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Rushed
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Glimpses from a Universe that only exists within my head.
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The floorboards creak as Kate approaches, light on her toes, but the building is old, old and standing on its last legs, and with each step she takes toward him, it groans. Sighs.
He sighs, too.
"I'm fine."
It's her line, but it escapes through his lips, dances against the windowpane he's staring out of. If it were colder he'd be able to witness the proof of life distorting his view, but it's 98 outside and only a degree or two below that within the walls of their home.
House.
Apartment.
Four walls, a roof and a creaking floor.
"What do you see?" The quick arc to her eyebrow gives an edge to her question, but her words are no more than a whisper. He shrugs it off. There's nothing there. No one there.
"People."
Kate inhales through her teeth. Short. Sharp. He realizes what he's said, and he backtracks fast.
"Not dangerous. Just people. People living their lives."
His gaze drops to the alleyway below, the thin gap from the only living room window angled to see a dumpster, a yard of sidewalk and the sloped roof of a NW subway entrance. Their two story walk up is at enough height and set one apartment back from the street so that the souls rambling through broken shards of glass and yesterday's newspapers seem more detached than they actually are.
"Just people." His melancholy has leeched into Kate, her echo of his voice cutting his heart as if done with a butter knife, dull and hacking.
Shit.
"The A local is providing entertainment." He can be better. Better for her.
"Entertainment?" Kate's palm settles on his shoulder, fingers curling into the knot that's formed, that won't leave his neck.
Castle indicates with a tap of his forehead onto the glass, points in his own way to the concrete jungle below.
"He's late. Extraordinarily late. It was the mistress's fault. Turned the alarm off on his phone. Wanted just one more hour before he left her for work and the family he can't look in the eye anymore." The beanpole of a man slips from their view, but his tie is still crooked and looped incorrectly, the buttons of a wrinkled and well-worn dress shirt askew where it's buttoned wrong.
"You got all that from five seconds of viewing?" Soft laughter ruffles the strands of his hair, her right hand dusting across his forehead as she aids their return to his crown.
"But of course. I'm a writer after all."
Her nails pierce the soft flesh behind his clavicle and even through his shirt they smart. As does his declaration.
He was a writer. Still is…?
The silence widens, carries on and on. Hours which are no more than seconds. The train arrives deep below. The sound rumbles up through the floorboards just as it does every few minutes, and he closes his eyes to the world.
"Did you pick this place just so you could spy on the subway entrance?" Her tone is false, light and so very much not Beckett. Not even Kate.
Oh.
She's trying to do better. Be better. Pull him back from the brink just as he'd done not moments ago.
"It does make for good-" he swallows thickly, "stories."
"What's hers?" Kate twitches her head toward the women slipping out of sight. He only catches a pink sneaker but it's enough.
"Email from Bloomingdale's. Sale on spandex."
He edges his ass further along the drooping windowsill, creating a space, small but there. Kate hesitates, eyes calculating the gap before resting herself half in it, half on him.
That's okay with him. More than okay.
"I don't know why they're rushing." Her shoulders narrow as she edges further back into him, his arms finding their place, bucketing her body as they move together, adjusting until settled.
Finding their niche as one.
A stout man, sweating heavily through his tee shirt, the words, 'I heart NYC' overextended on a gut that's enjoyed far too many Dunkin' Donuts, hurtles himself from the footpath and down the narrow stairs of the entrance.
"They're going places?" Sadness creeps back in. The idea of deadlines and needing to be somewhere - something - are no longer a part of their vocabulary.
Another train thunders in, and his eyes drift to the watch strapped tight on his wrist. It's too early for the local B, but maybe the downtown express?
"There's always another one, Castle. Maybe you have to wait ten, fifteen minutes. But there's always a train coming."
His chin nestles into the top of her head, finds the sweet spot that he likes to pretend was created on her just for him. The spot that had been waiting until they'd found each other and he could fit them together. Two pieces of the same puzzle.
"If- When…" He can hear the frustration as she rolls the words in her mouth, attempts to find the right ones. Maybe something that won't pull them down into despair?
