Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Chapter 25
"Kids are in bed, now talk," Kate demanded later that evening. They were sitting on the couch, four empty bowls of mac and cheese on the coffee table along with another empty juice box.
She was tired, but had been feeling pretty good all day given the circumstances. They'd had an early supper on the couch and watched cartoons, both children snuggled into her side, until it had been time for them to go to bed.
"There's nothing to talk about," Castle evaded, but the hand curled around her wrist, the shoulder pressed against her own and the hovering said otherwise.
"Castle."
"I- This is just-" He broke off, collecting himself. "I always knew something like this could happen, I know worse things could have happened, and I thought I was okay with that. But today, it became real and I-" He trailed off again, his lips clamped together and his eyes focused on a speck on the floor.
"You're not okay with it anymore?" she finished for him, leaning forward with her breath caught in her lungs. This was it. The point where people usually told her she was on her own. Her dad had been against the whole idea of her joining the Academy, but when she'd come by with her first black eye, he'd yelled at her in his drunken stupor, thrown her out. Carly, Maddie, her old friends from high school had declared her crazy and had stopped partying with her when she told them it couldn't be like old times anymore where they'd disappeared into the dingy bathroom of a club to make the party a little more vibrant and longer lasting.
"I- I don't like the aspect of your job where it's possible for you to get hurt, no. But I realize that your job is a part of you, that you need your job, and I admire your reasoning for doing it, but the fact that you could get hurt doing it, scares me."
When he looked at her, there was a carefulness on his face she wanted gone. She would never judge him for voicing his fears.
Her hand slipped between his damp palm and the crumpled fabric of his pants that he had clutched at. Giving it a squeeze, she turned to face him more fully.
"It scares me too sometimes," she confided quietly and this time it was him that squeezed her hand. "But I wouldn't be me without this job, and if that is a problem for you-"
"No! No," he protested loudly, his eyes wide with horror and she immediately felt ashamed that that tiny little nugget of doubt that had accompanied her all day had gotten the better of her at last. She thought she'd been beyond that. "I mean, yes, it is a problem; I don't want to see you hurt, but I'll come to terms with that if you give me some time."
She could do that. He had given her time, she could do the same for him. She just needed to be sure that he eventually would come to terms with the risks of her job. She wouldn't be able to cope if she became further invested in this relationship only to have it shredded to pieces because he suddenly decided he couldn't do it. Hell, she was probably in too deep already.
His hand came out of nowhere, settling on her cheek and turning her head so she was looking at him. "Don't even think it," he said quietly, his voice strained. "I will always support you in your job, I'm too proud of you to ever stop doing that. Just be patient with me over the next couple of days."
"I will," she promised, and his thumb stroked over her eyebrow, skirting the edge of her injury and making peace with it.
"How's the pain?"
"Head throbs a little," she admitted. It'd been hours since she'd taken her last painkiller and their earnest talk had been a little much for her poor head.
"Why don't you go on to bed and I'll clean up out here and then bring you some water?"
"Don't take too long," she whispered and let her lips brush over his ever so softly.
He smiled at her as he watched her go and she heard the clatter of the dishes in the background as she half-heartedly brushed her teeth, checked the wound one last time and then crawled under the covers.
Castle wasn't far behind her and quietly moved about, the familiar sounds of his evening routine lulling her to sleep.
She briefly resurfaced from her slumber when the bed dipped and his warm body slipped in next to hers, one of his legs settling heavily over hers.
The next time she rose, it was due to fingers trailing over her skin. Soft, memorizing touches. Her eyes fluttered closed again until she noticed where he was stroking. The back of her right upper arm.
"Did this one happen on the job as well?" he murmured into the dark and she flung her arm out to turn on the lamp on her nightstand.
Pulling herself into a seated position, she rolled up the sleeve of her sleep shirt and bared her arm to him.
"It happened right after I made Detective and got to finally play with the big boys. Thought I had to prove myself. I talked the suspect into surrendering and walked towards him to take his knife, but something spooked him and while I was trying to disarm him, he stabbed me in the back of the arm. It was foolish," she added after a beat of silence and Castle hummed his agreement, still focused on the scar.
When she looked at him over her shoulder, she saw him soaking it all in, and even though his face was dark and his eyes stormy, she realized he needed to hear those stories. In a swift move, she rid herself of her shirt and turned her back to him once more.
