And Don't Worry
xxx
He hears the clang of the chain link closing and lifts his head from the box. Archives is cramped and narrow, the rows stuffed with what looks to be a basement collection of Americana, and even though it's well-kept and the lights are always on, it has the creeping sensation of a catacombs.
Where cases go to die.
Castle hears her footsteps on the concrete; the click of her heels is measured and certain (she knows exactly where he is). And then she appears at the end of the row and advances towards him.
He's hunched over the work desk, and of course, she could have looked at the sign-in sheet to see what case he requested, but she knew before she came down here. Didn't she? She did.
She doesn't say anything, just takes the lid out of his hands and closes it over the box, settles it firmly in place, and then she puts the box on the cart labeled In Transit. He knows from experience that Raymond will push the cart forlornly down the aisles and back to the correct row and shelf, and then he will put the box back where it belongs.
Raymond does a good job keeping things in their place, takes pride in always knowing where things are. Castle's not allowed to touch it himself.
Kate presses her hand to his shoulder and it makes him sit up straighter, makes him take in a deep breath for the first time all afternoon. She quirks her eyebrow as it to say, Now isn't that better? and it really is.
"I know it's the first case together we didn't solve," she says quietly, nudging him to stand. "And I know you like to attach meaning to things."
But.
He shambles down the aisle after her, Kate so certain he'll follow that he actually does follow. When he catches up to her at the chain link fence that separates the cold cases from the desk, she takes him by the hip and pushes him through ahead of her.
For a moment, she's on one side and he's on the other.
"But, Castle, it doesn't mean anything." She takes that last step and joins him on the cleaner side, the brighter side. Raymond is already hovering close and asking him to sign out of the Archives register.
He does what he's supposed to, thanks Raymond for the help, moves towards the stairs that lead back up to Homicide. It's been a day of cold calls and paper chasing, and he's felt - alternately - useless and helpful, depending, but he wanted one more crack at it.
"Okay, so it does mean something," she says suddenly.
He falters on the step, but she's right behind him and brushing past, making him keep up.
"It means you officially spend too much time at my job," she adds, a little smirk on her mouth. "It means that instead of calling you for the interesting cases-"
"The fun cases."
"-I call you for all of them."
He smirks back, liking this meaning a lot more than the one he was unofficially assigning it: The Case They Couldn't Solve, aka, The Ruination Of All Things.
"And maybe I should let you sleep in," she adds.
He opens his mouth to protest this - being ditched, but she keeps going.
"Since your powers of deduction seem to have. . .shrunk. Am I wearing you out, Writer Boy?"
He gapes at her standing just above him on the stairs, nearly a whole flight up from him now, and it must be the look on his face that does it because she breaks, starts laughing to herself with a kind of helpless and breathless giggle that she absolutely never lets out at the 12th.
And he likes it.
"I am not worn out," he grumbles, and then he mounts the stairs to chase after her.
xxx
"You haven't seemed to notice," she murmurs in his ear.
He startles so hard that she chuckles and slips her hands down his shoulders to explore - oh, nice - and his hips lift in the desk chair as he automatically saves his work. He pushes the laptop away and turns his head, manages to catch the curve of her jaw with his teeth before she steps back.
Sigh.
"Notice?" he asks, because she's been doing paperwork at her coffee table all night and he brought his laptop with him to her apartment for that very reason.
So it's not like she's slipped on some naughty piece of lace and has been trying - in vain - to tease him from his thoughts of Nikki.
In fact, he hasn't been doing much writing at all.
"You didn't notice my not so subtle comment in Archives."
"Well, I guess it was subtle, Beckett. And why are you standing all the way over there? Get back here, woman."
She raises an eyebrow and instead crooks her finger at him, and God help him, he jumps right to his feet and follows.
She leads him to the kitchen though, which is one way to satisfy the hard fist of hunger in his guts, but not the way he expected. She's already got ingredients pulled out for pasta and chicken and sauce, a bag of frozen vegetables melting on the counter, and she nods towards it.
"Dinner?"
He huffs a little and starts preparing dinner (he honestly lost track of the time and he meant to make her something while she was working), and she settles her hips against the counter and watches him turn on the stove, find a pan.
"So you were too subtle for me. About what?" he prompts.
"I said I should stop calling you for everything."
He lifts an eyebrow in question and she does the same, and he really doesn't understand what her ditching him for what could potentially turn out to be a great case (how does she know it won't be any fun? how can she possibly make that decision unilaterally?) has anything to do-
"Oh. Wow. I think I actually get it."
She just stays all serene and unperturbed, her arms coming to cross over her chest, settled so naturally against the counter while he does all the work of preparing dinner.
"I have this internal monologue going," he informs her.
"I figured as much."
He glares, dumps chicken breast into the pan with the oil and garlic. "Anyway, I have this monologue going. It helps me censor my mouth-"
"-hardly-"
Completely ignoring that. "And so I was just thinking, in my dramatic monologue, that it's totally wrong of you to decide for me which cases are fun. Unilaterally. Without even giving me a chance."
