A/N: Much thanks to all of the readers of this little love story between Kensi and Deeks.

Apologies as always for the long delays. My goal was to complete this before the premier, and with just a day to go, I met that mark. As such, she is complete now, and I hope she satisfies as we head into the 4th season of our show.

Thanks to my awesome writer buddies on Twitter - you guys are amazing. And thanks to all who read and comment - every writer says it: you help grease the wheels and make the words come.

Again, thanks and enjoy.

LAPD Detective Marty Deeks is not what a normal person would call a patient man. There are those who believe otherwise simply because he's so damned good at playing the role of affable doesn't give a damn wayward surfer, but those who actually know him (and there are very few who really do) know the that the real truth is that he's not very good at doing well…nothing.

And nothing is exactly what he's doing right now.

And exactly what he's been doing for the last three days of his life. What he's been doing ever since the doctor had somewhat grudgingly allowed him to take a seat next to Kensi Blye's hospital bed.

Three days.

It's been three almost obscenely long days since he'd last woken up next to his spitfire partner – his lover – in her bed.

Three excruciating days since he'd last held her tight in his arms, her wonderfully tanned and toned body almost scorching hot against his own.

Three unbearable days since she'd broken up with him.

Three heartbreaking days since he'd allowed his hurt and pain over believing that he'd lost her to nearly destroy them both.

And three soul-shattering days since she'd nearly died.

The good news is that the doctors' believe that she's out of the woods. They believe that absent a sudden unexpected turn for the worst, once she wakes up, she's going to be all right.

Eventually.

Her recovery will be long and frustrating (because it's Kensi) but she will recover. The worst of her injuries is her badly broken ankle – which she'd undergone surgery for a day earlier. It'll heal, though. All of her will.

Once she wakes up that is.

And there in lay the problem. It's been three days, and dammit he needs her to wake the hell up.

He's not sure what he'll do if she doesn't. Marty Deeks isn't a melodramatic man no matter what others might think. He's not a drama queen prone to fits of romantic silliness. No, deep down, what Deeks is is a very lonely man who isn't quite sure what he'll do if Kensi doesn't come back to him.

He hates the way that makes him sound – like he can't survive without her. He's lost a lot of people in his life, and he's carried on each time. He knows that if forced to do so, he'd do it without her as well.

But he doesn't want to.

He just wants her back.

He wants to apologize and tell her how much he loves her. He wants to know what an idiot he is and how sorry he is for every word, every ounce of anger and frustration. He wants her to know that he'll wait for her to be ready.

He wants her to know they can make it if she'll let them.

Shaking his head, his heart heavy with the absence of her (especially with her physically so damned close to him), he reaches out, takes one of her hands, brings it to his lips and kisses it.

"Come back to me," he whispers, not for the first or last time. "Please."

On day four, they finally release Callen from the hospital. Pleased by the cranial scans he sees, the doctor finally relents to constant pressure from the NCIS team leader to just let him go home and recuperate in his own space. Callen is typically cranky and Sam is typically overbearing, but the truth that none says aloud is that him being back up and on his feet is a relief for everyone.

Because it means that things are getting back to normal.

Or at least they're pretending to try to.

No one mentions the fact that right now, Los Angeles is anything but normal.

The amount of damage – both physical and human – that was done to the city thanks to the earthquake is absolutely staggering, and it's going to take a long time for everything to settle. A long time for everything to be normal.

But as Sam likes to remind everyone, things will eventually settle. They will eventually calm down again.

Believe it or not, everything will be all right again.

Because the sun still rises and sets every day. It's just that simple.

Now if only…

"She will wake up, Mr. Deeks," a voice says. A few seconds later he hears the still shockingly soft footsteps of Henrietta Lange as she enters. She stands above the chair he's been practically living in for the last several days, a softly bemused smile upon her lips.

She wonders to herself how his back is feeling. Probably feels like shit.

Yeah, she's been there a time or two.

