He walks home, slowly, meandering around the city, intentionally going in the wrong direction.

Trying to prolong the inevitable.

But eventually he has to go home, go to his loft where Nikki Heat lives with him, breathes through him, lures him in.

And where he has Kate's – Beckett's – murder board set up. Where he has that extra information. Where he has the one last connection he thinks he is going to have with her.

When he finally gets home, hours and hours later, he doesn't flick on every light as he normally does. He just heads straight for his study. Stands around for a moment.

It's dark.

He considers taking off his coat, sitting down, giving himself a moment to break down.

But he's afraid he couldn't pull it together after that. And he needs to keep himself together for just a little while longer.

Long enough to go to her apartment with the file, put so neatly on a flash drive. Briefly explain himself.

At least there's that. Now, he doesn't feel like he needs to explain himself so much. She doesn't really deserve it, not after all of this.

He doesn't give himself another moment to hesitate. He shuffles through his drawers, finds it, pockets it, and turns right around.

Right back into the night, towards more pain that he hopes he can withstand.


She's only marginally surprised by the knock on her door.

She tamps down the silly hope that, unbidden, rises in her chest.

Maybe he's here to fight for me.

Maybe I would let him win.

No. No. Not that. Anything but that.

She checks the peephole, confirming her suspicions. Opens the door just enough to see him.

"I'm not here to bother you."

She steps back. This is what's happening. This is what's she done. She wants to reach out, card her hands through his hair. Not bothering, Rick. Never bothering.

When she doesn't respond, he continues.

"I just have to give you something. You're not going to like this. I don't like this. But there's nothing else." She hears what he isn't saying. Nothing else to salvage. Nothing else to hold on to.

Suddenly, he's holding his hand out to her, and what appears to be a flash drive is in his palm.

She's frozen.

"Beckett. Take it." His voice is firm.

She reaches out. "What is it?" Her voice surprises her. He pulls his hand away as fast as he can. Doesn't want to touch her. She doesn't blame him.

"After you were..." A breath. "After the funeral. I got a call from someone. Someone who claimed to be a friend of Montgomery's. Someone who claimed to have information about your shooting. About your mother's case."

She steps further back.

He makes no move to follow her.

"He said the information was meant to protect you, that it held some sort of power over whoever was behind this. That it would keep you safe, as long as you stayed away from the case. As long as you stopped investigating."

Her mind is working in overdrive, gears turning, blood rushing loudly.

"So that's why I asked you to stop." He doesn't finish his thought, but she can fill in the blanks. The unspoken words are like phantoms around her. Because I love you. Because I couldn't stand by and watch this happen again.

He apparently isn't finished. "I tried to put some things together. All of the new information I have is on there." He takes a deep breath. "I want you to stay away from it. Of course. But. Well. You very clearly don't want my help. So. I guess I have to give it to you. Give you my lie in exchange for yours."

She's stepped completely away from him, has retreated well inside the apartment. He has to raise his voice to reach her, but he still doesn't move forward.

"I meant what I said before. That I'm sorry about putting you in a position where you felt you had to lie. I never meant to make this all worse for you."

She wants to vomit.

"But I'm not sorry about this. I can't be sorry about wanting to protect you. Because even if you don't feel it back, even though you never will, I wasn't lying that day."

She pictures the clear blue sky, the folded flag being passed into the new widow's hands, the sentiment she tried to get across to him.

The hangar. The desperation.

The shot, the tackle, the uproar. The noise. The pain.

And, above it all, floating through. Kate, I love you. I love you, Kate.

She hears a whimper and realizes a moment too late that, to her utter horror, it's from her. She's also surprised to find that she's sitting, that she's folded herself in half.

But he doesn't go to her.

She hears him take one last fortifying breath, his hand on the doorknob, the agony all over his face.

"Goodbye, Kate."

The door clicks into place.

And her world falls apart.


She's stunned. Completely and utterly blindsided.

And then she's sick.

She stumbles her way into the bathroom, just barely makes it in time, and launches herself over the toilet.

There wasn't much in her stomach to lose, but it's all gone now.

She leans back, shuffles her way to the side so that she can rest her back against the wall. Her whole body is shaking, the combination of the complete lack of nutrition, of the exhaustion, and the heartbreak all conspiring to tear her down.

She realizes that the drive is still in her hand, clenched so tightly in her fist that it's made an imprint in her palm.

Her breath catches, and she's shocked again by this complete betrayal.

He has somehow managed to – once again – go behind her back on this, keep information from her until he saw fit to release it. On the one thing that is most important to her, most sacred, her center, really.

And it's not lost on her how truly tragic that is, that her mother's murder is the center of her life. But she's no fool. She's not blind. She knows it to be true.

But then his face flashes in her mind, and his words echo in her ears.

I'm not sorry about this.

This should infuriate her, but it only deflates her. He's not sorry because he believes he was doing the right thing.

Part of her knows that he was, that had he given her this information all those months ago, she would've continued to fall. The ground was already opening at her feet, threatening to swallow her whole.

But she argues with herself, the voice inside her head indignant that this could've helped, she wouldn't have been so afraid for her life at every waking moment if she had known that they had left her alone.

She tries to let that fuel some anger, but it doesn't. She knows it's not true.

I never meant to make this all worse for you.

Ultimately, it's this that stands out. The fact that he can truly believe that his declaration was a burden, a hardship on top of the unimaginable, breaks her heart. That this is what she has led him to believe.

Because it couldn't be farther from the truth. His words kept her alive.


When he reaches the loft – this time, he takes a cab, is not willing to be among the throng of pedestrians, especially in this bone-chilling weather – he finally lets himself fall. He makes it to his study, then just drops into his chair.

Everything hurts.

He takes a deep breath, reminds himself that he is a grown-ass man with a daughter, for god's sake, and he needs to keep it together.

