Finally, here it is the last chapter. Thank you so much to everyone for sticking with me. Sorry this took so long to update. As always, enjoy :)

****Three Days Later****

"Hey gorgeous how'd you sleep?" Deeks asked, walking up behind Kensi and quickly giving her a peck on the cheek. They were finally alone, standing just outside the cabin.

"Really, Deeks?" Kensi said, somewhat bemused by his display of affection.

"What? I've been waiting two whole hours to do that, ever since we woke up." Deeks replied, a mischievous grin already forming on his face as he spun her around.

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, you know what else I've been waiting to do?" Deeks asked, his arms encircling her body, pulling her closer to him.

"What's that?" Kensi said, unable to contain her smile.

"This." Deeks said, leaning in to kiss her lips but at the last-minute he decided to change his course and kiss her on the cheek.

"You are such an ass." Kensi said punching him in the arm.

"Ow! What was that for?" Deeks said, rubbing his soon to be bruised arm. Despite the large puffy jacket he still felt the force behind her punch.

"You know exactly what that was for, quit messing with me." Kensi said, leaning in to kiss him this time, properly, on the lips.

"Mmmmm sorry." Deeks mumbled against her lips.

They were slowly making their way to the training exercise, stopping every so often to make the most of their isolation from Sam and Callen. Despite his relaxed demeanour Kensi knew that Deeks was reluctant to partake in their latest exercise.

"Oh come on, he's harmless." Kensi said, knowing that Deeks was uneasy about working with Sabatino.

"What? He wants a piece of you, he's not harmless, you're just too blind to see it." Deeks replied.

"Seriously?" Kensi said, her hands drifting to her hips as she gave Deeks a questioning glare.

"What? It's true."

"You are so jealous." Kensi said, her lips cracking into a smile at Deeks' overreaction.

"And you aren't when I'm around other women?" Deeks smirked knowing exactly how Kensi acted when he flirted with other women. "How about when I was with Monica huh?" Deeks teased, however, upon seeing Kensi's eyes narrow he chose to drop it. "That is a terrible example." Deeks said quickly scrambling to recover.

"We've got a mission, Deeks. Let's go." Kensi said, pulling away from him.

Deeks immediately picked up on the anger in her tone, reaching out for her hand and lightly tugging her back to him. "I'm sorry I shouldn't have brought up Monica, it was a stupid thing to do, I know it hurt you, me being with her and all." Deeks said.

"Deeks, it wasn't you being with her that hurt me it was the fact that you didn't tell me you were working undercover." Kensi sighed, disappointed that Deeks had still yet to grasp that fact.

"Hurry up and get over here." Sam said, ushering Kensi and Deeks to get into the group huddle at the beginning of the exercise.

"Kens I'm sorry." Deeks said, catching up to her.

"Don't worry about that just concentrate on this." She replied, refusing to look at him.

"Alright we gotta partner up, 3 people each, clear the rooms." Sam said taking the lead for the mission.

"Got it." Deeks said, his enthusiasm for the task instantly waning once he saw Sabatino gravitate towards his partner's side. "Are you kidding me?" Deeks muttered under his breath putting on a fake smile as he greeted Sabatino.

"Hey man." Sabatino said, extending his hand to Deeks.

"Hey." Deeks replied.

"This is going to be great, you mind if I take the lead?" Sabatino asked.

Deeks immediately felt Kensi's eyes on him, silently communicating for him to bow down on this occasion. "Sure, go ahead." Deeks replied, once again smiling. Kensi let out a relieved sigh, clearly trying to play peacekeeper.

"Deeks you cover our backs, we'll go in ahead of you since we're more experienced." Sabatino said.

Who the hell did this guy think he was? He had effectively partnered himself up with Kensi and relegated him to being the supporting player. "Whatever you say, boss." Deeks replied, bitterness heavy in his voice. Kensi gave him a sympathetic look yet followed after Sabatino.

"Okay, Kensi let's go." Sabatino said, placing his arm around Kensi's waist for a few seconds to signal that they should get moving. The gesture didn't go unnoticed by Deeks, who glared at the back of Sabatino's head, fighting the urge to shoot him.

Sabatino and Kensi burst through the doors, clearing out the targets while Deeks was largely left out of the action.

"Nice shot." Sabatino said congratulating Kensi. "You get the next one like that and I'm buying you dinner." Sabatino said. Kensi politely offered a smile, hoping that Deeks hadn't heard.

