MEND by MioneAlterEgo

RATING: T, for a bit of swearing and allusions to a character death

DISCLAIMER: I don't own the NCIS:LA playground, I just sneak in to play in the sandbox.

Before she could even open her eyes, Kensi became forcibly and painfully aware of the fact that every cell in her body hurt. Her head was pounding and she could feel the dull sting of several deep abrasions on her face, legs, arms, and hands. Her throat and mouth felt raw and overexposed. The worst, however, was her midsection. Her entire torso felt as if someone had opened her up, filled her guts with kerosene and C-4, and lit the fuse. When she finally forced open an eyelid, the stinging invasion of light elicited a faint groan of protest.

"Signs of life."

Even without opening her eyes any further, Kensi would have known that voice anywhere. She forced her protesting eyelids open just wide enough to confirm the identity of her companion before speaking.

"Where am I?"

"Pacific Medical. Maybe you shouldn't be talking right now."

"'S okay. You do enough for both of us." She'd meant it as a weak joke, but the complete lack of any humor on his normally bright features got her attention. "What happened?"

"Sniper. We got ambushed. Never knew he was there. Callen picked him off about a second after the guy hit you, but the damage was done. He got four shots off before we realized."

"Was I the only one?"

"No. Our witness, too. He caught one in the leg and one in the chest. Still critical in ICU. You caught the last two, center mass."

She blinked and swore under her breath. "So that's why I feel like I swallowed a pipe bomb."

"You probably shouldn't be talking right now. I'll go get a nurse."

To say that Deeks' icy behavior caught her off guard would have been an understatement. He hadn't smiled once, hadn't called her by a nickname, hadn't even stepped closer to the bed the whole time they were talking. His usual energy seemed entirely depleted, which didn't alarm her nearly as much as the strangely serious, almost angry stare he'd leveled on her.

I'm in a hospital bed, for God's sake. Take it easy.

"Well, Ms. Blye, it's certainly nice to see your eyes open! You had a pretty rough evening there…" The obscenely energetic nurse (a plump, blonde woman in her 40's with a name tag reading "Amy Black, R.N.") came bustling into the room, chattering and checking a slew of charts and monitors. "Everything seems to be in order here, but I'll let Dr. Friel know you're awake. Can I get you anything? Water? Juice? Are you hungry at all?"

The thought of solid food made her stomach slosh in a decidedly unpleasant manner. "Water, maybe."

"I'll go get you a cup right now."

It wasn't until the woman left that she spotted her partner lurking in the doorway. He'd taken a couple of steps into the room but was making no effort to come any closer.

"What else?" Kensi challenged.

"What do you mean, what else?"

"You're acting weird. What else happened?"

"I'm acting weird because my partner's lying in a hospital bed with two fresh bullet holes, a few dozen stitches and sutures, and oh yeah, let's not forget a few pints of someone else's blood swimming around in there because she lost too much of her own."

Kensi's stomach turned again. "Thanks for the visual. But I'm fine."

"The hell you are."

Her eyes snapped open. "What is your problem?"

"I don't feel like breaking in a new partner."

"Are you for real? Do you not remember a year ago when YOU were the one with the bullet holes? People get shot all the time and live. I'm still here. You're stuck with me."

"Yeah, but you—" He cut himself off mid-sentence as Nurse Amy scuttled back into the room with a cup of water and a cup of ice chips.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt," she squeaked. "Just press your blue call button if you need anything." I could have busted into show tunes and a time step, Nurse Amy thought to herself as she slid out of the room, and it wouldn't have registered. The patient and her partner never broke eye contact through the whole awkward interlude.

"I what, Deeks?" Kensi pressed, picking up right where he'd cut off.

"Forget it."

"Why? You obviously can't."

"I don't appreciate you taking risks like that, okay?"

Her head was starting to throb in earnest. He really wasn't making a whole lot of sense. "What was I supposed to do? Keep hiding behind a dumpster with our witness, taking fire from Martinez and his thugs while you and Sam went for a walk to clear the area?"

"We're partners, Kensi. How the hell am I supposed to watch your back if you go running into war zones like that without me?"

