3rd February
He's leaning against her desk, not an unusual position. If anything what's unusual is that she's not leaning against it with him, regarding the board with him. But she's too busy pacing the length of the board, pressing the marker against her chin, considering and contemplating as she waits for the guys to return with their suspect, not likely to be their guy, but possible all the same.
He flips it over in his fingers, turning it this way and that, following the edge of the curve then pressing his finger into the point as he follows the straight edge. The longer he holds onto it, the longer he's reconsidering. This could very well be too much too soon, too much of a leap. But he has to quash that doubt. He can't continue for the whole fourteen days without informing her what this is about. He doesn't have to say the words, certainly not. The implication of this particular gift will lay it all out there, no take-backs, no retry, no matter what.
He's stumped with how to place this particular one. He considers slipping it onto her blotter, burying it beneath some paper for her to find as she tries to work or as she packs up to leave. But that's not enough, that's not enough of a statement. This one has to make some kind of statement, she has to find it but not realise the extent of it until later. Until she sneaks away to admire it, away from his prying eyes. It's not that he wouldn't want to look away, give her a little time, some space, but the smile which had graced her face yesterday had a chance of recurring. He wouldn't want to miss that little slip for anything. So he needs to make sure he's not here, when she finds it. He would slip it into her drawer but she has everything she needs spread across her desk and it looks like they're spending the rest of the day chasing down leads so she may not even open the drawer again until tomorrow, and that won't do. He wants her to find it, watch her discover. But he doesn't want her to realise the extent of this. Oh he has no idea. Maybe he's putting too much thought into this. But then again, not.
It strikes him that she has no idea he's toying with this tiny chocolate heart in his pocket. So he wouldn't either. He'll be there when she finds it, unless for some obscure reason she doesn't bring it. The threat of the looming storm makes him realise how ridiculous that thought is, but it also reinforces the brilliance of that option, it's about the best one he's got.
As she turns on her heel again, to retrace her path, her back to him, marker still pressed to her chin, he slips it into the deep pocket of her coat, that pocket she always sticks her hands in.
He's forced it from his mind. He has buried himself in the board too, searching for the answers, helping her find them, pointing them out to her, leading her towards the truth. He's jolted from the evidence, his attention stolen as she slams her desk phone back into the cradle. He turns to face her, finds her certain and he can't help but cross his fingers and toes that the wild theory he'd tossed out, leading to a series of phone calls, actually pans out. They haven't got much else. They need to get this guy and they need to get him soon. She's already skipped lunch and he isn't prepared for the argument which will ensue later at the suggestion of dinner. She has gotten better, she really has, but cases like this drain her, and she lets them.
He touches her back to lead her out of the elevator, even though she's already two strides ahead, headed for the squad car.
She pushes the heavy door open, sliding her hands along it, lingering at the edge and throwing a glance behind her to ensure he's caught it. He has, almost didn't, too busy watching her fingers slide along the metal.
He stuffs his free hand into his pocket then passes the door off to another officer with a nod. His pocket empty and warm jolts him into awareness. He rakes his eyes over the long lines of her body, studying her the frame of her shoulders, the arch of her back as she fights the cold, the curve of her neck buried in her hair but distinct. Her frame doesn't suggest she's found it as she heads toward the car, but her elbows are poised lazily at the bottom of her rib cage. He knows her hands are deep in her pockets, if she hasn't found it, she's about to as she digs for her keys. He swallows and has to force himself to blink, to at least pretend to continue forwards. He's really not anxious about this one, he's not. But even if he is, it's too late to back out now.
"Come on, Castle. We don't have all day," she calls back, doesn't bother to look at him as she reaches the car. She's not giving anything away. It makes him smile.
He forces himself forward again, studying her carefully as she removes her keys from her pocket and opens the car door with the other. She's had her hands deep in both pockets. He doesn't even remember which side he put it in. He should have paid more attention to it, committed it to memory. There is certainly no bump, no ripple in the fabric to give it away. There is no clue to help him. There was no clue to help her either though. That's why it is the best choice.
But she must have felt it. She has to have. She always sinks her hands deep into her pockets, shielding them from the cold, clenched in fists or playing with her keys he always assumes. It doesn't matter. She has to have found it.
He understands she won't let on that she's found it, at least not yet. She will want to take it out, mull it over under an intense gaze and a furrowed brow. She will want to understand it a little before he offers her any help in the matter. If she even asks. He just has to hope she's not closed off in a panic, steeling herself from him. She will have a big head start, if she has. She might not have. She certainly doesn't seem to be, but she has a phenomenal poker face. But he's pretty sure that poker face will crack once she scans her eyes over it, understands the message behind it. He knows that much.