He's been through this before. He can do this. Really.

He stands slowly, slips out of his coat, heads to the well-stocked bar. Pours himself a generous amount of scotch.

Yes. This is how a grown-ass man handles things.

He sits back down, rubs a hand down his face.

Everything is numb. Everything hurts.

It's all a contradiction, much like the woman at the center of it all.

He takes a long drink.

He's been through this before. Had his heart ripped out in the past.

He sees Kyra boarding that flight, is still sometimes haunted by the sight of Meredith in their bed with another man, in the bed where they made their beautiful daughter, who was only just upstairs, sleeping peacefully, an innocent among it all.

The utter dissolution of his marriage to Gina is right there, too. That he can admit was his fault, at least in part. But after so much heartbreak, so much time spent relying on only himself, he had to be a little safer. Less trusting. And that, combined with Gina's inherent coolness, broke them.

Doesn't matter, though, does it? They all ended.

He has his daughter. His mother.

And he's going to stop putting his heart at risk when he stands to lose so much. He can't afford to fall again, not with his daughter right on the cusp of adulthood. She needs a strong role model, needs to keep her belief that love isn't always so painful.

He takes another long drink. Inhales. Exhales.

He can do this.


She makes her way into bed after the nausea subsided. She straightened up a little, tried to pull herself together. Dropped the flash drive onto her nightstand. Slips between the cool sheets on her bed, the chilled air seeping through the window causing shivers to run up and down her spine.

But lying on her back, she can't close her eyes. She knows she'll be visited by the specters of her past, haunting ghosts and the breath of almost just out of reach.

She runs a hand down her face, surprised to find moisture there. It's as though she's watching this unfold from above, separate from it all.

Self-protective.

But maybe – just maybe – this isn't working. For all the protection she is telling herself she is doing, she sure feels like it all hurts anyway.

At a loss, she fumbles for her phone on the nightstand, hits the first name in her favorites.

He picks up instantly, like she knew he would.

"Katie?"

Her exhale ends up a choked sob, the weight of it all crushing her chest.

"What's wrong?" He sounds terrified. She can hear him getting out of bed, can visualize him stumbling around to get dressed.

"You don't need to come. I just needed to hear your voice. I know it's late. I'm –"

"I swear to god Katie, if you say sorry, so help me – "

"Right. Ok." She almost apologizes for apologizing, stops herself just in time.

"What's wrong?" His voice is soft now, calmer once he's realized that she's not in immediate danger.

"I kicked him out." She knows she doesn't need to elaborate on the him she is referring to.

"Of the precinct?" Huh. She seems to be surprising everyone with this.

"Yes, but not just that. Out of my life." That hurts to say out loud. It makes her scar burn, her heart slam against her chest.

"Why?" He sounds truly dumbfounded, and if she weren't so heartbroken, she'd laugh.

"I don't even know anymore. I just. I can't." She's trying to slow her breathing, stop the tears from escaping again.

"Can't what?" Leave it to her dad to make her spell it out.

"There was a sniper case." She deflects instead. Tried and true method of distraction.

"And?" Ok, maybe not so tried and true. She wants to ask him why he is this alert at this hour, but she knows the answer. For her, anything.

"And it felt like the world was crashing down on me." She closes her eyes tightly against that admission. That's too much. "Sorry, sorry. I didn't mean that."

"Yes, you did. Katie, are you seeing someone about all this?" She definitely wants to laugh at that. Doesn't seem to be doing much good when she's planted her feet so firmly in the ground, backpedaling on all the progress she's been making.

"I am, actually. Since I went back to work." He doesn't try to hide his sigh of relief.

"Can we return to the original problem here? Why did you send him away?"

"I'm scared." Too much again. She wants to hit herself. She probably would if she wasn't too tired to move.

"That's a terrible reason." Is he laughing at her?

"Dad – "

"No, Katie, listen. You know why you're scared? Because it matters. If you weren't scared, that would be a problem, a cause for concern. This is going to be horrifically clichéd, but it clearly needs to be said: The best things in life start out as the scariest. You have to be willing to take that leap. Or else you're going to be left suspended in mid-air, afraid forever. And alone, too." He pauses, lets that sink in, then heads back a little, tries to inject some levity. "That was a lot of clichés. I'm only a little sorry about that."

She chuckles a little. Huh. Interesting. She hasn't lost the ability to laugh.

What does she say to that?

"Look, Katie, I'm not saying you should go bang down his door now. Clearly, you've made enough rash decisions for one day. I'm just saying, you need to think long and hard about what you want your future to look like. Because this – the way you are now – is completely heartbreaking for me. And I know how badly you don't want to hear this, but I'm going to say it anyway: This is very much not what your mother would've wanted."

And cue the waterworks. She knows he can hear her responding sobs through the phone. He's silent for several minutes while she collects herself.

"I don't want to let her down." She knows she's a broken record, knows a professional already told her that that is a literal impossibility.

She's dead, Kate. You can't let her down.

"Katie. You can only let her down by not living your life. You can only let her down by letting her murder rob you of everything she taught you before our world came crashing down that night. Solving her case? I understand that you want that closure. Trust me, I do. But one day you're going to realize that it's not enough. Solved or not, death is not something to build a life around."

She loves him for this. For hearing her, and not dismissing her. He knows she couldn't be convinced that she couldn't let her down at all.

His voice is rough as he continues. Shit. She made him cry. "Katie, I love you more than anything, and this pains me to know, and is going to hurt you to hear. Just remember that I'm saying it because I love you."

Her heart rate is up again. She's holding her breath.

"What you're doing now is the closest you can get to letting her down." And then he's choked up, and that's more than enough to throw her over the edge.

"I'm sorry, dad. I'm so sorry."