A/N: forgive me, I'm a little rusty.
Set early season four.
The darkness of the precinct has always fascinated Castle. It's late as they finally prepare to head out, the lights dimming down to the midnight minimum, and he perches on the edge of Beckett's desk just watching her.
There is a truth in the quiet precinct that he enjoys. Justice silent yet clinging to the aging walls, its presence everlasting.
He's comfortable here, feels at home.
The night shift meander, pace leisurely unless necessity calls for speed and those about to leave or having just arrived drift in the background, ghostly spectres sharing their plane.
It's not enough to disturb his casual perusal - surroundings and Beckett, both - the silence aiding in the slow slip of the mask he has worn all day.
Half-light shadows cast her in a caramel gleam, the warmth drawing a little of the paleness from her skin. She looks softer as she sighs, pulling the hair loose from the back of her shirt.
When she tugs her coat from the chair he holds out his hands and she smiles, his own lips answering before he grants them permission. Beckett gives him a short nod of thanks before she raises her arms, ducks her head and dips her chin, hiding her expression and the gentle spill of color that stains her cheeks.
He doesn't miss it; he never does. Doesn't miss the way her eyes dart to watch him over her shoulder when he draws near.
During the day keeping his distance is agonising. There is a constant ache in muscles that just want to reach out and tug her close, to sweep the hair back from her eyes. He doesn't, of course, but these small moments of connection between them have become a beacon that he clings to at the end of every case, every night that leaves them parted.
The mask slips a little more when his fingers flare at the heat of her wrist, and, with watchful eyes on the woman he loves, Castle swallows hard, allowing it to fall completely. They're alone after all and she's distracted enough that the way his love for her bleeds from his eyes doesn't pull her to a stop in the middle of her story.
She's talking, her voice doused with an end of the day lilt that holds him enchanted. It's softer than her work voice, the ends of each sentence a little mumbled, a little blurred. She's tired, happy the day is done, chattering away and talking to him in the companionable quiet echo as she slips her arms into the narrow sleeves of her coat.
Castle exists in the silence between her words, the things she doesn't say that he still hears. The pauses of remembrance, the half breathless laugh at herself that is new and magical, bringing a lightness to her that is perhaps less fleeting than it once was.
He finds himself smiling just listening to the rhythm of her voice and she turns to him, flicking her hair free, pleased when she finds him happy with whatever she has said.
Another flick of hair and he inhales a gust of scent, quiet in the way it rushes for his senses, dulled by the efforts of the day, yet no less intoxicating.
She's still talking as they stand opposite each other, fingers fiddling with hem of her sleeve. Thumb and forefinger in tandem as they worry the edge and her voice rambles on, holding him captive. Everything, all of her, holding him captive.
Her fingers creep to her neck, head tilting against an invisible ache and she stifles a yawn, lips popping wide against the back of her hand. She smiles, apologises.
He won't hear of it, won't hear it at all as he reaches out and runs a hand down the length of her arm, feeling the warm press of her shoulder when she rests against him.
Unknowingly, perhaps.
Castle straightens the ridges and seams, tugs her sleeves a little to set her to rights, and he startles to a stop when Kate's fingers flitter up to pick something from his chest - a hair or an imagined speck of dust - before they fall to her side once more.
His eyes drop, seeking hers and realising the silence has settled in around them, a cacophonous roar that gets louder the longer it goes unfilled with mindless babble.
Her eyes are huge, wide and staring back. Pale green, dark brown. Her lashes fall in a heavy beat, lids slow to separate from each other but when they do he finds her pupils echo the precinct. There is an absence of light within the jet black smear, yet a truth in silent contemplation that makes his breath catch.
A reflection.
Desire, dark and misty, quiet as it waits.
Castle forces his hands from her sides, makes himself step back. He holds his body rigid and at a distance, watching the detective, knowing that she may well be tired from a long day of police work but he's exhausted from hiding how very much in love with her he is.
She's not been back all that long he reminds himself, a little over a month and, though he pretends not to, Castle still catches her pressing a hand to her chest - the heel of her palm hard against the same narrow stretch of skin he pressed his own fingers to as she lay dying.
She still grits her teeth when she finds it hard to breathe and it's exhausting not being able to let his hand fall on her shoulder and brace her, to not touch her back in comfort and ease her through the pain.
But she's talking with that lower toned ease, her hair a dark cascade that ripples forwards when she dips her chin - sighing on a laugh - and starting in on her buttons. Reminding him with every word, every breath, she's here and she's alive.
