Thanks for the reviews. Here is Kate's chapter.
O-o-o-o-o
She had had a bad case. A very bad case. It had reminded her so much of her mother and had left her emotionally burned out. That's why she was currently curled up on her couch, tucked in under a soft blanket with a Richard Castle book in her hands and a glass of wine on the coffee table.
Castle's books always were comforting. And especially after cases like this one she just needed them. A woman had been murdered. Her 15-year-old daughter was now an orphan since her father had died in a car accident when she was just a baby. Naturally the girl had been devastated. It reminded Kate so much about her own feelings after her mother's death. She had solved the case, brought the girl closure but it had opened old wounds anyway. She had given her her card, had told her she could call her anytime when she needed someone to talk.
The girl was now living with her mother's sister. Watching her walk out of the precinct with the aunt she only knew from yearly visits had been hard. Kate had watched her pull up her shoulders, her head held high, her hands in fists when she walked beside the woman. It didn't seem that she couldn't stand her aunt. But she barely knew her and Kate could see that the girl didn't want the barely stranger to see her cry. Or appear weak in front of her at all.
She reminded Kate of herself in that way. She'd thought she had to deal with her grief alone, had been too proud to cry in front of others. Had built up walls around her heart that barely anyone could ever cross. And to be honest she still thought so. She still thought she had to deal with her grief alone because there was no one who could ever understand her. And the walls were still intact. Only that there was one person inside those walls now. Kate would like to say it were two. But it really weren't.
Watching the victim's daughter walk out of the precinct today and knowing what she was going through and how it would affect her whole life from now on had left Kate feeling heavy-hearted and in need of a good book. So after she'd tucked her daughter in she'd chosen a book and had settled on the couch.
Kate turned the page and let herself be carried away by the story. Every word she was reading was like balsam for her soul. She felt herself slowly relaxing. She didn't know what she would do, if she wouldn't have those books. They were so important to her and always managed to make her feel so much better. She didn't even really know why. But they were and that was all she cared about. She'd tried to understand why it was exactly them but she never really got it. It wasn't like they were the only mystery books. Or the only books with happy endings. But they still were the only books that managed to comfort her like this, that managed to swallow her whole even on the worst of days.
When she finished a chapter she looked at her watch and almost sighed. Josh would be home soon. She felt bad for hoping that he got a surgery scheduled last minute. But she just didn't feel like dealing with him tonight.
No such luck though. About ten minutes later she heard him unlocking the door and entering their apartment.
"We need to talk" he said without preamble when he entered the living room. Kate looked up from her book to look at her boyfriend standing in front of her. She didn't like how this conversation was starting. This was never a good line. And to be greeted with it the moment your boyfriend walked through the front door was even worse.
Hello to you too, Kate thought annoyed. She wished he would know her better. She wished he would know that she'd had a bad day just by looking at her. She wished he would know that she really wasn't in the mood to receive any bad news. She wished he would know that she was in need of comfort. She wished he would notice these kind of things. She wished but she knew he wasn't that observant.
"About what?" she asked as she placed A rose for everafter on the coffee table in front of her.
"Are you reading that stupid fiction again?" he eyed the book disgusted. Kate glared at him. Sure, she hadn't told him why she loved those books so much but she hated when he mocked her about her reading habits. It wasn't like she wasn't reading serious literature but after a rough day like today she just wanted to get carried away with a good story. And the story being one of Richard Castle's was even better. They made her feel closer to her mother somehow and that was probably why she loved them so much and what made them so special for her.
"I'm sure my reading habits aren't what you wanted to talk about" she said angrily.
"Right. No. They aren't. Even if I still don't understand why you are always reading this unrealistic fiction with all the sappy happy endings. There is no value in it and it's just stupid and it isn't like you aren't surrounded by murder every day anyway…"
"Josh!" she hissed angrily. It was the same every time. He wasn't teasing her with her reading these books like Will had been. No. He was insulting her for it. Questioning her intelligence because of it. She hated it. She really, really hated it. And he had started doing it so early in their relationship that she had never told him why they meant so much to her.
"Right" he said, but started again. "It's just that you…"
"Josh, stop it!" She would have been yelling by now if it weren't for the sleeping girl in the next room.
"Yeah, okay, calm down." Kate pressed her lips together. She really didn't like his uncaring tone. But arguing wouldn't bring an end to this conversation anytime soon. So she swallowed her anger down.
„What did you want to talk about, Josh?" she sighed, already beyond annoyed.
„Yeah, right" he finally sat down beside her on the couch. „Remember when I applied for that doctors without borders mission a while ago?"
„Sure" Kate replied. They had talked about this months ago. It was something that was important to him and as long as he was telling her soon enough she was okay with him going away for a few weeks. She'd already organized her work schedule so that she wouldn't need a babysitter for their daughter too often. Everything was already planned so she didn't know what he wanted from her. Right now she just wanted to get this conversation over with so she could lock herself in the bathroom and continue reading her book in the bathtub. He usually left her alone when she was taking a bath.
