A/N: Once again, I am very sorry for the delayed update. I'm still not 100% better and I did jump ship to write a few Castle one-shots just to get my muse to focus back onto this, lol. Thank you all for the wonderful reviews. I am grateful and loved reading every single one of them. I hope you're all still with me for this chapter, and that you enjoy it too =D

The need to go out and do something finally reached breaking point when she failed to find any mention of the name 'Dan' in any of the case files that she had been going through. Of course, it was only a small fraction of the things that they had gathered that could provide them with anything useful, but it was enough to drive her crazy. Sure, she was use to having days where they stayed inside, doing paperwork and chasing up leads or in the gym, but that was usually out of her free will. Being forced to stay indoors in the same place did something completely different to her levels of anxiety.

Finally giving up with trying to claim calm restraint, Kensi had thrown aside the last collection of papers on her desk and pushed back her chair to stand up. Only Deeks sat at his desk in their bullpen; Sam and Callen had yet to return from dropping off Tommy Jenkins at the LAPD precinct. Nate had wandered in an hour beforehand, soon after they had arrived, before disappearing off again when being handed one of the piles that they had sectioned off for him to read in hopes for a more psychological approach.

"Where are you going?" Deeks asked her at her sudden actions, leaning back in his chair as he watched her move from around her desk. He had been subtly keeping an eye on her, knowing that the silence of their workspace and lack of progress was making her more and more agitated by the minute. But, he also knew her well enough to know that if he mentioned it or confronted it, she would only deny it and go into a defensive mode. Especially with all that was going on currently, Kensi wouldn't be letting down her guard anytime soon.

"To see if Nate's got anything." She shrugged, pausing near his desk to rest her fingers lightly on the edge of it. "How's it going?"

"Trust me, if I had found something, I'd have told you." He assured her earnestly, trying unsuccessfully to hide his smirk as he carried on. "Your permanent frown is enough to get anyone working."

"I'm not frowning." Kensi scoffed, backing away towards her desk at his teasing words.

"You are. It's one of those deep-set ones that you can't tell you're doing until you look into a mirror." Deeks told her, and she had to use every bit of her will not to do as he had suggested and actually look into a mirror. Playing into his games was exactly what she tried to avoid on a daily basis. And usually, she had no problem matching his teasing tit-for-tat. "You'll end up with lines if you keep it up."

"I'm not frowning!" She reiterated while narrowing her eyes at him challengingly. Unfortunately for her, he had drawn that look out of her too many times in their time as partners for it to deter him from his goal.

"You are now." He pointed out with his typical boyish grin and a chuckle. True to his words, Kensi could tell that she was in fact frowning, though it was more in a reaction to his words than what they had been doing. Immediately, she replaced it with an overly sweet smile.

"I am going to hurl something at you in a minute, Deeks." She warned him, pointing a finger at him and began making her way over to the threshold of their area so that she could carry on towards the stairs.

"First, it was shooting me, and now throwing something at me? I get more abuse out of my partner than I do from the suspects." Deeks muttered, making her pause and turn back around to face him with a raised eyebrow.

"That's because they don't have to put up with you day in, day out." Kensi retorted.

"Ouch, that's hurts." He exclaimed, placing a hand over his chest in faux pain.

"Not yet, it doesn't." She threatened good-naturedly before smirking at his unimpressed look.

"Weren't you going to see Nate?" He asked her pointedly after clearing his throat and putting on a more serious face. "Maybe he could shrink you while you're there. Get that attitude problem sorted out."

"If anyone needs a shrink, Deeks, it's you." Kensi remarked, rolling her eyes and began walking towards the staircase even as she carried on. "Then again, God only knows where they would start with you."

"My differences are what make me lovable!" He called out after her, the amusement clear in his voice which made her smile reluctantly to herself.

