Got an Angel on My Shoulder

A/N. This is a one shot written for #DeeksAppreciationWeek on the NCIS:LA Magazine's website. The main story takes place during and after Season 5, Episode 24, "Deep Trouble" and some of the dialogue from that episode is used here. I want to thank Callen37 for working with me and giving me permission to use one of her characters to help present my story.

A/N2: Parts of this story are condensed from a longer story that I am writing about Nell Jones and other stories that I have already posted.

Rated: strong T rating because of the mention of rape, child abuse and strong language

Disclaimer: Thanks to Donald P. Bellisario, and Shane Brennan, for teaching me to play with the fantastic characters and sets that they have created. Since I don't own them, they made me promise that I return them by their curfew. Although they might be slightly (?) battered and bruised, I did send them home. The original character Fern Louise Brandel is based on stories written by Callen37, is owned entirely by her, and is used with her permission and approval. All the other original characters that you do not recognize, are slaving away for me, trying to come up with an original idea for the next story that I might write.

Got an Angel on My Shoulder

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Detective Marty Deeks woke up to the sound of his own screaming. He bolted to the bathroom, and just barely made it to the toilet. On his knees, with his head over the bowl, he was puking his guts out again. Most of the vomit had landed in the bowl, and he remembered flushing it down a couple of times. Marty knew he was going to have a big mess to clean up, but that would be later, when the demons were gone again. Kensi kept nagging him, whenever she was over to his place, telling him he was a typical male who never put the toilet seat down. He didn't think the typical male was subjected to these types of demonic attacks in his sleep, and had to have as big a target as he could to avoid an even bigger midnight mess. Marty wrapped his arms around himself as the tears started to flow and he slowly turned over into a sitting position, not knowing which was causing his body to wrack more, the bile in his stomach, or the ache in his heart.

The images that flashed through his mind this evening were bad. It was scenario number three, as he rated them to the LAPD police psychologist. In this one, like most of the visions, he was again 11 years old, although his slim, frail looking body made people guess that he was at least two years younger. His father, Gordon John Brandel, drunk as he usually was in the evening, had ordered Marty to sit in a chair and watch while he taught his son how women were to be dealt with. Gordon dragged his mother to the center of the room and smacked the woman senseless with his fists and open hand, when he wasn't taking another pull from the bottle of cheap whiskey he had by his side. When she no longer responded to his hitting her, he started cursing and swearing at her, wanting to punish her more. Marty had no idea what he was going to do next. Usually he became his father's intended target when he was done hitting her.

Something in Gordon must have snapped, and Marty began to scream as he realized that his father was stomping his way down to his sister's bedroom. He tried opening the door, but it was locked. That didn't stop him. He broke it down and grabbed the screaming teenage girl and dragged her back to where Marty was still glued by fright to his chair.

"Shut up, boy," Gordon snarled at him as he threw the girl to the floor. "This is the only thing a bitch is good for" as he ripped the clothes off of her body and proceeded to rape her there in front of him, She pounded him with her fists until he grabbed her hands and held them over her head. To silence her screams, he put his other hand over her mouth. When she bit him, he cursed at her again and dropped his hand to her neck, effectively cutting off her screams, but not realizing that he was cutting off her breathing too. When he was done, she didn't move. He poked her several times, but there was no life left in her body.

Still filled with anger, Gordon's eyes fell on Marty. "See what you made me do, boy?" He got up and went to the back bedroom, coming back with his shotgun. Marty knew he was going to kill him too. Gordon tripped over the bottle of whiskey he had left on the floor and fell to the ground, dropping the gun. Watching the liquid pour out onto the floor, he grabbed for it to rescue as much as he could. Marty grabbed for the shotgun and pointed it at his father.

"And what do you think you are gonna do with that, boy?" Gordon sneered.

Go away, stop hurting people," Marty squeaked, his voice two octaves higher because of his fear. He had never stood up to his father before, so this was completely foreign territory to him.

