It's late afternoon. Rick is sitting in his office looking over the sketches the contractor faxed him around noon of the plans he finally got around to drawing up for him. He plans on doing most of it himself, but he needs a professional just to sink in the posts. The rest he feels confident enough to do on his own. It's going to take time, but that's the point of any project like this. Just like his hand build brick barbeque he installed.
Sasha's head jolts off the loveseat next to his desk and Rick looks over to her just before he hears the rumble of an engine sounds up his driveway. He pinches his brow, knowing the sound of Alexis's car, and quickly gets up to look out the window of his office that's right above the garage. He looks out just in time to see Alexis slide out of the passanger side of her boyfriend's pick up truck with a smile.
He raises his brow as he watches him get out to meet her as she practically prances around the front with her shoulder bag from school and a big smile on her face. He wonders where her car is, why he drove her home, but with his black baseball cap under his brown hair and medium build, her boyfriend seems to smile softly when she meets him and Rick can see him stiffen lick a board when Alexis reaches over and grabs onto his hands.
Rick grabs the curtains and pulls them over to hide behind as they start to talk to each other. After a minute or two, he shakes his head in a small, stiff motion before Alexis seems to deflate her shoulders and lean forward, kissing him. Not wanting to spy any longer, Rick snaps at the curtains and turns back toward Sasha quickly, taking two large steps away from the window.
It's another few minutes before he hears the door open and he decides to go down and meet her. Followed by Sasha, who runs passed him as they go down the stairs, Alexis is greeted by the dog first and she leans down to love on her. "Hey, you." Alexis says to her.
"Hey, pumpkin," he says to her as he meets her at the entrance to the kitchen.
Alexis smiles as brightly as she can, "Hi, Daddy," she says and quickly leans up, giving him a loving peck on his cheek.
He smiles at her affection and moves into the kitchen. "I saw Ethan dropped you off. Is something wrong with your car?"
Alexis sighs and follows him into the kitchen, putting her bag on the edge of the counter as she sits down on one of the stools behind the island. "Yeah, I heard a whipping sound coming from the front, so I called him to look at it for me."
Rick gets the thought and turns around pulls open the fridge. "Whipping sound? Sounds like the-"
"Serpentine belt," Alexis says to him. Rick turns around to look at his daughter, surprised, cracking off the tin cap to a bottle of Pierre and sliding it across the surface of the island to her. Alexis shrugs and puts a hand around the bottle, smiling at him with her cheeks flushed. "He said he'd replace it for me on his lunch break so I can drive home tomorrow."
Rick smiles, glad his daughter seems to have met someone decent, doesn't seem to have any ulterior motives. "Well, that's nice of him." He says, his voice getting heavy.
While Alexis nods and sinks down into the counter, brushing her shoulder-length hair behind her ear and looking away, her mind seemingly lost in memories, he takes the time to get lost in memories of his own as he takes the first sip of his own sparkling water. His body has been wanting to tingle at the feeling of her arms around him again.
Nobody had ever hugged him that tightly before. It's not to often he's put in the position of being the one needing to be comforted. He can't say he likes the feeling. It made him feel weak and pitiful, especially in front of her. But she pulled it out of him. He'd never told what Meredith did to anybody, never repeated it out. He can't tell if it was cathartic or not yet. But feeling her arms viced around him, squeezing him as tight as she could until she wordlessly let go.
They've made love countless times, she's had her arms around him every one of them, but he's never felt her hug him like that.
But she found out somehow. "So, Beckett stopped by again this morning." He says casually, leaning against the counter opposite of his daughter.
Alexis looks up with her neck craned and blinks. "Did she do something?" She asks, probably wondering why he decided to bring it up when she knows she's been coming by every morning for almost three weeks.
Rick nods slowly, looking away and out through the French doors that look out to the lake. "You know, I always admired her for how good she was at her job." He says, still looking away. "How dedicated she was," he says, a lightness unclenching his lungs and a flutter wanting to butterfly around his heart before he squashes it. "But I've gotta hand it to her," he says casually and shifts his weight, "she really surprised me this morning."
Alexis's shoulders seem to tighten when he notices her posture stiffen out of the corner of his eye. "Oh?"
"Mmhmm," he hums, raising his brow and pursing his lips. "I always thought we had a bond to where we could just," he says, having the words in his head before they actually ring in his heart, "look in each other's eyes and know what the other was feeling..." he says, his mind having drifted off, "like we had our own world."
