Disclaimer: They're not mine. I'm only borrowing them for the summer. Andrew Marlowe is doing a spectacular job. Way better than I could ever do.
And All The Mornings Ever After
Chapter 53 – There Was No One Else
Castle drove to Kate's apartment. He hummed along quietly to his own iPod playlist, giving Kate an offended glance when she snorted as Rod Stewart's 'You Wear It Well' came on, and she shoved him in the arm.
"Ho! Man at the wheel here, Beckett," he warned her. "Don't want to get cited for dangerous driving."
"Sorry. But, seriously? You wear it well, Castle? You were thinking about yourself when you up uploaded that, right?"
Castle smirked, and slid his eyes down to look at Kate's long legs, bare save for the mere four or five inches still covered by her skirt.
"Honey, if anyone wears it well..." he drawled, skating his fingertips all the way up her thigh until he could skim them under the hem of her skirt, stroking the soft, sensitive skin between her legs.
"Now who's indulging in dangerous driving," chastised Kate, lifting his hand out from under her skirt and depositing it back on the wheel. "And, honey, Castle? What are we, Sugarland?"
She let her own hand fall to rest on his thigh by way of compensation, flexing her fingers around his quad, feeling his muscles tense up under her touch, her nails cresting along the inseam of his black jeans.
"Oh god, I just noticed we match," groaned Kate, looking down at her own outfit and then across at his. "That's disgustingly cute, like something Jenny and Ryan would do," she moaned, turning away to look out of the window, her free hand sliding distractedly through her hair.
Castle was wearing a white linen shirt with black jeans, the sleeves rolled up to expose his tan forearms. He glanced across at Kate again, grinning at how ridiculous she was being.
"I promise you we look nothing alike," he said, eyeing up the top button of her shirt, which was straining a little against the swell of her breasts and the tension of the seatbelt.
The urge to pop it open made his fingers twitch around the cream leather steering wheel, and he had to drag his eyes away to focus on the road ahead.
When he pulled over to the curb and parked up in front of Kate's building, Castle released his seatbelt, but made no move to get out of the car. He swiveled round in the seat instead, turning to face Kate.
"You know…seeing Jerry today got me thinking about Ryan and Jenny's wedding," he said, smoothing his palms down the front of his jeans.
"Oh?" said Kate, trying to keep the flash of interest out of her voice, since she'd been thinking about it too.
"Yeah…I…uh…don't think I ever thanked you properly for saving my ass that day," he said, and Kate whipped her head up in surprise to look at him.
"Thanked me?" she asked, eyeing his face curiously.
"Yeah, when Alexis kind of…well, when she dumped me at the last minute and you kindly suggested that we could be each other's plus one," he explained, haltingly.
"Kindly?" said Kate, dumbly.
"Yes. When you got me out of a tight spot, with the whole singles table thing, and…"
Castle stared at Kate, as if he was seeing her afresh, his eyes wide and blue, mesmerized by her.
"You know I've always wondered why you didn't bring someone…a date, I mean?" he asked quietly, searching her face, his eyes roaming over every part of her.
His question startled her. This was their very recent history they were talking about, and back then, they just didn't do this.
He rubbed his palms down the front of his jeans again, nervously, Kate noted. Men, they all want to know, but they don't want you know, she thought, shaking her head to herself. Curls tumbled around her face and shoulders when she looked down at her lap, and then cleared her throat, trying to find the words.
"Because I…there was no one else," she confessed, into the silence of the car.
She spoke quickly, so quickly that Castle had to re-run the words in his head to capture their meaning. His heart was hammering by the time his brain caught up.
The silence stretched out again, interrupted only by the ticking of the engine as it contracted and cooled.
"You mean…?" asked Castle, his voice tight with uncertainty. He wasn't touching her, though he badly wanted to. He just had to clarify this first, couldn't afford to get it wrong, misconstrue, if only he could find the words.
Kate decided to help him out, take a risk, do the hard work for a change. She shifted slightly in her seat and the soft leather creaked under her.
"What I mean is, if I couldn't go with you, then there was no one else," she said, looking straight at him until he tore his eyes up from examining the gear stick to meet hers.
"And if I'd asked you to go with me?" he said quietly, his eyes shining with a mixture of hope and regret.
"I don't know," said Kate honestly, slipping her bottom lip between her teeth.
Castle's face fell, and he dropped his gaze back down to his lap.
"Don't get me wrong," she said hastily, laying her hand on his arm, "I wanted to…so much. I even thought about asking you myself, but…"
"You did?" he asked in surprise, his head flying up so he could look at her.
Kate nodded her head. "Mmhmm. I just…" she trailed off, letting her hand fall back into her own lap.
