She unlocks her door automatically, even though she should be more aware of her surroundings, bumps her hip against it to crack the seal. The old door sticks when the weather changes.
Kate halts just inside her apartment, the door swinging on its hinges.
Something is wrong. Off.
It's different in here.
Someone has been in her apartment. Someone-
Oh.
She turns and locks the door behind her, shaking her head at herself. Of course. Castle. She left him here this morning; she ran off like a coward, unable to even imagine what might happen when, if, he saw her the morning after.
The morning after the worst possible, most selfish-
Kate shuts out those thoughts again, pushes it all aside. This is her refuge, not the sparring floor. She drops her keys to the table, toes off her shoes, and slides out of the jacket. Her gun is still on her hip as she heads for the kitchen, but she feels like she needs. . .something.
A square of bright yellow, incongruent and crooked, is affixed to her fridge. A post-it note.
Buy milk.
His handwriting. Kate swallows hard and reaches up to yank it off, but her hand won't do it. Instead, she opens the fridge and finds her eyes gravitating towards the shelf where she keeps her milk, wondering what the date is on the carton.
But the milk isn't there.
A casserole dish is instead.
Another post-it note. Instructions on how to heat it up. Her stomach growls and cramps painfully. She sent Castle home at five, but she stayed at the precinct refamiliarizing herself with the details of the sanitation worker's case until seven-thirty.
She closes the fridge door, suddenly anxious, and abandons the kitchen for the solace of her bedroom. She unclips the holster with her weapon in it, ejects the clip out of habit, puts everything away in its box. She slides the chain with her mother's ring off her head and it clatters into the box from her numb fingers.
When she turns around, she sees all the little changes. Her bed is made with clean sheets, the pillows arranged carefully but completely out of order. The chair beside her nightstand is crookedly facing the window, as if he sat there to put on his shoes and watched the activity in the building next door.
In the bathroom, a large white towel hangs up on the towel bar, it reeks of the bar soap she never uses. The bath mat under her bare toes is still damp; the soap is his soap, she realizes suddenly. She bought bar soap on a whim months and months ago, and it was his? It was his, or he's somehow made it his own, here in her bathroom.
It was a mistake, a tactical error, to leave this morning, a mistake to let him stay at all, but especially to leave him alone to upend every small and private corner of her life.
She puts a hand to her mouth, shuts her eyes. She wants to run but there's no place to run to anymore. He's gotten into everything, put his hands on everything, every space, every intimate and solitary place inside her-
And then she hears a key in the lock, the scrape of the warped wooden door against the frame.
Her heart pounds and she turns her head, as if she can see through furniture, hallway, drywall, studs, to her front door. Her feet are carrying her there despite herself, her hands shake as she walks down the hall.
Cool and trembling, tears dampen her cheeks; she's been crying and she doesn't know why, or how long, only that she brushes at them but they keep coming.
She stands in the open space of her living room and sees him in her kitchen, tapping the post-it note on the fridge with a finger, playing with it.
She couldn't speak if she wanted to.
He must hear her, or expect her, because he turns around as he opens the refrigerator door, a jug of milk in his hands.
He got the milk.
When he sees the tears on her face, everything goes still.
The anxiety, the worry, the fear, the not-knowing - they all settle down, melt away.
He wasn't sure, when he started out, that buying milk and showing up at her door would be such a good idea. And when he got here, he half-hoped that she was still at the station; he unlocked the door and headed inside like it was his place, like she might be gone.
But seeing her standing in the living room, staring at him like he's an apparition, like he's been conjured up out of her own mind, it gives him confidence.
If she's got tears on her face, then he got through to her. He affected her. He made his mark. And kicking him out now would hurt her too.
"Hey, Kate."
She stares at him, wordless. Another tear tracks down her cheek, her lips have parted.
He doesn't know what to say now, but he knows what he wants to do. And now that he's had her once, now that he's seen the way heat comes radiating from her eyes when he's above her, there's no way she can stop him.
