Rick could tell that Kate was nervous about her first day back.

It had been less than two weeks - the prescribed amount of time she was supposed to be off work - since the incident but, apparently, murderers don't care about the NYPD's current staffing situation. The department was understaffed so, seeing as Kate had passed her psych evaluation with flying colours and insisted that she was fit for duty, they allowed her back a few days earlier than planned. Desk duties only, which frustrated her, but she had been itching for something to do, something to keep her mind busy throughout the day so she happily accepted the temporary reassignment to desk jockey.

Despite the relief to be back at work, though, there were also nerves. Her tells were subtle; but he was always paying attention.

He had made her breakfast: a single slice of toast and a coffee. She was grateful, of course, but he had to practically beg her to actually eat it. She had taken two quick bites and then downed her coffee as if there were no time to actually enjoy it. And when he had convinced her that eating was a necessity, she had relented and sat at the counter to finish her toast. She was jittery, her leg bouncing rapidly for the entirety of the five minutes it took to polish off the meal.

After a shower that was so quick he was certain it would be entered into the record books, she spent an unfathomable amount of time picking out an outfit for the day. He was sure she had gone through every available option before finally settling on a simple black trouser, navy button-up blouse and dangerously high heeled pumps.

Rick looked up from the dishes he was washing just in time to see her scurrying toward the bathroom, rolling the sleeves of her blouse to her elbows. He finished cleaning up then walked to the bathroom and leant against the door frame. He watched as Kate straightened her hair and then curled it into the loose curls she wore almost every day. She was beautiful; so put together and professional looking. Gone was the soft, vulnerable woman he had spent lazy days and long nights with. Detective Beckett was back, stronger than ever, and a sense of pride swelled in his chest. She was ready for this.

Even if he wasn't.

It was one thing to be okay with everything that had happened when she was safe at home. He hadn't even realised he had his own anxieties about her return to work until this moment.

"You just gonna stare?" she asked.

Her attention remained fixed to the her reflection in the mirror, the slightest hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. He looked into the mirror and his eyes met hers.

"Could stare all day, if I'm being honest."

Kate rolled her eyes but her smile only brightened. "You're distracting me."

Rick pushed off the door frame and took a few small steps closer, the overwhelming urge to be near her taking over him. He fought the urge to reach out, to touch her. She was in her zone - focused and calm, ready - he didn't want to disturb that.

"Kitchen's clean," he informed her. "Just wanted to let you know I'm gonna get dressed and then I'll take off."

She put down the straightening iron and turned to face him. She wasn't sure what she had expected, it's not like he would just hang out in her apartment all day waiting for her to come home again, but she found herself disappointed that he was leaving. She nodded, worried that any attempt at words would give away that disappointment, but as he turned to walk away she forced her voice to be heard. She wanted to delay his departure, even if just for a few seconds.

"Rick, wait," she called and he stopped, turned back to face her. "Did you, uh- did you want something?"

He looked at her, his head tilted in confusion.

"Last night, when you came over," she clarified. "Was there any particular reason?"

"No," he said with a casual shrug. "Just wanted to be here this morning."

She smiled and her heart skipped merrily. "I'm glad you're here."

"Me too." Rick moved closer, bracketed her waist with his hands.

A twinge of guilt stabbed between his ribs. It had only be a partial lie, he really did want to be here with her this morning but that wasn't his motivation for showing up unannounced in the late hours of the night.

"You need a lift or anything?"

Kate's hands rested on his chest, her fingertips traced patterns over his skin.

"I can hail a cab," she said quietly. "Thank you, though."

She leant forward and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips.

"I should go get dressed," he whispered as her lips left his.

. . .

There was a certain sense of morose in the air of her bedroom as he slowly dressed himself in the same attire he had worn to dinner last night. His deep purple button-up matched Kate's bedsheets almost exactly; maybe that was why he had worn the shirt that had hung untouched in the back of his closet for over two years, to make her smile at the sight of him wearing her favourite colour.

Not that he had known, last night as he dressed himself for dinner with his family, that she would even see him in it. The plan was for them to spend the night apart. He hated the plan but he knew they couldn't spend every night together and he had made his peace with that.

That was until he and his family arrived home from dinner.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you!" His mother had gasped dramatically, spun on her heel to face him. "Lovetta received some of your mail, again." She pointed toward the small pile of envelopes on the kitchen counter. "That letter you've been waiting on is in there."

