A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed and/or sent me messages on FF/AO3 and Tumblr about my last chapter! Honestly, I sat on part 2 for so long because I was so anxious about the direction I took them (yes, I know I constantly preach the "write for yourself and don't worry about what anyone else thinks" thing but honestly so many people were so wonderfully encouraging after the first part, the last thing I wanted to do was let you all down!) but I am so glad I finally plucked up the courage to post! You guys are amazing.
I know I said that this would be the third and final part but seeing as I am up to 10k words and still filling in some of the details of the end, I figured I would split it in half so that you can at least get some of the answers you've been waiting for while I finish up the last of this story! I just need to tidy up the ending a little so hopefully you'll have the next (and FINAL final, like actual final) part within the next few days. Thank you so much for your patience!
Because it has been so long (sorry!) I do recommend having a quick glance over the first two parts of this story (chapters 81 and 82) just for a refresher.
(Continued...)
Same Old Lang Syne, Pt. III.
Regret would be the death of him, he was sure of it. It would overwhelm him, drag him into depths of a darkness he had only thought he had known and leave him there - scared and alone - until he faded away to nothing.
He wished that he could claim innocence in all this but he was never that naïve. He had known the second she uttered the words run away with me that he was doomed. Hell, even his mother could see it coming.
You, my boy, are not a friend. You are a mistake in the making.
But, good god, he had at least thought they'd make it out of the city before condemning them both to a lifetime of guilt.
It had escalated so quickly: a touch to a kiss; a kiss to so much more, too much more. He wasn't this man, wouldn't ever dream of taking what had been promised to another, but in his heart she was his. Only his. When he pushed her back against the book shelves and she wrapped her legs around his hips, guiding him home, what he knew to be wrong just felt so damn right.
He didn't know Will Fischer. He didn't owe the man a damn thing. Still, the guilt sat as heavy as a concrete slab on his chest as he stared at the shadows the moonlight had cast on his bedroom ceiling. He could feel the ghosts of her hands on his body, the memory of the metal band around her finger - a symbol of her husband's eternal love - burning into his skin as he fell deeper into this purgatory of his own making.
Afterward, she had shut down completely - pulled herself from his arms, fixed up her clothing and returned to packing donations as if nothing had happened - and there was nothing he could do about it. He helped her, of course. Followed her from room to room as she collected the items to be donated and - exactly 25 minutes and zero conversations later - carried the heavy boxes of books, clothing and non-perishable foods to the porch, ready for collection.
The drive was just as bad; long stretches of silence broken by desperate, awkward attempts at making small talk. She had answered any questions he asked - about work, about her father - but she had purposefully given him the absolute bare minimum, offered nothing for him to extend from, asked no questions in return. After the longest two hours of his life, they arrived. She had politely accepted a tour of his property, had even seemed impressed by the beauty of his home at certain points, but had excused herself shortly after and he hadn't seen her in the hours since.
He tried not to overthink it. She was so obviously going through something, something big. He hadn't expected her to be glued to his side, but he also hadn't expected to be left alone with his thoughts for so long. The longer he stayed awake, staring at his ceiling and going over every worst case scenario, the harder it was to deny that maybe, just maybe she was using him. Maybe, just maybe he was a means to an end, nothing more.
Through the quiet of the night he heard the patio door slowly slide open. Two seconds of silence, followed by the slow slide and click of the lock latching, told him that she had returned.
He rolled to his side and closed his eyes. Now that she was home and he knew she was safe, he could finally try to get some sleep. But he knew that the anxieties keeping him up had nothing to do with her physical wellbeing, that the anger he felt toward her was nothing more than his heart's attempt to protect itself. After several long minutes of tossing and turning, he pulled himself from his bed and made his way downstairs. He had to see her, see that she was okay. He needed her to tell him he hadn't done anything wrong, that she hadn't changed her mind and that she wasn't leaving him, not yet.
He walked into the kitchen and found her sitting at the bench, her head hung low and eyes squeezed shut as her fingers massaged her temples. She looked as exhausted as he felt and he was filled with the overwhelming urge to take her to bed, lay with her and comb his fingers through her hair until she fell asleep in his arms. He never was able to stay mad at her for long...
"There's leftovers in the fridge," he announced, startling her eyes open. "If you're hungry," he added when she looked over to him.
For all he knew, she could have eaten already. Hell, in the time she had been gone she could have driven back to the city to have dinner with her husband. He knew that wasn't likely though, considering that in the time she had been gone the gold band from her left hand had miraculously disappeared. He tried not to read too much into that - after all, there was a very good chance she just found it easier to use him without the visual reminder of her husband.
