Another couple of trips into prehistoric times later, and Richard Castle was facing a dilemma of the modern day.
He hated press events.
Well, that wasn't necessarily true. Usually, he loved them. He'd had his fair share of wild parties after them. Signing womens' chests, drinking far too much alcohol, and waking up in precarious situations, sometimes next to a girl he didn't even remember, or draped across a fancy rug, some random piece of furniture with a bottle of liquid courage still in his hand.
Yes, he'd had his moments - many of them - and that bad boy reputation had started to precede him in recent years, but he found himself wanting nothing more than to distance himself from them over the last eight months. He made scarce public appearances anymore, only attending the mandatory parties that his agent and publisher felt would be good PR for the next book. But every party was always the same. He'd wind up having to relive the ninth of January, curious party goers incapable of refraining from dredging it up again, asking questions and wanting to know what it was like to actually have been there and stopped a murder from happening, instead of being a novelist who was simply writing the scenario of one. He'd much rather have his brain picked over plot and creative storytelling than recount what happened on that night.
The attack on Johanna Beckett was not a story he enjoyed retelling. He wasn't the hero he kept getting made out to be, and he didn't want the limelight of his so-called heroics diminishing the fact that his - friend? Kate - that her mother very nearly lost her life that night, and there was nothing the police had been doing since to keep her safe at night. It was he and Kate secretly doing all the leg work now. Investigating on their own, hiring a team to keep watch on her mother, to get to the bottom of whatever this conspiracy was that she was keeping mum about to everyone around her, all the while she very likely was continuing her own investigating as well.
No, Castle didn't want to talk about it. He was already living with it every day. Every time he closed his eyes at night. Each time he spoke to Kate Beckett. All of the reports he received about her mother's unusual activities and whereabouts. The handful of times now when he'd have to call in Katrina to babysit because he and Kate got tipped off to something new, and they'd end up doing their own surveillance and investigations late at night. They finally ID'd the other passenger in the late model Lincoln Town Car. Now they were trying to figure out why her mother was frequently meeting up with an NYPD detective named Roy Montgomery in secret, instead of at the precinct that he worked out of.
The more information they thought they had, the less anything made sense. They were both still in the dark, and it felt more like waiting for the next shoe to drop than any progress being made.
And now it was mid-August, nearly two weeks since Kate's return home, and he had a new book dropping soon. That meant press events, charity auctions, and promoting his book at swanky parties. It meant late night talk show appearances, and his cardboard double peeking out from the windows of popular bookstores.
He didn't feel up for it. He didn't even like the premise of his novel, Kissed and Killed, anymore. It was so bland and boring. He'd only gotten the idea for the book from some comments he'd heard his daughter's babysitter make regarding modeling and fashion. That's what he'd been reduced to after his divorce: inspiration striking from a hopeful teenage beauty queen while he moped around at home trying to put words to a page.
He wanted something fresh and exciting. A thriller he could be proud of. No, an entire series.
Derrick Storm.
The tale was at the tip of his fingers most days, but he still didn't have all the details right just yet. He knew his protagonist would be a private eye turned CIA operative. He knew Storm would have a smart, sexy and irresistible CIA handler, Clara Strike. And he knew that every time he'd gotten bits and pieces of their stories written down, it was he and Kate Beckett in the roles of Storm and Strike every single time he imagined his fictitious characters out on missions together.
Yes, he'd come up with the characters long before he'd met her, but Kate's presence in his life had soon inspired Clara's softer side. Her kindness. Her strength of heart. She'd started out so rigid and unforgiving as a character, but now she was three-dimensional. Strike had become a partner Storm could depend on. A woman he was maybe starting to develop feelings for, if only they could make it past the barriers of their professional relationship, and find some sort of -
"Shit," Castle groaned, realizing what he'd been typing up, and then snapping his laptop shut as he pushed back from his desk. The office chair he was sitting in rolled backward and he dropped his face into his hands with a drawn out sigh.
How was he going to survive this autumn press tour when it was another story entirely that he couldn't get his mind off of? When his own personal life was seeping into what little writing he could manage, and leaving his thoughts muddled, conflicted, and constantly longing for what he didn't dare let himself have?
Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was after nine in the evening. That meant he was in luck. He wanted to whine and complain to someone, and Beckett had a shiny new cell phone that he may have finally peer pressured her into buying on the day of their second field trip with his kid. "For work," he'd told her, meaning their investigations into her mother's case. "So we can keep in touch if something happens, no matter the time or place."
Kate didn't have a plan for texting, and the amount of minutes on her plan was very minimal since she insisted she'd only be using the phone for emergencies, but she had free calls after nine o'clock in the evening. Maybe if he brainstormed with her, he could figure out a way to get out of a party coming up on Saturday night.
Or, maybe he really did just want to whine and complain and that was it. Beckett was just so easy to talk to, and it was nice being able to get a hold of her without risking catching her father on the other end of their house phone. He swore the man was starting to hate him. He always had the same scowl on his face whenever they'd cross paths at the Beckett home, which had been happening rather frequently as of late. He'd even helped her mother make dinner one evening before they snuck off to work on their investigation.
"What do you want, Castle?" Kate answered, picking up on the second ring and feigning annoyance with him, but he knew her tells now. She only got this sort of snippy when she was actually pleasantly surprised with him. She just had a way about holding back her true feelings sometimes. He blamed himself in part for that.
"Hi to you, too, Beckett," he said simply.
"If this call isn't an emergency, I'm hanging up," she warned, keeping up the charade.
Such a liar, he thought with a smile.
"Tell me you need me."
"E-excuse me?" she stuttered back, after a momentary hitch in her breath.
"On Saturday night." He sighed again just thinking about it. "I have that - "
She started to laugh at him.
"The big fancy party where you're expected to promote the book you wrote and mingle with the rich and famous. The book that you somehow seem to hate now. Yes, I know." She sounded like she was probably rolling her eyes at him. He wouldn't blame her if she was. "Castle, we talked about this already."
"Yes, and last time you told me it was about time that I had some actual work to do."
"God forbid," she drawled. "Well, isn't it?"
He sighed dramatically. "Kate," he pleaded.
She sighed back at him in exasperation. "Castle, if you don't want to go, then don't."
"But you think I should."
"Of course I do." Oh, that was a different tone of voice entirely. One filled with a sense of pride. "You're being ridiculous if you're wanting to hide out because you think the book is crap. It's not. I bet you a hundred bucks it's on the bestseller list at launch, just like all the other ones you've written."
Maybe she was right. Maybe he was being his own worst critic because of everything else going on.
"And besides, it's for charity, and it's a great cause. If any of those jackass reporters can't respect that and bring up your ex-wife or my mom, I will personally walk into their boss's office and - "
"Whoa, whoooa," he placated. "Easy there, spitfire."
Kate made a grumbling noise. "I hate journalists."
Castle chuckled. "Aw, come on, Beckett. Not all the writers that'll be there are that bad. Some of them have Pulitzers."
As Kate scoffed in his ear, his cell phone chimed with an alert on the desk in front of him.
"Uh oh," Castle said, shifting the cordless phone into the cradle of his shoulder so he could navigate his cell phone with two hands. "I think I just got myself a legitimate excuse not to go."
"What do you mean?"
Castle laughed as he read the text message on his phone for a second time. "It would appear as though my babysitter just bailed on me for a date with boy."
Kate burst out laughing. "What?" she said incredulously. "Did she really say that?"
"Well, not in so many words. But I'm a writer, Kate. It was inferred."
She chuckled. "That's just too convenient. You can't be off the hook just like that."
"With Katrina out, and my mother off the map for the next few weeks, I'm afraid I'm all out of options."
"Not necessarily," Kate ventured. "I could watch Alexis."
Castle grew silent.
"I'm not doing anything on Saturday. And that would solve the problem, wouldn't it? You could bring her over here for a few hours. Dad's got some work thing this weekend and I'm sure my mom wouldn't mind the company."
When he still hesitated to give her an answer, her tone of voice grew cautionary.
"Unless...that's a problem?"
"No, no. No problem, just - Kate, are you sure?"
"Castle," she growled out, frustrated with him. "If you're that adamant about not going, don't go. Otherwise, quit your whining, drop Alexis off on Saturday, and go to the damn party. I can manage hanging out with your daughter for a few hours."
