A/N I found Kate's need to physically distance herself from Castle both very telling and very sad, so I had to write about it. Enjoy
Space (noun) a continuous area or expanse which is free, available or unoccupied.
He watches her sleep, something he has done often since that first night together. He watches as in sleep she maintains a distance between their bodies that she has subconsciously established ever since he woke up in that hospital bed. He has felt off-kilter, disturbed since he woke up and found he has lost two months of their life. But out of all the bizarre, disconcerting and uncomfortable facts he has faced in the last 24 hours it is this space, this lack of continuity between them that disturbs hi the most. He's not even sure she is aware of what she has been doing. How she holds herself just outside his reach, that even though she knows his penchant to touch she has physically removed his ability to do so and it crushes him.
She hid behind the bed at the hospital. Establishing a physical barrier as if she needed to protect herself from him. Maybe if he hadn't been so confused in those first moments, he could have reached out and touched her, dissolved the space that had sprung up between them. But he didn't and she walked away.
And then she returned to him but stood with one foot in the doorway as if giving herself an escape route. Her anger palpable even across the space she had created, the distance widening as the day wore on.
Even in the car driving to Massachusetts, her silence and reluctance to discuss the missing time had created an emotional space even as she was prevented from having physical space that she now seemed to crave.
At his supposed campsite she stormed off on him, widening that gap that he now sees as a metaphor for their relationship and something clicked inside and he realised that he was the one that needed to close the gap because she couldn't, so he chased her down across that clearing and he stepped into that void she had unconsciously created. He wanted to cheer loudly when she didn't step away but he didn't. He knows her. He needs to do this slowly or she will startle and flee.
She lets him stand next to her when she knocks on the door of the mobile home. If he had stretched out his little finger he's sure he could have touched the hem of her coat. But he didn't. He's waiting for her.
As they sit on the couch in the loft, his family around them, her knee presses against his. It's small and almost insignificant but he has to resist the urge to jump off the couch and holler. She's closing the space. He sits still and pretends it doesn't mean anything but he knows it means everything.
He sees her hesitate as she steps into the room. This time he moves into her space, he steps forward and sits on the bed halfway between them, waiting for her. She turns as if to go then stops and then suddenly she's curled up into his side, her face pressed into his chest, her silent tears dampening his shirt, the same shirt she has curled up in her fist. She's closed the gap between them and all he wants to do is hold her, touch her.
They fall into bed together, her long limbs curled around his, her hand resting over his heart, his arms tight around her. Her breath warm against his neck as she whispered to him about the loneliness and emptiness of the last months, her tears falling silently as she described the hole in her heart at his absence. How even his empty chair at the precinct or the coldness of the sheets on his side of the bed were tormenting in the absence of him. She climbs over him, wrapping her legs firmly around his thighs as she rests her head on his chest until she has erased the space between them completely. She sighs as she falls asleep, her tears drying on her cheeks. He follows her quickly thinking he doesn't have to wait anymore. She's here.
He wakes disorientated, a wisp of a dream on the edges of his conscious mind that evaporates before he can grasp it but leaves him shivering and cold. He opens his eyes to realise he is flat on his back looking up at the ceiling and thinks maybe he's cold because he lost his covers in the night. Rolling over he turns to watch her sleep as he has done many a night since that first one together. She is curled up on the far side of the bed, almost falling out. Her arms are folded over her bend knees, not her usual relaxed position in sleep and that space is back between them. His mind knows that she isn't doing it deliberately but his heart cries at the hole, the chasm that has formed in their relationship. It feels insurmountable as neither of them have a clue as to what he did over the last two months. But he knows he didn't lie when he told her he missed her because a small part of him still misses her as he looks over the space she has created between them. And he's not sure how he's going to erase that space if he doesn't know what he did to create it in the first place.
Slowly he reaches out, he runs a finger up her arm feeling the smooth skin under his fingertips. He startles as she suddenly grabs hold of his hand, her eyes springing open. He tries to pull his hand back but she uses it as leverage to pull herself across the bed towards him. She crawls up him until she is crouched over him her face inches from his. Her chameleon eyes are shining brightly as her lips turn up in a smile seconds before they descend towards him and he feels a feather light pressure as she kisses him.
"I missed you, Castle" she whispers to him, their breaths mingling against their joined mouths. He takes her in his arms, deepening the kiss and realises that maybe it's not so impossible anymore. That maybe they can close the space together, because haven't they always been better when they're together.