After leaving One PP she needs a place to stay.
She knows she's been down the rabbit hole but she's not so-self-absorbed that she can't recognize that the Loft is not an option at the moment. Sure she has a key but she doesn't feel entitled to be there even if there is no one present to judge her, she's entirely – and too late – self-judgmental.
More than anything she wants contact with Rick. To see him, touch him no matter how briefly, or just speak to him if that is all she can get. But it won't get her back home. Not right away, if at all. She's certain of that.
The non-contact from Rick, the complete incommunicado, is so completely out of character that she fears she has finally achieved what years of rejection, avoidance and lies had previously failed to do.
Still she tries.
She finds a coffee shop far enough away that there are no cops, and a quiet corner.
After three fruitless round of calls to the Castles, she rings her dad who actually picks up. They agree meet at their diner for a late lunch. Over the phone he asks, and she finds herself agreeing to stay with him one more time.
He is surprisingly calm and patient with her. He was last time. It was her who wasn't all those things and more.
They start softly, the general health inquiries, skirting his work, ignoring hers entirely.
"Katie, I'm sorry about before. It wasn't my place to be judgmental."
"But it should be Dad. Mom would have been. She wouldn't have cut me any slack. And it wasn't anything I didn't deserve. I really screwed up. Really am screwed up." She's fighting the tears
"Well how about we make a list and then work out which ones to umm, fix first."
It started off like a good idea. Half-way in it looks like an indictment, and by the end she'd convict herself. Doing this in public was a bad idea. Her control is shot and her dad recognises this. Slips his key across the table to her. He has to go back to work. She needs privacy.
She goes to his place. The pull out bed is basic and the diametric opposite of what their bed had been in her former home. The tears don't stop for some time.
She goes round to the Loft. Sneaks past the duty doorman, afraid to even exchange inane pleasantries at the risk of being judged by others.
Her key still works and she steals in. It very much feels that way.
No one is home.
She once was a detective.
Starts with his office. His laptop is gone. Same with his travel essentials. A check of the safe reveals that his passport is missing. Hers is there alongside her Mom's ring and other keep sakes he must have moved from bedside the bed. She takes the passport. But after some indecision she leaves her mom's ring. That's an anchor to her past, and if she is going to stand any chance she needs to be focused only on their future. If they have one.
She can't make it through the door to their bedroom, breaks down on the threshold, body racked against the door frame, hot guilty tears wash nothing away except her mascara.
She has to pass their bed on her journey through to their bathroom to repair her makeup and at least make herself presentable enough for the journey back to her Dad's place.
His favorite luggage – the one he uses on tours - is missing and there are gaps in the wardrobe. Enough for weeks. How long has he been gone?
The rest of the Loft. The fridge is empty of perishables.
She finds a flyer on Martha's dresser. A two week actors retreat in New England. That explains one absentee. Alexis is obviously back in her dorms.
She takes a travel case and fills it with more clothes and toiletries. Only what she needs. Everything else she leaves behind.
Supper with her dad is a simple meal of pasta and bottled sauce. He's never been much of a cook, that was always her mom, and she can't help but compare it to how Rick's love of cooking served up an amazing pastiche of flavors. She picks at her food. Has done since she was so stupid less than two months ago.
Despite it being a weekday night, her dad has a meeting. That he still goes despite the years under his belt is something she admires him for it. Tells him so. He smiles wanly somehow guilt for those handful of lost years never assuaged.
Will she feel the same, if she ever gets the chance to fix them?
"Will you be okay Katie?"
For tonight, or in the long run? She wishes she knew.
"I'll be fine Dad. I'll read or catch a show," she kisses his cheek, "Now go. I'll see you when you get back."
She can't concentrate on a book, and channel hopping was equally unfulfilling.
Her Dad has a Tivo – provided by Rick of course. Despite its age it still works. Among all the baseball games there is a surprise. Not that it should be. It would appear that a certain egotistical author has his name in the smart search function.
There it is. The talk show from just over a week ago. The night after she last saw Rick in DC.
She gives in. Watches it.
It's a mistake. A huge mistake.
Oh God.
She watches as the man she pledged her life to, defends her to his last breath on TV. Despite of everything she had done. She sees it. The moment when he breaks, when his instinctive defense of her is not enough, when the determination and love fades from his eyes.
She breaks again. Then forces herself to watch it twice more. Part penance, part aide-memoir.
She makes it until the last day before she goes back to work.
Sunday brunch – the one meal her dad was good at - was a stark reminder of all that she had lost. She breaks again, surprising no one, even as her Dad rocks her in his arms.
