(Continued...)
Same Old Lang Syne, Pt. II
Six months had passed since that cold, rainy day. Even though the snow had melted, the skies had cleared and the city air had warmed, something within him had stayed frozen. Stuck.
He never was very good at moving on, especially when it came to Katherine Beckett.
He sat on the edge of his bed, deep in thought as he smoothed his thumb over the red velvet pouch that had been stored in his safe for twenty years now. The ring inside taunted him, the memories attached so skilful in the way they sliced through him he hadn't even realised that, for all this time, he'd been slowly bleeding out. Still, he couldn't bring himself to get rid of it.
A knock on his bedroom door brought him from his thoughts and he tucked the pouch into his bedside drawer.
"Daddy?" his daughter's sweet voice called as she entered the room. "I'm ready to go."
The girl twirled, showing off the outfit she had put together for herself.
"Beautiful," he said as he rose to his feet. He stepped closer to his daughter and dropped a kiss to the top of her head. "Is Gram ready, too?" he asked.
"Mmhmm," Alexis hummed. "She said you need to get your butt moving, Mister, or we'll be late!"
Rick laughed and shook his head. "You tell her I'm just getting my shoes on."
"Okay." Alexis bounded out of his room, calling out to her grandmother excitedly.
His mother had been a godsend since the dissolution of his marriage. She hadn't asked too many questions, only offered unfaltering support, which often made him wonder if she had seen it coming. During those first few months - when the rumours swirled and he was really struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel - she kept him afloat; splitting her time between her own home and his, urging him to continue writing and, most importantly, not allowing him to fall apart in front of Alexis. His family may have been a little broken but, thanks to Martha, they made it through the worst of it.
He slipped on a comfortable pair of sneakers and joined his mother and daughter in the living room.
"You okay, Kiddo?" Martha asked, her voice laced with concern, as they stepped out of the elevator.
"Never better."
He pushed his side against the building's heavy glass door and held out his hand for his daughter to take, chancing a fleeting glance over his shoulder.
His mother seemed... unconvinced, to say the least; concern glazing over the crystal blue of her eyes. But before Rick even had a chance to reassure her, he saw her focus shift.
"Oh my," she mumbled as recognition lit up her face, a small smile tugging on the corners of her mouth. "Is that-?"
Rick turned, following the path of his mother's gaze until his eyes landed on her. His heart rioted, thundering against his ribcage as his feet lost their ability to move.
Kate stood across the street, her eyes locked to his.
"Richard?" Martha's voice echoed, barely anchoring him to reality.
Why was she here?
How did she find him?
Had the 'what if's consumed her every thought since that day, too?
He forced his eyes from hers to look at his mother.
"Do you mind?" he asked, his voice shaky with uncertainty. He dropped his eyes to his daughter, then back to his mother - a silent plea for her to, once more, be present for his daughter while took a moment of reprieve, while he followed temptation down a rabbit hole. "I just need a minute."
The ever-so-slight nod was all the agreement he needed and he dropped to his knee in front of his daughter, placing his hands on her shoulders.
"Gram is going to take you to the park, okay? I'll catch up soon," he promised her. "I just need to do something first. I'll be quick."
Alexis smiled and nodded. "Okay, Daddy."
"I'll see you real soon, okay?" Rick stood and turned to face his mother. "Thank you."
He watched for several seconds as Alexis and Martha walked toward the park hand in hand before turning back to where Kate had been standing, but she was no longer there. He crossed the street, looking left and right until he saw her ducking around the corner. He rushed after her, desperate to catch up before he lost sight of her, lost her again.
"Kate, wait up!" he called as he began to close the distance between them. She ignored him, and he pushed himself to move faster. "Kate!"
He reached out, curved his hand around her bicep and pulled her toward him.
"I'm sorry." She sighed as she came to a halt in front of him. He stopped just shy of colliding with her but made no effort to put any sort of distance between them. "I shouldn't have come to your home."
Her eyes drifted - the building behind them, the sidewalk, the pedestrians that made their way past them - looking anywhere but at him.
"How'd you even find me?"
"I'm a cop. It's not hard for me to find someone. It takes, like, two minutes."
