It took a loss, a big one, but she has it. What little was left in her savings, sunk into this round trip ticket stuffed into the inside pocket of her tight-fitting black jacket. She zips it back up over her lightweight grey hoodie and readjusts her duffle bag on her shoulder. She's switched off her emotions for this trip, deciding on her usual quiet, reserved, confident approach since she left her apartment. It took some digging, as does everything going through what she sees as another life she lived, but she managed to find her passport.
It didn't take that long and her flight doesn't start boarding for another ten minutes. She was very lucky to get one of the last remaining coach tickets left for the next flight. A six-hour flight into Shannon, another name of another town she's never heard of in a country she's never been to. Kate pulls out her phone as she heads away from TSA and starts typing in the distance between Shannon and Doolin, calculating at just what time she'll arrive.
Just under eight hours. And the only thing that's making it at all easy is a prayer that he's actually still there. She didn't have much savings left at all, so the invitation to stay at the loft was an early blessing now that she thinks about it. She hasn't even begun to try to leap the chasm that is deciding what she'll do after all this.
It's just rounding near three in the morning and Kate, if she's continuing with her brutally self-honesty streak, is scared.
She only has a few hundred left in her account after the ticket. She didn't even spend any time at all planning to pack, simply stuffed Sherlock into the same spot she stuffed him into back at her apartment less than twenty-four hours ago, zipped her duffle bag back up, and hailed a cab. The only lead to her partner she has in a name of a town in Ireland that was of no real significance until Alexis told her it existed. She has nothing to go on but hope that he found something in Ireland to stick around for long enough to search through the...
She can feel a humorous grin peak on her face as she scrolls through her phone. A town this small, it might be easier to find him than she was planning for. She can't even seem to find an actual population number.
Shaking her head in almost reverence as to why Castle chose that place of all places in Europe to hide out in and continues through the shops in the terminal. Passing the businessmen, the vacationers and tourists, and the parents of overly excited children, she passes by a souvenir shop, offering the usual New York-esque trinkets of miniature Empire State Buildings and Liberty Statues, something near the register catches her eye.
She'd know a cover of one of his books anywhere.
Her heeled boots stop and are moving into the entrance before she can decide against it, almost drawn to the familiar looking feel of nostalgia the cover offers and a sense of unexplored mystery and delight at knowing she's never seen it before now. With everything else she's been dealing with, from hiding up in seclusion at her dad's cabin to coming back and holding her life upside down by the ankles and giving it a violent shake, she almost forgot that the man she's chasing after is a writer.
And something or one seems to be looking out for her as she grabs the last copy and puts it on the counter in one swift movement of her arm.
The uninterested cashier, not shined upon by the same luck she has been for catching the graveyard shift, checked her out without a word, not even bothering to read off the heavily inflated price. When she thinks about it, she could have just gotten the story for free and had the guy who wrote it tell it to her, but even before the artist, she found it easy to get lost in the art of his books. She pays, grabs the book as wordlessly as the cashier, and turns back to continue through the terminal.
Still drawing on her quiet, reserved strength, she keeps the book clutched by the thick spine on her right side, holding the strap of her duffle bag in place with her left. She finds it easy enough to find her gate and find a seat in the middle of the large slew of people waiting for boarding to begin.
Next to an older, heavy-set man, asleep in his chair with his feet up on a hardshell case for an acoustic guitar, she sits down, setting her duffle bag at her feet and the book in her lap. She only glances down at the yellow and orange fade of the hard back and reaches down to her bag, unzipping one side just enough to pull back the flap and peak inside. She doesn't want to pull him out, at least not give into the need for his cozy comfort until she's on the plane. But Sherlock is still there.
After everything she's gone through after that day in the hospital, she can't imagine herself not being this attached to this light brown stuffed bear with the plastic magnifying glass and the dark grey Sherlock Holmes hat. "Just you and me, buddy." She mutters and replaces the flap.
Kate sits back, pushing her hair behind her ear and holds the book in front of her.
The last two books he's dedicated to her. She's felt those dedications seem to mean more to her as time goes on than they did when she first read them. He can be poetic when he wants to be. He always knows just what to say, but at the same time, never knows the right time to say it. His occasional impromptu childishness and bits of wise cracks made over a body that isn't even cold yet are proof enough. But his books... they're his passion. She wouldn't be reading the same book if what he loved doing didn't come across on the page.