His fingers immediately found the small twin cuts on her back, right beneath where her bra clasp would be.
"Someone shot through a window and I dove for cover," she explained, one hand going to the back of her neck and threading through the thin hair above her hairline until she found the knobbly scar there. "This is where they pulled shards of glass from my skin."
Castle's hands were on her back and in her hair now, comparing. "Why are these two on your back so thin and the one on your head so bumpy? And the one on your arm is also barely noticeable; shouldn't you have gotten stitches?"
"I did. But as a child, I frequently came home with scraped knees or a bleeding palm and always itched the scabs, leaving behind terrible scars. So, one day, my mom bought this special oil and it literally made all scars disappear. I still use it and it works wonders. Also did with my stretch marks," she added, almost as an afterthought. After Louis' birth she had thought that the mention of her having a child with another man would hurt a future relationship, but Castle soaked every single detail of her life before him up, and he was always so eager for more. Stories from her high school days were his favorite.
"You had stretch marks?" Castle retorted, surprised, and she turned around with a small laugh.
"Luckily just a handful. But there is one that never completely faded."
Using two fingers, she stretched the skin above her hipbone and Castle leaned in close to inspect the thin, silvery line he found there.
He touched his fingers to it and looked at her with shamed eyes. "I never noticed that before."
"That's okay. You don't really notice it unless you know it's there. It becomes more visible when I'm tan, since it doesn't change color, but when I'm pale like this after the winter, you don't really see it."
"Is it weird that I find it beautiful? That I find all of your scars beautiful?" he asked with a sheepish smile.
Kate raised her eyebrow at him in confusion, but winced when it pulled at the butterfly stitches.
Castle let out a soft chuckle and combed her hair out of the way, allowing the wound to breathe. "They just have a unique way of telling stories, that's all," he explained and Kate's fingers found the scar on his forehead.
"What's this one's story?"
"That would be the story of a stupid, four year-old boy who thought he didn't need training wheels anymore," he grinned, looking much more at ease now, compared to thirty minutes earlier, as he rearranged the covers around him.
"Will you be able to sleep now?" he asked with a cheeky twinkle in his eyes.
"Will I be able to- Castle, I was asleep before you woke me! You're the insomniac here," she muttered and Castle chuckled into his pillow, grunting, when she slapped his chest with her shirt.
She slipped it on and curled up under the covers, one of Castle's legs between hers, his arm sneaking around her waist.
She would allow it for the night. She still wasn't much of a snuggler and Castle was naturally warm, easily turning the bed into a sweatbath, but she'd promised to endure his need to be close for a few days.
And to be truthful, tonight it just felt right; his strong arm around her, pulling her into the safety of his broad body.
XXX
He woke to his phone ringing in his office. Turning to the clock on his nightstand bleary-eyed, he flopped back down with a groan.
The first number on the digital clock was a seven. That's all it took for him to decide it was way too early to get up. On a Saturday no less.
But the caller was insistent and he rolled out of bed at last. He had a sense of foreboding it was Paula. She was the only one he knew who had the nerve to call him on a Saturday morning.
He sank down in his office chair with his eyes closed, listening to Paula's nasal voice over the phone. "Listen closely now, Ricky, this is about your international book tour."
With a red pen in hand, he flipped through his desk calendar, circling the dates Paula rattled off.
He must have dozed off a little because he jerked awake when Kate stumbled through his office, heading for the kitchen. Paula was still talking about his schedule and he held the phone away from his ear, covering the speaker. She'd e-mail him the program anyway.
"What are you doing up?" he asked when Kate came back, cup of coffee in hand.
"I have to go to work, Castle."
"Work?" He'd thought she would stay home one more day with the head injury and all.
"Yeah, work," she replied. "The case isn't closed yet."
He wanted to protest, tell her to stay home, rest some more, but she was already pulling out fresh underwear from the "Beckett drawer" as he'd dubbed it.
Over the weeks, he'd found more and more of their clothing mixed in with his. Kate's underwear and a few blouses for work, Louis' sweatpants that he'd gotten yogurt on and Castle had washed, along with a few more comfortable t-shirts he could change into after school, just to name a few.
