A/N: I just want to clarify that Rick and Kate will not be meeting in this or anything. It is not a Caskett story. They may bump into each other, or be at the same place at some point, but they will not be meeting properly and there will be no romance between the two.

Also, to make it more clear, this is set in the fall semester of 1998. Nebula-9 began to air over the summer and is in the last few episodes of the first (and only) season when this story picks up. This was really important for how I've visualized the story going.

I've taken some liberties with Kate's high school days, and I doubt that the writers would make Kate as insecure as I have, but I don't think she is too OOC. Let me know if you think she is.

Sorry if the formatting is a bit weird, posting from iPad. Will fix when I get to a computer.

Kate bit at her lip as she walked from the library to her dorm room. She was nervous. She didn't know why; Henry was just a friend. She was always nervous these days. Back in New York, Kate knew who she was and knew her place, but in California? In California she was just another girl who wasn't blonde enough or pretty enough. She had never been the most secure or confident girl, but this complete self-doubt was new.

In high school, she wasn't one of the pretty girls,even though her mother insisted she was. her mother had to say that. Her mother had to sing her praises and tell her how great she was. She was fit, but she wasn't one of the athletic girls. She was smart, but hardly the top of her class, although that was partly due to her failure to apply herself, at least according to her parents. She wasn't an angel, but was hardly a bad girl. At Stuy, she was just Kate. She didn't have a spot where she fit perfectly, so she made herself fit. She had friends, and she had plenty of them, but not best friends. She had barely been out of school and had already lost contact with Maddy, one of her closest friends at school, though that was more because of Brent Edwards than anything else.

Even though her parents weren't fans of the friendship that emerged from 9th grade French class, Kate loved everything that being Maddy's friend entailed. Maddy was gorgeous: blonde her, blue eyes and really skinny - she was everything boys wanted, and she knew it. Maddy knew how to act to get the right sort of attention from the right sort of people and she took Kate under her wing and made her somebody. For the first time, people were noticing Kate for who she was and she started to believe the things her parents had been telling her for years.

To Jim and Johanna Beckett, however, Madison Queller was nothing more than a bad influence. They saw the changes in their quiet baby girl and blamed her new friend for the Social butterfly that she changed into. Kate would roll her eyes every time they began to lecture her - couldn't they see that she finally had a group? They were worried that she would be one of the 'bad girls', but Kate continued to stay in their good books. Like her lawyer parents, Kate was good with her words, the skill getting her out of trouble regularly.

Thanks to Madison, Kate soon had plans every weekend, from parties to trips to holiday homes. She was rarely without a boyfriend and even managed to snare a date with the french exchange student that everyone said was actually royal. She was Stuy's "it girl" and it was all thanks to Madison Queller. The pair were inseparable, even going so far as to get matching tattoos one Friday night.

Kate could only imagine what her parents would say if they knew about the tattoos! Her mother may have been relatively cool about the motorbike, but she would have gone mental if she knew her baby girl had a tattoo! If Kate was honest with herself, her mother would have gone mental if she knew half the things her daughter had done. If they knew the truth, there would definitely have been partying when Maddy and Kate had stopped talking in senior year.

The Brent Edwards thing really was silly, and the more Kate thought about it, the more she regretted everything that had happened. They had made out it was this immensely complicated situation, when really it couldn't be more simple. Halfway through senior year, they realised that they liked the same boy and it was apparently the end of the world. Maddy had accused Kate of copying her (in everything) and Kate retaliated, claiming that Maddy was jealous of her. At that point, they stopped speaking. It was beyond stupid and, when he found out about their fight, Brent had announced that he didn't have time for school-girl games and that he wouldn't go out with either of them. When Kate found out that they had both lost, she considered reaching out to Maddy but she was too embarrassed.

The rest of senior year had continued much like before for Kate, the only difference seemed to be the absence of Madison. The party invitations kept coming and her Stuy classmates generally treated her as if nothing had changed. To everyone, other than her parents, Kate seemed to be the same confident and outgoing girl. People treated her exactly the same, so she tried to act the same. It was the only thing she knew to do. At Stanford, however, no one knew who she was. She was just another girl.

