AN: My post ep for 5x03, I guess.
He moves his pity party into his office after the third time his mother passes by and mutters a sad Oh, kiddo, silk sleeves swirling. He just needs a little while to process. He's known this day was coming for years but it's always just been a hypothetical. A someday. But someday has become today and he has to find a way to deal with that. With a sigh, Castle cracks open his laptop and pulls up a blank document, lets the words flow. It's not a story he'll ever share or publish, it's probably something he'll never even reread. It's an emotional purge, an attempt to come to terms with the idea that his daughter is gone, that his baby bird has left the nest.
He's eight hundred words in when his phone rings, Beckett's shy grin filling up his screen. He smiles at the phone, a ridiculous habit that he really needs to break if they're going to have a prayer of keeping this thing under wraps, and answers, leaning back in his chair.
"I'm pathetic."
She laughs and he feels lighter, little bits of his sadness dispersing with the vibrations of her mirth. "I can't refute that statement outright so I'm gonna need specifics, Castle."
"I'm sitting in my office, writing a sad story about anthropomorphic birds that would make Walt Disney cringe and wearing a gold medal I gave Alexis when she was five." He pauses, drags a hand over his chest, fingers toying with the soft blue ribbon, waiting for her to respond, to toss off some sarcastic retort that will break him out of this stupor. Seconds tick by in silence. "Kate?"
"You're not pathetic," she says, her voice so soft that his heart breaks all over again. "You're a dad."
Oh, he loves her. Loves the way she believes in him, trusts him. How her eyes soften when he brings her coffee, how she sleeps with her hand over his heart, claiming and protecting. He loves her and it swirls in his chest, twining around the holes and wounds, stitching him back together from the inside. It's not the same. It can't and won't ever be the same but maybe that's okay.
"Are you still at work?" The need to see her wells up, pushes him out of the chair, sends him scrambling for his keys.
"No, I left a while ago."
"Where are you? I -"
Her steady exhalations fill his ear for a moment and he breathes with her, tries to calm his racing heart.
"I'm downstairs. In my car."
"Why?"
"I wanted to see you."
"No," he laughs, the cheap plastic medal bouncing against his ribs, "I mean why are you down there and not up here?"
"I didn't want to assume. I know you've had a long day and I didn't know if-"
"Come upstairs." She sighs and he closes his eyes, imagines the contented curve of her lips, the crinkle of her eyes. "And Kate?"
"Yeah?"
"Always assume."