Alexis looks over the island to her dad, his eyes having almost glazed over. "Dad?"
He blinks rapidly, coming back to his senses. "But I never knew she was psychic."
He can see Alexis stiffen again. "What do you mean?" She asks in a small, nervous tone.
Rick shifts his weight again and slides the glass bottle of sparkling water away from him. "Alexis, did you tell Beckett about what happened between your mother and me?" When Alexis just looks away, never having been one to blatantly lie to her father, she gets a saddened look pulling at her features. "Alexis..." he sighs.
"Well, Dad..." she starts to defend herself, "I didn't really mean to, I-" she breaks off, letting out a heavy, sigh. When he looks back up to her, she continues. "I just went to talk to her after talking with my boyfriend and it just slipped out, but... but Dad, why is it so bad that she knows?"
"Because Alexis," he says in a firm voice, "what happened with me and your mother was very personal, okay?"
"But Dad," she argues again, "you wanted her to marry you."
In a pause, Rick dives in. "It's different now, Alexis." He says, only gaining a soft look from his daughter with her raised brow, silently calling him out. "I've moved on."
Alexis doesn't seem to give him a chance. "Then why are you so upset?" She fires at him. Rick leans off the counter and clenches his jaw. "If you've really moved on," Alexis starts again, sliding off the stool and moving around the counter, "then you wouldn't care what she knows, right?"
"Alexis, I've never told anyone that your mother had an affair." He tries.
Alexis seems to swallow thickly and eye him emotionally, "And you really expected things to work with Beckett?"
His lungs harden and he stares his daughter down for a moment, but all she does is raise her brow to his challenge. After a moment of her not backing down, his throat starts to close. "I just don't like talking about it." He tells her and turns away to lean against the edge of the island again, craning his neck slightly.
Alexis lets out a soft breath and he can see her shrug her shoulders meagerly. "I get why you won't talk about it around me, Dad." She says in a softer tone. "But you don't have to worry about poisoning me against Mom, she did that on her own." He can't respond to that, remembering that he made the effort both not to use his daughter as emotional tissue paper when Meredith left and to give Meredith a chance to be a mother if she ever chose to. "I know Mom doesn't like me, Dad, I don't really care."
He looks over to her, "She loves you, Alexis." He says reassuringly.
"She just loves herself a lot more." She shrugs. When Rick nods and looks back down to the counter, she continues. "But Dad, why is it so bad that Beckett knows things like that about you?"
"Because it's none of her business, Alexis." He throws off, a block of hardening ice forming around his lungs again. He'd never told anyone about Meredith, about what he felt or how the tabloids played him out to be the uncaring, dominating, lazy husband who didn't give his wife what she needed. But he also remembers telling her... like he would just tell her everything if she had just pressed him a little more. "But why are you of all people suddenly on Beckett's side on this?"
"Dad," Alexis emotionally fights back, "I'm on your side. I want you to be happy."
"I am happy, Alexis." He tries to defend himself.
"No, Dad, you're content. I want you to be happy, and I'm worried that if you don't at least confront how you feel about Beckett, you'll just get worse."
He shakes his head, surprised. "What? Alexis, what are you talking about get worse?"
She just eyes him again and seems to shore up her fight. "You think I didn't see what you were writing the other day, Dad?" His throat closes again. He hasn't touched that document on his laptop since he finished typing it. "Killing off Nikki Heat? You can't hate her that much."
"I've killed off characters before, Alexis."
"But Nikki Heat?" She challenges him. When he meets her eyes again, her brow furrows and she shakes her head. "Dad, you've said that you never liked that Beckett couldn't just be honest with you," when he nods, she continues, "but it sounds like you're lying to yourself." She says in a soft, nervous voice. Alexis has always been a meek person, compared to the other women in her bloodline at least. Seeing her like this, he's not sure how to handle it, and probably, judging by the sound of her voice, neither is she. "Can you really hold that much against her for not being honest with you when you're not even being honest with yourself?"
"Alexis," he starts in a hard tone, "I need to move on." He says seriously, turning to face her. "Whatever feelings I had for Beckett, I can't keep getting sucked in because of them. And after everything I put myself through for her, I thought you'd be happy that I'm not this time around, and that I have a date tomorrow night."
Alexis looks up to him with a curious gaze. "With who?"
Rick shakes his head and shrugs. "Cecelia's older sister, Sierra." He nods out behind her to motion to the neighbor's house across the street. "I met her a while ago when I was jogging and she stopped by the lecture I was giving at your school, so I asked her out." He says, putting his sparkling water to his lips.
