For those who read and enjoyed the last chapter, thank you, and I'm glad! I was surprised by how many people were surprised at her giving in at the end, but I'm happy I was able to surprise you a bit (OK, I know I used the word surprise way too much there). Thank you for all of the feedback, both about the story and also about the points I mentioned in the (long) author's note. Please know that it wasn't just for me or even for this particular story; it was for all of the authors out there that people love to follow and wait for updates from. We all appreciate our readers and love to hear from you. And from comments that I've received from other authors, I know that my sentiments are shared.
About the crutches...I was on crutches once and couldn't put any weight at all on one leg for a few days. My hands hurt SO badly after about a day from bearing my full body weight every other step when I used them to move around. When I had my surgery, though, I had none of those problems because I could bear some weight on the leg. So that part is personal experience, although my husband never gave me piggy back rides. He's just not a giddy-upping type of guy.
And can I say that it's cool that I'm hearing about a bunch of people who have tried the brownies? Wonderful! And my youngest has a birthday coming up and guess what he wants for his school treat? Yup, you guessed it.
Disclaimer: standard disclaimers still apply.
Rick leaned over Kate's shoulder as she sat at the counter in the kitchen. Alexis had already finished and had gone to her room to call her friends, and Kate had just popped the last part of her egg roll in her mouth when Rick whispered softly in her ear, "So if we watch a movie tonight, do you think you could try to sit by me this time? Nice and close? You know, keep me warm?" His tone was all mirth and playfulness, typical Castle, and she could almost see the smirky smile on his face.
But she'd thought he'd gone into the other room, so when she felt his breath by her ear, her startle reflex almost kicked in. She swallowed quickly, and, trying to ignore the tickle that she felt from his warm breath so close to her ear, turned around and said, "Castle, I thought you learned your lesson about sneaking up behind me. You're lucky I caught myself or you just might have ended up with another bloody nose."
He took an involuntary step back when she reminded him about the nose incident. But he was silent so she continued with her answer to his question.
"I'm staying here because my place doesn't have an elevator. And believe me, I do appreciate it. Really. And if I haven't said thank you, then thank you, and I mean that sincerely. But that doesn't mean I'm going to be snuggling up with you at any given moment."
He looked genuinely perplexed. "Why not?"
She rolled her eyes. "Castle, really. We're not in the Hamptons anymore. We're in New York now, the real world. We," she waved her hand between them, "don't snuggle. Back to the real world, you know?"
"Yes," he said in a low voice with just a hint of a smile sneaking through. He took a casual step back toward her. "I do know. We are back in New York. And if I recall, there was a certain...decision...that was going to be made when we got back. One that went along with some rules. Rules that, as I recall, were not broken." And the grin got just a bit wider.
"Uh...wha...?" Damn, with the Noah elevator fiasco, and having to temporarily move her living arrangements, the specifics of the rules and the decision had somehow slipped her mind. And if the truth be told, she supposed that all along, she was just planning to go to her apartment, think about it a bit-just to say that she had-and then file the whole weekend away as a nice memory and not bring the whole rule or 'date' thing up to Castle again. She was going to be all business, and then, of course, he wouldn't bring it up either.
Yeah, right. Fat chance. This was Castle she was talking about.
What delusional planet was she living on? The man kept bringing up the rules all of the time over the last few days, and he even pulled away from her that time in the bathroom when she was practically naked, to try to adhere to those 'rules'. Quickly, she forced her mind away from that thought, because it was a totally delicious memory, and she didn't need that particular brand of deliciousness clouding her mind now.
Rules. "Yeah, Castle. We're back in the city. But I'm...uh...I'm not really home, am I?" she asked, trying to minimize the situation.
He tipped his head to the side and pursed his lips. "Kate, really. Stop stalling. This is New York. Like it or not, it's decision time."
"Decision?" she asked innocently.
"Yes, Detective. A decision. About a dinner. Date." He separated the two words out for emphasis, and boy, emphasis is what they had.
She leveled a glare on him, and he met it unflinchingly. "Really? Seriously, Castle, you want to have this discussion now?"
"Obviously." He raised his eyebrows in a smug look. "I want to have ample opportunity to start planning our dinner. Our date," he said as he grinned at her.
She sighed. "Really, Castle. It's just a dinner. We've eaten dinner together before. I don't see why you're making such a big deal out of it now."
