Disclaimer: The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.
"Where are those beach towels, Castle?" Beckett asks, hands braced on the tile edging as she gets ready to hoist herself out of the pool.
"By the chaises to your left." He's still breathing hard, in part because he's just swum 20 fast laps, in larger part because of the five-foot-nine, water-slicked vision in front of him. She's up and out in one swift, fluid motion, not unlike a porpoise, although if porpoises looked like her he'd have had pictures of her on his trunks and would never have swapped them for his Speedo. He watches her walk to the chaise, but then she ruins the view by wrapping herself up in yellow-and-white-striped terrycloth. Time for him to get out, too. At least if she stays covered up with the towel he'll be able to concentrate on what she's saying. Maybe.
If only he'd swum down to the other end of the pool he wouldn't have had to make the long walk back towards her. The long walk in which she's mesmerized by the play of tendons in his calves, the twitching of muscles in his chest, the track of a drop of water as it makes its way down a bicep the size of a cantaloupe. She's transfixed by the tiny, clingy pair of Speedos that are the next best thing to nudity, and the faint but glistening line of hair that begins just below his navel and seems to be pointing, like a neon sign, to his—
"Beckett, are you staring?"
"No." That's a whopper she thinks, mentally strangling on her inadvertent word choice. "I was just taking note of the fact that your bathing suit is smaller than mine."
"Really? You want to measure?"
The amount of material in his Speedos is not the measurement that interests her. "Not necessary, Castle," she says, waving her hand in what she hopes expresses indifference, even if that's another fib. Whopper. "Will you sit down so we can talk, please?"
"Okay." He sighs audibly as he drops onto the chaise next to her.
"I'm not going to torture you, you know. There are just some things I have to get off my chest." She shoots him a warning look.
"Right."
"First I have to ask you a question. Aren't you curious about how I knew that you and Gina broke up?"
That's not what he'd expected, and he's not prepared. "Is that what this is about?"
"Not really, but it's important. Look, you ask more questions than anyone I've ever known, but you didn't bat an eyelash when I told you that."
"In my defense—"
"You didn't do anything wrong, Castle. You don't need to defend yourself."
"In explanation, then. You told me that while you were eating a doughnut out of my mouth. And right after that you kissed me almost unconscious. And right after that you put on that, that, bikini. And right after that we did twenty laps and then I had to watch you get out of the pool like a wet dream. Oh, God. I didn't mean that. I mean you were all wet and you looked like a dream." He winces. "So really I haven't had time, um, to wonder how you knew that. What you told me about, you know, her. Being toast."
"I saw her."
"Who?"
"Gina."
"You saw Gina?"
"Yeah, with a guy. The guy. The one she's, well, with." She'd seen him surprised—shocked, even—on other occasions, but nothing to equal this. So she gives him a sketch of the story, not of what impelled her to go to the bar, but of happening to see Gina and what's his name, Steve, there. And of them kissing.
He doesn't interrupt her, not once, and he's quiet for a long time before he finally speaks. "And you didn't think to call to tell me?" There's some bitterness in the question.
"Never, Castle. I wouldn't do that."
"It's almost unbelievable, your story. Since my mother saw them, too. Did you know that? In their hotel. That seems like too much of a coincidence even to me, the man who loves coincidences. That long arm of coincidence is longer than a orangutan's, don't you think? It's dragging on the ground. And it doesn't answer the question of how you knew that we'd broken up, just that you'd caught her cheating on me. Am I right?"
"You're right, it is unbelievable, but not the way you think. I did see them, late Saturday night, at the bar. Your mother didn't see them anywhere, there or at their hotel."
"That's not what she told me."
This time it's she who takes a while to respond. "I called her after I saw them. When I got home."
He sits up. "You called her?"
"I needed maternal advice, Castle."
"From my mother? There must be at least a million mothers in New York City, and you chose her?"
"Because she's your mother, Castle, and I trust her. And she's not in New York, she's in Connecticut."
"You know where she is?"
"Yes. She invited me to see her show. So I drove up yesterday and went to the matinee, and then we had dinner together. And talked and talked." The air is so changed and so charged that she's afraid to move, and he looks drawn. "Please don't be angry."
