A/N: A return to this fandom just to weigh in the aftermath of what Deeks went through and to make it a bit more personal (if possible) for KD. It's somewhat of a stream of consciousness kind of story so it's a bit more fluid and a slight tad less literary, but I think it works.

This is a birthday gift for my dear Jessica237. Hope it was a good one and enjoy the present.

Warnings: salty language, Deeks being moody and broody and some general violence though not graphic.

Timeline: Post ep 2 of this current season.

Enjoy!

He doesn't really notice anything all that strange or unusual - for Kensi, anyway - at first.

Sure, he notices that she's acting a bit strange, but then again, she's Kensi, and abnormal is what she does most of the time. She's not like any other woman that he's ever known, and he's gotten pretty damned used to this fact over the last three years. He takes an odd kind of comfort in it, actually. So yeah, when she starts doing nice things for him like picking him up with coffee and cheesy bagels, he mostly just chalks it up to her trying to help him ease back into things.

And when she lets him get a punch or two in extra during their sparring matches, and even sink an extra basket during one-on-one court time, he's not exactly thrilled by it, but he lets these things pass without comment.

Their banter is the same so for a while, he just lets things be as they will.

Because she's Kensi and he's Deeks, and this is kind of what they do.

They play and they dance and they retreat and then they do it all again.

So yeah, he doesn't notice just how much she's clearly trying to make up for what he'd lost during those hours in the warehouse by helping him to win.

When he does finally notice, he's annoyed but also a bit touched.

That is until she gets reckless and stupid about things.

And then he realizes that this isn't about winning; no, it's all about guilt.

Guilt makes you do absurd things.

Things that a trained agent like Kensi sure as hell knows better than to do.

Like for instance use yourself as bait for a major arm's dealer so as to keep your partner's cover in tact in order to ensure he doesn't get grabbed and tortured again. Which, you know, Deeks rather appreciates for about half a second until he's standing next to Callen in the middle of the Ops center listening to Kensi getting the shit beat out of her by two oversized thugs.

He's going to fucking kill her, he thinks to himself, his teeth grit tightly.

That is if the guys who have her don't do it first.

Thankfully for Kensi, these morons aren't like the big-time players who'd had Deeks and Sam; they're stupid and slow, and it takes Eric and Nell very little time at all to track them to a warehouse in the middle of Van Nuys.

Because everything disgusting happens in Van Nuys, Deeks thinks to himself as he stares out the window of a van, watching Los Angeles pass him by.

"Deeks," Callen says, and the blonde field leader might as well be asking him if he's all right because he's frowning and his tone say it all.

Deeks sighs and shakes his head, his eyes still locked on cracked cement.

He's going to fucking kill her for this.

Or at the very least...God, he doesn't know.

Maybe he'll kiss her again or maybe he'll shake her or maybe he'll…

What he does know is that if she dies today because her idiotic guilt over what had happened to him had caused her to act recklessly and take stupid risks that she knows better than to take, he'll never forgive himself.

Or her.

And what a terribly vicious cycle that would start. Or finish. Or keep going.

Or whatever.

He runs his fingers through his messy blonde hair, then drops his hand down against his chest, settling it against the fabric of the bulletproof vest.

A vest, which he knows for a fact, that she's not wearing.

"Deeks," Callen says again, and this time he hears the warning there.

"I'm fine," the detective replies tightly, his hands clenching and then unclenching like he's having a spasm. "Why can't we hear her anymore?"

"I think she's unconscious," Sam says softly. "But Eric says they can still make out breathing when they enhance the audio. She's okay, Deeks."

Deeks shakes his head again.

"It's Kensi," Callen reminds him.

"Right," he says. "It's Kensi. And she's always fine."

And then he realizes that he doesn't believe his own words anymore.

When they storm the building less than a half hour later, they meet exactly the resistance that they'd expected, and they deal with it exactly as they'd anticipated that they would; within two minutes of entry, every man who could be considered an enemy in the warehouse is as dead as a doornail.