"Gimme the damn gun," Gordon yelled, grabbing the barrel and pulling on it.

The gun went off, hitting Gordon in the shoulder. He released his grip and just sat down looking at his wound. Getting up and seeing that Marty still held the shotgun, he decided to get out of there before the police came.

After Gordon fled the home, Marty dropped the gun, crawled over to his sister and cradled her head in his lap, his tears washing over her face. "Oh, Fern. I am so sorry. I should have stopped him before he killed you. Can you ever forgive me. He told me I am useless. This shows he was right. I'm sorry, Fern."

Sometimes Marty shot Gordon with the shotgun, sometimes with the chrome .38 caliber pistol that Ray had given Marty to protect himself. Sometimes Marty killed him, sometimes he just wounded him and he left, sometimes he shot this dad but his dad was able to start strangling him. The details varied, but the results were always the same. Fern was dead, and Marty was not able to save her.

There were only two nightmares that were worse. Number two on his list was where Gordon blew his mother's head apart with the shotgun, and Marty is found with his mother's brains on his clothes. But the number one nightmare was the one in which Gordon killed both his mother and sister.

His brain had blanked out what really happened. Marty could have gone back and read the official police report, but he never did because he didn't think he could handle it.

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Marty had an idealistic memory of his older sister. He had to ask the funeral home to find his sister's middle name, because he never knew it. He knew that when he heard his mom or dad use all three of his names together, he was in trouble. He never heard them use Fern's middle name, and from this he concluded that she was always good and never got into trouble. He would never forget it now. He would always see her name, Fern Louise Brandel, along with the only dates of her life that he could find, born 2/24/1971 died 8/15/1986, that were carved into the tombstone over the grave where he had her moved. He wished that he could have added so much more, rather than just these mere facts, because Fern was so much more, and he wished he could let the world know that.

He remembered her, sitting on her bed with a book in her lap, teaching him to read. She helped him when he first started to learn addition. Gordon never liked it that Marty went to her for help. Both of them got scolded because he claimed that no female had the right to tell a male what to do. But he wasn't drunk yet that day, so it was just a verbal rant.

The two of them were the best of fiends. Since his own mother was either out working, or unconscious from being beaten one more time, Marty used to pretend that Fern was the loving mother that he so eagerly desired. Their biggest fantasy was that the two of them were going to run away and join a real circus with elephants and tigers and clowns and acrobats. Marty always dreamed that he was gonna be an acrobat. That dream died, the same day that Fern was murdered.

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Instead of joining the circus, Marty was placed into the system. He bounced around among several foster homes, never really fitting in. Then he ended up in the home of Michael and Janet Deeks, an older couple that had fostered four children before Marty came to them. Marty did not just fit in, he thrived in their care. It was no surprise that when they asked him if he wanted to become a permanent member of their family through the adoption process, he said yes. What did surprise the elderly couple was that he asked them if he could officially change his last name from Brandel to Deeks.

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Deeks went to UCLA for both college and law school, and worked hard to both keep up his grades and pay for his education. He tried his hand at a little bit of everything to meet expenses, even going so far as to go on stage a few time as an exotic dancer. When Kensi heard about this later, she laughed, wanting to know his stage name. He knew if she found out, she would tell everyone at the Mission, so he said nothing. Kensi just grabbed a bunch of singles from her purse, folded them and stuffed them into his back pocket, and then slapped him on the butt, laughing all the way.

Janet died of the diabetes she struggled with all her life, two years before she could have seen him graduate. Michael was so proud of him as he walked across the stage to receive his diploma and then later when he received the letter stating Martin A Deeks had successfully passed his bar exam and was fully licensed as a lawyer in the state of California. Marty's first call was to the Public Defender's Office for Los Angeles County, where he had interned, "Hey guys, it's Marty. I passed the bar with flying colors. When do you want me to come in and start working?"

The answer he received was short and sweet. "Yesterday."

Marty worked long and hard in that office, wanting to take on each and every case of child neglect or endangerment that the office found out about, so that he could protect innocents from people like his father.

