Deeks would tell you that love is not something he has ever considered himself an expert on. Life didn't exactly throw him the best examples. But, after six years as Kensi's partner and two as her husband, he figures he's starting to get a grasp on it.

Real love is not what his mother had felt for his father despite all he had put them through. Love is not the way his grandparents had treated his mother when she married "that worthless lowlife." Love is not what he felt for the list of girlfriends that had come before Kensi.

Love is not easy. It is not just the good days, but it makes the days good. He figures it's the reason why the recent years are filled with so many best days when his younger years barely contained good days.

Love means putting her happiness above his own. Love means that even if they fall asleep arguing, he wakes up with her in his arms. Love makes the urge to protect her almost uncontrollable. Love tells him that even when the fight is hard, it's worth it. Love means seeing past each others' failures and idiosyncrasies and faults. Love forgives. Love finds his shirts turned pink because she wanted to do something nice for him and washed his laundry. Love wears them anyway.

Five years into loving her, he figures he's starting to understand it.

Then one moment on their bedroom floor changes everything.

She's sitting with her back leaning against their bed and she's picking at the carpet and watching her hand absently when he gets home from taking Monty to the vet. Deeks cocks his head at her as Monty finds her there and lies down to join her, his old head settling into her lap and giving her hands a new occupation.

"Kensi? What's up?"

"I didn't feel good this morning."

He wrinkles his forehead and cocks his head further. "I know. I thought you were feeling better. Is it back?" he asks, crossing the room to lay a hand on her forehead.

"No, I feel okay now."

"So… we're sitting on the bedroom floor staring at nothing… why?" He plops down next to her.

"I didn't feel good this morning." She repeats.

"I think we already covered that, Babe. Do you want to go to the doctor?"

"No. I'm okay. But last weekend I was really tired all weekend."

"I remember… but we had a long week, Kens. We both just crashed. Except for some extracurricular activities that just made us more tired." He smirks at her and she swats him. It's true, though, the weekend had been slow and lazy and perfect… in more than one sense.

(He can't bring himself to consider the possibility that she might actually think something is seriously wrong with her. She's his Wonder Woman—she's not allowed to be sick; his heart can't stand it.)

"But we had a fight on Friday."

"It happens, Kens. You know I love you even when we fight, right? Besides, you're hot when you're homicidally angry. I still say you were being a little bit unreasonable, though." He closes his eyes and braces himself for the punch that he's sure is coming, then pops one open to look at her when it never comes.

"Kens? Want to tell me what's going on in your head? Cuz I've got nothing at the moment."

"We had a fight because I was moody and then I slept all weekend. And last night I got up to pee twice and then I was sick this morning and I didn't want the jelly donut that I hid in the fridge. It just sounded gross, Deeks! My donut sounded gross! And then I found the tampons in the bathroom drawer and realized that I should have needed them two weeks ago."

She finally looks straight at him, and his eyes go wide as the light bulb goes on in his head.

His eyes flick from hers to her stomach and back again, then stomach again and back up.

"Are you… " He coughs, blinks, and looks back at her: "Are we having a baby?"

"I don't know."

"Should I… They have tests at the drug store, right? I could run and get one, and we could find out? It should only take me a few minutes to run there and back, and then we could find out, right? Kens? Do you want me to go to the store?"

She smirks at him. His mouth tends to get away from him sometimes, and she'd be lying if she said she didn't find it cute sometimes. Particularly now. Yep. Definitely now.

"I already did. I went while you were at the vet with Monty."

"And…?" He raises his brows at her. "Are you trying to kill me here, Kens? You said you didn't know."

"I don't. I peed on the stick and then you have to wait, and I came out here to wait, and then I was nervous and I was working up the nerve to go check, and I was trying to decide if I should call you first or just see and then figure out how to tell you when you got home if it was positive, and then you got home and started asking all these questions and now here we are."

After two years of marriage, he might be starting to rub off on her.

"So, it's in there?" He tips his head toward the master bathroom, "and it's ready to check?"

She nods. "Will you go look?"

