A/N: Thank you for reading this story and for all your reviews and Twitter messages.
Chapter 2: And Me
Previously...
Castle smiles softly at her, finally letting his gaze travel down over her dress, absorbing everything.
"I'm sorry you had to see the bride before the wedding," Kate tells him gently, surveying the damaged gown along with him.
"I'm not," asserts Castle, fiercely.
"I'm sure this isn't what they usually mean by bad luck," grins Kate, wincing when her lip splits open once again.
"Homicidal maniacs? Deranged plastic surgeons?" asks Castle, leaning in to kiss her cheek. "I'm sure you're right."
"I was so scared," admits Kate, her voice barely a whisper, taking the handkerchief from her fiancé's hand to dab at her bleeding lip. "I didn't want to die without ever knowing…"
Castle lets his hand come to rest on her tulle-covered thigh. "Knowing what?" he presses, giving her thigh a gentle squeeze.
"What it would feel like to be your wife."
It is with a slow dawning stupidity that Castle finally realizes he hasn't even kissed her yet. He hasn't really kissed her, and suddenly he needs to remedy that. Remedy that stat, before either of them gets any older.
He stands and leans over her, speaking a little formally. "Kate, I'm going to kiss you now," he murmurs, stroking her chin with his thumb, gently angling her head towards him.
"Wha—"
Her eyes flutter closed the second their mouths meet for the sweetest, slowest, tenderest kiss he can ever imagine sharing with her. The caress of his lips over hers, the slight tremor of her velvety-soft skin, the tiny moan she emits as she cups his jaw; all are perfect.
"There," he whispers against her upturned cheek, nudging her fragrant, flawless skin with his nose. "That's what it feel like. To be my wife."
Her eyes fill with tears. It's a sweet gesture, but not enough. Not exactly what she's been planning for or hoping for since the day she accepted his proposal on the swings. But it's better than the alternative; she does know that.
She drifts off for a little while not long after that, her head pounding until they agreed to give her some pain meds to help with the relentless throb. They're worried about a concussion. She went down pretty hard once the car slammed to a halt and they ended up back out in the street. She and Kelly. Neiman is a fighter, a scrapper it seems, for all her glamour and that cool, cold, controlled exterior. Even a scalpel to the biceps and a missing handful of hair didn't slow her down.
Tyson seemed to sense the game was up in the face of Joe, the crack-shot hunter with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle in his hands and two tires under his belt already. He scarpered. Didn't even wait around to get his girlfriend out of there. A lone wolf, as ever.
This story comes out in bits and pieces over an intense fifteen minutes after the nurse comes in to check on Kate.
"What time is it?" she asks now, reaching for his wrist and easing up the French cuff of his white dress shirt.
Castle's sapphire blue, Swarovski crystal cufflinks sparkle intensely under the hospital's overhead strip lighting. The jacket of his tux is slung over the back of the chair and his necktie hangs loose around the collar of his shirt. He looks like a Rat Packer heading home after a good night out - Dean Martin maybe - with his tousled dark hair, his top buttons undone and his tan throat exposed.
Kate smiles at the watch once she reveals it on his wrist – her wedding gift to him – and then she looks up into his handsome face as she fingers the shiny perfection of the dial.
But when she sees the time, her expression falls again, crumpling a little, her eyes turning cloudy.
"Hey, don't worry about that now," soothes Castle, stroking the length of her elegant, narrow fingers in an attempt to distract her.
"Nearly three hours," she says regretfully, smoothing her hand down over the front of her dress. "We would have been married almost three hours, Castle."
She asks him to tell her about his day – about the church and the flowers and who turned up wearing the most outrageous hat (his own mother, of course). He shares what little he can remember. He is honest about his own nerves, about being so focused on awaiting her arrival that he absorbed little of the hubbub of activity going on around him - Espo's jokes about misplacing their rings, the back slapping and air kisses from friends not seen in a long time, the calming words of the celebrant the more agitated he became, and then finally the call conveyed by Alexis that led them all to the hospital.
They catch up like this, sharing their separate tales of woe because being apart for them now, for any real length of time, has become something of an alien concept. They work together and they live together and they don't keep secrets. Not anymore.
But the longer they decompress, the calmer they get, the more saddened and angry Kate becomes over their ruined day.
