A.N. Takes place in season 8, after Kensi's recovery.

G Words

He never saw it coming.

He'd seen a thousand other things coming, like bullets, and explosions, and the possibility of getting hurt or even killed. He'd even seen the possibility that any of those things could happen to her. He'd seen the actuality of it, too. Her trauma, her depression, her hard-fought recovery, her recent return to work. He'd seen all of those things.

But this….he never saw this coming. Never.

He'd walked into the mission with Kensi just as he'd done thousands of times in the past. He'd greeted his co-workers, absorbed their teasing, both gentle and more pointed, and even sent some back their way. He'd fired up his laptop while listening to Kensi tell Callen and Sam about their weekend plans, watching her smile, listening to her laugh, and….

It came upon him suddenly, unbidden, unexpected. Like a rogue wave, it crested over him when his back was to it, when he hadn't had time to direct the board, when he wasn't prepared to mount it, and subdue it. By the time he realized its threatening presence, it was too late. Instinctively, he knew he had no way to fight it, no way not to succumb. The only thing he could do was to make sure there were no witnesses to his demise.

Kensi stopped in midsentence, caught completely off guard by the sight of her partner racing down the hallway. Her colleagues appeared equally startled, as all three exchanged puzzled looks. Sam even called up to OPS.

"Eric…is there something going on?"

"Uh….not yet. Why, did Hetty say we have a case?" Fearing he'd missed something.

"Naw. Never mind. It's probably just Deeks, being Deeks."

Which sounded plausible to all of them. So they carried on with their conversation, anticipating that their LAPD liaison would reappear with some bizarre object, or factoid, or theory. Definitely a story. But when ten minutes had passed without his return, they each began to worry, just a little bit.

"I'm just going to go and check on him," announced Kensi. But Callen stopped her.

"Let me. He might be in the men's room. He looked a little pale when he left."

"He did? I didn't even see…," replied Kensi. Then she began taking mental inventory of possible clues to his illness. "We both had Yummy Yummy Heart Attack for dinner last night, and I feel fine. So it can't be that."

Sam snorted. "Are you kidding me? With a name like that? It might not be making him sick today, but it will probably kill him in thirty years."

"Ha. We like to think of it as building fortitude," informed Kensi.

"More like building plaque," muttered Sam.

Kensi continued her inventory. "He didn't feel warm, so I don't think he has a fever. And he ate okay this morning. He even caught a few waves. He hasn't seemed sick at all."

Rather than reassuring him, Kensi's words heightened Callen's concern. Run-of-the-mill, every illness was one thing. But something coming on so suddenly had the possibility to be much more ominous.

"Let me just check." I wouldn't want him to be having a heart attack, Yummy Yummy type or not.

Sam saw the worry on Kensi's face and tried to distract her while Callen went to check on their absent colleague.

"So, did 'the moms' vacate the premises yet?"

He soon realized he'd chosen the right material.

"Oh, my God, yes! Thank God! They were driving us crazy. Did you know….."

Callen pushed open the door of the final stall, finding it as empty as the rest. Deeks obviously hadn't fled to the bathroom.

Must have gone outside. Which was where the team leader headed next.

The courtyard was empty, but Callen's sensitive hearing picked up the sound of heavy breathing, and he followed it around the side of the building, behind a terraced vine.

"Deeks! Are you all right?"

Finding the words ridiculous even as he uttered them. His colleague clearly wasn't 'all right'. Marty Deeks was on his knees, bent in two, chest heaving, his skin nearly as pale as the cement of the bench behind him. Callen moved in quickly.

"Can you breathe? Can you talk?"

Wondering if his colleague was choking on something, mentally reviewing the steps of the Heimlich maneuver. His mind shifted direction when he succeeded in unfolding Deeks and got a better look at him. The young detective's face was awash in tears.

Callen was alarmed. As far as he knew, nothing had happened to precipitate this. Deeks had been fine one minute, and seemingly collapsed the next. He hadn't even taken a phone call, or checked a text.

Is he having some sort of breakdown? A stroke?

Callen whipped out his phone, only to feel Deeks' hand on his arm, trying to restrain him.

"Don't…", he panted. "Please don't…."