"That was a mistake, Kate," he starts, turning to put the milk in the fridge and shutting the door.
When he turns back around, her face is white, her eyes black holes. She looks. . .leeched of color. Of hope. She stands very still as he approaches.
"That was a mistake on your part, letting me in. Because now I'm never gonna let you kick me out again."
She trembles and closes her eyes. He forgets how fragile she is at the heart, how easily she can break. She's so good at hiding it, that he often mistakes her strength for an inability to be broken. But that's not true, because the woman before him now is still trying to hold all the pieces of herself together, the pieces that shattered when her mother was murdered.
"Let me help you, Kate. Let me. . ." He leans in and presses his mouth to her cheekbone, licks the salt from her skin. "Let me do this." He lifts his hands and cups her shoulders, brushing his thumbs across the material of her shirt as he kisses the other cheek, nudges her nose. "Let me do this again."
Kate opens her mouth, but does nothing to stop him. Castle takes it as invitation and devotes his attention to the warm, soft curve of her lips, the moist heat he wants to memorize.
When she lifts her hands to his waist, he exalts. He can't help sliding his hand to her back and pulling her against him, her hips to his; the way they fit together is exquisite.
He keeps pushing. "I need an answer, Kate. I need to hear you say it." His mouth against her mouth, he pauses, a hand at her neck, his fingers sliding through her hair.
She breathes hotly, her hands between them, her eyes closed.
"Say it. Say you'll let me-"
"Yes." Breathless. "Yes. Again."
Castle is slow and meticulous this time. The rush of despair from last night, the frenzy of overwhelming need is a memory now; he's seen her tears, seen what he does to her.
There's confidence running in his veins instead of yesterday's anguish. It's anticipation and excitement that make his hands shake, not the desperate hunger, a dark pit in his stomach.
So he takes his time.
He trails his hands across her ribs until she gasps, keeps his touch light and teasing until her hips buck from wanting him.
Kate.
He caresses and touches her and murmurs her name, hot and heavy against her skin, until she breaks, fragments in a million little pieces that light up his world like stars in the night sky. He lets her catch her breath, a trembling Castle escaping her lips.
It's still Castle, but that's fine. He'll be patient. He will nudge, and wait, until he becomes Rick.
He can wait. Tonight tastes like victory, unexpected victory; it feels like he's demolished a whole section of the wall, made a breach that cannot be undone. Tonight tastes salty and delicious like the sheen of sweat on Kate's skin.
He kisses her again, slow and luxurious, her mouth an appealing dark red color in the half-light; she grazes his lower lip with her teeth, curls an imperious hand at his neck.
Her free hand wanders, traces random lines on his abdomen, edges lower. This time, Castle is the one to gasp.
And then it's not about planning or military jargon anymore.
The next morning, it's an inconsiderate ray of sunlight landing right on his face that nudges him awake, makes him peer an unwilling eyelid open. His face is half-buried in the pillow, a soft, Kate-scented pillow that he feels vaguely inclined to take home with him.
Kate.
Last night, as he struggled fiercely – and failed – to escape the welcoming arms of sleep, he threw his hand across the bed, his arm across her, trapping her in the hope that she'd have to wake him to be able to leave.
His fingers close around a cold, empty sheet.
No such luck.
He hoped-
No, honestly, there wasn't much hope. Despite her absence, this morning, unlike yesterday morning, feels good. Rick rolls over onto his back and blinks through the last haze of sleep until he can focus on the cracks in her ceiling, the lines running to the light fixture.
Time to up the ante. Phase two, as it were.
He hasn't had to work so hard for something in ages - well, since he had to work so hard to gain Kate's trust on the ride-along. Kate's always made him work for it. Why should this be different?
Today, though, he won't go in to the 12th quite so soon. He'll get Ram from the coffee cart in the lobby to carry up a cup to Beckett, and then he'll have the pastry shop deliver her a bear claw. Just, the little things, right?
