Before he can open his mouth and say anything to her in response, Kate is through the door and she stands on her tippy toes against him and draws him in for a hot, passionate, kiss. At first, his response is reserved, maybe even apprehensive, but once her arms wrap around his back and she pulls him in tighter, he's all in.
By the time they break from their searing kiss they both need to breathe. Taking in as much air as he can he finally opens his eyes and looks at the woman who just made his day.
"Well, Kate you're right about one thing, we really do need to talk."
She looks up at him and simply nods her head. This is the first time in her life she has ever done anything this spontaneous and hopes that she didn't ruin their moment. Then she notices that his shirt is conveniently missing and she takes in the view he is offering. Yeah, she's a goner.
Rick notices her staring at him and he doesn't realize that he was just coming back from the gym because the kiss she just gave him has put him in la-la land. Not having his shirt to put back on he quickly invited Kate to come into the loft.
Rick has always been a gentleman and that doesn't change now whether he is or isn't halfway clothed. He takes her by her hand and escorts her fully into the loft. He brings her over to the kitchen nook and she takes a seat in one of the booths.
"Before You came to the front door I was heading towards the shower. Would it be okay if I left you alone for ten minutes so I can continue doing that? And then when I get out of the shower we will have this talk you mentioned."
"Rick I'm sure that I can entertain myself for ten minutes. Go and get that workout sweat off your body. I'm not going to say that you stink, but..." Kate pinches her nose closed and Rick gets the message.
Rick returns in less than ten minutes fully clothed having taken possibly the fastest shower on Earth. When he gets back to Kate he sees her still where he left her only she is reading the editor's copy of his latest book. He forgot he'd left it on the table. Knowing that it's too late to stop her from reading it he asks her this,
"Do you want something to drink?" He asks being the gracious host.
"Sure. Some water please?" She answers.
"Coming right up."
While Rick busies himself getting some water bottles and what looks like a snack for them to munch on, Kate thinks about how she will reveal her power to him. They will also touch upon how she's leaning more towards believing in what he can see concerning the future.
"So Kate, what do you want to talk to me about?"
Kate unscrews the plastic lid off of her water bottle, takes a sip, and recovers it then places the bottle down on the table. He notices the manuscript she was reading is moved to the side. She looks directly into Rick's eyes and having formulated some sort of response to his question she starts talking.
"First I want to tell you that you were right."
The second the words come out of her mouth she raises her hand to stop him from speaking because she wants to get this all out in one go instead of answering his questions as they proceed.
"Rick, just let me get through what I need to get through, and then you can ask any questions that you might have at the end of what I have to say."
"Alright, Kate. You can explain everything to me about how I was right." He chuckles a little knowing that for the first time he's been seeing her he was right for one thing although he doesn't know what that one thing is just yet.
"What I mean to say is that what you had seen about the future was right. The au pair was the person responsible for killing little Garrett Foster. In a fit of rage, she slammed him into the table by hitting him in the head and that had a caused a hemorrhage in his brain and died right there. She tried to cover it up by placing him in his bed in his room blaming it on the boy himself thinking that the people who she was watching him for would believe what she said was the truth. We have a full confession and she'll be going to prison for the rest of her life."
Kate takes another sip from the water bottle and continues.
"I have something to tell you that has to deal with what I am capable of and it might surprise you. But first, I believed that you could not tell anything about the future. But then when you precisely told me that the pizza guy was going to show up at my apartment, I was on the fence thinking that you might be gifted. What shoved me over the fence was the fact that you figured out that the au pair was the one who committed the crime. I just need to know how you can tell the future."
Rick did not know if it was safe to talk so he asks her if it was.
"So am I allowed to speak now? Are you done with the questions for now?"
"Yes you can speak now I just wanted to know that I could get through this without fumbling it up so to speak." She said with a small smile.
"Okay, Kate. I know that you know about my past because I talked to Carlos and he told me that you had visited him recently. Now while I can see the future I know that there is no way in hell you left precinct on a Thursday evening, flew down to Houston, had a three hour talk with my friend, and then flew back in under three and a half hours. But I seem to I know things about you that you don't. Or should I say that you're not willing to share right now? Am I right… again?"
"Rick I'm not sure what you mean. I just want an explanation of how you can see what happens in the future. Then I will tell you something that might blow your mind." Kate hid a smile at her last statement that is until Rick spoke again.
"Let me guess, the something that you're going to tell me goes like this, you can be at any location that you've been to at some point in your life and you can do it in the blink of an eye. Am I close?"
Kate's smile fell from her face and a frown was quickly replacing it. How could he have possibly known her secret? He never let on that he knew what she could do.
"How did you know?" She asks.
Rick clears his throat and shifts his position on the bench he's sitting on. This will be a long complex conversation.
"All right let's start with the easy part first. I can see what happens in the future because I was born with it. At first, I didn't want to be labeled a freak but my mother insisted that we needed to eat so I used my powers as a side act at the carnival we used to travel with. I would do stupid and inane tricks for the people in the crowd. It could be things like what they had for dinner before they came to the show or what was in their front left pocket or my personal favorite was telling a woman that she was going to have a baby when she didn't even know herself."
"After a while, it got monotonous to do the same thing over and over and over again. I was getting frustrated because I was being used as a sideshow attraction which is actually what I was but I didn't like it. If you could have asked my mother when she was still alive she would say that my gift kept us fed along with what she was doing for the carnival. We lived pretty well. Then I saw bigger and better things for me when we visited a town in Florida. I wanted to do things that no other kid could do. I didn't have many friends when I was growing up in the carnival other than Damien, and of course, all my mom's friends but that was just it, they were her friends, not mine."
