"Stop cheating," she huffed and Castle sputtered in offense, holding his splayed hand of cards to his chest just to watch her suppress a smile of amusement.
She was looking so much better after a few days in the hospital, still in pain and still so much more fragile than the Kate Beckett he was accustomed to, but she wasn't quite as pale anymore, wasn't too weak to move, and he was finally able to stop seeing her lifeless body every time he turned his eyes on her.
"I would never-"
"I saw you slip that card into the deck."
Rick sighed and slapped his cards down on the hospital bed while Kate smirked with triumph. "I should have requested Monopoly."
"Why? I'd just beat you at that too," she grinned, reshuffling the deck, and he was just about to respond with a clever remark of his own when the door eased open and a familiar voice had him jerking his attention towards it.
"Agent Beckett?"
Castle and Beckett both glanced up to meet the tentative figure of Alexis standing in the doorway, a colorful bouquet of flowers in her arms.
"Pumpkin," Castle said softly as he rose, a gentle smile on his face. "What are you doing here? I thought you and Gram weren't coming by until the evening."
The three of them – Castle, Beckett, and McCord – had decided it was safer for Castle's family to wait a few days before giving them the all clear to drive up and meet them in upstate New York. Beckett had very adamantly preferred that Castle go to convene with his family elsewhere, like at the hotel down the street that McCord had checked him into, the place only five minutes away from the hospital, but he refused to leave, couldn't leave. Didn't want to leave.
The situation with Gina had been briefly explained to both his mother and daughter by an FBI agent and Castle himself had placated and assured both women of his safety via cellphone, but Alexis's eyes were brimming with questions still unanswered as she stood stoic and uncertain in the doorway.
"We were, but Gram grew impatient," she explained with a grin before her eyes hesitantly flickered to Kate. "The doctor and the agent at the door said it was okay if I came in, but if you don't want any visitors, I can-"
"No," Kate rasped, a smile that was so kind, so tender, gracing her lips as she beckoned his daughter closer with a slow tilt of her head. "It's so nice to finally meet you, Alexis. Cas- your dad has told me so many great things about you."
Alexis lit up at the praise and Castle felt his heart burst with pride, whether for his daughter or his… his Kate, he wasn't yet sure. "Dad hasn't been able to say much, but I know you saved his life and almost lost yours. Are you okay, Agent Beckett?"
"Kate," she corrected, motioning for Alexis to sit down on the unoccupied chair at the opposite side of her bed. "And yeah, I will be."
Alexis still had the flowers in her lap and Castle leaned over Kate's waist, offered to put the bouquet in the untouched vase at her bedside table.
"Dad?" He glanced up from arranging the overpriced flowers from the gift shop. Alexis was always the best of the two of them when it came to gift shopping, whether it be for birthdays, holidays, or get well moments as such, but she usually had him at her side for every occasion, offering his input. She had picked this bouquet on her own though, and had done a beautiful job. "Do you mind if I talk to Kate? Alone?"
He tried not to stiffen, tried not to let his apprehension show, but he knew Kate could sense it when she stole his hand, gave it a gentle squeeze.
"Sure," he chirped with a false smile. "I should go check in with your Gram anyway. I'll be back soon."
He dropped a kiss on the top of Alexis's head and then one to Kate's, evoking a startled smile that made him feel a little bit better about leaving his daughter alone with her.
"Is everything okay?" Kate asked as soon as the door shut soundlessly behind Castle. She had almost begged him to stay, almost clutched his hand in desperation instead of reassurance. She had never planned to meet his daughter, not before, and now they were alone in her hospital room.
Alexis nodded, but she was fidgeting with her hands, wringing them out and knotting her fingers. "Is it… is it true that Gina tried to hurt my dad?" she finally whispered. "That she wanted him dead? That she's the one who did this to you?"
Kate sighed, attempted to sit up in the hospital bed out of reflex, but only ended up grunting in pain, wincing at the rapid spread of fire and causing Alexis to not so subtly start to panic.
"What is it? Should I get a nurse? A doctor? Should I call my-"
"No, no, I'm fine," Kate murmured, breathing through the ripples of agony that radiated through her body until the throbbing grew dull and she could see straight once more. "I'm sorry, Alexis, I didn't mean to scare you," she said in her most calming voice, the one she would channel for a victims' families back when she was a cop, noticing his daughter's widened crystal eyes scanning her from head to toe.
