It was hard to think past the pain, which was weird, because she was a professional at being "fine". Compartmentalizing her discomfort, both physical and mental, had been a part of her life since the first time she was old enough to understand that her dad was shipping off to parts unknown. She could push herself through fear, fatigue, broken ribs, and throbbing headaches. She had battled, and won, with guns, knives, fists, and words. But this was different. Because this time, there was nothing she could do. She couldn't fight back. She couldn't press forward, because there was no goal to push herself toward. The very act of survival seemed too big. They weren't torturing her for information. They were abusing her for her crime of being female. And there wasn't a thing she could do about it.

At first she held back her screams. She didn't want to show weakness to the bastards who were holding her. Jack was already shrieking at them to stop hurting her, to punish him instead. She didn't want to make it worse for him. But as the pipe came crashing down on her again and again, her body reacted against her will, writhing and crying out in agony.

She sat bolt upright in her bed, covered in sweat, her eyes wet with tears. She patted her arms and legs in disbelief that the welts and bruises were nearly healed. The nightmare had been so real. She pulled her knees to her chest and cried. She was never going to be able to leave Afghanistan behind. The Taliban continued to hold her in their iron fist in spite of their 7,000 mile distance. Images came into her head unbidden, faces twisted into cruel expressions of hate. Sounds echoed in her mind, shouts in Arabic and chilling laughter mixed with Jack's screams for mercy on her behalf. And the pain, she could still feel the hands grabbing at her clothes and everything after that, culminating in that final, brutal beating that had left her all but dead. Bile rose in her throat, and she struggled to hold it down.

She knew that she was only alive because Deeks had managed to negotiate a hostage exchange. She knew that she owed him her life. And she hated that indebtedness. She had been ignoring his calls for two weeks, refusing to acknowledge the fact that she had to face what had happened head on. It was easier to spend the day pretending.

So today she was planning to head back into work. When her phone rang at 6:21, after two hours and eighteen minutes sitting on her bed unmoving, she actually answered it. Deeks was speechless on the other end.

"Um, hi. Um, Kensi?"

"What do you want?"

"Um, Callen said you were coming in today, I just wanted to see if you are okay?"

"I'm good."

"Good. That's good. Do you need anything? Is there anything I can do? I mean, you haven't talked to me in weeks. Are you really fine?"

"Shut up Deeks. I'm not invalid. Everything is healed. I'm fine."

And she hung up the phone, because she couldn't keep talking or the tears would come. She needed to get up, to get showered, to put on a happy face and prepare to face everyone at the OSP. Because she was fine. She was better than fine. She was good. And she was going to stay that way.