His lips feel stronger, softer, more powerful somehow.
His hands feel stronger and more knowledgeable of her body. Everything about him just feels more intense as she straddles him, her restless legs and anxious hips moving and grinding against his lap in tune with her kisses. His hands grip, massage, squeeze, and press their way up her sides and back under her tight-fitting blue Henley. It only takes half a motion of a kiss for one of his hands to find the clasp of her bra and feel it slacken inside of her shirt, making her gasp and press his head down into the top of her couch cushion.
She wanted to make it to bed when Gates dismissed them from the scene, she had it in her head that they would at least make it to bed. But letting him in her apartment first and getting to watch him strip himself of his sport coat, getting to watch his back muscles ripple under his dress shirt made her far too impatient. Neither of them are disappointed. They've settled for her couch out of impatience enough times to know they'll make it to bed eventually, only seldomly bringing their clothes with them.
"Mmm," she moans as his hands continue to explore her, "oh, Rick."
That's all she can manage. She wants to say more, so much more. Say everything that's been in her heart for so long, knowing now's the best time to tell him. Part of her wants to reassure him that what she said as she stood on that bomb was real, that he doesn't overanalyze it to the point of making it not true. But the higher his hands go and the deeper his lips get, the more just letting their bodies say it for them seems to be the only choice.
"Mmm Beckett," he moans, his fresh breath wafting into her mouth and making her squirm. But it comes with a sting. He called her Kate. She loves it when he calls her Kate, she thought he loved it when she called him Rick. "Beckett," he says again, in a firmer voice.
It's enough to start to bring everything down to a slow crawl.
"Beckett!"
Gates' shrill voice breaks her out of the daydream she fell into, staring at the worn brown fabric of his chair.
Kate snaps up from resting on a pair of fists and looks up to the Captain's office, where Gates' is leaning out, eyes boring into her with a pair of glasses pinched in her fingers. She clearly didn't want to take them off, but probably felt taking them off would make the scathing look more powerful, like a scolding mother.
"Y-yes, Sir?" She corrects her voice mid-response, stiffening and lowering her tone to make it sound like she's not in trouble.
On a deep sigh bleeding with frustration, "Have you heard back from the morgue about that hit and run victim yet?"
"U-um," she stutters, straightening herself back up in her desk and scanning the mess of papers that sent her into that daydream in the first place. "No, not yet, Sir." She fibs. Lanie could have emailed, a fax might have come through in the last thirty minutes that nobody picked up, she could have gotten a voicemail from Lanie saying the report was ready. But she figured telling the lie she did will at least give her a chance to check while maintaining some level of innocence, so long as she's not caught.
Gates either doesn't care that she's lying, or knows and just wants the work to be done. "Well, can you check?" She asks, almost in a sarcastic flare. "The 15th precinct needs that report for the possible serial case, and I will not be the police captain that lets a case like that get cold because my detectives lost some of the paperwork, understood?"
Her skin flashing in a cold, clammy sweat, she averts her eyes to the buttons at the bottom of her computer screen. "Understood, Sir." She says in a serious voice, puts her hands on the tips of her armrests, and pushes out of her office chair. Her subconscious mind told her to just get up out of her chair but it isn't until she's on her feet that she realizes that just going down to Lanie might be the quickest way to resolve the situation. She moves out of the precinct, for some reason feeling as if she's being watched after Gates scolding her. All it does is make her stride longer and her back stiffer. She makes it to the elevator and knowingly waits for the elevator to close before she lets her mind drift again.
Letting her mind drift, especially back to that incredible afternoon, is the only thing that seems to help lately. That intensity and passion only lasted a few days, maybe a week before things started to fall apart. And after last night, she's not letting her mind drift back to that afternoon. She's forcing it to.
She feels the elevator stop and lethargically steps out and into the sterile hallway. Walking toward the morgue, all she can think of are all the times she's walked with him down this hallway. And passing the door to the supply closet, she can only think of all the times she wanted to shove him into it and close it behind her, and the few times she actually did.
God, she misses him, misses them.
Her heart heavier than she ever remembers it being, she shakingly pushes open the door to the morgue, where Lanie is just pushing a body into one of the freezers along the wall. The noise seems to have covered Kate's entrance since Lanie doesn't react to the door opening until she's done pushing the slab in and closing and locking the door, and turns to head to her desk. "Oh!" Lanie exclaims, "Hey, I didn't hear you." She says, almost offhandedly as she strides across the morgue casually.
Her heart in her stomach and drained of every energy she has, there's nothing she can do to hide the tremble in her voice. "It's okay."
It breaks Lanie's stride and she stops immediately near the corner of the examination table.
But Kate presses on ahead before Lanie can swoop in. "Listen, do you have the report on that hit and run victim from Midtown? Gates needs it asap." She tries to steady her voice.
Lanie doesn't let her eyes leave her friend as she slowly gives her answer, Kate knowing the wheels inside her mind are turning like mad. "Yeah, I just faxed it up before putting him in the freezer."
