A Hundred Years: NCISLA Fan Fiction

A/N: This story came about when I randomly thought of Deeks struggling with Gordon’s death.
A/N 2: I believe the show listed a birthdate for Gordon, but it would have made him an incredibly young father to Deeks. So, I decided to figure out my own. If Gordon was born in 1953, he’d have been 26 when Deeks was born, and 45 when he died, which seemed a reasonable age.
A/N 3: One of my established head canons is Kensi and Deeks had twins, so they will be included in this story.
Thanks to mashmaiden/Lyssa for some brainstorming and proofreading help. She remains the very best.
Title from the song “100 Years” by Five for Fighting.

---

Deeks walked through the house with his phone pressed to his ear, hopping over a couple of abandoned stacking cups on the floor on his way to the office. He’d been fielding calls all day from clients and colleagues for a family court case. What should have been a straightforward case had turned into a nasty custody battle.

“Yeah, let me check my calendar, Craig,” he said, pulling out the organizer where he kept track of all work-related meetings. He flipped to February, keeping the phone tucked by his ear as he searched for the week in question. His eyes skipped over the current day, the eleventh, moving down to the end of the month, which had a few openings.

The sensation that he’d forgotten something washed over him, and Deeks looked back up, lingering on today’s date again. His face went numb and his fingers tingled slightly at the same time realization hit.
February eleventh. His dad’s birthday. A rush of memories flooded him. The day his dad first hit him. Deeks’ fifth birthday, which ended in Gordon shouting and his mom crying. His parents dancing in the kitchen in a rare moment of happiness. The moment he pulled the trigger on a shotgun.

“Deeks? You still there?”

Craig’s question shook Deeks out of his shock just enough to respond.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, sorry, um, how does–how does the twenty-fifth work?”

Somehow, Deeks kept it together long enough to schedule the meeting with Craig and run through updates before they finally hung up.

He hadn’t had a flashback quite like that since he and Kensi resigned from NCIS. Memories of anxiety and fear still flickered through Deek’s mind, making him feel not entirely present. He shook his head a couple times to dispel the disorientation and slight heaviness in his chest, but it didn’t make a difference.
All at once, the room felt too small and suffocating. He needed to get out. Stumbling through the house, he made it into the backyard and clumsily sat down in the grass, pressing his palms against his eye sockets. He might actually pass out. Deeks dragged in a breath that burned his throat, but the tightness in his chest eased just a little.

He’d never been more relieved that Kensi wasn’t home. Or the twins. Deeks didn’t know what he would have told Kensi, or if he could even explain what had just happened. Thankfully, they were out at doctor’s appointments.

Settling against a pillar, he tentatively poked at what seemed to be the triggering event. Just thinking about his dad brought on a general sense of unease, but thankfully not a flashback this time.

His dad had died when he was forty-five, Deeks realized. Which meant Deeks had outlived Gordon by a year. A shiver ran up his spine. He’d never done the math before.

In the past, when February eleventh rolled around, Deeks tried not to let it show. If no one picked up on his true feelings, he’d done his part. No one else needed to know the strange mix of guilt, longing, and–though he barely admitted this part to himself–regret Deeks felt on his dad’s birthday.

For the most part, he’d been successful. While the day might have been in the back of his mind, none of his previous jobs allowed him the time to linger over it, and he’d gotten pretty damn good at compartmentalizing when necessary.

Though his life wasn’t exactly less chaotic now, he was definitely more at peace. He’d also spent a lot of time in therapy purposely addressing all the traumatic and difficult parts of his past he’d repressed for most of his adult life.

He could almost imagine his current therapist, Dr. Dewan, explaining that triggers didn’t always make sense.

“Marty, the brain is a strange and unpredictable thing. We don’t always know why it reacts a certain way. The only thing we can do is try to learn to adapt as best we can.”

Remembering one of the strategies they’d worked on together, he pictured Kensi’s face in his mind, methodically listing off five words he associated with her. Strong, ninja, mother, partner, love. When he was done, he moved on to Rosa, and then the twins, going through the same process with each of them.
By the time he’d made his way through, the world around him seemed real and solid again. He could feel the slight prickle of dried out grass, the hard beam behind him, and the faintest breeze blowing across his face. He was also incredibly thirsty.

Making his way back inside, he downed two glasses of water, pressing the cooled container against his forehead. He felt a little nauseated but he could handle that better than the mental symptoms. Inhaling a few more times to steady his stomach, he headed for the office again.

---

Deeks spent the rest of the day attempting to research for the upcoming case, but he couldn’t focus long enough to process the case law. By the time he heard the front door open and Kensi calling through the house, he’d barely made it through a chapter and had a raging headache.

“Deeks? Hey, baby, we’re back!”

“I’m in the office,” he called back, closing the book in front of him.

