Title: The Waldo Tryst Part II, The Date and Twenty-Five Days
Author: TracyT
Rating: PG-15
Category: Romance, Angst, Fluff
Summary: Kate and Rick go on their date—and beyond!
Spoilers: Food to Die For, Deadly Game
Archive: yes, please
Feedback to:
Warning: Serious fluff alert ahead! A continuation of a post-Deadly Game Caskett fantasy.
Author's note: Several people asked for the date, so I got to thinking…
#######
The elevator slid down to ground level and they pushed through the glass doors of Kate's building. The cold air made them both gasp a little. "Whoa, a little chilly tonight." Rick gave a shiver, his breath misting in the cold.
"Freezing." Ice and salt crunched under their feet and little piles of snow bordered the sidewalk.
A car was waiting at the curb with a drive leaning against it. As they approached Rick said: "Kate, meet Leo. Leo, Kate." Leo, to put it mildly was HUGE. He had sandy red hair and a beard and was close to seven feet tall.
Leo put two fingertips to the brim of his cap and said softly, "Ma'am." He opened the door for them to slide in. As he was making his way around the car to the driver's side, Kate took the opportunity to ask, "Professional Wrestler?"
Castle grinned. "At one time. Now he owns his own livery service. How did you know?"
Kate gave a little shrug. "Just a guess."
As the car pulled away from the curb, Kate tried not to be nervous, but it must have shown because Rick took her hand and patted it. "It's going to be fine," he said softly.
She gave him a weak smile. "I know, it's just…"
"Come on, we're gonna knock 'em dead, you'll see." Kate just got a better grip on his hand and turned toward the window so he wouldn't see her trepidation.
In no time they were approaching the new restaurant, Zen. Kate knew they were almost there by the huge crowd of people gathered in front of a place with a lot of bright lights.
"Oh, man," Kate gulped. Suddenly dinner, a show, or making out in the back of the movie theater sounded much more preferable to this.
"Yep, here we go," Rick said softly as the car slid up to the curb.
Leo turned in his seat to say, "Let me get in position before you get out, Mr. Castle." He got out of the car and came around to their side to open the door. The car must have some soundproofing, Kate thought, because suddenly the noise from the sidewalk flooded into the car.
Rick leaned in to say to her, "Let me get out first. We have to stand for a moment for the photogs, but then Leo will lead us into the restaurant, okay?" He got out before she could answer, which was probably a good thing, she decided.
The crowd cheered loudly when they recognized Rick and she could see flashes from cameras. This was his world, a world she never expected to be a part of. Then he reached down to help her out of the car and bedlam ensued. The cheers became louder and the flashes multiplied exponentially. "Just smile," Rick said around a grin. She did, holding his arm and leaning into him a little, showing possession. Paparazzi yelled out questions, but she could only make out her name and Rick's. The rest was just noise. She gave Rick an inquisitive look and he shook his head. "I always just pretend they're speaking a foreign language. Ignore them."
"Ready, sir?" Leo turned toward them. Rick nodded and then Leo was bulldozing his way through the crowd and they were left to follow in his wake. One intrepid reporter tried to face the wrath of Leo, but was pushed back so hard he tumbled back into a crowd of people. Leo made it to the door, with them close behind, and shepherded them inside.
The noise and chaos from outside was suddenly muted when the doors closed. She turned to thank Leo, but apparently he hadn't come in with them. She looked up at Castle.
"Wow, that was…"
"Insane? Yeah, it always is." He was grinning.
"Rick Castle!" An accented, booming voice called out. They turned to see a very tall, very handsome man with silver hair, approach. Unlike most of the other patrons, who were in formal suits and tuxes, he was wearing black pants and shirtsleeves. Sleeves which were rolled up to his elbows. Despite that he exuded an air of elegance and sophistication.
"Emile!" Rick welcomed the man with open arms and gave him a hug. "Spectacular opening, my friend."
Emile nodded, pleased. "Yes, yes, I am very happy the launch is going so well. And who is this lovely creature?" He turned his attention to Kate.
"Ah, Emile, this is my beautiful Kate. Kate Beckett. Kate, meet Emile Renault, proprietor of this establishment."
Kate cheeks felt a little warm with all the flattery, but she smiled and held out her hand. "Very nice to meet you, Mr. Renault, and congratulations."
"Ah, you are the one responsible, eh?" He shook a finger at her.
Kate frowned, confused. "I'm sorry?"