He had been so excited he rushed off to his office, letter in hand, to get to work on his novel. This letter promised him answers, fuel for his writer's imagination. Instead, it filled him with dread.

A lawyer said she'd look into my case. Johanna Beckett...

... later, I found out she was murdered.

He was out the door within seconds; didn't even finish reading what Pulgatti had written. Honestly, he didn't care what else was there. His stomach churned violently and it took more focus than he cared to admit just to keep his dinner from making an untimely reappearance as he stormed to his car. It felt like he blinked and he was outside of Kate's apartment; another thing he didn't want to spend too much time thinking about. He just hoped autopilot had enough sense to stop for red lights...

Considering the twenty minute drive to her apartment had passed in the blink of an eye, the twenty second elevator ride to her floor felt like an eternity. He could feel the letter burning a hole in his jacket pocket. His heart raced, his head spun and his chest had never felt so tight. He knew what her mother's case had done to her. Not the specifics - she kept the details minimal, most likely for her own benefit - but he knew enough to know that this newfound information could be dangerous for her.

There was no way that he couldn't tell her, though. Even if it was nothing, it was too big of a coincidence to keep from her. But when the elevator finally reached her floor and he stepped off to find her standing there, waiting for him with a bright smile on her face, he just wasn't able bring himself to burden her with this knowledge.

He shook off the guilt associated with the memory and removed the jacket from where it hung over the corner of the free-standing mirror by her dresser, then slipped his fingers into the breast pocket. The letter was still there, still burning dangerously.

Not now, he decided. She was already on edge: nervous about returning to work; frustrated because she would be tied to a desk. The last thing she needed was... whatever this was.

Excuses.

He slipped his arms into the jacket and headed back downstairs.

She was almost ready to leave by that time. Dressed, hair perfectly styled, make up covering her bruises: the last lingering traces of that horrible day that felt like just yesterday but also, somehow, a lifetime ago.

"I wish cops looked like you when I was arrested," he said in jest, an attempt to provide his mind with some levity.

She turned her focus from her bag - which she seemed to be packing with daily essentials: a water bottle; gum; keys, etc. - onto him and raised a brow sceptically. "You've been arrested?"

"Wow. You really haven't looked into me, have you?"

Kate smiled and began to walk toward him. "I told you, Rick. I want to hear all of your stories from you."

She had reassured him of that at Alex Conrad's launch party, after overhearing whispers in the ladies room. At the time, he had assumed she had only meant that she wouldn't believe idle gossip from people who were simply so bored with their own lives that they had to talk about the lives of others. It would be all too easy for her to learn all about his past with a simple internet search or basic background check. Yet, she refrained. She really did want his story, no one else's version of it.

He was pulled from his train of thought when Kate came to a stop in front of him and placed her palms on his chest. He could feel the crumple of paper under her palm as she unknowingly pressed that burning letter to his chest. His heart stopped for just one moment when her eyes dropped low; he was certain she was going to ask him about it. Instead, she smiled and smoothed her hands over his shirt; his heart kicked into action again.

"My favourite colour," she said softly, eyes still honed on the material of his shirt.

"I know."

Her eyes lifted and met his. "It looks good on you."

"I'll wear it every day if you want."

The words just fell from him without thought but she laughed. She was happy. He made her happy. To him, that was everything.

He loved her. He wanted to make her life better, lighter, even if that meant keeping a secret from her.

Her mother was killed in a random wayward event. There was nothing more to the story; Kate had accepted that. She had put this to rest, buried it in the past, and he sure as hell wasn't going to be the one to dig it up again.

He framed her face with his hands and kissed her.

A random wayward event. She may have accepted it, but she sure as hell didn't believe it.

And neither did he.

Unfortunately, Rick was never very good at this keeping secrets thing.

He had avoided Kate for three days. Three painstakingly long days of using his daughter as an excuse to not see the love of his life.

Yes, that's right, the love of his life.

Avoiding her and keeping a secret from her - and using his daughter to do so, on top of it all - tore him up inside; he was convinced he had given himself an ulcer. Each time she had called he was 'busy'. He'd kept his text replies concise, a quick supervising Alexis's extracurricular activities or sorry, in a writing frenzy. Lies, all lies.

In reality, he had been holed up in bed going over Pulgatti's letter again and again.

Later, I found out she was murdered.

If he thought too hard about it all, he would be sick.