Rick glances at the clock. Six in the morning. Maybe he heard the door close? He'll text her to say he's got an idea for the new novel and wants to write it while it's fresh - entirely true - and then he'll spend the morning in her apartment again, making himself at home.
A grin splits his face, imagining it. He's tempted to go home and grab his laptop, come back and set up work space at her table, but instead, he'll just write longhand, leave notes scattered over the tabletop, his own novel's timeline.
It's early days yet, for Nikki, so he doesn't need the laptop to write, just a storyboard to map it out. Yes. That's it exactly. He'll tack up his storyboard on the wall just over her table, let her see it all coming together in her own home. He grins wider, laces his hands behind his head.
Last night, she let his mouth travel the pilgrimage of her skin, humbling himself in the valleys and exalting over the peaks. He moved slowly, adoring her, supplicating himself in the sanctuary of her hips, offering himself at the altar of her mouth. Theirs was a sacred thing, set apart, and he made her know it, breathed life into it with all of his being.
When she came apart in his arms, it was only to be made new, two made one. Flesh of my flesh.
Yeah, it's melodramatic and she'd roll her eyes at him, but he knows it without having to examine it, knows it on faith alone, not by sight, because in that moment, when she not only surrendered but invited him into communion with her, when he himself broke apart as well, dissolved, was washed with the cleansing tide of this thing between them, he found it ringing through him, between them: love.
He loves her, and it is love, a third entity in the room, a holy trinity.
She can't control it; he can't hide it.
And this morning, he's left with the taste of her ecstasy on his tongue, the smell of her incense in his skin. He wants her again, languid and reverent, and he wants her again, needy and desperate. His love.
So here's the plan for today, the second day's incursion into her apartment.
He'll shower here again. He'll work on his chapter outline, hang the storyboard above her table, spread out, claim his space. He remembers, suddenly, sucking hard and hot on the skin under her jaw, using his teeth and the grip of his hand to make her writhe under him. He hopes he left a dark, vicious mark on her fair skin.
He'll head into the precinct around noon, bring her lunch to soothe her. He'll have to wear the same shirt, pants, maybe go commando because those boxers. . .whew.
He hopes tomorrow she's still in her bed when he wakes, because his clothes are going to get ripe pretty quickly if this 'great escape' plan of hers keeps up.
"Bro. Is that yesterday's shirt?"
Kate's eyes cut to the hall in front of the elevator, and there he is. Castle in his rumpled dress shirt, the wrinkled jeans. She imagines she can smell him from here (surely that's not imagination, surely it really is the heady mix of two days worth of. . .encounters). He smells like her bedroom. He smells like *her* in her bedroom. The two of them together in her bed. All pheromones and musk.
Kate squeezes her hand around the dry erase marker, looks back to the murder board, to her boys around the murder board.
"Yes, it is," Castle says, offers nothing more.
Esposito and Ryan exchange glances and then look immediately to her, whether with knowledge or protectiveness, (because he's either been with her or he's been with some blonde bimbo). Either way, she's not sure. She stonewalls them, giving nothing back.
Castle's voice rushes into the silence. "I was writing," he explains. "A lot."
Her stomach ripples with the sound of his voice, an explanation to the boys and to her as well for arriving at noon.
"You couldn't go to your closet and get clean clothes?"
"I showered."
He showered. At her place? Again. The fist around her heart spasms.
"But I brought lunch."
"Dude," Ryan exclaims. "You brought food!"
Esposito wrinkles his nose, reaching for the plastic bag in Castle's hand. "I'll take that. Nuh-uh." He puts a palm up to keep Castle in his place. Esposito wipes his hand down his own shirt, stepping back. "You stay there. Let me eat before you come in with that odor. And dude, that's not just yesterday's shirt. That's the *day before* yesterday's shirt."
The flutter starts in her chest and she turns her back on them. Back to the murder board.
"Beckett," Castle says, her name all kinds of questions. Why not 'Kate' like last-?
No. Stop.
