For sugar free vanilla.
This is set after Knockout. But it is AU. So it's a post Knockout AU?
This is based on the post from poetryandtruth on twitter.
"One day,
I'll wake up at three in the morning.
I won't be alone.
I won't text you or call you
I won't miss you
Or want to cry.
Because one day,
When I wake up at three in the morning
You'll be laying next to me
and not miles away.
-(A.02)"
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the fact that I kept Steph up wayyy past when she should to read this.
One
Before Kate texts him that first time, she is okay. No, scratch that. She isn't okay. She is barely holding on. But she tells herself that she is okay. She forces herself to think she is okay.
They see each other at the precinct and sometimes she ends up eating dinner at his loft with his family, and things are normal. Normal enough for her to say that she can wait a little longer to tell him she loves him and that she heard him when he gasped out those words on that fateful day.
But it is nearing one in the morning the night after a double homicide that had taken twenty hours plus to solve and wrap up. It didn't help that the two victims were two little girls, both six, and that the murderer had been a perverted man who thought that these two little children were his to take and rape. And kill.
So, really, she can't be blamed.
She can't be blamed for wanting to hear his voice, for wanting to feel his embrace one last time before she falls into bed, exhausted.
So when she texts him, "i miss you", at exactly 12:43am, she pushes down any apprehension that whispers through her brain until he texts back, "i miss you too".
Her hands shake as she clenches her phone in one hand and brushes her other hand down her pants.
Another texts pings in and she unlocks her phone and checks it quicker than she would like to admit she did.
"do you want to meet up at the old haunt?" reads the text, and she's typing a response before her mind processes what she's doing.
"can you come here?"
Only when he texts back, "sure, give me fifteen." does she panic.
(Because what the hell is she doing?)
She hurries to her bathroom and brushes her hair, and grabs her robe and slides it on. Her doorbell rings before she finishes, but she rushes to open the door.
She's hit by the sight of her partner in his pajamas, a pair of sneakers with untied laces, bright blue eyes full of worry and support and love and suddenly she's bounding into his arms and sobbing.
He folds his arms around her and guides them to her couch, sitting down smoothly and she curls into his lap, unashamed and unabashed in how much she needs him right then.
He rocks her back and forth, murmuring softly in her ear as she collapses for the first time in months. And this time, it's in front of the one person she hopes would never see her like this.
As her cries dispel, he gets up and pours a glass of water (from where, she has no idea), and hands it to her. He tenderly skims her hair to her neck as she drinks and when she places the glass down, he cups her neck and brings her to him again. She clenches his collar in her fists and rests her cheek on his shoulder, and he pulls her back onto his lap. It can't be very comfortable, but he doesn't say anything, placing little kisses on her forehead.
What seems like hours later, he picks her up, and she can't even bring herself to argue. She's just so tired and she feels boneless in his strong arms and honestly she doesn't want to tell him to put her down.
She closes her eyes and brushes her lips to his throat and he stills for a moment before continuing on to wherever he's going.
He places her down on something soft (oh, it's her bed), and when he kisses her cheek and moves to leave, whispering something about his mother; she grabs his arm and pleads, "Please stay with me."
Her eyes are open now, adjusted to the darkness, and she can make out the wary expression on his face because of the lights reflecting through her window.
She sits up, glancing up at him, and hopes her eyes convey everything she's feeling, every emotion that is running through her veins right now, because her words are not enough.
"Please."
He nods silently and she settles back on to the pillows, sighing in relief.
(Because he's staying.)
She shuts her eyes once again and moves towards the warmth emanating from his body, curling up next to him. He tentatively puts an arm around her, anchoring her to him.
She falls asleep to his breathing and his heartbeat, and she feels safe.
(He isn't there when she wakes up in the morning.)
Two
It is two o'clock in the morning the next time she texts him without reason.
This time, there was no homicide.
This time, she just misses him.
Because she hasn't slept well since the time he spent the night in her bed, with his arm around her keeping her warm and making her feel protected.
She's drunk, instead. She's drunk and even in her inebriated state she knows it's a bad idea when she writes, "i wish you could sleep with me again because i miss knowing you're there next to me."
She pauses and takes the shot glass Lanie gives her and tossing it back, continues,
"instead i'm stuck wishing you were the one who makes me come with two of your fingers, not three of mine."
(Just with a lot of more mistakes.)
His answer doesn't come for a few minutes, and she laughs out loud at his response, "i'm at poker night. you can't tell me that right now!"
"i disagreeeeee," is her reply, and even in text, she's slurring her words.
"are you drunk, kate beckett?!" his answering text makes her shake her head.
"no, silly. i'm just slightly tipsy from the shots lanie's passing to me." Kate rolls her eyes, even though he can't see her.
"should i come pick you up? you're on call tomorrow." she ignores the fact that he knows her schedule and types, "only if you stay with me."
"i'm coming to get you. give me the bar name." he texts, and she notices that he didn't acknowledge her response.
(Oh well. She'll work on it when he's here.)
He arrives thirty minutes later (oh wow this place is really out of the city isn't it) and she stumbles out of the booth yelling, "Casssssle you're heereeeee." He's not smiling and he snaps at Lanie, "What were you thinking? You know how she got the last time she was drunk!" He steers her out of the room into the fresh air and she pretends she didn't hear him. She twirls around, and falls, her high heels not really helping in her attempt to be a ballerina (or whatever she's doing because she really has no idea). He doesn't catch her in time and she cries out, her ankle twisting under her, as she lies sprawled on the concrete.
