October 2009
Rick looked up from the laptop screen for the tenth time, his eyes falling on Kate before dropping back to the keyboard, and she cleared her throat.
"Can I help you with something?" she asked, and he shook his head.
"No. No, I'm good."
"Is this how you normally write?" If this was his usual practice, she would have to rethink her offer of letting him write here next time. When he'd told her his mother had people over and his options were to hole up in a cafe or sit on her sofa - he'd assured her that he'd written with Alexis underfoot throughout her childhood, and that Ramona wouldn't be a problem - she'd envisioned going about her day while he typed out a chapter. Apparently, though, watching her favorite novelist in action was a hell of a lot less romantic than she'd expected.
For one thing, he couldn't sit still. For another, she wasn't watching him write so much as he was watching her, stabbing at his keyboard occasionally before returning to gaze across the room at her.
"Geez!" she exclaimed at last. "Do you piss Esposito and Ryan off like this?"
"I don't write while I'm at the precinct," he dismissed. "And- hey! I'm not pissing you off!"
"Really? Because you know there's a perfectly good cafe just across the street. If you can't stop staring at me while I try and make lunch, I'm going to send you there!"
"But I want to eat with you guys," he whined, setting his laptop aside on the couch cushions as Ramona clambered up next to him, her favorite picture book in hand.
"Read," she demanded, and Rick laughed, taking it from her and letting her cuddle into him, and Kate watched, her resolve softening.
"Did you come here to write, or to be distracted by my daughter?" she asked.
He shrugged, looking up at her with a twinkle in his eye. "I'm writing!" he lied. "But I'm just taking a lunch break, and, hey, what's the point of writing if it doesn't create good readers?" He held the picture book up to demonstrate before turning back to her daughter and opening the first page, letting Ramona point at the pictures before beginning.
Writing from Kate's sofa - while less effective than from his own desk - was a hell of a lot more entertaining. Kate, though, was losing patience with him if the increasingly frequent eyebrow raises and eye rolling were anything to go by, and now that Ramona was playing quietly at one end of the long room, he couldn't put this discussion off any longer.
"Are you okay?" he asked at last, and she narrowed her eyes at him.
"Maybe I should be asking you that?" she said. "You came here to write, but I'm not really convinced you've been doing that."
"Well." He shrugged. It was time to come clean. "I kind of… did want to observe you."
"What?"
"I- uh. Well." He ran a hand through his hair, squinting. This was awkward. In his head it had sounded fine. Of course, whenever he'd based a character on someone in the past, they'd known his intentions well before he'd started. "You know this book I'm writing?"
"Uh-huh." Kate stood up, crossing the apartment into the kitchen. "Do you want a coffee?"
"Please." He stood too, following her and leaning against the table. "So, you know I was going to base my characters on Ryan and Esposito."
"Sure," she said, apparently only half listening as she filled the jug with milk. "Raley and someone, right?"
"Ochoa," he confirmed. "Yeah."
"But they're the supporting characters, now aren't they? You said you named your main character Nikki?"
"Uh-huh." He nodded, drumming his fingers against the table before clearing his throat. "The thing is, Kate. Well-" She twisted around to make a face at him before turning back to the machine as he stumbled over his words. "She - Nikki, that is - she's based on… um. You."
The coffee machine hissed as Kate jerked the milk too high, steam and liquid flying from the jug and she swore, slamming it down and snatching up the closest dishtowel to wipe at the mess. "She's what?" She whirled around and took a step toward him, her arm outstretched as she pointed at his chest. "You've written what?"
"It's - uh - a funny story, actually." He swallowed, shifting out of her way before moving to the other side of the kitchen to put the table in between them.
"Funny? Really?"
He shook his head, clenching his fists. Okay. This wasn't going well. On the upside, he was totally starting to get a picture of just how Kate Beckett - and by extension Nikki Heat - would behave questioning an unforthcoming person of interest. He felt the corner of his mouth tug up in the beginnings of a smile as he visualized her in interrogation one at the Twelfth.
"Seriously?" she demanded, and he schooled his features.
"Seriously. You know, when I met you, I'd just killed Derrick Storm, and I owed Gina a book, and then that copycat case happened, and one thing led to another, and I met you, and-"
He cleared his throat. Rambling. She didn't need rambling. She needed answers, and then he needed to get his laptop, and get the hell out of here before she killed him. Mystery Writer Killed By Angry Muse. That would be one hell of a headline.
"So, uh… yeah. I kind of based Nikki on you. Because she's just like you- or, well, just how you'd be, if you were a cop instead of a lawyer. You know. Badass. Dedicated. Passionate." She was staring at him, her mouth open, and he lowered his voice as he breathed out the last word. "Extraordinary."
"I…" She closed her eyes, her hand scrubbing over her forehead as her body slumped; no longer eyeing him from across the room, she took a step back, listing across the counter next to the coffee machine. "I'm not a cop, Rick."
"No. No, I know."
"I'm not even a lawyer anymore. I- This… Nikki-"
"Nikki Heat."
"Nikki what?"
"Heat. Nikki Heat."
"You gave me a stripper name?"
"No, it's a cop name."
"Whatever." She exhaled, her words coming out slowly, fatigue replacing anger. "I'm not a cop, Rick. So if this-" she gestured between them. "Am I real to you, Rick? Or am I just an extension of your imagination?"
