PLANE

Chapter 14

It is one month later

Kate was getting the very last of her very first tattoo for a Tattooed Monk and was in tears yet again. Damn but doing it there was was fucking painful. Why these people didn't believe in electricity was something she might never understand. However, everything she did with electricity these people seemed to do with magic. Save for when it was time to do some cooking. Though the fire they used was magical.

"Mirror." He handed her one since he was finally done. Kate took it so she could get a good look at it. The Cheetah Tattoo looked perfect. She could even see the color of its eyes. It was her face that really had her attention.

"That's me!" Kate moved and twisted the mirror to get a better look from every angle she could. "So, does my face magically alter as I age or will it always look like this?"

"It will never change."

"COOL! …Thank you." Still full of tears Kate kissed his cheek. Her tattoo was wrapped as usual and she had to do the same routine for a week, then she was free to have it activated and begin her training using it.

.x{O}x.

Kate found the most important person in her life in his office. "Babe!" She was so happy that it was finally over. That damn thing had been painful. She made it around his desk and kissed him soundly. "Just finished my tattoo. It's covered now but that comes off in four hours. It's really, really nice. He got my face perfectly." Kate kissed him again.

"I have something for you too." Rick handed it over for her to open and read. It was sealed so he didn't know what was in it.

"I GOT MY VARIANCE!" Kate was ready to burst she was so happy now. She went back around his desk and kissed him again. "I have to go shopping."

Rick watched Kate rush out of his office, leaving him behind, totally clueless. "O-kay." He was still clueless when he could no longer see her.

.x{O}x.

Kate strode into the same shop and showed him her variance.

"I thought they couldn't turn you down. I doubt anyone will be following you around but it might be best to keep your hair back on that side as much as possible. So let's take a look at earrings for both of you." He moved over to a totally different case.

"Wow, what's this one?" Kate pointed at it since it was seriously different.

"This one is a fine choice." He got it out and handed it to her to look over. "It is a Gothic dagger replication. It is made of Mithril so it is extremely lightweight and it is expensive. Press here and pull." He pointed to it and watched Kate pull out the sharp point hidden inside the dagger itself.

"This part goes through your ear and then snap the dagger portion into place under the ear. You will note the gem on the end. This particular one is a fire opal. It is just a little over three inches in length. It will not fit in your ear lobes. This is meant to go through the ear itself so that it points down instead of back into your neck," he explained. "It goes here." He used his own ear to show her.

"Oh, I see. So it fits like this." Kate snapped the two back into one piece and held it against her ear.

"Correct. You will only officially need just the one each. You can do the piercing here or anywhere else jewelry is sold if you prefer. I will do it free of charge, however," he offered.

"Rick's eyes are blue so can you do it with a sapphire?"

"Naturally. Any gem of your choice. Your eyes appear to be hazel so perhaps an amber or emerald gem would be best for you."

Kate beamed. "I'll take one with sapphire and one with emerald. I like that color better."

"Not a problem. You will need to have the piercing done not more than twenty-four hours before the ceremony. This ceremony will likely be the biggest this Plane has ever seen. The Commander is getting married." He couldn't wait and he got to be a tiny part of it. What a privilege!

"Biggest ever?" Kate hadn't really given much consideration as to just how big this wedding would be.

"The entire Plane will be watching. Not all in person, of course, but they will all eventually see it. It's not every day our Commander gets married. At least someone managed to steal his heart," he added happily.

"Will this time tomorrow work for you?" he asked.

"That will be perfect. Give me time to work up my courage to ask him." Kate knew she wanted to marry him but to be the one doing the asking was asking a lot of her.

"Nothing to worry about. I'm sure he will say yes. There, all set. This is a two for one deal. The Commander's earring is on the house as is the piercing. Just come back when you are ready. Pay for yours when you pick it up and approve of both. I only sell quality items. It will be perfect," he assured her.

.x{O}x.

That left Kate to head for her training time a little early.

"May I ask a question, Master?" He wasn't that kind of Master. Not slut and Master. He was her training Master. Big difference. "Do I have to obtain a tattoo each time I qualify for one?"

He shook his head. "You do not. Choose which tattoos work best for you. You can stop at four at Tier One and select however many you wish at Tier Two. One at Tier Three and so on. What you do is completely up to you.

"I see your tattoo is still wrapped." He had thought it should be done by now.

"I was told to keep it this way for four hours and then apply the salve as usual. It's not yet four hours. I don't want to ruin it now. It was too painful," Kate told him.

"Pain is in the mind," he countered.

"And here I thought it was in my arm. Silly me." Kate listened to him stifle a laugh which had her grinning.