She doesn't have his answers, but Ryan is hesitating halfway towards the conference room, unsure now whether or not they're dismissed. "Boss?"
Kate caps her marker and turns slowly. "Lunch, boys."
Castle's face is tinged with a smile that doesn't quite manifest; anything more and she's not sure what she might do.
This morning she had to slide so carefully out of her own bed, get dressed in the dark with her bathroom door closed. She's got her jacket on still, with the high collar, because she found the over-ripe, red-purple mark at her jaw, just below her ear. She remembers, all too clearly, his mouth there, his teeth, the distracting and seductive movements of his hands as he sucked on her skin. She keeps her hair behind her ears, hoping the fullness, the slight curl, will hide it.
Some things, though, can't be hidden forever.
She had coffee this morning, rushed upstairs by the guy with the cart; the older man placed it on a napkin on her desk. On the napkin was written (she assumes by the coffee guy because it's not Castle's handwriting): Let it never be said that I neglected to fulfill any of your needs.
And though she folded the napkin and slid it into her pocket (only because she didn't want the boys to see it in the trash, that's all), the bear claw appeared immediately after the coffee, obvious and obtrusive. Ryan and Esposito both gave her looks. And while she ate, her mind touched on the words on that napkin, again and again, both sensuous and practical, but also amusing; she could hear him saying it in her ear as he might lift his body up over her, smiling like he had last night.
Now, he's here. He's been writing, he says, writing out a new idea for the next book (as his text read), but all she can imagine is the smut he's *got* to be writing after last night. What else could it be? It keeps buzzing in her brain, her awareness of it, him, lighting on last night over and over, and she'd like to think it's because the sex was just so amazing - and ohh it was - but she knows, deep down, that it's because it's him.
It's Castle.
Thinking his name, not even having to say it out loud, just thinking it makes her stomach flutter.
How can she eat lunch when he sits beside her in the conference room, joking and taking the ribbing from the boys, when she keeps expecting, at any moment, to feel his fingertips on her knee?
He doesn't. She eats her food slowly, silently.
She has nothing to say. She doesn't know what they're doing, doesn't know why he keeps ignoring every stop sign she throws up. She's already told him she's not able to do this, but he keeps showing up.
What is she supposed to do about this? So she does nothing and hopes - somehow - that it melts away. Disappears.
She wants it to go back to how it used to be.
Against all expectations – especially her own, because Castle's proximity is certainly *not* doing anything to help – they find a new lead on the sanitation worker's case.
And it's Castle who does it, of course. The man is haunting her, invading every cell of her brain, but apparently his can function just fine.
She's looking at him and he's looking at the murder board, and she sees the exact moment when his brow furrows, when his eyes light up in interest, sparks of understanding flying around.
"What if we're looking at this the wrong way? I mean, what if Cooper *was* killed because of his job?"
Kate tilts her head. She can think of a number of objections, but for some reason she holds back on them. She wants to hear what he has to say.
The writer glances at her, like he's making sure he has her attention, and then blurts excitedly, "We've crossed out all of his colleagues –"
"Yeah, because they all have alibis."
"Yes, but that guy, Stewart Boyd. That guy has a record. A history of buying and selling drugs. Suppose our victim is doing his job, and finds Boyd with a client? And suppose he threatens to go to the police?"
"Castle, we checked Boyd's alibi." She actually likes his theory, but –
"Yeah, but come on. It's entirely possible that he got his wife to lie."
"What about the neighbours who confirm they heard them, uh, *have fun* that night?"
"Could have been the wife with someone else. Could have been entirely different people. Or even a porn movie with the sound turned way up."
Beckett chews on her lip. "Boyd said he's been clean for three years now."
"Well, it can't hurt to have a talk with his sponsor then."
He lifts an eyebrow, challenging, and Kate finds herself slowly nodding and reaching for her jacket. He's right: it can't hurt. They have no leads, and this is a viable theory.
"All right," she agrees. "We'll see if we can find his sponsor. But it might be a wild-goose chase, Castle."
