Misconception
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Castle works his jaw, not looking at her, wonders if this - from her - is heart-breaking or just impressive. She's a master in the interrogation room, and she's just done it to him now: lead him down the primrose path.
Because he's him, he's impressed (and a little turned on). And while the idea of not having the safety net of Mr Smith makes him anxious over her, Castle's mind is already working, trying to stay ahead of her. She makes him sharp; she always has.
"What happens if we do it together?" he says.
Her heart lifts into her eyes. He can actually see it, see how much that means to her, to have the chance. Not that he's giving her permission, but there's a sense that if they do this together, then their safety net is each other. She tricked him, but she's right. It was stupid to blunder around in this case without back-up.
"How far have you gotten?" she says. A little too excited for his liking. Is that fervor in her eyes or just the spark of building theory?
"Not far," he admits, frowning. "And even though the thought of you going back to your mom's case makes me nervous-"
"Nervous?" she scoffs. But he sees it at the back of her eyes. She is too. All this work she's done on that wall, and it might be unmade by this case.
He rubs the back of his neck. "I thought it wouldn't be manly to say scared shitless."
Her eyebrow quirks. He's not one for casual cursing; if he says it, he means it with every nuance of its power. It terrifies him to think of her going back to her mother's case, and it has nothing to do with the pregnancy, and everything to do with pressing his hands into the entrance wound on her chest and feeling her blood, warm and thick, pulsing out around his fingers.
"Okay," she says carefully. "I can understand that fear, but I'll be careful."
"We will be careful."
She reaches out and snags him by the finger, squeezing. His ring finger, he realizes. A band of her own making. "We'll be careful. We won't do it through the precinct, nothing official, nothing on the books. You and me, we'll have each other's backs. We'll be smart."
He nods, his throat bobbing with the sudden urge to cry. He's that relieved. It's been weighing on him since her shooting, this oppressive cloud of responsibility, alone in the middle of it, hoping he could stop her before she made it all fall apart. "I never thought I would keep it from you," he gets out. "I never thought I'd purposefully keep anything back when-"
"But you did."
"Because they'll kill you," he croaks. He shakes his head and clears his throat. "They will kill you, Kate. This is much bigger than some organized crime boss; it's-"
"I know," she says, gripping his fingers in her own. "And as much as I'm not happy about what you did, it's also about what you've done. For me. Even knowing how I'd react, you still-"
"I'm sor-"
"No. Rick," she says, catching his other hand and pressing their clasped grip against her. "I'm - despite myself - impressed. You knew you were risking us - but you did it anyway to keep me safe. And while I'm frustrated, I am, and it's going to take me time to work through-" She huffs and grips his hands harder. "Did I say yet I've got issues? A damn wall? You keep managing to run me into bricks."
Castle lets out a little laugh, surprised by the way her frustration bubbles up. She's moved from certainty to something a little more insecure, as if she can't bear to let it out into the light. She's kind of adorable, and never in a million years did he think he would use adorable to describe her.
"Yeah, I think I heard something about a wall," he says, smiling at her. "Might be the thing that's kept me going. Waiting for the day it's finally gone."
She blushes. He can't remember ever seeing her move through so many variations of emotion, all these shades of feeling. No wonder they've never talked plainly before; it's all over her face and brimming in her eyes.
"Well, I turn around and run up against big chunks of it - and this is one of them. But I also realize - what if it was you? What if they said, you have to stop or Castle is-"
She bites her bottom lip, glancing away, and is she about to cry?
He can't quite believe this is where they are. He hasn't even had a chance to make dinner; they're just standing in his kitchen. This whole agonizing, amazing conversation has taken maybe thirty minutes.
His whole life turned upside down in thirty minutes.
She lets out a huffing breath, frowns intently, staring somewhere past his shoulder. "I'm still struggling with this idea that you've been doing this, my mom's case, my - but not anymore. Not alone, Castle." Something strange flares to life in her face and she suddenly presses both of his hands into her abdomen. "Oh, God. We're really not alone."
