The weekend passed and Alexis arrived on Sunday evening. She was completely worn out but couldn't stop talking about her weekend. While the girl was telling her parents about the many exiting things she experienced within the last 48 hours Kate received a call. The caller ID read Lanie. Kate decided she could call her back when Alexis was asleep. But a second call from Lanie only seconds after the first ended let her answer it anyway.

"Girl, where are you. I need you. Now!", her anger thick in her voice. "Lanie, what is this about. What happend?" But Lanie just told her to to move her ass as quickly over to her place and ended the call. Once again Kate struggled about keeping her family away from her friends. To make matters worse Alexis caught on to the nature of the call and with that her mood shifted from happy to angry. "Mom, you always want me not to lie about anything, particularly not to family and friends. But it's okay that you lie about so important things. Wait, or am I not important enough. Are we embarrassing you. I want to talk about you all the time and you forbid me. I just hate this",she yelled at her mother.

"I..." Kate had lost her ability to talk. Alexis anger grew as Kate strated mumbling, searching for words. "No! I don't want to hear your excuse again. There is not reason to hide me or dad! You don´t hide us to keep us safe. You do it because you are ashamed of us or whatever. The only thing you do is keep lying!" With that she stormed off and slammed the door shut.

Kate stood in the middle of the living room stunned and perplexed. Her mind starts running again, wondering if she did the right thing. She does this for Rick and Alexis, doesn´t she ?!

Kate texted Lanie that she couldn't come over. It was late at night when she laid besides her husband and listened to his steady breath.

"Rick?", she asked quietly.

Her voice was soft and full of love but also filled with fear and concern.

"Rick?",she asked again.

No clue why she had the urge to wake him up, Kate tried it over and over again. She couldn´t stop the pain she felt deep inside of her chest. All she could do was act on instinct.

Finally the writer shifted a little and hummed a "Hm".

"Am I a bad mom? Am I handling this the right way? Is this, keeping you a secret, just for my benefit? Is Alexis right?"

The man never had heard this tone in her voice before. It was an emotion he dind´t knew his bad-ass and determined wife was able to feel.

Fear. The fear to fail.

Doubt. Insecurity.

Suddenly he has wide awake

"No. No you are not. She has to understand. Kate you are perfect. But I have to admit I can´t see a point why it would bring her into danger to get to know your friends. Babe, I love you and the fact that you are out there is frighting. You put your life into mortal danger and nonone can guarantee us that you will able to come home safe and sound in the evening. The only thing we can do is to hope and trust blindly in people we never met before. Kate, I made my peace with it. It was difficult but I did and so will Alexis. Give her time, she will understand."

"I am so sorry. I am so sorry. I..."

"Don´t be. It's you. Go back to sleep. You have work tomorrow. And I do too."

Rick went back to sleep but she couldn´t. Too many questions floating her mind.

When the clock went off the next morning she was tired as hell. Nevertheless she had to get up and ready for work. Alexis was quite this morning, still angry. Kate wanted to reconcile with her so badly but Alexis refused every attempt to talk about their fight.

After her usual morning routine, slipping into her detective mood, she headed off to the morgue. On her weekend off the boys caught a new case and Lanie would have the report by now.

It was a banker, who got strangled to death. His friends couldn't tell if he had any enemies but were sure that his death stood in no relation to his job.

"Hey Lane, sorry about yesterday. Had an issue of myself. What do we have got ?".

"Yeah, but today I won't let you off the hook."

"I...-"

"No! No buts. I need a girls night out. Javi is an idiot. I just need some distraction. And you really need to live a little bit more. I don´t want you to be a lifelong single."

Kate exhaled loudly. For a second she thought about to telling her the truth but she went with her usual excuse.

"Sorry Lanie. I have to work. Really. I promise we can go on a girls night some other time, but at the moment I have a murderer to catch."

"You don´t."

"What?"

"You don´t because I know who did it."

"Then spill it."

"Your murderer is dead. Got another body yesterday evening who's fingerprints fingerprints where all over Mr. Conrads body and his DNA was under his fingernails. Afterwards he committed suicide. Now you only have to close the case. See you at eight, girlfriend."

"Thanks. But Lanie listen, I can´t go out with you today. I am at my dad´s. Sorry."

Kate couldn't go out while her daughter was mad at her.

"Kathrine Beckett, do not even try this. And you know I don´t have to go to a bar with you to find a boyfriend for you."

"Lanie, you do realize that I don´t have time to date" , Kate tried.

"This or you secretly dating a ugly man you don´t want to be seen with."

Almost. If only you know...

Later this day Kate sat at her desk and did her paperwork when a new case came in.

On every new case she promised herself to not letting down another ones justice. Bringing closure to the relatives. She would dig as deep as she needed to. Giving a voice a person, who´s voice has been robbed.

She took a last deep breath and concentrated only on the body in front of her.

"Marvin Fisk, lawyer. He has a brother, his parents passed away years ago, he never married. No kids",Esposito informed her.

"Okay, when we are ready here, go see his brother."

"Sure thing, Beckett."

"Lanie, what do you know already?"

"Time of death is between 9:30 and 11:00 am. Shoot to death with a 9 millimetre, I guess."

Even they didn´t really get started yet she knew it would be one of those cases with a big twist.

The whole scene was almost artistically made up. He was bedded on soil and covered by colourful leafs.

She somehow felt like she had seen this before.

By late afternoon they ran out of leads and Montgomery send them home. She was thankful of being able to go home to her family without a discussion with Lanie.

At the moment the only thing she wanted to do was to get home snuggle up his her husband and her daughter.