A/N: I was only going to post this as a tumblr ficlet, but then it spiraled into something longer and here we are.
Based on a prompt from eccentricityincarnate on the castlefanficprompts tumblr page. I wrote this quickly with little editing, so I apologize ahead of time for any potential mistakes and general suckiness.
prompt: Kate ends up marrying Josh Davidson, but one night, alone in bed (he got called out for surgery) she finds this photo on the Internet and runs to Castle.
It's late, ridiculously late, and she's tucked into bed at 3 a.m., her laptop warming the space where her husband should be. She can't recall the last time they shared a bed though; it's been so long since she actually wanted him near, and now, with the impending divorce, Josh only ever comes into their bedroom when he needs access to their shared closet. But he isn't here now anyway, off saving lives as usual.
She's mindlessly scouring the internet, not searching for anything in particular, just needing to kill the restless hours of the night and make her eyes grow heavy from the glow of the screen. She finds herself scrolling through a social media website, quotes of love and loss and hope flashing by as she uses her thumb on the mousepad to send the words flying. But a single black photo with striking white lettering catches her eye, just the style of it appealing, but reading it is a mistake and her chest begins to succumb to that familiar feeling of caving in.
Who a person kisses, sleeps with, or even marries is of no real consequence.
It's who a person misses in the middle of the night who matters, who is of most importance.
Because it makes her think of him.
What doesn't really? But this, this black and white photo of words that speaks of late night musings and moonlit desire, brings his face to her mind startlingly quick. And the well-known ache of missing him is too much, it's always too much.
Kate closes her laptop and pushes the covers from her legs. She has no real intentions when she meanders her way through the small bedroom to the closet near the door. She isn't actually considering going anywhere when she slips out of her pajamas and into a pair of jeans and a warm sweater to combat the chilly night air. She doesn't have a true destination in mind as she grabs her keys, her badge, and a few bills from her wallet while she steps into her boots by the front door and locks it behind her.
She doesn't realize what she's doing until she's on the street, halfway to his place in SoHo at three in the morning.
She pauses at a stop sign, chews on her thumbnail as her head swivels back towards the direction of her apartment building. She's done this before - dressed in the middle of the night when the yearning for him was inconsolably strong, walked for a while, purposely in the direction that would lead her to him, but she always turned back. She never actually went through with seeing him. But tonight, words that carved themselves onto the backs of her eyelids torment her, encouraging her feet to continue forward.
By the time she makes it to his building, she knows it's a mistake. But his doorman lets her in with a light smile, a spark of recognition in his friendly, brown eyes, and Kate attempts a smile back. She's pretty sure it falls flat under her nerves.
She spends a long time outside of his door after she exits the elevator, twisting her hands, shifting from foot to foot. This was stupid. It was three - no, almost four now - in the morning and he's probably sleeping and she can't imagine him being anywhere near pleased to see her after all this time.
Well. Maybe he didn't hate her as much as she feared. Maybe he would -
The door swings open, her eyes widen like a deer caught in the headlights before the impact of a car crash.
"Kate?"
It's the use of her first name that does her in. Because no other man has ever made her heart race by merely speaking the single syllable of her name.
"Kate?" Castle repeats, softer now, reaching for her shoulder. But his hand quickly falls away. "Are you okay?"
Beckett shakes her head, tears that have been building for nearly two years, ever since they had decided to part ways only days after she had accepted Josh's proposal, tears that she has always blinked away fill her eyes and make the vision of his concerned face go blurry as they trip down her cheeks, and Castle opens the door wider, hesitantly invites her in.
She steps in, but she stops in front of him, stares up at him.
"I should have said no," she rasps.
His brow furrows in confusion.
"I never wanted him, not - not like I wanted you. But he was - he was safe so I said yes and then you left and I've been so - god, so miserable," she chokes, using the edges of her sleeve to wipe at the convergence of moisture dripping down her chin. "I'm an idiot, I'm sorry."
She turns to leave, shame and embarrassment like a vice around her throat, making it impossible to say anything more, but Castle catches her wrist before she can disappear down the hallway.
He hugs her. He wraps her up and holds her close and it surprises her for a moment, but her arms return the embrace immediately, gripping him too tightly, never wanting to let go.
It almost reminds her of the day he hugged her goodbye outside the steps of the precinct two years ago, right before he walked away from her for the last time and wished her the best of luck with another man.
Castle reluctantly relinquishes his hold on her after a couple of minutes, taking a small step back, but allowing his hands to remain hovering at her elbows.
"What happened?" he asks, voice gruff, guarded, and she sees in his eyes that he's uncertain of her, scared even, because she broke his heart. Just like she broke her own by disregarding its true wants. "Tonight, I mean."
Kate swallows, tempted to retrieve her phone from her back pocket, search for the image she had found on her laptop that pushed her out of bed and across the city, because if anyone would understand, it would be Castle. Instead, she takes a breath and holds his gaze as she admits a truth she has never admitted to anyone but herself, and never aloud.
