Kate looked at the dress her new friend held up.
"What about this one? This will look absolutely stunning on you," Lanie gushed and Kate couldn't stop the roll of her eyes as she shook her head.
Kate had finally accepted Lanie's offer for a day of shopping, a day Lanie had been nagging on her about. Ever since that event Lanie had asked for a chance to take Kate out and just spend a day with her, get to know her more, but Kate hadn't exactly had the time nor the right energy for a girl's day. However she had immediately accepted the offer the second her former foster parents were arrested, or more accurately Rick had convinced her it could be good for her to have someone more than him to talk to. Plus he said he knew Lanie enough to know she would be an amazing friend to her.
"I'm not here to buy anything," Kate answered her and heard the brunette snort.
"Didn't Rick give you money to buy something?"
"Yes but I'm not gonna use them, it's his, not mine."
Kate was stubborn, said she didn't need or want anything despite Rick's objections. She had eventually agreed to bring the card he gave her but that didn't mean she would actually use it for other than lunch.
"Girl, you need to buy at least one dress okay? Wear it on date night," Lanie said with a matter-of-fact voice. "Come on, let's try this on!"
Lanie grabbed onto Kate's arm and dragged her towards the fitting room. After seeing the way the dress hugged her body in just the right places Kate couldn't refrain herself from buying it anyway, not when her friend kept insisting she should buy it and wear it the next time she and Rick went out on a date. All in all Kate had an amazing time, that was until someone called her out, as Rick Castle's new girlfriend and Nikki Heat.
"Oh my god that is her!" someone called out and Kate couldn't hide her reaction.
Her hole body froze mid-step and how the hell had they known it was her?! Lanie noticed her friend's sudden stop and halted only a couple feet in front of her.
"What's wrong?" she asked as she met Kate's eyes.
Lanie didn't know, and god how Kate wanted to keep it that way. But at the same time she had a strange knot in her stomach telling her that if someone had connected her to both Rick Castle and Nikki Heat there would be nothing stopping them from telling the world. But she just gotten rid of them!
"Excuse me, is it true you're paid to be Rick Castle's girlfriend? Does he take advantage of you?" a woman asked out of nowhere and Kate could see Lanie's sudden shock before something changed in the latino american's eyes.
"Who the hell do you think you are?!" she bursted out at the woman with red eyes.
The woman looked scared, and if Kate had been on the other side of those eyes she'd been scared too because damn did Lanie look like she could murder someone right about now. Kate couldn't stop thinking about what she would do if she found out who she was, who she'd been.
"Isn't this you?" the woman asked with a small voice holding up a paper towards them and Kate felt her heart stop.
On the paper was a big picture with her laughing at an event with Rick's arm around her waist and lips in her hair, the text on the page was big, screaming at her. 'Rick Castle's new flame is all other than innocent, you might know her as either Kate Beckett or NIKKI HEAT'. Lanie gasped at the paper and Kate closed her eyes, not wanting to see the friend she'd just gotten leave her again. Her feet started moving, backwards, she didn't want to witness this, didn't want more people to find out, to see her. She thought she could leave this all behind, she thought this was over, she thought she could live a normal life. Her breathing was all other than normal, she felt as though she couldn't breath yet she could hear how her breathing was only increasing in speed. Suddenly she felt something to her back and she stumbled forwards, not realizing she had backed into someone. She opened her eyes and saw the guy who she'd stumbled into move his lips as if he was saying something, or maybe he was shouting, she couldn't tell. She couldn't hear, couldn't concentrate on anything but the fear inside her. Her whole body flinched when she felt someone grabbed onto her arm, she turned to the person only to see it was Lanie, she hadn't left? What was she still doing here? Her lips were moving as well, saying something, but Kate could still not hear a thing. Except for the ringing in her mind, along with the questions that kept spinning around and around. How did they know? Who had talked to them? Had someone who knew her as Nikki Heat come forward? Why? And now Rick was to blame? Had he paid her? No, what?
Kate found herself being dragged into a cab and she didn't struggle for one second, didn't have the strength to pull away even if she wanted to. It wasn't until the cab stopped and the car door opened that she saw Rick reaching out to her to pull her into a hug. That was when she realized she was crying, and she clutched herself onto him, fingers clenched in the back of his shirt.
"Thank you Lanie," his voice cut through her ringing.
So Lanie had been the one to drag her into the cab, she'd taken care of her and had probably called Rick in the cab to let him know they were on their way home. By the way he had waited for them she'd probably told him about her panic attack as well.
"No problem, I couldn't get through to her."
If Kate heard it right it sounded like Lanie was sad she hadn't been able to help.
"What happened? Do you know what triggered her?" Rick asked, the ringing had started to disappear and she felt her breathing slowly return to normal.
"An article, I managed to snatch the paper from the woman who brought it up, it's in the shopping bag, figured I should keep it hidden to give her a chance to collect herself but seems like you're doing a much better job than I did."
Kate felt bad for the woman, who sounded so saddened by the way she couldn't be able to help her, and made a mental note to both thank and apologize to her the next time she saw her.
"Yeah, thank you so much, I better get her up."
