AN: So this was one of those ideas that just seemed so perfect and natural in my head. I played it out a thousand times, and then when I was actually writing, thinking of all the logistics and probably overthinking it in general made it less great, ha. But I powered through and got it finished before the next ep, which was my goal!

It felt foreign to him now – coming out of the haze of sleep, feeling groggy and rested at once. The room was slow to come into view, and his body was abuzz with the warmth of slumber. But his head was also cloudy and heavy with pressure – the guarantee of a headache sure to come if he wasn't careful.

It was like he'd gone on a sleep binge after weeks of getting minutes of rest here and there. His mind and body were having trouble touching back down to reality after the overdose.

"What is it about your partnership that's unique?"

Nate's voice rang in his ears, like it had been in his dreams instead of in an actual conversation on the beach earlier that day. The answer was at the tip of his dry mouth, as though he'd finally found the words in his dreams.

Kensi…

He managed to turn his head despite his unbelievably stiff neck, and found her next to him – a mirror image of his own position. But her body had gradually slid down throughout the night, and he quickly realized that part of the comforting warmth of sleep was actually her shoulder, arm, and leg pressed against his. She was much closer than she'd been when he'd begun to doze off, comforted by her excited voice and familiar storytelling, but most of all by her mere presence beside him.

Deeks studied her, wishing he'd been awake to witness what he was currently contemplating: how she'd gotten from rattling on and on about Burnt Offerings to curled up beside him, facing him as he rested for the first time in weeks.

As he watched on, he noted that she'd long ago abandoned the cat pillow, her head sloping downward at an angle that seemed to match the soreness in his own muscles. Her arm was tucked up against her body, her dark curls spilling over onto his arm with the softest brush against his skin.

Seeing her there, all relaxed and at peace at home on his couch, nearly stole all the air from his chest. He had to take a deep breath in as he watched the rise and fall of her breathing, the calmness in her features. Unfortunately, since her body almost mirrored his, despite how comfortable she looked, he knew from experience that her neck would wreak havoc on her the moment she woke. He had to move her.

"Kensi," he tried softly.

Nothing.

"Kens…" For an agent trained to react at the drop of a dime, he had to wonder where her sudden ability for deep sleep had come from. Was she as comfortable here as he'd been? Had she had trouble sleeping recently, too?

He pushed the fallen locks of hair away from her face, tucking them delicately behind her ear.

At that she stirred, leaning into his touch and laying her cheek against his palm.

Well. That was… So Kensi was a cuddler. That was dangerous information he didn't need to have right now, when he'd deprived himself of her for weeks and apparently lost all ability to keep his heart from jumping into his throat when she first walked into a room – or showed up on his doorstep.

He had to clear his throat quietly this time, gently touching her arm with the hand that wasn't now sandwiched between her cheek and the sofa cushion as he regretfully uttered, "Kensi."

"Hmm?" she responded in the softest voice he'd ever heard from her. He opted to blame how weak it made him feel on his questionable emotional state, but deep down he knew there was a little more to it.

Before he could collect himself enough to respond, he could tell she'd already drifted off again. Her features had relaxed again, and he could feel the gentle weight of her in his palm.

Sighing, he ceded defeat and gave up his halfhearted attempt to move her. Instead, he began to shift his weight carefully so as not to disturb her again and stood, slowly prying his hand from beneath her soft skin. He wrapped one arm around her waist, the other slipping beneath her legs, and gently repositioned her so she was laying the length of the couch with a soft pillow beneath her head. Tugging a throw blanket from his recliner, he unfolded it and placed it over her body.

With her here and him getting more rest than he'd had since his ordeal, he actually felt motivated for once to do something he hadn't in days: shower.

As the warm water roared around him and ran down his skin, cleansing him of days of grime, sweat, and panic, he had to wonder why the thought of taking a shower had filled him with such anxiety before. It seemed crazy to him now…that such a daily necessity had become too risky for him, that even with locked doors and a gun on the bathroom counter, the noise of the water rushing all around him dulled his sense of hearing enough for it to be deemed too risky. He'd had to be alert and on guard every moment for the past few weeks.