He nods rapidly and clambers up.

"You want to be a big brother, Monty?" The shock is wearing off and a grin creeps across his face.

"Deeks?" She stops him as he takes a step toward the bathroom. "We haven't really talked about this for a while… we were going to wait and then we've been so busy and work is always so crazy, we haven't talked about it."

It's true. She knows he wants kids, they had that whole discussion vaguely while they were dating and then more directly on their honeymoon, but life at NCIS is rapid motion and the topic had been almost unintentionally shelved since then.

He bends to take her face in his hands.

"I love you, Kens. More than I ever knew I could love someone. And if we're having a baby, I'm going to be thrilled. We didn't plan the timing, but who cares? It'll be part of you and part of me and it'll be the smartest, strongest, most beautiful kid there ever was."

(In his mind, it's already a girl even though they don't know for sure that it's even there yet. )

Tears well in her eyes, and he starts to figure that she must be pregnant, because Kensi Deeks doesn't normally cry very often, even when he's being mushy and sentimental.

Her smile back up at him is watery but bright. "You're going to be the best dad ever, you know that right?"

Tears well in his eyes then, too. He hasn't ever directly said it, but she's always known that he's uncertain of his own fathering abilities, given his own less-than-stellar example.

"I'm going to give this kid everything, Kens. It'll always know that I love it more than anything else in this world. I want it to love me like you loved your Dad."

"It will. Now would you go check? We talking like it's almost here, and we don't even know if there's a baby yet. You're not supposed to wait more than ten minutes, and it's probably more than that now."

He pushes himself to his feet again in a rush, and in three long strides he's in the bathroom staring at the sink.

On the back of the sink not one but three white sticks are neatly laid in a row. All different brands, all with different ways of telling the results.

(He figures he should have expected that. Kensi is nothing if not meticulous and thorough.)

What's staring back at him is one blue plus sign, one blue line, and two red lines. The kitchen timer on the counter says it's been eleven and a half minutes since she took them, but according to the instructions that are laid open in front of each of the tests, he's still pretty sure they're definitely pregnant.

(He's still not sure anything can top the day that Kensi became his wife, but if this doesn't beat it, it's definitely a tie. )

He returns to the room with all three tests in his hand, lips between his teeth to keep the grin from splitting his face.

He doesn't say anything at first, just picks her up off the floor and lays her on their bed. He peels her tank top up to reveal her still flat, tanned belly and lays a kiss gently just above her belly button.

"Hi Baby. Daddy can't wait to meet you. I love you so much already, and Mommy and I are going to do our best to give you the best life ever. So be good to your Mom while you're in there ok? We can't wait to meet you."

His eyes are a little wonderstruck as he pulls back and looks up into her face.

"There's a baby in there."

He's always heard that pregnant women have a glow, but he's never really seen it until now. He's certain that she's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, and she's lying on his bed, wearing his ring, and having his baby.

(He thinks he maybe understands the Grinch at the end of the story- his heart has grown three sizes in the last five minutes.)

"I love you so much, Kens." It feels like there should be more to say, but for once he is struck nearly speechless. There aren't any other words to express the depth of the emotion that he has just discovered in his own heart.

Instead, he turns them so they can lie on the bed together. He laces his fingers with hers and then slips their joined hands under her tank top so he can feel the warm skin that guards the place where their baby is growing.

He loved her this morning when he left, but suddenly that love pales in comparison to what he feels now. Tears well in his eyes again. They're going to be a family. A family of three.

There is a fierceness that comes with that realization. A fierce love that demands that he protect them and provide for them above all else. A fierce need to give them everything he never had and everything that they could ever dream of. He never knew that you could love something that you couldn't see or talk with, but he does, and the strength of that love shocks him.

He loves this baby, and his loves its mother and his world has never felt more complete.

That's REALLY the end this time. This was supposed to be complete, then Kerrison left me review that said "... and chapter 4 will include "Best day ever" and "Pregnancy test." ;-)" and the idea got stuck in my head.

Thanks, all, for the lovely reviews. They're so encouraging.