"Fine, I'm sorry! I should have waited, but really? It's a couple of gunshot wounds. I'll be out of here in two days and in a month you'll be cracking jokes about this."

He gave a short bark of humorless laughter. "Trust me, there will never be a time when I find this funny."

"You're being a real drama queen about this, you know that? You didn't freak out with the lasers or when Stan King's mansion exploded."

"This is different."

"How? How is this different?"

"I watched you die!"

"Would you quit being so dramatic? It's two shots! I'm fine," she growled.

"You're not listening, are you? You died, Kensi, right there on the gurney. You died. As in, your heart stopped beating and I watched the monitor go flat, and for about a minute or ten years or however the hell long it was, I didn't think you were coming back."

Her brow furrowed as she searched his face. "That's not funny, Deeks."

"You're right, it's not. It's really, really not."

The only sound in the room for several long moments was the beeping of her heart monitor, the very same one that had betrayed him only hours before. Deeks could hear the speed of the tell-tale beeps increase as gradually the reality of the situation landed and her brain started to churn, and for a split second it registered as one of the most incredible sounds he'd ever heard.

"I died." It wasn't a question, and Deeks didn't answer. The flicker of thinly-masked emotion across his features was all the confirmation she needed. The room started to blur and black-out at the edges as the weight of what happened landed on her full-force. "Oh."

When he spoke again, his volume had dropped to somewhere just above a whisper and she could hear him forcing the words. "With the lasers I was there with you, and when King's house blew we didn't know for sure you were in there, so it didn't seem real. Tonight, I watched. Your heart. Stop."

Kensi's already unstable stomach gave another uncomfortable twinge as Deeks' voice cracked on that final word, and she had the passing thought that getting shot in the chest might have been less painful than hearing the anguish in his tone. She cringed in realization as the pieces began to click together; he wasn't angry because of the actions she'd taken in the field… he was scared out of his mind because he thought he'd lost her for good. She added the sting of tears behind her eyes to the litany of things on her body that hurt but somehow managed to keep them at bay as her doctor, a tall, skinny man with silver hair, tapped on the door and stepped into the room.

"Ms. Blye? I'm Dr. Friel, the on-call physician. I understand you've had quite an interesting night?"

"Something like that," Kensi muttered.

"Well, let's see if we can get you a little more comfortable. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the worst, how would you rate your pain level right now?"

"Maybe a five or a six," she answered, downplaying the situation drastically. One silver eyebrow rose in disbelief as he checked her heart monitor, oxygen, and blood pressure.

"So that's like a twelve in normal-people levels," Deeks interjected. The anger she'd heard before was gone, replaced by sadness and exhaustion.

Dr. Friel chuckled lightly. "I thought that might be the case. And you are?"

"Detective Marty Deeks, LAPD. I'm a work associate."

Dr. Friel was no idiot and rightly deduced that there was more to the situation with that, but between knowing that his patient was in law enforcement and seeing Deeks' flash his badge, he knew enough to drop the issue. He nodded in acknowledgement before returning his attention to his patient.

"Well, Ms. Blye, in spite of your condition when you arrived here your vitals look reasonably strong now and you're clearly breathing well enough on your own. I'm going to go ahead and increase your morphine drip just a tad and I'll be back in about an hour to check on you. If you're not feeling some relief at that time, I'll go ahead and give you something to help you fall asleep so that you can rest more comfortably. I'm afraid you've got a long road ahead of you in terms of healing."

"I was afraid you might say that."

Dr. Friel shook his head as he moved on to the next room, leaving Kensi and Deeks alone once more. Silence hung thick in the air until Kensi spoke again.

"What time is it?"

Deeks checked his watch. "A little after 4a.m." His voice was much softer now in both volume and tone, so Kensi took a chance and patted a space on the bed next to her. Deeks eyed her for a moment before his shoulders slumped and he moved to sit beside her. It wasn't until his calloused, hesitant hand reached up to trace a long gash at her hairline that she felt her own composure finally shatter. Tears burning with pain, exhaustion, fear, and relief slid silently down her cheeks as he brushed his fingertips soothingly across her skin. "I'm sorry, Kens," he whispered. "I'm sorry I yelled and I'm so sorry I didn't have your back out there."