"I saw my friend Rick, what was it? Last week, the week before? I had to ask him what—or whom—had made him so happy, because it was plain he was happier than I had ever seen him. He claimed to not know what I was talking about, but I suspected he had someone new in his life. Now I see you and it all becomes clear." He beamed at her.
Kate didn't know exactly how to respond to that, so she just smiled, and turned to look at Rick. He shrugged.
"Yes, now you know my secret." He put a hand on Kate's back.
"Marvelous." He clapped his hands together. "I have a very special table all ready for you. Jonathan will seat you. Enjoy." A man dressed all in black instantly appeared and led them to their table. Kate looked around her and realized the place was a veritable Who's Who of New York. Even the mayor was here.
Jonathan held her chair out for her and then did the same for Rick. "There are no menus tonight. We will be bringing selections of all of our food out to you. The waiters will bring around champagne to start, but if you prefer something else?"
"Oh, I think champagne will be fine, don't you?" He looked at Kate.
"Oh, yes, champagne is fine." When Jonathan left she leaned forward to ask Rick, "'Champagne to start?'"
"Champagne with the appetizers, wine with the main course, Brandy with dessert."
"Wow."
"Hey I thought you could drink most people under the table?"
"Maybe a few years ago. It's been a while," She admitted.
He leaned forward with a raised eyebrow. "Well, then, madam, I look forward to taking advantage of your drunken state later in the evening." He even twirled an invisible moustache.
She lightly whacked the back of his hand with a spoon and gave him a cheeky grin. "I'm counting on it."
The appetizers were brought out first. Escargot with drawn butter, baked brie in puff pastry, fig and olive tapenade and chevre truffles. It was all wonderful. She knew Rick was a foodie, now she could see why.
"Mmm, so good," Kate commented after sampling each one.
"Isn't it great? Hey," Rick held up his empty champagne glass. "I think we need a refill." He looked around, but the waiters with the trays of champagne were on the other side of the room. "It'll take forever for them to make their way back here, let me see if I can't snag us a couple of glasses." He took the napkin from his lap and put it on the table before rising and heading across the room toward the unsuspecting waiters.
Kate watched him go and turned back to her food to find someone sitting in Rick's chair. It was an overweight middle-aged woman wearing a loud purple dress and too much makeup. "Ms. Beckett?" Her voice was gravelly.
"Yes?"
"Barbara Humphrey, New York Post." Great, the paper that had 'outed' them.
Although the woman held out her hand, Kate just nodded her acknowledgement. "Ms. Humphrey." She said it in the same voice she used for interrogations in the box.
"It's so nice to see you two come out of hiding and finally go public," the woman gave her a crocodile smile.
"Not hiding, we just prefer…"
"But you are a couple, yes?"
"Yes we are, but…"
Ignoring her completely, Humphrey continued, "Such a romantic story. A successful but lonely writer and his muse find true love together." She beamed at Kate.
"Ms. Humphrey…" Kate was quickly going from irritated to downright pissed off. She was about to tell Ms. Humphrey the best part about being a homicide detective—she knew where to hide the bodies—when…
"So, can we safely call you the future, third Mrs. Castle?"
"What? Whoa! Wait just a…" A champagne glass was placed in front of her.
"Correction. That would be 'third and last.'" Rick smiled down at them. When both women looked at him agape, he added, "Well, they do say the third time's a charm." When he caught Kate's eye he added, "That is, should the subject come up between us, which it DEFINITELY has not yet."
"Can I quote you on that, Mr. Castle?" Barbara Humphrey asked, clearly sensing an exclusive.
Rick took a sip of champagne and said, "You may." Barbara Humphrey was out of the chair so fast it was like she had been shot out of a cannon, cell phone in hand, clearly running off to find a quiet place to call in her exclusive scoop. Rick calmly took his seat and helped himself to another puff pastry.
"What did you just do? What did you just say?" Kate sputtered.
"Well, you wanted to go public."
"But marriage? I thought we were just at the beginning of our relationship."
Rick sighed and put his fork down to take her hand. "It's not as if it's not something I've been wanting to talk to you about, I just hadn't found the right opportunity."
"And you think this was it? Are you on crack?" Kate struggled to keep her voice down.
Rick looked at her silently for a few moments before running the pad of his thumb across her knuckles. "Do you love me?"
"What? You know I do. That's not the point…"
"Do you love me?"
Kate took a deep breath. "Yes, yes, I love you."
