Prove It

December 28, 2010

With the holidays now over, Kate had returned to the regular hustle and bustle of the Twelfth and never had she been more excited about it. What she was doing with Rick – and she was stubbornly resisting giving it a proper title – was a terrifying experience for her, partially because of what he'd put on the line the previous night, but also because she knew that as much as he had to prove himself, she had to be willing to open up in a similar way. She had a lot of walls, justifiable ones, and asking Rick to prove himself was going to be useless if she couldn't battle back some of those barricades.

And it would make his bid for her heart impossible.

It actually didn't come as a surprise that she didn't want it to be impossible. Christmas had been fun, and she'd truly enjoyed herself. It had felt really good to share herself and even better to sure her mother. Rick hadn't belittled any of it either. He'd embraced every piece of Johanna she'd been willing to share – and simultaneously every piece of herself – regardless of the fact that he hated the holiday. She'd opened up to him, and didn't that mean something in itself?

There was no obligation either. She wasn't in this "chance" because she felt she had to be. Sure, he'd set it up like he wasn't giving her a choice, but she was under no illusion that it was, and always would be a choice she could renege on. And she certainly didn't feel like she had to give him the chance because he'd put aside his feelings on Christmas to share her traditions.

Finally giving up on even the pretense of paperwork, Kate dropped her head into her hands. She wasn't all that good with bombshells and Rick had dropped a number on her the previous night. Hadn't she proven she didn't do well with surprises? Especially ones of a personal nature like he'd been tossing at her like tennis balls?

She couldn't deny he had a history. It would be naïve of her to do so. There was even a part of her that didn't want to jump to the conclusion that the same thing would happen to them. There was a part of her that wanted to be different, hell needed to be different. Because there was a part of her that wanted them to work.

And that alone terrified her.

He'd made the very true point of mentioning that their relationship would take everything out of them. It already had. The roller coaster they'd already been on in the last year gave evidence to such a thing. But Kate, despite his accusation that she was the one who demanded everything, had never opened herself up that much. It terrified her to think of how far out of her comfort zone he was going to push her.

It became a twofold question: one, was she willing to let him see her at her most vulnerable, and two, would he catcher, hold her, when she took the tumble?

"Detective."

She jumped. Actually jolted. Then, with an embarrassed blush blossoming on her face, looked up at Rick. "Hi."

"Hi," he answered, concern in his eyes as his eyebrow rose curiously. He was a little afraid, in the clear light of day, that he'd dumped too much on her the previous night. "Looks like I interrupted some deep thoughts."

God, he hoped his voice didn't tremble as much as he thought it did.

"Yes. Um, no." Crap. She shuffled a few papers. "Where's my coffee?" Best defense was a good offense, she reminded herself. Distract him.

Rick's entire demeanor changed immediately as he settled against her desk. "I was thinking we could go out for it. And lunch."

Kate's eyes darted to the clock. She'd forgotten that analyzing her relationship with the man leaning beside her took up more time than she could really devote to it while sitting at her desk. She chewed her lip. "Like-"

"A date," he finished, lowering his voice appropriately for the precinct.

She sucked in a breath. Why was this so much more than the other times he'd asked? She felt the pressure beneath the question, the slow bleed of her personal into her professional life. And yet…

"Yeah," she said quietly. "Okay."

Because they were in the precinct, he restrained every instinct to help her slide the coat over her shoulders and resolutely slid his hands into his pockets so he wouldn't touch her. But he really wanted to. They walked out of the precinct and she stepped closer, surprising him as her shoulder brushed against his. Her looked over to find her chewing her lips.

She waited until they were around the corner and out of sight of the precinct before she spoke. "You know, I agreed to a date, Rick."

He grinned, wide and pretty much involuntarily. His hand cupped her elbow then slid down until he could take her hand in his. He tried not to choke on his tongue when she deliberately wove their fingers together He cleared his throat. "So, are you going to tell me what you were thinking about?"

"It wasn't a case."

"That wasn't my question."

Kate looked over at him. There was no bloody way she was anywhere close to being ready to tell him about the mental upheaval she'd gone through. Not a chance. "Nope," she replied, then she went with instinct and kissed his cheek. "I have to keep some secrets. You'll get bored with me if I don't."

