a/n: This takes place in a universe where 'Descent' never happened. It is either a sad or a happy universe, depending on which part of the finale you focus on.

[August 9, 1600 hours]

"Mr. Deeks, Ms. Blye," Hetty's voice comes over the loudspeaker, "the lab technician reports that he will need at least eighteen hours to determine the extent and severity of your exposure. Until a conclusion is reached, you are to remain in quarantine."

"Here?"

"Yes, Mr. Deeks. Here."

"Together?"

"Together."

"But Hetty -"

"You are to remain, Ms. Blye, until your blood-work is cleared. Until then you are considered a threat to yourselves and to others."

Deeks snorts. "She's always a threat to others."

Hetty either doesn't hear or chooses to ignore him. Since he's pretty sure she's part bat, he's going with the latter.

"Were I you," she advises, "I would take these mandatory hours of confinement and use them to your advantage."

Even though he can't see her, Deeks is fairly certain she's looking at them pointedly, eyebrows raised and implication clear. But his pride still stings, he's tired, he's irritable, he may be dying, and he just isn't willing to give Kensi the satisfaction.

"Yeah, sure," he says. "I'll use this time to improve my solitaire game."

"Perfect." Kensi folds her arms across her chest. "That's definitely a skill you'll want to master. I imagine you'll be alone for a long, long time."

[August 9, 0900 hours]

They're standing in Ops, pictures of suspects littering the giant screen and Eric going on about national security and chemical explosives, but he doesn't see it, doesn't hear it.

He took two long, hot showers, but he still smells peaches every time he inhales.

Kensi stands across the room, frown etched across her features - the same one that's been there, tugging at his insides for the last month, and today something finally snaps.

The briefing concludes, assignments are given, and Deeks makes his way down the stairs. He digs around in his drawer until he finds the folder he's looking for, gripping it with white knuckles as he crosses to Hetty's desk.

"Mr. Deeks," she says, as she hangs up the phone, her eyes glancing briefly to the file clutched in his grasp. "I'm guessing you aren't coming to finally turn that in."

He shakes his head. "No, Hetty. I'm not."

[August 9, 1800 hours]

They saved the world today. Again.

He's starting to feel like Jack Bauer and Chuck Norris all rolled into one. If it weren't for him (and, okay, the team) Los Angeles would have been devastated at least three different times. And the world would have suffered from genocide by smallpox.

Plus, how many times has he saved his own brains from a zombie invasion with only the use of household plants? Countless. And that's not even getting into the eggs he's rescued from green pig-creatures with just a slingshot and some angry avians.

And Kensi?

He doesn't like to think what would have happened to Kensi if he hadn't been around these past few years. He's saved her life more times than he can count on both hands. If he were having this thought aloud instead of inside the confines of his own mind, Kensi would make some joke about him needing the use of his fingers to count. But he's not and she won't.

He's taken to playing out entire conversations between them in his head. Partly because he deems it not worth the trouble to actually engage in conversation, but mostly because he's pretty sure he wouldn't like the way the conversation would turn out in the real world. Not lately, anyway.

He imagines her response about his heroics being a jab about her not having been in those predicaments in the first place if it weren't for him. Something about it not actually counting as a save if he's the reason for the danger.

And who's to say another partner wouldn't have saved her just as well?

Imaginary Kensi's point is one he swallows down like a very bitter pill. He doesn't like to contemplate someone else getting her back, someone else having his. And the most bitter part of all is how very real it tastes going down.

[August 9, 0630 hours]

Her name is Sadie. She's got blonde hair and blue, matching eyes. She smells like peaches and her skin tastes like sugar.

The rising sun illuminates his bedroom as he lies there, tangled in his own sheets, the heat radiating off a stranger chilling him to the bone.

He makes her pancakes and ushers her out the door, desperate to get her out so he can breathe again.

[August 9, 2000 hours]

There are lots of things Deeks can't stomach, things that set his teeth on edge - things that, when he comes across them, make him do stuff he probably shouldn't: dirty cops, self-important assholes, carnies, people who think Superman is better than Batman, curry, silence. It's that last one he blames for what he does next. Though, if he tried hard enough, he could probably find a way to blame the carnies too.

"You realize this is completely your fault."

Kensi looks up from her smartphone. "My fault?"

He nods.

"My fault?" she repeats.

"Yup. Yours."

She shakes her head in disbelief. "I know I have a ways to go before I figure out how that thing," she points in his direction, "you have in place of a brain actually functions. But still, there is no way this my fault."