"I decided to leave the only place that I called home. After I turned eighteen, I traveled from town to town making money as I went. And then after a while, I decided to settle down in Houston. That's where I met Carlos and he taught me the finer things of cooking. I stayed there for about two years before I moved on from there. I kept taking odd jobs from the towns I lived in and learned a lot of life lessons."
Rick paused to reorganize his thoughts and just as he was about to start speaking, Kate asked a question.
"Rick, have you ever used your power for your own personal gain?"
"No. I would never. I consider what I have a curse but I will never use what I have to make money illegally. It's not ethical and I promised myself that I would never be that man. But I have used what I can do to write about Charlie."
"Now there is something that I do know that concerns me and you. I can see people's futures for three minutes and twenty-two seconds. Now let's say I look at your future and knowing that you are a cop you could be heading to a crime scene in your unit and a cab runs a red light then T-bones you. Now, if I come out of the state that I'm in when I'm seeing that certain future and do it again five minutes later the future I see next will end up being slightly different. Instead of running the red light, the cabbie stops like he's supposed to. But a garbage truck that was speeding out of control moving in the opposite direction you were traveling in slams into you head-on. This would be what happens when I look at someone's future more than once. So if I look at someone's possible future and don't look at it again this will be what happens in their future."
"But there is an issue between us I don't know how to describe it or what it is that happens but when I touch you in any way I see more than three minutes and twenty-two seconds concerning your future only. I can see a full seven days in advance. What I see in your future scares me. I don't know if you feel what I feel but I need to share this with you."
"What do you see?"
"A while back I thought you were being a little reckless with your life. They were a couple of instances where you were taking risks that I thought were not needed. I was able to see what happened to you and I'm pretty sure if I asked you to remove your pants right now, I can still see the bruise on your thigh, although faded, from where the taxi cab hit you while you were chasing down your suspect that got away. Then there was the instance with Ryan. If it wasn't for him pulling you out of the way you wouldn't be here right now. That brings me to this point. When I was younger I had a friend named Rodger. We were climbing a tree in the town we were at with the carnival. Rodger being the more athletic of us got a head start up the tree. I should add that if there is a life-threatening event I will automatically go into a state where I see everything involved in that incident. Anyway by the time we got three-quarters of the way up the tree Rodger had decided to test one of the branches so to speak. I called out to him and told him that the branch she was going to step on was rotten and if he did put his full weight on it it would break and he would fall to his death. I knew this because I saw it happening to him. He decided that I was nuts and lightly stepped on the end of the branch not putting his full weight on it. But then I had re-watched his future and he did step on it but he shifted his balance on his other leg that was on the good beach and then he lost his balance in the process falling from the branch he was standing on. I tried to grab him by the shirt as he's dropped by me but I couldn't hold on to him. He died that day because I couldn't save him. Now, something is going on that's going to get you killed and I fear that I won't be able to save you like I couldn't save him."
The first Kate doesn't know what to think. She's angry that he has been looking into her past. Or more like looking forward and finding out what happens to her. But then she realizes that he is only trying to protect her so she understands. Then she realizes that he can do this with anyone he chooses. He could do it with Esposito or Ryan Lanie or even anyone off the street. But he chose to tell her what was going to happen.
"Rick, I need you to explain to me how when you touch me can see seven days into my future."
"This will be hard to explain Kate. But I will do the best I can to show you how I see your future."
Rick hesitantly reaches out for her hand and she responds. The second he takes her hand in his he puts his other hand over hers and holds tight. The second he does he is instantly in a state of suspended animation. As Kate watches him she can tell that he doesn't look like he's breathing he just sits there eyes wide open and not blinking. It's a weird feeling he is giving her but she has never seen him doing this so she accepts it. She feels the sweat between their joined hands but at the same time, it feels like his hand is turning to ice. It's almost as if he was dying. She becomes a little uncomfortable as time goes on. It's been a full eight minutes and counting. She doesn't know what to expect now.
They both sit there for the next three minutes and she is becoming concerned. The longer they sit there the more Kate is getting worried. Just then he comes out of what she can only think is a trance. He looks like he had just been asleep for the past eight hours but he slowly comes out of it.
"So Rick what happened? I tried talking to you and got no response at all. You were out for about ten minutes or maybe more." Kate explains.
"Kate this has never happened to me before. So I don't know how to process the information I have just seen. But I can tell you one thing, what I had a vision of was longer than a week, it was just about six months."
She was at a loss. She didn't know what to think because she knew nothing about his abilities. So she just waited until he sorted it all out. It had taken Rick about an entire half of an hour to finally sort out what he had seen in her future.
"There's no easy to tell you this Kate, but inside of three months, you will be dead. What I have seen is something that has me reeling. I am not that sure I should tell you what I have seen."
"Rick you can't just drop something like that in my lap and then shut down," Kate says as she gently places her hand on the side of his face and holds him close.
Rick likes the feeling of how close she is and then her hand caresses his cheek and he is hit with another vision without even realizing it. He is thrown into a state that has his head dropping a little and he is not responding to Kate's pleas to talk to her….
"Rick what's wrong? Please snap out of it! I need you here and not seeing another vision..."
Just as she finished that sentence her whole body does exactly what Rick's has done. Her eyes are wide open, her breathing seems to have stopped and she is as solid as a statue. She can still see her hand on his face but she can't move it to break free from what she is seeing. She is petrified at what she sees while he is in his trance.