Alexis nods and gives him a moment. "And... what's she like?"
He lets out a hard breath after he takes a small sip and puts the bottle back down. Maybe Alexis is right, probably more right than she thinks. "You know, with Beckett, I can't say I've ever felt what it was me and her had." He says, sounding like he's thinking out loud. "But what I can say... is that I've felt what it was with me and Sierra before."
Alexis takes a step closer to him, leaning against the counter next to him. "You have?" She asks and he nods, looking out into nowhere. "When?"
He looks over to her, "When I met your mother."
"Wait, he asked her out?!" Lanie sasses over the other end.
Kate sighs in the office chair in the office of the shop. "Yes, Lanie," she says, "and now I..." she shakes her head, looking down to her lap, "Lanie, I can't get them out of my head and they haven't even gone out yet."
"Well, what are you gonna do? Just let him prance her around in front of you?" Lanie asks her, the same attitude in her voice.
Kate rolls her eyes. "Lanie, I don't think that's why he's doing this."
"What else can it be, Kate? You remember that other little blonde strumpet he pranced around with before you two were together?"
Kate knits her brow, "Gina?"
"No, the other one, the-the-the-"
"The stewardess?" Kate finishes for her.
"Yeah, her. He didn't seem to have a problem flaunting her around, did he?"
"Lanie, that was different." She says with a soft shake of her head. "Back then, he was trying to prove something to me. This time, it's not like that."
"Well, how do you know?"
"Because he didn't tell me about it." She points out. "If he was going out of his way to hurt me by doing this, he would have told me about it, but he didn't say anything this morning."
"Well," Lanie starts, "if he's not showing her off... maybe he really has moved on." Her throat closes, not wanting to even think that. "Maybe he just doesn't want to tell you."
"No, Lanie, I can see in his eyes, he still loves me." She argues. "I know he still loves me."
"Then... what do you think he's doing? I mean, you know him better than anyone, probably."
Kate chuckles darkly, because the more she thinks about it, the more she thinks she doesn't even know him at all. She takes a pause while the light on the store phone starts to light up, telling her that there's a call. "Well, if he's not trying to prove to me that he's moved on... maybe he's trying to prove it to himself."
Lanie sighs softly on the other end. "If you want my advice, girl, I say let him go."
Kate draws in a thick breath, feeling her lungs shake. "But Lanie, I can't stand to even think about them together."
"If you're as sure as you sound about him still being in love with you," Lanie stops her, "then let him go out and prove it to you."
She swats away a stray tear and swallows her emotions, seeing the light on the office phone still light up with the call waiting. "Lane, I've gotta go."
"Okay, call me with the update, okay, Beckett?"
"I will," she smiles and ends the call on her cell phone and grabs for the receiver of the store phone in the same motion. "Crestfield Bait and Tackle, this is Kate." She says in as cheery a tone as she can muster.
"Kate Beckett?" An older, female voice says.
She pinches her brow and turns the chair into the desk, 'Yes?"
The woman chuckles softly, "I've got to admit, Kate, I wasn't expecting a greeting that happy-go-lucky from you."
"Um..." she says, taking a brief pause, "can I ask who this is?"
"I'm Claire Hanks." She says, almost matter-of-factly, like Kate should already know who it is.
"I'm sorry, Claire Hanks?" She asks.
The woman pauses on the other end of the line. "Your dad never mentioned me?"
Her lungs are gripped for a moment at that. "What?"
The woman chuckles softly, "I'm an old friend, Kate." She says reassuringly. "Your mother and I went through law school together."
"Uh... oh," she says, relaxing a bit back into the chair.
"I was afraid I had looked up the wrong place when I heard your voice." She says, seeming to smile with her tone. "I was wondering if I took a wrong turn in my headhunt."
Kate raises her brow to herself, "Headhunt?"
Claire chuckles on the other end of the line, "Well, Kate, once I got word from someone back in New York that you weren't at the NYPD anymore, I started making calls to get in touch with you, but you'd dropped off the grid."
AG's office requires its agents to keep a very low social profile. It's no surprise she was hard to track down. "I was just taking care of something for a while, that's all." She says.
"Well," Claire says casually, "now that I finally got a hold of you, I'd like to talk to you about something." Kate waits silently. "How would you like to come work for me?"
Kate slowly leans forward, taken by surprise. "I'm sorry?"
