Seriously, thank you all so much for your support. I was feeling a little frustrated about my other chapters of 47FF47S, so I took them down for editing. I feel really good about this one, so here you go!
Also, I'm truly sorry to those I told I would continue Lofty Expectations as its own story. However, I didn't feel like I had anything left to say with it. I think it's best ended there, with a hint of playfulness and mystery! Thank you so much.
Chapter 2
47 Fixes for 47 Seconds
Drunk Caskett leads to drunk angst leads to a strange proposal leads to love and mending.
"You can't do this to me."
He can't hide his surprise at the choked exclamation, jumps back as she staggers into the loft without an invitation.
She's all dressed up, curls immaculate and arranged around her face and descending down her shoulders, curves accentuated by a sequined blue number that he's never seen before and already longs to fist in his hands.
Wait. Stop.
He tries to quell his desire, remembers that he's angry – furious, and formulates a single-syllabic response.
"What?"
She turns back to face him, but stumbles, grabs his elbow to steady herself.
He flinches at the contact, but allows her to use him. She already has, hasn't she? he thinks, laughing humorlessly to himself.
"Can't leave me," she whimpers, presses it out between pursed pink lips that he wants to worship with his mouth and feel vibrate with her moans...
"Beckett, I don't under–"
"Kate," she corrects sharply. "I'm Kate to you. Where've you been?"
He feels his muscles tense as he stands his ground. "Working," he responds tiredly, and adds mentally, on getting over you. Making this love go away. But there's so much of it, like water on a rapidly-sinking ship, and he's the unfortunate vessel.
"I don't believe you," she says, raising her chin. There's a pause. "Is it her?"
He stares. Does she mean...?
He's tempted to say yes, just to spite her. I'm not your puppy anymore. But that would be lying, and make him just as good as her.
"No," he says. "I'm not seeing Jacinda."
"So it's me, then? I did something wrong?"
His silence seems to be an answer for her.
"Tell me what I did, and I'll fix it," she cries, and tears make her eyes glisten more.
He hesitates, and it's clear that she can see his inner turmoil. They've always been friends, and he could argue that she is his best friend. She's willing to mend what they have.
No. He turns away. Friends don't lie to each other – at least when it matters.
"You can't," he says wearily.
The door slams shut behind him, and he wonders what side of it she was on.
He doesn't have to wonder when her voice sounds again, and he almost turns at this.
Because tears have turned into hiccuping sobs. "I'm sorry I'm not uncomplicated. But I can be fun, can't I?"
Footsteps thunder closer, and he turns just in time to see her sway, normally-graceful feet catching under her as she hurtles toward him.
His hands instinctively come to her waist, catching her easily.
He sees it then, something that should have been obvious before in her brash actions and wild emotions, but that he didn't realize because he was blinded by his own haze of alcohol.
"Kate, are you drunk?" he asks incredulously.
She's always been careful after her father's downward spiral in the wake of her mother's death, showing restraint even after only a few drinks in the company of others.
He does enjoy her pink flush when she's just buzzed, the way she'll giggle and seemingly press up against him in their regular booth at the Old Haunt.
Stop. You're angry. Angry.
"No," she huffs, straightening but not batting his hands away.
He should loosen his grip and step away. But he doesn't. Can't, not when she's staying here in his – albeit accidental – embrace and it's all he's ever wanted for her to simply let him love her.
"Kate," he says lowly, a note of warning in his voice.
"Yeah," she sniffs. "But you're not exactly sober, either, are you?" She looks pointedly at the glass on the counter, the last few heavy, syrupy drops of whiskey pooling under the ice.
He shakes his head.
"Our timing is marvelous," she mutters in frustration, and he can't, for the life of him, figure out what she might mean.
What does she mean? He can't decipher her anymore. Did he even know her at all?
He releases her with that thought.
She pads, barefoot – when did she remove her crazy high heels? – towards the counter, uncaps the liquor bottle, and tips it until it spills, golden, into the glass.
She doesn't retrieve another glass.
She simply takes a swig of it, wincing at the burn, and holds it out to him.
He gapes at her, stares down into its contents. He can't—he can't put his lips where hers have been. It's too much for him.
But she's quirking an eyebrow at him, and it's suddenly a dare. He brings it to his lips without another thought.
He can't help how his eyes trip up the smooth expanse of her thigh where blue fabric is rucked up dangerously high.
She's lounging back against the armrest of the sofa, her twinkling laugh somehow matching the sound of the ice cubes clinking around in the glass she clutches.
His eyes travel back up, and oh.
She's returning his gaze through her eyelashes, eyes dark and conveying extreme interest.
He loves her. He drowns in it. He loves her. God, he wants...
He grits his teeth at being caught ogling, turns his head away sharply.
In his peripheral vision, though, he sees her slink towards him, bare feet and calves unfurling from underneath her to carry her to his side of the couch.
The cold, wet glass is pressed into his hand, and he takes another large swig.
"So you're not going to tell me what's going on?"
"So you're not going to tell me why you're all dressed up and hammered out of your mind?" he counters.
She smirks at his dry attempt at humor and responds, "Lanie demanded a girls' night. Your turn."
He huffs, glances over at her while circling the rim of the tumbler, collecting condensation on his index finger. "Bobby Lopez," he grunts at what he hopes is an incomprehensible volume.
She blinks, leaning in with her elbows planted firmly against her knees so that he can make eye contact with him.
He sees the wheels turn, slowed greatly by alcohol, but he can see the exact moment when it clicks.
