A/N: This one wouldn't leave me alone. Spoilers for 4x01, Rise, and everything before that. Set between when Beckett sends Castle away at the hospital and the bookstore scene, so the summertime gap. Usual disclaimers apply. This was written on the fly and it's un-beta'd, so any and all mistakes are mine.
She's not sure why she does it, but it's just past four in the morning when she picks up the phone.
She's standing in the kitchen, perched against the worn countertop and holding a cup of hot chocolate. She can remember all the winters she and her parents would spend in this cabin when she was a child. Her mother would put her up on the same countertop, hand her a mug of hot chocolate and tell her that they'd have to warm up a bit before they could go back out in the snow.
Right now, she would be drinking coffee, but her father enjoys hiding it away from her after the sun goes down so she doesn't get any more jittery then she already is. She'd found his hiding spots a few times; now she just assumes he takes it to his room. It's for the best, she knows, but man, the things she would do for a cup of coffee.
Today had been rough, not unlike other days. Physical therapy had been long and grueling, pushing her limits and her pain level to the max. She'd come home and taken an ice bath to soothe her aching muscles, amazed at how incapacitated her upper body had become from the sniper shot to her chest.
Castle had been on her mind for most of the day, starting with her therapy session in the morning – the girl on the table next to hers was a young redhead with porcelain skin and blue eyes, much like Alexis. When she'd come home, she curled up with his book after her bath. After dinner, when she finally turned in for the night, he'd visited her dreams until she'd woken up for her hot chocolate.
Kate tossed her thoughts around in her mind with a visible nod of her head. She placed her mug on the countertop, bracing her hands on it to pull herself up onto the surface to sit, remembering again to when she was a child. Letting out an aspirated breath when she settled, muscles screaming, but not as badly as they would have had she attempted this a month ago, she craned her neck to loosen the knots there.
Finally comfortable, Kate reached for the mug only to find her fingers wrapped around the telephone headset that was resting on the counter, out of its base.
She sighs, running her fingers over the smooth buttons. It would be so easy, right? To just dial the number she knows by heart, to have it ring and ring just and have it go to his voicemail, just so she can hear his voice.
Holding her breath, she punches in the number, thankful that her dad's cabin has an already private, unlisted landline and puts the headset to her ear. She lets the air whoosh out of her lungs and after the third ring, when silence overwhelms her, she gasps her breath back in to keep quiet.
"Mm, 'lo?" comes Castle's muffled voice and she nearly squeaks at the sound.
Kate doesn't say anything, doesn't move, doesn't breathe, either – just sits there, waiting.
"Anyone there?" she hears him continue and she shakes her head once at herself, unsure of what to do, really wishing she hadn't done this.
Because, if Kate were being honest with herself, she should have known that she'd called him at 4am too many times for a body drop for him to not answer when the phone rings at the same ungodly hour.
"Alexis, if this is your and Paige's idea of a funny joke, you won't be laughing tomorrow when I'm as grizzly as a, well, a grizzly bear."
She hears him chuckle to himself at his own joke and she nearly lets out a small giggle, but bites her tongue.
"I'll be sure to make you're a s'morelete for breakfast when you get home. I know how much you love those," he tells her, sarcasm mixing with his yawn.
Silently, she waits.
"Hm, well, you must be getting a kick out of this," he says and she hears sheets rustle, like he's moving, sitting up, "if you're still on the line."
Kate picks up her hot chocolate and takes a small sip as she listens to him think.
"Mother, are you knocking them back too quickly?" he asks, almost concerned. "Do I have to come and get you?"
She can almost hear his mother's animated response play out in her mind: "Oh, no Darling, I'm fine, no need to worry about me, you keep on talking to nobody on the phone and I'll just be on my way."
"Espo, Ryan – if you two think this is comical, remember, I can take that coffee machine out of there just as quickly as I put it in."
She smiles at the mention of the boys. She misses them, really. All her boys.
"Is there a body drop? Guys?"
More silence, until he sighs. She knows he's up now, his mind reeling, wondering who one Earth is calling him and why they're still on the phone, toying with his incredible mind, his vivid imagination. His adoration for the story, at whatever cost.
"No, not the boys, hmm?" he hums in thought, sending a buzzing through the phone and she can picture him sitting there, making a face, trying to figure it out.
She should hang up, really, she knows that. But she misses him, so much. Hearing him talking, brainstorming in a similar fashion to how he would if they were together, solving murders and catching criminals. If she was still his partner and hadn't pushed him away.
Kate moves to take the phone away from her ear, to hang up, when he speaks again and damnit, she really shouldn't listen but okay, Castle, sure.
"Don't you have better things to be doing at oh, oh my God – you prank called me at four in the morning?" she hears him sigh, hears something shuffle over the mouthpiece of his phone, "you should really hang up. I can trace you, you know. I have the power. I diffused a bomb, once. Probably saved your life."
She hiccups out a laugh before she can attempt to stop it – a distinguishable, identifiable laugh – and she hears him still on the other end, feels her own heart stop. The newfound tension is palpable, even when they're miles and miles apart.
Again, she tells herself, now more then ever, she should hang up. But now he knows, she assumes, so she waits, listens.
"Beckett?" he asks, barley audibly, just above a whisper, "Kate, is that you? Oh God, I've been so worried, the boys and Lanie have been asking about you and no one's heard from you and we're just all really concerned."
She stays quiet and oh, so still. She's a coward, she should have never called him, she should have stayed in bed and talked to him in her dreams instead.
"Kate, you can always talk to me, you know. Partners and all. I just, I hope you know how much everyone misses you."
Nothing. She says nothing. She flirts with the notion, wonders if he knows how much she misses him.
"Kate? Please, say something."
She sighs quietly, takes a deep breath in.
"Night, Castle."
Then, she hangs up.
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