Chapter Eight

It was finally Friday Night. It was the night when Martin and Sara are coming over to hang out. And Katie didn't had enough time to get ready.

After Katie finally saw Sara after two years last Monday, she and the rest of the team had been really busy with a new case. A first year Law School student had been reported missing by her room mate the next day. After almost two days of searching, the whole team had figured out why Karen Walker went missing. She had just dropped out of law school because she couldn't afforded the Columbia University Law School's payment and applying to other law schools that are affordable. Also, on Wednesday night which is when they founded her, Danny joked to the team about it, "You do know that there is a thing called Financial Aid."

There is also Thursday but that didn't worked out. That morning, Martin walked over to Katie's desk and told her something that might postponed their plans. Martin told Katie that he ended up forgetting that the weekend when he adopted Sara, Martin told his Uncle Roger, his cousins Jamie and Allison that he and Sara are coming over for dinner so she can meet them. Katie just shrugged and told him that is really fine. Martin knew that she understood the situation and is okay with it but it isn't. Even through that Katie didn't had time to prepared for it, she is a little pissed at it.

Since they are doing desk work that day, Katie threw some crumpled paper balls behind Martin's head to show it. Martin didn't noticed it but Danny did saw it and was laughing through it. At the end of the day, Danny put his arm around Katie's shoulder while she was putting some boxes away, said to her, "nice job", and then left. After the Latino agent went home, Katie didn't know what Danny is saying 'nice job' for but then she remembered. Danny probably saw what she was doing to the back of Martin's head. After remembering it, Katie laughing to herself from picturing that and knew that was a funny thing.

Now it is Friday. After another day of desk work, Katie went home right away to start preparing for the occasion. The moment she put a frozen pepperoni pizza and a cheese pie into the oven and closing the door in case her guests didn't eat dinner yet, Katie ran out of her kitchen and into her bedroom so she can change out of her work clothes and into some comfy ones.

After she took a navy blue oxford shirt and gray wool pants off her body and into a black v-neck sweater and a pair of dark blue jeans on it plus pointy black leather high heeled boots off her feet, Katie grabbed those uncomfortable shoes and walked to her closet to get some comfy black ballet flats to wear instead. After she founded the shoes she was looking for, something fell out of the sky and into the shoe covered closet floor.

"Crap" said Katie when she saw the box and went down to grab it to see what it is. The moment she put the box on the bed comforter, Katie put her hands on the lid and begin to lift it up. After she lift it up, she looked down and was a little surprised of what she just saw.

In front of her was a velvet box, a bubble-wrap covered something, a stack of letters, and a small velvet drawstring bag. Had no idea what she is looking at, Katie grabbed the velvet box out and lift it open to see what it is. When she lift it up, her eyes went up and realized what it is.

The velvet box she was holding was a Silver Heart medal that belonged to Jim. For a while, Katie didn't know that she kept some of his things. Katie always thought that after Jim died, she shipped them off to his mother in Texas so she don't see a sight of him but it looked like that is didn't. Wanting to see if the rest of the stuff belonged to her dead friend, Katie went through everything in the cardboard box.

She pulled the strings of the small velvet bag and two metal dog tags came out. Katie grabbed them and looked at them to see if they are his? After she figured out that those belongs to him by seeing his name, blood type, and religion on the little metal tags, Katie went to the bubble wrap to see what is underneath them. The moment she unwrapped the package, Jim's face was staring straight at her and right away, Katie put her fingers on them and knew what is in front of her was the official photo of Jim as a U.S. Marine. Seeing Jim looking so sexy in his Dress Blues, Katie put the picture away and now looking at a photo of the both of them at his first Marine Ball. It was taken when Katie was a Senior at Georgetown and Jim just became a Marine after graduating from college on the summer of '98. It is still a little weird seeing how young they are on that photo but it was great event they ever been to.

After seeing those, Katie put them aside and went to the stack of letters. From looking at the top right corners, there are over thirty letters ranging from August '05 to Late January '06, the last letter Jim ever sent her from Iraq. Some are short, others are pretty long, half of them contain some pictures he had taken from his camera, and few of them are such so x-rated, Katie only read it once and that's it. Katie quickly flipped it over to grabbed the last one out so she read it again.

It wasn't not of the x-rated ones but it was very important because it was the very last letter he ever sent her. The letter contained how he is doing there, something about one of his Marine buddies saying to her about putting more chocolate chip cookies into the care packages more often, and other things but more importantly, visiting her in New York in February for his month long break.

