April 2009
Letting the door slam behind her provided a split second of catharsis before the cry of "Mommy!" and the thudding sound of small feet running across the floorboards sent a flush of guilt through her veins. She should have come straight home no matter how deeply Rick's unexpected line of questioning had pierced her heart.
"Hey, Sweetheart," Kate said as her three year old latched on, squeezing tightly, and she bent down to pick her up. "What are you doing?"
"Spaghetti!" came the gleeful reply, her face buried in Kate's neck for a second before she struggled to be let down.
"Hmm. I see that." She set Ramona back on the floor, watching as she careened down the hall before kicking her heels off and glancing in the hall mirror.
She rolled her eyes as she dabbed at the spaghetti sauce that had made its way onto the collar of her shirt. Served her right for coming home so late. She could have been home hours ago, changed from her crisp white button down into a more forgiving t-shirt and - more to the point - cuddled with her daughter already. She heaved a sigh at her reflection, in relief as much as anything - her eyes were clear, and Gabe wouldn't know she'd spent the better part of the afternoon crying at her mother's gravestone. She let herself take another moment, breathing in, then out, before trailing after her daughter, trudging into the kitchen.
Ramona twisted around on her stool, grinning at her mother, and Kate smiled in return, running a hand through her daughter's soft curls and nodding at her husband.
"Hey."
"Hey."
Kate frowned, taking him in as he leaned against the counter; he was good looking, she couldn't deny that. In his business suit, his tie loosened, he was the picture of confidence, an air of assurance surrounding him borne of money, connections, and entitlement. It wasn't unattractive but compared to Rick's warmth, combined with his cockiness-
"Not okay," she murmured.
No way should she be comparing Gabe and Rick. Even if Rick had pushed her buttons, confronting her as though she was a mystery, throwing down a challenge with his questions. A challenge that provoked something inside her, made her want to meet it, meet him, head on.
"What was that?" Gabe asked, and she shook her head.
"Nothing."
"Did you guys just get home?" By now he would usually have changed from his suit. Ramona should have already eaten too, but at least she had a bowl of spaghetti in front of her, and she was shoveling the pasta and meat sauce into her mouth with gusto, barely looking up at her parents.
"Yes."
Kate raised her eyebrows. Monosyllabic it was, then. Fabulous. "Okay." She crossed the kitchen, opening the fridge and pulling out an unopened bottle of white. "Do you want some?"
Gabe shook his head and she shrugged, reaching into the cupboard and selecting a glass.
"Where have you been?"
"Work," she lied, pouring a glass before putting the bottle back in the fridge.
"Huh."
"What?"
"Nothing." Gabe's voice had none of the hallmarks of nothing, and she shot a warning glance at Ramona before he could start in on her. He raised his eyebrows at her in concession, and she nodded, sipping at her wine.
"C'mon, munchkin. You look like you're done there."
Ramona nodded, holding out her empty bowl for Kate to see. "Done," she echoed, clambering down from the stool and Kate set her wine glass on the counter.
"Bath, book, and bed, okay?"
"No," Ramona retorted, but it was a response borne of habit, not a prelude to a meltdown, and Kate pressed a kiss into her hair.
"Come on," she urged her daughter, and Gabe stared at her, his expression stone. She frowned at him. "I've got it," she said, and he shrugged, striding through to the living room.
"I'll come in and say goodnight," he called over his shoulder, and she stared at his retreating back, before turning to Ramona and shooing her into the hallway toward the bathroom.
"Any particular reason you lied to me?" Gabe asked as Kate made her way back into the kitchen.
"Lied? About what?" She bit her lip as she pulled a bowl from the shelf, spooning some of the leftover spaghetti into it. Her stomach rumbled and she blinked; that chicken wrap felt like a long time ago now - the half she'd managed to eat, anyway. A glance at her watch told her it was already past eight and she shoved the food into the microwave, setting it for a minute. If she wanted to get the advice written before work in the morning she'd have to sit down with it as soon as her dinner was heated.
"About where you were. I called your work, and they told me you'd left at three."
"Oh." Kate exhaled, jabbing at the button when the beep sounded, and pulling the bowl out. "Right."
"Right."
"Sorry," she apologized. "I- had a meeting."
"A meeting? With your phone off?"