And so it was that Saturday came around and Rick Castle had left his daughter in the care of one Kate Beckett. Six P.M. on the dot, he'd arrived on the Becketts' doorstep with kid in tow, and after a quick once over by the mother and daughter pair, he was ready to be out the door again.
Well, almost. While the elder Beckett had whisked his daughter off to cook dinner and bake dessert in the kitchen, the younger Beckett seemed to find it necessary to straighten his tie before he could go.
"Don't overthink things with the book," she told him, as her deft fingers tripped along the silk that definitely didn't need retouching but he wasn't complaining.
"Okay," he replied absently, staring at the slim digits now trailing across his collar.
"Just relax. Try to have a little fun, Castle."
"Relax, yeah," he nodded. "Fun."
Her fingers were traveling higher, curling into the fabric of his suit. Had she had a manicure recently? Her nails looked so neat. Pretty. Kate was always so pretty.
And then she was jerking him forward by those very hands he'd been admiring, bringing him nose to nose with her.
"But if you come back here drunk off your ass and covered in some bimbo's lipstick, I'm not giving your daughter back until you reflect on your life choices."
"I- Er. W-wait. What?" he stammered, caught off guard. Seriously, what?
"Just making sure you're paying attention." She patted his cheek, grinning, then gave him a light shove backward.
"Always so mean to me," he grumbled, standing straighter in the absence of her dizzying touch, but complying. He stepped back through the doorway.
"Get out of here," she said playfully.
Castle swallowed at the dry lump in his throat but nodded, then was out the door.
"I thought that phone was only for emergencies?" her mother's voice trailed across the room, coming from the direction of the kitchen. Johanna had been thrilled to have a little helper in her kitchen tonight, and Alexis was more than enthusiastic to help out with preparing the roasted chicken, and later with baking the chocolate chip cookies. Castle's five-year-old had knocked out on the couch around eight, as he predicted she would, and now mother and daughter were getting around to cleaning the kitchen. Only, Kate's eyes kept straying back to her cell phone and it was obvious her mother had soon started to notice.
"It is," Kate replied, referencing her phone, "I just thought – Well, that he might check-in or something. It's nearly ten already."
"He trusts you, and his daughter is a cake walk compared to what your father and I went through with raising you," her mother offered, grinning.
"Mom," Kate grumbled, pink tinting her cheeks. She wasn't that bad. Well. Usually. Most of the time?
"Besides," Johanna said, breezing right along, "Aren't you the one always telling that poor man not to call you?"
"Geez, Mom. Are you eavesdropping on my phone calls now?" Kate groaned. She knew her mother could be nosy, but she hadn't realized she'd been paying that much attention to her conversations with her novelist companion.
"Katie, your father and I have never had to eavesdrop. The bickering you do with your boyfriends has always been something we could hear from any room in the house." Johanna smiled at her daughter as she rapped a knuckle just to the side of the stove. "Thin walls, sweetheart."
Kate scowled, chewing on her bottom lip. "We're just friends, Mom."
"That's what you keep telling me."
"Because it's the truth."
"Okay, honey," Johanna said, hands up in a sign of surrender, and Kate wondered if maybe she'd gotten a little too snippy in her defensiveness. "Okay."
When Kate's eyes inevitably trailed off toward her phone again a few minutes later, the black screen and noiselessness seemingly taunting her, suddenly her mother's hand was reaching across the counter to pick it up and hand it to her daughter herself.
"Just call him, Katie," Johanna Beckett ordered.
"What?"
"Call Rick." When Kate continued to stare blankly at her mother with the phone in her hand, Johanna went on. "It's going to drive you crazy until you hear from him. You're worried. It's been all over your face all night. Just call him, and find out what he's up to and what time he should be back so you can relax already."
"I'm not – I – "
As if on cue, the phone started to vibrate and chime in her mother's hand with the grainy, classical notes of a Bach composition. It was the least grating of her cell phone's ringtone choices. Johanna lifted the screen for her to see the name and number of the caller.
"Ears must have been burning," Johanna mused. "I'll leave you to it, Katie. Bedtime for me."
Kissing her daughter's cheek as she passed, Kate's mother left her in the kitchen with a soft smile playing across her lips. Kate swallowed roughly before pressing the button to retrieve the call.