"Uh, yeah." She hesitantly rose from the stool she was sitting on and started to walk toward the fridge. "Thank you."
"The red container," he informed her once she'd opened the fridge doors. Not that she would have needed that clarification; apart from a carton of milk, a few eggs and a rather pathetic selection of fruit the one container on the shelf was the only thing that even resembled a meal.
She pulled the container from the shelf and opened the lid just enough to inspect the contents inside of the container. She smiled at the long ribbons of fettuccine topped with thick, white sauce.
"Carbonara?"
It had been his speciality many years ago: one of the few things he actually knew how to cook. It was his favourite and he insisted that he could live on the stuff, so he had no interest in learning how to cook much else.
"It's important to me that you know my culinary knowledge has expanded quit a bit since my teenage years," he said in mock defence. "I just felt like an old comfort tonight."
Kate smiled and nodded. An old comfort sounded like exactly what she needed, too. "This is good," she said as she placed the container into the microwave to heat up. "Thank you."
"Look, I-uh." Rick stumbled over his words, unsure how exactly to proceed. He didn't know what he wanted to say, but he knew they had to talk eventually and he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep until they did.
Kate looked at him and waited, curiosity flickering in her eyes.
"I know it's a bit late to be having this conversation but I just wanted to reassure you that, uh, I-I'm clean."
"Oh." She frowned, as though confused by his admission, and slowly moved from behind the counter to stand in front of him. "I mean, I figured you would have said something if you weren't."
"That's a lot of trust to place in a guy you haven't seen in twenty years," he muttered.
Kate looked hurt as she crossed her arms protectively over her stomach. "Are you saying I shouldn't trust you?"
Rick shook his head slowly. "I'm just saying it's been a long time; I wouldn't blame you if you didn't."
He watched as she considered his words.
"I do trust you," she said decidedly. "Do you trust me?" she added hesitantly.
He wanted to, he knew that much to be true. Once upon a time he had trusted her wholeheartedly: the thought of her ever betraying him, ever leading him astray would never have even crossed his mind back then. Maybe it was because he was young and naïve. Maybe it was because he had known that version of her better than he knew himself. But after today, he was convinced that the Kate he had once known was long gone.
The Kate he knew wasn't an adulterer - and she sure as hell wouldn't have led him down that path either. The Kate he knew would never, no matter how bad her own situation was, toy with his feelings in order to make herself 'feel better'.
But as he stayed quiet, watching her watch him, he remained stupidly hopeful that the Kate he knew was still in there somewhere, that she would make herself known before he wound up getting too hurt.
"I do," he finally answered.
It might not have been that blind, unwavering trust that was once there - but it was something.
She smiled, stepped forward to close the already small amount of distance between them and gently touched her fingertips to his cheek as if he was some delicate work of art. His hands fell to her hips, pulled her even closer as her touch cleared his mind of all the insecurities. He tried to remember the guilt that had felt so suffocating just moments ago, tried to remember just how wrong this all was, but when her lips met his - so soft and intoxicating - he couldn't bring himself to care. The darkness he had been so sure would swallow him whole was all but erased as her hands carded through his hair. The hurt that he thought would keep him from repeating the same mistakes was nothing but a distant memory as he learned the curves of her waist, memorised the feel of her skin under the firm press of his palms.
The microwave beeped, anchored him to reality just long enough for his better judgement to kick in.
He wrapped his hands around her shoulders and gently pushed, forcing them apart.
"Kate-" he panted, hoping some sort of explanation would come to him. It didn't.
There were a million reasons they shouldn't be doing this, but none of them held up against the persistent voice in the back of his mind that insisted she was his Kate.
"I'm clean," she told him, pressing her hands flat against his chest. "I got tested just a few weeks ago and I haven't been-"
"No, it's not that," he interrupted.
"If you're worried about birth control; I'm on the pill," she assured him. "If you still want to use condoms-"
"Not that either." He shook his head. "Look, you don't owe me an explanation - you don't owe me anything, I guess - but don't pretend that you haven't just spent the past six hours shutting me out. I'm not some toy that you can just toss aside and come back to when the mood strikes you."
She let her hands drop to her side and, as she slowly stepped backward and lowered herself onto the counter stool, he found himself having to fight the urge to backpedal. But something was so obviously wrong: she was spiralling, keeping her secrets locked up tight and he was making it all to easy for her to run from her problems rather than face them. He really was a fool if he thought that could ever possibly help her, if he thought they could ever possibly build a relationship even remotely close to what they once had when she refused to open up to him.
