Speak the Unspeakable
for clayfish32
happy birthday
Speak the unspeakable phrase
'I love you too.'
-There For You, Flyleaf
Kate Beckett drips sweat. It burns her eyes, runs into her ears, down her back, between her breasts. She can't let go of the pull-up bar to swipe at her face, but she blinks and squeezes her right eye tightly shut, keeps going.
Her ankles come uncrossed at 13 pull-ups on the bar; the toes of her left foot drag the bare wood of her apartment. A cramp in her hamstring keeps her from maintaining her form. At fifteen, her neck muscles are straining, trying to compensate for the exhaustion in her shoulders. She knocks her forehead into the 16th pull-up and calls it, dropping back to the floor.
Breathing hard, pain in her side, Kate grabs the towel and wipes the sweat off her face, sucking down air, gulping it like water. Water would be good. Her shoulders are burning. Her neck twinges; she might've pushed too far. The two hours of yoga, and then P90X to get back into fighting shape-
The knock on her door startles her so badly that she drops the towel and stumbles to reach for it, a knee catching her fall. Kate winces and gets up, admitting that she's probably overdone it. But when she gets like this, when her body feels thick and her blood sings, she has to get it out, has to do something. And she can't very well jump his bones, can she?
She opens her door and gapes.
"Alexis?"
The girl is wearing sweatpants, a white school t-shirt, her hair scraped back into a bun. She's been crying; her eyes are too brightly blue, rimmed with a spiderweb of red. She's got her wallet in her hand, keys, her helmet. Vespa must be parked outside, Kate thinks, her mind stuck on that.
"Can I - can I talk to you?"
The sweat is beginning to dry sticky on her face, her chest, beginning to itch at the elastic of her sports bra. But Kate opens the door wider to Castle's daughter and presses her lips together in concern. She locks the door behind the girl, worries for an instant that whoever watches her apartment now has surveillance photos of Alexis. Her heart squeezes.
"I didn't get in to Stanford," Alexis says suddenly.
Kate turns around, watches her. Wonders how much, how little information. "I know," she says finally, going with the truth.
"Dad said you got accepted to Stanford."
"It's been more than ten years," Kate starts.
"That's not-" Alexis shakes her head and drops to Kate's couch. "Did you get rejected by any college? Have you ever been rejected?"
Kate opens her mouth, but can't find anything to say. No answers.
"You haven't," Alexis says softly, looking down at her hands. She gets up, rubbing the back of her hand across an eye, and moves to the door. "I shouldn't be here. Dad told me to leave you alone. I'm sorry."
When Alexis tries to move past her, Kate reaches out and snags the girl's shirt, uncertain and feeling that something is wrong. "Alexis."
Alexis keeps her eyes to the floor, pulls away enough to dislodge Kate's fingers. But she doesn't go to the door.
There should be something to say to the girl, something to help. But Kate can't think of a thing.
"This was stupid," Alexis says suddenly, moving to the door. "What am I saying? Of course no one has ever rejected you. You've got my dad wrapped around your finger-"
Kate gasps and grabs for the girl, tugging her arm. "Alexis!"
The girl jerks around, her eyes brittle with rejection. "Don't yell at me like you have the right - you're nothing to me -"
Kate startles back, her heart pounding. "Nothing?" Why should she care-
But she does.
Alexis's shoulders are hunched around her ears when she turns. But her eyes are flinty. "Why should you be anything to me?"
"You - I -" Kate closes her mouth.
"He'd die for you and you don't even care-"
"That's not true." Kate starts forward, aggression flooding her body; she has to clench her fists to keep from grabbing the girl again. "I care."
"Funny way of showing it." Her bitterness, her sense of superiority radiates through the apartment.
"If I'm nothing to you, what are you to me?" Kate snaps, heading for the door, yanking it open. Her chest aches where her ex-boyfriend spread her ribs and fished around in her pleural cavity. She feels cut open all over again.
Alexis crumbles, tears wicked on her face, stumbling for the open door. Kate shuts it before Alexis can go, grabs the girl by the shoulder, turns her around.
"No, don't. That was immature of me," Kate growls into her ear, tries to hug her without making either of them flinch. She's still sweat-soaked and amped from her workout. "I don't know - I wasn't fair to you. There's. . .we both know too much of each other to pretend otherwise."
Alexis is still gulping back tears, but her arms come up around Kate. "It's none of my business what you and Dad don't do. I'm sorry, Detective Beckett. I-"
"It's Kate. Jeez, Alexis, it's Kate." She laughs, frustrated, remorseful, and steps back from the young woman. "I'm sorry. I forget there's more than me to this, and I-"
Alexis ducks her head and swipes at her tears, a hand coming to touch her hair, mashing the tendrils against her head. "I shouldn't have come. I shouldn't have said those things. I just feel. . .so bad. I-"
"Alexis, you're not alone in this. It hurts. It sucks. Stanford doesn't know what they're missing."
