Disclaimer: The characters are so not mine.
This is just a bit of fluff that hijacked my brain yesterday, but, never fear, my work on Fallout is progressing nicely. I hope to be able to update soon.
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"Is there any particular reason we had to come here for inspiration?" Beckett asks as she stands in the center of Castle's office.
"Hey, I do some of my best work here," he says, sweeping his arms out grandly, "and this is way too important to screw up."
"Imagine that," she says wryly, "something we agree on."
"Here." He takes a book from a shelf and hands it to her. "What do you think of Dylan Thomas?"
"Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light," she recites from memory. "Very evocative, but a little melodramatic."
"Okay, then, how about this one?" He pulls out the collected poems of William Blake. "He wrote The Tyger. And a bunch of other stuff that I can't seem to recall at the moment."
"You're not exactly selling me on him."
"Walt Whitman? Remind me to read you I Sing the Body Electric sometime."
"I've read it," she replies.
"I'm sure you have." The pitch of his voice drops to somewhere between a come-on and a dare. "But I've never read it to you. And people think my sex scenes are hot."
"They are," she smiles. "Must be all the, um, research you've been doing lately." She takes a book from the case and slaps it lightly against his chest. "James Matthew Barrie. I'm sure you can identify with a story about a boy who never grew up."
"Ouch." He does his best to look wounded. "You pierce my soul."
She raises an eyebrow pointedly. "Isn't that a bit heavy on the hyperbole, even for you?"
He takes Jane Austen's Persuasion from the shelf and waves it in front of her. "From Captain Wentworth's letter to Anne. But, obviously, we have no interest in Austen today. How about the classics?" He shows her a copy of Inferno.
"Dante Alighieri? No, thank you. And don't even think about Marcus Aurelius," she warns as he reaches for the neighboring book.
He pouts and replaces the volume.
"How about someone a little more contemporary?" she suggests.
"Oooh, here's In Cold Blood. Haven't read this in a while."
"Truman Capote?" she says. "Over my dead body."
He finds a copy of Rage of Angels. "How about Sidney Sheldon?"
"Over your dead body."
An author's name catches her eye and she lifts his book from the shelf. He's known primarily as a novelist and playwright, but this is a collection of poetry. The edge of a Post-It note protrudes from between the pages, marking a poem called Cascando. A single word is scrawled in the margin: Kate. Two passages in the poem are highlighted, and she reads the first out loud.
"if you do not love me I shall not be loved
if I do not love you I shall not love"
"Beckett..." He takes the book from her and the lines around his mouth tighten in a silent echo of the pain he must have felt when he first marked the poem. "I appreciate the symmetry. For some reason, it never occurred to me." He closes his eyes for a moment before setting the book on his desk. He takes her hands in his and caresses the backs of them with his thumbs as he quotes the other verse.
"terrified again
of not loving
of loving and not you
of being loved and not by you
of knowing not knowing pretending
pretending"
She wonders how long it's been since he inscribed her name in the book. "Just how much time did we lose, Castle?" she asks.
"You mean how many months were wasted while we pretended that we weren't in love? Whatever the number, it was too many," he says softly, "but there's nothing like making up for lost time."
He pulls her gently toward him, bends his head down to hers, and kisses her hesitantly, almost as though he's afraid she'll break. It's not enough for her, not today, and she puts her arms around his neck and kisses him back hard, reveling in the way he gasps as she presses the entire length of her body firmly against his.
"So," he says breathlessly when she finally lets him come up for air, "would you, uh, care to take this upstairs?"
"You have to ask?" she teases as she picks the book up from his desk.
He runs a finger along the name on the spine. "Have we decided, then?"
She shrugs. "I wouldn't mind if you really prefer Dylan Thomas."
"No." He places his palm over the small bulge low on her belly. They've known for nearly two hours now that it's a boy. "Samuel Beckett is perfect."
"Samuel Beckett Castle," she corrects him.
"Have I told you lately that I love you?"
"Just this morning." She tugs on his tie playfully. "But talk is cheap, Castle. Now come upstairs and prove it."
He does.
fin