" I can see your wings, I can see your wings but I know the life I live.
I hope you find somebody, find somebody to love. "
Angel- The weekend
What if after defeating the Lords, Seth and Kate make a life together? What happens when she decided she could no longer live that life? Full of angst, I was in a sad mood- so I wrote something kind of sad oneshot for my OPT.
Kate is with some guy living in Texas. She has a son, and a husband. She is a stay at home mom and her husband is a lawyer (Weird). They own a big house, she has a pool of her own and they host bbq's. She doesn't talk about her life from before. As far as anyone knows her father died in the car accident that took her mother and she has a brother that no one has ever met. She pretends that she doesn't have nightmares, she acts as though she's never even crossed the boarder- let alone lived in Mexico on the run for fourteen years. She doesn't talk about her inappropriate relationship with a thief, she doesn't talk about scary bedtime stories being real. She prays every night and reads her bible, goes to Sunday service and like clockwork prays for that thief. She doesn't talk about motel rooms and skinny dipping in the ocean, she doesn't talk about all the lives she has taken or all the money she has stolen. She doesn't talk about how one night she told him she had had enough of this life, and left. How he had told her that he hopes she finds a life that fits her, and somebody to love. She never looked back.
Until about one year ago, while standing in the store she looked up just to see the back of a man going down an aisle. Short hair and a strong back in a black suit. She looked down at her son, sitting in the shopping cart. She turned down the aisle and the man was gone, she was surely insane. It's not like it was strange for her to think she sees the dead, why not the living out to the car she sees that same black suit.
It's dusk now in Texas and there, standing against her black suv is a man so handsome he might as well be the devil. She stops in the middle of the parking lot, looks around, and breaths deep breaths. Looks at her son sitting there playing with his sippy cup.
She slowly walks up to the car, unlocking it and putting her bags in the trunk. He doesn't say anything or move, just stays staring out into the sun, black shades covering his eyes. She places Jared in his car seat, turns on the car but leaves the driver's side open. She walks around to the opposite side of the car. Kate can't help the way her heart pounds in her chest, or the way she feels like she might cry. She had left his man but she had dreamt of him for years.
He looked older, but still just as beautiful as he ever had. His arms crossed over his chest, his black flames creeping up his neck. He's clean shaven and she's sure he still smells like mint and gun powder.
"Hey Princess." He turns and smiles at her as though they are reenacting a normal exchange.
"What-what are you doing here?" He was here for a reason, this was not just a coincidence.
"Oh, you know just enjoying the town." He says sarcastically.
Her hands are shaking and she's not sure why. "Well, it's quite the town. Different than what you're used to." She plays his game, and tucks her hands behind her back so he can't see her shake.
"No need to be nervous Princess." He says softly as he moves towards her. She swallows hard, as he gets so close she can feel the heat radiate off his body. "It's just me Kate."
She places her hands onto his chest before he can get any closer, "Seth." She says his name like a statement, like a command, almost like a prayer.
He smirks, "Yeah Princess, I Know. What would people think if they saw the general attorney with some common thief?" He says it as though it's a joke, but it hurts her and she pretty sure if hurts him too.
"I don't have time, I-"She stops herself as he walks around to the other side of the car
"You have the little guy to get back to, he looks just like you." Seth says in a very genuine way as he peaks into the car where Jared was asleep now. "And I'm sure you have to make dinner for the hubby." He was back to not being so nice.
"I don't know what you want me to say." She knows what she wants to say, she wants to say that she sorry. And, that she would leave with him now if she could but she can't.
"I don't want you to say anything. I want you to go home." He still won't look at her in the eye, but he smiles at her before climbing into the black car that's parked next to hers, and he drives off before she even has time to process that she just saw Seth Gecko in a grocery store parking lot.
It's at the dinner table that night that her friends and husband laugh that she first hears about it. A bank robbery downtown that happened just this afternoon.
"A bank robbery?" She questions as she sips on her water, as though the news of a robbery is an odd concept.