And now, she can't help but think that everything she was so sure on has a question mark attached to it.
Everything was always subtext and hidden meanings with them. She can only know the truth about what she meant, not what he meant. Did he use the dedication for Rising Heat as a means to effectively end their partnership like she tried to do out of not standing to hear any more of the truth? Or did he use it to say goodbye to the world just before he ran off, knowing the only person who will hear from him is his daughter? Did he use it to tell the whole world what she meant to him instead of just coming to her? Or did he use it as a means to boost himself up, thanking the NYPD for giving him the inspiration he needed to write the book?
With a scared hand, she pulls on the cover and flips over two pages before three small lines of short text jump out at her and clench her heart.
To Captain Roy Montgomery, NYPD.
He made a stand and taught me all I need to know
about bravery and character.
Her fingers tremble slightly on the page as she looks over the text. She shuts her lips and looks up with hazy eyes. She could take it a million different ways; a rejection, a part of ways, a slight to her saying she wasn't the real inspiration. But she wouldn't love him this much if she didn't know who he really was. And when she thinks about it, she feels herself chuckle silently, half resembling a sob as she lets a soft smile shine across her face and lets her bottom lip fall in between her teeth.
"Okay, Castle." She murmurs, looking back down to the page and petting the words. This is what she loves most about him, his heart. "I get it."
It's nearing noon, but he overslept and got caught up in a conversation with Stacey over breakfast. She had just found out she's pregnant and Rick couldn't help but step in with parenting tips for the unprepared.
He's usually talking to Jack by now, but it was a late start today. He couldn't seem to find the usual motivation he has to get out of bed. The self analysis Jack has plunged him into is only getting harder. He thought that by now, there'd at least be a light at the end of the tunnel, a driftwood sign in the swamp at the very least. Running away from his problems and hoping they wouldn't be there when he got bored of running all over the place was easy enough. All he had to do was wait long enough. He knew he wasn't putting any effort whatsoever to actually moving on from her, because that was never the intention. He never wanted to move on.
Because he never even got to have her. She was never his, not once. He only got to kiss her once and he's sure what he felt, as life-altering as it was, was nothing compared to how it would have been if it had been under normal, more private circumstances. If they'd been in the hallway outside one of their homes after just a normal night out, unwinding after a case, what her lips would have felt like. He never intended to move on because he just wants it too damn badly. He never wanted to move on from the desire to hold her in his arms just because she wanted to be in them because, at this point, the desire feels more important to him than actually getting to it.
If Jack's talks, if they've done anything at all, have done is make him call into question just what kind of man he is. Is he that fleeting, nihilistic, shallow, empty playboy only worried about where the next camera is at and where the next empty nobody wants his autograph like he was the first time she flashed her badge at him. As boring as it got to be, it was safe for him. No feeling and no risk at least meant no consequences and no heartbreak. There are guys who would kill to be in that position and probably have, thinking it's the perfect life to have.
And it was easy for him. His credit line made it easier than his jaw line did. But even if he is just that shallow playboy from back when, he'd give up that life he led in a heartbeat if it meant just spending a fraction of that time in the life he wanted to have with her.
He blinks his eyes hard a few times against the cold wind of the usually cloudy day in Doolin and starts up the hill to the coast line, hearing the crush and roll of the tide against the rocks. He should be keeping all of it until he sees Jack again. He knows he won't be able to recall these thoughts out of hand, they're not the type of mental notecard to keep in your back pocket. Just thoughts that the darker side of your ambition, ego, and narcissism spit at each other when there's no other noise in your ears.
Rick pushes his hands into the pockets of his dark green jacket, his hiking boots digging into the sod on the hill, and the collar of his light grey flannel flicking against his thin layer of dark scruff. When he reaches the top of the hill and quickly spots the bench overlooking the cliffs, his heart is pierced when he finds it empty.
He's here. He's usually here, he's always here.
Rick checks his watch and sees he has the right time, that it's just five minutes past noon. He should be here.
