Title: Good For You

Disclaimer: Honestly, I don't know that I could maintain that amount of tension.

Summary: When the Dragon is slain, there's just a life to be lived. And sometimes there's more to learn in peace than in war.

Chapter 14:

If Nikki and Rook were chasing a suspect down along the Seine, what are the chances she'd be willing to jack a small scull and row after him? Who's he kidding? She's Nikki Heat. And he knows he'd do it, so Rook definitely would.

He gave up trying to distance himself from his fictional counterpart a while ago. In fact, he'll have to go through this damn thing with a fine-tooth comb to make sure he hasn't actually stolen too many of his own words—his words to Kate this past summer—things spoken in the dead of night into her hair because she couldn't meet his eyes and he couldn't bare to see the pain in hers.

Kate shifts beside him and rolls over, her arm flopping over his laptop. He laughs softly and thanks his fast reflexes for saving just before she accidentally clicked him out of Word. Her nose scrunches up and she lets out a small snort before smacking her lips a few times. He's disgustingly besotted by this adorable woman. It's a little sad.

"Wha'reya doin?" she mumbles, blinking her eyes open as she retracts her arm, obviously uncomfortable with it plastered over his laptop.

"Was writing, but you made me quit," he whispers, reaching out to smooth an errant curl from her face. "Go back to sleep."

"Why are you writing?" she asks, snuggling closer as he slides the laptop onto the side table, shutting it gently. "Stopping?"

"Bed just got more interesting," he says as he shuffles down to lay beside her, flattening his backrest of pillows as he goes. She huffs as one of them slides over her face.

He chuckles and tosses it away, replacing it with his hand as he cups her cheek. "M'not interesting?" she wonders, pressing closer so their legs tangle together.

She's such a cuddler. He'd never have guessed, but he loves it about her. "You are, but I thought staring at you for the past three hours might have exceeded even my limits."

She hums in agreement and turns her cheek to kiss his hand. "Having trouble sleeping?" He nods and smiles as she runs her fingers over his arm. "Something wrong?"

"No," he assures her quickly. He's just a child, that's all. "I'm excited."

She laughs, the sound loud and free, her hand curling around his tee shirt. "You're such a kid," she manages as she snuggles closer and brushes their noses together. "Excited about the train."

"I like trains," he offers inanely, grinning as she laughs again, so very relaxed in their amazing bed at the Comfort Inn just down the block from the Agawa Canyon train station. "They're cool."

"So cool you can't sleep?"

He leans in and presses their lips together in a light kiss. She's sluggish against him, but so warm and soft, and when he pulls away, she's watching him with such amusement that he can't possibly stop the grin on his face.

"That, and I got a little inspired, maybe," he admits.

"Inspired?"

"I am spending 24/7 with my muse right now."

She scrunches her face at him but she's smiling and he feels her fingers dancing along his arm. "So what are Nikki and Rook up to this time?"

"Nikki's weighing the moral implications of stealing a boat to follow a suspect down the Seine," he tells her, watching as she listens with thinly veiled rapt attention. She is such a fangirl. Might be a little cruel to get that out of her tonight—putting her at a sleepy disadvantage.

"They're in Paris?" she asks, eyes wide and sparkling. "You took them to Paris?"

"Yeah?"

She opens her mouth a few times and her eyes move back and forth as she thinks. "How—why are they—she's with the NYPD," she decides, bringing her confused gaze back to his. "How the hell do they end up in Paris?"

"You'll find out," he says automatically. Huh, wrong answer.

She pounces on him, straddling him with a deft accuracy that should not be possible two minutes after waking up. But he can't focus on her surprising agility, not when she's tickling him. Tickling him! That's her retaliation?

"Ka—Kate," he pants out, trying to twist out of her ridiculously strong grip on his hips. "Uncle. Uncle!"

"Tell me the story," she demands, unrelenting.

Tears leak out of his eyes as he laughs and tries to grab at her hands, or roll them over, or gain some kind of leverage. But damn, the woman is strong and sneaky and so ungodly sexy.

"Can't. Can't breathe," he cries out, laughing so hard his stomach starts to cramp. "Kate!"

She laughs and eases up, gentling down to a caress that he's too winded to enjoy, her fingers light and soft against his chest.

"Who knew Richard Castle could be taken down by tickling."

"Obviously no one who's been a victim of yours. My God, woman," he wheezes, sprawled out beneath her, thoroughly spent.