It's enough.
He forces himself to exist in those moments of silence, in the ease of banter at a crime scene and the brush of fingers when he passes her a coffee cup. For her, he finds he can force himself to do a lot of things.
The lights overhead hum in that weird, familiar way, the footsteps of others too far and too distant to be heard as anything more than a remembered echo, yet they maintain the space between them, the natural order of things ever unchanging.
He hates it, wonders if she does too. Wonders if their conversation on the swings plays on repeat in her head as often as it does in his.
What they leave unsaid louder than the tale she tells.
She's going home without him, again, going home alone, again, and there's something so sweet in the way she talks about wrapping up the case early - yes, she counts midnight as early - that Castle can no longer resist breaking the rules.
They're not together, they don't do this, and when he takes those two tentative steps closer, her head lifts and though it doesn't leave her lips - the question of what are you doing, Castle? - her smile falters.
Her eyes lift to meet his again, lost instantly in their sincere depths.
Her stare is all encompassing, drenched with questions.
Pupils large with lashes and lids that part to bathe him in such intensity that there may as well be a planetary shift - his world, if not all others, tilting on its axis - as they stand in silence.
She doesn't freeze, but waits there before him in patient reticence, wondering what comes next.
Castle takes the scarf from her hands, and their knuckles brush. Her fingers are always colder than his and her head drops to stare down, questioning his movement.
It's not what she expects, her smile slow at that, as he takes her by surprise. Her words stumble to a stop, rolling to an unnatural end midway through her delighted description of a quiet hour to eat and take a hot shower before climbing into bed.
She makes the simplest things sound like heaven, like an adventure. He'd give anything to be the one to take her home and share it all.
Castle strokes the soft silk scarf between his fingers, touching hers again, and wonders just how pathetically obvious it is that he wants to share her life?
His palms are huge and they dwarf her hands instantly, skating over the chill of her skin with warmth and a firm touch. Castle gathers her to him, sets her coat straight by pulling at the collar and folding it over on itself again.
He loops the scarf around her neck. The material heavy in his hands, dark and a little muted in tone. Not dissimilar to the detective herself since she's returned.
He hates that comparison, pushes it away and concentrates instead on the light in her eyes, the faint pink blush to her cheeks. She's not dulled by all she has endured, he sees it, that she's fighting. Forging herself in fire.
He'd walk through the flames with her, if she'd let him.
Castle fits the coat around the scarf as though he's done exactly that a thousand times before, touches skin when his fingers idle in the soft strands of her hair, the deep heat at the back of her neck drawing his caress. Her eyes close. She swallows and his thumb glances the bob of tendon and muscle, tracing a shiver before forcing himself to let it evade his grasp.
Gathering her hair in a silken knot around the curve of his fist, Castle raises the strands from her back, eases the mass down on her shoulder and touches just the tip of one finger to the resultant mess.
She looks beautiful, broken yet resilient. She astounds him.
Castle pulls his hand away slowly, watches the way her lashes fall as he retreats and it's exhausting not reading anything into that.
He knots her scarf and feels the push of a false smile ready to make this easy for her.
It never comes.
Her fingers curl in the collar of his own coat, skate down and Kate gives up her armour for the briefest second, allowing him to see it. She's exhausted too.
Her head drops to his chest and she sighs as he catches her. Long and drawn out, as though breathing him in. Her hands hold fast to his coat, fingers clenched so he can't move away even as it seems like agony to her.
This, at least, they can endure together.
There's frustration in the sudden rigid curl of her spine, what she yearns for just evading her grasp. His hand falls there all too easily, the small of her back, and up, palm wide and sweeping down.
Soothing and sympathising.
It all comes so easily.
Her shoulders drop and she pushes away, eyes full of apologies he has no ears for. Her words are better spent on tales of how she'll spend her evening, curled in bed, book open in her lap, than lamenting all they can't yet be.
He shakes his head, subtle but enough for her to nod in return. Slight, unspoken. The wait is agonising for them both. He sees that now.
Her eyes fall to his lips, lift away before she can mutter how much she longs to kiss him. Before he can say it back.
They don't move, both of them shocked at their honesty, the late night and familiar walls making them bold, brazen in their love.
"Soon," slips out before he can stop it, his braced heart certain of a fall.
She catches him before he can fall too far.
"Yes," she bites her lip on a laugh, teeth pressing into flesh that should be pressed to his own. She takes another shallow breath, a little of him stolen for the night, and they step into the elevator.
Together.