Econo-class is really not his style, Castle decides, but it was the only seat he could get on no notice, unless he was willing to have a 6 hour layover in Chicago, which – though it would come with the increased comfort and likely-quieter company of first class - would defeat the purpose entirely of being impulsive and (he hopes) romantic and flying home a day early. Tamed by love at last, he may be, but he still has a bit of bad-boy in him. He just shows it by telling his agent to stuff it and ditching a meeting or two to get home early, rather than by drunkenly trashing hotel rooms.
Parking his suitcase in the office, he finds himself unzipping his jacket and debating whether or not to take a shower. He really should. Airplane is no one's signature fragrance, and it doesn't help matters that the unctuous man with frozen hair and a used-car-salesman smile – who spent the majority of the flight from L.A. to New York obnoxiously alerting passengers that the West African woman three rows back surely had ebola – spilled his $5 Bloody Mary all over the author's trousers. Then had the nerve to complain that the airline wouldn't comp him. And seriously – who orders a Bloody Mary at 8PM in the first place?
He shouldn't crawl into bed with his wife smelling like Lysol, offensive idiots, tomato juice, hotel soap, and what he thinks might have been chocolate milk (he hopes it was chocolate milk) leaking steadily from the overhead compartment after having exploded in someone's bag. But still...
Something coldly familiar shivers over him, killing his good mood and the joy of coming home. He tells himself it's just that he's been away nearly two whole days. That he just feels sappy and wants to see her. That his reluctance to announce his homecoming is strictly out of desire to surprise her. That it's simply inconvenient to remove even his jacket or shoes, despite the distinct scent of air travel clinging strongly to both. He tells himself all of this. For a moment, he actually believes it.
But the memories of a dozen cliché-red roses left in a heap by a bedroom door beg to differ.
This isn't that, he knows. He should know. He does. He trusts her. It's not that he expects it to happen again. He trusts her. He loves her. And she loves him. And that should be the end of it.
But the scenario is the same and he just can't help but hesitate by the closed door. Why is it closed? Alexis is upstairs (the light under her door at this hour is a dead giveaway but she's not a little girl any more and she can put herself to bed). Martha, well, her coat's gone from the front, so she's presumably out, doing god knows what. Why does she need the door closed?
With caution he'll justify later by saying he didn't want to wake her (partly true) and an irrational feeling of dread that he'll blame on too many occasions when dead bodies, suspects – or worse, Ryan – have emerged from behind closed doors to unknown scenes, he pulls the lever and peeks into the still quiet of their bedroom. It's too dark to see much.
The pale highlight of her arms against the navy blue of their bedding – they picked that out together – tangle against a broad expanse, something solid and heavy she rests her head on, the rumpled white of a tee-shirt glowing in the threads of city light pollution filtering through the blinds.
He's seen enough. If he had roses this time, he'd drop them all over again.
He shouldn't be surprised. He's nobody's prize, after all. Too juvenile, too silly and childish. Too old. Too much history. Too much baggage. Not the wealthiest offer she's had, certainly not the most handsome. He was a better bargain the first time around, and look how that ended up - she didn't need him.
She sighs in her sleep, makes a tiny moan. Like she always did into his chest when she'd burrow into him, bury her nose in his neck and sing him to sleep with the sound of her breathing and the beat of her heart into his chest. He can't take it.
Before he can control himself and walk away, he's reliving history. A different apartment, a different name on his tongue, but it's all the same. It's always the same. He comes home with the best of intentions, and there's a bed of nails there to welcome him.
"Beckett," he growls. Or, he tries to. It comes out even to his own ears sounding every bit the pathetic howl of a man whose last chance has gone up in flames. Choking on his own saliva and the tears he won't ever admit are clogging his nose and drowning the air in his throat, he tries again.
"BECKETT."
There's a scramble on the bed, a rustling for cover he imagines, as if that will help at this point.
"Castle!" she shouts, her voice slurred from deep sleep. "Wha's wrong?"
He fumes. Anger is easier. Nothing makes it easy- more fumbling. The light on the table besides their bed floods the room and he blinks dumbly, his eyes slow to adjust as much from the suddenness as from the tears pooling uninvited in the corners of his eyes, running down the slope of his nose.
"Castle!" she sits up, repeating his name, trying herself to figure out what's going on. There's...
No one there. No one, save for a stack of pillows she's still clutching. His eyes dart around for something he must have missed, but all he finds is a sleepy and confused Kate, wrapped loosely in the white of his Springsteen tee, the one he got at the concert in Jersey. The one he finds her in rather often on a lazy morning off or fresh out the laundry after a shower, a rough day washed clean and draped in the strange comfort the old thing seems to bring her.
"What's going on?" she inquires, her hand running over her face, wedding band glimmering happily on her delicate finger.
"Sorry," Castle murmurs, turning to hide his stupidity from her. "I thought," he doesn't finish that thought. Doesn't want to think about what he thought. How he could have- his upper body tries to escape the door hanging ajar, but his feet won't be party to his cowardice. "Never mind."
Kate stretches, catlike and graceful, her arms pulled in front of her and her fingers linking together. Suppressing a yawn, she regards him with curiosity.
"You're home early," she observes with a tired but happy chirp, her mind evidently checking in now that the shock of being woken up so loudly has passed.
He doesn't have the words. He rarely does, when it counts. Oh, he can fire out a novel in a month if truly pressed or motivated, but when it comes to anything of importance, he may as well be mute in the moment. Sometimes – after they're needed – he'll grasp at something clever or even wise.
The smile on her face slides off and he watches it crash like an ice shelf slipping into the arctic sea. At his silence, at how he must look. Awful, he assumes; he can still feel the flush of anger and humiliation in his cheeks, cooled by tear-tracks.
"Rick..."
"Don't!" he snaps, hearing the wrong voice in his given name and regretting his churning gut's reaction instantly. "I'm sorry," it's all he knows how to say.
"Castle." That's better. It's her. It's just Kate. Just Kate. His Kate. That's what his Kate calls him and that's what he needs to hear.
Swinging her bare legs out of bed, she pads softly to him, shivering momentarily now that she's been extracted from the warmth of the bed. Eyes wide and speculatively honest, he finds her concern mingled with the sadness of dawning knowledge, the uselessness of words, and – love.
Oh, love.
"Shhh," she hushes, though he's not saying anything. There's mercy and nothing else when she steps into his lack of embrace, hangs her arms around his neck and has to stand on her toes to press her lips to his temple and a peppering of kisses down his cheek that he doesn't return, though he manages to stroke her sleep-mussed and unwashed hair through it.
Her fingers lace small and warmed into his, rough and clammy and unquiet.
"You don't have to talk about it," Kate reassures him, reminds him that for her economy of words at times, she has her way of knowing what to say, of crawling into the skin of others and experiencing their private pain that drives her to ease it in whatever way she can. It's her gift. The first thing he loved about her (not lusted after or hungered for knowledge of), the most extraordinary part of her.
He follows her to the bath and undresses mechanically, despondently, as she runs the shower, waits for it to warm whilst shucking off his shirt and her pink boyshort panties.
"You smell like airplane," she informs him, helping him out of the cuffs of his shirt. It's hardly nice, but he knows it's true. He knows what she's trying to do, and maybe it's working. A solemn upturn of his lips is hardly enough for her efforts, but it's all he has, and what she returns to him as she leads him under the warm weight of water tells him that somehow, it's enough.
Second part tomorrow(ish).