The sounds of Kensi and the twins moving through the house filtered through to him. He could hear Sophia’s little voice asking for something, and then Kensi’s response, followed by Caleb complaining about something wrong with his shoe.

A few minutes later, Kensi walked in, the twins running ahead of her. They rammed into his legs, one after another, trying to climb him.

“Daddy!”

“Cayeb doctor.”

Reaching down, Deeks lifted each of them onto a knee.

“You went to the doctor?” Deeks asked, and Caleb nodded seriously.

“Doctor aah.” He held his mouth open, acting out the doctor checking his throat.

“My tucker,” Sophia added, holding up a shiny red heart in a plastic wrapper.

“Ooh, yummy. Can I have it?”

“No, no, no.” Turning her shoulders away from him, Sophia tucked the sucker against her chest.

“OK, Daddy won’t eat it,” he assured her, giving each twin a hug. He felt more grounded with them, something about being able to feel and hear them worked better than a hundred deep breaths.

He leaned back to see Kensi staring at them fondly.

“Hey,” he said, freeing a hand to hold out to her.

“Hey.” She kissed him, gripping the back of his head to prolong it for a few extra seconds. “Mmm. What did you get up to today? Did you get that case scheduled finally?”

“Yeah, I did. Then I was just prepping for next week. You’re back late. Did everything go OK?” The edginess returned in full force as his mind filled in a dozen terrible reasons for a delay.

“Yeah, it was fine. They’re both completely healthy,” Kensi assured him. She rubbed his shoulder, the gesture soothing, even if she didn’t realize why he needed it in this moment. “We ended up stopping at the park after the doctor. I meant to text you, but somebody decided to have a bathroom emergency, so that took roughly an hour to deal with.”

“Nice. Sorry I couldn’t be there with you,” he said.

“It’s OK. You had stuff to do.” Kensi shrugged off his apology. “You took them to the last couple after all.”

Deeks nodded, even though he couldn’t quite shake the slight guilt that joined all the other negative feelings circulating through his mind.

“Daddy, a hungry,” Caleb announced, turning Deeks’ face towards him.

“Oh yeah, what are you hungry for?”

Gesturing him closer, Caleb whispered, “Hot dog. Sawbebbies.”

“Teeze,” Sophia added with a giggle.

“Hot dogs, strawberries, and cheese,” Kensi interpreted. “That sounds reasonable. Though I don’t know how you’re hungry. You had about five hundred snacks while we waited for the doctor.”

“Sounds about right,” Deeks said, hefting the twins up and then they all made the journey to the kitchen.
While Deeks sliced strawberries and cheese, Kensi set Sophia and Caleb up in their highchairs with a couple of toys, and tossed the hotdogs in the toaster oven to cook.

His mind wandered with the repetitive up and down motion of the knife in his hand. As far as he knew, Gordon had never attempted to make contact after he got out of jail. Of course, he might not have known where to find them. Or was smart enough to worry about a potential harassment charge.

Kensi’s arms wrapping around his waist made him jerk slightly. His hand slipped on the knife, but didn’t pierce the skin.

“You’re jumpy. This case must really be making you anxious,” she observed, resting her cheek in the middle of his back. Again, it made it a little easier to breathe.

“It’s not my favorite,” he agreed. Which wasn’t quite a lie.

“Hopefully it’ll start to go more quickly. And smoothly.” Her hands shifted to squeeze his shoulders. “Did Rosa get back to you about dinner?”

“Yeah, she called after you left. She’s going to stay at her friend’s house to study. She’ll text in the morning.”

“Laney?”

“Yep.”

“Oh good. Laney has actual food at her place,” Kensi said with some relief.

“Don’t you think that’s a little rich coming from the woman who’s admitted to living off Twinkies her sophomore year?” Deeks managed to tease.

“Shut up.” Kensi gave him a little tap with her hand that was more caress than smack. Stepping back, she took the two plates of food he’d prepped, and brought them over to the twins.

“Hey, when these two are asleep, do you want to watch a movie?” she asked.

“Yeah, no, that would be good. I’ll, uh, I’ll start dinner for us.”

He kept it simple, reheating some lasagna from a couple nights ago and steaming some broccoli. Nothing sounded particularly appetizing right now, but he needed something to focus on and Kensi still needed to eat.

Kensi set Caleb and Sophia loose to play while they ate.

“Dump,” Sophia requested, waddling over to Deeks, arms held out.

“Come here, Sweetie,” he murmured, lifting her under the arms so he could propel her into the air. After a few times, he pulled her tight against his chest.

Not to be left out, Caleb bounced up and down, tugging at Deeks’ arm. “Hug.” He immediately cuddled into Deeks’ shoulder as soon as he was picked up.

Deeks couldn’t remember a time when his dad had ever held him like this. Or when he’d felt safe enough to seek out his dad’s touch.