"Yes," Her husband answers," You where downtown today, cant believe you didn't hear about it. There was one man, he made off with quite a lot of cash. "There were four tellers there at the time, and one security officer. Thank God no one was hurt. They have a complete man hunt out for him, but Sheriff said it's not looking good."
" Oh, scary." She mutters as she watches everyone else talk about there lives.
She had felt alone before, especially sitting at this table but as she sat here with her husband and friends she had never felt more alone. I don't belong here. Sitting at a table with an attorney general, two cops and two bible school teachers- this is not where Kate ever thought she would be after having lead the life she did.
But, it was also this place that she had always dreamt of as a girl. Having somebody who loved her more than words could explain, and raising a family, making a life that her mother would have been proud of. She knew she could have had this with Seth but it would have been different, it never would have been this easy… and she knew that was selfish but she had to be ok with that because deep down she knew it never would have been enough for either of them.
She loves her husband, it a different kind of love than she ever felt with Seth. It's pure and unshaken. They are only two years apart, they both hold their faith close, and he accepts her for who she is…well the woman that she has presented him at least. They don't share moments scared and hidden away in little motels, and he brings her flowers. She's never had to pull him out of a bar fight, and she's never had to pray that he is still breathing after he shoots up. He's never made her question what her place is with him. He remembers their anniversary and never fights her on dipper changes. He believes that his God is the only one who can judge people, and that God put them in each other's paths to find one another. She is everything her father wanted for her.
It's when Kate pulls into the parking lot that she knows for a fact that Seth was staying here. The vacancy sign blinked even in the bright day light, and the motel parking lot was full of cars. That particular black car he was driving yesterday was not here but that didn't matter, he would have ditched it after the bank anyway.
She gets out of the car and goes into the motel office. The little man behind the counter gives her an odd look but does not say anything as she approached the desk. "Excuse me sir, but I'm very lost. I came in with my husband and left today to visit family, well I misplaced my key and have completely forgotten what our room number is. I was sick the other day when he came to check in, so it has just flown right out of my head!" She gives a small laugh and waves her hand. "Is there any way you can give me another key? My husband is not answering his cell. It was under the name Frescno." She silently prays that Seth still uses that code name.
The old man looks down at the computer in front of him, then looks back up at her. He eyes her for a minute and she's almost worried that he's going to give her a hard time but he reaches over and hands her the key. "That will be an extra twenty on your bill dearie." He grunts.
She thanks him and goes on her way. Room 208 is located on the top floor. The window does not have any blinds open, so she goes for it. Places the key into the lock and enters the room slowly.
He's sitting there at the small table cleaning a gun, and barley glances up when she walks in.
She goes over and sits down in the chair across from him.
"Took you long enough, your out of practice. How many motels you have to go to before you found this one?" He smirks at her as he slides the bullets into the gun.
"None, I used this thing called the internet to see which motel was the farthest from the bank but still close enough that you could stalk me." She smiles Checkley at him.
"Smart ass." He grumbles under his breath.
Kate had often thought about what they would say to each other if they ever saw one another again, but at the same time she had also prayed that Seth Gecko would not live a life alone, and that he would make it to the age of fifty without OD-ing.
She looks up from the gun to see those big brown eyes watching her. Those are the eyes that she used to search for in a crowded room, they are the eyes that she could stare at in a dark bedroom. Those brown eyes are the eyes that had a power to get her to do whatever they wanted, and that had always scared her.
They sort of just sit there, they don't say anything. They don't talk about Richie or Scott, they don't talk about why he's still alone, they don't talk about the baby she lost before she left him, they don't talk about the ring that sits on her ring finger, and instead she tells him about the bank.
"I know almost all of the people there, Seth. People who don't deserve that." She scolds him.
He stands up abruptly, and she jumps. He walks over to the bedside table and picks up a bottle of tequila, then comes back to sit down. She can feel the tension dripping off of him.
"No one ever deserves anything Kate." He snaps at her before gulping down some of the clear liquid, then gestures for her to take it.
Drinking is probably not the best thing to do right now but she does it anyway. She takes a big swing and the burn feels good after not having a drink sense getting back to the states.
"How old?" He asks without context.
