Sigh

I will never take this for granted again.

Kensi Blye settled back against the chest of the man she loved, resting her head on his shoulder, relishing the feeling of his arms wrapping around her.

Being held. Holding. Two of the most precious states of being a human can experience.

She'd come so close to losing them, again. Something in Kensi told her that, if she had lost them, lost him….there wouldn't have been another time. She wouldn't have risked it. Wouldn't have allowed it. Wouldn't have survived it.

She heaved a huge sigh of contentment, one that alerted him that she'd been pondering. Deeks was still so fascinated by the woman in his arms that he could never resist an opportunity to delve deeper. Thus, whenever he caught her pondering, he always had to know what it was about.

"That was a big sigh."

"I'm a big kind of tired."

"Really? Because that sigh felt like you were thinking about something. A big kind of tired sigh comes after a yawn. You didn't yawn, so I'm thinking you were thinking, and not just being tired. Because….."

Kensi forced a huge yawn, trying to shut him up, but he wasn't having it.

"Oh, no, you don't. The yawn has to come first. C'mon, tell me. What are you thinking about?"

"Right now, I'm thinking that my fiancé likes to talk too much."

"Touche. C'mon, what was it?"

"Deeks, if we're really going to do this together….you know, spend the rest of our lives with each other….you're going to have to accept that there will be some things that just belong to one of us."

"Like what, exactly? Like the Audi? Because I'll spot you the Audi. But don't think I'm sharing my best board with you."

She guffawed. "Like you'll even let me touch it! No, I mean, we need to be able to still have some privacy. Even from each other. That means we each get to have some private thoughts."

She'd put him off his game, and she could feel it in the tension of his arms. Then she felt him rally again.

"All right, you're right. I won't ask. Feel free not to tell me what the sigh was about. But it felt like a good kind of sigh, like the kind of sigh you give when you eat chocolate. The kind you give when you eat bulgolgi. But you weren't eating either of those things, so I wondered what it was. But if you don't want to share…."

She laughed at his eminently pathetic attempt to guilt it out of her. And then she laughed at herself, because it was working.

"Okay! I give up! I was just….. I was just feeling content."

She was still laying against him, and couldn't see his face. But she could create a pretty accurate mental image of the look of surprise and confusion on it.

"Content?"

"Yes, content. I'm just lying here, in my fiancé's arms, with no bad guys shooting at us, no moms giving us wedding advice, no directors, or assistant directors, or ops managers, or anyone else from the government conspiring against us. Just me, and my fiancé, and a quiet night at home together."

One I thought might never happen again.

"With Monty. Don't forget Monty. He's part of the Deeks package."

She humored him. "You're right. He's the icing on the cake. Monty is definitely sigh-worthy."

She felt his chest shake as he laughed. "You didn't sigh about Monty."

"No, I didn't. But don't tell him, okay?"

"So, it was about me? Was it?"

She pushed off from his chest, and turned to face him.

"You know, you outdo Monty with the dog-on-a-bone thing, don't you? No, I wasn't sighing about Monty. I wasn't sighing about anything, other than the feeling of your arms around me."

Her tone had changed in the middle of the last sentence, and suddenly they were in a completely different conversation.

His eyes reflected the change. They were serious now. Sincere. Blue. Oh, so blue.

"I love having my arms around you," he told her. "I love the feeling of you in my arms." Then, as usual, frightening himself with his own intensity, he defused it. "It's not as furry a feeling as it is with Monty, but it's a good second."

She laughed, and punched his arm. "Stop it. You know I love Monty, but I'm not willing to be his competition!"

"No worries about that. Monty doesn't leave his panties on the bathroom floor."

"You won't have to worry about seeing those panties again, if you keep this up."

Smiling, he wrapped his arms behind her back, and pulled her down to him.

"Tell me why you were sighing."

"I already told you."

"That's it? Me holding you? We've done this a thousand times. Why now?"

