Notes: not mine, no profit garnered. Title and opening from Introduction to the Limits of Metaphor (A Love Poem) by Jeanine Hall Gailey. Thanks to pb for beta! Sequel to To Unzip This Skin.

We are outlying data the graph that goes off the charts
I am snowing I am out of your reach I am a seascape on your wall
I am a boat gone missing on your horizon
-Jeannine Hall Gailey

Before the drill comes in, when it's all just panic and wiping Quinn from his head and Michelle and he is LAPD only, all of that, Marty is thinking maybe he deserves it.

He slept with Monica because Kensi was rude to him and forgot his birthday and broke up with him on New Year's Day. It was stupid. Of course she broke up with him, they were practically living together, she was clearly in love with him, at some point it would catch up with her and she'd be scared. He wasn't even surprised. He expected it, he waited for it, he resolved from the start that she would make all the first moves so he didn't get caught pushing her out too far.

She dumped him in a cold fury after, thankfully and blessedly, a fantastic night of drinking and sex and he made some dumb jokes and some pretty smart ones and she laughed and didn't try to make any jokes at all. He didn't make jokes when she was dumping him, he just wallowed in the inevitability.

Then she was rude to him, rude like he didn't want to remember but sometimes he hears her say counselor and he feels it all over again.

The drill whirrs and he's pretty sure he's about to experience worse.

So the next morning she said, "Tonight, tonight I will take you out, wherever you want." Her eyes were gentle, like she was sorry or she was going to say again how sorry she was, and maybe even mean the stupid break up.

He said, "It's okay, I have plans."

She said, "Really? Oh, okay, that's fine." She looked a little hurt and he would bet she thought he was lying to her. It made him smile inside because he was an asshole.

"Tomorrow night is fine," he said.

That night he went to the club again, where Max was somehow kinder and gentler than he used to be, like something in Marty wasn't able to be quite that evil now that he had Kensi and a team. Monica laughed and he took her home to his cover house and pretty satisfying sex. It put a smile on his face recalling it when he had dinner with Kensi.

Maybe Kensi knew that in her heart, could sense what was going on and that's why she didn't give him his birthday present until she thought about him dying. He felt wrong and dirty and he didn't think he deserved her box (again) (some jokes never get old) so he didn't open it. It was a relief when she found out.

But what was he supposed to say? Undercover sometimes means under the covers. It was nothing to be embarrassed about, Kensi had done it as often as Deeks had which more frequently than the average person might think but less than the average perv would think. But he started with Monica because she had dumped him and that was just Kensi being Kensi.

The pain starts and he thinks only about the good things because he loves her absolutely even when she's afraid or he's afraid or she's an ass or he's an ass.

xx

He wakes up after a decent sleep finally. Kensi is already up and she's gotten them both coffee from the Starbucks and breakfast from McDonalds. They eat in silence. A good silence with lots of smiles and chewing sounds.

She says, "Where's Monty?"

"Left him with his old trainer when I was in and out of the hospital and I haven't picked him up yet."

She looks at him.

He says, "I will do so today since you're asking me to so clearly."

"Good." She burps and says, "I'm going to work. I will see you there soon? Tomorrow?"

"Probably," he says. "Maybe more like next week for work. But you can come by any time, of course. Always."

Kensi sits down next to him and like their first kiss, touches his jaw and pulls him to her. It's a good kiss.

He doesn't say anything as she pulls away and leaves. He probably should have.

Before he gets Monty, he goes to see his shrink. He shot his father when he was 11, his mother went missing presumed dead when he was 22 and for the last 8 years of his life he's been lying for pleasure and pay, of course he has a shrink.

James is from Peru, he has a very nondescript office in a strip mall. He never took insurance money to help people who didn't want a shrink on their records and so he could charge on a sliding scale. Marty pays more now than he did in the past. But it's still not a lot.

James says, "You could have come earlier, you know."

Marty shrugs. "I wanted to be okay." He mentions what Nate said on the beach and watches James turn a shade of angry he's never seen from his shrink.

"Those bastards," James says. "I hate those guys, you know? They're not doctors, they have no interest in healing, they serve their company or their service. Saying some bullshit like that to you. You're not sleeping? I can prescribe something. We can meet and talk. We can even talk about your ex-girlfriend, but that is about you talking, it's not a cure."

"You look seriously disgruntled," Marty says. "You should be in a dictionary as a picture so people know what angered by a story looks like."

"I'm easily angered by people with no interest in doing the job you think they're doing to you. And bad shrinks." He sighs. "So let's talk."

They do indeed talk. The last time he saw James, he was still undercovering Monica and Kensi told him he could never die on her. He tends to come when Marty is confused so you'd think he'd come all the time. He makes that joke to James and James waves his hand, clearly irritated.

"You are not confused. You are almost never confused. You play at being confused and say that you are confused because you live your life pretending to be less than you are."

