A/N: My annual Deeks birthday fic.

Mid-November 2024

Nell watched Kensi prep a bottle of milk, hands currently occupied with Caleb. Sophia was still sleeping in their room, but Kensi figured she wouldn't be for long.

"Alright, this is ready to go," Kensi said, holding out the bottle to Nell. "Do you want to feed him?"

"Absolutely," Nell said eagerly, following Kensi to the living room to sit down with Caleb. "Give me."

Kensi snorted as Nell made a grabby hand and settled in to feed Caleb.

"Ok, so what are we doing today while Deeks is at his meeting? Hit up some mommy and me groups? Check out the hot dads at the park?"

"No to the first one. I tried some of those groups during the first couple of months, and hated it. To the second, the only hot dad I need is Deeks," Kensi retorted, then immediately winced. "That sounds wrong. Moving on. I actually thought maybe you could help me plan Deeks' birthday. I want to do something kind of big."

"Ooh, I do love party planning. Though I would have thought forty-five made more sense for a milestone birthday bash," Nell commented.

"Yeah, well last year we had three-week-old twins on our hands on Deeks' last birthday. We were lucky we had fresh clothes on and didn't spend the whole day in bed," Kensi reminded her archly.

"That is an excellent point." Nell leaned back against the couch cushions, drawing her legs up under her as Caleb happily sucked away at the bottle. "Ok, so what are we doing for my brother from another mother. The Shaggy to my Velma."

Kensi gave her an amused look. She'd been thinking about this a lot for the past few months. She knew Deeks truly appreciated any recognition of his birthday, but he deserved to be celebrated. This time in extravagant fashion if she had any say in it.

Folding her hands together, Kensi turned to face Nell fill-on, feeling unaccountably nervous.

"Last time we visited you and Eric, Deeks really loved that sushi restaurant we went to. So, here's where I have a really massive, request and I fully recognize that it's taking advantage of our friendship and—"

"You'd like us to arrange a trip for you and Deeks to Tokyo?" Nell interrupted gently.

"Kind of," Kensi said sheepishly. "Is that a ridiculous thing to even think about?"

"Of course not. You know we'd fly you over in a heartbeat. When you have access to a private jet and lots of money, it's what you do for the people you love."

"Well, when you put it that way," Kensi joked. "Thank you, Nell."

"Anytime."

Caleb chose that moment to take his mostly empty bottle and hand it to Nell, and started fussing, babbling "Mama" in between a bunch of unintelligible babble.

"Here, I'll take him. He usually gets like this when he's still sleepy." Tucking Caleb under her chin, Kensi shared, "I'm going to see if Roberta can watch them, with Rosa supervising when she can."

"What do you think about me and Eric coming here and watching them instead?" Nell suggested. "We can babysit and take Rosa on some adventures."

"We couldn't ask you to do that."

"You're not, I'm offering. You know we're always looking for any opportunity for quality kid time." Nell wiggled Caleb's foot. "Right? Your aunt and uncle need a chance to teach you about all the wonderful weird things out there."

"That would be great. Just as long as the adventures don't include anything like that steampunk casino with the feather dancing you took us to last time."

Nell tilted her consideringly. "We'll take them to a science museum," she said. "No feather dancing in sight."

"Hey ladies. Who's doing a feather dance?" Deeks inquired, coming in from the back. He set his shoulder bag to the side, coming over to kiss Kensi and then Caleb.

"Oh, we were just reminiscing," Nell said with a forced laugh that made Deeks raise a questioning eyebrow.

"Alright then." He reached for Caleb, tucking him in the crook of his arm with ease, Caleb curling up against him immediately. "Hey, where's your sister, Mr. Doughnut? Let's go find her. See if she wants to play while mommy and Auntie Nell tell super secret stories."

As he walked away, Nell leaned towards Kensi with a delighted expression. "This is going to be fun," she whispered.

January 6th, 2025

"The beach."

"Nope."

"An amusement park?"

"Still no," Kensi replied, calmly driving on as Deeks sat beside her, a sleep mask over his eyes and his hands folded in his lap. She'd made him put the mask on about thirty minutes ago when she thought he might get suspicious about the route to the private airport Nell and Eric had arranged for them to fly out from.

Kensi had asked Deeks to take a few days off without asking questions and packed for him, so they could leave a couple days before his birthday. He'd taken the strange requests in stride, but now he was starting to get a little antsy.

"Ok, normally I would love the idea of you giving me a blindfold, but it's starting to feel a little like a hostage situation."

"You can take it off in a couple minutes," Kensi assured him, reaching over to squeeze his thigh before turning into the airport parking lot.

"My next guess would be a sex dungeon, but I don't think I'm dressed for it," Deeks continued. He tilted his head to the side. "Wait, are we at an airport? Wow, that's a whole host of other charges."

"How did you figure that out?" Kensi demanded, and he sat back with a satisfied smile.

"I'm highly observant. Where are you taking me?"

"Just give me like five minutes and I'll tell you."

Deeks spent the next five minutes making increasingly ridiculous giggles until Kensi was fully laughing by the time she pulled up in front of the "small" jet Nell had described. A security guard stopped them a few hundred yards away and Kensi flashed her ID, slowly driving the last bit when he waved her on.

She helped Deeks out of the car and up the stairs, her excitement and nervousness mounting the closer they got to the interior. Hopefully Deeks would actually enjoy the surprise.

"Ok, you can take it off," she told him when they were standing in the middle of the luxurious jet.

Deeks tugged the mask over his head with a dramatic flick of his wrist, smoothing his hair back down before he took a real look around.

"Holy crap, you either won the lottery or sold a whole lot of something illegal," he said, and Kensi rolled her eyes affectionately.

"We're borrowing it from Eric and Nell."

"Right, that makes a lot more sense."

Taking his hand, she led him to one of the eight seats spread throughout the space.

"Early happy birthday," she said, handing him a packet containing their itinerary for the next four days.

Deeks pulled out a paper with their hotel details (once again, set up with Nell's help), several dinner reservations, and passes to a few attractions they'd thought Deeks would enjoy.

"You're taking me to Tokyo?" he asked, his voice going soft and slightly uncertain.

"I kind of missed the last one, so I figured this would make up for it." She shrugged, a little shy in the face of his amazement. "I hope you like it."

"Baby, like it…this is amazing." He grinned in obvious delight, then frowned. "Wait, I thought we were only taking a day trip. Who's watching the twins?"

"Eric and Nell," Kensi replied and he sighed in relief.

"Thank god. Mama would probably end up reporting us missing or something." Shaking his head, he looked over the documents one more before carefully replacing them in the envelope. "Thank you so much, baby." He kissed her softly. "This is an amazing gift."

They took a quick trip around the plane check out all the amenities, some of which were completely ridiculous and completely in keeping with Eric and Nell's eccentricities.

"Do you think Nell and Eric have cameras on this plane?" Deeks wondered as they closed up a little compartment with a gaming system.

"Why?"

He wrapped his arm around her waist, dragging her to his chest. "Because this might be our chance to join a certain club."

"It is your birthday," Kensi said, trailing her fingers down from his jaw.