"Hands, touching," he sighs, after a long, heavy moment in which Kate won't look at him and he won't let her go. "Sometimes I wish that's how the story began."
She drags her gaze from his white-knuckled grip around her hand, her brow furrowing as she takes in the wistful, lopsided set of his mouth. "Which story?"
Slowly his fingers slacken, shifting to slide gently between hers. He cradles her fingertips in the shell of his palm and tugs her closer. "Ours," he says.
Kate's lips purse, something defensive wanting out at the melancholic set of his shoulders despite the way they got here, despite the way she needs to leave him. "Ours?" she questions too sharply to be fair.
"You, Me," he agrees dully, "don't you ever wish that?"
Kate tugs her hand back, curling both palms around her mug and frowning at him over the rim as she brings it to her lips. She sips up the last dregs of her coffee, cold and bitter by now, and grits her teeth. "I like our story," she replies tensely.
"Oh," Castle gapes. He snatches her fingers again, pulling them to his chest and leaning over the cold edge of the white, twisted metal table toward her. "No, Kate, that's not what I meant. I love our story, I wrote a couple of books about it," he tries to joke.
It falls flat between them and Kate sighs, shaking her head, her hand limp in his. "But you wish you had something else?" she whispers.
He almost misses the question, so mesmerised by the way her curls have fallen around her face and caught the light like a falling, shattered halo. "No," he finally sighs and he looks so small now beneath the hazy light, so defeated. "It's just, you know how every morning our hands touch when I give you coffee and you give me a smile?"
Kate ducks her head but her fingers twitch and curl with memory beneath his. "Yeah," she breathes.
"Well there's this couple, at the coffee shop I go to for you every morning."
His body is trembling now, terrified of her finding enough breath to finish the words that ran out, Castle, please, we can't just… but she's motionless, can only watch him, heart pounding as he drops her hand on the table and gathers up his chair with more strength than she knows he can afford. He rounds the table and pushes his chair in beside hers with a skin-tingling screech against the black tiled floor, twisting sideways so his whole body leans into her.
"I was there the day they met and it was such a simple thing," he whispers to her, pausing to tug at her wrists, twisting her toward him. Her knees slot between his and he wraps up her hands, before leaning in to press a gentle kiss to her temple, such a thrilling, devastating thing to get to kiss her like this. Kate closes her eyes, chest aching. "He bought her coffee, their hands touched, that's it. That's how their story began."
She can't bear to open her eyes, just tips into him, dropping her face to the curve of his neck as her breath hiccups in her tired chest. "So sometimes," he whispers, lifting his palm to smooth over the back of her head, "I just wish it had been us. That I'd bought you coffee and touched your hand and seen you smile on a Wednesday morning."
She pulls back then to catch his eye, and he cringes at the sadness in her brow, in the way her mouth droops in the corners and her skin has turned sallow. "You did," she smiles, though none of the sadness drains, "there have been so many Wednesdays, Castle."
It's more than it sounds, more than either of them intended, but it's there. Even when they weren't whatever they are now, they collected Wednesdays between them like dirty things. They both knew, both turned a blind eye. Wilful blindness, she remembers her father saying, at law, quite often it is enough to equate to mens rea, the guilty mind, the intent. They've been doing this for years now, loving each other behind closed eyes, and it's been a disaster, they've both come close to dying for it.
He reaches out, raking his fingers through her hair to tuck it behind her ear and tip her face up to him. "Yes, but don't you ever wish that were it? Don't you wake up and wish it were Wednesday again?" he questions timidly.
She only frowns and he sighs. "Kate, what I'm saying is I wish it could've been that simple. Hands touching. I wish I'd never hurt you. "
It all swells up it him. It's about your mother's case. I know you hid inside your mother's murder and never came out. School's funniest kid. School's funniest kid. School's funniest kid. Josh know about this? Plucky Sidekick. Partner then. Nowhere relationships. Men you don't love. I love you. He's dizzy with it.
She sucks in a swift breath and his head dips but she's already there, catching his chin in the curl of her palm and lifting him back to her, curling her other palm over his cheek so gently it hurts. "Castle, no," she implores, "no, you didn't-"
"Kate," he cuts her off, because even now it feels like it' s over. He sighs when she refuses to let his face out of her hands, cutting his eyes away and quietly admitting, "I wish you didn't have to look at me the way you're looking at me now."
