The alarm she set prior to falling asleep blares, and Kate groans before her body is rolling towards the edge, her arm outstretching from underneath the covers and hitting the snooze button on her alarm clock.
She keeps one eye closed, the other peeling open as she takes in the time on her clock: 5:40pm. She rolls onto her back and blinks a few times as she lets her sight adjust to the darkness that's settled in her bedroom.
She was thankful that Rick only lived a floor above her and that she only had to set an alarm for twenty minutes before she needed to be at his place. Her body had succumbed to sleep the second her head hit the pillow. She hadn't realised just how deprived for sleep she'd been, and she needed as many hours as she could squeeze in.
She shoves the covers off of her and pads into her bathroom to take a quick shower. Once she's out she slips into a pair of jeans, a purple sweater and ballet flats; a pair of shoes that's very rare to see on the young woman's feet. She usually went for something with more levels to it, but considering she was only having dinner with Rick and his daughter in his home, she wanted to be comfortable and as casual as possible.
She applies minimal makeup and dries her hair, natural curls falling around the frame of her face as she tucks them behind her ears.
By the time she's left her apartment and has slipped into the elevator, it's two minutes to six.
It's not till she's standing outside of Rick's door, her fingertips curling into the palm of her hand to knock on the door that the nerves start to bubble up inside of her. Her pulse can't help but pound beneath the cage of her ribs, the sound travelling up to her ears as warmth spreads through her neck.
It's rare that she gets nervous. She's stood in front of the toughest, most hardened criminals without batting an eye lid. But there's something so personal about having dinner with somebody that she barely even knows – that she's known for only a week and had possibly three full conversations with. All she knows about him is that he's in the midst of a divorce and that he writes – one of those facts she knew before she'd even began talking to him.
She doesn't know him, and he doesn't know her. And yet, being in his presence is easy. She feels comfortable with him around and that scares her. It takes her awhile to get comfortable around people, to want to share things with them. And maybe it's the fact that his books helped get her through her mother's murder, or maybe it's the fact that she feels a little sorry for him considering his situation, but she wouldn't mind so much if the pair became friends. If coffee and dinners became a regular thing.
She didn't have many friends, and the close ones she did have she could count on one hand. Even if Rick was added to that pile, she'd still be able to count them all on one hand. Which makes her nervous for tonight, and a little afraid. Opening up to him means the possibility that he could view her as a completely different person. Start looking at her as if she's some tragedy or somebody who needs to be treated with care. She worked too hard to get to a place where she stopped viewing herself as such, she couldn't bare it if others began too.
She takes a deep breath, as her hand drops to her side, the door flying open after what seems like forever, but in reality, is only a few seconds.
Her brows pull together; furrowing as air stares back at her and it's not till her head drops that she sees the small redheaded girl staring up at her with a wide smile.
"Hi, Alexis!" Kate grins down at her, a hand lifting to wave as Alexis waves back at her before stepping back.
"Hi, Kate! Come in, come in!" She gestures, and Kate can't help but laugh as she steps into the apartment, her head lifting just in time to see Rick darting towards the two, an apron wrapped around his body.
"Alexis! What have I told you about opening up the door?" He's trying his best to sound serious, but there's a smirk playing on his lips as Alexis only grins up at him.
"To not open it to strangers."
"That's correct." He pokes her nose and her face scrunches up.
"Oh, so I'm a stranger now, huh?" Kate's brow arches as Rick glances over to her.
"No! That's why I can open the door silly." Alexis says, shaking her head before she's tugging at her father's apron. "Daddy, manners!" She says, pointing to Kate whose lips are pulled into her mouth as she stifles a laugh at the young girl.
"Yes, yes, of course, pumpkin." He shakes his head slightly as he straightens up and glances to Kate. "Hello, Kate. How are you this evening, may I take your coat?"
Kate's tongue slips from her lips, running along her lower lip as her brows begin to raise. "I'm not wearing a coat, Rick."
"Oh, right." He blinks at her, his eyes raking over her body as his brows pull together.
"Daddy, you're silly." Alexis shakes her head, the girl's brows furrowing as she heads off towards the kitchen.
"I see it's clear who the adult in the house is." Kate muses as Rick's eyes squint, a small smirk playing at his lips.
