Kate stood there waiting. It wasn't until she realized Rick wasn't coming back that she decided to leave the refrigerator because she was shivering. When she finally exited the walk-in refrigerator, she expected to see him working at his station. When she didn't, she knew she had gone too far. All of his personal belongings were now missing from his prep area. As the night wound down, Kate finished everything she needed to finish to get ready to go home.


By the time she gets home, she is exhausted. Then she remembers that Anna is taking care of Zoe. Then she immediately brightens, remembering that she had found Anna and was someone capable of taking care of her niece. She unlocks the front door and walks in quietly. She places her keys in the bowl resting on the credenza and sees Anna on the couch getting up, depositing some yarn and knitting needles into her craft bag.

"So, how did it go tonight?" Kate asks as she walks up to the back of the couch.

Anna shrugs on her coat and tells Kate,

"We did well. We played a game of Monopoly."

"Who won?" Kate inquires.

"She did." By the time they get to the door, Kate opens it, and Anna tells Kate that she will see her tomorrow and to have a relaxing and safe night.

Kate locks the front door, turns out the lights, and walks back into the living room. On her way through, she presses the play button on the answering machine.

You have one new message. Playing new message now.

Kate reached for the stereo remote control that had been playing a CD Anna was listening to. She hit mute just as the message started playing.

"Oh, and for the record, I just wanted to let you know that I turned her down."

The call abruptly ends, and then there is nothing but dead air.

Kate returned to the answering machine, rewound the message, and played it again.

When she heard his voice the second time, she knew what they had together was irretrievable. He was gone. She stood there briefly, wondering why she did what she did. He was right; she never let anyone in. It was then that she decided to go to bed.

On her way to bed, she checks on Zoe. She thinks she's asleep, but Zoe calls her name as she turns to her bedroom.

"Kate?"

"You're still awake?"

In the dark, she can see Zoe on her bed. Then, the question she knew was coming presents itself.

"Where's Rick?"

Kate walks to Zoe's room's doorway, trying to think of a decent reason why Rick is not there.

"He went home straight from work. He had something he needed to take care of. Try and get some sleep. It's late."

She hopes it works, but she knows that Zoe is a smart cookie, and she will put two plus two together. Kate turns away from her doorway, heading back to her room, when she hears her name being called once again.

"Kate, you can sleep with Louie if you want."

At first, Kate doesn't understand what she means. She gets it only when she pulls her stuffed kangaroo from under her comforter.

"Oh no, Zoe, that's very sweet of you. But I think that Louie would like to stay with you tonight. Nite nite."

Kate turned and resumed her walk back into her bedroom, entering her space and turning to close the door. Before she does, she looks at Zoe, who says,

"Good night, Kate."

Kate simply closes the door and goes to bed.


"You had no right, Kate, driving him out of here! This is my restaurant," Paula told her.

Kate, who was preparing a lunch dish for table six, looked at her boss and said,

"You've made that point abundantly clear."

Kate places the two dishes on the pickup table, and Bernadette swoops in to deliver them.

"You better find me a replacement and fast," Paula demands.

Kate can't help it, but she has to. She knows it'll piss off her boss but oh well. She looks her square in the eye and says,

"Why should I? You didn't need my help finding the last one."

Paula just stood there with a shamed look on her face. But she recovered quickly.

"Kate…"

"All right! I'll find you, someone."


She can't believe what she's hearing from some of these applicants. But she should have known better. Her latest interviewee is really reaching.

"Like a certificate or something? I don't have that little piece of paper. But there are guys driving out on the street without a license. They can't drive, so, you know."

Then there was the yuppie chef wannabe.

"Well, my specialty is in the beef area. I deal with meat all the time.

Sausage, beef, slaughtering pork.

But then she was interviewing someone who obviously needed to figure out what they were doing.

"I'm famous for my Vietnamese pork chops with saffron mashed potatoes and key-lime asparagus.

Kate stares at the metrosexual. Key lime asparagus? " Seriously? " she thinks to herself. There is no such thing, and she doubts she'd eat anything he describes. She trudges on with the next candidate.

"I get along great with people. I'm a big people person.

Kate then asks about why she left her prior employer.

"There was a misunderstanding between me, the head chef, the manager, and the owners. But, no, I think we parted on amicable terms.