With him actually, not too long back. Sure, she'd just been waiting for him to come to for the morning as opposed to at all, but it'd still been waiting.

And hoping.

And praying.

And Hetty knows what Kensi means to Deeks. Has for a very long time. She knows the depth of his emotion, knows how far over any sane line he is for Kensi. And she knows how truly reciprocated it actually is.

Which is why this whole emotional explosion had been so very sad.

Hopefully, that's behind them now. Tragedy has a way of talking sense into people. Even stubborn mules like Kensi Blye.

"She will wake up," Hetty repeats again. She briefly considers reaching down to touch his face – so taken is she of the need to comfort the young man – but chooses not to. Not because he'd pull away – he wouldn't – but because he's trying to emotionally protect himself right now.

Because no matter how many times everyone assures him that his partner/lover will wake up, he's not completely sure he believes it.

Because she hasn't woken up yet.

And despite all the reassurances, he's terrified she never will.

"Any time she'd like to would be nice," Deeks admits.

"I know, my dear. But would she be Kensi if she did it on any timeline besides her own?" Hetty cracks.

He chuckles at that. "No, I suppose not."

On day five, Hetty and Sam finally – and with a degree of brute SEAL style force – make him to leave the hospital long enough to go back to his place, grab, a hot shower, get himself cleaned up and get something to eat (he stops by Starbucks, grabs a couple of coffees and a few bagels).

Post shower (it feels good, he admits, though probably not near as good as sleeping in own bed would probably feel) he doesn't bother with shaving, doesn't worry about picking out a shirt that isn't ironed. Instead, with very little thought about it, he throws on his oldest jeans and a faded out well-worn Los Angeles Clippers sweatshirt and gets the hell back to her side as quick as possible.

He's gone maybe two hours total. Probably not what Hetty and Sam had been going for, he thinks to himself. Oh well, they'd deal with it. As always.

When he steps into the room, he sees her mom there, holding her hand. The seemingly inexhaustible Julia Feldman (definitely Kensi's mother, he's realized) has been here at the hospital almost as much as he has, spelling him whenever he's needed a quick nap or a fast walk around just to stretch his legs.

Other times, she's just sat on the opposite side of Kensi, holding the hand Deeks hasn't been. Sometimes she's sung to her daughter, the words unintelligible to him, but the simple flowing melody lovely beyond description.

Over the last several days, Deeks feels as though he's gotten to know Julia pretty well. She's not a guarded woman like Kensi (some of that had clearly come from Donnie Blye, some of it has come from the damaged path that his partner had been forced to walk, Deeks realizes), but nor is she an open book. She's been through a lot of life as well, and he's more than a little honored by her seemingly easy willingness to open up to him about her past with her daughter.

Kensi, on the other hand, will probably be horrified to learn just how many of her childhood secrets he now knows.

All the better to annoy her with when she wakes up.

"Marty," Julia Feldman says as she accepts the cup of coffee from him. Julia is much more delicate than Kensi, prefers sweeteners and flavorings as opposed to Kensi and her black with a handful of sugar mixture. It occurs to him as she lightly pats his forearm that Julia only calls him Marty. Never Deeks.

How very motherly, he thinks with a hint of age-old sadness.

"How's our girl?" he asks as he's asked every single time he's returned to the room. It's a running word-play now between them, something that earns him an affectionate smile from Kensi's mother.

"Being stubborn as usual," Julia chuckles between sips from the coffee cup. This is her part of the game. They've repeated the same two lines back to each other so many times now that it's almost automatic.

They rather wish it weren't.

They rather wish she'd just wake the hell up.

On day six, at just after three in the morning, Kensi finally does wake up.

He's sleeping - his chin drooped against his chest - beside her bed when she finally opens her eyes almost exactly six days after she'd fallen through the rotted out floor of a warehouse that she and Callen had followed a suspect into.

He's by himself – having convinced Julia to head home for the night and get some rest in her own bed. He'd only won the concession by agreeing to do the same the next day. Both had known that he'd have found a way to get around the agreement, but so exhausted had Julia been, she hadn't argued for long.