A cold, almost physically painful twang floods through his entire body. He hasn't felt this uncurable feeling in a long time, not since he was a lonely kid, looking for parental guidance and love in the halls of the New York Public Library. If the air wasn't as misty as it is, he'd be sure he was crying right now. He feels weak, sick to his stomach at what he's realizing. Just like everyone else important in his life, they're never there when he needs them the most. Jack, his real father or not, got him to divulge things about himself he hadn't even admitted to himself.
Because Rick told him everything. Things not even his mother knows. Everything about Kate, her mother's murder, about Tyson, he went over everything in the four days they met at this bench. And now... he's been abandoned... again.
With a drunken-like slosh around the side of the bench, Rick supports himself by the arm of the bench and moves to fall down on the bench until his eyes catch something. A dark burgundy book with a cloth covering and a gold enlay in the left-hand corner. His already distraught expression tightens into frustrated curiosity as he reaches down and takes the thin hard cover book in his hand, with a simple title reading King Lear and a line drawn underneath it and the name Shakespeare encased around a circular floral pattern.
Shaking his head in a sense of disbelief and fury, he waves the book in front of him for a moment. He looks at it only briefly before looking out to the ocean, contemplating throwing the book in the ocean to be lost along with everything else that man bothered to tell him.
His fingers press into the cloth on the cover and he starts to recite. "Truth is a dog we must to kennel. It must be whipped out, while Lady Brach may sit by the fire and stink."
Rick swallows thickly passed his own heart and stuffs the book into the large side pocket of his jacket, looking over the ocean. He may not be able to kennel the truth just yet, but what he can accept is that whatever way he's destined for, he'll have to do it alone. He has to stop looking for others to hitch himself to, hoping they'll keep him on the ride long enough, just like his father. If only, god help him, he knew just where the hell his path is.
Looking away from the ocean, he starts the trek back down the hill with his eyes down to the grass, willing away what moisture away from his eyes that he can't blame on the weather. He sniffles the cold air and hardens his heart in his chest as he catches the edge of the one street town with his eye, and it catches a brief sight of a cab door opening and a tall figure stepping out.
Rick double takes, his heart swelling cautiously in his chest. He doesn't want to admit that he's to the point in his desperation to where he's projecting her luscious curls whipping gracefully with the breeze onto some tourist stopping in to visit the cliffs. But the twisting knot in his stomach isn't letting go of his breath, even as the figure turns to look down opposite the street, taking a step as she does away from the cab and flinging the door closed while pulling the strap of a duffle bag onto her shoulder.
"Here she is, Miss." The driver says, his accent very culturally thick. "Doolin, Ireland."
After hours and hours of anxiety, she's finally here. Endless hours in coach seating and asking how she can get a cab to Doolin, she's here. She makes sure her page is marked and stuffs the book in her duffle bag in front of Sherlock, who seems to give her a Castle-esque wink of encouragement. She puts the fare into the driver's hand in a hurry, not offering him anything other than a rushed thank you as she grabs the strap of her luggage at the same time she's pushing the door open.
The town is much smaller and much more quaint than the Google image searches portrayed as she steps out into the coastal breeze. She looks down the street the cab driver stopped on, seeing only small, two-story houses and shops. On a sigh of relief she's finally here, she turns to look at just how close to the coast she is and her eyes catch a man standing dead still on a hill, looking straight at her.
Her heart palpitates achingly just below her scar and her eyes already burn. His hair is shorter than last she saw it, he seems thinner under his dark green cargo jacket, his scruff looks as if it's kept there on purpose as opposed to just not shaving. But she knows him. She'd know his eyes anywhere.
Her lungs finally let out a ragged, shaky breath as her legs ignite a fire inside of her muscles and take off, running onto the grass and up the hill, pulling the strap of her bag off her shoulder and letting it fall to the ground behind her. Her eyes never leave him as he only seems to pace forward a couple of steps, but she's on a full sprint toward him. She can't even recognize her old life and hasn't even begun to form the new one. But she knows one thing and she's running toward it with burning eyes and straining lungs.
Once he's within reach, her feet slam her to a stop in front of him and she lands just inches away from him, her hands landing on his chest and feeling his on her waist. Those blue eyes, she's seen so many things in those eyes, but... the only thing she can see right now is what she can only describe as fear. He left her, ran away, and he's still afraid?
