Chapter 2
The door swings open, but she's not greeted with a smile. Then again, she probably shouldn't have expected to be. Not after the way she left things, not a definitive answer, but one that certainly led him to believe that she was planning to choose the job over him.
"Hey." The word is soft but sure as it leaves her lips, but Castle ignores her calm demeanor, simply leaves the door open and turns away.
"I put all your stuff in a pile on my dresser," he tosses over his shoulder as he crosses the room, leaves her to shut the door on her own. My dresser. It stings more than she's willing to admit. But what hurts even more is that he's walking away already, walking away from her in his own home, because he thinks she's walking away from him. She needs to prove him wrong.
"Castle."
"I have bags and boxes if you need..." he adds, already having disappeared into his office, pretending to distract himself with reorganizing a bookshelf. The one, she realizes with another stab to the chest, that holds all of the Nikki Heat books. He's pushing them to the back, hiding them away in an attempt to distance himself from her, from them.
"Castle."
"Just..."
"Rick."
That one catches his attention, and he whirls around, confused to see Kate toeing off her shoes, making herself comfortable. Castle shakes his head, forces the thought away. She's leaving. She's made that very clear. And for his own sake, he needs to stop clinging to any remnants of hope that she'll change her mind. Losing her is going to break his heart. It already is. And he feels so completely destroyed that it's taking all he has to hold himself together right now. He needs to get this over with as soon as possible if he's going to escape with any shreds of dignity.
"I'm not going."
His heart soars but he stomps it down, forces the burgeoning hope aside. She's leaving. Nothing she's said in recent days has indicated otherwise. Except for...
Wait.
"What?"
She shakes her head slowly, takes a step towards him. "I'm not going to DC."
"But I thought...the job..." he stammers, struggling to catch up.
"Is a good opportunity," she agrees. "But that's not all that matters."
Castle raises an eyebrow, still unwilling to buy into her sudden change of heart.
"This morning it sure seemed to be."
"Well, this morning I didn't have my priorities in the right order," she counters.
"And now you do?"
Kate shrugs. "I'd like to think so. But first, there's something I need to know."
He fixes her with a steady gaze, challenging, and she takes a deep breath, releases it slowly before diving in. "Where are we going, Castle?"
It's an echo of her question from a few weeks earlier, but this time there's no way he can misunderstand her meaning.
"You mean..." he gestures between them.
"Us."
Castle sighs heavily, crosses the room and sinks into his desk chair. He makes a point of smoothing out a wrinkle in his jeans, examining his fingernail, anything he can think of to buy himself time to concoct a sufficient answer.
When he offers nothing after a full minute, Kate speaks again. "You don't know." It's not a question.
"No, I...okay, no. I don't."
She nods, resigned, and as he watches, sees the hollow emptiness wash over her face, it all falls into place. She wants answers. She wants a reason to stay in the city.
And she wants that reason to come from him.
"I want us to be together," Castle offers clumsily in the wake of this realization. It's not much, but it's something. It's all he has at the moment and he can only cross his fingers and hope that it's enough.
"And that's...it?"
Apparently it's not.
"Isn't that enough?"
"I..." Kate sighs. "I want it to be."
"Then why isn't it?"
"Because..." she pauses, hesitates. This is so far past the scope of anything they've discussed, especially considering that they haven't discussed, well, anything regarding the future. Their future. "Because when Agent Stack first mentioned the job, he asked me where I saw myself in five years and I...I want to...I know there are no guarantees but..."
"But you want one anyway."
"Yeah," she breathes, thankful, so thankful that he understands.
"I...I'd love nothing more than for us to still be together in five years, Kate," Castle admits, eyes seeking hers across the room.
"You...you really want that?"
He nods, holds nothing back, allows it all to spill from his eyes as she searches his gaze. Considering that he'd already thought he'd lost her, he really has nothing to lose at this point.
"Okay." The word leaves on an exhale, and the smile that splits her face is the first one he's seen in days. His heart lifts as the happiness reaches her eyes, crinkling them at the corners in the way he loves so much. "Yeah, okay."
Kate crosses to him then and he opens his arms to her, guides her down to his lap. She settles in, knees bracketing his thighs, and leans in to press their lips together. It feels like ages since she's kissed him.
How did she ever think she could manage without this?
Castle chases her lips as she leans back but she stops him with her palm flat on his chest. They can finish this in a minute. First, she has something she needs to take care of.
Kate fishes her phone from her back pocket, scrolls through her recent call list for that familiar number. With only the briefest hesitation, she taps the screen, dials the DC office.
Silence. Then, "This is Detective Kate Beckett."
She pauses, listening, speaks again. "Yes sir. Yes, I have."
Castle holds his breath, and he already knows her decision but he's so nervous he's shaking because Kate Beckett is about to choose him over the job opportunity of a lifetime and he's...overwhelmed. Actually, even that would be an understatement.
"Unfortunately I'm going to have to decline."
He releases a shaky breath and Kate curls her fingers around the back of his neck, playing with the wisps of hair at his nape as she listens intently to the man on the other end of the line. Castle chokes on his next inhale, barely bites back a sob. He closes his eyes in relief, and when he opens them again there are tears slipping from between his lids. But he doesn't stop them, can't stop them, because she's here and she's staying, and...
God, he thought he was going to lose her forever.
"Yes sir. Thank you, yes. I appreciate it. Mmm, bye."
Kate lowers the phone slowly, staring at the screen as the reality sets in. Her heart is racing, her entire body feels weak and shaky, and she's equal parts confused and relieved. Because she just turned down a hell of a job offer for the man she's currently straddling. The man who's looking up at her with tears in his eyes, but beneath the moisture she can see that he's just so in awe of her.
She leans in to press a kiss to his cheek, capturing his tears with her lips, and she hates that she's made him cry, because these tears may be of happiness and relief but the ones from this morning and yesterday most certainly weren't. And she hates that she's been the one to hurt him yet again.
But despite it all she feels, for the first time in days, like she can breathe again, and she knows without a doubt that she's made the right decision. She feels her heart un-clench, her lungs expand properly, as she sucks in a quivering breath. The tears from her earlier conversation with her father linger not far beneath the surface, and seeing the water droplets paving a path across Castle's skin is all it takes to draw them back out, spill them over the edges. Castle lifts his hands to cup her face, guides her in until their foreheads touch softly. Tears are dripping onto their pantlegs, and the breaths passing between them are desperate and tremulous, and Kate can feel his hands shaking against her skin. Or maybe she's trembling against his touch. It's hard to say at this point.
"I love you," Castle finally manages, the first to break the silence, his words barely a whisper between them. "Thank you. Oh, God. I love you so much Kate."
She tosses the phone behind her on the desk, sinks into him and secures her other arm around his neck. She clasps her hands together behind him, not letting go. Never letting go again.
"I love you too."
Thoughts?