This morning, however, he had managed to pull himself out of bed. He had decided, once and for all, that he if he had suffer the burden of this knowledge, he wasn't going to suffer alone. He wanted to tell Kate, to let her decide what she would do with the information. If she wanted to bury it, he would let it die (along with his dreams of writing Pulgatti's story). If she wanted to investigate it, he would be by her side to ensure she didn't find herself in that dark place she had fallen to all those years ago.

But first, he needed to know that he would be capable of protecting her from, well, herself. He needed to talk to someone who had seen Kate at her worst, someone who had been there while she put herself back together again.

That was how he ended up at the morgue.

"Uh, I'm looking for Lanie Parish," he said quietly to a woman dressed in scrubs that happened to be near the entrance.

He hadn't known what to expect - it's not like he'd ever been here before - but this definitely wasn't it. The large, three-storey building was home to not only the city's best Medical Examiners but also it's second largest pathology and forensics lab. The place was shiny and white, almost blindly so under the fluorescent lighting that lined the corridors. It seemed so... sterile. Which was probably a good thing, he supposed.

"Morgue is in the basement," the doctor (he assumed) said with a soft smile. "But I'd check her office first. It's second on the left." She pointed down the corridor, toward the elevator.

"Thank you."

He walked toward the elevator, planning on quickly ducking his head into Lanie's office - second on the left, he reminded himself - before heading to the basement but as he approached, Lanie strode out of her office.

Her brown eyes locked to his, wide with surprise. She wasn't expecting him, obviously. Why would she have been?

"Nuh-uh," she declared with the shake of her head. "Not getting involved."

"Involved in what?" he asked defensively.

Had Kate said something?

Had he done something?

Well, of course he had done something! He had been avoiding Kate but if he had been obvious about it, she hadn't said anything to him. In fact, each time he abruptly ended their good night phone call with a weak excuse of being tired, or Alexis needing him, or whatever he could come up with at the time, she had been so understanding about it.

Too understanding, in hindsight. Of course she knew something was wrong.

"Whatever is going on between you and Beckett, sort it out yourself!"

Lanie turned her back to Rick and walked toward the elevator. He followed.

"I need advice," he pleaded.

"Phone a friend," she retorted. "Your friend. Not me." She stopped and jabbed the small, round button to call the elevator to them. "Not getting involved," she repeated.

They both stepped into the elevator and she shot him a warning glance. He ignored it.

"There's something I haven't told her," he confessed. Lanie's warning glare morphed into something more... dangerous. "I just- I don't want to hurt her."

"I swear to God, Writer Boy, you better not be playing her or I will hurt you."

"I'm not," he promised. "I just, I really need help. No one knows her like you do and I know you want to protect her as much as I do."

Lanie's expression softened. Anger turned into something more akin to concern. "Protect her?"

The elevator doors opened.

"Can we talk?"

Lanie nodded.

Rick followed her down the hallway and into Examiner's Room 3.

"Hope you're not squeamish," she said as they moved further into the room.

He looked over to the metal slab in the centre of the room and a young man - probably only twenty or so years old - entered from another room off to the side.

"Ready, Dr. Parish."

The young man smiled at Lanie and, once she nodded at him, he moved to the cold lockers along the far wall. Rick watched, intrigued, as they pulled a body from the storage unit and placed it on a gurney, then transferred it onto the metal slab.

Once the young man left, Rick spoke.

"Was he murdered?"

Lanie looked at him. "That's what I'm going to find out."

"Am I strange for thinking it's kinda cool?" he asked. He tore his eyes away from the man that lay in between Lanie and himself, looked into the eyes of the medical examiner. "Not the fact that he may have been murdered," he clarified. "But all the things you can learn about someone, even after they're dead. It's fascinating."

"Usually when outsiders come down here it's reluctantly and with a permanent expression of disgust painted on their face," Lanie said with a smile. "Ryan and Espo are on their way over for my report on their guy. You have fifteen minutes. What are we protecting Kate from?"

Rick pulled the letter from his jacket pocket and passed it across to Lanie.

"It arrived a few days ago," he explained even though she hadn't asked. "Somehow found it's way into my neighbour's mail pile. I only got it the other night."

Lanie nodded, her eyes still scanning across the page.

"I went to Kate, I wanted to show it to her but- I chickened out, I guess."

She nodded again. Still reading, still silent.

God, he just wanted her to say something. Anything.