He's not sure whether he's talking about today or last month, and she probably isn't either. Maybe he's talking about both. But he thinks that particular slant of her eyes and the way her fingers are curled into fists are pretty good indicators that he should leave the latter off the table.

"Oh no?" he challenges. "Who opened the door?"

She snorts. "That's it? The fact that I opened the door? What, would you have just turned around and gone home?"

"I certainly wouldn't have barged in -"

Her jaw clenches. "I didn't barge -"

"- without even considering that maybe -"

"You think it didn't cross my -"

"- the guys who are suspected of building a biological weapon -"

"Are you trying to say that I'm -"

"- might actually have some hazardous material!"

"Oh you have some nerve," she fumes, pushing off her chair and tossing her phone onto the table. "So I don't think before I act, is that it? I don't realize actions have consequences?"

He doesn't bother keeping the bitterness out of his voice. "I'd never imply that. You do everything intentionally. I know that better than anyone."

She registers the change in direction, the not-so-subtle dig, and huffs out a sigh. Instead of pushing, of letting him push her, she gives up. She retrieves her phone and drops back into her chair.

"Fine," she concedes. "You're right. I exposed us to deadly chemicals because I thought it would be an easy way to put us both out of our misery."

Instead, he's sure they're more miserable than ever.

[August 8, 1730 hours]

"Can't handle the rejection, huh?" Sam says one morning as they're working on the latest after-action reports.

Deeks glances up from his pile of paperwork. "I'm sorry?"

Sam's eyes glance over to Kensi's currently empty desk and then back to Deeks. "You've been stalking around here like a wounded bear ever since Fresno. 'I'm glad we're still alive' sex go sour?"

Probably, the reason he's so damn pissed is how on-the-nose Sam's observation really is. Probably, he's wound a little tight at the moment. Probably, he should just let it go.

"Fuck you," he says instead, and pushes out of his seat.

Sam shakes his head and turns back to his reports. "I'll take that as a 'yes.'"

Callen appears from nowhere, pressing his hand against Deeks' chest. "I'll take care of it," he says. "Walk it off. Find another way to let it out."

Deeks stalks off to the armory and vows to do just that.

[August 9, 2200 hours]

An angry red bird flies into a wooden beam and his screen goes black.

Really? Really?

He looks at the clock. Seven hours in and already his damn battery is dead. Figures.

With an overly-dramatic sigh, he tosses his phone onto the foot of the mattress, watching miserably as it slides across the sterile, hospital-grade sheet.

"I'm going to invest in a car-charger."

Kensi doesn't even look up from her phone. "Because you spend so much time in your car."

"For your car, then."

"My car already has a charger."

"That isn't compatible with my phone."

"Imagine that."

"Anyone ever tell you how charming you are?"

She spares him a glance, but not a response.

He huffs and leans back against the wall, legs swinging petulantly over the side of the bed.

"Hetty!" he calls.

She doesn't answer.

[July 26, 1100 hours]

Kensi steps out of wardrobe in one of Hetty's getups, lower cut than the collared flannel she'd been wearing when she came in. Her cheeks are pink as her hand flutters over the the mark on her neck, a deep and mottled purple.

He wonders how many other lips have been on her neck since his - how many tongues have tasted the salt of her skin.

His stomach churns as he breezes past her, sliding the curtains closed and counting to ten before pressing his forehead against the wall and trying to exhale.

[August 9, 2230 hours]

He's halfway through "The Rainbow Connection" when she finally cracks.

"For the love of god, please stop singing."

"What, you think Kermit did it better?"

"I don't even know what that means."

"I'm just saying I am surprised you held out through the first ten songs. Your level of pissed must be epic."

"Maybe I don't find Kenny Loggins as offensive as you think I do."

"That can't be it."

"Yeah, that's not it."

He makes it about fifteen more minutes before he starts on "To-Ra-Loo-Ra." He really hates silence.

[July 12, 1400 hours]

Her first technique was to pretend it didn't happen - but he's well-equipped to combat that particular defense. Persistent verbal badgering is kind of his default setting anyway.

So, really, it's his fault she resorts to option two: getting really, really pissed.

[August 10, 0000 hours]

Okay, so they may actually be dying.

It doesn't feel like it, and there's a considerable lack of puss, but if it were completely out of the question they'd be out of here by now.

