I'm not asking for much
But I need a little time to find
What it is I want
And is it you this time?
I wish I could know you better
I wish I could know myself
I want it to be forever
But now I see it's only me
Standing on the edge of the world
And I don't want you to catch me
I want you to let me
Stand up here and walk on my own
I can't learn to love you
If you're all I know
'Standing On The Edge' Michelle Branch
A/N: Forgive me that this took an age, and know that I fully intend to finish this story even as it's now gone AU. In aid of that I've avoided the post 7x01 fanfics, and will continue to avoid them until after this is done.
Chapter Thirteen: All the things you know I'm not
When he gets back to the loft after his appointment he's relieved for an instant when he discovers Kate isn't home yet, then promptly feels horribly guilty about it. Alexis is around though and when she carefully asks him how he's doing, her clear blue eyes studying him tentatively, hopefully, the same way she looks at him every day now – so clearly looking for her father somewhere in his face - he feels guiltier still.
He gathers her into his arms in response to it, twirling her around as if she was much smaller, and when she laughs it feels wonderful, easing the tightness inside him immediately.
"Dad," she says breathlessly, "Put me down, you're still recovering."
Castle sets her back on her feet and assesses internally for a moment, nothing really hurts for once, and his body is getting its strength back every day now.
"I'm fine, Pumpkin," he says with a wide smile, the term of endearment rolling out of his mouth with the practiced ease of a thousand times before behind it, and he notices his daughter's eyes flare instantly with recognition. He rolls it around inside his head then, knowing it suddenly, and with Alexis now smiling his heart lightens. God, he wants more of her smiling; he wants more of her. His incredible daughter. He wants . . . no he needs, he needs to find her inside his mind, if he can just find her . . .
He feels like some of the balance of his life might be restored to him if can accomplish that, find his other loves. If he can find them, maybe he can find himself and everything falls back into place and everything he's worrying about just all goes away.
Maybe . . .
"Go and get your baby pictures," he tells her, his focused gaze alit with determination.
Alexis frowns. "But, Dad . . . You've already seen them," she points out, her head dropping down, smile dimming as she struggles to keep it on her face, "They didn't . . . I mean last time – they didn't help."
He can tell she's trying to disguise it but her voice is heavy with sadness, and it strikes him that perhaps it's weighing on Alexis too – that all he's managed to recover so far is only related to Kate. Taking a breath he reaches out his hand and slipping it beneath her chin he pushes it up with his index finger, forcing her to look at him again.
"But that was then, and this a brand new day," he tell her. "Please, Alexis. Show me again."
His daughter studies his face silently for a brief moment, then seeing something in his eyes she reaches for his other hand, lacing her fingers through his as she nods. She tugs him towards the stairs and he goes with optimism, determination thrumming deep in his veins.
When he wanders back the stairs alone two hours later however, the lost feeling that's been plaguing him for day after day has returned with a vengeance. Alexis has been persuaded to go out with some friends and have some fun, his mother is God-knows-where and the hours he's just spent staring at a pictography of his daughter's life, thousands of documented father/daughter moments are once more no closer to bringing him back memories of any of it.
He's so damn frustrated he could scream.
Padding into the darkened kitchen, he hits the lights and stares despondently around him. He knows he should be concentrating on the little things, the smaller victories, and he supposes it's at least something that the loft does feel like home. He finds comfort in the way he innately knows how to avoid the creaky floorboard that's halfway up the stairs. A sense of freedom in the way he can reach for power outlets and light switches here without thinking about it. He moves confidently in this space, knows where to find everything with ease, and he's thankful for the evidence this presents him with. Evidence that he belongs here – even when he's feeling like this.
Closing his eyes, the writer just hovers there, lets himself just breathe.
When his eyes re-open, he finds himself staring straight at the digital clock on the stove and frowning Castle realizes that this is the latest it's gotten in any day since he's been here without Kate coming home. His eyes go towards the loft's large windows and the dark sky beyond them, frown deepening as he debates calling her. Digging in his pants pocket, Castle pulls out the new cell phone she got him, unlocking it with his fingerprint, but before he can dial he hears a small noise coming from the direction of his bedroom and he pauses, obviously while he was occupied upstairs with Alexis he just didn't hear her come in.
Still, it's odd isn't it – that she didn't call out, or come upstairs and find him? What with the way she's found it so difficult to leave him every time she's gone to work or been called away. He was grateful earlier when he hadn't had to face her after his difficult session with Burke, but now – now he's . . . he needs to see her, he realizes suddenly. He needs her to be here.
