Disclaimer: The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.
She's wanted to kiss him again for such a long time. She's come very close so many times. Funny, she'd never thought about where it would happen, or even when. Not that she hadn't imagined it or dreamed it or wished it, but the actual spot was irrelevant. No, not irrelevant, just unconsidered. In the kitchen of an uninsulated cabin on the edge of the woods at the edge of the mountains after she'd had a 110-minute session with a therapist and gone to an AA meeting? Never. And yet it's about to happen.
She's surprised herself by telling him that she wants to kiss him. She'd never given that any thought, either. Oh, the kiss itself, yes, but not the words. In her mind, when she permits herself the fantasy, she just kisses him, or he kisses her, with no announcement.
He looks more shocked than surprised when she says it. Stunned, maybe. There's only an overhead light, and it's dim, so his eyes aren't as blue as they were this afternoon with the water in the pool around him and the sky above. They aren't as blue as they are when he wears her favorite shirt of his, the one that she'd almost stolen from the laundry basket when she'd spent two weeks in his loft after her apartment blew up. But they're still blue enough for her to drown in, happily, and they look bigger than usual because he's astonished. He's so astonished that his mouth has fallen open. She could make full use of that. Just take his head in her hands and devour him, taste him before he realizes that he's on the menu.
But she doesn't. If she does, everything will move way too fast and she doesn't want fast, not now. She can't deal with fast or everything will be in shreds. She probably shouldn't be doing this at all, but it feels right to move forward a little bit. She's been cowardly for months, and she's disgusted with it. But she's finally gone back to Burke, and started in AA, and told her father, and who deserves the credit for that? Castle. She may have taken the action, but she never would have without him. He was the impulse and the motivator. Castle, who believes in her more than she does, who has taken care of her since the morning he saw her in the drunk tank, who loves her, who is in love with her.
She takes another step.
Half a step more and there's no space between them. She rests her hand on his cheek. It's slightly rough against her palm because it's been hours since he shaved, but she runs her thumb under his eye and the skin there feels like a rose petal. It's incredibly, mesmerizingly silky, and she can't stop smoothing it with the pad of her thumb. "This is so soft. I didn't know it would be so soft here." She slips her hand down his face until the tip of her finger reaches the corner of his mouth. She runs it lightly over his upper lip, from the right to the middle and back again. "And here," she says. She can hear the sound of wonder in her voice. "Your philtrum."
"Philtrum?" he asks, with some difficulty
"This little groove," she says, stroking her index finger down the shallow channel that runs from below his nose to the middle of his upper lip. "Philtrum. It means 'love charm'."
She moves her hand to his shoulder, just beneath his ear, and her mouth is on his–first lightly, even a little cautiously, but then insistently, and he responds, measure for measure. It's tongues and teeth and thrusting and unfurling until they are both gasping and light-headed and she drops her damp forehead to the dip in his collarbone. "Wow," she says.
"Double," he says, breathing hard. "Double wow." He gathers her up until he can feel her heart against his chest, the pulsing slightly faster than his own. He wishes that they matched, beat for beat, because that's how he feels: they're in perfect synch.
"Want to do that again, only not standing up?"
"Not standing up?"
"I was thinking of the sofa, Castle. You know, making out on the sofa."
"Oh, okay." He smiles like a six-year-old, except no six-year-old she's ever seen looks sexy. "Yes. Double yes."
"Like teenagers, only we don't have to worry about my father catching us."
He picks her up before either of them can reconsider, and carries her to the sofa. Some time later–half an hour? an hour? two? who knows?–he says, "I wish I'd done that when I was a teenager."
"With me?"
"Of course with you."
"When you were a teenager I was in elementary school."
"Way to deflate a guy, Beckett."
She laughs into the crook of his elbow, and scoots up until she can kiss his bicep, and laughs some more. "Sorry, Castle." She tips her head back and looks solemnly at him. "You don't mind, do you?"
"Mind what?"
"That we only made out. Even though I'm thirty-two and you're–"
He puts his hand over her mouth. "Don't even say it."
She licks his palm seductively, quickly takes one of his fingertips into her mouth and nips it, and he yelps.
"Ouch," he says, pulling his hand away but smiling widely. "If I'd known that making out could be like that when I was fifteen, Kate, I wouldn't have been in such a hurry to have sex."
"I'll take that as a compliment," she says, snuggling into him.
"Meant as one," he replies, kissing her ear.
