Path to Paradise
X
He had dropped clues right and left.
Of course, Castle hadn't wanted to be obvious about it, no. That would never do. She was a detective; she prided herself on her observational skills, but more than that, she enjoyed the thrill of a good mystery.
He hadn't made it easy. Of course not. But after a week, she'd been entirely clueless. Showering in the morning, moving quietly through his bedroom to get dressed, waking him before she left with a cup of coffee and his pain pills.
Clueless. Still pulling clothes out of her suitcase. Still wiping down her shampoo and body wash and conditioner after every shower and tucking them back into her travel kit. Still texting him in the afternoon as if in warning, headed your way unless-
There would never be an unless.
He started dropping bigger clues. A receipt for the cab underneath the change on his dresser, pulled out of his pocket and left there with his chapstick and handkerchief. He thought she had seen it the day before, a glance of her eyes and the reflexive curiosity. And then later, the unnaturally turquoise gift bag not quite making it to the trash can and lying on the floor by the coffee maker. The little shopping bag had been gone the next morning, so someone had noticed it, but for the life of him, Castle hadn't found it in any of the trash cans.
He'd even 'hidden' his gift in its telltale blue Tiffany's box in the closet between his carefully folded sweaters. One of which he knew was her favorite on him. He had even seen her fingers trail across it on her way to one of his plaid shirts last weekend. (She really loved his plaid. He loved her in it. He made excuses to take her clothes off and hide them so that she was forced to go scrounging in his closet for one of those plaids.)
Finally, this morning, he began rearranging his closet before she had even left for work. Had to be obvious now, right? It wasn't subtle, which he usually liked much better, but he was down to measures of last resort. He was placing huge piles of his clothing into plastic storage containers. He was putting his quality threads in plastic, and this morning had she not even noticed?
Ow. His shoulders ached. That spot at his neck. The pain was building in tight knots across his back. Enough for today. It was mainly supposed to be a gesture.
He'd get a pain pill when she sneaked out of work to meet him for lunch, but that was another two hours away.
He checked his phone anyway.
Two hours. Right. He could make it. The therapist he'd been seeing, Dr Burke (he was a police department shrink; he was official), had told him that a good deal of the craving was in his head, and not, he'd said, in his body chemistry. The bloodwork had proved it.
But Castle had found it was difficult to distinguish the two. Head felt like body, while his heart cringed at the ugliness of it all. And when he'd found himself having two or three single malts, barely feeling it, trying to relax his knotted muscles, he had broken down and called her dad.
Pathetic, yes, but he hadn't known what to do.
His talk with Jim Beckett had actually been the linchpin for his getting help, asking for help. He'd felt it coming over him like a funeral shroud, felt himself obscured by the pain/pill/Scotch combination, a one-two-three punch, but his fears had been allayed by Kate's father.
Kate has taken her stand. She won't back down now, Rick. Me, of all people; I should know.
Back tight down to his hips, shoulders hunched near his ears, Castle was just re-convincing himself of that certainty, that total assurance, when the key turned in the lock.
He grunted with frustration, only half finished with his project (next, he had hoped to clear space in his dresser, pointedly take out the things she kept in that jewelry roll in her travel kit, the silk thing with the Chinese characters and soft tassels, and put all of it in the elephant dish he had bought solely for this 'clue-planting' expedition of his).
"Alexis," he shouted towards the living room. "I've got boxes for the storage room in the basement. Do you know where the key is? I think your grandmother had it last."
Martha had been squirreling away stage props again. Space was at a premium in New York City and their assigned storage unit below was the size of a coffin, so he'd be clearing out her junk before he could get this stuff inside. Basically only the Christmas decor fit-
"Boxes for the storage room, hm, Castle?"
He gasped, hearing his own melodramatic self and yet unable to help it, since it was Kate Beckett striding into his bedroom. In those power heels. Sinfully tight black trousers. Blazer. And best of all, a starched white dress shirt with a high collar that only made him think about unbuttoning every single tiny pearl button and pressing his mouth to the skin he revealed.
