Misconception
X
"Oh."
It pops out of her mouth so stupidly, a breath really, astonishment suffusing the sound. She stares at him, captivated by the hard-edged frustration carved into his face. He - tried to walk away; he was trying to walk away but - he couldn't?
He slides the ultrasound into the pocket of his shirt, over his heart, and her own flutters strangely. She's going to have a baby with him.
"So how about we start this conversation over?" he says carefully. He reaches out to her as if approaching a wild animal, and he circles his fingers around her wrist very slowly.
Her bones feel bruised, but his touch is light this time, gentle. He tugs.
She stumbles forward, still mentally tripped up more than anything. He's barely hanging on to her. Barely hanging on.
"The couch, come sit," he says. His voice is low and even, soothing; she feels patronized but grateful for it too, for the way he's taken over, extending an olive branch. Peace, peace, and that must make her the dove.
She's jumbled; this doesn't make sense. What she thought, what her heart knew, is not what she sees before her now. She's completely at a loss. She didn't come to his loft expecting to - to win him back (did she ever have him?). She came to confront his anger, to acknowledge the wounded air, and to simply fulfill a duty.
He should know about the baby. She thinks that if it's possible, a baby deserves to know two parents, even if those two can't ever seem to find the same page.
"Kate? Please. Please, sit. Start over?"
He's hovering. She glances down and sinks to the couch, perching on the edge, her hands tucked between her knees. "I'm not sure how."
"Okay, you're right. Maybe starting over isn't possible. But - can you tell me - why?"
She blinks and glances up at him. "Castle, if I have to explain how babies are made-"
He laughs. God, it's been entirely too long since she's seen him laugh and it breaks something open inside her. Spills warmth down through her limbs and makes her fingers awaken, as if parts of her have been asleep.
"Not necessary," he says, smile lopsided, eyes lightening. "Though if you want to, I bet that lesson would be hot."
She bites the corner of her lip and slants her eyes over at him, but she knows she's still smiling back. She can't help it. She's not even scared any more, though it might come later. There's just too much relief.
He's laughing; they can talk. He's laughing; this isn't broken beyond repair.
"Why did you lie?" he says.
Her relief sinks like lead.
His agitation rises to the surface, his eyes hooded. "You could have… done anything else. You could have said, I don't want to talk about it. And I'd have done what I always do, Kate. I'd have waited. I'd have at least hoped. Had hope."
She nods, head ducking down, but it reminds her of therapy, a posture of defense under revelation. And just as she does in therapy, she sets her jaw and lifts her chin and battles back with sarcasm. "I feel like I need my therapist for this," she mutters.
(And she's supposed to be a parent? God, it's a train wreck; she's already failing. And now she's terrified, and she's not alone in this, and that's worse somehow, knowing she's dragged him into her broken, terrible mess, just what she didn't want to do in the first place, and not just him, but a baby-)
"Therapist?" he croaks.
She blinks.
"You're seeing a therapist?"
"Ye-es," she gets out.
"Oh." Castle sinks inward, as if collapsing on himself, and she curls her fingers, clasping her own hands.
This was a mistake; she should have gone to Dr Burke first, gotten some advanced training on how to have an adult conversation. Some pointers. Rehearsed it.
"Does it help?"
Kate lifts her gaze to his, and all that on-edge defensiveness in her just crumbles at the look on his face.
How wounded he is. Has been. I could have had hope. She didn't even give him that; she hasn't managed to even give him hope.
"It's been helping," she qualifies, picking her words more carefully. "It's work. And at least now I have guidance where the work should begin."
She can tell that he has words back there, words on his tongue he's not saying; he keeps opening his mouth and closing it again, unable to settle on any of them.
This was her choice, wasn't it? She chose this path for them (if there's a them at all). She chose waiting, and the dimming of hope, and then she chose to be selfish one night and take everything he offered even though she knew she wasn't the more that could stand up with him, not then, not ready, not even able to stay the morning with him and be reasonable and talk about it.
Well, now she has to talk. "I told you - that day on the swings - I'm not willing to cheat us out of what could be something great, something amazing. And you said - I thought you said, anyway, that you understood and you would still be here…" Did he really say that? And should she at all hold him to promises made without real knowledge of what the keeping of them would entail? She hasn't been fair. And it's not like they said it in any real words-
"I'm still here," he says.
"Right," she nods, and even she can hear the skepticism in her voice.
"I was trying not to be here," he admits, rubbing both hands on the tops of his thighs. And then he crushes his hands into fists. His mouth twists and his eyes - oh God, his eyes are terrible with grief. "I was trying to get over you because it looked like I had it all wrong, that I was reading into things. I - uh - I have an overactive imagination, you know, and the last few weeks - months - have conspired to prove that, once more, I am inventing the world I want rather than the world that exists."
"No," she cries out, clutching her elbows. "No, it's not - an invention. Is it?"
He shakes his head. "Is it? A story I wrote to make myself feel better."
"No." She clears her throat, panic rising. "No, you didn't make it up. I'm in love with you."
X