Alexis's eyes flicker towards Kate's, a ghost of a smile fading from her lips before it even emerges. "Thanks. I think."
"And I have been rejected. If that matters."
"Yeah, right," Alexis snorts, and somehow this interview? conversation? has moved to the level of girls' slumber party, all without Kate's approval. "When has anyone or anything ever dared to reject you? You're gorgeous. You're smart. Dad calls you a sexy genius, and I don't think I've ever heard him say that before."
The warm flush through her chest has nothing to do with finding out what Castle says about her, and everything to do with Alexis's compliments. Really. It doesn't.
"You help people. You're compassionate - I've seen that. I mean, my Dad is totally in lo-"
Alexis claps both hands over her mouth, backs up.
Kate would choose to ignore that, but Alexis is obviously horrified and how can she ignore that?
How can she acknowledge it either? Yeah, I know. But don't tell your Dad.
"Kate." Alexis drops her hands, panic on her face. "Don't - don't freak out."
Alexis must see her blank face and lack of reaction as panic. Interesting. It's not. It's calculation. How to play this?
"Oh, I'm in trouble. I'm in so much trouble. I didn't mean it the way it sounds?" Alexis's words are a question, as if asking Kate if that can possibly be the interpretation to put on her accidental admission.
"I'm fine, Alexis." She smiles at the girl, but she knows it's thin. "You were just. . .using an expression."
They smile together, agreeing to that, but Kate is nervous about the idea. Does Alexis see through her?
She does.
Alexis tilts her head and sidesteps Kate, as if studying her from another angle. "An expression."
Kate's sweating again. Workout. She was working out. She swipes at her face and turns to follow Alexis. "Want some water?"
"Ashley loves me," Alexis says suddenly.
Kate glances at her, but keeps going for the kitchen. She grabs a glass, fills it with water, hands it to Alexis. The girl shakes her head so Kate drinks it instead, needing it. Something to do.
Is Castle's daughter really going to be the one to call her out on her crap? Jeez. This is not happening.
"Ashley loves me, Kate."
"G-good."
"You know how I can tell? I mean, other than him telling me. I remember him telling me."
"How?" She fills the glass up again and takes a sip. I remember him telling me. "I mean, how can you tell?"
"He'd do anything for me. He'd sacrifice his future for me."
"What?" Kate rubs at her side and winces; flashes of a football tackle to the grass and agony under the wide blue sky. "What do you mean?"
"He wants to transfer. Wherever I go. Whoever will take me-" The bitterness salts her words again.
"Alexis-" Kate rallies long enough to object to the girl's self-deprecation. "You will get in to a great school. I know you will. It's not the end-"
"My second choice. Anyway, wherever I go, Ashley says he'll come with me. He'll follow me wherever I go. Sacrifice his dream for - for mine."
Kate closes her eyes, her heart pounding - her timid, recently-wounded heart - and she's so reluctant to break it, so very reluctant to let it go. She needs to hold it close. Keep it safe.
"Should I let him do that?" Alexis says suddenly. "What do you think, Kate? Is it fair of me to make the man who loves me sacrifice himself because I'm being selfish?"
Oh, jeez. Oh jeez, she can't-
"Kate."
She drops the glass into the sink, it bounces but doesn't break. Despite her clumsiness, it doesn't break. Only gets knocked around a little bit.
"Are you messing with me?" Kate bites out, turning her head to look at the girl.
Alexis's blank face, her wary eyes, the tears that spring up, all remind Kate that this isn't about herself, but Alexis.
"Sorry," Kate whispers, scrubs at her face. "I need a shower." She needs a new life. A different life. A mother who doesn't get herself killed poking her nose into things. A lack of hired killers. A way to-
A way to love him.
Without sacrificing his life for hers.
"Alexis. I need-"
"A shower," Alexis finishes. "Sorry. I should go."
"No. I mean. Don't. You're right. It's not fair. To him." She swallows and presses the heel of her hand into her eye socket, sees stars, rainbows, beautiful things in the sharp darkness. "It's not fair to him. I need to see your Dad."
Kate doesn't have time to shower. Alexis is nervous, but she's only got the Vespa, and there's nothing for it. She takes the softail Harley out of the underground garage two blocks over, dusts off the helmet. She follows Alexis back to the loft, her heart like a dead thing in her chest, but the shock absorbers on the bike still good.
Alexis lets her upstairs with a nervous twist of her hands. They ride the elevator in silence until they get to the Castles' floor. Alexis turns to Kate and crosses her arms.