"We have eaten together before. But I've never had a date with you before."
"Date?"
He shook his head at her slowly. "Come on, Kate. You're not hearing impaired, and you've heard me say the word 'date' several times already. And don't play stupid. You're anything but stupid, and you know very well that our agreeement was for a dinner date. When you got back home. And you not being in what is technically your home has absolutely no bearing on anything."
"Oh, really? And why not? Maybe a date," she enunciated very clearly, "isn't in the cards." All of a sudden very confident, she raised one eyebrow at him and glared at him expectantly.
He stared at her. He obviously didn't expect that. He expected her to stutter and cave, just like she had when he'd caught her reading 'Heat Wave' in the bathroom stall at the precinct. But she'd been around him long enough where she was able to recover a little more quickly than she had then. She raised her eyebrow at him as she leaned on the counter in front of him. But he met the challenge head-on, by placing his own elbow on the counter and leaning toward her. "Oh, I believe a date is very much in the cards, Detective."
She stopped and looked at him. "Castle. Really, despite everything, I enjoyed myself this weekend, so thank you. It was a lot better than being cooped up at my apartment. But it was a weekend away...a getaway. It wasn't real life. Sometimes you do things when you're away from your normal routine, and it stays just that way...as a vacation memory. And some things are just better left as 'vacation memories'."
He looked at her incredulously and held up a hand as he trying to make sense of what she was saying. "So let me get this straight," he tried to clarify. "You made up all of these rules about rules, so we could maybe-and by 'maybe' I mean 'probably'-go on a real date when we got back here, and now you're saying that because what happened between us happened during a little getaway from work and the city, that it's somehow...invalid just because of the fact that we weren't in New York?" His eyebrows crinkled and he got a perplexed look on his face. "Come on, Kate. That logic is just...I don't even know what that is. But I can tell you one thing. It's not happening."
"Good."
"Good? You're acquiescing?" That was just too easy, especially for Kate Beckett.
"Acquiescing? No. I'm not. You just did."
"I did not!"
"Yes you did! You just agreed with me that this so-called date isn't happening."
"I repeat...I did not! What is not happening is that you are not going to pretend this didn't happen." He gave a little shake to his head as he realized that he was sounding a little bit like a tongue twister.
"Castle..."
"Kate, you are not going to get all weird on me and ignore this."
"Castle..." she said again as he stepped toward her. He was invading her personal space in a decidingly intense way as he not only invaded her personal bubble with his body, but as he leaned down and placed his face right in front of hers.
"Kate, tell me in five minutes that all we have is a pleasant vacation memory." And with that, he leaned the rest of the way in toward her face and touched his lips to hers.
She'd frozen when he leaned in, and remained frozen even when she felt his lips against hers. And she tried to remain frozen, but as she felt his still-light kiss, she realized that part of her-no doubt a part that she'd tried to bury deep inside of her-had been waiting for the chance to kiss him again. She let out a little breath in defeat, and then she started to kiss him back, matching his little kisses with some of her own.
They went on like that for a bit, when she registered the feeling of his hand at her waist, lightly at first, then firmer as he began to knead her hip. And somehow, of it's own volition, her arm stole up his arm to find a place to rest on his shoulder. About that time, he pressed slightly closer and deepened the kiss a little, testing her response. But he needn't have worried, because she seemed to have forgotten any of her previous hesitation or protestations that this was just a 'vacation memory', because the memory, such that it was, seemed to be not really a memory at all, but instead a state of the current events. Events which apparently did NOT end in the Hamptons.
The light kisses slowly transformed to more intense kisses, just like what had happened a few times in the Hamptons, and finally resulted in full-out plundering of mouths, as they sat there at the kitchen counter. And one Detective Beckett, previously of the mindset of dismissing the new-found attraction between them, had apparently changed her mind and was now doing her share of the plundering. That hand of his that was on her hip didn't stay there for very long; it found its way under her shirt to caress the smooth skin of her back. His other hand had somehow found its way into her hair, lightly caressing the long strands. And her hands weren't idle either, as she, too, had let her other arm wind up around his neck, making it seem as though she was no longer terribly eager to maintain that romantic disinterest that she was trying to achieve before.