When she remained silent, Rick just shook his head and turned to walk away.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly. Rick stopped, waited. " I do owe you an explanation. That's the very least of what I owe you, Rick. I'm sorry."
He turned back to face her. If she was willing to offer up some sort of explanation then he would, of course, stay to hear her out. But he wasn't going to push, wasn't going to pry it out of her.
"I, um, I went down to the beach," she said. "I just needed to think."
He didn't say anything. He needed more than that.
When she looked down and focussed intently on the countertop, he knew he wouldn't like whatever she was about to tell him.
"I called Will," she added reluctantly.
He felt like he had been hit in the chest, all the air knocked from his lungs.
"I told him where I was." She shrugged. "I didn't want him to worry, I guess."
"Does he know-" Rick stopped, wondered if he could handle the possible answers to his questions. "Does he know you're not here alone?" he asked; a last ditch hope that maybe there was some kind of arrangement in place that he didn't know about, something to absolve him (and her) of their guilt.
"I mean, I spared him the details." She looked up from the counter and into his eyes. "What he doesn't know can't hurt him, right?"
Rick sighed, shook his head disapprovingly. "Kate," he groaned.
"It's none of his business if I'm alone and I doubt he even cares," she defended.
"Really? You called him because you didn't want him to worry but then you doubt he even cares?"
Kate rolled her eyes. "Obviously he cares about my wellbeing. He's a good man and if I just didn't come home, didn't leave a note or anything then yes, he would be concerned. But as for who I choose to spend my time with, that's not his problem anymore: I mean, he signed the papers. Didn't even question it."
"The papers?" Rick questioned. What papers? But the look on her face - one of disappointment and regret - told him everything he needed to know. "You're getting divorced?"
He smiled. He couldn't help it. The relief that flooded through him made him feel as light as a feather as it washed the heavy weight of guilt from his chest.
"I'm sorry," he said in regard to his untimely smile. "It's obviously horrible that you're going through this."
Kate shook her head. "You don't need to be sorry, Rick."
"I thought the worst of you," he confessed. "I should have- I should have known better."
"I should have just told you," she countered.
And, yeah, she should have.
"Why didn't you?" he asked after a few moments of hesitation.
She took a slow, steadying breath as she tried to keep her emotions at bay.
"We were together almost twelve years," she told him. "And I really did... love him. But we've both known for a long time now that we weren't in love."
She wiped her cheeks free of the few tears that had slipped from her eyes and rubbed her palms up and down her thighs; something she had done since she was a child to calm herself down.
Rick stepped forward. He wanted to tell her to stop, that she didn't have to talk about any of this if it was too difficult for her, but an even bigger part of him wanted to know everything. He knew if he stopped her now, she might never open up to him again.
"Being with you today... it just- it made it all-"
"Real," he finished for her.
"I hadn't even taken my ring off yet. I, uh-" She wiped more tears, inhaled a shaky breath that did nothing to restrain her sorrow. "Shit," she whispered, frustrated, as she buried her face in her hands and began to cry.
Rick closed the distance between them, wrapped his arms around her.
"I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry."
He gently cradled the back of her head as he held her tighter. "It's okay," he whispered.
"I just- I feel like I've failed," she admitted once her tears stopped and her breathing began to even out again. "It's stupid."
"It's not stupid." He placed his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back just far enough that she could look at him. Then he shook his head, firmly reinforcing his statement. "Not stupid at all."
He had been here before - twice - and he knew all too well how conflicting this period of time could be. He understood the feeling of failure and his marriages were only short in comparison, so he could only imagine how daunting this all would be for her: he couldn't blame her for being confused and overwhelmed.
"I just needed time to process everything. I didn't mean to leave you alone for so long." She brought her hand to his face, cupped his cheek. "After everything you've done, everything you're doing for me, I didn't mean to shut you out."
Rick leaned forward and pressed a quick, chaste kiss to her mouth.
"You should eat before your food gets too cold again. I've taken your bag upstairs. I didn't want to be presumptuous so I've put it in the guest room and made up the bed." He tucked her hair behind her ear. "You don't have to stay in the guest room if you don't want to. I'll leave that up to you."
He pressed his lips to her forehead, allowed them a short moment to linger against her skin before he forced himself to pull away.
The walk back to his bed felt twice as long. He wanted her to come with him, didn't like the chance that he might still wake up alone in the morning. But now that he wasn't consumed with guilt, waiting to address whatever this is didn't seem quite as bad.
