Woot woot! Here we go.
I own nothing...I swear...
She had found him in the basement of the Old Haunt. It was the second place she had checked after he had refused to pick up his phone and a disgruntled and sleepy looking Martha had opened the door and told her to check for herself if he was there or not before going back to sleep. He hadn't been. She knew that he wouldn't go to the precinct; it held too many memories. And that left only one place, the bar he had bought that had harbored him in his fledgling career.
He was sitting in one of the armchairs he had put down there; the really comfortable ones that he had dragged Kate to help pick out on the basis that she was obviously going to be down there with him at some point in time and therefore should really be a part of the decision making process that went along with the seating arrangements.
There was a half empty bottle of scotch in his hand and a look on his face that Kate had never seen before; despair.
He had always been the hopeful one in their relationship, the one with the bright and happy outlook on life and the assurance that everything was going to be ok. That was gone, and he looked like he was in the midst of drowning with no hope of a rescue. That in itself almost stopped her. She had caused this; she was the only one responsible for the state he was in now. She should walk away, leave and never look back, because then she wouldn't ever be able to hurt him again.
And then he looked up, alerted by some unknown force to her presence at the top of the stairs, and everything shifted. His pain was still just as raw and unveiled, but hidden within the depths of that desolation there was now a glimmer of hope as he stared at her. And that was all it took.