The air around them is charged, thick with an unresolved hush. A collective inhale. Waiting for the word on Xander before they can all breath again as one. For now it's as though he and Kate are in between living, and dying. Neither willing or able to make a sound. Or move. He doesn't see the point anymore. If the outcome turns out to be his worst nightmare. He knows that neither he nor Kate will live the same way again. He curses his writers mind, and all his years at the precinct. All the worst case scenarios. All the things he wishes he could stop thinking about. But the longer he goes without his son, the worst they get. The harder it is for him to think more positively. And watching his wife... poor Kate with the new baby inside her... and her first born missing from her life... Rick's mind keeps going back. Far back to before they met. When she got the news that her mother was murdered. He can't imagine what that is like...and having something like that happen again? For him to witness...he wouldn't be able to come back from that. He wouldn't survive, and neither would she. He knows this, and he is terrified.
His daughter shifts beside him. Jarring him from his inner terrors. He blinks several times and looks around him. His family is gathered in comfort as best they can. Just their presences helps. And if it weren't for them, he and Kate would surely be deep down the rabbit hole. Alexis sits against the armrest of the couch, her body melded into her father's side. Kate lies on his other side. Her body leaning on him for support. She's tense. Body quivering a little as she absently feeds her hands through Ellie's hair. The little girl sits in front of Kate's curled body, playing with the ears of Sherlock. Ellie must know something. She's attached herself to Kate this entire stay.
He's glad for the little girl. She's keeping Kate a little grounded. Her innocence an anchor that he just can't give her. There is only so much he can give, and nothing he has said. Because these two never need words. Just a soft look or a touch, and all are known. It's what makes them perfect for each other. Rick's hand rubs up and down Kate's arm. Her head on a pillow in his lap. If it wasn't for the soft rise in fall under his hand, he would think she wasn't breathing. From his angle he can see her face tight with awareness, and a hint of the absence of a full nights sleep. Her other hand rests on her stomach, under her shirt. Feeling the life inside her... the only one she has for the time being.
Alexis has her eyes closed, both arms wrapped around one of his. But he knows she is awake. Who can sleep at a time like this? His mother sits next to her on the armrest. Her head dipped solemnly, her face the most serious he has ever seen. She's very still, aside from her constant spinning of her bracelet. Every now and then the lamp catches it with its light, and flickers an anxious dance on the far wall. Jim stands directly behind Rick. Hands tight on the back of the couch. Rick doesn't need to look back to know what the man looks like. His thoughts are most likely flashing where Kate's have been several times.
Lanie and Javi stand off to the side, Javi leaning on the door frame, Lanie with her back flat against him. Her hand lies across her stomach, splayed out across its flat plain. Rick knows this move. He has seen his wife do this constantly while pregnant. It's a simple form of protection for the tiny being that grows slowly in Lanie's womb. She must be frightened for her unborn child. Afraid of what the world could do to him or her. Seeing it play out morbidly for her friends. Javi must sense this, as Rick watches. Lanie's breath hitches on a silent sob, her eyes close. Javi rests his chin on her shoulder, placing a hand over hers and squeezing her lightly. Lanie opens her eyes turning her sad face towards the window. Out into the vast city. Rick is sure their thoughts are all in the same place. Where is Xander in this huge city?
Ryan and Jenny sit in the chair opposite him and Kate. Jenny's eyes on her daughter. A look of wanting in her eyes, but understanding that Kate needs her. Jenny doesn't need to follow around the police, or write a book about it to know the dangers. She must see it in Kevin's face when he goes home to her. Must have had that flash of panic when she found out she was pregnant. Just like Kate and Rick did. Looking at Kevin now. With both is arms wrapped around his wife. Both their eyes on their daughter. Rick can see that they had the same thoughts before bringing their kids into the world. They couldn't let the fear of their jobs, all that they have seen, scare them away from happiness. But to live the way they want despite it all. Even now, the only regret Rick has is not keeping a better eye on his boy. He wishes he had kept him closer.
Rick so badly wants to believe they will have their son in a matter of a few hours. It's how he would write it. Or would never have written it at all. But this is the harsh reality. He has no control over what happens. But that does not keep him from being hopeful. And he's not just hopeful. He's certain. This is the part in any case where they have done everything they can. Now they all just have to wait for their efforts to pan out. However unbelievably painful it is to just sit here and wait it out. Rick knows that there are people of the NYPD spread throughout the city. Keeping a look out. All Cecily has to do is walk into any pharmacy or clinic, and she'd be spotted. And then they will be notified.