Finally, though he certainly wanted to continue, Rick slowed the kisses, finally pulling away to bury his face in the sweet smelling hair at the side of her head. He took a few heavy breaths, and it seemed from the feeling against his neck that she was doing the same. Finally, he heard her murmur next to his ear, "Rick."
Though he didn't really want to pull away, he did because of the unreadable tone of her voice. He was pretty sure he was going to hear a verbal blast for what had just happened, now that they both seemed to be recovering their collective breath, and he mentally began preparing his arguments for continuing what they started in the Hamptons.
He said an uncertain "Yeah?" into her ear before he pulled away. But when he pulled away enough to see her face, what he saw was definitely not what he expected. Her eyes were narrowed slightly, but her slightly swollen lips were curved up just a little bit into a hint of a sassy smile. When he registered the smile on her face, he asked hestiantly, "So I take it that you might have found that to be more than a pleasant vacation memory?"
He hadn't really recovered yet from the shock of seeing that look on her face when she shocked him even more by replying, "You're really bad at telling time, Castle. I don't think those five minutes are up yet." And then she leaned forward and once more sealed that sassy mouth of hers to the surprised one of his.
The kiss didn't go on nearly as long this time, but they were both still slightly breathless when they pulled away from each other. He needed some space from her and a break from what they'd been doing, but didn't want to give her up entirely yet, as long as she didn't seem upset by the turn of events. He reached his other arm around her back until both of them were encircling her, and he leaned his forehead against hers as he took a deep breath. "So..." he prompted.
"So," she parrotted.
"This..." he tried again.
"Yeah?" She obviously wasn't going to make this easy on him.
He pulled back and looked up at the ceiling for a moment, and then pulled her slightly closer to him as he rested his chin on the top of her head. "Kate..."
"Rick."
Although he still felt a slight thrill at the ease with which his first name was starting to roll off her tongue, he finally responded, "I know we're not great at communication, you and me, but these single word conversations aren't really going to do us a lot of good in the long run."
She situated her arms around his shoulders a little differently then, casually. Rick didn't mind-anything was fine with him as long as she didn't pull away. "Probably right about that."
"Four words," he remarked. "Thats an improvement." He paused, and then just decided to go for broke when he said softly, "Kate, like it or not, we are involved. Already. That ship sailed sometime within the last several days. Sharing a meal and calling it a date is not going to change that fact in the least. You, uh, do realize that, right?"
He felt a little sigh against his neck, before he heard her soft whisper of "Yeah, much as I hate to admit it, I started to figure that out sometime around minute three."
"Minute three?"
"Yeah. Minute three of that kiss."
She could hear the grin in his words. "I knew I could make you see reason with that kiss. It's good to see I haven't lost my touch."
Inwardly rolling her eyes, she took one of her hands from where it rested behind his shoulders and raised it, lightly thumping him on the back of his head.
"Ow! What was that for?"
She pulled back to look at him, a bemused look on her face. "That was for you acting all smug. And I hardly even touched you. Don't be a baby, Castle."
The head thump forgotten, he grinned down at her, all of a sudden struck by the fact that she was in his arms, she was kind of smiling, and she hadn't shot him yet. Even though they'd slept in the same bed-several times, even-every once in a while, it still hit him that their relationship had progressed to a newer, more intimate level. And when that fact did hit him, at random times, he just felt like grinning. And fist-pumping. And feeding the birds. And maybe even doing a little happy dance.
"So I thump you on your head and you start grinning at me like a loon?" she asked, puzzled.
He shook his head a bit. "No, Detective, not at all. No looniness here. I'm just really happy that you're with me, here like this." And he bent forward and placed a very light and quick kiss on her lips. "Very happy," he smiled. "So what kind of a dinner do you want for our date? Anywhere special that you want to go? How-" his question was cut off by the ring of Kate's cell.
She pulled away from him and sat back in the chair, grabbing for her phone that she'd laid on the counter. "Oh, it's the Captain. I called him before and left a message for him to call me. Heads up about the foot," she told Rick quickly as she pressed the button to answer the call. "Hello?"
Rick moved away from her and attempted to straighten up the kitchen a bit while she explained her injury and her predicament to the Captain. Pretty soon, she clicked the call off and sat the phone down. "He told me to take tomorrow off and get myself to a doctor to get checked out. Hopefully I'll be able to get in somewhere..." she thought out loud.
"Don't worry about that. I'll make a few calls," Rick said ominously.
