December 14 - Here With Me
Pretty lights on the tree
I'm watching them shine
You should be here with me
-Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), Death Cab for Cutie
Kate stares at the miniature tree set up on the side table in front of the office window. The lights blur in her vision, pinks and oranges and yellows running to a smear of gold. The laptop across her thighs falls asleep with inactivity, the darkness of the night drawing heavily down over her.
She's alone.
"Katherine, darling, where's Richard?"
Kate drags her gaze from the little tree, turns her head to see Martha standing in the doorway of the office, her gloves in one hand, coat thrown over her arm. Back from whatever sparkling holiday party she attended.
Kate glances at the time on the desk clock, sits up straight when she realizes it's after midnight. "He said he was going for a walk."
"Oh," Martha says sympathetically, that cluck of her tongue. She comes into the office and sits on the arm of the couch right at Kate's shoulder. "I understand, darling. It's natural to have these little spats. Although... you didn't go after him?"
"I didn't - what?" She puts her feet on the ground and closes the lid of the computer, disconnecting herself from work email. "We didn't have a fight. Well, we sort of had a conversation earlier, but he went on his walk a little after dinner."
"After dinner... four hours ago?"
Kate presses two fingers to her lips, eyes narrowing. "It wasn't a huffy, storming-off-mad kind of walk." Was it?
"Oh, but it was. You know Richard; he wants attention for his drama llamas. He's probably freezing to death out there, too stubborn to come in when you haven't gone out after him."
And now she feels terrible. He always said his mother laid an excellent guilt trip, and was he ever right. Welcome to the family, Kate.
But it is after midnight. And he did leave awhile ago.
"Dad's not here?"
Kate sighs, lifting her head to see Alexis in the doorway. The girl has her coat thrown over her arm in much the same manner as her grandmother, and really, lately, the two of them have been thick as thieves, parroting each other, ganging up, a united front.
You didn't do your poem? Oh, it really is a big deal.
Yup, Kate is screwed.
"Kate, Dad's - is he missing?"
"No!" Kate blurts out, swiftly getting to her feet. "He's not missing, Alexis. He went for a walk. I know exactly where he is."
"Well. Where is he?"
"Um. I don't know right this second." Kate digs her phone out of her back pocket, swallows at the looks the two redheads are giving her. "I will know where he is. He let me lojack his phone."
Alexis actually relaxes, though she doesn't offer up her once-easy smiles, just a tight pinch of her mouth.
"Okay," Kate sighs, "okay. All right. I'm going."
She finds him easily enough, following the map on her phone with its step by step directions, her shoulders hunched against the cold. Castle is sitting alone in one of their swings inside the park, his hands dangling between his knees, his head bowed.
He looks so lonesome that she's stricken where she stands, unable to move past the fence. Has he really been so upset this whole time? She thought this was about her apartment, but now she doesn't know.
His head falls back, face to the sky, his throat working once like he can't swallow it back.
I'm just a man, he told her.
Yes, but he's the man she's in love with, the man who loves her, and she can't help feeling like their love story imbues him with some kind of power. Over her. Power over their world.
He's Richard Castle. The writer. She stood in line to get one of his books signed; she was crazy over him in a still-waters-run-deep kind of way. The night she crashed his book release party with the intention of asking him some pointed and rather accusatory questions, she was electric and breathless at the idea of confronting him, battling wits with the man who'd written Derrick Storm.
And then he really was just a man. He opened his mouth and gave her the smarmy persona she didn't want to believe was real - but of course did believe because she's wired to distrust anything she likes too much.
It was love at first read, not love at first sight. But she fell in love with him anyway, over time, all of him: the writer, the sidekick, the partner, the man. And she's having trouble dismantling those identities he wears like cloaks to hide the parts he thinks no one is interested in seeing.
She's interested. She wants to see him.
Tonight in the silvery darkness, she knows now that she's wounded this man who wounded her first, and it's not an excuse or a good reason, but it's life. And they will try harder and maybe not even do better the next time, but they keep trying.
She starts walking his way, filled up with resolve, determination and apologies, and that's when the snow begins to fall.
Kate comes to a halt right before the swings and Castle's eyes close into the snow, a breath so deep it fills his chest.
"Kate," he sighs.
She opens her palms to the air and watches the snow touch her skin and melt. But it sticks to the frost-laced ground, covering the grass and dirt and wood chips, even freezing against the metal of the swing set.
She tracks the ruts in the ground to the swing and sinks down into the cold rubber seat beside his, stiffening as the chill races through her. Castle isn't looking at her.
"Hey, Rick, pretty long walk you took," she starts off.
He shrugs. "Just kept going." His cheek leans against his hand gripping the chain. "Didn't mean to stay out so late."
