Legacy of Steele
by Lori Lanham
Remington Steele characters
and storylines used without permission...
for entertainment purposes only
Permission to archive
(A/N- Flashbacks indicated by *****)
*Malibu CA, May 2008*
Remington Steele stood cooking breakfast
and watching his wife talk on
the telephone. She was pacing in front of the floor to ceiling
picture
window that separated their kitchen from the Malibu shoreline.
"Okay Honey," Laura said
into the phone. "We'll see you in a few days…
I love you, too." She smiled as she set the cordless phone
back into
its cradle on the marble countertop.
"Kate?" her husband asked.
Laura nodded. "She just wanted
to make sure we're going to be there on
time," she answered, pouring them each a cup of coffee. "And
she's Kat
now, remember?"
"Kat," he said, shaking
his head. "Funny, I though we named her
Katharine."
"We did. With an `a' like Hepburn,"
Laura replied, smiling. "It's just
a phase she's going through, don't worry. Can you believe she's
graduating?" Laura was beaming with pride.
"No," was his succinct reply.
He turned off the stove and cut an
omelet in half, dividing it onto two plates.
"And coming to work with us at the agency?" Laura continued.
"Laura," Remington practically
scolded, "We've talked about this.
She's too young. She's barely nineteen."
"Sweetheart," she soothed.
"She's been with us the past two summers,
and she's and excellent criminologist. Besides, you didn't have
a
problem when Danny joined the agency. He was only eighteen, just
started at USC."
"But that was different, Laura,"
he said as he carried the plates over
to the table.
"Why --- because she's a girl?"
"No," he answered. "Because she's our daughter. Our only child."
"And she's brilliant. Rem, be reasonable."
"I was reasonable when she graduated
high school early. I was
reasonable when you sent her off to Stanford at sixteen…"
Tears brimmed Laura's eyes as she
listened to her husband. He had
become such a great father.
"…But Laura, its bad enough
that I've had to watch you put your life
on the line for these last twenty five years. I'm not ready to
put my
little girl in that position." He turned to stare out at
the Pacific.
The view that he loved was one of the main reasons he and Laura
bought
the house. He remembered the day he first brought her to see it.
It
was in early summer 1988, they had just celebrated their second
anniversary and the INS was no longer an issue.
*****Remington beamed as he held a
blindfolded Laura's hand and led
her into the empty room. He casually glanced over to be sure she
wasn't peeking.
"Okay, open your eyes,"
he said. He kissed her as he removed the
blindfold. Then biting his lower lip, he watched her take in their
surroundings.
Laura opened her eyes to the most
breathtaking view. They were in a
house, specifically a great room with beautiful wood floors and
a
gorgeous stone fireplace. The room was lovely, but she couldn't
take
her eyes off the wall of windows. The entire back of the house
was
open to the Pacific Ocean through floor to ceiling picture windows.
She wandered over to the gourmet kitchen, and ran her hand along
the
marble countertop. She looked up at her husband, who was still
smiling
from ear to ear.
"What is this place?" she asked.
"Our new home," he answered. "If you say "yes," that is."
"Oh," she said with a gleam
in her eye. "You mean I actually get a say
in the matter this time?"
Laura had long since forgiven his
deception of letting her believe
their marriage was fake, when all along it had been completely
legal.
However, there were times when she still liked to tease him about
it.
Even though she loved him, and she
knew that he loved her, a part of
her had been afraid that it would all be over now that they had
fulfilled the commitment required by the INS. So afraid in fact,
that
she had been putting off telling him their news. She knew she
had to
tell him soon, otherwise her body would betray her and he would
see
for himself. The fact that he wanted to buy a house pushed her
fears
to the back of her mind. The house seemed to be perfect, and a
lovely
place to raise their child.
"It has definite possibilities,
Mr. Steele," she said, walking back to
where he stood. "I think we should see the rest of the place."
He took her hand and led her through
the house. It was two stories; or
rather, three as there were two large rooms on the beach level.
It had
four bedrooms, four bathrooms, huge closets, and the price was
right.