"Let's go." Sabatino said, patting Kensi lightly on the thigh to signal that they needed to move. Deeks was fuming, his concentration momentarily stinted allowing their opponents the opportunity to take a shot. The bright yellow paint bullet squirted on Deeks' chest, wedging itself firmly in the vest.

Sabatino and Kensi went ahead with clearing the rooms while Deeks was left out of the exercise.

"Deeks, what the hell happened in there?" Sam asked, astounded that the team had lost a member on their way to completing the mission.

"I don't know." Deeks replied, removing his vest and throwing it down on to the table.

Sam pulled him into the corner of the room. "You sure about that? Because these are all recorded for training purposes, we're all going to watch this in half an hour unless you give me a reason not to." Sam said, giving Deeks an opportunity to explain himself.

Deeks sat down on the chair, burying his head in his hands. "What happened?" Sam said, taking a seat beside him.

"I lost it." Deeks said. "I can't stand that guy, Sam."

"He's a pain in the ass but we still gotta work together."

"I know it's just... he really rubbed me the wrong way in there."

"What'd he say?"

"It's not what he said..."

"Oh?"

"He kept hitting on Kensi." Deeks confessed.

"Oh..."

"It's stupid, I know, I shouldn't have let that affect my performance."

"Hey, you were looking out for your partner."

"No, I was being a jealous idiot." Deeks said, disappointed in himself, knowing that Kensi would be pissed off at him.

"It's hard." Sam said, leaning closer to Deeks so that they wouldn't be overheard. "It's not easy transitioning from a partnership to a relationship." Sam said, watching as Deeks' eyes widened. "Come on Deeks, it's obvious, those looks you were giving each other last night, you weren't fooling anyone."

Deeks chuckled at Sam's words, their secret didn't exactly last very long.

"I think it's a good thing that this happened here and not out in the field, because this gives you a chance to work it out. You gotta learn to leave everything at home because the second you bring things to work, it could cost you your life, like it did today." Sam said, patting Deeks on the shoulder as he stood up.

Deeks nodded his head showing that he understood what Sam was saying.

"Look, I'll get Callen to make the footage disappear." Sam offered. "You go talk to Kensi."

"Hey." Deeks said, finding Kensi back at the cabin.

"Hey." She replied, hugging him as soon as he stepped inside the door. "What if that was real, Deeks? I can't lose you"

"I know."

"What did Sam have to say?" Kensi asked, knowing that Sam was furious about the exercise.

"He uh was actually pretty good about it."

"Really?"

"Yeah..." Deeks said, leading her to sit down on the bed. "Kens, this is harder than I thought it would be..." Deeks confessed.

"What do you mean?"

"Us being partners and more than that at the same time, it really hit me today, well I guess it literally hit me today." Deeks joked yet dropped it upon seeing her less than impressed reaction. "I was totally out of line today and if that happened out in the field for real then I would probably be dead right now." He could see the fear in her eyes. "Kens, we gotta set a few ground rules if this is going to work."

"Okay, what exactly did you have in mind?"

"We can't bring all our baggage with us into a mission, I got hit today because I wasn't focused on the task, all I could think about was making things right with you and well you know how much I like Sabatino..." Deeks said sarcastically seeing Kensi smile in response. "I screwed up today, big time, and I promise you it won't happen again."

"Okay." She replied, squeezing his hand, leaning over and giving him a gentle kiss on the lips.

Callen and Sam entered inside the cabin a few seconds later. While Kensi attempted to pull her hand away from Deeks he responded by gripping it tighter. Kensi gave him a questioning look.

"You two good?" Sam asked, his voice firm, given the serious situation earlier in the day.

"We're good." Deeks said, bringing Kensi's hand up to his lips and placing a gentle kiss to the back of her hand.

"That's good to hear." Sam said, walking over to them. Deeks and Kensi both stood up together, Sam shaking Deeks' hand as Callen hugged Kensi. "It took you long enough." Callen said to both of them, the smile on his face letting them know that he approved.

"By the way don't worry about Sabatino bothering you tomorrow." Sam added for good measure.

"Oh my gosh what did you say to him?" Kensi asked, her cheeks already tinted pink by the guys discovering her relationship with Deeks.

"Oh we may have said something about you two making up." Callen said, Sam adding the exclamation point, "naked."