„They changed the date" he told her and the slightly uncomfortable look he was shooting in her direction already told her that she would not like what was coming next.
„It's two weeks later now" Josh casually added as if it were nothing.
Kate looked at him incredulous. He couldn't be serious!
„You are kidding me, right?" Kate hissed angrily. „You know that we have a four-year-old daughter, right? You can't just change plans like that. I already cleared everything at work with Montgomery and my colleagues. You can't just go two weeks later!"
„Babe" he tried to calm her down with a gentle voice, achieving nothing with the hated nickname. „I know it's going to be tricky to change plans. And if it isn't possible then I'm not going. But you could at least try. You know that this is important to me."
Kate massaged her temples. She was starting to get a headache. Why did something like this had to come up on a day she already was stressed enough?
Two weeks later? Hm… maybe she could talk to Montgomery again. Maybe it was no problem. He understood how difficult it was to balance work and family. They could just take the work schedule they had worked out for the new date. Wait… what would be the new date be anyway? Kate mentally calculated the days.
„You can't be serious, Josh!" she glared at him. „If you'd go two weeks later you would be gone for Claire's fifth birthday." God, the nerve of this man.
„Kate, babe. It's just a date. I'll call and I'm sure you can handle her birthday party alone. You know that I'm not good with other people's children anyway" Josh argued.
„You really want to miss your daughter's birthday?" Kate asked incredulous. For nothing in the world would she want to miss her baby's birthday. How could Josh not care about that?
„I can do something fun with her when I'm back. It's not like a birthday is the only day you can turn into a fun day. It's just a date like every other" Josh justified. And Kate could probably agree with him on this if they were talking about her birthday or his or any other adults for that matter but for kids a birthday was something special. Her birthday was not just any day for Claire. She had been talking about it for weeks now and it was still a few weeks away.
„You know what, Josh?" Kate said defeated. She felt powerless. If Josh couldn't even see for himself that the fifth birthday of his daughter should be something important to him too there was nothing she felt like she could do. „I'm too tired for this right now. We can talk about this tomorrow. I'm going to take a bath"
Frustrated tears were already forming in her eyes and she really didn't want him to see her cry right now. He would just say she was being stupid. She picked up her book from the coffee table and made her way to the bathroom.
O-o-o-o-o
Kate quietly slipped out of the bathroom and into her daughter's room. She tiptoed over to her bed to kiss her on the forehead. The girl stirred from the contact but didn't wake up. Kate gently caressed her perfect face before she breathed a quiet "I love you".
She watched the rising and falling of the blanket over Claire's chest for a few minutes. There was nothing more beautiful than the peaceful face of her sleeping daughter. Or maybe there was. Her smile, the way her eyes lit up when she was happy about something was the most beautiful thing in the world.
Kate watched her daughter sleep for a while before she quietly slipped out of the room again, closing the door behind her. Because of course Claire was too big to sleep with a night light or let the door open for the light of the hall to fall in. She was just like her mother in that way.
When Kate noiselessly entered the bedroom she hoped that Josh was already asleep. That would make ignoring him so much easier. No such luck though.
He was laying in bed and seemed to be waiting for her because he immediately put his phone away when she entered the room. She inwardly sighed but continued her way to her side and slipped under the covers.
"Good night" she said and turned away from him, facing the wall. She really didn't want to talk to him right now. In moments like these she wished they hadn't moved in together and she could retreat into the solitude of her own apartment. But when she'd gotten (unexpectedly) pregnant with Claire it had seemed like the right thing to do.
Thankfully the exhaustion of the day, the remaining warmth from the bath and the peace that had settled over her when she watched her daughter sleep were already starting to pull her to sleep. At least she wouldn't have to pretend to be asleep then to avoid conversation with her boyfriend.
Her eyelids grew heavy and her body started to relax with the numbness of sleep. The blanket was comfortably warm, her pillow exactly in the right position. She was five seconds away from being asleep, when she felt Josh wrapping an arm around her, his mouth at her ear. Half-asleep Kate tried to scoot away but he wouldn't release his hold from her and she groaned in annoyance. God, he knew she hated being touched when she wanted to sleep. She just wanted him to stay on his side when she was sleeping. She'd never been a cuddler. And even less so when she was sleeping.
She decided to ignore him. Maybe he'd leave her alone again if he thought she was asleep already.
"I'm sorry, Kate" he whispered in her ear while he started caressing her thigh under the covers. "About before" When his hand wandered from her thigh over her hip to her lower abdomen, ignoring him wasn't an option any more.
She groaned loudly, turned, pushed him away and glared at him. "Are you kidding me?" she asked incredulous. "You don't really think I'm going to have sex with you right now, are you?"