"But I'll be back for lunch," Kate promised. "Just need to wrap up a few lose ends. Why are you up?"
He was suddenly reminded of Paula still talking on the phone and quickly held it to his ear again, but she was already saying her goodbyes, reminding him to pack some "accentuating clothing that would gain the ladies' attention."
"That was Paula, giving me the dates for my international book tour."
Kate shrugged into a blouse and came to stand behind him, buttoning it up while watching him write 'Norway' across the third week of June in his calendar.
"You're flying to Norway?" she asked and he turned in his chair with a grin.
"Oslo to be exact."
"Oh, wow," she replied, her eyebrows knitting together, forgetting about her forehead for a second. She groaned and slammed her eyes closed. "That's pretty far away," she offered when the pain lessened.
"It is," he confirmed and flipped back to the beginning of May. "But we're only gone a week."
"I saw some more red in there, where else are you going?" she demanded to know and snatched the calendar out of his hands before he could react.
She started flipping through the weeks, her face devoid of emotion, and he got out of his chair to look at her wound just so he had something to occupy himself with.
"How's it feel?" he questioned and refrained from poking and prodding the angry looking gash.
"The day after it happened is always the worst," Kate murmured, still flipping through his calendar, and it was starting to make him nervous. He didn't even know why. Maybe because he'd made plans before consulting her first? It's not like he hadn't thought of her while making them, but there was the traditional Hamptons-visit, the international and national book tour, and Alexis needed to see her mom.
"You're gone a lot," Kate observed, her voice even, unreadable.
"I am," he replied; careful. "Is that a problem?"
"I don't know, is it?" she tossed back and threw the calendar on his desk, turning on her heel to find some pants.
Okay, being gone, or rather busy, for six and a half weeks out of eleven was kind of a lot. And he didn't even know if she had plans for the summer and whether they coincided with his or not.
He pushed himself out of his chair to find her in the bathroom, combing her hair and then applying a layer of mascara.
"We'll find some time to ourselves, I promise," he started cautiously, sitting on the rim of his bathtub to observe her.
"Oh, really? When? In-between you visiting your ex-wife and flying across the Atlantic Ocean?"
"Is this about Meredith?" he questioned, completely thrown off. She had never made a secret out of disliking Meredith, but surely she realized that Alexis needed to see her mom?
"No!" she replied, forceful and irritated, knotting her eyebrows together before remembering the wound.
She hissed in pain and annoyance, threw her mascara onto the vanity and stormed out of the bathroom, leaving a confused Castle behind. He knew he should have stayed in bed this morning.
"Are we going to talk about this?" he called, a little angry and annoyed himself now when he heard her zip up her boots, and she paused in the door of the bedroom from where she could see him still standing in the bathroom.
Her shoulders slumped forward and even over the distance he saw regret flare brightly in her eyes.
"I'll be back for lunch, okay? And Castle, don't do anything behind my back," she warned before slipping out the door.
Yeah, like he would dare to fly them to Norway with him after the speech he'd gotten the day he'd bought that espresso machine for the Precinct. She hated when things were done behind her back, even if it was to surprise her. He'd learned that the hard way.
XXX
"And the shark was so big!" Louis exclaimed, his arms stretched wide, tipping the ice cream cone in his hand dangerously.
"Really?" Alexis replied, eyes wide, while Castle tried to fumble the key into the lock. "Can we go to the Aquarium some time, daddy? We've never been."
"Sure, Pumpkin, sure."
"You have to! The stingrays there are awesome. You can even pet smaller ones!"
Castle finally managed to get the door open and stumbled through with the children behind him.
To his surprise, he found Kate in the kitchen, preparing what looked like a salad. His super must have let her in again. They both knew she wasn't ready for her own key yet and he didn't dare hide one under the doormat.
"Hey," she greeted them, and much him like, she didn't seem to be her usual self. Their little squabble this morning must have been just as had on her.
"Hey mom, what's for lunch?"
"Ice cream, so it would seem," she replied tersely, fixing Castle with a pointed look, but he only shrugged his shoulders. He knew what she thought of giving the children sweets before lunch or dinner, but he'd needed some cheering up and the children had been bored stuck inside.
"And salad," Louis drawled, his nose wrinkled in disgust as he peeked into the bowl filled with the offending green leaves.