She barely pauses to make sure he's following, only long enough to make sure she didn't just slam the door shut in his face. Normally she doesn't have to linger in the door, normally he's already slide his hand along the handle, chasing hers, almost touching as he shares the weight. Sometimes there's nothing almost about it before he steals the weight of the heavy door from beneath her. But when she gets to the edge of the door, she realises he hasn't stolen the weight of it from her hand. It causes her to look back, just to check he is even still there. She needs to check, rarely is there any occasion now when he is not crowding her, helping her, looking for excuses to stand close, brush up against her or just be in the same room as her. She's noticed, how could she not have?
He looks distracted, probably mulling over the case. There are parts of it that don't quite make sense to her either. But as soon as he realises she's waiting, taking pause to prod him to follow, he snaps back out of it, smiling widely at her and taking the proffered door with a polite nod. Not too far from an ordinary response, but it's still typical. Apparently he is still distracted, just less than before.
She's free now to stuff her hands deep into her pockets, shield them from the chill of the air – there is no point pulling on gloves when she'll just have to tug them off again to drive in a second, she worked that out years ago.
She toys with her keys, like she always does, holding the loose keys together, keeping them silent while she toys with the plastic lump at the end of the car key. Then she swallows, has to fight so hard against the urge to stop in her tracks, turn around and ask Castle what it is. Ask him why there is something wrapped in that too-thin decorative foil that adorns sweets and chocolates, but she doesn't. She just blinks heavily and continues towards the car. She needs to work it out before she asks. She doesn't even know what it is. But whatever it is has to be significant, he's slipped it into her pocket.
She swallows against the feel of it, just touching with her knuckle, letting it glide over the cool metal. She drops the keys, letting her knuckle drag further across it. She gains no extra information from her terse examination. So she reaches out the pad of her thumb, twitching the tip of the digit over the object's hard edge. It has a flat bottom. She hooks it behind her pointer finger now, the one with the useless knuckle, and presses it into the deep groove between her thumb and forefinger, finding the shape of the groove fits the cool object. She doesn't hesitate now, wrapping her other fingers around it, rolling it over quickly in her palm. She has to be certain that her realisation is correct. She isn't allowed to make incorrect assumptions about this, not like this one.
She really wants to turn around, glare at him and hold the chocolate heart between her fingers, toy with it while he squirms under her interrogations. But that's what he would expect, that's much too easy. He's caught her off guard so she has to do the same. If she can even bring herself to confront him, somehow she doubts it'll happen. That would be forcing one too many conversations she's just not ready for. But at least she's getting closer.
She traces it's hard edge one last time, certain of the distinct shape before she drops it, just for now, and withdraws her keys from her pocket, several steps too soon. But she can't keep turning that heart over, twisting it between her fingers as she commits even curve and crinkle to memory. It's bad enough that she can feel the weight of it, so heavy, so noticeable now she has to wonder how she didn't feel it before. She can feel it brushing against her hip as it settles deep in the corner of her pocket, skimming across her stomach with each gait. It steals her focus again. Damn it.
"Come on Castle, we don't have all day." She ignores the quiver in her voice, doubts he's paying enough attention at the moment. But she shouldn't question his observations. She doesn't turn to face him as she unlocks the door and folds herself into the seat. She doesn't even turn to him when he bundles in beside her, leaning too far over the console as he settles his large form in the seat, tugging the seatbelt from behind his shoulder and draping it across his body.
She flicks her gaze to his hand, carelessly dangling from the console, and blindly shifts the car into gear, tearing her eyes away only as she lifts her foot from the break, glancing behind her as she moves from the curb, forcing her focus with the motion. She has to swallow again as she swings the wheel back around, manoeuvring from the tight spot, that little weight pressing into her stomach with the pressure of the seatbelt.
She hadn't been expecting something today, she really hadn't. Why would she be?
But this was not even in the realm of what she would have been expecting, had she been expecting.
But she knows she should have been. She should have prepared herself for something else, something more daring. He was pushing buttons, toeing lines and testing waters, so why wouldn't he do this?
They had both been making innuendos and sinfully teasing as long as they've known each other. It's just how they work. Sure at first it had been a part to play, but now, sometimes, it feels like every movement she makes, every comment she makes is given a whole new meaning by a smile or a look in her eye. She knows he's seen them, that's how she saw them. Since she's come back, since he took her back, things have been different. Both of them have been different. She knows there are reasons, too many to name and too many to consider.
