CH43 (122)
It was 5 months later now:
Kate, Rick, Emily and Kali were approaching their ship on Athos. They saw Alexis, Andre and their kids waiting for them.
"Hi pumpkin!" Rick hugged his daughter, then shook hands with Andre. Kate had a case to finish before they could leave hence they were two weeks behind everyone else. Plus they had to wait for the next ship going their way.
"Where is everyone else?" Kate asks them.
"They are doing the shopping for us this time. I phoned them just as soon as we got off the phone. They should be here in about an hour." Alexis explains.
"How are you doing dad?" Alexis was 29 years old now. Rick was already roughly 10 years senior to Kate. Her father was getting old now. It seemed like only yesterday to her that they were packing to go to their summer home in upper New York. Instead here they are at their ship.
"I'm fine pumpkin, never better." Rick stretches his arms wide to prove it.
Alexis would interrogate her mother later for the truth.
They were all on board unpacking when Madison, Shawn and their kids showed up with Lani, Javi and their son, along with Kevin, Jenny and their two daughters with hand loads of groceries.
"Hi Mags." Kate hugged her old friend.
Kate has trapped Madison in their room watching her unpack. "How are Victor and Jenn?" Kate takes both of her hands in hers.
"They're both in assisted living. They need almost constant care from nurses now. I went to see them yesterday to tell them we would be gone for 2 months. Dad probably forgot what I told him minutes after I told him." Madison was getting ready to cry again.
Kate moved in and hugged her again. "Alzheimer's, it must really suck to watch one of them disappear like that." They were almost Kate's parents too. Kate was already blinking back tears.
"We knew it was going to happen when he was diagnosed. Usually he knows I'm his daughter but he can't even remember my name anymore. He has no idea how to use the phone or even read.
He'll ask a question and I answer it, then he'll ask the question yet again just seconds later like he had never asked it the first time.
It hurts Becks!" Madison gave up not trying to cry and fell apart in Kate's arms. Getting Kate to join her.
Alexis was with Shawn. "Did you get your new submarine?" Alexis was curious. The little one he had been using was getting old and needed to be replaced.
"I did, it arrived last week. This one is really different. It has tremendous speed, and it can dive a little deeper. And the drive system is really unique. It has a tail like a dolphin that is articulated and it flips back and forth just like a dolphin.
I've even tried to stay out in front of some of the shipping vessels while jumping out of the water like they do. It has more range too.
I've even been down to the supposed Oracle building that is down there a few times. It looks the same as ever." Shawn explains.
Emily and Kali had already taken over all the kids that everyone brought.
Rick finds Alexis and Andre. "Where's your sister? They sent us on and said they would catch up." Rick wasn't worried about them. Elena was a younger version of Kate.
Alexis pulled out her phone and called her.
After hanging up. "They're on a GETS train headed this way. Give them about a half hour. They stopped to get groceries too."
"We're going to be a little tight on bed space with 12 adults and 6 kids." Rick had to use his fingers and count them off. Their family and friends was still kinda big.
"Just think dad, it used to be just you and me." Alexis was grinning. A lot had changed over the years.
Alexis had never even dreamed she would have a family this big or even be living on another planet. Plus she knows how to fly in space and had done so several times. Just not lately.
"Aahhh the good old days. I could say I miss them, but I only miss parts of them." Rick missed a number of things actually, not that he was going to tell anyone.
"Life is all about change dad. We've just had a lot of changes is all." Alexis moved in and hugged him.
Some days she wished she was still just a kid who relied on her father.
"You've grown up into a beautiful woman pumpkin. … I'm proud of you, you know that right." Rick looks at her.
"I know dad. … I love you too." Alexis goes back to hugging him. Until Kate came along he was all she had.
"Ever wonder where we'd be if mom hadn't crashed next to us?" Alexis had thought about it a lot.
"Based on what happened, we'd be dead long ago. Either vaporized or dead from radiation poisoning."
"I mean if that part hadn't happened. If we had stepped away from the blink of oblivion again." Alexis understood what he meant. They would be dead. They lived in New York after all.
"I try not to. You would be grown, married no doubt, with kids, moved out, mother would be gone, and I would be living alone.
We may have changed Kate's life, but she has changed ours too. I'd be lost without her." Rick knew it was true. After the disaster of Meredith and Gina he had given up dating with the intention of finding someone to live his life with.
He had come to the realization that there was no one. And then Kate came along. Kate may have had a hole in her heart, but so did he.
"I'm headed for the bridge pumpkin. Take a peek at the weather. If you find your mother tell her where I am." Rick kisses the side of Alexis's head. She may be 29 years old now, but she was still his little girl.
