Misconception
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It's surreal, this walk from his kitchen to his bedroom, Kate leading the way with their fingers tangled between them like a leash.
She's not sure who's been collared, who's been tamed, but her, most likely. She's the one who needed to be house-trained. And still does, this whole conversation has made that clear. She's a kind of feral thing when it comes to relationships, as if the wall has not only kept her from being able to commit to anyone, but it's also stunted her emotional growth.
So while everyone else figured it out and grew up and got on with life, she's a 19 year old abandoned cat with a hole blown through her heart?
"What are you laughing at?" he says from behind her.
Castle. Writer Castle.
It's him and it's not him, not the voice over paperwork and dead bodies, but the voice over the console during stakeouts and sifting through her mother's personal effects for a fresh clue. She knows that voice, but in this way, with that extra register to it, with the sense of richness enveloping every tone, enveloping her...
Was he in love with her and wanting her each of those times too?
She used to sneak glances over at him and her heart would fill up in her chest and she couldn't speak. And maybe there was Castle with all those normal, everyday words doing the same thing.
"Myself," she finally answers, looking at him over her shoulder in the hallway. She's leading him to his own bed, and she knows there's something possessive about it. "Marking my territory like a pet that can't be house-broken."
He grins. "I'm not looking to break you. But if you pee on my furniture, I'll have to-"
She laughs for real then, facing forward with his hand still in hers, moving for his bedroom. "You'll have to what?"
"Scotch-guard it?" he suggests. She can hear him shrug. "Besides, the baby will have enough mishaps that it might be worthwhile to-"
"Mishaps?" she squeaks, spinning around just inside his bedroom. "What are you talking about?"
He chuckles and his fingers release hers to nudge on her hip, pushing her backward over the threshold. "Well, newborns, when their lower bodies hit the cool air-" He huffs and shakes his head. "Waterworks."
"Are you kidding me? They just pee while you're changing them?"
"Oh, yes," he laughs again, but now she thinks he's laughing at her. "And more than that, newborn diapers - oh, man - they could be classified as federal disasters."
She blanches, twitching backwards. "No. No. Why?"
His grin is rather over-bearing at the moment, and he leans in to press a soft kiss against her lips. "Kate, you're cute, you know that? You have no idea what to do with a baby, do you?"
"I'm... not really a baby person," she admits. Some of the ardor has dissolved, but none of the ache for him. She wants to press her body against his, skin to skin, but there's now a sense of responsibility to it, as if she ought to be asking important questions.
His fingers skate along the back of her arm, pleasantly teasing. Baby talk has dampened the lust, but not the need, and she wants him just as much as she did when she was wrapped around him on his granite countertop.
"I'm sure it's different if it's yours. When it's yours. Or mine, I mean," she says, flustered by his touch, by the way she can't seem to hold the reality of a baby in her mind. Different if it's Castle's baby might be right though. If it's his, then it might not all be so terrifying.
"Not really a baby person," he says then. "Like how?"
Since she has a little more ability to hold a conversation, she really should try harder - it's her words he apparently wants as much as touching her. Body and words, the body of her words, and her mind is skipping from thought to thought as she watches his face flicker with a sudden uncertainty.
She wrinkles her nose. "Everyone seems to want to rush in and hold them and pinch their cheeks, but not me. I'm fine to let Lanie do the squealing, and I'll-"
"Does Lanie know?" he asks suddenly. He's stopped pushing her towards the bed and she thinks that's a failure on her part. Explain better, faster, because she really needs to put his body under hers on that bed. "Have you told-"
"No. Of course not. Not before you." She hooks her fingers in his belt loops and tugs, tugs, tugs him backwards. "Bed, Castle. Done talking. Conversation's over. Look, we don't even have to worry you'll knock me up."
His face lights up at that - she's already knocked up, and that passes over him like water and light, and she can see it and it makes her feel like water and light too.
But then her own head takes her down the rest of that natural path, down to the other talk they didn't even have to have that night in the hotel - are you clean, of course you are, yes, please, just do it already - and then from there to why they maybe should have that conversation now.
They should be having that conversation now.
She freezes at the same moment that his hands get to interesting places, and the backs of her knees hit the mattress and she stumbles hard. He freezes with her, hands at her zipper, waiting on her, like he can see the question springing up between them.
"Did you sleep with her?" she rushes out, everything else closing up, her throat, her heart.
His face falls and he removes his hands from her pants.
Oh, God.
She wraps her arms around her chest, her shirt gaping open, her jeans unbuttoned, frigid air washing over her. She has goose bumps and her throat is tight.
"I - yes," he whispers.
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