She'd walked into a cliché, but he couldn't stop himself. He hated when she said that, not because it reflected badly on him – though it did – but because it reflected badly on her. He tugged her to the inner edge of the sidewalk, out of the passing lunch traffic and pulled her hand to his mouth. The kiss he placed on her palm was chaste, but he knew his eyes were honest and heated. "I won't get sick of you, Kate."

"I believe you believe that," she said after a moment, her voice a low murmur.

Instead of being offended, he chuckled. "For someone so confident, it never ceases to shock me how little you think of yourself."

"Oh, come on, Rick." She rolled her eyes.

"Why don't you think you're good enough?" he blurted. He really did want to know, wanted to understand, and pulled her closer with an arm wrapped around her back. "Because despite the fact that I know neither of us think I'm good enough, you rebuff every complement, sincere or not, I give you. And I'm pretty sure it's not because you don't think I'm serious."

Kate swallowed. Thickly. Panic welled in her chest. "Weren't we going for lunch?"

He stared her down for a few more minutes, searching though the anxiety in her gaze. Then he grinned widely. "Never step between Kate Beckett and her caffeine."

They had a diner that was 'theirs', different from Remy's and just a few blocks away from the precinct. They were greeted by name as they stepped in and she tugged him to a table. They settled on opposite sides of the booth, their feet tangling immediately. A shy smile broke out over Kate's face.

"So, Master Romancer," she teased gently, unable to stand the silence. "What's the plan for Date Two?"

"There isn't one," he admitted sheepishly. He couldn't stop himself from reaching out to take her hands. "This was a little bit of an impulse. I just wanted to see you."

"You see me every day at the precinct, you don't have to take me out to lunch" she replied, even as she blushed. "You don't have anything planned?"

"Kate, I'm flying by the seat of my pants with you," he admitted. "You're real."

Whether he realized the deliberate phrasing or not, her spine stiffened in automatic response.

His thumb slid over the back of her hand. "I'm not sure I remember how to do real."

The next words came without a real conscious move on her part and were out of her mouth before she even really realized it. "What happened last time?"

Awareness sparked through his gaze. He was the king of speaking in metaphors and recognized her question for what it was. "It was… Hard," he admitted, tightening his grip on her hands. "Your first love is always intense. When you're that young, you think it's going to last forever. So when it doesn't… Some people bounce back and realize that first love doesn't mean only love and some are so hurt by it that they bury themselves in other things."

Their food came then – as regulars, they so very often didn't have to order and because they'd been in so many times for a quick lunch between leads, it always came fast – and they took a moment to take a few bites. Then Rick swallowed, putting down his sandwich and reaching out to brush his fingers against her wrist.

"Everything was so new. We were so young and yet… we were so in love. We thought we could conquer anything. I was fresh off my first bestseller and slated for amazing things. We were still in school and still had so much of our lives ahead of us. And that meant that there was always going to be a time where we were going to have to go our separate ways."

"Why didn't you go after her?" Kate asked, stealing a fry from his plate, even though she had her own.

"Because I thought she really did want space. I was still moping over her when I met Meredith and that was a relationship that seemed so simple. The sex…"

She winced, though it was half exaggerated, and he grinned.

"And then there was Alexis and I didn't want my daughter raised the same way I was."

"So you married her."

He shrugged. "I was still young, still stupid. After that… After she cheated…"

"There was Alexis to consider." Kate could put the story together from there. Alexis was his world and she knew he was the type of father that didn't introduce his daughter to a woman he was dating unless he had plans for her to stick around. She breathed out a breath, the looked up at him.

"How am I different?"

"I trust you," he said, like it was the most obvious answer in the world. "I know you. You're not going to cheat. If you decide that we're going to do this, I know you'll put your whole heart into it. It won't be something you'll do on a whim, so I know that we're both going to be on the same page." This time, he grasped her hand. "And I'm older now, wiser, in some respects. I have a pretty good idea of the woman I want. I don't want a celebutante or a bimbette, as you so eloquently call them. I want real. I want someone who's going to keep me on my toes. I want someone who understands my family. I want to be able to look into the future and know that the woman beside me is going to keep me guessing for the next fifty years."

God, he'd overwhelmed her again. She could only squeeze his hand as she looked back down at her meal. She was just about to reply when her phone rang. There was apology in her eyes as she reached for the device.

"Beckett."

"We've got one," Esposito told her on the other end. "West Broadway and Spring." The other detective paused. "It's Beckett Flavoured."