Kate told the woman that she would be in touch. After the woman left, she tossed all the applicants' applications into the trash. This process was pointless. Almost an entire day was lost with interviews that didn't produce one qualified candidate. She checks her watch and realizes it's time to prepare for the dinner crowd.

Two days later, she is finally done with the interviews and reviewing the results, sitting at her desk in her apartment. She thought there would be a hard decision for her to select a qualified candidate, and after seeing her notes, she was right. She is interrupted by Zoe asking her a question.

"Why doesn't Rick come to see us anymore?"

She knew that a question like this would be something she would ask. So Kate answers the best she can.

"We had kind of a fight."

"What about?"

"Just silly grown-up stuff."

"How come you don't wanna tell me?"

"It's not that I don't wanna tell you. It's just that he and I had differences about work. That's all."

"Is he ever gonna come back?" Zoe asks hopefully.

Kate can't stand to break her heart, but she needs to tell her no matter how much it will hurt her.

"No, he isn't, sweetheart."

Kate watches as Zoe gets up from the couch, walks through the dining room, and passes Kate without even saying a word.

"Zoe?" Kate calls when she disappears from sight down the hallway.

Zoey quickly changes into her PJs and gets under the comforter. She looks to her right, and sitting on the window seat is one of the dolls her mother gave her. She loved that doll and got out of bed to get it. Returning to bed, she remembers the day it was given to her. She places the doll on her lap, looking straight at it. She rolls up the doll's dress and sees what her mother wrote on it when she gave it to her.

"To Zoe, love Mommy."

Pulling the doll's dress back in place, she had an idea. Zoe was missing her mom something fierce. Her aunt was doing a good job, but nothing could take the place of her mom. After thinking about it for a while, she fell asleep, formulating a plan to see her.


Kate was up early, but not that early. It was a school day for Zoe, and she wasn't due in at the restaurant until later, so she decided to get started by taking an early shower and giving Zoe a complete run of the bathroom when she finished. Once she was done, she started drying her hair and stepped out of the bathroom, calling her niece's name.

"Zoe, are you awake?" Kate asked, walking down the hallway towards her room.

When she received no reply, Kate thought of food. She knew that would get her niece to at least say good morning.

"What would you like for breakfast? I'm cooking."

Again, her inquiry went unanswered. She walked to the end of the hallway, where Zoe's room was, and looked in to see if she was at least awake. She thought she was in the kitchen when she saw an empty, made-up bed with dolls on the pillows. She turned to the kitchen and looked around, not seeing her niece anywhere. Now, she was starting to get worried.

She quickly ran back to her room, calling out her niece's name and getting still no response. She dressed quickly, grabbed her keys, coat, purse, and hat, and ran out the door. She was at the school in less than ten minutes. As she walked towards the school's entrance among the other children entering the school, she went right to the principal's office to see if Zoe had gone to school on her own. The principal quickly called Zoe's classroom teacher, and the teacher took a quick head count of the children who were there and didn't see Zoe anywhere.

The principal regretfully informed Kate that Zoe was not in class. Not knowing what to do, Kate returned to the school entrance, took out her cell phone, and called the only person she thought her niece would go to.


Rick was in love with Kate. He was a fool for jumping in with both feet, but he would not invest anything more in what he wanted with her, either emotionally or physically. She was someone who would not return the same level of love and commitment to him.

He was slowly returning to being himself, trying to find another job. Paula had called almost every hour on the hour, asking for him to reconsider his decision. He was done. He had a line on a head chef position. The only issue was that he'd need to be let out of his lease for the apartment he had. The new job he was thinking about taking was in San Francisco. He was in the process of calling his landlord to ask about the lease when his phone pinged with a new incoming call. He pulled the phone from his ear to see who was calling and was surprised to see who it was. This was going to be a very short call, as he thought to himself when he ended the landlord's call and accepted Kate's.

"Rick, it's me. Is Zoe with you?" She asked, hoping for the best.

"No. Why Kate?" Rick asked, concern rising in his voice.

"I woke up this morning thinking she was in her room and noticed she had left before I got up. She's not here!" Kate said as she started to become overwhelmed.

