Getting up out of her own bed at her dad's place was comforting, disorienting, and then comforting again. It was just after dawn when she got out of bed, found some old sweats, and hit the pavement for a long run. Thoughts circled until she found her rhythm, got lost in the sound of her footfall and the burn in her muscles. Miles later, wending through the familiar neighborhood she'd played in as a girl, she stopped. Occasionally she felt a prickling between her shoulder-blades, the eerie feeling of being watched. She bent to catch her breath, surreptitiously checking her surroundings. Nothing out of the ordinary. Wished that were true of the rest of her life...
She squeezed in a brief session with the kickboxing bag in the basement, where she let some of the underlying anger of the last few days out. Sometimes it bubbled up at Montgomery – for lying, for dying – and sometimes Castle, for listening to him and making her go. And sometimes it was about herself...
Jim had an omelet ready for her when she came up, another old pattern, his quiet way of taking care of her. She snarfed it down, got a quick shower, a long hug, and rapid exit.
She met at Castle at the ME's office the next morning. He was waiting for her with bear claw and coffee in hand, and a steaming cup of hot tea for Lanie. They weren't particularly surprised to see Esposito there, stoically grim.
Lanie didn't do much more than squeeze Kate's hand in support, but it was a helluva squeeze and Lanie had a talent for conveying a lot with her eyes.
Esposito sounded frustrated, ready to hit something again. "We tried fingerprint, facial recognition, dental records on those bastards. Nothing's popped by fake IDs...good ones. We're tacking down travel records, Ryan's at the precinct to see if there's at least a pattern in those...The precinct is a zoo. Tenth is covering our homicides until after...tomorrow."
Espositio didn't even bother to try to hide his goodbye to Lanie as the detectives left the station. He caught her in a long, fierce kiss, more possessive than passionate, punctuated by a barely audible endearment. She stood there, flustered and concerned as she watched him stride off.
Stepping off the precinct elevator with coffee almost seemed normal. The increased number of officers running around belied that, a mix between ongoing investigative resources and cops stopping by to talk memories and shop. Montgomery's impending funeral had its own inexorable gravity pull. Retirees whose faces hadn't seen the inside of the Twelfth were coming out of the woodwork.
The long conversation with Evelyn on the phone was hard. Would Beckett speak at the Captain's funeral? Of course. Castle felt a mixture of astonished, pleased, humbled, remorseful as he heard the request that he join other close friends and officers as pallbearers. He'd never felt more like one of the NYPD's own as the Twelfth claimed him – and yet at so very high a cost.
Late in the afternoon as the number of retired cops mingled with new increased and their schmancy gourmet coffee maker went kaput from sheer overwhelm, Castle stood up and called out, "Hey – Old Haunt – drinks on me."
Beckett smiled to herself. It was such a Castle thing to do – and a great way to clear out the precinct to a skeleton crew. No one but them knew that Ryan and Esposito tossed the Captain's office, arriving late to the impromptu wake.
NYPD's finest filled the Old Haunt's cellar, raising numerous glasses to toast their fallen. The do-you-remembers began early and raucously, and Castle learned things he'd never known about the man he'd served under. Between the punctuated bursts of laughter, the silences abruptly fell and heads would bow. Officers would look at one another, clap each other on the shoulders, make jokes that were sometimes bad but that everyone laughed at anyway. The intermittent, heartfelt toast "To Roy Montgomery" echoed repeatedly through the night (and likely into the next morning).
Beckett bailed early, claiming exhaustion and the need to prepare for the funeral.
Castle showed up at her apartment an hour later. His mind went into overdrive when she opened the door. She wasn't wearing much beyond a towel carelessly wrapped around wet hair and a robe that showed off her glorious legs. "I interrupted a bath...", though not in the way that I would've liked to, was his unspoken add.
She showed him a – to him – adorably wrinkled fingertip. "I was actually getting out. But I'm only letting you in because you have food." She tapped her nose, the smell of his proffering distinctive.