"See, Kate, your mother and I were very good friends." She says sincerely. "And," she chuckles, "don't tell him I said this but, I always thought your father was... well, anyway," she throws off. "I wanted to offer you a job to come work for me."
Kate chuckles to herself again. "Doing what, Ms. Hanks?"
"Well, it's a pretty big firm. And we're always looking for people with consulting abilities. I feel someone with your background could be a very valuable asset to us. And if you're anything like Jo, you might even give me a run for my money in court."
"Wait," she says breathlessly, "so you're a lawyer?"
Claire laughs softly, "Yes, Kate." She says in a soft tone. "I know you had a bit of pre-law in your time in college."
"Well, yeah but..." she trails off, "it was only one semester at Stanford. I'm no lawyer, Ms. Hanks. I was a cop."
"Kate, if I wanted some know-nothing lawyer fresh out of passing their Bar exam, I would have gotten one. I don't want a lawyer, Kate." She says seriously, and Kate can't help but feel the tone of the conversation shift. "Your mother was very proud of her work, Kate... just as you were. She took pride in what she did, and she was the best at it." Kate's heart gets incredibly heavy at that. The necklace around her neck suddenly feels heavy. "Just like you were, Kate."
"So..." she starts again, "what is it you're offering me?"
Claire takes a pause on the other end of the line. "I'm offering you a chance to follow in your mother's footsteps, Kate." Claire answers in a soft, too sincere voice for Kate not to believe her. "Even if you're half the woman Johanna was, that still makes you one of the best at what you do, and I have no doubt that you're a lot more than that. I'm offering you a chance to come work for me as a consultant at my law firm."
"That's..." she tries, "that's very generous but... I can't go back to law enforcement." She half-truths.
"We're a privately owned firm, Kate." She quickly reassures her. "I decide who I get to hire." She says strongly. "You could come work for me as a consultant, I could maybe talk you into taking up law again, and who knows?" She throws out casually. "We might even be able to find out what happened to your mother."
That makes her heart slam up into her throat, choking her.
Claire seems to pause, "After all, I heard about what happened the summer before last." She says in a heavy tone. "I'd hate to think that the people who did that to you would go unpunished."
"U-um..." she says in a shaky tone. "Ms. Hanks, I don't know what to say." She says, being honest, but a smile appearing on her face as she lets out a breath.
"Well," Claire seems to shrug, "you'll call me when you've decided then? I left a message earlier with my number where you can reach me."
Kate nods to herself, "Yes," she smiles, "I-I will." She says.
"It was a pleasure speaking with you, Kate." Claire says back, sounding honest. "It was almost like speaking to Jo again." She says, while Kate stays silent not knowing how to respond. "I'll talk to you later, Kate."
"Bye," Kate says in a breathless tone and slams down the receiver.
When the bell on the door chimes, she's brought back to the real world again, and quickly stands up and makes her way out of the office and out to the floor, where her dad is rounding the counter with a box of supplies to be stocked in his hands. "Hey, sweetie," he says contently.
"Dad," she says moving toward him while he pulls open the box and starts to unload jars onto one of the shelves behind the counter, "have you ever heard of someone named Claire Hanks?"
That gains his attention and he looks over to her with a surprised smile. "Claire? Yeah, she was your mother's maid of honor at our wedding." He said casually, shrugging his shoulders and going back to stocking the shelf. "Her and Claire were best friends going through law school. It's funny," he says, pausing in his work and looking ahead of him with a soft smile. "Your mother wanted her to be your godmother when she was still pregnant with you, but Claire was moving out to San Fransisco, so... we didn't really see the point."
"So," Kate starts, wanting to get back on track, "she's a real lawyer then? She's not some ambulance chaser?"
Her dad looks over to her with a soft smile, "Real lawyer?" He asks obviously. "Katie, she's the founding partner of one of the most prestigious law firms on the west coast."
That draws everything out of her. When Kate starts to feel her legs go numb, she reaches behind her to pull out another stool to sit down.
This is her shot. She could make a real difference again. She could really make a fight for justice that would be worth it.
She could go after Bracken.
"How'd you hear about her, anyway? I don't remember your mother ever talking about her." Jim says after a moment.
Kate shakes her head and lets out an almost amazed breath, feeling herself smile despite something in her heart telling her it's wrong. "She offered me a job."
A/N: Sorry for the long hiatus. I'm just off work for the time being and am being lazy. Hope this made up for it. :]