She's breathless with his sorrow, terrified of the costs of her love but she tightens her grip over his jaw and tugs him into a hard, grieved kiss. Open mouthed and aching. "Rick, listen to me," she pleads as she pulls back. "The only thing I wish is that I didn't hurt you," she whimpers. One hand slides down to rest over his heart, the pulse thin and thready beneath her palm. "Wednesdays are good," she admits, mouth quirking in a sad but honest smile, "but I wouldn't trade in the other days. I promise you, there are no regrets."
"No," he gasps, socked in the stomach. He kisses her back, curling a hand around the back of her neck. "No. You can be sorry that I got hurt," he says, tipping back to catch her gaze, pressing her hand more firmly to his chest and waiting for her slow nod, "but don't you dare suggest that you are the one who hurt me."
She meets his eye, watching his gaze drop to her quivering lips. "Castle, that bullet-"
"No, Beckett!" He snaps a little harshly, shivering like a scared afterthought. He leans in to kiss her stunned mouth, lips gentle in apology and she sighs as he trips to the side, pressing a soft kiss to her cheekbone, her temple, leaning into her ear. "You said there are no regrets, Kate," he whispers. "You promised."
Her hand comes up to curl around his ear, tugging him into desperate hug as her heart loses track of a few beats and knocks back into timid rhythm. "No regrets," she chokes, though she'll never heal from the way he's hurt himself for her.
Her phone vibrates against the tight confine of her pocket and his hand drops to her thigh. "Kate, I lied, I do have one regret," he groans, curling his hand over the rattling thing as his nostrils flare.
Kate chuckles, stunned by the way he rescues her without even knowing. She gently peels his hand away and reaches her fingers into her pocket to tug the phone out. "Interruptions?" she questions knowingly.
"Interruptions," he grumps, shifting to let her go.
She catches him by the shirt before he can make to pull his chair back and kisses him breathless before tipping her forehead to his shoulder in sheer exhaustion, so tired of their willful blindness, their mistakes, the stupid way they love each other like wounded dogs, limping and panting dumb.
"Beckett," she answers as his hand trails soothingly down her spine and he tips his cheek to her head, his smile stretching against her hair.
"No regrets," she hears him sigh against her.
[x]
She presses in beside him, perched awkwardly on the middle hump in the back seat as their taxi trails through the long clear streets, unnervingly aware of the affect the driver's presence has on Castle, even now. His body is tense beside hers, breath puffing out a little faster now that the lifting glow of the city is glittering on the horizon.
He turns to her, runs his palm down her thigh and squeezes at her knee, waiting for her to meet his eye. "We could just keep going," he says, voice pinched.
They crawl through a puddle of lonesome streetlight, the only circle left burning on this stretch of road, and he catches the way her jaw slackens, her eyes close. She shuffles closer still and whispers, as they drop back into darkness. "What do you mean?"
He presses his cheek to the cold window for a moment, watching the stars shift and blur. His face scrunches as he traces them. "I don't want to go back to the city," he admits with a strange sense of calm.
Her spine goes rigid, a selfish sense of need rushing through her, but she reaches out and curls her fingers over his thigh, body tipping into his side very gently. "Okay," she reluctantly sighs. A moment of silence passes and she bites back her selfish desire to keep him close as his body seems to soften with relief against her. "Maybe you're right, some time away from the city might help you. Why don't you go to the Hamptons for a little while? Do you think Martha could go with you?"
"What?" he gasps. His body suddenly loses rhythm, chest heaving with panic and knocking her back. "No," he pants, vehemently shaking his head, "no. I'm not," he sucks in a long but shallow breath that rushes out of him almost immediately, "I'm not leaving you."
"Castle, hey," she breathes, twisting awkwardly to put herself in his view. His unfocussed gaze settles on her but his body trips on, too rapid breath being dragged in and spilling out quite uselessly.
The taxi driver twists over his shoulder at the commotion. "Ma'am, everything okay back there?" he grumbles, eyes widening when a slash of light from a passing car catches the back seat, illuminating his passenger's ghostly face and heaving chest.
The man's gruff voice jolts through Castle and Kate grimaces, morbidly glad to know that at least he's still here, at least he can still hear at all.
"Yeah. Can you just pull over for a moment?" she replies, eyes still trained on her wheezing partner.
