On February 1st, he gets out of the shower to find a Post-It note stuck to the mirror.

Don't plan anything for Valentine's Day. I've got this.

He chuckles to himself, pulling the note off of the glass. He knows how she feels about his grand gestures for holidays. She pretends to hate them, always has, but deep down he knows she loves them. If she didn't he would stop.

But this year, or well for this holiday at least, it looks like she wants to try her hand at his game. He's already bought her a necklace, but he will do no more and let her handle the rest. This Valentine's Day, he's ready to be the one who gets wooed.

She's already out of bed by the time he wakes up. He stretches, catching a glimpse of glitter out of the corner of his eye. Rick sits up to further inspect the source of glitter and finds a handmade Valentine resting on her pillow. One that bears a remarkable resemblance to the one he made her when they were kids. He picks it up, noticing that she even wrote him a poem, just like he had done for her all of those years ago.

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

I'm not very good at rhyming.

How about you?

On this day,

February Fourteen,

Take a journey with me,

That started way back when we were pre-teens

"You laughing at my poem?"

Rick looks up to find her standing in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest. He keeps laughing, re-reading the poem for the third time.

"Leave the writing to me, Kate."

She grumbles, crawling back into bed with him. "Like your poetry is any better. I can whip out the one from 5th grade for proof."

"Yeah, but I was ten when I wrote that. What's your current excuse?"

She mutters under her breath again, snatching the Valentine out of his hands. "Be nice to me or else this crappy poem will be all that you get today."

He laughs again, reaching over to her side of the bed and pulling her up against his chest.

"I love your crappy poem. And it certainly has me intrigued. What kind of journey do you have planned for the day?"

Kate hums, a mischievous look gracing her features as she looks up at him. "In 5th grade you made me a glittery heart-shaped poem. What'd you do in 6th grade?"

He thinks for a moment, trying to separate the years. "I wanted to buy you chocolate, but my mother convinced me that if I made you something, like cupcakes, it would mean more. So she helped me bake them, and then all but one of them fell on the floor."

She grins, pulling away from him and reaching down to pick something up from beside the bed. She hands him a plate holding a single cupcake covered in heart-shaped sprinkles.

"Did you ceremoniously drop the rest of the batch on the floor?"

She shakes her head, laughing. "No, they're in the kitchen. But if you have the need to waste more perfectly good desserts..."

"You plan to recreate all of our Valentine's Days don't you?" Rick asks, peeling back the wrapper on his cupcake.

"Maybe."

"Touché, Kate Beckett. I'm equally excited and disappointed that I didn't think of this myself. Although our virginity might be a little hard to get back."

She rolls her eyes at him. "Please, I don't need to relive that. You can do so much better now."

"But in the spirit of Valentine's Day past -"

She pokes him in the chest, cutting him off. "I am not above getting off without your help."

"As long as I get to watch."

She groans, smacking his shoulder. "Finish your cupcake. We have to go relive 7th grade."

"All right, 7th grade, let me think," Rick starts, licking the frosting from his fingers. "Our first school dance? You were upset that the jerk you used to have a crush on didn't ask you."

"And so you offered to dance with me instead."

"I'm a gentleman like that," he shrugs. "So what, are we going to go dance to 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' in the living room?"

That mischievous grin of hers is back as she scoots her way back off of the bed. "Not quite."

"What did you do?" Rick asks slowly as he stares up at the building that used to be their Middle School.

"Come on," Kate replies, tugging him towards the doors that lead into the school gym.

"Isn't this breaking and entering?" he asks as he trails behind her. "Detective, what probable cause do you have for entering these premises?"

"What I have is a janitor who owes me a favor and agreed to keep the gym unlocked for me. Besides it's not like it's a school day. No one will be here but us."

She pushes open the door to reveal the gym has been decorated much like it had been for their school dance all of those years ago. Red and pink steamers and heart-shaped balloons. There even appears to be heart-shaped confetti tossed about on the floor.

"Did you do all of this?" he asks in awe.