She rolled her eyes. "I wish you guys would stop saying that. It makes me sound twisted."

"When you look at the cases you get, Boss, you kinda are."

Kate made a mental note to hit Esposito when she got to the crime scene. "We'll be right there." She hung up the phone, then looked to Rick. "Body dropped."

He wiped his hands on his napkin. "This doesn't count."

She was already pulling on her coat. "What?"

"As one of our dates. We didn't finish it. It doesn't count."

"Rick-"

"You promised."

Good Lord, she hated when he went all earnest and sincere on her. She rolled her eyes and headed out of the restaurant. Kate sucked in a breath on the sidewalk as the door swung closed behind him, turning and stopping his movement towards the car with a hand on his chest.

"Not tomorrow," she said quietly.

It took him a minute to realize she was talking about Date Two. "Why not?"

"It's been… an emotional couple of days, Rick," she said with a gentle smile. Her hand came up from his chest to brush his cheek. "We need time."

"I don't," he blurted.

She looked at him, closely, carefully. The fear was there, buried behind his deceivably bright grin. But Kate knew what she was looking for. "I'm not running," she told him, surprising even herself with how sincere she was. She didn't want to run. She just… needed a minute. She needed to find her balance in everything he'd said over the last forty-eight hours, and she needed to do it with the closest thing to a clear head she could. "I just… You've given me a lot of information in a short time."

"It's too much, isn't it?" He squeezed her hands. "It was too much."

"No," Kate said forcefully, shaking her head. It was moments like these – the nerves, the uncertainty, the vulnerability – that spoke better than his words did. He was a writer; she didn't always trust his words. But when he was so open like this, so afraid of what she would do, she couldn't help but see how important she was. So she leaned up, ignoring the street around them, to touch her mouth to his.

Rick latched on, releasing one of her hands so his could tangle in her hair. She squeaked, just slightly, in surprise, but he didn't hear it. He took her under swiftly, skillfully, and Kate found herself unsure of which way was up, and which was down. It was a heady and terrifying feeling.

And yet, it was damned thrilling.

She arched against his body, allowing herself to respond without thought. It was a glorious feeling, even though there was a part of her screaming at her that they were in the middle of a sidewalk. Her arms snuck around his waist and she let herself be dragged under the heat.

"I'm not saying I want to stop," she said when they pulled away and she managed to catch her breath again. "I'm not saying I don't want to... put an end to our agreement, I guess. I'm asking for time to think about what you've told me. I need to think."

He knew that. She always needed to think. But he wasn't sure he was going to like the outcome if she didn't. And he wanted to make sure that this didn't count towards his three dates. "We still get a Date Two," he pushed, leaning in again. "This one was interrupted by murder."

"Rick, a lot of our dates are going to be interrupted by murder," she mumbled against his mouth.

"I know," he replied, the brush of his mouth soft this time, like he couldn't get enough of her. "And I would never ask you to change your job or stop working just for a date. I just want my chance."

This time, she chuckled. "And you don't think you'll get it if we're interrupted by my job?"

"No," he replied, pulling away to stroke a thumb softly over her cheek. "I want the chance to take you out, treat you like a princess."

She laughed, even as her heart beat thickly in her chest. "We just had Date One-Point-Five in a greasy diner, Rick."

He grinned, wide, and she knew it had everything to do with her subtle agreement on a real Date Two. "Then we'll just have to make Date Two extravagant, won't we?"

Kate rolled her eyes and shook her head, then followed instinct and kissed him again. "Come on. Someone's dead. And I do believe Esposito used the phrase 'Beckett-flavoured'."

His face transformed into a gleeful grin, a trace of heat still dancing through his baby blues. "I love Beckett-flavoured."

Kate rolled her eyes.

2800+ words later...

I battled with this one, which is why it took so much longer than I wanted to. There were things I wanted to make sure got said and things I wanted to address, and then other little ideas popped in... It's been an arduous fight with this chapter. And I'm having the same problem over on New England too. Which is only annoying because I've pushed my school work out of the way and now my irrational guilt complex is kicking in. I need a shrink.

BUT! The point at the end of the day is that I'm pretty sure I like what I've done here. There's some things that are deliberately worded, questions I've left deliberately unanswered... Is it sad that I'm finding the set up twice as much fun as thinking of the end?

Typos and mistakes are mine. All mine. Like always, I'll probably find them eventually.

Half way there...