He shrugs, offers her a smile that does untimely things to her heart. "Better than no chase at all, isn't it?"
She can't really fault that statement. But when they get in the elevator, and his arm brushes hers, sends a jolt of electricity running through her spine, she can't help but hope that this isn't what they are. A wild-goose chase.
Finding Stewart Boyd's sponsor proves more difficult than Kate had anticipated, but talking to him also turns out to be more fruitful than she would have guessed. The man, a David Murphy, hasn't seen Boyd in the last eight months; his last meeting with the sanitation worker didn't go so well.
"Did you think he was using again?" Kate asks prudently, always wary of things that seem too good to be true.
"No, no, he was clean. I'm sure of it. It was something else. Stewart was never the sharing kind, you know, but he had grown even more secretive of late. Like he was concocting some sort of master plan. But he's not a bad fellow, detective. Whatever he was up to, I'm sure it couldn't be that bad."
Well, the detective begs to differ. Whatever Stewart Boyd was up to might very well have gotten his co-worker killed.
She thanks Murphy and waits until she's out of the pub to turn to Castle, assess the expression on his face. He looks pleased enough, of course, and intrigued. It's a good look on him.
Oh, she has to stop this.
A glance at her father's watch gives her the perfect excuse. "Wow, seven already, is it? You should probably go home, Castle."
"What?" He protests indignantly. "This has just gotten interesting, and you wanna kick me out?"
"I'm not *kicking you out*. We're not going to get any farther than this tonight. I'll just head back to the precinct, brief Ryan and Esposito on this, and go home myself."
"Will you really?"
Sarcasm is heavy in his voice, but she thinks there's something else in his eyes. Interest? Oh, god.
"What are you, my dad?" She shoots back, trying to keep her voice light, trying to erase the spark of heat in her belly. He's most certainly not her dad.
"Hopefully not," he answers, blue eyes twinkling, a smirk playing on his lips.
She *has* to stop this.
"Go home, Castle. Get some rest, spend time with your daughter. How long since you last spoke to her, hmm?"
It's a low blow, and the smile on his lips wavers. She steels herself.
"Come on, I'll drop you off."
"I can take a cab. Don't want to slow you down."
He sounds a little bit resentful, and she can't blame him.
"Ok, fine. See you tomorrow, Castle."
He just gives her a nod, and strides off. She's reminded of that day at the book signing, when he walked past her, and she had to call after him.
She doesn't call now, but it takes everything she has to restrain herself.
She leaves the precinct two hours later, enjoying the peace and quiet as she drives home, walks up the stairs. She still has mixed feelings about guilt-tripping Castle over Alexis, but after all, he's playing dirty too. Showering at her place, leaving her post-it notes.
It's a relief to turn the key in the lock, to get inside her apartment. Home. Safe. Finally.
She forgot to take her spare key back from Castle this morning, but she refuses to let that bother her. Forgot is an overstatement anyway – it was early, the room was dark, and getting dressed without waking him was already enough of a mission for her to forego the spare key.
And of course, she wasn't going to mention it in front of Ryan or Esposito.
Shedding her coat and her purse, Kate steps out of her heels and stretches. Her eyes travel to the kitchen without her authorization, stop on the fridge. His post-it is still here. She couldn't bring herself to take it off this morning, and of course Castle wasn't going to.
The rest of the kitchen looks untouched, though, and a strange mixture of relief and sadness spreads in her belly. What was she expecting?
Then she turns to the living room.
And gasps.
The wall over the table has been taken over. No other word for it. Sheets of paper all over, post-its, index cards, notes in different sizes, different colors. All in his handwriting, of course.
Her eye catches the word Nikki, and she realizes with a shiver that it's the outline of his next novel she's faced with. His own storyboard.
Richard Castle's storyboard.
Kate has to order her feet not to move; as overwhelmed as she is by the sight, shocked by the invasion of her home, there's still that tiny fan-girl thrill running down her spine, dying to get closer, to decipher plot lines and simply *read*.