It didn't happened since Jim had been killed two weeks before he leaves for the States but if he is still alive, he probably visited her. There might be some sight seeings, hanging out while she was off-duty, or she might introduced him to the team. Jim could encouraged her to ask Martin out or she might give him Samantha's number. There might even be sex involved between Katie and Jim. There is a whole lot of things to do but it didn't even happened. It all changed when it happened.

After reading the letter, Katie felt the tears coming out of her blue eyes. The letter was so sad that it is making Katie think about it more. If Jim is still alive, things could change. To stop the sadness, Katie looked at her alarm clock to see what time it is? The clock just said ten minutes before six which means that Martin and Sara could come any minute now. To hurry herself, Katie quickly put on the ballet flats, grabbed a tissue to wipe the tears out of her eyes, checked her make up to see if there are any mistakes, get out of the room to check on the pizzas and wait for Martin and Sara to knock on the door.

Ten minutes later, while Katie was playing with her dog, a Yellow Lab named Colby, there was a knock on the door. Figuring that could be them, Katie got up and smoothed out her clothes to see if there are any pieces of dog hairs on them. After seeing that there are none, there is another knock on the door. To tell Martin to stop it, Katie walked to the door and begin to open it to let them in.

The moment she opened the door, in front of her was Martin giving Sara a piggy-back ride. "Hi. Auntie!!" said Sara whose arms are around Martin's neck. Katie saw that and right away, she gave an 'explain?' face. Martin saw and said to Katie with a grin on his cute jaw, "The moment we left home, Sara asked me if I can give her a piggy-back ride. Before she give me that face, I got down so Sara can get on me, put her arms around my neck, and gave her a ride up three stories." Katie smiled at the both of them and told her goddaughter to give her father many rides until he becomes a grandfather. "HA HA" said a grumpy Martin who let Katie get Sara off his shoulders.

The moment Sara was off him, Martin felt his shoulders had been worn out and needed something to ease the pain. Katie saw those and gave Martin a little shoulder massage. Martin told her thanks and in return, Katie smiled at him and told him no problem. After that, they heard Sara's voice saying, "is that a dog?"

Both of them turned around and saw Sara standing two feet away from Colby, who is licking himself. From seeing Sara's face, Katie knew that Sara might be interested of her dog. To get Sara to know Colby better, Katie get down to Sara's height, and answered the little girl's question, "Yeah, Sara. That's my dog." Sara turned around and said to her Auntie, "Really? Martin didn't told me about you having a dog." Katie is a little shocked that she and Martin are still at first-name terms. Sara could called Martin as her father right now after almost a week of living with him. Maybe that Sara still missed Jim and knew him as her father and Martin is like a foster father. Later on, Katie got to tell her that Martin will love her forever and never leave her so they can move on with their lives instead of being stuck in the past.

Martin got down too and told them that it probably slipped his mind. Sara heard her father's answer and asked Katie the Yellow Lab's name. "It's Colby, Sara." answered Katie who is petting Colby on one of the ears. Colby barked at that and now licking Sara's hand. Martin and Katie are both looking at that moment and smiling at it. Moments later, Sara asked Martin that she can play with Colby? "Sure, Sara." said Martin who was carrying a plate of pizza in each hand to the coffee table. With Colby on her side, Sara went over to the table, and sat down while Martin put the plate right in front of her.

After they ate their dinner, Martin helped Katie with the dishes while Sara played with Colby in the living room. Ten minutes later, Katie and Martin went over to the big, comfy couch to talk about things and looking at Sara and Colby at the same time. During the talk, Katie told Martin about something funny that happened with Jack that day. Katie saw Jack fall on his butt in front of everybody. There was a wet floor sign and Jack didn't see it so he went down. "When you saw it?" asked Martin. "After 1pm. Here, I had proof."answered Katie who took out her cell phone to show Martin. The moment it came on, Martin laughed his butt off and showed it to his daughter right away. Sara did the same thing and joked to them, "Glad that I'm not Uncle Jack." Katie and Martin laughed at that also and knew that Sara had a great sense of humor.

At 9pm, Sara told Martin that she is tired. After seeing that tired looking face, Martin told Katie that he better go back to his place and will see her tomorrow. Katie told him that she will see him too. While carrying Sara, Martin smiled at and opened the door to get home. The moment that they had left, Katie looked around the place and said to herself, "I can't believe that had happened here." One step closer to what she wanted.