"May I come over?"
The words had spilled so desperately from his lips the second Kate had answered his call.
She had sent him a text almost an hour ago - as promised - to let him know that she was leaving the precinct and heading home for the night. It took all of his self control not to call her that very second.
Pacing a hole in his office floorboards, he waited. Give her time to actually get home, he had repeated again and again in his mind. Get home, get settled. She's had a long day.
It was, after all, almost 9pm when he received her message. She'd been flat out for over twelve hours; scouring phone records and financials for discrepancies, chasing up alibis and making sure they were solid. She was bound to be exhausted, would mostly likely have a killer headache and knots in the muscles of her back from being hunched over a desk all day.
Maybe now isn't the right time...
He shook that thought from his mind before it had a chance to settle in. It had been too long since he had seen Kate - their awkward encounter in the morgue notwithstanding - and he missed her. He needed her. He needed to tell her about the letter so that he could be with her without feeling guilty.
"Please?" he added to his request, hoping the unintentional crack of his voice wouldn't send her into a panic.
She already knew something was wrong. She hadn't said as much to him, but given how Lanie greeted him earlier today she must have said something to her friend about his distant few days.
"You're not writing tonight?" she asked.
There was something in her voice that he couldn't quite place. The accusation in her tone wasn't as strong as it had been earlier when she was so obviously calling his bluff. There was still scepticism, sure, but she sounded softer. Almost as if she were calling some sort of truce.
"No. Not tonight." Another wave of guilt rushed over him. He was playing a dangerous game with these part-truths and omissions. It was a game he hated, a game he needed to be over sooner rather than later. "I've missed you."
Finally, a full truth.
An understatement, in fact. Missing her had barely scratched the surface: these past few days had felt like he could quite breath right without her.
"Did you want to stay tonight?" she asked quietly - hesitantly - and his heart soared.
Yes. A million times, yes.
"I would love to."
If she would still have him, that was.
Actions speak louder than words.
She had always believed that. And - as someone who quite often failed to find the right words to express herself - she would be a hypocrite if she didn't pay attention to what Rick was trying to tell her through his actions rather than just his words.
The way that he held her - in a bone-crushing embrace that he had pulled her into when she met him at her front door - and the overstuffed overnight bag he'd carelessly dropped to his feet in order to envelope her in said embrace told her that he was trying to make things right.
And that he had missed her.
Kate's heart thumped furiously against her sternum as she wrapped her arms around him and melted under his touch. She breathed in deeply, inhaling his scent.
God, she had missed him, too.
It had only been a few days and they both knew that her return to work would limit the amount of time they could realistically spend together. Still, she hadn't expected to mourn the loss of his presence. She knew it wasn't him physically being with her that she was missing, though. It was his emotional distance that had made the transition all the more difficult because she hadn't prepared herself for... this.
She had expected that the long and tedious days of being stuck at her desk would be made bearable by strings of text messages that ranged from comedic to flirtatious to downright not safe for work. She'd had visions of having to half-heartedly reprimand him about not distracting her while she was working while he pouted about being bored or uninspired.
Instead, all she got was radio silence.
No texts. No calls. Nothing.
The moment he left her apartment on Monday morning it was like she ceased to exist in his world.
She had been the one to call him that night. It was the first time she had ever initiated their good night phone call, the nightly calls that he had started over month ago. The only time he didn't call - not including his few nights in Vegas - was when they were together, so when she was climbing into bed and she still hadn't heard from him, she decided to call him for a change.
Rick had explained that he'd been busy all day helping Alexis with her Summer Break extracurricular activities and the day had gotten away from him. She wanted to believe him but there was something in the way he spoke, something in the tone of his voice that seemed strained, and she just knew that there was something more going on.
The call had lasted barely five minutes.
The next day was more of the same. She sent a few texts, received a few bare-minimum responses.
She didn't call him that night and he didn't call her; she barely slept a wink and when she woke she had a text from him.
Sorry, was outlining chapters and in the zone. By the time I put the laptop down it was late and I didn't want to wake you.
Again, she wanted to believe him.
It was just a few hours later that she walked into the morgue to find him there, talking to Lanie. For a moment - a short, stupidly naïve moment - she had thought that, logic be damned, maybe he was there to see her.
