It's his birthday.
She nearly runs the red light as the date registers in her mind. It's April 1st and she hasn't seen him in over a week because he's stopped showing up at the precinct and doesn't seem to want anything to do with her otherwise.
She's gathered by now that he's apparently upset with her. Or maybe he's just run out of patience. Maybe she's siphoned it all out of him, making him wait, giving him no hope of what he's waiting for.
Beckett tightens her fingers around the steering wheel. She's not exactly thrilled with him at the moment either - disappearing like a child and alternating between excuses and the silent treatment any time she attempts to contact him.
Her eyes flick to the radio, catching the time before the light changes to green. It's early, barely six a.m. and still dark outside. She technically doesn't have to be at work until after eight today - they have no open cases and she's all caught up on her paperwork. She just hasn't been able to sleep and the precinct is more of a comfort than her empty bedroom, her loud thoughts.
Maybe Castle has given up on her, maybe their partnership is coming to a close, maybe he never meant the words she isn't supposed to remember in the first place. But she isn't ready to give up on him yet, not until she knows for sure.
Kate switches her blinker on.
And if this is her last chance, her last stand for him, she may as well make it worth it.
She has to balance everything in one arm to be able to knock on his door, her heart throbbing in her chest while she waits, escalating into mutiny as soon as she hears footsteps on the other side.
But they don't belong to Castle.
"Detective Beckett?" Alexis answers, easing the door open, but not wide enough to let Kate inside. His daughter's eyes scan the bags hanging from Kate's arms, a box of cake mix that fell out of one haphazardly cradled against her chest, but none of it changes the hard disapproval in Alexis's eyes.
"Morning, Alexis," she offers, shifting the box in her arm. "Sorry to just - show up like this. I hope I'm not interrupting anything."
"Uh, no," Alexis hesitates, loosening her grip on the door, but remaining in place. On guard. "I'm just getting ready for school. What are you doing here?"
The girl - young woman - narrows her eyes on Beckett. Kate swallows hard, tries not to let it get to her, how the girl who used to come to her for advice about school and boys has grown to hate her.
"I just - I came to see your dad, for his birthday," she explains, shrugging the armfuls of baggage for emphasis. "Unless you guys already have your own traditions for the morning."
Alexis shakes her head, easing up a little on her glare, but her eyes still linger on Kate like ice. "He likes to sleep in on his birthday. When it falls on a weekday, we just celebrate once I get home."
"Would it be okay if I waited here for him to wake up?"
"Did he ask you to come?" Alexis inquires, arching an eyebrow.
"No, I was kinda hoping to surprise him," she admits, snagging her bottom lip between her teeth and trying to shift the box. It's all getting heavy.
Alexis waits a beat before she sighs, abandoning her post behind the door to step forward and relieve Kate of the cake mix and a couple of shopping bags. Beckett follows her inside with the door left unmanned, the loft still dark and quiet with the early morning. A half finished bowl of cereal sits on the breakfast bar, Alexis's messenger bag waiting for her on the stool.
"Fine, you'll just do what you want anyway," his daughter relents on a mutter, setting the stuff on the island while Kate stands frozen with the additional bags still hanging from her arms.
"Alexis-"
"But if you break his heart even more on his birthday-" She deposits her bowl into the sink and snatches her backpack along the way, shooting Kate one last glare before striding for the door. "Don't come back."
Kate's mouth falls open, but Alexis is already slipping out the door before Kate can utter a word.
She broke his heart?
He wakes to the smell of pancakes, coffee, and something sweet, different and unfamiliar. Rick rolls over in his bed, releasing a deep sigh as his eyes peel open. It's his birthday, Alexis must have stayed home despite his instructions not to, and tried her best to make it special for him.
Because, of course, his daughter knows that something is off, that it probably has to do with Beckett. He hates that, hates that Alexis has built up so much resentment towards Kate for his sake, but he also can't deny that it feels nice to have someone on his side. Kate certainly isn't, not anymore.
It's his birthday and he's heartbroken, because he knows the truth now. Kate Beckett doesn't love him and there was never any chance of that sad hope, that wistful daydream, coming true. He was a fool for ever thinking otherwise.