"Pretty much used that up on Gina, Beckett. But I don't understand what you did, why my mother claimed that she was the—the evidence finder. Especially since you're the—" He looks away. She can see his Adam's apple when he swallows. "You're the trained detective," he finishes, putting a lot of weight on the last word.
She knows he's angry, and she knows that he's hurt. Things have happened so fast that she's suddenly on the knife-edge of memory: she was in that bar less than 48 hours ago, and Castle learned of his latest betrayal less than 24 hours ago. Yet now she's by his pool, in the near darkness, with him, and he's still pretty much at sea. So she tells him, in condensed form, what she and Martha had talked about and decided to do, and—in extremely abbreviated form—what Martha had told her earlier today after she'd spoken with her son. "And then I came out here. I never would have done that if I hadn't known that you and Gina weren't together any more. Never." She stops to push her hair off her forehead, because now she's getting to the really tough part. Tough for her, anyway. She reaches out and takes his hand. There's a slight movement, as if he might pull away, but he stays.
"I've spent the whole summer missing you, Castle. And the longer you were away, the worse it got. It was a physical ache and a psychological one. It was total emptiness. I kept thinking of you and Gina out here, remaking your life, and the jealousy ate me up. And I beat myself up. I was pretty much at rock bottom on Saturday night, and my air conditioning was broken, so I went to this pretty, quiet bar and was getting nicely drunk all on my own when I saw Gina at a little table. Saw her reflection in the mirror over the bar, which is what saved me. She was waving at someone who was just out of my sight, and of course I thought it was you. I figured what a cosmic joke that was on me. I was about to ask the bartender to sneak me out the back when I saw you in the mirror, come back to the table. Except it wasn't you. It was the other guy."
"The lawyer," Castle interjects. "Whose brains she was fucking out. He shouldn't get used to it. Won't last more than a couple of weeks."
That makes her want to cry and laugh at the same time, but she won't. She tamps that down and plows on. "I really wanted to kill her. Or at the very least smack her senseless. I wanted to ask her what the hell she was doing. How she could do that to you? I wanted to tell her what a bitch she was, and what an idiot, to give you up." She takes a pause and looks hard at him, though there's so little ambient light that he's hard to read. He doesn't look so wounded anymore, at least. He looks, maybe, open?
"If you know the guy's name, I'm assuming that you went over and introduced yourself?"
"Oh, yeah. I was very indirect, though."
"Indirect?"
"You want to know what I said?"
"Damn right I do."
And so for the second time in less than two days she spills virtually everything, just as she had to Martha. She even tells him that Gina referred to him as a bore and a boor. What the hell. She's proud of what she did and what she said, and when she gets to the end of her story, she looks at him again, trying to gauge his reaction.
"Jesus, Beckett."
"I think I put the fear of God in her, Castle."
"Oh, no." His voice is like steel now. "Much worse."
Worse? Is he mad at her? What just went wrong? How has she screwed this up? She manages to croak, "Worse?"
"Oh, yeah. You must have put the fear of Katherine Beckett in her, which is infinitely more terrifying than the fear of God."
"It is?"
"Take it from me."
She can see his smile. No teeth, but definitely a smile. Thank you, Lord. She'd survived part one; the harder climb is just ahead. "But here's the thing, Castle." She can both see and feel him stiffen, as if he's bracing himself for a crash. "The thing is, you weren't missing me all summer. And what I'm terrified of having done is coming out here way too soon. I couldn't wait, you know? I just couldn't. I'm not a total idiot, I know how you're looking at me. And how we flirt."
"We excel at that."
"I know. And that's part of the problem. For me. Because I don't want to be the flirty rebound, you know? If we jump into something now, I get you on the rebound, and it's a terrible way to start anything. It will end in disaster. But at least you know now how I feel and maybe at the end of the summer when you come back—you said you'd come back—"
"I said I'd come back sooner now. Way before Labor Day."
