Castle scoops some of the chicken soup out of the large pot on the stove, being overly generous with the broth. She disappeared a few minutes ago to her bedroom while sitting on the couch with her laptop, watching Temptation Lane reruns on TV.
It's nearing four o'clock and Sasha is probably going crazy that he isn't there. That dog has been all but attached to his side ever since he found her underneath that bench that rainy morning. After texting Alexis a few hours ago, he told her the situation and received a reply that she wasn't going to dig and agreed to feed Sasha, telling him that the dog was going in between her and her boyfriend for affection, and confirmed it with a picture from Alexis, taken of her using Sasha as a pillow while Sasha laid in her boyfriend's lap getting petted.
Right as Rick finishes dishing out her soup, he hears the door to her bedroom open, while Kate comes shuffling into the kitchen at a much healthier speed. Rick turns with a dark red bowl in one hand and a spoon in the other. But he's caught slightly off guard when his eyes catch her. It stings for a moment, his defenses just not thinking of it, when he sees her changed out of his shirt into one of her own, a tighter fitting black Henley with the sleeves shoved up her forearms and the three buttons left undone.
He quickly swallows it and looks away from her. "You must be feeling better." He says as he meets her halfway with the bowl in his hand.
Kate doesn't respond right away and just goes about slowly reaching up to her hair and tieing it back in a low hanging ponytail. "No, I still feel like hell." She laments as she pulls the tie off her wrist and onto her hair.
Rick nods, waiting for her to finish as he holds the soup, the bowl starting to get hot. There's a slight twinge of vulnerability and emotional weakness wanting to boil inside of him, but he's swallowing as much of it as he can, shoring up his armor and forcing himself not to think about it. He doesn't owe her anything. It took him four years to get her to give the guy she sees a chance.
When she lets her arms fall down, her stomach still serpentining around itself, her back still stiff and aching, her throat still sore, and her skin feeling clammy, she looks up to him, seeing him stand in front of her with his eyes turned down, his shoulders stiff and rigid, and a complexion of a firm set brow and clenched jaw that's probably hiding gnashing teeth. She tries earning his eyes by gazing at him silently, but he doesn't respond after too long a moment, holding a hot bowl of soup that she can see steam rising up from.
Kate reaches up and puts her hands over his, softly petting the back of his hands with the pads of her fingers before slipping the bowl from his grasp. Without a word, he lets his hands fall as if he doesn't even feel her and turns away from her, going back to the pot to put the lid back on and turn the burner off. Feeling defeated, she turns and starts to head back toward the couch, but stops as her toes find the carpet.
"Rick," she says, using his first name that they usually saved for moments when their hearts were on the line, either having a fight that marked the end of their relationship or as most cases would have it, intense love-making. He turns to look at her over his shoulder, a casual lid in his gaze and curious lift in his brow. "You know just because we broke up doesn't mean you can't talk to me, right?"
All he can muster up is an ill-formed and awkward nod. That weak, vulnerable part of him is trying to get to him, listening to her soft voice and seemingly honest, caring tone. If he listens and doesn't try to just feel nothing like he has been, he knows that he'll end up feeling selfish and petty for not talking.
As Kate turns with a soft smile back to move toward the couch, he breaks. "You took off my shirt."
She stops cold just a few steps away from the kitchen, turning around with a surprised yet caring arch in her brow, clutching the hot bowl of soup in her hands. He's standing right where he was, his hard mask of a cold, stoic expression having fallen. That's what's bothering him? She can feel herself smile as she sighs out a breath of relief, finding it sweet and adorable in a way. "Castle, I took it off because I didn't want it smelling like thrown up peanut butter." She explains with a soft smile, earning his eyes back. "I need something to pine over until I get you back and," she shrugs innocently, "I can't exactly pine over something that I've worn out."
He feels a smile want to tug at the edges of his lips but hides it with a nod down to the floor as he turns back toward the stove.
Kate smiles, wanting to think that she at least reassured him the best way she could short of dropping the soup to the floor and wrapping her arms around his neck like she would have last year, and moves back to her nook on the couch, settling down and turning the volume back on the TV where Temptation Lane is just returning from commercial.