"You don't want me to call anyone? But…what's wrong? What's wrong with you?"

Deeks finally succeeded in calming his breaths down to a series of hiccoughs. Exhausted from his ordeal, he sat back on his heels, his head hung to his chest. When he mumbled a reply, Callen could barely hear him.

"What did you say?"

"I… don't….I don't know. It just hit me." Still panting, and looking like he might fall over any minute.

Callen reached strong arms around his colleague's back and lifted him, guiding him to the bench. He waited until Deeks was able to speak. They sat in silence, Deeks hunched forward, elbows on knees, head in his hands. It was a long time before he had breath enough to put behind his words.

"I was just….and then…..it was all so normal. You guys…and then she laughed, and it was all normal. And it just hit me….and I couldn't…..I had to get out of there."

To someone else, he might have sounded incoherent. But not to Callen. For G Callen, Deeks' words resonated with something buried deep within. Something he'd buried, a long time ago.

"Ah. G words."

Deeks was feeling so addled, he assumed it was him, garbling what Callen had said. He shook his head, trying to get his brain to decode correctly again.

"What?"

"G words. I learned them a long time ago, from someone we both know. In fact…."

He started reaching for his phone again.

"Oh, no, no, no, no, please don't call Hetty! She'll send me to the looney bin. Not that I don't belong there, maybe I do. But…please, I love my job."

Callen smiled, even as he tapped out a text. "You'll still have your job. I just think you need to hear this from the master. I can't do her justice."

Deeks hung his head in the dual misery of whatever was happening to him, and the knowledge that his boss was soon to see it first hand. Beside him, Callen kept a reassuring hand on his friend's back. As they waited, Callen had time to muse a bit about the evolution of his relationship with the LAPD detective.

In Callen's esteem, Deeks had once been an unwanted, untrusted burden to bear, just another one of Hetty's enigmatic chess moves. But, in time, the enigma had begun to reveal itself in the steadfastness of the man under pressure, and the keenness of his intellect, even if he chose to hide both of those things behind a breezy chattiness. Callen had begun to think that maybe Hetty wasn't so crazy after all.

But what had won Callen over more than anything, whether or not he would ever admit it, had been Deeks' care and tending of Kensi. Callen had developed a fondness for the young woman that went beyond the work relationship. She'd become the little sister to his would-be big brother. He'd been anxious about pairing her with someone he considered under-qualified to be an agent, no matter her own impressive skills. And then he'd been pleasantly surprised to see Marty Deeks win both her respect for his work in the field, and her trust, for as Callen well knew, that trust was extremely hard won.

Deeks had come through for Sam as well, and Michelle, and been severely traumatized for the favor. He'd been shaken, tremendously so. But he'd not been broken. He'd been there to retrieve Kensi from Afghanistan, and to broker the deal that accomplished it. And he'd been there for the ordeal from which she had only recently recovered. For many months of the recent past, as she'd tried to rebound from a devastating injury, he'd nurtured her, and encouraged her, and given her his heart when hers wasn't in it.

Callen had watched it all, watched the tortuously slow progress of his female teammate, watched the steady waning of energy and strength in her fiancé, as he worked all day and spent each night at the hospital. As team leader, Callen had to be concerned about the readiness of his team to enter into the kinds of battles they fought nearly every day. He'd been concerned about Deeks, to the point of bringing it to Hetty. The OPS manager had dealt with it as inscrutably as she dealt with most things.

"Work is the most normal aspect of his life right now, Mr. Callen. Let him hold on to it." Turning, on her way out the door, to add, "But be careful about it."

Fortunately, he had confidence that Hetty would be more helpful in the current circumstance. When he heard the building's door open, he left Deeks, and stepped around the terrace to fill Hetty in.

"He's okay. It just caught up with him. You knew that would happen, didn't you?"

She gave him a very small, knowing smile. "As I'm sure you did as well, Mr. Callen."

He smiled in return. "Yeah, I guess I did. Anyway, I was going to try to explain it to him, but...well, I thought you might want to."

"You thought I might want to?" That inscrutably small smile again. "Or is it because you don't want to?"

