Title: The One Where Kate is Hitting on Nick, Instead of the Other Way Around, or The Stakeout
Series:
Hint: Kate is Blonde, but that's all I'm giving you.
Disclaimer:
I own special Unit 2 the way Jake 2.0 is still making episodes. As in, not.
Summary:
"Kate," Nick had a fully fledged sentence ready to go (nouns, verbs, the whole shebang) but it entirely left his mouth, his head, his brain as all rational thought was eaten up with the sight of Kate coming out of his master bathroom in his own clothing.
Note: So, yeah, this took a hell of a long time to write out. Super many apologies- um, a bear ate me?

(PS, Flashback equals italics)

Chapter 2.

"I want soup!"

"Kate..." I'm exhausted, Nick wanted to say, I don't know how to cook Matzoh ball soup, was another. And then, of course, Why the hell won't you go to sleep?

It was currently three am, with no end in sight.

And Nick was getting cranky.

Really, really cranky.

And really, really, really wished he had a dart gun.

"Don't you care about me Nick?" Swirling his desk chair, making it go round and round and round, Kate didn't look the least bit sick.

"Of course."

"Well then, when two people care for each other, and want to express those feelings, they decide to go to the next step that shows an increase of intimacy. Like making each other soup for example." A perfectly innocent conversation, right? So why did it feel like Nick's ears were on fire?

"Kate, I'm tired. I want to go to bed. Don't you want to go to bed too?" As soon as Kate's chair stopped spinning, Nick realized he's said something wrong.

"You want to sleep with me Nick?" Rising out of that chair, Kate had the look of a woman possessed, Nick was in trouble.

"Yes, well no. Er, what I mean is, we need to sleep. Because sleep is-"

"Shush." A word more then the sound, it was emphasized when Kate placed a finger on Nick's lips, "You're rambling."

"No I'm not." Because denial is not just a river in Egypt.

"Oh Nicky." Spoken by a chiding mother, Kate ruffled Nick's hair and then said brightly, "So where's your bed?" Bulging eyes don't look good on many but somehow Nick managed to still look very nice, if not fish-like.

"It's just at the end of this hallway." Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, Nick quickly led his partner to his bedroom, promptly missing a glint in Kate's eye that showed she was still very much on the drug Nick's hand had landed into.

And adamantly refused to see the likeness of this moment and that dream he'd had last week.

Closing the bedroom door (more for his peace of mind and less because it could actually stop Kate from leaving the room) Nick quickly piled the covers on top of his bed and tried his best to tuck them in. As Nick was admiring his work, he realized with some panic that something was missing.

His pillow.

Checking behind the headboard, underneath the bed, behind his dresser, Nick finally spotted his plaid pillow in the closet (don't ask). Placing the pillow next to it's mismatched brother (or sister, Nick's cool that way), Nick took a step back to look at his bed.

"There you are Kate-" Turning to face his companion, Nick saw - no Kate. Instead of her leaning against the dresser and staring off dreamily, he found a dresser drawer open and a red shirt sticking out.

It didn't take a rocket scientist to see that Kate had ruffled through Nick's drawer's during the long wait, but Nick still went to the aforementioned dresser and found out she'd taken his green n' blue plaid boxers and black t-shirt.

Don't ask how he knew that.

"Kate," Nick had a fully fledged sentence ready to go but it entirely left his mouth, his head, his brain as all rational thought was eaten up with the sight of Kate coming out of his master bathroom in his own clothing.

She was just not playing fair.

"Sorry, I needed pajamas, hope you don't mind." Nick really tried to muster up the strength to mind, thought about the emotions he should be exhibiting right now, the facial expressions he should possess and very pleased with himself, Nick chose to speak,

"Nope, it's fine." Damn. "I made the bed for you." Kate grinned.

"Great." She walked across the room to his bed and sat on the side of it, staring up at Nick, "So which side do you sleep on?"

Nick had no idea how to respond to that.

Well, Nick knew how he wanted to respond, but he also knew how Kate would react if they had well, slept in the same bed together, in her state of mind.

"Kate, I am not sleeping with you tonight."

"Ok."

"Ok?"

"Nick, I understand what this must be like for you."

"You do?"

"Sure. It must be very hard for you to be this emotional close to someone in such a long time."

"What?"

"But I'm not going to let you do this to yourself. It's hard to face your inner demons, but I'm here to help."

What?!" Before Kate could make up more stuff from the top of her head to get her form as close to Nick's as possible, his phone rang.

It was Candi, the Russian model. Or maybe her name was Vicki. Either way, Nick had no intention of answering that phone. So Kate answered for him.

"Hello. Nick's " Nick's night really wasn't going so well.