Then there is her apartment. Which during dinner, Cecily's sister had called with the address of her sisters old home. Said it would be the only other place she would be. Audrey had said it was the first home she had after getting married. The one she lived in with her son and husband before her son died, and her husband left her. Before her world came crashing down around her.
What makes this hard... is that it is easy. Cecily didn't take Xander out of spite for a past case. She's not a crazed fan of his books. She's just another victim. Suffering from her own life's tragedies. It's her grievances that make this harder for Rick to hate her. She's inadvertently turned his family into victims just like her. Only...because of the circumstances, her lonely motives have made it easy to find her. She's not hiding. She won't see them coming.
So when Javi gets a call, saying Cecily has just been sighted at a clinic on Spring and Crosby Street. Everyone jumps up from their positions about the loft. Kate springs to her feet in a daze, Ellie runs to Jenny dropping Sherlock onto the floor.
"I want all units. No lights, no sirens. I don't want to spook her." Javi orders into his phone. He's stepped away from the door way, Lanie holding onto one of his arms.
"Yes, Sirens." Kate's voice breaks through the hushed excitement. She's bent down to retrieve the stuffed dog, and now holds it tightly to her.
Ryan turns to her. "Kate, we don't want this to turn into a hostage situation." He says gently, in a manner in which tells Kate she should know this.
"It won't." She says. Everyone is staring at her as she stands clutching the only lifeline to her son. "Trust me, she won't, and she won't hurt him." She's practically pleading.
"Katie." Her father steps around the couch towards her. Her eyes dart to everyone, who is again looking at her like she's starting to lose it.
She shakes her head. "No. She thinks Xander is her son. She won't know we are coming... and I want..."
"Xander to hear us." Rick finishes, pulling her to him by the waist.
Kate nods, looking into her husbands loving eyes. She wraps her arms around him, crushing Sherlock between them.
"Yes, turn on the sirens." Alexis speaks up.
"He's a smart boy." Martha slips off the armrest to Alexis, holding onto both her shoulders.
Javi nods, everyone agreeing silently. He tells all unties to make them known. Xander will know he's about to be rescued.
The sirens guide them through traffic across town. An audible beacon of hope. Kate sits in the passenger seat of the car, shaking with the overwhelming need to just have him in her arms this second. She doesn't think she will last much longer. And she can feel him. Their lives connected in a way only a mother would understand. She knows he is close. Can almost feel his excitement as the sirens scream out their rescue. The red and blue lights that are flashing in front of them have never felt more reassuring. This time Kate knows she won't be ducking under that forbidding yellow tape. No. Kate is certain that she will be bringing her baby home.
Javi and Ryan pull up to the curb in front of them. They are out of the car and unholstering their guns before Rick pulls up behind them
"Stay in the car." Rick says gently before stepping out.
"No." Kate says even as his door slams shut and he's already halfway to her fellow detectives. Kate pushes open her door, dropping the stuffed dog onto her seat and exiting the car.
"Uniforms say she hasn't shown up yet. And they have no way of knowing if she left Xander in the apartment or not." Ryan tells them. His gun rests at his side, much like his partners. They don't think they need them, but keep them close just in case... in case the unthinkable happens.
"So we are going up, you guys need to stay down here." Javi says, catching a look from Kate she just can't help.
"Wait here to see if she shows up, with or without him." Ryan fills in the blanks.
Kate bites down the urge to argue. Instead she nods at the two of them. Walking back to the car and wrapping her arms around herself as she leans against the passenger side door. Ryan and Javi walk across the street to Cecily's building and then they are out of sight. Rick walks back to her; the blue and red bouncing off his face and making him look more cryptic then ever. She holds a hand out to him.
"Want to sit in the car?" He asks taking her hand and leaning in to kiss her on the temple.
"No...but you can. I just..." She sighs, pushing the air out of her lungs raggedly before looking up into his blues. "Need some air." She then says squeezing his hand.
He kisses her softy. "Okay." And then he's around the car, and sitting in the drivers seat with a close of the door.
Space is really what she needs. Which she hates about herself. It's something she has never been able to alter even since they got together. Even after they got married, and had Xander. She wishes that it was the closeness that gave her strength. Which it does. But oftentimes, it's her old need of independence that helps her get that last bit of her bearings. And Rick knows this. She's so thankful for him and his complete understanding. He knows she is not pushing him away, and that is what counts.
Kate lets out another sigh, leaning further back into the car at her back. Arms tighter around her middle, shielding her stomach. Shoulders tense, breathing strangled as she looks up and down the streets beside her and in front of her. Her heart is fluttering madly in her chest, quicker than a hummingbird. She can feel the pulse in every inch of her body. She wraps her arms tighter around herself, trying to suffocate the feeling.