Messed up. She is so messed up. This is exactly why she can't do this, why she has to stop it before it's too late. Ah. It might already be too late. At least, stop before any more damage can be done, then.
Castle will keep pushing, because he's Castle, because he doesn't know what else to do, but she can't take much more of this. Right now, she's struggling to get some air past her constricted throat, struggling to remain upright.
Richard Castle in her home. Richard Castle writing in her living-room. She has to close her eyes against it, a fierce battle raging inside her. She wants this to become the norm; she wants him gone. She wants to be left in peace, wants quiet and solitude; she wants his mouth trailing fire down her neck.
They're irreconcilable desires, and she's drowning here.
"Kate?"
Oh, fuck.
Her eyes fly open without her permission: Castle is standing in front of her, still wearing the blue dress shirt from the night before, the same jeans. Damn him.
Where did he even come from? She thought she was alone, she thought –
The soft lighting of the kitchen draws a complex combination of shadows on his face, erasing some of the lines, deepening the rest. It's… not unattractive. Even his eyes seem deeper, a darker blue. Midnight skies instead of a sunny afternoon.
He watches her attentively, this observing stare that makes her feel naked, transparent. A flicker of concern crosses the rugged handsomeness of his features; he takes a step towards her.
Kate takes a step back. It's instinctive; she can't help it. She can't do this again. She can't let him…
"Kate," he says gently, and the fear and love laced with his words travel straight to her heart, slice right through it.
She shakes her head, her mouth dry, her words gone.
"Kate." It's half-command, half-supplication this time. With hints of despair that remind her of their first night.
Oh god, their first night –
No.
"I can't, Castle," she manages finally. She sounds breathless, and she hates it. "I'm sorry, I –"
"Don't," he begs. *Begs*. "Please don't. This is good, Kate. This is right. This is what we should be."
She's shaking her head again, because even though she can't refute the undeniable truth in his words, she still won't be convinced.
"This is too much," she forces herself to say, the words tasting like ashes in her mouth, her tongue powerless to soothe the raw dryness of her lips. "This is too much for me, Castle. I can't. Not right now. I told you –"
"I made dinner," he interrupts, urgent, pleading. "Let's just eat, and then…"
And then they can fight? He doesn't finish his sentence, and Kate sees the defeat at the back of his eyes.
But half her mind has stopped at the word dinner, and she suddenly realizes that the delicious smell that had her mouth watering when she walked out of the elevator actually came from her apartment. From her own oven.
He made dinner.
Her stomach gives an enthusiastic growl, and she tries to remember the last time she ate. But no, no. She can't get distracted here. She turns away from the kitchen; her eyes fall on Castle's face, on the Nikki Heat debauchery on her wall, above his shoulder.
"Please."
The word escapes her before she's fully aware. But it seems to work, seems to get a reaction from him, and Kate goes with it.
"Please, Castle. I need… I need space. Just. Give me tonight, okay?"
He's drawing closer again, hands aiming for her; she sidesteps him, raises her forearms. A thin protection against the force of his love, the strength of his determination.
"Don't, Castle."
He stops, and for the first time today, he looks unsure. She should be glad; instead her heart plummets at the boyish, heartbroken look on his face.
Her body buzzes with the need to hold him, kiss the sadness away; Kate controls that desire, cages it. No.
She can't say anything more (her voice would break) and she can't move (her legs would give way) but she figures if she just stays still, ultimately he'll get it.
And he does.
Castle looks at her once more, sorrow and resolution making for a painful cocktail on his face, and he moves away, away from her, towards the door.
She watches him put on his shoes, shrug on his coat; she notices the slow, deliberate gestures, the time he gives her to change her mind.
But she watches him walk out, and she doesn't say anything.
And the door closes, with a sound like a moan, final. Sad.
The only thing she can hear is the heavy thump of her heart. Kate remains alone in her kitchen, frozen, surrounded by the aroma of the dinner he cooked.
Because he loves her.