A/N: Hello lovelies! I am so sorry that this took forever! Life got a little too crazy for a while and well time just flew ridiculously fast.
By three in the morning, Kate still sat on the couch, but her thinking had changed from how things went wrong to how she could make things right.
Because night handed her the "how" answers. The answer lied in the very fact that Katherine Beckett, fearless in the face of the harshest criminals, lived in downright, unadulterated, paralyzing fear of relationship problems.
She should have told Rick about the job. About the interview. They should have talked about where they were headed and what she wanted for both her career and them. Most of all, though, Kate decided that she shouldn't have run and she most definitely shouldn't have attacked the motives behind his proposal.
She knew that Rick meant his proposal, meant every word and then some. And while she was being honest with herself, she admitted that she felt the same way back and being put on the spot terrified her to the point that she forgot her feelings and fell back on instinct.
She loved him. She needed him. And she needed to fix this.
Beckett knew the lateness of the hour, but she needed to hear his voice. Though, in no shape to go traipsing about the city at 3a.m., the reached for the phone in hopes that he still might be awake and still might not hate her enough to answer the phone.
When his cheery voicemail sounded instead of Castle's voice after only two rings, her heart dropped a little because Castle answered his phone for her – even in the middle of the night. Except she knew she messed things up this time in a potentially irreparable way, and maybe him ignoring her call testified to that.
She kept her message short, not wanting to betray the instability in her rough "I was just crying" voice, "Rick, hi, it's me. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have run. Can we talk? Call me, please?"
She hung up and stood to go to bed. Making sure her phone's volume was all the way up in case of his call, she placed it on the nightstand, curled up, and waited for sleep to take her.
…
In the morning, Kate tried calling again, but this time, it went straight to voicemail. She didn't leave a message this time, hung up, and called Lanie instead.
Lanie always managed to be her voice of wisdom, always knew what to do about guys, and somehow, always managed to be right, even though her own relationships were always less than perfect.
"Lanie, come over today, I'll make you lunch."
"Lunch? Honey, you don't need to bribe me for advice. But, it sure does help. 12:30?"
"12:30. Thanks Lanie."
It was already almost 11:00, so Kate went to the store to get some food because she literally had nothing at her apartment since they spent so little time there. The shopping, even if just for food, proved therapeutic. As she walked through the crowded food store, she focused on the people around her and their stories instead of her own troubles, and even though she learned this game from Castle, she wasn't really thinking too much about him for the first time in more than a day and merely grabbed her needed food items mindlessly.
It wasn't until after she checked out that realized she also purchased Lucky Charms, a bag of Twizzlers, and some Goldfish crackers out of pure habit for Castle. And all of the sudden, it hit her again, like those anvils that randomly fell out of the sky in old cartoons. Absently, as the tears began to fall again, she also wondered when she started just buying his favorite foods whether he was present to whine for them or not.
Once back in her apartment, she started cutting up vegetables while she waited for the pasta water to boil. Unlike the shopping, the slicing, dicing, chopping, and shredding didn't allow her mind to slip into easier thoughts. In fact, it fueled her frustrations with herself and her own stupidity with every stroke of her knife.
More than once, she thought about two nights ago, while she made dinner and Castle found her boarding pass to D.C.
Things seemed less complicated then. She had a plan then and none of it included fighting or proposals or running or crying. Naïve. She was naïve then and it seemed odd to think of herself as different just forty-eight hours ago. But, at the same time, she craved that romantic dinner they never had and the calm, adult talk she mentally planned.
Before Beckett could get too immersed in what almost was, though, Lanie arrived.
"Hey Lanie, I'm almost done, I'm just finishing up with the salad dressing. Thanks for coming by the way."
"You're making dressing? Girl, I'd of been fine with takeout and you know it. Now why am I really here? Did Castle take it badly that you want to take that job?"
Lanie, always one to make herself at home in Beckett's home (knowing each other for so long did that to best friends, after all), kicked off her shoes and sat on one of the stools at the kitchen breakfast bar.
