"So, how are you liking Los Angeles?" Rick asks from the passenger seat. He promised not to sing too obnoxiously, so Kate turned the Christmas music back on, albeit at a low volume. Kate would've preferred his obnoxious singing to small talk.
"It's good," she lies. "Not New York, though."
"You thinking of moving back?" Rick wonders.
"Maybe, eventually," Kate shrugs. "I have a few big projects I'm working on that will really get me established at my firm, so I just gotta stay focused on that. But when it comes down to it, I'd rather work 80 hours a week in New York than LA."
"Jesus," Rick scoffs, shaking his head. "What happened to you?"
"What do you mean?" Kate snaps back.
"I mean, that was the most depressing thing I've ever heard. What about the beach? The sunshine? The food scene? Disneyland? The things about LA that make it fun? Is work really all you're thinking about?" Rick points out. "You used to be fun, Kate. What happened to you?"
"I grew up!" Kate yells. "At least one of us did."
"You don't think I've changed at all in the last ten years?" Rick laughs.
"Not at all, Rick Rodgers, not at all," she scoffs.
"See, there's something. It's Rick Castle, now, actually," Rick points out.
"Right, how's the writing thing going?" Kate asks sarcastically.
"Quite well, thank you," Rick lies. "But of course you would only think about my career."
"What!?" Kate exclaims. She feels herself getting dangerously close to needing to pull over.
"Don't know if you noticed, but I've got a daughter. Someone who depends on me, who loves me, who makes me feel...whole, again. I can understand why that would be a foreign concept to the Ice Queen of LA," Rick retorts.
"Wow," Kate whispers.
"I just meant..." Rick sighs. "I'm not the same as I was back then."
"Yeah, well, thank god for that," she whispers. She can feel herself about to tear up but she fights it with all her resolve.
A few minutes later, Kate makes a turn off the main highway down a rustic path that only a local would trust.
"We're here," she says, breaking the awkward silence that had taken over after their blow up. She slams the car in park when she reaches the clearing. One look up from his phone, and Rick is immediately transported. Maybe that carefree and funny loving side of Kate wasn't buried just yet.
"Look, Kate, I'm sorry," Rick says as Kate turns off the car. "I have no right to pass judgment about your life or your character. Seeing you again just brought me back. But, we've both been through a lot since we were 18, plenty enough for it to change us–for better or worse."
Well, certainly that hadn't changed about Rick Rodg–er, Rick Castle. He still had the impeccable ability to always be so goddamn poetic.
"You know, you've got quite a way with words. You should become a writer," Kate says with a thin smile.
Rick chuckles, "and you still have never lost an argument in your life. You should be a lawyer."
"Funny," Kate says with a straight face. "You ready to go?" She opens her door and steps out onto the snowy path that headed into the woods. Without looking to see if she was being followed, Kate navigates the rough terrain like a pro as the decline gets steeper and slipperier by the step. It takes a few minutes before she hears rustling behind her, and then swearing.
"Shit, shit, fuck, Kate, watch out!" Rick exclaims. Kate turns to look over her shoulder, but it's too late, he's already barreling toward her uncontrollably.
"Oh!" She exclaims as Rick grabs onto her and flips her midair to keep himself from landing on top of her. They topple down the hill together until they collapse to the ground when they reach the landing at the bottom. Kate's fall is only broken by landing directly on top of Rick. After they realize they've stopped falling, they realize how awkward they would look to a stranger if there had been any lurking in the woods.
"Are you okay?" Rick whispers through heavy breaths.
"Yeah" Kate confirms. "Just got the wind knocked out of me. You?"
"Same," Rick groans. Their heavy breathing falls in sync for a moment, Kate resting her head on Rick's chest, close enough to hear it beating through his winter coat.
Wait, what the fuck was she doing?
She quickly rolls off his body, into the snow, and gets to her feet. After orienting herself, she reaches out a hand to help Rick up. He obliges and suddenly, they're 18 again, standing on a frozen lake in the middle of a wintery, wooded wonderland.
"Beautiful," Rick smiles, looking down at Kate, who senses his gaze and looks up to catch it. "The lake," he clarifies. "And the, the trees."
