It's snowing again. She doesn't mind it, it's a minor inconvenience. With her hood pulled up and her jacket pulled tight into the cove of her chest, Kate grimaces when a cold wind whips against her face, making her eyes sting. She doesn't want to waste any time. She only has an hour to catch him and it usually takes a forty-five-minute walk to get to the Haunt from her apartment. She wants to catch him before he leaves. Her friendship, if they can call it that yet, is already getting complicated. She doesn't want to complicate it anymore by him leaving, thinking she doesn't want to see him again, only because she didn't make it on time.

She can just imagine his face if she doesn't make it. Looking just as hurt and dejected as he did the night before, having to shuffle off back out into the cold.

Kate grits her teeth as she enters the throngs of people crossing the street on the last block she needs. She's decided not to think about what's going to be said. She just knows she wants to see him. And she's well aware of the conflict, the fact that for a man she's so adamant not to have room for or time for in her life, she's going completely out of her way to keep him in it.

The only thing she knows about him is if she leaves him like this, as hard as she tries, he will haunt her for the rest of her life.

Spotting the coffee shop on the corner, she feels her throat close in anxiousness and quickens her stride through the crowd on jelly-like legs. She passes by the window, seeing the coffee shop has a warm decor of off-white, light brown, dark walnut, a slew of black circular tables scattered about the space with a long line of people jetting out from the counter. Just another reason why she doesn't drink coffee.

Ignoring it, she walks up to the entrance and yanks the door open, stopping just inside the entrance. Kate quickly scans the noisy crowd of accountants, receptionists, bankers, copy boys, and gophers, until she spots the unmistakable form of his broad shoulders and the rebellious flair of his hair, sitting at a small table against the window, his back to the door. She draws in a toughening breath, steeling herself, seeing him in his wool raincoat with a scarf of light and dark blue hung over his neck, sitting hunched over the table.

She squeezes her way through the crowd trying to get through the door and makes it a few paces away from the table before she slows down.

She clears her throat a few times to herself, feeling her heart flutter in her chest. Even from here, she can see a raggedness in his usually bright and excited features. Taking a few more steps forward, she speaks, catching his attention. "You look a little more worse for wear than normal."

Rick quickly sits up in his chair, looking up with a raised brow and dancing eyes, staring at her blankly for a moment before a smile starts to brighten his face. He catches himself before it gets too far, watching silently as she sits down, clad in a casual outfit of light blue jeans, running shoes, a grey hoodie, and her dark blue cargo jacket.

"You came." His mouth says despite him telling it not to let the words fall.

Kate pulls the chair out across from him and sits down, seeing a dark green cup with a floral pattern of red on it sitting just a few inches away from the one clutched in his hands. Kate feels her heart harden as she thinks back to the flowers she now has sitting in a dark blue vase on her window sill in her bedroom.

"When my mother was growing up," she starts off the bat, looking up to him across the table with a firm, unwavering glare, "her mother kept a box outside the window just above the sink in the kitchen where she'd grow tulips."

Rick feels himself lock up in nervousness, thinking now, and dreading every word leaving her lips, that she came here to tell him off once and for all.

"Growing up, my mother loved looking at my grandmother's tulips, so she always kept tulips around the house when I was growing up." Kate states plainly, no higher or lower inflection in her voice, looking at him with a stern, matter-of-fact glare. Rick is staring back wide-eyed and arched browed, feeling like he's being accused of something he didn't do again. "How the hell did you know that tulips are my favorite flower?"

Rick blinks at her blankly, "Uh..." he tries, "disregarding my tucking that information away for later, I didn't. I just thought they looked nice."

Kate, seeing his eyes tremor with fear, she nods and looks down to the table as she cranes her neck.

"I uh..." he tries again, poking the cup opposite of him toward her, "I bought you that."

Kate lifts her hand, "No, I don't drink coffee, Rick."

Rick nods slowly, "I know," he says to her, "that's why that's hot chocolate." Kate lifts her head back up to look at him again, being disengaged by his offer. "I remembered you said you didn't drink coffee at the hospital, so..." he shrugs and nods his head down to the cup in front of her.

Kate nods gratefully, more so feeling her heart flutter that he remembered something so off-handed like that. She pulls the warm cup into her hands with her fingers and clutches it. Kate pushes a heavy, thankful smile over to him, watching him lift his own cup to his lips and take a long sip. "Rough night?" She asks him.

Rick chuckles darkly once his cup is taken off his lips. Rick lowers his darkened and baggy eyes down to the table, shameful. "You'll forgive me if I don't look my usual dapper self."

Kate chuckles softly at him and pulls her cup closer to her as she adjusts herself in her chair. "A glass of milk before passing out works wonders, Rick."

Rick laughs and nods at her. "That uh..." he trails off, not wanting to pull back on himself that much to reveal too much of his own misgivings, "wasn't really on the forefront of my mind last night."