"What do you mean? Of course you're real to me."
She shrugged. "If this thing between us is something to feed your stories… How can you base a character on me? If she's a cop? I'm a single mom who is temping right now. I am so scared of being swallowed whole by the corporate world that I'm not even applying for proper jobs."
Rick shook his head, closing the gap between them. He reached out, tentatively hooking his index finger around hers, tugging her to him. "You're… real to me, Kate. And trust me, I know the difference between you and Nikki. Basing her on you doesn't make her you, and it's not Nikki I'm in-" He swallowed the rest of his sentence before he could freak her out any more. "You don't need to be a cop to be extraordinary."
She looked at him, her wry smile not quite reaching her eyes, and he brushed his lips against hers, soft but sure, smiling into her as she returned the kiss before pulling away.
"Want me to make the coffee?" he asked, pointing at the abandoned machine, and she nodded.
"Please."
He pushed the coffee grounds into the portafilter and twisted it before turning back to the milk, steaming it without scorching it this time, and he handed Kate a cup. "Are you okay with this? Because I want you to be okay with this."
She took a sip of her coffee. "I don't know if there are really any guidelines about how a person is supposed to take it when her boyfriend tells her he's writing a book about her."
He grinned. Boyfriend. Yeah, okay, that was accurate, but until now, they hadn't really named this. "Flattered, Kate. Girlfriends are meant to be flattered when their ruggedly handsome author boyfriends base their main character on them."
"Uh-huh." The skeptical expression didn't leave her face but he grinned. He'd told her, and she hadn't thrown him out of here.
She sighed, sliding down into the sofa and letting the cushions envelop her. "The thing is," she started. "I've never been unemployed for this long before. Even back in school I m-" She pressed her lips together. No. He was already writing a book about her. This was not the moment to tell him she'd done some modeling when she was seventeen. "Anyway. I can't just sit around like this all day, every day."
"You're not unemployed," he pointed out. "You've been working three days a week for a month now."
"As a paralegal instead of as a qualified lawyer," she reminded him. "I'm copying cases for the lawyers there. It's paying the bills, it's not career advancement."
"Well, what do you want to do?"
She lifted a shoulder in frustration. "I don't know. At first when we got back to the city there was so much to do here, and getting Ramona back in a routine was the most important thing. But now we're in a pattern. You know, she stays with Gabe once a week, she goes to daycare again, and meanwhile… I have nothing to do. This temp job is a dead end, and I've already dipped into my savings. But the idea of actually practicing law again just fills me with dread."
"What about something else? I know you- not a defense lawyer, okay. I know that's not an option. But a criminal prosecutor?"
Kate wrinkled her nose. Honestly, the idea of anything like that was just so unappealing. But the bills would keep coming. Her temp job was a three month contract that she didn't want extended and she didn't want to rely on Gabe's money. That wasn't her; Ramona would connect them for the rest of their lives, but she didn't want to be tied to him financially.
"Or, I don't know. What did you want to do when you were younger? Before you wanted to be a lawyer? If you want to be an author I can set up a meeting for you-" He wiggled his eyebrows.
Kate rolled her eyes, shaking her head. "I don't want to be a writer, Rick."
"Okay." He smirked. "Well, what then?"
"You'll laugh. And it's too late anyway. I mean, I'm nearly thirty. I think-" She clapped her hand over her mouth. Too late. It was too late. Wasn't it? Or was it?
"You think what?" He was leaning in toward her, his eyes wide, as he waited for her to finish her sentence.
"I think that even though I decided to ditch the idea of being a cop, I've never really forgotten just how badly I wanted that, back when my mom died."
She exhaled, her eyes closing now the truth was out. She had wanted that, and while she'd bitten the ambition back after they'd caught her mom's killer, the need for justice had lingered, dormant until a few twists of fate had forced her hand; forced her to reassess what she really wanted.
"Yeah. That's what I wanted. I wanted to be a homicide cop."
"And now, Kate? Is it what you want now?"
She looked up at him; his piercing blue stare meeting her own. "I… I don't want to rush it, Rick. I made a lot of really fast decisions in my life."
She glanced over at Ramona; her three year old was sticking her tongue out in concentration as she constructed a colorful wall of blocks. She would never regret her daughter, or the choices that had led her here, but there was a nagging voice in the back of her mind that insisted she was finally where she needed to be. If she hadn't been so determined to take the path of least resistance - going to law school, marrying Gabe - she would have made it here a hell of a lot sooner.
Homicide cop.
Rushing the decision now wouldn't do anyone any favors though.
Ramona smashed the blocks over, laughing as the sound reverberated around the room, before running over to Kate and diving into her lap. "Knocked it over," she said, the satisfaction evident in her voice as she cuddled into her mom.
"You sure did," Kate agreed, tucking Ramona's hair behind her ear and kissing her head. She looked back at Rick, smiling at last. "I'm not saying I'm going to do it. And this is not because of Nikki Heat."
Rick chuckled, a grin wide on his face.
"Maybe - just maybe - next time Ryan and Esposito call you to a scene and you want me to come with you, I will."
A/N: Thank you all so much for your great reviews and tweets last chapters, and thanks of course to K&J for the beta-goodness.