Castle pushes back the blankets from his legs, forces himself to rise from the bed, use the bathroom and splash some water on his face, put on a smile for his daughter.
All he wants for his birthday is to go back, back to that blissful ignorance of the week before, of believing they were getting somewhere, that he was waiting for something other than a gentle rejection. He wants those smiles that he thought were just for him, all affection and sparkling eyes. He wants the fleeting touches of her hand that were lingering longer with every graze. He wants her words, her quips about a next time without the tiger and the third time being the charm, her implication about being ready for the kind of relationship she wants.
With him. He so stupidly thought all this time that she meant with him.
Rick rubs at his eyes and grabs his robe from the foot of his bed.
All he wants for his birthday is to move past her. But his heart doesn't want that at all. His heart wants Kate Beckett to show up at his door and prove him wrong. Or, better yet, prove all of his previous misgivings about her, about them, right.
But there aren't enough birthday wishes in the world to make that one come true.
Hidden in his study by the walls of bookshelves, he takes a deep breath, practices the delighted smile he'll plaster on for Alexis. He'll just have breakfast with his daughter, promise her a million times over that he's okay, and insist she go back to school. It's her senior year and he knows how much she values each day that she has left at Marlowe Prep.
Castle nods to himself and steps out of the office.
He stops in the middle of the living room the second he sees her. The smile he was attempting to wear falls flat off his face. Dumbstruck.
"Morning," she rasps, clearing her throat. She's standing in his kitchen, a cup of coffee cradled to her chest and warming the aching flesh of her scar. It almost feels cruel, to not only take away the home field advantage, but to completely take him off guard as well. He's still wearing his pajamas, a robe.
Under different circumstances, she would find it adorable.
"Morning?" he replies, but she isn't sure if he means it as a question, or if he's echoing her in disbelief. "I - um, isn't it-" He glances down to his wrist for the watch that isn't even there yet. "Work?"
"I called in. No active cases right now anyway," she shrugs, setting the coffee down on the counter at her back.
"But…" Castle sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose between two fingers. Some of that flustered shock is dissipating, dissolving into what is apparently his default emotion for her now: exasperation. "Beckett, what are you doing here?"
The use of her surname, the sharp sound of Beckett on his tongue, stings.
Her lips part with an answer, searching for some of those carefully constructed sentences she went over again and again in the hour she's spent baking, preparing, waiting for him to wake up. But nothing comes out right, it never does with her. He's supposed to be the one with all of the words.
"It's your birthday," is all that comes out.
Smooth, Kate. Very smooth.
"I knew you weren't coming to the precinct and that if I didn't come by, I probably wouldn't see you today," she adds, swallowing around the building lump in her throat.
He doesn't look impressed, lips pursed and eyes guarded. She's trying so hard not to say the wrong thing, but at this rate, she's starting to believe that there's not much she could say that would be right.
"And?"
Ouch. Okay, well-
"And I wanted to celebrate with you," she says a little quieter, suddenly wondering if the entire idea was just one big disaster in the making. "Especially this year."
"What's so great about this year?" he scoffs, finally moving from his spot in the living room. "Did Alexis make breakfast?"
"No." Kate crosses her arms and moves to step in front of the island. He's not getting any of her cooking until he talks to her. "I did."
That gains a flicker of a reaction, curiosity flashing in his eyes as he draws closer. "How long have you been here?"
"Since seven," she murmurs, blocking his view of the stovetop, his entry into the kitchen, with her body.
He stops in front of her, not close enough to touch and still leaving a gaping chasm of distance between them. He tilts his head, assessing her with a sweep of his eyes down her frame. She's still dressed in her clothes for work, her blazer tossed onto his couch, but her heels still on. She's glad for it now, doesn't think she could take the lowered defense of him towering over her.
"Why is my birthday suddenly so important to you?"
Why?
"Because you are important to me," she answers, not waiting for the surprise in his eyes to settle before she continues on. "And I'm tired of wondering what I did to make you doubt that. I'm - I want to know how I broke your heart."
His mouth is dry.
She… she knows she broke his heart? Then why-
"How can you know the effect without knowing the cause?" he bites out, crossing his arms over his chest and taking another step back from her.
But she follows.
"Because you stopped," she growls, something painful bursting in her gaze, drenching her eyes and bleeding into her features.
"Stopped what? Following you around like a lost puppy? Bringing you coffee in the morning? Sticking around to ensure you had a good laugh for the day?" he demands, the ragged edges of his heart scraping, slicing through them both. She startles back from him, hip bumping into the island. "Then you're right, I stopped, because I can't - it's too much."
Too much, not enough, all he wants. He just wants to go back to loving her. It hurts, a brutal ache in his chest, but it doesn't cleave through him quite as harshly as the agony of trying not to love her does.
It definitely doesn't pain him like the way she's looking at him right now does.
She looks like he just crushed her heart the same way she crushed his. Only his intentions were cruel, bitter and angry, while she was apparently just trying to spare him. Sinning by silence to spare his feelings.
Unfair, but selfless nonetheless.
"Beckett," he murmurs, raking a hand through his hair and resting his palm at the back of his neck, digging the short half moons of his nails into his skin. "Look, if you just give me some time, maybe I can-"
"Time," she echoes, staring back at him with some of the wound receding, the interrogation of a detective at work overtaking. "Is that what it comes down to? You got tired of waiting?"
His brow knits, his head shaking in confusion. It's too early and he hasn't even had his coffee yet.
"What are you talking about?"
"That day we talked on the swings, I thought you understood. I thought you knew-"
"I don't know anything anymore," he growls, flexing his hands at his sides. "Everything I thought - none of it was real. It was all a lie that you were too afraid to just own up to, to just tell the truth."
The aggravation is immediately swept from her face, replaced with question, a hint of clarity.
"The truth?" she murmurs, reclaiming her step forward. He holds his ground, doesn't move back, but it only encourages the progress of her approach. Before he's ready, before he can prepare, she's standing in front of him, inches away and right at his eye level with those heels he loves, the scent of cherries so thick and close. Fermented in his bones, all of her. "What's your version of my truth, Castle?"
He narrows his eyes on her. Her voice has gone soft, almost placating, like he's some kind of child. It has his teeth grinding with irritation. "You knew. All this time, you remembered."
Her jaw tightens, the line of her throat rippling with a swallow, but she doesn't deny it, doesn't try to sugarcoat it with another lie or explanation. A little late for the honesty, but fine, he'll take it.
"Now that it's out there, I get it. You can stop sparing my feelings," he mutters, finally tearing his eyes away from her. Even now, with his heart under her heels, permanently punctured and torn, she looks like beautiful devastation, the shreds of his fractured organ still yearning for her. "Maybe even spare me some dignity for my birthday," he tries to joke, but it's hollow and the words taste like ash in his mouth.
Kate lifts a hand to his arm, curls tentative fingers in the sleeve of his robe.
"Spare you?" she croaks, dragging his gaze back to her. To the ache in her eyes that matches the one in his chest. "I was - I know I lied, but it was never to hurt you. God, I never wanted to hurt you." Her fingers tighten in the material of his robe, tight enough for him to feel her knuckles clenching at his forearm. "And it was never because I didn't love you back. I've loved you for… longer than I think I even realized," she confesses on a deep breath, lowering her eyes to the floor.
But he's… he can barely breathe because she - she loves him? Has loved him? And she's saying it out loud and his heart is beating too fast-
"Castle," she whispers and his head jerks up so fast it causes his neck to ache with protest. Kate is watching him, eyes alight with anxiety, as if she's bracing herself for the worst. She should be, after lying to him for so long.
But it's the first time she's telling him she loves him. It shouldn't look so terrifying. They shouldn't be so terrified of loving each other, so confused and conflicted by lies and lack of communication.
"Please." Her fingers begin to loosen at his arm. "Say something."
"You have?" is all he manages, raspy and pitiful, the tears in his throat clogging up his words. He needs to get a grip, get it under control, but… but her fingers are unfurling from his robe to touch his jaw, her palm a gentle cradle at his cheek.
At her nod of confirmation, it all comes spilling out.
"You were talking about us at the swings?" he whispers, like the words themselves are a secret she isn't supposed to know he was questioning. "And after the bombing-"
"Yes," she swears, the conviction in her voice so strong it makes him weak, has him exhaling hard in relief, in exhilaration. "Yes, I meant us. You."
She meant him. Wanted a relationship with him, to stop putting things off with him.
She loves him.
He's looking at her with so much hope, so much uncertainty at the same time, it spears through her.
"It's not enough," she whispers, letting her hand fall from his cheek to the side of his throat. "Is it?"
He blinks, fingers rising quickly to cover hers at his neck, squeezing hard. "What?"
"I broke your heart," she echoes Alexis's words from earlier, the statement that's seared through her. "Telling you I love you… it doesn't make up for that, does it?"
"Says who?" he challenges, gracelessly knotting his fingers with hers over his thundering pulse. "Don't you dare try to take it back, to change it-"
"What? No," she growls, shaking off his hand to hook both of hers at his waist, yank him closer by the belt of the damn robe. "I said it. I'm in this. I love you, Castle. I'm not about to take it back."
She's already so close, he hardly has to move to band his arms around her - tight and crushing and burying her against him. It forces the breath right out of her, but she presses in closer, mouth open at his collarbone, nose tucked into the warm skin of his throat, the scent of him so rich and wonderful seeping into her senses.
"I love you. I love you so much it hurts, Kate," he breathes into her hair, every word splicing through her heart until it's shredded to pieces.
"I don't want it to hurt," she chokes, fisting her hands at his spine, bunching up fabric. "I don't want to hurt you, Castle. I just - I just wanted to love you the right way, be someone worth loving back."
He stiffens in her arms, pulling back to see her, but she won't loosen her grip, won't let go. She nuzzles his neck instead, sucks in a breath of him just in case it's the last chance she gets.
"Worth?" he repeats, splaying his hands at her sides but no longer trying to disengage from her embrace. "Kate, you're - I don't even know where to begin with you."
"I know," she sighs, digging her cheek into his collarbone.
Castle huffs. "No, you - you have always been worth the world to me."
She finally loosens her hold on him, just enough to draw her head back from the hiding place of his neck, eyes bloodshot with tears she refuses to let fall.
"So have you," she says quietly, brushing her knuckles along the bottom of his spine before easing back. His body immediately protests, needing the warmth of her back now that he's felt it. But she doesn't go far, bending at the kitchen island to retrieve the small gift bag he noticed on the floor earlier.
Kate Beckett got him a present?
"Here," she murmurs, holding it out to him with a quirk of her lips.
He accepts it with an arch of his brow. His heart still feels too fragile, his mind whirring with the onslaught of information he's received within the last few minutes, but he's willing to put it aside for a second. Just long enough to see what's in the bag.
"What was your plan, Kate? Win me over with birthday bribes?"
He gets a glimpse of her teeth catching on her bottom lip, but her lashes sweep down across her cheeks, hiding her eyes. "Just open it, Castle."
He does, reaching inside the paper bag. She didn't wrap anything, add useless tissue paper, so his fingers encounter the object right away. He lets the bag drift to his feet as he withdraws the book - his book? - from inside.
"Hell Hath No Fury?" But she didn't go out and find this for him at a store or online. This copy is used, well-read, and… singed? Castle fingers the bottom corner, the stain of what looks to be soot and ash.
"When my apartment blew up," she answers for him.
And then it clicks.
"This is your copy?" he concludes without looking up. All of his heartache and pain, his hope and wonder, momentarily pushed aside by his curiosity, the rich thrill at having a new piece of her in his hands.
"Open it," she says again, the tangle of insistence and uncertainty encouraging his itching fingers to turn the first page.
He has to flip through a couple before he finds the dedication, finds… finds his signature.
"I signed this?" Castle whispers, ripping his eyes from the worn page to meet hers. "We've - we met before?"
"Just once," she nods, the curve of her mouth surprisingly shy. "I was in the Academy at the time and your book signing… I couldn't miss it."
"You never told me," he says stupidly, because duh, Castle.
"Wasn't sure how to," she sighs, her chest rising with a breath, shallow and quick. "But I needed you to know how much you meant to me, how much you've always meant. Your books... they helped me keep my head above water when I was drowning in my mom's case." Her smile gains a little more confidence. "I never thought that would progress to the author himself being in my life, continuing that in person."
"Kate," he breathes, something in his heart simultaneously suffering another tear and stitching back together.
"You want my truth, Castle?" she murmurs, holding his gaze with a brave vulnerability in hers. "You have it. All of it. You have me."
He's clearing the step of distance in a heartbeat, book still clutched in his hand while the other reaches for her waist. The claim of his mouth is immediate, welcome, and Kate can't help the moan of relief that slips free. She thought she lost him, thought it was over, really over-
Her fingers curl in the edges of the robe, leverage to drag her body in closer, fit every piece of her against him.
Castle groans, low and desperate, the ache of it traveling through her. He tastes like a collision of joy and desperation, of sparking need on her tongue as it she strokes it along the seam of his mouth. Her back bumps into the island, automatically arching into the band of his arms around her waist and the book digging into her spine.
It anchors her, drowns her at the same time, has her cupping his face in her hands just to hold on.
"Kate," he gasps, the heat of his breath searing her lips, the flesh of her chin, her cheeks. It has her heart calming and ramping up into a frenzy at all once.
"I want you," she breathes, caressing the delicate skin below his eye, the structured bones of his cheeks, with her thumbs. His breath hitches and stutters, his forehead falling to rest against hers as his eyes flutter open.
So gorgeous and blue, bluer than she's seen in nearly two weeks, and staring back at her with everything unhidden and on display.
"Want you too," he whispers, the words like a weight lifting from her lungs that's been growing heavier with each passing day. "All I wanted for my birthday."
A surprised breath of laughter slips past her lips, triggers a smile across his. His chest is sealed firm and tight against hers, heartbeats colliding, beating in unison.
She was second-guessing that this was a good idea, showing up uninvited to his home, barging in on and receiving sharp words from his daughter, making him a 'birthday breakfast', but the look on his face now… it makes it all worth it.
"Breakfast," she murmurs belatedly, nudging her nose to his cheek before drawing back. "Made you pancakes. And coffee."
"Pancakes," he repeats, clearing his throat but not letting her go. Oh, no way is he letting her go now.
She lets him keep her hand, leading him the few extra steps into the kitchen. There's a few mixing bowls in the sink, baking utensils and the skillet he assumes she used for the pancakes. How did he manage to sleep through all of this? And then he sees the result of her efforts, the stack of pancakes sitting on the breakfast bar.
The link of their arms stretch as he drifts towards them, his heart swelling.
"You… made me birthday pancakes?" he murmurs, lips curling into a slow smile as he takes a closer look. Pancakes with bright bursts of color - reds, blues, greens, pinks - and a dollop whipped cream, decorated in sprinkles and a single cherry on top.
"I figured if you like s'morelettes, it couldn't be too big of a risk." She shrugs when he glances back to her over his shoulder, the loose twine of their fingers still dangling between them.
She really loves him.
"Will you stay?"
He doesn't expect her to read his mind, to be able to know that he means for longer than today. But she tugs on his hand, reels him back into her for a kiss - the way she kisses him, so ardent yet effortless, as if it's the most natural thing in the world, will never get old. It's chaste and soft and has him feeling breathless all over again. He never thought it could be so good, that it would ever exist in the first place - and he thinks she already does.
"Yeah, Castle," she mumbles, leaning into his side, sinking deeper when he laces an arm around her waist to keep her there. Her lips whisper along his jaw. "I'll stay."
His lips quirk, the smiles she's evoking cracking through the frown lines that were starting to settle in with permanence. He presses it to her shoulder, feels her bones shudder beneath the touch. "Best birthday gift."
"Wouldn't say that until you try the pancakes," she murmurs, her mouth stretching into a grin against his cheek. "It was my first time using 'funfetti' mix."
The laugh bubbles in his chest. He'll eat her pancakes, he'll savor every bite, but he doesn't care about his breakfast or his birthday. He already got what he wanted.