A/N: Okay, this is a two-parter but I CANNOT EVEN DESCRIBE TO YOU GUYS JUST HOW FUCKING DONE WITH THIS FIC I AM. I tried for days and I got NOTHING. So here. I am sorry it's crappy.
(* *)
It was a challenge.
She's always up for a challenge.
The thing with challenging someone, though, is that you have to be there to follow through on it.
And she ran.
She couldn't look at him, couldn't think about the kiss, and she ran.
In some ways she's grateful for Michelle plummeting out that stupid window.
But the terror she felt watching the woman dangle was nothing compared to that one phone call that came after.
(* *)
He's in the warehouse, Callen says.
He didn't mention the bindings. Or the blood.
(* *)
She throws her gun on the ground and plunges to the floor beside her bound partner.
"Oh god, Deeks," she hears herself say. Her hands move on their own and take his bloody face into them, feeling nothing but no god no please no not him not yet.
His lips part and let out a small groan, the most amazing sound Kensi has heard in her life, and she feels relief flood her, warm and comforting.
She squeezes his hand gently.
He's fine.
(* *)
They have less than two minutes, as Kensi strokes his face.
She almost catches the hint of a smile before heavy footfalls resound.
Sam, bruises covering his neck.
He seizes Deeks' arms and demands to know what he told them.
Deeks whimpers.
Kensi has never heard him whimper before.
The words come out slurred, terrified, blood spewing from his cracked teeth, but Sam notices none of it.
"Nuffin'….they kept…..I swear I din't…. Sam I wouldn't…"
Kensi lasts only a few seconds and then violently shoves the man away from her trembling partner.
(* *)
The hospital is six minutes and fourteen seconds away.
She makes note to remember this later.
(* *)
He's alive.
(* *)
His face is bruised.
His hair is messy.
She runs her fingers through it, straightening it.
He'd hate it tangled and broken. The same way the nurses seem to be looking at Kensi.
(* *)
They both saved Michelle.
She doesn't realize it till later.
Not like it matters.
It'd be nice to think that at least he was tortured for a good cause.
(* *)
Sam apologizes while Deeks is still unconscious, but it means nothing.
He didn't talk, that's all Sam registers.
Never mind the torture inflicted on him. Nevermind that he is lying here, mouth stuffed with cotton and tube down his throat, because of Sam.
No, not because of Sam. Because he's Deeks.
Because he is brave and loyal and caring and smart, and Sam sees none of that. All he sees is shaggy cop.
A wave of protectiveness filters through Kensi and she grasps her partner's hand as she tells Sam to leave them, both of them, alone.
(* *)
He returns to work in three weeks.
That entire first day, Kensi can feel her heart in her throat.
The first time he fires a shot after he's back, she pries the gun from his shaking hands and winds her arms around his neck, trying to steady his trembling body.
His arms don't move.
(* *)
He's not okay.
He tells her he is a million times over, but he's not.
(* *)
He calls her sometimes, deep in the night, his voice ragged and panicked.
Often, her name is all he can force out.
(* *)
Sometimes she feigns exhaustion and spends the night on his couch, not considering which of them needs it more.
(* *)
Six weeks after he returns, he shoots and his arms are steady. Kensi can barely conceal the smile.
Then later that day, radio chatter picks up a few words of Russian and she sees him freeze.
He's sitting in the equipment room when she finds him. He doesn't talk, but she sits beside him and lays her head on his shoulder.
She likes to think it helps.
(* *)
Sam tells him he has to man up.
Just once.
Just once, but it's the first time Deeks has truly looked eleven years old to her.
His head bows, he mumbles a ragged apology, and Sam finds himself on the ground.
(* *)
Then one day he disappears.
He leaves a note with Hetty.
Couldn't risk it.
He's not fine, and he's an idiot.
(* *)
Nate tells her to leave Deeks.
She can't believe it.
Not forever, Kensi, he stresses. But he can't handle this right now. He's not strong enough.
She turns away and tells him Deeks is the strongest person she knows, and if Nate thinks she is giving up on him, he is kidding himself.
She's not sure if his expression is one of surprised happiness, or dread.
Maybe both lead to the same path.
(* *)
Hetty slips two tickets to Australia onto her desk, wrapped in a slip of paper with an address on it.
"Two weeks, Miss Blye," her boss tells her. "You both need it."