Her hands ball up against his chest and she shakes her head once and looks away from him, her burning eyes finally giving way into tears. Her right hand raises off his chest in a fist, wanting to slam it down into him. She wants to strike him for leaving when she loves him this much, wants to hit him for abandoning her for the first time when she needed him the most. Her fist shakes above her head before her eyes glance away from the chest she wants to pound her fist into and back up to him.
And when she sees his expression has fallen down into a pang of long guilt, her heart pulls violently and she throws her arms around his neck, squeezing as tight as she can.
Rick reacts firstly out of instinct by her arms vicing around his neck and puts his arms securely around her, hugging her back. He would have deserved whatever she had to say about him. His cowardice, his fear, his guilt, his shame about everything he put her through. It would have felt deserved, every bit of the lashing she looks prepared to give him. But she's squeezing his neck with her arms, hugging him tighter than he ever has been before. So for once, he decides to live in the moment with her in his arms while he can.
He lets his eyes drift shut as he snakes his arms tighter around her, enveloping her slender body fully with his left pressing her by the small of her back into him and the right moving up her spine and taking hold of her shoulder, burying his face in the softness of the skin on the crook of her neck and the scent of her hair, getting lost in everything about her.
And when he does, Kate decides to no have any tears about the moment. She doesn't want to etch this memory into her brain with any tears being in her eyes. Just him and the safety of his arms as they close in around her and pull her against him tight enough to where she starts to feel the weight lift off the tips of her feet.
Neither of them bothers to count how long Rick holds her like he is, pinned against her almost helplessly until Kate puts her hand on his hair and pets the back of his head softly with her thumb and starts to move out of his embrace. He sets her back down and moves his arms out from around her, keeping his hands on her waist.
She slides her hands down to his chest and looks up at him, a stern softness portrayed in her expression. She unzips the top of her jacket and reaches into her inside pocket, pulling out her plane ticket and showing it to him.
"I have a round trip ticket." His entire body tightens at the sound of her voice, seeming to ensure to him she's not an illusion. "It leaves tonight... and you're going to be on it."
He looks away from her but squeezes her waist with his fingers in a light squeeze. "Kate..."
"I'm bringing you home, Castle." She stops him, her voice just above a whisper but strong. "And I'm not leaving without you." Her hands press softly into his chest and she looks as deeply into his eyes as she can, hoping to get through to him. "You need to come home, Rick."
He pulls back the light fabric of the curtain a bit and glances out the window to the hill, watching him slide his arms out from around a tall, slender woman with her arms around him. On a deep sigh, he puts the ear piece in his ear and presses the button on the side, hearing the ring.
"Well?"
"It's done." He says, turning around and adjusts his gloves on his hands, picking up the book left on the nightstand. "He's on his way back."
"How much does he know?"
He puts the book in a bag and goes to his bag, pulling out his toothbrush. "Not anything solid." He defends, pulling out the cotton swab from the plastic and rubbing it over the handle just below the bristles. "But he is my son, he could probably get something out of nothing."
"Why can't you just do it there?"
"Unless you have as much pull in the Irish authorities as you do with the ones in New York, he needs to be there for it to work."
"You know the deal, Hunt."
"I'm aware." He says, replacing the swab in the plastic vial and taking the picture tucked into the bottom left pocket. "But he'll be kept alive."
"I just need her investigating and him out of the picture."
"We have a deal, remember?" He says, putting the picture and the vial in the bag, zipping it up. "Remember the terms."
"And you do the same... or I'll make sure you're put back in that military black site I found you in for the rest of your life."
He clicks the button on the ear piece and rips it from his ear in a single motion, sighing heavily. He pulls back the curtain again and sees him, still with her in his arms, holding her. His heart aches with a long held grief. It's was a dream he had, the family his son had and the life he lived. He wanted that life for himself, but now... it's just a dull ache in an empty heart.
With an empty breath, he puts the plastic bag into the bag on his shoulder, and leaves the room.
A/N: Sorry for the long wait. Hope this made up for it. Now I get to spend the rest of my three day weekend staring at my inbox reading all your awesome reviews! You guys are great. Thanks for all the ups! C: