Title: Noli Me Tangere
Author: Elliott Silver
Summary: He knows now, as if he hadn't before, that this is why she guards her heart, why he sees so little of it despite all they've been through, all they've done together. Letting him in, the way she let Royce, could break him the same way.
Author's Note: This follows 3x22, "To Love and Die in LA." The title, and story, refer to Sir Thomas Wyatt's beautiful poem, Whoso List To Hunt.
You and Castle have something real, and you're fighting it. But trust me, putting the job ahead of your heart is a mistake. Risking our hearts is why we're alive. The last thing you want is to look back on your life and wonder, if only.
When he ran, she followed. She didn't think, she just moved, the way Royce had taught her all those years ago. She dove off the railing, pitching forward and rolling off her shoulder. The sand shifted under her feet, twisting the world sideways, as she sprinted under the Santa Monica pier in pursuit.
She took the shot, hearing his voice in her head – stand, breathe, focus – and she slides her finger over the trigger without hesitation, without any moral or professional conflict, hearing the smash of the bullet leaving the chamber, watching the angry twist of Ganz's body as he falls heavily into the billowing sand.
She stood for a moment and then walked over to him, looking down, gun leveled at his temple. She tells Ganz she's poetic justice, but Royce had said long ago that there was no such thing. There was no poetry, no beauty, to death, no way to make it hurt less through iambic pentameter or imagery. There was only emptiness, and learning to live with that.
She feels that now, as her finger is slick on the trigger, and she finds all the tension of the gun in her hand, the bullet coiled in its clip, just waiting for a slight depression, one single move of her muscles, to make it fly.
She feels the loss, the emptiness, but she also feels every lucky moment she spent with him, every moment he spent teaching her to be a good cop, one of the best, and that's why she speaks.
"Russell Ganz, you are under arrest for the murder of Mike Royce," she says.
They come up behind her like stampede, and she turns on her heel, leaving Ganz behind.
Castle falls in beside her. She's grown used to his shadow, the way he becomes part of her, the dark part, without any hesitation, the way Royce never used to. Even still his presence, his persistence, never fails to surprise her.
"You okay," he asks her. The sand is soft beneath their feet as they walk out of the shadows of the pier into the blinding brightness of the LA sun. She can taste salt on her tongue, the lash of the ocean behind her, and thinks it tastes of her tears, the ones she hasn't cried yet, and all the ones she has.
"Yes," she answers, and he thinks she's isn't lying, much.
There was a different Kate out in LA, a Kate without edges or boundaries or rules, and Castle dreams of her in the weeks after they return to New York. He dreams of a Kate with her hair pinned up, slicked back by a fluttering team of set stylists, her white shirt popping around the buttons so he can see the lacy edge of her bra underneath, the too-tight tailored blazer pulling snug around her curves. Castle dreams of her, sliding out of the water like a nymph, like Sports Illustrated Swimsuit live, that suit cut out in all the right places, her wet hair curling around her shoulders, leaking drops of water towards the valley of her chest. He dreams of her in a white tee and jeans, her tousled hair dusted with sand, walking away from shadows under the Santa Monica pier, the Kate that came back to New York no less scarred for being right, for having followed justice to its end, for having once been in love, and he wakes suddenly, letting the darkness of the city night seep around him.
He goes to the door.
He woke like this the night they found Royce. He woke from a dream of Kate, to the sound of his phone and Montgomery's persistent voice. They stand in the darkness, together, waiting, and no one knows for what, what will happen when she arrives. He can see the devastated look as soon as Beckett drives up, too fast and sharp, the way her body is contorted all wrong as she gets out and walks towards them.
They try to stop her, but she has none of it.
"Castle, if it was me lying there, would you just walk away?"
Her voice is tight and flat, and he watches as she walks forward, never knowing the depths of her strength until now, until she kneels by Mike Royce's dead body.
He watches her, watches her take it all in, the way she breaks without ever moving. He knows now, as if he hadn't before, that this is why she guards her heart, why he sees so little of it despite all they've been through, all they've done together. Letting him in, the way she let Royce, could break him the same way.
Montgomery was right, she was torn up. More than even she knew, so much that it hurt to look at her. She was more than committed, she had been in love. For Kate, sometimes justice and the truth were almost indistinguishable from revenge.
And as with everything else, if she was diving into darkness, he was going with her. It was really no different than falling in love, and certainly no less dangerous.
Castle can hear the grief in her voice as they sit on the couch in the splashy hotel rooms he's dreamed of being in with her. It's saturated in the way she talks about Mike Royce in a tone that she uses for no one else, the way her eyes light up, tears gathering in the corners as she furiously blinks them away.
What would he do if something like that happened to her? His chest constricts and Castle feels sick, dizzy. What if he never got to tell her what he really wants to tell her, what he's been holding back for so long? Her choice doesn't matter as much as being able to tell her and let her know, to let her decide.
Maybe letting him in the way she let Royce will hurt him the same way, but he has faith in her, in them, and just because she doesn't want to break him, doesn't mean he isn't breaking all the same without her, and so he speaks.
"You know what I thought when I first met you?"
She waits and he rushes on.
"That you were a mystery I was never going to solve. Even now, after spending all this time with you, I'm still amazed, by the depths of your strength, your heart - and your hotness."
She smiles, just once, but she's not ready for this, he can see it. After all, she was just talking about how much she loved another man.
He moves towards her anyway, just as she moves away.
He tries again, her name on his lips, but she flees into her room, and he lets her go.
"So how close did you come?" he asks. The hotel room swirls around them like a kaleidoscope, and Kate thinks, if only she'd learned how to make it focus, to make all those beads of color bleed into the picture she's wanted.
If only, she thinks and remembers the way she cherished the weight of the gun in her hand as she stood above Ganz, the power of justice resting on her single finger, before she remembered there was more, certainly more than this. Royce hadn't taught her that, but Castle had.
Castle, who would know about kaleidoscopes (if not focus, exactly), Castle with his childish fervor for toys, his dead-honest voice, and that soul-seeking way he looks into her, as if he knows just what's there.
She thinks about the night before, when she had opened the door only to see his closing. The knob clicked behind her and she leant against the door, thankful for its weight. She had closed her eyes, and wondered what she was thinking. She realized, without fear, it was what she'd been thinking for a long time.
For so long she's pinned herself to other men, trying to write him out of the equation. Noli me tangere, she reads, and surprisingly, shockingly, Castle's never challenged that. She thought by not risking her own heart, she could keep Castle from risking his. But that's not how it works.
In the bright sunshine of the LA morning, they look at each other and she speaks.
"Let's go home, Castle."
"How close did you come?" she asks without preamble after he opens the door.
She stands on the threshold, on the welcome mat outside his apartment. He doesn't know what time it is, but he remembers the beach, the flare of sun as it reflected off her gun. He had run up to her, sure he was about to see her end her career, to watch a metal projectile rupture a human head. But then she'd turned, and he remembers the tensile strength of her body, the glare of her eyes, knowing then she was turning away from something as much as she was turning towards something else, someone else.
It's weeks later, but he knows what she's asking, and he remembers the hotel rooms that long night before, when she'd closed the door on her name in his voice, on his heart, when he'd let her go and didn't go after her, however much he wanted to. He hadn't realized the depths of his own strength until then, until he found the patience to wait, just a little longer.
"As close as you came," he answers, and his voice is raw with honesty.
She nods, slowly.
"Why are you here?" he asks.
The last time she had spoken to Royce was when she arrested him, the man who had been her training officer, her friend, and her lover, and there was nothing she could do to change that. He was gone, and so were any of the words she might have said to him. She didn't want it to be that way with Castle.
"Why are you here, Kate?" he asks again.
She breathes, and doesn't think, if only.
"Risking our hearts is why we're alive," she answers simply and she goes to him the way she's always wanted to, heart-first.