SOME ROAD WORK

"Kate?"

"Well?"

"Well what? Kate, are you hurt, or sick?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Kate, it's 3:35am, What's the matter?"

"Oh, I thought it was a little after 7:15am. I guess I didn't look at the clock very closely. I'm sorry."

"Are you alright? You obviously aren't sleeping. Did something happen?"

"I fell asleep after you told me to do 'those things we do', but it didn't last very long. All I could think about was my anger and you telling me you were going to talk to Gina. Why do you have to talk to her?"

"It's not that I have to talk to her, it's just that I may be able to try to head off some things that could happen that could effect you by using some of her contacts. Is this about me trying to protect you, or is it about Gina?"

"When you say it like that, I guess it's about both. I caused this to happen, and I'm not looking for you to clean it up. I'm not a prima donna, nor am I a loose woman. I'm fine with my virtue, you don't have to run in and save it for me, especially since you are the one that is getting raked over the coals by this whole thing."

"Do you really want to talk about this at three thirty on a Saturday morning? You should be asleep so that you can have a nice restful day off."

"Right, like that's going to happen. Well, did you talk to her?"

"I tried her cell phone last night, but didn't reach her. It would've been pointless for me to call her office at that time of night, especially since it was Friday. I assume that she may be with William for the weekend, so if I don't get her on her cell phone I'll try his house."

"WHO THE HELL IS WILLIAM, and how do you know where he lives?"

"Kate, why are you yelling at me?"

"JUST ANSWER THE QUESTION."

"Kate this is getting a little exasperating. William, is William Parsons. He is an investment banker, who works with one of the financial institutions in Manhattan. He has a beach house on the west end of Long Island in the West Hampton area. He and Gina have been what I guess you would call a couple for about a year or so. I may be wrong about some of that, but it's not really any of my business, and since I don't go out anymore I'm not really up to date on who is doing what... Now, will you quit yelling at me?"

"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME ANY OF THAT?"

"Well obviously you're not going to stop yelling at me. I'm at a loss as to why that information would have ever come up in our conversations, or what it would have to do with anything."

"YOU LEFT LAST SPRING WITH HER TO GO TO YOUR BEACH HOUSE, AND SHE WAS GOING TO 'STAY ON TOP OF YOU' ALL SUMMER. YOU DON'T THINK THAT HAD ANY IMPACT ON ME?"

"Kate, please calm down and stop yelling. Why are we going over this again?"

"Because you put me to sleep so beautifully, and then I wake up pissed off at what is happening and ruminating about what has virtually ruined this summer."

"Is this getting to be too much for you to be able to deal with? We can change our approach with this, and I can just come back and see what we can develop for us outside of your work. That way there won't be anything for the people at the precinct to possibly hassle you about."

"If we do that then they win. They take away one of the things that has been so enjoyable for us. Dammit, that's just not fair. I know I'm fearful about having the spotlight track our every move, but I also don't want us to have to hide for the rest of our lives."

"Life is not fair, Kate. I would rather quit my life and be with you in anonymity, than not to be with you at all. Kate, go back to bed and try to get some sleep. Call me later this morning. I love you. I will not accept us being apart ever again."

"Alright. I'll call you around lunchtime. I love you, too."

"Hello, Kate."

"Hi. Look, I'm sorry I was yelling earlier, I am just so upset that I lost it for a while. How do you stay so calm through all of this?"

"Unfortunately, I have had more experience with this kind of thing, and I have learned to follow an old axiom, 'don't let the bastards get you down'. I'm just sorry that you had to find out about it."

"Rick, please don't hold this against Ryan and Esposito. It would crush them if they felt you thought they had betrayed you."

"I'll never make them feel that way, Kate. I'll handle it. Were you able to get any more sleep?"

"A little. I used your 'shower story' and it put me right out."

"Are the orgasms continuing to intensify?"

"How the hell did you know that?"

"Because I love you, Kate. My only concern at this point is, if we ever do get to make love with one another, am I ever going to get to hold you and talk to you during the afterglow, or are you always going to go to sleep?"

"What is with the 'IF' part? There will be no 'Ifs', only 'when'. For me to stay awake you're going to have to reprogram that computer chip you put in my brain regarding this stuff."

"Perhaps will just concentrate on multiple orgasms, and I'll get to talk to you in between time."

"That sure as hell works for me. God, I can't tell you how much I love you, or how you make me feel. Why does someone, or something always get in the way of allowing us to be together?"

"Maybe the harder we have to work to get there, the better it will be when we do...Kate, I was able to reach Gina this morning. She was at William's house. I've asked her to get me her inside contacts at all of the local papers and magazines, people that I can trust to try to exclude, or at least buffer any information that might come their way. I didn't give her all of the details, but it's not like she didn't already know some things and could figure out how someone might use it against me. She has been pissed at me for some time, as Black Pawn has been, so this incident certainly didn't please them. They were much happier with the image that they created, as opposed to what I have given them for the past year."

"Here we go again. I feel like I must live on another planet. What is that supposed to mean?"

"I'm assuming you mean the inside contacts, you certainly can't mean the other stuff?"

"Why do you say that? Why the hell would Gina be pissed at you? You've made her millions on top of what you give her monthly."

