Swings (Part 1)

Four hours come and go. Before Rick knows it, it's five forty-five in the evening, and Kate still hasn't shown up. The rain outside has long stopped, but it's getting dark, and he's starting to worry. Not just because he can't help remembering her mother and the way Johanna Beckett had died, but also because of the conversation he had had with Kate. What if his words have pushed her to her limits, and she's now trying to avoid him, or worse?

He glances quickly at his empty coffee cup. He's long overstayed his welcome: The café staff are staring openly at him. They had been very accommodating the first three hot chocolates and the subsequent cup of coffee he had ordered, and he had tried to keep them that way by ordering two slices of cake to go along with the drinks, but his increasing antsy-ness doesn't put the other patrons at ease, and he's taking up a table where countless customers could have enjoyed a main meal and left by now.

Throwing a stack of bills onto the table, he stands and grabs his coat. He's just pushing his way out the door when he crashes into something tiny but solid and, of course, it's Kate.

"Hey!" she gasps, looking flustered and perplexed by the encounter. "I'm so sorry. One of my instructors asked me to stay back, and—wait. Do you have somewhere to go? Is that why you're out here?"

"N-no," he stammers. "I was—I was just gonna look for you."

"But I said we were meeting up inside." She doesn't sound accusatory; just confused.

"I know, but then almost an hour had gone by, and…" He doesn't want to say it. Doesn't want to say that he's been a little worried. Doesn't want to say that he's been a little insecure, because he doesn't know where they stand and he doesn't want it to be like it'd been with Kyra—dates and moments inexplicably forgotten and getting farther and fewer between until everything stopped altogether. He'd been so blindsided by the break up. But he can't tell it to Kate, because he doesn't know how she feels about what he's already told her, let alone what he might still tell her. So, he shuts his mouth.

Kate seems to get it, though. She reaches out and grasps his wrist. "My phone died," she gives as explanation. One hand pulls out her phone and taps over the rectangular buttons in illustration—the screen remains black. He appreciates the demonstration, but it saddens him that she thinks he might need proof in order to believe her. (He hates himself for the twinge of relief the proof gives him.) She continues, "Otherwise, I would have called you."

"I know," he mumbles again.

She looks at him askance, but says nothing. Instead, she loops her arm around his and begins to lead him down the street. He wants to ask her where they're going, but he bites his tongue. The least he could do is trust her now.

-.-.-.-.-

As it turns out, the place they go to is a set of swings.

In a random park.

He stands before one of the seats and looks around him; there is nothing extraordinary about his surroundings, nothing eye-catching or unusual or mystical enough that she could have wanted to show it to him. So, it must be the swing set that she is introducing him to.

He gives her a puzzled look, and she chuckles up at him from one of the seats.

"Sit," she invites. He does. Then she tells him, "My mother used to bring me here when I was having problems."

"Oh," he answers stupidly.

She snickers lightly. "I don't know if you can tell, but I used to be a really rebellious person. Only kid, y'know? My parents loved me, but I used to feel so sheltered. So overprotected. And it sucked, because I'm smart—I know I'm smart—and I prided myself on thinking I was independent and I thought I could take care of myself. So, I fought back whenever I thought they were trying to control me too much."

He doesn't know how to respond to that. He didn't see much of his mother until he was college-aged, and though he doesn't resent Martha for it, he still can't relate.

"Inevitably, I'd screw up," Kate continues, humour to her tone. "A boyfriend my parents disapproved of would turn out to really be a jerk; a party I snuck out to would make me feel miserable the next morning; and there was a time when I tried to highlight my hair blue and it turned out disastrous—let's just say Maddie went a bit overboard with the hair dye. But yeah, I'd rebel, and it didn't always work out in my favour. And when it didn't, my mom would bring me here."

He nods quietly.

"It was the only way we could get away from Dad." Her eyes twinkle. "It was our spot."

"But you brought me here," he blurts before he can stop himself. She looks mildly surprised by his comment.

"Well, yeah," she answers. "My mom—unlike you, she's not … she wasn't a maestro with words. She didn't always have the right thing to say to make it okay again; sometimes I'd stomp away in the middle of our conversation. But she tried because she wanted me to be happy and she wanted to make things a little easier for me. And … I want us to try."

He stares at her. (She wants them to try? Like she and her mother had?)

"Think of it as Vegas, if you must," Kate adds teasingly. "What happens here stays here. If you want it to."

"I can't do this to you," he utters, dismayed. "Kate, I can't—your mother—she's—geez, this is your memory with her. It's bad enough that I'm taking away your birthday—"

"Hey, hey," she cuts into his monologue. "I'm not asking you to take away from anything. I'm asking you to add to."

"Kate, this is your mom."

"And this is my life," she counters, abruptly fierce. Even in his haze of emotions, he registers the wet gleam to her eyes. "I decide what I want in it. I decide whether I want to bring you here. And what I want you to decide now is whether you want to be here or not. There is no 'should' or 'should not' here, Rick. There are only absolutes. Decide now. Yes or no?"

He swallows. "Y-yes."

"Okay." Just like that, she calms down, her chest heaving as she releases the death grip she has on the metal chains attached to her seat. Her voice is rough as she tells him, "I can't disengage you from my mom, Rick. You were there when I was flying home. You dragged me out of that bar after her funeral. You were the one I went to when I had a nightmare…" She trails off, a hand brushing her cheek. "But I need to know if that's all you see when you look at me. Because I already have one person in my life thinking like that—that I'm nothing more than a facsimile of my mother—and if you can only see me in relation to my mom, then I'm sorry: I can't do this. I can't be my dead mother's daughter forever. It hurts so bad."

She sucks in a shuddering breath at the end of her speech, more hurt by his carefulness with her than he could have guessed. In the end, her reticence to look at him is what prompts him to speak up.

"Why did you bring me here?"

A sad smile curls the corner of her lips. "Because I still love my mom," she answers him. "And I don't want it to be that I move on by making myself forget her. I want to find justice for her someday, y'know? But I also want … to care about her and still care about others at the same time. Maybe it makes me selfish; I don't know. At any rate, I brought you here because I thought—I thought we could make new memories out of the old ones."

His eyes fall shut. "I see," he whispers. It moves him, her reason. But that doesn't automatically translate into his knowing how to tell her all about his troubles.

"Rick," she says, her voice shaky. He opens his eyes. "You said you liked me. And when we hang out … I feel like I matter. But if all you see in me is Johanna Beckett's half-orphaned daughter, then I need to know now."

It's not that, he wants to say. He can sense her giving up on him, and that frightens him. In the end, he inhales deeply and speaks.

"There was this girl in college," he begins. "Her name was Kyra."

A/N: Hope you're all still enjoying the story :) there are a couple of reviews to this fic that I still haven't replied to, but I'll be doing that right after I update this chapter. So, if I still haven't replied to your reviews to the previous chapters in a few minutes' time and you'd like a reply, let me know; it's possible I missed out on a review or two :P

A/N 2: There is a Part 2 to this, obviously. Since I missed last weekend's update, I'll try and upload it on Monday or Tuesday, but I make no promises. You'd think that with only two days of taught study a week, I'd have a lot of free time on my hands, but you'd be wrooooong o.o