The statement was like a punch in the gut. It takes, like, two minutes. So, why had it taken her six months to show up? Why come at all, only to run away once he saw her?
"Why are you here, Kate?"
Her frantic avoidance of his eyes ceased so suddenly, the intensity of her stare invoking a flood of memories from their past. In the stillness he could see it so clearly; the slight redness that rimmed her eyes, the moisture that made her golden irises glisten in the sunlight.
She shrugged, couldn't keep the truth from slipping past her lips. "I just wanted to see you again, I guess."
And just like that, he was freshly eighteen again, standing in his childhood bedroom wishing he had done so many things differently.
Three soft taps at his bedroom window stole his attention from the book he had been reading. Kate had mastered the art of scaling his building's fire escape by ninth grade but had always done so sparingly - saving late-night visits for moments of true crisis - so her unplanned visit, especially after they'd already said their goodbye's, set off alarm bells.
Rick pulled himself from bed and rushed to his window. He flicked open the locks and lifted the window sash, holding it open while Kate slinked into his room.
"It's freezing out there," she commented as Rick shut and re-locked the window.
"No jacket! Really, Kate?" He walked closer to her, placed his hands on her arms and began to rub frantically in hopes that the friction he created would warm her body faster.
"Didn't think I'd need it," she admitted with a frown, but her frown was soon replaced with a smirk. "Besides, you can warm me up."
She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his waist, tilted her head up and pressed her lips to his.
Soft, supple, but ice cold.
Rick pulled away and looked into Kate's eyes. "What are you doing here?"
He didn't mean to sound so harsh but she was leaving in the morning, moving across the country and, if he was being totally honest, he didn't think he could handle having to say goodbye to her again.
Kate pulled herself from his arms, slowly walked backward until the backs of her knees hit his bed. She dropped down to the edge of the bed, folded her arms across her torso and hung her head as she tried not to let her emotions get the better of her.
"I just wanted to see you," she whispered as the first tears fell.
He looked away, allowing himself a short moment of respite from the pain that felt entirely too raw for a wound that should have healed many years ago. A small voice in the back of his mind told him that he should walk away. The smart thing to do right now would be to walk away. She was a married woman, obviously in some sort of emotional distress, and he knew that the best case scenario here is that he was a comfort she shouldn't be allowing herself to indulge in. But he decided a long time ago that doing the smart thing, the right thing, the logical thing really wasn't something that appealed to him. That little voice in the back of his mind had never been on his side, so why the hell should he keep listening to it?
As he searched the crowd of pedestrians around them, followed their busy paths with his eyes, a coffee cart down the street appeared like a neon sign. So easily, his mind was made up.
"Let me buy you a coffee?" he asked quietly, hoping that maybe she would open up to him.
Kate shook her head, looked back in the general direction of his home. "Your daughter-"
"Alexis," he said, cutting her off mid-protest. He wanted her to know his daughter's name, wanted to hear how it sounded coming from her lips. "She's with my mother. They've gone to the park. She won't even notice I'm not there."
He could tell that she wasn't convinced, but her silence kept him hopeful.
"Let me buy you a coffee," he repeated, but this time he wasn't asking. "Then we can make our way back toward the park. If you want to talk, we'll talk. If not, it'll be a nice stroll with a friend. What have you got to lose?"
Kate looked over her shoulder to the coffee cart. The line was short and, despite the hot weather, the call of a caffeine hit had always been something she couldn't resist. She turned back to Rick and smiled.
"Sure."
He didn't waste a moment - didn't want to allow her even a second to change her mind - before he placed his hand on her lower back and guided her toward the cart.
"You still a latte girl?" he asked, her exact order still fresh in his mind after all these years.
"Yeah." She smiled.
"Vanilla-"
"Vanilla-" they added at the same time, eliciting a small but genuine smile from her.
"It's good to see that some things never change," he mused.
They remained silent as they queued, basked in the comfort that just being together brought them. That was one thing he had always loved about her: his presence was enough. There was no need to fill the silence with idle chatter, no need for them to do anything, they could just... be.