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The letter from the state prison board arrived at Michael Deeks' house, but was addressed to Martin Brandel. He called Marty and told him it had arrived. The young man went over to his father's place, opened the envelope and read the letter. All of a sudden, he slammed it down on the table and shouted, "Son of a bitch. How the hell can they do that? Damn it, Dad, I'm going to have to get protective custody for you and me both."

"What's wrong, Son? From whom do we need protection?"

"Gordon John Brandel, the guy who was not my father. He cut a deal with the Feds. In exchange for his testimony against the other gun runners he ran around with, they offered him early release from prison. I remember when I testified at his trial that Gordon held me responsible for his time in prison, and said he would kill me if he could. And I'm certain he has no qualms about killing you if he thinks you are in the way. They say he was moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa, but there is nothing preventing him from coming back here to hunt us down."

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The letter from the state prison board was the last straw for Marty. He was so tired of trying to defend people who had little or nothing, and get judgments for them against those who cheated them or abused them, only to see those cheaters and abusers buy their way out or cut a deal to give up someone else that they can get out of a prison sentence. When he complained about it in open court one day, the judge to him to just deal with it, because that's the way the system worked, and that he couldn't do anything to change the system. He decided that all the work he was doing as a lawyer was futile. Marty still wanted to help people, but he wanted that help to make a difference in their lives. As a lawyer, he wasn't accomplishing that, so he decided to take a more proactive approach by becoming a cop.

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Marty applied for and was accepted by the LAPD Academy for six months of training. His surfing and running had kept him in shape fairly well throughout his college days, so the physical fitness part of the program was not as demanding on him as it was on other recruits. The self-defense moves were much the same as those in a women's defense course he taught one year at the YWCA, mostly for the battered wives he defended. He helped some of his fellow recruits in the classroom when they got to the areas of law and human relations, trading study sessions with his fellow cadet, Hector Romerez, who was helping Marty learn Spanish. Like everyone else, Deeks loved the firearms and driving training, and like everyone else he hated the sessions on report writing.

Marty graduated from the academy, third in his class. The man he considered his real father, Michael Deeks, had been so proud to watch Marty walk across the stage to receive his police credentials. The only regret the new officer had all year long was that Michael died of a heart attack a month into his probationary training. Marty was so upset that he didn't spend any extra time with his dad before he died.

Probationary officer Marty Deeks was partnered with Officer Marco Fredericks as his Training Officer during his one-year field training. The two of them were assigned to the South Bureau which included the harbor area in addition to South Los Angeles. Since the area of the city that they covered was so diverse, the trainee got a taste of many more aspects of police work than if he would have been assigned to a regular patrol division. Marty and Marco worked well together, and Marco gave him an impressive recommendation to full time officer.

The next two to three years were spent in patrol assignments. All of his partners were surprised at how much he talked, which was incessantly. If they did not answer him and participate in the discussion, he would just talk to himself. The banter was bad enough, but his attempts of humor were not appreciated very much. This led to fewer and fewer officers wanting to be his partner. Marty was fine with this, because he liked working on his own. In his off hours he spent his time walking through his patrol area, getting to know the people there, making contacts, and memorizing all the buildings, stores, streets, and alleys throughout the district.

The first time that Marty went undercover, the drug unit was looking for officers that could pass as college students. One look at his youthful face led Captain Kane to select Deeks to become the one he would send in to gather the information that was needed. After his working at NCIS, Marty realized how poorly they prepared him to do this. They gave him a fake name, a fake driver's license, and the instructions to check in when he had the information they wanted, nothing more. In spite of this, Marty got everything they asked for.

Perhaps it was resentment at how well he did his job, maybe it was because the other officers couldn't stand his chatter, the book on Officer Martin Deeks was that he was superb when he worked alone, especially when undercover, but in normal situations he didn't play well with his fellow officers.