As Kensi comes to, she coughs violently her throat rough like sandpaper. She tries to open her eyes, but the lighting in the room immediately assaults her, and she quickly seals them shut again, hissing a bit in protest. She might even utter a soft expletive, but it's lost in the rasping of her slightly out of practice voice.

"Easy, baby," she hears him say. "Just take it easy. Don't try to move, okay?"

She doesn't even need to look up at him to know whom it is speaking to her. The very simple reality is that she'd know his voice anywhere, anytime. Especially now. There's a nearly hysterically happy tilt to it, relief times a thousand.

"Deeks," she whispers as she forces her eyes open so that she can look up at him. The light still hurts but each passing second reduces the discomfort. And really, after everything (her memories return to her quickly, painfully), she just needs to see him. Needs to know that he's still…here.

She's guessing – hoping - that he needs to know the same thing.

"I'm right here, Kens." He reaches out and places a hand on her cheek, cupping it a bit and allowing her to feel the softness of his palm. The man moisturizes, and right now, she's never been happier for that because it's so uniquely him.

"Don't…" she winces a bit as she struggles to get her words out, fighting through the painful dryness in her throat. "Don't…"

For a moment, he thinks she's referring to him holding her hand, and irrationally, he feels a flare of hurt go through him. After everything they've gone through…

Turns out he's jumping the proverbial gun quite a bit because finally, she manages to force out in a shaky voice, "Don't call me baby, you dumb surfer."

And she's smiling at him. At least as much as she can considering the absolutely brutal amount of high intensity painkillers that she's currently looped up on.

He laughs in response, then leans over and presses a kiss to her forehead, holding it for far longer than is technically necessary. "I missed you so much," he says. His tone is humorous, but his words are intense, heartfelt and pained.

Kensi considers telling him that she hasn't been gone long, but decides against it because the truth is that she doesn't know how long she has been gone. A glance at Deeks tells her it's been a few days at least. His blonde beard is heavier than usual, and a bit less groomed than it typically is. There are dark circles beneath both his eyes, and a weariness glinting dully in his blue orbs.

He's clearly completely and thoroughly exhausted.

She rather suspects that he hasn't left her side since the day she was brought in. Which probably means that he's slept very little during that time.

With some effort, she lifts her hand up, and weaves it through his blonde hair, pulling him tightly against her, his lips still pressed to her forehead, a slight hint of moisture against her skin. "I'm here," she tells him as she feels one of his tears streak down her cheek. "I'm right here, Deeks."

He pulls back and away, so that their eyes can meet, and she finds that she's more than a little gut-punched to see just how wet his eyes really are. "Good," he says, voice painfully low. "Don't leave me again."

He's so serious, so painfully completely unlike Deeks that it breaks her heart.

Because she'd done this to him. Whether by breaking up with him out of fear or by nearly getting killed in the chaos of an earthquake and the op gone bad.

She'd almost left him.

Both emotionally and physically.

"I'm sorry," she tells him.

He shakes his head. "No, none of that."

"Deeks."

"No, you're okay. That's all I care about."

"I need you to let me apologize."

"I don't need an apology, Kens. I just need you."

"I scared you." It's a statement, not a question.

"Yeah. You scared the hell out of me, Fern."

"I kind of scared the hell out of me, too," she admits with another sharp painful sounding cough. She accepts a cup of water from him, and sips it down, her cautious mind reminding her that anything more dramatic than sips will likely cause her somewhat queasy stomach to revolt.

"Don't do it again then, huh?" he suggests, a gentle teasing to his tone. "You think you can promise me that?"

"No."

"Yeah, didn't think so," he sighs, but he doesn't sound annoyed. Simply because…

"It's me, Deeks. I'm still me." Her tone is less teasing, more reminding. She loves this man deeply, but he has to understand who she is. He has to know.

And he does.