The cab slows to a stop under a swell of streetlight and the driver twists over his shoulder, his face softening as he takes in Kate's watery gaze, the way she's got a hand curled in the man's collar, holding on. "I'm going to have a smoke," he mumbles, stepping out of the cab. He moves to swing the door shut behind him, but much to Kate's surprise, he tucks in it close to the latch with barely a sound, and walks quietly around the corner.
"Castle," Kate whispers, unbuckling her seatbelt and leaning into the space of his gaze. "Castle, listen to me. I need you to breathe for me, okay?" Her voice is gentle like the touch of a mother, calm and smooth despite the way her heart is jerking. It's not new, of course, the startled shift of his body and the way his gaze goes blank, but his jowls are strained with anger and he's trembling in a way that's more terrifying than losing him to memory.
"Rick," she tries, when he doesn't respond. "You've got to relax, please just breathe for me," she pleads, reaching down to pull his hand to her chest, trying desperately to regulate her breath into an easy pattern for him.
Like an instinct sparked by the warmth of her body he curls his fingers into the space between the buttons on her blouse, short fingernails scraping over the swell of her breast and sending a short, sharp current through her stomach.
He tips into her wordlessly, resting his forehead against her collarbone and following the rise and fall of her chest as Kate tips her head back, blinking back tears as his breathing begins to slow. She runs her fingertips down the back of his sticky neck and sighs, "That's it, just keep breathing."
Her small frame shoulders his weight with a slight quiver and she sighs, unsettled by the way her body has grown so accustomed to holding his this way. The sound of his breathing echoes through the tight space as they sit, grounded together and her throat tightens. "It might be safer," she whispers, realising too late that it's a mistake.
His body shudders violently and he reaches out, hooking an arm around her waist and tugging her up onto his lap. She squeaks, stunned by every sudden spurt of his strength, by the quick, shocking reminders of just how dangerous a man he could be and how fiercely he gets to her. She tumbles onto him, knees sliding to either side of his thighs, crushed against him in the tiny space and curling down from the fabric ceiling.
"Kate," he chokes, banding his arms around her waist in a vice that leaves her breathless.
He shivers beneath her and she curls around him, both arms tugging him closer, bound around his shoulders and neck. "God, Castle, I'm so sorry," she murmurs against his ear, debilitated by grief. This is what loving her looks like. "I'm so sorry."
He pants into her skin and the rhythm of her breathing follows in stupid, hiccuping waves. He presses a wet kiss to the base of her throat. "I'm not leaving you," he insists hoarsely.
Kate pulls back, heart-brokenly running her thumbs beneath his reddened eyes as his hands clench and unclench at her waist before trailing softly over her hips. She shivers with the contact, body quivering with heightened pain and need. "Castle," she croaks, cutting her gaze out the window as reoccurring anger zips hot up her spine. "They shot you," she implores, tripping her eyes back over him as she curls her fingertips around his ears. His fingers clench at her thighs and she clenches her teeth, jaw tight with something feral. "I'm not going to run from this fucking dragon, not now, not after what they did," she growls.
He watches the colour drain from around her mouth, her pupils dilating despite the steadiness of the dim light filtering through the glass. She's a beautiful weight over him, but terrifyingly disconnected like this, driven by a raging thing that breaks his heart. "Fine," he sighs, "then I'm going back to the city."
Her eyes drift down to him, and her body turns heavy in his hands. "Castle, I think it might be a good idea-"
He lifts his hands, squeezing suddenly at her waist and jerking her forward, an unsubtle reminder of power. "I am not leaving you," he growls, chest tightening as he tips forward and nips at her collar bone, anger making his bones ache.
She feels the stubborn swell of love turned anger that makes her sick in the bruising points of his fingertips, draws air through her teeth as he nips angrily at her skin. The unwavering stand he takes beside her, it'll get him killed. "Rick, please-" she starts but he cuts her off.
He kisses her mouth hard, tipping her back until she's pressed against the driver's seat and mewling as he bites at her lip in reproach. He twists, lifting the whole weight of her and tossing her unceremoniously onto the seat beside him in a move that's so dangerous for his body she wants to slap him.
"Fuck," Kate puffs under her breath, stunned and staring at him breathlessly. He's twisted away from her, broad shoulders angled against her as he stares disdainfully out the window, breath huffing out in fuming bursts against the glass.