Maybe Marty knew all this, or at least subconsciously felt it. Instead of staying a patrolman and advancing through the regular ranks, he looked forward to putting in his five years before he could take the police detective examination. When he passed and became a detective he was even more in demand to do undercover work for almost every division. The longer he stayed, the longer the undercover operations became.

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Then the day came when Lieutenant Bates called Marty into his office.

"Detective Deeks, I have been handed a special request for your services."

"Which division wants me to go undercover now, I just got off a two month stint with Captain Turner and the gang unit."

"It's not anyone in our department, Detective. NCIS, Naval Criminal Investigative Services, a federal group, need a liaison officer to coordinate things with the LAPD."

"Why did you pick me, you know I don't liaise. I can't keep a partner, they say they all can't stand me. Now you expect me to work with Feds? I'm not in the Navy."

"The request was for you, specifically. I knew what you were going to say. I asked if we could send someone else, The answer was an emphatic 'No,' so I guess you are stuck with the job."

"Is that an order, sir?" Marty asked, a good idea of what Bates would say.

"No, but I could easily make it one." Yup, that was what he thought Bates would say.

"Where do I go and whom do I need to see?" Marty gave in to the inevitable.

Little did Marty know that this was going to be one of the most important days of his life. He met Hetty Lange, who put him on her number one investigation team, partnered him with Kensi Blye, and changed his world forever.

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Eric had asked them to come up to ops, instead of his usual whistle. Life was indeed different with Owen Granger, the Temporary Operations Manager, running the show. Marty saw the man, standing there in the shadows, with that perpetual smirk on his face.

"This appeared on the web about an hour ago. Seems like there was a gang out for fun and games last night below the Coronado Street Bridge. One of their members shot this video on his phone," Nell continued. Eric brought the video up, showing a young man taking a drink from a bottle, and then breathing out a ball of fire, similar to the fire eaters in the circus. In the last few seconds, over his shoulder, the body of Lieutenant Commander Steven Hill could be seen, falling the last few feet before he ht the ground. Everyone looked toward the top of the bridge, but the video showed no one looking over the edge.

Callen asked, "Eric, Nell, do we have a cause of death yet?"

"The coroner reports that it was a cocaine overdose. There were the needle tracks showing that it wasn't the first time, but instead was a habit for him, at least since he left his ship." was the answer Nell gave him.

"That just doesn't make any sense," said Deeks. "Why would a guy spend all his life working for a position like that, just to throw it all away on drugs? And even if he was a cocaine user, that addiction could be fought, suicide seems such a senseless, useless way to end his addiction."

"Deeks, you and Kensi try the LAPD gang unit and see what you can find out about these guys." Sam and I will go and visit with his wife" Once Callen's orders given, everyone went to their assigned tasks.

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While Kensi had Eric download a copy of the video to her phone, Deeks called the LAPD gang unit and asked to meet with them. Kensi drove, and the usual easy banter that filled their lives intensified, now that Callen and Sam were not there to hear them.

"Don't you dare even think of changing the radio station, Deeks. If you do, I will have to kill you."

"But, Princess, you know I have to keep up practicing my air guitar, all of the babes in the clubs are counting on me."

"The only thing that they are counting on, is that you have your air head moves down pat. You were born with them, so you don't need to practice. It just comes so natural to you."

"Ahh, Kens, you have wounded my pride. I thought partners were supposed to have each other's back."

"I always have your back, Deeks. It's your front that you always wanna rub up against me, that I find disgusting."

Deeks said nothing, but the smile on his face showed her what he was thinking.

"Stop it. Don't even think about rubbing your body up against me. I swear I'm gonna hurt you."

Deeks heard what she had said, and his smile, if anything, just got bigger.

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This was the first time that Kensi had ever gone into LAPD headquarters with her partner. She had heard him say that the cops there, especially the detectives, didn't like him, but it was something else to experience it first hand. The temperature seemed to have dropped at least ten degrees once they walked into the main squad room. Everyone stopped talking, and just stared at Deeks. He accepted the silent treatment they gave him and just led the way to the gang division to meet with Captain Turner.