But after a taste of normalcy last night and with a trained federal agent – with Kensi, if he wasn't too proud to admit it – in the house, his anxiety had subsided a bit. Even at 4:30 in the morning.

When he cut off the water, he still paused for a moment, listening for any interruptions to the silence, but he was quicker to continue his routine of grabbing a towel this time. And he didn't immediately open the door to perform a sweep of the hallway this time. Instead, he towel-dried the moisture from his skin, shook out his unruly hair, and slipped on some boxers and basketball shorts.

When he opened the door, though, the figure sitting propped against the wall to the left of the bathroom door almost startled him – until he realized it was Kensi, jumping up when the door opened and tugging on her wrinkled shirt.

He cocked his head at her and she smiled apologetically, trying to focus on anything but the fact that he was shirtless and warm and damp from the shower. Suddenly the moment was uncharacteristically slow for them, like in the moments after he'd kissed her on the bike, like when he'd told her she was the place he went to to stop the pain.

Kensi slid her hands into her back pockets, forcing a smile despite the heaviness settling between them.

"I woke up and you weren't there," she explained. She was usually even less direct than him, but he was good at reading between her words most of the time. "I was a little worried."

Her words had a little bit of an edge to them, and it wasn't until now after he'd had a little rest and her excitement had subsided that he realized how tired she looked. Her posture was lacking, and the shadows beneath her eyes had him wondering if maybe she'd matched him sleepless night for sleepless night.

Deeks softened at the realization that maybe she needed this just as much as he did. While he'd been sleep-deprived and disoriented, with the days and nights blurring together, she'd been trying to find out how he was – worrying, waiting, not sleeping. He saw that in her now.

That and the thought of her waiting, standing guard, outside his bathroom door had him swallowing hard.

"I'm sorry," he said, and for once there was nothing behind it. No sarcasm, no follow-up quip. "I tried to wake you up to move you when I got up."

She half-sighed, half-smiled. "I don't even remember…" As she slid her hands deeper into her pockets, she pushed her shoulders forward, shrugging. "I haven't been sleeping that well either."

It was all the explanation he needed.

"I should've answered your calls," he admitted.

"Yeah." She tilted her head and nodded.

"I feel better now. I actually slept."

Kensi smiled, meeting his eyes with a softness in her features he'd rarely seen from her. Considering what he'd told her a few weeks ago, she knew why. And it was the same inexplicable, difficult to grasp bond between them that had allowed her to fall asleep easily for the first time in weeks in an uncomfortable position on a couch that was only marginally comfortable to begin with.

"Maybe it was the cronut."

Her eyes widened. "Please tell me you didn't eat that thing."

"It was perfectly delectable…a few seconds in the microwave returned it to its original flaky yet fluffy state."

"Oh, that's disgusting." She gave him a face, but a yawn quickly took over her features.

His lips curved up slightly at her, and as he rested a hand at the small of her back, urging her down the hall, he said, "Here, you can take my bed and get a few more hours."

"No, you should be getting some rest in there," she insisted, stopping in the hallway, leaving his hand pressed against her.

"Tonight alone I've already slept more than I have in weeks," he admitted. "I'm good. I'm awake. There's a TV in there. Maybe we can catch a late-night Burnt Offerings rerun."

She cocked a brow at him. "We?"

"What, like we haven't shared a bed before?" he challenged. "I can be a perfect gentleman."

"Ha," she half-laughed, throwing in an eye roll for good measure.

"Or," he began, motioning the other way down the hall, "I could actually do something productive and-"

"No," she interrupted a little too insistently, but it was her fingers on his wrist that had actually stopped his words. Everything slowed again, and in the moments in between words she was acutely aware of the heat of his skin beneath her fingertips, of the sound of her own pulse pounding within her, of how disoriented and disconnected he'd looked in the hospital – and how the distance in his eyes had haunted her for weeks.