"I'm going to move slower." Her bottom lip slides into her mouth, a flash of teeth in the window's reflection before she begins again. "They rush, hurry from one place to the next as if they're saving time. They're not. They're…"
The coil within her constricts, fingers curling, nails no doubt cutting into her palms. The struggle to finish is clearly too much.
He can do this for her.
"For all the seconds that they save rushing through life, Kate, hurtling from A to B in an effort to gain some time, they're losing all the moments in between. At the end of the day they've gained nothing, something taking whatever minutes they'd managed to scrape out for themselves, and in the meantime-"
"In the meantime they've lost so much."
Quiet descends over them with her words; she'd finished what he'd filled in for her. They're taking turns. Being partners.
"I don't want that." Her hushed words skim across the silence, barely touching the surface. "If-"
"When."
"When life goes back to normal, I want more than that. I don't want to rush. I want to take the moments. I want to walk to the subway, holding your hand."
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There's an ache in her lower back, a dull throb that's creeping up the curve of her spine, tightening the muscles of her shoulders and no matter how much Kate flexes there's no relief from the pressure.
Bending over the tub is a bitch, but their clothes need to be washed, and her hands scrub the wet material onto itself over and over in an attempt to clean the New York City pollution from the material.
The water turned a dull grey quickly - it always does - a ring of soap scum marking the porcelain, and Kate's forehead sags under the weight until her head rests awkwardly on the lip of the bath.
Once she's done with the laundry it will have to be cleaned…
"I like what you've done with the place."
She uses her elbows to heave herself up enough to toss a half-hearted glare toward Castle, at the chairs lined up in a row behind her, at the clothes air drying as they hang from the high backs and plastic seats.
"Sorry." His smile drops with his apology, his features falling as he clearly reads hers. "Did we leave the twine at the last place?"
Nodding - it's all she can muster - Kate reaches for a tank top resting on top of the dirty pile beside her. They can't risk laundromats, the time it takes waiting around in public for the wash then dry cycle. Cameras. Witnesses. It's given them no choice but to clean like this, secluded, isolated… safe.
This way keeps them alive for one more day. And another and another, until they can go home.
"Do you want me to take over?" Castle shuffles at her heels, the tips of his fingers reaching down to catch the split ends of her hair. Touching without touching. Always trying to give her space.
"I've got this." She does. Regardless of the pain, the ache deep within, she can finish what she's started.
In the roar of the night, when the sirens hurtle north, glass smashing onto the sidewalk from shaking fingers, trains thundering below, Kate lies frozen next to him, the man she's smothered with her sorrow, stolen with her issues, and wonders if he'll still be here, her partner, to the end.
Not because he would leave. He wouldn't do that. But the front door whispers to her through the noise. Get up. Go. Let him be free.
Then he stirs, fingers stretching across the sagging mattress to find hers, binds her in a way that only he ever could.
"I miss doing laundry." His statement drags her back to the bathroom, a shake of her head clearing the dark of the night, focusing instead on how the florescent light bounces off the chipped tiles.
"You did laundry?"
Castle chuckles as he slouches, hands bracketing against the wall, sinking to the ground, his rather fine ass nudging her aside while he settles into the place next to her. His place.
Even when he had options, when he could have stood to one side and let her disappear from Bracken's men on her own, could have stayed in the life they'd made for themselves, could have distanced himself from the side project she'd started. The discovery of their secret investigation into Bracken's movements had left her life hanging by a thread.
Now they live in a race; Bracken searching for them as they search for proof.
They have no choice but to win.
"Kate?"
"I'm here."
His lips rasp across her forehead, pausing at her temple, inhaling as if somehow he could breathe her in, hold her within himself.
"Me too."
He is.
Life rushes past, but he's here, they're here, washing dirty clothes in scuffed bathtubs until they can return home.
She has to believe it.
One day.
Soon.
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Kisses to Jo and Jamie for the beta, and USA2016 xoxo
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Thank you as always for reading