"Kate, listen to me. She couldn't have gone very far. From when you finished your shower to the time you got to the school, how long was that?" Rick asked.

"About forty-five minutes."

"Okay, so it's not terribly long. Since we know she's not at school, is there anything you might have done or said that would make her disappear like this?"

Kate racks her brain, trying to figure out their conversation from last night. Then, she remembers what she told Zoe about her and Rick.

"Rick, I told her we had a fight and that you won't be coming over anymore. Oh my god, what have I done?"

Rick could tell she was blaming herself for something she had no control over. He knew that it was not her fault that they went their separate ways, but he couldn't leave her worrying about where her niece was, so he told her,

"Kate, stay where you are. I'll be there in ten minutes, and we will find her."

She waited patiently until she saw Rick's pickup truck pull up quickly to the curb. Then, before she even thought about it, she was off the stairway and onto the sidewalk.

Once they pull away, Rick starts asking Kate all sorts of questions about Zoe.

"What did the police tell you when you told them she was missing?"

"They told me that a missing person's report couldn't be filed for twenty-four hours, but in the meantime, they said to check the train stations and bus stations around the apartment."

"Okay, So those will be our first destinations," Rick says confidently.

"What places does she know? What's familiar to her?"

"All she knows is her school and the restaurant.

They check out three train stations and two bus stops, finding no sign of Zoe anywhere. Rick can tell that Kate is upset. And there's nothing he can do to calm her until they find her niece.

They make another pass by Zoe's school but don't see anything. Rick decides that maybe she went back to the apartment and places his hand on Kate's shoulder, consoling her, telling her that's where they should go next.

Before Rick can even park the truck, Kate opens the door and runs up the stairs to the apartment. Rick tried to keep up, but she was quick. She was entering Zoe's room when he entered the apartment.

"ZOE!" Kate screamed out.

She was met with silence.

"Maybe she left a note somewhere," Rick suggests.

Kate looks around for anything that Zoe left as to where she could but comes up empty yet again. Rick calls her, asking if Zoe took her backpack with her. She didn't. But as Kate looks at her bed, she notices that her favorite stuffed animal, Louie, is still sitting on her bed. She walks over to the small animal and picks it up, feeling a connection to her that she never felt before.

Just then, Rick walked into the bedroom.

"She left Louie behind Rick. Right? She'd never run away without Louie." Kate turns to Rick, who has now walked into the bedroom, and puts his arm around her shoulder, trying to comfort her.

"I let her down, Rick. God, I made a mess of everything. She needs her mother…"

Rick hugs Kate tight, but a thought enters her mind as he does. It hasn't been a long time, but she remembers when her mother died what she used to do to remember her. She looks up at Rick, who is saying,

"Kate, we will find her, I promise you that."

Kate leans back from the hug just enough to tell Rick the one thing on her mind.

"Rick, I think I might know where Zoe is!"

Again, Rick can't keep up with her because she is running at an apartment like a track runner, but he does manage to catch up. He barely pulls the door locked and takes the steps two at a time to find Kate already pulling open the door of his truck. When he gets in the driver's seat, he only asks,

"Where to?"


Rick pulls his truck through the wrought iron gates, his eyes searching in every direction. The cemetery is very well laid out, and he pulls even with a set of concrete stairs.

"There she is right there." He tells Kate once he sees Zoe.

"Oh, thank God." Again, Kate is out of the truck quickly, and Rick can barely keep up.

"Zoe, are you all right?" Kate demands as she kneels down next to her niece.

"Please don't ever do anything like that again. I was so worried about you."

Kate notices the tears streaking down her cheeks. She goes to put her hand on her cheek, and when she does, she notices her skin is very cold. Zoe never says one word. She never looks away from the headstone. She has not taken her eyes off it.

"Sweetheart, what is it?" Kate asks.

After a minute or two, Zoe replies.

"I'm afraid I'm going to forget her."

"We'll never forget her. I promise." Kate leans in and pulls her niece tightly for a hug. Zoe breaks down entirely then, and Kate can't help breaking down with her.

Rick watches as the two come to peace with what's been going on in their lives. He knows this is a special moment just for the two of them, so he walks back to the truck and waits.