"What?" She questions him out of confusion of what how old is.
"Your son." Is all he says and that's when she notices his eyes on her ring, she quickly sets the bottle down and puts her hand under the table.
"He's two. His names Jared."
It's just that small sentence that gets them talking again, and suddenly it was like she had never left that night. He told her about how he went back to using after she left, and how he hunted down culebras alone but that eventually he met this couple that hunted too. He stuck with them for a few months until he decided it was time to move on. He found Richie in Arizona about two years ago and that they had talked, and it was good but Seth could not find it in himself to stay with Richie. He said he met this girl, Lisa in Mexico. She smuggled drugs, the drugs he bought from her and he ended up shaking up with her for a while too. He found Vanessa again and had been staying with her but he says that he woke up the other day with the intense need of finding Kate.
Kate didn't ask many questions she just let him talk, and when it got hard to listen she threw back more tequila and when it seemed it was hard for him to explain what came next she started to tell him about her life.
She tells him how she went back to school, how she got a real job that didn't involve holding anyone at gun point, she found Scott again and he told her he had wished she had died in the Twister too, she stopped trying to find him. She skipped all the parts about her husband but told him about baby Jared, and about how she knew he was her angel. She told him how just a few months ago she finally forced herself to return to Bethel. She didn't tell him how hard it was, and how it would not have been that hard had he been there with her to lean on.
She didn't add how she still had nightmares without him, or how she almost cried every time she saw an RV. How she had not drank sense the last night with him, she didn't tell him how the pool in her backyard only reminded her of Richie or how she now went to a catholic church because the one time she went to a Baptist one she saw her dad and ended up having a full on breakdown in the middle of the service. She didn't tell him how her marriage had been hard, harder than she thought it was supposed to be. She doesn't mention how in her darkest moments she has longed for him. She realized if she was leaving all of these things out he must have been skipping around the truth when he told her about things.
"Well, Kate I suppose this is the life you were always supposed to have." His voice is heavy when he says this.
"I'm not so sure." She admits as she looks up at him, then she stands and walks over to the bed.
It's the way that he looks at her that tells her that he agrees with her. She was living a life that she regrets.
"Aren't you supposed to be at home with blondie?" He finally questions and she knows what he's talking about even though she wished she didn't.
She looks down at her hands and wills herself not to cry, to not let him see how bad she is really hurting but it doesn't work. So as she sits there with silent tears, he comes and sits beside her. Grabbing her hand he kisses her palm and sits it onto of his chest, and the loving gesture only makes her cry more.
"I never should have left." She whispers as she leans on his shoulder.
He sighs, "Oh Princess, we both knew you were always gonna leave me. You just stuck around longer than either of us thought you would. But, the last thing you should regret is leaving because you did what you needed to. You're leaving the life that you deserve to have."
She knows she should tell him that she's not happy without him but she also knows that will only hurt him more when he leaves so she just stays quite. She looks at this man who had ones been her world, her safe heaven, and she realizes how much leaving that night changed her life. His and hers.
He reaches over and kisses her on the check and she melts. She melts into him and all that they once where and all that they could have been. He makes her feel alive again, and even though they both know that it's temporary it doesn't matter, they are together.
When her phone rings at ten o'clock and it's her husband asking where she was, she goes into the bathroom and tells him she is staying the night with a church friend to help her with some craft project. And, then she goes back to the thief that's lying in bed and she is reminded of all the nights in Mexico heat that he took her. All the days that they just spent lazing around a motel room because she was in love with the man who kidnapped her family, and changed her life forever.
Before she walks out the door he raises up from the bed, "I'm sorry Kate-that I could not give you the life you deserve. But I'm glad you found someone who's nothing like me"
It's after this that they meet again every few months. Sometimes at the park other times in a motel room. He becomes her best friend again, and when she's not with him she's happy in her life. They grow older and they stay hidden parts of each other's life. A part that shares moments and stories of the past and understands each other like no one could ever imagine. It's not fair to either of them but Seth Gecko will always be the antihero in love with the young girl of their story and Kate Fuller doesn't understand why but she will never find that to be enough.