Treading Water
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The Limey 4x20 Prequel Part One
"I know. You're dealing with stuff. But you cannot ask him to wait forever. Unless, of course, you're okay with him pulling away."
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In the airport she has second and third and fourth thoughts. She holds his hand because he took hers when they got through security and she can't bear to let it go. The heel of her boot is wrong from where she was rushing to put her shoes back on while also gathering her bag from the conveyor belt. She feels out of joint, a mess. Scared.
She's terrified. She thinks he's taking her to Vegas to get married and she can't do that. She thinks he's taking her to Vegas to break up with her and she can't do that either.
But terror is a beast she has lived side by side with since the shooting, and it's familiar. It's almost safer this way, being terrified, because she doesn't have to think about all the other little things she's been carefully not thinking about. (Does he still love her. Does she actually love him back and she's just too chickenshit to say those words. Do the words really mean anything when everything about them is already screaming love.)
They adjust clothing, his belt cinched around the strap of his carry-on, their hands tangled together and completely an obstacle, but neither lets go. He doesn't look at her directly, but she's not doing it either. They have a tentative truce to whatever that was before, when he told her to give him some space, and she's grateful he's ignoring her directives. (Dr Burke was right; she told him to.)
When they reach their gate, neither of them take the seats available because to do so would require splitting up. They stand just to one side of the seating area, his back against a silver pillar and hers terribly exposed, but she's trying not to let that bother her. He keeps her hand, looks at her like he's astonished she's here.
She is too. To be honest, she's bewildered by her own actions. And his. His especially, but also this is very Rick Castle, isn't it? Life gets hard; jet off to Vegas.
"Kinda surprised you didn't charter your own jet," she tries, crooked smile pasted on.
He shivers. "Surefire way to get killed."
She blinks, all humor drops.
He clears his throat. "Sorry. That was... crude."
"No," she attempts, "don't censor yourself. That's obviously... a deep-seated fear of yours. Dying in a little plane."
"Like the Big Bopper." He stares off into space.
She swallows. "JFK, Jr."
"Patsy Cline," he adds.
"Otis Redding. Glenn Miller."
"Aaliyah," he sighs. "And Carole Lombard."
"Shit," she breathes. "Why are we doing this?"
His laugh is nothing more than a burr in his chest but it's a nice sound; it makes her shoulders come down and her stance loosen. She breathes slowly for a count of four, and it helps.
He winds an arm around her waist, almost tentatively, and she leans into him and puts her cheek to his and closes her eyes. (She never does this in a public place. She never does this where people can see. Where he can see. How weak she is. She can't move away. She's relieved to be here, weak as it is.)
"But it is first class," he murmurs.
She laughs softly, doesn't move. There's another long silence where all she can focus on is he soft thump of his pulse right there at his neck.
"Are you okay?" he whispers.
She shakes her head.
His arm tightens. "That's my fault, isn't it?"
"Shouldn't be," she admits. "I should be... standing on my own two feet." She shifts to do just that, but he angles his arm to press her spine and keep her right where she is. She swallows roughly because she has felt like crying since he went home and didn't get drinks with her. "My therapist wouldn't approve."
"Oh no?" he gruffs. "Why not."
"I'm... doing the work for me," she says lamely. Not you.
"And when you're doing the work, you can't ask for help? For a hug?"
She lets out a slow breath. "I... no. I guess I can, I guess I should be asking for help more often, huh." They both remember him finding her dysregulated and bleeding in her apartment during that sniper case.
His fingers stroke lightly at her hair. "It's my fault only in that I made us confront the reality of..." The shooting he doesn't say, letting the silence speak. "And neither of us took it well and now we're both struggling to orient to this held back version of us."
Version of us is all she really hears and it gives her strength enough to stand up straight, look at him. "You wanted to talk. About us." She shifts her bag on her shoulder but won't cling to the strap in a defensive posture. Hands open, free. "You said get out of New York and really talk about us."
His face closes tight. Shutters, like hunkering down for a long cold winter. She swallows. He hesitates but plucks at the hem of her shirt, eyes downcast. "Yes, but not here, in an airport."
"On the plane then," she tries.
He shakes his head. "You... might want to storm off."
"W-what?" she croaks, her heart thundering.
"Or at the least, talk a walk." He winces and looks at her. "It's not... I don't know. Can we put 'the Talk' on pause until we're at the hotel? Then. You can close the door in my face if it's not... oh, I got the same room set-up we had in LA." A crooked smile, a boyish pleasure. "Is that okay? That suite we had. I respect that you still have this wall and I don't want to make you feel pressured to—"
"God, Castle," she croaks, squeezes her eyes shut. One more thing to worry about. "So instead of just telling me now, I have to suffer through a whole plane ride?"
"Suffer," he echoes. "No. I... I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I've been doing the right thing, but I don't know. It doesn't feel right anymore; it feels constricting. It feels like I'm... digging a hole neither of us can climb out of."
Is he going to tell her that he can't wait for her any longer? How she'll have to fish or cut bait. Stop this holding pattern that has them only going in circles, treading water. Sink or swim, Kate.
"Okay," she breathes. Okay. Because she really ought to be able to tell him, I love you too, and not hear a gunshot flinching across the too-bright inscape, not feel a bullet rending her chest, not suffocate in her own blood, gaping up at him and not really seeing...
"Okay," he sighs, relief. "Good. We can have a glass of wine, have a nice, non-turbulent flight. And forget about single-engine plane crashes."
She laughs brokenly, finds herself canting into him again. It's not relief.
It's desperation.
X
Castle finds his nerves smooth out on the plane ride. He's always enjoyed a first-class flight, the way they cater to him, the special meal service, the wine, the generous seats, the quiet. He used to be diligent, edit chapters or respond to emails or look up things to do in the city where he was doing the book signing. But he quit that after a couple years on the circuit, figured out how to take his downtime where he could.
It's automatic then, a habit, to push back in the seat and clasp Kate's hand loosely in his, feel ready to close his eyes and dream.
But he senses her nerves, or perhaps the state of tension he has likely pushed her towards, and so he concentrates on making it good for her too.
(Ahem, the flight, that is.)
He shouldn't, but he can't help how he rubs his thumb against the base of hers, back and forth, in an echo of all the other times he's been allowed to do this. "One of my favorite things about being part of a couple. Holding hands."
Kate gives a soft little noise and he can feel her eyes on him. The angle of the first class seats mean they each have to be purposeful about hand-holding, but neither of them are breaking it to be more comfortable.
She clears her throat. "I just like having some at my back."
"Oh?" He injects a faint air of debonair playboy. "Good to know."
Her lips twitch. "Mm."
He lets it drop, lets her see him (as the therapist keeps reminding him). "Partners," he murmurs. "And you're right. Yes. You have my back. I have yours."
Her mouth drops open.
He understands what he said. "Is that not true? Take the romantic partners out of it for a second, is it not already true?"
She closes her mouth, nods. "Yes." A breath, a firmer nod. "That was already true."
"I want you to know... that will always be true. Until you tell me otherwise."
"Until I... why would I do that?"
He tilts his head. "In case it all falls apart? In case one day you figure out I'm actually not good enough for you?"
"Castle," she admonishes.
"Or, you know, if one day in the future, you ask yourself if I really do have your back, if that gets called into question—you know. Remember this."
She doesn't stop him. She doesn't protest why would I think that. Instead she studies him for a long hard moment and then nods. "Okay. I'll remember."
"Always," he insists.
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