"Don't think I haven't figured out what you're doing, Castle."
He gave her a look of complete innocence (ruined only somewhat by the lustful thoughts burning in his mind's eye), but she abandoned her questioning and switched to a new tack.
"I have a surprise for you too, you know."
Surprise, too. She knew. She'd found it. She knew. He'd given her just enough time to get her game face on, for her to withdraw to her fortress of solitude and decide what she wanted for herself, and yet he hadn't even noticed it when it had been happening.
She'd been at his place every night for weeks. He had really expected at least two or three days of going it alone while she made her choice.
"You have a surprise?" he said, struggling to rise. "For me?"
"Mm-hm." She reached out and took his hand in both of hers, hauled him to his feet. He came stumbling into her body and she braced him, kissed his cheek with a hand against the side of his face, as if she wanted to cradle him.
"What surprise, Kate?" He felt giddiness moving through him in quivering waves. Could be the bullet fragment, could be her nearness.
"I got a consult with a surgeon. Faxed him your x-rays. Went today, we had a good talk about managing expectations, but. He said yes."
He said yes. So close to what he wanted said, that it nearly sent him to his knees. "Who said yes? Yes to what?"
"He thinks he can do the surgery, babe. He knows he can do the surgery. Remove the bullet fragment. Actually, he saw two fragments, one the other guys didn't pick up on. Small. And what he said looked like bone chips at your clavicle, here."
He hissed when she touched him, pressing into his skin. She flinched and pulled back, a rough sorry, are you okay that they both ignored. He realized he had a hand gripped too tightly around her bicep and he loosened his fingers, felt her breath of relief.
"Dr. Wayte wants to do a pre-op interview with you tomorrow at three. And he's tentatively scheduled a surgery slot for the day after Christmas."
"That fast," he mumbled, feeling cut loose. The pain had its teeth in his neck, his shoulders were hunched. The tightness ached clear down his back.
Kate stroked her fingers at his nape, dug her thumb into the splenius cervicis muscle - that knotted cord that ran alongside his spine. He knew the names of all of those muscles now, knew them from physical therapy, massage therapy, ultrasound therapy... all the therapies that worked for an hour, half a day, and then had to be undergone all over again just to have any relief.
"That fast," she whispered. "I hope. Does it hurt?"
"Yeah," he said tightly. Her knuckle dug deeper and something released just under his shoulder blade. "Ah, that's - that's it."
"Are you okay with tomorrow at three?"
"More than okay," he mumbled. His head felt heavy; he wanted to lean against her but he thought that would be a bad idea.
Still, her hand pressed to the small of his back and drew him in, massaging his neck. He let his forehead fall against hers.
"There's one more surprise," she hummed, "if you can stand it."
He chuckled, worked his neck in small increments under the pressure of her thumb. "Hit me with your best shot."
"Still not funny, Castle."
"Is a little bit," he whispered, but he kissed her eyelid in apology.
She hummed in acceptance. "After the surgery," she said, "we'll stay at my Dad's cabin. It was his idea, actually. So I took a week, and Gates is being kind enough to let me count it against next year's vacation."
"Oh," he breathed. "Gates. Wow."
"Yeah," she laughed softly. "No kidding."
And then the rest of her words cleared the gauntlet-run of his wrecked body, and he lifted his head. "Your dad?" he croaked.
"He called me," she drawled. Knowledge in her eyes.
Oh. Oh, she had to know. "He called you, huh?"
"Said he had a great time at your lunch, Castle."
"Oh," he beamed, grinning widely. "Me too!"
She laughed at that, shaking her head at him, but she had to know. She had to have put it all together, otherwise she wouldn't have brought it up.
And still, here she was, easing his pain with the brutal grind of her knuckles in his neck and keeping him on his feet through it all.
She had taken her stand.
X