(* *)
He doesn't look at her when he opens the door, and she doesn't wait for a response as she loads his things into the car.
(* *)
The rumble of the plane's engine is almost lulling Deeks into a stupor.
Kensi grasps his hand gently. He hates gentle.
He hates that he needs her to be gentle now.
He is two people. One wants so very, very badly to go back to before. And the other one, the traitorous other one, he wants to let the ocean fill him up and swallow him whole, so that the cold, dark arms of fear grasping him can finally loosen, and he is so willing to fall into oblivion if he could just get one moment of relief.
(* *)
He surfs after the first week.
He comes back smiling, really smiling.
Kensi calls Hetty, letting her know they will be at least another two weeks.
She can almost see Hetty's smile.
(* *)
Week two, he takes her out to dinner.
An hour into it, he smiles and tells her that dress was rockin'.
He gives her ass a firm pat as they walk out.
It's almost like he's back.
(* *)
Week three, he kisses her.
(* *)
Week four, she kisses him.
(* *)
Three more days into week four, she finds him in the shed, with that familiar blank look on his face.
She wonders if they will ever again move in only one direction.
(* *)
As week five finishes, she is disgusted with herself.
She knows he's not okay. She knows this better than anyone, and yet she still let him breathe soft words into her neck, let his hands run all over her body, let him fill her up and send her crashing down.
(* *)
He is there but he is not here.
He has not been here, truly here, since that day with Siderov.
She had naively hoped getting away would help.
And, she supposed, it had, for some time.
The thing about problems? They stick to you. You jump on a plane to get away, but they hide in the cargo hold, creep under your bed and wait. Just wait, for you to fool yourself into thinking your coping before they wrap their tentacles around you once more, remind you how you will never be free.
Kensi thinks that's almost worse than wallowing in the torture you faced.
Maybe if you walked through hell one too many times, it invades you. Sinks into your bones. Becomes part of you.
(* *)
The neighbor is fixing a hole in their wall.
They are nailing a board to it.
She never saw it coming, she swears.
But that blank looks seeps into his eyes when he hears the drill and he is gone.
And then she lies on the couch, the wind knocked out of her.
His shove is violent and Kensi spends a good few minutes just pondering that.
He wanted to hurt her.
Did he even know it was her?
(* *)
He hopes to drown.
Such a fight.
Such a long, unrelenting fight.
The water pulls him in, envelops him like a warm hug.
He can feel himself sinking, can feel the liquid fill his lungs, can see his eyes clouding.
He nearly smiles.
He hears nothing.
(* *)
Like everything else in his life, daylight comes violently.
The fists that yank him up are wet and hard.
The pound on the back knocks the water out of his lungs with one hacking cough.
The slap across the face jerks him firmly back to the present.
And the voice, the voice tries so hard to keep the tremble out of it.
(* *)
Are you fucking insane?
He gives a slow nod. Probably.
You could have killed yourself!
Another nod. That was the idea.
THAT was the idea? Just give up? Christ, Deeks'. You…you're not even trying! You can't even see.."
Her hands slosh in the water, her hair matted to her face. Tears streak down her cheeks.
His mind is fuzzy, but comfort Kensi is more of a reflex then a thought by this point.
His hand reaches up to brush the tears away.
Her hand slaps his away. No. You have to try, Deeks. You have to.
Deeks' whole body sags. He's been trying, he's been doing nothing but trying the last six months, and for what?
No, you haven't been trying, Kensi reads his mind. You put up token effort in front of me. You don't show any emotion. You run off in the middle of the night, you never realize…
Her body convulses with a sob, her grip on his shirt loosens.
They tumble down into the ocean together, heads only just above the surface.
I need you, Deeks. I need you here, really here. I need you to try.
(* *)
His breath is ragged, harsh.
His body is tense, like a bomb poised to go off with the slightest twitch.
She's never been afraid of him before.
Her heart pounds a frantic tattoo in her chest but she forces her arms around him and feels nothing but cold, he's so cold.
Kensi turns her face into his neck and breathes an "I love you," her voice carrying the strength for the both of them.
His wound muscles relax ever so slightly, but it's all the leeway she needs.
"I love you," she repeats, winding her arms tighter, pressing him to her as if it is the only thing tying him down.
"I love you. I love you. I love you."
He breaks there, in her arms, a little more filled up than he was before.
She'll take it, for now.
Especially since she finds out later that same day.