But they're still here in spite of them.
He's still waiting in spite of them.
Sure, it terrifies her that he's waiting, that he's patient. But in spite of that she still wants him to wait, stay beside her and let her continue to work through her issues, remove the weight from her chest and find herself again, reform into a former self, a better self.
She can already feel the differences. They're slight but they're there. And she knows that if she can tell, so can he. And he's still here.
He's still waiting in spite of them.
She sucks in a deep breath as the light finally goes green again, granting her permission to cross the intersection laid out before them. She's on autopilot. She can't even remember where they're going. She needs to focus on that. She can worry about the weight in her pocket later. She can worry about why he's given her a heart later. It will have some poetic connotation, she knows that. It wouldn't be from Castle if it didn't. But right now she has different questions she needs answered and while he can throw wild theories around in response, he won't be able to provide her with the solid evidence, the lies to weave her trap and get the confession to lock their guilty party away.
So she lets the weight settle into her hip, surprising herself with how content she is to let it press there, for now. She'll deal with it later. She'll shed it when she sheds her coat when they get back, then later she can consider.
She only takes it out once she's in the security of her own apartment, front door locked, the deadbolt secure. She keeps it bundled with her keys and phone, a distraction from its taunt shape, the weight of it still heavy as she holds in in her hand.
She heads into her bedroom, keen to change out of her damp clothes. Her thick coat may have shielded her blouse from the falling snow but her pants are soaked, the ice water climbing up her shins, threatening to reach her knees if she doesn't hurry. She tosses the handful of items haphazardly onto her bed then turns her attention to her pants, undoing the button and wiggling free from the wet cloth before she even has time to give pause and notice the silver foil glisten under her bedroom light.
It's not until she's pulled on yoga pants and a sweatshirt, and climbed into bed, almost losing it, burying it deep as she cast the sheets aside that she spots her phone and keys and remembers it's weight.
She takes a deep breath as she flings the sheets back over herself, sitting cross-legged beneath them, shoulders against the headboard, her back pressed into her pillow, an unnatural curve in her spine as she eyes the silver object suspiciously. She hadn't noticed the sticker before. Well that is untrue. She had noticed the sticker on the back, holding the mess of foil closed at the back. They're always there, with the ingredients and the best before date, the tiny writing she never bothers to read. Except this does not have that information, this does not have the tiny writing. All it's got is his cursive scrawled across a white sticker.
Until tomorrow, is all he's written. But it is more than enough.
She blinks against the words, the weight of the simple phrases he uses almost every day. But now it's different. It's a riddle that isn't too hard to solve.
Whatever he's playing at, whatever this is, he intends to continue it.
He intends to keep it going, tomorrow.
It settles a weigh in her stomach. It's not dread, not quite. It's more like uncertainty, a definite state of unknowing.
The weight of the small chocolate heart pressing into her hip, skimming across her stomach, hanging heavy over her chair, almost pulling her back onto the floor with its weight, doesn't seem so heavy now. The message on it carries the weight.
Though, that message could mean several things. She knows that. She has to remember that. But on that chocolate heart, settled in the deep pocket of her coat, left for her to find, process and relax over (as much as she can under the weight of that symbol), only to turn it over and find it means so much more than a themed confection, a novelty. It's a promise and an unmistakable sign.
She blinks against the weight of his revelation, scrawled across that chocolate. Damn him, she'd kind of wanted to eat it, but now how can she. The weight of it feels like it's going to form a black hole on her bed, suck her deep into the abyss of her mattress, never to return. That may not be a bad thing.
She could pretend she never spotted the message, blindly opened the small confection while it was still inside her pocket, screwed the wrapper into a tight ball and tossed it into the trash without a second thought.
That would be so much simpler.
But he knows her.
He knows she would have set it on her palm and studied it, turning it over and over so many times the chocolate grew malleable under her touch.
Maybe if she clenches it in her fist long enough it will mould into another shape, a shape that will be easier to swallow.
Though, the shape isn't the problem.
It's the words.
Until tomorrow.
The statement is echoing in her mind, his voice ringing through the room. He has said the phrase enough times that she can hear him saying it with a smile, with a sense of longing, with a tired yawn, with a warmth in his belly as too much wine settles over him, relaxes him as he farewells her at his front door. She doesn't know which one this is supposed to be.
She presses to the top of her skull into the headboard, supporting the weight of her body with her neck as she lifts her shoulders with the force. She lets herself slide down on the bed, keeping her legs crossed, letting the sag of her slack shoulders force her weight down, leaving her with no grounding, no support, no safety net as she lets herself slide.