Kate nods at him. She doesn't want to push him to tell her what he did after he left the Haunt. She doesn't want to know. She wants to hang onto that semblance of that sweet, well-meaning, wittingly charming albeit naive and childish guy she kissed on the cheek. She doesn't want to know he's capable of that kind of mistake. She doesn't want to admit to herself that her first instinct was right in that he really is just that type of guy to keep score through notches on his bedposts and all she was to him was the start of a new line of score-keeping.

They fall into a thick silence as Rick keeps his eyes down to his cup, while Kate is having a hard time looking away from him. "So," she starts hesitantly, her voice weak, quiet, and small, getting his attention as he looks back up to her, "about last night..."

Rick dismisses her and lifts his hand up off the side of his cup. "No, Kate, you..." he tries, trying to get her to stop before she does, "you don't have to explain."

"Rick, I owe you an explanation." She fires back, looking over into his sad, soulful eyes.

"Kate, I know I don't know much about you, but the one thing I know about you is that you're a very private person." Rick stops her, giving her his own explanation. Rick's words squeeze her heart, thinking the only thing she gave him over the course of him being around her is that she's a private person. She would have thought she gave him more than that. "I don't want you thinking you owe me anything, okay?" He says to her, the level of honesty in his voice making her throat clench.

"Well," she tries again, at a loss for how to deal with the situation. She feels as if she's chasing after him, which she's never had to do with anyone. "Will you at least let me apologize?"

Rick looks over to her, his eyes softening from the determination shining in them to turn himself into the villain. He senses something about her, that apologizing in such a sincere way feels alien to her, that she's never been the type to second guess herself or have to double back on a decision. Double down, if she's ever called out maybe, but never double back. He wants to give her an out, he wants to give her a something that says she can walk out of here with her head held as high as it usually is without any guilt or remorse as to how she's leaving him.

But he also remembers feeling his heart fall to pieces into the pits of his churning stomach when he realized she wasn't coming. So he gives her a small nod.

Kate looks down to her unattended cup and hardens herself, seeing his hands still clutched around his cup. She can feel her hands tell her to reach for him, give him some gesture to show him that despite how she comes off sometimes, she has grown to care about him, despite the odds. All she can seem to muster up is to tighten the grip on her cup and pull it closer to her.

"I'm sorry." She says, having an inflection of emotional honesty in her voice. "I should have been honest with you from the beginning, but I..." she trails off, remembering how he made her feel as they walked down the street toward her apartment, how she forgot about everything not only weighing her down but pulling her forward. "I did have a really great time last Thursday. So... I don't want you to think it was anything you did."

Rick lifts his hand up to her again, "No, no, I get it. It's alright." He says, seeming content with the outcome.

At his reaction, Kate stumbles. "What... it's alright?"

Rick sniffs a bit and adjusts himself in his chair, pulling himself further into the table. He takes a short pause before looking back up to her. "One of the most important things for any great novelist to have is empathy. And speaking in literary terms, it basically means having the ability to shift your perspective and see the world through another person's eyes. For instance, if I'm writing a character who steals a loaf of bread, I have to be able to see through the eyes of the baker who is trying to pay his rent, but also have to be able to see through the eyes of the thief and see that there was a hungry child waiting around the corner."

Kate nods, understanding that he would put things in terms of being a writer. But sometimes, a thief is just that... a thief. Some people steal only to see people make themselves look like fools. "And you're saying that know what I'm going through?" She asks, trying not to put an edge on her voice.

"That," he lifts his hand up to her again, then points a finger in her direction, "brings me to what's called negative capability."

Kate rolls her eyes to herself as she leans back in her chair a bit. "Is that supposed to be some kind of slight?" She asks incredulously.

Rick smiles a soft smile and chuckles. "No, not at all." He says as he smiles, making Kate's heart painfully flutter, knowing it's something she can't give into. "John Keats used the term to describe parts of a story that are basically left open to uncertainty for the sake of artistic beauty. It's a skill all great writers have to leave certain things undiscovered about a story."

Kate nods, admitting to herself that she admires him now, his way of looking at things as a writer. "This is a long-winded way of telling me something, isn't it?"

Rick's soft smile fades from his tired face as he looks back down to his cup. "I don't know what it is you're going through in your life, Kate." His soft, sincere tone make her heart clench painfully. "And no, this is not my way of getting you to tell me what it is. All I'm saying is that if you said it wasn't me, then all I can do is take it at face value."

Kate nods sternly at him again. "I'm sorry, Rick, I just can't afford what you want in the place I am in my life right now." Rick nods as he looks down to his cup, his dejection and hurt plain on his face as he hides it behind the short strands of hair hanging in front of his forehead. "If I told you where that place is, would it make you feel better?"

Rick looks back up to her, surprise arching his brow a bit. He takes a short moment of pause before speaking, "Who is he?"