He ordered their coffees, pretended he couldn't see the crumpled note she was holding in front of him until she nudged his arm and he was forced to verbally reject payment. He'd expected her to argue, but she just rolled her eyes and stuffed the cash into the barista's tip jar.
Drinks in hand, they began to walk back toward the park. He kept his pace slow, a purposeful act that he was sure she could see straight through but she didn't call him out on it. In fact, several long minutes passed before she said anything at all.
"Remember when we used to talk about running away together?" she asked him, a hint of a smile tugging on her lips as the memories replayed in her mind.
He couldn't help but smile, too.
They'd had many conversations over the years, even before they were anything more than friends.
When his mother would threaten to send him off to some boarding school across the country...
When her parents got so caught up working a case that she'd barely see them for days at a time...
When the reality that high school was coming to an end and real life started to look way too daunting for them to handle...
They'd sneak off somewhere - sometimes out of the city, sometimes just a few blocks away from home - and they'd spend hours laying on the bonnet of her father's car, staring up at the night sky and dreaming of the possibilities. Mexico, the Bahamas - hell, they'd even talked about working their way across the States as fruit pickers. It was all just escapism, though. Dreams, not plans.
"Where would you go?" she asked, bringing him from the montage of memories.
He looked back at her, the gentle smile from before eradicated and replaced by the sorrowful mist of tears in her eyes.
"Kate-" He stopped his slow stroll, placed his hand across her abdomen to stop her too. "Talk to me."
She shook her head, tried desperately to keep the tears from falling but failed. She closed her eyes and disobedient beads of water spilled from behind her eyelids.
"Run away with me?"
Her voice was weak, broken, but there was a spark of hope that cracked his heart in two.
He wished, more than anything, that he could drop everything and run away with her. Just like they had always dreamed of doing. But, he couldn't.
"I'm sorry," she backtracked, sensing his hesitation. "That's too much to ask of you."
"No," he tried to reassure her. "It's just... I have-"
"Alexis, I know." She stepped closer, dropped her forehead to the wall of his chest and his arms wrapped around her, cradling her body against him. "I know, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she whispered the words like a mantra, again and again. "It was stupid, I just- I'm sorry."
She took a slow, steadying breath, breathing in his scent before pulling away.
"Thank you for the coffee," she said, offering her best attempt at a genuine smile.
"Kate-"
She shook her head, turned and began to walk away.
Rick sighed.
This is a bad idea. The words repeated in his mind. A truly terrible idea.
He reached out, wrapped his fingers around her wrist.
"I have a house in the Hamptons." He looked over his shoulder, toward the park where his daughter was playing. In the distance he could see the vibrant red of her hair, the purple of her shirt as she made her way through the playground. A bad idea. "Alexis is spending some of her Summer break in LA with her mother; she flies out on Tuesday. She doesn't fly alone, but I can probably convince my mother to go with her. I can't leave until I know she has arrived safely."
She nodded, gave up the fight against her tears and allowed them to flow freely. "Thank you, Rick."
She stepped forward, pressed a kiss to his cheek before passing her a small card from her pocket.
He watched her walk away until she disappeared into the crowd of people the walked the streets.
A horrible, horrible idea.
"I thought you said she was married?"
Martha wasn't checking her facts. She knew exactly what he had said, she was just trying to tactfully point out how foolish this was.
Rick didn't say a word, just looked at his mother through narrowed eyes. A warning: stop, before you go too far. Not that that had ever stopped her from giving her opinions in the past.
"Richard," she sighed, disappointment lingering thick in the air between them.
"She's going through something," he justified. "she just needs a friend."
"A friend?" She scoffed theatrically. "You haven't seen the girl in twenty years. You, my boy, are not a friend. You are a mistake in the making!"
"You know what? I don't actually recall ever asking for your opinion," he spat angrily.
Guilt hit him as hard as a semi-truck but Martha just smiled a sincerely understanding kind of smile. He inhaled deeply, calming himself down before he continued.
"I just need you to get Alexis to Meredith. It's a lot to ask, I know that, so I will do whatever I can to make it work for you. You don't have to fly right back, either. I can put you up in a five-star hotel or find a nice spa retreat in the area-"
"Ric-"
"Please, Mother. You're the only one I trust with her."
