Disclaimer: Castle is not mine.
A/N: Obligatory statement about how I WAS NOT going to write a 7x01 tag but this wouldn't leave me alone and some very lovely ladies asked me to write it so I couldn't say no. It's short and introspective. Written in about 30 minutes give or take so if you see any typos or anything, point them out. I actually write these on my phone so I definitely make some mistakes and autocorrect loves to make me look like a moron.
It's quiet. A little uncomfortable. Mostly her fault. Partially his. But she has no clue how long they've been sitting like this. With her cheek to his chest and his arm around her. She stopped wiping the tears, no point when they just keep coming. And her fingers clutch in his shirt, silently pleading with him. Don't leave. Don't leave again. Flexing in a cadence of silent need to keep him close even if she's not sure what to feel or think.
Two months. He's been gone two months and now he's just here. Warm and solid and here. But there's too many unanswered questions, so many that stripped her bare and left her exposed. And now he's here. Home. But it's not the same. It's not as easy. It's stilted and she doesn't know how to fix that. She won't walk away, she's gonna be by his side tonight and share a bed for the first time in months.
The talking doesn't come, the heaviness in her chest doesn't dissipate. And she physically startles when the hand she's been staring down at moves. When it touches her hair, she holds her breath. When his fingertips skim her tear soaked cheek, she lets it out. A strangled sound that has her turning in toward his touch. Seeking him. Pressing her face more fully against his hand. He holds her there, against his chest, the warmth of his palm on her skin and she stops thinking.
For just a little while she pushes everything down and focuses. He's home. He's warm and real and home. She's so exhausted. Her emotions in tatters and her strength depleted. Months of 'what ifs' and thoughts of him being gone forever. Nights of working herself into the ground trying to find him. Days of waking up with a crick in her neck and Espo telling her that she needed to go home and sleep.
She hadn't been able to sleep much with Castle gone. Barely at all and only when her body gave out. Not here either, never here in the loft. It hurt too much to be in their bed, to be in a home he shared with his family and have to face them. How could she have faced them when she couldn't find him? How was she supposed to explain that?
It's taken a toll on everyone. Strained relationships. She came to the loft a few times to get some things, and she'd bumped into Alexis and Martha more than once. It was tense and aching. She had nothing to tell his daughter or his mother and no way to comfort them when she couldn't even comfort herself. But they were still her family. In some weird way, they still called. Even if she tended to silence her phone and bury herself deeper in his case.
And now he's home.
She's crying in his arms and he's silently letting her because he knows she needs it. And that just rips at her already shredded heart. How could she have doubted this? Not just him but their love for one another and she knows better. She knows better. She grips him tighter, wraps an arm around his waist and pulls herself closer. She's missed him, cried for him, lost hope and regained it for him. She drank herself into oblivion a couple times when she lost that hope and then spent the next day pouring through facts and making calls. Hating that she'd momentarily followed in her father's footsteps. Made the same poor choice. But she'd always been drowning. In some way. Before Castle.
She'd always been buried in her mother's murder and Castle helped solve it. They were supposed to be married. They were supposed to have a honeymoon and be happy newlyweds and somehow it had all gone wrong and she'd ended up buried in another case. His. Another loved one. Drowning again. Some twisted kind of full circle. But this is a happier ending.
He's home. And she's still shocked by it, by everything. Still clinging to him and not saying anything. She's pretty sure she said it all when she told him that she'd almost shot a janitor. Over a chair. His chair. Stuff like that happened more than once, more than she cares to admit. Little things that she snapped over because they were his or theirs. Special.
The tears have slowed, and she takes a breath. But she's not ready yet, not willing to pull away. Not even when his fingers move through her hair. If anything that sets her off again, has her lip trembling as he whispers her name.
"Kate," it's in his voice. The ache. He hurts too. Because he doesn't understand anything either. And the guilt claws in her chest.
She was too blinded by her own pain. But it's over and they're okay. They have to be okay. She's never loved anyone. Not till him and that's enough. She hopes to everything that it's enough.
She still has nothing to say. Nothing else to add and she's still clinging when he tries to shift. Pinching his skin when he attempts to extract himself from her hold. She's not ready. She doesn't want to face anything yet. She just wants this for a little longer.
He pulls away. Despite her trying to make him stay, though she didn't fight too hard. It's still a little awkward, still hard to accept that he's actually here with her again. And that he has no recollection of the two months he's been gone. But she remembers every second of every day. She remembers all of it.
Her hands hang limp as he moves away, as he stands and leaves her.
Not for long though because he reaches back for her, wrapping his fingers around hers. His thumb rubbing over her ring and she's still not looking at him. Not yet.
But she gives when he tugs. She lets him pull her up and she follows as he rounds the bed. To her side. Hers. She almost asks what he thinks he's doing, almost but she doesn't because they aren't there yet. They aren't back to the jests and the teasing smirks. So she says nothing when he pulls back the blankets, sheds his robe and climbs in.
And then he scoots to the middle, patting the space next to him shyly. As if he doesn't know that it's okay to ask for this. As if he's not expecting her to follow even though she's already in pajamas. She does. She climbs in too. And there's no hesitation this time when she reaches for him.
And finally her eyes catch with his. Both of them freezing for just a split second, lying on their sides, facing each other. So many things between them but she wants to bridge that gap. Because this is still the man that proposed to her, the man that loves her. He wouldn't leave her when she was standing on a bomb and she's not leaving him when he's doing the same. Though his isn't made with real explosives but it has the potential to detonate all the same. And he doesn't remember.
That hurts too.
Until her fingers are brushing over his shirt and then it hurts a little less. Everything numbs a little. The agony of watching the car burn and thinking he was inside, the fear she's lived with for two months, the fact that she had honestly started expecting his body instead of his return. It dissipates to a dull roar inside her. There. Still loud. But manageable enough now that she's looking at him. His eyes alive and real. Not a photo. Him.
Her fingers graze along his stomach, and she never looks away. She lets him see this time. Everything she's feeling. Her hand stroking down his ribs. And she wonders about the bullet that grazed him. Wonders who had pulled the trigger and why but she pushes it aside. She scoots closer and without a word, her fingers find the hem of his shirt and slip beneath.
She doesn't pull it up. Doesn't look. She just touches. Something soothing for them both. His shoulders relaxing and her body sinking further into the mattress. He's just as warm as she remembers. And she knows every inch of his body. Every dip and groove and the way he moves. But now there's something new. Rough tissue knotted together along his side that her fingertips trip over.
It slams into her. All over again. They aren't the same anymore. And all she can think about are her own scars. The way he'd touch and caress them. She explores. Tracing it. Still locked on his eyes. And the way they soften with every stroke of her fingers, the way he swallows when she lays her palm flat over the mark marring his skin.
And finally she says something. The words tumbling out without much thought. Which seems silly when they hit the air. All she's been doing is thinking and now she's not. Because she's believing. In them. She whispers them again. Firmer this time.
"We match."
And they're going to be okay. If it takes all they have, they're going to find a way back to normal.