He's not here for you, the unwanted narrator in her mind teased. He's avoiding you.
The unmasked surprise on Lanie's face only reinforced that notion.
You fool.
That momentary naivety vanished and the joy that had begun to bubble in her chest was replaced with something much heavier. When Rick left, that heaviness sank to the pit of her stomach and had remained there until this very moment. Lanie, after not caving under the pressure of Kate's interrogative glare, had made her promise to hear him out. And, if she were to be totally honest, the knowledge that Lanie - calls her out on her bullshit but is unrelentingly in her corner Lanie - seemed to be backing Rick's play did give her some reassurance that his actions these past few days weren't of nefarious intent. Lanie had only just helped Kate pick up the broken pieces of her heart; her friend wouldn't let her (no, encourage her) to walk into battle unprepared and unguarded.
So, with Lanie on his side, Kate was fairly certain that whatever had occupied his mind these past few days wasn't something that could hurt them. He was battling with something and, for whatever reason, keeping her on the outside. She only hoped that, right now, he was trying to move forward with her, that he was going to try and let her in.
He had taught her that the best way to sort out the chaos of your mind was to let someone in to help. She wanted to be that person for him. She wanted to help bring back the all-in, shamelessly in love with her version of Rick that he had been just days ago.
"Come inside," she said as she reluctantly pulled herself from his arms.
Rick kept his hand on her hip as he bent to pick up his overnight bag. She stepped backwards, led him into her apartment and he dropped the bag again as he kicked the door shut behind them.
"How was work?" he asked, placing another hand on her hip.
His fingers pressed into her, gripping to her as if he was scared she was going to slip away. His nerves radiated, the tension between them so thick it was almost suffocating, and his small talk only seemed to make it worse.
Still, she forced a smile.
"It was fine," she offered politely, as she would with any acquaintance that had asked the same question. Someone who knew her so intimately deserved more, though. "Got pretty busy," she added then sighed at the lame attempt at more.
Rick released his grip of her waist, slipped his hands into hers and led her toward the couch. They sat together, bodies angled toward one another as they remained silent. He laced their fingers, bumped his knee against hers and smiled to try and diffuse some of the tension. However, Kate was unresponsive to his attempts. It was obvious he didn't know how to address whatever was going on and the longer she had to wait, the more anxious she became.
Just spit it out.
"You know I love you, right?" he offered, as if reading her mind.
The words didn't soothe her though; they sparked an entirely new fear within her. A week ago they had made her want to run. Now they made her want to cling for dear life, they made her feel like he was the one slipping away.
"I know," she said softly, afraid her voice may break if she spoke with too much conviction.
She squeezed his hand gently.
"All I want is for you to be happy," he continued.
Her stomach somersaulted aggressively. "I am happy, Rick," she asserted. "You make me happy."
She shifted closer to him, squeezed his hands a little tighter as if her proximity and her touch could bolster her words with a confidence she simply couldn't muster right now. But, god, she would drop to her knees and beg if that's what it took to rid him of whatever doubts had crept into his mind.
Just say the words.
But it was never that easy.
"Rick, please just tell me what's going on," she pleaded.
Rick slipped one of his hands from hers and placed it on her cheek. She instantly covered it with her own and leaned into the heat of his touch.
"I know you're trying to be delicate," she whispered before turning her head slightly to brush a kiss to the palm of his hand. "Please, just tell me. Whatever it is, it can't be worse than the scenarios playing in my mind."
An eternity passed in the silence but, finally, he spoke.
"It's about your mother."
She pulled his hand from her face, let it drop to the couch. Of all the scenarios she had imagined, none of them had prepared her for those words to spill from his lips.
She stared, studying his expression as if it could offer her more information. Her lips parted slightly, ready to fire off the million questions that raced through her mind but the words just wouldn't come out.
What about her mother?
"I, uh. I finally got that letter that I was waiting on," he continued hesitantly. "From Pulgatti."
"The cop killer that, like every other killer in Sing Sing, is declaring his innocence to any sucker willing to listen?"
It was harsh - unnecessarily harsh - but it was like water off a duck's back and Rick continued.