"Sorry, he can't talk right now. We're just about to get into bed together." Nick felt that 'together' was a superfluous word in that sentence. By the way Kate was saying it, she apparently felt it vitally important. "Would you like to leave a message or num-" Kate set the phone back in its cradle. Turning to Nick, she had a look of confusion but her eyes held no innocence. "She hung up on me."

"Yeah, I wonder why she did that." Heavy with sarcasm, it was met with a shrug from Kate and coy smile that sent Nick's heart into overdrive.

"So, bedtime?"

"Kate. I am not going to sleep with you when you're in this state."

"Oh, so you'd do it if I hadn't been sprayed by that link."

"Uhh." Was Nick's brilliant response.

"I'll keep that in mind." And with that, Kate crawled underneath the covers, claiming the more comfortable pillow for her head, a look in her eye that spoke volumes about her intentions with him tonight.

Twelve minutes later, after three entirely separate and confusing conversations Nick was lying in his bed, next to Kate, over the covers, fully clothed. And yet, even with all these preventative measures, Kate had managed to curve her body against the side of his body, sighing contentedly.

Forgoing any sort of idea that he might sleep tonight, Nick's thoughts traveled back to when they'd made it to the Station.

It started with a groan.

And then a creaking sound.

"Kinda sounds like Carl after he heard about his family reunion was this week, doesn't it?" Apparently finding this comment hilarious, Kate tilted her head back and laughed for all it was worth.

It continued as they made their way inside, and Nick for the first time that night really wondered about his partner's mental state. Usually she didn't think his jokes were this funny. And if Kate did happen to think a joke was funny, she was hesitant to admit it.

"Hey Benson, I don't know what's so different about tonight and your behavior-"

"Nick-"

"But it's a nice change. You know if you were this loose around your dates you might actually-" Whatever Nick was going to say was lost when he spotted Jonathon, who looked so comical in his search for someone that Nick, for just a moment, forgot entirely what he was going to say (Jonathon also happened to be arguing with a television screen, which was also quite funny). If his eyes had fixed on Kate's for a moment longer he would have seen a gleam in her eye that had the look of that stuff his hand had fallen into.

But instead Nick completely missed that warning and dragged his partner over to a now overjoyed Jonathon, who was literally bouncing on the tips of his toes, and the moment the pair had made its way over to the overhead projector, Jonathon spoke,

"So did either of you-" But of course, the Captain chose this minute to saunter over and spoke in a loud voice,

"Ah O'Malley and Benson. What took so long?" As Nick wondered whether to go into the spider debacle or not, Kate spoke up.

"Sorry Sir, exit from the warehouse took longer than anticipated." Ok, so Benson wanted to save face, that was fine with him. What wasn't fine was when all eyes turned to him, with 'that look'.

"O'Malley I do not appreciate your lollygagging when I specifically had Jonathon call you so that you would understand the severity of the situation." That sound when a gaping mouth tries and fails to close- exactly Nick's input into the conversation.

"But Captain-" Nick was appalled and dismayed the captain would think it was him who held them up to get back to the station. Not shocked, because it was the most rational choice, but still, this time it was definitely not (the Irish aren't afraid of spiders) and that meant he needed to put things straight.

"And what situation would that be, sir?" To anyone else it would seem that Kate spoke to save Nick from whatever he was about to say, but Nick knew she cut him off to save herself from implication.

The manipulative meanie.

Oh he was going to get her back.

"Hey Nicky?" A whispered question posed to his neck, Nick tried to feign sleep. "Nicky? Nick? Nick O'Malley wake up!"

"Oh, Kate, you're awake. What's wrong?" There was no Suave Nick at three forty-five, but he tried his best to be nonchalant.

"I need water."

"Ok."

"And It's cold outside the covers." Nick had a feeling where this was going,

"Kate, would you like me to get you a glass of water?"

"Oh would you?"

She was good. Gd she was good.

"And what will I get back in return?" The problem with Nick and this situation was that he kept on forgetting not to flirt. See, normally it would be Kate who'd become embarrassed and pretend he hadn't said anything or refuse to see the double meaning. Only now, because of that goop, they'd had a role reversal that Nick could safely say he did not like.

So without waiting for a response Nick flung open the covers and made his way to the kitchen, wishing he could stay to hear how Kate would've responded and once-again cursing his situation.

He was supposed to be the shameless flirt!

"Ahem!" Carl's voice from a television screen that was situated next to the overhead screen had the effect of annoying Nick even more and well, gaining attention to himself, but mostly it was the annoying bit.

"I've got a sleeping woman in the other room, so if we could make this quick." Two words sprung to O'Malley's mind,

"Yeah and right." But no one paid him any attention, except for his partner, who leaned a bit closer to smell his aftershave.

No one paid any attention to that, either.