"I'm sorry I didn't wait and I'm sorry I scared you, Partner."

His eyes pressed shut as he dragged in a slow, shuddering breath, and she knew he was fighting hard to keep his own emotions in check. His hand found hers, and for several long minutes they clung to one another, hands squeezing tight as unspoken reconciliation settled into the space between them. Eventually her breathing and heart rate leveled out and slowed down enough for Deeks to realize she'd dozed off; her fingers were still grasping his even in sleep, and after all that had transpired in the last 36 hours he couldn't bring himself to break that small connection between them, her warm, slender fingers a silent assurance she was still alive.

When Sam arrived at the hospital just after 5a.m., he couldn't help but shake his head at the sight that greeted him. Deeks was perched precariously on the side of Kensi's bed fighting a losing battle with his own fatigue, his head dropping to his chest before popping back up again like some sort of overgrown bobble-head doll, his fingers still entwined with hers. Despite a gnawing concern that the two had become a little too emotionally involved with one another, Sam nonetheless found himself grateful that Kensi had a partner so determined to remain by her side in any situation. For whatever other annoying faults he might have, Deeks was uncompromisingly loyal to Kensi.

"How's she doin'?" Sam whispered into the darkened room. He stifled a chuckle as Deeks' head snapped up and eyes flew open. Deeks stared at him blankly for a couple of seconds before the question registered.

"She's alive," he answered quietly.

Sam nodded. "That's a good place to start."

"For a minute there, she wasn't."

"I heard." Hetty had gotten the full report from the hospital and briefed Sam and Callen before they'd ever left the scene of the shoot-out.

"I should have been there."

"You were, Deeks."

"No. I should have been covering her back during the operation. This never would have happened."

"Or the sniper would've picked you off, too," Sam countered. "Callen and I would be splitting time between two hospital rooms."

"You watched Callen get shot. You were there two years ago. Right?"

Sam frowned. "Yeah, I was there. And I spent the next two months thinking and re-thinking of every possible thing I could've done differently to change what happened. Thing is, I couldn't change it."

"Sucks."

"No kidding. Deeks, listen to me: all you can do is pick up and move forward. This is part of the job and no amount of blaming yourself is going to change what went down tonight. Kensi's gonna make it and when she gets back to work she's going to need her partner. You can't be there for her if you're still living in the instant replay."

Deeks stared at Kensi's face as Sam spoke, his thumb absently tracing over her fingertips.

"Go home, Deeks," Sam urged quietly. "Go take a shower, walk that mangy dog of yours, grab a power nap, and get something to eat. I'll keep an eye on her." He noticed the way Deeks' mouth tightened at the suggestion and read the hesitation correctly. "She'll still be here when you get back, man. I promise."

Deeks sighed and scrubbed his free hand across his face before carefully standing. "If she wakes up, tell her I'll be back as soon as I can."

"I will."

And without giving any thought to what the other man would think or say, Marty Deeks leaned over and placed a careful, achingly soft kiss just below the cut on Kensi's forehead before slowly extracting his hand from hers and dragging himself from the room.

When Kensi woke later that morning, the first thing she felt was not the pain in her abdomen or the unease in her stomach, but the fact that out of every sore, aching, and injured patch of skin on her body she could feel that the fingers of her left hand were cold. And when she realized it wasn't Deeks but Sam sitting watch at her bedside, she suddenly felt a little cold all over.

Deeks walked back into her room a couple of hours later. His lips brushed her cheek, his hand found hers, and she found it wasn't at all painful to return his familiar smile. As feeling returned to her fingers Kensi felt his warmth seep into her bones and the unfamiliar tightness that had settled in her chest began to fade. They might still have some healing to do, but at least she knew they were on the mend.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This odd little plot bunny wouldn't leave me alone, but it was kind of fun to write. Also, I posted without a beta consult, so any mistakes, formatting hinkiness, OOC issues, etc., are mine alone. Constructive feedback and comments are always welcome! Hope you enjoyed!