"Right," Kate says with an eye roll. She takes a step closer to the lake where a thick layer of ice had glossed over the surface. It was still relatively untouched, being early in the winter, but in a few weeks, the locals will have snuck away from their lives for a few magical moments in these woods.
As she takes her first step onto the ice, Kate remembers the first time she'd ever stepped onto the lake. She was twelve, on a hike with her parents, when her mother promised her a spectacular view at the end of the hike, and boy did Johanna Beckett know what she was talking about. As Kate takes another step, she feels Rick step behind her, and she remembers the first time she'd ever shared this place with anyone besides her parents. She and Rick were 16 and trying to keep their crushes on one another a secret. It was the year after that when they came to the lake to admit their love for one another was more than platonic friendship. Where they had their first kiss.
Kate bringing Rick there wasn't done lightly. It carried the weight of life-long memories, life-long happiness, and life long betrayal. Maybe that last part wasn't so life-long, though. Maybe Kate was finding space in her heart to forgive, to remember the past for the good that it was. Rick must have been reading her mind, because before she can turn toward him, he's grabbing her hips and twisting them into his. He wraps one arm around her back to stabilize them on the ice, and the other pulls her chin to his and caresses her cheek as their lips crash into each other with tantalizing lust. Kate pulls away from him for a moment, staring brightly into his eyes, pupils growing like saucers. Then she kisses him back and the weight of the past ten years floats away. At least momentarily.
"We should probably get the stuff to your mom," Kate breathes, barely an inch from Rick's lips.
Rick sighs and pulls his head up in a dramatic circle. "You're right," he says. They walk back to the steep path and Rick takes the first step of the ascent, but Kate pulls him back.
"I'm going first," she insists. "If you fall again at least you won't take me with you."
"Fair enough," Rick laughs. "But if you fall–"
Kate turns her head and looks back at him as if he just suggested drinking spoiled mayonnaise.
"Right, that would never happen," Rick corrects before shutting up until they get back to the car.
Kate turns the key in the ignition and turns down the road back to the main highway. The radio plays on low volume, but other than that, it is utterly silent. Aside from the rustling of wine bottles when they hit a bump in the road, you could've heard a pin drop.
"So, um, what's the deal with Alexis's mom?" Kate blurts out. What a hilarious way to ask Rick if he's single.
"Is that how lawyer's ask people if they're single?" Rick retorts.
"Well, I just want to make sure I didn't just accidentally kiss someone who's in a relationship with someone else," Kate says. That was fair enough.
"Uh, fine. I met her right after I graduated from college and a few months later, she was pregnant with Alexis. We tried making things work for the baby's sake, but we knew we weren't good together. She was never really interested in being a mother, so I've been raising Alexis myself since she was 10 months old, minus the occasional weekend visit from mom," Rick explains. "And when I say I've been raising Alexis myself, I mean my mother has been an incredible help these last four years."
"I can tell how good of a dad you are," Kate smiles. "Just by the way you talk about Alexis."
"She's the best thing that's ever happened to me," Rick says in genuine. "What about you?"
"What?" Kate asks.
"Are you single?" Rick asks.
"That wasn't what I asked you," Kate chuckles. "But yes, I am."
"Okay, good, we're on the same page then," Rick nods.
"Well, I'm not sure about that," Kate says. "But at least we didn't just cheat on anyone."
"Kate, we didn't do anything wrong," Rick reminds her. "Nothing to litigate, no one to prosecute. We're innocent, your honor."
"Shut up," Kate laughs. "Dork."
"You know who isn't innocent?" Rick asks. "Our parents. They totally set us up."
"I think you're the one playing the long game here," Kate says. "No way you just forget an ice sculpture. Planting seeds of mistrust and wasting thousands of dollars a full year in advance at the off chance I would come back to Vermont for Christmas for the first time in 10 years? That's some real mastermind shit."
"Woah," Rick says with an impressed grin. "I think you're giving me too much credit, but I will take it. I say we should prank them though. Make them think we're ridiculously, disgustingly in love with each other. What do you say?"
"Hmm," Kate contemplates. "I like it. You can call me babe for the weekend."
a/n: idk but i think it's honestly pretty easy to act like you're ridiculously, disgustingly in love when you are, in fact, ridiculously, disgustingly in love.