For lousiemcdoogle, in lieu of a huge hug. You are a brave and beautiful princess, and I hope things turn around soon. Based on a prompt from the castlefanficprompts blog: "Beckett accidentally texts Castle "I love you" thinking she was sending that to her dad."
exegi monumentum aere perennius
I have raised a monument more permanent than bronze
The wood of the front porch is sun-warmed under her feet and Kate curls her toes until the joints pop, her shoulder against the doorframe to keep her body upright. It's taken her five weeks to convince her dad that he doesn't need to be here watching over her every moment of the day. She's getting better, stronger, enough that she can stand here and wave her father goodbye as he backs out of the drive.
Heading back to the city and leaving her here alone. Solitude is healing, always has been for Beckett. She needs to curl up and lick at her aching places in private, without anyone to witness it. Kate stands until her father's car exits the long driveway to join the road, and once it disappears from view she sinks down onto the bench seat and sucks in a breath through her teeth.
The muscles of her abdomen quiver with the strain of holding her up and she presses a hand there, focus on breathing through the forked tongue of agony that splits her chest. Her dad made her turn on her cell phone before he left, so that he'd be able to contact her, and the thing starts vibrating furiously in her pocket. Kate pulls it free and watches the notifications roll in. A bunch of standard emails from the precinct, nothing important. A barrage of texts from her friends that she sees have dried up considerably, the last message from a week ago.
Guilt tastes dark and acrid at the back of her throat and she swallows, drops the phone to the seat cushion next to her. She wants to be stronger, to ignore it all, but now that the notifications are right in front of her she can't help herself. Kate snatches up the phone, embarrassed by her own childish weakness, and opens up the messenger application.
Each of the boys has sent her their well wishes, details of cases they were working on a few weeks ago, but they've given up with that now. It's sweet of them, to try and make her feel like part of the team, but she hurts too much to focus on somebody else's suffering. Kate scrolls through messages from Lanie, from her aunt, from a handful of friends, but their words don't make her feel any better.
She knows that they mean it, when they say they're sorry about what happened, but she feels like a weed, withering and hunched over. The hole in her chest leaves her wide open, lets anything crawl inside, and so it's infinitely better to stay far away from everyone. Not expose her tender, shellshocked heart to more hurt.
Kate slides her phone back into her pocket and stands, moving inside to get herself a glass of water. It's hot outside, but the sun feels so wonderful against her skin that she just wants to stretch out on the dock and close her eyes, let her feet trail into the water.
She might not be able to get up again, but that's alright. There's nowhere else she needs to be.
Her father pulled everything down from the higher cabinets in the kitchen because she still can't reach above her head without the lance of pain down her side, and the counter is scattered with an assortment of groceries and pots and crockery. Stomach still nervous after the surgery, she has to snack throughout the day instead of indulging in proper meals.
Even when the nausea rolls in the pit of her belly, she craves a burger from Remy's and Castle's eyes on hers across the booth. Kate fixes herself a glass of the fruit juice in the fridge, grabs an apple and a sleeve of crackers and heads out the back door and down towards the lake.
The water laps against the wood, glinting through the gaps in the slats, and her father's boat nudges into the side of the dock over and over. It's a peaceful day, water boatmen gliding lazy through the lake, and Kate toes out of her shoes and lets her feet skim the surface. Further out, fish leap to snatch the insects that hover and she watches, licking salt off her fingers before she slides each cracker into her mouth.
When she shifts her position, her body starting to crackle with slow-dawning awareness, her phone digs into the flesh of her thigh and she winces, has to tug it free. Here by the lake, with the water kissing her toes and the hum of a dragonfly a few feet away, Kate finds herself brave enough to check the last of her messages.
There's only one, waiting patiently all this time like an old lover. It's from the day after Castle came to see her at the hospital, the day she turned off her phone, and her fingers come up to trace her smile at his words.
I forgot to tell you yesterday that you looked beautiful. Take as much time as you need, and I'll be here when you're feeling stronger.
It is probably no longer true. When she told him she needed time, even Kate didn't know just how much she was asking for. Only, days rolled over into weeks and she couldn't face him without also facing his confession. It guts her, to know that the first time he said those words to her will always be ruined. Every time she thinks of it, his face hovering above her, she feels the rip of agony in her chest, the panic bubbling over until she drowned in it.
She can't separate the two, can't hold on to the wonder of his feelings without remembering the pain and the blood and the terror. Kate sets the sleeve of crackers aside and lays back, the planks that make up the dock warming the skin of her back even through her t-shirt. Since the surgery she's been cold as a snake, shivering even when her father set a fire and she huddled close to the hearth, and it's wonderful to feel the sheen of sweat at her temples, the low-down curve of her spine.
Eyes slipping closed, Kate allows herself a handful of minutes to think about it. The lake makes her feel confident that she can battle back the horror, so for the first time since she woke up in the hospital, she lets his face fill her mind. His hands all over, trying to keep her lifeblood inside, the sky a crisp edge behind him. Grass tickling the shell of her ear, the slide of tears down his nose to splash against her chin. His voice, ragged with desperation, begging her not to leave him.
Kate gasps and sits up, a hand pressed between her breasts. Her palm catches against the rough skin of her bullet scar and she bites back a sob. She never wanted to leave, wanted to stay with him so badly, but her body hollowed out too quickly.