She nods. "This about the apartment? Because I owe you an apology-"
"It's not about that," he says, shoulders coming up. At least he looks at her. Softly, gentleness in his gaze.
Like he wants to let her down easy.
Her stomach flips.
"I just - didn't expect to get kicked out of the one place I ever managed to make a difference to someone-"
"What did I tell you about that?" she cuts in, eyebrows knitting together. "Your books mean more than that. You're sidelining your work, Castle, when you say the 12th is more important."
He closes his mouth, shakes his head.
She didn't do that right; she didn't say the right thing. She's messing it all up. "Your books saved me, Castle."
His eyes hold steady on hers; she doesn't doubt he knows.
He just wants more. He always wants more. "The 12th Precinct is where you took me seriously," he says. "That's where you let me in, and yeah, maybe I forced my way in." A self-deprecating half-smile is crooked on his mouth. "Where Captain Montgomery sat at his desk, where he told me that you'd listen to me. You wouldn't listen to anyone else, but you'd listen to me."
She offers him her hand across the foot of space between their swings and he takes it. She squeezes. "I listened. Didn't always like it, but I heard you."
"That's gone. You said it, you know? We were supposed to do it together. Partners. Catching killers. Back and forth."
"I know," she husks. It kills her that he did this; he did this. He made a stupid blood oath with the stupid mob and now he's tainted; he can't work with her any longer. But that's also Castle, her husband - he takes a blood oath. "Believe me, I miss you too. I guess I thought we'd always be doing this. Until I retired."
"He said he wouldn't take the law into his own hands. He promised," Castle says, looking bleak. "And I believed him. I really thought he'd honor his word."
"What'd you expect when you work with the mob?" she can't help saying. "It's not like people change, Castle-"
"You changed."
She shuts her mouth, closes her eyes, feels the gentle touch of snow layering over her lashes.
"And I changed too," he says quietly. "Tell me I didn't. When we met, Kate, I was about as far away from husband material as I could get. I'd just gone through a pretty nasty divorce, killed my main character in the hopes I'd get out of my funk. I've changed. Tell me I've changed."
She opens her eyes, blinking past white blurs of flakes falling from her lashes. "You've changed," she promises.
He takes in a sharp breath, closes his eyes against her. "And so have you."
That feels like an accusation. She's changed, but in good ways too. "I'm not holed up in my dad's cabin, am I?" she says. "I'm not dead. And I would be if I hadn't changed. If our partnership hadn't changed me. For the better. Change is good."
His fingers squeeze hers back, but his clutch has some desperation in it, gripping her hand. His gaze finally comes back to hers, intent, like he's gearing up for something big. "Change is good. It's like you said, Kate. I thought we'd be partners until we decided differently."
She nods, opens her mouth, but he cuts right across.
"But maybe not your retirement. I thought I'd be a stay at home dad again."
The breath leaves her in a rush, her eyes blinking through thickening snow.
He lets go of her hand, grips the chains of the swing, and leans back. His head tilts towards the sky, his own lashes thick with flakes. "Yeah. That's what I thought."
She's mute.
"You know, I remember waking up in the hospital and seeing my family there. Alexis and Mother. But it was all out of balance. They were one side and you were the other. Only you weren't there; they were tipping the scales, but it was all out of whack in my chest. And I knew - knew then that everything had changed."
She presses her eyes closed.
"I just didn't know how badly it had changed. And even - even after - after you wouldn't look at me the same, I thought, I thought - I can make this right. God, I had no idea."
"Castle-"
"And it's killing me." She can hear him standing up; she doesn't want to open her eyes to watch it happen. Watch him leave her now for good. "It's killing me that I can't change this. I did it once before. And I meant it when I said I'd wait for you all over again; I'm trying. But now I don't even have the precinct, Kate. I've got no way to make inroads. How am I supposed to do this all over again if we're not even partners?"
She jumps to her feet, flings herself at him, tucking her body into his, arms around his neck. "We are partners. Don't say that. We are."
His hands come hesitantly to her back, barely touching her, but he buries his face against her neck. "We're not."
"Stop saying that," she mutters. "I didn't mean to - to make you wait. You've waited enough. I-"
"Why did everything have to change?" he growls, suddenly gripping her hard. "Why does it have to be different? It's not different for me. I'm the same man."
But you're not the same woman.
She sinks back down on her heels, draws her arms down until just her palms rest against his chest. She doesn't know how to combat this.
"Castle, just - come home with me? We don't have the precinct, not like we did, but we have our home."
She hates the question in her voice, hates how suddenly she can feel the wind and the freezing temperature, how the snow sticks to her eyelashes and dampens the back of her neck.
"I want to go home," she says. "With you."
She takes his hand and tugs, pulling him away from the swings. She's so grateful when he follows that it is a weight melting in her chest, draining free.
They're going home.
They can figure it out from there.