Kate dropped the knife she'd been using to cut the cucumber and shot him a look that made him shrink visibly.
Castle took the boy by the shoulders and turned him towards the living room. "Come on you two, finish your ice creams and then go play till lunch is ready. No TV," he added, trying to earn some points with Kate. But she was back to chopping the cucumber.
"You gonna tell me what's wrong?"
His question was met with silence and he sighed. Fine then.
He found some bacon in the fridge and started frying it. Just salad really was a meager lunch for two hungry children. Kate was usually a great cook and prepared large meals with several side dishes when she had the time, but when she was in a bad mood, salad or toast was the best they'd get.
"We don't have any plans this summer," Kate admitted quietly after a few minutes and Castle immediately abandoned his bacon to stand beside her at the kitchen island.
"So?"
"It just reminded me of the different lives we live and it made me think."
"Not good thoughts, I presume."
"Nope," she replied and looked at him with sad shimmer to her eyes.
"You do know that money doesn't matter to me, right? Neither mine nor yours."
"I know."
He helped her dump the cucumber cubes in the salad bowl and then slid the chopping board out of her reach so that she was forced to focus solely on him.
"Does it matter to you?"
"No, it doesn't. But today it was just a reminder."
"I understand," he said quietly, reaching out to take one of her hands between his, toying with her fingers absentmindedly. "I'm sorry if my money or my status make you uncomfortable, but it's not something I can change. I'm not vain of it and it really doesn't matter to me. I'm just Rick."
"Yeah, I know," she replied, a weak smile flirting with her lips. "It's just a little sobering sometimes when you realize that you have all the money - and the time - to travel the world with your kid. Norway is one of the most expensive countries in the world and I heard it's spectacular."
"You know, Kate-" he started softly, but she must have seen it in his eyes, because she shook her head and pulled her hand from his grasp, her eyes fiery.
"Don't even say it, Castle."
The silence in the kitchen was strained, the tension almost palpable, but he refused to give up. He wanted Kate and Louis to join him on this trip, he wanted to see the world with them, create those new memories with them. If only Kate weren't so stubborn. She would never accept his money.
"But what if-" he started again, only to be cut off once more by Kate's steely voice.
"Just drop it Castle!"
Only when her voice cracked on the last syllable of his name and she angled her body away from him to heave in a deep breath he noticed how much she was bothered by this.
He wasn't allowed to touch her now, he knew that. She'd only shrug him off and then run. So he gave her the space she needed, even though every fiber of his being screamed for him to hold her and soothe the pain with the gentle stroke of his fingers at her back.
Her eyes were suspiciously bright when she turned back around and he took a small step closer, his voice calm.
"Would you listen for a second? What if you were able to contribute to the trip?"
Her mouth was still set in a grim line when she looked up at him, but whatever she saw in his face slightly softened her features.
"W-What do you mean?"
"Alexis is always terribly bored on those trips. My schedules are pretty tight and there are only a few hours each day where we get to explore the new city. She'd love if someone came along and took her shopping or showed her all the sights. And it would be so much easier if I didn't always have to worry about her and wonder if she's fine in a book store that only sells books in a foreign language. And the suite with the two bedrooms is already booked anyway."
"You're not just saying that to talk me into going with you?"
Her eyes were a wary brown and he held his hands up in defense.
"No, I'm not. You can ask Alexis yourself, she really is bored and I know she would miss you terribly over the summer. I would too," he admitted, his heart constricting at the thought. He really would miss her.
"Just promise me not to buy me stuff and to let me pay for things myself, Castle. And I mean in general. I can pay for tickets and cab fares and ice cream."
He wanted to argue, tell her she didn't have to because he had all this money lying around without designated use, but decided not to push his luck. He'd achieved far more just now than he'd hoped.
And as he nodded his agreement, Kate's demeanor softened and her lips curved into a soft smile that made his heart flutter.
A warm hand settled on his chest and when he looked down to find Kate's eyes sparkling with joy, he simply had to slant his lips over hers and draw her closer with an arm around her waist.
"Under that condition we'll come to Norway with you, Castle."
They were flying to Norway in less than five weeks. All four of them.
Author's Note: So sorry for the long wait, had a crazy long weekend.
Twitter: kbymyside