Kate smirks and shakes her head. "No, it's nothing like that, trust me." Rick can feel his chest untense from his heart preparing itself to break. Kate looks down to her cup again before giving him an answer. "I'm going to be a cop." She states confidently, knitting her brow as she looks over to him, seeing him stare back at her softly. "I'm planning on enrolling in the academy once open enrollment starts up this summer." All she's met with is a soft blink of his eyes and a movement of his mouth, as if he's choking back his response. "What, are you another type who says I can't cut it?" She fires back, having heard it all before.

"No."

"Or are you another guy who's turned off by a woman being a cop?"

"No," he says on another chuckle, "before I remembered it wasn't my place to ask, I was going to ask you what happened."

Kate blinks at him rapidly a few times. "E-excuse me?" She asks, being taken off guard.

"You'll have to forgive me if this sounds condescending, but... you're... immaculately beautiful," he says, his eyes roving over her, making her blush a bit and pull away from him bashfully, sliding a hand over her ear, "you're very intelligent, you carry yourself with such a natural grace, your wit can only be matched with... well, mine. A woman like you doesn't have the whole world laid out in front of her only to choose the gritty life of being a cop unless something happens."

"I-I-"

"And no," he cuts her off, "that was not my way of trying to get whatever that is out of you. Let's just..." he trails off, pulling back, "call it negative capability."

Kate nods at him slowly, feeling her heart slow to a steady pace again. "Thank you."

Rick nods in response and looks down to his cup, taking the last sip swirling around in the bottom.

"So, did you sleep with her?" The words spill out of her mouth as she lifts her cup up to her lips to catch them.

Rick looks up to her, a bit stunned, taking a pause before chuckling nervously. "A little personal, don't you think?"

"You're right," she lifts her hand, dismissing herself. "It's none of my business."

Rick breathes a small sigh and looks over to her, seeing her concentrate down to her cup as she sets it back down to the table. "I'll tell you what," he starts in a lighter, less serious tone, "I'll tell you a bit of personal information about myself if you tell me a bit of your own." Rick tells her with a soft smirk. "Tit for tat."

Kate grins at him. "Don't you think it would just be easier for me to read about it in the paper?" She wags her brow at him.

"My agent ordered me to keep under the radar for a while, I will have you know. So I will not be doing anything stupid for a while. Not publicly anyway."

Kate laughs softly and looks away from him, brushing her hair behind her ear. "Alright," she says, looking up to him with a confident smile, "you're on."

Rick nods at her slowly and folds his arms together as he leans toward her. It's only a short few seconds before a heavy sadness starts to seep into his features. "In my defense..." he starts slowly, "I was already four martinis in when she introduced herself. And I'm not saying it wasn't me, but one of the two of us had just been stood up on a date."

Kate nods rigidly. "So..." she hesitates, not wanting the answer she's digging for, "is that a yes?"

Rick sniffs a breath and looks away from her, craning his neck before looking back up and out the window. "If it makes you feel any better, she was gone when my agent woke me up this morning."

Kate smirks heavily and looks down to her cup, hiding her reaction by taking another short drink of her hot chocolate. "So," she changes the subject, "what did you want to know?" She looks up to him with a smirk that still feels heavy. He wasn't supposed to be that type of guy. "Ask me anything."

Rick looks at her soft smile, knowing it would send her further away if he used this opportunity to his own advantage and pried information about her, saying that they had an agreement. "How's your dad?"

Kate's breath gets caught in her throat as her heart skips a beat. "I-I'm sorry?"

"You said he hurt himself a couple weeks ago. I was just wondering how he was doing."

She breathes a nervous, breathy chuckle toward him and looks out the window, away from his soft, blue-eyed gaze. "That-that's uh..."

"Well," Rick laughs, "it's not like I was asking you how you like your eggs in the morning or anything."

"Over easy," spills out of her mouth before she can catch it. She can feel his intense, bright smile want to break out at her. "No, it's just..." that would make her reveal a lot more than even he asked for. "He's doing better." She decides to tell him, using neutral terms. "The medication he's on has him a bit... stubborn." She says, not wanting to tell him it's because he can't have any alcohol in his system when he takes it. "But he's supposed to go off of it pretty soon, so he should go back to normal."

Rick nods thankfully. "That's good."

"Yeah," She says softly and looks down to the table. "Back to normal." She says again, not wanting to tell him what normal is for her dad, the new normal anyway.

"Well," Rick starts again, shrugging his shoulders, "if you can't afford being my date, can you at least afford being a friend?"

She looks back up to him softly, gazing into his honest eyes, telling her he's willing to settle for her sake. "But that's not what you want."

"I know that's not what I want." He says in a small voice. "But I can still take what I can get, can't I?" Kate feels her bottom lip being pulled in between her teeth as she meets his eyes. "So... friends?" He asks again, extending his hand to her over the table.

Her eyes break away from his gaze and down to his hand. It only takes a moment for her to unfold her arms and softly place her hand in his, her thumb making a subconscious effort by petting his skin once he has hold of her hand. "Friends."

A/N Whatever you think is going to happen, probably isn't. You really think i would start this story, omly to get him into THAT?