Thank you so much to everyone who is reading this story. I'm beside myself that people are still enjoying it.
This chapter is short, but I felt like it needed to be here and ends at the right place. With chapter 12, time will start moving a little faster.
When Jo returned from Rick's later that night, she didn't look like she'd had a good evening. Kate had been dozing on the couch, waiting for her to get home, and it was the turn of the dead bolt that finally brought Kate out of her slumber.
"Hey, Sweetie," Kate said sleepily, her words stopping Jo in her path to her bedroom.
"Hi," Jo replies simply, obviously not in the mood for any type of discussion. She crosses the apartment and goes directly for her bedroom, not even stopping long enough to tell Kate about her evening.
Kate stands and stretches, wondering what could have possibly happened from the time Rick let her know that Jo was on her way home to the time she walked through the door. She checks her phone to make sure she didn't miss any messages, then knocks on her daughter's door, determined to find out what's wrong.
"How was your evening?" Kate asks, trying to be as nonchalant as possible.
Jo is moving about her room, doing what appears to be many things at once. She's shutting down her laptop and shoving it into her bag, gathering up her books, and moving in and out of her closet, in what appears to be a decision-making process on what to wear to school tomorrow.
"Fine."
"That's it? Just 'fine'? Rick seemed to think everything was going great."
"Yeah, it would probably look that way from where he's sitting." She continues to move around the room, and Kate wishes that Jo would just slow down and talk to her. This passive-aggressive behavior has been creeping into their interactions ever since Rick came back into their lives, but she can't fault him for that. No, she has no one to blame but herself.
"Jo, would you just tell me what's bothering you?"
Her daughter falls onto the bed, a loud sigh escaping her before she turns to face Kate. "Tonight I got my first real taste of everything you've deprived me of by not telling me who my father is."
She'd been waiting for this-the day Jo realized her father was rich and could give her more materially speaking than Kate ever could. Money had been tight when Jo was younger, when Kate first joined the force and she was trying to juggle a career with being a single mother. Her father helped as much as possible-she paid back every cent he ever loaned her-but some things she had to do on her own.
"I know he's rich, but-"
"No," Jo says with a raised voice as she sits up on her bed, "that's not even what this is about, despite the fact that his place is huge and he sends Alexis to private school. This is about knowing them, Mom. You know, Martha almost tackled me with a hug tonight. And that was less than five minutes before I walked in the door."
"Yeah," Kate says with a laugh, her few memories of Martha coming to mind, "she's never been one to hold back."
"This is what I'm struggling with, Mom. Rick is great. He's easy to talk to, funny, and nothing like what the tabloids publish. Martha is everything I imagine a grandma would be like…"
Kate sucks in a breath when those words leave Jo's mouth. Jo's eyes meet hers in what Kate thinks is supposed to be an apology, but Kate stops her.
"You're right. You've never known what it's like to have a grandma."
"And I don't want it to sound like it's your fault that Grandma Johanna isn't here, because that's the furthest thing from the truth. But...this whole time, it's been just you and me, with the occasional visit from Grandpa Jim. It didn't have to be that way, though."
"No, it didn't."
Kate can see the way Jo is carefully choosing her words now, as opposed to the pissy attitude she came home with earlier. She hates the way all of this has played out, but ultimately she's glad that Rick walked back into her life and is getting to know his daughter.
"Can I ask you something?"
Kate nods, her nerves stealing her ability to speak. She's always been apprehensive about answering Jo's questions about her father, but now she has no reason to hide it other than the shame she feels for hiding this from Jo-and Rick-for so long.
"Do you think you would have married Rick if…" Jo trails off, her knees pulled up to her chest as she wraps her arms around them.
"If Grandma hadn't died?" Jo nods, and Kate takes a moment before answering. She has nothing to hide anymore. "I really don't know. We were only eighteen when we met."
"Rick told me about that. He said he tried to woo you with help from Harry Potter."
Kate laughs, remembering their hurried lunch at a Stanford campus visit day and how that day had ultimately changed her life. "You talked to him about this?"
"I just...you've never been very open about how you met Rick, even before I knew who he was. So I asked him."
Kate hangs her head, knowing that Jo is absolutely right. And while it was easy for her to sidestep conversations about her father when she was younger, that's no longer the case.
"Was it just about grandma, like you said? You said one time that you found out you were pregnant shortly after that."
"Yeah," Kate agrees, but she holds off opening up. She wants to tell Jo the whole story, feels like she deserves to know, but Rick deserves to know, too. And really, she feels like she should tell him before she tells Jo.
"Don't you love him, Mom? Didn't you love him?" Jo's voice gets louder in the bedroom, her frustration evident in the set of her jaw.
"Of course I loved him! I-"
"You what, Mom? Come on, stop being so stoic about everything and tell me what you're really feeling for a change."
"Rick was...he was everything I didn't know I was looking for."
Kate stands up when the words tumble from her mouth. She'd never put it that way, and she doesn't even know that she'd ever acknowledged that much to herself, even while they were together. Her hands run through her hair, and when she turns back to the bed and Jo, her daughter is looking at her in awe.
"That," Jo says, motioning to the space Kate had occupied until a few moments ago, "that little display right there, knowing that you loved him? That's a start, Mom. And, you know, maybe you should consider telling Rick that some day. He might like to know."
"I doubt it," Kate mutters as she starts for the hallway. She feels strung out, like she was tricked into admitting something she didn't want to.
"He doesn't hate you as much as you think he does," Jo calls after her. Kate stops by the couch, knowing that she's still in Jo's line of sight. "He's pissed you hid me from him, yes. But he doesn't hate you."
"What makes you say that?" she asks as she turns around and sees Jo smirking at her and looking so much like Rick.
"When neither one of you are paying attention, there's still a...spark. And you should have seen him telling me about when you guys first met. He was almost giddy with the memories."
Kate isn't sure that's exactly accurate, but she can't deny the way her gut twisted when she saw him for the first time at the precinct. And despite the bitterness he holds and the shame she feels, their chemistry was hard to deny-even now.
"Get some sleep, Daughter," Kate says, trying her best to crack a smile while at the same time ending the conversation.
"Yes, Mother."
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