"Well, yeah, okay, but as my partner. My work partner, right? And then after a while if Gina's out of your system and you still—" She had no idea that he could move that fast. He's out of his chaise and grabbing her before she can finish her sentence. And then he kisses her almost unconscious. That's what he'd said she'd done to him, and now he's done it to her.
He has trapped her head in his hands. "Rebound, Kate?" He's whispering into her hair. "Rebound? Are you crazy? You're the one I wanted all along. I was just so stupid when I thought you'd chosen Demming that I bounded back to her." He kisses her again, hard but fast. "Stupidest thing I've ever done. You're the only woman I've wanted for longer than you can imagine. Forever, it seems like."
It's pitch dark, and she gasps. "Oh, my God, Castle. I have to go." Even in the dark she can see he looks stricken.
"Go? You're not staying? Did I, did I scare you off? What? Where are you going?"
"Back to the city. I have to work."
"Work?"
"Yes, work, remember? I know you haven't seen the inside of a police station in a while, but I have to be there."
"Now? You have to be there now?"
"No. At seven. I just got part of this afternoon off. Begged the Captain for a couple of hours. We're short-staffed now. You're not there, a bunch of people are on vacation."
"Stay. Please stay. You can go in the morning."
"I can't, Castle. The rush hour commute from here to Manhattan? I'd have to leave at three a.m."
"Let me drive you home tonight, then."
Time to lighten things up. Time for a little flirtation—it's good to flirt again—before she hits the road. "In your Ferrari? I won the bet, I get to drive."
"Mercedes. The Ferrari's in the city."
"Forget it. I have to take my bike back, anyway. And I love riding it at night."
"Can I come with you? Even though I didn't win the bet and that was my prize? What do you say? Please? "
"You don't have a helmet."
"Don't you have an extra one? In the bag you brought?"
"No."
"What's in that bag of tricks of yours, anyway?"
"Bag of tricks?" She raises both eyebrows. "What, like a whip?"
"Oh, that would be good."
"In your dreams, Castle."
His voice softens again. "You're already in my dreams, Beckett. Every night." He squeezes her hand. "You're serious about goingnhome tonight?"
"Yeah. I'm sorry. I swore to Montgomery."
"I'm serious, too, about riding with you. I know a guy with a helmet."
"Of course you do. I'd expect nothing less."
"I'm gonna go call him, all right? He's practically right around the corner. Probably has hundreds of helmets. He's a bike nut."
"And I'm gonna get dressed."
They walk back to the house together, holding hands. She's exhausted and exhilarated. She can't remember any time, at any point in her life, when she experienced so many mood changes in such a short time. She decides to shower quickly, wash off the chlorine, before she puts her clothes back on. When she's almost ready—only the pants and the boots remain—she sits on the edge of the bed, just as she had a little while ago. A lifetime ago. Castle dreams about her. He dreams about her every night? She wonders what he dreams, if they're anything like the dreams she has of him. She thinks of the song she sang earlier today in this same room and how different things already are, and she starts to sing again. It's a different song this time, for a different mood.
Say nighty-night and kiss me;
Just hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me.
While I'm alone, blue as can be,
Dream a little dream of me.
She stands up to pull on her leather pants, grateful that the evening is cool, and puts on her boots. She can just hear Castle, moving around downstairs, and she wonders if he got the helmet. The song hasn't left her.
Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you–
Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you.
But in your dreams, whatever they be,
Dream a little dream of me.
There's a knock on the door. "Beckett? Kate?"
"Coming, coming." She grabs her bag—which apparently is full of something magic, because she's ecstatically happy and full of hope—and opens the door.
He's standing there, dressed in jeans and a white tee shirt, holding a helmet, and grinning like a kid who just won the MVP trophy at Little League. "I got it!"
All she can think of is her favorite end-of-game baseball expression. "Rounding third, and heading for home." She smiles back at him. "Okay, then. Let's go."
They're barely on the highway, with him pressed up against her back like second skin, when she starts wondering. She's not sure that she can make it all the way home without pulling off into the shrubbery that lines the side of the road, and tearing all his clothes off.
TBC
A/N Thank you all for coming along on the ride.
