Loss

A/N – I don't own anything to do with NCIS:LA except seasons 1-8 on DVD. There are some small spoilers ahead for the end of season 8, so if you haven't seen it, don't read this unless you're willing to absolve me of ruining things for you!

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Deeks stood at the closed door and stared at it. He raised his hand to knock and saw his hand was shaking. Annoyed with himself, he dropped his hand and lowered his head. "Come on Deeks, you can do this!" He muttered to himself. Swallowing hard and stilling the shakes, he raised his hand again and knocked before he could have second thoughts. For some reason, ringing the bell just didn't feel right, too…discordant. He waited. The door finally opened and Kamran stood there, looking too drawn for a thirteen year old girl. He swallowed again and blurted out. "Hi sweetie. I'm so sorry!" They'd all gone to the funeral but this was the first time he'd been able to talk to her alone.

She looked at him hard, nodded and then threw herself into his arms which immediately closed around her, pulling her tight against him as she sobbed. He made nonsensical noises as he rubbed her back in small circles, trying to comfort the young girl who had lost her mother to violence, too young. When he felt her crying slow, then finally stop as she started to pull back, he let her go. She wiped her eyes and sniffled. "Are you here to see daddy Uncle Marty?"

The honorary uncle status hit him hard and he felt his eyes well up. Michelle had been a great mother, great wife and had become a good friend since the Sidorov disaster. Her death had affected them all but her husband was inconsolable. "Yeah, honey, I am. Is he here?"

"Yeah, he never goes anywhere anymore. He just sits out back and barely talks. He's drinking a little too. I miss my mom but I feel like I'm losing my dad too." Her words were way too grown up and he wished with all his heart he could make it better for her, but knew from experience that only time would heal these wounds.

"Can I see him?"

"You can try. Uncle Callen has been by a few times but even he can't get daddy to talk much. I'm not sure if you'll have any better luck, but you can try." She turned and led the way through the darkened house, heading out to the backyard where her father seemed to feel most comfortable, sitting out there until the early morning hours before stumbling inside to sleep on the couch, unable to contemplate sleeping in the bed he had shared with his beloved wife for so many years. She opened the back slider and walked through, Deeks right on her heels. "Daddy?"

"What baby?" The words were soft but held no real interest.

"Uncle Marty is here to see you."

"Tell him to go away. I don't want to see him right now."

Deeks put a hand on Kam's shoulder and jerked his head towards the house. She looked at him for a moment, to her father, then back to him and nodded as she slowly made her way back into the house, leaving Deeks and her dad alone. For some reason she felt hopeful that the scruffy surfer detective she had come to love would be able to break through her dad's barriers. She and Aiden sure hadn't been able to, no one had. Deeks turned and studied the man sitting in the deck chair, his back to the house. He walked slowly towards him, not sure how Sam would take him ignoring his wishes to be left alone. They were all worried about him. It had been almost a month since Michelle had died at the hands of Tahir Khaled, a month since Sam and Callen had killed him, too late to save his wife.

"Sam?"

"Go away Deeks. I don't want you here."

"I just want to talk."

"Why?"

"We're all worried about you."

Sam snorted. "And it was you they decided to send to talk to me?" His derision was clear.

"No."

That got the big man's attention and he turned sunken eyes to meet Deeks's for the first time, as he turned in the chair and faced him. "What do you mean?"

"No one else knows I'm here, not even Kensi."

"Why are you here Deeks?" Sam asked again, the anger at the intrusion evident.

"I…" He paused, not sure how to proceed. "Sam, I would do anything, anything to be able to go back and be just that much faster, just that much smarter. Anything that would have changed what happened."

Sam's shoulders slumped and the anger drained away, leaving only numbness. "Just go Deeks." He turned away.

"No."

Sam turned back, surprise on his face. "I said GO!" His anger was back. It wasn't really aimed at the man who stood in front of him, he was angry at the world.

"No." Deeks said for a third time.

"What do you hope to gain by this?"

"To let you know there are people who care about you. People who want to be here for you and don't want you to shut them out." He spoke quietly, the sincerity in his voice making it sound louder than it was.

"There's nothing you can do."

"Look, Sam, I…I know…"

Sam exploded out of the chair and grabbed Deeks by the shirt. "If you DARE say you understand, that you KNOW how I feel, I will knock you on your ass right now, get my gun and shoot you where you sit! You can't possibly know how I feel!"

"That's just it Sam, I do know how you feel." He still spoke quietly and let Sam see the pain in his eyes. Pain he had buried long ago.

Sam searched his eyes and saw something he'd only seen twice before. Once in Afghanistan and again in Syria. He slowly let go of the detective's shirt and stepped back. Deeks shuttered his eyes, closing the pain away from him. "Her name was Stephanie Kane. She was a social worker. Fresh out of college, bright eyed and ready to save the world. I was a public defender with too many clients and not enough time. I'd been like her once, sure I was going to make a difference, but two years in the Public Defender's Office had pretty much cured me of that." He opened his eyes again and met Sam's. "Do you know what it's like to be a P.D. in Los Angeles, Sam? I had so many people assigned to me I could barely learn their names, let alone look into their case before we went before a judge. I met her when she accompanied one of my clients to a meeting, hoping to convince me that the boy was innocent. I felt like someone hit me with a ton of bricks and fell head over heels in love right then. I was lucky, she felt the same way." He paused and turned away, wrapping his arms around his waist like he was cold in the warm California sunshine.

