More Than Meets the Eye.

chapter 13

Deeks walked in the house.

"You going somewhere?" Michelle asked from the kitchen.

Deeks nodded grimly. "Kitchen, was looking for some water." he replied.

Michelle reached into the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water and handed it to him.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

"Will he ever trust me?" Deeks opened the bottle and took a drink.

"Will you trust him?" Michelle asked back.

Deeks took another sip of water and watched as Sam got up and turned to the grill. "I do trust him, I've always trusted and admired him. Even when he scared me. I didn't want there to be such a wedge between us. I just want him to see me...as an equal."

Michelle dried her hands and leaned against the counter, "Well...Maybe you should be an equal then."

Nodding he took another drink. He had been trying to get a handle on his emotions, it was the one thing about his PTSD that he hated. The fact that his emotions would run away and he would revert into himself.

He was grateful for the help Jess and Pete had given, they had broken the ice while he had been at his lowest ebb, but the more he watched Jess talk for him the more angry he got.

He was a grown man for goodness sake.

"I can do this." he growled aloud not realizing that Michelle was still listening.

"Yes, you can. Only you can and you should." She told him. "But remember that Sam was working with the information he had at the time and he has always been a team player, you weren't acting in his mind like a team player."

"Dammit, what do I have to do to get through to him?" Deeks asked.

"Stop acting like Aiden. Start talking and acting like the responsible man you are." She said quietly.

"I didn't realize that was how you thought of me. I mean I know I find it hard to talk, about...him, but..."

Michelle placed a hand on his shoulder, "It's not about telling us all your secrets or telling us all your past, it's about trusting the team to have your back when something is bothering you."

"I've not had that before, I didn't know?" Deeks told Michelle. "LAPD wasn't like that, and these guys were a team before I came and I didn't want to bulldoze my way into that."

Michelle moved to the kitchen table and motioned for him to join her.

"You always been an outsider?" she asked.

Marty nodded, "Yeah, I kinda liked it that way, I don't get too close no one can be hurt."

"And you can't be hurt by them." she reasoned.

He looked away, "Yeah."

She picked up her own bottle of water and took a sip.

"You've never really had a family, have you?"

"I had a family..." he started to argue.

"That, what you had with your father, that wasn't a family, or a home." She told him.

"It was all I deserved." Deeks sighed.

"No..." Michelle's voice raised a little and Deeks couldn't help but look at her.

"It was a lousy hand you were dealt Marty, but look at what you did with it. I heard what Jess said, you turned your negative into a positive, you helped people."