A/N: I really appreciate everyone who has read, reviewed, followed, or favorited this story. Ya'll are really the best.
Again, the M-rated version of this chapter will be available on the Extraordinary Lines archive for anyone interested.
When Kate told him "Good Night," he knew she really meant "Goodbye," that she would not let him talk her into reconsidering her choice. In this instance, her love for him worked against his wishes - she would not risk his life, not when she had been told so firmly by Maddox that if she did not comply, if she did not end her marriage with Castle, that he would die.
Suddenly, their entire year apart made sense. The sudden divorce, Kate's obvious depression, her initial hesitance to share custody of Johanna... Even the reports he received from Ryan and Esposito finally clicked - she had lost weight and still had trouble sleeping. A year after their divorce, she still would not even look at other men, would not return their flirtatious banter or give out her phone number. Outside of work, she only spent time with Lanie and the guys and her father. No one else made it into her circle of friends.
The only role Kate still seemed comfortable in was mother - she was a fantastic mother to Johanna, despite everything. Castle had gotten used to raising a Daddy's girl with Alexis, but in so many ways, his youngest daughter preferred her mother. When she got hurt, she wanted Kate. When she woke up in the middle of the night, she wanted Kate. The divorce had been hard. Even though Johanna had been too young to really understand what was going on, she did know one thing - she often wanted her momma, and her momma was not always there.
For a first time mother, Kate was amazing. While she worried about all the things new parents worried about, she still had a quiet confidence when it came to taking care of Johanna that Castle still envied as a tried veteran. As a parent, Kate Beckett was a natural.
He saw her demonstrate that the next evening when she brought their daughter to the loft to drop her off for his regular night. He had spent most of the day in a fog after her confession the night before. At first, all he wanted to do was kidnap the both of them and take them to some far away place where his money could keep all of them safe. But such a decision would also require him to uproot Alexis and his mother, to bring them into a life of hiding. And Castle suspected that Kate would never agree to it, and he could not force her.
As he opened the door to let her into the loft, he immediately noticed a difference in her. As she handed over Johanna, the poor girl having fallen asleep in the car on the drive over, Kate looked... determined. He realized immediately that the emotion he was used to seeing from her – deliberate standoffishness - was actually something else entirely – resigned sadness. She held herself apart because she felt she had to, not because she wanted that distance. And she hated it as much as he did.
But tonight, that sadness had been replaced with a quiet bravado, the kind of emotion she had probably worked all day to achieve. She met his eyes and refused to look away. Kissing him on the cheek as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred the night before, Kate entered the loft and placed Johanna's diaper bag on one side of the couch.
He paused to watch her as he held their sleeping child, picturing what it had been like when she kissed him on the lips rather than the cheek and settled down on the couch after a long day rather than dropping off Johanna's things and turning to leave.
"You'll bring her by on Thursday?" Kate asked, confirming their usual schedule.
"Let me put her to bed, and then we'll talk," he answered.
Even as he was walking up the stairs to put the girl in her own room, Kate said, "Rick, I really need to go..."
Deliberately, he did not answer her, but left her standing at the foot of the stairs as he went through the motions of putting their daughter to bed. He knew she would wait for him before leaving. Even if she pretended nothing had happened between them, that they hadn't slept together the night before and she had not confessed her true motives for the divorce, he knew that she would wait.
Sure enough, as he descended the stairs a short time later, she was standing in the living room, looking terribly uncomfortable.
"Can I pour you a glass of wine?" he asked, not bothering to get her answer as he crossed into the kitchen to do exactly that.
"No, I can't stay," she said, glancing pointedly at the door.
"I think we need to talk."
"We talked more than enough last night," Kate said archly.
Needing a way to keep her there, he said the first thing that came to mind.
"This is about Johanna."
Kate paled visibly at his use of their daughter's name.
"What about Johanna?" she asked. The fear in her voice was suddenly so apparent that Castle froze.
The look in her eyes said it all. He realized suddenly that she thought he was going to try and take their child from her. After confessing to him about Maddox's threat the night before, she thought he was going to demand from her sole custody of Johanna, to keep the two-year-old safe.
And even worse than that fear, he saw in her eyes a measure of guilt so strong that he knew if he pushed for it, she would agree. If Castle insisted it was for the best, that it was the only way to keep their daughter out of harm's way, Kate would give him their little girl. It would tear her to pieces to hand over the toddler, break her in ways she would never recover from. But she would do it, was preparing herself even as she stood there.