"Okay. I love you, too. Maybe I jumped the gun here, but was I really so far off the mark?"
Kate forced herself to be calm. "Rick, I just wish you had not announced it so publicly before we even had a chance to discuss it together, okay? The idea tonight was to get them off our backs, not pour gasoline onto the fire."
"Point taken, but it will be nothing more than a small squib on the gossip page tomorrow. It's not going to be that big a deal, trust me. You'll see."
#######
The next day Kate decided she was going to kill him. Slowly. The phone had not stopped ringing either at her place, on her cell, or—worst of all—at the station. Ryan and Esposito had a field day, calling out in high voices, "Oh, Ms. Beckett, you have another call from (fill in the rag sheet of your choice here)," or something to that effect. She had lost all credibility, she realized. Captain Montgomery had threatened to issue a press release telling all news media that if they did not cease and desist calling on the subject, he'd personally have them shot, but sadly, he wasn't serious.
As the phone rang yet again, Kate let her head drop onto her desk with a thump and moaned out loud.
#######
Rick, on the other hand, was quietly reading over the morning paper. He was gazing down at the shot of he and Kate standing beside their car, smiling. The caption read, "Is author Richard Castle planning his third set of nuptials with stunning Kate Beckett? According to him, that may well be the case. Could we see a Christmas wedding for the couple? Time will tell."
His cell rang and he checked to see who it was first. He'd had to shut off the home phone and his public cell due to all the calls, but this one was known only to family.
"Mom?"
"Richard Castle! Have you seen the gossip page of the Post this morning? How could you?"
"How could I what? I thought you liked Kate."
"Oh, don't be silly. I do like Kate. I love Kate. What I don't love is finding out about you two being in a near-marriage relationship from the newspaper."
"Oh, yeah, I was meaning to talk to you about that."
"And what about Alexis? Is she to find out from her school mates? Or does she already know?"
He hadn't thought about that. "No, no, she doesn't know yet, but I will tell her before any of her friends do. The whole thing has really been blown out of proportion, though. Uh, guess this is a good time to tell you I invited Kate and her dad over for Christmas."
Martha sighed loudly. "Well that will be fine, dear, especially under the circumstances. Richard?"
"Yes, Mother?"
"Are you happy? Really happy?"
Castle breathed a sigh of relief. "Yeah, really, really happy."
"I'm so glad, darling, but you know Kate's not going to like this one bit."
"Oh, I know." Which is why he hadn't called her yet.
Gotta go. Chet's taking me Christmas shopping."
He hung up and sent Kate a text. It said: "Good Morning. How is your day going?" Testing the waters. Technology, he decided, was a great thing. Probably not the best idea to talk to her in person right now.
Kate texted back almost immediately. All it said was, "You are a dead man."
"D'Oh." He grimaced. Then, from upstairs he heard, "Dad!" Alexis came bounding down the stairs, hair a mess, clearly upset, phone in hand. "You're getting married and you didn't tell me?"
Rick sat up. "What? No, no, not getting married anytime soon, okay? How did you know? I was going to talk to you this morning.
"I had texts from all my friends before I ever got out of bed." She held out the phone in illustration.
"Damn technology!"
#######
They finally defused the situation by issuing a joint statement to the press saying basically, yes, they were a couple now and they thanked all those who had 'expressed an interest' (Kate balked at that part, but Rick convinced her they needed to be diplomatic if they were going to back off the press), but despite what had been reported they had no plans to marry and had not yet even discussed the subject.
Christmas, thank goodness, was a quiet one, but they spent it together. Neither Kate nor her father had put up a tree since her mother's death, but Kate found herself enjoying helping Rick and Alexis put up the tree at his place. Alexis had all sorts of special ornaments bought or given to them over the years and had to show Kate each one before placing it on the tree. Rick got the ladder to place the angel on the top, and Martha made her special egg nog, which, Kate thought, could remove varnish from just about anything.
When her dad came over, she was touched at how Rick and his family made him feel welcome. Rick and Chet watched football with him, and Martha and he discussed some mutual friends. How Martha knew about the friends they shared, Kate had no idea, but her dad seemed to enjoy himself and for that she was grateful.
Later, her dad had gone home, so had Chet and Martha, and Alexis had gone to bed "suspiciously early" according to Rick. She and Rick lay on the couch together with just the lights from the Christmas tree illuminating the room.
She was completely and utterly at peace for the moment. Rick brushed her hair back and kissed the back of her head. "Good Christmas?" He asked.