"Oh." Kate nodded, comprehension hitting her. "No. I turned it to silent." She pressed her lips together, 'so that Richard Castle couldn't bother me while I was at my mom's grave' remaining unspoken.
"Well, while it was silent, I called you. Multiple times. As did Ramona's daycare center."
"What? Why? What happened?"
Gabe ran a hand through his hair. "Nothing happened, Kate. But I was running late and I called to ask you to get her. I left, I don't know, six voicemails? In the end I had to leave an important client meeting in order to collect her before the center closed."
Well that explained why Ramona had still been eating dinner at seven-thirty, and why Gabe was still in his work clothes. "Sorry."
"Sorry? That's all you've got?"
"What do you want me to say, Gabe? I had a meeting, you had a meeting. So what, because yours was work related it was more important than mine? It was your turn to pick Ramona up. I would never have just left her there if I'd known."
"Are you seriously going to make this about my career again?"
"Isn't it?"
"Well it sure as hell isn't about yours!"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Kate narrowed her eyes at him, slamming her bowl down on the counter and pushing it away; the unsettled rumbling in her belly had nothing to do with hunger anymore and everything to do with where this fight was going.
"Nothing. But I'm tracking for Partnership, and you're-"
"I'm- what? Never going to make partner- hell, I'm never even going to make associate as long as I'm working part time and balancing parenthood. But that doesn't really affect you, does it?"
"We've talked about this," he reminded her. "If you want to return to work full time, we'll put Ramona into daycare for five days."
"I want to raise my own daughter," she replied, reaching for her wine and taking a sip before sinking onto the stool Ramona had vacated.
"Fine. I'm not stopping you," he countered, his voice gentler now as he took the seat beside her. "But if you're unsatisfied with your career, you can't blame me."
"I don't."
"If you want them to take you seriously at work you have to fight for it," he continued. "You're a professional lawyer. You've worked some big deals. But you need to keep pushing if you want your career to advance."
She rolled her eyes. "Gabe, my career is a dead-end. Seriously."
She bit her lip, staring across the room as silence fell.
"Do you regret Ramona?" he asked at last.
"What kind of question is that?" she demanded, her eyes snapping up to meet his in a glare. "Never. Never." She leaned her elbows on the counter, burying her head in her hands, her eyes closing. "Never," she whispered.
Not from the moment she'd suspected, and certainly not once she'd had confirmation; there had been no regret, and hope had morphed into full blown love from the moment she'd held the ultrasound pictures in her hands. She'd taken the subway to the sonographer's office, nervous, and she'd come home in awe, peeking into her purse to steal glances at the fuzzy black and white image as tears blurred her vision.
She leaned her head back, tears prickling at her eyes. She'd lied to Rick today when she'd said she wasn't the girl on the subway, and she was lying to her husband now. Not about Ramona - never that - but there was something stopping her from telling Gabe where she'd been this afternoon. He wouldn't understand. He wouldn't understand why she'd agreed to take the meeting in the first place - he'd scoffed at her collection of Castle novels sandwiched on the bookshelf next to her Russian literature, declaring them pulp fiction - and he most certainly wouldn't understand why she was letting Rick drag up old memories and emotions about her mom.
"Hey, kiddo!" Martha floated down the stairs, a waft of perfume trailing after her, and Rick raised a hand in greeting.
"Mother. Just in time to help me cook, I see."
"If helping you drink the wine is considered helping you cook, anytime, darling," she agreed, reaching for a glass and topping up Rick's before reaching for her own and filling it in what could only be described as a generous manner.
"Yes. By all means. 'Help' by drinking my wine." Rick raised his eyebrows at her, sliding the bottle out of her reach.
"Hmmf. Generosity is attractive in a man, don't forget." Martha raised her glass and he met it with his own. "Cheers."
Rick sipped from his before putting it down to open a can of tomatoes and pour them into the pot, stirring the ragu.
"Alexis should be home soon," he told her, the front door swinging open at his words, and he grinned.
"Hey, Dad, Grams," she called, dumping her bag at the door and making her way over to the kitchen. "Smells great."
"See." Rick nodded at his mother. "I cook, you come downstairs, she comes home from her friend's place."
"Yes, yes, it's nothing short of a superpower." Martha raised her eyebrows at him and he glared at her.