Castle trusted her with his daughter and she was already terrifying her.
"I shouldn't have moved," she added, trying to downplay it, and it seemed to work.
Alexis sat back in her chair, slipped her hands under her thighs. "You'll - you'll get better, right? The damage isn't permanent?"
"Yeah, should be good as new in a few months," Kate assured her with her best attempt at a smile, but Alexis wasn't an easy one to fool, she knew his daughter could see how strained the quirk of her lips was.
Alexis nodded, expecting, waiting.
"Gina hired me," she began, keeping her eyes on the girl, gauging her reaction to each word. If it became too much, she would just stop, maybe leave a few of the harder parts out. "I work for the FBI as an undercover agent. Most times, I pretend to work as an assassin, you know, the kind people hire to kill others?" Alexis nodded along, not the least bit confused, and oh, yes, this was Castle's daughter. He once told her that the kid proofread his final drafts for fun, of course the idea of a hired murderer wouldn't unsettle her.
"And Gina hired you to kill my dad?" Alexis concluded, slightly horrified but intent on learning the truth, not at all finished hearing the whole story.
"Yes. And I took the job because I wasn't going to let her."
"Because you're the woman from the party," she murmured, her lips pursed to hide a smile that made Kate's stomach flutter, but she only lifted her eyebrows in response.
"He told you about me?"
"Only a few days before he left for LA. He never thought he would find you again, but he did." Alexis's eyes were sparkling, excitement and something she could only assume was hope shimmering in her irises. She looked just like her father. "Do you love him back?"
Kate choked, started to cough uncontrollably, and then began to wheeze at the tug of pain it evoked in her abs. Yep, she was going to scar his child. But Alexis remained calm and instead of panicking this time, rising from her seat and offering Kate a sip of water from the pitcher on the bedside table.
"Back?" Beckett croaked after a long gulp of the ice water.
Alexis started to fidget again, the plastic cup shivering in her grasp she reclaimed from Kate. "When he called me, while you were in surgery, he told me practically everything. Probably a more sugarcoated version, but he - well, I just assumed…"
Kate carefully lifted her arm, rubbed at her eyes, but her lips still curled beneath her palm. Was there really any point in keeping it a secret?
"I do love him back and he's well aware of it."
She heard Alexis's quiet intake of breath, sensed the secret smile on her lips before she could even return her gaze to the girl.
"So does that mean you… you're not going to disappear again, are you?"
"Alexis-"
"I know you have your own life and that this isn't a fairytale and that I'm just a teenager, so I hardly know anything, apparently, but my dad – I just want him to be happy and I know I make him happy, but so do you and I just think-"
"Alexis," Kate stated, firmly this time, watching Alexis deflate into the chair, looking so much older, so much more weary than any twelve year old should. "I want to make it work with your dad. I don't want to disappear on him again."
"But?" Alexis frowned.
"I have to heal and so does he." Kate's hand rose between them, shaking the entire time, but it was enough to keep his daughter quiet when the words rose up like a tidal wave visibly ready to pour out of the younger woman's lips. "He deserves to spend some quality time with you for a while, to feel safe again now that Gina's finally gone. Because of who I am…" She swallowed hard, lowering her hand and clenching her fingers in the bed sheet. "I haven't discussed it with him yet, but for my recovery, I have to be taken to a safe house. There are still people out there who could come for me, wanting to hurt me like Gina did, so I just need to lie low for a while, do you understand?"
"Yes," Alexis murmured, still crestfallen at the answer, but not bitter, thankfully not bitter. "I understand and... and I'm glad Dad fell in love with someone like you, Agent Beckett."
Kate's heart stuttered hard in her chest, slamming up against her ribcage with bruising force, and Alexis' smile softened.
"My dad hasn't had a lot of serious relationships, but of the few women I've actually met, none of them cared about him as much as you already do."
"Alexis, you don't-"
"No one else would have taken a bullet for him." The solemn words silenced her, spread stillness through the hospital room as his daughter held her gaze with fierce sincerity and grave insistence in her own. "So thank you, for keeping him safe." Alexis covered Kate's hand, giving it a brief squeeze before rising from her seat. "I'll go get him."