"Mmm, wonderful Christmas. Best Christmas in years."
"Good," he sounded pleased. "For me, too."
#######
In January, shortly after the New Year, Kate lay awake in the middle of the night, watching the snow fall through the window at the St. Regis hotel. The clue for this one had been, 'Is there a St. Kelly?' Happily, Waldo was still going strong, just not as often as before, but at the moment, Kate was not happy.
Rick was leaving in the morning for a European book tour that would take him away from her for 25 days. Twenty-five days! He'd asked her to go with him, but she couldn't go. She had two murder investigations going and she had to testify in a trial from a previous case. There was no way she could get away, even for a short time and she was already missing Rick terribly.
They were spooned together. She lifted the hand on the arm that was around her and kissed it softly. He had become so much a part of her life, what was she going to do without him for twenty-five days?
"Hey." His voice was soft in her ear. "What's wrong?"
"What's wrong?" She sniffled. "Twenty-five days, that's what's wrong."
"I know." He continued stroking her hair. "It's going to go fast, trust me. It will be over before you know it."
"No it won't." She hugged the arm around her.
He kissed the back of her head. "Marry me."
"No."
"Come on, marry me."
"No. Richard," She maneuvered around until she was facing him. "My agreeing to marry you will not change the fact that we will not see each other for a month."
"Not a month, twenty-five days."
"Okay, five days short of a month."
Rick was quiet for a moment. "Do you want me to see if I can cancel?"
"What? No! I know you have to do what you have to do, I just don't have to be happy about it."
Rick sighed. "I'm not too happy about it myself, but I can't think of an alternative."
"Neither can I."
"We will talk every day, text every day. I'll send you pictures-you can send me pictures." His tone became suggestive. He waggled his eyebrows at her.
She smacked his chest lightly in retaliation. "But I won't be able to touch you." She said sadly.
"Well, you can touch me now." He stroked her arm.
She kissed him, then kissed him again, deeper and longer. Things got a little heated and she pushed him back to straddle him. She kissed him again and said, "We'd better make this good. It has to last us twenty-five days."
Rick smiled, stroking her back. "Well, as far as I'm concerned, we're always good, but I'll certainly do my best," and pulled her down to devour her mouth.
#######
The next day they met Martha and Alexis for breakfast, and then all of them were taking Rick out to the airport. Leo was driving.
Kate only picked at her food. She just couldn't eat much. Of course, he noticed, and leaned over at one point to say softly, "You need to eat something."
She shook her head. "Not hungry." He squeezed her arm and then turned to answer something Alexis had asked.
Leo got them to the airport in record time. Kate recalled a short conversation she'd had with him after her first date with Rick. Rick had stopped to talk to Emile while Leo had helped Kate into the car. She'd thanked him for running interference at the restaurant, and he'd turned and said: "No problem. I'd do anything for Mr. Castle, ma'am. He gave me the seed money to start my business, no interest. He didn't even want me to pay it back, but as soon as the business was in the black, I paid back every dime." Rick never mentioned it to her and that made her love him all the more.
Leo unloaded Rick's bags and they walked with him onto the concourse. They could only go with him as far as security, of course. It wasn't like the old days where anyone could go to the gate and watch the plane take off.
Rick set his suitcase down and turned toward all of them. "Well, time to take off the shoes and stand in line. I just hope I don't get chosen to get the wand."
He hugged Alexis and his mother and then turned to Kate. She was a little uncomfortable with his family watching. She had her arms crossed in front of her and their eyes met. One corner of his mouth turned up and he said: "If you shake my hand I'm never coming back." She threw her arms around him and held him to her. He rocked her back and forth. "I love you" she whispered.
"I love you, too." He gave her a quick kiss. "Miss me, okay?"
"Definitely. You, too."
"Absolutely."
The announcement came that his flight was in. He said good-bye to them all, and then he was headed through the security line.
Kate stood watching as long as she could see him. After he cleared security he held up his passport and waved with it. She slowly held up one hand. He was gone.
She couldn't move for several moments. She felt entirely lost. What was she going to do without him? An arm went around her. "Come on, darling," Martha said softly. "Come back home with us for a while. I'll make lunch. You didn't eat enough to keep a bird alive at breakfast, don't think I didn't notice." When Kate didn't respond, she put her forehead against Kate's and added, "He'll be back before you know it, you'll see."
Kate seriously doubted that, but she let Martha and Alexis lead her out of the airport and back to the car.
TBC