They find Kensi tied up tight to a chair – a fucking chair, Deeks thinks as his stomach turns over and he almost loses his lunch on the spot – in a dirty dark room in the back of the warehouse. She's bloody and beaten, but he knows immediately that though she'll have some new ugly scars, she'll live.

The truth is that this is probably far from the worst beating that she's ever received so knowing Kensi, she'll blow it over, compartmentalize it and be back to being a complete fucking reckless idiot by the end of the weekend.

Yeah, Deeks realize as he unties his partners' hands with more force than is probably completely necessary, perhaps he's a little bit pissed off right now.

Perhaps he's a lot.

Because yes, his cover had almost been blown by the arm's dealer, but her throwing herself in their way so that he could get out with the evidence, well that was absolute…he doesn't have the words for how angry he is.

It was stupid and unnecessary.

It could have cost Kensi her life.

And then where the hell would he be?

Does she actually believe that he could have lived with her blood on her hands? Does she think he could have handled losing her?

He tosses the ropes to the ground, and then reaches up and slaps her cheek hard. "Kensi," he says, and there's not near as much gentleness as there probably should be in his deep voice because right now he's having a hell of time controlling all of the emotions that are coiling their way through him.

The mental images, too.

He sees himself tied to a chair very much like this one. He hears the sound of a drill and the pop of a gun. He hears the snap of electricity, and the whirl of a fist as it drives into his gut. He hears the creak of wood as it tries to collapse beneath him, and oh God, he can still hear himself screaming.

His stomach rolling again, Deeks jumps to his feet, and leaves the room.

Behind him, Sam and Callen watch, their eyes narrowed like they know.

They say nothing to stop him from fleeing, though.

Instead, Sam kneels beside Kensi and gently – so very gently - the two of them bring her back to her waking senses. They tell her it's okay now.

They assure her as she weakly gasps for air that everything is okay.

Deeks, well he regrets eating lunch.

And thinks that maybe he'll skip dinner.

He sure as hell knows he won't be sleeping tonight.

He's sitting next to her bed when she wakes up. He's been there since they'd brought her into this room a little over twenty-four hours ago.

"Hey," he says coolly when her mismatched eyes flutter open. Kensi is clearly confused, and in pain, but she only allows him to see it for a brief second or two before she bites down on whatever ugly emotions she's feeling, and then just like that, her face goes neutral and calm.

"Deeks," she replies, and he takes a darkly strange pleasure out of the fact that she's unable to hide the wince she makes when she shifts against her pillows. He watches the way her hand jumps out to pluck at the IV, her irritation with being kept in place by it quite evident. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he answers just as icily. "You're the one who got…" he trails off because he knows that if he says much more, he'll completely lose it on her.

Which is a probably an absolutely awful idea because he knows that right now neither of them is exactly thinking clearly. Kensi has been in this hospital bed for two days now, drugged to the gills thanks to three badly broken ribs and a whole host of other ugly injuries. As for himself? Well he's been sitting next to her bed all the while living on black coffee and bitter anger and so many bad memories that he's not even sure if he knows anymore what the difference between today and yesterday actually is.

Sleep? Well, maybe over the last two days he's caught himself a few naps of about ten or fifteen minutes here and there, but not much more.

He's losing his sanity, he knows.

People keep telling him he just needs to rest and let his mind calm. Go ahead and take something to help everything go away. Just for one night.

Get a few hours of sleep and then everything will feel less crazy and upside down and inside out, Callen and Sam have urged him.

He almost tells them that the only good nights of sleep that he's had since everything had happened have been the two or three-dozen ones where his partner has been there with him. Sleeping on the couch next to him.

They'd made it something of a ritual. Something they hadn't spoken a word to each other about. Something that she had had just done for him.

He'd assumed it'd been because of their status as partners, but now he wonders if it was always about the guilt she'd felt over him.

The thought makes him angry and sad and everything is tumbling again because that stupid guilt had led to her doing something idiotic like this.

He grits his teeth, and then stops because that, too reminds him of everything that he desperately doesn't want to ever think of again.