"Deeks…" He wasn't sure he wanted to hear anymore, he just wanted to be left alone with his pain.

He continued as if Sam hadn't spoken. "I asked her out for coffee and for the next six months, we spent every free moment together and then I asked her to marry me. She said yes right away and we began to plan our wedding. It was going to be small, neither one of us had much family and we made crappy money. Every cent we had, we put towards buying a house, towards starting a life together. We found just what we wanted, not too big but big enough to expand our family. On our salaries it was going to be a stretch at first, to make those monthly payments. We used to laugh that we'd be living on ramen noodles or mac & cheese out of a box. It sounded like heaven to me."

He paused again, but this time Sam didn't interrupt, knowing where this was going but wanting to find out what had happened. "I'd been assigned the case of a young girl named Elisa Morales. She was sixteen and got caught shop lifting. The store owner was livid and was pushing for her to be tried as an adult. Something about her struck a chord in me and I put more time into her case after hours. She was one of three children, her mother strung out on drugs, father out of the picture. Her older brother, Ramon, was eighteen and in one of the worst gangs in L.A. She was responsible for the care of her younger brother, Jorge, from almost the time he was born. Way too much burden on such a young girl, but a fairly common story. The food she stole was to feed him. They were both hungry all the time. Jorge had just turned twelve and Ramon was pressuring him to join his gang but Elisa had brought the younger brother up right. He wouldn't do it. I told Stephanie about their situation and asked her to help."

"One night, we were supposed to be going out to dinner. An extravagance that I kept arguing against but she wanted it so badly, saying she wanted to celebrate. It was two weeks before the wedding and we were closing on the house the week after. I couldn't deny her anything. That day I had my boss on my ass about overdue paperwork. I was trying to impress him, hoping to get a raise, make a little extra money each week. She called to remind me of the reservation and I barely listened to her, continuing to update my case files while we spoke. I told her we'd have to push the reservation off, if not cancel altogether while I tried to finish everything up. She just laughed and said she'd call the restaurant and change the time, that she'd call me to let me know the new time we had to be there. She also mentioned that she was going to talk to Elisa's mother. I wasn't paying attention. I didn't realize she meant that night. It was the last time I spoke to her." He stopped, remembering it as if it was yesterday.

"What happened Deeks?" The words were quiet, all anger gone.

"She went to the Morales's home that evening. I have no idea what they talked about. While she was there, there was a drive by shooting. She was hit and died instantly. To this day, I'm convinced it was Ramon's gang, an object lesson to the neighborhood about what happened if you defied their wishes, but no one could ever prove it. She was in the wrong place, at the wrong time. She was the only one even hit by a bullet. If I had listened…if I'd just stopped what I was doing and really listened to her, maybe things would have been different. Then you and I wouldn't be standing here talking."

He took a deep breath and looked into Sam's eyes. "What happened to Michelle is awful Sam and it's going to take a long time to get over it. But you had twenty years with the woman you loved and two beautiful children who adore you. Don't shut out everyone who cares about you. Let them in, let them help you."

"Is that what you did?'

"No and that's why I'm telling you this now. Don't do what I did. Don't turn your back on everyone. I quit my job, lost the down payment we'd put on the house. I had no money and slept on a friend's couch so I didn't have to sleep on the streets. I wouldn't let anyone in, especially my mom. You've met her, she's not the best in a crisis."

"How did you end up dealing with it?"

"Time and a good friend who put up with me. Someone who pretty much put his life on hold to get me through the worst of it. I just wanted to curl up in a ball and die, follow her wherever she'd gone, convinced my life was over. He wouldn't let me. Eventually, I let him back in and things did get better. I couldn't go back to being a Public Defender and Steph's case was never solved. I started to wonder what it must be like to be a cop, and decided to join the police department, sure I could have done a better job. The rest, as they say, is history."

"How long ago was this?"

"How long? If things had been different, we'd just have celebrated our thirteenth wedding anniversary with our twelve year old son or daughter."

He let the last sentence hang there and it took a minute for it to register with Sam, his keen senses dulled by the last month. When it finally did, the blood drained from his face.

"You mean…" He stopped, not able to put it into words.

"Yes, she was pregnant. We wanted a family right away and we'd stopped using protection. She'd found out the day before and made that reservation at our favorite restaurant. That was what she wanted to celebrate."

"Jesus, Deeks! I had no idea! And I'm sorry, I'm sorry you had to go through that, but it's not the same!"

"Why?"

Sam started to pace and finally blurted out what was hurting him the most. "It was my fault! If it hadn't been for me, Khaled would never have gone after her to get to me. Everything that happened was my fault! My children's mother is dead. The love of my life is dead and it's all my fault!" He picked up the bottle of tequila that Deeks hadn't noticed sitting next to his chair until now and flung it across the yard, both of them watching as it smashed into small pieces of glass, glittering in the sunlight.

