A/N: this story is an AU based loosely on the song "Same Old Lang Syne" by Dan Fogelberg. If you haven't heard the song... well, it inspired an angsty af story.
Katherine Beckett and Richard Rodgers were high school sweethearts who went their separate ways after graduation. This story takes place on Christmas Eve almost twenty years later.
Please bear with me as I am literally trying to *force* myself out of writer's block! It's painful!
Anyways, as always, I hope you enjoy : )
Rick raked his fingers through his hair, shaking loose the flakes of snow that caught in the strands.
The heating of the grocery store hit him as soon as he walked through the doors - like walking into a wall of warmth - and he shrugged off his jacket, folded over his forearm as he headed to the frozen foods aisle.
A heat-n-eat dinner for one: that's all he needed. Sad on your average day; depressing on Christmas Eve. And if he was being totally honest with himself, he still hadn't fully committed to the frozen dinner. Like a Siren Song, the temptation of ditching it and getting a good quality bottle of whiskey instead was still calling to him.
He had never been alone for the holidays before. Between his mother and his daughter, he always had someone to help him fend off the seasonal emptiness he felt. But this year his mother was touring Europe and his daughter was spending the holiday with her mother - on the other side of the country - and he was itching to fill that void.
He detoured via the medicinal aisle and grabbed a pack of aspirin from the shelf, knowing all too well where this night would take him: better to be prepared, right? Then he made his way to the frozen foods section, weaving through the rush of last-minute shoppers.
He stood in front of the freezers, staring blankly at the assortment of instant meals stacked before him but nothing appealed. Mac 'n' Cheese, various burrito bowls, spaghetti and meatballs... it may as well be a burnt piece of toast given the mood he was in. He opened the freezer door, grabbed whatever meal just happened to be front and centre, ready to call it a day.
As he turned to leave he saw her in his periphery; like the Ghost of Christmas Past. She turned away before he had the chance to get a good look at her face, but something deep inside him just knew that it was her.
He took a few steps closer, reached out - slowly, tentatively - and touched her elbow.
"Kate?"
She spun to face him, confusion on her face. It took a second - a painfully slow second - but when her eyes widened with recognition, his heart sang.
Kate Beckett: his high school sweetheart. The first (and only) woman he had ever truly loved.
"Rick Rodgers?" she asked incredulously; as if the idea of running into him in their home town seemed impossible. "Sorry, I mean Rick Castle."
He chuckled. "You keeping tabs on me?" he teased.
"Well, it's hard not to when you're a world-famous author," she gushed.
A more modest man would assume she was merely being polite, but he knew that tone of voice: she was proud of him.
"Are you visiting for the holidays?" Rick asked.
"No. Oh, wow, it really has been too long, hasn't it?"
Yes, way too long. He waited for her to continue.
"I was only in California for two years. I moved back after-" She stopped suddenly, looked away from his studying eyes but only briefly. "I've been in the city ever since. I can't believe this is the first time we're running into each other."
"Well, it is a city of eight million people."
"That is true." She chuckled and nodded her head, before growing more serious. "Makes you wonder, though: how many times have we maybe almost run into each other in the past?"
He felt a twinge of pain in his chest. If he had known she moved back to the city, if he had known she had been this close all those years, he would have tried harder to reconnect. If he had known... maybe he wouldn't have wasted so much time missing her.
"We have a lot to catch up on. Would you like to have a drink with me?" he asked, hopeful.
She smiled and shook her head. "Rick, it's Christmas Eve: hardly anywhere is even open today."
"Come on, it's New York City! I'm sure we could find somewhere that's open."
She sighed and her smile faded as her eyes dropped to her shopping cart. He knew what was coming next.
We shouldn't...
I need to get home...
Maybe next time...
But it had been almost twenty years since they'd seen each other: when would next time even be?
"I have a better idea," he said enthusiastically.
He grabbed her cart, tossing his dinner and aspirin in with her own groceries and began to walk down the aisle with it, knowing that if he just kept walking she would eventually concede and catch up to him.
By the time he had navigated his way to the beverage aisle, she was by his side.
"Here it is," he announced with a smile as he reached up and grabbed a six-pack of grape and guava soda from the shelf.
They'd spent many nights together the summer of their senior year. Once her father was asleep, she'd take his keys and sneak out. They'd stop by a little bodega, buy a six-pack of this exact grape and guava soda, drive just outside of the city and sit together for hours just talking, laughing, bonding.
Falling in love.
Those were some of the best nights of his life.
He turned back to face her, revelled in the familiar twinkle in her eyes.
She smiled. "My car or yours?"
They headed to the checkout, bagged and paid for the groceries and headed back out to the parking lot. He packed her groceries into the trunk of her car, clutching his paper bag to his chest as he lowered himself into the passenger seat of her Charger.
"Nice car," he commented as he pulled the six-pack from his bag of groceries.
"It's for work."
Kate accepted the bottle he offered her and twisted the cap off. The hiss of carbon dioxide leaking out sliced through the silence, echoing through the car.