"Deeks, what the hell are you doing here? I didn't think that I would see your sorry face around here any more since you got that job with the Feds."

"That's part of the reason why I'm here. This is my partner, Special Agent Kensi Blye. She's got a video that we would like you to look at so that we can find out who these guys are."

"For her, I'll look. You know that you have no credit to spend here."

"Yeah, I know that."

Kensi smiled sweetly at Captain Turner and asked "Could you please look at the video here?" as she brought it up on her phone. Deeks swore that she had taken all of the sugar from her morning donuts and coated the works she was using to ask him to have a look, there was that much sweetness dripping from them.

"Okay, I've looked at it, what do you want to know."

"Do you know what gang this is, and who's the one who took the video?" she asked.

"How the hell should I know? Wait, is that the Coronado Street bridge in the background?"

"Yeah, it is."

"Then that's got to be Carleto's boys, but they're not a real gang, just a bunch of guys that are wannabes. They hang around together, but they never do anything that is really bad, I think the worst I ever heard about them was some petty shoplifting from the fruit vendors in the area."

"What about the one doing the video work? Any idea of who it might be?" Deeks let Kensi do the talking because Captain Turner wanted to deal with just her.

"It's just a guess, but I think it must be Jimmy Roehrs. His nickname is "Glasseye" because he's always taking pictures of stuff and posting it to the internet."

"You got an address on him?" Deeks asked, just wanting to get out of there.

"Yeah, here it is."

"Okay, we'll go and check it out." Kensi said, entering it into her phone.

"Yeah, make sure you take Deeks with you. We don't want him hanging around here any more.

Again they got the silent treatment as they walked through the main squad room. Just as they got to the door, they heard someone shout from the back of the room, "Hey Marty, they give you another female partner? You couldn't take care of the last one you got."

Kensi saw her partner start to tense up, as if he wanted to flatten the detective. Instead, she shouted over her shoulder as they went through the door, "Are you talking about my partner? He is all man and big enough to fill... ALL... my needs. Maybe that's why they moved him over to us. From what I've heard, the rest of the LAPD just doesn't measure up." The door closed, but the two of them could still hear the rest of the officers giving catcalls to the one who made the original remark.

When they were in the car and driving off, Kensi turned to Deeks and asked, "Why do they treat you like that?"

"I've pissed so many of them off when I was continually working without a partner and enjoying the freedom of being on my own all the time. Especially since I was very good at it. Then they made Jess Traynor my partner. She and I got close, closer than partners maybe should be. When she got blown up there were a lot of cops who felt that the wrong detective died in the explosion."

Kensi could hear the sadness in his voice. She knew that it had taken a long time, but now he was over Jess, and that he was showing the same care and devotion to her, as his partner, as more than his partner. She just wished she could lock Jack away in her memories like Deeks had done with Jess. She really wanted to give him a hug to let him know how much she cared for him, but all she could do was grab his shoulder and give it a little squeeze.

Deeks called in to Eric with the information they had gotten. Granger told them to come back in to the Mission, because Sam and Callen were closer to picking up Jimmy Roehrs.

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When it was found that Charles Anderson, the owner of a yacht building company, had built a submarine to haul drugs, the team was sent down to the dock where it was supposed to be berthed. Callen and Sam arrived first and started to investigate the sub. They tried to call it in, but the transmissions were spotty and Eric was having trouble hearing them. Several times he had to ask them to repeat what they had said.

Deeks and Kensi arrived at the dock about thirty minutes later and saw the plastic sheeting hanging down. They called out to Callen and Sam. Nothing. Kensi tried dialing their cell phones one more time. No service available. They pushed aside the plastic, fully expecting to see the submarine the two agents had reported. Again, a whole lot of nothing.

Deeks began to check out the boxes on the dock as Kensi examining some of the crates closer to the warehouse, but after ten minutes, they still had no more than when they first arrived.

