This is my first fan fic. In fact, my first effort at writing anything. I am sure it's not very good but it will not let me sleep, so I put pen to paper (or hands to keyboard) in an effort to stop it spinning around in my head every night. Any mistakes are mine and I do no own anything...NCIS:LA, my house, my car...

Just updated with suggestions and corrections from reviewers. Thanks so much for the input! I hope to continue the story shortly. As requested, this occurs (in my mind anyway) towards the end of season 3. I may have messed up the timeline but hope you can forgive me for it.

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Chapter 1: Grief

Detective Marty Deeks pulled into his parking spot behind the Mission and shut off the engine. He stared out at the dark not knowing why he had ended up here. It was 5:30 in the morning and he wasn't due to start work until 9:30. He had left his apartment when it had started to close in on him. Driving around aimlessly he had assumed he would end up at the beach, the place he always went when he was hurting. Somehow, instead, he had ended up here.

He stared out at the night sky without seeing it, instead seeing a memory. Twelve year old Marty Deeks being introduced to his new foster family by the social worker. It was his third foster home in the last five months. He didn't have high expectations that this one would be any better than the last two until he was introduced to her and fell in love for the first time in his young life. Strawberry blond hair and emerald eyes that had fascinated him. Plus she was an older woman, being all of fourteen. The romantic love had lasted about two weeks and she had allowed him to follow her around like the love sick puppy he was. Once past that stage, they had developed a strong bond during the next eighteen months they were in that foster home together. She had become his sister in all ways but blood.

The grief crashed over him, forcing him out of the car and into the early morning air. He stood with his hands on his knees, bent over, fighting the nausea as memories of the last twelve hours overwhelmed him. When he felt the nausea finally subside he straightened and moved to the front of his car, hoisting himself up on the hood and resting his feet on the bumper, his forearms on his knees. Lost in memories he almost fell off the car when a small hand rested on his left forearm and a soft voice said "I'm so sorry for the loss of your friend Mr. Deeks."

He looked at Henrietta Lange, operations manager and his boss and squeaked out "How..." and stopped. Somehow she always knew and none of them could figure out where she got her information. "She was more than my friend Hetty. She was my sister." he replied.

Hetty frowned; her file on Detective Deeks was extensive and did not include any siblings. "Sister?" she responded.

"Well, foster sister but sister none the less" he replied his voice cracking and eyes filling with tears.

He looked away from her and fought them back. Marty Deeks had been taught at a very young age that men didn't cry. It wasn't manly and crying led to punishment. "Tears do not make a man less of a man Mr. Deeks, they simply make him human." Hetty said. The words unleashed something in him and he rested his head on his forearms and started to cry. For the woman she had been, for the loss of her in his life, for the guilt that he hadn't been able to save her, for all the things that she was never going to be able to experience. Once the storm had passed and the tears stopped, he looked up and ran his right hand over his face trying to remove the evidence. "Tell me about her?"