He figures this is the point where his life should play before his eyes, slow motion and sepia-tinted. He should be cataloguing his regrets - mourning the loss of the chance to do all those things he wanted to do but hadn't yet made time for.

The funny thing is, while, yeah, he really wanted to surf in Australia, and he's kinda bummed that didn't pan out, he doesn't actually have any regrets. And it suddenly seems like that's incredibly important.

"I don't regret it."

Kensi's head whips up and she looks at him, confusion plainly etched on her features. "What?"

"I don't. I haven't. Not once."

And it's true. He regrets the fallout, regrets how they've handled it and how it's affected their partnership, but he doesn't regret the act itself.

She maintains eye-contact only for a moment. Then, gaze locked solidly on her phone, she breathes, "You should."

As her words land painfully against his chest, he considers she may be right.

[July 12, 0500 hours]

When he wakes up the bed is already cold.

It takes him a ridiculously naive few minutes of searching to realize that she's long gone - that she left him there, alone, in her house, in her bedroom, tangled in her sheets.

It takes him only a moment longer to realize exactly what that means.

[August 10, 0300 hours]

He wakes up, mouth dry and neck sore, and blinks against the darkness. He brings his wrist up to glance at his watch before remembering he's not wearing it - it's likely in some red bag stamped with the symbol for hazardous waste or meeting a tragic end in the burn room along with the rest of his clothes.

He considers sneaking over and grabbing Kensi's phone, just to see what time it is, before he becomes aware of a distinct lack of snort-snoring.

"It's after three," she says, apropos of nothing other than the thoughts he's sure were locked inside his own head.

"Thanks," he answers, voice deep and gravelly. He wonders how long she's been awake; if she's even slept.

"Do you think we're going to die?"

Well, that answers his previous question, at least. He scrubs a hand over his face. "No, probably not."

She's silent for a moment. "So we don't need to make amends or anything, then. We won't be facing the afterlife with unresolved issues between us."

He's pretty sure the disappointment in her tone is something he's only imagining. "Kens -"

"Because," she continues over him, and he wishes he could see her face, "we probably shouldn't go out like this, you know? So, I guess it's a good thing we're not going to die."

"Unless we get shot tomorrow by some arms dealer or something."

"Tomorrow's Saturday."

He shrugs. "Could get hit by a bus."

"That's true."

"You never know."

"You don't regret it?"

"Not for a second."

"But everything that happened -"

"Everything that came after doesn't change that night, Kens. It doesn't change what happened, it doesn't change that I wanted it to happen, and it certainly doesn't change the way that I felt."

"How did you feel?"

"You know exactly." He scrubs a hand over his face.

"Tell me again."

He huffs out a laugh. "Because it went so well the last time?"

"Please."

"I love you, Kensi." It's harder to say it when he's not looking into her eyes, when he's not pressed against her, her hands digging into his hips. It's not the heat of the moment, it's not a declaration he lets slip because he can't bear to hold it in anymore.

"How long?"

He doesn't know why she's pushing this - why she's making him confess - but he answers her anyway. "I don't know. I just... I just looked at you one day and realized that I was in love with you. That I had been in love with you and that I was going to be for a very long time." He shakes his head. "God, that sounds cheesy. I've watched too many of your ridiculous movies."

She laughs a watery laugh. "I think the word you're looking for is 'romantic.'"

"Yeah? Wait, you mean the movies or me?" He sits up now, eyes adjusting to the darkness. The light seeping in from beneath the door gives the room a slight illumination, enough to make out the shape of her. Her hands are by her face, but he can't tell what they're doing.

"You, dumbass."

"Well, that certainly wasn't romantic."

She snorts. The fact that he finds it endearing is even further proof of how far gone he is for her.

"We were supposed to pretend it never happened," she says, quieter now. "It wasn't supposed to happen."

"Yeah, I got that."

"We weren't supposed to change, Deeks. I couldn't let us change."

She sounds like she's pleading, and it makes him feel like an asshole. Like he did this to her - he inflicted something on her that she didn't want. But at the time, hell, right up until the sun came up that morning, he was so sure they were both on the same page.

"See, that's where we disagree. I think the change didn't come that night, it came the next morning."

"I was trying to keep us from falling apart."

"Pretending it didn't happen was going to do that? Pretending we were the same two people we were three years ago?"

"If I could turn back time -"

"You still wouldn't be able to take away the fact that I love you and you love me."