As if he would ever do anything to separate the two of them.
"I think she should spend more time with you," he said quickly. "I know your schedule at the precinct has been hectic, but she's become more clingy lately, and I think what she really needs is more time with you."
Everything he said was true, he realized, and he did want Kate to spend more time with the toddler. Their usual split was fairly equitable, but due to Kate's schedule at the precinct, she often got her for evenings when the child was sleeping rather during daytime hours.
Kate blinked as she processed his words, and a moment later audibly let out the breath she had been holding even as her eyes shut in relief. He allowed her the time to recover, to regain her self control even as she struggled to articulate a response. Finally, she steadied herself and said, "I'll talk to the captain about lightening my schedule and taking some time off. If you think that would be best for Johanna."
She was giving him an out, an opportunity to call her on the carpet by invoking the safety of their daughter.
But Castle simply nodded and said, "I do."
He handed her the glass of wine he had poured and gestured to the couch. She seemed uncertain at first, but a moment later she followed him. Her expression of determination had returned, and Castle decided that he liked that look on her much better than the usual fear and melancholy.
"I think she's getting to that age that Alexis got to where she's wondering why we don't all live together," he ventured.
"I guess we'll just have to explain it to her," Kate said.
Momma and Daddy love each other very much but we can't be together because a bad man wants to hurt Momma by hurting Daddy... No, the truth was too awful even for Castle to face. He had no idea how to explain it to their two-year-old child.
"What should we tell her?" he asked neutrally. He wanted to keep her talking, to hear her voice.
"We say that we both love her and we both want to be with her as much as possible, but we can't all live together."
"And if she asks why not?"
Typically, divorced or separated couples would bluntly tell the child that while they still loved the child, they no longer loved each other, or at least not in the same way. Castle vividly remembered having that conversation with a very young Alexis. But using that line on Johanna would be a lie. Castle was still madly in love with her mother and he now knew beyond all doubt that Kate felt the same about him.
"We'll figure it out, Rick," she said softly, apologetically.
She looked so beautiful sitting there, her hair pulled back into a loose braid. She was dressed casually in a form-fitting sweater and jeans, and he could just make out a sliver of the silver chain around her neck tucked into her shirt. The image of her from the night before, naked and writhing below him, came to mind and suddenly the room felt unseasonably warm.
"Stay with me tonight," he said, the request made completely on impulse.
Her eyes widened as she took in his words.
"I can't-" Kate began, even as he added, "Please."
"What happened last night was..."
Clearly, she was searching for a word other than 'mistake' but Castle quickly completed her sentence with, "Amazing."
She sighed. "Rick."
He wanted her to call him Castle, to say his name again the way she had the night before in the heat of passion.
Challenged her, he said, "Tell me it wasn't amazing."
"That isn't the point."
"Yes it is," he insisted. "I'm not asking you to marry me again. I'm just asking you to stay the night."
She stopped and stared at him even as Castle realized what he had just proposed.
Sex. A night of just sex.
The thought left him a little queasy. After everything they had been through together, after everything they had been to each other, could he and Kate actually engage in an emotionless, clandestine, sexual relationship?
Of course, he knew that could never happen. But while he wanted all of her, every single part of her - physical, mental, and spiritual - he knew she was not willing to rekindle their relationship. But maybe if he could just sneak in under her defenses, just a little...
Speaking as though she had to force out the words, she observed, "Rick, you should be out there dating other women. We've been divorced for a year."
"I don't want other women. I want you."
Her bottom lip trembled slightly as she stated, "You can't have me."
"I think we proved that isn't true last night."
His statement came out more bitterly than he intended and Kate looked away as though she'd been slapped. He wanted to take it back, to tell her he did not mean it that way. He had no intention of cheapening the most beautiful experience since their divorce. But pride and resentment kept him silent.
Finally, Kate spoke. "So all you want is sex?"
Swallowing down a more truthful response, Castle said only, "That's all I'm asking for."
She considered him for a long moment before saying, "Okay."
One eyebrow shot up in surprise.
"Okay?"
He did not quite believe what he was hearing. Kate Beckett, his ex-wife, the love of his life, was agreeing to a sexual relationship. Granted, only a sexual relationship, but still…
She nodded, confirming his suspicions. "But I make all the rules," she said sharply.