"I know you don't believe his story-"
"You didn't either!" she argued. Her voice was raised; not quite yelling but it was obvious her emotions were getting the better of her so she took a deep breath before continuing. "At least you said you didn't. Please don't tell me he got to you."
"He didn't," Rick said definitively but after a moment of hesitation he added, "Maybe. I haven't one hundred percent decided."
Kate rolled her eyes and rose to her feet. "What does this have to do with my mum, Rick?"
He reached into his jacket and pulled the letter from the pocket. It was more crumpled than it had been the last time he had brought it here to show her. It had been studied, folded and unfolded dozens of times, tucked into it's envelope only to be pulled back out again. The edges were starting to wear, the paper soft and fragile. It looked decades older than it really was, much like Rick felt in this moment.
As he stared at the white envelope in his hands and mustered the courage to tell her what he knew, the words of Dickinson that his mothered had always valued so dearly echoed in his mind. Tell all the truth but tell it slant. There was no way in which he could slant this truth to make it easier, though.
"When I first engaged Pulgatti he told me that the last person who tried to help him ended up-" He cut himself off, unable to say the words.
Dead.
The last person who tried to help Pulgatti ended up dead.
"They were killed."
He forced himself to look at her.
The admission felt like razorblades on his tongue; the unmasked expression on her face as she pieced it all together like a knife to the heart. Her posture stiffened and she clenched her jaw.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
The pain in her voice obliterated his composure and he shook his head rapidly.
"N-nothing. I'm not doing anything."
"My mother was not murdered in some sort of conspiracy, Rick," she warned but it was obvious she was trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to convince him.
She paced away from the couch and ran her hands through her hair, moving it away from her face before she spun on her heel to face Rick again. "Random gang violence," she stated. The final conclusion the detectives had settled on back in '99. She didn't believe it then and she didn't believe it now, but she had accepted it. "I went over her file a hundred times. Don't you think that if there was any evidence to suggest otherwise, I would have found it?"
Rick sighed and placed the letter down on her coffee table.
Her eyes followed it, glared at the paper as if it were the most dangerous thing in the world. Right now, for her, it might have been.
"Not if they didn't want you to find it," he said softly.
Her eyes shot back to him, dark and angry as if he had just told her she wasn't good enough. Not as good as the people covering up her mother's death, anyway.
Rick stood but didn't make a move to get any closer to her, despite how desperately he wanted to reach out and hold her. She needed her space right now, he respected that. He wouldn't cross that line, wouldn't force his presence on her, wouldn't risk her running in the opposite direction.
"In the letter, Pulgatti said that he reached out to every civil rights attorney he could find in hopes that someone would look into his case. Only one person ever replied to him. Johanna Beckett."
He watched her, tried to get a read on how she was processing this information. Her breathing was heavy, eyes glistening with tears that she was stubbornly refusing to let fall. She was mad, very mad. Logically, he knew that anger wasn't anything new. She had been angry at the world since she was nineteen years old, grappling with the unfairness of the world. It was an anger that she battled with almost every day since. She had told him so, when she made the decision to let him in, to trust him. But she had also told him that when the anger resurfaces she would often direct it in all the wrong places. He was certain he wasn't going to get through the night unscathed.
He understood.
He'd take whatever he had coming, if it helped her.
"It doesn't necessarily mean anything," he said, trying to assuage her pain. "But you understand that I couldn't not tell you this, right?"
Kate's head bobbed slowly as her eyes dropped back to the offending letter.
"It's yours, if you want it," he told her.
He could tell her curiosity was close to winning the battle against... whatever it was that was keeping her from reading. Fear, pride, anger. For the first time in his life, he wasn't sure if curiosity was a good thing or not.
Would reading Pulgatti's letter be the beginning of the end? Would she spiral and find herself back in that familiar rabbit hole? The one she had spent so long trying to fight her way out of.
If he could turn back the hands of time, he never would have entertained a hardened criminal's ludicrous story.
"I don't want it," she decided.
Rick breathed for what felt like the first time in days. "I'll get rid of it."
"No," she said, just a little too quickly for his liking. "Just... leave it."