He wasn't having it. He knew her better than she thought. Hetty had an affection for their young detective friend. There were limits to her abilities, despite what she would have all of them think. But her ability to give comfort to Deeks in this instance wasn't limited. Despite her words, Callen knew she saw his deference as a gift. But he wasn't going to tell her that. Instead, he spoke another truth.

"Because he deserves to hear it from you. It will be good for him."

The older head bobbed just the slightest bit. "All right. Why don't you go in and explain it to Miss Blye? Mr. Hanna is having trouble keeping her distracted. Tell her, and ask her to wait until I've sent for her."

Callen could easily picture an adamant Kensi demanding to be allowed to seek out her fiancé and tend to whatever was ailing him. He smiled.

"Will do. He's all yours."

Staring ahead, Deeks felt the powerful, compact presence approach him, and take the seat next to him on the bench. He couldn't bring himself to turn his head to look at her. Which didn't stop Hetty.

"Mr. Deeks."

He just closed his eyes and shook his head.

"I'm sorry. I just….I'm sorry."

Hetty tilted her head to look at him sidewise.

"Whatever for, Mr. Deeks?"

He chanced a look in her direction, then smiled derisively to himself.

You thought you were going to learn something from her facial expression?

"I lost it. I'm sorry. I don't know what happened. But I'll make sure it doesn't happen again."

Hetty held his gaze for a long moment.

"I'm not sure you have that power, Mr. Deeks. Did you have it a few minutes ago?"

"Touche. But it caught me off guard. Now I know better."

"Really. What, may I ask, was it that caught you off guard?"

He almost gave her another 'touche', but it made him feel foolish.

"All right, I don't really know. But Callen seems to think you do. Something to do with him."

Now Hetty looked puzzled. "With Mr. Callen?"

"Yes. He said something about 'G words'. Doesn't that have to do with him? The guy with the one letter first name?"

"Ah, I see. No, I'm afraid that's just coincidental. He was referring to the words that describe what happened to you this morning."

Deeks squinted at her in curiosity. "This happened to Callen?" He'd seen bursts of anger and indignation in their team leader, but he'd never seen Callen incapacitated by emotion.

"He was much younger then. It was in the time after he first came into my care."

Callen's early life and his mysterious pre-NCIS connection to Hetty were all part of some nebulous background information that had yet to be shared with Deeks. He had a feeling they might never be shared.

"You're not going to tell me about that, are you?" Testing his theory.

"No, Mr. Deeks, I'm not."

He nodded his concession, smiling cynically. "All right. So, what are these 'G words'?"

Not unexpectedly, Hetty answered indirectly, with an observation.

"You've recently been through a great trial in your life."

Deeks dismissed it. "Me? It was Kensi who went through that. You know, the tough brunette who's probably thinking I've lost my mind right about now."

"You weren't under stress?"

Deeks looked at her sharply.

"Of course I was. But it's over now. She's okay. She made it back."

Hetty nodded her agreement.

"She did, thankfully. But not even the doctors could be sure of her outcome."

"They don't know Kensi."

"Does that mean you were always certain she would have a full recovery?"

Leaning forward, Deeks studied his clasped hands. His response was barely audible.

"No."

"No. In fact, even after Ms. Blye was no longer in danger of her life, you knew there was a possibility that she…and you, would still suffer a tremendous loss."

He filled up again, in spite of his personal vow to get a grip on himself. Hetty heard it in the hoarseness of his voice.

"But we didn't. We could have, but we didn't."

"You could have, Mr. Deeks. We're talking about what you went through."

She'd precipitated a rare moment of silence from Marty Deeks, and took advantage of it.

"You grieved, Mr. Deeks. You grieved her before you knew she could be saved. And then you grieved the life you'd hoped she would live. The life you'd hoped you would live together."

He tilted his head away from her, so she couldn't see the effect her words were having on him. But he could feel wetness on his cheek again, and knew his eyes had betrayed him to her. Hetty continued as though he'd responded aloud.

"Grief is a powerful thing, Mr. Deeks. It demands our acknowledgement, and our respect."

He sniffled, giving up the façade.

"She got better. Isn't that all that matters? Anyway, I didn't have time to spend wallowing."