"For the past two years," she whispers. "I've spent every night thinking about you, regretting everything I've done since that day. Even on my wedding day... all I could think about was you. I just wanted you."
Castle's eyes flutter closed, his jaw squares, and she braces herself for the well-deserved rejection. She lowers her head, drops it to his chest, because if this is the last time she's going to see him, she wants to memorize it all - the scent of his aftershave, the broadness of his chest, the sound of his voice reverberating against his sternum where her forehead rests.
"Why didn't you come sooner?"
She has to wait a moment before she lifts her head, needing an extra second to comprehend the words that aren't the denial she was expecting.
"I thought I needed to make my marriage work, or at least try, and I was sure that you wouldn't want to see me after how I treated you." She purses her lips to hold in the endless string of apologies. "And I was sure there would be someone else."
She says it as an afterthought, one that had made her stomach churn over the years, but stiffens in realization as soon as the words leave her lips, eyes instinctively flying past his shoulder in search of a significant other. Oh god, she didn't even care to think if there was someone new, if there was someone sleeping in his bed right now as he stood at his doorstep with her, if she was intruding on his life with another woman. "Is there - should I go?"
His hands tighten at her elbows.
"No," he sighs, looking ashamedly to his feet for a moment. "I tried seeing other people, moving on, but - no. There's no one."
She bites her lip, attempts to quell the new set of tears stinging the corners of her eyes. "I'm so sorry, Castle. If I could take it back-"
He pulls her close again, buries his face in her hair while she presses her cheek to his clavicle. She doesn't want to give this up again.
"We're getting a divorce," she says after a few moments of silence.
Castle doesn't reply right away and her nerves rally, worrying her that it isn't enough, that it will never be enough to make up for the mistakes she's made.
"You said my name in bed, didn't you?"
The laugh startles out of her and she pulls back, looks up to see his tired eyes are shining with mirth. She feels her lips fall into a smile, a real one she hasn't offered anyone in years, and her heart comes alive.
She cups his cheeks, caresses the stubble peppering his skin and draws him down for a tentative brush of lips that quickly, inevitably escalates. He pushes her back with the force of his body, arms pulling her closer even as her back slams against the door. She hears the muffled click of the automatic lock as his mouth ravages hers, years of want and regret conveyed into the urgent clash of teeth and the desperate dance of tongues.
She gasps at the burn of his open mouth over her pulse point, gliding down her neck like fire, nudging at the edges of her sweater and nearly sending her to her knees. But when his lips brush the scar between her breasts, she stiffens, almost having forgotten about the puckered flesh she has never expected for him to see. He releases a shaky exhale against her skin, clutches her hips hard enough to bruise, and she cradles his skull between her hands, strokes his ears with her thumbs while his hooded eyes linger on the healed entry wound just above her heart.
"I visited you in the hospital," he confesses and her hands still. "You were unconscious and I knew I wasn't welcome there, but after Ryan told me what happened I just - I had to see. I had to know you were still alive."
She guides his face upwards, away from her marred chest, and laces her fingers behind his neck. She wants to tell him that he was always welcome, she wants to tell him how badly she wanted to call him every single day of that summer she spent at the stupid rehab facility Josh coerced her into, she wants to tell him... so much, but the words are caught around the lump in her throat.
He engulfs her face in his large palms when it starts to crumple, kisses the trembling frown of her lips, and she almost tells him. But it's still too early, still too tentative, for those three words.
So she slips her tongue into the cove of his mouth, paints the unspoken confession onto his lips, over and over again like a secret ceremonial, until she can barely breathe.
It's Castle who stops them when she's on the tips of her toes with his body the only thing keeping her from slipping down the door.
"I did say your name," she pants, stealing one last kiss. She coils her arms around his neck for leverage, presses her forehead to his so she can see directly into his eyes. "Twice."
His lust laden eyes take only a moment widen in disbelief. "You - seriously?"
"It was kind of the last straw," she winces.
She hides her face in his neck as he rumbles with breathless laughter.
"Well, if Doctor Motorcycle Boy didn't hate me before..."
She grins against his skin even though she knows she should grimace, but he's already making jokes, and it gives her hope that maybe they could actually work past this. Together.
"He never compared," she murmurs, sweeping her lips over his shoulder.
His palm lifts to cradle her skull, fingers combing through her tangled hair.
"Rick?"
"Hmm?"
She finds the hand at her waist, watches the effortless twine of their fingers, how well their palms fit.
"Can I stay here tonight?"
She feels the tension slowly begin to build its way up his spine and squeezes his hand. "Kate, I don't think we should-"
"Just to sleep," she assures him, looking up with a shy curve of a smile. "I just - I don't want to go."
He leads her to his bedroom, tucks her into the rumpled sheets and warm comforter that smells like him, and situates himself at her back. But she rolls over instead, curls her limbs around him and holds on. He holds her back.
To see the photo that inspired Kate (and this fic): castlefanficprompts dot tumblr dot com / post / 88497764727 / eccentricityincarnate - castlefanficprompts