Silence enveloped them again until Kate straightened her shoulders and pushed on through. She could do this, and Castle deserved better than half-truths and halting explanations.
"You know how things were back then. We were…close, closer than we'd ever been, I think."
"But?"
"But, that was my workplace, Rick, and there was the guys, and Gates, and…it all sounds so stupid and cowardly when I say it out loud. Like just so many dumb excuses. Anyway, what about you?" she challenged, turning the tables on him. "You asked Alexis to go with you. Did you ever…?" she skimmed the knee of his jeans with her nail, "think about asking me?" she said shyly, letting the curtain of her hair fall partially over her face.
"Did I ever…?" he repeated breathlessly, as if she'd just socked him in the gut, incredulous at the question. "Kate, I would have loved to have asked you," he confessed.
"So why didn't you?"
She sounded so disappointed. Her turn to put him under the microscope.
"Honestly?" he asked, looking into her eyes.
Kate nodded, waiting for the rest of his explanation.
"I didn't think I stood a chance," he said, letting his gaze fall back down to the console between them.
"We're a couple of idiots," said Kate at length, smiling at the peel of laughter her statement drew from her partner.
"Idiots who apparently dance very well together," said Castle, taking her hand, rubbing his thumb gently across her knuckles.
"So I've heard," said Kate, thinking back to Jerry's comments at Remy's that morning.
Castle laughed to himself and Kate nudged him with her knee.
"What? Why are you laughing?" she asked, watching the sunshine gilding his features, so happy, silly and relaxed.
"I Want to Know What Love Is, Beckett?" he snorted, earning himself a punch in the shoulder from his partner.
"Get out of the car," she ordered, the fake annoyance on her face warring with an embarrassed grin.
"Hey, this is my car," he reminded her, with a chuckle.
"You ever want to dance we me again, Fred, you'll get out of the damn car," she said, pushing open her door and then striding off towards her apartment building.
Castle crowded her in the small elevator, his hands wandering, and then he crowded her some more as she struggled with her apartment door key, earning himself a nudge in the ribs when he pushed his chest against her back and wrapped his arms around her, placing the flat of his hands on her abdomen to hold her against him, enjoying the glide of her skirt under his fingers.
"I can't get my key in the lock," she moaned, frowning as it got stuck halfway, jamming, "when you distract me like…Jeez, Rick," she gasped, as Castle rubbed something firm, and hard, and…"Is that what I think it is?" she hissed, while he tightened his grip on her stomach, welding them closer together, shimmying his hips up against her backside.
"Mmm," he mumbled into her neck, nudging her hair aside with his nose, "then maybe we should try putting my key into your lock," he purred into her ear, flicking at the soft lobe with his tongue and then drawing it between his lips to suck it wetly.
Kate sniggered, twisting out of his grasp.
"That is just about the worst line I've ever heard in my life," she gasped, letting out a raucous peel of laughter.
Castle let her go, and she pulled her key back out, checking it to see if it was bent, before sliding it back in and managing to get it to turn with sheer brut force.
He swerved around her to head over to the grey sofa nestled against the far wall, and once there, he sat down a little gingerly, in deference to his rather happy state. A pout marred his handsome face.
Kate watched him for a second from just inside the front door, her head tilted to one side, an indulgent look on her face. He looked good in her apartment, she thought idly, and then corrected the thought. Dammit the man looked good anywhere as far as she was concerned.
She had a small pile of mail in her hand, and she turned to drop it on the table beside the door.
"You…eh…rest up there for a second, while I get my stuff together," she called out, heading towards the bedroom with a smile on her face.
Kate hummed softly, as she went to her closet to fetch her swimwear. She pulled a tiny black string bikini with side-ties on the bottoms out of a drawer, already imagining the quick work Castle's fingers would make of removing them, and then she fished around for her deep purple, halter swimsuit with the cutaway hole around her belly button and the really low dip in the back. Yeah, he'd appreciate that one too, she thought, as her eyes flickered lower, attention grabbed by something, alighting on the small gun safe bolted to the floor of her closet.
She stared at the dark grey, metal casing, blinked twice, shook her head, and crouched down in front of it. The layer of dust on top had been disturbed, a set of slightly smudged, but clearly visible fingerprints interrupting the dull shine of the surface.
She stood up suddenly, much too fast, and blood rushed to her head. Bright flashes of white light sparked behind her eyes, and she felt dizzy all of a sudden, her heart pounded. She looked around the bedroom, scanning for changes, differences, anything, however small. She headed for her nightstand, the one next to the side she slept on. She opened the top drawer with the hem of her shirt and ice water ran through her veins.
