Guess who's back? (If you guess me, you'd be right!) Before we continue I need to clarify something. Many people have been asking about when Kate and Rick will meet and I'm here to tell you... don't hold your breath guys. I am following the the plot line from the show so just be prepared that they won't be meeting in the next chapter. Once again, I would like to thank my wonderful beta for the speedy edit. Meg, you are awesome.
Guess what guys? I have another chapter of Turnabout written and as soon as my beta gives it back, it'll be posted. I promise to be more frequent now that I'm back in town and more focused. Reviews are always encouraged.
Enjoy 3
Johanna looked at the clock mounted on her wall – nine o'clock on a weekday. Hopefully the house would be quiet enough that she could get some work done. Grabbing a pile of folders that she had sneaked from the office, she donned her studious glasses – the ones her husband always teased her about – and set about going through the remnants of her day.
She was half- way through the pile when a letter dropped onto her desk, having slipped through the cracks of her paperwork. Pushing it to the side for the moment, she opened a case file and was quickly immersed in her job.
"Mom, can we talk?" The tone in her daughter's voice caused Johanna to look up from her desk with concern. Glancing at her clock in surprise, she shook her head at how easily she had lost track of time. It was just after ten on Wednesday night – not usually the time for mother/daughter bonding. This told her that something was horribly, horribly wrong; or that there was some drama going on that needed her expertise. Pulling her reading glasses off her nose, she rose from her chair and motioned to the leather couch between them.
"Sure, Katie, what's up?"
Kate pulled her knees underneath her oversized grey sweater, and hugged them to her chest nervously, silent as she composed her thoughts.
"When you were in high school-"
"Back in the dinosaur era, right?" Johanna ribbed her daughter, but received no response.
"Were you popular?"
To say Johanna was surprised would have been an understatement. Her daughter was the definition of self-assured and head strong – and proud to be – she was never worried about popularity and she never had low self esteem. Something was clearly wrong; either that or this wasn't her daughter.
"What's this about?" Surrendering to the fact that this conversation would run on her mother's terms, Kate sagged against Johanna's shoulder and pouted. Her mother nodded, finally determining the source of her pod-daughter, knowing exactly how to fix the problem.
"You and Maddie are fighting." She received another sigh in confirmation. "What's it about this time?"
"Mhend Edax." Kate mumbled against the fabric of her mother's blouse.
"What?" Johanna bumped her daughter's shoulder to push her head up.
"Brent Edwards." Kate managed to groan before her head came down on her mother's shoulder with an audible 'hmph'.
Johanna shook her head in disappointment. "This is about a boy?"
Kate's head instantly shot up at the ridicule in her mother's voice, her arms lowering to the couch for support.
"A really cute boy who is really sweet and really smart and lives on a really nice street. But Maddie and I both like him." Johanna took a moment to ignore questions of why her daughter knew where this boy lived and focused on giving motherly advice.
"Kate," Johanna spoke in a soft, scolding tone; her daughter knew better than this. "No boy is more important than your friendship with Maddie. You guys have been friends since ninth grade and you're going to throw it all away because of a boy?"
"But he's-"
"I don't care if he's really cute or if he's captain of the football team or whatever; do not let this consume you. You are too strong for that." She knew her mother was right but she wouldn't dare risk her mother saying 'I told you so'.
"I know, I know; now I just have to convince Maddie."
Thanking some form of deity that her daughter was finally seeing the light, Johanna pulled her arm around her daughter's shoulder and shook it comfortingly. This 'parenting a teenage girl' thing wasn't that bad. "You can do it."
"It won't be easy."
"Kate, life never delivers us anything we can't handle. You and Maddie will figure this out and when you find your man, I guarantee, she'll be there at your wedding."
"Promise?" Kate looked up at her mother with such worry and anticipation that she couldn't say 'no'. She mostly believed what she was saying. Maddie was a bit of a trouble maker – but so was her daughter – they would be good friends well into their thirties.
"I promise."
Knowing her mother, Kate smiled; Johanna believed in everything she said so it must be true. Flopping down against her mother's shoulder – she was going to have a bruise there, Johanna thought in passing – Kate sighed. "Ugh, this is worse than when Maddie and I got those tattoos."
Johanna's hand immediately shot up, pushing her daughter to sitting and squaring her shoulders off. "You and Maddie got what?"
Kate's eyes widened. "Nothing." She was jumping off the couch and was bolting towards the door before her mother could move.
It took half an hour of straight lectures from both her mother and her father – Johanna felt it necessary to pull the 'dad' card – for Kate to finally show her parents the small butterfly tattoo on the small of her back, and then swiftly dash to her room to warn Maddie about the imminent phone call to her parents. No matter how mad she and Maddie were at each other, Kate would always protect her friend from vicious, overprotective parents whenever she could. It was like an oath that she had sworn to keep.
Johanna watched as her daughter dashed up the stairs two at a time and shook her head with a sentimental smile. She tilted her head onto her husband's shoulder as he came up beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders in a hug. Johanna was slightly smaller than him; just enough to feel comfortable being thrown into his arms when they were feeling comfortable. Moments such as these, called for the occasion.
"What are you smiling about?"
He heard her sigh as looked back up the stairs at their daughter's closed bedroom door.
"I'm just thinking about Kate. She's growing up too fast for me."