The frustration from only moments earlier had lifted the heavy feeling in her stomach, leaving only a lingering memory of it as she reached the upper level of the hacienda. Simply swapping some banter with her partner seemed to be enough to relax her and feel slightly more optimistic. She wasn't sure why, considering that they had made no progress whatsoever ever since leaving the boathouse over an hour earlier, but the familiarity of the joking helped remind her that things could be worse. Not everything had changed and at least she had the others helping her out with what had.

Making her way towards where Nate's office, which was rarely ever used by anyone else, was located, Kensi paused as she spied the Ops centre. Deciding to take a detour, she headed towards their hi-tech room, wondering if the search that Callen had demanded Eric to run was still going. Considering that no-one had heard a peep out of him since they had arrived, she assumed it to mean that there was no progress. However, curiosity ate at her to find out for herself.

Reaching the entrance of the room, she was surprised to see that it was deserted apart from one person. Although they mainly relied on Eric to help them out, they all knew that it was not possible for him to do everything that they demanded from him by himself and acknowledged, though regrettably rarely, the help of the other technical staff of their HQ.

But right then, Kensi was glad to see him by himself, especially as a distant memory of a discussion that she had had with Deeks only that morning came back to her. It had been pushed to the back of her mind almost as soon as they had ended it, more focused on finding Jenkins and closing the case so that she could go back to living her life without having to look over her shoulder. Considering that the latter hadn't happened, the events of before that had remained stored away, deemed unimportant. Until now, where another familiar stimulus brought back a more comforting feeling instead of the building dread that her case was going nowhere.

"Eric. Just the person I wanted to see." She announced as she entered the room, coming up behind the man.

"Why?" He asked warily, his hands freezing from where they had been flying over the keyboard as her jovial tone. Taking into account all that had happened, her good mood unnerved him.

"I hear you and Deeks had an interesting conversation yesterday." Kensi said indifferently, placing her hands on his shoulders to keep him from turning around and peering at one of the many screens on the desk ahead. It took a moment before he realised what it was that she was talking about.

"I wouldn't call it interesting." Eric replied, shrugging lightly under her hands as he watched her via the reflection in front of him. Her calm demeanour only worried him more. "Just a conversation."

"One that's going to cost me 100 bucks." She informed him, squeezing gently at his shoulders, making him tense whilst trying to hide the smile that came to his face at her words.

"You had a bet going?" His words were filled with hidden surprise, though he didn't know quite why. There wasn't much about the team that should surprise him anymore.

"Yes."

"Of course you did. It's what you guys do." Eric murmured, wincing when Kensi pressed her thumbs to the back of his shoulders with an extra force. "Ow, that hurts."

"Sorry." She apologized dryly and let go, a smile gracing her features as he turned to face her with a sheepish look.

"I thought he knew. He is your partner, and a detective." He explained, holding his hands up in surrender. "I won't tell anyone if you won't."

"Trust me; you're not the one I'm worried about." Kensi told him vaguely, though they both knew who she was talking about. There was only one other person who knew about the conversation, after all.

Her eyes had been roaming around the screens once again as she spoke, watching as several pictures and information ran across it too fast to keep up with. That was until a certain one or two, most probably those that fitted in with the parameters that Eric had set up, were pushed to the side. Although they all overlapped each other, something caught her eyes, digging out another piece of information that had been buried at the back of her mind.

"What's that?" She asked the tech operator anyway, pointing towards the haphazard pile of windows open on top of each other on one of the screens.

"Oh. I'm just running a cross-reference between the name 'Dan' and Jenkins' first few weeks in prison. They're the matches." Eric explained, confirming what she already knew. Her forehead creased as she concentrated on the bits of the information of one particular person that she could just about make out. The look dissipated all light heartedness in the room, sending them both back into their professional mode. "Do you see something?"

"Maybe." Kensi said a bit distractedly before tapping the exact window that she had been looking at with a nail on the screen. "Pull it up for me."

Eric did as she asked immediately, sending the narrow window with the basic information over to the large screen that took up one side of the room. She had already moved over to it, not having to wait even a second before enlarging it enough so that it was readable by them both.