"Yeah, okay," he agreed, still surprised that she had agreed to it in the first place.
"No public displays of affection," Kate began. "No telling anyone - and I do mean anyone, Rick. If you so much as mention this to your mother, it's over."
He said, "Trust no one. Got it."
Kate bit her lip as she considered other rules to add to the growing list. But Castle didn't care about the rules. She was going to let him touch her - to not only spend time with her, but to touch her while doing so - and he could hardly believe it. He wondered if this was how deals with the devil began. If so, he felt quite certain that the devil was getting cheated in this instance.
"No trying to get me to come back," she stated succinctly.
So no trying to win her heart back despite the danger to his life... he could work around that. Rather than make an oral agreement, he merely nodded his ascent.
"And one last thing," she added. Kate paused and Castle recognized her serious, uncompromising expression. "This one is non-negotiable. And you won't like it."
"What is it?" he prompted, ready to promise her just about anything.
"You have to start dating," Kate said. The words sounded so foreign in her voice that it took him a few seconds to fully process them. "You have to start dating other women," she quickly clarified.
Having dated no one else since the blonde stewardess he took to a crime scene just to make Kate jealous, the concept seemed rather foreign to Castle. She wanted him to date other women? Why would that be a condition...
Oh.
For public appearances, so as not to arouse suspicions about them, she wanted him to date other women. She really was serious about Maddox's threat on his life.
Castle considered her condition and after a short time deemed it acceptable. Enduring the company of the kind of vapid, uninteresting women he'd dated before Kate would be irritating. But it would be worth it. Anything would be worth getting to spend time with her, especially with the promise of sex.
"All right," he said. "I agree to your conditions."
She looked at him for a moment, slightly surprised. "Really?"
"Yes, really. But I have one condition of my own."
The set of her jaw betrayed her overall nervousness regarding the conversation. Clearly, she was reconsidering whether any of it was a good idea.
"You don't get to make conditions, Castle," she stated evenly, deliberately using his last name. He hated seeing the fear in her eyes, but hearing his name in her voice was almost worth it.
"Just one little thing. If I have to date other women, and I cannot impress upon you how difficult that will be, then I want this arrangement to be worth my... investment," he said. Castle used the word deliberately to ruffle her feathers and throw her off balance. "At least twice a week."
Kate's eyes narrowed. "Once a week," she countered.
"Three times."
"Castle, that's not how you negotiate," she said in exasperation.
"Don't make it four," he warned playfully. "I may not have that kind of stamina anymore."
Sighing, Kate agreed grudgingly, "Twice a week."
Castle smirked at her, just like he used to in the old days. "Deal."
He held out his hand to her, waiting for her to shake on it. Just as he knew she would, she clasped his palm with hers firmly and shook it.
As soon as she pulled her hand away, he made his move. He startled her with his speed even as he reclaimed her hands with his own. A second later, his mouth found her lips and he plundered her mouth without mercy.
She may not have expected to be ravaged so quickly, and right there on the couch in the living room, but Castle had every intention of milking this 'deal' they had made for all it was worth. Besides, he had gotten a taste of her just the night before. After a year of nothing, that taste was enough to make him ravenous.
The sex was both familiar and new as Kate did her level best to resist him. She did not fight - he would never have touched her if he thought she did not want it - but she did not give in to him completely, either. Instead, she gave as good as she got with teasing and touching. They knew each other so well that neither had the upper hand, but at the same time, both wanted it.
By the end, they were both exhausted, and they collapsed together on the couch with Kate on top, completely spent.
He wrapped an arm around her even though she tensed at his touch. But he realized as he did so that she was trembling - not from pleasure, or even from pain, but from fear.
"It's okay," he told her. "Everything's going to be okay."
But Kate shook her head, her hair tickling his bare skin.
"What if he knows?" she asked. "What if he finds out and comes after you?"
"He won't find out," Castle told her with false confidence. In reality, he no longer cared if Maddox went after him. He refused to be parted from Kate, even to save his own life.
When Kate spoke, it was with great emotion, which he could tell she had buried deeply.
"I would rather die, Rick. Than see you hurt? I would rather die."
He pulled her even closer, hugging her body tighter to his, as though he could protect her in such a way.
"I guess that makes us even," he told her, "because I feel the same way about you."
tbc
