"You are my sweetest downfall,
I loved you first, I loved you first!
Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth,
I have to go, I have to go..." "Samson" lyrics, Regina Spektor.
Castle's POV
He'd almost forgotten their coffee that day he had been so wrapped up in thinking about her on the way over to the precinct. He had turned into the Starbuck's up the street at the last second to make sure he didn't miss their little ritual. It would be especially important that day. There were shadows in her eyes that he hadn't seen in a while, and in their beautiful shifting depths he had seen a heavy melancholy that he wanted to dispel. A caffeine kiss was in order. And it wasn't just for her benefit. He would be grateful for just the brush of her fingertips against his, the warm tingle that they sent through him. Lately her gaze had been lingering on his for longer and he could have sworn he saw a question there, fleetingly visible, before it disappeared back into their enigmatic depths. Her lips always twisted into a slight smile of thanks. It was always just a quick quirk of a corner, but that was all he needed. It was always that corner of her mouth where he imagined she kept her sweetest kisses. Yes, a caffeine kiss was definitely in order. The brush of the fingertips. The fleeting question. That secret mona-lisa smile.
"Where is Kate?" the good-natured Irish-American cop had almost looked startled to see him. Ryan glanced up and gave Castle a tired smirk before filling him in on the most current details of the case. A bolt of excitement shuddered through him, and Ryan though he almost saw the man twitch with excitement. How had he missed so much in such a short time? He hurried to the two-way pane of glass right outside the tank, almost spilling the hot coffee all down his arm on his way. He caught it at the last second and smiled smugly to himself, glad he had avoided the disaster. He was anxious to see Kate in action.
And then...there she was. Castle could tell it was intense before he even clued into her conversation. She had that look on her face like a tiger zoning in on its kill. The fire behind her eyes took him aback a little; made his breathing quicken. She was in her element. There. Focused. Graceful. Intense. Magnificent. Extraordinary. He loved her when she was like this; in situ. He always felt like he got a glimpse of her raw and unbridled emotion through these moments, a glimpse into her fiery core. And God when she was worked up...
"You don't get to use that excuse." She barked. "You want to know trauma? I was shot in the chest...and I remember every. Second. Of. It." Her words jumped to his ears and seared them like a hot brand. He slowed down what she had just said. Rewound. Replayed.
His world slowed down. The hand holding the coffee trembled for a second, then steadied. His breathing grew shallow. His chest got tight. Then the impact of her words ripped through him. He had been shot with a bullet of her making, right to his chest. He reached for something solid, to help him stand. She remembered. Every. Godforsaken. second. She knew, she knew...she knew. She knew...what he'd said.
The magnitude of the realization came at him in waves, like the aftershocks mimicking the catastrophic earthquake before.
She knew. She knew. He gulped for oxygen with the desperation of a drowning man and it filled his lungs in big, burning gasps. He was emotionally floundering; absolutely lost. All he thought he had known had been ripped away so completely with that one phrase. He felt like he had been sucker punched in the gut.
Finally he spoke it aloud, his words only a whisper. "All this time...she knew." He couldn't even complete the sentence. He felt the walls closing in on him as a rush of confused emotions flooded into the hole her words had left in his chest. He felt anger first; white hot and searing, coursing through his veins like molten lava. Then he felt despair. Hurt. That was the only way to describe it. He wanted to rage and roar like a wounded bull. He wanted to yell in her face, grab her by the shoulders and beg her to answer all the questions in his heart, to decode the one he thought he had seen in her eyes.
But she couldn't see him so broken open! No, she couldn't see him so bare-boned and vulnerable in front of her. He'd shown her his heart once and only been rewarded with silence, he wouldn't let himself make the same mistake twice. He knew what he had to do. He took a deep breath and walked out of the precinct, his heart and his stomach in his shoes. He had to go. He had to go home.