"Still crazy. Right." These words are said with considerable affection, which wins him a smile from the beautiful but wounded woman lying before him.

Before she can answer, the door opens and young female nurse enters, a big smile on her face. "You're awake," she says. "Welcome back, Agent Blye."

"Thanks," Kensi replies, reluctantly pulling her eyes away from Deeks. "When can I go home?"

"Wow. All right, I guess owe you a twenty, Detective," the nurse says to Deeks, a wide grin breaking across her pretty face.

"Yes, you do," Deeks nods, a matching grin on his face.

"Twenty?" Kensi queries wearily.

"I bet her that even though it's the most absurd thing ever, that would be your first question to her," Deeks grins, holding out his hand. The nurse presses a crisp twenty-dollar bill into it. "And it was."

Kensi simply groans in response. "So that's a no then?" she asks the nurse.

"That's a no," the nurse confirms. "Not for a few more days at least. I know you're tough, but we want to monitor your pain tolerance…"

"My pain tolerance is fine," Kensi answers immediately, despite the vague but not quite concentrated bursts of pain that she keeps feeling slithering through her achy body. She knows that she's drugged, and the meds are certainly blunting the vast majority of the discomfort she's in, but every now and again, she feels something that feels pretty damned awful.

Not that she'd tell anyone.

"So I've heard," the nurse nods. "But you've been given a very strong cocktail of painkillers, and before you head home, we want to wean you off them, and ensure that you're doing all right. We also want to ensure your ankle is healing up well from its' surgery before we release you. All standard op, I assure you."

"So what you're saying is I'm not going home tonight," she grumbles again.

"No, my dear, you're not." She says this with a humoring smile that Kensi gets the feeling should be charming, but she rather finds it obnoxious. Still, even she knows that she's mostly fighting just to fight. Even she knows that there was no realistic chance of her leaving the hospital the same morning she came to.

"Can I have some soup at least?" she asks with a resigned sigh.

"Soup should be fine, though I would caution you against eating too much of it. Your stomach could still be queasy. I can have it sent up from the cafeteria."

She makes a face at that, which makes Deeks chuckle. "Or I can drive down to the sandwich shop and pick you up some of your favorite chicken noodle," Deeks suggests with a lop-sided entirely too adorable grin.

She lights up at this, and he can't help but feel an almost absurd amount of warmth streak through him. Not many people realize it, but Kensi has a very goofy side to her, a slightly unrefined unreserved part of her that she lets very few people see. He's seen it, though. And he's seeing it right now.

Sure, she's drugged up and that's at least partly to blame, but he likes to think that he's responsible for it as well. He likes to think that at their best, they bring out the best in each other. They allow each other some…respite.

Yeah, that's a good word.

Neither of them are the type to dwell over the nightmares of their past, neither is about to ask for pity from anyone. Just the same, they both carry difficult memories and decisions around with them.

And he likes to think that what they do for each other is relieve that burden.

This time, he's going to find a way to make her believe it.

"Yes, please," she chirps.

"There's a place open at this time of night?" the nurse asks.

"Yeah, a little dive we found," Deeks responds. He doesn't tell her the whole story of how after Kensi had come down with the flu several months earlier, he'd driven around town looking for soup for her sick partner. Anything to make her feel better. To Kensi he says, "All right, I'll get you your soup, but you'd better be awake when I get back. I'm sick and tired of listening to you snore."

"I don't snore."

"Yes, you do. And your mom can back me up this time."

Kensi glances around the room. "My mom? Is…is she here?"

"She was. I sent her home for the night. I'll give her a call and get her back here."

"No! Let her sleep."

"Not a chance," he laughs, shaking his head in amusement.

"Deeks…"

"I'm going to go call your mom – no arguing, she wants to be here – and then I'm going to get you your soup. I expect you to be here when I get back."

She furrows her brow at this, momentarily confused. After all, hadn't the nurse just stated that she wouldn't be allowed to leave for a few more days? But then, staring up and into his bright blues, she gets it; this isn't about leaving the hospital, this is about leaving him.