She regards the confection, now resting level with her shoulder. She has to crane her head a little to see it, that's good. It means she can steal peeks at it when she wants, not have it stare her down and force her to confront it. She needs a plan of attack first, time to consider, a careful plan.
She's being stupid, she realises as she presses a closed fist against her chin, her knuckles pressed her lips. She lets a knuckle slip between her teeth as she exhales against her own skin. She bites down slightly, inhales harshly at the contact. This isn't a dream she can pinch herself out of.
This is real.
He has taken a step.
He's taken a giant step. Really he's leaped over a wall she'd worked so hard to build. He'd parachuted out of a plane and landed on top of her wall, perched himself there with cupcakes and chocolate coated coffee beans, and let her relax, not fear his invasion. It was like he'd tossed the dog a bone before the jumped the fence to rob some picturesque suburban house.
She lets out another shuddered breath.
He had to know that it would work.
That she needed baby steps before he took a leap.
She did need those steps.
Hell, if he'd done this before the beans and the cupcake, she would have been more than a little confused by him. She probably would have laughed it off and tossed it back in his face. But she'd taken the others, hadn't refused them, so she can't refuse this. Without the words to consider she probably would have eaten the thing by now.
But the words, the words changed everything.
They would have changed everything then too.
Before she accepted coffee beans and a cupcake.
She closes her eyes, yesterday she'd watched as his eye lit up as she placed the paper bag with the cookie before him, staying silent. She realises now that was a green light she didn't even know she was giving. She shouldn't regret it, she really shouldn't, but she should have known.
She peers over at the chocolate, past her fist, over her knuckles, having to move her thumb with her other hand. It just won't budge when her brain shoots the impulse along the fibres, the impulse like electricity igniting the cells surround it. She can almost feel the tingle as the command shoots through her, feel it at every junction, every cross roads, feel it weakening as it travels, as her thumbs sends its refusal back.
That's why she forced it.
She couldn't let this get the better of her. Even if now she's got both hands balled into fists, one pressed to her chin, the other clenching the fabric of her sweatshirt, clinging to some lifeline.
She needs to calm down.
She really needs to calm down.
This doesn't have to mean everything it is implied to mean.
She rolls over, on a whim, dropping her fist from her chin and supporting herself on the mattress with it.
She regards the chocolate again. Her hand slackens around the material she's been clenching so tight that the shape of her fist, her sweaty fingers, still imprinted in the fleecy material. She can do this, right?
All she has to do is open it, curl the foil into a ball and forget the message was ever there.
She can do that.
Really, she can. But her fingers are hovering over it. Like now there is the threat that it will jump out and bite her, it won't. That is not even possible.
She closes her eyes, swallows and urges her breathing to slow, to even out. She needs to be calm.
He'd said 'Until tomorrow,' she could have to steel herself again tomorrow. She will have to steel herself tomorrow, she's not stupid.
She has to get her composure back before then. But to do that she has to remove the traces of what's stealing it, she has to overcome her obstacle.
She exhales heavily and picks it up rolling flat onto her back, sliding her legs against the sheets. She shivers at the cool metal, the cool fabric at the back of her knees and the chill holding it gives her.
She bites her lip much too hard as she carefully peels back the sticker, unwraps it like she's some child who has set herself the challenge of not tearing that too delicate foil. She lets the imprint the heart rest against the pad of her thumb as she flips the chocolate over. Completely smooth and surprisingly solid given the day this poor thing has had, the miles its travelled, the hot hands turning it over.
The thought causes her to smile, drop her tender lip from her teeth. She hadn't considered that possibility. He would have debating this too. He would have regarded it and examined it, probably with a depth far greater than her own. He would have been considering her reaction even before he considered his own.
She flicks her tongue out to touch her lips, soothe the tender skin, before she presses them together in a tight line, trying not to smile again.
She won't do him the dishonour of not eating it so she closes her eyes and puts it in her mouth, rolling over rand curling up on her side. She stretches an arm out and sets the foil on her bedside table, she can't bear the thought of squashing it into a tight ball and throwing it away, at least not until tomorrow.
She chews the chocolate, swallows the irony with it as she flicks off her bedside lamp. She doesn't need to read tonight, her mind has stories of its own to spin out for her.
A/N: I want to thank you all for reading, reviewing, altering and favouriting. But I want to thank kimmiesjoy specifically. Your help with this has been amazing. Your simple suggestion made this whole story click together in my mind and that is why it is working the way it is, so thank you Jiminy.