"Major Daniel Cooper. Who's he?" He asked, reading the man's name off the screen. It was accompanied by a picture depicted a middle age man, no older than 55, which was confirmed by his date of birth a few lines under that informed them of his address, reason for imprisonment and how he was honourably discharged from service after an injury.

"Someone I think I know." She replied a minute later, skimming over the words in front of her before disregarding it for the folder that Eric had sent with it that contained more in-depth information about the Major. Opening it up, she hurriedly flicked through the many different files for the one she sought after.

"What are you looking for?" Eric questioned a second before Kensi found what she had been searching for. Opening it, she didn't have to even scroll down the page to see what she had suspected. Highlighting with a single drag of a finger, she stepped back to take it in. "He was in the 23rd regiment. And?"

"This is the link to me." She said, inhaling deeply as it all began to fall into place. Crossing her arms, she nodded towards the screen in front of her as she let out a breath. The dread had set in once again, and it was worse than before. "My father was in the 23rd regiment."

...

"So Major Dan Cooper is the one who ordered Jenkins to kill you?" Sam questioned her. Although she had expected initial scepticism from them all, Kensi was relieved to hear nothing but curiosity and concern in his words.

"I think so." She replied. Her words might not have portrayed her strong belief in what she had found, but her confident tone did. At everyone else's silence, she carried on with a small shrug. "I dunno. He's the only one who stood out."

"You know him personally?" Callen finally asked, staring at the screen ahead on him as he spoke.

"No." Kensi said matter-of-factly, to which he turned towards where she stood behind the counter in the middle of the Ops centre, distanced from most of them.

"Did your father?" He asked again, trying to find another link between Cooper and her so to offer solid evidence in case anyone asked. They never really ever bothered to go through the proper channels in the right order, usually gathering their proof of a possible suspect after risking their lives to get them first. But this time, there was no room for mistakes or leeway for any doubt.

"I dunno. They weren't in the same squadron, so they might not have." She told them, knowing that it wasn't what any of them wanted to hear but it was the truth.

Her words brought a small silence over them. Letting her eyes roam cautiously over them, she tried to gauge their feelings about what she had discovered by their reactions. Sam stood to her right, leaning against the end of the counter that she stood behind with a fixed jaw and a look that she knew well enough. It was the one that he usually had on when he was ready to deal with something. Deeks perched ever-so-carefully on the edge of a computer desk, clearly contemplating the information that she had both shared and found, the latter of which was still on the huge screen.

Opposite him was Eric, prepared with his trusty handheld computing tablet to do anything they asked of him in eagerness to help. Although he was the only out of them all who didn't go into the field at all, his input and work was invaluable to them. And Nate lounged in one of the chairs behind where Eric stood, peering around the other man whilst considering and interpreting what the file on Cooper could mean.

"Ok. Eric, how many results did you get from the search in total?" Callen broke the quiet and her out of her actions with a no nonsense tone. Arms crossed and with a mask of pure determination, he stood in the middle of the room and them all, taking charge of the situation and the case.

"Too many." He replied with a small shake of the head, pulling up a small window with a long list of names that disappeared at the bottom when it carried on beyond what was visible.

"And after running them against all of the past cases, anyone we might know or linked to Kensi?"

"None." Eric answered, somewhat regrettably before adding unhelpfully "Apart from Major Cooper, obviously."

"It is a possibility." Nate muttered, speaking up for the first time since they had gathered in the room. His musings had been on par with what Kensi had assumed them to be, and she was relieved that he agreed with her. Although she wasn't one to usually need the backing of someone else when it came to her beliefs, right then, it felt good to know that she wasn't making something from nothing.

"Why now, though?" Sam asked the question that they had all come to after reading Cooper's details. "He's been out of prison for the past few years. What changed and made him go after Kensi now?"

"Maybe he was waiting for Jenkins to get out?" Deeks suggested half-heartedly, judging by his unenthusiastic expression.

"Didn't he say Cooper bullied people around in prison? He must know more than one person on the outside to do his dirty work for him." Kensi countered nonetheless.