"Tell me the story, Castle," she insists, digging her fingers into his flesh, halfway between a tickle and a claw.

"You don't want to be surprised?" he asks, delighted and confused. She's not normally one to skip to the last page of anything.

She looks down at him, hovering there in a tank top and a pair of his boxers, hair tousled and eyes over-bright with sleep. He watches as she nibbles on her lip, considering him, her head tilted to the side in thought.

"I—" she begins. She huffs and runs a finger along the line of his throat, contemplative rather than arousing. "I guess not."

She meets his eyes and shakes her head with a small smile. "You sure?" he asks, open to the idea of telling her.

The more he imagines it, with her there, cuddled against him, letting him tell her a story—their extended story—the more it appeals to him. But on the other hand, he wants her to read it, wants her to the be the first one. He wants her to pad into his office and smack him, or kiss him, or cry, or laugh—wants to see her face once she's finished that final chapter.

"Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to sit next to you while you write my favorite story?" she grumbles out. Her eyes widen a second later, and he thanks everything he can think of for sleepy, open Kate. Then again, it kind of looks like she's about to run and hide in the bathroom.

"I'm guessing really frustrating?" he says, reaching up to cover one of her hands, which have gone slightly rigid on his chest.

To her credit, she's doing an admirable job of keeping her cool. But the gentle flare of her nostrils and that extra millimeter of white around her eyes give her away. He waits her out, overly eager to tease it out of her, but somehow aware that he'd ruin something if he makes fun of her for it. Vulnerable—she looks vulnerable.

"Yeah," she sighs, finally meeting his eyes. "Infuriating, really."

"I didn't really see this as a problem when I started writing about you," he tells her, leaving her hands to skate his palms up her sides.

She slackens over him and he tugs her down against his chest, smiling as she presses her face into his shirt. Apparently she's vulnerable and shy. This trip was the best idea ever. He gets to learn so much about her, commits it all to memory.

They're quiet for a long while as he absently strokes up and down her back while her fingers toy with his sleeve and play with his hair. He thinks maybe she's fallen asleep, and the warm weight of her is lulling him down, squelching out the excitement and inspiration and random adrenaline, turning him into a large slab of sleepy mush beneath his stunning woman.

"My mom read your books," she whispers and his eyes pop open, his heart stuttering in his chest. "She liked them, kept raving about them," she continues, leaving his sleeve to trail her hand up to cover his heart. "And out of principle, I didn't read them."

He laughs, startled, and feels her smiling. "I'm hurt?"

She shakes her head against him with a small hum. "Don't be. It was our thing. Advice, boys, hair—I was rather willing to take her opinions on that. Books? If she liked it, I wouldn't read it. And I was going through a Russian phase at the time; your books were too puny."

"Oh, man, were you one of those girls toting around Tolstoy? No guy actually wants to carry your books if they're that big, you know."

She whacks him gently and he chuckles, winding his hand up to card through her hair. "Figured that out on my own," she offers after a moment. "Small purses and California shorts do not mix with big books."

"See, mine come in pocket-size," he says, laughing as she bumps him with her nose.

"So, yeah, Mom and I did not see eye to eye on you and your mysteries."

She's quiet for a moment, breathing against him. He feels her open her mouth a few times, but nothing comes out. "What changed?" he asks gently.

She shudders and then curls her hand into his shirt, bunching the fabric, pulling it taught over his shoulder. "She died."

He lets out a breath and hugs her to him, weaving through her hair to find the back of her neck as one of her legs slides up over his hip, searching for her own chest. But he's there, and she doesn't have to curl into a ball all on her own.

"We didn't—we didn't have DVR when she died," she says quietly, her voice a little rough and tight. He feels her hand leave his chest to swipe at her cheek and he bends his head up to press a kiss to the crown of her head. "So I couldn't watch her favorite TV shows, and I asked my dad for," she pauses to suck in a breath. "For home videos but he couldn't—"

She trails off and he feels like he can see her crouched by her father's armchair, easing a bottle of Jack Daniels out of his hand, teary-eyed, asking for tapes of her mother. He hopes Jim tried, smiled, something. But the way she breathes against him now, in short gasps that speak of suppressed sobs—they tell him that maybe Jim couldn't talk, couldn't hear her, couldn't listen. They tell him so much and not enough.