Deeks had one final idea to try. "Kensi, is your flashlight still in the glove compartment?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Just thought of a place we didn't check" as he sprinted back to the car. Coming back with the flashlight, Kensi looked at him as if he was crazy. "What place are you talking about that you need the flashlight?"

"Under the dock. Hold onto my feet as I take a look."

"I see something floating there. Is there a boat hook or long pole around?"

"Six foot long pole long enough?"

"Yeah, if I stretch out far enough I should be able to get it. It's just next to this piling."

"Careful, I don't want you taking a swim for nothing."

"Got it." He pulled up a black plastic bag. "Now we gotta find out what it is we got."

He dabbed a little bit on the tip of his finger and tasted it. "I know this residue is not meth. Let's get it back to the Mission and let them analyze it."

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After a short period of time, the techs at the lab determined that the trace material was ammonium nitrate, the same stuff that was used to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. Could this also be a domestic terrorist bomb attack in the making? But what could be the target? And where were Callen and Sam?

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When Nell went to Granger and presented her thoughts about the possibility of this changing from a drug run to a domestic terrorist plot, Granger told her, "Your evidence was just too circumstantial. I was on the phone to DEA. They are thinking that maybe it might involve an attempt by one or two of the major drug cartels to corner the Los Angeles market. They especially singled out the Brotherhood, because they move half of the meth on the West Coast, and they were trying to form some new alliances to cement their position as top drug lords here. DEA is sending over one of their best agents, Talia De Campo, to help us deal with our case. She's worked with us before, so she should have no problem fitting in with Kensi and Deeks."

Nell looked at Granger in amazement. "Ohh...kay... I remember Agent De Campo working with us before." was all she said. But her mind was going, **Poor Marty. I remember Talia trying to work him as much as she tried to work the case. She almost jumped his bones right here in the bullpen one night. Deeks had looked to Callen and Sam for help, but they both knew it was time for them to leave, even though they both would have liked to watch their LAPD liaison officer try to liaise his way out from under that woman. I know Hetty saw it, and she must have said something to Talia, because the woman was not quite so public with her shows of affection after that. If she does that anywhere near Kensi, we might have to investigate the murder of one Federal Agent by another right here in house.**

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Later, before Deeks and Kensi went over to the boat shed to meet with the DEA agent, Nell pulled Marty aside, "Deeks, can you just go along with Granger and try to do this like it is a drug deal? I have Eric working on something in case it is a terrorist plot. The two of you can use these to keep us informed. There is a burn phone for each one of you, and all the numbers you need are slotted in."

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As they ride over to the boat shed Marty spoke to Kensi, "Nell explained to me that this is an op within an op. We are to keep Granger and his DEA agent out of the way by working this case just like Granger wants, a drug case, pure and simple. This way we keep them out of Nell and Eric's way. The wonder kids are gonna get Sam and Callen back, not Granger. Here's your private line to keep in contact with them." and he gave her one of the burn phones.

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When Talia walked into the boat shed Marty knew he was in trouble. He saw the glare in Kensi's eyes when the first thing the DEA agent said was "What's shaking, partner?" and hugged him. Marty wanted to explain that Hetty brought Talia in for just one case while Kensi was over in Afghanistan, but just couldn't get the words out, a condition in which he rarely found himself. He knew he wasn't gonna win this one. No matter what he would say, it would be wrong. Not even his favorite answer, "Yes, dear", would work, because there were two who could consider themselves the dear, and neither one would appreciate the other taking that title away from them.

So Talia took over for the speechless detective and explained for him. "We had hooked up an earlier drug case. It was a few months ago."

Seeing how much the glare in Kensi's eyes had deepened, Deeks felt he had to explain to her in words that wouldn't get him killed. "We didn't hook up... we were partnered up… She was… We were partnered up, teamed up... There was an explosion at a fish market and they teamed us up."

Kensi's response to him was just to punch him in the shoulder.

