Hold My Heart
"I'm sorry." Kate curses the tears already welling up, blurring her vision, fuzzing the edges of things. But, that's okay, she doesn't want to look.
"I have to do this." She waits and doesn't know why she expected any kind of response, so she just keeps going.
"I don't know who I am anymore..." She hitches a breath, swipes the back of her hand along her cheekbone, then realizes she doesn't care who sees anymore. Tears are just a byproduct when you realize it's this or that, but you can't have both.
"...but- I think if I can do this- fix this, I'll be better." God, she doesn't want to do this. She wants both- what is it? Cake and eat it too, or something. Letting go of anything is always hard. She'll just keep reminding herself. She needs to do this.
"I was going to give this-" She breaks on a sob, lets the dark drape of her hair curtain the welling sadness, struggles to inhale because her throat is just so tight. Her mother's ring dangles from her fingertips catching the light that filters through gray clouds, and she lays it in a spiral in her palm to keep the wind from whipping it in frenzied circles. Her eyes slip shut because she can't say it out loud. She want's to give it to him, to protect it- like her heart- but she can't because it's not the part of her heart he wants, and feels like it's being torn in two.
The silence is killing her, creating this hole without edges that her words just slip into and disappear. This is what happens when you cut ties with someone you love, right? They don't want you to do it, so they just don't say anything and hope you'll change your mind.
She's not going to. Not this time. Not ever again.
She straightens up.
"I was going to protect this." She uncurls her fingers revealing the ring again. Her heart wants to tug it back to her chest, and it hurts. But this is part of it, and it hangs around her neck as a yolk suspending two buckets of water on either side of her. One of them is heavier than the other and she's off balance. One of them is going to spill, but she has the choice to release it- put them both down and not spill either one, but leave it on the side of the road and come back for it once she's learned to walk with balance again.
She can't do that if she doesn't do this.
"...But I can't protect it...no one can. Maybe it's not meant to be that way," she raises her eyes that have been trained on the glittering jewel in her hand. "Maybe you're the only one meant to have it- to keep it." Maybe I'm not strong enough to carry it alone anymore- maybe I never was.
She grips the ring with her fingertips, lets her lips linger against the metal circle warmed by her hand, then places it on the cool stone.
"I love you."
Her empty hands don't know what to do with themselves anymore so she shoves them in her coat pockets unceremoniously. Tears stream down her cheeks, trailing rivulets that disappear under her jaw, but it feels good to let them out- let them go. They've been in for so long.
She takes a breath of windy, overcast sky, tilts her head back. She's feeling lighter already, but just in case she says it anyway.
"I'm sorry, Mom."
It's done. Finally. And it helps- it does. Her steps are less burdened- her heart is clenched in her chest too tightly- but that'll go away, right?
She's walking to his house, and that makes her feel better and worse all at once. They'd argued, and of course, he was right. Wanting her to live her life...with him. What if it's too late? What if that was it and he decided he couldn't wait for her anymore? Maybe she doesn't get another chance like in the movies.
Initially she'd thought parking a ways down from his building would give her time to get back to feeling like herself before she faces him. Now she's thinking too much. She needs to be strong, confident, those things he likes- loves (even her brain chokes on the word)- about her, because he'll need to be convinced that she won't go back...won't leave him. And she won't, has no intention because he is the remedy her heart's been craving. Funny. She always thought it was justice, but what does a heart do with justice. It wouldn't know how to hold it anyway, and she's known this all along, just couldn't fathom that her's could hold anything anymore.
This love thing might make her remember. Might make her feel. And she already feels it, so why is her heart still broken?
She passes the park where Castle used to take Alexis to play when she was young. She can taste the rain on her tongue when she breathes in even though she can't feel it yet. She feels like she's breathing too hard. She trails a hand along the chain link fence enclosing the park- maybe one more pit stop.
