news [for Kate]

[inabmovie]

[dated November 16]

Will had asked Magnus to marry him and she'd said yes. It was the next day and Magnus hadn't changed her mind and Will hadn't changed his mind (not that he thought he would change his mind, obviously, but he wasn't chickening out) so he was pretty sure this was a sure thing

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[girlsolo]

Most afternoons, Kate's not at the hut but she's been feeling a little...something since she saw the kid jumping off the swings the other day. Someone else had caught him so she just kept walking. But something about the costume and the size had tweaked her. It might've been Thad or it might've been the son she and Will had in that other world, Magnus, but she's been staying a little closer to "home" the last few days. Sewing. Reading. Running.

After training with Steve today, she'd headed back and now she's sitting on the back porch with a pile of shells, some wire, some fabric and her sewing crap. She's not sure what she's making yet. Just something.

[girlsolo]

Her eyebrows shoot up at that and she smiles at him, wide and genuine. "Good for you. But promise me I can still punch him if he's a dick about this?" She'll do a lot more than punch him if he tries to interfere. A lot more.

[inabmovie]

"Absolutely," he said, grinning back at her. Now that he'd actually told someone (someone important, like Kate, no less) it felt a lot more real, a lot easier to believe that Magnus had actually said yes.

"I didn't really plan this," he admitted. "It just sort of... happened."

[girlsolo]

Things just sort of happening didn't bug Kate that much. She's lucked into or out of most of the good shit in her life. Like Will and Magnus and Declan. But Will's different. For him, that's kind of against code. He likes to be sure usually and she gets that. She's a lot more cautious now. There's more to lose.

Kate frowns at a sudden thought. "She's not pregnant or anything? This is something you really want, right?" Not like with her in that other world. It probably was a mistake and then he did the right thing.

[inabmovie]

"What? No," he said. "She's not pregnant." Will was pretty cautious about things because although he and Magnus hadn't talked about it in any depth, he was pretty sure he wasn't ready to be a father yet. "And I mean, it's not like I haven't htought about this, I just didn't expect it to be right now. But it felt right."

He wondered if Kate knew yet about the way that the island would just drop things in your lap with no warning. "There's a thing that happens here, where stuff you had back home or things you thought you wouldn't see again just show up out of the blue. You heard people talk about that yet?"

[girlsolo]

So, not like her in that other world. That's good. Will should get to marry for love. Maybe she doesn't buy all that crap but he does and he wants it so she wants it for him. If it feels weird to her, at least it's a good weird. At least he's happy.

She lifts her chin at him and nods. "Yeah. Heard about it." And about the reels. "Island's played a few little tricks on me, too. Nothing to write home about though and nothing to get married over."

Her grin's there, but small and her hands are restless on her thighs. She's been keeping one big secret from him and Magnus awhile now, her and Declan. Since before she found the script for the mission with Jimmy. But now she says it, 'nothing to get married over', she has to wonder if maybe that's what made her promise Declan in the end. Them knowing and sharing that. Whatever. She jerks her chin at Will.

"Why, you get someone's wedding ring or something?"

[inabmovie]

"No," he said. He noticed the way her smile's not what it was a little while ago and her hands are doing this restless thing, but he wasn't sure what to make of it so he didn't say anything about it. For now. (Sometimes he wished he wasn't the kind of guy to notice all the little details.) "I just found these papers, things about my dad. He didn't really do too well after my mom died and he did a lot of stupid things. Gambling, fraud, ripped a lot of people off. He went to federal prison for a while--might still be there, I don't know. We don't really talk anymore.

"So anyway, I found these papers, some of the evidence the FBI had on him from back then, and it got me to thinking about him a lot. And you know, I don't even remember him being around much before my mom died. He was there, but not really. Anything I remember from back then is just her, not the two of them together, so maybe he wasn't there for my mom anymore than he was for me, you know? And I don't want to be that kind of guy. I don't to be the kind of guy that just

[girlsolo]

Will's dad was a con. Like her. Kate's hands go still in her lap and she can't look at him. Everything goes still except her thoughts trying to make sense of all of it and she just can't. It's too much. She's not Will to put everyone else first. She's not Will to put anyone else first.

