Three days later was a day off work for the Intelligence team. The timing was ideal as it was also the day that Kalinda could get the keys for her new apartment. Hank had offered to help her move her belongings into the place, an offer that she had gratefully accepted.
Her possessions were in a storage locker in Milwaukee. To make transporting them easier, she had managed to borrow a van from someone she knew who lived there. His van was available, but he wasn't available himself to drive it for her. That was where Hank was going to come in.
"So, what's the plan today?" Erin asked him. They were both sitting in the living room after breakfast, Erin busy on her tablet while they talked. Meanwhile, Hank was relaxing and enjoying his second coffee of the day, getting ready for what lay ahead.
"Kalinda is driving over here to pick me up once she's got the keys for her new apartment. She's driving us up to Milwaukee where we're picking up a van that a friend of hers is loaning her for the day. I'll drive the van and follow her to the storage locker where her things are, I'll load them in the van, then I'll follow her back to her apartment. We'll move her stuff into the place, then I'll follow her back to her friend's place with the van. We'll return the van, then Kalinda will drive us both back here."
"So musical chairs with cars," Erin commented with some humour.
Hank grunted a laugh. "You could say that. What matters is it'll get her things into her new place so she can start to settle in on her first night there."
"I hope you'll be joining her?" Erin enquired, looking at him over the top of her tablet.
Discussing sex, even in the vaguest of terms, with his foster daughter felt odd to say the least. "You think she'll be expecting that?"
"I would. She might want you to make the move though, so be advised."
"Thanks," Hank said vaguely. He did appreciate the advise, but mainly he wanted off the subject.
"You're welcome. Since you don't use social media, or know what it is, I decided to do you a favour. Here, for your viewing pleasure." She offered him her tablet.
"I know what social media is," he said with some amusement. Erin's light teasing was one of the many things he had missed while she hadn't been in his life.
"Just not how to use it. Well, I found Kalinda's Instagram account. Enjoy. I'm going up to take my shower."
Looking at the tablet as Erin left the room, Hank didn't care how or why she had done it, he was just intrigued to see the photos on offer from the account 'KRai212', with the screen name Kalinda Sushil Rai followed by a police badge emoji. Kalinda's profile picture alone was enough to start something stirring inside him. It was taken somewhere on vacation, somewhere hot. She had sunglasses perched above her forehead and a breath-taking smile on her face. For Hank, she was beauty personified. His connection with her was already feeling a lot deeper than physical, although he was intensely physically attracted to her.
Scrolling down the page, Hank began to look over the pictures that had been posted. The most recent, he saw, was nearly two weeks old, before Kalinda had moved to Chicago. It was a selfie of her in what he guessed was her old apartment, with a thoughtful expression on her face. 'Thinking about the future.' was the caption.
Me too, Hank thought. Maybe it was ridiculous. Or maybe he was becoming more of a dreamer in his old age. Either way, he looked at the picture and asked himself if he was looking at the woman who was his future. If things worked out, might they spend the rest of their lives together? Hank felt he would like that, but he didn't know how she felt about the whole thing. It was probably too early in their relationship to ask her. He assumed it was unlikely that her feelings had developed as quickly as his own.
Scrolling further down, Hank came across a series of posts that were from a vacation the past summer. Reading some of the captions and checking out Kalinda's vacation partner, he discovered that Kalinda had been in Jamaica with a friend called Lucy Thorne. They had apparently been friends since school, which Hank found quite impressive. The two women were obviously very happy in each other's company.
Hank tapped on a photo that had been taken underwater of Kalinda and Lucy scuba diving. The caption Kalinda had written was 'I taught my best friend to dive twenty years ago. This year she taught her fifteen year old daughter. Pass on the things you love to others.' Taught, Hank noted. Not only was Kalinda apparently a certified diver, it seemed she was a certified dive instructor. That was not an easy position to achieve, he knew as a certified diver himself. He had never bother to go for instructor training, happy to keep it as a hobby. It had been many years since he had dived. One of many things that had disappeared from his life after it had fallen apart. Possibly it was something he could get back into with Kalinda. Something they could enjoy together in the future. There was that word again. Having a future to look forward was a strange feeling for him. Strange in a very pleasant way.
Another post that caught Hank's eye was one showing Kalinda standing with her back to the camera, at a soccer game. Football, she would call it. She was wearing a blue team jersey, Chelsea was her team, he recalled, with Rai and the number 2 on the back. She also had leather pants on, which was what had first drawn Hank to that particular picture. Smoking hot. But what was the significance of the number 2? Her account name was 'KRai212'. What did 212 refer to? He would try to find out at some point.
Further down Kalinda's list of posts there was one of a small white dog. The caption saddened him. 'My baby boy grew his wings today. Nine years by my side, always. I love you, Charlie.'
Hank's phone made its message tone.
"Shit," he said to himself in a moment of panic. He had been sitting there going through the Instagram account longer than he had realised. Before checking the text message he knew it would be Kalinda saying she was outside. It was. He quickly typed a reply.
'Five minutes. I'm running a little late.'
Hank started putting his shoes on. A reply came before he was done.
'No rush. I'm actually a little early.'
He rushed anyway, and was able to get out the door in fractionally less than the promised five minutes. It was going to be a busy day, but he was looking forward to it simply because it meant spending time with Kalinda.