Both Zoe and Kate get up from the cold ground. Kate tells her that they can come back there whenever she wants. Just as they were about to walk away, she took off her backpack, walked back over to the headstone, and firmly placed her peacock feather in the ground. Then, they both turn and walk back to Rick's truck.


The drive back to Kate's apartment takes less than twenty minutes. Once Rick pulls up to the apartment and stops, Zoe looks towards her aunt. Then she looks at Rick and says,

"Are you going to come in, Rick?"

"Not this time, Zoe."

"Are you guys still mad at each other?"

"No." They both reply.

"Come on, Zoe. Let's go." Kate says.

Kate gets out of the truck and stands in the street, waiting for Zoe to get out. Once she does, she and her backpack are heading up the apartment stairs.

"See you upstairs."

Kate turns back to Rick, and at the same time, they both say each other's names.

"You know…"

"You know…" They both say at the same time.

"I just want to say I'm sorry, Rick." Kate starts.

"Don't apologize. I actually wanted to thank you. I thought a lot about what you said about me not having the guts to go after what I wanted, and you were right."

He waits a second to get his thoughts together before telling her.

"That's why… I took a job." He waits a second before he drops the bigger bomb on her.

"In San Francisco. I'll be the executive chef at a new restaurant."

"Well, that's great," Kate replies as if her whole world is falling apart now.

"Yeah. Thanks."

There is an awkward moment when neither knows what to do or say, so Rick extends his hand for a handshake. Kate takes it, and his touch is still electrifying. Then it turns into a holding hands type situation, and Kate can't let this go on any further. She tries to take her hand away, but Rick stops her by holding on to hers a little tighter.

"Well, I couldn't have done it without you." He tells her.

The second he says that, she looks up at him, snaps her hand away from his, turns her back on him, and slams the truck door. She turns around to give him one last look, and then he says,

"Executive chef." As he wags his finger in the air.

She could tell by his expression that he was not happy about taking a job as an executive chef three thousand five hundred miles away. He puts the truck in drive and is at the end of the block before she watches him turn left and leave her life. She already misses him.


"The guy at table seven said if he wanted it cremated, he wouldn't have asked for it rare," Bernadette says as she places the dish on the table in front of Kate.

Kate presses her index finger into the cooked prime rib and says,

"That is rare."

Paula walks up to the two of them and inspects the meal.

"Apparently not rare enough."

"It would walk out of here and hail a cab if it were any rarer," Kate complains.

"Look, these are ad agency people, Kate. They spend a lot of money here. So please, No. Tantrums. Tonight. Just fire up another one. Paula tells her.

Kate turns to her sous chef and says,

"Fire one rare steak on the fly."

"Rare steak on the fly coming up." He responds, acknowledging the new order.

Kate has many things going on, and the kitchen is very loud. People are clanging dishes and pots and pans and shouting, but she tunes all of it out. All she could think of was Rick being on the West Coast.

"Where is the lamb for six?" Bernadette calls out as she enters the kitchen.

Kate had been busy finishing up another order and remembered that she had a quail meal to start.

"How are the quail doing?" She asks the line chef.

"Great, chef." Is the reply she receives.

"Pick up! Terrine, carpaccio." Kate calls out.

Just then, Bernadette walked back into the kitchen for the second time with a plate that had not been touched since it left her prep table less than four minutes ago.

"This is from the asshole at table seven again. He wants to know whether you've ever seen a rare steak before."

Paula knows the determination on Kate's face all too well. The only word she gets out is her name before Kate walks towards the refrigerator.

"Kate…"

She's about had it. No one insults her cooking, and this asshole is no exception. She picks up a meat fork on the way to the refrigerator. She then hears Paula call her first name but continues into the fridge, grabs a prime rib, and walks back out with the piece of meat hanging from the fork. She pushes through the kitchen doors with Paula quickly falling in behind her, knowing something bad is going to happen. She walks up to table seven, slams the prime rib down on the table with such force that the meat fork tines embed themselves in the wooden table through the tablecloth, and says,

"Is this rare enough for you?"

The man who had been sitting at the table talking to his colleagues is startled at first but recovers quickly.

"Are you out of your mind?"

Slamming the steak down on the table felt so good to her, so she answered him honestly.

"Yeah, I am. That's why I'm in therapy."