She wriggles until she's sitting up but still pressed to his side. "It's been a hell of a day. Roller coaster of a day. I want to go to sleep, and I'd like what just happened to be what I'm thinking of when I close my eyes, not your going to the Hamptons or my not having a job."
"I think that's my cue to go back to my motel," he says, massaging her arm.
"Afraid you can't keep your hands off me?"
"Something like that. Or vice versa." He's quiet for a few moments before continuing. "You gonna be all right here?"
"Yes."
He's quiet again, then gets to his feet and pulls her up with him. He tugs on her hand and they walk together to the door. "Night," he says, stopping there and hugging her so tight that she can scarcely breathe. Maybe she could scarcely breathe even without the hug; a lot more than making out happened here tonight.
"Night." She stands in the doorway and waves as he drives away. She stands there for a long time, not moving, before going back in and getting ready for bed. Sitting on the edge of the mattress, she balances her phone in her hand, finger hovering over the screen. After several minutes, she taps the messages icon and types a two-word note to Castle.
"Thank you."
After deliberating a while longer she adds a heart emoticon and hits send. She turns off the light and slips under the covers, and soon after hears the chirp of her phone. It's a wordless reply from Castle–wordless but not emotionless. He's posted a hundred hearts. She counts them several times and falls asleep with the phone by her pillow.
xxxxxx
The next day comes and turns into the one after that, and they drive into Manhattan for her appointment with Dr. Burke. And then the dreaded day arrives. Castle has checked out of his motel room and they're sitting on the porch, both on edge. He pushes his departure time as long as he dares, until she finally has to force him into the car. She leans in to talk to him.
"Go see your kid, Castle."
"And my mother."
"And your mother."
"Are you going–"
"You agreed that you wouldn't ask me that again. I'm fine. I'll be fine. I'll call you. You'll call me."
He reaches up and pulls her face to his, and kisses her so deeply that she feels as if she's about to be drawn right through the open window.
"Wow," she says.
"Double wow."
"Get out of here, Castle." She walks to the porch and takes the steps in one jump; when she turns around he's still looking at her. She blows him a kiss, goes inside, and sits down hard on the sofa. She hears the tires scrunch on the gravel, hears the purr of the motor, and then hears nothing at all.
He's been gone for less than five minutes and she already misses him, physically, mentally, every way. When they'd gone to his motel to swim a few days ago she'd showed less scruples than she had in his loft two years ago: she'd helped herself to the shirt that he'd been wearing, shoved it into her tote bag, and carried it back here.
She goes to her closet and takes it out. It's just an ordinary polo shirt, but it smells of him, and it's as soft as he is. She curls up on the bed, buries her face in the shirt, and wonders how the hell she's going to get through the next week.
The first few days are all right. She gets on her motorcycle, which has been idle most of the summer, and takes long rides. Higher up in the mountains, the leaves on a few swamp maples are turning red. She takes a photo but thinks better of sending it to Castle. He's with Alexis. He doesn't need a leaf picture.
By the afternoon of day three she's restless. When she goes for a ride she takes a different route home through a largish–larger than Berryville, anyway–town and pulls over to watch a cop directing traffic. She'd almost been busted down to traffic once, in her rookie days, and she'd taken grief about it for weeks. This guy is good; he doesn't look bored or resentful, he looks as though he enjoys it. He finds the rhythm in the cars and vans and trucks moving through his intersection, and his feet, in their thick-soled shoes, are dancing. Probably no one else notices it, but she catches his eye and nods her approval. He nods back, and she takes off. It's a lovely moment, except that it makes her miss the precinct more sharply than she has since the day she'd left her badge and her gun on Captain Gates's desk.
"I want my job back," she says when she's back in the kitchen, dropping the keys on the table with a thunk. "I'd even do traffic." It's hot. It's humid. She wants a beer. She wants to sit in a cop bar with Castle and Ryan and Espo and have a beer and bitch about the brass. Maybe play footsie under the table with Castle. She wants a beer.
She can't have a beer today. She can't have a beer, ever. No, today she can't have a beer. One day at a time. How often has she heard that? Except that never before has it applied to her.
She can't have a beer but she wants one.
Distraction. She needs distraction. About 20 miles away there's a huge mall with a multiplex. That's it. She gets back on her bike and roars off, but when she arrives at the theater she finds the pickings end-of-summer slim. There's one possibility, The Bourne Legacy. Worth a shot. She buys a ticket, a small container of overly salty popcorn, an anemic coffee, and Milk Duds. Nothing helps the coffee, but she finds that dropping the chocolates into the popcorn produces a surprisingly tolerable treat. Castle would have something to say about that. Castle has something to say about everything. She takes a photograph of it, types "my new-Bourne snack," and sends it to him.
