December 9 - It's Only a Change of Time
She rubs the cream into her skin first thing this morning, right after her shower. She thinks about him, about his face in the darkness, as she does. Her fingers press hard, working every last bit of it into the pucker of her scars.
They don't shame her; she likes to watch them heal in the mirror. Likes to see the progression, from shattered to whole. She tells herself that the physical healing matches the emotional, the psychic, the mental. She tells herself that because to believe anything else is to admit that she's not-
She won't admit it.
She's taken the first step, and nine days later, it's still. . .easy. Easy enough. She won't think about the ragged wounds, the bullet holes in her life; she will only watch them close up, day by day, moment to moment.
The cream is greasy and smells funny too, but she already feels the difference. It's easier to move this morning than it has been in a long while. She didn't get much sleep and she's wearing more concealer than usual, but her body feels strong in a way it hasn't for so long now. Kate dresses quickly, carefully adds eyeliner, mascara, straps on her father's watch-
hesitates.
Before she slips on that necklace with her mother's ring, she has something she wants to do.
Kate pads out of her room and into the living room, crossing it to get to the dining room. The row of grey apartment buildings shaped into an advent calendar still rests on her table, eight little open windows. She's still got her phone charging in the Bose stereo dock, so she scrolls through the playlist to the song for today, presses play.
As the music drifts around the room, echoing and rolling like the sea, Kate opens the ninth window in the apartment building. Inside is a snowflake, an ornament, with a note attached.
Time to buy a tree, Kate.
It is. It's time to start doing a lot of things.
Castle is startled to find her following him out of the bullpen, stepping onto the elevator with him. She's said nothing today about the song or the gift, but she's been smiling at him so much. Real smiles. Whole mouth smiles that she doesn't try to hide. She watches him. And the past few days have been. . .it's just been a different dynamic.
The elevator doors close; it's seven o'clock and he's planning on getting home to the loft in time to catch Alexis, make dinner. She and his mother have just gotten back from their colleges tour; he wants to hear about everything.
Kate is giving him sidelong looks as the elevator descends.
"Uh. Going home?" he asks.
"No. And neither are you."
"I'm not?"
"We're going to get me a tree, Castle."
And she walks off the elevator, leaving him gaping.
"You're not getting a live tree?" he pouts.
She spent the whole walk here with her hands in her pockets, telling herself *not* to reach out and take his hand.
Kate shoots him a look as she heads into the drugstore. "Live trees are depressing. They drop needles everywhere-"
"Not if you keep them watered."
"-and there's no good way to dispose of them in the city." She opens the door for him, lets him go first. She raises an eyebrow at him, making sure he's noticing.
"You can put trees in your dumpster, right?"
She ignores him, leads the way through the store, pushes past the health and beauty products to the Christmas aisle.
He sighs. "You're not even getting a big one."
"Gotta start somewhere, right?"
He frowns at her but it's a thoughtful look, not true disappointment. "Okay. Three foot?"
Kate chews on the inside of her cheek and glances down the aisle. She planned on a smaller one than that, but maybe so. In these things, she should start following someone's instincts other than her own. "Okay. Three foot tree."
He grins at her and starts walking down the aisle, searching the shelves. Castle trails his fingers over silver and green tinsel, ceramic snowmen, pine-scented candles, elf mugs, poinsettias, holiday candy, and tacky ornaments. Actually, it's all rather tacky.
She follows along behind him, spots the three foot plastic tree the moment he does, sees it on his face.
It's not green. It's not even what she would call a tree.
"Oh, Kate - you need this!" He taps the box and pulls it down from the top shelf, turning to her with both arms cradling it. "It's awesome."
"It. . .lights up."
He grins. "Most Christmas trees do, you know."
"No, I mean, it's fiber optic, Castle."
"It's like a sci-fi tree," he says, still holding it close. "You gotta-"
"Castle. It's silver. And. . .pink."
"And blue. And some purple too, I think. And it's got branches; it's not just the plastic spray, but it has branches and you can hang ornaments on it. Look at the picture on the box."
Honestly, she wasn't sure she wanted a tree at all; she felt like she needed one, that it was another step on the journey. But now she actually kind of wants a tree, and that's not it. That's a piece of space age plastic, or an exhibit at the children's museum.
"Castle. This isn't Christmas. It's. . .it's. . ."
"Fine, you pick out another one. I'm getting this one."
Kate laughs, knitting her eyebrows together, but he holds on to the box. She pushes past him and debates over a few different fake trees, reading the descriptions, then settles for a three foot fir.
"It doesn't have any lights," he mutters.
"I'll get some of those tiny multi-colored LEDs. Over there. See?" Kate heads across the aisle to the long rows of Christmas lights. She picks out the faceted, cone-shaped lights, pulls them off the shelf.
"Those are good," he murmurs, somehow directly over her shoulder.
She turns and he's giving her that child-like smile, dark hair flopped over his forehead, and she's suddenly grateful her hands are full. Otherwise she would reach out and touch him, push the hair back from his brow.
"Do I get to help you put it up?" he asks, tilting his head.
"Do you even have to ask?" Kate juggles the lights, the tree, and lifts her hand up to nudge the box in his hands. "But you're not bringing that in my apartment."
"That's what you think."
