Mending
Disclaimer: I still don't own it, and they're way more evil than me
Written for the thankyouterri campaign. A Rise signing/swings insert
She can tell that he isn't right the moment she sees him. He doesn't see her. She's so far back in the line that it shouldn't really be a surprise. The thing is, she doesn't think he sees any of them, really.
It's all wrong, he is all wrong. No joy in his face, his movements. Not even the staged, fake Castle she doesn't like all that much. He seems...dead inside. Walled off. And oh, she knows how that feels. She hopes, keeps on hoping, that seeing her will help, will make a difference. And so, she waits, moving forward slowly.
But when she reaches him, he doesn't even look up. Just waits for the book to be presented so he can sign on autopilot it seems. An uneasy feeling settles into her gut. But she finds her voice and gives her name. Hoping, still hoping.
"Kate, you can make it out to Kate." She's said the words to him before, though to the best of her knowledge, he doesn't remember that. She wishes she were back on that day instead of this one.
Because when he does look up, he's not the author she remembers, or the man that she knows. There is a flash of something familiar for only a moment, and then, to her horror, his eyes grow colder.
She swallows hard, tries to breathe. He signs – just his name – but the lines of the writing are almost unfamiliar in their angry, hurried scrawl. She feels sick, and words don't come. He hands the book back, moves on with his eyes to the patron behind her. He's done. So she goes.
She has made it only a matter of feet from the door of the bookstore, when she collapses against the wall, cradling his book in her hands. It's wonderful, his best yet, even though there were parts of the story that gutted her to read. That ending, his heart in the words.
Kate knows she should go. The work is good, but he seems broken. As broken as she has felt for these last months. Longer, really. She is better with him. But she did this to him, made him worse as easily as he seemed to make her better. She really, really should go. Leave him to heal from the wounds she has clearly inflicted without meaning to.
It's Castle's own words, though, that stop her. Years ago he'd told her that what made her extraordinary was the fact that she never gave up. When she came up against the wall, she didn't back down. And there are so many walls here. Hers and his, and this solid one behind her that seems to hold her up.
So she stays, runs her hands lightly over his book, his name. The signature indented into the page because he wrote with such force in his anger. And she hopes it will give he strength, courage, something to get her through what happens next.
It's an hour later, and it is an ugly fight when it finally comes to that. Not as bad as the last one, but he's more than angry with her, he's bitter. Bitterness seeps out of him in a way that she can taste in the air between them.
"I watched you die in that ambulance, did you know that?"
It brings her up short, because, no she hadn't. She had known that it was bad, had been close. But she hadn't known he had been there in the ambulance. But of course he would be. He always followed her, even into the darkest of places. And she had repaid that by walking away, not letting him follow.
She stammers off excuses, reasons really, but they sound hollow to her own ears. They are true, and yet they feel as if they can't be enough, not in the face of what he has had to endure. Because now her mind can't think of anything other than the horror of what it might have been like for her if it had been him who nearly died. Sees it over and over, can't think.
He asks about Josh and the bitterness is so thick that it hits her like a wave. So heavy that it makes it hard to breathe. She should be used to that feeling, but she needs a moment to get the air going again, her head clear.
He followed her into that ambulance, into pain, and blood and death. And so when she steps of the curb, she hopes he'll keep following, now that he knows Josh is gone. Now that now one stands between them anymore. She just needs to trust him to follow her, just like he always does.
In absence of anywhere to go, she finds herself at a playground, drops onto a swing set. Her blood floods with relief when he settles in beside her.
She starts with small talk about the book, even though the story rips her a little more every time she thinks about it. Rook taking the hit for Nikki, and she just knows that Castle wanted -
He asks about Josh, about the breakup. She knows she has to be honest. Well, as honest as she can. There's still so much she can't bring herself to say. Because once she does, then they're in this, she doesn't know how they couldn't be. And she'll break it like she's broken him.
So instead, she tries to mend what she can, there on those swings. She feels painfully awkward, a little shy, a little hopeful as she asks him to wait. Wait for her to sort this out, because it's what she wants, this chance with him.
He gives in, says "we" like they are still a team and she feels her heart beat faster. For the first time in months, not because it's broken, but because it's mending.
"It doesn't mean I'm not still mad," he says, but she'll take that. Because he still cares, and in this moment, that is enough.
They slip into the case, feeling and sounding to her like their old selves again. The case weighs on her. She's afraid it always will. But he's already working at wheedling his way beck into the twelfth, and he's Castle, her Castle, again.
He's a little bruised and battered, just like she is, and she hates being responsible for that. But it feels like he's coming home, coming back to her.
She wants to kick off the ground and set the swing in motion. Because suddenly, the world seems right again. And Kate Beckett feels like she could fly.
AN: Prompt - "i might be the only one who thinks this would be interesting - but i'd love a little bridge fill-in after "you can make it out to kate." in Rise. does he actually sign it? what does he write? what does she say? how long was she waiting against that wall for? and why the swings?" submitted by katicings. Filled as a gift to Indrani_S for a generous contribution to YoungStoryTellers dot com slash ThankYouTerri. See all the prompts and fills at ThankYouTerri dot tumblr dot com.