"I'm going to go," Deeks says to her as he stands up, his fumbling anxious hands pushing into the pocket of his hoodie and meeting in the middle.

Her brow furrows, and even that tiny motion hurts her. "Deeks…"

"You need to sleep."

She tilts her body towards him, and he sees a sharp flash of pain shine deep in her dark eyes as the motion causes her broken ribs to scream. "Did I do something?" Kensi asks in a voice made terribly rough from lack of water.

"I should go," he says again because if he doesn't keep saying it, and if he doesn't go right now, he's going to either break down in front of her or start screaming at her, and he just can't do either of these things.

Because she's so tired looking and so wounded, and though he'd never asked her to and never would have wanted her to, she'd done this for him.

"Okay," she answers, and he knows she's hurt. Which hurts him. But not nearly as much as saying something he won't be able to take back later.

"You're good," Deeks tells her, then, nodding his head because it's all he can do – all he can say - without cracking apart like a stupidly fragile egg.

"Yeah," she whispers, blinking those beautiful dark eyes. He feels that feeling again – the one that makes him wonder if he wants to shake her or kiss her and he still doesn't know which one he wants to do. He just knows that he needs to turn around and leave this room before he does either.

So that's exactly what he does; he swings his body around and he walks out – slowly he tells himself, but he's sure that's a lie – and then he keeps going.

And he wonders how far he can run before the exhaustion finally takes him.

Turns out not nearly far enough.

A few days pass – the weekend, he reminds himself lest he get strangely poetic about everything – and then he's back at work, and everyone is looking at him like he's two seconds away from a nervous breakdown.

He is.

But they don't need to know that.

So he cracks inappropriate jokes and babbles and acts like the Deeks that they all expect him to, and he does everything that he can to not to look over at her desk because every time he does, his teeth grind, and it hurts.

It fucking hurts.

He spends the day running around Los Angeles with Callen and Sam, and he fires his service weapon three times all the while hoping and praying that maybe – just maybe - the gunpowder and action will help clear his mind.

He knows better, but he hopes anyway.

But a few more dead bodies and a couple more splashes of bright red blood from the bad guys aren't nearly enough to chase away his nightmares of his time in the torture chair nor the ones he's been having of Kensi there.

"I'm thinking of quitting," he tells Hetty late Monday afternoon, between sips of some kind of rancid tea that makes him think that he's drinking raw sewage. He's sitting across from her at her desk, his blue eyes turbulent.

"Quitting," Hetty repeats thoughtfully and then she takes an appreciative sip from her own cup. He reminds himself that she's probably actually drunk raw sewage a time or two so maybe this shit actually tastes good to her.

"Yeah," he nods. "I think maybe it's time to walk away."

"And then what, Mr. Deeks? Will you return to the LAPD?"

"No," he says. "If I walk away, I do it from…everything."

"The badge, you mean." It's a statement not a question.

"Yeah." Another nod, and then another repeated statement. "It's time."

"Is it?"

"I think so."

"All right. And then?" she queries again.

"Maybe I'll take up being a professional bum," he cracks. It's meant to be a lighthearted joke because she's staring at him in that unsettling way that makes him feel like she can see everything that's going on inside of him.

And she probably can, he figures, because she's Hetty and she Hetty always knows. She certainly knows what this is all about, why he's sitting in front of her right now, but he doesn't need her to know that he knows she knows because…well isn't it bad enough that he's such an open book?

"Ah yes," she nods. "A simple life away from action."

"Right."

"And responsibility." Her eyebrow lifts as she says this, and he thinks that she might as well have stabbed him in the gut with the absurdly jeweled letter opener that she's pretending to examine as she speaks to him.

He winces sharply. She smiles thinly.

Because oh yes, she had stabbed him. Without even moving her hand.

Never one to allow her sparring partner to get up off the mat once she has them down, Hetty goes in for another quick jab. "And no Kensi."