Marty knew he was in a lose-lose situation and it probably was best for him to just shut up. Not all his jokes, not all his banter would save him right now. There were not enough words in all the world to remove what he knew was going through Kensi's mind. He would just have to get her alone so that he could explain it to her, without anyone helping him, least of all Talia.

"She's beautiful," Kensi whispered to him.

"You're the one who is beautiful," Deeks immediately replied, and Kensi punched him again.

Granger was watching all of this from his office. He just loved the look on Kensi's face as the detective tried to make excuses for himself. Soon she will learn that he is no good for her and she can do better for herself. His smile grew and grew the more Deeks became flustered.

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Later, after Kensi had gone out of the room, Talia turned to Deeks and said, "I completely understand. Now it all makes sense to me."

Deeks asked her, almost scared to hear her answer, "What do you understand that makes sense?"

"Your partner is a major hottie, and you are just so hopelessly in love with her..."

Deeks started backpedaling as quickly as he could, "No, no...no...no, no way. We're partners, maybe very close partners, after all this time together. But to tell you the truth, it's more of a brother and sister relationship."

Talia looked intently at him, "Right! You really expect me to believe that? You are claiming that you two never partnered up in a more intimate way?"

Deeks just gave her a little grin, "That...would be against all the rules."

Talia looked at him with a grin of her own, "That's not a denial."

Marty never protested what she was implying. But his little grin grew to be a smile that went from ear to ear.

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Talia had them pull in a couple of the members of the Brotherhood for interrogation, but nothing ever developed from that. They re interviewed Charles Anderson, the one who built the sub, and this time, threatened him with charges of terrorism, since two federal agents were missing and could be presumed dead. He told them who his clients were, but when the agents tried looking for them, one was found dead and another had skipped the country. They were coming up with a whole lot of nothing and time was running out for Callen and Sam.

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Late in the afternoon, a call came in and was answered up in ops. After some discussion, Nell came downstairs and went to Granger's office.

"Sam and Callen are safe," she reported.

"And you know this how, Jones?"

"We just got a phone call with visual confirmation," and she showed him the one bad satellite picture showing the submarine sinking, and two men on the deck of a trawler that could have been Callen and Sam, being tended to by several others.

"All right, Jones, call in the troops. It's time to go home."

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When all the agents had returned to the mission, Granger called everyone down into the bullpen area and told them, "You all did well. It's Friday afternoon now. You all can take off for the day and not come back until Tuesday. And be prepared to do your paperwork from this case when you come in then."

Talia stretched sensuously and announced, "I think I'm going back to the motel and just spend the weekend in bed or by the pool. Haven't had a day off like this in so long, only thing better would be to have someone to share it with." She gave an exaggerated wink toward Deeks.

Deeks wasn't even looking at Talia's flirtations. He sent out a quick text he was composing and closed up his phone. Kensi looked at him and asked, "You wanna grab something to eat, maybe do a movie this weekend?"

"I don't think so, there's some things I need to do, people to see, you know..."

"Yeah, sure." Kensi said, obviously disappointed, and wondering just who the "people" were that he needed to see. Maybe she would follow him and find out.

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She was extremely careful when tailing her partner. He drove over to the same motel Kensi remembered in which Talia said she was staying. She watched him park his car and walk in to register. As her eyes filled with tears, she drove home, to spend the night alone.

The next morning Kensi went out for a fresh supply of donuts. She found herself again outside the El Centro Motel, looking for her partner's car. She parked near the pool and all her hopes of Deeks having just a one night stand were dashed to pieces. There he was, playing in the pool, with a little three year old girl, that looked like a miniature version of himself. Kensi drove away, her heart broken.

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Marty Deeks had worked it out so Ray, his best friend from when he was a boy, and Ray's family could come to Los Angeles that he could spend some time with them. They had to meet secretively, because Nelson Sanders, the crime boss Ray testified against for arms trafficking, had tried several times to have him killed. The team had to fake Ray's death twice before he and Jenna could be relocated. The detective spent the whole weekend at the motel, taking a room nearby, telling Ray and Jenna how well his "thing" with Wikipedia had been going this past year and how much he really loved her. Saturday morning Deeks had taken their daughter, Kerri, to play in the pool area, so her parents could have their own emotional situation with some private time.