"Fine. Go ahead and mock. All I can say is that cooking my world famous gnocchi ragu never fails to bring either of you to the kitchen in time for a nice family dinner."
"Mmmhmm." Martha took another sip of her wine, and Alexis grinned.
"So, Dad, did you go to work today? Or did you-" she exchanged a teasing glance with her grandmother- "do actual work, and write something to get Gina off your back."
"Ha. Make fun, if you will." Rick pointed at his daughter with the wooden spoon in his hand and she took the hint, rounding the counter and stirring the sauce while he boiled the water. "I worked. I went into the precinct this morning."
"Any good cases? They didn't threaten to lock you up again did they?"
"I'll have you know they didn't. But no bodies dropped today, so I spent a little time brushing up on my paperwork skills and going through the files they've been letting me look at."
Alexis laughed, and he grinned. Esposito and Ryan didn't consider making paper airplanes to be an effective way to get paperwork done, but he could have sworn he'd seen Captain Montgomery wink, so all wasn't lost.
"And did you solve any cold cases?"
"No." Rick shook his head, pouring the gnocchi into the now boiling water. "They gave me six boxes and only one of them was an unsolved. That was interesting, actually. They had eight suspects, but all of them had airtight alibis. In the end they had to let it go."
"Mmm."
"There was a fabulous mob hit case, too. But the most interesting one was a random gang killing from 1999."
"Sounds great?" Alexis wrinkled her nose.
"Well. Not really. It was actually horrible-"
"As opposed to all the not so horrible murders?" Martha raised an eyebrow.
"As opposed to all the murders that make sense. You know. Jealous spouse, business deal gone bad, or, well, mob hits. But no. This was completely random. Just a nice woman - a defense lawyer - in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Gnocchi's ready," Alexis pointed out, nudging her father out of the way and reaching for the saucepan to drain the water.
"So I called the daughter-"
"The who?"
"The victim's daughter."
"You didn't! Oh, Richard! Why?"
"What?" He held his hands up to protest his innocence. "Well, I called the victim's husband first, but he didn't pick up, so I called the daughter, to see if I could arrange a meeting."
Alexis groaned, and he swatted at her.
"No, look. It was a long time ago. Ten years ago. I-" He sighed. "Well, I didn't mean to bring up old hurt. I just had an idea, and I wanted some input from someone who'd come face to face with random crime like that."
"And?" Martha prompted.
"And I think she hates me, but we had a coffee, and we talked a little. And I think she's a fan." He grinned, stretching past Alexis to get the bowls ready for dinner. "Help me with these, will you?" he asked, handing two of them to Martha, and he and Alexis followed her over to the table.
"So what was she like?"
Rick smiled. Hot. And- no. Married. Not hot. Married. "Nice," he said. "A little prickly, maybe. She's a corporate lawyer, and she drinks tea, and she was lovely."
"A nice lawyer who drinks tea?" Martha exchanged a glance with Alexis. "Well that doesn't sound like your usual type, so there must be something you're not telling us, if you've got that dreamy look on your face."
"What-" Rick frowned, trying to school his features. "What look?"
"The look that tells me there's something more to this story." Martha waved her hand at Rick to emphasize her point. "Mark my words," she said to Alexis, sotto voce, and Rick grimaced. "This isn't the last we've heard of this young woman."
"I can hear you," Rick exclaimed. "And Kate. Her name is Kate."
Martha nodded. "Not the last we've heard of Kate, then."
"It probably will be," he said, bringing a spoonful of the ragu to his mouth, buying himself some time as he chewed and swallowed. "I think I upset her, so, unless I run into her on the subway, or she comes to a book signing if she really is a fan, I probably won't see her again."
"For that to work, you have to write another book," Alexis pointed out, her eyes dancing before dropping back to the bowl in front of her. "Which you'll do. Soon. Obviously."
"Well at least you've still got the precinct to keep you amused, right?" Martha reached over, patting his arm and offering a conspiratorial smile.
"I think it's great," Alexis chimed in, and he beamed at his daughter. She might team up with his mother all too often in an attempt to keep him grounded, but he didn't think he could love her more. "It's like a new hobby. It's good for you."
A/N: Kylie and Jamie, your beta-ing is awesome. Mwah. And many thanks to those who took the time to review. x