"I don't - I don't know what this is about, but Dad is going to be disappointed that I bothered you."
"You didn't bother me. No disappointment needed."
Her hands are like two dead birds at the end of long sticks, no longer fluttering, limp against the collar of her ligaments. She wants to revive them, but she can't let them fly away. She needs her hands. Her hands dangling; her mouth dry.
She feels confused. She probably should have stayed at home.
"Alexis, just-" Just what? "Give me time."
"What time? To do what?"
"I need-" To shower. She needs a shower; she's slick with sweat. The ride through the fall air on her motorcycle, following the bright flapping flag of Alexis's hair through the city streets did nothing to ease her sweaty anxiety.
"Kate?" The elevators are still open and Alexis is stepping off now, ending their timeless moment inside. "Are you coming?"
No. She shouldn't. But there's no more time.
She has to. "Yes."
Alexis leads the way down the hall, opens the door. Inside, Kate stands awkwardly in the entryway while Alexis calls for her dad. The girl pulls the rubberband from her hair and scratches through it, letting it loosen up, tumble down her back. Kate lifts her hand to her head, but she still feels the grit of dried sweat like crystals on her skin, her hair. She leaves the messy pony tail, wipes her hand on her pant leg.
"Alexis, where did you-" Castle stumbles to a gaping stop just in the doorway of his study; Kate can see the surprise flicker in his eyes. A big child given a delightful gift. "Detective Beckett."
Really? "Kate," she says back, frowning at him. Make it out to Kate.
He raises an eyebrow, clearly amused, and Kate stalks closer, causing him to backpedal into his study. Alexis clears her throat and stammers something about being upstairs, fleeing the scene she's helped to create.
Kate has eyes only for him.
It's not fair to him.
"Interesting outfit," Castle murmurs.
Ah. Right. Yoga pants, white t-shirt, neon purple sports bra showing right through. Kate still advances on him, gathering her courage with each step. Courage or determination. Or foolishness.
Castle backs up until he hits his desk, then stands up straighter, amusement still in his face, but laced with something dark now, something deeper. A mixture of pleasure and pain he rarely lets her see.
Why now?
"Castle."
"You came in with Alexis?"
"She wanted to talk about Stanford."
"Sorry. I told her not to-"
"She's fine." Kate rocks back on her heels, some of the urgency lost now, momentum gone. "It was a good talk. She'll be okay."
"She's still struggling with re-ordering her life around this new. . .new schema. She has no idea how to cope with the facts as they are. She had a vision for her life and now that's gone. She's still going through those stages of grief."
"Yes, she is," Kate whispers, feeling it in her chest, feeling it in the stone-hard lump of her heart. "Grief is. . .debilitating."
"Yes."
"But at the end of debilitating, there's-" Kate sighs. "I don't know what there is."
"Kate?" He looks like he's caught on that this isn't about his daughter. At least it's not Detective.
"I don't know what's on the other side of debilitating, Castle, because I've never gotten there. Not until. . .now."
"You've been looking for your mother's murderer, Kate. That's not the actions of someone paralyzed by grief."
She shakes her head. "Yes it is. Paralyzed is a good word for it. Stuck. Caught. A time loop."
"That's - that's science fiction, but sexy as hell," he says with a smirk, as if certain in the knowledge that a comment such as that will send her two steps back. Make it safe for them again.
She steps forward instead. "You like that?"
He blinks. "Uh."
"I don't like time loops, Castle. I do the same things day after day. I catch the same killers. I argue the same lines. I haunt the same space in my apartment. I hurt the same people. I eat the same breakfast."
"I could make you pancakes instead," he whispers.
She nods. "Yes, please."
He scrubs a hand down his face, peeks at her from behind his insecurity. "Uh. Right now? For dinner?"
"No, Castle. For breakfast."
His hand drops.
"Castle." She takes a breath, a deeper one, meets his eyes steadily. This is the time. No more of this his life for hers stuff. "Rick."
"Oh God," he whispers.
She has to say it. She has to. The unspeakable thing. The thing that keeps pushing against her heart, knocking into her rib cage; the thing that keeps trying to make room in her chest. The unspeakable thing.
Her chest eases. Suddenly. Her life for his. "I don't know how to do what's next. It's only ever been debilitating. It's only ever been stuck. The same. I need. . .your help to get moving."
"I can help."
"Rick."
"Oh God," he says again, his hands coming up to her face, cradling her, such emotion in his eyes that she can barely look, can't bear to look away. "Kate. Please."
She swallows. "I don't know what comes next."
"I don't either, except this."
He brings his mouth to hers and everything starts up again, heart, hands, lungs, love. It all comes surging back to life.
Gentle, cautious, a kiss meant to test the limits. Kate opens her eyes.
"Rick, I love you too."