"Hello you," Kalinda said warmly when he got into her car. Her voice, as ever, charmed him immediately.
"Hey yourself. I've been looking forward to seeing you. You look amazing as ever." It was true. In fact it was an understatement, he thought. She had a dark blue leather jacket on today. The colour reminded him of the soccer jersey he had been looking at not too long ago. Black jeans were a concession to the manual labour that lay ahead of them. As was commonplace, black leather gloves and boots completed her look. He leaned over and gave her a peck on the cheek, which see seemed to like.
"That's very nice of you. You look great too. Very rugged and handsome."
So that's what she sees in me, he thought as the car got moving. He would definitely take the compliment. Conversation began to flow as they made their way towards Milwaukee.
Later in the journey, when a gap in conversation presented itself, Hank decided to pose a question. "How did you see your future when you were younger?"
"Do you mean when I started working?"
"Sure," he said openly, simply to get the ball rolling.
"My original ambition was to climb the ladder of the Metropolitan Police. I hadn't left London for America then of course. It wasn't long really before I realised that upper management wasn't going to be for me. All the bureaucratic bollocks and having to deal with people's stupidity and egos is not for me. What suited me best was being out on the street nicking people. Arresting them, I mean. Sorry for lapsing into English slang."
"You can lapse whenever you want," Hank said with a grin. "What about outside of work though? That's more what I was asking about."
"Oh. Well, in an ideal world, I suppose I saw myself marrying someone, living happily ever after, having a couple of kids, owning a nice house somewhere out in the country to retire in when the time came. Plainly, none of that came to be. The guy I chose to marry was an arsehole who treated me like dirt. The happiness never happened. The house in the country never happened. Having kids never happened because I couldn't." Her voice cracked in her final sentence. He knew how much not being able to carry a baby traumatised her. It was very different to the traumas he had suffered, but he could relate to the pain that would never go away.
"I'm sorry," Hank said, meaning both for bringing it up and for the fact that she had been unable to have a child.
"How about you?" she asked in a choked voice, wiping each of her eyes in turn to clear away some tears.
"Like you, at one point I thought I might try and go as high up in policing as I could. That's not me though. Where I'm at right now is the ideal position for me. Personally, at one time I had everything I wanted in life. I was happy. Then it all fell apart when Camille died. We talked about that and about my son dying before."
"Yes," Kalinda said softly. Driving with one hand, she reached out and put the other on his knee in a comforting gesture, not knowing what else to say. Appreciating it, Hank instead took her hand in his a gave it a little squeeze. He hoped it would show her that he was there for her too, if she wanted him to be.
"I'm just going to ask this. Sorry if it's wildly inappropriate," she said next. "Have you thought about what the future might be for us? If the answer is no it's not a problem."
Hank was happy to hear that question. It saved him having to worry about how to bring it up himself at some point. "Yes, I've thought about it. My feelings for you have gotten very strong, very quickly. It has made me wonder if I might not end up getting old alone and unhappy after all. What I mean is, maybe there's a future for us together. I hope that doesn't make you feel awkward. I'm being honest about how I feel." Hank mentally crossed his fingers now that he had put himself out there.
Kalinda glanced at him for a moment and he saw something in her eyes. Love? No, too soon for that. But something heading in that direction for sure. What she said next was one of those moments, like Anna being killed but way the hell at the opposite end of the scale, when he felt his life changing forever, right there in that moment.
"I've learned to follow my heart, Hank. My heart wants you. The little amount of time we've known each other doesn't matter to me. I'm pulled to you so strongly that I know we're supposed to be together. What scared me was that you might not feel the same about me. I've been fearful that you only saw me as an attractive woman who wears a lot of leather, and that turns you on."
"Pull the car into this rest stop up here," Hank said, pointing.
"Okay," Kalinda said, returning her full attention to the road because she needed to signal and change lanes to make the exit for the rest stop. Within a couple of minutes, she had found a parking spot in front of a Subway. She looked at him.
"Why have we stopped?"
"So you could look me in the eyes when I say this. Kalinda, I don't see you as a beautiful woman who wares a lot of very sexy leather clothing, although both of those things are certainly true. I see a kind, funny, loving, determined, strong, brave person. I see my kind of person. Even more importantly, I feel a connection to you that I've never felt since Camille. I thought that was unique – that it would be impossible for me to be so connected to another person the way I was with her. My one person life had come and gone, that's how I felt. But no, I'm feeling it again with you, Kalinda. What that means and where we go from here I don't know. But what I do know is I want to go wherever it is with you."
Tears filled Kalinda's eyes once more by the time he finished his little speech. It hadn't been rehearsed at all, but he was pleased with how he had been able to express himself.
"I'll go with you, wherever you go," she promised.
The words chosen, rarely for her, were a bit of a mess. But the intent behind them was what mattered. They had just committed to a relationship, to the desire to make it a lasting one. Hank leaned in and kissed her again. He felt on top of the world. Right there, parked in front of a rundown Subway store with plywood for one of its windows, he felt like he was in heaven on Earth.
A/N: This will be the final chapter of 2023. Thank you to everyone who has supported me this year. It means a lot to me.
Hank and Kalinda have committed to a relationship. Will they be able to find the happiness that has deserted them for so long?