DAY 5 – Wednesday around noon
"Castle, it's me...
"Castle, pick up!...Castle?...Are you there?..."
Her voice carries clear across the loft. He uses one foot to push the heavy front door open, propping it wide with his back; and before sidling in he uses the slight natural pause to survey the common areas for any signs of life.
He's really not looking for company tonight.
But there's no one in sight; no other sound except for her voice.
"Been trying to reach you. Hope everything's okay. Thanks for getting me home the other night. And for dinner. Sorry I fell asleep on you...Would have liked to say goodnight, and I...well, anyway...I had a really nice time. We should do it again. I'd like to do it again."
While she talks Castle shuffles to the kitchen and swings his burden up, dumping the rainbow cluster of reusable shopping bags that he's cradling, then raising his arms to deposit the ones looped around his wrists onto the polished granite countertop.
"Hope you got home okay? Not sure when you left...you didn't leave me a note, or call, or text me, and it's been a couple days so...But I'm sure you got home okay...Missed you lately. I left a few messages on your cell yesterday, did you get them?"
He cuts a glance to the voice recorder that faithfully transmits her words. In a different context she'd sound like a girlfriend; the thought of that, of its potential, makes his head spin.
But he pulls himself back down to earth with a thump. He'd be a fool to read anything more into this. They're just the words of a friend who happens to be a girl to a guy friend she wants to keep that way. He roughs his hands through his hair, trying to rein in the unruly romantic within that is still under the delusion he has any chance at all with Kate.
But he can't help hearing that hesitation, that vulnerable edge to her voice that he doesn't often get to hear from her, and he has a short moment of doubt. Could he have misunderstood her the other night? When she spoke, she sounded like she was dreaming. And dreams are notoriously unreliable.
Her silence, though. She's been consistent from day one. He's given her ample opportunity to admit she remembers the events around her shooting. He's even asked her straight out, twice.
Sure, it's all circumstantial, but when you add it together...she remembers.
He's quite sure of that.
He hates this trap, this spiral he's been in since spending Monday evening with her. He tries to distract himself. He empties his pockets of keys, wallet, and a used and crumpled envelope on which he'd scrawled a list of supplies for the week, into the enamelled brass bowl perched on the corner of the countertop.
"...Not much going on right now, just paperwork. There hasn't been a case since Monday morning. Just waiting for something to happen..."
A jet of heat courses through him at hearing the warm slide of her voice, the way it always has laughter in it, whenever she's talking just to him. It carries that delicious twist of irony and a hint of teasing; it's one of the things he finds irresistible about her. It's what hooked him and reeled him in from the start.
He growls at the uncomfortable direction his body seems to want to lead his thoughts. He was so intent on staying away from her the last couple of days, but he can't even trust his damn body not to take sides.
It reminds him of what exactly he can't have, and his gut churns.
"So...the guys were thinking maybe the Old Haunt tonight? If we don't catch a body that is. It'd be nice to see you. We need a break and Ryan wants to talk stag night. He said for the purposes of his bachelor party I'm an honorary bro. I'm flattered. I think..."
He sighs, and feels the tug toward the mahogany table near the entrance to his office on which the voicemail unit rests. He strokes one finger along the side of the cordless phone's handset nestling in its cradle.
There's a thrumming in his chest and his hand twitches. Right now, more than anything, he wants to pick up and interrupt the message; catch Kate before she hangs up. He could get answers. And tell her again, if he has to. Even if she knows it already. Just get in her face, no lies, no evasion and just...say it.
But the thought of finally having this out with her makes his palms clammy, his legs weak. Because if the answer is what he thinks it's going to be, he won't be able to handle knowing, not for sure. He doesn't want to be on the other side of another kind of conversation that changes everything.
It's the kind of truth that will break him.
"All right, just call me, okay? Wanna talk to you."
And when her call ends with a click, he stands there as the busy tone pierces the silence. He closes his eyes and hangs his head, which feels too heavy for his neck. His chest constricts, and he releases a deep breath. But it's no good, the tension is still there and squeezing ever tighter.
He presses the delete button, holding it down. And with a long beep, her message is gone.
His smartphone's insistent ring breaks the silence seconds later; he checks the caller display, already knowing who will be calling.
No.
He presses "decline call" firmly, slipping his phone into his pants pocket.
DAY 5 - Wednesday night
It takes sleety sideways rain hitting her face, like needles, to break her out of the daze she's in. The taxi is long gone . She hasn't heard from Castle – not once - since Monday night. She comes back to herself, standing at ground level outside her destination, staring at its façade like she's afraid of what she might find inside.
She looks around and makes eye contact with the bouncer standing on the sidewalk out front. He greets her with a wave and a smile, beckons her over. She's usually here much earlier than this, and the place is packed to the gills for happy hour. But the fact that she went home to shower and change after her shift means it's now late enough that she's missed the straight-after-work rush. And if she moves now, before the mid-evening crowd starts lining up, she can walk straight in.
Soon the heels of her really quite impractical stilettos are clattering down the cobbled front steps to the bar's basement entrance. By instinct, she dodges the dark patches where the dim lighting from the street and the Haunt's front portal don't penetrate. With the on-and-off freezing rain that has been the rule today, the last thing she wants is to step on a thin sheet of ice and land up with toes submerged in a freezing, dirty puddle. She slows down and steps carefully.