In the silence that follows, the room seems to get darker. His heart is firmly lodged in his throat and he wonders if maybe he's wrong. He wonders if maybe her feelings were something he imagined - if all those smiles and touches and moments between them don't actually add up the way he thinks they do.

"My point is, Kens," he continues, for some reason feeling the need to dig himself in even deeper, "that the ship had sailed for us a long time ago. Whether there was sex or not, there was something between us."

"I know that, I just." She shakes her head. "I don't know."

He watches her silhouette as she lies back down and tugs the blanket up to her chest.

"Yeah," he agrees. "I don't know either."

[July 11, 2200 hours]

His skin's still burning from where the flames licked him, his breath is shallow and hard to come by, but he's never been more content in his life.

His fingers dig into her hip as he presses her into the mattress, afraid that if they release - if he lets her go - she'll slip away.

She's clutching his shoulder, tangling her hand in his hair, fusing her lips with his - frantically making contact in any way she can, trying to eliminate any space that manages to find its way between them.

He cries her name to make sure he can hear it.

[August 10, 0530 hours]

He wakes up with a body pressed against him - a body that he's 100% certain was across the room when he'd fallen asleep.

"I'm sorry," she says, words muffled by the fabric of his shirt. "I guess I should have said that earlier."

He scrubs a hand across his face and wades through the fog of sleep.

"I wasn't thinking straight that night, wasn't thinking the next morning either - god, I don't remember last time I had my head on right. I just," she lifts her head off his shoulder so he can see her eyes. They're red and tired and sad and confused.

"Kensi -"

"I wasn't thinking and then I was thinking too much and I couldn't handle everything that was swirling around in my head." She laughs a little. "You'd think with all the times I'd imagined us together, I'd have taken a moment to contemplate the repercussions."

"Repercussions."

"Fallout."

"Still sounds like something that happens after bad shit goes down, Kens."

"I don't mean for it to. I," she slides her hand up his chest, thumb gently tracing the line of his jaw. "You're already so much, so important. I couldn't let you be my everything. I couldn't put all my eggs in one basket, Deeks."

"And I'm the basket in this metaphor?"

"Yes, you're the basket."

"Could I be an egg carton instead? They're so much more masculine. Maybe one of those built-in egg shelves in fancy refrigerator doors?"

Her hand stills. "Deeks."

"And you realize that you actually get to hold on to your eggs, right? Or do we need to have a discussion about how ninja assassins are made?"

She laughs and tears spill onto her cheeks. "You're not taking this seriously."

"I'm all out of serious, Kens. I'm all out of angry and bitter and confused. I want us to be us again."

"But -"

"But nothing." He brushes a strand of hair off her face. "You've been my basket for a long time. Trust me to be yours, too."

She stares into his eyes for a moment before leaning in, her lips hovering over his. "Now that is romantic."

"Really? How about if I promise to gently cradle your eggs?"

"Less romantic."

"I would be a very pleasing shade of wicker."

"Not even in the ballpark."

"How about -"

She finally closes the distance between them, cutting him off with a kiss.

[July 11, 1730 hours]

He can't see through the smoke, can't breathe through the smoke, can't feel anything but the heat that presses against his skin. A distant ringing echoes in his ears, fading in and out and in again.

He opens his mouth and yells her name but doesn't hear it, doesn't feel it. He tries again and again and again, content to shout until he sees her, feels her, knows that she's okay.

He blacks out and comes to, Kensi above him, haloed in sunlight.

If this is heaven, he thinks as his face splits into a grin, he'll take it.

[August 10, 0700 hours]

The doors to quarantine slide open, pulling Deeks from a contented sleep. Kensi stirs beside him as the lack of audible footfalls tells him that Hetty has arrived.

"Are we dead?" he asks, turning to see his boss as she clears the threshold of the room.

"It would appear not, Mr. Deeks. Your labs have come back free of toxins." She clasps her hands at her waist. "You live to fight another day."

Kensi pushes up on her elbows, rubbing her eyes as she glances at her phone display. "It hasn't been eighteen hours yet."

"No? I must have overestimated the time it would take to resolve things."

Kensi frowns. "You mean get the test results?"

"Isn't that what I said?"

"You said 'resolve things.'"

Hetty hmms. "Slip of the tongue."

Deeks shakes his head. "I bet."

"I thought we might go out to breakfast," Hetty says as she turns, leading them toward the exit. "I have the most voracious craving for an omelet."

Deeks laughs, reaching for Kensi's hand as they walk out the door.