Treading Water
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Undead Again 4x22 Interlaced
"Just wanted this one to be special."
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Everyone has to grow up sometime. I think it's time to holster the laser guns and be adults.
Even Richard Castle.
He's not thrilled with the idea, but his own daughter has ditched him on their epic laser tag battle and now gives him that pitiful you're so sad look. She's given him that look a lot lately. He is sad.
It's more than needing a new hobby. He needs a change of life.
Maybe it's time to cut the cord.
So he finally calls back his detective.
"Where are you?" she asks, her voice a burr over the phone.
"Do you... really want me there?" (Is he forgiven yet? Does he want to be forgiven?)
"Do you want to be here?" she asks instead. "Because if this isn't entertaining enough for you—"
Maybe she needs to grow up too.
He rubs his jaw. "What I want is for you to stop punishing me for being in love with you."
She sucks in a breath. "Castle."
"Until then, I don't know, Beckett."
"You... don't know?"
"Maybe this should be our last case."
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Kate is tired of him dropping hints about this being his last case. He's not serious about that is he? It's just a melodramatic ploy to force her to compromise her integrity.
She's told him she can't look the other way when her mother's case rears its ugly head. Because it will. She can feel it. Injustice. It's out there, biding its time, waiting for the ideal moment. She won't close her eyes to it.
Still, his enthusiasm for a zombie killer is kinda cute? And exasperating. And so Rick Castle.
"You saw it," he chortles. "That dude rose from the dead."
He's wrong. There is no such thing as zombies, but it feels right to argue with him, to tease and banter, to roll her eyes and feel the confidence in her professional assertion: their 'zombie' was never Undead because he was never dead in the first place. And when she hears Castle's whisper to Ryan, You know what I do believe in? Driving Beckett crazy, she's thrilled to have it back again, the push and pull, the back and forth, the crackle of tension.
The sparks.
So long as he wants to be here, she wants him here.
It's so good to see you guys hitting it off again, Ryan whispers.
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Kate studies Rick in the make-up, the disconcerting way his eyes fix on her in that unearthly color. The bullpen is hardly an ideal place to have heart-to-heart conversations, but there was a moment in that garage where Castle, bat in hand, the feral growl, the threat which she knew was a stunt they were pulling to catch their killer—he thrilled her.
She wants him.
They can do this.
There are sides to him she's still discovering. She wants the chance. She wants to be the one.
That wall that I was telling you about, I think it's coming down.
Well, I'd like to be there when it does.
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Kate Beckett is halfway into a hot bath when her phone rings.
She groans, hesitating on the edge of the tub, one foot submerged, the other on the tile. When she glances to the little table where her book and wine rest, she can see his ID on her screen, the 'slide to answer' a kind of demand.
A flip of her stomach sends her reaching for the phone, and she answers, her throat tight. "Yeah?"
"Yeah?" he laughs. "That's how we answer the phone these days?"
"When it's you," she says, cradling the phone to her ear and lifting her other foot into the water. "What did you want?"
"I have good news."
She slips carefully into the tub, warmed both by the water and his voice. "Oh yeah?"
"Alexis is staying close for college. She's going to Columbia."
Kate's heart sinks a little, but she tries to rally. "Oh, she's going to stay in the city close, that's—you must be thrilled." She eases back against the tub and closes her eyes on a sigh. "You'd have been sad with her far away."
"I've already been sad, and she hasn't even left yet. But she did make me promise to give her space and not drop in on her."
Kate snorts, stretching a leg in the tub and pointing her toe. "There's no way you can manage that."
"Yeah, I know my limitations. I told her I would try."
"Mm. And she took that."
"She was really feeling sick, her words, she felt sick when she thought about accepting one out of state. She was really excited about Oxford, but you know I was dreading it."
"I know," she sighs. Oxford might have given them space. The privacy to fumble around and fail a few times without damning witnesses. "I'll rein you in when it looks like you might be about to drop in on her, how's that?"
"Well, actually. I was thinking."
She opens her eyes.
"If I'm to keep my promise to my daughter, I'll need something to keep me busy."
Kate rolls her head on her neck, shifting in the bath, the bubbles cloaking her breasts, circling her shoulders. "You're the one who said this would be your last case, Castle. No one imposed that on you. You know I want you there."
He clears his throat. "Yes, and well... I was thinking more about the times in between."
"In between what?" Kate raises her hand from the water to reach for the wine.
"Like now," he says softly. "Like right now."
She pauses. "Oh." She lays her hot cheek to the cool of the tub's rim, withdraws her reach. "Oh, you mean—"
"Are you in the bath, Kate?"
She sucks in a breath at the rich velvet of his voice.
"You are," he accuses softly.
"One of my few coping skills," she defends. Her voice is broken with the heat.
"This is precisely the kind of thing that will keep me occupied."
"... a bath?"
He chuckles. Does not answer. Except that is an answer; the silence is filled with fantasies.
She runs a finger against her bottom lip, self-soothing. "I thought you were mad at me," she says. She manages—just barely—not to let it sound as pathetic as it does in her head. "I thought you wouldn't understand what I have to do."
"I guess I was. And I... don't. But let's cross that bridge when we come to it."
She sighs softly. Bubbles against her chin, water lapping the island on her knee. "We may never come to it," she says hopefully.
"Exactly." His words are so textured she's layered in them. "Not that I don't want justice for your mother's murder—"
"No, I know you do."
"And, almost more, I want closure for you, for your sake."
"That's not in question," she assures him. Bubbles around her ears, a white noise as they glide against her skin. Heat makes her soporific. "I know you, Castle. You would never take that from me."
He's quiet for a long time.
"Do you... want to come over?" she says finally.
He sighs. "I shouldn't."
She understands that. It's a smart choice.
"But I want to."
"Want you too," she whispers. Deliberately drops the preposition, and he hears it. A bubble kisses her lips and she shivers. She tries for coy. "You could get some practice. In distracting you from your empty nest."
He's quiet when he speaks, his voice firm. "You're not just some distraction. You know that, right? Not a substitute or the second string—"
"I know."
"I want this," he says gruffly. "I know it's difficult, I know it's not been easy. I'm doing the work too, you know."
"I know, Castle," she says quickly, running over his almost-plaintive declaration. "I know you are. I know."
He inhales raggedly. "I didn't know it would be this hard."
She closes her eyes as the bubbles begin to burst. "I know," she breathes. Tears sting the corners of her eyes.
"Kate."
The silence is fraught.
She chews on her bottom lip. "Please come over."
It's not smart. It's playing with fire. Neither of them are really—
"Okay."
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