Angsty angst is angsty. Bear with me. Leave a review if you liked it (it'll encourage me to write more). It'll get better, I promise.


She runs into Alexis, of all things.

It started with a phone call from an old college friend from Stanford, now a newly-minted assistant professor at Columbia, who wants her to come in and do a guest lecture in the criminal law course about the realities of police work and Miranda rights. They've stayed in touch on-and-off over the years and Beckett has worked with enough prosecutors and public defenders to know that it is probably a good idea to do so. Columbia is a big university, and the possibility of running into Alexis doesn't even cross her mind. This is instead just another legitimate reason to do some work over the weekend, put together some slides, drown herself in her safety blanket instead of facing the rest of the world or indeed the bleak reality of her own life outside work.

It's been three years. She hasn't heard from him in three years. It's his fault. Her own fault. Their fault. Nobody's fault.

He dropped by once, to the precinct, visit carefully timed to avoid her. Thanked the boys, kissed Lanie on the cheek, shook Gates's hand, left some thoughtful going away presents. She regrets that those friendships were broken. That Ryan and Espo will never get to borrow the Ferrari or scrounge Knicks tickets again. That she won't see that fierce look in Lanie's eyes when he teases her and Espo about their date nights. They'd become a family, and now were fractured.

She considered writing or calling to Martha or Alexis. She never worked up the courage.

She sank back into work, pulling together the remnants of her heart, sheltering them within herself, determined never to be so vulnerable again. She knows she won't. Not a belief or an opinion but a fact that no other man is ever going to work himself so thoroughly into her life, her world, her affections. She hasn't dated since. Oh sure, the occasional night stand, initially hoping to jump start herself, later just for the sake of her body, for physical release. It isn't enough, it is never going to be enough, and eventually even Lanie stops asking, stops goading, stops trying to set her up on honest-to-god dates.

She scours the society pages for his name, for the latest model or D-list celebrity on his arm. He never appears. However it has affected him, he hasn't returned to his old ways.

The most ridiculous thing about their "break-up" is that they never got together.

Her one night stands are never better than when she closes her eyes, pictures his broad fingers on her body, bright blue eyes piercing her, pinning her against the wall, the floor, the table and pretends the fantasies came true.

She can't get over the fact she has better sex with the memory of a man she's never actually slept with than any she has welcomed into her bed since.

She never has to summon his memory consciously day to day, really, because he haunts the edges of her reality, chiming in with comments on bizarre cases, reminding her she needs a tea in the mornings or the afternoons, a ghost, a spectre that she is afraid will never leave her life. And even more terrified that maybe he will, because even the ghost of him is better than none of him at all and she doesn't want to be alone, doesn't want to go back to being who she was before he crashed into her life like a meteorite.

He hasn't written a Nikki Heat book since Rook and Heat broke up at the end of the last one. She cried reading the scene. He's gone back to Derrick Storm instead. Just the one book in three years. She devoured it cover to cover, even though everyone pointed out it wasn't his finest work. Lacked a little soul.

Instead she works days and nights and weekends, she's there at the precinct earlier than everyone else and stays later than everyone else. Their case closure rate has dropped since he left, a tangible reminder of what he brought to the team, so she works harder, trying to fill that six-foot-something sized hole in her life with whatever she can.

She doesn't go to Remy's any more. Or the Old Haunt.

Gates tells hers that if she keeps working like this she'll definitely be up for promotion to Lieutenant soon. Then asks her if that is what she really wants…his name hangs over the conversation with unspoken weight, neither woman wanting to acknowledge it, knowing that in some other reality, some other universe she has a different, happier trajectory through life. Not this one though.

So she soldiers on. Tries to bring murderers to justice, peace to victims' families. Smiles are rare and laughter rarer. Her father grips her shoulder, kisses her on the cheek, tries to be there for her as best as he can, much as she was once there for him. Three years later the sharp, stabbing pain has faded into a sort of dull ache she carries around with her, much like his ghost, and she knows that is the best she can hope for, the best she can have, so she settles for it, makes the pain her friend, makes do with her lot in life. After all, it is better than some people ever do. At least she found the love of her life. Even if they'll never settle down, get married, have children, build the life together she once dreamed of having, at least she knows he's real, he exists, she doesn't have to imagine what he might look like because she knows, she's seen the width of shoulders, the way his lips curve and the corners of eyes crinkle when he smiles.

Sometimes she dreams of the times they almost died, together. In a cold freezer, staring a dirty bomb in the face, the watery depths of the river swallowing their car, more than one madman with a gun. For other people these would be nightmares. For her they are happy dreams. She lives her nightmare. These are happy dreams because they were together, she interlaced her fingers through his, or wrapped her arms around his broad torso, melted into his embrace, They were together. He was by her side.

She doesn't drink coffee any more.

This is her life now, a dull ache, his ghost by her side, work, tea and books she can no longer bring herself to re-read.

Till she spots a familiar shade of orange-red hair in the middle of her lecture.