"Oh, yes, well after you two left to stakeout, Carl and I were cross referencing possible links through a bit of ingenuity on my part-" Jonathon began, totally side-tracked by the thought that he needed to explain this, because Carl would just make mistakes.

"Hey! Without the name, you'd have nothing."

"And WE were able to compile some factual information on this link." Jonathon flipped some devise in the air (just to look cool), before turning around and pressing some button on it to make the projector light up with an ominous (albeit very obviously amateur photographer) picture of a gray figure. As Jonathon watched everyone look at the projector, he felt a flick of irritation that meant he had a question he wanted to ask but couldn't remember what it was about or to whom he should ask.

"This is the link you were on a stakeout for earlier. They're called immunda concubitus deux which is Latin for-"

"Dirty sex gods." Everyone looked at Nick.

"Well yes, roughly translated." Nick could have killed, skinned and eaten a deer on Jonathon's kitchen table and Jonathon wouldn't have looked less hurt about Nick stealing Jonathon's thunder. This made Jonathon focus entirely about his presentation (so such things wouldn't happen again) and temporarily forgot about his nagging feeling.

"Right, what does that mean?" Kate asked, trying to bring some resemblance of norm to this meeting. Which was kind of funny because her atoms were practically inhabiting the same space as Nick's.

"It means," Carl cut in, and Jonathon was super annoyed, "that the link you two willy nilly went after without waiting for me to return from my family vacation, which is just rude-"

"Carl." The Captain was in no mood for this.

"Without thinking of the repercussions that could arise because of your overactive human adrenal glands-"

"CarL." Nick was in no mood for this. And how his voice squeaked an octave higher at the end of Carl's name, yeah, that had nothing to do with Kate's seductive breath on the back of his neck.

"Do you have any idea how easy it is to-"

"CARL." It wasn't so much that Jonathon wasn't in the mood but that really he wanted to interrupt someone else for a change.

All eyes went to Jonathon and he chose the moment to finally say what he wanted to on the subject.

"There is little doubt that this is the link we've been searching for. The three cases of link activity match with this Link's MO. The immunda concubitus deux are known to look like gray blobs. Until that is, they get close enough to a human subject to morph into a composite of what they'd find most attractive. It's actually quite fascinating how they use external factors like proportional size and features to-"

"Jonathon."

"Right, sorry. Anyway, the immunda concubitus deus then breathes," Jonathon flipped to the next slide, which showed a bluish mist with a rather gorgeous woman falling with her dress billowing out underneath her.

No doubt the author was a starving artist with no potential dates.

"Breathes?" The Captain's brilliant input into the conversation, Jonathon was momentarily distracted, did that have something to do with his question?

"Yes, sir, breathes on their victim. Which quickly turns into a gel in the outside air, finally drying out and then turning to dust. It's structural formula suggests-"

"Basically," Carl cut in, "It makes the girls-"

"Or guys!" Jonathon hurriedly interrupted, going a bit mad with the power that came with interrupting others. And the sudden inability to finish a freaking sentence.

"gaga over this link."

"Well technically it inhibits the brain's chemical work-up, slowing down cognitive function, impeding rational thought, kicking up the hormone drive to make the ladies more willing-"

"So basically this link uses his breath to make a subject more malleable to persuasion." Kate said, making this her last rational sentence for the night.

"Right, but the victim can be persuaded by anyone, essentially. It's just that the link happens to be closest that this works so well for them." And then Jonathon remembered a question to ask to wasn't the question, but still a good one to ask.

"Didn't you collect a sample of this?"

"What? Oh yeah." Nick had nearly forgotten. Turning to Kate, he noticed something very odd.

"Where's your jacket?"

Glass filled, Nick walked back to his room, and discovered a sleeping Kate in his bed. Not knowing whether to be pleased (that she'd finally fallen asleep) or annoyed (that she now couldn't drink the water he'd taken the fifty steps to take) he placed the cup on the nightstand on her side of the bed and laid back down.

It was only after he'd gotten himself situated, letting him lie down as close to Kate as he'd allow himself, the smell of her shampoo in his nose, that he realized with Kate asleep (aka pacified) he didn't have to get into the bed. He was finally safe to sleep in his guest bedroom or couch or the floor, if he really felt the need.

But by the time his brain has made the leap, he was extremely comfortable, quite tired and to sleep next to Kate was such a fantasy of his that Nick couldn't really bring himeslf to move.

So Nick decided to rest his brain until the morning.

No doubt he was going to wake up with a headache.

And what with Kate back to normal tomorrow this would probably (definitely) be the last time they'd come in such close contact.

So Nick smelled Kate's skin (vanilla cream) one last time and then drifted off to sleep.


Third and last installment coming up next (when I write it), what will happen next?

Do we finally get that hot make out scene?
Will Carl make a number of inappropriate jokes?
How will Kate and Nick act come morning?