The swing is tight on her hips and she uses her toes to gently sway back and forth. She just needs time to gather her thoughts, sort her emotions. Funny that she ended up here, mirroring the place where he told her he'd wait. His heart knew how to hold their love and hers didn't, so he'd wait, share when she was ready.
A fat raindrop splats against the sleeve of her jacket. She could run and maybe make it to the building entrance before the downpour.
But the rain is already coming faster, catching in her lashes, matting to her hair- and it's good- cathartic.
She misses her mother- she does. But this will be better. The weight she carried was her choice; her mother never asked her to bare it. And she's ready- she can do this- because she loves him. Because hanging her head in the rain is nothing compared to what he can offer her.
Water courses and drips off the tip of her nose, and she just has to convince him that she'll be different. This was the last time. She'd walked out on him even as he pleaded with her, cried for her. Even as tears burned in her own eyes.
He'd said he wouldn't go with her this time- he couldn't. He didn't say, but she knew his heart couldn't take it- the love was too much. He needed someone to help him hold onto it as it slipped through his fingers and she'd walked away instead...again.
She's crying again because she knows what she did to him. What if she can't stop hurting him- if that's just her nature? She'll have to try harder. He deserves someone better, and she can do this. She stands, the swing releasing it's hold on her hips with a creek.
Suddenly, Kate's never been so sure of anything and she's running. His building is two blocks away, and if she runs she'll make it there in five minutes. So, she'll run.
The doorman gives her a concerned knit of his brow as her shoes squeak and slip on the tile floor of the lobby.
She gives him what she hopes is a reassuring nod that everything is fine and smacks the elevator button with her palm, heavy with rainwater that drips from soaked tendrils and travels to her fingertips.
The doors open with a ding and she's in, bouncing on her toes, hands clasped together against her lips, eyes closed. She's not sure if she's praying, or hoping, or both. She has things to say. Please let him listen.
Her hands are shaking outside his door. She's sure she's leaving a puddle as she hesitates ever so slightly. This is it. Now or never. He's sure to give up on her after what happened earlier. Now or never.
She knocks.
He answers.
His eyes hold surprise and something like wariness. She's done this to him, but she'll fix it. She's got things to say that will make it better. She tries to speak but words are caught somewhere in her throat and she can't push them out, all that comes out is an empty exhale.
The lines around his eyes soften every so subtly, and he's telling her, because he's always known her heart. Always. He has plenty of words and she can practically hear him screaming show me, even as he regards her silently.
Fine.
Her wet hands slide to his face, down to his neck. He's moving away as she comes at him because this isn't what they do, but she's going to change that.
She pulls him to her and they both shiver. She can't tell if it's from her cold, wet hands...or something else, but her mouth is even with his, just a breath away, and he's not moving, so she closes the distance, relishing the way his warm lips respond to her, tugging, painting, soothing.
And there's teeth and tongue and she can't remember ever being cold. His slides along hers and she's moaning, God help her.
His hands are gripping at her hips, yanking her against him whenever she strays away, and he's suddenly softer, nudging her nose with his, breathing her in.
"Kate." His hands move to her wet hair, tangle there, hold her still.
She tries for words again, "I- You-" Fail. Interesting. She tries again, "You were right." There. That wasn't bad, but her eyes are swimming, she can feel it. "I don't want to be- not whole anymore." Ugh. It's in her voice. She's going to lose it and this was not how it was supposed to go.
"Kate, shhh." He pulls her in and she buries her face in his soft dress shirt, breathing him. He's whispering to her, "I'm here, I'm always here."
This isn't what she wants, though. "No, Castle," she sniffles, "You."
He stares at her dumbly, but she can't really blame him since she's not making a whole lot of sense right now. She meets his eyes, draws on the strength she finds there. "You make me whole. I want you."
He closes his mouth, pulls her closer, "You want me." A statement, not a question.
Her forehead comes to his shoulder and she lets out a breath of relief, "God, yes."
His lips come to her water logged hair, "I love you."
She nods on a whisper, "I love you."
