Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS: LA.

Note: Haven't written anything in a long time and realize I'm very rusty.

In his experience, parents were… disappointing. Sure he knew there were a few good ones out there, but in his line of work he didn't meet many of them. Plus his own father had pointed a shotgun at him before he'd even hit puberty, which had colored his perspective of parents a little.

Or a lot.

And parental figures hadn't been that much better. Mentors let him down more often than he'd care to admit: the high school coach who thought steroids were the answer to all shortcomings on and off the field, the law school ethics professor who had slept with his student in return for grades, the cop who had pretended to care but had been on the take for years. Deeks was starting to feel more than a little cynical about the caring authority types in his life.

And then Henrietta Lange came along.

He honestly had no idea how he'd managed to wind up on her radar, but he was supremely grateful that he had. She had pulled him out of LAPD and into a world that had immediately felt like home. And even though he hadn't known the team very long, they had become like family to him. Not a messed up, dysfunctional family like the one he had grown up with, but the sort family he had always wanted.

He cared about them all (more than he wanted to admit), but it was Hetty who he'd come to lean on the most. Somehow she always knew when he needed an encouraging word or a metaphorical kick in the pants. She mothered him more than anyone had ever done before, which worried him. He was starting to let his guard down, which meant it was just about time for her to disappoint him. Or threaten to shoot him.

Because he was Marty Deeks and that was how it went.

Which is why as he lay there in the hospital with his father's folder sitting in front of him, he couldn't quite get up the nerve to ask if he could put her down as his next of kin. It should have been a simple question, but he couldn't force it out because he really, really didn't want her to say no. He wasn't sure he could take the rejection from her of all people.

So he'd chickened out.

He should have known that she would see right through his question; she was Hetty Lange after all, as omnipotent a person as he'd ever come across. When she told him to give them her name, he'd felt incredibly relieved and happy. He could tell from her tone of voice that she had known exactly what he was really asking.

And she'd sounded almost as pleased to be asked as he felt that she'd said yes.