She wakes with a thin vein of panic running through her.
He has his arm tight over her back, even in sleep. As if terrified that she'll leave him with rumpled sheets and a pile of still-damp towels on the floor of the bathroom. As if he can't bear to even be a bed's width away from her now.
His reluctance to be apart from her adds to the panic.
It makes her breath catch and ache in her bruised body.
Then it eases.
She ignores how absolutely petrifying the last day has been and focuses.
Not on how her fingers and arms and shoulders burn or how she won't feel the steading weight of her badge and gun on her hip anymore or how the moment that brought her a burst of clarifying light also tore apart two of her best friends.
But on how chilly his body is under her when she always thought he'd be a constant warmth and how he smells of hairspray from Alexis's hugs after the graduation ceremony and the champagne she imagines they shared before his daughter went off to celebrate with friends and the rain she herself brought in and how there's still that rough patch of stubble on his jaw that he must miss every time he shaves.
Her mother had the same complaint about her father. Every morning, just after he greeted her with a cup of tea and the Wall Street Journal, there was a comment about buying him a new razor so maybe, maybe, he'd finally get rid of that bit of stubbly hair just east of his chin.
Every morning after that January, even on the days when Kate had to drag him off the couch and to the bathroom, he'd emerge with that one spot clean. As if trying to bring her back by finally giving in to her request.
The body under her grumbles in sleep, his hand curling against her lower back so his short nails scrape over battle-stained skin. As he relaxes, she escapes.
Her feet stick to the hardwood as she steps back from the bed. The room isn't as big as she imagined it would be, not nearly as grand as she expected. Dark, but that might be the night that has settled in among his belongings. The top of his dresser is a mess of things probably taken from his pockets at the end of the day and a single photo of him and Alexis. Littered among the pen caps and paper clip chains, she can see the bright green post-its he stole from her desk just three days ago and she knows that they're covered with bits of dialogue he picked up and those silly doodles he used to amuse her in the midst of all this.
She remembers that he isn't the man who brought two strippers into the precinct for a photoshoot.
He's changed.
They both have.
She finds his wrinkled maroon shirt under the watchful gaze of a lion. Doesn't bother rolling the sleeves up as she pulls it on, letting the cuffs cover her scratched palms and the hem brush against her thighs in a poor imitation of his fingers.
Soft light filters in through the windows of his office, casting an elongated sailboat-shaped shadow onto the rug. Her toes disturb the outline as she goes for the oversized armchair angled toward the door to the balcony. He had always bragged about that balcony yet had never mentioned that it faced the alleyway between his building and the neighboring one.
Still a balcony in Manhattan, Beckett. Quit ruining my real estate brag.
Brown leather gives under her as she sits. It creaks, the fabric cold, when she pulls her right leg up, her toes curled to keep her foot from slipping down again. She traces the bruise that starts at her inner thigh, wincing when her finger presses down too hard on the blue-red flesh. She isn't sure if the mark is from being tossed onto the rooftop or tossed onto Castle's bed.
The weight of everything settles on her shoulders until she has to lean on her leg for support.
She quit. Her job and pursuing a killer who seems to be a ghost and everything that was her life just hours ago.
She hasn't felt this lost since she went to call her mother to dish about a date and had the line just ring and ring and ring until she remembered. Her mother wasn't going to pick up the phone again.
But now. But now she has the man sleeping in the other room and the absolute freedom to love him like she has wanted to.
"Kate?"
His voice, sleep-roughened and quiet, startles her. She rests her cheek on her knee, turning to face the open door.
He touches her hair, reminding himself that she is still here. She hates that he has to do that.
"You okay?"
"I just…" she begins. "I don't know what's going to happen anymore."
He shifts away and her heart lodges itself into her throat, her stomach dropping to her feet.
She catches his fingertips. "No. I know you're ─ that we're ─ going to happen. It's everything else that I'm not sure of. Everything but you."
His fingers close on her thumb. Holding on to her. "You leaving now?" he asks.
Too timid. He's too timid and there's a thread of fear in his voice that she's going to abandon him after a momentary lapse of judgment. It cuts through her.
She shakes her head as she gets up, turning her palm into his. "Not leaving you," she says, giving his hand a gentle tug. The parallel isn't lost on her. "Let's go back to sleep."
"Are you cold?"
"Yeah, actually. You're freezing."
"I'll turn the temperature up," he says, pausing their walk to twist the dial on the thermostat. "As hot as it is to see you in my shirt, I want you in as few clothes as possible."
"Anything less and I'm naked."
He grins and she's so thankful to see the expression back on his face after the concern that etched over his laugh lines. "So you get my point exactly. This is why we always worked so well together. Always on the same page."
"Let's hope that theory holds true without the job to keep us on that page at the same time."
"Oh," he whispers, stepping close and pushing at the collar of the shirt until it falls down to her wrists. His lips glance off hers. "I have no doubt we'll be just fine."
She wakes without his arm over her waist. It feels wrong even though it's only the second time she's woken up in his bed. When she rolls over, he's still close. Flat out on his back, the sheets tucked down under his arms. His hand a gentle weight on her thigh, right over the bruise.
Morning light peeks through the blinds, rows of soft fire along the warm hardwood.
She's going to make this morning count. Again, she slips from under the sheets. Her hand hesitates over the pile of maroon fabric on the floor. But no. New beginnings. Not more darkness.
She buttons the white shirt she pulls off a hanger in the closet twice before stepping out into the living room.
She hopes she can get his coffee machine working.
Even new beginnings and first mornings together and the neverending stretch of forever needs coffee.