Okay, so that wasn't so much a direct hit as a nuclear bomb to the face but all right, Deeks thinks as he lifts his blue eyes up towards Hetty. "Yeah," he admits. "I think maybe we're getting too close to make this work."

Well there it is. Out on the table.

He feels like an asshole about it, too, because he's completely sandbagging the shit out of his partner right now; she's still knocked out in a hospital bed recovering from a brutal beating that she'd gotten thanks to her desire to protect him from further harm, and he's sitting across from their boss trying to end everything like it just doesn't matter. Like it means nothing.

He doesn't even bother to try to convince himself that this is heroic.

It's not.

It's cowardice and anger and frustration and fear…

And he needs to get the hell away from her before she kills herself for him.

Because he thinks it might also be love or something like it.

"Ah," Hetty says, and then she lifts the letter opener up and turns it over in her hands. For a moment he thinks she'll tell him some kind of sage story that's meant to bring everything into sharp focus, but she doesn't; she simply puts the blade back down on the desk and stares right at him.

"Ah?" he prompts, his voice shaky and uncertain.

"Partners get close, Mr. Deeks." She tilts her head. "It's the nature of the job. You and Ms. Blye are excellent partners if I do say so myself."

"We are," he agrees. "Most of the time."

"Most of the time?"

He hates when she does this; she wants him to say exactly what he's thinking even if she already knows what it is. She wants to hear him actually say the words that would damn his partnership with Kensi, and make them both look like unprofessional idiots with raging teenage hormones.

He won't do that, though. Not yet. Not like that, anyway.

He focuses, instead, on the mission gone bad. "I had it under control with Trent and Gorja," he says, his mind flashing on the visuals of the two arms' dealers that he'd been dealing with. The ones who he'd later heard speaking to Kensi and threatening her life. The ones who are now cooling off in drawers at the county morgue. "They were suspicious, yeah, but I was dealing with it. She didn't need to pull the stunt she did." Anger flashes through his eyes before he can think to hide it, and he knows Hetty saw it.

"Yes," Hetty agrees after another long sip. She places the cup down perfectly on the saucer and then finishes with, "She may have been hasty."

"May have? Three broken ribs," he snaps out. "She could have been killed."

"But she wasn't."

"That's not the point."

"That's exactly the point," Hetty counters, her shrewd eyes lifting up to meet his turbulent ones once again. "Because this is the job, Mr. Deeks, and perhaps she should not have gone in so quickly and put herself in front of you, but perhaps you also don't know your partner as well as you think you do if you believe that she wouldn't have done this before you were kidnapped as well; Kensi has always been protective of those she loves."

He swallows hard.

"I won't stop you if you really wish to quit," she tells him. "I learned a long time ago that keeping someone who wants to leave will only lead to pain and misery, and frankly, Kensi deserves a partner who has no doubts. You assured Mr. Callen a few weeks ago that you didn't, but now I wonder."

He stares back at her.

"I think maybe you need to take a few days…"

"I took a few months," he reminds her with a soft humorless chuckle. "What will a few more days give me that months didn't?"

"Clarity because this is the end," she says. "It's time to decide if you want to be here or not. It's time to decide if you can handle Kensi being willing to step in front of you to protect you as you would for her. Being close to her isn't your problem, Mr. Deeks; your problem is being angry about it."

He licks his suddenly unbelievably dry lips and then nods his head.

"Okay," he says softly.

"You have until she returns to active duty," Hetty tells him. "Once Kensi is back, either you are or you are not. I believe you know what I want and what is best for this team, but the choice has to be completely yours and it needs to be your final one."

He doesn't argue with her; he can't because she's right. He'd returned to work believing that with Kensi at his side, he'd push his way through things and find his way back to sane and right and perhaps himself again.

But he hasn't and his fear keeps burning and building.

He'd walked away from Kensi at the warehouse and in the hospital room.

He wonders if he can walk away from her as her partner as well.

He thinks that maybe he can and God if that doesn't terrify him.

