[for Kate]

[inabmovie]

[dated after Juliet's disappearance]Lately Will had a lot of things keeping him busy, like office hours and his classes and preparing for those classes--as well as raising a baby sloth by hand--and he didn't have a whole lot of time for baseball. But today, he was out at the batting cage, whacking at baseballs. He went through all the balls,

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[girlsolo]

The whole thing started with Will. With trying to talk to him and not being able to and being pissed off because Will doesn't know about the Sox, Cubs and Jays. With him not knowing about Jimmy and her dad, unless Magnus told him, and him not knowing her. Her not knowing him, either, and everything's even more tense knowing in some other world they're together. It's like there's all this pressure.

She hasn't talked to him, not about pretty much running out on him, not about stealing the baseball, not about any of the stealing and him tipping Beckett and Cooper off, not about Magnus and Juliet, not about Tesla and Declan... she hasn't talked to him at all and she has to. Because getting straight with Will has to happen before she can 'make a go' of exclusivity with Declan. Kate has to stop feeling like she needs to run from Will.

She needs him. And, of course, when she finds him, it's baseball. Her chest aches, but she lifts her chin and calls out a quiet, "Hey," at him and then, "Got some time for your bestie you just turned state's on?" Her tone's pretty light, so she hopes he won't think she's mad.

[inabmovie]

That was the other thing stressing him out. Kate and her sticky fingers... he hadn't known how to handle that, not when things were so weird between them, so he'd tipped off the island police and kind of begged them to go easy on her. He didn't know how she'd react to that, but now he had a hint--at least she wasn't going to try to kick his ass.

Maybe.

"Yeah," he said, nodding to the dozens of baseballs scattered all over the floor of the cage. "Just picking this stuff up." There was a big plastic bin in the corner where he was dumping the balls after he picked them up.

[girlsolo]

Will's not right. Kate sees it as soon as she gets her eyes on him. Will's a profiler. He knows when people are lying because of these things he sees with his freaky eyeballs. Kate just knows Will, she knows his body language, and he's...ADR. Ain't Doing Right.

She presses her lips together and moves in to help him with the baseballs. It sort of feels good, like closure. "I'm not pissed off at you. I'm..." She sighs, but none of this gets better if she doesn't tell the truth. "I guess I'm just glad you noticed. That you figured it out."

[inabmovie]

"That's what I do," he said, bending to gather up some of the baseballs. "Notice things. Especially about friends." He dumps a few in the bin and picks up more. "Did you get in a lot of trouble?" Will hoped not. She hadn't taken anything super valuable and it was more of a prank, a way of acting out her feelings, than anything meant to hurt people.

[girlsolo]

Kate shrugs, head ducking toward her shoulder as she tosses a ball hand to hand. "Not much. Community service. It's not bad and it's something to do." She watches him for another minute and she just...shakes her head and pitches the ball to the bin.

"You pissed off at me about it, or is something else bugging you?"

[inabmovie]

Will shook his head and tossed a ball back and forth from hand to hand. "No," he said. "I'm not pissed at you." He shrugged, a little half-gesture with one shoulder, and tossed the ball some more. "One of my patients--a friend, disappeared. Juliet. We were pretty close. She and Magnus were, too."

He didn't make a habit out of getting that close to patients, but you couldn't go through something like what he and Juliet had gone through last Halloween and not get close. And he'd genuinely liked her.

[girlsolo]

"I heard," Kate answers him softly and the rest of it doesn't really matter anymore. Magnus is hurting, so of course Will is hurting for her, but it's more than that. It's...

Will. The guy whose only home is the Sanctuary. Just like her. The guy who she was watching turn into a lizard-plant-thing last month and be terrified of losing what he had even though he couldn't say that because he was trying to be strong for all of them.

"I'm really sorry, Will." There's not a trace of mockery or hostility in her voice. She really wants...she really wants to hug him, but she's not sure he'll let her.

[inabmovie]

"It's the kind of crap that happens here," he said, and half-shrugged again. "People come, and sometimes people go, but we don't know where or why or what happens to them." And Juliet was dead on arrival, so... where the hell did she go? Or did he even want to know? Probably not. He'd already gotten a pretty good look at how it happened. That was enough.

[girlsolo]

Kate flinches, tensing like he hit her. She knows people come and go. It sucked when Magnus told her. But this hurts more somehow. She was losing Will at home when she got here. They're all screwed up here. And he's hurting, and...

And he could be gone again any second and leave her here without him.

She's not going to cry though. Not right now. Will won't look at her and she thinks that means he's trying not to cry. Trying not to think about losing Magnus, or maybe her and Declan a little.

"Maybe it is," she says really quietly and puts her hand on his arm. "It doesn't mean you have to take it like a champ. If it was me, you'd be saying it's okay to have feelings and cry and all that Electric Company crap. So, I'm not really very good at that, but...it's okay not to be okay with it."

[inabmovie]

Will was really, really glad Kate wasn't pissed at him, because that was exactly what he needed to hear. "Yeah," he said. "And I know that, I guess, it's just... different. When you're not telling someone else it's okay."

[girlsolo]

Oh fuck it. Will needs a hug and there's no one else here to give him one. "Yeah, well," she says, not calling attention to the fact she's sliding her arms around his waist. For either of their sakes. Especially because it feels better than it has any right to. She's really fucking missed him, okay? "Bet you never expected me to be the one saying it to you, huh?"

[inabmovie]

That hug surprised him, but it made him smile a little too, and he hugged her right back. "Nope, I sure didn't," he said, almost teasing her. "Never in a million years."

[girlsolo]

Kate feels like she's turned a corner when instead of getting pissed about it, she just says, "Yeah, well. Makes two of us. Told you I learned to listen, though," and doesn't let go. It's almost like maybe she let go too soon when she got here and that's been the problem all along.

[inabmovie]

"I guess you did." Will was still hugging her, and really didn't want to let go. Maybe it was because she was here, and not gone like Juliet, or maybe it was because he'd wanted to do it from the time she got here and she just wouldn't let him, or... who knew and it didn't matter anyway.

[girlsolo]

Kate's not sure what to say after that. There's a lot of stuff she wants to say, maybe needs to. Things they should talk about, but maybe he's got stuff he needs to say first.

After a few minutes, Kate kind of tugs on him and drags him over to a grassy patch to sit. It's not like her (the her he knows, but she's working on that, right?) but there's sympathy in her eyes when she says, "It sucks. People coming and going like this. It probably doesn't help, everyone coming to you to talk about it, too. I know I'm like, the worst person in the world for this, but if you need to...you know, talk it out or whatever...I care a lot. That has to count for something, right?"

[inabmovie]

"The shrink needs a talk therapist?" he joked, but he knew what she meant. "Yeah, it does count. Maybe I'll take you up on it." No maybe to it, he definitely would, but he was learning that it was hard to just start talking when someone tells you you can talk to them.