Funny how they both essentially have the same fears. Funny how she hadn't seen it before. Perhaps funny isn't the right word.

She smiles, tries to say as much with her eyes as she can manage. "I'll be here." She softens her voice then, and adds, "I promise."

He exhales.

It's just about a week later, as she's trying to test out her surgically repaired ankle (against doctors' orders, of course) when the door to the room opens, and Callen enters. He's got a nasty looking mostly-healed cut on the side of his head, and about a weeks' worth of facial hair, but otherwise, he looks all right.

Alive and well.

Well, alive anyway.

Before she can follow down the path of wondering if her team leader – and good friend – is all right, he says, "You're not supposed to be up on that yet, are you?" He's smiling slightly, but it doesn't quite reach his blue eyes. There's something else there, something distinctly Callen like and yet right now, even more so.

He looks…haunted.

She shrugs her shoulders and without a lot of grace, allows herself to drop back down to the bed, trying to ignore the shrieks of pain coming from her ankle. "They didn't give me an exact timeline."

"No?"

"Not down to the minute anyway," she sighs, reaching down with her fingers to inspect her soft casted up ankle. She has absolutely no business even thinking about putting weight on it yet. And yet in typical Kensi Blye fashion, she'd tried.

And for once, failed.

Which rather pisses her off if she's honest with herself.

"Uh huh. You have screws holding your ankle together, Kens. It's okay to take your time getting back up on it."

"That sound like me, G?"

"No," he answers with a smirk.

"Good, because this doesn't sound like you. You never doubt me."

"Never have reason to."

"Exactly. So what's going on? You okay?"

He nods his head. "I'm fine." He makes his way over to a clipboard sitting on one of the trays and picks it up, looking at it without reading a single word of the text. Finally, "I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to come by and see you until today."

"It's okay. You took a pretty bad blow to the head. I'm guessing you've been at home resting. As much as you ever rest."

"Yeah. Thing is, my head has been healing for going on a week and a half. I should have been here to see you sooner," he tells her, looking up to meet her eyes. She can see the turbulence within his, can see the fight being waged even though she's unclear what the struggle is about.

"I don't need people sitting by my bedside," she tells him as she scoots back up on the bed, bringing up her soft casted foot and lifting it up onto a stack of pillows. "Deeks and my mother do enough of that for everyone."

"Yeah, I bet. Speaking of, where are they?" Callen asks, glancing around. There are crutches in the corner – not that Kensi is even remotely ready for those yet – but no sign of the typically omnipresent scruffy detective or Kensi's impeccably put together mother.

"At home sleeping, hopefully. I had to tell both of them that if they didn't leave, I was going to ask the doctors to ban them."

"Which they'll never do because from what I hear, Deeks and your mom are the only reasons you haven't tried to break out yet."

"Who says I haven't tried?"

At that, Callen grins. Which earns him a return smile from her.

And then, "So why haven't you come to see me then, G?"

"Truth?"

"Always preferable," she replies, though she's honestly not sure she wants to hear whatever he's going to say. As a general rule of thumb, she and G don't have conversations like these. They just…don't.

And yet it's clear to both of them that after what they went through together, nearly dying several times, this is a discussion that they need to have.

"I'm sorry," he says.

She reacts with surprise to this. "For what, Callen? What happened to me wasn't your fault. You couldn't have know about the building or the quake."

"You're my agent."

She smiles at that, and for a moment, he's stunned into silence. Perhaps it's because he so often sees her as his tough as nails little sister, but for just a moment he remembers just how beautiful and amazing a woman she is.

Especially when she's smiling at him the way she is right now.

"That's what I am to you? Your agent? That's it?" she's teasing him now, and he finds that she's even capable of doing so relieves an enormously heavy weight from his chest. It means she's all right. She's going to be fine.

"You're my friend," he corrects.