Ah yes, Jim thought,; they had had this conversation several times already. "Jo, Katie can't be our little girl forever. She has to become a young woman."
"I know." Johanna sighed again, lowering her head to her husband's shoulder. "I just wish her growing up didn't make me feel so old."
At the slight pout on his wife's lips, Jim released a deep, hearty laugh and pulled his wife tighter to his shoulder. "You, Jo, are anything but old." He kissed her hair, inhaling the scent of cherries with a reminiscent smile, and released his hold on her slightly. "Maybe a little stubborn and fool-hearty, but not old."
"Me? Stubborn?" Johanna leaned back enough to glance into her husband's eyes with amusement. "Perish the thought."
With another bark of laughter, Jim pulled his wife against his chest as he slowly swayed them in the direction of the couches. "Oh yeah, you're definitely stubborn; but you're also incredibly intelligent, ridiculously strong and passionate – not to mention gorgeous if I do say so myself – and you've given all of those qualities to our daughter. That tells me that she is going to be just fine."
Johanna took a moment to shake her head and exhale loudly as she dropped on to the couch with her husband. "What if I'm not?" Jim looked at his wife comfortingly.
"She has to grow up but she will always be your daughter, she will never abandon us completely. She may be a little rebellious but she's loyal as hell."
Johanna's head found her husband's shoulder once more and she was instantly engulfed in his embrace. "I think she gets that from you,." she muttered into the warming air around them.
"I'm glad she has at least something of mine." He chuckled and she joined him for a moment before she tilted her chin to look up at him.
"What would I do without you, Jim Beckett?"
"Die a horrible and painful death I've no doubt; same as me."
With only a subtle smile as offering, she returned her head to its rightful place. There was a lingering silence; any man would have feared that his wife's comfortable sigh and deflation into his shoulder meant that she was slowly fading into sleep, but Jim knew better. He let Johanna settle for a moment, reminiscing on her ever- changing daughter before her deflation indicated that it was time to get back to reality.
"All right," Jim sighed when she began to shift ever so slightly. "Back to work." He pulled her to her feet even as she groaned. "I'm going to head to bed." He kissed her hair and turned towards the stairs. Something about his tone gave Johanna pause.
"I can come to bed now…" she offered, feeling the need to be with her husband at the moment.
"No you can't." Jim turned on the first step. "If you come to bed with me, you will be up half the night thinking about the work you could be doing instead. Go finish your paperwork and I promise that you can wake me when you're done."
Johanna resisted the urge to burst into child-like laughter as Jim turned towards the bedroom, his hip shifting side to side in an exaggerated motion. "I love you, Jim," she called in a stage whisper to her husband, just before he closed their bedroom door in the corner house.
"Keep telling yourself that, Jo. G'night."
"Night." Her voice hit the closed door, but she knew he heard her. With a shake of her head, she returned to her study with the somewhat smaller pile of paper work than when she had initially sat down. Staring at the stacks she knew would take hours to get through, she resolved to only work for half an hour, then go to bed and leave the rest for the morning. With a nod of her head, she released a puff of air and picked up her glasses before picking up a random pile and getting to work.
After twenty minutes, she was only half way through the pile, but her determination did not falter. She was going to spend a night in bed with her husband that lasted longer than a few hours. That's when her hand brushed over a piece of paper she had managed to push aside constantly over the course of the night: a letter. Finally picking up the letter to examine it, she turned it over to look at the address.
That night, Johanna Beckett didn't come to bed at all.
Meanwhile across town, Rick was sitting on the edge of his bed in his dorm room, his elbows resting against his knees in contemplation. Twirling between his fingers was a diamond stud earring. He and Kyra has been dating ever since that kiss several months ago but his mind still occasionally wandered back to that night with Alison. He couldn't stop thinking about how well they had clicked – how in sync they were with each other's thoughts – how nice it would have been to kiss her.
Not nearly as nice as kissing Kyra, the pesky little voice of reason told him. Kyra was his girlfriend and he cared about her deeply and here he was pining for another girl who had run off into the night, never to be seen again. He was being a crappy boyfriend and that had to change. Yes, he resolved, standing from the rock hard bed, he was going to put Alison out of his mind and focus on the beautiful brunette probably on her way over for a 'study-date'. Stepping over a few items of dirty laundry that didn't make it to the hamper in the corner, he made his way to the window where he stared down at the earring once again, with a different attitude. What was he going to do with it? He couldn't just throw it away; his mother had taught him well and he knew that this was a real diamond – and an old one, at that – so it held tremendous value. However, leaving it lying around his dorm room where Kyra could potentially find it made him more than a little anxious. Before he could come to a decision, he heard a short knock on his door before it burst open. Quickly letting the earring find refuge in the pocket of his navy sweat pants, he turned to face an excitedly frantic Kyra waving a single sheet of paper – apparently printed from the computer in the library.
"Rick, you are not going to believe this." She shut the door behind him and approached him in a giddy skip. She paused inches from his face and pushed the paper into his face so his nose was flat against it.
"If I could read it, I might believe at least some of it." He smirked, taking the paper from her twitching fingers, his fingers brushing hers. He took a moment to scan it before he lowered the paper to eye her with a mischievously giddy grin. "Are you serious?"
"As a heart attack." She grinned, her hands folding over her chest smugly. "Richard Castle, 'In a Hail of Bullets' has just hit the best seller list."