She grabs the spoon and lifts the bowl to her chest. The soup smells incredible, soothing as the scent wafts up to her face and down her lungs. She dips the spoon in, taking up as much of the celery, carrots, pasta, and chicken that will fit, and holds it against the side to drain out the broth like she always does. But as she lifts the spoon to take the first bite, she notices Rick still moving about the kitchen.
On another sigh, she lets the spoon down. "Castle, come sit down."
Rick looks over to her from the island, trying to look in the middle of something. "I'm fine, Beckett."
Kate smiles despite herself. "That's why I didn't ask." She says, leaning back and lifting her feet to perch them on the edge of the coffee table. "Come sit down."
She waits until he seems to concede, putting the top back on the pot, wiping his hands on the towel that hangs over the handle on the oven, and moves into the living room, going around the other side of the coffee table and sitting down on the far end of the couch, giving off the air of an unhappy child having been told what to do as he leans against the arm of the couch and leans his head against his fist.
At least having won that small victory, she goes back to taking the first bite. And it tastes incredible. Everything just tastes fresh, just the right amount of spices and herbs to light up her palate, there's even a hint of ginger, maybe even some cinnamon. "Mmm," she moans, "this is amazing, Castle." She compliments over a full mouth.
He lets out a breath, "Alexis hated being sick when she was little so..." he shrugs, thinking back to being alone, even when he was still married to Meredith, "I had learn a few tricks to..." he trails off, looking over to her and noticing her draining the broth from the soup before taking a mouthful of noodles and chicken. "You have to eat the broth, Beckett. That's the whole point of everything else that's in it."
She looks over to him and knits her brow. "I'm saving it for last."
"It's not cereal, Beckett." He quips. "The broth is the best part. Everything else is just to justify it."
On a somewhat frustrated huff, she slouches down in her end of the couch, taking another bite, this time not bothering to drain it of the broth because she knows he's watching her. When everything in the soup seems to go down easier, and oddly enough more satisfyingly, with the broth, she concedes to him that he has a point. As the TV quietly goes on just loud enough for her to hear it, she continues to eat for another few minutes while Rick silently broods at the farthest end of the couch. When she looks over out of the corner of her eye, she feels the same pull form in her heart.
After taking another generous spoonful of his soup, she hesitantly decides to take the first steps of the plunge. "Do you..." she trails off, swallowing her food, "really think you would have scared me away?" She asks in a heavy voice, letting her spoon rest on the edge of the bowl at is rests on her chest.
She can see his eyes harden and his jaw clench. "You still left either way, Beckett."
Kate has to stop herself from letting frustration boil over, taking a breath to calm herself. "I know I left, Rick." She says in a soft tone. "But why do you think talking about us would have scared me away?" She asks, hoping it's enough to garner a reaction from him. But after a moment of him just staring at the TV, she knows it's not. "Because..." she starts, feeling her heart quiver in her already sickened chest, "truthfully, I thought you understood why I waited as long as I did to be with you."
"I do understand why you waited, Beckett." He says too off-handedly to be believed.
"Really?" She fires back. "Because if you did, you'd know that it was because I knew it would be a real relationship." She tells him strongly, looking him in the eye even though he's not returning the favor. "And I thought you knew it was because I wasn't ready to go through losing something that deeply important to me again." She clarifies for him, seeing his eyes finally flick away from the TV, but down to his lap. "But you think that..." she starts piecing it together quietly, letting the bowl slide off her chest and into her lap, "it was you."
She can see another flicker of anger come into his eyes, but when he finally looks back over to her, she knows there's a twinge of pain behind it in his gaze. "If it wasn't me, then why Josh?" With her heart already tangled, she can't respond. "Why Demming?" He asks, more of the pain getting shown in his eyes. "Why Vaughn?"
Her hands instinctively move to set the bowl down, wanting to move over to him, caress his face and love on him. But she physically stops herself, forcing herself to sit back in the couch, knowing that it's not enough. She sees him shake his head again and go back to staring into the TV. She feels her heart shrivel and looks down to her soup. "I was wrong."
