Firstly: I am dreadfully sorry for the delay. I have a large number of things going on in life, none of which you are interested in, but all of which have somehow contributed to my writer's block. Secondly: If any of you read the reviews, one of my roommates decided to go through everything. Her nickname is 'Shotgun.' The four of us are: Shovel, Killer, Shotgun, and Mambo. Thirdly: I love anyone who has ever followed/favorited/reviewed this, and I dedicate this to you. Finally: This chapter is a byproduct of my procrastination, and does not pretend to display ownership of Castle.
He wakes just before the alarm sounds and quiets it, not wanting to wake the woman beside him. In the afternoon light from the window, her hair looks golden, her cheeks fuller, healthier. He can almost picture it: her in their bed, belly round with their child, glowing. She stirs, and he shakes his head to clear the image. It will do no good to let his imagination run rampant. Right now, the best thing he can do for her, for the both of them, is stay in the here and now. That's what she needs: grounding. So he files his fantasy away, to be looked at another time.
"Mmm… Can feel you staring, Rick." Kate mumbles, eyes remaining shut.
"I was admiring the view." He remarks. It isn't a lie, really. He never misses a chance to look at her in her sleep. She loses years, looking more like an innocent twenty something than herself, as she leaves behind stress and pain and sadness.
"Liar." She says it without malice, but without mirth either.
"Well," he says, shifting his weight closer to her, "at least I tried." He reaches out to grab her hand, but she pulls away. He lets her, working hard to hide the hurt he feels. It's nothing in comparison to hers. She looks up at him, eyes practically pleading with him to understand.
"Rick…"
"I'm going to make dinner." He shoves himself up, willing his temper not to show until he can safely make it out of the room and into the kitchen. Damn it. Why couldn't Kate be just a little less closed off? All he wants to do is help her, and all she seems to be intent on is sealing herself off. In his frustration, he kicks the refrigerator, and regrets it instantly as pain shoots into his foot. He hops around for a minute, and the throbbing dulls to a small ache. Good, it's not broken (unlike what happened the last time he kicked an inanimate object).
Strong arms wrap around the middle of his chest.
"Rick, I'm sorry. I…" She mumbles into his back, her warm breath causing a layer of moisture to form beneath his shirt. He turns in her grasp to face her.
"No, I get it, you need your space. I won't push you."
"It's not that. I want you to push me. I need you to push me." She hesitates, "I don't know how to do this."
"Oh, Kate." He pulls her in tighter.
"Rick… Rick. CASTLE!" He lets go for a moment. "Just don't suffocate me, okay? Emotionally or physically."
"Sorry, Ka—"
"STOP!" He startles at the ferocity behind the word. "No more 'I'm sorry.'"
"Fine." He nods.
"Thank you." She eyes him warily, as though she suspects there to be a caveat. But no, he won't do that to her. If his acquiescence to her request is even a minor factor in getting her to open up to him, he'll do anything. He just wants this to stop, whatever this is.
"Would you like something to drink while I cook?"
"Ginger ale?" It's more of a question than a definitive answer.
"Do we have any in the fridge?" Subconsciously, he slips in the 'we.' He's become so accustomed to having her in the Loft that it's as though she's already moved in without the paperwork. She stiffens slightly at the word, then forces herself to relax, willing him not to notice her reaction.
No dice.
"Kate?"
"It's nothing."
"Really? Because I just felt you flinch at the implication that you live here, too." She can hear the hurt in his voice and oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. They were not having this discussion now.
"Rick, it's not what you think."
"Well then, what is it? What's going on Kate?"
"It's complicated."
"Bullshit."
"Rick."
"No. You told me to push you. This is me pushing."
"But what if you don't like what you hear?"
"Well, then, I don't like it. But I want to hear it. I need to hear it."
"Let's go sit on the couch."
It's a stalling tactic and he knows that she knows that he sees right through it. But he'll allow her to have her small victory, allow her to take that extra moment to gather her thoughts, disturbing as they apparently are. He drops onto the comfortable leather and moves to pull her into him, but she shakes him off and goes to sit in one of the armchairs, folding her body in on itself.
"It-" She opens her mouth to speak, just as he opens his to prompt her.
"So-" She shakes her head.
"Rick, I am going to tell this story once and only once. No interruptions."
He uses an imaginary key to lock his lips and throws it away.
"You told me once that it was a novelist's habit to poke through people's mail and check their medicine cabinets. So, I'm assuming that you probably figured out my… my cycle pretty early on."
He nods. After the first six months of experiencing oddly-timed mood swings and the appearance of a travel sized bottle of Advil, he had started to predict the days that would require extra coffees and two bear claws instead of one. Although, it wasn't so much a habit from his noveling career as it was self-preservation borne from living with two sometimes-tempestuous women.
"Before you came to the precinct, even now, whenever there's a difficult case – a difficult, stressful case – I don't go home, I don't sleep. I work. Bet you're surprised that I realized this." Her mouth twitches, and he can see the beginnings of a smile. Good.
"The difference is, when we get cases like that, now I have someone there to remind me of my basic needs, like food. I lost fifteen pounds the year I made detective, simply because I was so concerned about solving a case that I just didn't eat."
He frowns. She's already skinny; he can't imagine (he doesn't want to imagine) what she looked like back then.
"It's okay, Rick. I made my own choices, and I lived with them."
"But…"
"I know. Believe me." She looks at him: defiant, but also ashamed. "The first time I was late, we had been working a child abduction for five months. Five months, and all we found was the little boy in a trashcan, thrown in like a discarded doll. My body couldn't handle it. I spent two days throwing up everything I ingested, only to realize that I hadn't started yet."
"Sorenson." He says, darkly, not even bothering to voice it as a question. Even after all this time, he's slightly resentful of the agent, of how he treated Kate. How could anyone just leave her like that?
"Yeah. The first time I ever took a pregnancy test was the day before he told me that he was leaving for Boston. It was negative. He left. I didn't. He still doesn't know."
He gets up from his spot and walks over to her, kneeling on the rug so that he can wrap his arms around her.
"Thank you for telling me." She makes no move to return his gesture.
"I'm not done yet."
"But I thought…"
"That was the prelude."
So! VOILA! I'm baaaaack! I should have another chapter up by Tuesday night, my time. I will get back to responding to each individual review, I promise!
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