Kate stares at the man, daring him to challenge her. It's then that she hears Paula from behind her expressing her apologies to the jerk. Then she pulls out the meat fork with the prime rib from the table with a struggle and wraps it in the man's napkin.

"I'm so sorry. I'll get you a new tablecloth and napkin."

"No, please, let me take care of that," Kate says.

Before Paula can even turn away with the raw meat in hand, Kate walks up to the end of the table and grabs both ends of the tablecloth by its corners. Once she has a firm grip on each end she yanks the tablecloth out from under everything on the table, not spilling one drop of water from any of the glasses that remain.

The diners at the adjacent tables next to the table she just pulled the tablecloth out from under start clapping and cheering profusely. She throws down the tablecloth on the floor, turns, and walks away. One woman sitting at the bar who saw the fantastic feat says to her,

"Not bad." and gives her a high five as she passes.

As she returns the gesture, she tells her,

"That felt so good."

Kate straightens the top of her uniform and proceeds out the front door. On the way out, she hears from the asshole at table seven,

"I just wanted a rare steak. Is that too much to ask?"


For the first time in a long time, Kate slept in. Zoe had no school today due to parent-teacher conferences. The one with her teacher has Kate scheduled for tomorrow, but today, she relishes the thought of not having to get up. She does have an appointment with her therapist later on today, but for now, she stretches to read the clock next to the nightstand, which says 8:42. She gets out of bed twenty minutes later, takes a shower, makes Zoe something to eat for breakfast, and gets ready for her appointment. She calls Anna to come over to watch Zoe while she's gone.

When she arrives at the office, she checks in with the receptionist and tells her to go right in. The therapist who had been waiting for her stood up and said,

"Kate, since it's a nice day out, why don't we conduct our session in the garden up on the roof."

Kate nodded, knowing that his garden upstairs was a very relaxing setting. They climb the stairs up to the roof, and that's when Kate tells him about the incident last night in the restaurant.

"I wish there were a cookbook for life, you know? With the recipes telling us exactly what to do."

She pauses to think for a second before continuing.

"I know. I know. You're gonna say how else can we learn, Kate?"

Now, her therapist takes a second before replying.

"No. Actually, I wasn't going to say that. You wanna guess again?"

Kate sees no reason to question his thoughts, so she tells him to finish.

"Oh, no, please go ahead."

"I was going to say you know yourself better than anyone else. It's the recipes you create yourself that are the best."

Her therapist watches as she finally understands what the meaning of her last three years of therapy means. He concludes that she has finally had a breakthrough and that she no longer needs any more treatment.

She makes your way down to the lobby of her therapist's building, her mind reels back to last night at the restaurant. Her actions last night were final, to say the least. She essentially quit her job, and now that she thinks about it as the elevator reaches the lobby floor, she knows that quitting her job was probably the best thing she had ever done. It felt good to leave Paula after the last twelve years, but it had to be done. Now she's going to do something she's never done before, and it scares her.

Knowing that Rick turned down Paula's offer it has her thinking that Paula got exactly what she deserved. She was trying to pit one against the other, and her quitting seemed to have backfired on her. She doesn't feel any remorse over quitting, but now she is unemployed. It's the first time she's been unemployed since she started working. The cab pulls up to her apartment building, and she starts formulating a plan to get Rick back.


She couldn't believe that she was doing this. At first, she was against it, but her therapist told her that it was a step forward. She had made her mind up and decided to go for it. She gathers her courage and knocks on the door that leads to the loft. She hears Renée Fleming singing from behind the door at such a high volume and can't figure out how he can hear her knock.

"Hold on just a second."

Kate waits patiently for him to come to the door with what she thinks will be a good reason as to why she is at his door so late tonight. Once the door swings open, she starts talking.

"I think you should know there's something else I never do."

"Oh yeah, what's that?" Rick asks.

"I never invite myself into a man's apartment, blindfold him...and feed him saffron sauce while begging him not to go to San Francisco."

"You never do that?" He asks skeptically.

"No. Never." Kate holds out whatever hope she has left.

"That's too bad." Rick as he moves aside to allow her to come in. Once she enters, he can't keep his hands off of her. Needless to say, he needs to get to his computer first thing in the morning so he can cancel his one-way ticket to San Francisco.