"Come on, Kate. I'm sorry for fighting with you earlier" he told her, but his heart definitely wasn't in the apology. His eyes were dark with want. He wasn't seeking for her forgiveness, he just wanted to fuck her. "Let me make it up to you" His hand found its way to the seam of her sleep-shirt. She batted it away when he tried to go under her shirt.
When he started another try, this time going straight for her breast, she had had enough. She leveled her most intimidating glare at him and threw him out of the bedroom. He was going to spent the night on the couch. Enough was enough.
Now that he had woken her up though, she couldn't go back to sleep. She kept thinking about the case, about Josh missing their daughter's birthday, about everything. She tossed and turned in the bed, spilled a few angry frustrated tears and couldn't find sleep until the early morning hours, just to be woken up by her alarm three hours later.
She could have slept eight hours but thanks to Josh she hadn't even had the half of it. This day was starting of great… not!
At least when she got up to prepare breakfast for Claire, Josh had already left for work. She didn't stop to think about what her relief over that fact was saying about their relationship.
O-o-o-o-o
"That's all I can tell you right now. I'm still waiting for the toxicologic results." Lanie ended her report about the victim.
Kate nodded. She could work with what she had right now. Hopefully this case wasn't too difficult. On her good days she liked the weird ones. Loved the mystery but when she was emotionally already drawn out she agreed wholeheartedly with Esposito. She just wanted an easy case. And after last night she really really wanted this case to be easy. She'd even wished for a paperwork-day this morning when she dropped Claire of at her preschool.
"Thanks Lanie. Call me as soon as you find anything else" Kate said and started to turn around to make her way out of the morgue.
"Not so fast, young lady!" Lanie called. Kate sighed. She knew that she hadn't been too great at hiding her emotions from her best friend. But she didn't really mind. She really could use some encouraging words.
"What's wrong?" Kate asked anyway, playing dumb.
Lanie gave her a look. "You tell me"
Kate sighed again, massaging her hurting temples while letting herself fall on a chair. Lanie watched her and slowly pulled another chair opposite from Kate's.
"That bad, huh?" enquired Lanie.
"Men are idiots" Kate groaned, glad to be able to let some of her frustration out.
Lanie studied Kate. This definitely wasn't the first time this month that her fried was deeply upset with that boyfriend of hers. Not even the first time this week. The man kept disappointing her on a regular basis.
"Men or just Josh?" probed Lanie.
"He wants to postpone his doctor's without borders mission." Kate fumed. "He thinks I can just throw away all the plans I already made just to make new ones that fit his schedule. And on top of that the new date is over Claire's birthday! Over her birthday, Lanie! Can you believe that he wants to miss his daughter's birthday?!"
Lanie didn't answer her rhetorical question. She just waited her out. Kate really needed to unload.
"And then after I told him that I'm really too tired right now to fight with him, he thinks I'm going to sleep with him!" Kate huffed. "Can you believe that? Like he can just fuck the problem away! And he keeps pretending that it's no big deal and makes me feel like I'm overreacting but I'm not"
Lanie placed a comforting hand on her friend's knee when her fury seemed to run out and left only sadness and disappointment in its place.
"I'm not, am I?" Kate asked, finally lifting her eyes to meet Lanie's. They were shining with tears. Lanie hated the man for making her normally so confident best friend this insecure. She took her hand in hers and squeezed it.
"No honey. You are not" Lanie assured her. "You have every right to be upset"
Kate looked down at their joined hands and brushed some tears from her cheeks.
"Maybe you should think about if this relationship is still worth all the disappointments, Kate" Lanie pointed out.
Kate shook her head. They had had this discussion more than once and she didn't want to hear this right now. Lanie continued anyway.
"You know that I'm not saying this because I don't like Josh, right? Well, I do not like him. But that's not the reason" Lanie said. When Kate didn't say anything she went on. "I'm saying that because every time we talk you are upset or angry with Josh or he disappointed you. One out of twenty times you tell me about something good. Or neutral. Maybe that's because you don't tell me about all the great times you have but to me it looks like that there aren't too much of them"
Maybe Lanie was right. Maybe the bad things really outweighed the good things. He really kept disappointing her every chance he got. But what about Claire? Kate couldn't just break up with her daughter's father. She wanted her daughter to have a happy family. A whole family.
But they weren't a happy family. Josh kept putting work over both of them and their relationship was so far from how it should be that Kate didn't even remember how it felt like to be happy.
Tears were running down her face. God, she hated crying. She hated Josh for making her cry.
"I wanted us to be happy" Kate whispered, her voice broken with tears.
"Oh, honey" Lanie sympathized and pulled Kate up and into a tight hug. She hugged her back, thankful that she had at least such a good friend.
"Don't decide right away. Take your time and think about it" Lanie advised.
Kate pulled away and nodded. "I will"