He woke up to the feeling of soft sunlight on his face, but the rest of the bed was empty, the warmth of the sheets indicating her escape had been recent. For a moment he just lay there, luxuriating in the softness, muscles still aching and sore from the pounding he'd dished out and taken at the same time yesterday in the game. That pain was almost an ever-present throughout the season, his body pushed to the limit, to the point that living with the pain was just a part and parcel of the game. As the old saying in the league went, no one was playing at a 100% as the season wore on, and it became a case of toughing it out, with painkillers as required, to push on week after week.
Eventually, he knew it would be time to hang up the boots and pads, to give his body the rest it required, but till that time came he would soldier on, accepting the pain of playing as the price for the pleasure of it, the enjoyment of running out on the field, the adrenalin high, the camaraderie with his team, the satisfaction that came from residing at the pinnacle of this particular chosen endeavour of his. He would definitely soldier on.
It would be nice to have someone to soldier on with though.
"Hey, I made us coffee."
He turned around to look at his bedroom door, and there she was, standing in the doorway with two steaming mugs of coffee, his blue and red hoodie massive around her slim frame, dwarfing her completely. Wisps rose into the air off the mugs, and the golden dawn haloed her features fittingly, shining through the cracks of the blinds of his bedroom. She was like Aphrodite herself had come down from Mount Olympus, the ideal of human beauty, her smile setting his stomach fluttering in a way he didn't know he was still capable of feeling.
She hadn't left, after all.
"Morning."
She said the word softly, but her tone contained all sorts of layers, from affection to lust to contrition, haunting in his subtext, settling into his skin till he felt his own lips crack into a wide grin as she perched on the bed next to him while settling the mugs down on the bedside table.
"Good morning indeed, Beckett."
He murmured the words into the soft silk of her skin, his lips tracing a pattern across her shoulder blades and collarbones as his hands wrapped around her waist and pulled her closer to him, the oversized hoodie falling away off her shoulder in a particularly attractive way as that vanilla and cherry scent he'd already come to associate with home and comfort and warmth and beauty wrapped itself around him.
"Feels like I haven't seen you in years."
"Well, it's not been quite that long, Castle. You sure you didn't get a head injury in that last game?"
"If I did…best fantasy ever."
"Oh, I'm sure we could come up with a few better ones than this."
She smirked, her tongue poking out to tease him.
In response, he pulled her towards him, hands snaking around her neck as he pressed her lips against hers, tongue demanding entry into her mouth and then getting it. Her arms curled around his waist, tugging upwards at his t-shirt till their kiss broke, leaving them both flushed and breathless.
"Take off your shirt."
Her voice was husky and ever so sexy, and the glint of steel in those bright green eyes demanded he comply. He did without complaint, raising his muscle-laden and sore limbs stiffly up so she could work his shirt over his shoulders and head. Her mouth worked down from his lips, across the line of his jaw and down over his neck as she pushed him backwards.
"Just lie back and enjoy the ride, Mr. Sports Hero."
"As long as I get to return the favour later."
He rumbled as her mouth continued to work it's warm, wet way down his torso, while she shifted her hips to straddle him completely.
"Oh, you'll get your chance, trust me."
This wasn't going to fix them, not by long a shot, but it was something he'd very much missed and by the way she was hungrily attacking his body, she had too. This was an important step to them reconnecting, finding their rhythm again in all the ways that were important to the relationship. He wasn't about to deny that much like he wasn't about to skip the very necessary talk they had to have because of this bout of morning sex.
Her mouth trailed lower, over his abdomen and lower stomach, and he could feel himself growing hard under her ministrations as she worked away his boxers next, silently ordering him to raise his hips with her eyes and grinning when he complied with nothing more than a guttural groan of pleasure.
The groan tripled in volume when her mouth returned again to his shaft, this time with no clothing or barrier in the way, and then there was no time or brain activity left for thought at all.
This time he was the one to get coffee, and the rest of breakfast ready, as she took a long leisurely hot shower to clean up after their bout of morning sex. He'd joined her for a while, but gotten out much earlier to get the pancakes going and the fresh cups of coffee brewing.
"Mmm, pancakes?"
"I could also do waffles if you prefer?"
She wrinkled her nose in concentration, in a very cute and distracting manner, while he flipped the first of the pancakes in the pan in his hand.
"Both?"
A laugh bubbled out of him before he could stop it, at the guilty-yet-not expression on her face and he nodded in agreement.
"Why not? We can do that."
Before he could turn back to the waffle-maker out, she leaned over and placed a hand on his forearm, stopping him from moving away.
"Castle, I'm sorry."
He stilled, letting the apology wash over him, her words soft but clear, her tone acknowledging that she'd done something wrong and needed to pick up the slack for it.
"I know I was out of line with all of the last week, and you were caught square in the middle of it, and you deserved better from me. I want to be able to talk to you, to tell you, when something affects us like that."
"Kate…"
"Just…I'm sorry."
He nodded in acknowledgment, offering a soft smile of sympathy, but knowing that was the start of the conversation they needed to have, not the end. But first things first.
"Why don't we eat first, and enjoy ourselves, before we get into it."
She perked up at that, equally excited by the prospect of breakfast as by the stay of execution, if he was any judge, and if that was her reaction, he better deliver with the food.
"Gimme a hand with the strawberries and the syrup?"