She had every right to read the words Pulgatti had written about her mother, if she chose to do so. He would never deny her that. That didn't mean he had to like it. Still, he left the letter where it sat, where she would have access to it at any time should she change her mind.
"I'm going to shower," Kate announced before storming off toward the bathroom.
The door slammed shut behind her and Rick just stood in the living room, unsure of what came next.
She had been in the shower for too long, she knew that, but she couldn't bring herself to shut off the stream of water.
Water cascaded over her, blanketed her in warmth as it washed away the day's troubles.
Or, at least, that's what she was hoping for.
She wasn't sure what Rick was doing on the other side of these walls. She wasn't even sure if he was still there. She certainly wouldn't have blamed him if he had left.
She wasn't mad at him. When she looked at the evidence, he hadn't done anything wrong. At most, he was guilty of caring too much.
Caring too much about the accuracy of his stories; that was, after all, why he had reached out to Pulgatti in the first place. It's not like he had planned on her mother's name being dragged into this. He was just as surprised by the revelation as she was. He hadn't been poking his nose into Johanna's case, the case that had almost destroyed her. He hadn't been carelessly picking at old wounds just to see how much they would bleed. He had inadvertently stumbled upon information and then proceeded to spend days tearing himself up over whether or not he should tell her.
Because he cared too much about her.
He had just wanted to protect her from this because he had known how much it pained her to not have been able to get justice for her mother, to not be able to give herself and her father some closure. In the end he decided that he needed to be honest with her, no matter what.
How could she begrudge him for that?
And yet, she couldn't shake the anger and the hurt. Because now he was a part of the most painful aspect of her life.
She hung her head back and let the water wash over her hair, closing her eyes as small streams spilled over her face. Her head was pounding in synch with the rapid beat of her heart, her throat constricted by the emotions she was trying to keep at bay, and the shower was doing absolutely nothing to release any of her tension. Her entire body was wound up so tightly she felt like a bomb, mere seconds away from detonation.
There was a tentative knock at the door, followed by the gentle call of her name. It was so soft it barely broke through the barrier of white noise from the running water and the bathroom's exhaust fan, she wasn't quite sure she had actually heard it.
"You can come in," she croaked out anyway.
The slow creak of the door confirmed that she hadn't imagined his voice, and Rick cautiously entered the bathroom. He had stayed. Even she hadn't realised how much that meant until just now.
The shower screen had fogged up from the steam that swirled in the air so she couldn't really see him, just his blurred figure, as he leaned back against the vanity.
"You okay?" he asked.
She nodded, unable to give an actual voice to her answer - her throat was too tight, emotions too close to the surface - before she realised he probably couldn't see the miniscule movement of her head.
"I can leave if you want."
Silence.
Rick sighed. "I'll call you tomorrow, okay?"
The dark figure on the other side of the glass shifted toward the door, filling her with the urgency she needed to squeak out an actual response.
"Don't go."
Her meek request was enough to stop him.
She couldn't stop herself from being upset with him, even though she knew it was irrational. But what she found even more irrational was the fact that she knew, even while upset with him, he was the only one who could make her feel better. The water - it's warmth - it was comforting, sure, and she wasn't quite ready to leave it just yet but she knew that Rick could comfort her in ways she had never experienced before. Without words, he could soothe her. His presence, his touch, it was like a security blanket. She needed that right now.
She needed him.
She pushed on the glass door and it cracked open. The warm air around her leaked from the ajar door, replaced instantly with the cooler air from the other side of the glass and she had to cross her arms over her body to keep the chill from seeping down to her bones as she waited for him. She knew that he had understood her silent request because she could hear movement, the shuffling of clothes as he undressed, and soon enough he was stepping into the shower with her. She turned her back to him and faced the tiled wall. She didn't want him to see her eyes, undoubtedly red-rimmed from the tears she still hadn't let fall.
One large hand fell to her waist, the other smoothed a path up her spine before massaging the back of her neck. She placed her hands on the wall to brace herself as he expertly kneaded the tension from her muscles. It wasn't long before she began to relax under his touch. She leant her forehead against the cool tiles and closed her eyes, allowed him to do the job she had hoped the hot water would do: wash away her troubles.