"Castle," she breathes.
"Don't," he grits out.
"Don't what?"
"Don't make excuses. I know."
"Know what, exactly?"
He slams the whiskey onto the table with a resounding bang and stands suddenly. "I know you don't! Love! Me!" he shouts, and saying it out loud is what finally breaks him.
Tears he didn't know he was containing bubble over, an endless stream on his cheeks and dammit. He thought he was stronger.
She stands, too, and through the haze of tears he sees the confusion on her face. "Castle—what?"
"It's okay, Kate," he spits. "I'll save you the embarrassment. See? Isn't it easier for me to know than to have a big, fat lie on your chest?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about!"
"I'm talking about you being a coward, leading me on, instead of just telling me that you don't have feelings for me!"
She draws back, neither having realized that in the heat of the moment, their faces hovered closer and closer.
Silence.
"Cas—Rick," she chokes out finally. "How could you think, after everything...?"
"What?"
"God, Richard...I love you."
He lets out a heavy breath into the even heavier air surrounding them.
"Bullshit," he growls.
She removes the distance between them once again.
His eyes widen. He tries to step back, but his heel collides with the corner of the sofa.
"Excuse me?"
"You don't," he says with finality.
She lets out her own noise of frustration, something guttural at the back of her throat. "Who are you to say how I feel?"
"I would know if you did."
Her eyebrow arches perfectly and he cannot believe, living in their world of subtext, thatthey're speaking so openly about this.
Without warning, she reaches out and snags his elbow. He yelps in surprise as she shoves him gently onto the couch.
He freezes when she's suddenly invading his personal space, palms bracketing his hips. Because they don't...they never...but he wants them to-
He is, then, completely unprepared for the open-mouthed, sloppy, whiskey-laced kisses she's pressing against his lips.
While his mind is clouded, his body instructs him to tangle his hands in her hair with as much grace as a toddler and tug her to him. She responds enthusiastically to this invitation, crowding at his chest and slipping her tongue into his mouth, holy...!
He's snapped back to reality when her knees come to straddle his thighs.
"Kate," he gasps, forcing himself to grip her by the shoulders and halt her sweet torture.
She stares at him wordlessly. "You don't believe me, do you?" she whispers, and suddenly Confident Drunk Kate slips away until she's Fragile Drunk Kate again and she crumbles before him, collapsing in a heap against his chest. He feels, more than hears, her sobs and his heart breaks.
He has nothing to do but hold her and whisper sweet, meaningless mantras into her ear.
Her bare feet are drawn up close to her chest when he returns to the couch with a glass of water.
She sniffles softly, accepts the cup without meeting his gaze. She keeps her puffy eyes trained on one particular facet in the textured glass of his coffee table.
She downs all of it quickly, but again lifts the remains of their alcohol to her lips.
"What can I do to prove it to you?" she cries suddenly, and he tenses at the return of her distress.
"Kate..."
Her eyes widen suddenly and she straightens quickly, jumping to her feet.
"Castle! Marry me!"
He stumbles backward in shock, hissing as he knocks rather hard into the coffee table.
She takes a moment to coo at his injury, stooping to rub his knee tenderly.
This is surreal.
"Kate—what?!" he splutters.
"You've been married before!" she points out, as if this is the answer to everything.
"Yes, but I dated them first!" He begins to pace rapidly back and forth across the rug.
She scoffs. "Castle, let's face it – we've kind of been dating."
He pauses. "Are you kidding me?"
"Castle, how many meals do we eat together per week?"
He opens his mouth to respond with a low number but does the math. She's frighteningly right.
He sighs instead. "Kate, this is crazy!"
"Rick," she pleads, grasping his cheek in her palm, "you inspire me every day to be spontaneous. To look for magic."
He can only watch in wonder as she cants forward to let their foreheads and noses kiss sweetly. Their ragged breathing mingles between them, drowning out even the steady rush of traffic below.
"This is it, babe," she whispers, and he blinks at the endearment. "The way we work so well together. The way we finish each other sentences. The way our lives, our families, come together effortlessly. I don't believe in your kind of magic – leprechauns and wizards and time travel – but I do believe in us."
He's mesmerized by her and her words. She must take his silence as hesitation, because she turns to nuzzle her nose into his cheek and he feels her hot breath caress his face.
"Castle. You're my one-and-done."
"Okay," he breathes.
"Okay?"
"I'm saying yes. Let's get married."
He wakes up with a splitting headache...
...and a beautiful, wonderfully naked woman beside him.
He tenses, doesn't dare move. How could he have let this happen? His inebriated mind clearly hadn't considered the hurt of her changing her mind come morning and leaving him a divorcee again.
She stirs, lashes fluttering against his shoulder, and her following stretch is catlike, the leg thrown across his hip extending fully and toes coming to a perfect point.
He holds his breath.
She smiles up at him drowsily, presses a wet kiss against his collarbone and mmm. Kate. All of his anxiety melts away. She doesn't regret it.
She shifts, palming his ribs, and he feels the smooth ridge of her new ring pressed there – her mother's ring and its gold chain rest on her nightstand.
She lifts her chin to beam up at him, but frowns suddenly after a moment.
His heart thuds.
She reaches up to thumb the corner of his mouth. "Hopefully you didn't have that lipstick there when I was asking Alexis for your hand."
An unexpected laugh bursts from his chest, a peal of happiness escaping without his permission.
"Good morning, Mrs. Castle."
