He waits in the car while she dashes through the rain into her apartment building to pack a bag. Because she's coming to stay at the loft, ride out the storm with him and his daughter (oh, he should probably let her know they're having a house guest), and he's still dazed that she said yes. That despite the lack of communication and the lingering bitterness he knows she retains, they can fall back into old patterns of banter and hidden smiles.
Castle sighs, a little too dreamily, but she isn't here to see it so he doesn't swallow it down as he rests his temple to the doorjamb and daydreams about the way she bites her bottom lip. How he wishes she would bite his next.
He's missed her.
He missed her from the moment he turned his back on her in the precinct, walked away from her with Gina pressed to his side and a sinking feeling in his stomach, the strange look of desolation in her eyes remaining imprinted on the backs of his. He wants to ask, wants to inquire about what it was she had really meant to say to him that day before Gina had shown up, because there had been more, more than Have a great summer and See you in the fall, so much more to that crestfallen expression on her face that he had purposely ignored.
Movement from her building catches his eye, the harsh slam of a door slicing through the bellowing wind, and he curses, grapples with his door in his haste to exit the SUV and help her get her into the vehicle before she blows away.
"Castle, get back in the car," she snaps, but she's not the cop here, can't tell him to stay in the car when she's off duty, not that he would listen anyway, so he fights through the sheets of rain and the gusts of wind to snag her hand.
He hears her irritated growl of disapproval, but she knows it's already too late, pointless to reprimand him now, and her fingers flex until their palms are kissing firm and secure.
The wind has picked up substantially in the near hour it took for them to navigate through the panicked streets of Manhattan, the drive to her apartment twice as long as it normally would have been, even in heavy traffic. Natural disasters tend to evoke a kind of fear that cannot be eased or controlled, a paranoia that can drive people mad, make them thoughtless, and he's already witnessed it one too many times since the major news reports started three days ago. A hurricane is not a force that can be reckoned with, can't be tamed or talked out of its destruction; it kills without cause. The most careless kind of murderer.
Castle maintains a tight grip on her hand as they stagger from her building to the sidewalk. The resistance of the wind has them wobbling, the growing puddles on the concrete slipping him up more than once, and he breathes a sigh of relief once his free hand is curling around the door handle again. She doesn't fight him when he takes her duffel bag from her arm, squeezing his fingers instead before he has to let her go so she can make her way around to the passenger side.
He tosses her overnight bag in the backseat as he climbs back inside the suburban he tends to reserve for summer long trips to the Hamptons, slamming his door shut and impatiently waiting for Kate to join him. She struggles with the passenger door, the thick slab of steel nearly swinging off its hinges with the force of the wind when she pries it open, but her upper body strength is impressive and she tugs the door shut with an effective jerk.
"You okay?" he asks, almost reaching for her rain-drenched arm, but thinking better of it before she can notice. She's still so wary of him, still holding herself away every time he gets too close, so he attempts to give her space, to remember that his three months of absence shook over a year's worth of progress.
Kate exhales long and heavy, drops her head back against the leather headrest and closes her eyes. He does his best to ignore the lovely line of her throat, the kiss of her dark lashes to pale skin of her cheeks, and the outline of her bra beneath her slick t-shirt as her chest heaves.
"It's like resistance training," she says, peeling her eyes open to assess the whirlwind of flying rain past the windshield, the threatening clouds coloring the sky an ominous grey. "I almost forget how strong the wind can be."
"I could tell," he chuckles, returning the car to drive and checking his mirrors as he merges into the ongoing traffic once more. Getting back to the loft will likely take a good half hour.
"I would have made it," she mutters, a little petulant much to his surprise, and his lips quirk. "Didn't have to come play hero."
"No heroes, just partners," he muses, feeling the almost imperceptible touch of her gaze on him.
"Partner, huh?" Her voice holds a challenge, but not distaste, no protest or immediate denial, so he nods, feigning more confidence than he actually feels.
"Or your plucky sidekick, whichever you prefer," he shrugs, expecting agreement at the more suitable term, but that's the opposite of what he receives.
"No," she murmurs, so soft he almost doesn't catch the word over the strike of rain and the howl of wind against the car. "Plucky sidekick always gets killed."
They stop at a traffic light swinging precariously from its wiring and Castle succumbs to the risk of extending his hand towards her, sweeping a wet strand of hair from her cheek and tucking the dripping lock behind the chilled shell of her ear.
Beckett's eyes cut to him, sharp but steady, holding his gaze with breathtaking flickers of green and gold lighting up her eyes.
"Partner it is."
The chill of the rainwater has seeped through her clothes, through her skin, settled deep in her bones and sealed there by the slap of the wind. Castle's arm is around her waist, the reusable bags from the store bumping against her thigh and hip, but she's too eager to get inside his building to care about the touch she would never otherwise allow. Not yet.
Rainwater is starting to flood the streets, licking at car tires and taunting at the lifted edges of the sidewalk, and it's starting to scare her how quickly the water is rising, how the wind is reaching higher levels of speed by the minute. The city has experienced quite a few severe storms over the years but this? This mixture of wind and rain was slowly but surely spiraling out of control.
