Chapter Three: Numb
The ride up to her apartment seems to be never ending. After a excruciatingly long week at the precinct all she wants is to collapse on her couch with a glass of wine. Alone.
She can't find the energy tonight to put up the front that she usually shows to the world. Just trying to keep a smile on her face when everyday she can feel her insides turning to ice is exhausting and she can't do it anymore. When she seems him waiting outside her door her stomach drops. She can't do it, not tonight, but then he smiles at her, his whole face lightening when he notices her presence and she finds herself smiling back. Even she knows it looks forced but she can't force herself to care.
He kisses her as she opens the door and she kisses him back, nothing behind it but the obligation she feels. That is what he has become. An obligation. She feels nothing when she is with him and that scares her.
After her mother was killed she had to stop herself from feeling anything because if she did she knew it would force her to crumble and she wouldn't have survived that way. Instead she become hard, like stone and threw herself into her training. Worked herself ragged so there was no opportunity for her to wallow in her despair. Then Castle had come along and he had slowly but surely been chipping away at the touch exterior she wrapped herself in.
She had finally been ready to let him in. To give them a chance to be together and then he had shown up at the precinct with his ex-wife and she had felt the wall coming up again brick by brick.
Now she was stuck, in a relationship with another man. A good man who did the best that he could with what she gave, but a man who she felt nothing for. She didn't know why she stayed with him or why he stayed with her for that matter.
"What's wrong?" his voice jolted her from her thoughts.
He looked hopeful, like he thought today might be the day when she actually shared her thoughts with him and eventually nodded in resignation when she stayed silent.
"Do you even want me here?" he asks, reaching out like he is going to touch her but then dropping his hand back to his side as if thinking better of it.
She doesn't say anything, can't force herself to. It isn't fair. She isn't being fair to him and she knows it but she isn't going to lie. Not anymore. At once stage it was easier to be alone with him but now she can't even stand the thought of having him there.
"You need to let someone in Kate," he says starting at her until she meets his eyes.
He waits before leaning forward to kiss her on the forehead, her eyes closing at the action.
"You deserve to be happy," he says as he makes his way to the door, "You just have to let yourself be."
She doesn't watch him leave. Walks to the couch on autopilot and her legs give way just as she gets there. She grabs the blanket that rests on the back of the couch, the blanket her mother made for her when she was a baby and wraps it around herself, breathing deep and pretending she can still smell traces of her mother's perfume on the soft fabric.
It's times like these that she aches for her mother. Longs for the words of comfort that only a mother can give. Words of comfort she has been deprived of for so long.
She stuffs it back down, the tears that should be falling at the grief she is feeling. She won't let it out, not now. Won't be the girl who cries alone in her apartment.
Instead she closes her eyes, lets the all-encompassing darkness pull her down.
She must doze off because the next thing she is aware of is a soft warmth spreading across her cheeks.
"Hey," his voice says softly as she blinks her eyes open.
"How'd you get in?" she asks, not moving from her spot on the couch.
"I told your landlady it was an emergency," he winks at her, his fingers continuing to caress the side of her face.
"An emergency," she scoffs finding herself leaning unconsciously into his touch.
"It was an emergency," he protests, "Pad Thai is at its best when it's hot."
"You bought dinner?" she asks, her eyes slipping shut as he moves to caress her hair.
This goes against every line they have ever drawn for themselves but for some reason she can't find it within herself to care. The warmth that is spreading across her skin from his touch is more than she has felt in forever and for once she is happy to let herself feel.
"Alexis is at Paige's and Mother is hosting a rehearsal in my living room," he screws up his face, "It wasn't exactly the right place to be after the week we've had."
"Hmm," she replies, "Wasn' good," her voice sounds slurred even to her own ears but she can't bring herself to care. His ministrations feel so good and he was right, they have had a tough week.
"You going to go to sleep?" he asks, his fingers catching in a wayward curl.
"Whattbout Thai?" she asks, already feeling herself slipping back under.
"It'll keep," he says, his other hand reaching down to twine his fingers with hers, "Sleep."
And she does. Feeling warm for the first time since last summer.