He exhales, squeezes her tighter, "Kate. You're soaked."
She huffs a laugh, "Yeah."
"Here." He peels her wet jacket down her arms and hangs it in the coat closet, holds out his hand. "Come on."
She takes it wordlessly and lets him lead her into his bathroom.
There's so much she wants to say, but she just watches as he meticulously unbuttons her shirt, unhurried and careful as he works it down her arms and drapes it on the counter. It breaks her, how he loves her, how careful he is with her- with her heart.
She looks down, realizes she's been doing the same thing with his buttons, and undoes the last one, slipping the button slowly through the buttonhole.
Her fingertips brush his exposed skin, so warm against her cool fingers, and suddenly, all she wants is to be wrapped in him, his warmth. She slips her arms beneath his shirt and laces them around to his back, embracing him with her head to his neck, wet bra and all.
He says nothing, just holds her- because they both need this, to feel everything, to breath rhythmically together for a minute.
It's wonderful, more than she wanted- expected, and he brushes her wet hair aside placing soft kisses down the line of her jaw to tease at her neck.
She raises on her toes, arching into him to grant him better access as he grips her hips and brushes over her stomach with the backs of his fingers.
She gasps, "Castle?"
"Mmmm." From her neck.
"I-I," Goodness, it's hard to form words when his mouth is doing things to her that make an entirely different kind of warmth unfurl. She pushes him back just slightly and his heads pops back up to meet her eyes, blue on green, a question in them. "I just want you to know. I'm giving you my heart because it belongs to you. I'm not protecting it anymore."
He smoothes a thumb across her cheekbone, "You never need to protect it from me. I'll hold it for you, keep it safe."
She gives a small smile, "I know you will."
And that's it. The dam breaks- she can hear the cracks in the foundation, and she's sliding his shirt over his shoulders and his hands are at the waistband of her slacks, tugging her to him, warming her skin with his.
He chuckles low, cutting through the seriousness of their moment, and she can feel it resonate from his chest, "Kate Beckett, you will not regret your decision."
And he sweeps her up and heads for the bedroom.
"What made you change your mind?"
She's pillowed on his bare chest, naked legs tangled together as she props slightly on her right hip. And their other naked parts? Well, give her a few minutes and she'll blow his mind with round two. She smiles subtly at the thought and chews a fingernail.
He grows impatient and snags the hand she's got to her mouth with a sound in his throat, laces their fingers together moving slowly, in and out of the spaces between hers. Up and down, in and out.
She watches their mirrored hands do this little dance for a few seconds, then gives a little puff of air and shrugs her shoulders.
"You did. But it was a while ago that I decided, I just realized today that I'd already made my mind up." She meets his eyes for a second and gives him a sad, closed lipped smile that doesn't touch her eyes, "It's hard for an addict to resist their drug of choice when it's sitting right in front of them..." She trails off.
He huffs a laugh at her metaphor, rests his lips against the damp hair at her crown. She can feel his mouth move against her as he talks.
"But you did it. You resisted. You...came here instead."
There's wonderment in his tone, like he still can't believe she chose him.
She rolls all the way on her right side, dislodging her hand from his to splay it across his abdomen as she places a trail of light kisses to his chest between words.
"Yeah, well, I guess I thought I needed a new drug."
She looks up at him wickedly, but he's grown suddenly serious. He shifts, grabs her upper arms to slide her even with him. The sheet slips to her waist leaving her chest bare, but he's only looking at her eyes.
"Kate. I don't want to be a substitute to the real thing. You're it for me, one and done, and I don't want to share you anymore. I can't...I won't. But I'm afraid, because if you asked me, I'd probably do it just because I'm so pathetically in love with you."
His words are coming fast and panicky, so she smoothes a palm down his cheek, dances her fingers along his jawline, comes back up to play with the hair at temple, ends with her thumb at his lips to stay his spilling prose.
"You're not a substitute, Castle," she furrows her brow. He's right to be gun shy of her. Now she just has to convince him somehow. "You're not. You're my choice for something better. For me and for us."