She had to admit, it was perfect…as was the timing. They
wandered back
to the kitchen and stood together at the window, looking out over
the
ocean.
"I think we should take it, Rem,"
she said, wrapping her arms around
his waist. She kissed him with all the love she felt for him,
and
practically held her breath before saying her next words. "I
think
it's the perfect place to raise our family." She stepped
back, taking
his hand in hers and placing it flat against her abdomen.
Remington's blue eyes grew wide as
he looked into Laura's shimmering
cinnamon ones. He felt tears well up, and swallowed the lump in
his
throat. His voice barely more than a whisper, he asked, "Are
you… are
we…"
Tears fell from Laura's eyes as she
looked into the face of the man
she loved so much. "Yes, Love," she said. "We're
having a baby."
"When?" he asked. "How?"
When she laughed, he responded, "Okay, I know HOW. When? How far along?"
"A couple of months," she
answered. "You're going to be a Daddy in
January."
He wanted to pinch himself. He was
standing a beautiful home, holding
the woman he loved more than life itself, and she was having his
baby.*****
Laura walked over to him, and wrapping her arms around his waist,
she
laid her cheek against his back. "In all these years,"
she told him,
"you've never let anything happen to me, and WE won't let
anything
happen to her. Besides, with degrees in both Forensic Science
and
Criminal Justice, she'll probably show US a thing or two."
*~*~*~*~*
The sun shone brightly in the California
sky as Remington and Laura
Steele sat with their family, watching the Stanford University
Commencement, Class of 2008.
Remington was happy for the cover
of sunlight, as he might be able to
hide his tears behind his designer sunglasses. He smiled. Twenty
years
of living with Laura and Kate had turned him into a sentimental
fool.
No, he thought, smiling. He wasn't a fool, but he had been. That
was a
lifetime ago, before he met Laura Holt and attempted to fill the
shoes
of Remington Steele.
"…Thomas Aaron Spencer,
Melissa Kay Springer, Joseph Kyle Stanton,
Abigail Katharine Steele…"
The Steeles and their entourage were
on their feet, cheering as Kate
walked across the stage to receive her sheepskin. Remington didn't
care who saw the tear of joy that slid down his cheek. That was
his
little girl up there. He had never known such pride. She was so
much
like her mother. Brilliant. Strong. Feisty. Independent. Beautiful.
He
knew she would be an amazing investigator, but the father in him
was
not ready for her to be all grown up.
*****Remington Steele stood quietly
in the doorway. He was watching
his little girl try to follow her mother as she practiced her
dancing.
Turning one of the lower level rooms into a dance studio for Laura
had
been one of his better ideas. It was a place where she could go
to
unwind, and she was enjoying sharing her passion for dance with
their
daughter. His heart swelled as he watched them, his beautiful
girls.
Kate looked so much like Laura with her shimmering brown eyes
and
freckles, he could not imagine a more precious sight.
"Daddy!" Kate squealed as she ran into her father's arms.
"How's my little princess today?"
Remington asked, scooping the little
girl up in his arms. "Did you and Mummy have fun?"
Kate nodded her head and looked across
the room at her mother. "Mommy
is teaching me my ballet."
Laura was leaning against her ballet
bar. She loved watching Remington
with their little girl. He was such a good father. Of course,
at only
three years old, Kate had Daddy wrapped around her little finger.
Laura smiled, it served him right for all the years he'd had her
wrapped around his.
Remington carried his daughter across
the dance floor and embraced his
wife in his other arm. Kate giggled as her parents kissed.
Laura Steele had not expected to cry,
but she did. Her heart swelled
with such joy as she watched her daughter graduate from her own
alma
mater. Kate had worked so hard, earning two degrees in three years.
She wasn't sure where her daughter got such dedication. She watched
her move across the stage. She really was beautiful --- tall and
lithe, like her father. She was so much like him. She had that
same
perpetual twinkle in her eye, and they always seemed to have their
heads together. So much so that Laura had occasionally felt like
an
outsider to their own private world. However, that didn't happen
often. Laura was so happy that she had been the one to give Remington
the family he had always longed for. She thought about her life
leading up to this point. She had been through so much with the
man
who became Remington Steele, but this beautiful, ambitious young
woman
was by far their greatest accomplishment.