Three weeks pass after that conversation in a blur of sleepless nightmare filled nights, terrible surfs and half-eaten bowls of Fruit Loops. Kensi only calls twice during that time, and the second time, she says only, "I'm sorry," and he almost grabs the phone because the one thing he has figured out during all this time away from everyone is that this isn't her fault at all.

He's refused contact with everyone. With the exception of Kensi and her two phone calls, they've all tried to reach out to him, of course, but he's been consistent this time about not allowing them to get into his head.

Not that he'd really allowed it this first time; then, Nate had just sort of burrowed his way in, and Kensi had ended up on his couch with him.

It'd seemed so simple after that. Return to the routine, the normalcy.

But then Nate had gone back to his other job, and Kensi had been beside him and behind him and then in front of him, and all he'd been seeing is what he'd been seeing when he'd been the one tied to the chair.

He hadn't lied to her when he'd told her that she'd gotten him through it all; he just hadn't exactly told her the complete truth of the matter, either. Sure, thinking of her had pushed him forward, but part of that had been because he'd started hallucinating about her being the one being tortured.

That fear, that need to protect her from this kind of hell had made him stand up against everything that had been thrown at him. Sure, Sam's wife had mattered enough to keep him strong, but Kensi had mattered more.

And then like a complete reckless idiot, she'd still found a way to get herself kidnapped by sadistic sociopaths and tortured, anyway.

Which means that everything he'd done to protect her…

He stops himself short of finishing the thought because deep down, he knows that this is absolute insanity; partners protect each other. It's what they do. It's what they're meant to do, and what they even should do.

He'd taken every bit of torture in hopes that she wouldn't have to, and then she'd turned around and tried to do the same for him.

Which brings him back to the understanding that this isn't her fault.

He groans loudly in frustration, and then rolls over in his bed. Squinting against the moonlight streaming in through the window next to his bed, he throws his arm over his eyes, and closes them as tightly as he can.

He knows that his time is running out; it's been three weeks, and Kensi's ribs are likely healing up nicely. Knowing her, it won't be long at all until she's begging to return to work and then pushing to get back to the field.

It's been three weeks, two calls and twenty-one days of bad nights.

And the worst part of it all – that part that makes everything inside of him hurt like hell - is that he still has no idea what his final decision will be.

He sends her a text message six days later.

MEET ME FOR BREAKFAST IN TWENTY MINUTES.

Five minutes pass before a single word comes back: WHERE?

THE BEACH.

FINE.

He exhales in relief and wonders what he'll say to her.

"So is this goodbye?" she asks as she slowly, almost gingerly sits down next to him in the sand. She's close to him, and they're almost touching. He can feel the tension radiating off of her, perhaps even the anger and hurt. She's beautiful as always, dressed in light blue jeans and a purple and white tee.

If it weren't for how serious she is right now, how clearly hurt she looks, he thinks that maybe he'd allow himself time to just look at her. He knows better, though, because she's not in the mood for their normal silliness.

She wants answers and truth, and it's time for him to give them to her.

"The smart part of me thinks that maybe it should be," Deeks admits with what sounds a whole lot like a self-depreciating chuckle. "But I think we both know that I've never really ever been run by that part of me."

Normally, this would have brought at least a small smile to her lips, but not right now. She turns towards him. "What does that actually mean, Deeks?"

"How are you?" he asks instead, frowning at the pain he sees on her face.

She looks right at him now, and he thinks he sees dark shadows beneath her eyes that match his own; he wonders if she's been up at night because she's just as afraid to face the dreams that exist behind her eyelids as he is.

"I'm healing," she finally says, a hand trailing lightly over her chest.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she answers with a sharp nod. And it might have even worked if not for the fact that it's too emphatic and causing her healing ribs to move. He doesn't miss her wince, and it twists something angry inside of him.

"Right. Well, good one of us is."

Her head jerks back on her neck for a moment as she tries to figure out his oddly shifting moods. Then, her voice peppered with doubt, "Deeks…"

"I'm just saying, I can't sleep at night and I don't want to eat and pretty much everything sucks these days, but I'm glad you're doing better."