"So how come you're not at work today anyway? We have the day off after the away game, though I'll probably start running over some game tape and stuff today. I'll have to go in tomorrow though, nice and early in the morning."
She slid in next to him on the couch as he spoke, breakfast dishes put away, and he just rested and enjoyed the scent and the warmth and the proximity of her in the moment.
"We delivered a huge deal yesterday, so my whole team gets today off, which is nice and the least of what we deserve."
"So how was it, at work? After the picture I mean."
She winced slightly, clearly not happy with the memories that conjures of the past few days.
"Not good, really. We're an old, conservative firm, one hell-bent on portraying a certain image to our clients and the public at large. Our associates and partners are supposed to quietly get married to other lawyers or bankers or accountants, no one who will upset the applecart. Certainly they're not supposed to be out late with rakish sports stars with a somewhat spotty reputation."
"Sorry."
"You have nothing to be sorry about, Castle. Really."
"Will they…fire you?"
"No, no nothing like that. They're a law firm, they're not going to do anything that leaves them open to getting sued. But I've had some pretty strong hints about the kind of image they'd like me to present to the world as a representative of the firm, and if that doesn't work they'll start getting partners to take me aside for unofficial chats and then, well, I start getting put on the least interesting cases, doing drudgework, no face-time with clients, taken off the partner-track. There's lots of little things they can do, probably trying to get me to quit without making a fuss at the end of the day."
She sighed, allowing her head to come to rest in the palms of her hands, neck bowed as if she was carrying a great weight and had grown tired of it. He sat next to her, curling his arm around her thin shoulders, offering what little solace and comfort he could.
"Bastards."
"Can't deny that. Honestly, sometimes I wonder what I'm doing there."
She sighed, allowing her head to come to rest in the palms of her hands, neck bowed as if she was carrying a great weight and had grown tired of it. He sat next to her, curling his arm around her thin shoulders, offering what little solace and comfort he could.
"Honestly, sometimes I wonder what I'm doing there."
"What do you mean?"
"When I went into law, I wanted to be the best lawyer in honour of my mom. But I'm not sure when that turned into…this. Making millions for billion-dollar corporations, slaving away for so many hours a week, ruining the best prospect for a relationship, for happiness I've met in years. I mean, I thought I was doing it all because that was what my mom would want me to do, but then I take a step back and take stock, and it isn't, not at all."
He brushed the side of her jaw with a thumb, caressing without trying to be overbearing.
"Kate, she would want you to be happy. What do you want to do?"
"It's probably stupid, but…"
"It's not stupid. Not when you're sitting next to me, the king of stupid."
That drew a hiccupping chuckle out of her, and she turned to face him, eyes glimmering with unshed tears that he wished he could do something about.
"I don't know. Some days I like to think about throwing it all in, and going to work for a group like the Innocence Project, trying to clear the names of the people who've been wrongfully convicted. That's what she did for her pro-bono work outside her firm. It would mean a lot less money but…"
She shrugged, the sentence trailing off, but there had been something brighter about her when she was speaking, entertaining the possibility of changing her career arc to something she actually, genuinely wanted to do. Something he'd never really seen from her before when spoke about work. Something he'd love to see flower and bloom further, but knew he couldn't force. She had to find her own way there.
"You want to hear about my own stupid?"
"Sure."
The merest hint of a grin flickered over her features, and it was a small victory, but he'd take it. Wars were only one by winning the small battles, one at a time.
"So, I majored in English Lit in between bouts in the weight room and on the training field at Stanford for a pretty silly reason. And that reason is…I want to write. A book, that is. Well I've written one. Most of one, but it's not that good. Angry Wiccans out for blood, murder mystery, that kind of thing. "
The words escaped his mouth in a rush, as if he would suck them back in if they didn't, as if telling her this secret (something only his mother and daughter were privy to) was akin to ripping the bandaid off. He risked a glance back at her, as he'd been staring resolutely ahead, only to find her regarding him warmly, the affection pouring out of those twin green suns.
"Can I read it, Castle?"
"I mean, like I said, it's a pretty rough draft."
She waved away his concerns-slash-excuses, offering pure acceptance, and let his shoulders droop in relief, the knot in his stomach unclenching when he realised his confession wasn't to be met with ridicule but positivity instead.
"How long have you wanted to be a writer?"
"High school. Right around the time I started to play football seriously. By the time the college scholarship offers came rolling in I realised I'd need to pursue one of the two more seriously, so I picked football, but writing was always my first love."
"Ever submitted it to a publisher or agent? You must have had a few coaches or teammates who wrote autobiographies, or had them ghost-written at least."
He shook his head softly, a little shy about it now that she was in lawyer mode, peeling back his layers.
"It never felt right, and I didn't want to trade on my fame. If I get published, I want it to be for my own talent, what little there is of it, and not because I played football and won a Super Bowl."
She smiled again, reaching around with her arm as he returned the gesture, the two of them falling into an embrace as she rested her cheek against his upper chest.
"Pretty worthy goal, Castle."
"Look at us, two of us with our pipe dreams."
"I don't know, let me read your book. Who knows, maybe all you need is a muse."
A/N: Life's been pretty busy lately, hence the lateness of this update. We're getting close to the end, so don't fret, I will finish this fic. As always, I'd love to know your thoughts on this chapter and the story as a whole- reviews make my world go around. Thank you.