"Castle?" she croaked, trying her best not to sound as flustered as her mother had left her feeling.
"Kate!" came Castle's shouting voice. Wherever he was it was loud. Extremely loud. She could barely hear him over the booming noise in the background. "Kate, I'm so sorry! I would've called earlier but I got dragged off to this panel with a bunch of other mystery writers and they started auctioning off signed copies of my books and now I don't even know what party Paula just dragged me into on the roof. I think this guy knows Patterson? Maybe it was Cannell. God, I'm so sorry. I should be leaving soon. I'm going to call a cab and get out of here as soon as possible, I promise."
"No, no. It's fine. Don't rush, Castle. Everything is fine over here. Alexis is out like a light, Mom just went to bed. I can wait up for you."
"Are you sure?" he asked, a note of hesitation in his voice. "There's really nothing else - "
"No, stay. Go have fun, Rick. Really. You deserve a nice night out for a change." Not that they hadn't had their own share of nights out together recently, but this was different. This was his friends, his colleagues. Other writers and those who shared his craft. She knew it had been ages since he'd met up with any of them, and given the fact that he'd taken so long to call, she knew he must have been enjoying herself.
Admittedly, she was somewhat envious. She wanted to be able to see the joy on his face, share in his laughter and amusement. But this party was a part of his world that didn't include her.
Not yet, anyway.
Someday, she thought wistfully.
"Thank you, Kate," Castle's words brought her back, as they always did. "I'll stay. But I promise, I won't be too late."
"I'll wait up for you then," she decided. "Be safe."
"Always," he replied, and she could hear the grin she imagined in her mind.
After she hung up, Kate walked back into the living room, stopping by the bookcase and retrieving a favorite novel for some light reading. Then, lifting a throw off the back of the couch, she sidled up next to Castle's sleeping kid, draping the short blanket across the both of them.
She couldn't be with her writer right now but, with Alexis lying beside her and one of Castle's books in her lap, at least she could find some comfort in being a part of this side of his world.
The knock on the door came just after midnight, startling her from the light slumber she had fallen into on the sofa. She couldn't remember dozing off but apparently she had. In a Hail of Bullets had tumbled from her lap and down to the floor, and she could feel a slight twinge in her neck now.
The light tapping grew slightly stronger and finally she moved for the door, whispering, "Coming, coming," as she went.
Castle's tie was askew and his hair was sticking out at all angles but, to her relief, not a lipstick mark to be found. He was just...
"Exhausted, Beckett. That party was exhausting."
Kate's lips twitched, her smile lifting in one corner and she stepped to the side, allowing him in the door.
"But fun?" she asked, as he lumbered forward, stumbling past her.
"Oh, for sure. I had a great time. But my ears are ringing, my feet are killing me, and I'm pretty sure I slept through the entire cab ride back here. Took me about five minutes just to remember what apartment you were in again."
Smelling the alcohol on his breath, she had to tease him. "You sure that's from being tired, or just one too many shots of the good stuff with your writer buddies?"
"Unghhh," Castle moaned, pitching forward with a hand to his forehead. "That too. I haven't drank that much in...I don't know. Long time. Long time, Beckett."
Kate smiled. This was a new side to him, and frankly it was sort of cute. He wasn't drunk so much as tipsy, but it was obvious to her that Castle was a lightweight. She internally mused to herself how easy it would be to drink him under the table, even if she wasn't legally allowed to do so yet.
"Come on, party boy. Let's get you off your feet," she teased, taking him by the elbow and leading him in the direction of the living room.
"Alexis?" he asked, catching a flash of red beneath a blanket that now dwarfed her on the chaise. He dropped down beside his kid, readjusting the blanket at her shoulders. She snuffled in her sleep a little, but didn't stir.
"Mmm. She got up once, around eleven or so. I threw on Cartoon Network, per request, and she nodded off again within minutes of Rocky and Bullwinkle."
"Good, that's good. Ahh," Castle groaned, as the weight of his body sunk him deep into the couch cushions. "I should probably get her home."
Kate drew closer, finding herself curling up beside him, legs tucked beneath her as she shifted to face him. "Why don't you stay?" she asked.