Kensi cast her eyes down. Telling him about her fear, about her prayer, about her begging him….it felt almost too intimate. And she was still coming to terms with that level of intimacy.

It's so weird. I mean, we were there together. We went through it together. I said it aloud, to him. But he doesn't remember any of it. It's like it belonged to me, alone.

It had felt so bizarre, the first time she'd reflected on it. She'd had this intense experience of loving him, of being willing to do anything for him, of actually doing the incomprehensible for him, as she'd dragged him through that barren desert. It should have been one of the most intimate experiences of their lives, and yet she, alone, remembered it. Now, unaware, he was asking her to share it with him. Why was she so hesitant?

Deeks ran a hand through her hair, solicitous now, maybe a little worried about her. He softened his voice to a whisper.

"Kens… why now?"

Slowly, she lifted her eyes to his. From the very first time she'd met him, she'd found a home in the depths of those eyes, and she'd found solace more times than she could count. She found It again, now.

Solace, and strength. My Deeks.

And so, she told him.

"When we were in Mexico, and you were….." She stopped herself, and started again. "I was frightened for you. For both of us. I wasn't at all sure we would make it to shelter, let alone safety. And I couldn't get you to wake up…"

Her voice faltered as she began to relive the experience. Deeks was almost afraid to breathe. He'd been told….not by Kensi…what she'd done for him, but she'd put him off each time he'd asked about it. He understood his fiancée well enough to know that she would get there, in her own time, if only he could be patient. Which he had been.

And here we are.

He realized that only Kensi knew what had actually transpired in the desert. Only Kensi knew the depths of her despair, and the intensity of her pleading. Only Kensi knew the degree of brokenness she'd suffered.

But I want to heal it. Please let me heal it, Kensalina.

A squeeze of her arm encouraged her to continue.

"When we found shelter…when we found the chapel…..I was exhausted. And you were so cold. The doctors said you were probably in shock. So I laid myself over you, as much as I could. And…."

Having to swallow back tears, remembering. Deeks raised his hand to her face, and she laid her cheek into it.

"And I…I pretty much begged you to wake up. I begged you to open your eyes. I begged God to help you."

"Kens…"

"I begged you to wake up and tell me it would be all right. And all I wanted….all I wanted….was to lay like we just were, a few minutes ago, with my head on your chest, and your arms around me."

He had just the vaguest memory of the chapel, but her words triggered a deeper one.

"You had your head on my chest when I woke up."

It was as close as she'd been able to come, but she had so sorely missed his arms.

Her eyes widened. "You remember that?"

He nodded. "Now that you're telling me about it, yes, I do. And something else is coming back to me, too."

Her mind went to it immediately. When he'd told her about it, his smile had been beatific. Since then, she'd visited his telling of it a hundred times.

"The dream."

He nodded. "So weird, huh? That I get conked on the head and dream of you being pregnant. But it was the only thing I could remember back then. Funny, I'd forgotten it again, until just now."

"You were so happy, when you told me about it."

He caressed her. "It made me happy. You always do."

They'd fought over his desire for a family, and her reticence about it. Neither was about to go there now.

"Well, anyway…. yes, I put my head on your chest, and tried to create my own dream, where we both woke up, and were home in our bed."

"But we weren't."

"No, we weren't. We were a long way from it. But we got here. And then, tonight, just before…. I felt you behind me, and your arms around me, and it was like my dream had come true." Like my prayer had been answered, even if I'd had to wait for it. "I was content."

"I get it. When I was lying in that damn hospital bed, it was all I wanted, too. In fact..."

He grinned at her, as he turned her around and pulled her back against him. As his arms wrapped around her once again, he felt the tension leave her body, felt her melting into him. He welcomed the weight of her, welcomed the warmth of her body, and the way it grounded him to hold on to something so precious.

"There's not much I can promise you in this life, Kensalina. Not a big house, or a fancy car, or jewelry. But I can promise you that you'll always have a home in these arms. They'd be empty without you."

And so would my heart.

Sigh.