Around the World: Book Three
Trouble in the Hamptons
Chapter 2
. . . . .
With a pounding heart and sweat spilling down her face, Kate shot upright in bed. Her chest heaved as she tried to suck air into her lungs, gripping the sheets in her fists. She couldn't stop herself from jolting when a hand settled on her bare thigh.
"Honey? Kate?"
She gripped his hand tightly, the other letting go of the sheets to slide up his arm until her palm came to rest against his cheek. It had just been a nightmare. A very nasty nightmare. She still had them, they both still had them. But now it took less time to reassure herself that everything – and everyone – was okay.
"Go back to sleep," she urged gently, leaning down to press a kiss to his shoulder.
His big hand slid up her thigh. "'Kay?"
He was obviously still mostly asleep. "Yeah," she answered with affection. "I'm just going to get some water.
"Kay."
Getting water was the usual way Kate gave herself a moment of reprieve. Regardless of their relationship, there was still moments Kate needed that were hers and hers alone, but she knew if she was gone too long, Rick always came to find her. What she hadn't anticipated was seeing the TV on in the den.
"Alexis?"
The redhead jumped and spun around in her seat on the couch. "Kate!"
They'd had the extra body in the house for a couple of days now and Kate had to admit, she liked it. It felt right.
"Is everything okay?" the detective asked, stepping fully into the room and taking in the cartoon on the massive screen.
"Um, yeah," Alexis replied.
But Kate knew better. Even though she hadn't been around the precinct for almost three months, Alexis had a terrible poker face and she was trained to see nervousness and anxiousness. As much as she'd enjoyed her vacation, the 'cop' side of her was too entrenched in her for Kate to just turn it off. "Why are you up so late?"
"I'm... it's weird to not be in my own bed."
"Did you have the same problem at NYU?" Kate knew she'd caught Alexis in the white lie. They all knew she hadn't had any problems for the few weeks she'd stayed in the NYU dorms.
"What are you doing up?" Alexis asked instead, ignoring the question.
Kate allowed the subject change and considered the teenager a moment. "Nightmares," she finally said, deciding the truth was better and may, if she was lucky, get the teen to open up.
The redhead seemed surprised. "Nightmares?"
"Yeah," the older woman answered dropping to the couch. "I hear they're perfectly normal after trauma."
"You had a nightmare about Dad?" Alexis asked, turning to face the detective.
Kate smiled, reaching out to squeeze Alexis' arm. "I'm human," she joked. She glanced over at Bugs Bunny on the screen. "I take it tonight was a bad one?"
"Dad and I used to watch this every Sunday, without fail," Alexis replied, not answering the question.
"My dad got up to watch Saturday morning cartoons with me," Kate agreed, letting the subject drop. "No matter what."
Alexis rolled her eyes. "My dad...
"... Still watches Saturday morning cartoons," Kate finished with her. She smiled. "I know."
"He wakes you up?" Alexis inquired.
"Every Saturday for the last eight weeks," the detective answered. "Seven on the dot, which is very early when you're recovering from a gunshot wound."
The teenager stiffened, then blew out a breath. "You say it so casually," she said after a moment. "Like it's an everyday occurrence."
Kate knew she had to choose her next words carefully. Very carefully. "It's a hazard of the job," she replied eventually. "It's not the first time I've been shot."
Alexis' laugh was shaky. "And that makes it easier?"
"On me, maybe," Kate allowed. "On my loved ones... probably not so much, I had to call my day daily for the first three weeks after I was released until he finally absorbed that I was, indeed, okay." Then she snorted. "And your dad had to give him a full run down of all of the doctors and specialists and therapists I was going to be seeing here. It wasn't until they were both sure I was getting the best that my dad finally let up."
"It was pretty scary," Alexis whispered, head tilted forward to hide her face behind a curtain of hair.
Kate reached out. This wasn't what she'd anticipated when she'd come down for water, but she recognized that Alexis hadn't exactly had the chance to talk it out like she and Rick had. It wasn't that they'd forgotten about her, simply that though they'd talked to the teenager daily, they'd all really avoided the shooting and it's repercussions.
"I'm okay," Kate began carefully. "We're all okay."
"And what if you hadn't been?"
'What if's were dangerous. Kate knew that well. But Kate was much older than Alexis' seventeen years. "You and your dad would have gone on," she answered wisely, both because she'd already experienced it and because she knew Alexis needed a concrete answer. "It's just what you do."
"No," Alexis said, the anxiousness back and actually pushing the teen into pacing the length of the den just in front of Kate. "It would have broken him."
"For a while," Kate agreed. "But that's normal. Even your dad would move on." Since she hadn't died, the thought of Rick with someone else, 'moving on', made her stomach roll uncomfortably. She reached out and caught Alexis' wrist. "None of that matters, Lex. I'm here, safe, alive and whole."
"But you'll go back," Alexis replied.
"Getting shot isn't on my daily agenda," the detective pointed out wryly. "In fact, I usually do my utmost to avoid it. Especially since you and your dad came into my life."
"But the chance is always there."
