change of life event paperwork for insurance, paid parental leave forms for both of you. Agent's Blye's actions last week to protect an NCIS informant makes her injury on the job, so she'll be on medical leave for a while, head injuries can be like that, and then her parental leave will kick in."
"Uh, thank you." Deeks really hadn't though through anything past the weekend, so while the visit seems full of benefits and details, it is all stuff Deeks and Kensi need to talk about in their downtime, and he's grateful for the practicality of the information. It strikes him that Kilbride has been looking out for them this whole time, even in ways he didn't appreciate.
"Do you want to come in and meet her?" Deeks asks.
Kilbride shakes his head. "No, another time. Give my best to Agent Blye."
"I will."
They say goodbye and Deeks returns to his girls. Kensi has a playmat laid on the floor with arching contraptions that let little things dangle down over Gia. Kensi shakes them and carefully takes note of the ones that make her smile and the ones that she reaches for. A million little things to learn about this angel, and Kensi and Deeks want to know everything there is to know.
Their first bath is a comedy of errors. The floor is soaked, the bathroom is a disaster, but they feel incredibly lucky that Gia seems to like the water. Deeks gives her the last bottle of the day, and after pjs and a new diaper, they just hold her. She falls asleep on Deeks' chest, and they make their way to her bedroom. He carefully puts Gia down in her crib, slowly and gently removing the hands that hold her until she is just a little thing in a big crib looking at peace with the whole world. Deeks moves the stuffed tiger right up against her sleeping body and snaps a picture.
Kensi takes the diaper bag and puts it up on the changing table, noticing an envelope sticking out of a side pocket.
"What's this?" Kensi wonders, flipping the envelope from side to side in her fingers until Deeks snatches it. He opens it, looking at the small page inside. He flips it back and forth the same way Kensi did the envelope. He peruses it quickly. "It must be from the family that was taking care of her."
"What does it say?"
"My Five Rules To Live By for new parents:
Sleep when they sleep. Don't let anyone tell you that when they sleep you should clean the house. Nuh-uh. You put your feet up and get every second you can. Laugh. At yourself, at each other in love, at the funny faces she makes, at everything. No two days are the same. Parenting is art, not science. You can have a perfect day, do exactly the same thing tomorrow, and have it be a disaster. Be flexible. Roll with it. Take pictures, but make memories. Don't watch her grow up through a viewfinder. Kids today have more pictures of them taken in a day than you did in a year. Live in the moment with her. After you read this note, don't take anyone else's advice. No one knows what will work best for your family better than you. You'll know. Be bold, and it will work out.
"Be bold, huh?" Deeks repeats aloud with a knowing smile.
"All these years later and I still want to be bold with you," Kensi says through the most beautiful and electric smile Deeks has ever seen. "And her. We can all be bold together," she says.
Deeks kisses Kensi standing beside the crib, each one of them letting a hand drift down to the sleeping child to complete the circle, letting their abundant love move through them.
"We could have named her bold," Deeks whispers in her ear.
"What?"
"Well, not bold, but across the team we know like twenty languages. We could have picked bold in some other languag[ALA5] e that sounds a little more lyrical. How do you say bold in German?"
"Mutig," Kensi says with incredulous eyes underscoring that it's not going to happen.
"Ok, if I'm looking for lyrical German wasn't where to start. Portuguese?"
"Corajoso."
"Like courageous. We could call her Cora."
"Deeks, stop."
"Spanish?"
"I'm not telling you."
"Come on, I'll just look it up."
"Valiente," she says, giving in.
"We could call her Valerie."
"We could, but that means something different, because you changed the word. And she already has a name."
The turn off the light in the nursery and take one more peek at their daughter by hallway light. Kensi turns on the monitor, lifting it to her ear to make sure she hears something.
"We could ask Callen how to say bold in Russian."
"Deeks, let it go."
And they laugh when they are out of earshot and walk to their bedroom. They cuddle into each other, and balance the monitor on Kensi's leg, watching Gia sleep in her room for the first time. Seven days ago at this time Kensi was sick in bed and Deeks was leaving for an op. Now they are parents with a million things to figure out and more love than they ever imagined they could feel.
"What if she wakes up scared 'cause she's in a new place," Kensi asks with a hint of nerves in her voice.
"Then we'll be right there. We'll always be here for her, Kensi. We're going to make a beautiful family."
THE END
Thanks so much for taking the ride. Drop a note to let me know what you thought, or just to say hi. Hope everyone is doing well. And if anyone has suggestions for a new show to watch ... I'm open.