"That's where you're wrong Sam, it is the same. What happened to Steph was my fault!" He was starting to get angry, the past churning up inside him from the place he'd locked it away long ago. "If I hadn't asked her to help with Elisa, then she would've been safe and I'd have spent the last decade of my life with my wife and children! You at least had twenty years and your kids. You still have your kids! Me? I was left with nothing! Nothing of her but my memories! How can you be so selfish?"

Sam turned and looked at him, his mouth open. "Selfish?!"

"Yes, selfish! You have two great kids who have lost the mother they loved and now they're watching the father they love fade away! Kam told me she was afraid she was losing her dad! They need you as much as you need them! Don't turn away from them, let them in even if you can't let in the rest of us! Don't be selfish." The last words were almost a whisper.

Sam blinked a couple times, processing everything that Deeks had said. He wasn't selfish, was he? He tried to remember the last time he'd comforted Kam or Aiden and found he couldn't. A wash of shame swept over him and the next words that left his mouth stunned both of them. "How can I go on without her?"

"You get through each day and you put your kids first. Eventually, the pain will fade, even if it never goes away completely. There will come a time when her memory will bring a smile instead of a tear. If you're lucky, you'll find someone else again. It happened to me."

"Kensi?" Deeks nodded. "Does she know about Stephanie?"

"Of course. Just, maybe not in as much detail as you do now."

"How did you do it? How did you let yourself fall in love again, knowing that it could happen again?"

"I fought it, every step of the way. Eventually I realized it was too late, I was head over heels once more. Only this time, it was different. With Steph, it was sweetness and light. We were young and still fairly innocent. With Kensi, it's passion and fire, both of us tested by time. And it did happen again Sam. Do you remember Afghanistan? Hetty sent me that picture of Kensi with her throat cut. We'd spent the night together for the first time, right before she was shipped out on her new assignment over there. She asked me what I was doing and I told her, I was falling in love with her. Then, I was told we'd lost her and I felt it rip me to shreds, just like before. I almost killed that cleric, tortured him for information as to her whereabouts. It's not something I'm proud of but I'd finally found another person who was more important to me than anything in the world and I'd lost her, again. That was one of the reasons why I backed off once she was rescued and home. I couldn't face it, not again."

"But you did."

"Yeah, I was too far gone to be able to back off for long. At least this time I had more skills to keep her safe, or at least I thought I did. We were back on track and I was going to propose when Syria happened. I saw her under that damn helicopter and I couldn't believe it. Why did this keep happening? Was I a jinx or something? Why did the women I loved keep getting hurt or dying?"

Sam put his hand on Deeks's shoulder. "You did good out there in the desert, Deeks. You held it together and we got her out and home. Look at the two of you now, stronger than ever."

Deeks lips quirked in a small grin. "And engaged."

"Engaged? When did you ask her?"

"I didn't. She proposed to me. Slipped a grenade ring on my finger after you blew up Khaled, got down on one knee and asked me to marry her right in the middle of the debris field."

"She asked you then? In the middle of all the disaster my life had just become?" Sam wasn't sure how he felt about that.

"Yeah, after what we all saw you go through that day, after all she and I have been through over the last few years, she said she'd realized how short life was and, with the lives we live, how very short it could be for us and she didn't want to waste any time we had left. What's a girl to do? I said yes."

Sam huffed out a small laugh and realized it was the first time he'd laughed in weeks. If felt good, if a little disloyal to Michelle's memory. The laugh faded at that thought and he started to turn inward again when he heard Deeks. "Don't! Don't think you don't have the right to ever smile or laugh again. Take it from me that that way leads to misery. And you have to know, if Michelle were here right now, she'd be kicking your ass and giving you a good piece of her mind. Cherish your memories of your time with her and don't taint them with self-pity or blame."

Sam sighed. "I'll try."

"And we'll all help. This is not going to go away for a while and there will be times when you'll feel like you just don't want to go on, that's when you call me or Callen or Kensi, hell, even Hetty. We're all here for you Sam, you don't have to do this alone."

He thought about it and realized Deeks was right. He'd walled himself away, so sure no one could ever understand how he felt. The despair, the guilt. To find out that the man he'd held in so much disdain for so long, knew exactly how he felt and cared enough to open up to him about it, even though it had obviously hurt him to do so, made him feel a bit humble. He looked over at the broken bottle of tequila and realized he had no wish to indulge like that again. "I suppose I should clean that up."

"I'll take care of it."

"Thanks Deeks. You feel like a beer?"

"Beer? You have beer in the house? I thought you were a wine and champagne kind of guy."

"Yeah, but I keep some in the house for Callen when he comes over." He paused and continued. "Or to share one with a friend."

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A/N2 – this just came to me pretty much complete. I was struggling with a bit of writer's block on my other NCIS:LA story, Truths, Candor and Healing Hearts and started to think maybe I was done with writing. Hopefully, this isn't too out of character for Deeks or Sam. I've always wondered about Deeks's past, we've heard bits and pieces, which aren't always consistent. See Mama Deeks! I figured I'd get this out of my head before season 9 starts up!