Crossing the loft with quick steps, his healing body now moving with his usual long strides, he's through his office and turned towards the bedroom when he sees her, her slender, elegant frame crumpled in on itself as she sits on the floor beside the bed. She's staring intently at the large diamond gracing her left hand, the lamp on the nightstand casting half her face in shadow, half in light. Tear tracks bisect the side he can see clearly and the air in his lungs instantly deserts him.
Kate's unhappy, it slams into him everywhere. His heart aches, his stomach twists, his mind scrambles, he should know what to say, he should be able to alleviate this. Instead he just stares mutely, even considers fleetingly simply sneaking away.
But he wouldn't do that, would he?
Richard Castle – the man that this woman loves, he wouldn't leave her sitting there looking as lost as he's been feeling. His pushing her away, letting her think that he blames her for any of this, Burke said she'd called him in tears earlier this very day and he did that. He did this. He's put her there on the floor looking so desperately miserable and the bottom line is he can't stand it.
Loving her like this, so consuming, the only thing that he remembers at all is her and therefore he can't be the cause of this, this terrible misery. She's been through so damn much already.
"Kate-"He calls her name softly.
She turns her face entirely into the shadows in response, wiping her palms quickly over her damp cheeks in an attempt to mask her pain from him and something deep inside him snaps. He crosses the scant few feet between them in the space of breath and drops onto his knees beside her. Reaching out his hand it lands on her shoulder and she looks up into his face, trying for a calm expression and failing utterly.
Oh, Kate. Its agony for him to see her struggling, for there to be this distance that one minute he needs and almost wants and the next he just can't bear the burden of. Its' all so confusing and the only clear thought in his head is that he can't do this; he can't be responsible he just has to . . .
He's kissing her before his mind actually makes the decision to, lips moving over hers ardently, urgently. Pleading without words.
At first she doesn't respond, but then just as it's really dawning on him what he's doing, what he hasn't wanted to do without regaining all his memories of this, she gasps against his roving lips and the tiniest of sounds escapes her.
It's nothing really. Just the barest of gasps, but it pushes her open mouth against his own and it's an invitation he never has and never will have the strength to turn down. He claims her mouth completely instead, his tongue slipping inside and seeking out her taste. The hot cavern tastes like tears, like loss - emptiness. Need.
His temperature raises, a molten heat wave flooding his veins like a drug and in response his heart rate soars. Inside his chest the frantic thumping is somewhat erratic and then her tongue touches his, her lips firm and she begins kissing him back and . . . oh he knows this. He knows this so, so well. And suddenly he's missed it, its not memories exactly but instinct. How she feels in his arms now, crushed against his chest. How her mouth moves in counterpoint, in concert with his. How she breathes with him – through him, their kiss never breaking. The way their faces align without thought, bodies moving to be closer, always closer and God, it's never close enough is it.
Never could be close enough. He wants to absorb her, keep her safe and protected and his, always his. He's greedy for it.
The thought registers again within him that he didn't want to do this; he didn't want to become her lover once more when he can't fully recall being her lover before. It registers that this should not be happening because his memories haven't returned to him, because he's not a complete 'Richard Castle' just this confused man who loves her so passionately without remembering why.
It registers, it does. He even sees the aftermath, the self-recriminations, and the awkwardness that could potentially creep in between them. He feels a sense of loss even - for the hope that he's held of taking of this step forward with Kate when it's really him who's making it.
But it doesn't matter.
It just doesn't matter at all.
In this moment with her tears on his lips and the taste of her desperate longing on his tongue he can't do, or give, or be anything else but hers - hers entirely. His body and soul, his heart and mind, Kate needs him. She needs this him. Needs this from him and as she moans into his kiss, her fingers scraping against his skull as they fist into his hair he's already fully committed. So fully committed that he doesn't even move to relocate from the floor next to the bed, he just urges her body down beneath him. Growling at her as the rapidly hardening length of him centers between her thighs and her long, slender legs wrap securely around his waist.
His lips leave her mouth to wander down the pale column of her neck and Kate gasps, whimpers, before she finally manages to find a word.
"Rick?"
In his given name he hears both every reason why this should stop, and every reason why it cannot.
It's an effort to stop his assault on her neck, but he pulls back just enough that he can look down into her aroused and so gorgeous face.
"Can you tell me we don't need this?" he whispers brokenly.
Her eyes flare, and tears pool in the corners as she shakes her head even as she shares his regrets.
"I can't," she replies. "You made me promise long ago I'd never lie to you."
His only response is to lower his mouth over hers again. Let the need rule him.