Misconception
X
Castle trembles, drops his hands so he's not trapping her. But a terrible darkness rises in her eyes when he lets go, like breaking a link, a lifeline, and she's drowning.
"What did you do?" she gets out. She tugs her elbows into her sides. "What did you do, Castle?"
She sounds so forlorn. He grabs her by the hips, has to resist the urge to pick her up over his shoulder and take her back to his bedroom. Just - not for sex - just to keep her.
"Don't run," he husks.
"What did you do, what deal, what did you do?"
"Kate, I need you to promise me this changes nothing. Promise-"
"How can I do that? It could be everything, it could be - What have you done?"
And the terror shining back at him, the grief opening up in her face - as if it's been right there under the surface, waiting to swamp them both - is so brutal, so real, that he forgets his promise to himself and he catches her up. He puts his shoulder against her hip and lifts.
"What-?" she croaks.
He's being a bastard, he knows it, and this isn't how he wanted to do this, but he missed his chance once by falling asleep on the job, relaxing because he thought making love was making love and he won't make that mistake again. He has to make sure of this.
He knows she's not a thing to be pinned down. Not even a marriage will keep her; she can't be kept.
So if he has to carry her into his bedroom- "If I have to handcuff you, I will," he growls.
"You - what the hell-" She growls back and he feels her nails digging into his neck, his shoulder, but he won't put her down. "Castle."
A vicious claw at his back makes his shoulders ripple. "You said next time without the tiger."
"There won't be a next time if you don't-"
But he deposits her in his office, behind his desk, and she stumbles once before finding her footing, glaring at him now with a wariness that actually makes him feel better. Less betrayal, more kick-ass detective.
"Explain," she says crisply, crossing her arms over her chest. She's rumpled, her sweater rucked up and her jacket askew, her hair tumbling soft waves. She's beautiful. She's going to have a baby with him. "Castle. Now."
She's also very scary.
"My explanation requires visual aids," he says. But he doesn't feel cheeky, he feels kind of sick. "If you would indulge me for a moment."
She doesn't go for the charm.
She really never has. He should just - get this over with - and perhaps stand behind her and block her escape route.
Castle scrapes his hand down his face and picks up the remote from the little box on his desk, and he aims it towards the flat screen television mounted on the wall.
As it always does, the display lights up with her face.
Kate is unmoving before him, and he waits for only a moment before he plunges into it. He doesn't want her to draw the wrong conclusions; if he's going to be sentenced, he wants it to be on his own terms, going down fighting.
"I got a phone call after you were shot. About this. A man who said he was sent a file by Montgomery, but it arrived too late to stop the sniper. A blackmail file on the man who's behind this. Montgomery had leverage and he wanted it used to save your life, and his family, but not his own."
She steps forward and reaches out to touch the screen, her own face, and the whole board comes awake, peppered with images and notes and neatly arranged connections that expose his whole terrible year without her.
"What have you done." She sucks in a breath, apparently reading, mind clicking. "This is my - my case. My mother's - the sniper - are you investigating? And who is this? Who is the quesion mark?"
"It's - Mr Smith. He's the one I - both of us - made a deal."
"Castle, you better start explaining," she hisses, turning her head sharply to him. "Right now."
"This isn't where I thought we'd start improving our communication," he mutters miserably.
"I am not kidding around."
"No, I'm not either," he sighs. And then he clicks a button on his remote and Mr. Smith's picture goes full screen, all the details Castle has been able to piece together, every scrap of information he collected from his meeting in the underground garage. He knew that one day he would have to show this to her, meticulous notes included, and as he looks at it now, it reads like a confessional.
"You met him?" she cries out. She's whirling around to grip him by the shoulders, shaking him. "Castle. You're not even armed. You got a phone call from some strange man who wouldn't tell you his name who said he knew all about my mother's murder - and you went and met him alone?"
"There were - details to work out. About the deal."
"You can't do this," she yells. "You don't get to do this." She's so vibrant in her emotion - anger, fear, betrayal, all of it - that he can't distinguish which parts are because of him and which are for him. "Castle he could have been - could still be - part of this. It didn't occur to you that this is something you should come to me about first? That I should be - this is my mom's case, Castle. Not some - my mother's case. Are you insane?"
"I - no," he croaks. "I'm just in love with you, Kate."
Her eyes slam shut.
He finally cups her shoulders in his hands and eases himself closer, unable to help how needy he feels, confronted with her anger, her betrayal. He feels her bones under his fingers, how hard and rigid she is, against him, but he tucks her against himself despite it.
He knew it would be bad when he started this. But she wouldn't talk to him - not outright. It was all subtlety and codes exchanged on a swing set and it was just so precarious.
It feels even more precarious now.
"Why would you do this?" she moans.
He can't hold her any tighter than he already is. But he has to try.
"Because I'm in love with you, Kate, and I don't want you to die."
X