"Oh, look at that. You do get it."
"Jeez, you are snarky today."
"I've been holding it in for a while now. It's built up."
"Have some wine," he suggests cheekily. But she does though, moving now to get the bottle they opened yesterday from the fridge and pouring two glasses.
"So what was your dramatic conclusion?" she murmurs. "Over deciding when to call and when not to call."
"I get it," he grouses, taking a swallow of wine as he browns the chicken. "The horse is dead. I get it. I promise. No deciding for you. I'll call you next time."
"There will never be a next time," she says in a rush.
He turns to her in surprise and all the snark and amusement have dropped right off her face. It's just that shining, tremulous thing, that needy thing, that never really looks right on her.
He wants to assure her that Alexis is safe, that there will never be any need for dangerous and reckless actions on his part. But they can't make that promise to each other.
"Castle."
"I'll call you next time," he says instead.
She doesn't look happy with that.
"Kate. You wouldn't forgive me either," he sighs. "Impossible promises to make."
Her fingers are suddenly hard around his wrist, pausing him in the act of adding sauce to the chicken. She looks so fierce, so insistent and demanding.
"You don't know what I've already forgiven," she says.
xxx
Their empty plates are on the coffee table and he's sitting at one end of the couch while she's in the middle, turned so that her legs are up and tangled around him like a venus fly trap. He thinks there's a toe pressed into his ribs.
He strokes his palm up and down her calf and sighs. "I'm working on it," he says finally.
"And she is too," Kate adds, confirming.
He nods. "I think she saw Burke yesterday. She didn't tell me about it though."
"You're going to have to let her. . .go," she says. Softly. Her snark comes up every now and again, that delicious and crisp cut to her voice that makes him want to kiss her hard, but the softness is - better sometimes. Better for him. And she knows it, because she's being soft with him.
"Sage advice," he mutters. Sometimes he wants to blurt out, Easy for you to say. But then he thinks better of it and remembers, You don't know what I've already forgiven.
The implication being - forgiven him. For things. Many things. He's made her all those promises too, hasn't he?
"I meant it though," he blurts out, gripping her calf in his hand. "When I told you we'd get your mother's murderer - when I said we'd do this, Kate - I meant those promises. I intended to keep them-"
"And I didn't intend to keep mine?" she cries back, pulling her legs out of his hands.
"No, that's not - I meant, when we do it together, when we solve cases together, we're undefeatable. But then this last case, after what happened with Alexis. . .I guess that's why I can't let go of it. It nullifies my promises to you, makes them. . .false."
"You think I haven't known that all along?" she says quietly. "That life sucks and things aren't fair and sometimes it doesn't go our way? My mother's case, Castle. My mother's case and you made promises left and right, and I needed them. I needed you to be right."
"I'm sorry," he mutters. He can't get it right with her. He just keeps poking his nose in it.
"No. No, I don't think you're hearing me. It's not an accusation. I needed you to make those promises. I needed someone to believe in me, to believe that good things were possible again, that the world wasn't shrouded in darkness. Magic. It helped me. And so when she was missing, Castle, I just wanted to help you."
He opens his eyes and stares at her.
"I didn't do a damn thing to help you," she says, her throat working and her head turned away.
He curls his fingers at her ankles and pulls her legs back into his lap, tugs until she comes into his side.
"I see now," he murmurs. "I should have called you." He should've let her help. Even if it was to be silent with him on the phone.
She lets out a choked kind of laugh and her arms cross her stomach, wrapping around her. "If that's your only take away. . .I guess I'm good with that."
"I'll keep making you promises," he says then. He's made one lately, that he keeps making silently every time he sees her.
I love you.
Maybe she still needs to hear that promise too.
He takes a deeper breath and draws his arm around her and opens his mouth-
"And Castle? Don't worry," she adds, a little shrug. "You can't let it haunt you, drag you down. All the ways you can't be there for her. Because the things you can do are so much more. They outweigh the what ifs."
His moment is lost now, isn't it?
He brushes his mouth to her temple, promising himself that he'll say it again. He will. He'll say it first so that she knows it's still a promise, that it still holds true no matter what he says or does.
"How exactly do you not worry about your college daughter who was recently kidnapped due to her relation to a previously unknown spy grandfather?"
She must hear the attempt at lightness in her tone because she responds in kind. "Just do what I do."
"Yeah, doing you helps," he admits.
She huffs a little and her fingers squeeze at his hipbone. "Far be it from me to begrudge you your inappropriate coping mechanisms, but I was going to say a glass of wine, a bath, a book."
"I'm trying to avoid alcohol as a coping mechanism," he admits.
She lifts her head and looks at him closely. "Because of me?"
"Because of a lot of things," he shrugs.
"Then, by all means, Castle, continue to be inappropriate," she murmurs. Her lips lift to his jaw and touch him so softly, such a whisper of breath and skin and warmth that his body flames. "Since it helps."
He nudges his nose against her neck and down, drawn by the heat of her. "I'm a master of inappropriate."
"Promises, promises," she hums.
