Prompted by lousiemcdoogle: What if Castle wasn't behind the glass in 47 Seconds? What difference would it have made in The Limey when Hunt showed up? (Jealous!Castle)
Started as one small drabble, then Lou asked for a bit more, and then Beanie wouldn't let me just leave it at that.
"Woah! Dude… woah!" Castle can barely cover his eyes fast enough, let alone Beckett's, no one should be subjected to looking at such a physically perfect specimen. Doesn't this guy know how he's putting the rest of the men in Beckett's life - or at least, the one chasing her the hardest - to total shame?
The guy introduces himself, probably the most hammed up Brit since Dick Van Dyke, but Castle can see she's entranced before she even peeks around his left hand.
"Beckett, would you just stop looking please? He's clearly not armed," Rick notes, before mumbling, "unless you count the big-…"
"Castle!" Beckett's head whips across to fix a glare on him.
"…I was going to say 'guns', like, arms…" He tries to hide his smirk but he knows he could never keep the laughter from dancing in his eyes.
The Detective Inspector clears his throat. "May I…" Both Castle and Beckett peer around Castle's unmoving hands, and he points to the towel with his hands still raised. Beckett holsters her gun, and Castle sets his jaw when he sees her whole attention is on the man in front of them as she watches him bend down to pick up the towel to cover himself.
"Beckett, later… after this case… I wonder if…" She turns her face back to him, her shy smile feeling to him like the sun breaking through the clouds.
"Yeah, Castle." She nods. "After this case."
"Where's Scotland Yard off to?" Castle asks as he bounces back over to her desk.
"He's going back to London… look, Castle, do you have a second? Can we talk?" She doesn't remember the last time she was so nervous.
"Actually, I was going to ask if you wanted to come back to the loft with me for dinner with Alexis and Mother, but I just spoke to Alexis and she warned me that Paige has arrived in floods of tears," he gives her a pained expression and she nods in sympathy. "Her boyfriend just broke up with her, and they are having an emergency ice cream and High School Musical marathon… Do you want to go some place else?"
"Sure!" She can barely contain her enthusiasm, she's been waiting for this moment to come for… well, months, but she does her best to tamp it down. "Sure. Let's… um… I'll get my jacket."
They walk together over to the elevator and step into the car after a couple of uniforms have exited. She watches Castle press the button and when he glances over at her, she can't look away, meets his eyes and holds them as she slips her hand into the crook of his elbow. Their hopeful smiles grow as the door meets in the middle, shutting the noise of the bullpen out and creating a bubble around them that Kate wishes would never burst.
When they leave the precinct, they choose, by unspoken agreement, to turn left. It's a whole block before they each realise they're waiting for the other to make any further decision.
"So, uh-…" "Do you wan-…"
They laugh at one another, Kate squeezing Rick's forearm as she shakes her head in her mirth. He can't take his eyes off her and the way she blushes when she notices him staring.
"Come on, Castle, where're you taking me?"
He has to take a breath and get a hold of himself before he answers with something stupid like, 'City Hall' or, 'the nearest church'.
"How about, um…" he scans for the closest coffee shop, but it's half past eight and most of the places in this part of Manhattan cater for the morning office crowds rather than the evening revellers. But then he notices which street they're ambling down. "The park, a block up from here, where we… where we talked after the summer."
She presses her lips together between her teeth and nods, the nerves building now she knows the destination. She'd been able to pass it off as an evening stroll with her friend before. Now it's the journey to what she hopes will be the beginning of the rest of their lives.
They fall back into a trepidatious silence until they arrive at the swings. The place is deserted, lit only by the setting sun, and she tries not to think of the chains clinking as if in preparation to be wrapped around her broken heart if he rejects her. She watches him wipe his sweaty palms on his knees from the corner of her eye, waits for him to look like he's collected himself before she crabwalks closer, grabs the chain of his swing and pulls him towards her. With her free hand she reaches to touch her fingers to his cheek, feels his breath stutter across her palm and sees his eyelids flutter as she does, but she pulls away before she can use actions before words.
"Castle… Rick… I… I don't know where to start." She slams her eyes shut, swallowing hard to clear the lump from her throat.
"Just go from the beginning, Kate," she hears him whisper. "Or start with the hardest thing and work towards the easiest thing."
She nods at that. There's no beginning to start from, and nothing she has to tell him is easier than another. She takes a deep breath, opens her eyes to meet his and jumps in.
"I lied to you. In the hospital, when you asked me what I remembered about the shooting… I remember everything about that day. Every single tiny detail." His face is like stone and there's nothing to do but keep going. "Up until a couple months ago, I would get flashbacks every time I saw my therapist, every time I saw the scars in the mirror, every time I closed my eyes. I felt the impact of the bullet, the way it burned as it ripped through me, your tears that fell on my cheek. I remember what you said." She blinks her eyes for a long moment, another deep breath to calm her fluttering nerves, and he hasn't moved a muscle. "I was screaming in my head. Screaming so loudly, but I couldn't say anything. When I so desperately wanted you to know that… that I love you too."
His pupils widen and that small reaction gives her hope. "I'm so sorry, Castle. I'm so sorry that it's taken me so long to work through it, through my insecurities and fears, and I know I'm not worthy of you yet but I am trying so hard… so hard, and-…"
His lips meet hers with such a force she rocks back in the swing, his hands catching the chains to keep her from falling. He'll always keep her from falling, he thinks, even as his mind is reeling from the sudden onslaught of her confession. He feels her fingers on his cheek again and he breaks the kiss with a sob, their foreheads touching when their lips no longer are.
"God, Kate, I love you, I love you so much. I thought, I thought you were going to… I don't even know what I thought," he stammers, with a watery laugh and tears brimming in his eyes. She traces her thumb across his cheek and presses her nose to his, the movement stilling him as he processes the rest of what she said. "You lied to me."
"I'm sorry, Rick," she whispers on his lips.
"I can't say I'm happy about it, Kate…" She nods a little and begins to pull away, but before she can get too far his grip tightens on the chains of her swing. "But if you think I'm going to let that stop us from finally being together, you've got another thing coming."
She huffs out a laugh in relief and launches herself at him, flinging her arms around his neck as he stands and steadies her with his hands at her slim waist. He feels her cold nose press into his neck and her breathy sigh tickles as it disappears under his collar.
"Castle?" she whispers.
"Yeah?"
"Let's go see if the girls have moved on from High School Musical yet…"
He smiles into her hair, allows himself this one moment of bittersweet happiness before he has to bring his own secret to light. "Can we get take out on the way?" he asks, anything to put off the inevitable.
"Sounds like a plan," she replies with a shy smile.