When Rick returns from picking up dinner—Italian, from that place around the corner that Kate loves—his lovely wife is not there to greet him.
Or, more noticeably, she's not there to promptly demand the food from him.
"Kate?" he calls out, kicking the front door shut behind him as softly and quietly as he can. He doesn't need another scolding from her about slamming it closed.
Even though he argued that she'd done plenty of that herself before they were married, most of the time with either his or her body, she'd still threatened to put one of those plastic grips at the bottom to keep is from slamming shut.
He doesn't get a response, so he sets the food down on the kitchen island and goes to search for her.
She's not in the living room, his study, or their bedroom. She's not in the bathroom, either.
He ventures upstairs. Bypassing Alexis' room, he notices the other bedroom's door is slightly ajar.
Inside, he finds Kate asleep in her rocking chair, a wool afghan draped over her shoulders and the latest of the Nikki Heat books open and resting over her extended abdomen.
He looks at her for a moment, drinking in the sight of her: his pregnant wife, asleep in their child's nursery with one of his—their—books in her lap.
Those stories are not just his, not anymore. Really, they never had been just his. She had inspired them, they were his love letters to her, and so when they became husband and wife, 'his' became 'theirs'.
Everything became 'theirs,' and he loved that.
Satisfied with the scene, he gently retrieves the book and closes it, placing it on top of the stack of other books—a quality mix of his, theirs, and various baby books—on the table beside her chair.
She stirs, and he whispers, "Hey, babe."
She looks around until her eyes settle on him, and she smiles tiredly. "Hi. Did I fall asleep?"
"Yeah," he chuckles, running a hand over her hair.
She rubs at her eye with the back of a hand. "Oh."
"Dinner's downstairs," he says.
"Mmm," she hums at him, reaching up to pull him into a quick kiss, "'Bout time."
He laughs, and takes her hand to help her out of the chair. "I love you," he murmurs.
She turns to him and on the tips of her toes, she wraps her arms around his neck and leans into his embrace as best as she can with their unborn child settling between them. "I love you, too," she whispers, and kisses him again; "Now, let's eat."
A/N: It's been a while. Have some fluff.