He sounds almost angry that she is, but he thinks that she sees right through him and knows what he's trying to do; he's trying to force honesty out of her. He's trying to make her scream her truth and her hurt back at him.

"I'm sorry," she says simply.

He grits his teeth. "You already said that. On the phone."

"Well isn't that what you wanted from me?" she challenges. "For me to apologize for almost getting killed? Isn't that what this is about?"

He's pretty sure that his mouth flops open for a moment before he snaps it shut again and sighs. "What you did was stupid."

"What I did is what partners do for each other."

"Kensi –"

"It's what you did for me."

"That was different. I didn't have a choice."

"Yes, you did," she contests. "You could have told –"

"No, I couldn't," he interrupts, his voice rough.

"Right, exactly," she nods. "And neither could I. Because that's what we do, Deeks; we protect each other. You have my back and I have yours, and that's how this has to work or it doesn't. As a partnership or not at all."

"You're right," he admits. He shakes his head and then laughs, the sound without humor. "I keep thinking I need to walk away."

"From the job or from me?"

"Some days from both."

She nods her head and stares out at the water.

"But I can't walk away from you, Kensi. I think I need to –"

"Do you want to? Walk away from me, I mean?"

"No," he admits. "Because I wake up in the morning and I look at my shirts, and I think about how much you'll rip on me for choosing light blue or I spread my cream cheese over my bagel and I laugh at the idea of you mocking me for hitting every edge and…and I miss that. I miss you."

It's her turn to swallow, and then she does it again. He thinks for a moment that she's trying not to cry, and that's enough to make a surge of fear go through him because his Kensi doesn't cry. She burns hot like the sun and she rages and she fights and she laughs, but she doesn't ever ever cry.

She doesn't now, either.

She blinks and a smile watery smile finally appears on her lips for the briefest of moments before she shakes it away and says in a voice made hoarse by emotion, "So what is this, then? If it's not goodbye, what is it?"

"I think maybe it's the truth," he tells her. "From both of us." This time he's the one that grins. "It's 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours'."

"What if I don't want to see yours?" she asks, half perhaps mostly serious.

"Oh, but I think we both know that you do," he teases, and then pushes his shoulder gently against hers. It's a soft motion because he doesn't want to jostle her, but it feels good all the same; it feels nice to have this moment.

She's not completely bought into it just yet, but he can tell that she wants to – he can plainly see that she wants to give into his charms and his smile and his normally easy way of things and just…let go.

The truth, he realizes with a start, is that he does, too.

He wants to find his way back to the Marty Deeks who knew how to roll with the punches and come out on the other side with a joke. He needs to be that man again, because the man he's been, well that one hurts.

On his way over here, his mind had been a swirling mess of thoughts and fears and confusion. Everything had been coming at him a million miles a minute, and all he'd known was that it was time to put it all out on the table.

For better of for worse.

So, being completely adult and mature about things as perhaps Hetty might prefer, he'd decided to tell Kensi that he would be quitting NCIS and that they probably shouldn't be around each other anymore because if they were it could…that thought had stopped right there, though, because he hadn't been able to come up with a reason that hadn't sounded utterly cowardly.

Then, allowing his emotions to dictate his thoughts, he decided to admit his feelings for her. Which had led to wondering if she'd laugh at him, reject him outright or tell him that she just wasn't into him in that way or that because they were partners they could be friends and…

After those two sides of him had gone to war with each other like a devil and an angel on a poor man's shoulder, he'd finally realized that until he saw Kensi's face and her beautiful eyes, he wouldn't know his decision because in the end, it's always been about her and him and them.

Their thing.

And that's where they are now.

He nudges her again, and then says quietly, "Talk to me. Please."

"Will you?" she asks, showing him those eyes.

"Yeah, but I think I need Bad Ass Blye to…"

"You need me to go first."

"No, I need you to show me bravery." He's so very earnest and honest when he says this, and his eyes are blazing blue with emotion and when he looks at her, he sees his own fears and hopes reflected back at him, and for just a moment, he thinks to hell with talking, he just wants to touch her.

