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"We got them."

Kate felt his arms come around her in a supportive hug. It had taken them two weeks, but the sight before her was the most satisfying scene she'd experienced with those two.

"We got them," she repeated his words in a whisper as she let his arms pull her into his chest.

After that beautiful date night of theirs they had started planning for real on how to do things, since there had come a sudden sense of needing to do something now in order to save the poor girl who was now being taken care of by a medic. Kate was thankful for the girl's apparent strength, having resisted Margaret and Tom's 'easy' way into the escort life. She had, just like Kate, refused to do what they asked, which had resulted in the same treatment Kate had gotten. At least the police had caught them redhanded before they could break her spirit. Rick had contacted a few cops he knew and trusted, they had each agreed on meeting with Kate to listen to her story. Rick and Kate had med the cops individually in order to make it as comfortable as possible for Kate, especially since she was very insecure about telling someone other than Rick everything that had happened to her since she was sixteen. Every cop that talked to them agreed to help, and most of them wanted to go immediately, but Rick managed to convince them to wait until they had talked to everyone on Rick's list. Both Kate and Rick knew that unless they caught them redhanded or found evidence there wouldn't be anything holding the two monsters away from being freed before they could get thrown to jail. So, the first week after that date night they had spent talking to cops. The second they had gathered evidence both by taking pictures and, in despite of Rick's protests, Kate had gone in while recording everything they said on her phone.

"I can't believe we actually did it," she whispered and he hugged her tighter.

"We did. And they're never bothering you again," he mumbled against her ear and kissed her temple.

Once Margaret and Tom had been led into separate police cars Kate suddenly remembered something she couldn't just leave in that house. She waited until the two police cars had driven away before she bent his arms away from her, earning a curious look before she took his hand in hers and dragged him towards the house that had been her nightmare for the last couple of years. They had been standing quite a far away in order to not be seen by the foster parents, Kate not wanting them to know it was her who was behind it all. At least not yet, she knew she'd might have to stand up to witness in court unless the cops or court lady would find it necessary.

"Where are we going?" he asked and she bit her lip.

"I need to get something."

Kate was grateful for the cops knowing exactly who they were, since that meant she could walk past without them stopping her to ask her what she was doing. She felt hesitant as to show Rick her room but something inside her told her she had nothing to be scared of anymore. He had been by her side no matter what she had told him, no matter what had happened to her or what she sometimes had been forced to do. Kate led him up the stairs towards what had been her room, and only let go of his hand by the door to be able to walk towards what had been her bed and crouch down beside it.

"There's one thing in this place that's not horrible," she told him as she pulled out the box from under the bed.

She let go of a sigh of relief for it still being there. A couple days earlier she had been afraid that perhaps Margaret or Tom had found it and gotten rid of it, but thankfully they hadn't.

"What's that?" Rick asked with the sooth and curious voice.

Kate turned to him with the box in her hands, a small smile on her lips.

"This is my treasure, I mean," she rolled her eyes at her childish description, "it's a box with pictures of my parents, and a few other things that I managed to kept through the years."

Rick walked up to her and carefully pointed at the lid with question in his eyes. Kate only smile and nodded. He opened the lid and looked down at the first picture she had laying there, that beautiful picture of her parents looking into each other's eyes with love shooting at each other. As careful as he could he picked up the photo and looked at her parents, Jim and Johanna Beckett. She had told her quite a lot about them, things she remembered when he'd asked her to describe her life before the accident, but now he finally had faces with the names. He looked up at her, could see the resemblances between the people in the photo and the woman in front of him.

"I knew that was the way you two were looking at each other!"

Rick jumped at the sound and heard Kate gasp as her eyes turned to the door.

"Bianca!" Kate exclaimed and the blonde in the door just smirked with a 'what?' and a shrug.

Rick looked between the two women and something clicked in his mind, so this was the woman who had pushed Kate back to him.

"Hi, I'm Bianca," the blonde said walking up to them with her hand reaching out.

"Rick," he answered, still a bit shocked, as he shook her hand.

"So, you're the one who got Kate all infatuated?" she said and Kate felt her cheeks flare up.

"Bianca!" she scolded, but her sister simply winked at her with a smile.

"Thank you, the light in her eyes had disappeared," Bianca said and Kate thought she would die from embarrassment.

Rick's eyes landed on her again and she wished she could just disappear, looking down she knew he could see the blush on her cheeks.

"Well, thank you for answering the phone and pushing her in my way," Rick said and put back the photo in the box Kate was still holding,.

One of his hands cupped her cheek in order to pull her up to surprise her with a gentle kiss. She immediately kissed him back, feeling the usual tingles run down her veins. It wasn't until Bianca let go of a squeal that Kate pulled away, remembering they had an audience, and cleared her throat.

"How are you holding up B?" she asked and her sister shrugged again with a neutral expression.

"I'm fine, I know you think I was... a goner? But I knew you were right, knew they wouldn't let you out. That's why I pushed you out, I knew that if you were to get out of here you would have to get help from the outside," Bianca told them with a small smile.

