A/N: So I take forever to update and then the chapter I give you is absurdly short. I know this. I'm sorry about the time it took, but not about the length. Honestly, this chapter didn't need to be any longer. It's short, and it won't take you long to read, but there's a lot here. At least, I think so. That was the intention.
Random other point: forgive any errors? This chapter didn't get an especially good final edit. Granted, I've edited it three or four times, so it should be okay, but I really needed to post it tonight and I'm not really in an editing frame of mind. I also just watched Breakfast at Tiffany's, so for most of my lame attempt at a final edit I was reading what I'd already written in Audrey Hepburn's voice. Which gives it an interesting dimension that really isn't suppossed to be there. :P Anyway, hope you like it. :)
"Come on, find me in daylight."
When she'd first thought of calling Alexis, she never would've imagined the seventeen-year-old's words would be continually turning in her head, refusing to let her think of anything else, for the next hour. But there she still was, sitting on her couch, hearing the girl's words echo in her head as though she'd just spoken them. "I hope, one day, you and my dad both realize that you deserve each other."
She'd never heard anyone arrange the words in quite that way before. It had been a popular theory that she should be with Castle for quite a long time. She'd heard "he's good for you," she'd heard "he cares about you," she'd even heard "you're an idiot if you don't hit that while you have the chance" (Lanie, of course). But she'd never heard "you deserve each other." He deserved her. She deserved him. It put things in a completely different kind of perspective. She just wasn't sure if she believed it.
Did he deserve her? She cared about him. That much was definitely true. She cared about him enough that she was willing to call his daughter to persuade her not to be so tough on him. She cared about him enough that she'd just stopped by his loft a few times after Alexis's accident to make sure everything was okay. She cared about him enough that she was willing to forgive him and allow him to go back to working with her. Did he deserve these things?
Did she deserve him? Someone who made her day to day life a little more interesting, a little more fun? Someone who she knew, whatever happened, truly did care about her as much as she cared about him? Someone who always seemed to have her back when she got into a tight spot, no matter what the circumstances surrounding it were? Someone who'd always catch her when she fell?
He was a little immature. His attention span, even with people, seemed to be short, and that made him difficult to trust. She trusted him with her life, she just wasn't sure she could trust him with her heart.
She was a little distant. She was hard to get to know, and it took a lot to get her to open up. She wasn't quick to trust.
Their issues matched up perfectly. He was hard to trust, and she had a hard time trusting. She'd matured too early in life, and he hadn't matured at all. She took everything too seriously, and he didn't take anything seriously. How could they ever work?
But if they could manage it, there was another way to look at this. They completed each other. She got him to slow down a little, to occasionally (although not always) think before he spoke, to learn a few instances when making a funny or sarcastic comment just wasn't appropriate. He got her to relax, to let her guard down a little. Taught that she didn't have to be so serious all the time.
The problem was, although right now, when he wasn't here, she could look at their relationship objectively and note that this might be true, when they were together and he was being annoying, she couldn't see it this way. She saw the man who'd stopped maturing after his ninth birthday without realizing that this immaturity was part of what she liked about him. It was refreshing because it was so much different from everything she saw and dealt with on a day-to-day basis without Castle in her life, but she never seemed to remember this in the moment. She just threatened to shoot him.
She also often failed to remember that there was another side to him, one that was a mature adult, or at least a reasonably mature adult. The one, and maybe only, thing that could remind her of this was talking to his daughter. Alexis knew a different Castle than she did, and the Castle that Alexis knew was a man she could have very little difficulty loving, or even trusting.
The ultimate truth was that she wanted to trust him. She really did. But wanting to trust him and actually trusting him were two very different concepts.
She believed, she knew, that when she had a problem, when life started to get complicated or challenging, he would always be there. She didn't doubt that. He'd proven it over and over. But what she wasn't as sure about, what she needed to know, was that he would be there for her every day, when everything was fine, when she didn't necessarily need him. He was the exact opposite of a fair weather friend. He always seemed to show up to save the day when she needed him the most, but when everything was easy it seemed that he had a tendency to lose interest. That wasn't okay. She wanted, she needed, she deserved, someone who would be there for her all the time. Through good times and bad. Through bad times and good. She wanted to believe that could be Castle, but she didn't know whether she could. She didn't know what she believed.
But that, she realized, that was what Castle needed to prove. He'd said that he would show her that she could trust him, and knowing Castle, the evidence he'd present would probably be in the form of some grand gesture. But she didn't need a grand gesture. She already knew that he was good with those. What she needed was much simpler, but much more difficult to demonstrate. She didn't need grandeur, she needed simplicity. Loyalty. Honesty. And these things couldn't be proven by a single act. She needed to see a trend. And if she did, then… She sighed. Even thinking this felt like a commitment, and it scared her a little. Even forming the words in her own head was a lot. It was a big step.
She took a deep breath and began the thought again. If she saw this trend, if Castle could manage to prove himself consistently honest, consistently loyal, and consistently trustworthy, then she would be ready. She would be ready to believe and to accept that he deserved her.
But there was another half to the equation Alexis had mentioned. Did she deserve him? Just as he always seemed to be there for her when she needed him, she was willing to do the same for him. She'd obviously been willing to call his daughter to try to help make things right between them. She did care about him. She cared about him a lot.
But just caring about wasn't enough, and she didn't try to fool herself that it was. She had to be willing to let him in. She had to be willing to trust him. She had to be willing to allow him to love her the way that she knew he could, the way that she knew he wanted to. And she had to be able to offer him that same depth of affection. But she didn't know if she could do any of this, and until she could, there was no question in her mind. Regardless of Alexis's opinion, she did not deserve him.
Maybe one day it would all line up. Maybe, one day, like Alexis said, they would both feel that they deserved each other, and from there they would be able to move forward. It was possible. But for now, they were simply two friends, two good friends, who cared about each other and would always be there to help each other through tough situations. He had promised to show her that she could trust him, and she had promised not to freeze him out. So for now, with those promises, they would move through life together, and they'd see where it would take them. And for now, she thought, that would be enough.
A/N: So... just saying... if anyone does manage to read this tonight (it's Monday... it's still "tonight" til about 2, 2:30 a.m. in my book, depending on when I go to bed), I had kind of a crappy day/evening, and any reviews would probably be appreciated even a little bit more than usual. Of course, if you review tomorrow or at some later time, that's still awesome. Just a random and semi-unimportant point I wanted to make. Thanks for reading!