Her phone dances across the dock and she has to snatch it up before it can dive into the water. A message from her father to tell her that he's home safely, that he's worried about her, and Kate unlocks her phone and taps out a reply. Quickly, because she's a coward and even with her own father it's a battle to be honest.
I'm fine here at the cabin. It's what I need to rest, and heal, and I don't want you to worry - I'll see you soon. I love you.
Pressing the button to lock her phone again, Kate pushes it a few inches away from her and covers her eyes with her hand, wishing she had the energy to look for sunglasses. The emotional exertion of just checking her text messages - not even responding to most of them - has her wiped out, and if she doesn't get up now she might fall asleep out on the dock for a few hours.
Yeah, she doesn't want to burn, or become a mosquito buffet. Kate collects her things and stands, her body creaking like an old ship as she does so. Her feet slip-slide inside her shoes, still wet from the lake, and she steps out of the flats and leaves them next to the door before she moves into the kitchen. The crackers and the apple she didn't eat go back onto the counter and she moves right through to the bedroom.
More than once, the spectre of a nightmare has tossed her out of bed and she's been trapped, gasping and twitching until her father came to help her up. Kate curls on her side on top of the sheets, hooking her toes in the blanket her grandmother knitted when she was born and tugging it up over herself. Her fist rests underneath her chin and she closes her eyes, lets the sun-drenched length of her body sink down into blissful unconsciousness.
It seems like only moments later that the ringing of her phone yanks her out of sleep, a fierce hand around her throat, but the sun is already sinking into the belly of the earth. Kate reaches for her phone on the nightstand and swipes her thumb to accept the call, still with one foot in dreaming.
"Dad? Hey."
"Um, not your dad." A voice says, and her eyes fly open. Kate sits up, falling against the headboard, and her hand splays over her heart. The sound of his voice after so long makes her weak, as fragile as a bullet in her chest.
"Castle?"
"Hey, Kate. I got your text."
He got her. . .
Oh. Oh. Shit. When she opened up her messenger application, her conversation with Castle must have still been there, so she texted him instead of her dad. Oh god. She texted him that she'll see him soon.
That she loves him.
She is going to puke.
"Beckett, you there?"
"Uh-huh. Here." She manages to grit out, her stomach rolling over. Her palm rests there as if to soothe it, but a tremor wracks her body and she sucks a breath through her teeth. How can she tell him that it wasn't meant for him, when every word of it was true? "I'm sorry, Castle."
There's a beat of silence, a rustle, and she hears the shaky breath he sucks in. "For. . .for what?"
"For not messaging you sooner." She didn't even mean to message him today, but she won't tell him that. Castle trusted her, gave her his heart to cradle in her hands, and she won't do any more damage. "I didn't mean to leave it this long. Time just got away from me."
"It's alright. I understand, you needed time to heal. You're at your dad's cabin?"
Kate draws her legs up underneath herself, clutches a pillow to her chest and settles in for a real conversation. It's the very least she owes him. "Yeah. I came up here five weeks ago. Dad went home today."
"Are you sure you're alright on your own?" Concern chokes him, his voice reed-thin, and Kate rests her temple to the wall. This man loves her infinitely more than she deserves, and suddenly she knows. There is a way she can ask for his forgiveness.
"Actually. . .I'm not. My dad was driving me crazy, breathing down my neck, but I don't want to be alone. Would you- can you come to the cabin?"
As soon as the words are out, Kate wants to weep. He probably doesn't want to see her, probably hates her more than a little bit right now, and he's got his family in the city and-
"I'd love to. I can come first thing tomorrow?"
"You will?"
His voice is rich with a smile, and even though he hasn't mentioned the rest of her message - that she loves him - she knows he's not ignoring it. "I will, Kate. See you tomorrow."
She messaged him directions last night, after they spoke on the phone, and when he pulls up her text to program his GPS he can't help but reread her earlier message a few hundred times. Kate Beckett loves him. He grins like a loon the entire drive upstate, singing along to the playlist he made on his phone earlier this year.
Songs that make him think of her. Bright, sunshine bursts of love and pop music, and he's pretty sure some of the other drivers he passes are laughing at him, but he doesn't care. Today, on his way to see Kate, just being alive feels like a miracle.
When he pulls into the driveway of the cabin she's waiting for him, a hip propped against the doorframe, and he feels a grin split his face wide open. She looks so wonderful, so healthy, that for a moment all he can do is sit behind the wheel and take her in.
Once he's sure that this is real, Kate really is grinning at him, he gets out of the car and grabs his weekender bag from the trunk, jogs down the path and up the two steps of the porch until he's right in front of her. Rick sets his bag down, and as her mouth opens he cups her face in his palms and leans in, dusts a tender kiss to her lips. She gasps, makes like she wants to arch into him but a hot edge of tension rips through her and she winces, listing to the side.
Right. As much as he wants to drag her against him, Kate isn't completely healed yet. He has to take it slow, tread carefully. Pulling away, Castle lets his forehead nudge against hers and he smiles, one corner of his mouth tugging upward. He used to be ashamed of his lopsided smile, the deep fissures around his eyes, but when Kate returns his grin with such vigour it all just sloughs off him. His thumbs stroke her cheeks, the almost translucent curve of her ear, and he sucks in a tremulous breath.
"I love you too, Kate."