Kate averts her eyes more and nods stiffly. "Okay," she struggles. There's a long pause where Lanie's eyes turn from a hard, boring glare to a soft, understanding gaze. "Thanks, Lanie." She struggles again but doesn't move to leave. A part of her wants to break down. She knows going back into her shell is what's killing this. She knows that's on her.
She gives her head a twist, knowing tears are already falling down her eyes and burning. And it's only a second later that she feels Lanie rush across the room to her side and puts one arm around her shoulders and the other cradling her bicep, grabbing her in a way to make sure she doesn't crumple to the floor. Lanie leads her over to the examination table and turns them around to lean back. "What's going on? What happened that I don't know about?"
Kate sniffles and tries to stiffen her back. "Nothing, Lanie." She says in a low, monotone voice. "Nothing happened."
That was mostly the problem.
"Okay then, nothing happened, but I'm smart enough to know that nothing happening usually involves Castle. So what nothing happened? What'd he do?"
Her heart is palpitating painfully. It's not his fault. Everyone always assumes it's always his fault, always. Sometimes even herself. "Nothing, Lanie. He didn't do anything."
Lanie just raises a set of eyebrows at her.
Kate rolls her eyes and feels a slunk in her aching shoulders. "Okay, he did something. He did everything, it was me that did nothing and threw it in his face." She starts to exclaim, throwing her emotions out into the morgue.
"Okay," Lanie drawls, pausing for a moment. "So... what happened?"
Of all nights, it had to be tonight that she needs to start a new bottle of lotion. She always has trouble with the stupid plastic wrapping around the cap. She either can never find that stupid dotted line or it just isn't there. And tonight, it just isn't there. The top of the plastic is too short for her nail to get under on the top of the cap, and the bottom of it is too close to where the cap starts. What do they expect her to do, hacksaw this stupid thing off?
It was late when she got off her shift, and even later when she realized that a leak in her building made it so she didn't have any hot water. So needing a hot shower, she simply went to her boyfriend's loft. Now, sitting in the armchair in her pajamas and robe that's on her side of the bed, she tries angrily to get a nail, a thumb, a tooth, anything under the edge of this plastic wrap so she can get this bottle of lotion open. When her teeth are trying to pry at the top corner edge of the cap, that's when she feels him come back into the bedroom from the bathroom and head over to the dresser.
She can feel his eyes on her, only making her more dedicated to her failing method of trying to get the bottle open. She can see him out of the corner of her eye stop at the dresser and cautiously turn to look at her. She waits for it, but it never comes. Almost like he feels he knows better than to ask. But when her teeth come off the edge of the cap, unsuccessful, she sees him jolt. His hand comes off his side and his mouth opens, but he seems to catch himself and just clamps his fist and puts it back down.
And now, she's angry. She goes back to trying with her thumbnail at the spot where her teeth just were, but the coating of saliva is making it near impossible to catch on anything. After she makes an audible groan of sheer of frustration and goes back to her teeth method, he finally asks.
"Do you want some help?" He asks, his voice half timid and half low and uninterested.
Her answer flys out faster than she can catch his tone. "I'm fine, okay?" She snaps, pulling the bottle away from her teeth, leering her eyes toward him, but not turning her head.
He just keeps silent and turns back around toward the dresser.
After another few attempts with the teeth method, feeling her boyfriend's eyes on her again over his shoulder, she tries with her thumbnail under the cap to try and get at it from the bottom. But with a quick jerk in the wrong direction, she feels her nail slip and a sharp pain shoot down her thumb. "Ahh!" She seethes through clenched teeth.
Rick jumps and turns to face her fully, outstretching his hand for a moment with the other resting on the top of the dresser. He waits though, almost like he's waiting for her permission.
And when she puts her thumbnail in her mouth to try and soothe the pain away from the broken nail, she sighs heavily and lifts the bottle up in his direction, silently giving him permission.
On an equally heavy sigh, he steps up to the side of the armchair and takes the bottle from her. Using the inside of his robe to wipe the saliva off the plastic-covered cap, he then takes the cap in his hand and jerks the cap with a strong twist, prying loose the plastic through sheer force. Once he pulls the frayed edges of the plastic away from the cap and tucks the plastic into the pocket of his robe, she watches from the chair as he slowly moves in front of the chair, twisting the cap back into place, and popping open the top.
She watches as he wordlessly kneels down in front of her, his eyes not meeting hers. He squirts just a small dab of lotion onto his palm, flicks the cap closed and sets the bottle down next to him. Without a word, he gently takes her right ankle in his hand, lifts it up, and begins to softly massage the lotion into her foot and ankle.
She's stumped. They've barely talked for the last two weeks. He knows she only came over tonight because she wanted a hot shower. Watching and feeling his hands work and massage the lotion into her tired muscles and skin, her mind only goes to one place. "I'm sorry, Castle. I'm not in the mood."
He doesn't stop his hands and just makes one long stroke down her foot to finish rubbing the lotion in before moving to grab the bottle again and let her foot go. "That's not why I'm doing this." He responds in a low voice.
But she's confused. Watching him grab the bottle again to massage her other foot, she asks incredulously. "Then why are you doing this?"