"Go change and we will begin. Then next time we will activate your tattoo and begin training you in how to use it. Or you will walk yourself into a wall or over a railing."

"I knew there just had to be a catch to this." Kate retreated to go change and missed seeing him smile. He was finding that training someone from the Prime Material Plane, at least in her case, was actually a joy. The things she said.

.x{O}x.

"Well, look what the… What do they say? Cat dragged in?" Rick saw Kate coming home, making her way toward him, and very slowly and very carefully she sat down next to him.

"Ha ha, very funny, it is to laugh," Kate told him. "That was Daffy Duck by the way."

"I'll take your word for it." Not that he had any idea who Daffy Duck was. "What did he teach you today?"

"How to not let him break my bones while hitting the mat over and over again. And here I thought he liked me." Kate rubbed one of her sore spots.

"Go find some towels, strip in the spare bedroom, and I'll be right there with the oil."

"Thanks, babe." Kate kissed his cheek and groaned loudly as she got up and carefully walked into the spare bedroom. Getting the towels spread out on the bed was easy. Taking off all her clothes was something else entirely.

.x{O}x.

"OH, GOD! Don't stop, babe. OH, GOD!" Kate was loving his hands. She already had reason to love his hands but now she had a whole new reason.

"You keep moaning like that and you're going to get far more than a massage," Rick warned her.

"Promises, promises. Just don't stop." Kate went back to moaning. That was until one of his fingers slid up the folds of her core. Now that was a very different moan that escaped her lips.

A happy, very content, and still naked Kate had managed to turn over and allowed him to fuck her with his fingers and give her an orgasm, so now she was resting with her eyes closed.

"We still need to go eat dinner," Rick reminded her.

Kate didn't even lift a finger. "Room service, please. I'm not moving."

"I know for a fact they are serving eel today." Rick watched her eyes snap open at that.

Kate knew that she had never in her life had eel before and yet somehow here on this Plane she loved it. Damn best seafood anywhere. "Help me up." She raised both arms. He had said the magic word and around here with all this magic that was saying something.

She had even worked up an appetite. But first she had to take her wrap off and cover it with a thin layer of salve and wear something with no sleeves. Which meant Rick and then everyone else was going to get to see it.

As soon as it was salve-free Rick was going to stroke it and kiss it for her. She had taken her next big step into a new world, a new life. And he was very grateful she was here.

.x{O}x.

Kate found herself all alone in bed and Rick wasn't in the bathroom either so she walked naked out into the living room and still didn't find him. Nor was he in the spare bedroom or bathroom.

"You could have left me a note or something," Kate told the empty room. She sighed and went into the bathroom to take a shower and relieve herself. She didn't think she wanted to know where all this waste water went or what happened to it. Let alone how they always had fresh water and the hot water never seemed to have an end to it. God knows she had tried to find out while in the shower.

.x{O}x.

Kate assumed he was at work so she walked down the hallway toward the Control Room and his little office that had glass all round it. She thought/hoped he was either in his office or out on that balcony. He really did have a good view from there.

Instead she found him in the big open space and there were people all around him. Some of them she even recognized. She saw Alexis, Murus, her Triton boyfriend, along with Talia and Roitus, her Centaur boyfriend, and a few others she knew the names of.

"Babe?" She couldn't think of anything she had done wrong lately. Hadn't broken any laws that she knew about. Then her heart stopped as he stepped up to her and dropped to one knee. OH GOD, HE WAS! She was going to ask him but he was beating her to it.

"Katherine Houghton Beckett from the Prime Material Plane. If you would, please do me the honor of marrying me and be my mate. I believe you call it wife. Strange word, wife." But whatever.

Kate began to cry. Yes, she loved him more than she ever thought was possible for her and she had worked up the courage to ask him. Then he opened his palm and showed her what was in it.

"MY EARRINGS!" He had her earrings. The ones she had picked out for them yesterday. He had said to come back in roughly twenty-four hours. They shouldn't be ready yet.

Rick proceeded to tell her what he'd learned in such a short time. "Imagine my surprise when I go looking for something and end up in the very same store you used and found you had ordered these. Kind of big but you can't miss them. Then I find out you got a variance about the law behind my back, no less. You are a devious woman, Kate Beckett of the Prime Material Plane."

"Yes!" Kate told him through both of her hands since they were over her mouth. She mean yes, she would marry him, and yes, she could be a very devious woman when she wanted to be.

That had Rick standing up and facing her. "You get this one for later while I get to keep this one for later. You do realize we have to both get our ears pierced for this to work," Rick pointed out. But then he knew a piercing was coming.