As she reached her room, she dropped her heavy book bag and reached into her pocket for her room key. The last thing she wanted tonight was to go hang out with Henry and his friends. He had said they were all massive fans of the show, Nebula-9 was it? She'd never seen it, and Henry had a tendency to understate things. Knowing him, Kate would show up and he and all his friends would be in costume. She really didn't want to go and watch some show she didn't know, and thinking about the past had her wanting to hide from the world.

Unlocking the door, she picked up her book bag and entered the room, before dumping it on her bed. She glanced at the pinboard on the wall above her bed, filled with photos of her family and from her time at Stuy. She reached over, fingers dancing over the memories. Her fingers landed on a photo of her and Maddy, standing awkwardly on the stairs in her parents home before homecoming in junior year. Placed next to it was a strip from a photo booth later in the night, where they looked so happy, pulling faces and giggling. Her eyes next fell to a photo with her parents, taken on a trip to Disneyland when she was 15. She had pretended she was too cool and argued when her mother had presented her with a pair of mouse ears to wear, but she honestly thought it was the coolest thing ever. She really missed her parents.

Kate sighed, scrunching her face to stop the tears from forming. She knew what she had to do. She took the two steps from the bed to the desk, reaching for the phone and dialing the numbers that she knew so well. The phone only rang twice before it was answered.

"Katie, is that you?"

"Hi dad. I really miss you!"

(~Always~)

Rick picked up his sleeping daughter from in front of the television, taking care not to cake her. He carried her into her bedroom and placed her under the covers which he then pulled up over her. He brushed a stray hair from her cheek, "goodnight my angel," he whispered softly before gently pressing his lips to her forehead. He leaned over her to switch the small nightlight on then stood and turned the main light off as he left his daughter's bedroom. Returning to the lounge room, Rick paused the video of 'The Little Mermaid' using the remote. It was Alexis' favourite movie and she watched it on a near daily basis. He sat on the couch, switching the TV to a late night talk show.

A connoisseur of parenting books, Rick worried that her obsession could be indicative of something else, more than just a little girl loving a movie. She was three, an age where such signs tended to emerge and, while Meredith hadn't been much of a mother to Alexis, she had regressed substantially when her mother left. Rick put it down to a little girl missing her mother, but he was beginning to think it might be more than just that. He sighed as he stood, deciding to do some more research at the desk that was his makeshift office.

Rick wasn't struggling financially, not by any means, but he wanted the best for his daughter and was all too aware that his success would not necessarily continue. When he royalties for his previous book began to arrive, he invested most of it in a high-interest account to use for Alexis' education later. Sure, it meant the pair were living in a tiny apartment but he had been trying to live within his means, especially after the speed at which he had spent the earnings of his first best seller! Living economically had even much easier since Meredith had left, that was for sure.

He flipped through the various web pages letting his mind wander. He was probably over thinking things; Alexis would make eye contact with him and, given recent events, regressing made plenty of sense. Her whole world had been turned upside down. So she fixated on The Little Mermaid. It wasn't so bad?

Rick changed to the document he had open, deciding to review the writing he had done that day. It was always difficult to work during the day, but his mother was in town and had spent the day with Alexis. As much as he loved getting some writing done for a change, he had found himself missing Alexis. A phone call jolted him out of his thoughts, and he reached for the phone as quickly as he could so it wouldn't wake his daughter. "Hello?"

"Richard! It's your mother"

"Ah mother! How was the show?"

"Oh it was a trainwreck Richard! Has Alexis gone to bed?"

"Fell asleep in front of 'The Little Mermaid'. You really tired her out today."

"She really does love that movie doesn't she?"

"Watches it almost every day. Not sure if I should be concerned about that."

"You know why she loves it so much, don't you?" his mother paused, waiting for an answer he could never given "She loves it because Ariel is the only Disney princess with red hair. I guess it makes her feel pretty or something."

Rick let out a laugh, "Of course, and it makes perfect sense that she started watching it so often after Meredith left!"

"Speaking of which, I was at the cast party after the show tonight and I ran into a director friend. Apparently he's been struggling to cast the lead in his new show and I'm perfect for the part -"

"- so you're moving back to the city!"

"Yes, but don't be expecting me to babysit all the time. I am here working."

"Of course, Mother."