Rick seizes for a moment. In the near six years he's known her, he'd never heard those words come from her. He hesitates to turn his head and meet her gaze, not wanting the memory if shrugging off her soulful and emotional eyes that he can feel on him.
"If you want the truth," she says, knowing he won't look over to her, "I love you more now... than I ever did before. Because I got to experience what my life was like without you." She tells him, feeling like she's pouring her heart out to him again, something she's never been capable of with anyone else. And when she can see him at least think about what she's saying with the inward look in his eyes, she starts to fight back. "But none of that answers my question."
It's that that gives him enough leeway to look over to her.
She meets his gaze strongly. "Why do you think talking to me would have scared me away?" She asks, hoping now it's enough to get a real answer. But he still meets her with silence, but at least looking her in the eye while he does. "Why do you think getting to know more about you will want to make me leave you?"
He breathes a hard sigh, lifting his brow. "You feel like you don't know me?"
"Castle, when I asked you for a blanket," she pulls at her blue quilt underneath her, "you knew exactly which one was my favorite, exactly where to find it, and you probably even know why it's my favorite."
"Your grandmother sewed it for you. She gave it to you for Christmas when you and your parents went to visit her in Vermont one year when you were four." He shrugs, tossing out the incredibly intimate detail about her like it's nothing.
But she just feels her shoulders deflate. "See?" She says, waving her hand at him. "I don't know anything like that about you."
Rick lets his hand fall from resting his head on to his lap. "It's funny you bringing this up, Beckett." He says and she can tell that he's trying to shift the conversation by his voice. "Because before now, I thought you knew me better than anyone else I'd ever been with before."
She nods her head, her heart still pulling toward him. "So, it's not just me then." She says, coming to the conclusion out loud. "Meredith wasn't just trying to poison me against you like you said. She was telling the truth."
"So she did mention that she cheated on me then?" He fires back.
She clenches her teeth, not wanting to fight with him. "Is what she said true, or isn't it? That at the end of your marriage, you knew everything about her and she knew next to nothing about you?"
"Kate," he says, trying to shrug it off by lifting his shoulders, "there isn't much here, alright?"
"We both know that's not true, Rick." She says, pushing back on him again. "I know you don't believe me, so it probably doesn't mean anything to you, but I love you. So if you really want to get back at Meredith for trying to turn me against you, prove her wrong and tell me why you think talking to me about our future would have scared me away."
"Because talking about a future is exactly what made Kyra decide to flee the country to get away from me!" He softly exclaims, a heartbreaking twinge of emotion showing in his voice. When he looks to her eyes, she can't look away, looking over to him with just as an emotional arch in her brow as he probably feels. He shakes his head, looks down to his lap, and picks at the fabric of his jeans. "I never planned on ending up with Meredith, Beckett. She was an attractive yet deceptively intelligent woman who threw herself at me after I realized that Kyra wasn't planning on coming back from her trip to 'think things over for a while'." He says, using air quotes.
Her breath feels strained as it leaves her lungs. "So," she begins quietly, almost afraid to prod any further, "Kyra told you she was coming back?"
"Yes, cut to..." he says, waving his hand in the air dismissively as he goes back to lean against it on the arm of the couch, "almost twenty years later and she's the one getting married." He shakes his head again, rolling his eyes to himself. "Guess he kissed up to her parents enough."
Saying to him that she's not Kyra she knows won't help. She doesn't want to bring herself into it. "You said that I knew you better than anyone else." She points out, looking down to her soup. "So does that mean Kyra didn't know you either?"
"She knew all she wanted to." He tosses out. "All that ever mattered to her was what her parents thought and to them, I was just a stop in a rebellious college phase, just a..." he breaks in his words, taking in a long breath, "a bastard prodigy of an overly eccentric Broadway actress with no hope of ever amounting to anything worth a damn."
Kate sighs shakingly as she turns her body toward him. "You don't really think that, do you?"
"It was her mother's words, not mine." He dismisses it. "I haven't exactly Googled my net worth lately, but it has to be a little more than a damn."
When he doesn't move to dismiss the first part of the criticism, that even to this day he can recite off-hand, she feels her heart squeeze inside of her chest. She would move to prod further, to delve deeper. She wants to know why he took it so personally, why he thinks it held any validity, why he still carries it with him. The bastard prodigy of an overly eccentric actress...