"I mean, it might be completely unrelated, right?" He didn't have to be a homicide detective to know that was utter nonsense. "The timing could have just been a coincidence." He wasn't sure if he was trying to convince Lanie or himself. "And it might not even be her-"

Lanie's narrowed eyes shot up to meet his, effectively silencing him.

"How many civil rights lawyers named Johanna Beckett do you think were getting around the city in '98?" she asked the obviously rhetorical question.

At least two, he hoped, because if the information in this letter was correct, there was a conspiracy afoot. There was no way that was a coincidence.

"I think it's pretty safe to assume it's her," Lanie said. But now, her voice was stripped of attitude and sarcasm.

She sounded concerned.

Sad.

Exactly how Rick felt.

"He warned me, you know? When we first started talking, he told me that the last person he shared his story with had ended up dead." Lanie looked at him, eyes glittering with empathy for the situation he had found himself in. He continued, "I figured he was, I don't know, trying to reel me in with murderous intrigue or something."

But, no, that hadn't been the case. According to Pulgatti's letter, Johanna Beckett had agreed to look into his claims that he had been framed by a dirty cop. Three weeks later she was dead.

"I have to tell her, right?"

Lanie shook her head; not a no, just expressing her uncertainty.

"This case..." her words trailed off, but Rick already knew what she was going to say.

This case had almost destroyed Kate.

Still reeling from the death of her mother - and the loss of her father as she knew him - Kate had become a cop because she needed answers that no one else could give her. She had dedicated her days to the city and her nights to her mother's case. Nothing ever panned out.

Rick had only been told bits and pieces of information and, for once in his life, he had never tried to push for more. He could see how much her perceived failure still tore her up, even years later. It may have been an old wound but it had never fully healed, that much was evident.

But Lanie had been there. Maybe not at the start but she had known Kate, befriended her, and was a part of Kate's support system while she was at her worst.

If Lanie thought that Kate could handle this, he would give her the letter tonight. If not, he would burn it and never utter a word of it to Kate.

He just didn't feel equipped to make this decision on his own.

"You give her a lead and she's not gonna be able to just walk away," Lanie uttered after a few moments of reflection. "It's one thing to not be actively investigating her Mother's murder but to remain in control with the first fresh lead this case has had in a decade?" She sighed, heavily, then complained, "Why'd you have to drag me into this?"

"Sorry," he mumbled.

"Shit!"

He barely had time to register the whispered curse before Lanie thrust the letter into his hands and stepped around him.

"Hey," she said cheerily. "I was expecting Javi."

Rick turned around and saw Kate standing in the doorway, a confused look on her face. She hid it with a half-smile.

"They're in the box," she explained. "Might be a while so I've been granted permission to fill in. Cap did his risk assessment and decided a quick trip downtown wasn't too dangerous."

She and Lanie both laughed at her joke, albeit their half-chuckles were strained.

Kate's eyes flicked to Rick for just a moment, then back to Lanie as the medical examiner spoke.

"Desk duty driving you nutty already?"

"It's been days of watching everyone come and go. I've never been so envious of a busy schedule in my life."

"I thought desk duty kept you busy?" Rick asked before silently cursing himself for bringing her attention back to him. He felt guilty under her studying eyes.

"And I thought writing kept you too busy to leave the loft?" she shot back in an instant.

Yep, too understanding. She hadn't bought his excuses for a second.

"I had a, uh, predicament and needed an expert opinion."

It wasn't a lie, technically. Still, his stomach churned.

Rick looked at Lanie. "Thank you for your help. I should go."

The flicker of hurt in Kate's eyes was enough to shatter his heart into a million pieces.

He walked toward Kate, cautiously placed his hand on her waist. Sure, this wasn't her workplace but she was still at work and he didn't want to cross a line. She didn't pull away, he took that as a good sign. It was, after all, just the three of them in the room.

"I'll call you tonight?"

He didn't mean for it to come out as a question. It wasn't a question. He would call her. And this time he wouldn't try to brush her off. The uncertainty, at this point, was more for whether or not she would answer.

But she nodded her head, just slightly, and relief swelled in his chest.

She might be able to see right through him, she might know that he's been lying to her, but she wasn't mad at him.

That was a start.

Rick pressed his lips to the top of her head; a delicate, apologetic kiss that seemed to effectively ease some of the tension that hummed between them.

"I'll let you know when I get off work," she said.

His response came softly, sounded like the most natural thing in the world as it spilled from his lips.

"I love you."

Before she could respond, before she could even react, he was gone.