"Oh, no. What are you planning? Castle, it's bad enough that I have to go to a doctor at all. I am absolutely NOT going to some witchdoctor or one of your new-age-chanty-earth-mother types that you might have dated in the past while doing book research.
"Not a problem, Detective. I have the names of several highly respected surgeons programmed into my phone. Nothing New Age, and no chanting. Nobody I dated. I promise. We'll find the best fit of doctor for your injury and I'm sure that one of my guys can get you in early tomorrow." He sat back down in the chair next to her.
"You have a guy everywhere, don't you?"
"Of course. And rest assured that any one of them will be happy to help you out and get you back to your full ass-kicking tendencies as soon as possible.
"Well...uh...thanks, Castle." She looked down at her hands laying the counter.
Rick could tell that they'd reached another somewhat uncomfortable time. They were still getting used to each other, and he knew those things would probably happen. Because they certainly couldn't sit around and make out all day, much as he might like that idea.
"Are you going to tell me what's wrong? And don't bother saying that it's nothing, because if it was nothing, then you wouldn't have the cute little furrow between your brows," he remarked with a charming grin.
She looked up at him and struggled to make her face go lax, to get rid of the apparent furrow that he seemed to amuse him. "This is still just...weird. Me, staying here with you. Us...you know..."
"Kissing? Getting hot and heavy?" he asked her with another grin.
And just like that, some of the tension evaporated at his blunt statement. And immediately, her mind went into 'play-with-Castle's-mind' mode. She bit her bottom lip as she gave him a slight but very sultry smile. "Oh, Castle, if you think that was my hot and heavy, well..." she trailed off, letting the implication stand on its own. She knew his imagination could fill in the rest of her statement, and from the slight widening of his eyes and the way the smile had dropped off his face as soon as the implication hit, it looked like his imagination was running wild right about now.
She rolled her eyes. "Such an easy mark," she said almost to herself. He was still trying to recover from her comment, so she just continued with their previous conversation, minus the innuendo. "Yes, Castle. All of this. It just still feels strange to me. But I suppose I can't really deny you that dinner, after all you've done for me, so yeah. Make some reservations. Surprise me."
"After all I've done for you? I finally get you to agree to this date, after all that's happened between us in the last few days-which I think has been pretty spectacular, by the way-and then I find out that that's why you're going along with it? Just because of gratitude?" She was a little stunned by the look of hurt-hurt?-that passed over his face when he registered her words. Hurt and frustration, as he looked back down at the floor.
Crap. She didn't mean it like that. She really didn't. But after it came out of her mouth, she could see how he would think that. "No, Rick..." She lifted a hand like she was going to touch him, to reassure him, and then she realized that she didn't know what to do with it. They'd kissed, sure, they'd even made out in a bed, but after such a long time of not having physical contact with the man, she just was out of her element on giving the spontaneous comforting gesture, the more-than-friends contact. He was the one that was good at that, not her. Should she touch his face, get him to look at her again? His shoulder?
Finally, she just opted to touch his hand that was resting on his leg, grasping it like he had grasped hers after the Triple Killer had gotten away. And after she did it, she realized that it didn't feel so foreign after all, and that gave her the push that she needed to continue speaking. "I'm sorry...I didn't mean it that way. Well, not only that way. Sure, I'm grateful to you. Who wouldn't be?" The somewhat sad look on his face didn't go away, but at least he did look up at her as she continued speaking.
"But I...you know, Castle, you really stepped up. I told you I needed to do things on my own, and for the most part, you let me, even though I know that it was just eating at you to not help me. Like getting to my apartment. You just stood by and you didn't say a word. And I know now it was stupid, because my hands are totally killing me!" She punctuated that statement with a bit of a concilatory smile before continuing. "But I had to try to do it by myself, and you understood that, even though I know you didn't like it. I appreciate that, really. So I know that this is more than just a casual dinner date between friends. I wanted to be sure. And I'm still not sure, but I don't know if there's a way that we can really not do the date, after everything that's happened. Because really, if you think about it, the next meal we have together could be a 'date' meal, no matter where we are. Because that's where we are now with...things." She really meant to say their relationship, but she couldn't form those words yet in relation to them. Not quite yet. "And the date thing, it's not just for you...it's for me too. And being back in the city, being here," she gestured toward the loft with her free hand, "it just hits me more here, you know? That something has changed between us. And that's a little scary, with how long I've known you and everything."