That makes him stop everything he's doing. And the air between them instantly goes from cold to frozen, like they don't even know each other. And she can feel it clamping down onto her heart like a vice with every passing second that he's just kneeling down in front of her, his eyes in a hard glare off into nowhere, his jaw set hard into an angry line. It only takes another few seconds before he's standing up, leaving the bottle of lotion on the floor and walking away from the armchair and around the bed. "Just forget it." He mutters, ripping his robe off his shoulders and off his arms, tossing into his closet, but missing and having it hang up on the side of the door jam.
All she can do is sit there and feel her heart start to slowly crack, like a weight being placed on a thin sheet of ice. Just one small step in the wrong direction, and she's going to drown.
She just dips her head down, kicks the bottle of lotion under the chair with her heel, slips her robe off her shoulders and stands up, leaving it in a puddle in the seem of the chair. "Let's just go to bed." She mutters back as he's pushing himself under the covers, preemptively turning away from her.
Kate slips into the covers as silently and slowly as she can, trying to not move the bed any, trying to make herself as unknown as possible. She pulls the covers over her shoulders and waits, a minute, two minutes, five minutes. For him to turn back around and slip an arm around her midsection, put a hand on her shoulder, even turn on his back and open his arm to silently invite her into his side.
But it never happens. And Kate falls asleep pushing back tears.
What happened to them?
Kate sniffles again, not wanting to relive last night.
It's all her fault. Everything is her fault. How could she be so self-centered and conceited? He just wanted to help her, he just wanted to care for her, make sure she knew she had someone. It was just like that cup of coffee he's brought her every morning for the past five years. He wasn't expecting anything, he just wanted to remind her that he cared about her... despite everything.
And at this point, the ice has cracked and she's fallen through.
"Wait..." Lanie says, shaking her head. "So..." she begins, making sure she's putting everything together right in her head, "your boyfriend was giving you a foot rub...without asking..."
Kate moves her neck back and puts her eyes as far back as they can, trying to get rid of the tears, but only ends up making them sting more.
"And he wasn't after sex... and you stopped him?"
"Lanie..." Kate emotionally whines.
"Girl, are you out of your mind?" Lanie exclaims, pushing off the edge of the table. "You have any idea what I would've had to go through to get Javi to do something like that?"
"Lanie, don't you think I know all this already!?" Kate cries emotionally, finally looking her friend in the eye with tears in her own. "Don't you think I know I basically threw the last five years in his face last night?" She sighs and shakes her head, lowering her head after a few moments. "It's just..." she starts, her eyes going off to the side, "Josh would do things like that when he wanted sex. And I always knew that's the only reason he would ever do something like that for me. But last night, I forgot the most important thing that sets Castle apart from every other guy I've dated." She says and looks up to Lanie again with a sad smile. "He actually cares about me."
Lanie takes a few steps forward and crosses her arms in front of her, letting her know she's still listening.
Kate shakes her head again and continues. "I love him, Lanie." She says confidently, looking up to her again. "But I'm losing him... and I don't know how to fix it."
"Well, what happened? A couple of weeks ago, you told me you two were on the top of the moon, better than ever." Lanie shrugs.
Kate lowers her head and sniffles. "We were," she responds stiffly. "But then Vaughn showed up, Castle gets all jealous, I try to get out of him where we were going as a couple and he throws me off and... we've been slipping away from each other ever since." She quickly explains. There's a long pause before Kate feels she needs to continue. "But I want him back." She says and lifts her head. "I want us back, I just..."
Lanie moves her head to catch her eyes, "Just what?"
Kate looks over to her, "I just don't know how." She admits heavily. "I've never wanted someone back before. I don't know how to get him back."
"Well," Lanie sighs, coming back to lean against the examination table next to her friend, "maybe you should just..." Lanie thinks out loud, "I don't know, get away or something."
Kate grimaces and shakes her head. "What?"
But Lanie is already chasing after the idea. "Yeah," She says excitedly, "just get away, go somewhere, just the two of you. Somewhere romantic, and don't come back until you two are steaming up my supply closet again." Lanie sasses as she shoves off the table to move across the morgue.
"Lanie," Kate shoves off with her to turn around and face her, "I can't just up and leave. I have work."
"Hey, what do you want more? Gates to not yell at you for not getting her this stupid report to her on time?" She asks, pulling the paper off the fax machine with an unceremonious waft. "Or do you want the man you love back?"
She moves to answer, but the words get caught in her throat.
Lanie just softens her gaze and looks over to her friend. "You already said he's the only man you've ever wanted back." Kate's heart settles, her resolve starting to form in her chest. "So you just have to go get him."
Kate takes one last breath and stiffens her shoulders, knowing what she has to do. "I know what I have to do." She says in a settling voice. "Thanks, Lanie."
As Kate starts out of the morgue, Lanie calls out one last time as Kate's hand presses on the door. "Out of state, girl!"
A/N: I don't know. I was bored with everything else and I've had this story in my head for a while. Hope you enjoy. /=]