Behind his back in his other hand was the bag of Chinese take-out, and he held it out for her. "You didn't eat anything earlier..."
She shook her head while he let himself into her kitchen. Her voice had a dry, ironic tone as she called out to him, "Make yourself at home." She dressed efficiently, returning in soft yoga pants and a loose sweatshirt.
"What's this?" he asked quietly, noting the notepad on her coffee table covered in her distinctive writing.
"Trying to figure out what to say at the funeral tomorrow..."
They settled in companionably to eat. She put a kettle on for tea. For the night, her murder board remained shut behind them.
He noticed a scrape across her knuckles as she was sipping. "What's that from?"
"Punching something a couple days ago." She eyed him with big dark eyes over the rim of her mug as she took a sip. "I may have imagined your face on it."
"Are you still mad at me?"
"Yes...and no...and yes. It's complicated."
He considered her face, her words - her aliveness. "I can live with that."
She nodded slowly. "Me too."
After dinner, she gave her dress uniform a press, and worked on the words for Roy's funeral on a yellow legal pad as she sat tucked on her couch. He sat in a chair with his laptop open, contemplating the dedication for his latest Nikki Heat novel. More than ever, the dedication belonged to the woman across from him – but it felt appropriate to find some few words for his captain too.
He watched her stretch with a yawn, deliciously so. She had such beautiful grace in the simple things she did. "I'm heading to bed." He watched her face comically rearrange itself at the unintentional opening. "Alone..."
He grinned at her. "I'll see you in the morning... Do you want a ride?"
"No, thanks. My dad wants to be there so we'll ride in together."
"Alexis and Mother will be there too."
He felt tense, anxious about leaving her alone – hating to leave her, period. That wasn't new, though. He'd dealt with his longing to dog her heels for three years. He summoned a smile for her as he rose. "I'll see you there then."
"Good night, Castle."
He hesitated, watched her eyes widen as he leaned in, and then narrow as he brushed his lips against her cheek, inhaled the scent of cherries. "'Night, Kate..."
She closed the door behind him, yanked her hand down when she caught her own fingers playing with her hair and hoped he hadn't caught that. Well, at least this time he wasn't distracting her to filch a file. (The memory of their initial meet still made her grin when he wasn't around.) The constantly shifting sands of their relationship continued to throw her off, some new awareness between them inexorably changing the game. It was a matter of time now - and perhaps it had always been.
Eager to sleep and aware of the day ahead, she cleaned up the dishes. Nearly obscured was a tiny envelope tucked beneath her tea mug, placed for her to find it. She frowned as she opened it, unconsciously moving to sit on her couch as she unfolded thick, cream paper.
K.B. -
Mother recently observed that for a writer, I don't have words around you – or for you.
I know you would disagree and say that I have too many – but not often the right, or timely ones.
In fine literary tradition, I've found some to borrow.
- R.C.
The signature that graced a thousand breasts was scrawled beneath a poem that took her breath away. Long ago as a college student traipsing around Europe, she'd stumbled across the a couple lines penned by the poet Pablo Neruda carved into a wall along a hiking path on the island of Capri in Italy. She was different then, before her mother's death, eager to drink in the passion and literature of the world, and his words were a fountain. She'd almost forgotten that moment, that self.
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep
She stared at the words on the paper, starkly written in his bold, slashing handwriting on the page. She read them once, twice, three times, and again until the words started chasing each other around over and over in her head. It overwhelmed. As certain dark things are to be loved...in secret... I love you straightforwardly ...because I know no other way...
(She did have to snort a little at the notion of 'without complexities' ...and then dropped her head in her hands, because everything she fought against over all the moments of knowing him was how easy it was to want him to be around...)
Sleep was far longer coming for her than she wanted.
Author's Note: Turns out, I have a few moments of the next morning to cover, so there will be one more chapter. :) Reviews are like crack, but more than that, they're received with deep appreciation and gratitude. Feedback on this is appreciated. The poem seemed a little intense to me, but also SO perfect a capture of his feelings for her... still waffling on some of my decisions here...