Her fumbling explanation must have been somewhat okay because she noticed the look on his face was evening out; he didn't look so tense or...quite so hurt anymore. He put his other hand over their clasped hands, and told her, "Thank you for being honest with me." His gaze was so intense when he was sincere like that...it was all she could do to hold it and not look away before he continued. "If the truth be told, it's kind of strange for me too. But it's a good kind of strange, and that's why I was smiling before, right before you thumped me on my head. So anyway...uh...can I get back to you about the date? I'd like to see what the doctor says about your ankle so I can plan around it. I mean, we should probably plan for something with not a lot of walking required, and probably nothing that would require a slinky dress. Much as I would love to see you in a slinky dress, I'm sure you wouldn't feel comfortable wearing one until you can wear heels again and your ankle isn't the size of a grapefruit."
Once again, Kate was taken aback by his statements, all spoken so matter-of-factly. Once again, he surprised her. Here he was, after being given the green light for this 'date' that he'd been asking about for days, and he was forgoing rushing to the phone and making reservations somewhere because he wanted to accommodate her as much as possible because of that damn ankle. She shook her head slightly as she could feel herself getting just a little bit sappy at his obvious consideration. She saw his eyes cloud over as he noticed her shaking her head, and he looked like he was about to say something. But she went with instinct and even despite her hesitation before over how to touch him, she had none of that hesitation now as she covered his lips with the index finger of her free hand. "Yeah, Rick," she told him softly, "you can get back to me on that date. And thank you...that's really sweet." And she leaned forward and replaced her finger with her lips as she gave him a light kiss.
She pulled back, and then just sat and stared at each other goofily. And she thought that maybe these spontaneous gestures might not be so difficult after all.
"Movie?" he asked.
She thought about it for a moment, and then nodded. "Sure."
He started to get up, but then he looked at her sideways. "Snuggle a little bit?" he suggested.
She smiled, thinking back to his question that had started this entire conversation. "Sure. A little bit. But clothes stay on, got it?" she added with a shake of a finger in his direction.
"Detective! My daughter is in the house!" he said in mock outrage. "Of course clothes stay on. That is one of the rules, right?" he asked cheekily.
"Just making sure, Writer Man."
He started to go, but then stopped again. "Kate?" he asked.
"What, Castle?"
"I'm okay with waiting for the date until we hear about your leg. Really. But...even if we haven't officially had our first date yet, can I still think of us-in my own mind, that is-as dating?" His voice deepened as he said the last word, giving it emphasis, but still belying just a hint of insecurity as to how she might answer the question.
She started to think about it, but then she realized that she had already jumped off the cliff. She wasn't sure if was during this conversation, or if it was sometime during the last few days, but she'd already jumped, and she couldn't go back now. She looked him right in the eye and put him out of his misery. "Even though it still sounds strange, I guess that's okay, Castle."
He gazed back at her intently, seemingly trying to digest her words, and she could see the point when they fully sunk in: his eyes got sparkley and a large grin threatened to overtake his face. "This is just so cool!" he squeaked, giving her a loud smacky kiss on her lips before he bounded off to the living room to get a movie ready.
Yes, she thought, living with the Castles, and now dating-wow, that still sounded strange-Rick was certainly going to make things interesting now.
Hey, folks. We're winding down now. I have an idea/plan for another chapter or maybe two for this story, but it could also pretty easily end here. What do you think...is this a good ending spot? And then, how do you all feel about a sequel? It would pick up where this leaves off; this story was the beginning of the relationship (actually realizing that there was one) and the sequel would be them getting used to the relationship and building it into something.
This chapter went in a little different direction than I'd originally intended, but sometimes they do that. I hope her initial dismissal and then her honesty toward the end weren't too OOC. When pressed, she couldn't actually run away, so she tried to figuratively, at least at first. When writing it, I viewed it more as resignation, as coming to terms with it, kind of like when she realized she couldn't stay at her place with no elevator and limited mobility.
I was honestly going to address some Noah escapades in this chapter, but then I got sucked up into all of the Casketty stuff so I left him out because I didn't want to spoil the mood. But if anyone wants to hear about (fictional) Noah antics, just let me know.
Hope you enjoyed it. Take care, everyone, and thanks for reading!