Except Will, right here and now. Right here and now this has nothing to do with her. No matter how fucked up it all feels. She doesn't know dick but she knows one thing: "You're not that guy, Will. You could never be that guy."

[inabmovie]

Will watched her for a moment, taking in the way she went from restless to still and wouldn't look at him. It was weird in a way that didn't quite sit right with him, but it wasn't like he could call her out on it, because what could he say? Why are you clamming up on me? seemed pretty crappy, and he couldn't come up with anything better.

Eventually, he chalked it up to all the time he'd lost, not knowing her as well as she knew him, though he wasn't sold on it and knew he'd be coming back to it later. "Maybe not," he said carefully. "But my dad couldn't have always been this way. Maybe he started out just like... you know. A regular guy. And then let things slide."

[girlsolo]

Kate can feel him looking at her. She always can. Just like she always knows when he's not buying what she's selling. Now's one of those times when he's seeing right through her. She breathes a little sigh of relief when he lets it go. It's just for now. It's always just for now with Will, but she'll take what she can get.

"Will." She puts her hand on his arm. "You're not your dad." I'm not my dad. "You don't know the definition of 'let things slide'." Even though it's hard for her, she looks him in the eyes. "I know. You're not that guy." Kate trusts him. She had a kid with him in another timeline. He can't be that guy.

[inabmovie]

The thing was, Will didn't really think he was that guy. He kept things on the straight and narrow and could sometimes have a stick up his ass about things. But there were times when Will slipped, and he wasn't proud of those, and not just because it made him kind of a hypocrite.

"My dad was arrested when I was finishing up at Quantico," he said, after a minute. "I looked over all this evidence, everything they had against him. And you know what? There was a mistake. It wasn't a big one and it didn't really matter, just a clerical thing. But I told my dad--" He snorted, a sound that wasn't exactly a laugh, but more of a self-deprecating sound. "I told him I'd go in and make it look like something more. A bigger mistake. Something to get his case thrown out. And he wouldn't let me do it. We argued and argued over it and he wouldn't budge and I just stormed out." And that was the last time Will had ever talked to him.

[girlsolo]

"I'm glad he didn't let you," Kate says quietly, immediately, almost before he gets the words out. "Really glad." It's important. She needs him to know how important it is. Important enough that she's voluntarily about to talk about herself. "It only takes one mistake, Will. It only takes one lie, one bad decision and then you have to start covering for yourself. Even if you have the strength to never do it again, the guilt eats at you, the regret eats at you, and you're already a bad seed, so what does it matter?"

She glances over at him and shrugs, tight, head ducked low. "You're stronger than me. Better than me. But once you start down the road, it's a long way back."

[inabmovie]

Will didn't like the way she looked so tight and closed in on herself. He wouldn't have liked it anyway, but on top of the weird vibe he got from her earlier... it was just pinging him in all the wrong ways. So he slid his arm around her shoulders again and said, "I hope when you say this 'you're stronger than me, better than me' stuff, you don't actually mean that you're not."

[girlsolo]

"Quit it. Stop with the head-shrinking." Kate hates when he pulls that crap on her. Even if sometimes she might need it. Without shaking his arm off, she gives a little warning snarl. "I'm not saying anything except I'm glad your dad didn't let you compromise yourself for him. He might've been a fuck-up the rest of the time, but he didn't drag you into it."

[inabmovie]

Will almost pulled away, but since she hadn't actually bitten him yet, just snarled, he didn't actually do it. "Okay," he said. "And I'm glad too, really, I just wish that wasn't the last time I saw him."

[girlsolo]

Kate almost reaches for his hand, almost threads their fingers together. She wonders if this is how it happened in that other world. Magnus gone and the two of them telling secrets, an unbreakable team.

"Sucks, I know. Last time I saw my mom I was telling her off for wanting to take me and Thad to Mumbai. She might even have been there when..." Sigh. She'd almost forgotten how much of their history Will doesn't share. She shakes her head. "We took down Forsythe." It's the most neutral version she can come up with.