"Yes," Kate nodded and just kept on crying.

"So yes, you'll marry me, or yes, you're devious, or yes, we both need to get our ears pierced?" Rick wasn't really sure.

"Yes," Kate told him again and jumped at him. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him soundly and passionately while still crying and listened to everyone clapping for them.

.x{O}x.

Kate was finally sitting in his office after hugging Alexis, Murus, Talia, Roitus, and a few others. Now she was holding up his earring that he was going to be wearing the rest of his life because she was supposed to be the one that inserted it into his ear. While he did hers.

"You like it? He has a gem the same color as your eyes."

"A little big perhaps, but you made an excellent choice." Rick would be happy to wear it.

"You didn't let me pay for it." She was a little put out by that. Even if all the money she had did come from him in the first place. But that wasn't the point.

"I'll let you buy your own dress."

"I get a dress? What else do I get? Besides you." That she got Rick was a given. "Do I get a honeymoon?"

"A what?" Sometimes her knowledge of the Prime Material Plane could be such a pain.

"A… Never mind. We'll work something out. Now, how do I get my dad involved in this marriage? He's going to want to walk me down the aisle and hand me off to you." Kate didn't know how to solve that problem.

"I already have a solution or two for that," Rick said to her, "but you might not like either of them."

"Let me guess, it involves magic." And all that time in Drakes Magic shop when she was little hadn't been a total waste.

"Pretty much. Technically, they're potions. One will remove his memory for a certain amount of time. By that I mean after he drinks it he'll remember nothing of the last whatever number of hours. Still trying to figure out just how long that is. Seems like it might be random.

"The other is still a potion but the memory loss will be much longer but more selective. He can remember the wedding itself but not where exactly, though it presents a problem."

"Murus and Roitus and everyone else that will be there that isn't human." Kate could see that one coming. "Some choice. He forgets my wedding completely or he remembers a Triton, Centaur, Fire Genasi, not to mention all the Elves and everyone else around here.

"I don't suppose Setheldath or her brother or children will be there too?" Kate asked.

"Do you want to try explaining to Setheldath that she can't attend our wedding?" Rick challenged her.

"Not for all the tea in China. Great. How do I explain a massive Silver Dragon to him, let alone more than one." Kate moaned and put her earring down then put her hands over her face to hide. "I'm in so much trouble."

"There is only one other alternative allowed by our laws, besides making sure he forgets everything or almost everything." Rick had one other option for her to think about. "He never leaves here, ever again."

"Oh, that certainly solves everything." Kate didn't see where that solved anything at all. "Lose his memory or lose his job. He's already lost Mom, now he's losing me for weeks, if not months or years at a time. And even then he only gets me for an hour or two provided no one is chasing down that Lich if it hasn't been caught yet.

"What am I going to do, babe? I'm not leaving and I am getting married. And what do I tell Lanie?" Suddenly this was snowballing way out of proportion and she didn't know how to stop it.

"Wait!" Kate was coming up with a plan. "What if the next time you open the mirror and Alexis and Talia go looking for that Lich you drop me off at Dad's place? Just come back and get me. I get him to make arrangements for us to get married in Vegas, somewhere nice, and fast, and quick. Touch a mirror and come home. Just the two of us.

"Now how do I get you an ID?" Kate had one more problem to solve. "Not perfect but at least I don't have to erase my dad's memory of me getting married or explain a Silver Dragon."

Rick needed to think about that one. "The mirror can only stay active for three hours at a time every three weeks. You will have at best two hours to talk to your dad and arrange everything. You will need to know everything before you come back or we do this all over again three weeks later.

"I can't risk leaving you, or even worse Alexis and Talia, trapped on the Prime Material Plane. If you're there maybe that's helpful. But what if you're in one city and they aren't?" Rick couldn't take that kind of a risk.

"Two hours to plan a wedding three weeks from now in Vegas. Sounds like a challenge. I still need to get you an ID though. Can't get married without one." Still one problem to solve.

"Didn't you tell me once that there is another Castle and even another Alexis on the Prime Material Plane?" Rick asked her.

"THAT'S IT! You lost your drivers license and you need a temporary one while the new one gets sent to that Castle. Get to DMV, take a number, and wait. Then rush to wherever the wedding is. Hug and kiss Dad bye and touch a mirror in the restroom or something.

"This is a crappy wedding." The more she thought about it the more she hated it. Too fast, too much could go wrong, and then they both might be stuck on the Prime Material Plane for three weeks.

"This sucks, babe." Kate didn't have an answer yet. But she would. She had to. She wasn't leaving her dad out of her one and only wedding. "Blindfolded, maybe?"