Disclaimer: I'm out of witty disclaimers which proves I'm not Marlowe since I'm sure Mr. Marlowe is always witty...

A/N: Well as you can see I didn't die or disappear off the face of the Earth. Sorry for the ridiculous wait before last chapter and another wait before this one. I should be getting back on track now.

We had girl time last chapter so I had to bring in some guy time too ;)

Still not beta-ed,

Enjoy,

~Rose

Chapter Twenty-Four

"Oh if I didn't I'm a fool you see"

"You've become obsessed with this story bro," Javier pointed out to Rick, concern present in his voice. Javier and Kevin had been at Rick's for about an hour now but the writer's mind was elsewhere. The boys knew nothing about Kate's past or what Rick was actually thinking about; he had told them he was just thinking about the story he was writing and they believed him. At least Kevin did; Javier stopped believing him about five minutes ago when he got a text from Lanie saying that Kate was acting strangely and wondering if Rick was too.

"Sorry, was just thinking," Rick replied lamely.

"Sure," Javier responded, not buying it. "What is really going on Rick?" the Hispanic teen asked, getting a "what's going on?" look from his Irish friend.

Rick sighed; he should have known that the boys—or at least one of them, judging from Kevin's confused expression—would figure out that something was wrong. "Nothing," Rick lied, half mumbling.

Even Kevin didn't believe Rick this time. Both boys gave Rick a disbelieving look and Rick started pacing. "She's going to get herself killed!" Rick burst out.

Now we are getting somewhere, Javier thought. There was only one "she" that Rick could be referring too: Kate. Now he just had to figure out what the hell Rick meant when he said that "she's going to get herself killed".

It was actually Kevin that spoke up first, "What exactly is going on Rick?"

"It's just," Rick struggled. Running his hands through his hair he sighed, "Kate... I'm not even sure how to explain this. Well..."

Both of the boys could tell that this was obviously paining Rick. They had known right from the first day that they met Rick that he would pretty much do anything for Kate Beckett. Rick and Kate were a closer pair than both Javier and Lanie, and Kevin and Jenny—and they weren't even dating. Rick was different around her, less of a "nine-year-old on a sugar rush" and more mature: more caring. What ever it was that Kate had gotten herself involved in must have been pretty bad to freak Rick out this much. The carefree teen they had played Madden with two days ago was gone, leaving serious Rick in his place.

"You can tell us bro," Javier finally told the distraught writer in support.

"If you tell her I told you she'll kill me," Rick warned. Kevin nodded in agreement and Javier motioned that he understood and that Rick should continue. "About a year and a half ago a lawyer named Johanna Beckett was stabbed to death in an alleyway," Rick began.

"Beckett, as in…" Kevin interrupted.

"Yes, Beckett as in Kate's mother," Rick told the two solemn faced boys. "Jim Beckett knew they needed to get away from it all, and so he and Kate moved here. I knew Kate had a back story from the moment I met her—it was initially what attracted me to her the most—and I ended up pushing until she told me." The boys had been silent throughout all of this but Rick could see a million questions on the tips of their tongues and the wondering looks of what was going on in their eyes. "The killer was never caught," Rick continued, "Naturally she was torn up. Then a couple of months ago, she showed up here telling me that she wanted to figure out who had killed her mother." Rick decided that it was probably for the best to leave out the part about her father being an alcoholic.

"Kate," Kevin mumbled out in such a tone that it tipped Rick off that he understood Rick's worry perfectly.

"Have you found anything out?" Javier asked, also worried like the other two were.

"Not much," Rick admitted, "but enough to potentially get Kate into trouble. We know that Johanna was coming up with an appeal for a mobster named Joe Pulgatti. Pulgatti was accused of killing an undercover FBI agent named Bob Armen in an alley nine years ago. Pulgutti claims he is innocent on that charge and that Armen was actually shot by one of the three masked men who were also in the alley. So Johanna looks into it and a year and a half ago ends up getting stabbed in the exact same alley that Armen was killed in. So you see why I'm so worried about her? This clearly involves masked men and and mobsters; a teenage girl doesn't stand a chance against that.

What the hell was Kate thinking? Mob ties? Masked men? Javier definitely understood why Rick was so worried. He was right; she was going to get herself killed. She wasn't the only one either; knowing Rick; he would do anything to protect her and would end up getting himself killed too. Javier could not even begin to fathom the pain that Kate must go through every single day knowing that her mother was murdered but never knowing why or who did it. On the other side, he also couldn't understand how she could just throw her life away trying to solve something so big that detectives couldn't solve it let alone a couple of teenagers.

Kevin was pretty bothered by all of this too. He couldn't believe that two of their friends were dealing with something this big and had kept it from them. He understood that it was really none of their business but you would still think that Rick would have let on just how bad things were before now.

"So what are you going to do?" Kevin asked Rick, snapping them all back into the moment.

"I have no idea," Rick said taking his head in his hands in defeat.

"Have you tried to get her off the case?" the Irish teen asked his friend.

"You have no idea how hard I have tried."

"Bro, if this doesn't show her how much you care about her then she really is a fool," Javier added.

Rick couldn't help but to feel like he was the one who was a fool.

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