"I'll have you know that she keeps me very much in line." His head lifts, hand motioning as if he were tossing a scarf over his shoulder.
"Oh, I bet." Kate shakes her head, chuckling as the pair head towards the kitchen.
"I hope you're hungry! Alexis and I definitely overcompensated."
"It smells delicious, Rick." The spices from the kitchen only just hit her senses as she follows Rick into the kitchen, watching him lift Alexis up onto the bar stool before he's heading around the island and towards the stove top as Kate takes a seat next to Alexis on one of the bar stools.
"I didn't overcome – pen – overcom'sate." Alexis' legs dangle from the chair, her brows pulled together tightly as she struggles to get the word out clearly.
Kate can only smile down at the girl, an awe threatening to slip from her lips.
She hadn't been around many children, only the few that she occasionally dealt with if they were apart of cases, but even then, they were more guarded with grief overcoming them. They weren't as bright and bubbly as the redhead sitting next to her was.
"Dinner shouldn't be too far away. The lasanga and garlic bread have about five or so more minutes and the salad is ready in the fridge."
"You've truly out done yourself, Rick. You too, Alexis." Kate adds, making sure to not exclude the young girl whose frustrated expression has now disappeared, and in place one of content and innocence.
"Do you like lasanga, Kate? It's the only thing daddy's good at making."
"Hey!"
Kate's hand quickly comes up to her mouth, a laugh muffling against her skin as she watches Alexis sink in her chair, a small smirk playing at her lips as she bats her lids up at Rick.
"You're lucky you're cute." He squints at her, pointing the end of the wooden spoon in her direction and Alexis' tongue sticks out of her mouth, getting trapped between her teeth before she's looking over at Kate, waiting for an answer to her question.
"I do, very much."
"Me too! But my mommy doesn't like it, she says it's too many cards."
Kate's eyes widen in the slightest, her brows pulling together slightly as her gaze snaps to Rick, the pair both doing their best to refrain from letting out a laugh.
"Carbs, Alexis. Carbs." Rick adds.
"Right, carbs." A beat passes before she's looking over at him, her head tilting to the side. "What's carbs?"
"Nothing important, princess." Rick nods at her, and for now, it's enough for the four year old who simply shrugs at his response and looks back up at Kate.
"Do all mommy's not like lasanga? When I become a mommy will I not like it? Does your mommy like it?"
The questions roll off Alexis' pretty fast, and they're innocent, but Kate's face visibly drops – and Rick notices as he stands there and watches the two interact. He sees the way Kate tenses slightly, the way she swallows the lump in her throat and his brows pull together slightly. Confusion washing over him.
"U – uh, I'm not sure." Kate pauses, head nodding. "My mom loved it." Her jaw tightens slightly, brows pulling together. She hates how stupid she's being. She should be able to answer an innocent question about her mother and not tense up.
"Hey, Alexis. Why don't you go get the picture you drew for Kate?" Rick pipes in, his elbows coming to rest atop of the counter. He thinks the full attention from the four year old might be a little overwhelming for Kate and that a few minutes of breathing air would settle her.
"Okay!" Alexis beams, quickly sliding off the stool and heading up the staircase.
"Sorry about her. She can be a bit much at times."
Kate shakes her head as she forces the edges of her lips up into a small curve. "No, it's fine. She's good."
Rick nods at her, the pair staring at one another for a moment before Kate's shifting her gaze away from him.
"So… do I get to hear how you closed that 'hypothetical' case?" He was curious, of course. But he also wanted to shift the mood back to something lighter, and when Kate glances at him, a small smirk playing on her lips, he knows he asked the right question.
"Hmm, I dunno." She shrugs and he squints slightly at her.
"Would a glass of wine persuade you?"
"It might."
He turns around, grabbing two glasses and a bottle of red before filling them up midway and handing one over to Kate.
"Thank you." She murmurs, taking a small sip of the liquid that instantly makes her body feel warm as she sets the glass back down on the counter.
"So?" Rick's elbows meet the counter top, his chin coming to rest in the palms of his hands and Kate shakes her head at him, laughs slightly at how childlike he seems to look.
"Well, turns out your supposed theory of my victim being killed over a deal was right."
"No way!" His face lights up and Kate's smile can't help but grow wider as her teeth sink into her bottom lip.