As the ceremony ended, the graduates
poured out into the crowd to join
their families and friends. Kate Steele ran directly into her
father's
arms. He lifted her off her feet and spun her around as he had
done so
many times before.
Laura watched Remington and their
daughter. He was right; it was hard
to believe she was all grown up.
Laura held her husband's handkerchief
to her eye as he knelt down in
front of their daughter.
"You're going to have a great
deal of fun at school," Remington said,
kissing Kate's forehead.
"I know, Daddy," the little
girl said with a smile, as she tugged on
her tiny backpack. "School is going to be great. I'll be
fine," she
said, sounding much more mature than her six years. "But
you should
look after Mommy. I think she's taking it pretty hard."
Laura laughed out loud at Kate's words.
`Wise beyond her years,' she
thought. She was not ready for Kate to be starting school. Where
had
the time gone? She laughed again when she realized that even though
she wasn't ready, her baby girl was. Kate had been excited about
school ever since they had taken her to orientation and she had
gotten
to meet her teacher and some of her classmates.
Kate looked away from her parents
to the young blonde woman standing
in front of the school. "There's Miss Larsen," she said.
"I have to go."
Laura leaned down to hug her little
girl, "Are you sure you don't want
Daddy and I to go in with you?"
"No Mommy," she answered, "I'm a big girl now."
With that, she turned and marched
toward the school building.
Remington wrapped his arms around Laura's shoulders and she leaned
into his embrace.
"She's right, you know," he said softly.
Laura just looked at him, trying to hold back her tears.
"She's going to be fine," he said, kissing her temple.
She knew he was right, Kate was very
smart and very capable, but she
was also very stubborn. She liked to be in charge, in fact sometimes
she insisted on it. Of course, those were some of the reasons
they had
chosen to send her to private school. Malibu Academy was a small
school, even though they served children from first through twelfth
grades. They had an excellent gifted education program and Kate
would
be among her peers who were as advanced as she. Everything was
as it
should be, but Laura couldn't help but feel that her baby was
starting
to slip away, as her world expanded, she wouldn't need her Mommy…
at
least not as much as she always had.*****
"Congratulations, Princess,"
Remington said, kissing Kate's cheek as
he set her back down on the ground.
"We're so proud of you." Her mother pulled her into an embrace.
"Way to go, Kiddo!"
Kate's smile grew wide as she caught
sight of the woman who had become
a surrogate grandmother over the years.
"Aunt Mildred!" she exclaimed,
stepping out of Laura's embrace and
throwing her arms around the older woman. "I'm so glad you
made it."
"Are you kidding?" Mildred
Krebs replied. "Wild horses couldn't keep
me away, Honey."
The Steeles were interrupted as a
bespectacled academic rushed up to
them. He reached out and vigorously shook Remington's hand.
"Mr. Steele," he said almost breathlessly. "Thank god you're here."
"Of course, Dean Harrigan,"
Remington replied. "Where else would I be
on my little girl's special day?"
Laura watched this exchange with interest.
The dean seemed
particularly harried, and she had a feeling that at the root of
it was
something more than commencement.
"Mr. Steele," the dean went
on. "I need to speak with you…
professionally."
"Oooohh, my first official case!"
Kate smiled widely, rubbing her
hands together.
Immediately, Laura took control of
the situation. She turned to her
daughter. "Honey, you go with Aunt Mildred and Aunt Frances.
Uncle
Donald and Danny have already gone to your dorm with the truck.
You go
and help them load up your things. Daddy and I will be along as
soon
as we've finished with Dean Harrigan."
As the three women left, after a slight
protest from Kate, Laura
noticed a thin veil of relief come over the dean's face.
"Thank you, Mrs. Steele,"
he said and then, looking around warily, he
continued. "Walk with me."