She pulls herself back together.
Collects her badge and gun.
Slips into the shell of Captain Beckett.
Two weeks pass.
Her new job doesn't suck but she can't do more than tolerate it. Even when in Vice or dumpster driving she never less than really liked her job.
She certainly doesn't love it like she loved homicide.
And none of this is a patch on the man who is missing from her heart and her life.
He calls her out of the blue.
He's in Canada.
Doesn't explain why.
He'll be back in two days.
Can they meet?
He wants to meet!
She agrees instantly.
Without condition.
She wants to temper any hope with caution but there's no wall to shelter behind anymore.
But the dawn of the day of their meeting she's a wreck.
She can't take time off, so she stumbles through the day. If her new team notice they wisely hold their council. Their new Captain is much more by the book than her reputation suggests.
It is probably the hardest thing she has ever done.
But she is not fearless anymore.
She knows what she has put at risk.
So her bravery is born of need, nay desperation.
The meeting goes better and worse than expected.
He still loves her. He was adamant on that.
Just as she was in return.
But she's not going back.
To his side.
To the Loft.
To the place she called home.
That isn't an option for her anymore.
She thinks she accepts that. But who really knows? It really is much too soon for her to analyse it.
His suggestion about time and places was sound. She had agreed readily but she would have done to just about anything he asked of her. Anything that gave them - and her - a chance.
Yet she is still pulled in every direction by what just transpired.
It takes four days before she could even begin to tell her dad. It gives her time to set things in motion.
Telling Lanie takes a whole ten days more. Two weeks since she last saw Rick. But it gives her time to complete everything she needed to do.
They meet at Lanie's. She's not comfortable inviting anyone to her dad's and worse would be meeting in public. She's been recognized several times both whilst one duty and off. In days of old the names or whispers never hurt but this time they strike home, born of the fundamental truth of them.
Her best friend is stubborn and opinionated but is patient enough to listen whilst Kate stutters her way through her explanation of everything that transpired.
"Oh Kate."
She nods through her tears. What choice did she have? None. Not in reality.
"Rick gave me some money." Quite a lot actually.
"Oh honey. What are you going to do?"
"Travel I think. I need to take some time to get right. I need to make amends as well."
"Can you do that while travelling?"
Lanie doesn't seem hopeful. She shouldn't be really. She and Rick were really broken, all her fault. Still if her best friend is endeavouring to get her life back on track so she can be receptive and supportive on her own behalf too. Even if she is not telling the whole truth.
"It is what it is Lanie. And I do honestly think – and hope – that it is the best chance of us fixing this." She doesn't look like she believes herself.
"Will you come back?"
"Here?" She dodging a lot. "Of course!"
"To the city?" Her friend rolls her eyes. Of course the city.
"Yes Lanie, I'll be back." Some day. Maybe just to visit. Who knows? Right now this is too painful to contemplate.
"The NYPD?" Oh that question. She had been expecting that.
"No Lanes. That is done. For good this time. I should never have taken the exam. I was never meant to be a Captain. My resignation is final this morning. Gates was very understanding." And she had been. No lecture, just some kinds words of regret, and a toast from the bottle in her drawer. Not much of a way to mark more than a decade and a half of her life.
"You just giving it away?"
"My benefits are preserved. At least when I get to retire, I will get a part pension from the NYPD for the service time. Lanie, they had grounds to terminate me and make it much more unpleasant. But they didn't."
"Oh Sweetie, that's not what I meant and you know it."
"I do. But it is what it. And it's not like I haven't resigned before."
"But this time it's final isn't it?"
And she goes.
There is no great farewell. No party, not even drinks at a cop bar. The Old Haunt entirely out of bounds. She tries to reach her former partners. Esposito doesn't respond. Ryan takes the call whilst juggling a screaming child – Jenny has a part time job even whilst pregnant – and apologetic for being unable to meet but he wishes her well and the raw emotion is palpable.
It's kind of shocking how few acquaintances she has outside of work.
Her Dad takes her out to their diner for their final meal together for who knows how long. They're both pretending badly that it will be alright but beneath the brave faces, fractured hearts lurk. Who knows if they will have the chance to heal?
Neither Lanie nor her dad can make it to the airport so she leaves the city with no fanfare and only her own tears to mark her departure.
Yet despite this, she has hope.
She has his words.
Now it is her turn.
She has always been better at actions.
Author's note.
Just a couple more chapters to go. This was originally a one or two shot.
Reviews are welcome but please keep them respectful.