Touch her and never stop touching her.

But he doesn't because he knows that that's exactly what will happen here.

So he waits.

And then she laughs.

"You need me to show you bravery? You withstood torture for –"

"For my family," Deeks says softly. "For the family I want. For you. I'm not sure that's bravery, Kens; maybe it's something good, but it's not bravery."

"No, it's exactly bravery," she insists, reaching out to grab his hand with one of hers. "And I don't have anything more to teach you about that."

"Okay," he nods. "But tell me, anyway."

She licks her lips. "I was…I was scared."

"I know," he says.

"I believed you guys would find me…you would find me, but after I woke up and saw them there over me, and one of them had a knife…"

"You had doubts," Deeks puts in when he realizes she can't continue.

"Yeah."

"So did I. And some nights when I wake up, and I'm alone in my apartment and it's dark and I'm not completely sure what time it is or what day it is, I still wonder if getting rescued was the dream and the nightmare is real."

"I went through less than you did," she says.

"Because you were unconscious most of the time. They wanted to show you their power, Kens; with me they wanted to torture information out of me so I needed to be awake for that. But you know what? Torture is torture."

"And I am all right," she assures him. He feels her hand slip into his. "You?"

"Some days, I am. Right now, I am." He leaves unsaid the rest of the sentence which is that being around her right now is what makes everything feel better. He knows these words are dangerous - however true, they be - and while they're out there all the same, they're not ready to be said just yet.

"I am sorry," she says. "I never meant to make things worse; I just wanted you not to have to go through that again. I was…"

"My partner. I get it. And if it were me, I'd have done the same thing."

"So is this a fight or a break up or a make up?" she asks him.

He squeezes her hand, his fingers slipping between hers. Though he could never explain why to anyone, this moment means as much to him as a thousand kisses ever really could. "I think it's just us talking for once. And I think it's me realizing just how much I missed you, partner."

"You haven't been sleeping," she says, echoing what he'd said just minutes earlier. "Again?" She frowns when she says this, the lines deep.

"Like I said: I missed you."

"What about work?"

"If you'll –"

"I want you there," she finishes for him. "But only if you want to be there for you. I need my partner, Deeks, not the guy who wants to protect me."

"And if your partner wants to protect you?"

"That's okay just as long as he trusts me to protect my self, too. And him."

"He does. And he's sorry for forgetting that you're a badass." He punctuates his words with an impish grin; the kind he knows she can't resist.

"Forgiven," she replies with her own smile, her eyes dancing in that playful way he loves. "So how about we either hit the waves or –"

"The sheets?" he suggest with a wiggle of his eyebrow. "I do need sleep."

She laughs. "Waves, breakfast, sleep. No sheets."

"Can't fault a guy for flirting."

She looks down at their joined hands. "No, I can't." Another squeeze, and then she moves to her feet, and starts towards the water.

He reaches into his pocket, pulls his cell out and quickly types out: IF IT'S ALL RIGHT, I'D LIKE TO RETURN TO WORK IN THE MORNING.

Twenty seconds, if that, pass before a response comes back: WE LOOK FORWARD TO YOUR RETURN, MR. DEEKS. BOTH OF YOUR RETURNS.

He chuckles to himself because of course she knew that it would all work out eventually, and then he puts the phone back into his pocket and moves to join his partner in the surf, all the while wondering how he could have thought that he could actually walk away from her.

Now, at least, he knows better.

Now, at least, he knows that he never could.

Because she is family and home and all of those things worth protecting and having guilt about. She's a reason to survive and to fight and to hope.

"Deeks," she says, a hand out to him as she steps into the surf. "Come on, water isn't getting colder, but my feet are."

He takes it and smiles and then, spinning her around, he pushes her into the icy water. "And now you are," he says as she pulls him down with her. He should have seen that coming, but either he hadn't or he hadn't care to try avoid it; either way, they're both completely drenched now.

She laughs and he laughs and yeah, he thinks he's sleep well tonight.

-Fin.