She watched their hands, pushing the remaining anxiety from her mind now that he was here with her again, bantering and testing her patience like always. Her eyes darted over his sculpted muscles before looking up at him. And in a voice he knew was all too intentional, she softly asked, "Watch it with me?" It was shortly followed by a lower, more playful, "Please?"

Deeks swallowed hard, impressed once again by his own self-restraint.

"All right," he agreed tentatively, glancing down at where her hands had wrapped around his arm. "But really, Kens? I think we're going to need at least a one-pillow barrier. Maybe two, since you seem especially handsy right now – not that I don't enjo-OH."

Her fist hit him square in the stomach – hard but not actually hard, although he definitely played it up as he hunched over while following her down the hall.

She quickly located his remote and flipped the TV on, eyes lighting up as though she couldn't hit the buttons fast enough. "Ohhhh, it's on, but it's thirty minutes in."

"So does that mean we missed the breasts or the beasts?" he asked as he stretched out along the bed, positioning pillows behind him. "Because that seriously affects my interest level."

Kensi turned and made a face at him again, but her lips curved up into a smile.

"It means we're just in time for the creepy parts," she clarified as she crawled across the bed. Grabbing a pillow, she shoved it against him to prop herself up against his side and chest and settled in, her legs stretching out along his. It was a little more natural than it should have been.

And when she tensed at a particularly suspenseful scene a few minutes later, his hand migrated to her shoulder, curving so the backs of his fingers could smooth over her shoulder. It was slow, relaxing, repetitive. Comforting.

Before they'd made it a full ten minutes, her excitement was fading during a slower scene and her eyes were drifting closed.

"I'm so never going to make it through this movie," she half-yawned.

"You should get some rest if you're working today, anyway." They'd transitioned again, just like that – to being soft and caring, his hand grazing over her shoulder. He adjusted slightly, sliding down into the bed further so she wasn't sitting up so much.

She turned into him instinctively, though she purposefully pressed her hand against the pillow instead of his skin.

"When are you coming back?"

He breathed out heavily at her question. It was a tough one, and not for his own reasons. Before, he might have been selfish and proud about returning. He might have come back too soon with something to prove, might have put himself and his partner at risk.

But when it was Kensi on the line, he could think clearly. He knew it was too soon if he didn't feel he could confidently cover her in the field.

"Soon," he assured. Looking down at her, suddenly Nate's words made sense. "I think I'm in the best place I can be right now."

"Good. Callen doesn't let me drive."

He smiled tiredly, picturing Callen gripping the console and handles until his knuckles turned white with Kensi at the wheel. As crazy of a driver as she was, he always trusted her. It was something neither of them had with other partners.

So what was special about him and Kensi? What made them unique? Apparently he had to answer that before he could return to work.

If he was being honest with himself, he knew. But how could he put that into words? And was it a problem that he couldn't? She could fire him up with one word or glance, yet calm him with another. He thought that she was adorable – and terrifying. And hot. The combination was killer, and it meant he would do anything for her. And it was so completely obvious that she felt the same way, and that she knew that he knew she felt the same way.

Despite it being against every federal and law enforcement policy in the world, he swore that, with them, it made them better partners, better agents.

"You were talking in your sleep earlier," she murmured, close to drifting off herself this time.

Deeks froze a little, worried as to what had tumbled from his lips in his sleep-deprived state. "What'd I say?"

"It's a love story," she repeated slowly and softly, turning up slightly to look at him with sleep-clouded eyes. She saw the realization flash in his eyes, saw the way he squinted disbelievingly, shaking his head and smiling just slightly at his overly simplified, almost nonsense answer, but she didn't ask.

What is it about your partnership that's unique? What's the one ingredient you'd say makes your partnership distinct from the rest?

It's a love story.