Kensi washed the dishes, coming to play with them at the table. They kept playing until the twins started yawning and fussing, signaling time for bed.

---

Deeks took the twins to their bedroom, went through the nightly routine, and tucked them in on autopilot. When he walked back out, Kensi waited for him on the couch, flipping through movie options. She offered him a beer and patted the spot beside her, cuddling against his side when he joined her.

“What do you want to watch?” she asked, hovering the remote cursor over two images.

“Uh, you can pick.”

Kensi selected the more romantic leaning choice of the two, which didn’t surprise Deeks. It was probably better than one with more action given his jumpiness. He lost track a few minutes in, the scenes flashing by in unfocused shapes.

The image on-screen paused abruptly, and Kensi pivoted to face him, tucking one of her legs beneath her. “Ok, what’s going on? You’ve been off all evening,” she said.

“It’s nothing. I’m just in my head today,” Deeks responded reflexively. “Let’s just watch the rest of the movie.”

He tried to pull her closer again, but she took his hands, not letting him distract her. Her eyes reflected open concern and love. It made his chest tighten again. He wanted to hide behind a joke and fall back on that old need to protect himself with humor and wariness.

“Baby, you know you can always be honest with me.” Her fingers reached up to brush through his hair and he closed his eyes, drawing in a sharp breath through his nose.

He didn’t need to hide from Kensi. He knew that. He trusted her. She loved him.

“Today—today is my dad’s birthday. Or I suppose was his birthday,” he said. Kensi actually gasped, and when he opened his eyes, one of her hands covered her mouth. She looked horrified.

“Oh my god, Deeks. I had no idea.” She gathered him in her arms, simply holding him for several minutes. When he eventually eased back, Kensi stayed close.

“We’ve been together fifteen years and you never said anything,” she said, sounding confused and a little hurt.

“It’s not exactly a day I’ve ever looked forward to.” He made a derisive sound. “‘Hey, here’s the day my crappy father was born. Let’s celebrate.’ Do you think Walmart sells a cake for dead abusive fathers?”
That was darker than he usually went these days, but Kensi didn’t call him on it. She just smoothed her hand down his back, a deep groove growing between her eyebrows.

“I had this memory or flashback when I noticed the day on my calendar and it’s kind of stuck with me all day,” he admitted.

Instead of trying to offer some kind of platitude, Kensi scooted even closer, just listening.

“You know, there’s something ironic about it being a random day in February. For a guy who caused so much damage and heartbreak, you’d think it would be something more memorable,” he said, shifting so he and Kensi were still entangled but his head flopped on the back of the couch. Kensi gave him a look that was patient but unamused.

“What do you think was different about today?”

“I don’t know. For some reason I can’t explain, it hit me that,” he shrugged. “He’s been gone all this time.”

“You think that’s what made you have a flashback?” she asked.

“Maybe. Hell, I’m older than he was when he died, Kensi. The guy wasn’t even fifty.”

“That isn’t your fault, Deeks.”

“Maybe his death wasn’t, but I never made any effort to see him again,” he pointed out. Not that he’d ever wanted to while his dad was still on this side of the earth.

“And that’s definitely not your fault,” Kensi reiterated more forcefully. “Baby, you were never under any obligation to fix what he broke.”

Outside of a few specific conversations, they rarely talked about his dad, but Kensi had always made her position on the matter clear. If Gordon had lived, she would have given him a piece of her mind, and possibly a more physical expression of her anger.

“I still could have tried.”

“Deeks, would you ever let a victim from one of our cases blame themselves for going no contact with an abuser?” Kensi asked, not aggressively yet firm enough that he couldn’t evade the question. He shook his head immediately.

“You know it’s not the same.” His dad had been behind bars when Deeks was still vulnerable and when he wasn’t…well, Deeks would have had the means to more than protect himself. Better than when he’d armed himself with a borrowed gun he barely knew how to shoot.

“Yes, it is,” she insisted patiently. In the same tone she would use with a DV victim. “Maybe he did turn his life around. Maybe he regretted every single awful thing he did to you and your mom, but that doesn’t excuse his actions. Nothing ever could. You don’t owe him anything as adult any more than you did when you were eleven. You certainly don’t owe him your guilt.”

Deeks fought the impulse to deny Kensi’s argument, considering it for a moment. She was right. He knew that logically, but it was harder to accept the truth for his own situation.

“It took years for me to convince myself I’d done the right thing. Shooting him, protecting us, never seeing him again. Now it feels like I’ve just circled back to when I was eleven and I couldn’t imagine him being gone for good, even though the thought of him terrified me,” he explained. “I’m not sure what’s right or wrong right now.”

“I’m not Dr. Dewan, but maybe that’s another sign of healing,” Kensi suggested.

“Sometimes healing really sucks.” He exhaled again, closing his eyes. “Would you have gone and seen him again?”

