It's not home, but she doesn't exactly have one of those anymore. One thing she can say about Crestfield is how peaceful it is.
If she had to do this at the loft, show up every morning after dealing with the hectic foot traffic, the long lines at the coffee stand or the cafe, the rude people, the brake dust, the car exhaust, she would have a hard time keeping up hope. But here, it's peaceful in the morning. The coffee shop she goes to is nice and openly spaced, not cramped or crowded and manned by rude staff that seem indifferent to even be on the planet, let alone taking her order. They're nice and friendly to her. They know their regular customers by name, ask about their families and their jobs that they're off to.
But what gets her the most is right now, leaning against the hood of her blue Toyota sedan rental waiting for him to show, is the tranquility.
It's around eight in the morning and the sun is just peeking over the tall treeline to the east on the other side of the lake, shining warmly into her eyes. The lake is shimmering and she can see an old man out on a small boat off in the distance near the far shore peacefully holding a fishing pole over the port side. She watches with a smile as the old man lifts his hand out and motions over a small boy, probably his grandson, that's sitting near the back.
She gets a tingle over her skin at an unexpected rush of almost uncomfortable nostalgia as the grandfather lifts his grandson onto his lap with a big smile and puts the fishing pole in his hands, the little boy looking excited. Her dad used to take her fishing in the summer. Her first summer when she was five after her parents had bought the cabin. He still has a picture of her as a little girl posing proudly with the first fish she caught somewhere, half her eyes hidden with her dad's hat.
Beckett breathes out a reverent breath as her mind gets lost in memory and looks down to the wet sticking out of her shoes.
After a few more minutes of waiting, she catches a glimpse of someone coming out of the woods on the other side of his yard. Dressed in a pair of grey gym pants and a black t-shirt with the sleeves cut, the sun seems to catch him just right to make his skin glisten, illuminating his new physique in just the right light. Her throat snaps shut and her skin quickly flushes under her jeans and leather jacket.
She always found him sexy and she never was afraid to let him know it, always roving her palms around his body as jealously as she could when they'd make love. And a part of her feels almost guilty that she's losing her senses at the amount of sexual desire and carnal lust he's causing her now.
That was never why she fell for him. If it was, she would have bedded him when he first tossed out the offer.
She watches with a shortness in her breath as he strolls out of the woods and through his yard toward his house, rolling his neck and shaking out his arms. She reaches behind her and grabs the two cups sitting on her hood as quickly as she can, only wanting to go back to watching him. She turns back just in time to see him holding his arms behind him, making his shirt tighten against pecs and abs. On a shaky sigh, she gingerly holds the two cups in front of her and waits for him to look over to her. She can feel her fingers tingle at the feeling of wanting to explore his new muscles.
And as Castle is shaking out is singing muscles from his morning run through the woods, he ducks under the cable of Sasha's lead and looks up, more surprised than he thought he'd be when he sees her, standing right where she was the morning before, holding two identical cups of coffee in her hands with a calm, confident, lidded gaze.
A part of him thought that she was bluffing. Most of him was wishing on it. But a small part of him wanted her to show up this morning, just to know and remember the feeling of being the one being impatient, short, and insulting.
Castle draws in a long breath, cleansing his lungs of his workout and lets it out while looking up to her again with a stern, focused glare.
She sees his expression as he slowly starts to approach her, stopping near the stone path that cuts through his yard from the curb to the wooden steps that lead up to the patio of his lake house. "You're surprised I'm here?" she hollers over to him.
With his lungs still coming down from his workout, he starts, "Honestly?" He says on a light pant, stepping over the pathway in a slow meander toward her. "Yeah, I am surprised."
Beckett blinks softly, not affected by his assumptions. "Why?" She asks in a softer voice as he slowly paces closer toward her.
"Well," he pants again lightly, craning his neck down for a moment, "I just never thought of you as one to keep a promise like that."
Her heart hurts, but she fights it, knowing a part of her deserves every sneer he'll be tossing at her. She can't help but crack a soft smirk and shake her head at him, "If you think acting like an ass will get rid of me, you're wrong." She says. He just stays silent, scowling at him as the sun shines in her eyes. "I'll still be here." She tells him, looking him straight in the eye.
Castle's chest tigthens underneath his sweat-dampened tank top. His eyes flick away from her and down to the coffee cup in her right hand as she lifts it up to him.
"Even if you don't take this." She tells him as she lifts her own latte up to her lips.
Castle watches, only realizing it's too intensely until it's too late, as she lifts her head to take a sip of her coffee. He always enjoyed watching her take the first sip of the coffee he'd bring her. There was a moment of calmness and serenity that would come over her at that first sip, brought out of a world out to get her by something small and simple he did for her every morning. But now, it all feels meaningless. The only thing he can do now as he watches her slide the coffee down her throat is remember exactly where on her neck he used to kiss her to make her squirm.
But it's a thought that doesn't last long in his mind before looking down to the grass again, pretending to himself that it's out of frustration with her by shaking his head.
She takes her cup from her lips and sucks at her top lip with her tongue for a second. "I'm not leaving until I get you back, Rick."
On a hard sigh, he looks back up to her. "I've moved on, Kate."
Her heart flutters across her chest like a wild bird trapped in a cage at the sound of her first name on his lips again. But what he said has no effect on her. "I don't care." She says with a soft smile. "I haven't... and I'm not stopping until I get you back."