One year later…

"You're gonna sear that first, right?" Kate asks him as she looks over her shoulder at what Rick is trying to do.

"Yeah, chef. I was."

"Don't forget to reduce this sauce a little, okay?" Kate says as she tastes her saffron sauce, he is finishing up.

"You're crossing the line, sweetheart." He tells her as her wooden spoon crosses over the blue masking tape line and into his, separating their cooking areas.

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are. Look, your spoon's in my territory." He points out as he pulls her spoon back. They switch positions in the cramped kitchen, rotating 180 degrees.

"Look, I can't help if your reduction's a little thin. Because if it is, I have to say something." Kate tells him after tasting the sauce.

"I wouldn't talk. Your sabayon's got lumps."

Kate can't believe what she's hearing. Her sabayon batter is perfect!

"You're out of your mind." She tells him as she dips her pinky finger into the batter and tastes it.

"It's perfect," Kate says with passion.

"I'll be the judge of that." Rick spins to face her and quickly kisses her to see if she's right. Once the kiss lasts a lot longer than either thought, mostly because they are both in love with each other, the breakfast crowd starts to cheer, clap, and wolf whistle at the couple. Once they break apart, Rick says,

"You're right; it is perfect," he says as he licks his lips clean of the batter.

All Kate can do is smile devilishly at him. She tosses her dish towel over her shoulder and watches Zoe walk in. She comes right up to the serving counter and says,

"Pancakes, please."

Kate takes the completed breakfast dish, places it on the small serving counter, and adds the strawberries to complete the order.

"Thank you," Zoe says.

Once Zoe has the dish, she takes the powdered sugar container and starts covering the dish with powdered sugar.

"Voila."

After she said that, Zoe kept going with the powdered sugar. Kate quickly stops her because she's putting way too much powdered sugar on the pancakes.

"Zoe, that's more than enough."

Zoe just smiles, knowing that this would make her aunt laugh. Once the dish is complete, Zoe walks away, saying,

"Thanks, Aunt Kate."

Kate watches as Zoe walks past Leia and her daughter. But after a year, she has learned that her daughter gets into everything because she knows how to walk now. She looks out at the small bistro that they are currently renting and are looking to purchase and decides that her quitting her job at Paula's restaurant and fighting for the man she loves is the best thing she could have ever done.

Rick watches as Zoe takes the pancakes and delivers them to Sean and his sons. He's very proud of how far they have come in their personal and professional lives over the last year. When they decided that they should open a place together, they found a small establishment that was looking to rent their space because the people who had it were ready to retire. All that has been done to this bistro since they decided to open a place together has made it their own.

Zoe takes the pancakes and passes Leah and her daughter, Emma sitting at the counter.

"Hi." She says.

"Hi, Zoe," Leah replies, waving her daughter's arm.

She walks out to the sidewalk tables, delivers the pancakes to Sean, and tells him that they are the best pancakes he'll ever eat.

"Hey, Zoe. Thank you."

On the way back, Zoe is stopped by another table, asking about something on the menu. The husband wants to ask about one particular item, and his wife wants to know about a couple of items, both talking at the same time. He gets a little flustered and then says to his wife.

"Wait. Let her tell us what they have first." He tells his wife. He looks at Zoe and asks,

"What have we got that's good today?"

Zoe gives him a quick rundown of what is good, and they both tell her they will think over what she told them. Zoe looks up at the sign in the window and sees that her aunt is the one at the top of the triangle. Rick had made a spinning triangle with all of their names on it and when that person thought they were most important that morning, well, they had the honor to spin their name to show it was them. Zoe walks back into the bistro and turns the triangle to show that she is the most important one that day.

Rick watches as Kate works on the next order. She has no idea that later he will take her and Zoe back to his apartment. She also has no idea that about ten hours from now, he will drop to one knee, produce a ring, and ask her to marry him.

~Fin~

A/N: The title of this chapter fits in two ways. First, it shows us how far Kate has come since the start of our story. Secondly, the title of this chapter is also the title of the last "new" Beatles song that was released about three weeks ago. I am a Beatles fan, and while this song was released as a Beatles single, it's good to be able to hear them singing all together, even if AI was used to complete it.

Thanks for coming along with me for this story. I had a lot of fun writing this.

Tom

P2P