"You should eat your soup, Beckett. You look hungry."
She looks down to her bowl and turns back to face the TV, taking another spoonful of soup into her mouth.
After two and a half bowls of his chicken soup and three rerun episodes of Temptation Lane, Kate is fast asleep on the couch again, her body finally giving out to rest as it battles her sickness. The sun is down for the night and Rick is in the kitchen, putting the large pot of leftover soup in the fridge, taking a cold cinnamon roll for himself from under the Saran wrap over the baking dish.
It's been about thirty minutes since Kate fell asleep, and about an hour since she turns on the couch sideways to lay down. After setting the bowl and spoon in the dishwasher, he checks the time on the stove and sees it's just nearing eight o'clock. On a sigh, he looks over to the couch, watching as her side rises and falls under her blue quilt as she breathes steadily.
He gulps his nerves down and quietly moves into the living room, moves the small trashcan he set down in case of emergencies out of the way, and kneels down. Rick carefully moves his arms under her back and her legs, taking her up while she's still wrapped up in the quilt. He waits for a moment, her head nestling naturally down on his shoulder. Once he's sure he's not waking her, he starts carefully down the hallway, carrying her into her bedroom, moving around the other side of the bed and setting her down.
He gently tugs at the edges of the quilt to untangle it from her body until it's draped over her warmly and when she stirs, burying her face into her pillow, his eyes catch her features... and he feels his heart fold.
God, she's beautiful.
Before he can even realize it, the tips of his fingers are carefully brushing down the side of her face, pushing back a few stray hairs out of her face. He can feel his memory give his body flashbacks of what it was like to cuddle up behind her, what her slender frame felt like in his arms, how warm and soft her neck was when he'd push her sweet-smelling hair out of the way with his chin and tease her good morning with his lips.
His chest tightening, he stands up and starts out of her bedroom until he catches sight of a drawer of her dresser. Hesitantly, his fingers find the knob and he's tugging it open, seeing his grey flannel neatly folded up. He takes it in his hand for a moment and pulls it out. Once the shirt is in his hand, he sees that underneath it where their old scorecards from Twister.
At the bottom, where the numbers were tallied, she'd written 'You lose!' along with a drawing of a winking face with a tongue sticking out at him, forcing him to smile. "And yet, somehow, I still won." He mutters to himself.
Once he moves to put the shirt back, he stops, then slowly turns and looks over to her.
Rick comes walking out of the hallway right as Jim is opening the door, rolling up the sleeves on his grey flannel.
"Hey, Rick," Jim says quietly, noticing the lights turned off.
"Hey, Jim," Rick says back, nervously brushing his palms down his jeans. "How's uh..." he shrugs, "how're things at the store?"
"Ah," Jim shrugs as he tugs off his coat, "long without having Katie there." Rick just forces a smile nervously as Jim goes about hanging up his coat on the rack behind the front door. "So," he starts, turning back around to face him as he stands dead still near the coffee table, "is she feeling any better?"
Rick nods, "She hasn't thrown up since this morning and she seemed to be getting over it pretty quickly, so... I think she'll be fine in the morning."
Jim nods, putting his hands in his pockets. "Well, thanks again, Rick... for" he shrugs, "you know, looking after her. I hope it wasn't too difficult." He says, offering some support. "Considering the circumstances."
"Well," he shrugs nervously again, "I've spent a day or two handling your daughter's foul moods, Jim. I think I can handle the everyday flu."
Jim nods slowly, "You know, Rick," he starts as he paces toward Rick, "I always meant to thank you."
Rick looks up to him, confused for a moment. "What's that for, Jim?" He asks on a soft chuckle.
"Well, Katie and I... honestly, we were never all that close when she was growing up, or... at least not as close as I would have hoped. And after her mother died and she became a cop... we just never really talked all that much. But now that she's off the Force and we've opened the store, it feels like I finally got the chance to... reconnect."
"That's," Rick starts on a smile, "great, Jim, but I'm not exactly too sure what I have to do with that."