"You've said that before," Marty says. He is pretty sure he is frowning.

"Like you assuming Kensi will break up with you. Did you ever think you let that happen because you assumed you weren't worth fighting for?"

"You make me sound like a damsel in distress or something."

James shrugs. "I make you sound like someone who doesn't value himself and covers it up constantly. Sometimes even to yourself. Also, our hour is nearly done. You should come back next week and the week after that until I say stop. I don't think you have PTSD but you need help."

"So next week I get to tell you you're wrong that I just let Kensi break up with me?"

"You can try," James says, as he writes out three prescriptions.

xx

Kensi doesn't sleep well. Marty notices every time she sleeps over. They're not having sex like he maybe wants and he is sure she totally wants. He only maybe wants because he wants Kensi to ask for it, he's not interested in her backing off one more time. Though he really did love having sex with Kensi. But they're friends, friends who used to have sex and more, and now they don't talk about it (much) (not often), but they're best friends in some sort of way.

Three and a half months since Kensi found him and left, she sleeps really badly. She wakes up, stares at the ceiling, shudders and closes her eyes like she is going back to sleep. She is pissy, jumpy, irritable, hypervigilant, paranoid, avoids talking, ever, about when they kissed and how he wanted her back right then so much. He is exactly the kind of asshole who fills out the PTSD test for her.

So he is being hypervigilant and watching her every move. Which she finds creepy. She tells him. "You're doing that staring thing again."

"Well, today you walked away from an undercover operation because your high school was hell." She's lying in his bed, on her side, back to him. It's weird, he thinks, that they are basically doing everything but kissing and having sex. She sleeps at his place three nights a week and hangs out with him after work and takes him and Monty to parks on the weekend.

"It wasn't that serious," Kensi says. "You bowed out, too, apparently because you might have sex with underage girls."

"A, you brought that up first. B, you know it's not true and I think Sam and Callen did, too. And C, I was trying to help you since you were acting so weird," he says. He puts up with a lot. Sometimes she acts like they've been partners for just a few months and sometimes she's almost hateful. Then she comes to his house like nothing has changed. "I'm trying not to make this a thing about women and their moods -"

"Shut up," she says.

He's almost off his meds and he just wants to slip them into her coffee. Which is wrong. James says he should worry about himself and you can't diagnose your friends or pseudo girlfriends just because you've had a little bit of therapy. James also says it's very common for people in therapy to think they've become psychologists themselves by benefit of healing.

He settles in almost spooning, two inches between their bodies at all junctures. He reaches out and pets her hair. She tenses and then relaxes.

xx

He can only stare when she's yelling at him in that same exasperated voice she had right before he kissed her. It's like no time has passed. So, on one hand, he wants to argue back that she is acting insane, that she is the one who's been traumatized that she is suddenly talking about him like he's been lying to her, he has talked to her. But maybe he hasn't been clear enough. He can be obscure. Every time he tries to talk to her about the kiss or Monica, she gets pissed and stops him. Maybe he just needs to push through, just once. His reward is her standing up.

They go to his place. Ten minutes later, no words spoken, he is one of his happiest places in the entire world: between Kensi's legs. He grips her ass and licks her delicious pussy. None better in his life. He takes his time because he loves making her come and shake. Kensi pulls on hair, though, says, "Come on."

"You want me to put it in?" He already has the condom out and put it on.

"Don't say it like that," she says in a wheeze.

"Should I insert, penetrate -"

She pulls him closer and he's inside her again. They got this, they are so good at this, so very perfect together.

They do it three more times and barely sleep. She gets up smiling, like it's a year ago and everything is good. He holds her hand and says, "Don't leave me."

Her smile falters for a split second but she is still smiling when he leaves. Everything is very very good.

Except she isn't and he figures that out when she punches him. She babbles at him in a panic, some warrior bullshit. He doesn't know if she even understands what she is saying.

She texts him as she is en route to the mission. im sorry. i was trying to say that. this morning. maybe i wasnt clear

He texts back, ok its all okay we can talk later im patient

you shouldnt be sometimes

He texts, we will talk soon

xx

James says, "You shouldn't be with someone who hits you. Especially you should not be, even once. Maybe you had your webmd diagnosis right, you know. Love and sex don't cure mental illness."

"It won't happen again," Marty says. "When she gets back, we'll be good."

Christmas comes and he hears her voice again. She says, "I know when you say Monty, you mean you. You have all of Tori Amos's songs, all of them."

"For Monty," Marty says. "I like her stuff a little, you know, the dirty ones. Monty loves her."

"I have feelings like that," she says softly.

"Me, too," he says. He is very worthwhile, he thinks. Whatever James says all shrink-y, Marty is a great guy. "I have them for you."

She says, "That's good. That's really good."

He'll take it.