"So all I had were your books. The pictures hurt, and talking to Dad—" she breaks off and shakes her head. "But the books were real, and she had this blanket—this big, black fuzzy thing."

"It's on your couch," he murmurs, picturing the black, furry blanket he draped over her one night when she passed out as they poured over evidence, squashed together on the sofa.

She nods. "It smelled like her," she whispers. "And I took it into her office and this armchair, and she had your books on her shelf so I just…read."

Read. Read his books after her mother died. Read them because they were, they are, he is the last connection she had to her mother. It swells in him, a mix of love and wonder and crushing grief. He opens his mouth but nothing comes out.

"Your books were my mom for a long time," she breathes against him.

This time he does shudder, can't help it. "I love you," is all he can manage, and it hardly seems enough, not after this. What she's handing him, telling him—never in his wildest dreams did he think his books meant this much to her.

He feels her press her lips to his collarbone, lingering there for a long moment before she pulls back and rises up to meet his eyes. "I came to a signing once."

He feels his eyes grow as she sniffles and smiles slyly. "You…what?"

"Waited for a hour and got up there and kind of froze," she continues, smiling more now. "And you were actually really nice about it."

"You? Freeze?" he repeats, baffled by the very thought. "I can't—you came to a signing and I don't remember?" How could he not remember? She'd have been younger, with the short hair, probably. How could he not remember her? Surely he did. Surely it was just his mind playing tricks…for four years.

She leans forward and presses her lips to his cheek before she laughs against him. "I don't expect you to remember."

"But," he protests. He wants to. He really, really wants to.

"You smiled and asked for my name, where I was from, got me comfortable enough to smile when you handed it back," she tells him, her lips caressing his skin with every word, her warm breath calming his tense neck. How can he honestly not remember her? "I was nothing special," she adds, trying, he supposes, to soothe him.

"Nothing special?" he lets out, a little louder than he probably should. "You're you."

She laughs and squeezes his neck where she's curled her hand around his tendons. "I wasn't me to you then."

"You were still you. And you were…were you still hurting?"

She's quiet for a pause and he feels her inhale against him, her body soft and tight and tense at once. "Have I ever stopped?" she asks, and he thinks maybe she's asking herself more than him. "But I was…less. I hurt less then. It was maybe, gosh, five years before you showed up?"

That puts her at about 24, he figures. A few less lines, maybe. Maybe she wore flats that day. Maybe she wasn't his Kate then. But she was. She's always been her. How could he have missed her?

"Stop," she says, her tired voice a dull command. "Please don't beat yourself up because you don't remember one day almost eight years ago."

He sighs and nods, brushing their noses together as she finds his eyes. "Okay," he concedes. "Okay, I can't remember you then."

She smiles. "Good. I kind of like the idea that for you, the first time we met was when I brought you in for questioning."

He laughs. "You were very sexy."

"And you were such a jack ass," she replies, affection lacing her words, even as she shakes her head.

"Yeah, sorry about that," he offers. It tumbles out and they stare at each other. Was he sorry before she told him all of it? Before he knew he was something important in her life before she was in his?

"Don't be," she decides, stroking her thumb beneath his eye. "I may have kind of hated your guts, but I also kinda liked you, just a bit."

"Liked me, liked me?" he asks, catching her tone, catching her direction, catching her as they fall back into familiar territory.

She rolls her eyes and purses her lips, but nods, giving him clarification they both know he doesn't need. She plays along anyway. "Yeah, Castle. I liked you, liked you."

"Awesome," he says, grinning as she lets out a sigh befitting of paperwork and Beckett and New York.

But she kisses him, there in Sault Ste. Marie, in the dark middle of the night, with her body pressing against his.

"Can I read the galley copy?" she whispers as they pull apart and he peppers kisses along her jaw, gently rolling them over.

He opens his eyes and leans back to find hers. "First one," he promises.

She smiles and reaches up to feather her fingers along his temple. "I missed it last summer," she says as her hand slides to cup his cheek.

"I didn't know if you'd—you needed space," he offers lamely, awkwardly.

She pulls her lips between her teeth and nods, running her other hand along his shoulder. "This time I'd like you close," she says. "There for questions."

"Really?" he asks, surprised, and pleased as something soothes over a year-old wound. "You want me to watch you read my book?"

"Too weird for you?"

"Isn't it too weird for you?" he tosses back.

She laughs and arches up to catch his lips briefly before falling back to the bed. "I've gotten used to you watching me do all sorts of things."