Kate had gone to their room on the ship to piece herself back together. Alexis had just missed seeing her when she poked her head into the master bedroom. "Dad said he was going up to the bridge."
"I'll be up in a minute." Kate responds. Watching Alexis's head disappear from view. Kate needed a minute to clean up too.
Alexis went to help her children unpack and get settled in. Elena, Leon and their son along with Javi, Lanie and their son, followed by Kevin, Jenny and their two girls, had showed up with a month's worth of food.
They had found from previous trips that they needed to stop after a month to replace the perishables. It wasn't the summer house since it didn't have a greenhouse or a garden to grow them.
Kate passed by them unnoticed as they were all filling the kitchen with their purchases, and headed for the bridge.
Rick was looking over his display screen when Kate came in. "There is a storm a ways out that we can easily avoid this time." Rick remembered their first trip. That storm had been really large. It didn't do any damage, but it was big.
Kate didn't say anything so Rick turned to look at her and suddenly became concerned. "You've been crying." And stepped over to take her in his arms and hold her close.
Kate held her arms in close and fisted his shirt in her hands and started blinking back new tears.
Rick squeezed a little. "What is it?"
"Victor is worse." Kate comments, whispering it out.
"Alzheimer's." Rick knew he was diagnosed. "You knew it was coming babe."
"I know." Kate whispers into his chest where her head is buried. "Mags is falling apart because of it. She said he doesn't even remember anyone anymore." Kate lost the fight with her tears and could feel them travel down her face.
"And you. They were your parents too when you were young. They're the last parents you two have." Rick gets it, he does. Doesn't make it any easier.
"I'm getting old Rick, soon I won't have any parents at all." Kate still whispers into his chest.
Rick grins. Kate thinks she's old. "You're forgetting how many years I have on you Kate. I'm the one that's getting old.
I still remember the little girl that wanted to get out of New York every summer. The one who helped me look for just the right spot. We drove everywhere. Even took a couple of helicopter trips. It was one of those helicopter trips that we found the right spot.
Alexis actually picked it. She wasn't even a teenager then. Alexis did the entire internet searching to find people to help us build it. The house, the windmills, the greenhouses, even the pump to get fresh water. Not to mention the bridge just so we could reach it.
Now look at her. All grown up, married with her own children.
If you hadn't come along I'd really be an old man. Living alone, feeling even older than I really am. Probably in an assisted living facility just like Victor and Jenn are. I definitely wouldn't still be writing.
Visited by my daughter once a month, who would watch me get even older with each visit." Rick was making himself sad, and didn't know why.
Kate let go of him and backed up enough to place his face between her hands. "You're not old Rick, and Alexis is a beautiful woman with a sweet passion for everything she does. You did an amazing job with her when she was younger."
Rick just grinned. "Liar. I'm in my 60's now and you only just made 50 a few months ago. We haven't even had sex in over 3 months because I don't have the interest like I used to." Rick loved her just as much, if not more, but sex wasn't part of the equation much any longer.
Kate melted back into him. "I don't care. I just want you. … You're not dying on me babe. Not today, 10 years from now or even 20. Too much of my heart is wrapped up in you. It'll shatter if you leave me." Kate was sad when she came in here and her husband's sudden mood was making it worse.
Kate straightened up and stepped back half a step and looked Rick in his eyes. Those blue sparkling eyes that looked a little dull now because of his foul mood. The ones she always has gone swimming in.
"You're not old Rick and you're sure as hell not dying on me. Now snap out of it or you're going to make me cry." Kate moves back in to whisper a kiss across his lips. "And even if we never have sex again, you're still mine. We can still cuddle and let me breathe you in." Then Kate really kisses him, like they used to when they were younger.
Kate breaks from the kiss feeling her taking all the air out of Rick. "Now snap out of whatever this is and let's start sailing. … Don't make me hurt you." Maybe a threat will break both of their sour moods.
"Yes dear, whatever you say dear." Rick teases, which earns him a light swat to his chest.
"How is Madison?" Rick asks knowing she is Kate's only childhood friend from her youth.
"Sad, falling apart on me." Kate stares at the floor.
"And then my sour mood about how old I am only adds to it." Rick knew he had only piled on without meaning to. So he wraps Kate up in his arms again. "Sorry." Then kisses the top of her head.
A short time later they were out on open water cruising along on just four sails while Rick was cooking dinner for everyone.
Getting Kate to walk in and take in a deep breath. "Hhhmmm, you may be an old man babe, but you still know how to cook." Kate was hoping teasing him would lighten both of their spirits.
"I need my cane to help me get something out of the pantry." Rick tries to talk like a rickety old man and starts looking for his cane. Even putting a hand on the small of his back like it was hurting him and was actually a little bent over.
Kate starts laughing. "And I'll still love you old man when you're 80." Kate kisses his cheek.
