A/N: So I should just say that I have no one editing this with me and I am the world's worst self-editor so please forgive any errors you spot. Enjoy.

Song: "Losing My Way" Justin Timberlake, watch?v=CEuuA5flFzI

Losing My Way

Kate Beckett saunters off the over-crowded, sweaty dance floor holding her long dark hair off the nape of her slender neck to try and cool off. Definitely need a hair cut. Might as well shave it and become a nun the way my love life's goin', she thought.

She is not in the mood to be groped and manhandled by uncoordinated douche bags who think dancing is just a sociably acceptable excuse to dry hump her in public. Is it too much to ask for a man with some rhythm? She would much rather be doing some post-breakup sulking at home in a hot bath with a good book. But in the spirit of sisterhood she put on the dress, heels, and make-up for Lanie's sake, and is doing her best to play the part of peppy twenty something out on a girls night.

Kate spots Lanie in a vacated booth by the far end of the bar and slides and shuffles her way through the bodies to reach her. She drops her hand from her hair to navigate around a gyrating couple that seriously needs to get a room and swings her hips a bit to the beat with each step she takes off the dance floor. Kate's not really a fan of these kind of clubs unless she is looking to get utterly shit faced after a bad day on patrol. She usually likes something with jazz or some latin salsa to it.

Kate finally makes it to the booth and with a bit of a huff says, "Lanie, no offense, but this girls night out plan to cheer us up is a catastrophe. These guys are all groping, caveman pricks." She slides gracelessly into the circular bench and unceremoniously grabs and downs Lanie's vodka tonic.

"Well with an attitude like that, you may as well have a 'Fuck Off' sign stamped on your forehead." Lanie quips back with a glare at her empty drink glass in Kate's hands.

Kate offers her usual roll of the eyes in reply.

"C'mon Debbie, don't be such a downer! I know we are both coming out of a rough break up but we need a night like this."

"Okay first off Lanie, a rough break up?" Kate purses her lips and adds a dubious arch of her eyebrow as she ticks off her evidence on each finger, "You dated 'Nick the Dick' for three weeks, he was terrible to you the whole time, you were miserable, and you didn't even like him."

Lanie shrugs her shoulders in faux innocence begging the question, What do you expect from me?

"Seriously? If that's your version of a 'rough break up' mine was the fucking Titanic of tragic break ups." Kate jokes, knowing Lanie well enough to rib on her choice in men.

"Yes he was a total ass hole, but sweet heavens Kate," Lanie bellows dramatically grabbing Kate's forearm theatrically, "The sex was unbelievable! I didn't nickname him Nick the Dick for nothing."

"Awh, gross." Kate says scrunching up her nose in distaste.

"Yeah but you still love me so your going to listen to me. We are looking at the positives tonight, we are single and I don't know about you girl, but I know I look damn sexy," Lanie states, sliding out of the booth to stare down menacingly at Kate."So let's go back out on that dance floor, find us some unsuspecting fellas, and get under them to get over the assholes that are missing out on this!" She says, running the back of her hand down her body and rolling her hips to emphasize her curves.

Kate laughs a bit at her best friends antics and is so grateful for Lanie trying to cheer her up since Will left. So, with that in mind, Kate decides she can put in a little more effort into enjoying herself and turn off the "Fuck Off" vibe she apparently has been emanating.

Kate slaps her hands down on the table and gears up to make herself forget about how her two year relationship ended a month ago, forget how she went to being the 'next one to get engaged' to packing up her boyfriends shit in boxes and shipping them out to Boston for him...Pathetic. She is determined to forget how she just got caught looking over her mother's case file after hours, in a restricted area by her captain.

Kate is so indescribably sick and tired of having this shadow of sadness follow her every move. The weight of her father's addiction cementing her feet in cinder blocks every time Kate has to go over to her childhood home and clean her dad up. Those blocks drag her further into this angry, abyss as Jim spews empty apologies and promises. She's just so frustrated with feeling like a lost little girl. Alone. She wants her father back to comfort her, she wants her mother back to erase this loneliness.

But now its just all fucked up.

She knows she has a problem with this obsessive drive to solve her mother's case. It has dictated her every move for the last five years and she is so deep down that rabbit hole that she has completely lost her way. And if she is being honest with herself, Will was just a temporary distraction. Their relationship was based on convenience and the wishful thinking of a future that Kate couldn't truly commit too when she has still refused to accept to the past that has defined her.

So tonight she wants to forget all that, be someone else. Find her way. Or at least a different one.

"Let me grab another round of drinks for us and I'll meet you out there." Kate offers Lanie as she needs a few moments to gather herself and bury her heart of sadness that feels like it's seeping out of the cracks in her armor.

Lanie gives her an intimidating look and waves a motherly finger in Kate's face. "You better have your ass out on that dance floor grinding up against some stranger in five minutes young lady!"

"Yes ma'am." Kate nods, desperately trying to hold back the laugh that wants out after Lanie's antics."

"I mean it girl, don't make me come back here."

Kate just rolls her eyes and watches Lanie out on the prowl for a moment before she turns to the bar for a drink, a way to forget.

A/N: soooo you should prooobably review just to be awesomely polite ;)