He snickers before he can stop himself. She's trying to have a real moment. Get it together, man. "Good," he mumbles, hoping she'll take it in stride.

"And now you can watch me go to sleep," she says, grinning as she drops her hands and brings her arms back behind her head, shutting her eyes playfully.

"Ka-ate," he whines, bending to lave at the spot just below her jaw.

She holds out for about a minute, but he feels her start to squirm, her hips wiggling beneath his about ten second before her arms snap out to wrap around his shoulders, one hand on the back of his neck to yank him up to her mouth.

"You know," she gasps as they pull apart to tear his shirt off. "Never thought I'd be in bed with you way back then," she admits while he grips the bottom of her tank top and guides it over her head.

"Does it," he starts, stalling to pull her bottom lip between his, sinking onto her as she lets out that little moan he loves so much. "You happy?" he manages. It's less eloquent than he wants, but it'll have to do.

She guides him back to meet her eyes, her chest heaving against his. "I am," she says softly, frank and earnest and tender. "Thank you."

He bends to press his lips to her nose, pulling away to kiss her eyelids where she's closed her eyes, breathing slowly. "Don't thank me for loving you," he whispers, feeling like at some point they cracked open his chest, and he's leaking out his heart.

"No," she says, her breath warm at his lips as he rests his forehead against hers. "Thank you for being more than a guy on a book jacket."

(…)

"Do you want the window?"

"You sure?" he asks, eyeing the seat eagerly even as he tries to hold onto those manners his mother taught him years ago.

She laughs and shoves on his shoulder, pushing him into the seat so he can scoot across and claim the best view out the window. They're going to ride across and into Agawa Canyon and then spend two hours exploring before heading back to the city, and he really shouldn't be this excited, but he can't help it.

"You really like trains," she says as she settles next to him, squishing around to get comfortable. He wonders absently if being so thin is ever uncomfortable for her—if maybe last summer sitting and standing and carrying things dug into her tender stomach, her emaciated figure.

"I do," he replies, dragging himself out of it. This is not the day to wonder over the miracles of Kate's health. "But come on, you're excited too."

She regards him with a blank face for a moment before a slow smile spreads across her cheeks. "Maybe a little."

"You sure you'll be warm enough?" he asks, eyeing her thin jacket—leather, but hardly robust, though it does hug every single one of her curves.

"I'll be just fine," she assures him, giving him a look that definitely telegraphs, 'leave it.'

The train shudders into life and he watches expectantly out the window, even though the view is of the platform and the few relatives waving goodbye to excited children. They'll be back tonight, but it does feel a little bit like a voyage—a full day on the train, seeing the wonders of nature. Really, when was the last time he went on a real vacation? He's thoroughly too poetic.

"Did you pack a camera?" she asks a few minutes later, hands searching through the small backpack she brought with them.

"I have my phone," he says, pulling it out to snap a photo of her there next to him, brown leather coat open, shades tipping on her head as she brushes her french braid back over her shoulder.

"Don't do that," she says, eyes still glued to the bottom of the bag as her hand searches.

"Do what?" he asks innocently, turning his phone in his palm so it looks like he's just searching the web. "Did you know that ducks are monogamous?"

She looks over at him with her brow arched, not taking it. "Come up with a better cover. And yes, everyone knows that."

He shrugs, unrepentant, and pockets his phone again, reaching out to stall her fruitless search. He doesn't remember her packing a camera back at her apartment.

"Our phones'll do. The cameras are pretty good."

She sighs and gives up, settling back and dropping the bag between their feet. "You're right."

He grins and turns to look back out the window, resisting the urge to gloat. It would be petty, and he doesn't want to start the day by being an ass. But then all thoughts of gloating are pushed from his head as they begin speeding along the countryside. They sat on the left side of the train, and so they get to see the lake flashing by, geese flying low over the water. The sun sparkles along the choppy surface, glinting out in all directions, and he hears her suck in a breath next to him.

"It's gorgeous," she mumbles, scooting closer to rest her chin on his shoulder as he angles his body to get a better view.

She wraps her arms around his neck, wrists crossing over his chest and he smiles as she presses a kiss to his skin before resting her head beside his.

"Good choice?" he asks, reaching up to squeeze her hand.

"Very good," she whispers. "Now be quiet and watch the nature."

"Yes, dear," he says, laughing as she nips at his ear. Very good choice indeed.