His hands ghosted down her sides to her hips where his thumbs rubbed firm circles, working the muscles of her lower back. She felt him step closer, felt his body press against hers. His body was so large it seemed to surround her fully. For a moment, nothing but him existed. Anyone else and she would have been fighting to get away but, with Rick, she would happily stay exactly where they were forever. Trapped between him and the wall, she had never felt so secure, so safe.
Safe enough that, against her will, the tears she'd been holding back finally escaped her control. Her shoulders slumped as she began to cry.
He wrapped an arm around her, pulled her back against him and dipped his head so that his lips brushed against the shell of her ear.
"I'm sorry, Kate," he whispered.
A sobbed ripped through her and her entire body shook from the force.
Rick dropped his forehead to the top of her head, held her as she cried and whispered soft reassurances into her hair as the water cascaded over the both of them.
She cried until there were no tears left to shed, until she was so exhausted she was certain his arm wrapped firmly around her torso was the only thing that kept her from crumbling into a pile on the shower floor, cried until the water began to cool.
Once the tears had stopped and her breathing had begun to even out, Rick turned off the water and stepped out of the shower to retrieve their towels. He wrapped his around his waist and then draped hers over her shoulders to keep her warm, then pressed a kiss to her forehead.
"I'll get your pyjamas."
He returned several minutes later after hastily dressing in the mismatched pyjamas he had packed for himself and digging a soft cotton shirt and silk sleep shorts from the dresser for Kate. On his way back he had scooped up one of the dining chairs and carried it in to the bathroom.
Kate stood in almost the exact spot he had left her in. She was mostly dry - except for her dripping hair - and had turned to face the partially de-fogged mirror. He followed her gaze, took in her appearance in the reflection and wondered to himself what exactly she was seeing as she studied her paled skin, red and puffy eyes, and sorrowed expression.
Did the sight break her heart in the same way it broke his?
He placed the chair down behind her and passed her the pyjamas he'd selected for her. As she dressed, he dug through the vanity cupboards and drawers for her hair dryer and a brush. Once he was set up with everything he needed, and she was dressed, he placed his hands on her shoulders and guided her to sit.
"Do you use anything special in your hair?" he asked her.
He was no expert but he had been told enough times over the years how lucky he was that Alexis had low maintenance hair and that if she'd had naturally curly hair like her mother's mother, he would have had a much harder time nailing all those hairstyles he had taught himself when she was younger.
Kate's natural hair was beautiful and curly. The last thing he wanted to do was somehow ruin it when he was simply trying to help her out.
He met her eyes in the mirror's reflection and waited for her answer. She stared vacantly for a moment, as if she hadn't even realised he was talking to her, before snapping into action.
"Uh, yeah, I do."
She leaned forward, pulled a bottle of product from the bottom drawer and tipped a small amount of it into her palm, then used her fingers to comb it into her wet hair.
"You don't have to do that," she said when he reached for the hair dryer.
"I want to."
With her nod of approval, he then proceeded to brush and blow dry her hair. She watched him in the mirror the whole time, a small smile on her face.
By the time he finished, it was close to midnight. Kate was exhausted; her eyes drooped and she could barely keep herself upright, swaying in whatever direction he glided the brush through her hair. He turned off the dryer, placed it on the vanity and then stood behind her to admire his handy work. He placed his hands on her shoulders and she leant back against him.
"Did you mean to straighten my hair?" she asked, sleepy yet amused.
He shook his head. "Nope. Not even really sure how I did it."
Kate chuckled to herself and placed her hands over his. "You did good."
Rick dipped his head and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
"Let's get you to bed."
She didn't protest when he helped her to her feet and began to lead her toward the bedroom, shutting off the lights as they went by. He wrapped his arm around her waist and held her close as they ascended the stairs and when they reached the bedroom he even tucked her into her side of the bed before settling in beside her.
She waited for him to turn off the lamp before cuddling up beside him and, when he wrapped his arm around her body, she rested her head on his chest.
"Thank you," she whispered.
Rick kissed her forehead before whispering back to her, "Go to sleep. I love you."
Everything was so still and silent, he was almost certain she had fallen asleep already but after several seconds he heard her gentle whisper.
"I love you, too."