A/N: You came back. You signed up for this. You know what you're getting.


3

Kate woke up with a splitting headache and the video still playing on repeat. She turned it off, the sound of his voice when she could see the empty bed now unbearable. She forced herself up to get some water from the kitchen but a wave of nausea came over her when she got out the glass and she threw up in the sink. She turned on the tap to wash everything away; it was mostly water and acid anyway. Then she got herself a drink and some painkillers, she didn't even notice which packet she popped three pills out of before she swallowed them. She heard someone behind her.

"Kate," the someone whispered. The adult, the woman, the graduate who was now just a little girl again.

"Alexis," she replied gently, the pounding in her head making it hard for her to focus. Lex must have let herself in; she didn't live at the loft any more but she still had an emergency key.

"I did knock," Alexis said nervously. Kate shook her head.

"Don't worry about it. You can come in, this is as much your place as it is mine."

Alexis stood there helplessly. Kate looked how she felt; the fact that she was holding her exterior together better was because... this was the first time. She still had hope, somehow, she still had hope for the future. She knew it was what her father would have wanted and so she did it. She was strong.

Kate had given up on being strong.

"Can I help you with anything?" Kate asked after they had stood looking at each other for a minute more.

"No... I just wanted to see you."

"You see me," Kate said quietly. "Do you need anything else?"

"I don't want to be on my own," Alexis admitted. "And my friends would be there for me but..."

Kate knew what she meant. It was just uncomfortable. But she didn't want company right now, and though she felt disgustingly cruel, she told Alexis to call her grandmother.

"I just... I can't talk about anything. I don't think I'm well, I just need to go to bed," she tried to explain. Alexis nodded.

"I understand," she lied. She walked up to Kate and gave her a hug; Kate just managed not to pull away. Touching anyone now made her skin crawl. She didn't understand it. She loved Alexis like her own daughter, they'd become so close since she'd moved in with Rick but now... everything was different. Alexis left, her eyes wet with tears, and Kate went back to bed.

She couldn't stop thinking about how she'd treated the girl, the woman, the... daughter. She knew it had been wrong, she'd known when she'd done it and she knew now. But she...

And then she realised why. She had always dreamed of being a mother. A real mother, to a baby, a baby that was hers and Rick's. She would never be that now. They would never raise a child together, he would never father a baby in her. Which meant she would never have a baby. She ran a hand over her stomach, flat and smooth, remembering how Rick had touched it when she'd had that scare a year ago. It had been a false alarm, she'd just been late, but it had still been...

"...perfect," he murmured. Kate was lying on the bed waiting for the result of the pregnancy test that they'd rushed out and bought together.

"You really think it would be?"

"A child of mine?" he joked. "Of course."

Kate chuckled. "It wouldn't be so bad."

"I had wanted to marry you first."

"Me too."

Then they stared at each other, conscious that they had both accidentally said something of huge importance, something that they had both known for a while but saying it made it... real. Kate jumped up to look at the test and laughed with mingled relief and disappointment.

"It's negative," she said. Rick got up and kissed her; she loved him for knowing that even though it would have been difficult and impractical, she was still sad.

They had never really got engaged. Kate had woken up the next morning to Rick slipping a ring on her finger and that was that. He had offered to take it off and 'do it properly' but she had just laughed and said this way was better. She twisted her ring around her finger; her wedding ring too. She liked the feel of it, the weight, the difference... It meant what it had when he had put it on her. The ring hadn't done anything, the ring hadn't known, the ring still symbolised the promise which she was still going to keep...

Kate began to lose all track of time. She slept, she used the bathroom, she drank water and ate occasionally. She'd been given extended leave from work – unpaid, but she didn't need the money. He hadn't just left her everything – it had all been hers anyway, because they were married. Gates had visited, an awkward, short encounter, with brusque condolences and nervous glances. Gates had said her job would be there for her when she wanted to come back. Wanted. Kate barely even understood 'want' any more. Because there was only one thing in the world that she wanted and she couldn't have it. There was only one thing in the world that mattered to her – and it wasn't even in the damn world any more!

She began to read his books. She didn't know when she started, how long it had been... she just began to read them. She saved the ones about her until last. There were seven. She read all the time. She read the love scenes which she had been the inspiration for, screaming inside at the passion he had clearly had for her from the very beginning. Four whole years. For years where they could have been together but because of her stubbornness she had almost driven him away.

The fifth book was her favourite. She could feel the change in his writing, the elation at his dream finally coming true, the heat that was so much stronger...

She must have devoted several weeks to reading. She didn't want to finish but inevitably she reached the end of the seventh volume and was left sitting alone in bed with nothing but paper in her hands. She went through to the bathroom, forcing herself to have a shower. She managed showers by imagining him. His breath on her neck as he unbuttoned her shirt, his hands on her skin rubbing soap over her body, his fingers massaging shampoo in her hair, his body pressed against hers as she stood under the stream of warm water...

When she wrapped the towel around her shoulders she could almost feel his arms pressed around her. He liked to hold her like this...

Kate got out of the shower and shivered as she always did before taking her towel off the rack and pulling it tightly around her shoulders. Rick looked at her through the open bathroom door.

"Are you cold?" he asked. "I could turn the heat up."

She shook her head. "It's just a... thing. I've had it since I was a kid – I always shiver and feel weird when I get out of the shower."

Rick got out of bed and took off his shirt and boxers as he walked towards her. He hugged her from behind, pressing his warm, dry body against hers. He soothed her instantly; the strange cold that appeared in her chest bubbled into nothingness and she relaxed, leaning back against his chest.

Kate shuddered. The cold was there for good now. She dried herself quickly and went back into the bedroom, putting on a t-shirt and a pair of his boxers. She had lost a lot of weight. Martha was very worried about her, but Martha didn't live at the loft any more. Alexis had been over a few more times but Kate didn't like company. It just made the sadness more pronounced.

She pulled on a soft blue sweater, also Rick's, and sat down on the bed. She opened his laptop and for some reason glanced at the date. It had been over a month. She looked at the little number. There was something strange about it that she couldn't quite put her finger on. She stared at it, waiting for it to tell her what she wasn't seeing. And then-

More than a month. A lot more than a month. Seven weeks. She opened up the calendar programme, convinced she must be counting wrong but there it was. Seven weeks. No. No, it couldn't be, she couldn't be, it was crazy and she didn't want to be and...

Still she didn't cry. She picked up her phone but she hadn't charged it. She went through to the kitchen to get the house phone, but once it was in her hand she changed her mind. She had been going to call Lanie, or maybe Martha, or even Alexis, but she realised she didn't want them to know. She didn't want them to try to persuade her, or be excited or sad or anything like that. She would have to find out, but then... She didn't know what she would do, but...

She could not be a mother. It wasn't possible. She couldn't do it. Not without him.


A/N: So... Review. Tell me what you think will happen. Apologies to the adorable people who are trying to figure out a way for Rick to still be alive. He isn't. He is dead. I'm sorry. If you want living Rick go read Lady Beckett or Fixing the Mistake.