A/N: For today's prompt: Kensi and Deeks interacting with a kid/kids. Deeks acquires an unexpected friend at the beach.

Deeks was bent over his board, rubbing wax into it in small even circles when a shadow suddenly blocked out the sunlight. He looked up and found a girl watching him with interest.

"What are you doing?" she asked, maintaining a distance of 3 or 4 feet.

"Waxing my board," Deeks told her.

"Why?" He smirked slightly and said,

"If I didn't wax it, I'd slip off my board when I got in the water. I mean, I do that anyway, but it would be a lot worse without the wax." She giggled, stepping closer until she was right next to him.

"You're funny. My name's Samantha. What's yours?" Samantha appeared to be about 9 or 10. She had dark brown hair pulled back in a tight, slightly damp ponytail and wore a bright blue swimsuit with a heart pattern splashed across the center.

"I'm Marty," he offered, extending his hand. Samantha looked taken aback for a second but then accepted it readily enough with a small grin. "Nice to meet you."

Apparently Samantha had decided he was trust worthy enough because she settled into a cross legged position as Deeks resumed his waxing.

"Do you come here a lot?" Samantha asked after a few minutes.

"Whenever I can," he answered. "But I work a lot sometimes so I don't always have time." He sighed wistfully.

"I'm from Indiana and we go to the beach there all the time, but I've never been here before. We're on vacation." From the sound of her voice, she didn't sound thrilled.

"Sounds like a pretty good vacation to me," Deeks replied and looked at her in time to see her roll her eyes.

"I wanted to go to Keylime Cove. But Dad had a lot of miles from work so we came here instead." Deeks set his wax and comb to the side and turned to face the girl.

"Speaking of your dad, is he around?" Even though Samantha seems fairly independent, he was a little surprised that no one had come looking for her yet. There were a few people around, but none of them seemed likely candidates for Samantha's parents.

"He's back at the house with my mom. My older brother's supposed to be watching me, but I think he's looking at girls instead." She made a disgusted face and then leaned forward in a conspiratorial way. "He doesn't have very good taste," she confided and Deeks smirked again. He'd only just met her, but he appreciated Samantha's matter of fact attitude.

"That's too bad."

"Do you have a girlfriend?"

"Actually, I'm married," he told Samantha who looked slightly disappointed by his answer. Before she could ask, he added, "Her name is Kensi and she's super awesome. She's like a ninja." Samantha narrowed her eyes at him, looking suspicious for the first time.

"You married a ninja?" she asked dubiously.

"Well, she's kind of like a cop but she's also as ninja like as you can get without actually being a ninja."

"You say a lot of silly things, don't you?" Samantha decided. "Can I help you with your surfboard?"

Kensi jogged back to the spot she'd left Deeks half an hour ago, slowly coming down to a walk. She was a little surprised he wasn't out in the water yet. As she got closer, she saw he wasn't alone.

"No, you want to make it more circular," he was saying to the girl kneeling beside him. Kensi watched in quiet awe as he demonstrated the proper technique while the girl hung on his every word.

"Deeks," she said, laying her hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her with a smile, setting the can of wax to the side.

"Hey baby, did you have a good run?"

"Yeah. Who's your friend?" The little girl beside Deeks was watching them with great interest.

"Oh, this is my good friend Samantha. She's been helping get my board in shape. Samantha, this is Kensi," he said, waving his hand grandly when he introduced the dark haired girl. She got to her feet, brushing off her knees, and then stared at Kensi for several seconds, her head tilted to the side. Kensi felt an absurd rush of nervousness.

"You're pretty," she decided. "Marty says you're both cops. I think I want to be a police officer too, especially if I can marry my partner. But only if he's not gross like Tommy Parker." Kensi shot Deeks a look and he shrugged innocently. It seemed Deeks had developed a bond with Samantha in a short amount of time.

"It sounds like you two had quite the conversation," Kensi said with wry bemusement. She would never quite understand Deeks' ability to connect with kids so easily. If she was honest, it made her a little jealous.

"Well we had to do something while we worked."

"Uh-huh." Kensi rolled her eyes at him as Samantha sat back down and picked up the waxing supplies, waiting for further instruction.

"Remember, when we finish this we're going to go look for you brother. I'm sure he's worried about you by now," Deeks reminded her and she gave a loud sigh.

"Fine. He probably won't even notice I'm gone though," Samantha said, but she didn't protest anymore. Kensi say down on the other side of the surfboard, watching the sun glinting off their light and dark hair.

Occasionally, Samantha would ask her a question, keeping her included in the conversation. The afternoon certainly hadn't ended up the way she'd planned, but Kensi sat contentedly, watching Deeks teach the little girl how to apply wax in a circular motion.