#68 (season 8 spoilers)
Three words prompt: carry Kate bed
— ANONYMOUS
There was a disturbing slackness to her jaw. The shadow under her neck made her skin look bruised.
It might have been bruised; he didn't know.
He had found her this way, curled in a lone chair in her apartment, and she hadn't even stirred when he'd unlocked her door, or closed it behind him, or locked it again. Not even a twitch.
He was almost afraid to touch her.
But he did, two fingers to her neck where he found her pulse thumping slowly, certainly. Without a doubt. He let out his relief in a sigh and went to his knees before the chair, leaned his forehead against the arm.
He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't have followed her back from the precinct; he was supposed to be giving her space.
Everything in him cried out against space. Space had been three months that summer and not a phone call, not a word, not a hint until she'd chased him down at a book signing, shy but fierce, a woman entirely unlike the one he thought he'd known, and yet deeper, more her, somehow.
He wanted his wife back. He wasn't a fan of space.
She was exhausted, whatever she was doing when she wasn't at the Twelfth. And he knew it was something, he just hadn't fit all the pieces together.
Castle straightened up, still on his knees before her, though she didn't see him, and he carefully slid his arms under her knees and neck, drew her body down into his lap.
Did he imagine the way she turned into him?
He hadn't imagined her I'll always love you and he hadn't imagined the tenderness as she regarded him in the bullpen. He was so good at imagining things though, so very good at wishful thinking, that sometimes he made it up in his head. Like love at first sight. Like annoyance masking her smittenness. Like loving him back.
But he didn't imagine this, her fist in his shirt and her soft sigh, the way her body eased against his.
Castle stood slowly, using the chair for leverage until he was on his feet once more. He carried her back through the apartment to the bedroom he knew so well, a bedroom she had once made space for him rather than to get away from him. He carried her to her bed and laid her down on top of the covers.
In her sleep, she released his shirt and her hand fell to the mattress.
He took off her shoes and pulled the covers out form under her, raised them up to her shoulders and tucked her in.
He stood and watched her in the darkness for a moment, the wanting so thick in his throat that he had to swallow against it. Had to blink hard to keep his vision clear so he could memorize the smudged lines of her face in the shadows.
And then turned and left her to it.
—–