Rick gently pulled away from the hug in order to accept the bag from Lanie and to put his arm around Kate's waist before pulling her with him into his building. Once they reached his loft she felt as though the panic attack was completely blown away. The only traces of it were the stains of tears on her cheeks and her somewhat red eyes. Rick carefully let go of her waist and kissed her head before saying he would go and get her something to drink. She nodded and set off towards the couch, sitting down and taking the time to wipe her face with her hands.
"Here you go," Rick said, holding out a glass of water to her.
She accepted and thanked him with a small smile on her lips, almost immediately taking a sip of the cold water. He sat down beside her and she knew he wanted to ask what had happened, his eyes were already silently asking her.
"Everyone knows who I am. Who I was," she sighed, feeling her lips quiver as she tried her best to stay calm through her explanation. "A client must've told them about me, I don't know to what extent but... enough."
Rick looked confused, what did she mean them? Who were them? Then he suddenly remembered what Lanie had said. An article. About her? Who she was? Oh.
"The article, what does it say?" he gulped, afraid of what she'd do about the new situation.
"I don't know."
She looked around to spot the bag on the floor in front of the couch and picked it up in her lap. It didn't take long before her fingers found the paper Lanie had apparently snatched from the woman earlier and she took it out only to see the cover had a picture of herself and Rick from that first event they were at, containing the same text she'd read before. 'Rick Castle's new flame is all other than innocent, you might know her as either Kate Beckett or NIKKI HEAT'. She didn't want to read it and so she just held it out for him to take. Once he did she leant back on the couch and took another sip of her glass of water, carefully observing Rick as he opened the paper.
They sat quiet, Kate eventually curled into the side of his body, closing her eyes in order not to look at the pages he was reading. She'd accidentally seen pictures that filled the pages when she put her head onto his shoulder, the pictures were from a couple different times. A few pictures had looked like they'd been taken when she and Rick was out on dates, apparently someone had followed them when they went out to take pictures of them which was something she never thought would happen to her. Sure, her boyfriend was somewhat famous but she never figured he was 'paparazzi follows him around to snap photos'-kind of famous. How could she have been so stupid to let this happen? She should've known they couldn't be together like they wanted to. She should've known everyone would find out eventually.
"They're ridiculous," Rick grunted all of a sudden and Kate opened her eyes in order to look up at him. "They're writing everything as if they know exactly what they are talking about but the truth is so much more."
Kate couldn't stop herself from looking at the page then, seeing they had added a small interview with a 'trustworthy' source who told them how he'd gotten in contact with 'Nikki Heat' and also given them a detailed description of what she had offered him. They had also a part in which they debated whether Rick Castle was paying her to play his girlfriend only to give him what he desired. They made it out as if Rick was using her, as if she was not at all there for herself, as if he wasn't the hero he was.
"This is awful," she whispered, feeling her tears come back again. "What if your fans see this?"
"They won't care about this, they know this is all just some fantasy of life-sucking reporters," Rick tried to reassure her.
"But what if? You would be so much better off if you never met me," Kate only muttered the last part but he could hear her loud and clear.
"Stop that, I would rather loose my fans than loose you."
His voice wasn't exactly harsh, but it was definitely determined. He tried keeping contact with her eyes but she looked away, down, as if she was ashamed of something. He wondered what was going on in her mind right at that moment, he wondered what she was thinking. She'd been scared about this before, telling him fears of what to do if they ever found out who she'd been posing as for the past couple years. He remembered that first event he took her to, when a guy had gone up to them and been much more forward than Rick had ever thought anyone would be in that kind of situation. What if that guy was the presumed 'source' the paper had? Right now Rick could only hope this wouldn't be the one thing that would tear them apart, he meant what he said, he would much rather loose all the fame in the world than loose the woman in his arms.
"You know what we could do to fix this?" Rick suddenly thought out loud, having to give a solution in hope she could relax more, leave this behind her.
"Break up and run away?" she whispered and he hoped to god she was only joking.
"What? No!" he said stern before he added, "We could tell the truth."
Kate gave him a shocked and horrified expression, at least she was meeting his eyes again.
"The truth? What do you mean 'the truth'?" she questioned and he noticed the frightened high-pitched tone her voice had taken on.
Rick bit his lip, maybe it hadn't been a good idea at all. But then again he did know how reporters worked and he did know they wouldn't leave them alone unless they gave some kind of statement about this.
"I mean we tell them our story, I mean perhaps not about how we met, but the fact that you were forced into that life and how you finally managed to get out," he suggested and he could almost hear her heart pick up in speed. "We don't have to if you don't want to!" he quickly added, didn't want her to have a reason to leave.
"I... I..." she stammered.
He decided to keep quiet, to give her some time to think about it. It was not like they needed to do this tomorrow, it was just a suggestion and as far as he knew they wouldn't be able to get a meeting with anyone in the next couple of days anyway. Who knew, perhaps the papers would even drop it, but he had a feeling it could take weeks and even months.
Kate took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down in order to sort out her thoughts, to understand what he was saying. Maybe he was right, it scared her but maybe he was. She wondered how people would react if they knew the true story, would they look at her weirder than they would after the article they had just stumbled across? Or would they look at her and understand it hadn't really been her choice? Would they stop blaming Rick? Or would they blame him even more?
A/N:
Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate! Hope all of you have a great day no matter if you celebrate or not! There will only be 2 more chapters after this one, hope you enjoy. xxx