Nothing was missing, but she knew, she just knew, that someone had been in there. Things had been moved around. It was subtle, and they'd been careful, whoever they were, but she was good at this, her memory sharp, her senses keen. She worked on shape, and form, visuals and appearances all of the time. Gaps in stories, breaks in patterns, anomalies in behavior, photographs, fingerprint patterns, blood spatter, missing links, if they were there, she would spot them, and the pattern the items in her drawer normally made when she glanced at them, the layout she was used to seeing…it was off.
There was some jewelry, costume, nothing expensive, just a few bracelets and pendants, a couple of large cocktail rings, earrings she wore on girls nights out with Lanie, things Castle hadn't even seen yet, stuff she couldn't fit in her jewelry box, and they had all been moved around just that little bit. A box of condoms she'd had in there for god knows how long had tipped onto its side, spilling some of the contents across the base of the drawer. Three shiny foil rounds had skidded into view the second she'd yanked the drawer open, catching her eye.
Kate felt sick. Her heart was hammering and she felt sick, had to press a hand over her mouth to keep the burn from escaping the back of her throat while her mouth watered. Her apartment was now a crime scene and contaminating it with her own stomach contents was the last thing she wanted to do.
"Castle!" she yelled, a little weakly, bowed over, her hands pressed against her knees trying to breath through her nose.
"Rick!" she called out more insistently, rewarded by the skid of his feet across her wooden, living room floor.
"You rang?" came his bright, happy, teasing voice around the doorframe of her bedroom, and her heart squeezed in her chest.
It took him all of seconds to realized that she wasn't inviting him into her bedroom for a bootie call, and he was on her a fraction of a second later, strong hands and arms, pulling her up, molding her against him, shielding her with his body.
"Kate, my god, what's wrong?" he asked, soothing her with long strokes to her back. He looked down into the open drawer beside them for clues.
He caught sight of the condoms, and his confusion only grew more.
"Is it…" he choked, didn't really know how to word the question. "Are you late? Is that…please don't cry. We can deal with this. I know we haven't really talked about it yet but…"
Kate was as confused as Castle by now, but as she straightened up a little, and saw past him into the open drawer, suddenly the pieces fell into place.
"Rick, no," she groaned, pushing back out of his grasp to explain. "Someone's been in here. While I've been gone. Someone's been going through my things."
He looked stunned, as if she'd just slapped him, then he stood up straighter, still holding onto her by the elbows, his eyes scanning her bedroom frantically.
"How do you know? Is…are there things missing?" he asked.
"I don't know," said Kate, honestly. "I just know someone's been in here," she said, and for once Castle didn't argue with her, he didn't force her to explain how she knew, he just took her at her word and pulled her close, pressing his mouth to her hair, holding her until she stopped shaking and her heart rate evened out.
"My…my god, my mom's files," she choked out a handful of seconds later as her brain clicked into gear, hunting for reasons, doing the math.
She squirmed out of Castle's grasp, taking off at a run, yelling, "Don't touch anything," even as he trailed after her towards her office.
She pulled a couple of Ziploc sandwich bags out of a kitchen drawer and slid them onto her clammy hands, using them as makeshift gloves. The clear plastic steamed up instantly, the cool of the drawer interacting with the steamy warmth of her skin. Condensation bloomed across the surface where it came in contact with her sticky palms and fingertips.
In the office, she went straight for the louvered shutters – her murder board – already knowing deep in her heart what she would find there.
Blobs of Blu-Tack were scattered over the cream painted doors like stars in the night sky, marking out the spaces where photographs and index cards, newspaper clippings and crime scene reports had once been. One yellow Post-It note remained, the words "Find Them" printed neatly in large red letters, written in Kate's own hand, left hanging in the center of the space just to taunt her.
She rapidly turned her attention to her desk drawers, pulling them open, one-by-one, rushing headlong to look, and yet knowing all the while what she'd find there also.
She kicked the small, green trashcan beside her desk over in frustration, yelling out, "Son of a Bitch!" as it rolled away, spilling pencil shavings and a few scrunched up Kleenex tissues out onto the wooden floor.
"Kate," said Castle, coming up behind her, his voice tentative, hesitant, sounding so much like he had the night they'd stood on that very same spot, while he confessed his part in keeping her away from her mother's case.
"You…" he swallowed, gingerly taking hold of her elbow to hold her up and turn her to him, "You have to call this in. They're cleaning house, Kate. You have to tell Ryan," he said, thrusting his cell phone towards her, and then firmly pressing it into the palm of her hand.
A/N: So, judging by the lack of reviews, you really seemed to hate the last chapter (thanks fbobs for the lovely message & violet'sdream, castlecrazie, nomoreifonlys and Soccerstud101 for reviewing). Sorry about that. And I know I promised the Old Haunt next, but turns out I'm a liar too – double sorry – this needed to happen first…Forgive me? ;) Liv