"Wish I could take credit, but all I did was ask to keep the decorations from this year's dance up for one more day." He watches her saunter over to the sound system. "Any requests? Or is your heart set on 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' now?"

"Do they even have 80's music?" Rick asks, walking over to join her. "Or is it all that bubblegum pop Alexis likes to listen to?"

"Well it looks like we have some Cyndi Lauper. Or um oh The Blue Pills. Alexis likes them, right?"

"Go with Cyndi," he laughs. "We can always slow dance to 'Time After Time.'"

She laughs too, queuing up the song before dragging him out to the center of the gym. She snakes her hands around his neck as his hands slip around her waist.

"You know, I think the chaperones are going to yell at us for not keeping space between us," he whispers into her ear as they sway in time with the music.

"You already knocked me up, I don't think separating us is going to help much."

He laughs into her hair, pulling her closer as the music swells. "Thank you for this. It's pretty magical."

She kisses down his jaw line until her lips meet his.

"I didn't kiss you until the summer after 8th grade," he mumbles against her lips.

"Never said I was aiming for exact replicas."

And then she kisses him until long after the song has morphed into 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.'

"Why don't I remember 8th grade Valentine's Day?" Rick asks her over lunch.

"We were fighting," she responds, twirling her straw around in her water glass. "See, I don't know if you remember this, but you sort of had a crush on me."

He smirks at her, playing along. "Did I?"

"Yeah. And I kept coming to you, wanting to talk about my latest crush, and I think you just got fed up that it was never you."

"You were very annoying," he nods.

Kate reaches for his hand across the table, twining their fingers together. "Funny how life works out, isn't it?"

"I'm just glad I got the girl in the end."

She smiles. "Okay go ahead. Here's your window."

He looks at her confused. "My window for what?"

"In 9th grade you bought me jewelry. It was cheap and broke after a month. But I figured that even with me telling you not to plan anything for this year, you still would. So I refrained from buying you cheap jewelry."

He narrows his eyes at her, pulling the necklace out of his coat pocket. "You know me far too well for your own good."

She waggles her eyebrows at him as she opens the jewelry box. It's a simple diamond necklace with a setting that's almost identical to her engagement ring.

"Rick," she breathes. "I love this."

"Figured you might. Guess I also know you far too well."

They stroll back out onto the sidewalk after lunch, and pass by a street vendor selling flowers.

"You going to buy me flowers too since that was my present to you in 10th grade?"

"Another one I thought I'd leave up to you," Kate teases as she watches him buy her a bouquet.

She inhales the scent of the roses as they keep walking.

"All right, so we're up to 11th grade. The year we officially lost our virginity."

"Officially?" she asks with a smirk.

"Well we came pretty close to doing it several times before that. We just always got interrupted."

"Still mortified about Martha walking in on us. I will never be over that."

He shakes his head, like he's trying to clear away the memory. "And I mean we did...other stuff."

"Ah yes, our subtle attempts at using a blanket to hide what our hands were really doing while we watched movies. We were such horny little teenagers. This does explain why all the blankets in the living room go missing when Alexis has her boyfriend over though."

"Wait, she told you they're dating? I was only told that they're friends. Kate -"

"Relax," she tells him, touching his arm. "That's all they are. For now."

"For now? Kate -"

"We started out as friends. That's all I'm saying."

Rick mutters something under his breath and she has to lace their fingers together to get his attention back.

"I'm saving 11th grade and the new lingerie I bought for later. We're going to skip to 12th grade right now."

"Senior year," he starts, clucking his tongue. "Wasn't that when I -"

He stops when they turn the corner and come face to face with a large cut out of himself promoting Naked Heat in the window of a bookstore.

"It's when you wrote your first story about me. Or shared it with me anyway. Who knew I'd become the subject of your next best-seller?"

"You've always been an excellent muse."

"And you have always been an excellent writer," she tells him, straightening the collar on his shirt. "So now to balance out my crappy little poem, I think we should have some Nikki Heat story time, don't you?"

"Interesting choice in foreplay," Rick smirks, following her into the bookstore. "Don't be surprised later when I start calling you Nikki in bed."