"Something happened." Callen said as soon as she had finished speaking. He turned to face her once again, intrigue lining his words as he questioned her. "How do you know him? If you've never met him, then how did he stand out to you in the first place?"

"His name popped up a few times in my father's file." She told him, watching as a look of surprise passed over his features quicker than she should be able to notice. But she did.

"You've been digging?" Sam asked suddenly, eyebrows raised, as she looked over at him.

"Yeah."

"Recently?" Callen asked in response to her nonchalant answer, and Kensi was no longer sure she should be taking the fact so easily.

"I've never stopped." She admitted, eyes bouncing from him to Sam and then back again.

"Why didn't you mention that yesterday when we were going over who might be out to get you?" It was meant to be a question, but the edge to it turned it into a demand. His voice stayed steady as always, but Kensi got the feeling that he was mad, which only brought up her defences.

"I didn't think it was relevant." She told him, matching her words with his tone. If she didn't know any better, going by his words, she would have thought that she was being interrogated.

"I said all cases. Anything that might have been even remotely related to some kind of retribution."

"Considering that I haven't actually gotten anywhere with this one, I didn't really think about it. It's not even something that we worked on as a team." Kensi tried to reason coolly, all the while doing her best not to snap. His eyes pierced into hers when he spoke, but this time, she saw something more.

His neutral mask slipped for a moment longer than it had before, and she realised that what she had mistaken as anger was actually hurt and a bit of disappointment. It didn't take much for her to figure out that it was because she had never told him about her carrying on searching into her father's death. Somehow, it had never been something that she had felt was important enough to announce randomly. If he had asked, she would have told him. If she had made progress, then she would have as well. But he hadn't and she didn't.

"This isn't about the team, Kens; it's about you." Callen stated, his voice softening with a calming sigh as the emotions that he had portrayed just a second earlier vanished.

"We didn't know that for sure until a couple of hours ago." She reminded him. He didn't argue against her point, nor did he turn away, and neither did she. They were as stubborn as each other at the best of times, and even more so during disagreements.

"Look, it's done now, yeah? At least we have a possible lead now." Deeks' attempt at diffusing the situation worked perfectly when Callen merely nodded at her and returned to the position that he previously held. Kensi let out a steadying breath and glanced over at her partner with a forced smile. It seemed like she could always rely on him to take her side, no matter what. Unless, of course, it was an argument between them. "When was the last time you looked into your father's case?"

"A month ago or so." She replied hesitantly as she thought back. It hadn't seemed like it had been so long, but then again, with the jobs that they did, days tended to mesh together when they forwent sleep.

"What did you do?" Callen asked steadily and she was glad that they had moved on from the small argument from earlier, at least for now.

"The usual. Checked if there was any progress or anything new."

"Did you look into anything different than normal?" Sam questioned, brows furrowing as he spoke which only made Kensi more on guard.

"Yeah, a few things but nothing substantial." She explained warily, not liking the way he nodded only once in response. "What?"

"You must have come across something. You sure you can't remember anything that might send Cooper into a sudden frenzy?" Callen prodded carefully, forcing her to look away from the former SEAL and instead to his partner.

"No! If I could, don't you reckon I would have mentioned it by now?" Kensi told them, exasperated by both their questions and the tag-teaming as they did so. She knew that they were only doing it to get to the bottom of it and had her best intentions at heart, but it wasn't something that she could hold onto when it felt like she was being treated like a suspect. Sighing, she let go of the feeling before it either built up and came out in the form of anger, or she became even more frustrated and let it all get to her. The latter was the last thing that she wanted the others to see.

"Well, if she doesn't know, then how did Cooper?" Nate mused out loud, and Kensi ignored his use of a pronoun instead of her name. She was more grateful in the fact that he had taken the spotlight off of her and back onto their new suspect.

"Eric, who's currently in charge of the case?" Sam aimed the question at their tech operator, not having to wait longer than a few seconds for him to complete the search.