Kensi squeezed her eyes shut tightly in embarrassment as Deeks stood beside her laughing "I owe you one, man." Deeks said, shaking Sam's hand again.

"No problem, we're re-doing the exercise tomorrow but I have a feeling Sabatino's not gonna take part." Sam said. "But in all seriousness, we're happy for you."

"Thanks Sam." Kensi said.

"But if you start doing all the mushy love-bird stuff I will make you sleep outside." Sam said, looking towards Deeks.

"That's alright, we'd have to share body temperature to stay warm huh? Little snuggle session outside?" Deeks said jokingly, wrapping his arm around Kensi, pulling her into his side. She rolled her eyes in response, breaking free of his grasp. "Come on! Kensi! Kensi!" Deeks yelled as she walked away from him.

"This is nice huh?" Deeks whispered, the two curled up together in Kensi's bed later that night.

"Mmmm yeah." Kensi replied, burying her head further into his chest, utterly contented by the warmth radiating from him.

"You haven't had anymore nightmares since last time?" Deeks asked.

"No."

"That's good."

"Yeah, I don't think I'll be having that nightmare again anytime soon."

"No?"

"No." She said stealing another kiss from him.

"Knock it off." Sam said hurling a pillow in their direction.

Kensi and Deeks both broke into laughter.

"Oh I get it, the big guy is jealous. You want a little snuggle session huh big guy?" Deeks said, risking life and limb by jumping on top of Sam, sprawling out in a starfish pattern on top of the covers. Callen couldn't control his laughter, waiting for his partner to react.

"You have five seconds to move before I shoot you." Sam said.

Deeks quickly removed himself from the bed walking back towards Kensi. "Uh uh back to your own bed" Sam said.

"Really?" Deeks whined.

"Yep." Sam said.

"Copblocker." Deeks yelled, reluctantly getting back into his own bed.

"Ahh it's so good to be home." Deeks said dumping his bags on the floor just inside the door of his apartment.

"Tell me about it, I missed these so much." Kensi said biting into a sugary donut.

"Really? You missed the donuts?" Deeks asked, shaking his head.

Kensi shrugged her shoulders, eating the rest of the donut in the next bite.

"You want to go surf don't you?" Kensi said, watching as Deeks' eyes drifted outside the window.

"Is it that obvious?" Deeks said, turning to face her.

"You were only staring out at the ocean the entire ride over here." Kensi said, wrapping her arms around him.

"You know I haven't been surfing for months... since you know..." Deeks' voice trailed off.

"Really? Why not?" Kensi asked, trying to get him to look at her.

"Never really felt like it, I guess." Deeks replied, drawing his eyes away from the floor to look into Kensi's.

"But you do now?" Kensi asked, smiling at the progress Deeks was making.

"Yeah." Deeks confessed.

"Well let's go then." Kensi replied, breaking away from him.

"There's hardly any daylight left."

"So then let's not waste time talking, go get your board." Kensi said, wanting to capitalize on Deeks' inspiration before the moment passed.

Kensi sat on the beach watching him ride the waves, although he was too far out to see his expression she could tell by his body language that he was happy, probably grinning like an idiot. It was a full hour before he came in.

"How was that?" Kensi asked.

"Amazing!" Deeks said, throwing his board down beside her. He unzipped his wetsuit, pulling it down to his torso, lightly drying his hair with a towel before sitting down beside her, the sun just beginning to set.

Kensi lay her head on his shoulder, a contented smile gracing her lips as she stared out into the ocean.

"What are you thinking about?" Deeks asked, noticing the far away look in her eyes.

"I dunno... nothing much. Just thinking about the last time I sat here so happy." Kensi confessed.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah... I came here to read my dad's old sniper journal after everything that happened..." Kensi's voice trailed off refusing to speak the name of the man responsible for her father's demise.

Deeks wrapped his arm around her, kissing her lightly on the forehead. "What did it say?"

"It was mostly operational stuff but he wrote some letters to me in it..."

Deeks smiled, waiting for her to tell him in her own time. "He told me that home is wherever I am..." Kensi said fighting the emotion building up within her. Deeks laced their fingers together waiting for her to continue. "I guess now, home to me is whenever I'm with you." Kensi said shyly looking down at their interlocked fingers.

Deeks smiled at her confession, knowing that it had taken a lot for her to tell him that. He gently tilted her chin, forcing her to look up at him. "Same goes for me, princess. I love you." Deeks said, slowly leaning in and kissing her on the lips.