"Kate, you can't honestly tell me that you don't know that Gina is extremely upset about the fact that I'm in love with you, and that I left the night life over a year ago to show you that I was committed to demonstrating that to you. I have been with you almost daily for over a year, my God you lived in our home for twenty-three days and I know that you had some private conversations with Alexis and Mother. Are you just blocking that out?"

"To begin with, it was twenty-three and a half days because I didn't get everything out until the afternoon of the last day."

"I will bow to your recollection. All I know, no, all that we know is that we wish you had never left. I know that it was twenty-three nights because that's about the number of hours of sleep that I got during that time."

"We'll get back to the other in a second. I slept like a baby while I was at the loft. You told me that I would be safe and I would be with people that cared about me. And, that's certainly how I was made to feel. So why couldn't you sleep?"

"So now I'm supposed to answer that and make you mad again... What the hell. Because there was only that one fuckin' wall between us and I wanted so very much to have you in my arms in 'our bed', I couldn't stand it. So, I just walked around the loft all night checking doors, windows and terraces. Then I would just sit in the hallway outside your door to make sure nothing could get to you. I was trying to protect you, okay. Get pissed at me, if you want."

"Kate?"

"Rick, I, uh, um, I'm so utterly overwhelmed by that, that I can't even begin to comprehend it let alone comment on it, unless it is to simply say that I'm not angry with you for trying to protect me... You never cease to amaze me...Uh, well, uh, back to the other, you're telling me that Gina knows that you love me. How?"

"I really never had a chance at getting through to you, did I? I can only assume that she knows the same way that Paula, Ryan, Esposito, Lanie, Roy and possibly everyone else at the precinct knows. It was just there. All of the big things that were done. All of the little things that were done. Everything was just a manifestation of what I was trying to make you see. None of those things were done for you to thank me for, or make you feel beholden to me, they were merely done to make you see that I was paying attention to the complexity of you and how you needed to feel comfortable with another person's intent. Almost everything I did for you would anger Gina even more. Why couldn't you just go out with a different woman every week and maintain the image that we had created? Why did you have to fall in love someone? And then the worst of all public relations fiascoes, you go and get the ultimate rejection from her, by her getting deeply involved with someone else, and causing you to flee from her presence. How am I supposed to sell that to your fans and the general public? Kate, it's ridiculous to keep rehashing all of this. Suffice it to say that it is in her best interest, as well as Black Pawn, to do whatever they can to avoid me looking like a schmuck. I could give a shit about that because that is exactly how I have felt for these many months. There is nothing untrue that is being said about me, so there is no slander involved. And if any of the Robbery Division guys wanted to make a few bucks on the side by selling a story to the newspapers, or magazines I couldn't prove any libel. That is why I'm attempting to use Gina and Black Pawn's fear of my 'image' being damaged to forestall anything getting beyond the precinct. Of course Gina being Gina, she wanted me to bankroll some investigators to try and get some dirt on the guys in Robbery to use to blackmail them into submission, but once you go that route it is a never ending carousel. I will try to see what I can do with this angle, unless you can think of anything else?"

"No."

"If this doesn't work, Kate, I will just have to take my lumps. Whether my fans will see me as being a pathetic loser, I don't know. Whether it will impact my marketability to the extent that I'm not seen as a viable commodity anymore, I'll just have to wait to see. At least I have been prudent with my money over the years, if there is ever a we, we will not be dependent upon anyone's charitable nature."

"Okay."

"Kate, did I say something wrong, or did I fail to lay this out properly. You're being very quiet."

"I'm sorry, I'm not dealing with all of this very well at the moment, and then you go and tell me these other things today. I just can't believe how things got so out of hand. I should have been able to comprehend what was taking place. I should not have been afraid of what was taking place. Bottom line, I should never have left the loft. That wall between the two bedrooms should have been the last one to come down. I know that you know that I hate to say this, but I need you. There is no question in my mind that I want you and I love you, but I know now that I truly need you in order to be fulfilled. What goes along with that is Alexis and Martha. I told you I couldn't talk about that before because I would just start crying... I miss my mother deeply. Martha has been direct with me; confrontational; accepting; supportive; and most of all loving. All of the things that my mother used to provide. I know that I want to continue to experience that with her...I have always envied your relationship with Alexis. That other kind of love that one gets to hold dear. She is so precious to me that my separation from her these many months has almost matched the despair of our separation. I should never have left the loft. If we don't get this worked out, I will rue that day for the rest of my life."

"Kate, we'll get through this. We might get beat up a little along the way, but the things that are, and will be, the most important in life will be there for us. Your father and your true friends will not abandon you because of the petulant ramblings of people whose only plight in life is to bring others down to their level. And, you know that Mother and Alexis are going to unconditionally love you. I know that I will not be able to take care of everything, but that doesn't mean that I won't die trying. The only constant in all of this is how much I have loved you. Maybe I should have gotten out of your hair a long time ago, so none of this would have come your way. I was sure that I had lost you forever, and sitting out here this summer I tried to thoroughly convince myself of that. I thought if I wrote Rook out of Nikki's life it would provide some form of metaphorical closure for me. Those were the only words on the screen for weeks, just staring at me day after day. And then, I wrote a letter."