This happened to fit in the timeline, so I went with it. And as I deal with an approaching anniversary of a loss of my own, it seemed fitting.
"You gonna fill me in on where exactly you're taking me on a Wednesday afternoon with a suitcase full of my clothes?" she asks him, shivering from the lingering cold as she shuts the passenger door.
"What's the fun in that?" he asks, shoving the key into the ignition.
"Alexis will tell me, won't you, sweetie?" Kate says, eyes glinting as she turns to the girl in the backseat.
Alexis purses her lips. "I wish. Daddy blackmailed me."
"You mean bribed—" he interjects.
Alexis rolls her eyes. "He said if I told you that I wouldn't be able to go," she huffs.
"You're already in the car, aren't ya?" Kate winks.
The little girl's eye twinkles. "We—"
"Don't think I won't turn this car around, Alexis Castle," he warns. His stern tone is ridiculous and Kate almost laughs, but Alexis buys it, buttons her mouth right up.
Kate fiddles with the vents embedded in the dashboard. She's been huddled outside in the cold all day on a job and even though she left three hours ago, she still feels the bite of winter deep in her bones.
"You know I have to work tomorrow?" She briefly rubs her hands together before she shoves them between her thighs, trapping her fingers in the heat of her body.
"You were supposed to work tomorrow, yes," he confirms, one hand delicately balanced on the steering wheel as he shrugs out of his coat with the other. She accepts it gratefully, lays it over her legs as she furrows her brow in confusion.
"What do you mean 'were', Rick? Did you do something?" She doesn't know what he has planned, but if he meddled with her job—
He's silent as the car halts to a stop in front of a light. She sighs before flicking her gaze back to Alexis, who's sliding a CD into her Discman.
"You cleared this with Montgomery, didn't you?" she asks quietly.
"Yes."
She clenches her jaw against his words. "I haven't been there that long, Castle. What gives you the right to ask him for a favor?" she hisses.
He scrubs a hand down his face. "I—" He falters, looks a little sad, and she knows this isn't how he imagined this going at all. "Just thought it might be nice to get you out of the city for a few days." He pauses, hesitating. "Especially with the ninth coming up," he finishes softly.
She deflates a little, slamming her eyes closed. But -
Yeah, makes sense. She hadn't considered that he might have a reason behind his spontaneity (or, what she suspects, was actually not so spontaneous after all). But she's spent the last few days trying to ignore it, put it off for as long as she can.
Guess she can't delay it any longer now, can she?
"What's the date today?" she asks quietly, tugging at her bottom lip as she allows her eyes to flutter open. She stares out the windshield, forces her eyes to focus on the dirty, New York concrete. She hates winter sometimes, hates the way the snow warmly blankets the city for a day before it all turns to filthy ash on the streets.
"It's the 7th," he confirms.
She nods slowly. Yeah, sounds right.
She hears him sigh. "I'm sorry. I—"
"No." She lets out a slow breath, turns to meet his gaze. "It's sweet." She lifts a hand to brush a thumb across his cheek. "And something I probably should've expected after what happened last summer."
"I'm not trying to be your keeper—"
"I know you're not. That's not what I meant." The memory haunts her, that night where she woke up in his house after knocking herself out with a bottle of alcohol. She could never forget the look in his eye—the worry, anxiety, grief.
She shivers. She can't handle a repeat of that, either.
"I didn't think this through enough, did I?" he asks and she can't take the disappointment that brims in his voice. He was probably so excited, probably planned it for weeks, swore everyone to secrecy.
He mistakes her lack of response for agreement. "We're not going far, Kate. I can bring you home if you decide it's what you want."
She shakes her head. "I think it might be good for me," she hedges.
"But?"
"My dad."
He nods in understanding. "You usually spend the day with him?"
"Actually, no," she confesses. "But now that he's sober." She ducks her head, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Maybe I should." She's never spent the anniversary of her mother's death with her father. She always pictured it in her head, how it would go.
He'd sit in his favorite armchair in the living room, the plaid one her mother bought him for his birthday one year, even though she hated the color scheme, swore up and down that it didn't match a damn thing. But it was the one he wanted, so it was the one he got.
He'd have a bottle of bourbon between his legs. Eyes red, hair unkempt. Kate would probably curl up on the couch, underneath her favorite blanket, stare at reruns of Temptation Lane, unable to escape her grief.
It all sounds incredibly cliché, even in her own thoughts, but she's never wanted to take the chance to see if it would be realized.
But her father's sobriety changes everything.
"I thought about calling him. Inviting him out with us. For the day, at least. But I didn't know if you—" he cuts himself off, hesitating. "Had a routine."
He says it carefully and it's not the right word, it's wrong, all wrong because nothing about this is routine and really, she just wants to stay home in bed all day with a photo album handy and one of his books on the nightstand.
But then her mind flashes to last summer and she pushes the thought away.
"Sometimes I visit her grave, but mostly I go into seclusion," she half-jokes.
He settles a warm palm on her lap. "Say the word and we'll turn back, Kate." He squeezes her thigh. "I just wanted to try to make it a little more bearable for you."
A little more bearable. Oh, she loves him so.
She slides her hand out from under his coat and laces her fingers through his before bringing them to her mouth. She brushes her lips against his knuckles. "You did good, Castle," she breathes.
She thinks that maybe letting him into her grief is worth it if she gets to see his blooming smile, so pleased that he's able to do something for her.
And yeah, she can admit that she hasn't done so well with it in the past, that maybe it's time to try something new.
And he might just be the perfect person to help her through it all.
She drifts off a little during the drive, lulled by the heat that finally kicked in and the hum of Castle's voice against the classic rock station.
But even in her drowsiness, there's no missing her favorite beach town, even under the cover of a few inches of snow.
Back to the beginning.
"You brought me to Jersey in the middle of winter?" she asks incredulously.
"I thought we could use a little quiet, out of the din."
"It's definitely…quiet." She's been here a few times in the off-season and she's always surprised by how much and how little changes during that time. There are no lingering tourists, no ice cream truck bells, no surf shops open til midnight. It's a completely different place.
But all the locals are still around, braving the cold in their damp, creaky houses. They still shop at Joe's, frequent Kate's favorite bookstore on a snowy day, still roam about the streets (though quite a bit more sporadically) with a smile on their faces.
Still recognizable.
"Tell me you packed me a hoodie, at least," she says, her eyes gazing up at the clear night sky as they pull into the driveway.
He laughs a little. "You're not going to freeze, Kate. I've got a fireplace."
"You do?" She pauses, makes a face. "We don't have one." But really, who is she kidding? He can afford a beach house with all the amenities, including a fireplace.
He shifts the car into park, looks thoughtful. "Maybe this isn't what you had in mind." He hesitates, searches for words. "But I just—" He lets out a deprecating laugh, shaking his head. "I had this image of us in front of the fireplace, reading out of an old yellow paperback that we bought from the little place in town. And it's quiet, yes, and a little deserted, but I thought maybe…new memories, you know?"
She lets out a breath, absorbing everything he's saying, everything he isn't saying. She swallows hard.
New memories to ease the pain of last summer, when she drank herself into a stupor, only to have him find her slumped on the floor, near hospitalization.
He needs something else. And maybe it won't fix it or erase the memory, but maybe it won't be stuck between them every time her mother's death brings her to her knees.
She realizes that he probably needs this just as much as she does.
Her hand goes to his cheek, slides down to cup his jaw in her fingers. She inches closer, brings her mouth to his in a slow, tender kiss.
"It's perfect, Castle," she breathes.
Thoughts?
Liv