She nods. "Exactly. And I don't remember every single thing that happened, but I do remember you holding me. I remember your voice. You helped me hold on."

"I wish that were true."

"It is."

"Kensi, when I left you – the only reason I left you – I went to go get help, but I failed. I didn't make it up the stairs. I passed out." He shakes his head thinking about it, thinking about collapsing on the stairs so very certain that he was letting her down. So very sure that he'd never be waking up again.

She reaches up, then, and touches his forehead, her fingers grazing the cut there. "I'm not surprised."

He puts his hand over hers. "I let you down." It's odd for him to be touching her – Callen isn't much for physical connections, that's more of a her and Sam thing, but for this moment in time, he needs it. And she understands completely.

"No, you didn't. We both made it out," she tells him, hand over his.

"No thanks to me."

"Or me, Callen."

"Kens, you…"

"Fell through a floor," she chuckles dryly. "I know." She indicates towards her ankle, but then shrugs her shoulder. "Doesn't change my mind or make me think I shouldn't have found a way to get ourselves out of that."

"Because you're Wonder Woman."

"And you're…well I don't know who you are, Callen, but I do know I'd follow you anywhere, and you know what it means for me to say that."

"I do."

"Good, then listen to me when I tell you that you don't owe me an apology."

"You're sure?"

"I am. No more guilt, Callen. It'll give you lines."

He laughs at that, and is about to say something when the door opens and Deeks steps inside, a McDonalds' bag clutched tight in his hand.

"Am I interrupting?" Deeks asks. He's cautious, unsure if this a moment that he wants to be stepping into. There's a kind of odd tension in the room. It's not weird or even necessarily uncomfortable, but there is something…unusual there.

"No, we were just…talking over what happened," Kensi says, smiling up at Callen. Her look tells him that as far as she's concerned, the discussion is over.

"She's telling me she didn't need saving," Callen quips.

"Is she now?" Deeks laughs, choosing to play along. He knows that they're steering him away from their conversation, but that's okay. What they'd gone through in that building had been between them, and he feels no need to intrude upon it. That doesn't mean he's not going to yank on the string Callen had provided him with, however. "And did she tell how she planned to get out of that building being all busted up and all?"

"I have my ways," Kensi answers back, feigning defiance.

"Uh huh. Well, Wonder Woman, I brought you your grease," Deeks states, holding up the bag. "Though I think if you keep downing these the way you do, you're going to make the invisible jet…"

"I wouldn't finish that sentence if I were you," she says, swatting at him.

"Not really scared of you right now."

"You never were all that bright," she shoots back.

"And on that note, I'm going to leave you guys to…this," Callen chuckles. "I just wanted to drop by and see you, Kens."

"Thanks, Callen."

"Thank you."

She smiles at him again, and this time, he can't help but answer it. After a moment, he turns and leaves.

Deeks waits until Callen is well gone before turning to face her partner, "You okay?" he asks, brow furrowing. She nods her head. "He okay?"

She thinks for a moment, and then nods her head. "Getting there. Now give me my breakfast. And no more cracks about my grease or I'll force feed you it."

"Wow, threats of violence. You are feeling better."

"Deeks."

"Here, here. Be nice."

"I'll be nice when I'm out of this bed," she replies as she practically tears open the bag. Truth be told, she'd been sick of this place about five minutes after she'd come to, but even she knows that she'd needed some degree of recovery.

Now, however, she feels well enough to go home and get on with things.

Things including Deeks.

A few days later, she gets her chance.

The rules are simple – she's allowed to go home, but only if home means someone is there with her to ensure she isn't putting her surgically repaired ankle in jeopardy. The rest of her injuries are well on the mend, but that one is precarious enough – especially with her well-known recklessness – to require a bit of constant caretaking.

Which Marty Deeks is only too happy to supply.

Her ankle has been fitted with a hard boot – one meant to allow movement all while protecting her from further injury. She's allowed to start using crutches, but the physical therapist is quick to remind her that she's at the very beginning of the process no matter her strength. There's a long way to go.