Kate felt a warmth spread inside her and, without even speaking or any eye contact with him, Rick had taken the box from her so that she could go hug her sister. They hugged for a couple of minutes before they pulled away and Kate couldn't stop but wonder what would happen to her sister.

"What are you gonna do now?"

Bianca just smiled, "First of all they gave me access to everything, remember? So I'm gonna help the police by giving them everything, clients, economics, everything. And then... well, we'll just have to wait and see." She shrugged her shoulders and Kate couldn't help but feel responsible for being the one to push her sister out of a job, even if it wasn't really an ideal job it still had been a job. "Stop worrying Kate, I'll be fine, and besides, don't think you can get rid of me that easy, I'll keep my eyes on you," she winked and Kate couldn't help but laugh at that and put her arms around her sister again.


"Oh my god, I'm keeping this!" Rick exclaimed and Kate looked over at him to see what he found.

She laughed at the picture he was holding up with a big grin plastered on his face. It was a picture of herself, maybe five years old, with her hole body covered in paint. She was almost completely naked except for the panties she had on and she actually remembered that moment as clear as it was yesterday.

"As long as you don't show it to anyone," Kate laughed and Rick felt his belly flutter at the happiness he could see in her eyes.

They had gotten home about two hours earlier, and they had brought Thai-food as a celebration to what they had accomplished. Kate's demons were gone, or at least the physical ones, there were still a few in her mind she needed to work out.

"Do you remember why?" Rick asked with a chuckle, "I mean, did you find paint in the garage or something?"

She laughed at the suggestion, feeling so free.

"No!" she exclaimed, acting offended. "It was actually my mom's idea."

He gave her a look of intrigue, fascinated to hear what this story had in store for him. She bit her lower lip before she opened her mouth to explain.

"My mom had this crazy idea, she loved painting and dancing and had seen I'd taken an interest in both," he couldn't help but smile big at the imaginary look she had as she thought back. "So she bought paint in bottles, a big roll of paper and made sure I was aware of the rules, 'no paint on the floor or on the walls, only the paper'," she did an imitation of what he assumed her mother had sounded like and he chuckled. "She rolled out the paper across our living room and used sticky tape to make sure it would stack to the floor, it was a really big space and so I remember thinking 'what floor should I worry about? There's no floor left'." Kate had to pause to laugh before she continued, "Once it was all settled, she stripped off a bit herself, wearing simple shorts and a sports bra, then she asked me to help her pour out some of the paint on the paper and once that was done she put on some music and we danced in the paint, covering the whole paper with the prints of our dancing."

Rick laughed, couldn't help but imagine Kate doing the same with her future kids.

"I so wish I could've seen that," he confessed and she shook her head.

"Dad was hella mad when he got home, but after both me and mom covered him in painted kisses and ruined his clothes with hugs, he couldn't stay mad anymore because we were 'too adorable'."

They stayed silent for a minute, simply taking in the memories of the past. She was finally free, felt as though a heavy stone had been lifted off her shoulders, and she could finally engulf in the memories of her past before everything had gone terribly wrong. Kate knew there would be a lot of work ahead of her, her and Rick having already discussed her inner demons and what to do about them. After a lot of buts and ifs Kate had agreed on trying to see a therapist, work everything out with a professional who'd worked with cases like these before. Rick had volunteered to stay with her in the waiting room, but when she suggested he could also come with her into the room he had immediately shut if off, saying she needed that time to be about her and only her without the distraction of him holding her back.

"What about this one?" Rick asked, holding up another photo of her and there it was.

Kate immediately reached for the picture and he let go of it the second her fingers gently wrapped around its edge. Kate's smile was one of those sad but gently and sincere ones he'd seen quite a lot in the last hour while going through her box.

"This is the cabin I was telling you about," she whispered, voice filled with emotion. "This photo was taken when I was thirteen, I had just had a really bad day and my parents could see right through me when I said I was fine. They told me to pack a bag, and I swear at first I thought they were to send me away, and then they took the rest of the week off from their works, called the school as well, said we had a family emergency. After that we went into the car and rode to our cabin, where they made sure I had the best week I could possibly have."

Rick saw the tear fall from her eye and gently caught it with his thumb before it could fall further than her cheek. That cabin seemed to mean a lot more to her than she'd let on, and in thought Rick decided he would make it his mission to finding it.

"Why am I crying, it's stupid," she tried to blink away her tears, wipe away those which escaped her eyes.

"It's not stupid," he said, taking one of her hands in his in order to hug it. "Human."

She smiled at him and she wondered how the hell she had stumbled across this man. This gentle man. She leaned forward in order to place her lips on his in a smooth kiss.

"Thank you, for everything."

He smiled and kissed her lips again before pulling her into a hug, his lips reaching her hair and whispering 'always'.


A/N:

Hiiii, just want to make sure you all know that if you follow me on twitter and/or instagram I often update there when something happens, like when I'm not able to publish the next chapter as scheduled etc. and sometimes I also post sneak peeks of the upcoming chapter.

Anyway, have a nice day/evening! xxx

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