Javi and Kevin should be at Cecily's door by now... hopefully. But Kate honestly does not think Xander is up there. The lonely woman had a son once. She wouldn't leave him home alone to run simple errands. This is really what she was doing. In Cecily's world...Xander is her son Alex, and she was just driving through the city as she probably used to, and picking up his medication. The boy in her back seat is not someone else's child to her. But the one she lost. The one she refuses to let go.
Kate unwillingly clings to this idea. She may hate the woman...for taking her son, for tearing them all up inside... but she sees this act for what it is...desperation. A broken woman trying to cling to the idea that her son didn't die. And that will be the hard part. Trying to convince this obviously lost woman that she needs to give Xander back.
Kate's eye catches movement to the sidewalk to her left. She turns her head ever so slightly. Her heart quickens if that is possible, and that pang enters her chest. It takes up residence there. Her body pivots so quickly to face the left, she's surprised she doesn't get whiplash. A yard away, walks Cecily, Xander's hand in her own as they make their way down the sidewalk. They haven't seen Kate yet. But she can see that Xander is trying to get his hand out of Cecily's. It takes everything in Kate not to run for him. Instead, she steps away from the car, walking to the end of it, eyes glued on her son. Cecily stops in the middle of the sidewalk, getting a better grip on Xander, who in turn glares at her. They continue to walk.
"Alex, we are almost home, just wait." She is saying. A prescription bag in her other hand. It swings back and forth wildly as he keeps struggling in her tight hold.
But Xander is not listening. He pushes at her hand on his, trying to pry himself loose. His body tense and pulling away with all his weight. The lights keep flashing, bouncing off the walls of the buildings around them, reaching his small frame as they move closer.
"Let go!" Xander yells at the woman, his tiny voice reaching Kate's ears. Something she never thought she would hear ever again. Her heart does a leap. She has to keep forcing herself not to move.
The bag drops to the ground, Xander looks down at it, and then up. When Kate's eyes connect with his brilliant blues, her heart erupts. Xander's eyes light up, and then he's pulling his hand free from Cecily who has bent down to retrieve it. Carelessly loosening her hold on him.
"Mommy!" He yells.
And then his little feet are carrying him down the sidewalk. Cecily is yelling to him, but he doesn't look back as Kate frees her feet from the pavement below her and runs to him. The car door opens somewhere behind her, and then she's crouched on the ground, his warm body slamming into her with such force it nearly knocks her over. She buries her face in his neck. Clutching him so tightly to her it hurts. She sobs, feeling his small frame finally in her embrace, his long hair tickling her neck, his little arms wrapped around her.
Rick is behind them in a flash, about to hug the both of them when Cecily is upon them, out of breath and tears streaming down her face. "What are you doing?" She yells lounging for Xander.
"No!" Xander screams, practically climbing up Kate as she stands, and whisks him out of the other woman's reach.
"He's my son!" She's screaming. Rick has to hold her back. "Why are you taking him!" She's hysterical her body fighting against Rick's hold.
Kate's legs are shaking, tears streaming down her face as she holds Xander's trembling body to her. One hand under him, the other keeping his head in her neck. Kate watches as a few uniforms run by her, taking hold of the shattered woman who falls to a heap on the ground. As though her reality has come crashing down on her once again. She stops screaming for her son; instead, lets the officers hoist her up and walk her to one of their cars, where her sister emerges.
Rick's arms are around the two of them once Kate turns her back to the grieving woman. Kate's sobs get louder, and she can feel the small tears of her son soaking into her shirt. Rick pulls back a little, kissing Kate anywhere he can reach, his hands smoothing over his sons back, Kate loosens her own hold, so she can take a better look at her boy. She wipes the tears from his eyes, those beautiful blue eyes she's been yearning to look into since he went missing. His flecks of green shining back at her, more visible than ever on the edge of the tears brimming in his eyes. She kisses his face repeatedly as her own happy tears stream down her cheeks.
"I knew you would find me." Xander whispers, a small smile creeping onto his face as he looks between both his parents.
"We will always find you." Rick says, cupping his son's cheek, kissing the top of his head several times and then bringing his family into a hug.
"Oh, Xander." Kate whispers into her son's tiny body. She holds on tight, feeling the strong embrace of Rick at her back and her son's arms around her neck. She finally has both of her blue eyed boys in her arms.
The End
I would love reviews!
A/N I was shocked at the response this story got! I thank all of you who have reviewed, and those of you who added my story to their favorites/Alerts! You're all the best! My poor writer heart can't take it!
I will have an Epilogue up for you sometimes soon. So there is a little something to look forward too. :D