Kate remained speechless as Alexis made her exit, too many conflicting thoughts vying for attention in her tired mind and dancing on her tongue. She didn't know what she was expecting when Alexis asked to speak to her alone, but it had not been that.
Beckett grit her teeth and shifted in the bed, felt the flare of unwelcome fire in her liver serve as reminder. She was selfishly glad Richard Castle could love someone like her too, but he shouldn't.
He shouldn't love her.
She told him the truth that night, after his daughter had left with his mother to settle in at the hotel, after he had refused to go with them.
His entire face had fallen, looking as if she had just kicked his puppy, and never had she wanted to go to him as badly as she did then, when he was sitting at the foot of her bed crumbling with rejection.
"When do you leave?" was the first thing he asked.
"Tomorrow." Castle scrubbed at his eyes. He looked the extra ten years older than her in that moment, so worn from the events of the last few days, from her.
"How long?"
"Until it's safe. Until I heal."
"And I can't come with you." It wasn't a question.
"I just need some time to heal, okay? Just some time."
"Okay," he agreed, because he had no choice. But it wasn't what he wanted, not at all.
It wasn't what she wanted either.
Castle remained sitting at her bedside even once the uncomfortable silence swept in and wrapped around them both, but he wasn't with her, his eyes hard and focused on the adjacent wall, his mind a million miles away.
"Rick," she called, her outstretched hand reaching for him, barely able to glance his knee from the damn bed. Castle sighed, and she knew it wasn't what he wanted, but he leaned in for her, let her guide him with her palm on his jaw to rest his forehead to hers. "It's not over. Just don't - don't give up on me yet."
He released a strained noise and pressed in closer, dislodging their foreheads for the clash of noses, the exchange of shared breath.
"I hadn't planned to," he scraped out, cradling her skull in his large hands and she craved the ability to arch into the wall of his body hovering above hers, to drag him down to lie atop her on the hospital bed, to fix it all with the tangle of limbs and meeting of mouths. "I can wait, as long as I know what I'm waiting for."
Beckett swallowed, gulped down the fear of diving in with anyone, especially him, and met his striking gaze in the darkness of her hospital room.
"For me?" she murmured. "For an attempt at some kind of life together, a real relationship without the secrets and the lies - whatever you want to call it - like you said in the meadow. If you still want that, but if not I-"
The smudge of his lips to hers eradicated the insecurities bubbling on her tongue and she hummed with relief until he pulled away.
"I still want that. I just wish…" His sentence trailed, but she knew, understood the mixture of sorrow and longing on his lips, and lifted her head to dust another kiss to his frowning mouth.
"Me too," she whispered, snaking a hand between them to stroke her thumb along his unshaven jaw, closing her eyes when Castle lowered his forehead to rest at her shoulder. "Stay 'til morning?"
He nudged her to the side in lieu of answering, crawled in beneath the thin sheet covering her lower half and arranged himself comfortably beside her. Her night nurse would shoot them both dirty looks later, but the staff had given up on trying to kick him out after her first night of admission, the agent stationed at her door vouching for him out of what she assumed was sympathy, or more likely exasperation. So Kate leaned further into his side, curling her hand at his forearm when he banded his arms around her upper body, allowing her the haven of his chest to fall into.
It didn't take long for her to begin drifting, her body loosening, limbs growing heavy in his arms, the warmth of his presence more drugging than the last of the medication laced through her veins. His lips brushed her temple before she could fade, pressing words into her hair.
"Love you, Kate."
Her eyelids had become too heavy to lift, the effort of movement too great, but Kate managed to glide one hand up to his chest, traveling across the planes of muscle beneath wrinkled fabric until the beat of his heart resounded strong and steady beneath her palm. She clutched his shirt to hold on, coiled her fingers there, attempting to trap his heart in the cage of her hand. His love terrified her, left her breathless at the beauty of it yet had her tempted to run as far as her legs would take her at the same time. But she loved him back, had for a while now, and there was beauty in the freedom of accepting that too.
And she needed to tell him all of this, had so much to say before morning, before they were forced to take separate paths once again, but the peaceful darkness quieted her before the sentences could form, claimed her before she could say the words back to him.