She can't keep her eyes on the screen. She can't keep her mind on the plot. She can't keep wishing that Matt Damon were in the movie. When Rachel Weisz, in the role of a scientist, says, "I wanna stop thinking," Beckett mutters, "Me, too." She gets up from the rump-sprung red plush seat, and walks out into the naturally cool air. When she gets home she still wants a beer, but forces herself to change into a sleep shirt and brush her teeth. Walking out of the bathroom, she hears her phone, and runs to answer it.
"Hey, Castle."
"Hey, Beckett."
"How's it going?"
"I spent four hours shopping for sheets for Alexis's dorm room."
"Yeah? Where is she now?"
"Skyping with her friend Chrissy, trying to decide if she picked the right ones. And tomorrow we do towels."
She hears ice cubes rattling. What's he drinking? "You're a good Dad."
"Thanks. You went to the movies?"
"Yeah, I did."
"And?"
"And I wish you'd been there."
"I could have held your hand during the scary parts."
"Oh, please, I'd have held your hand during the scary parts."
More ice cube noise. "I miss you."
"Miss you, too."
"I–. Hang on a sec."
Now there's muffled background noise.
"Beckett? I'm sorry. Gotta go. Alexis is having an existential crisis over her choice of duvet covers."
"Okay. Night."
"Night?"
"I'm going to bed."
"It's only nine thirty."
" 'm tired."
She's anything but tired, but she has to get off the phone. She has to stop thinking. Has to stop thinking about the ice cubes and what liquid surrounds them. Not beer. Maybe Scotch? No. He'd never have a drink while he was talking to her, even during an existential crisis over bedding. It's probably lemonade. Three days without him and she's craving booze. What a weakling she is.
It's a tough night and a worse morning. She finally drags herself out of bed sometime after 10:00, makes some coffee, and looks out the window at the birds. Soon she'll have to leave here and the only birds she'll see will be pigeons and sparrows. She takes another sip of of coffee and grimaces. She misses Castle. She misses his coffee. This is nowhere near as good. Nowhere near as good as Irish coffee, either. Fuck. What she'd give right now for an Irish coffee as she stews over having fucked up her job.
Why is so bad at being alone all of a sudden? She's always liked being alone, but she can't deal with alone this morning, and she can't call Castle. He'd propped her up for a month and a half. He needs time with his daughter now.
She fights herself all day long. When she tries to read a book and her mind wanders, she fights herself. When she pours a glass of water and wishes it were bourbon, she fights herself. By mid afternoon she feels as battered as she had when Cole Maddox fought her on the roof, and she craves a drink.
Why hadn't she thought of this before? She grabs her purse, dumps it out onto the coffee table and scrabbles through everything until she finds the little card with a name and number on it. Emily. That's it. Emily. She dials her and gets voicemail.
"Hi, Emily. This is Kate. I, uh, I talked with you at the meeting the other day. About, you know, sponsorship? I'm not so sure that I can make it through the afternoon without a drink, so if you get this, could you call me, please? Sorry. Sorry to bother you."
She covers her face with her trembling hands, and when the phone rings she's so startled that she almost drops it.
"Hello," she says after fumbling to press accept.
"Kate? It's Emily."
"I'm sorry, you're probably at work or–"
"Whoa. First rule. Never apologize for calling. Ever."
Emily stays with her for half an hour. When they're done, and she's thanked her for at least the fifth time, she feels hollowed out yet full of resolve. She strips the bed and puts the sheets and towels in the washing machine. By the time she transfers them to the dryer, she's boxed up the food in the kitchen; she puts it in the carrier on the back of her motorcycle and drives into Berryville. She'd seen a sign for a soup kitchen at a church there, and finds it easily. The couple working in the kitchen is delighted with her offering. Thank Castle, she wants to say. He's the one that bought all this good stuff. Thank Castle.
At the cabin again, she folds the sheets and towels, still warm, and puts them away. It takes her only a few minutes to pack her clothes and take out the small bag of garbage. She looks around the kitchen one last time, and locks the door. Sitting on the bike, about to put on her helmet, she makes a call.
"Beckett?"
"Hi."
"Are you all right?"
"Yes."
"What's up?"
"I'm coming home."
TBC
A/N Thank you all, readers and reviewers. Your support is endlessly cheering and helpful.