Comfortable

A/N: So, I don't know if anyone is still into Fairly Legal, but I fell in love with it over the last few weeks, and I had to write a piece on it to give myself some closure since they didn't give it a third season, and this came out of my brain. I might continue it if someone reads it, but for now it's a one shot, mostly written because I promised my friend I'd write one. (Also, usual drill: no beta and not a native speaker, so forgive all the mistakes.)

The walls are thin.

She would think, being her new apartment placed in an old building and all, that they would be thick and large, and okay, she didn't expect soundproof, but she also did not expect plasterboard, and those walls are really, really thin.

(Three days after she's moved in she discovers her flat and Ben's used to be a single condo that the owner split up so that it'd be easier to rent and wow, knowing she's somehow living in his same apartment freaks her out on a whole new level.)

Besides, it's like they really kind of live together, because well, what happens with thin walls is that you can hear the person on the other side. At all times.

(She guesses that means he can also hear her, and she tries her best to be quiet for the first few days, but then she gives up, because Kate Reed doesn't really know how to do quiet.)

However, quiet or not, she still learns a whole bunch of new things about Ben Grogan over the first week of living next door, some of which she'd rather forget.

He hums in the shower, and okay, this one's cute.

Sometimes it's Eye of The Tiger, sometimes We Are the Champions, and sometimes he rocks it out to Carry On My Wayward Son, and she can totally picture him using the shower as a microphone with conditioner in his hair (because let's face it, he probably does use conditioner) and that might mean that she's picturing him naked, but she chooses not to think of it like that.

He also takes twenty minutes each day to dry his hair, which is less than she takes, and is also kind of annoying when it happens at seven in the morning, but Kate Reed is better than your average girl at ignoring insisting sounds that are meant to get her out of bed, so all she does is mock him a little bit on their ride to work, making remarks about his princess hair and how she'd love his advice on how to get her own curls to shine like his.

And yes, she lets him drive her to work, because eight thirty is definitely too early to fight with Ben Grogan, and he buys her coffee and waffles, which is the fastest way to her heart, and to get her inside a car (what, she said car, not bed!) so he waits for her to get up in the morning, and she waits for him to finish his paperwork at night so she can ride back with him.

She's still not sure of how they've slipped in such a comfortable, natural feeling routine over such a short time, but when he tells her he can't drive her home because he's got a late meeting with a client one night, she replies "Oh okay, do you want me to save you some dinner so we can heat it up later?" before she can think about it, and he says she's an angel. (Yes, he said angel, but she'd rather not think about it, okay?)

That night, eating her lasagna alone with a glass of red wine Ben bought and some old record she stole from her dad too many years earlier, she does think about it.

Kate Reed is drinking some guy's expensive French wine and offering to heat up his dinner when he works late.

The guy is Ben Grogan.

And it's not like Kate doesn't know about intimacy, she does, she's been married after all, and she's had a husband who sometimes worked late and needed midnight dinner, and most times waited up with take out leftovers for when she came home, way past midnight, so okay, she might not be the queen of domesticity, but she understands the concept, and this, this is domesticity, it's intimacy, and it's comfortable.

Which is a first.

You see, when you grow up alone, with a mother who left too soon and a father who works too hard, when you and your brother order in take out because the maid burns dinner every night and your step mom is like five years older than you, domesticity doesn't feel comfortable.

(Mainly because it doesn't happen, but also because when it does, it usually lasts less than twelve hours and it's either fake or sugarcoat on the next bitter pill, whether that is "Lauren's moving in" , "You're transferring to a new school" or "Kids, I'm getting married again" which is to say that Kate's learned not to trust domesticity, and she certainly doesn't find it comfortable.)

But then Ben buys her breakfast, drives her around and eats her food while she drinks his wine, and suddenly the answer to "I'm working late" is "When are you coming home?" , and home is this indefinite entity between her apartment and his that makes her feel warm and fuzzy when she thinks about it.

Suddenly dinners with a bottle of wine she didn't buy and a record she adores are dinners waiting for someone else, and the fact that the guy in question is Ben Grogan and he maybe, just maybe, makes her heart beat a bit too fast, is something she still doesn't know how to handle, but when has Kate Reed ever been able to handle her feelings?

She pushes those thoughts in the back of her mind that same night, when Ben knocks on her door around eleven thirty, asking for the dinner she'd promised him.

She's sleepy and fuzzy in her oversized sweater after she's drank half the bottle, he's exhausted and angry after a long, unproductive meeting with a dumbass loaded client that won't let him go to court, and their tired moods somehow match in the low light of her kitchen, a quiet chit chat filling the air and mixing with the music, and Kate's small smile helping him relax after a long, stressful day.

"You look like you could use a drink" she notices as she moves the remaining lasagna from the fridge to the microwave and sets up the timer "wine?"

Ben shrugs, and offers her a crooked smirk. "Please" he answers "it's been a hell of a day."

The woman's smile mirrors his as she retrieves the bottle and gets two glasses out of the counter. "Yeah, tell me about it!" she jokes, because it seems the world out there hates them both a little bit today, and she doesn't know why, but it's nice to come home to someone (or have someone come home to you, whichever way it is) and complain together about how unreasonable everyone else is over a bottle of overpriced wine and a slice of reheated lasagna.
As the red liquid fills their throats, so do words. He goes on and on about how he hates this guy and how much of a pain it is to work for idiots, stopping occasionally to taste the food and comment on it "Katie, this is delicious, since when do you cook this well?"

Katie laughs, and lets him get away with the pet name, because she's starting to like it a lot more than she lets on, and well, he's complimenting her after all, isn't he?"

"I don't" she explains as he pours her more wine "I got this at Walmart, and if you ask me, it tastes a little like plastic, but hey, I'm glad you like it so much!"

"Oh but it's so good, you probably just took it out of the oven too soon earlier" he states, his anger against his client melted away, too focused on dinner and Kate as he holds out his fork to her and begs her to try it again.

They end up finishing what's left of the wine on the couch, her head resting in the crook of his neck earlier than expected, the glasses resting on the coffee table and the music low enough for her eyelids to start feeling heavy again.

She's tipsy and he's tired, and sleep gets the best of them soon enough, ending a bad day that turned out a lot better than it would have, had they been apart.

When Ben wakes two hours later, Kate -Katie- is on top of him, her arms snaked tightly around his neck as she snores lightly, obviously coming down with the cold he'd told her she'd get if she didn't put on a warmer coat, but of course Miss Reed would still wear a trench coat in late November. Stubborn, stubborn woman.

However her snoring is light and adorable, and her arms around him feel so comfortable he considers spending the night like this, but then he thinks of how his back will feel in the morning, so he settles for carrying her to bed and turning off the stereo before going to sleep in his own bed, in his own apartment.

(His bed feels cold and lonely without her light weight on him and her breath filling his ears, but there are lines he still isn't willing to cross, knowing he's a winner isn't enough insurance to go and gamble away his chance with Katie, Katie is different, and he's willing to wait.)

Besides, he'll get her three waffles instead of two in the morning, and he's already foretasting the smile that it'll get him.