"We dug a little deeper into the woman you saw me arrest and found a lot of money in her bank account. We checked who it was sent from and it turned out to be the guy she'd been contacting from her burner phone. Apparently the vic and her were going to go into business together, but at the last minute my vic pulled out because she wanted to expand her family instead of her business. They'd ended up arguing and to stop her from leaving, she shoved her back and ended up colliding with the garbage. Her head split open so far down it was impossible to tell till our m.e had gotten her back to the morgue, but essentially that's what she died from. The stab wounds were staged to make it look like a mugging gone wrong." Kate's brows pull together tightly at that, another lump forming in the middle of her throat that she quickly swallows.
"Whoa."
Her gaze flicks to Rick whose eyes are wide, and he's leaning back from the childlike position he'd been in moments ago. His face scrunches up, gaze landing on Kate. "She could've avoided so much had she just called emergency services straight away instead of going to all the trouble to make It look like someone else had done it."
Kate shrugs, head shaking. "People do unimaginable things."
"You're telling me."
His tongue sweeps across his bottom lip before he's pulled away from the millions of thoughts running through his head as the timer on the oven goes off, and little footsteps come running down the stairs.
"Ah, lasanga's done!" His index finger raises into the air as he grabs oven mitts and pulls out the dishes.
"Kate, look!" Alexis comes to Kate's side, placing the piece of paper onto her lap as she beams up at her with wide eyes.
Kate's gaze drops to the picture in her lap. A variety of shapes and colours filling the page.
"That's you, me and daddy in the elevator. And you've got a gun! 'Cause daddy says you're a cop, and cops have to have guns." She points to the variations and Kate's face softens, her heart filling with so much joy that it's bursting, as her fingertips smooth over the picture.
"Thank you, Alexis. It's very beautiful." She grins down at the redhead who only smiles wider at her.
"Really?"
Kate nods at her, her hand lifting to tuck the loose strands of red behind Alexis' ear.
"In fact, it's so beautiful that I definitely have to put it up on my fridge so everyone can see it."
She watches the young girls face light up, the grin plastered across her face stretching right to the edges, and if Kate's heart hadn't melted before, it definitely had now.
Dinner's a breeze, the conversation effortlessly flying between the three and Kate doesn't think she's enjoyed such a night more than she has now.
She tries to help Rick clean up, but he has none of it. Instead forces her into the living area with Alexis, and her and the young girl sit in the living room, Alexis showing Kate the few toys that were scattered around downstairs.
After they've had dessert, Rick takes Alexis upstairs to bed, and Kate sits on the couch with a glass of wine in hand while she waits for Rick, telling her he'll only be a moment. But Kate's in a daze from dinner, her eyes taking in the surroundings like the bookcase wall while she waits for him.
"Sorry you had to wait. Alexis insisted on three stories, even though she knows two is the maximum."
Kate's hand lifts, head shaking. "No, it's fine. She deserves three after cooking such an amazing meal." She smirks, a twinkle in her eye as Rick shoots her a look with a smirk playing on his own lips.
He grabs his own glass of wine from the kitchen countertop before coming to join Kate on the couch.
"Thank you for inviting me, Rick. I really enjoyed myself. And thank you again for your help with my… 'hypothetical case'." She laughs slightly as he smiles over at her.
"Anytime, Kate. Alexis and I really enjoyed you being here. It's been a little tough since Meredith left, but I don't think I've seen her smile so much in one night than she has tonight. So, thank you."
Kate's heart warms again, her pulse beginning to pound slightly. "She's such a wonderful kid. I couldn't imagine Meredith not wanting to share custody with you."
Rick shrugs, taking a sip of his wine before placing his glass down on the coffee table and leaning back. "She loves Alexis. There's no doubt about it. But, Meredith is more of an aunt or a sister to Alexis than she is a mother."
"I'm sorry."
He shakes his head, head lifting to face Kate. "It's okay. Meredith and I, well – Alexis wasn't planned. We really rushed into things. I thought I was doing the right thing by marrying her, but it was the wrong thing." As he really thinks about it, he loved Meredith, but he wasn't in love with her. They hadn't known each other that long before he'd knocked her up. He proposed because he thought that was the right thing to do, and things seemed perfect – almost blissful. But Rick should've known it wouldn't last.