Martha sighed. "Okay," she conceded. "But, I don't like what you're doing, Richard."
"It's just a couple of days," he insisted. "I just- I need to make sure she is okay. Then we'll go our separate ways again."
"Don't be naïve, Richard. I have watched you for years as you have compared every woman - lovely, respectable women - to the memory of your first love. This ill-advised tryst you're embarking on: either it's going to be a short-lived disaster or some grand, romantic reunion of lovers but - sooner or later - Katherine isn't going to live up to those memories, either. What are you going to do then?"
"I'm telling you, Mother, it's not like that."
Martha's shoulders slumped in defeat. She didn't believe what he was saying, didn't think that he believed it either, but she didn't have the energy to fight anymore.
"Just... be careful."
Rick arrived at the address Kate had texted him earlier that day. Alexis had been delivered safely to her mother's doorstep. Martha had even sent him a short video of her excitedly rushing up to greet Meredith. The image of his daughter smiling and waving goodbye to the camera, cheerfully telling him that she loves him and misses him already would be enough to get him through this, no matter what happened.
His mother's words had echoed through his mind for the past few days: sooner or later, Katherine isn't going to live up to those memories either. He knew that she was right; they weren't kids anymore. They each had a lifetime of growth behind them, a lifetime of baggage too. But that didn't necessarily mean they were destined to fail, right?
He looked out the window toward the house that was not at all what he had expected. Behind the white picket fence stood a large house that had deep navy siding with crisp white trim, an extended porch and beautiful gardens. It was nice, sure. But it wasn't her.
Maybe it was the her that married an architect, though.
He walked up to the gate, let himself into her yard and followed the stepping stone path that wound through the gardens and led him to the front porch. The door opened before he had a chance to knock.
"Hey," Kate greeted with a smile. "You got here quick."
"Sorry," he blurted as if he had somehow offended her. "Do you need more time?" He looked over his shoulder to his car parked on the curb. "I can come back."
She stepped forward and grabbed his wrist, bringing his attention back to her. "No, don't be silly. I just- I'm packing up a few things before I leave," she explained.
Rick stepped forward, so drawn to her it almost felt like someone else was controlling his every move.
"You can come in," she said softly. "I-if you want to."
The more cautious part of him told him not to step foot over the threshold, that doing so was crossing some sort of moral line, but his writer's curiosity was so desperate to learn everything he could about this version of her, about the life she had built here in suburbia.
He smiled and stepped forward, entering her abode. He followed her as she walked through her home, taking in every detail he could. It was cosy; homely. Knick-knacks and mementos filled empty spaces on bookshelves and consoles while various pieces of art and photographs of family and friends lined the cloud-grey walls.
"I'm almost done," she said as they entered the home office. "The neighbourhood is doing this charity drive thing."
"You're donating your books?" he asked, noting the various piles of literature scattered around a seemingly empty cardboard box.
"Not the important ones." She smiled and shot a glance over her shoulder to the collection of books still on her shelves. His books.
Pride swelled in his chest as he studied the row of novels; she had every title from In A Hail Of Bullets to Derrick's last adventure in Storm Falls. But pride was so quickly replaced by something else - something bitter and awful - when his eyes drifted just a little further to the left, finding exactly what he had been searching for but hoping he wouldn't find.
He rounded the desk, moving closer to inspect the framed image that topped the book shelf - the image of what he could only assume was her husband.
Bright blue eyes, ashy blonde hair and a blindingly white smile contrasted against the golden beachy glow of his skin. The man was polished, oozed a sense of self-assurance that often came with being successful in your chosen field. And there she was standing by his side; her arms wrapped around his waist, head resting on his chest as her smile beamed for the camera. She looked happy - genuinely happy - and it made Rick's stomach churn, his chest tighten.
That was the moment it hit him.
"I don't even know your name," he whispered, trying to hide the emotion that scratched his throat raw.
"I still go by Beckett at work," she offered: a consolation, but it wasn't enough.
"And here?" he asked as he turned to face her. "At home... with him?"
Her focus dropped to the pile of Patterson books on the desk that suddenly needed her undivided attention.
"Fischer," she offered reluctantly.