"She wouldn't be out here if it wasn't for you, son." He points out, waving toward him.
Rick feels his heart clench in his chest, his armor that has held its own against her feeling useless and pointless against Jim. It's not that he's just the father of a woman he used to be in a relationship with. More that he just has a fatherly tone in his voice and a humble demeanor that Rick doesn't know how to cope with. He never had any of that growing up.
Rick can feel Jim watch him as he looks away, not knowing what he's fishing for. "Rick, I..." he starts, pacing closer toward him, "wasn't going to get in the middle of it, but... I think it'd make me feel better if I knew my daughter wasn't out here just to get hurt."
"So," he hesitates to speak, knowing he's being put on the spot, "what is it you're asking me?"
Jim blinks at him, eyeing him down for a second. "Son, do you still have feelings for her?"
Rick's heart leaps into his throat, his spine tingling uncomfortably. He looks away from him and down to the floor, shrugging his shoulders. "She left me for a job, sir." He says, feeling small as he looks back up to Jim's soft yet stern gaze. "Even if I do give us another chance, it won't change the fact that she'll always be after something else that I can't give her and... honestly, Jim, it was hard enough having to get over her once, so... I'm sorry." He says and starts to move through the living room, stepping around Jim and toward the door.
"I never said I agreed with what she did, Rick." He stops him.
Rick stops, hesitating to turn around, but can feel Jim's eyes on him and turns out of weakness.
"Look, son," Jim starts, craning his neck and pacing back toward him, "when Katie lost her mother and she dedicated herself to her job as being a cop, I was okay with that. Because as long as she was dedicated to her work, she was alright. And don't get me wrong, I couldn't be more proud of what she accomplished." He says, giving Rick a wave of his hand. "But that doesn't mean I wanted my daughter to live for her work." He says, meeting Rick's eyes again before looking away and shaking his head. "It was what I was afraid of when she started talking more about you."
"Wha..." Rick starts, feeling weak and almost crippled. "What's that?"
Jim shakes his head, "Katie just didn't get this obsession from nowhere, Rick, she got it from her mother."
Rick blinks, his mind starting to feel as if it needs to play catch-up. "Kate always said her mother was passionate about her work."
"Look, Rick, I loved my wife, but that doesn't mean I don't wish she'd at least slowed down and taken the blinders off." Jim looks away again and shakes his head, seeming to vent all of his thoughts away. "All that being said, you didn't answer my question, son."
Rick breathes out a strained breath and feels his shoulders slouch. "Jim, she's only trying to get me back because she doesn't have anywhere else to go." He defends himself. "Once she gets another offer somewhere, she'll leave just like before."
"She already got another offer, Rick." Jim tells him sternly. But Rick is silenced into waiting for Jim to continue. "She turned it down for you."
Rick shakes his head, having been thrown for a loop. "What-what... what offer? She never mentioned anything."
"That's because she didn't want to use it as leverage to get you to take her back." Jim tells him. "Katie wasn't going to say anything and just wait for you to come around on your own."
"Well," Rick starts, his mind buzzing, "what was it? I mean, she told me she's barred from law enforcement."
Jim's expression softens as he explains. "An old law school friend of her mother's got in touch with her last week. Her and Johanna were best friends going through law school and moved out to San Fransisco and started her own firm, and she's now head of one of the most prestigious and powerful law firms in the country, and she wanted Kate to work under her as a consultant."
"That..." Rick starts, not wanting to admit it to himself, "that sounds like an amazing opportunity."
Jim nods to him slowly. "One she turned down for you, son."
Rick's heart squeezes, all of his work and perseverance he's strived to make over this past year feeling like it's all been for nothing in this moment.
"Now, I know it's not exactly a simple question, Rick, but it's still yes or no, and as a father yourself, I think you'd understand wanting to know that something your daughter is going after isn't hopeless."
Rick feels his throat close, his heart ache painfully in his chest, and his eyes turn to the hallway where he just minutes ago carried her in his arms, then down to the grey flannel he's wearing. "Yes."
Jim's eyes crinkle a bit over a soft, understanding smile as he gives Rick a small nod.
Without another word, Rick moves out the door.