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Marty tried calling Kensi some thirty times on Sunday evening, but she never answered. He finally went over to her place and knocked on the door. When there was no answer, he pulled out his lock picks and opened it up, a trick that she had taught him. He entered the darkened apartment, and heard soft crying coming from the moonlit front room. Rushing over and finding Kensi softly sobbing on the couch, he sat next to her and asked, "Kens, what's wrong."

She turned away from him and asked, "What's the matter, did Talia finally have to go home? Or did she kick you out?"

"Talia, what are you talking about? What has she got to do with anything?"

I know you spent the weekend at the El Centro Motel with her. And how long has this been going on between you two. It has to be at least four years from the look of your little girl you were playing with in the pool."

"What are you talking about? I wasn't with Talia this weekend. I was with Ray and Jenna. That little girl you saw me with is my godchild, not my child. That's Kerri, Ray and Jenna's daughter, not mine."

"Why are they here? I thought that they were hiding out in Seattle."

"They moved down to Oakland. Jenna took a job in a nursing home where her mother was placed. This way she gets to see her almost every day, and no one makes the connection that they are related. By the way, I told them that Wikipedia said 'Hi' and we were working out our thing."

"Deeks, we don't have a 'thing'."

"I know, Kens, for me it has become a whole lot more than a "thing". That is one of the reasons I had to talk to Ray. He's known me since I was a kid. He knew my sister too, and how..."

"Sister, I never knew you have a sister."

Marty hesitated before he continued. There was so much sadness in his voice that Kensi turned around to look at him.

"Had, not have, Kens. My sister was raped and murdered when she was just 15 years old."

"Oh, my god, Deeks. Did they get the person who did it."

"Yeah. We got him. I shot him before he fled the house, and I testified against him to put him into prison. He got paroled, but he is dead now."

"I'm so sorry. I don't know what else to say."

"Ray and I spent a lot of time talking about her the past two days. I really loved her. She was such a bright, lovely, talented girl, who didn't deserve to have her life cut off like that. We tried to remember all the good times we had with her. I told him how I didn't feel that she was completely gone, she has always been with me, my angel on my shoulder. But recently, she has begun to fade, and I don't feel her there that much anymore."

"So that's why you wanted to talk to Ray, to build up your memories of your sister?"

"No, Fern, that's not the reason at all."

"Wait a minute, you called me Fern. Was that your sister's name?"

"Fern Louise Brandel, she was four years older than me and watched over me all the time."

"So, why do you call me Fern?"

"She told me to do it. Remember the first time I saw you. She just knew you were gonna be my Fern. You were going to be my partner and always have my back. You were gonna become my Fern, my angel on my shoulder. I have always had this idealized picture of the woman I wanted to be my lifetime partner. It is all wrapped up in the sister I think Fern would have grown up to be, or her ghost that is still with me. Kens, you appear to be the closest one that I has ever found to this ideal, and that is why I only use Fern's name for you whenever the two of us are involved in an emotional situation.

The detective wrapped his arms around the agent, and the two of them collapsed into each other.

Thank you, Kensi whispered to him. "Thank you for sharing that with me, Marty, and for calling me your 'Fern'. You honor me with that name as you honor her memory by keeping her alive."

"Kens, I would like you to meet her."

"I would like that too."

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The following day found the two of them, walking through the cemetery, stopping at a nondescript grave. Laying a bunch of wild flowers he had purchased near the headstone, Marty stood up and said, "Fern Louise Brandel, I would like you to meet Kensi Marie Blye, my other Fern. Fern, this is my sister."

With a tear in her eye, Kensi said, "I am honored to meet you, Fern. I thank you for watching over him all these years. I promise you, I will always keep him safe, for you and for me."