His eyes slip shut and he places a kiss to her open palm still sliding against his face.
"This is it for me, Kate. I just don't think I can survive us apart again. God, I've had you for less than an hour, but if you ask me to let you go again-"
His eyes are moist and jeez, he's killing her, but she deserves it for all her waiting and uncertainty. She pulls flush against him and presses an open mouthed kiss to his parted lips, not sure if this is what he wants right now, but needing it desperately herself.
But his fingers are already molding into her ribs, his thumbs skirting beneath her breasts as he pulls her closer. Ever closer.
She breaks the kiss with her forehead against his, tries to catch her breath, "I think you've had me for a bit longer than that, Castle." Because you had me at hello just sounds too cliché.
He grins and she's glad to see it in his eyes again, "Yeah?"
She smiles back, "Yeah."
He threads his arms completely around her waist so that she has to crane her neck to meet his eyes.
"Hey, Castle? You gonna prove how much you love me?"
She moans on an exhale as his mouth comes down on the junction between her neck and shoulder.
"Again?" He's mumbling against her skin, and she's ready again, her hands traveling low on his abdomen.
He flips her in a quick move so he hovers above her, and she gasps at the feel of cool sheet against her back, his warm hands traversing her as though he didn't already map her whole body 45 minutes ago.
She's hopelessly arching into him (since when has she reacted with such abandon?) and exhaling on his name when she hears him somewhere below her left breast, his smile stretching against her skin.
"I'd be happy to."
And she's laughing breathlessly because this is why she loves this man.
He's not sure why he's here. To say thank you, maybe? It doesn't seem like it's enough.
He left Kate sleeping at his loft- he didn't have the heart to wake her when she looked like she had fully given herself over to sleep for the first time in ages. He grins at himself, still in awe that it just might be because of him that she's so calm- so free.
His feet sink a little in the grass, soaked through from the rainstorm earlier that morning. The air smelled fresh, new, a little like his life, which had officially started at 10:31 this morning, when she walked through his door, something a little different in her expression.
He stops in front of a stone he's never seen before- imagined, maybe, but never seen with his own eyes. "Johanna Beckett" it reads, "Beloved wife and mother". He lets his eyes travel along the stone etching, then back up until they catch on something that glitters in the after rain sunlight on the top, flat part of the headstone.
He moves forward, focuses, it's a chain, and before he picks it up he already knows what it is. Little pools of water hold it to the stone and he hesitates, not as willing to disturb it's resting place. Maybe because he knows she put it there and a small part of him is unwilling to go against her. It's clear she left it there on purpose.
Something calls to him though, and he gently picks it up and cradles it in his hand, marveling at what she gave up for him. She was going to leave this part of her here- she chose him instead. His chest constricts and swells at the same time. Sadness for all that she's lost, and elation that she's willing to give up the only fight she's ever known to live in peace with him.
He gathers the ring with its chain and slips it in his pocket, patting the outside decisively. He's overwhelmed with how fortunate he was to find this- this piece of her she thought she had to completely reject for him.
That's not what he wants. Sure, he wants her, and he can't have her if she's dead- snuffed out from chasing ghosts down dark allies- but he doesn't want her to forget her mother, the good things. So, he'll keep this part of her safe until she's ready to remember it again. It's wrong to leave a piece of her heart out at the mercy of the elements, prey to wind and rain. Better to keep it with him, for who is more fit to guard her whole heart than him? And he wants all of it, not just fragments.
He bows his head, looks to the stone again, hands in his pockets. "Thank you- for keeping this for me." He feels foolish speaking to the wind, but somehow it also feels right. "I'll keep it safe for her, you don't have to worry." He closes his eyes, imagines he can hear Johanna speaking back, but he doesn't know what she would say, he can only picture a serene smile.
He finds himself smiling too.
"I'll keep her safe," he repeats to her mother, then turns to head out of the cemetery, back to her.