"No-one, it's a cold case. It's part of NCIS jurisdiction, though." He informed them while transferring the answer up on the screen for them all to see as well.

"So anyone inside the agency could get into it and see anything that you might have discovered." Sam stated as he crossed his arms and stood up straighter with a step away from the table.

"Or hackers." Nate added in his usual matter-of-fact way, to which they all nodded acknowledging his words.

"Can you see-?" Kensi began, turning to look at Eric, who cut her off midway.

"-who else had accessed the file recently? On it." He finished off, already tapping away on his handheld computer. She couldn't help but smirk at his response and how well he seemed to know them. "Um, by looking at it, I'd say only us."

"But?" She prompted when she realised by his tentative tone that he wasn't quite finished.

"But there's a hidden address, too. Maybe more than one." Eric said, apologetically. Somehow, it seemed like he was always the bearer of bad news in their team.

"Can you unhide it?" Deeks asked, his brow furrowing as he spoke, not sure whether what he was suggesting was in fact possible. There was a limit to his computer knowledge.

Eric nodded affirmative in reply and got going on the job on his tablet. They were able to watch his attempts on the screen, though most were only paying half a mind to it. The main thought on everyone's mind was what they were going to do to get to the bottom of this, if they were ever going to get there.

After several tries, all ending with a red stamp dictating that he was effectively blocked from being able to reveal the actual address due to unknown reasons, Eric let out an irritated sigh.

"Whoever did it, did it good." He muttered, words laced with annoyance and, surprisingly, admiration. A pointed look from a couple of them at his impressed tone made him blush lightly. "Sorry."

"So someone else got into the file, probably after you did, and saw something they didn't like and took it upon themselves to rectify it." Callen summarised all that they had learnt in the past half hour. "And that someone seems to be this guy at the moment."

"Only problem is, we don't know what. Cooper, though, clearly does." Kensi reminded them. Simply saying the words made her realise how it must seem to the others, and she had to admit, that if it had been anyone else, she would have her doubts about how it would be possible to not know something that someone else clearly does by reading the same thing. Sighing, she leant harder against the counter in front of her and felt it starting to dig into her hip bone. "I'm sorry, guys. I wish I knew what it was, exactly."

"We come across many pieces of information every day. No-one can remember it all. And what someone else finds important, you might not. It's all about the context." Nate attempted to comfort her obviously hidden distress that he could see by the tension in her body and words. Kensi let out a deep breath, smiling softly at his reassuring words.

"Besides, you ain't working hard enough if someone's not trying to kill you." Sam's statement only earned him sceptical looks from everyone in the room bar his partner. Rolling his eyes, he scoffed as he explained further. "Don't look at me like that. I got it from someone else."

"Who?" Deeks asked incredulously, beating the others. Sam merely shifted his eyes over to where Callen stood, trying to restrain a smile that eventually turned into a smirk aimed at no one in particular. "Figures."

"Eric, can you get Cooper's details? Phone records, bank details, emails." Callen asked instead. Although he was taking charge once again, there was a lighter tone to his voice than previously, something that Kensi realised helped calm both her and the atmosphere in the room. She hadn't noticed just how tense it had been until it was gone and she put it down to the fact that she had been in the middle of it.

"Done." He announced, breaking her out of her thoughts.

"Deeks, go through it and see what you can make of it." Callen assigned, waiting for him to agree before turning around to look at her. "You good to go through your father's file?"

"See if there's anything that stands out now? Yeah." She replied, brushing off his attentiveness with her blasé answer. He stared at her for a moment longer and she stared right back. Unlike the last time, she could see him trying to read her and see if she was being honest, whereas Kensi merely challenged him to disagree. Nodding minutely, he broke the eye contact first and looked back at the screen.

"Alright. Sam and I'll head to Cooper's place and see if we can find him, or anything useful." He said, knowing that he didn't need to even ask his partner. With new tasks to complete, and with a drive to get the case close growing by the minute, they headed out of the Ops centre to get started on their jobs.

...