Castle's doorman sees them coming and shoulders open the door, greeting them with a strained smile, but just before they can step inside, the harsh crash of metal on metal has her gaze snapping past Castle's shoulder, over to the street where two cars have just collided. Horror ripples up her ribcage to constrict her lungs, adrenaline drumming to life in her bloodstream, and she almost tears free from Castle's arm, goes to the victims of the accident, but he tightens his hold.
"Beckett, don't," he practically shouts over the deafening wail of the storm, but her eyes remain on the cars, the front of a taxi speared into the passenger side of a tiny minivan, which looks empty. The noose around her airway loosens a little, releasing even more at the sight of red and blue and the scream of familiar sirens in the near distance. "Kate."
She hooks her arm around Castle's waist and pushes forward the last few feet to enter his building.
Rick's arm is still coiled around the slim circle of her waist as they trudge their way into the elevator. He places the dripping bags of supplies on the floor with a sigh of relief and punches the button for the fourth floor, but Kate doesn't move, her knuckles white around the shopping bags she hauled in with him, her eyes downcast.
"Beckett," he murmurs, prying the two bags she managed to carry in from the stiff bones of her fingers. She's still shaken from the wreck they had witnessed mere minutes ago outside, he knows that - the sick crunch of metal and screech of car horns still replaying in her mind… or at least, it is for him. The worse the weather becomes, the worsening chance for accidents to happen, but to have a clear view of the chaos, to watch helpless and afraid, is rattling. "Kate."
That earns him a flicker of her lids, the travel of her eyes to his, a storm brewing in her gaze.
"I could have helped them," she states, but her voice is wavering in a way he's only ever heard in the rare instances where she's come close to tears. "I could have-"
"Yes," he agrees, using his freed hands to palm the hunched bones of her shoulders, soothing them down with the back and forth stroke of his thumb to her biceps. "If the cops wouldn't have been so close, we would have helped them."
She takes a deep breath, nodding along, but her bottom lip is trembling beneath the trap of her teeth. She looks so vulnerable like this, drenched to the bone in rain with her hair dark and clinging to the pale hollows of her cheeks, the column of her throat, and he wants to coax her into his chest, bundle her up there and hold her until her body no longer shivers and her mind is no longer so obviously troubled.
But the elevator doors part before he can take advantage of the opportunity and he drops his hands, gathers up the supplies on the floor and shoots her a small smile when she bends to help him, feeling the relief flutter in his chest at the upturn of lips he receives in return.
The squelch of their shoes and the slosh of water he can feel within his makes him cringe, but Beckett only laughs at him, steals an extra bag from the crook of his elbow when he struggles to dig his house key from his pocket.
"Oh Dad, thank goodness," his daughter exclaims before he's even stepped inside, still in the doorway as she races forward to throw her arms around his neck. "You were gone for so long and I was worried that - oh, hi Detective Beckett!"
Castle huffs a quiet laugh and nudges Alexis backwards so they can allow Kate inside. He relieves her of her soaked duffel, hoping all of the items inside remained protected from the threat of water damage, and places it on the floor near the coat closet.
"Pumpkin, would you mind grabbing some towels?"
"Yeah, of course," Alexis chirps, but her eyes are sly when he stands from depositing their grocery bags to the ground, her lips curling into a coy smile as she trots towards the laundry room.
"You sure this is okay?"
Castle checks over his shoulder to find Beckett looking uncertain again, dividing her gaze between him and the hallway at her back.
"Positive," he states, reaching past her to click the front door shut.
She rolls her eyes at him for that, but a smile tugs at the corners of her mouth just as his daughter reappears with an armful of towels, handing one to him and another to Beckett. "You guys must have really been in the thick of it. Where'd you run into each other? Unless, you'd planned to meet up…?"
"No, we definitely ran into each other," Kate chuckles, scrubbing the towel over her hair, catching the edges between the material and squeezing the worst of the moisture from the locks. "Your dad crashed his shopping cart into mine while I was trying to grab some last minute supplies."
"It wasn't my fault!" Castle protests, mimicking her actions and making his best attempt at towel drying his hair. "It was a bloodbath in there. I was getting shoved all over the place."
"Such a trooper," Alexis teases, snagging a couple of the bags from the floor and hauling them to the sink.
"Anyway," Castle drawls, following Alexis's lead and draping his towel around his neck, scooping the rest of their bags from the foyer floor. "After fate reunited us, I managed to finally convince Detective Beckett that weathering the storm with us in our well-stocked, fortress of an apartment was a much safer option than going it alone. "
"That's one way to tell it, Castle," Beckett mutters, bumping his shoulder while she glides past him to help Alexis dry the contents in their combined shopping bags in the sink.
"Well, I'm glad you're here, Detective Beckett," Alexis smiles, so bright and friendly and contagious that Becket smiles back. "It's good to see you again."
"Call me Kate, Alexis," Beckett corrects with that lovely smile still intact and his heart stumbles against his ribs when she aims it at him. "And so am I."