For one long, horrifying second, all he can do is stare at her.
Kate Beckett is pregnant. He - he - they-
"I'm getting you a ring," he blurts out.
"What?"
"A promise ring."
"Castle, that's - sweet, but-"
He nudges into her stomach, strokes the backs of his fingers over her shirt. It's still halfway unbuttoned and he has a fierce urge to reach inside, take. But he grips her hands harder instead. "Partners, in this too, wherever it takes us, Kate."
"Part-partners," she whispers.
"I'm getting you a promise ring. Because I know you don't want to get married-"
"I said yes-"
"Kate. I saw the look on your face in my office," he says quickly. "After I explained. You had that what the hell have I agreed to? look. I know that one well. Married twice before, comes with the territory, as you've pointed out."
"Are you going to be snarky and passive-aggressive for all of our marriage?"
He startles. She's not laughing, but she does look faintly amused. He wants to unbutton her shirt and draw it off of her, and it's making his words come out stupid. "I learn from the best," he says. "But enough about my mother-"
Kate laughs, sounding absolutely horrified that she's laughing, but he smiles back, relieved. He keeps swinging wildly back and forth between childish hurt and needy desperation, and yet here she is. But his mouth can't seem to stop.
"You want a long engagement - I know you. You'll probably put me off for years," he sighs.
"Castle," she chides.
He grows serious once more, fiddling with the stupid metal band he took from his maglite. A really excellent tactical flashlight that he bought the day the mayor appointed him to follow Detective Beckett and her team, and it has symbolism for him, but it's just a piece of metal that doesn't fit.
"I'm getting you a ring. A promise ring. Partners. Because that's what this means to me," he says, holding her fingers apart to work the band. "That's what our marriage would be for me. Partnership."
"You're using the conditional tense," she murmurs, like a soft rebuke.
He lets out a breath, wishing that had gone past her. "I did. I am. Because it's not - necessary, Kate. I got excited and you were right, my first instinct is to marry you and jump right into it. Dive in together-"
She lets out a noise.
He can't look. "It's not practical, and after sometime, and the baby has grown, maybe it's not what you want for your life - a marriage that's only a convenience for you - and then what happens when it's not even that. I don't want that for you. Or - or me." But with her he does, even if she doesn't love him as desperately as he does her. "I've had that kind of marriage, for too long, and it sucks. But this? Partners? Yeah. No matter what. That's my promise. That's what I can give you. That might be all I can give you."
"You're an idiot." She steps into him and suddenly her arms are thrown around his neck, her body pressed against his and flaring heat all through him. Her mouth comes to his ear. "You're such an idiot, Rick Castle."
He hesitates to embrace her back, hesitates to let himself, afraid that if he holds her, he won't want to ever let her go. "Don't disparage me," he gets out. "That's the - hardest thing I've ever had to say." He's shaking, he thinks, and so he clutches at her. "Worse than telling you about the deal with Smith."
"Then actually listen to me, Castle, when I'm talking to you. It's not a marriage of convenience," she growls at his neck. "You think any of this is convenient?"
"I-"
"No, don't. You don't get to talk any more. My turn, Castle, before you break my heart." She pulls her head back, cradles his face. "What's happened to you, Rick, that you let go so fast? You just quit on us and didn't even give me the chance to really screw it up."
He stares back at her.
"Was it Meredith?" Her fingers are so soft on his face, but her grip is strong. "Gina, perhaps, all business. Or your mother-? Oh. Oh, no. It was me. Did I do this?"
"What?" he croaks.
"Did I do this to you? Make you so hesitant to believe in me."
"I believe in you," he cries out.
"Then believe in us. You think I would be here now, still here, after everything we've said to each other, after you made this stupid deal for my life without even telling me, when it could have-" She squeezes her eyes shut, shakes her head, opens them again with a glare. "After all this, I better be getting an engagement ring, Rick Castle, not some teenager's promise ring. And you have serious money, so it better be a serious rock."
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