Lanie left Kate's apartment and she was going to meet her down at the club two blocks from her place. She wanted to wear something comfortable and settled on a black top with a pair of skinny jeans and she decided to wear her hair long tonight coming down to her shoulders. She wore a minimum amount of makeup just to look enticing but not going overboard for some reason she didn't want to use that much makeup tonight. They stayed at the club for about three hours before they both became exhausted from dancing so much. She checks her watch and notices that it's close to 1 a.m. The only reason they didn't stay later was that Lanie had a shift in the morning and she left promptly by 1 a.m. So now she's sitting in her apartment thinking about what to do with the rest of her night other than going to bed. She realizes that she is not as upset with her attitude towards Rick and his money because like him she has money as well. When her mother was murdered she was given the entire amount of her mother's life insurance policy due to the fact that her father was incapable and incapacitated at the time for being responsible for a large sum of money. It took just about six months to get the final settlement to her and the amount was staggering, to say the least. Being the fact that they were both lawyers they knew that life, in general, could throw a curveball at you every once in a while. Her mother had a two-million-dollar policy on her life and her father had a two and a half million dollar policy on himself. Her father had gratefully signed over ownership of the whole policy knowing that he would never be able to carry out his wife's final wishes.
Kate had known nothing of what was to happen with the money, so she just put it in a basic savings account. During the next two years, it was in the savings account it had accrued just under half of a million dollars before she invested it in a solid but safe mutual fund. By the time her father was treated and cured for his alcoholism the total for their life insurance policy which had not been touched since it was issued was well over six million dollars. Her father was set for life as was she. She still became a detective because her ultimate goal was to solve her mother's case. But after two visits to a psychiatrist for therapy involving her mother's case, she put it on the back burner for now. She's not condemning him but the fact that her father became an alcoholic and drank most of his life away was a waste. She went a different route. Early in her career, she saw the injustice that came from broken families. Mothers would hurt fathers, fathers would hurt mothers both mothers and fathers would hurt each other and their children and that resulted in a lot of children living on the streets just to get away from the pain. So one day she and her T.O. were on routine patrol and she found a young girl who was just sitting on a five-gallon bucket with an old empty beer pitcher in one hand and holding a sign saying 'homeless will work for food' in the other.
Kate told Royce to pull over and when he did she got out of the car and she had a talk with the 13-year-old sitting on the bucket. It was hard work at first and gaining her trust was one of the toughest things he had ever had to do in her life. But in the end, Jayla learned that she had help when she needed it the most in the form of Kate Beckett.
Ever since that day Kate has been a volunteer with her local neighborhood Youth Center. They had done things together and Jayla had told most of her friends about how good some adults can be when you learn to trust them. They mostly did activities that didn't cost that much and a lot of the time when they had spare time they took most of the children who were at the Youth Center to the New York Public Library. Today was the day that they had about fifteen boys and girls. Most of the children that were going to the library today were under the age of ten. Jayla was the only one who was over ten and she acted like an assistant to Kate just to keep the kids safe. The walk from the youth center to the library was roughly about twelve blocks.
The walk started off with Kate in the lead and two other matrons one walking behind and the other walking on the street side of the sidewalk. It took the whole group about thirty minutes to get from the Youth Center to the library. When they walked into the library all the children made a beeline directly for the children's section of the library. Being her first time there Kate wondered what was going on because when she turned around all the kids and the matrons were gone from her sight. They knew something that she didn't so she follows where Jayla is heading towards before she can't see her any longer. It's then when she hears the voice that she thought she would never hear again.
She turns the corner and stands between two bookshelves hoping that she is out of his view. Not wanting to disturb him from doing what he's doing she looks on in awe. All the children with who she came to the library are sitting down at desks small enough for them and were listening with rapt attention to the man narrating a story to them sitting in the same little chair. Kate let out a small giggle because it was a sight to see. But then she too became very entranced by the words that were coming out of his mouth.
His storytelling hour was extended for about an additional hour and a half-hour that day because every time he wanted to stop to get a drink of water the children begged him to continue reading. His voice was like a drug it was very addictive and she looked at her watch one more time and realized that it was close to three in the afternoon. They needed to get the children back before someone began to worry. Reluctantly one of them matrons walked up to her just as Mr. Rogers was just finishing the last page of his book.
"You do know Kate that he's here on a regular basis. Other writers who write children's books sometimes fill in for him when he can't be here. They try doing what he does and don't get me wrong they do a good job it's just that Mr. Rodgers is the king it comes to reading to the kids."
"Dee Dee his voice is like pure heaven, it's so smooth and he also does voices of the other characters in the book which makes his storytelling that much better. More believable you could say."
"You're right Kate but now we have to get the kids back to the Youth Center because it's getting late." Dee Dee said.
Xx
It takes them a little bit longer to get back to the youth center than it did getting to the library because the kids wanted to stop off for ice cream which Kate and Dee Dee bought for them. They were so good and neither could resist. By the time they get back to the youth center some of the grandparents and parents, are there to pick up their children and grandchildren. They're exhausted just from the walk alone and it shows when each of them gets picked up to go home.
When she gets back to her apartment she realizes that most of the time flew by today and it was an amazing day. She could tell that she was starting to wonder what it would be like to meet him for coffee. But coming back to reality she realized that he was someone who was rich and famous and she was just a detective with the NYPD. But she still wouldn't mind going back and listening to what he had to say the next time they went to the library.
Xx
Over the course of the next few months, Kate had made the extra effort to talk Dee into taking the children and go to the library. She did this for two reasons the first being that when she went Rick was usually there reading stories for storytime and the children loved it. The second reason was she loved listening to his voice. She really wants to start something with this man because he has traits that she would be looking for in a life partner. But she has her walls and she knows that she can't make that kind of commitment... yet. She wants to but she just can't seem to pull the trigger.
It's funny because when she has been here before and other writers were filling in because he needed to take care of things in his own life she's felt a loss of sorts. It was like she was missing him without even actually knowing him personally.
She has come to the conclusion that she thinks that she could be open to seeing him in a setting that could become something more, so if he asks her out she will accept.