"How about when I'm 90 and a skinny wrinkly old man stuck in a wheelchair?" Rick grins at her.
"Definitely not. I'll have divorced you by then." Kate teases back.
"So use me up when I'm young and in my prime and then throw me away when I get old and gray. I see how it is." Rick tried to look hurt, but was failing.
"That's right. I'll need some young stud who can keep up with me." Kate is still teasing since it was getting fun. No matter how serious the subject.
"I see, so 80 is the new 20 is it?" Rick wondered how that was going to work out for her.
"That's right." Kate moves in close and feels his arm muscle. "Lots of muscles, firm stomach, nice tight ass, really soft skin." Kate strokes her hand down his arm and then across his stomach. Then grabs his crotch. "And is hard 24 hours a day."
Rick grabs Kate and pulls her in close suddenly and with purpose, getting an Humph out of Kate. "You want it hard do you?" With some ulterior undertones in the word 'Hard'.
"I DO!" Kate whispers onto his lips that are now a fraction away from hers.
"Then you shall have it. Old woman." Rick leans his head down and mock bites her neck and then washes his tongue over the injured space to heal it.
Kate simply moans and melts into him and lets him suck on her neck. However something interrupts her pleasure. Kate sniffs the air. "Dinners burning." Kate backs away.
"CRAP!" Rick turns back to what he was doing before Kate came in. Getting Kate to chuckle.
"I expect something HARD, for desert tonight." And Kate grabs his butt and can feel his muscles react to her touch. Then walks back out of the kitchen swaying her hips on purpose knowing Rick is watching her leave.
Kate may not be a spring chicken anymore but her morning exercises as part of her detective training help keep her fit. Plus she knew Rick used the weight room they had at home. She had even joined him a number of times.
And that muscle in his arm that she was just teasing him about, was anything but thin and stringy. Watching him step out of the shower soaking wet still had already told her that.
"That woman really is going to be the death of me yet. Probably by heart attack." Rick chuckled to himself after Kate was gone.
Rick managed to catch Madison when she was alone and no one was around. Which was not easy given how many people were on this ship.
"I need your help with something." This was soooo embarrassing. Madison stood there, waiting.
"I need, … I mean Kate expects and I want, … It's just that it's not that simple anymore and Kate deserves better. She's still young (to him 50 was young. Besides Kate was still in shape and looked a lot younger than 50) and, …" Rick deflates.
"Can you help me out here." Rick needed her to use her womanly/doctor ESP.
"I can't read your mind Rick. Shawn, … maybe sometimes." Madison didn't live with Rick, wasn't married to him, didn't sleep with him. Then suddenly it hit her!
"On Earth there was this little pill that you could take and it would, …" Rick was floundering around on the deck like a fish out of water.
"Yes?" Madison was now convinced what it was and was enjoying watching Rick squirm.
"Doctor, patient privilege?" Rick would kill himself if this got out.
Madison cursed to herself. Rick just had to spoil her fun. "Yes." She was still going to make him say it though.
Rick squeezed his eyes closed tight. "I can't get erections as often as I want to, to satisfy Kate like I should and like she deserves." Rick holds his eyes closed so he doesn't have to see her laughing. And even tries to close his ears so he doesn't hear her laughing at him either.
There, he said it. Not that it made him feel any better.
"Come with me Rick." And Madison walks away.
Rick snaps his eyes open to see Madison walking away. He ends up following her to the room her, Shawn and the kids are using.
Rick swallows hard. This better not be what he thinks it is. Doctor or no Kate will kill him.
Madison is fumbling around in one of her suitcases. Then finally pulls something out and hands it to Rick.
"I've been expecting this, so I brought some with me. It should last the trip. I can give you a prescription for more to take home with you.
Take one per day, give it about 30 minutes to work and you'll be good for up to 36 hours. You do still get erections?" Madison asks.
"Of course." Rick took offense and it was in his voice.
"Rick, these aren't going to help if you can't at all." Madison tells him, still in doctor mode.
"No, … I mean yes I do, just not, …" Why couldn't Madison be a male doctor?
"Then these should do the trick. No more than one per day Rick. And if you get an erection that lasts for 4 hours come back and see me. Because if that is what's happening it means cells in that area are dying. And I'm pretty sure neither you nor Kate want that." Madison warns him.
"Thanks Madison." Rick lets out a breath.
"Oh I'm not doing it just for you Rick. I'm doing it for Becks. She deserves to be happy and you obviously make her happy. Amazingly so. … and I'll thank you till the day I die for what you have done for her, or to her, or are about to do." Madison grins.
Rick took one of the little yellow pills as soon as he left Madison's room and then hid the pills in the kitchen where Kate would never find them.