She jerks as he reaches over blindly and roughly tangles her fingers in his without sparing her a glance. "Let's just go," he says sternly, gaze tracing the movement of their driver as he hesitantly trundles back to the car, peering in at them before gingerly sitting in his seat and twisting toward Kate.
He nods toward Castle. "He okay?" he asks, voice thinned out compared to the rough timber he'd greeted them with. He's a large man, weathered and a little dirty with the hours of the night, a thick, untidy beard hiding most of his face and lips.
Kate swallows thickly, squeezing at Castle's fingers and blinking slowly when they maintain their tight but cold hold around hers. "Yeah, um…" she loses the thought, the lie, whatever she had been preparing for this total stranger who had been kind in a way she quite unkindly had not expected.
The man nods, twisting back in his seat and buckling in. He catches her eye in the rear-view mirror and his beard flattens like his lips might be pursed. "It's okay," he says quietly, though his hardened voice carries low and heavy, "I got two sons in the army." His eyes flicker over to Castle and he sighs, shifting his sympathetic gaze back to Kate. "It gets better," he assures, before quietly pulling out into the street and fixing his gaze pointedly ahead of him in an act of privacy that most wouldn't consider as big a kindness as it feels to Kate now.
[x]
His body sinks heavily in the sticky leather seat as they cruise through the boroughs, adrenaline and anger and fear leeching from his body and leaving him sickly with weariness. "Kate?" he whispers, sighing when she only nods quietly beside him. "Can you please call the boys back, tell them to meet us at the loft?"
"No."
He shudders, twisting toward her. A large milk truck sweeps by - a hint of the time they've squirreled away - and floods her in a sweep of light. Her eyes are steely in a terrifyingly disregarded way and he knows then that she'll die for this, that she's angry enough to justify the stupidity of it in her broken mind. "Kate," he starts, intending to reason about life with her gently, but he's too shattered. "I need you," he admits quite gruffly instead, realising that it's a variant of the same in any case.
Her eyes widen but she shakes her head and he thinks it might be over. "I don't know what they've found and you... I don't want it to hurt you," she admits quietly.
The breath rushes out of him. It's a much kinder thing than he was expecting and he realises, belatedly, how unfair that is. "I need to sleep," he sighs, turning his gaze back out into the approaching lights, too tired to apologise though he knows he ought to.
"Exactly," she states, voice rough. "I'll drop you off, you'll sleep, and I'll meet the guys at my place. I'll fill you in later, Castle, just me. The boys and I, we're a team but we're… it's been a long day, a long night for everyone, and Espo and I, we're not handling each other well and Ryan's tired. I just think…"
He's exhausted and aching and afraid. Afraid of everything, but mostly her. Mostly of what she's capable of and the way the boys will back her, the way they'll all burn for this together and alone. He's afraid of her, awake and dreaming. Frustration creeps up his neck and he scratches at it on his skin. "I need you," he repeats miserably, dropping his head to the window with a sudden thump.
Kate grimaces, hand smoothing over his slumped shoulders in a move so intimately instinctual it make her stomach burn. She swallows thickly as the pieces settle in place, the way his body slumped like it's more than just the stand. "Nightmares?" she whispers.
He shrugs, a one-sided self-deprecating thing, and his lips scrunch in one corner. "Probably," he admits, his voice low and hollow, hot breath misting and disappearing in a fist against the window. "I don't know, really, because I've just been running off with you every night." He turns to her then, eyeing her sadly, "Pretty cowardly, huh?"
Kate eyes glisten momentarily in the passing light before she ducks her head despondently. She twists her fingers in her lap and then raises her head, catching his eye and warning him resolutely, with a grave sense of bravery that makes him sad, "Don't make this into something it's not. This isn't just some… we're not just… I'm not hiding."
He takes in the pinch of her mouth, the sour way she's looking at him and he's sorry. Between the lines, it was another awful, misdirected thing to say, he knows. Everything is aching, burning with a fierce pain that is bordering terribly unkindly just on the edge of numbness. "Kate, I'm so tired," he admits in a whisper, eyes drooping as he reaches out to cup her cheek in apology, "I just want to go home."
She swallows thickly, cheek pressing softly against his palm in a smile so solemn he wonders if they'll ever be untinged by this grief again. "Okay then we're going home," she whispers back, sliding her palm down his thigh and curling her fingers over his knee, "I'll call the boys."