Title: So Bright It Makes You Colour Blind
Fandom: NCIS Los Angeles
Rating: PG
Length: 462 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: for the "diamonds and pearls" challenge, inspiration taken mostly from the Prince song of the same name. Apologies for the blank first post of this, still getting used to the LJ app on my phone.
Summary: Nate and Kensi talk about their relationship. Set slightly prior to 3x20 Patriot Acts but no spoilers included.


Nate looks up when she says his name, smiling at the sight of her. Kensi is standing in her bedroom door, looking at him with a sleepy smile on her face, clad  only in his shirt, the one that had been flung on her bedroom floor hours earlier.  "Hey," he says quietly, answering re question she hasn't asked yet. "I couldn't sleep."

A flirty grin crosses her lips as she steps closer to him. "And there I thought I'd tired you out." She frowns slightly when he doesn't smile in return. "Jet lag?" she guesses, sitting down beside him, curling her legs up underneath her and he shakes his head. 

"Too much thinking," he tells her and she reaches across, takes his hand in hers. 

"Want to talk?"

It's usually his line and that realisation does raise a smile from his lips. "I'm not sure," he tells her honestly and off her confused blink he continues, "I was thinking about us."

"Oh." He can see the wheels turning in her head now, see the worry starting to form and he takes a deep breath before plunging in head first. 

"It's just... almost since we started this, I've been away, or incommunicado, or both...every time I'm home, we do this, until it's time for me to go away again...but this task force...I'm going to be based in LA again. And I guess I'm just wondering where that leaves us."

"Where do you want it to leave us?"

He'd been expecting that question-Kensi's been burned before, doesn't like putting her heart on the line. And luckily, because he knew that, he also knows his answer. "I want there to be an us," he tells her. "I want to be able to take you out on a proper date...sleep in at weekends, argue about silly things like whose turn it is to take out the trash...I know we haven't talked about it, but I've been running away from how I feel for eighteen months...longer than that... and the things I've seen over there...Kensi, I don't want to run anymore."

She's staring down at their joined hand and when she looks back up at him, his heart stops at the tears in her eyes. "I don't want to run either," she tells him then, and it's so unexpected that the lurch his heart gives is almost painful. "I have missed you every time you've gone away, Nate...I don't want to do that anymore. I can't."

He leans over them, kisses her thoroughly and when he pulls away, her smile is dazzling. "Come on," he says, pulling her to her feet. "Let's go back to bed."

Her delighted giggle as she goes with him is music to his ears.