Castle turned, meeting her eyes with a quizzical look that told her he wasn't quite sure if he'd heard her correctly.
"Stay here. Tonight." A question, but also a plea for clarification.
"Yes." Kate leaned in, her eyes never leaving her hands as she boldly loosened his tie. "It's late. Alexis is already asleep, and you're dead on your feet right now. Just stay the night, Castle. Go home in the morning after you've had some rest."
Castle swallowed hard at a lump in his throat. "And risk your dad murdering me in my sleep?" he squeaked. "I think I'd rather take my chances in New York's midnight underbelly."
Kate rolled her eyes as she tugged a little on the tie still dangling around his neck. "Don't be ridiculous," she chided. "Dad's not back from Boston until Monday night. I'll just grab a few more blankets from the linen closet and we can camp out here tonight, have Mom's famous brunch in the morning. She won't mind."
"We?" he squeaked, eyelids so very heavy now but his brain still catching on the important details of the conversation. "Kate, I don't - "
Lifting the tie over his head at last, Kate shushed him with a finger to his lips.
"Stop," she commanded simply. "Do as I tell you. Or I'm tying you down with this."
Castle's eyes darkened as she brandished his tie in front of him. "Actually kinda hot, that."
"Castle," she warned, but she was smirking, knowing full well what she was doing. Doing to him.
"Fine," he mumbled, kicking off his shoes as he shook out of his jacket. He draped it across the back of the couch. "But when you find me in a pool of my own blood in the morning, you'll remember this moment. Remember how your actions caused my untimely demise."
"Boston, Castle. Boston," Kate muttered as she headed for the hallway. She grabbed an armful of her favorite spare blankets from the closet before returning to him.
"You may not be aware of this yet, Beckett, but fathers have Spidey Senses," Castle went on dramatically, even through his own yawns as he laid down. "We just know things."
Throwing one blanket directly at his face before draping another one across his body, Kate kneeled down on the couch, peering down at him with her elbows perched on the cushion, her chin nestled atop folded hands.
"Guess I'll have to stay right here then, huh?"
Castle peeked out from beneath the blanket on his head, "Kate - "
"Don't worry, Castle," she murmured, sliding in next to him, feeling braver by the second as she teased him. "Dad'll have to go through me first."
Castle shivered when their skin made contact, and it made Kate vibrate with nerves herself. She really had no idea what had come over her so suddenly. It's not that she didn't think he could make it back home safely in the wee hours of the night. She just – wanted him close tonight. Wanted to hear his breath even out, and feel the warmth of his body beside her. She craved it, yearned for it. Weeks of being close yet so far, and then feeling the pangs of – Something. She sent him back out into the spotlight today, into the world that would easily swallow him back in whole, and while she knew deep down that he'd needed it, needed to get out there again for his professional life, it was lonely being on the other side for a change.
"I'll protect you tonight, Castle," she murmured, curling up beside him with her back tucked closely into his chest. Castle's hand flexed and hovered over her hip, and in another fit of boldness, Kate took his hand in hers, guiding it down to drape over her.
"Kate," he whispered, and she could feel the warmth of his breath as it tickled through her hair. "I - are you..." His sentence trailed off, unfinished, but she didn't need to hear the end of it to know what he wanted to say. What he was feeling.
Because she was feeling it, too. But putting words to it would make it real, make it impossible to come back from.
"I don't know, Castle," she murmured, her hand releasing his to join her other palm, pillowed against her cheek as she laid beside him, his little spoon. "I just – I don't know."
The pair fell silent then, and it wasn't long before Kate could feel Castle's breathing evening out behind her, his slow breaths billowing out into her hair.
She sighed.
Are you...sure?
About them. About this. That was obviously what he had meant to ask, but couldn't bring himself to say.
Her answer was just as locked away in her heart as his words were. She'd been trying so hard to keep her distance, keep her behavior teasing but platonic.
Kate reached her hand down to cover his, still resting snug around her midsection.
She still wanted him and on some nights she just couldn't help herself.
Sorry feels inadequate, but it's all I have. If you're still here, thank you. And I'm sorry it took so long to get this to you.
I can't make any promises on updates or a completion date but I still want to finish this someday. Even if it is only for myself.