Finally, Castle returns to his usual self long enough that he begins to take note, to hear the real source of her pain, to acknowledge his own need to fix this for her; to remedy the mess that's been made of her 'one and done' shot at marriage; even if he of all people knows that a marriage is forged from a whole lot more than the wedding day itself.
A light tap on the door reminds him that they are not alone in any of this: the disaster that their special day has turned into.
Lanie's head appears around the doorframe, her smile tentative, as if she's unsure what to expect. "Hey," she intones softly, taking in these new surroundings and the quiet, almost mournful demeanor of her best friend and her husband-to-be. "How's everyone doing in here?"
Kate plasters a brave smile on her face, but both Castle and Lanie know her so well that they can see right through it. "Been worse," she shrugs. "But rarely so overdressed," she adds with a wry smile, plucking at the full tulle skirt of her wedding gown.
"Okay if I come in?" asks Lanie, with more deference to their personal feelings than usual.
"Sure. The more the merrier. Right, Castle?" says Kate, letting her hands flop back down by her sides with a huff that gives away how truly fed up and despondent she's feeling.
Castle stands immediately, offering Lanie his seat. The M.E. protests, but the writer insists. "I think I'll just take a little trip down the hall," he tells Kate, whose face instantly radiates her true mood: her fear and concern at being parted from him. "Check on your dad for a minute. I'll be right back," he promises, returning to her bedside to press a quick kiss to her cheek.
Lanie settles into the chair Castle has just vacated, spreading her bridesmaid dress carefully on the seat to prevent it wrinkling.
"So, how're you really feeling?" she asks Kate, giving her friend a hard stare.
"Sore. Disappointed. Embarrassed. Angry."
"Those are some big feelings you got there, Kate. Have you talked to Castle about it?"
"Yes. I—it's so unlike me, Lanie," she laments, pressing the heel of her hand to her forehead. "When he got here I kind of…lost it for a moment. I think with the build-up to today, all the planning we put into everything…" Kate shakes her head.
"Honey, the way you're feeling is perfectly understandable," her friend assures her, squeezing her hand. "Most brides only have to contend with a few nerves, maybe worry about forgetting their vows or trying not to trip over their dress. No one expects a deranged serial killer to pop up out of nowhere and try to kidnap them."
Kate twists her engagement ring round and round on her right hand. "I know. I just…I wish today had turned out differently. We were supposed to be married by now, Lanie. Sipping champagne, eating those tiny little $10 lobster sliders Castle insisted on having, dancing our first dance."
Lanie lets Kate vent because all of her concerns are valid. This is more than just self-pity.
"How'd he like the watch?" asks Lanie after a moment of quiet, trying to distract her friend. She feels so bad for her after all she and Castle have been through to get to this point. "Did he read the inscription?"
A smile blooms on Kate's face and Lanie breathes a sigh of relief that she's managed to conjure a pleasant memory for Kate in the midst of all this stress and disappointment. "I gave it to him last night before I left. He…he loved it," she nods, her eyes sparkling at the memory.
Kate touches a hand to her throat, trailing her long fingers down her neck, following the path that Castle's lips meandered after she presented him with his wedding gift. She hears Lanie clear her throat and snaps out of her daydream just in time to catch her friend smirking at her. Kate's cheeks flush an attractive shade of pink, the first color she's regained since they brought her into the hospital.
"Uh-huh," the M.E. drawls, knowingly, arching her eyebrow. "Liked it that much. I see."
The inscription on the underside of the watch read:
'When I'm with you, I wish I could stop time so that we can be together…always.'
The lettering was tiny, but the jeweler had made an amazing job of the intricate engraving, even managing to use their own font* to personalize the message further.
Before Kate can show Lanie the stunning pearl drop and diamond earrings Castle gave her the previous evening, or describe the engraved silver spoons he got them as a joint gift, the door to her room flies open with such force that it hits the rubber floor stopper behind and literally vibrates on its hinges.
Lanie and Kate both startle at the sudden intrusion, their eyes wide and their mouths slightly open as they observe the man blocking the entranceway.
TBC...
*Note: The reference to 'their own font' comes from the post-6x17 one-shot I wrote for 'In The Belly of The Beast', entitled 'The Letter', in case you haven't read it and were wondering what that meant. Thanks for reading. I'll post a few photos associated with this story on Twitter - the silver spoons and Lanie's bridesmaid dress if you're interested. You can follow me at livwilder2 x