He helps her up, wrapping his jacket around her bare shoulders, urging her to put her weight on him, but she refuses to and limps off, ready to get out of the cold. He steers her towards the car and they drive home.
He won't even look at her as he brings her to her building door, and she sees him nod towards the doorman. He turns and she grabs his arm, and she can't help remember how alike this was to the time he stayed the night.
But this time, even as her eyes plead towards him, he shakes his head.
"I've got to get home. Make sure no one trashed the place while I was gone."
But even in her intoxicated state (which is getting less and less and more and more towards being sober) she can tell he's lying. He won't look at her and he's fidgeting with his hands, and she steps up into his personal space. His eyes look down curiously at her and she leans in to press a light kiss to his cheek as his eyelids flutter closed, and she whispers, "Thank you," and walks off.
She hopes he'll follow her as she slowly walks to the elevators, half for show and half to make sure that she wasn't going to fall.
But he doesn't.
And she's too proud to beg again.
(She texts him that night. He answers. But it's not the same. No, there's something different. She doesn't know what happened but it's not something she can fix so she tells him goodnight, and sets her phone down, finally drifting asleep because the only other choice is to confront him, and she's too tired to do that.)
Three
The last time, it's three am, and she just can't fall asleep.
She watched as he calmed the little boy down who was the only witness to the murder of his mother. She watched with tears in her eyes as the man she loves (her one and done) spent the three days with the four year old boy, earning his trust until the little one, called David, told him what had happened.
She watched Rick be a father, and just like every other time she sees him with Alexis, something constricts in her chest as she thinks, 'that could be him with our child'. This time, however, something changed.
She has always wanted to be with him. Always. He was her writer, and she knows he knows that she remembers when he told her he loved her, now. She just as well could have written it on her face, Lanie tells her when they recounted the night he picked her up from the bar.
But this time, this time? This time the yearning to be able to cuddle with him, to kiss him, to have children with him is so great that she falls into bed sobbing, clutching her mother's books, whimpering his name over and over.
Her sobs quiet eventually, but she's left with a hollow feeling in her chest, and she knows only one thing can fill the hole.
So she calls him. She knows she looks like shit and feels like it too, but she just knows that she needs him in that moment.
(This could be the end of the touch and go they've had for four years. And for the first time, she isn't tentative towards the idea. No, she's fucking terrified, but the want for a future with Rick is so great that it overpowers anything else she feels.)
"Hello?" He answers, and she suddenly can't breath. He repeats his question, and adds, "Kate? Are you okay?"
No. "Yeah. I just..." I just need to see you. "I just wanted to say hi."
"Oh." His voice sounds... disappointed? And her heart hurts once again and suddenly the words are coming out of her. She can't deal with this bridge between them anymore.
"Okay. No. I'm not okay. I just can't stop crying because I want you and only you and I love you and I'm so sorry for not telling you but I just wasn't ready and I'm so afraid you're going to find someone better than me and I don't want that." She takes a deep breath, keeping the tears at bay. "I just want you."
He's silent for a few moments, and then says, "I'm coming over," and hangs up.
She walks frantically back and forth across her living room, biting her cuticles and clenching her fists to stop herself from freaking out. She's about to give up and just go there when finally a knock comes. She's across the room in seconds, and yanks the door open.
She gets a glance of his face, longing and something else clearly etched in his features before his lips are on hers. It's frantic and passionate and something she has never experienced except for the time they kissed undercover and then his tongue is in her mouth, finding hers and he's plundering her mouth before pulling back. Her eyes are still closed, drifting shut soon after he started to kiss her, and she leans towards him, mouth open, waiting, wanting, and he pulls back from their embrace. Her eyes flutter open and she looks up at him.
His expression is wild. That's the only word to describe it. It's filled with animalistic desire and lust and want and she's attacking his mouth before he can speak.
It's several more minutes before they manage to pull apart from each other and then they clear their throats and look away embarrassed because they just fucking made out like horny teenagers.
He's the first to speak. "I love you too."
She's stunned, not expecting that, and also because his voice is so fucking gruff and low that she's turned on more than she was before (because let's be honest, she's been feeling that way every time she looks at him nowadays).
She doesn't speak, and he continues, not looking into her eyes. "You said you love me and that you heard me at Montgomery's funeral," she flinches when he mentions that. "And I don't even care that you lied to me because here I thought you don't feel the same and then you tell me you do and I'm honestly not sure if this is real life."
At that she touches his cheek, urging him to look at her, and he shudders at the innocent (well, compared to their previous kisses) touch. She presses a chaste kiss to his swollen lips and says, "I understand if you need some time..."
He grabs her hand and encloses in his big one, and she stares into his eyes and sees pure, unadulterated love shining in the blue.
"I love you. We can discuss all the minor details later, but I'd much rather get started on the rest of our lives right now."
And for the first time all night, she smiles, and he smiles back in return. She tugs on his hand, and leads her towards her bedroom. Right before they enter the doorway, she leans up and kisses him, teasing him, rather, because she moves away before he can put his arms around her.
"Let's start right now. Third time's the charm, no?"
And he grins and leads her to her bed.
(To their future.)
I hope you all enjoyed.
Steph, thank you for making me laugh every single night. I love you.
(And who knows? I could put up an M addition if I was persuaded well enough. Hint hint.)