The sheer exhaustion of a mentally tolling day had knocked him out cold the second his head hit the pillow, but the relief still coursing through him from Kate's admission that her marriage was over - actually over - had allowed him to sleep better than he had in months. And when the morning sun beaming through his blinds and warming his face had pulled him from his slumber, the warmth of her body against his - her arm draped over his waist and her forehead resting gently between his shoulder blades - was reassurance enough that maybe this naïve hope he had held onto wasn't such a bad thing after all.
Maybe they had been destined to find there way back to one another all along.
He gently slipped her arm off his waist and slid out of bed, tiptoed out of the room and made his way to the kitchen. He remembered - only once he was staring into the emptiness that was his fridge - that there weren't many options for breakfast. He spied eggs, half a dozen cherry tomatoes, a packet of baby spinach and an onion.
"Perfect," he muttered to himself before gathering the ingredients and carrying them to the bench.
It wouldn't be some gourmet meal or anything but you couldn't go wrong with an omelette, right?
He began to gather everything he needed - making a quick detour by the coffee machine to start the slow-drip - to prepare their food. Knifes, cutting board, mixing bowl, pan.
He was almost done by the time he heard her coming down the stairs. He looked up from the perfectly folded omelette that was frying away in the pan, saw Kate plodding toward him, rubbing her eyes sleepily.
"Aren't you a sight for sore eyes," he practically sung across the kitchen.
She dropped her hand from her face and smiled the biggest, brightest smile he had seen in a long time and he felt his heart melt into a puddle.
He could get used to this.
"You didn't wake me," she stated; half grumbling, half grateful.
He tilted the pan, showed off his masterpiece. "Was just about to."
"I could have helped." Kate sat on one of the stools at the island counter. "Smells good."
"I hope you like omelettes," Rick said as he slipped the omelette from the pan onto a plate. He placed it on the bench in front of her before heading back to the stovetop to make one for himself. "Eat up while it's still hot."
Kate shook her head. "I'll wait for you. What can I do?"
He poured the remainder of the eggs into the pan and dumped the bowl into the sink.
"Pour the coffee?" he suggested, tilting his head toward the coffee machine.
She smiled to herself - grateful that he had actually given her something to do instead of insisting he had it handled - and slipped off of the stool. She grabbed two mugs from the cabinet on her way to the coffee machine and filled them with the dark, steaming liquid.
"We can eat out here," Rick said, using his shoulder to notion toward the patio door. His hands were full: one loaded breakfast plate in each. "The terrace has the best view this time of morning."
She grabbed the full mugs and followed him outside. She placed the coffees on a small table between two loungers and then settled down on one of the cushioned chairs before accepting one of the plates from Rick. They ate in silence just basking in the warmth of the morning sun and one another's presence.
After breakfast, Rick made an effort to revisit some of his welcome to my Hamptons home tour points. Kate had, after all, been fairly distracted the first time around and he knew that (now that her focus wasn't split) she would absolutely love the modest library that doubled as his home office.
Just as he expected, her eyes lit up the second they entered the room. They stayed wide, awe-struck as they roamed the walls lined by thousands of books.
Rick leant back against one of the shelves and smiled as he watched her slowly step further into the room, trying to take in as much detail as possible, until her attention was stolen by the set-up at the opposite end of the room.
"So-" Kate stepped closer to the solid wood desk (that housed his computer) and traced her fingertips along the intricate patterns that had been carved into the mahogany sides. "This is where the magic happens?" she asked when she looked up at Rick.
He huffed out a laugh.
"This is where procrastination happens, mostly."
Kate smiled. If she remembered correctly, some of Rick's best work was done in a rush after procrastinating just that little bit too long.
"That doesn't sound like you," she muttered sarcastically.
Her eyes drifted back to the bookshelves, her feet following of their own accord. The spines with his name stood out among the hundred of others on this wall alone, and she traced her finger along each colourful spine until the she found the title she held dearest to her heart: his first ever novel. With a smile, she pulled it from the shelf.
"Mum bought, like, a dozen copies of this," she said. "She donated the extras to some of the smaller libraries around the city, a few charity shops." She opened the book, balanced it on her open palm as she delicately traced the words on the page with her fingertips. "She always believed in you," she added mournfully.
It always snuck up on her; that darkness that would hollow her out, leave her empty and numb whenever she was reminded of all the things her mother would miss out on.
The day she graduated from the academy; when she became the youngest woman in the NYPD to make detective; her wedding day.