Hetty let him sit with that for a moment before speaking again.

"Yes, I remember. You came into OPS, you worked your cases. And then you spent every other moment at the hospital."

He misread her intent.

"Did I slip up? No! I did my job. There's nothing to complain about."

Hetty let the rebuke go.

"I'm not complaining, Mr. Deeks. Indeed, your work was as impeccable as always."

That got him to turn quickly.

"You're playing me, now. You've never considered my work to be 'impeccable'."

She nodded. "Perhaps we'll have another conversation about that, one day. The point today is that you didn't allow yourself to acknowledge what you were going through. It's not an uncommon phenomenon. Many people seek to evade grief by keeping busy."

"I wasn't evading…."

"It wasn't your reason, Mr. Deeks. But it had the same effect. As I told you, grief will not be ignored. It will seek you out when you least expect it."

The young man next to her shook his head, squinting his doubt at her.

"That's what you think this is? Grief? Why now? Why, when things are back to normal?"

The word he'd used to describe to Callen what had happened. The thought he'd had, just before it had overwhelmed him. He could feel the sensation coming again, and stopped himself abruptly, before it could take his breath away once again.

Seeing, Hetty laid a hand over his shoulder.

"There is another side to grief, Mr. Deeks. It's what fills us when the grief is relieved. But it's also the reason we grieve in the first place."

He looked at her, his voice having left him, his watering eyes having to ask the question for him.

What are you talking about?

"Gratitude, Mr. Deeks. An appreciation for the gifts we've been given, whether lost or found. When we grieve, it's because we have first loved. Without love, there would be no loss."

Hetty watched him closely, looking for the moment of comprehension. When she saw it, she smiled to herself in satisfaction.

I always knew you were astute.

"You're saying it hit me because I'm grateful? Because I had a moment of ….. of what…. of nothing?"

"Not 'nothing', Mr. Deeks. You had a moment where you had no worry, no sorrow, no loss, nor pain. You've had many such moments in your life, no doubt. We all have. We just don't notice them. We don't appreciate them. What you had, was a moment of awareness."

The truth in her words resonated with him, and filled him up once again. He had to swallow before he could speak.

"I had a moment where I realized how blessed I was."

She squeezed his shoulder in affirmation.

"You did. And it was all the more precious to you because you'd been afraid you'd lost the very possibility of it."

He processed for a moment. "Grief. It leads to gratitude, just like gratitude leads to grief? Those are Callen's 'G words'?"

"They are two sides of the same coin, Mr. Deeks. One doesn't exist without the other."

"But why now? Why not when she first came home? Or when she started back to work?"

Hetty shrugged her shoulders. "Who knows? Perhaps we see things better with some perspective, some distance of time, or space."

Marty Deeks heaved a huge sigh, and finally sat back into the bench. He kept his gaze on the middle distance.

"So I'm not going crazy?"

"Not yet, Mr. Deeks."

He chuckled. "Touche, again. So, what do I do? I can't very well run out on a case like I ran out this morning. I mean, it literally brought me to my knees."

Hetty patted his leg. "You acknowledge it, and give yourself time for grieving, and for being thankful. You need tending to, Mr. Deeks. You've done too much tending of others. I'm ordering you to go home and be tended to. And I will order Miss Blye to do the tending."

He smiled at that. "Are you saying she's in charge of me? Because I don't know if that's a good idea."

"Trust me, Mr. Deeks. It's an excellent idea."

Hetty rose, and started to step away. But a thought made her turn and address him once again.

"There was an old orthodox bishop who used to….assist…me with some of my work in Romania. In exchange, he liked to pontificate with words of wisdom. Listening to him was the cost of doing business. He once told me what it's called when we fall to our knees. It's called 'genuflection'."

"Hmph. Another 'G word'."

Hetty smiled. "So it is. He told me it's reserved for things that demand respect, and reverence."

"Like grief, and gratitude. And...and the Big Guy who answered my prayers."

Hetty nodded once before turning away again.

"Yes. Although I think the word 'big' is unnecessary, and entirely overrated."

A.N. This was originally intended as a one shot, but there may be another chapter, to give us a glimpse of how Deeks is tended to.