Everyone thinks to tell the therapist to up her expectations, but no one does.

Because they don't want to encourage Kensi to misbehave.

And they know she will.

The deal struck is that Deeks will stay with Kensi. He'd suggested the opposite way – her with him simply because his apartment less resembles a death trap (even more so since the quake which had caused many of her objects to fall and break) – but ultimately, the lack of stairs in her place make the decision for them.

He briefly considers carrying her across the threshold. It's only her look – one that tells him that she knows exactly what he's thinking – that stops him. Instead, he stands back and watches as she slowly crutches her way into her house.

Inside, once the door is closed behind her, she staggers towards her couch. It's only then when she allows him to offer her a hand and help her down onto the soft fabric. She sighs a bit as it just about swallows her whole.

"Can I put your leg up?" he asks, sounding more hopeful than he should.

"Deeks."

"What?"

"Please."

"Please, what?"

"We're home now, okay." She glances around, taking in the neatened up disarray of her house. The quake has taken its toll for sure, but Deeks has clearly been in here already, putting things as back together as he can manage.

For that, she's thankful.

Even if a whole slew of things are completely in the wrong place.

Organized chaos. Works for her.

"Okay? And?"

"And I need you to be you. When we were at the hospital, it was okay for you to be waiting on me hand and foot. It annoyed me but I understood. We're home now, and I don't want you doing that. I want…I want you to be my Deeks. I need my Deeks now, okay?"

"Your Deeks?" he asks, trying to suppress a smile.

"My Deeks." She leans up then, grabs the collar of his shirt, pulls him down and kisses him as hard as she can. It's forceful and passionate, and for a moment, he's pretty damned sure that he can't breathe.

Which is just fine with him.

Until he actually can't breathe and he has no choice but to break away.

"So does this mean you've changed your mind about us?"

She groans.

"Oh you're kidding me," he sighs. "Really?"

"Deeks, I'm sitting on the couch with you, my hand under your shirt and you're asking me if I've changed my mind about breaking up with you. Really?"

"That's my line."

"You're lucky I didn't punch you."

"That's your line," he quips.

"Exactly." She shakes her head. "You're an idiot."

"But you love me."

She grows serious at this, leaning in to touch his face. "But I love you."

He swallows hard then because this is almost unbelievable to him. A couple weeks ago, he'd stood on the edge of destroying everything. He'd allowed his hurt and anger to overwhelm him when she'd allowed her fear to do the same.

They'd just about torn each other apart.

And now here they are.

It's simply too good to be true.

"You're here, right?" he asks.

"As opposed to?"

"Me dreaming?" But then he shakes his head. "No, if I was dreaming, you'd be…" he wriggles his eyebrows, a familiar almost lecherous and yet somehow amazingly charming smile crossing his lips.

"Would I now?"

"Oh yeah. In fact, when's the last time you took a bath?"

"What? Are you kidding me?"

"You've been in the hospital for the last few weeks. I know they let you use the shower but I doubt you've gotten to actually enjoy yourself any."

"No, I can't say that I did," she replies dryly.

"Well then allow me to fix that."

"Deeks!"

He doesn't give her much time – nor room – to protest. He simply lifts her up in her arms, and ignoring her demands to set her down, carries her into her bedroom. He then settles her onto her bed. "Stay here."

"Where else would I go?" she replies through grit teeth, through truth be told, she's rather enjoying herself. Still, it wouldn't do at all to let him know that.

"Don't know, but I'm not taking any chances," he says as he slips into the bathroom. She hears him turning on the water for the tub. A few minutes later, he emerges, sans socks and shoes and wearing just his cotton boxers. There are lavender smelling soapsuds on his hands.

"Someone thinks he's going to have some fun," Kensi notes, indicating towards his boxers. She lifts an eyebrow up, pretending to be scandalized.

"Someone didn't want to get his jeans and shoes wet," he shoots back. Then, leaning down to lift her up again, he says, "My lady?"