"Beckett," he sighs again, lifting his hand to rub his jaw and palm his chin for a second, pacing toward her almost impendingly. He stops just a few feet short of her as she's letting the other coffee cup down. "You left me..." he trails off, taking another step forward and leaning toward her, "for a job!" He grits.
The wild bird in her chest quickly turns to stone and sinks into her stomach. "Castle, I-"
"And the only reason you're even here is because that job wasn't what you thought it was and you only temporarily can't get your old one back." He says, shrugging his shoulders.
Her throat quivers in rising emotions when he says that. She can't tell him the truth. But she knows him. Even saying the word classified is a dog whistle for him to go running head first at it. But she knows that telling him the truth of what happened will only make the battle to get him back go from a battle up Mount Everest to impossible. She never left her job on her own. She never made a conscious desicion to quit the AG's office... and she'll only admit it to herself if broken down to her core that she probably never would have.
"So if you're expecting me reconsider after this long because what you left me for didn't work out, you might as well quit while you're ahead." He says to her dismissively and turns to walk off.
But her eyes are burning and she can't stop the fight rising in her. "Why?!" She demands of his back, stomping forward a step. He stops and looks over his shoulder at her with the same stern glare. "I love you, Castle. That was enough to keep you coming back, wasn't it? Why can't it be enough for me too?"
He turns to face her again, leaning into her more imposingly than before. "Because you were always my first choice."
Her throat closes and she has to physically put all her focus into choking back her sob so she doesn't break down again, knowing it would only cascade.
"I was only ever there for you, Beckett. Whether it was because you inspired me to write or because you let me help you solve murders, or because I was trying to convince you to just give me a chance over guys like Demming or Josh." He sneers darkly, leaning away from her. "Hell, even Vaughn."
Her vision blurs and she hopes that he doesn't notice the tears pooling in her eyes, blinking as rapidly as she can to get rid of them before they run down her face. "Castle, none of those guys were you."
All he can do is chuckle in his throat, shaking his head. "I think that's the whole point, Beckett." He says, eyeing her as he places his hands on his hips. "You were always my first choice and I was always your last and really," he says, taking another slow step toward her, tossing his arms out, "I don't see how that's changed."
"Castle, I'm here. I'm-"
"You chose a job over me and left. Then when that job let you down, you went back and tried to get your old one back. And when they told you that you had to wait until someone retired because of a budget freeze, only then did you choose me." He lectures her in a calm, dark tone. "So to answer your question, that's why it's not enough for me that you're just here."
When he turns away from her again and quickly starts walking toward his porch, she cracks. "Alright, fine!" She calls after him, marching through the yard to catch up to him. "I may have lost my job in DC and I may have tried to get my job with the NYPD back. I may have tried to get my apartment back from my cousin and tried to get help from my friends before deciding to come after you."
He pauses a few feet away from the steps up to the porch and turns around, sending her the same cold, vacant glare as before.
With a shaky breath, she holds his cold gaze. "I lost my career... I lost my home, I lost my friends, but I also lost the man I love and in case you haven't figured that out yet," she spits emotionally, "that's you. And I may have tried to get my old life back after I left DC and failed, but do you want to know what makes you different?" She asks him pointedly, taking another step to put herself a foot away from him.
He looks over at her, seeing a clear glisten in her hazel eyes.
"You're the only thing that I lost that I'm willing to put up a fight for to get back."
Castle watches as a tear leaks out from her right eye and cuts a path down her cheek, her tear-filled eyes still looking up at him. He breathes softly, looking down at the two coffee cups in her hands for a second before looking back up to her. "You do realize you'll be fighting me, right?"
Beckett's heart seems to shiver inside of her throat as if he's accepting her challenge almost. Smiling softly over the battle she knows she lost with her tears, she lifts his cup up to him again. "Then en garde, Mr. Castle."
His eyes travel between the cup in her hands and her for a quick moment before he turns away from her silently, jumping up the four steps of his porch and quickly darts for the front door, opening it to a greyish-tan German Shepard with long fur and a black back jumping on him. She watches as he catches the dog's head in his hands, going through the door as the dog hangs itself over his arm and as Castle closes the door behind him.
When she takes in a long breath of the crisp Oregon air to try and dispell the residual emotions, she turns and starts through his yard back to her rental car to just waste more time driving around town as she has been, two cups full of coffee just as they were yesterday. When she gets to the curb, she hears the dog let out a single bark from inside. When she turns, she sees the German Shepard standing up against the windowsill of the window left of the front door, its ears perked up and it's head cocked off to one side.
She smiles honestly at the cuteness of the dog just before Castle seems to get its attention from the other side of the house and the dog heads off.
On another soft sigh, she looks into the window.
It went better than she thought it would for the second day.
A/N:Lucky for you guys, the Borderlands 3 patch that dropped on Thursday was kind of a bust for my character.
I want to clear something up real quick. This story will not be a "team-Castle" or "team-Beckett" story. This is a Caskett story. I've always tried hard not to favor one character over another and make them balanced in my writing. They are both flawed human beings, capable of making mistakes. To me, stories that tend to favor one character over the other, treating one as an emotional punching bag and the other as an emotional Mary/Gary Sue always tend to come off to me as if the writer doesn't even want the characters together at all.
I'm hoping that this story, as it gets more fleshed out and the plot starts to gain more traction, that these two characters will come off as both having grown, instead of one having to grow and do all the work to fit with the other. Let me know, if this sounds about right.