“No,” she said without hesitation. “When someone breaks your trust like that, you have every right to cut that person off and protect yourself. I would have and I’m glad you did.”

There was another long silence, and then Kensi asked, “Do you think visiting him might help?”

“You mean like his grave?”

“Yeah. He has to have one somewhere, right?” She shrugged. Deeks tilted his head, not completely opposed to the idea.

“I guess. I never thought about it. It could be weird.”

“You don’t have to,” Kensi said. “But if you decide you want to, I’ll go with you. You know I’ll be there for you no matter what.”

---

A Few Weeks Later

It had taken a little digging, but with some help from their former coworkers, they’d been able to track down Gordon Brandel. He’d had few possessions or resources when he died, but apparently did have a friend who had handled his burial and so forth. They’d tracked Gordon to an older cemetery that contained rows and rows of aged markers and monuments. The grass around the plots hadn’t been cared for in at least a few weeks, but someone had taken the time to drop small flowers on each of the markers.

“I guess this is it,” Deeks sighed, arm looped through Kensi’s. They’d decided to keep the twins with Roberta. When the time seemed right, he would tell Rosa about this excursion. He wasn’t quite prepared for that yet. Deeks gestured down a row of gravestones. “You ready to meet my dad?”

Kensi carefully extricated her arm from his, sliding both hands down to grip his. “You go ahead,” she encouraged him. “I’ll be here if you need me.”

“Ok.” He bit back a joke or some snarky response. It wasn’t the time, and he had a feeling his voice might break if he tried. “I love you.”

“Love you too.”

Turning in the direction the caretaker had indicated, Deeks picked through the long grass and occasional fallen sticks towards a section of very modest plots. He found Gordon’s next to a woman who had lived to ninety-three.

It was a small, non-descript stone with only Gordon’s name and dates of birth and death. Deeks’ throat tightened with that familiar grief again.

What the hell was he supposed to do now? He’d rehearsed speeches and rants. Even considered a eulogy of sorts.

He had the briefest thought that talking to his long dead father was an awful cliche, but he realized he didn’t care. He’d never had this opportunity when his dad was alive or when they were both on even footing. And Gordon couldn’t escape him now.

“Hey, Dad. I’d ask how it’s going, but that’s probably a little too dark, even for me,” he began. He exhaled, chuckling to himself. “Thirty-five years later, and I still don’t know how to talk to you. That’s kind of insane. And appropriate.”

He glanced down at the name again, the roughly carved words taking the place of Gordon’s physical form.

“You know, I never wanted it to be like this. When I was little, I dreamed of you walking in one day and picking me up in your arms like other kids’ dads,” he continued, lifting his gaze to look beyond the stone, not really seeing much of anything. “After I shot you, I used to wonder what made you so angry that you hurt everyone around you. I used to think it was my fault. Sometimes I still do. Then I worried that I was destined to become another version of you. So I spent my life fighting against that. It kind of worked.

“You missed a lot, dad. You missed me going to college and getting a couple jobs I really hated. They were mostly in law enforcement, so you might have hated them too. Maybe you would have been proud,” he said. “You never got to see me catch a wave without crashing out.” Deeks tried to imagine what that would have looked like now but couldn’t picture it.

“You know, I’m married and have three amazing kids. Kensi would probably kick your ass for me. They’re everything for me, and I can’t imagine ever hurting them. They’re my whole world.”

He supposed the possibility his dad never wanted or yearned for that connection was the hardest part to reconcile. No matter what he did and didn’t do, Gordon probably would have turned out exactly the same.
He exhaled shakily, and looked directly at the name. “Why? Why couldn’t you just love us, Dad?” he asked softly. “It’s all I ever wanted from you.”

“Kensi says I don’t owe you anything, and she is right about that. I don’t know if I’ll ever not be angry at you to some degree, but I, I forgive you. For everything.”

He nodded, letting himself leave it all there. The pain, the fear, the guilt. The need for a connection.

“Bye dad,” he murmured, resting his hand on top of the sun-warmed headstone. With another deep, cleansing exhale, he turned his back on the grave and made his way back to Kensi.

She stood in the exact spot he left her, surprise flickering across her face as he got closer.

“That was fast,” she said.

He took her hand again, feeling a relief that bordered on elation. He hadn’t expected that.

“Dad’s not the chatty type,” he joked, earning a soft sigh from Kensi. She pressed again him, cupping his cheek.

“Baby, are you OK?”

He glanced back in the direction he’d just come from. “Yeah. I think I am.” Sliding his arm around Kensi’s waist, Deeks lowered his forehead to hers. “Let’s go home.”

Home. Where Rosa, the twins, and a future filled with love and hope waited for them.

“We did it,” Deeks said.

“Did what?”

He smiled. “We broke the cycle.”