Misconception
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Rick Castle stares down at the photo in his hand, realizing a moment later that he's instinctively snagged Beckett by the wrist to keep her from leaving.
"No," he says raggedly. "No, I am not doing this again."
Her face twists, lips crooked and eyes closing, and he hears it - too late - hears what that sounded like.
"No, I'm not letting you walk out - again - on the best night of my life. You stay, Beckett."
She swallows, and her eyes cast off, desperately, as if she can't bear to look at him. "You don't - it's not required-"
"Did you not hear me?" he growls, jerking on her arm. He's being too rough, losing his cool; he's losing it, but there is just so much to lose. "Best nights of my life - and both of them you seem to think are mistakes."
Her chin jerks around, eyes snapping to his - there's that fire, that flint and tinder coming together. He feels a fraction of relief, realizes he was having trouble breathing.
He releases her wrist, but he shifts to put his body between her and the door. "You don't love me, that's fine. But you don't get to drop a bomb like that, some melodramatic garbage, and then leave."
Her whole face goes comically, hilariously blank. Like a cartoon, like it's just been wiped right off and redrawn right in front of him. Her eyes reanimate first. Like bubbles of air rising up in muddy river water, proof of the life lurking below the surface. "I don't - I don't what?" And then she laughs, something giddy - no, not that - something hysterical in it.
Hysteria - (Latin) of the uterus.
Oh, God.
"You're pregnant," he says, dumbly, ice water slapping him cold and shocking.
"I don't love you?" she croaks, claps a hand over her mouth, shakes her head. "Of all the ridiculous - yes, I'm pregnant, and yes, it's yours, so don't even ask."
"I wasn't. I didn't." He frowns, shoots her a glare. "Of course it's mine."
That sharp stain of angry pink drains out of her face just that fast. "Why would you say that?"
He presses the ultrasound against his chest. He recognizes the gesture as claiming, protective, but it's all he has, all she'll give him. "Say what? Because of course it's true. I'm not dismissing your - your claim. No need for a paternity test, I fully-"
"No, why would you say I don't love you?"
His mouth opens, empty, closes again, staring at her.
"Wait," she murmurs, pressing a hand to her eyes. "Oh, God, the interrogation. That's what you - that's what you've been talking - yelling at me about?"
His tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth.
"Because I used my getting shot to work a suspect? How is that news to you? Interogation 101, Castle. Anything to connect-"
"You said you knew," he blurts out, interrupting with the awful acid thing that's been burning a hole in his heart for weeks now. "You remembered every moment."
"I remem-" Her mouth snaps shut.
"If you didn't know how to tell me, I would have left you alone, you know. Contrary to popular belief. There was no need for you to give me a pity fuck-"
"God, you are such a moron," she groans, spinning on her heel and stalking away from him. He moves, helplessly orienting to her true north, but she jerks back around and thrusts an accusing finger at him. "You. Are. A moron - Rick Castle. Do I look like I give out pity fucks?"
He jerks back.
"No," she hisses. "I do not. I-"
"You left me." His nostrils flare in the effort it takes to not break. "I woke up and you were gone. And then I hear you - confessing everything to a murder suspect - and what do I get? Nothing. Not a word. But you have problem spilling your guts to a suspect."
"I left you a note," she says, a strange bewildered hurt tumbling in her eyes.
No. She doesn't get to be hurt. He's the one wounded, stripped bare, left naked on the morning after to wake alone (thinking, stupidly, she went to get us coffee, she'll be right back, she didn't, couldn't possibly, have thought that meant nothing). "You left me a note? What are you talking about? I said, call me, and you said you would and I got nothing all summer, and then-"
"No, the summer - after the wedding. At the hotel. I left you a note, Castle."
"What?" He scrubs a hand down his face, hard. "A note. No. There was no note. There was no note!"
She stares at him. "There was too."
"Then what did it say?"
She answers immediately, and with such clear precision that he knows the truth of it before she even finishes speaking. "'Now we both know what we're waiting for.'"
A terrible kind of grief clutches him and his hands curl into fists - but his fingers catch on the ultrasound and his eyes drop, inexorably, to the gray and black that is-
"A baby," he says.
She lets out a breath. "That wasn't what I meant by waiting."
He chokes on a laugh and his eyes jerk up to see her - see her - really look. She's not looking back; she's definitely not happy, but it's not just latent anger and frustration. Her eyes are smudged, as if inexpertly drawn, and her mouth in a tight line; her fingers knot and smooth, over and over.
She's unhappy.
She's terribly unhappy.
"Beckett."
She reluctantly looks at him.
"I won't take the kid out of school for field trips to Paris, promise." Her shoulders go up, defensive, but he's holding onto that flippant remark of hers like it too is a promise. A promise that the baby is happening, that she's already made her choice. "Not unless you're coming with us, that is."
"I don't have the vacation time," she murmurs, aimless, still miserable-looking. Twisting and knotting her fingers at her sides.
He wonders if that's his answer. No, Castle, I don't have the vacation time. My life won't accommodate yours. We don't fit. This will never work.
He ducks his head to look at the ultrasound photo, wonders if this is as close as he's going to get. Will she let him be there for the birth? Meredith had a c-section and said emphatically no and he didn't know how to force the issue, and then Alexis was in his arms and what did he care at all?
He cares. He needs- "I can keep this?" At all, at all can he keep this?
She clears her throat. "You're not willing to wait, I get it; you've made that abundantly clear. But you're a good dad, and you deserve - no, not you - this baby deserves a good dad, no matter how I, how difficult it is for me to see you with her or anyone else-"
"What are you talking about?" he says, horror spilling through his chest. He grabs for her wrist because he can see her slipping away from him; in her eyes, she's setting herself adrift, his light going out in her.
And then it dawns in him, like knowledge itself can be transferred from one person to another, skin to skin, his fingers around her wrist clueing him in.
"You think I could stop loving you? It's not a switch. I have tried, I have tried to walk away from you, Kate Beckett, more than once, but you make it impossible to go anywhere without you."
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