She pursed her lips and stifled a laugh. "Now, that's a familiar sound!"
"Deja vu!" Rick opened his own bottle and held it up between them. "Cheers."
Kate clinked her bottle against Rick's and then they both sipped.
Rick swallowed down the warm bubbles, trying to hide the grimace it triggered.
"So..." He dragged out the too-short word, trying to fill the silence. "What have you been up to? Still working your way toward becoming the first female Chief Justice?" he asked.
"Uh, no, actually." Her eyes dropped to the drink in her hands and she picked nervously at the label. "I, uh- I didn't end up finishing Law School."
"What? What happened?" he blurted.
"What makes you think something happened?" she asked, and he could tell she was feeling defensive. As if he was disappointed in her for not finishing. He wasn't. "Maybe I just changed my mind."
"Right," he said sarcastically. "The girl who didn't learn how to ride her bike without training wheels because she was too busy learning about the judicial system just... changed her mind."
"Hey, I can ride a bike without training wheels!" she defended with a slight chuckle.
He laughed, too, but the light-heartedness was short lived. "Seriously though, Kate. What happened? You had your whole future planned out."
She smoothed down the half-peeled label and took a deep, steadying breath.
"My mum," she offered, as way of explanation. She looked into his eyes, could see that he didn't understand. "She died. Murdered: random gang violence."
Rick reached across the console separating them and placed his hand over hers.
"I'm so sorry," he said genuinely.
Kate shook her head and offered him a small, reassuring smile.
"Plans change, but it's not always a bad thing. I'm a detective now for the NYPD. I have a good team, I'm good at what I do and-" She paused as she tried to gather her thoughts. "It feels important, you know? I know what it's like to not have answers, to never know why. Nine times out of ten, I'm able to get those answers for grieving families."
He nodded as he listened to her words, trying to come to terms with the loss of a woman who had always treated him with such kindness in the past. It was odd: he hadn't seen Mrs. Beckett since his school days, she had rarely even crossed his mind and yet the knowledge that she was gone weighed heavy on his chest.
"So, I'll never be the first female Chief Justice but I think I found something even better," she finished with a smile.
The momentary sadness that filled him was soon overpowered by the pride he felt knowing that Kate had come out the other side of such tragedy with an even stronger sense of purpose than she held before.
"What about you, Mr. Big Shot?" She nudged her elbow against his. "Is fame everything you thought it would be?"
"Well, it definitely has it perks," he said modestly. "I love what I do, I love the freedom it offers. Touring is hell, though, if I'm being totally honest with you. But overall, definitely worth it."
"That's good."
Silence fell over them and they both sipped from their drinks to ease some of the awkwardness.
"I've seen you on TV," Kate admitted, purely to fill the silence. "Seen your books in stores. My husband jokes sometimes, worried I'll start to think I married the wrong man."
The confession - intentional or not - had taken him by surprise.
"Husband?" He had always known she would move on, but the confirmation still hurt. "I thought you didn't believe in marriage," he mumbled.
He hated how bitter the words sounded, but he couldn't hide it.
"I was seventeen, Rick. I didn't think some silly little piece of paper mattered."
She flipped her hand so that their palms pressed together and laced her fingers through his, squeezing gently as she did.
"I also thought Tupac and Biggie could sort out their differences," she added, an attempt to ease some of the tension that had filled the air around them.
He looked her in the eye and smiled.
"God, you were so upset," he commented, in regard to the infamous musical feud.
Although they obviously didn't know the rappers personally, it had been the first time Kate had experienced the loss of someone she cared about and she had taken it hard.
"I cried for days."
"I remember." His smile faded as he stared out the windshield, remembering her tear-stained cheeks and puffy red eyes. He didn't even want to think about how painful the loss of her mother - what he assumed was just a few short years later - was for her. "I just wanted to make it better but I didn't know how."
"You did make it better." She leant forward to catch his eye, smiling as he looked back to her. "Just by being there."
He could have lost himself there; staring into her eyes. She was comforting, so familiar even after all these years.
Her eyes dropped to their hands, still joined.
"He's, uh- he's an architect," she informed him as she slipped her hand from his.
It took a moment for his brain to catch up. Right, the husband.
"We met through a mutual friend," she continued. "And, I don't know... we hit it off, I guess."
"You guess?" he snickered. "You married the guy, Kate, I think it's safe to say you definitely hit it off."
He forced a laugh, trying to cover some of the bitterness in his statement. She merely smiled weakly.
"Kids?" he asked.
She shook her head, no. "You?"
Rick smiled softly, almost apologetically. "A daughter."
He reached into his jean pocket and pulled out his wallet. From one of the card slots he pulled a small photograph and passed it to Kate.
She studied the image of Rick and his 10-year-old daughter, Alexis. She smiled and delicately swiped her thumb over their smiling faces.
"She's beautiful."
"Yeah, she is. Smart, too," he added proudly. "Smarter than I ever was."
Kate's eyebrows raised and she smirked. "Wouldn't be hard, right?"