Rick pressed his lips into a fine line, nodded slowly. "Fischer," he repeated quietly. "Denmark origin?"
He wasn't quite sure what he was aiming for: intrigue, curiosity, it didn't matter. Katherine Fischer was wrong, just wrong, and it filled him with fury.
"Uh, Germany," she corrected hesitantly. "Wolfsburg originally. Will is a second generation Ameri-"
"Kate," he interrupted, shaking his head.
He couldn't do it, couldn't pretend to be interested in her husband's family history. Not when he had so many questions.
"Right." She sighed. "Sorry."
"Why are you doing this?"
"Doing what?"
"You have a home here," he argued, ignoring her frustrating attempt at feigned ignorance. "A life. You look-" He turned to glance over his shoulder, back to the portrait that had caused him such anguish. "Happy."
He looked back at her, watched as moisture pooled in her eyes.
"I was fine." She choked on the words, emotion sitting thickly in her throat.
He wanted to believe her, to take solace in the fact that she was fine without him. But the woman that stood in front of him now was far from fine.
"What happened?" he questioned.
She laughed a watery chuckle that lacked any actual amusement.
"I ran into an old friend at the grocery store," she informed him. "And, for the first time in years, I felt something other than just... fine."
He remained silent, unsure of what to say. A part of him thought that maybe he should feel guilty for his inability to leave well enough alone. He hadn't known that the tentative touch to her elbow would set the wheels in motion and lead to, well, this. But another part of him, a part he didn't like so much, was relieved that he wasn't alone in his misery. That part of him wanted to revel in the fact that after years of fine with Mr. Perfect, he was able to make her feel something. Something that, evidently, wasn't horrible.
"After my mum died... everything was so dark. For years, I felt nothing. I was alone in the world and Will-" Her voice broke as she spoke his name. She inhaled slowly, exhaled through pursed lips. "Will saved me. I'll never be able to repay him for the life I have today: the life he gave me."
Kate stepped forward, eliminating as much of the space between them as she could. She reached out, hesitantly, for Rick's hand and laced her fingers through his.
"I love him," she asserted, and Rick felt as though an invisible fist had closed around his heart. "But loving someone because you feel you have to... it's not enough."
Her eyes flickered to his lips and she inched closer, her movements so painfully slow. He wanted to lunge forward, to eradicate the mere inches between them and kiss her as though his life depended on it; but he couldn't.
She was married and until she said the words out loud, until she told him that she was leaving this picture-perfect life and her picture-perfect husband, he couldn't bring himself to be the one to cross that line first. But as her lips parted and her eyes fluttered closed, he couldn't help but hope she would.
Her free hand glided up his torso, fisted the material of his shirt at his chest and held him close. Just one more inch, the slightest tilt of her head and he'd have the one thing he had been craving for these past six months. Hell, for the past twenty years.
"We were in love," she whispered, the same truth that they had shared that day in her car. "It wasn't... obligation."
His hands twitched, tired of hanging uncomfortably by his side. He was desperate to touch her, to feel the silk of her skin under his palms. They settled on her hips, the tips of his fingers slipping under the hem of her shirt and, apparently, that was all the confirmation she needed that they were on the same page.
She leant forward, sealed her lips to his; her kiss slow and reverent as Rick's hands mapped the contours of her body.
As the very last of his restraint slipped away, reverence morphed into hunger, greed. A hand ghosted over her spine, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake on it's journey upward. Fingers tangled in her hair and he used his gentle grasp to change the angle and deepen their kiss. The sweep of his tongue across her lip evoked a needy moan from her; and that sound alone was his undoing.
He was hers - to whatever extent she wanted him. She was still holding her cards close to her chest, he was going into this totally blind and he had no doubt in his mind that he wasn't going to walk away from this unwounded. But, in this moment, he couldn't bring himself to care.
Wherever she would lead him, he knew he would follow.
"I think about that all the time," she confessed breathlessly, tracing her thumb along the downturned corner of his mouth. "About you. About how you made me feel so... alive." She brushed her lips to his once more - a fleeting touch, not quite a kiss - and whispered. "I just want to feel alive again, Rick."
No matter the consequences.