Surreality
Disclaimer: Don't claim to own Castle. The writing geniuses over there are much more evil.
AN: This could be considered a telling of the doorway scene in Always that is continuation of the April's Fool universe. It's not neccessary to have read it first, but it will add a nice shading of color to the scene if you have.
For CB, you make a good story great. And for Bree: because the honeymoon isn't over yet.
It isn't that he was trying to erase her. He is trying to forget. He's been trying to forget, and he knows now it's impossible. He can never forget her. Nothing, no amount of time, no amount of distance, will ever fill up the space inside of him that seems to only take the shape of her. - Can't forget. - But, he can't look at that picture of her on that board anymore.
Originally, he chose the picture because he loved it so very much. It was like a speck of light amid a sea of darkness. But now, when he looks at it, all he can see is the darkness threatening to swallow her whole. He was the one who was supposed to keep it from happening, and now all he can feel is that he has failed. Failed her, failed himself, failed them. Because she is determined to walk straight into the darkness, and he could not stop her. So he stayed behind.
He can't stand by and watch the darkness win. He can't. Not if she insists on letting it instead of fighting it. And so he pulls the file into the trash. But, he can't bring himself to empty the bin, to have even this dark terrible piece of her gone forever until he knows. Until they call him, and he knows how it ends.
When the knock comes at the door, a cold sense of dread washes over him. It's as if the phantoms of his mind have been made real again. He walks inevitablly to the visit he doesn't want to have. Comes slowly to the moment where he knows they will tell him it's over. Please, at least let it be someone he knows. But not the boys, her boys. He doesn't think he can stand that. He knows he can't.
When he pulls the door open, he freezes. This cannot be reality. For a moment, he thinks he has, for the hundredth time, simply conjured her up in his mind because he wants her there. He always wants her there. But the look in her eyes, on her face, it's not one even he can assign to her in his mind. It's one he has never seen before, really one he hasn't even imagined before. So then, she must be real. He must find his voice.
When it does come, he finds his own voice is a stranage, unfamiliar, alien thing. Dry, distant and tight with the force of holding it all back. He must hold it back, hold it in. Hold it together. The look in her eyes is killing him. She can't be real. Dear God, Kate, what? What?
"Beckett what do you want?"
There is an answer - a verbal answer - but it registers far off, somewhere beyond the rush of blood in his ears. Because she's coming for him. Stepping into his space, and he can't understand why. He backs up instinctively, unable to fathom much else. He doesn't want it like this, doesn't want her touch if it isn't real. Not anymore. And this can't be real.
But she comes anyway, fiercely insistent. So much like herself, yet not. So much like the version of her that his lonely mind can conjure now, with barely more than a thought. That's what this is, it has to be. He can't imagine it is anything else.
But, then she is on him, her hands at his face, and her mouth is - oh God. It feels real. It's too solid not to be real. It freezes him, stills everything inside his mind, even as his brings his hands up. For defense, for protection? To hold on? Nothing makes sense except holding the line he has drawn for himself. Hold it in.
When the onslaught stops, she doesn't pull back all the way. She's still touching him, close enough to feel all of it. To smell her skin, God help him. And then her voice, soft, pleading, over and over, finally cuts through. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she's whispering, her face close, too close.
It's enough to pull at his memory, to slam the night in the hanger into place in his mind with shattering clarity. It had felt the same that night too: Over. Dark. Empty from the absence of her. Then Montgomery's call, and the desperation, the pleading apologies - his that time. She'd let him close enough to touch her then too. Until it happened. Something's happened.
The shock of memory is enough to let him close his hands over her wrists, forced gentleness as he pulls her back. Pulls her away.
"What happened?"
She tells him. It ended unresolved, ended badly. She was lucky. And she came here. She came to him.
She comes for him again, and he's stunned again, still frozen by the unreality of it all. He has no anchor for this, nothing to bring the clarity back again now that it's fled amid the sudden fog that swamps him with her presence.
How the distance returns to offer relief, he doesn't know. His mid doesn't supply a memory of him pushing her back again. Did she step back? Has she changed her mind? He doesn't know, can't ask. He stares at her - dark, tortured and wanting. And then the icy shock of another clarifying memory comes with the touch slightest touch of her fingers at his jaw, all silent desperate plea.
Not the hanger now, but the frozen whiteness of the freezer. A place beyond physical feeling, and yet her touch burns itself in her memory with her unfinished words. I want you to know how much I l - so far from life, she had to rely on her touch to give the words a voice.
The echo of them screams at him now, ends his resolve with a fierce crack he is sure belongs only partly to the external storm.
It's beyond his conscious thought now as he forces her back, feels the halt of motion as she connects with the door, forces it closed. He wants and needs everything at once. He claims her mouth first, the place he knows and still remembers. His hands frame her face, hold her there as the last of his restraint falls away.
He wants to be everywhere; her mouth, her skin. He can taste the freshness of the rain, the salt of tears. He tastes her. Strongest at the curve of her neck, it draws him like a flame. He may never need anything else ever again. Just her. Kate.
She sinks beneath his touch, buckling at the contact. But he's got her. He has her, always has her. He isn't going to let her fall. He wants to tell her, wants to give her the words, but he can't stop. Can't free his mouth from it's frantic path. And then, that starkness of memory returns when he finds the unatural mark at her chest. He startles back, stunned. Gasping.
He nearly misses her voice at his ear, her reassurance. Permission, too. She'll let him. Let him see. Yes, he needs to. Desperate, crushing need. She knew. She knows.
When he pulls at the button, sees the reality there before him, it shuts everything else out. It was close. So close, he almost lost her. He almost walked away. He'd nearly lost her. Again. She'd almost died. She'd said, hadn't she? He'd nearly let her die all alone. Jesus. Oh, Kate.
His hand hovers for an instant between them as regret, hesitation and apology try to force themselves from his eyes all at once. He has no words now. But she comes to his rescue, his partner, even now. Still. Her own hand guides his to the spot, inviting his touch. And then it isn't the scar, the injury that captures him. It's the warmth and the life there, the feel of her heartbeat. She's here, with him. Kate, warm and real and alive in his arms.
It shifts something inside of him, that feeling. The need to take and claim is dulled by the desire to give. When his lips find hers again, it's gentler, longing softened by love. He wants to show her the reality of his words now. He needs to love her, show her. Her hand deserts his, but comes again to whisper her silent words again at the edge of his jaw.
He pulls back with a last soft kiss to her lips. She lets him, but follows him as he goes, keeping them close, intimately so. His eyes seem in capable of leaving hers, and so he catches the exact moment the light dawns in them. It's spreads over her to a warm smile that he can only reflect. She's...there has never been anything like this in the world. He's sure.
Her other hand difts downward, fingers dancing about his own before she closes them, holding on. He turns his hand in her grasp until they are palm to palm. Her hand is small within the frame of his larger one, but the connection is stronger now. Solid.