"Risk is a part of life, Alexis. Yours, mine, your dad's... You risk your life every time you leave the house, every time you're out alone, whenever you get on the subway." Kate tightened her grip on the thin hand. "Bianca was... crazy. The people I deal with on my job aren't usually crazy." She paused. "Is that what your nightmare was about?"
Alexis froze and blinked. "I didn't say anything about a nightmare." But she didn't have to. It was written all over her face, in every tense line of her body, in every tremble of her hands. She collapsed to the couch and Kate thought for a moment that Alexis was going to tell her everything. When nothing came out after a few minutes, she bit back a sigh.
"If I don't get upstairs soon your dad's going to worry," she said quietly. She'd hoped it would be enough for Alexis to start talking and she found herself disappointed when nothing was forthcoming. She sighed out loud as she started climbing the stairs, seeing Rick just coming out of their room when she hit the top landing. He held his arms open for her and she burrowed close, breathing him in as her fingers fisted in the elastic of his boxers.
"You were gone a while," he murmured into her hair.
"I got caught up with Alexis," Kate admitted. "She was watching Bugs Bunny."
Rick rested his chin on her head. "That's comfort TV," he said. "Everything okay?"
"I don't know," she answered. "I'm starting to wonder if she's mad at me, like Dr Brown said you were."
Dr Garrett Brown had been 'treating' them both since they'd made it to the Hamptons. He was an old school friend of Rick's. They'd gone through college together and Garrett now ran a successful practice in psychology. Gary, as Rick often called him, had been making the two hour drive to Rick's monsterous playhouse three times a week for the last ten weeks. It had been two weeks ago that they'd all agreed to downgrade it to twice. They'd see him once a week when they returned to New York in September.
Garrett had managed to peg something about them right off the bat, and that was that Rick was mad at Kate for taking the bullet meant for him. That hadn't surprised Kate, since she was a veteran of getting shot, and she'd been remarkably understanding about the whole thing. But Rick knew she was wondering if now Alexis was mad at her for getting shot at all. It had made a mess of their family dynamic and had left Alexis in New York for two months while Kate recovered away from the insanity of the city and the lure of the precinct.
Rick blew out a sigh. "Gary explained that I wasn't really mad at you."
"Yes you were. You thought I should have just let you get shot. And I told you that it would have utterly destroyed Alexis." She snorted in derision then pulled away with a wide smile. "As if I was going to let you take a bullet when I was perfectly capable of doing that myself."
He kissed her fiercely. "I hate it when you make light of it."
"I know," Kate answered softly. "But that's because you're stuck on what could have happened instead of what did happen." Internally, she was chuckling to herself. It was a variation on the same theme and they'd had countless versions of the conversation including one or two with Garrett. It was Garrett's words she's been paraphrasing.
"And you have to joke about it, I know." He leaned down to press a kiss to the scar showing along the strap of her tank top. It was still pink, still not completely healed. "Another battle wound for my warrior."
She chuckled, just a little, realizing this was the normalcy Alexis had probably been missing at home. Maybe, Kate thought to herself, she just needs us to act like we're normal, like everything's okay.
"Come on Superman," she murmured, pressing her mouth to his. "I could use a couple more hours."
Rick scooped her into his arms and Kate realized he had other ideas when he licked his way up her collarbone and nibbled on her pulse point.
"Okay," she said breathlessly as her bones melted and he kicked the door closed behind them. "I guess sleep can wait."
So, this took on a mind of it's own. In a big way. And it's resulted in a nice little hullabaloo for my brain. To that end, a few things:
1) Garrett's added a whole new dimension to this story I hadn't anticipated on. As a result, I'm having to put "Back in New York" on hold because it's caught up to this one, and Hamptons isn't there yet. It'll be a little while until NY is updated because this has to meet up with it first. Elsewise, you're getting spoilers and I don't quite want that just yet. The good news is that it means these updates will be coming a bit quicker. I've got at least the next chapter sketched out and kind of written so I'm hoping to clean that up and get it posted in the next 24-48. "There and Back" should be updated soon too.
2) If you're a "Memoir" follower, I have kind of bad news. Due to unforseen issues, SSW and I are having to put that on hold until we can puzzle our way through them. With the case as such a main focus, we've had to make sure we're following it closely and we want to iron out some of the ending before we keep building it. Hopefully we'll get something to you soon, but I don't want to make promises and guarantees.
3) Dead links. It happens. Every year, the site does maintenance and upgrades and we lose alerts, review alerts and sometimes, the links go dead for a while. Hopefully you guys are willing to be patient and just keep checking back. Sometimes it takes and extra couple of hours (sometimes, like a day) to get all of the links updated. Don't panic! It's there, the site's just being a pain in uploading it. (I'm off my soap box now!)
4) I'd love to know what you think. I always want to know what you think. This chapter didn't turn out at all the way it was originally planned, so I'm three times as interested in what you think. In the meantime, I'm going to go see if Garrett and Alexis are going to cooperate and see if I can get back to you with another new chapter tomorrow!