She always knew those moments would be tainted, though - bittersweet, as her father had called them - but what she hadn't expected was for that feeling to sink in every time she finished one of Rick's novels. When In A Hail Of Bullets was published they had both read it within a day and spent hours on the phone that evening, discussing it like some unofficial book club. At the time she hadn't realised how much she had needed that, how much she needed someone who understood the sense of pride she felt with each positive review Rick received.
"She was so proud of you, Rick. I'm sorry that she never got to tell you that."
She was sorry about so many things...
She closed the book and metaphorically shook off the melancholy that had washed over her, tucking it back in it's place on the shelf. "She always insisted that the neighbour was based off of her," she said with a slightly forced chuckle.
"Well, she kind of was, I guess." Rick took a few small steps closer to Kate. "I wanted the character to be loveable, caring, someone you just know is good to their very core. No one fits that description more than your mum."
Kate looked away from the shelves and into Rick's eyes; as bright and as blue as the sky on a sunny day.
"Except... maybe you," she thought aloud, too distracted by the slowly-diminishing distance between them to have been able to stop the thought from tumbling from her lips.
Her eyes dropped to Rick's mouth, watched his lips as they curved into a tight grin.
"Might be considered a little conceited to have written such a character and based it on myself," he replied with a shrug. Her eyes flicked upward and she looked at him through thick lashes. "But I'm glad that you seem to think so highly of me."
Kate smiled. "I do." She cleared her throat and turned her attention back to the bookshelf beside her. "Did, uh- did I ever make it into any of your books?" she asked.
She rolled her eyes: talk about conceited...
"No," Rick answered truthfully. Bluntly. "Writing you was always too-"
Kate looked back at him when he fell silent. His expression was almost apologetic.
"Painful," he continued.
She wouldn't lie: it hurt. But she understood. She nodded.
"But I always wrote for you," he confessed. "Every word of these books was like a secret message to you. I managed to convince myself you were out there somewhere reading them."
"I was," she blurted, desperate for him to know how eagerly she had absorbed his every word.
A sudden pang of guilt hit her in the chest. She felt as if she had just confessed to something awful.
Something like having loved him for all those years.
Something like knowing her husband was never the one for her, simply a stand-in for the one that got away.
She hated that; hated that such a big part of her life now felt like some big lie, like she had just been playing pretend for all this time and now she didn't know how much of her life - if any of it at all - was what she had even ever really wanted.
It was dizzying: too much all at once. She took a step backward, creating the space between them that she so suddenly needed.
He could take a hint, respected her silent request for more space and fought the urge to follow her, to stay close.
"I, uh- I have to work while we are here," he informed her. "I hope you don't mind. I have a chapter due and I've been stuck for weeks now. I'll have to try and commit a few hours each day to writing but, for the rest of our time here, I'm all yours."
"Y-yeah. Of course," she said, distracted. "I'll just, uh-" She looked over her shoulder, looking for something to spark an idea. Words, she just needed words: any words.
"The pool is heated," Rick said. An offer, of sorts: a reason for her to leave the room, get away from him like she so obviously needed to. "There's a path on the other side of the pool house that leads down to the beach, too. If you didn't feel like walking all the way around."
Kate nodded. "Thank you."
"Or-" Rick hesitated, didn't want to push her. But he also didn't want her to feel like she had to make herself scarce while he worked. "There's plenty of books here to keep you entertained. The lounge-" He tilted his head toward the cushiony daybed in the corner of the room. "is ridiculously comfortable. And, well, quietly reading in the corner really won't be much of a distraction. Just - you know - if you still wanted some company. I'm happy either way."
She looked over to the daybed - it did look awfully comfortable - and weighed up her options.
"No need to decide right now," Rick assured her with a smile. "Roam a little, explore what the Hamptons has to offer. You can come and go as you please: I'm not your keeper. I just didn't want you to think I was trying to banish you."
She smiled softly, appreciated the fact that he always knew when she needed him to take a step back and keep things... light. It was a skill he had learned so quickly all those years ago: she supposed that maybe it was one of those skills you never really lose... like riding a bike. She looked back to the shelf and - as if a sign from the universe itself - she spotted a book that had been on her to read list for too long now.
"I've actually been meaning to read this one," she said as she pulled the book from the shelf.
She looked back at Rick, saw the excitement and relief that he was trying (and failing) to hide.
"As long as you're sure you don't mind the company."
Rick smiled and shook his head. "Not at all."
Kate settled in on the daybed while Rick got set up at his desk. Before long, the near-constant click, clack, click of his typing filled the air - but it didn't take long for the sound to fade away as Kate got pulled into the story in her hands.