A/N: Wow, penultimate chapter here. I'll be posting 'Z' tomorrow so there it is. I hope you've all enjoyed reading this as much as I have writing it! Please review, let me know what has been your favourite chapter, what you liked what you didn't like and what you'd like to see in the sequel.

I don't want to do this but I won't put up the next chapter unless I get at least 10 reviews, with over 70 of you following this story I don't think it's that unreasonable a request.

Enjoy!

Disclaimer in chapter one.

Kate.

You are extraordinary, KB, you know that right?

And I love you.

You have never tried to change, to e something that someone else wants you to be. Even when the tabloids started writing those things when they first found out about us working together you just turned the other way, head held high. You're stronger than I am. When the papers first started writing about me I locked myself in my room for weeks and my mother had to literally drag me out. Don't let her size fool you, she's got a ridiculous amount of muscle behind her. Needed it for all her years on Broadway.

Anyway, back to my point - I swear I had one this time - I have never met anyone quite like you. Someone so smart and independent and strong. Someone so beautiful in the morning, with smudged make up and messy hair and oversized T-shirts on.

Someone whose wit was faster than mine and had an opinion on everything and smart enough to know when to speak it and when to hold it. Someone who had the power to break me with a single blow and the ability to heal everything with the simplest of smiles.

Someone who I could see myself spending the rest of my life with.

There was a suspect once, a real piece of work. We all tried to stop you from going in the interrogation room, a beautiful woman like you going to see a Jack the Ripper wannabe, you can imagine how I felt about that. You told me that if I didn't like it I could watch from the observation room and off you went, into the lions den, so to speak, alone. I watched as he tore you apart, so fast, so skilled, like he knew exactly what buttons to press. You didn't bat an eyelid. Kept it all wrapped up inside.

I on the other hand was half way in the door and knocked the guy to the floor before Esposito had time to follow me and stop me from doing anything else that I'm pretty sure I would regret. I was banned from the precinct for a week and the only reason you didn't have to let him go was on a technicality that I wasn't an actual cop.

I saw you in the break room, making coffee and mad as hell at me. You yelled and poked and I was sporting some pretty nasty bruises but you didn't seem angry at all about what he had said, just mad at me for trying to protect you. I thought you were either invincible or just bottling it up. So I left, if you weren't going to talk to me then what was the point.

Apparently the point was for you to turn up at my place at 4AM when everyone should be asleep aside from writers and psychopaths. You were half drunk and puffy eyed and I knew that you weren't as strong as you were pretending. You came in and we sat on the sofa, I put my arms around you and you hid your face in my shoulder. You didn't make a sound, you just let tears fall and I didn't say a word, just sat there, pressing my lips to your hair, kissing you without thinking it through and rubbing my hands up and down your back. Hours passed and at 7AM you stood up and walked to the door and I, like the loyal idiot I am, followed you. You opened the door and stopper there, not turning around, just standing there with me so close behind you, watching as your hair moved with every exhale. In the morning light and the sleep deprived haze you turned around, put your hand to my cheek, cocking your head to the side while I was fighting off the impulse to lean into it. Without a word you left.

I actually thought the whole thing was a dream, if it wasn't for the almost empty bottle on my coffee table I would have completely dismissed it. We've never spoken about it and I'm not sure we ever will.

You don't trust too easily.

You have this small scar on the inside of your lip from biting it.

You like to pant your toenails bright pink when you get days off.

You don't like to cry alone but you hate people seeing it.

You have a wonderful singing voice but hide it from everyone.

You are so much smarter than you let anyone think.

You have the biggest, most amazing heart I have ever known.

You seem to know just what to say, when to say it and what to do.

There are so many things I could mention about you, about what makes you so strong or so amazing but what's the point? I have the rest of my life to show you how much I love you and everything you do. Isn't that going to be fun?

'Y' is for 'You' because you are extraordinary. You are you, you don't take crap from anyone and change for no one but yourself. You are amazing.

You are the woman that I fell in love with.

I love you Kate, don't ever forget that.

Always.

Rick.