Original prompt: A longer conversation between Densi before they go to bed. I believe this was for "Love Kills".

A/N: I don't know how this fits into the timeline of this arc, but who cares. Also, until I get a name for the instructor, he's staying as Jones in this series of stories. Also, just a teeny-tiny bit of angst.

"Hey baby," Kensi said as she walked into their bedroom and tossed her keys on a dresser then shrugged her jacket off. "How was the rest of your day?"

Deeks sighed and didn't respond for an extremely long moment.

"Better. I guess." He groaned. "I had a couple more classes that were more procedural and investigation stuff so I did better with that. I think Jones was actually kind of disappointed."

He chuckled a little, but it didn't have his usual spark to it.

"That's awesome, Deeks." She tried to infuse her voice with as much enthusiasm as she could. He needed it right now when he was feeling less than sure of himself.

"I still have a long way to go before I deserve any praise." Before she could touch on that loaded comment, he asked, "How was your day?"

"A little weird," Kensi said as she slipped her boots off and shoved them in the closet. She was trying her best to keep things relatively neat, but she had a feeling that the piles would start growing again long before Deeks' three months was up.

"Weird like Eric and Nell roleplaying their Comicon characters in ops?"

"More like Sabatino has a ponytail weird." She shook her head a little at the memory.

"Did you just say Sabatino and "ponytail" in the same sentence?"

"Yup."

"Please tell me it was for an undercover job," Deeks said, sounding disturbed.

"I don't think so. I think he thought it was attractive," Kensi said, happy that she'd gotten his mind off his worries, even for a little bit. "Actually, it was more like a pigtail."

"That sounds awful. Please tell me you took pictures," he begged.

"Of course I did, just like any good wife would."

"You're the best." The sound of something rustling came through the speaker and she imagined him sitting down on his bed. If his room was anything like the what she remembered from her own time at FLETC, she knew the room would be pretty barren. And lonely. "I really miss you," he whispered, so quietly she almost missed it.

"I do too, baby."

"I didn't realize how bad it would be without you." Her eyes burned at his quiet admission and she ached to hold him. Sliding onto their bed, Kensi curled around a cool pillow from Deeks' side, letting her hand rest on the empty space. She hadn't been sleeping to well without him.

"It's just a few more months," she said, trying to sound reassuring even as her voice cracked. "And then you'll be Special Agent Martin Deeks."

"Yeah, as long as I don't flunk out first," he muttered bitterly. Her knee-jerk reaction was to say something encouraging, distract him from his pessimistic thoughts. It wasn't helping though, she realized.

"What can I do, baby?" She lifted her hand to brush his hair back from his eyes, then remembered that he wasn't there and let it fall back to the sheets with a quiet thud.

"Talk to me?" He breathed in shallowly. "Just…just talk." Kensi held the phone against her ear, clutching the pillow closer.

"Well, I got to speak Portuguese today," she stared, pressing her lips together. "And, um, Sam and Callen kept teasing Sabatino about his hair. It's too bad you weren't there, I bet you'd come up with some really good jokes." She paused for a second, but Deeks didn't say anything so she continued.

"And your mom called me a couple times to ask if you were ok…" She kept talking about anything that came to mind until she heard the quiet, even sound of breathing. "Night Deeks," she murmured.

If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine that Deeks was lying next to her and not several hundred miles away.