He snatched the photo back from her and tucked it back into his wallet. "Hey now, I saved your ass by letting you copy my English homework."
"I'm sorry, who ended up doing most of your chem assignments?"
"Okay, okay!" He held his hands up in playful surrender. "My point is: she could run rings around both of us with ease."
"I don't doubt that at all," Kate replied with a smile.
"She's constantly questioning things, seeking out the answers and she won't stop until she's got something 100% figured out!" he gushed with pride. "Was a real pain in the ass when started asking questions about Santa Claus, though."
"Oh no!" Kate laughed, imagining the scene: a flustered Rick trying desperately to explain that yes, Santa can fly around the world in one night!
But if anyone could spin a convincing story, it was good old Ricky Rodgers.
Her laughter faded as her mind began to wander, curiosity growing too strong to ignore.
Hesitantly, she asked: "Is her mother still in the picture?"
"Yes and no," Rick answered honestly. "She's not the most... hands on kind of mother. She moved to Los Angeles in search of - I don't know - bigger? Better? Just... not us."
He shook his head, shaking off the negative thoughts.
"It's complicated," he continued. "But she's there for Alexis when she needs to be. That's all I ask."
Rick lifted his drink, tilting it toward Kate.
"To life not going exactly to plan," he toasted.
Kate held up her drink. "Gotta keep it interesting somehow, right?"
The two glass bottle clinked together and they both took a long sip, swallowing down the warm, static-tasting soda in silence.
"Wow, this really isn't good," Kate blurted as her nose crinkled.
Rick laughed and read the soda label with a matching look of disgust on his face. "Why do I remember it being so much better than this?"
"Right! We must have drank gallons of this stuff over the years."
Kate began to laugh, too, and they placed their bottles in the console cup holders.
As they fell silent, she leant her head back against the headrest, rolling it to the side to look at him. She smiled as he did the same.
He could see that she was working up the courage to say something; the pensive bite of her lower lip was always her tell. He had a nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach that the something was goodbye.
"Your eyes," he started, desperate to interrupt her train of thought, to deter the inevitable. "Still as bright and hopeful as the last time I saw you."
She looked down to her hands, her cheeks flushed.
Just like they used to when he would tell her she was beautiful.
He reached out, curved his index finger under her chin and tilted her face back up until their eyes locked.
"I'm sorry that I left," he confessed, overwhelmed by sincerity.
"I'm the one who left," she corrected him.
He shook his head. "I should have gone with you."
"That was never the plan."
"The plan was stupid."
She laughed and shook her head. "We were stupid. We were just kids."
"We were in love."
Her silence didn't bother him; it only confirmed what he knew was true. After a few seconds, she nodded.
"Yes. We were in love."
His hand dropped to his lap, wounded by her insistence that what they felt was in the past.
"We could have made it," he said quietly. "I could have been there for you."
"You wouldn't have that precious little girl of yours."
He nodded. Alexis was the greatest thing in his life and he wouldn't change that for the world. But there was a small voice in the very back of his mind that told him he couldn't miss something he never had.
He closed his eyes and lowered his head, ashamed of his thoughts.
"I should go," Kate said.
"Yeah." Rick took a deep breath. "Maybe we can catch up again some time?"
"Is that really a good idea?"
"What do you mean?" he asked, trying to hide the hurt from his voice.
"Rick." She sighed, looked at him with teary eyes. "I'm married," she whispered regretfully.
"But do you love him?" he asked before his brain even had a chance to stop it.
She was obviously taken aback by his boldness. He knew he should apologise for the audacity to question her, but he just couldn't stop himself.
"Because I know that I have never come close to finding what he had," he continued.
"Rick-"
"And trust me, I've tried."
"Rick, stop!" She leant forward and placed her hands on his forearm. "I love him."
One thing about Kate Beckett: she never was a good liar. But she had obviously built a life with this man: a decent life. And here he was, not even an hour after re-entering her life and he was desperately clinging to their past.
It was too much, he understood that.
"You should go," she said, her voice gentle yet firm.
"Y-yeah," he agreed. "I- I'm sorry."
"It was nice to see you again."
She leant forward and kissed his cheek.
For old time's sake, he told himself. He wouldn't read any more into it.
"Take care," he whispered as she pulled back.
"You too."
There was nothing he could do, nothing left to say. With a shaky hand, he reached for the door handle and pulled it open.
He stepped out into the cold, feather-light snow and - hugging his brown paper bag to his chest - he watched as she drove away.
For a moment he was eighteen years old again. Riding his bike across town with the cheap, pawn shop ring in his pocket, desperate to tell her that he loved her, that he couldn't imagine his life without her. He remembered the grief that flooded his body as he has skid around the corner of her street just in time to watch her dad's car - the same car they had made so many memories in - driving off into the distance, taking her away to college... away from him. She didn't even see him standing outside her home, waving goodbye.
He was heartbroken then, he was heartbroken now.
As he turned to walk back to his car the light, feathering snowflakes turned to heavy raindrops.
He sighed and changed direction, walking toward the liquor store instead.
A siren call he just couldn't ignore.