He sneaks decorations (and his fiber optic tree) into her apartment while she's not looking (she's changing clothes in her bedroom and so he runs back downstairs and out to the Crown Vic, pulls everything out, and runs back upstairs, making it just in time). She comes out of her bedroom with her hair twisted in a knot on top of her head, sees the stuff he's brought, and presses her mouth into that thin line that is half smile and half disapproval. When he bought the fiber optic tree, he also got a strand of maroon berries to use as garland, a handful of navy ornaments, a navy tree skirt, and a corrugated-metal maroon star topper.
She sighs but doesn't stop him.
"Where are we doing this?"
"Right here in front of the window?" she murmurs, then glances around the room. "No, wait. Actually, in the dining room."
He follows her with the two tree boxes and the bag of decorations. She adjusts the advent calendar and indicates the clear side of the table in front of the window.
"Yeah," she says softly, and looks up to give him a smile. She's wearing plaid pajama pants and a sweatshirt; her feet are bare and curling on the wood floor. She seems both smaller and somehow entirely more present, more with him, than he's seen in a long time.
He helps her pull the fir tree out of the box, unwrap the limbs, arrange their wiry spokes, and fluff them up. The needles scrape a little, but she's quiet as she works beside him, studying it from all angles, adjusting a wired branch, making it perfect.
Her apartment is dark, the shutters pulled, the blinds closed, but it's also familiar and warm against the winter night. He texted his daughter from the store, so no one is waiting up on him at home; he's faintly surprised by how comfortable it is here at her place, how much he fits.
"Here," he says, and hands her the faux-velvet, navy tree skirt. "I had to pick a color theme."
She huffs a laugh at him, but takes the material, slides it under the black pot that serves as a base for the tree. He watches her brush her fingers over the material and wishes he could've gotten the chance to purchase nicer stuff, decorations not from the walgreens on the corner.
"Do you know what you're doing for Christmas?" he asks suddenly, breaking into the box of lights and pulling them out.
"I usually end up working that day or the days around it," she admits, shrugging at him. "I don't have to go in; I'm just on call. Perks of being a Detective Second Grade."
"Did you last year?"
"Was I on call? Yeah. For Christmas Eve. Christmas Day I spent with my dad at his cabin though. And I had the next two days off as well. So it was nice."
"And this year, Kate?" He just doesn't want her to be alone. Even if she is on call, even if she's got to run in for a body, he wants her to be interrupting something, wants her to have something to come home to at the end of the day.
"This year I'm headed for my dad's place on the 20th. Tuesday. Our team's on call that weekend before, so I get comp days."
"What about Christmas Day? It's a Sunday this year, and you're usually off on weekends."
"I don't know yet, Castle." She avoids his eyes, slowly threading the lights along each branch of the little tree. "I am usually off. But I might be playing catch-up all week."
"Oh no," he says softly, rubbing his forehead. He thought he planned it just right. "The Christmas party is the 16th. You guys are all on call?"
"That's Friday right?"
"Yeah."
"We're not on call until Saturday morning at six. So it's okay. Just maybe no egg nog."
He sighs loudly, but then can't help grinning again, ducks his head to look at her. "That means you're coming."
"I said I was, didn't I?"
"Yeah, but that's like. . .official."
"Fine, officially, I'm coming."
He likes to hear it. And not just for the dirty way his brain will record it to play back later.
She shakes her head at him (as if she knows) and threads the lights into the last branch at the bottom, then tucks the strand under the skirt and over the table to the wall outlet.
When she plugs it in, the red, blue, pink, green and yellow lights glow along the tree's limbs, making multi-colored displays along the walls, the back of the advent calendar, Kate's face. Castle can't help watching her as she stares at the tree, looking hypnotized by it.
"It's pretty," he says softly, not wanting to break the spell, but so grateful she included him.
"Oh. Let me get the snowflake," she murmurs and heads around him to the wooden row of apartment buildings. She reaches inside the window and pulls out the tiny snowflake ornament, giving Castle a smile that makes her eyes bright.
His breath catches; she leans in and loops the silvery thread over a branch at the top, angling the snowflake just so. She grins back at him and his chest squeezes tight.
"All right. Now for the rest of the stuff you bought," she says, holding out her hand for more.
He wants to take her home with him, pull out their three storage boxes worth of Christmas tree ornaments, let her unwrap the tissue paper from the glass balls his mother bought in Vienna, the baby's first Christmas ornament, the hand-made felt stars that an aunt sent when he was a kid, the lifesaver roll made into a reindeer, the pipe cleaner creations, Alexis's glitter and crayon first grade masterpiece, the brass spider with the missing eye, the knitted bells, and the many crazy ornaments his family has collected over the years.
He wants to tell their stories as she takes them out, one by one, and he wants - so badly - for her to be a part of those stories. Even if just by listening.
"Here, you do the garland. I'm no good at that," she murmurs, handing him the package and taking the faux-velvet navy ornaments for herself.
Castle slowly unwraps the garland from its plastic sheath, spreads it out, untangling the strand, and then starts at the top. When they're done decorating this tree, he's going to insist on putting the fiber optic one in her kitchen or something, just to prolong this moment, the two of them in her apartment, sharing a Christmas tradition.
It's only been nine days since he started this, but he feels like his life has been altered forever.
He wants her to feel the same.