A Willow Bending
She sleeps normally for the first time since that night. Face buried into the pillow so only the tip of her ear and a bit of her cheek are visible. Blankets are pulled up to her neck and her fingers are curled around the sheet to keep it there. Her shoulders ache still and her back throbs despite his best efforts to avoid it earlier so she's sprawled out on one side of the bed, taking up as much room as possible.
It's the quivering of the mattress under her that stirs her first. Then the tugging on the blankets forces her into alertness.
"Castle, I told you," she groans, wiggling deeper into the pillows even as she pushes at him with her toes, "next time I steal the blankets, just take them back."
He whimpers, fingers scrambling across the bed until they connect with her elbow.
Beckett rolls over, pushing tangled hair off her face. "Castle?" No response in the darkness. She reaches out, touching his brow lightly and feeling him scowl under her fingertips. "Hey?" Her thumb brushes under his eyes and she can feel the tears a moment before he opens his eyes, meeting hers instantly.
"I need to…" He slides off the bed, knocking his pile of pillows onto the ground as he stumbles toward the bathroom.
She goes to the kitchen first, getting a glass of water that she knows he'll want, before stepping onto the cool tile of the bathroom. He's kneeling, head cushioned on his elbow as he rests on the lid of the toilet. The glass clicks as she puts it on the ground, crouching next to him and skimming her hand over his head, twisting the sweat-dampened strands between her fingers.
"Go aw -"
"That's not happening. I'm the one who deals with things alone," she says softly. "Let me help."
He nearly topples her over when he shifts, wrapping his arms around her waist even as his face burrows into her stomach. She sits back against the wall, smoothing her hands over his back.
"Nightmare," he mumbles against her shirt. "You keep dying or he puts his hands all over you and I can't…"
And here was the downside of telling him exactly what had happened in the basement of Foster's house. Like the worst case scenarios would stop with the truth. Instead, it just opened up another range of situations for him to run through, to torment him.
"I'm right here, okay? Right here and alive," she reassures him, bending over him awkwardly to place a kiss at the corner of his eye.
"Hurts to think of you like that."
"Turn off your brain then. I can distract you if you need," Beckett adds and she can see his mouth turn up in the hint of a smile. "Is that a yes? Because I can't carry you back to bed like you do with me."
He snags her hand on one of its passes over his cheek, pulling it to his mouth and pressing a kiss to the heel of her palm. "Can we just stay for a few more minutes?"
"Yeah," she says, curling her fingers at his jaw. "We can stay."
A few more minutes turns into an hour which drifts into the rest of the night. She falls asleep against the wall. And he sleeps the rest of the night without stirring, his head resting in her lap and her fingers brushing gently through his hair.