"Deeks, don't you dare. I will kick your ass if you even try."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. You protest too much," he says as he picks her up into his strong arms once more. He carries her into the bathroom, and then dips her around so that she can see the now filled tub of water and suds. "Warm and soapy just like you like it."

"And you're just going to drop me into it?"

"Of course not. Don't want to get your boot wet," he grins. "But I am going to put you in it. With or without your help." He wriggles his eyebrows again when he says this. "And honestly, I'm okay with either option."

"You're a pig."

"I'm a pig who loves you."

It's his turn to make the connection now, to let her know that he won't ever leave her, at least not of his own free will. He locks eyes with her, won't pull away until she understands completely. Until she gets it.

She does.

But after a moment, they both have to get back to who they are. They both have to step away from the overwhelming emotion and sincerity of the connection.

She laughs, "What you are Deeks, is a sappy pig."

"More a soapy pig," he says as he steps into the water. He sloshes it a bit so that it sprays up on her, coating her arm with soap.

"Deeks, I'm still clothed," she protests, motioning to her own shorts. She'd very quickly realized the inconvenience of jeans in relation to her foot boot.

"Not a problem," he answers, before rather dropping them – without even a pretense of class or dignity – into the soapy water, clothes and all.

Still, somehow or another, he manages to keep her wounded ankle outside the tub, leaning up against a thick folded-over towel that he'd placed on the edge.

"Deeks!" she laughs.

Before she can say anymore, he kisses her. She has the sense to realize that the kiss is decidedly odd. They're both sitting half-clothed in soapy warm water and his hands are covered in suds, resting on her cheeks.

All of which should make this completely unromantic.

None of which actually does.

She pulls him towards her, deepening the kiss, holding onto him, her fingers weaving into his hair. The positioning isn't great, but he seems to realize it, and adjusts his body so as not to put pressure on her wounded foot.

And then he presses into her. He whispers something into her ear, a kind of promise, but she doesn't need words right now. Nor does he. After everything, they just want that which has always guided both of them – action.

They want the promise of motion, the guarantee of emotion.

And with each other, they receive the calm and forgiveness they both so desperately need and seek.

Somewhere along the way, the rest of their clothes get lost.

"We should get out of the water," Deeks notes as he watches another bubble dissolve into the now lukewarm quickly cooling water.

"Yeah," she admits lazily, her head rested back against his chest. "I look like an old lady." She holds up her hand to show him her wrinkled skin.

He laughs at that. "Hottest old lady ever."

"Mm hmm. If you think that's going to get you another round…"

"No, no. I know you're exhausted."

"I'm the one exhausted?"

"Well you are wounded."

She rolls her eyes. "All right, Prince Charming, how about you help me get out of this tub, and I show you just how wounded and exhausted I am."

"Was that a threat or a promise?"

"Which one would you prefer?" she quips, allowing one of her hands to slide down beneath the surface of the water. He feels her fingers slide against his sensitive skin a moment later, and can't help but hiss a bit in weak protest.

"All right, be nice," he says.

"I'm getting cold."

"Yes ma'am." He stands up then, smirking as he does so simply because he knows the visual he's presenting her with. He sees his discarded boxers lying a few feet away, tossed to the base of the toilet. Slowly, he steps out of the tub, wraps a towel around his waist, and then bends over and starts to lift her.

"Help me," she says softly. "I don't need to be carried."

He meets her eyes, understanding that she's telling him not only what she needs right now, but what she needs overall. She's a complicated woman, someone who isn't used to allowing others to help her. She's not going to become the damsel in distress even when it makes sense for her to. That's not who she is.

It's not who he'd want to be with anyway.

He slides an arm around her back, and slowly, with her arms wrapped around his neck, helps her up. Her balance is poor, but she's smart and holds onto him until she is able to steady herself outside the tub.

"Good?" he says.

She reaches up and touches his face, his fingers tracing his stubble. "Good."

-fin