Kate braces to pull the heavy door of the Old Haunt outwards to admit her, struggling against a buffeting from the cold wind. She takes a deep breath and steps in, legs becoming a little unsteady under her as it occurs to her how important tonight is. If things go according to plan tonight? Then tomorrow, everything changes.
But she's got some hurdles to get over first. She's got a lot to talk about with Castle. And for the first time she's worrying it's too much to work through in a public place. Maybe she should wait, and-
No.
She's sick of sitting inside her own damn head for days and mulling over the possibilities. She's ready. And she has to take this step. She can imagine how it will screw things up if he finds all this out independently. She definitely needs to sort this out tonight.
She scopes the room for her mark.
Her stomach flips as she spots him, leaning against the bar, stage-directing the pouring of an amber liquid into a tumbler. He's only a few feet away from her, and the sight of the line of scruff along his jaw makes her knees weak, the movement of his throat as he sits, and drains his glass in one draft. Her fingers itch to stroke his face, bring her lips to his and taste the spirit on them.
Easy there, Kate.
Therapy really has helped, she smirks to herself. Last night, for the first time in a while, she enjoyed eight straight hours of glorious, dreamless sleep. But the feelings she's been harboring all this time haven't lessened in his absence. Right now, she can't take her eyes off him.
She turns away from him to attempt to break the distracting track her mind has taken.
She feels too warm for her coat now, so she shucks it, and scopes out the darker-than-most corner where she will find her friends from the Twelfth. Sure enough, the boys are there.
"Kate!"
She swivels in the direction of the familiar voice. "Hey Lanie..."
"Well, look at you! Since when do you go home to change for after work drinks?" Her friend scans her from head to toe as Kate looks down too, picking an invisible speck of lint off the green, not quite long enough, silk dress, and black strappy sandals.
"Too much?"
"It's not too much, if you're out to impress someone...so are you, Kate? Out to impress someone?" Lanie raises an eyebrow and grins. "Walk with me." Lanie links arms with the detective and shepherds her toward the bar.
Kate feels her face heat up, and allows herself to be led.
Moments later, their drinks in hand, Lanie pounces. "So I've been expecting a full report about this new guy."
Kate chokes on a mouthful of her Syrah. Lanie winks at her and smirks, taking a long sip of her drink through a long straw. "You know, the hottie you were going to call up when we had lunch on the weekend. Knew something musta been up when you started dodgin' my calls"
"Lanie!" Kate shoots a discomfited glance at where Castle had been sitting, but he's no longer there. She scans the room, tries and fails to locate him, before returning her attention to her friend. "Nobody else knows about this...I didn't talk to Castle. But I'm going to. Tonight. I'm tired of waiting for the best time."
Lanie rolls her eyes and throws her hands up. "Oh, I give up. You haven't told him yet? You know the longer you wait on this, the worse it'll be. Right?"
Kate drops her gaze before her friend's piercing stare. "I know."
"Kate, it's not going to get any easier to delay this. You know he's going to be pissed. You've known how he feels for months and you haven't acknowledged it. You can't keep stringing him along like this. It's not fair to the guy."
"But I don't want to lose what we have."
"Well don't you think you're going to lose him anyway?" Lanie hoovers the contents of her highball, and signals the barman for another round."Kate, it's great you've been seeing someone who's helping you get your mojo back. You're moving on with your life. So you need to tell Castle. Everything. He has a right to know where he stands."
Castle slumps back into his stool, not more than ten feet away from where the two women are talking, with the news he's just overheard resounding through his head. Kate's been seeing someone? Fuck.
But Lanie said it clear as day. Kate's been seeing someone and she's moving on with her life. Kate has to stop stringing Castle along. Castle needs to know where he stands.
Wow.
His eyes feel dry and irritated, and his chest aches as he reels, punch-drunk, from the triple blow of bad news hitting him one after the other like slugs.
Senses dulled, he watches the girls join the guys at the Twelfth's corner of the bar. They all clink their drinking vessels: the guys' green longnecks against Kate's red wine glass, and Lanie's ice and green herb-filled concoction.
They don't know or care he's there. They don't need him. He wonders if the boys knew about this new guy of Kate's. He doesn't know the answer to that, but he can't put it past them.
He just doesn't know. Everything he thought he knew, truths he thought he could rely on, are burnt away in an instant. Just like that.
He gets up and as his vision hazes out, he lurches across the floor toward the exit. He hurtles like a cannonball, scattering the crowd of drinkers gathering around the street end of the bar like pigeons in the park.
He can't, won't stay. In the space of a few days he's gone from having a sweet future right at his fingertips, to having nothing. No one. No one he can trust to stay the same.
He can't conceive of how badly wrong he got this. How wrong he read her.
Fool.
He's such a fool. What a disaster.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Many many thanks to Ky for two excellent (as always) beta passes, and for helping to dig me out of a deep and dark plot hole, and also thank you to Jo for a bonus final draft beta. Lucky me!
This fic is dedicated to LOUSIE MCDOOGLE. Not only did she prompt me, way back in ancient, season 5/6 summer hiatus times, but has also been a solid supporter ready with awesome flaily reviews from the start, for what is my second ever multichapter fic.
This chapter is also a VERY late birthday present. HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOU! 3 3 xoxoxox
Edited 30/1/2014: Apparently you guys call it a 'stag' night or bachelor party. So I've reworded that section to suit.