"When I found her in bed with her director, I'd been crushed. But I was also kind of relieved." He shrugs once more and Kate tilts her head.
"How come?"
"Meredith and I weren't right for each other. We'd barely known each other five minutes before Alexis came along. She was too engrossed with Hollywood and 'making it'. She wasn't interested in settling down and having a family like I was. We hadn't really been doing too good before I caught her. Our sex life was probably the only thing aside from Alexis that kept us together."
"Not to sound like a broken record, but I'm really sorry, Rick." She felt bad for him, he was a decent and kind man. Someone who's words and smile could really fix anyone's broken day. She couldn't know why this Meredith woman wouldn't want to be in his, or Alexis' presence.
"Hey, no. it's okay, really. But, enough about my sad and pathetic love life. Let's talk about you. As I recall before we got interrupted yesterday. I was asking why you transferred from Stanford and stopped studying pre-law?"
Kate's pulse pounds faster as she sucks in a breath – one that's louder than she intended and fills the quiet space between them.
"If that's not too personal, I mean. I don't want to pry… or overstep." Rick quickly cuts in, his brows pulling together as he hears Kate's intake of breath.
She shakes her head, brows pulling together and head dropping as her gaze fixates on her wine glass and her index finger slowly beginning to circle the rim of her glass.
"No, no. I mean, you've shared… a lot with me. So, I can do the same." She shrugs, trying to convince herself more than him.
"I transferred after my mom died." The pounding in her chest only grows, it starting to ache against her bones and she can already feel the tears starting to arise around the rims of her lids.
"Kate… I'm so – so sorry."
Rick's shifted closer to her, his hand coming to rest atop of her knee and squeeze it lightly.
Her lips twitch, head shaking as her eyes fall closed.
"She was a lawyer herself, and I – I wanted to be just like her. Ever since I can remember I wanted to be exactly like her. She was… incredible in every single way. Always fought for the little people, you know?" She tilts her head and risks a glance at Rick, sees a soft gaze staring back at her. And although she can see the sorrow filling his eyes from what she's spoken, she doesn't feel judged, doesn't feel like he's viewing her any less and it makes her feel better, prompts her to keep going and reveal more to him.
She glances back to her wine glass, chest rising as she runs her tongue along her bottom lip. "She was murdered, stabbed in an alley way and just... left there." She feels Rick's hand tighten on her knee and she bites the inside of her bottom lip, her fingertips tightening around her wine glass to refrain from placing her hand on top of his.
"A… mugging?" His voice is quiet, like he's afraid interrupting will shatter her or have her running for the hills, but Kate only shakes her head and continues.
"They wrote it off as a random act of gang violence. But… god, it wasn't." Her brows pull together, tears beginning to burn the rims of her lids before one betrays her and slips down her cheek. Her hand quickly lifts to wipe it away as she sucks in another breath.
"After that, getting justice for people seemed more right than being a part of a corrupt justice system. Working in homicide I could make more of a difference, you know? Think outside of the box and put my all into it and make sure people receive the justice they deserve, unlike writing it off and wrapping it up neatly like they did for my mom's case."
His thumb began brush back and forth against her knee the second he saw the tear slip, and he'd almost reached out to wipe it away, but she beat him to it.
He hates that she's suffered, that she's had to endure so much and he wishes he could do something to help, something that could make her eyes look less heavy and dark.
He thinks she's completely remarkable in every way. The fact that she dedicated her life to getting justice for other people when she lacked getting her own amazed him, and he counts himself lucky to be in her presence.
"You're extraordinary, you know that?" His lips twitch as he squeezes her knee one last time and Kate's body vibrates beneath him as a laugh slips through her lips.
"Yeah, okay." She shakes her head, a look of amusement and slight bewilderment washing across her face. Because, extraordinary? That's not a word she'd use to describe herself. Not even close.
"No, I mean it, Kate. What you've been through… I couldn't even imagine. You're doing so much to make a difference and people need that. They need someone who's going to fight for what's right. And that's… incredible. You're incredible."
Kate's lips twitch slightly, her gaze landing on Rick and she slowly shifts her hand from her wine glass to lay on top of his as she squeezes the flesh of his skin. "Thank you, Rick."
He only smiles at her, and the pair sit there in silence for a while, his hand still resting atop of her knee, and her hand covering his.