"You… you could say that Lanie. Well no, he said he'd come with me, technically, I guess." Beckett couldn't really bring herself to look up, so she feigned intense interest on mixing and putting their Mandarin Chicken Pasta Salads together.
"Well that's great news honey! See, you were all worried about it and –"
"Lanie, no. He said he'd come with me… as my… husband. Okay, Lanie? He proposed. Castle proposed." Saying it out loud felt weird to Beckett, almost like a foreign language in the way that the words were so new on her tongue. Proposed. And Kate was more than positive that she'd never said the phrase "my husband" ever in her entire life.
"Oh."
"Oh?" Beckett didn't expect such a simple answer from Lanie, so upon hearing "oh," she finally looked up at her friend.
Lanie looked sad, that same kind of sad, sympathetic look that she had back when Lanie comforted her on the floor of her living room while Castle sat in a jail cell, falsely accused of an affair and murder. Lanie's expression made Kate wonder just how sad and pathetic she looked to warrant that face. Honestly, Kate didn't even say that she said no, but she supposed Lanie already surmised that.
"Honey, you know I want details later, but for right now, tell me why not?"
"Why not marry Castle?"
"Well you've been together for five years girl. You love him. You love him more than I've seen you love anybody, more than I think you've ever wanted to love anybody. I have a good feeling you don't want to do this because you don't want to get hurt down the road –"
"Lanie can you not?" Hearing how correct Lanie was gave Kate yet another stab of guilt and hurt for leaving Castle.
"No. Listen. I get that you're afraid of getting hurt, but Kate, look how much you're hurting because you said no."
Lanie had a point. She'd been a wreck for the last twenty-four hours and didn't see herself getting over the man anytime soon. But…
"Lanie, what if he proposed just because he thought that would be the only way I could take that job and we could still be together?"
"Hun, I think you know that's not true. Castle's immature ninety percent of the time, but he's a strong thinker one hundred percent of the time. Besides he's had two awful marriages. There's no way he would ask you without being sure? He loves you Kate, and he wouldn't ask you without meaning every word. Besides, didn't you want to know where you were going and how serious he is about your relationship? Because a proposal, girl, that's the ultimate sign of 'I'm serious about this.'"
And there, in her kitchen, mostly watching Lanie eat and talk because she felt too upset to enjoy any meal, she realized how absurd yelling and running really was. of course she felt bad about it last night and this morning, but now she felt guilty and stupid. Castle is a good man and she knew from four years of marriage jokes that he wouldn't enter into a third marriage all willy nilly. Clearly he'd meant it; she just wished she saw that yesterday.
"Lanie… even if you are right, it's too late. I yelled at him for having the wrong motives in all of this and he won't even take my calls anymore. I messed up, Lanie. I just… I'm already bad at being put on the spot and life-changing decisions and whatnot, and then the added stress about us fighting and then the job in D.C.. I really messed this one up and I'm not sure I can take back that no."
"Do you truly want to take it back?"
The truth was that one conversation with Lanie wasn't enough to calm all of Kate's fears of marriage, but it did clear up the fact that she absolutely didn't want to say no. But what could she say when she also wasn't ready to say yes?
"Yes. No. I don't know. I mean I want to take back the no, but I don't think I can say yes, so what can I do?"
"Tell him. Explain what's going on in your head. Go to him and tell him everything you're thinking and for once you two need to talk about it!"
"What if he doesn't want to? What if he won't see me? Won't talk to me?"
"Honey, I don't think that's going to happen. The guy is crazy about you. And you're crazy about him. End this nonsense and work it out, girl!"
Kate let out a long sigh. She knew that Lanie could help her figure out what to do, and she was always right, but serious talks with Castle never really happened and Kate definitely wasn't good at unknown territory. But, she knew she had to do it, so she started mentally planning potential conversations in her head so she could be more prepared.
Lanie and Kate finished their lunches in a comfortable silence and Lanie hugged Kate goodbye, wishing her good luck and wishing with all her heart that Beckett and Castle could just figure themselves out.
A/N: Thanks for reading!
